TITLE: Mighty Stranger
CHAPTER: Three, "...I must love him"
AN: Thank you for the lovely reviews. It makes me happy that you're enjoying my dark little story.
"He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is,—I feel akin to him,—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. […] I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think I must love him." ―Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
The Inquisitor
The memories of Dorian and I on the balcony slip from my grasp as Skyhold's short day gives way to darkness. This is a bad time when night closes in and I'm alone with my dreams. The constant attention from my attendants finally ends, but they leave me with just a candle and anything else I might need just out of reach. My magic is gone, I can no longer do the simplest of trick of lighting a candle… a child's trick. They tuck me in as if I were the smallest of children, assuming there's nothing I'll need throughout the long night.
The moon shines in my window for about an hour, then she moves on. My single candle guts and I'm in darkness. It's then the walls close in and fear begins to build. The castle, the mountain and I seem to merge together during these dark times.
Run. Run, for your lives people of Skyhold. It's no longer safe here!
I force myself to remember the good times. Sitting in the garden with the others, discussing philosophy, religion and politics. Laughing together like old friends. Watching The Iron Bull scout his next conquest and his reaction when Crem beats him too the object of their desire and makes a point of strolling arm and arm through the garden directly passed us. No one dared laugh aloud. The glance Crem and Bull shared and the set of his jaw told the story.
Dorian and I playing chess in the garden. Talking the night away. Teaching each other new spells or trying out a new staff together. Fighting side by side combining our abilities to strengthen our magic. Nothing could stand against us when we fought as one. Just as nothing could come between us when we fell together on the scarlet cover of my great bed, arms and legs tangled together, the armor we lived in to survive scattered, forgotten on the stone floor. Then later with his head resting on my chest.
It's all gone now. Gone. The people, Bull and his Chargers, Cassandra, and Cullen have all moved on to new challenges and left me alone with my retainers, the pilgrims, and a castle empty of their good cheer and bravado.
I hold out as long as I can until the pain and the guilt strangle me into submission. There's only one way I can remove their filthy clawed fingers from my neck and it taunts me from its location under the mattress. Teases me into yielding, until finally choking and sobbing I reach for it. Under the star-filled blanket of night I swallow deeply. Before it takes me I hide it again safe between the feather ticking and the wooden slats.
Never again, is a vow I make every morning and each evening I break my promise. Pray for strength you say? Call on Andraste's guidance? Andraste. A story to frighten little children and provide the weak minded with a crutch for their fears. Dorian once said, to imagine a this chaotic world without a higher being was too frightening. After all we experienced you still need to believe in your mommy goddess? A good mother would keep us safe and hold back the flickering light of the night crawlers in the Hissing Wastes, seal the Fade and kill the demons. She never quite manages to keep that promise does she?
I have seen the world as it really is, inhaled the stink of a thousand rotting corpses and seen the terror in the eyes of soldiers. Heard their screams of surprise when they greet their own mortality surrounded by a color that does not exist in nature, the shimmering horror of green miasma and slithering monsters overtakes the world and your Andraste is, where? As for the Chantry, they shall sing themselves hoarse, until finally, they are mute. Why do they labor for a world which will never be instead of trying to fix the one they live in?
Answer me, damn you!
It is not Andraste who answers when I finally sleep, but memories. Terrible memories that swirl and tease in a myriad of faces and words. A normal night awakens me with tears on my face, choking back the terror or screaming from a raw throat. I emptied the bottle tonight. I didn't mean to. Perhaps tonight I'll sleep in peace… and wish I could pray for it.
We travel to Redcliffe to meet a family retainer. Dorian looks so handsome in his new red armor, I can hardly take my eyes off him. I know he doesn't believe a word of the message. I see it in his eyes. Those great dark eyes filled with fear and pain. I'm sorry, Dorian. Then just as he predicted it's all a ruse and there stands his father standing silently inside the Inn.
I watched the two men, so much alike and so filled with anger. Dorian seems simply hurt at what his father planned for his only son. Dorian, what kind of man could ever imagine putting a child through this torture. I watched him staring at his son and saw the violence, the rage, the desire to control. He thinks he hides these things under his veneer of civilized behavior. My first thought, I never wanted to cross the border of Tevinter, for what a horrific place it must be to spawn such a man as Dorian's father. The second is my fear for Dorian.
Come away, Dorian! Come away!'
'He taught me to hate blood magic,' Dorian shouted at his father. 'The refuge of a weak mind. Then planned to use the ritual to change me! Selfish of me I suppose...not to want to spend my life screaming on the inside.'
