A/N: Still posting from my phone, so sorry again if there are any weird formatting spots. (I think I got them all, though.) The translation portions of this story were possible in large part with help from the elvhen dictionary by katiebour on AO3: /works/359253/chapters/582281.

Relationships were strange, Dorian decided. More so the happy ones. He understood bad relationships. He'd seen plenty of those throughout his life. Loveless political ones like his parents', built on hatred and mutual goals. Doomed ones, like the frivolous and ill-advised courtships he'd seen amongst fellow students at the Circle in Vyrantium.

But the happy ones? Those apparently rare relationships built upon trust and respect and caring (he would not say that other word - too frightening, too soon, too confusing…)? Those were the strangest of all. Dorian thought about Aeric all the time. It was incessant. He would be researching some obscure aspect of magical history, and come upon a passage that he just knew would be something Aeric would find fascinating. Or he might be in the tavern with Varric or Iron Bull or Cullen or Krem, and part of him would wish - almost painfully - that Aeric were there with them, instead of meeting some Orlesian diplomat with Josephine. And there were always those times when he would hear footsteps in the stairwell, and his heart would quicken, expecting Aeric. Those times when it wasn't his amatus, when it was one of Leliana's agents, or a mage wishing to speak to Fiona, his heart would positively sink. Dorian didn't think hearts actually sank, but there really was no other way to describe the sensation of his disappointment.

Dorian had to admit, even to himself: he was smitten. He never thought he'd see the day.

With Aeric gone on a mission to an ancient elven temple, Dorian found himself in the rare position of having been left behind. Though Aeric almost always brought Dorian along on missions, this time he had opted for Solas instead, needing his expertise in old elfy things to study the Temple of Dirthamen in the Dales. Missions almost always took just over a week: a few days to travel to the location, a few days to explore and kill things, a few days back to Skyhold. It had been six days now, and Dorian sat at the bar that evening, nursing a Fereldan ale he was pretending not to enjoy.

"Well, shit, Sparkler," a voice came from behind him. "I'd say you have it bad."

Dorian didn't have to turn around to know who the speaker was. "Dare I ask what I have bad, Varric?" He took a swig of the beer, liking the subtle bitterness but making a face anyway.

The dwarf climbed up onto a stool next to him, and waved at the bartender. "I'll have what he's having." Varric turned to Dorian. "Look at you, drinking alone and pining away after our dear Inquisitor."

"I came here so I wouldn't be drinking alone," Dorian said with a sniff. "You're here now, after all."

"That's true, I guess." Varric took his tankard from the bartender with a nod of thanks.

"And I do not pine."

Varric chuckled. "Oh, I like to think of myself as a pretty good judge of people, and I've seen my share of pining in my day. The looks my friend Fenris would give Hawke when he thought no one was watching…" He laughed to himself again and took a long drink of his beer. "My point is, if the face you're making isn't pining, I'll eat my boots."

Dorian sighed and leaned an elbow onto the bar, propping up his head on one hand. "Fine. I miss him, but I'll be damned if I call it pining. Happy?"

By the satisfied smile on Varric's face, Dorian guessed the answer was yes. The dwarf took another long draw from his tankard. "I'm just rooting for you two crazy kids, that's all. You seem good together."

The tavern's minstrel switched songs then, to one she had made up about the Grey Wardens. So many of her songs were related to Aeric's adventures that sometimes Dorian wondered if his amatus hadn't gained some sort of fan following. "We do make for a rather handsome couple, I must say," he said to Varric, smiling.

The dwarf gave a short laugh. "That's not what I mean. You make each other happy. That sort of relationship is an amazing thing to find, even when the sky isn't tearing itself in two."

Dorian felt a warmth in his chest that had little to do with the alcohol. He knew how he felt about Aeric, though he was loathe to put a name or label to it. And he knew for fact that Aeric loved him; the idea was too ridiculous not to be true. But Aeric often gave so much of himself that Dorian wondered how much he was able to give back to his lover in return. "You think I make him happy?"

"Are you kidding me?" Varric said after a hard swallow of ale. "Before you came along, that guy never smiled. Never. Didn't see it even once at Haven. Lavellan kept to himself for the most part, when he wasn't burying himself in fixing every single thing that came across that war table of theirs. Oh, he introduced himself to each of us, asked some questions about who we were and how we got mixed up in this mess. But I always got the sense that he was doing it because it was pragmatic or something. You know, so he could figure out whether to trust the people at his back."

