"Sparkler, are you sure about this?"
Dorian gripped his staff all the tighter, the only way to still his quaking hands. He could not take it any longer, could not accept that he was just gone. No. No, he had to do something and this was the only way. He'd told himself a long time ago he'd never do such a thing, that he was not like his countrymen. And yet… here he stood, flanked on either side by sympathetic friends. Friends that also tried to talk him out of this.
He shook his head, jaw tense as he looked at the stone sarcophagus his love had been interred in. Varric touched his shoulder and Dorian shied away, shrugging off the contact like the dwarf's hand was on fire.
His eyes were heavy, sunken from the sleepless nights and lack of eating. Even the normally perfectly groomed facial hair had grown a bit wild and out of place. Stubble marred his chin and longer, darker locks hung down over his dull eyes.
Dorian looked at the Iron Bull then, his mouth opening to croak out a desperate command to open the sarcophagus. The Qunari didn't budge, Dorian scowled.
"So help me, Bull, do it." He hissed, his voice ragged and scratchy at the edges.
When his demand was finally attended to, he unsheathed a small knife. Rolling up the sleeve of his robe with a shaky hand, Dorian took a deep breath. He drowned out the sounds around him as he raked the knife across his arm.
Blood began to seep out of the fresh wound. Under his breath, Dorian began to mutter the spell he had been practicing for weeks on end. The longer the spell went on, the more blood drained from the wound. Pooling and swirling near his feet as he continued.
He wobbled on his legs, gripping his staff again to stead himself. The power did not grow as much as he'd predicted in his studies. More. He needed more blood. Dorian's nostrils flared. He looked to his friends out of the corner of his eye. A wild, animalistic look that betrayed all that he'd once told himself he was.
"Varric."
The dwarf looked startled, shuffling backward ever so slightly. Dorian's eyes flashed a sickly purple, a shimmer to them altogether inhuman. The spell interrupted, more words began to spill out. More intelligible ones as Dorian beckoned the dwarf closer. Called to his once-friend with blood magic.
With each passing moment, Dorian slid further away from himself. Slipped further and further toward his father. Everything he had done being washed away with the acrid smell of the seeping blood.
Varric stepped closer to now, unable to break the trance. Iron Bull had darted away, the big Qunari's shouts for help echoing soundlessly off Dorian's senses. But help, in any form, would come far too late. The knife in Dorian's hand slid across the dwarf's throat, a veritable fountain of blood pouring out.
The spell resumed, more of Dorian's own blood mingling with that of Varric's. The dwarf had collapsed, choking for only moments before silence pushed through the gurgle of blood.
Seconds, minutes ticked by as the spell drew to it's conclusion. But as Iron Bull returned with help, it was pointless. A faint smile lifted on Dorian's lips as he collapsed to his knees. His staff clattered out of his hand when the oh so familiar shape of his love rising out of the sarcophagus. His eyes shimmered again, all sense of control vanishing as he slipped away into the recesses of his mind. A happy word on his lips before he slumped forward.
"Amatus."