Dorian is weeping openly now. Tears of blood drip down his cheeks soaking the cloth and blending themselves into the red silk of his doublet.
Dark eyes brimming with malice the Magister noted each word I spoke to his son in the empty tavern. His gaze struck at me like hammer blows. Was he using some magic on me? I didn't allow it to show, of course, this was Dorian's moment. Lord Halward, I am the Inquisitor and you cannot hurt me. I will show you a modicum of respect, but you are evil and I know it because I see evil everyday and I know it exists in this world.
'Once, I had a son who trusted me. A trust I betrayed.'
I saw my hand on the corded muscles of Dorian's his arm. He's lying. Can't you see it? Come away, Dorian! I do my best to help this man because he is not only the man I love, but the safe place for me to rest and an ear when I'm too exhausted to think straight. He laughs and jokes, where I am serious and often humorless. He is irreverent, where I only know the structured life of the Chantry. But he teaches me and I learn from him.
Then Dorian paused and I tried again, Don't leave it like this, Dorian. You'll never forgive yourself, I say. To give them time I move away and leave behind a dark fear that screams at me to stay. Don't leave him alone with that man! But I dismiss it. This is a family matter and none of my affair. I can only imagine how much it cost Dorian to tell me as much as he already has.
Then it's over and whatever has been said, was said. The tension in the air slowly dissipates. Then Magister Pavus extended his hand to me. I glanced at Dorian, but he isn't looking at me. He's leaning on his hands against a table as if the wood is the only thing holding him upright. I'll get him home to Skyhold and help put this behind him.
I accepted the Magister's hand, but when I tried, in spite of my misgivings, to shake his hand like a gentlemen a sharp sting in my palm made me draw back in surprise. The movement deepened the cut, slashing a wound across my palm. When Halward released my hand blood dripped to the floor between us. His own hand is now covered in my blood. He apologized profusely and blamed the sharp edge of his ring. The blood-red stone of the Pavus Family ring shimmered in the candlelight as he wiped his hand clean.
Blood! So much blood. It boils around my feet rising over my boots. The thick red liquid stinks of death and dark places. Halward throws his head back and begins to laugh. I can see his teeth sharp like wolf's fangs.
Stop laughing!
When I try to move away, he grabs me by the arms. 'He's my son! My son,' he shouts into my face, his breath stinking with clotted blood and death. His fingers sink into my the flesh of my arms like talons. 'You'll never take him away from me. You're nothing but peasant. A sodomite. A misfit. My son is a prince and you led him astray. Great things await him in Tevinter. His fame as a member of the Inquisition grows with the telling.'
And it dawns on me that he is quite mad.
We shall leave immediately, I decide and I open the door to signal the stable boy to bring our horses. As I turn back to gather the mage, I see Dorian allowing his father to embrace him. When I tried to pull him away, Dorian shook me off and I watch in horror as they head to the exit arm in arm. They laugh together as the door closes and I'm left alone in an empty tavern.
Dorian? Dorian, wait! Don't leave with him… don't you see what he is? It's time to leave. Please!
"Dorian!" I cried out shouting myself awake. I reached for him, but the bed is empty, the sheets reek of sickness. The room is so dark even the stars have deserted me. The pain of the dream is so real it slams into my chest and knocks the breath from me. Vomit roils up my throat like fire in a gush of hot oil.
"Come back." My weeping goes unanswered as I try to rise from the bed. My efforts earn me a hard fall to the stone floor and I land heavily on my hands and knees. Vomit, hot and bitter pours out of me splashing to the floor. So weak, so lost, where is the man the man I once was? The man who fought the demons, the Fade, saved the world and loved a mage named Dorian.
The ceiling swung into view when I fell to my side, then rolled painfully onto my back. Helplessly groaning in pain, I begin to beg. Who are you talking to Garrett… poor pathetic, weak Garrett. It's much too late to remember your prayers. One more sip, just a sip. Please. The dreams are too real tonight. Too close.
The empty bottle shatters against the wall and I let myself go when the final emotion of despair deserts me. There's nothing left of me but a hollow husk stretched thin and dry, ready for any breeze to take at its whim.
It occurs to me, as I lay there on the stone floor, that tonight is a fine night for a death. It will be easier this way. Easier for everyone. Let them call me a coward or a hero, what does it mean to me? I inhale the familiar smells of Skyhold; The cooking fires, the stables, the fading garden. The dark stones seem to exhale with me. The pain, my constant companion ceases to gnaw at me, slowly dissipates and I feel myself floating. Even the craving is gone now. But I can't really float can I? I wonder if I could float out to the garden and die among my roses?
Think of me now and again, Dorian.