Dorian thought back to when he and Aeric first met several months ago in Redcliffe. The elf did not smile often, it was true. But not at all? Getting sent into the future-that-might-be was just about as dire and depressing as things could get, so no surprise there that Aeric was all business. But afterwards… Dorian remembered the moment he officially threw himself in with the Inquisition. Aeric had given him the smallest of smiles.

Those smiles were usually much bigger now.

"But now look at him," Varric continued. "I didn't expect much when I invited him to that Wicked Grace game we had two weeks ago. But shit, I've never seen the Inquisitor laugh so hard!"

Dorian grinned. It had been the most fun he'd had in ages. "I doubt that was my doing. I was barely able to say two words to him all night. Somebody took the seat next to me."

Varric laughed. "I didn't even think about that! Sorry. And anyway, that's beside the point. I was sitting across from him, and he was stealing glances at you all night." He took a final swig of his ale. "That elf is crazy about you."

Dorian's ears grew hot. He hoped it wasn't obvious. "I know how he feels. I just…" He gestured ambiguously, not knowing how to put his feelings into words or why he was even telling this to Varric. "He does nice things for me. Got me back my family amulet, listens to my problems, that sort of thing. A month ago he cooked for me. Cooked! With a pot in the hearth and everything!"

"I'd pay to see that," Varric chuckled, signaling to the bartender for another tankard. "Was it any good?"

"An absolute marvel," Dorian said. "But the thing is, I don't do those things. It's not that I don't want to, I do. I simply don't understand how one goes about doing such gestures. And I worry he's not getting as much out of this relationship as he deserves."

Varric smiled and clapped Dorian on the back. "I don't think you need to worry. You bring out a lot of good in him. And trust me, Sparkler, everybody sees it. Most of the rumors don't even call you the 'evil magister from Tevinter' anymore."

"Oh? And what do they call me now?"

"I think the latest I've heard was 'the magister from evil Tevinter'."

Dorian snorted. "A vast improvement indeed."

He and Varric talked and drank together well into the night. And while it didn't make Dorian miss Aeric any less, he did make it back to his room feeling better about his place at his lover's side.

xxx

Dorian woke late the following morning, feeling surprisingly clear-headed and well-rested. After a quick breakfast, he made his way to the library as usual. He was opening the door to Solas' study when he heard someone call for him.

"Lord Dorian!"

He turned to find Josephine walking quickly toward him. He was about to remind her that just "Dorian" would suffice when he noticed the slim books she held in her hands. "You have them?"

Josephine nodded. "Everything the Royal Library in Val Royeaux had in or about the elven language. Which… was not very much, unfortunately."

Dorian tutted, flipping through one of the books she handed to him. "Let me guess, the Chantry purged them."

"Yes," she said, sighing. "Divine Faustine was apparently a little… overenthusiastic about ensuring the 'purity' of the works contained in the Royal Library."

"They're better than nothing," he told her with a slight bow. "Thank you."

Josephine smiled, but an odd twinkle in her eyes made it look almost like a mischievous smirk.

Dorian rolled his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing," she replied in a tone that said something. "I just think it's quite adorable that you're learning elvish for Master Lavellan."

"Yes, yes, we're both very cute." Dorian made a disgusted noise that would have done Cassandra proud. "If you must know, I'm not learning the bloody language. Yet, anyway. I'm just trying to translate one word."

Josephine's eyes widened in surprise. "All this work over one word? Forgive me, but you've been working on this for over two months!"

"Off and on," he grumbled, "but it's not as if I have much free time, what with all the killing that has to be done across Thedas. And Aeric lies, by the way. He said there were elvish dictionaries, but I haven't come across a single one. Either the Dalish are hoarding them or they don't exist. And there aren't very many other books about the language. My ancestors and the Chantry have seen to that."

"I suppose asking Master Lavellan what the word means is out of the question?"

Dorian sighed. "He won't tell me. Why do you think I'm going to all this trouble in the first place?"

"What about Master Solas?"

"Cheating," he said with a rueful laugh. "Games between me and the Inquisitor are a complicated affair, apparently."

Josephine grinned. "Still adorable." She turned on her heel. "Good luck!" she called over her shoulder as she walked across the Great Hall toward her office.

Smiling, Dorian headed through the door, glancing around at the murals on the walls of Solas' study. Whatever one might say about the strange bald-headed elf, he was an exceptional artist. Seeing Aeric's accomplishments documented so beautifully on the walls always filled Dorian with a sense of pride.

When he reached his little alcove of the library, he pulled the chair at an angle so he could easily glance out the window toward the gates. He tried to tell himself that it wasn't so he could watch for Aeric's arrival - even though the Inquisitor's party wasn't expected until tomorrow - but he knew he was kidding himself. Allowing himself a moment to hope for Aeric to return early, he settled into his chair and opened the new books.

Translation of elvish wasn't like most other types of research. When he researched arcane theory or practical magic techniques, he would read and take notes. Inevitably, some interesting fact or hypothesis would lead him to another book or essay, he would read it and move on to another, and the process would repeat.

In translating, however, all the words were gibberish, at least to him. He mostly skimmed for the one word, nehn, but there were some words that looked a bit like the word he was looking for. What if it was a derivation? A conjugated verb? An abbreviation of some other word or phrase? A suffix that was meaningless without some root word attached to it? So he had to cross-reference another book to figure out the meaning. And another. Until, of course, he would find out the word had nothing to do with nehn at all, and he had to start from the beginning. The process was slow going and tedious without the proper tools to fill in the gaps of the language.

However, Dorian had been able to eliminate a few of the more obvious possibilities for the word's meaning. The words for "love" and "heart" were everywhere in elvish texts: lath and vhenan respectively. So Aeric's endearment for him was not a typical one. Dorian found that fact both intriguing and pleasing. Ma was easy enough to translate as well; an abbreviation for emma, likely meaning "my" in this context. But all of that progress, what little that it was, had been made right at the beginning of his little project. Dorian was beginning to think that the name would always be a mystery.

Dorian kept at the research until his eyes began to feel a little crossed. Stretching, he looked out the window. There was some commotion at the gate. A large brown hart galloped in, followed by three coursers. Aeric had returned to Skyhold.

The smile that rose immediately to Dorian's face began to fall when he saw Aeric dismount and positively stomp across the courtyard, followed by Cole and Solas. An exasperated-looking Cassandra led their mounts to the stables.

Dorian got to his feet and headed downstairs. He reached the top of the outdoor steps just as Aeric had reached the bottom.

"You should not have gone there, Cole!" Aeric was shouting as he stalked up the steps.

Cole trailed behind, wringing his hands. "I was trying to help!"

"Some things can't be helped! Some things are private!" The elf glared at Cole over his shoulder as he walked. "And stop following me!" As Aeric passed Dorian, their eyes met for just a moment. The elf's eyes were angry, of course, but there was something else. Someone with far more understanding of people might have been able to discern what it was, but Dorian found him unreadable.

Cole stopped in front of Dorian, looking defeated. "I was trying to help."

"I'm sure you were," Dorian said, patting the spirit-turned-young-man on the shoulder. "What's going on?"

Solas came up the steps, his hands held calmly behind his back. "I am afraid Cole has touched a nerve when trying to help the Inquisitor."

"I did it wrong, and he is in pain," Cole agreed in an anguished voice. "The hurt is older now, but still raw. He clings to it, even as he denies it exists."

Dorian glanced from Cole to the doorway through which Aeric disappeared. "In pain? Why?"

"A tree that is not merely a tree," the spirit intoned. "Hundreds of burning corpses frozen in pain, and is one hers? A crossbow cannot protect her now."

A crossbow. Dorian knew all at once who Cole was talking about. "I apologize, I must go to him." He turned and hurried toward the door to the garden.

"Thank you," Cole called after him.

xxx

Dorian found Aeric sitting on the ground beside a sapling. The elf often came out here when he wanted to be alone, watering the young tree with care and tending to the small bed of embrium blossoms he had planted nearby. Dorian had thought the gardening a hobby - an unexpected quirk, like Aeric's cooking. Now it was clear that it was something else entirely.

"Mind if I sit down?" Dorian asked Aeric softly as he approached.

Aeric looked up and shook his head.

Dorian sat beside him cross-legged. He wanted to put his arms around Aeric, to comfort him somehow, but kept his distance. When Aeric was upset, sometimes he didn't like to be touched, Dorian knew. "May I ask about your sister?" His voice was gentle, and without pressure.

Aeric's face turned into an expression of such unutterable sadness that Dorian felt a lump forming in his own throat. "Cole told you?" he said hoarsely.

"Only enough that I figured out who he was talking about." Dorian reached out a tentative hand and lightly rested it on Aeric's knee. "Do you want to talk about her?"

"No," Aeric replied, turning his face away. "But I probably should. If it's just you, maybe. I don't want to hide this part of myself from you anymore. But no one else. Not yet."

Dorian nodded and waited silently.

The elf sighed and looked up at the sapling. "I… wasn't the only one from my clan who went to the Conclave. My sister… Paikea. It was her idea. She loved magic. She wasn't a mage, but she did love studying it, in much the same way Dagna does." He paused, giving a sad smile. "They would have been fast friends.

"Pai wanted to learn about the conflict between the mages and templars. She begged our Keeper to go, to watch the talks. I decided to go with her." He plucked at a tuft of grass, tearing the blades into tiny bits. "It wasn't that I thought she needed protecting, but she was going to be the only Dalish elf amongst hundreds of shemlen. I thought she could use the support, and some company."

Aeric stopped for a moment, still plucking at the grass. Dorian waited patiently for him to continue.

"I stepped away from the talks for just a moment," Aeric went on. "Pai had broken the lanyard for her pendant, like this one." He pulled a pendant out from under his collar. Dorian recognized it as the one he almost always wore, carved from ironbark. "I wanted to fix it. That's when I ran into Corypheus."

"Aeric…"

The elf closed his eyes. "I didn't know she was dead until I woke, when Cassandra told me that everyone had died at the Temple," he said, his voice breaking. "Even then, I held out some hope she had survived, gotten away somehow. But reaching the site of the blast, actually seeing the devastation… The smell and the bodies…" His shoulders shuddered then, in heaving sighs. He pressed his palms to his shut eyes, as if he could block the tears from coming forth.

Dorian pulled him close, arms wrapped tightly around him. The mage wondered for a moment whether it was what Aeric wanted, if it was okay to hold him like this now, but the elf did not pull away. Dorian pressed a gentle kiss into Aeric's hair, letting him cry into his shoulder.

There were still others in the garden: the elf who tended the rest of the plants, various servants, several nobles. Though Aeric's tears were silent, some of them had looked over with gaping curiosity. Aeric wouldn't want them to see him this way. Over the elf's head, Dorian sought out Mother Giselle, and their eyes met. He signaled with a movement of his head to get the onlookers away. Nodding, she began ushering everyone out from the garden. Dorian let out a breath of relief. The old bat was good for something, he supposed.

They sat there together for a long time, even after Aeric's tears had subsided and his breathing slowed. The sun was beginning to set, casting an orange glow across the leaves and flowers dancing in a crisp breeze.

"We Dalish plant trees to mark the graves of our loved ones," Aeric said finally after a very long silence. His voice was raw from crying, barely above a whisper. "I buried her pendant. I had nothing else."

Dorian nodded. "I saw you plant it when we first got to Skyhold. It's lovely. And the embrium?"

"They were her favorite," Aeric said, smiling that sad smile again. "She said the colors reminded her of firelight." He looked up at Dorian. "You would have liked her. The two of you would have teased me mercilessly."

Dorian gave a small smile of his own, though it did not stay long on his face. "I'm sorry I never got the chance to meet her."

"I am too."

"Thank you for telling me, amatus." Dorian kissed the top of his head again. "I hope it lightens the burden, even if only a little."

"It does." Aeric sighed. "I didn't want to keep this from everyone. Least of all you. But so much was happening at Haven, and I didn't know anyone very well at the time. I barely had time to process it."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," Dorian assured him. "I understand. I was hardly forthcoming with my problems when I first arrived either."

"You still aren't." Aeric wasn't quite smiling, but Dorian took it as a good sign that the elf was teasing him again.

"Hush," Dorian said. "I'm getting better at it." He glanced at the sky. The sun was inching ever closer to the horizon, blanketing the garden in long shadows. "It's starting to get late. Are you all right?"

Aeric nodded. "Thanks to you."

Dorian kissed him on the lips, soft and gentle. "Anytime."

Hands linked, they crossed the garden together. When they reached the door to the Great Hall, Dorian waited a moment while Aeric cast another lingering look at the sapling. Then he wordlessly nodded to Dorian, who led him away.

xxx

Over the next few days, Aeric was solemn and serious for the most part, having finally started the grieving process in earnest. Dorian tried to help however he could, holding Aeric when he wanted to be held, and leaving him alone when he needed his space. The latter was the most difficult for Dorian. He wanted to be able to fix things, anything. Doing nothing and staying away seemed counterintuitive.

Though Aeric didn't tell anyone else himself about his sister's passing, there must have been someone in the gardens who had overheard more than they should have, and word spread quickly. Cassandra was among the first to pay her respects. Though she and Aeric were friends, they disagreed on much, so it surprised Dorian when she became suddenly protective of him and his need to grieve when dealing with nobles and supplicants who wanted his time. Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana also made respectful comments to Aeric, though it was clear that Leliana had known already for some time. Sera did the best possible thing she could have done and said nothing. Neither did Vivienne, with whom Aeric did not get along at all. Blackwall, the hairy lummox, actually did something right for once and carved a small wooden marker in the shape of a bird for Paikea's tree, but otherwise left Aeric alone. Though Varric and Iron Bull tried to help in their own way, offering to drink with Aeric at the tavern, the elf turned them down, not ready to share his grief in a public fashion.

Aeric went to Cole himself, apologizing and thanking him. Dorian hadn't been there, but he saw Cole later. The young man looked relieved.

Strangest of all was Solas. Dorian caught sight of him one evening, alone in the garden beside the sapling. He laid a small bouquet of embrium at the foot of the tree, just behind Blackwall's marker. He said some words in elvish, words that Dorian could only barely hear and could not hope to understand. And it may have been a trick of the moonlight, but Dorian was almost certain that he could see Solas' shoulders shaking.

xxx

As the days turned into weeks, Dorian noticed that Aeric had started to return to some sense of normalcy. The trip to the Winter Palace in Halamshiral appeared to help, giving Aeric something else to focus on besides his renewed grief. He was smiling, laughing, spending time with others again, and Dorian could not be more relieved.

With Aeric mostly recovered and the threat on Empress Celene's life eliminated, Dorian finally had some time to devote to his little translation project. Josephine had found him two more books to look through, but he hadn't even had the time to work through the previous batch yet. As Aeric was expected to be in the War Room for a few hours, planning with his advisors, Dorian took the opportunity to get back to work himself.

After the first two hours, however, after cross-referencing three books spread on a table before him, Dorian began cursing in frustration. "Vishante kaffas! If only my ancestors hadn't been absolute twats and completely obliterated this bloody language, I might actually make some progress!" He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. Shoving aside the three books, he turned his attention instead to a small booklet sticking out of the back of one of the larger books. The booklet appeared to be full of songs; notations and diagrams had been drawn in amongst the words. As Dorian played the lute himself, he recognized the notations as a way of keeping meter and showing musical notes. Fascinated, he looked through the booklet, trying to figure out what note went with each marking.

He was so captivated with the musical notation that he almost missed it. There, at the end of one of the songs, was the word. Nehn. Dorian read it over three times to make sure he was seeing it right. Heart pounding, he skimmed backward through the lyrics of the song, finding the title. Suledin. Why did that sound familiar? They had just captured Suledin Keep just over a month ago in Emprise du Lion, Dorian remembered. But what did Aeric say it meant? "Endure"? Yes, yes, that was it. And wait, didn't he see a poem in translation with that name?

Dorian stood up from the table, a little too fast, making a loud noise as his chair scraped against the stone floor. Booklet in hand, a finger marking his place, he darted back to his reading chair. Sifting through the pile of books surrounding his chair, he finally found the small book of translated elven poetry hiding under some of his old notes on time manipulation. He flipped through the book until he found the page he was looking for. Yes, "Endure". Not a poem, a song. More importantly, a translated one. If he just worked through it, word for word, he should be able to work out what nehn meant.

Going line by line, he filled in the words of which he already knew the meanings, matching them up with the translation and crossing them out in his notes. It was no surprise to him that he had developed a fairly good grasp of the language's structure by now, having gone through whole paragraphs of elven text over the past few months. Knowing that he was close to the end of the project, close to solving the puzzle, gave Dorian a renewed energy, and he made quick work of the bulk of the text. It was an effort not to be too impatient. The translation was not literal, and the words did not match up exactly. Context was important. He had to know what surrounded it to know what the word itself meant.

As he reached the line that contained the word, he took special care to figure out the words surrounding it first. "Melana…" Dorian muttered to himself, looking at the word preceding nehn. "An alternate form of melava? Yes, that would make sense…" Enasal might be harder, but he knew he could eliminate the words coming after it. Lethalin had to be a derivation of lethallin, the word Aeric and Solas called each other for "friend" or "clan member". The translation said "family" - that had to be it. Dorian flipped through some previous notes on another book to double-check. The word enasal was there as well, meaning "return". That meant nehn had to be…

Joy. Ma'nehn, "my joy".

Dorian swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. His face flushed, his heart hammered. An image came to mind, unbidden, of the first true smile Aeric had given him in Haven's chantry, small and hesitant. The first of many, easier and more frequent now, even despite his recent grieving. The light in his eyes that Dorian was now certain hadn't been there when they first met, but shone brightly every time Aeric said "I love you". Dorian's heart swelled with an emotion he dared not name, and he abandoned his books as he all but ran down the stairs.

He crossed the Great Hall, passed through Josephine's office, and made his way through the corridor beyond, bursting through the War Room doors. Everyone inside jumped, Cullen's hand leaping immediately to his sword, then relaxing.

Dorian didn't care about them, however. Aeric stood before him, a widening of his eyes the only sign that he was startled. Serious-faced as usual, though it wasn't as usual as it used to be. "Dorian, what-"

Dorian closed the gap between them in three strides and kissed him hard on the lips.

With his eyes closed, Dorian couldn't see Aeric's surprise, but he could feel it in the tightening of muscles in his back, relaxing into the kiss just as quickly. Dorian could hear Leliana and Josephine gasp and giggle; a sound of disgust from the new liaison, Morrigan; and a "Maker's breath" from Cullen. Dorian's face had to be bright red, but for once, he didn't care. He only cared that he brought Aeric happiness, and that the elf had been telling him so all along.

Dorian drew away after a moment, but only far enough so that he could see his lover's face. Aeric looked at him, eyes wide with wondering, a broad smile across his face. "Dorian, what's going on?" he asked breathlessly.

"Ma'nehn," Dorian said softly, grinning. "My joy."

Aeric's eyes widened and Dorian laughed to see him surprised so often in such a small amount of time. The elf's smile grew until he was positively beaming.

Morrigan cleared her throat. "If the two of you are quite finished…"

Dorian turned his eyes toward the door very pointedly. Aeric winked, understanding. "Yes, I do think we are finished here," he said loudly, adopting a mock seriousness. "We've been working on this plan for a few hours now, so I believe now is a good time to recess. We'll reconvene in the morning-" Dorian nudged him. "Er, tomorrow afternoon, rather, and we can hammer out any further details then. Isn't that right, Josephine?"

"Yes, of course," the ambassador said smoothly, though it was obvious she was trying to suppress further giggling. "Our plan to move on the Arbor Wilds is a sound one, my Lord Inquisitor. I do not think your presence here is strictly necessary any longer."

Cullen frowned. "Now wait just a-"

Leliana elbowed him in the arm, a small knowing smile on her face. "The Commander was about to say that our forces will wait for word from my agents. Scouts will be in the area by the end of the week."

"Right, great advising, everyone," Dorian said, pushing Aeric towards the door. "Very sorry for the intrusion. Keep up the good work and all that." As soon as they reached the doorway, Dorian yanked Aeric through to the corridor.

They hurried toward their quarters through the Great Hall, side by side, hands linked. Whispers from the nobles followed them as they passed, but in that moment, Dorian felt they could stare all they wanted, whisper and gossip to their little hearts' content. No matter what they thought of him, of his influence over Aeric, he was invincible. He had someone who loved him, who brought him unfathomable joy. A joy he gave in equal measure, always.