In the next few days, Haven adjusted to a busy routine. Caravans with goods, weaponry and provisions streamed in and out of the village's main gates, providing for the various camps and holds that the new order established in the region. In return, more and more people appeared in the soldier's camp - farmers and bakers, blacksmiths and tailors, refuges and volunteers, all either running... or seeking a better purpose or life under Andraste's blessed eye. It prepared fertile ground for merchants and mercenaries, where every crawl of the Herald out into the Hinterlands, or the Storm Coast, brought new people with it - and new demands as well.
The pot boiled. Fiona and her mages, the last sane Templars, Red Jenny's friends sneaking about, arriving dignitaries from Rivain, Starkhaven and Orlais - human, elven and dwarven exploits twisted into a snare of inevitability, tightening around everyone's throat, but there was no other exit than to cling to it.
The Breach still stormed in the sky, deaf to the prayers and human plight.
The Herald managed to hide away from the perpetual, insectile grind that the life in the village had become. Under the pretense of studying magic, he found an asylum in the small, but cozy, Chantry's library. Vivienne was there, too, cataloging the tomes for further research, and in the wake of silence from Josephine's agents, Zarreth preferred to be closer to the regal enchantress. It also didn't help that closing the rifts was a daunting task, so he came to appreciate the way his mind switched to simpler matters.
"...and the Dragon takes the Trebuchet!" Dorian announced cheerily, his gloved hand swiping a figure from the desk. "Really, rogaessi, you're getting better, but you have to plan at least three steps ahead, not two, with this".
Zarreth clutched his head in confusion. "You're lying! By Andraste's flaming tits, how? This is a disaster!"
The Tevinter mage chuckled, observing the utter destruction he rained unto his partner's forces. Chess was a favorite Imperial pastime, and he took it upon himself to teach the game to the Herald. The man was evidently determined to collect all the cobwebs that the underground book storage had amassed in the last Age - with his ass, no less, and proceed to die of boredom. Lessons were flying by quickly, and the pyromancer was getting there - he almost grasped the difference between the Knight and Fox moves.
They situated at a small desk in the corner of the main librarium hall - the table's surface buried under the books about Primal Storm-binding and light-casting. Sneaking away from Heraldry duties, as Dorian understood, was necessary. With a light heart, Trevelyan and his advisers burdened the newly acquired Chargers with all the scouting orders, and the mage didn't want to buzz around in the Tal-Vashoth's field of view afterward.
A few meters away, Vivienne's ornate boots clacked on the ancient floor tiles, as she moved around the shelves with a parchment, checking and adding up.
Zarreth, in the meantime, fell out of his stupor, and rocked around his last Knight, clearly unsure of what to do with the figure. He looked up, staring intently at the Tevinter, as if trying to read the correct move off the man's face, but Dorian just grinned and picked at his mustache.
"Is everything Tevinter so... complex?"
"Chess isn't complex!", Dorian brushed the complaint aside with a scoff. "Think, Herald! I'm sure you had more mind-bending problems to solve in the Circle, than figure where to put a chess piece on the board... besides, I've heard you're not that hesitant to move the pieces on that war table of yours anyway. How is that different?"
It wasn't, Zarreth conceded. Only the markers symbolized people, flesh and blood, so vulnerable and fragile, and here - well, it was just polished dragonbone. He pushed the Knight forward, attempting to flank Dorian's Cleric.
"You're right. But see, the abstractness of this uh... wicked! - game, is what makes the stakes so high. People are concrete, easier to deal with".
"Spoken like a true Tevene, my friend", Dorian's impeccably polite tone was laced with sarcasm. "Some Imperial citizens do that all their life - move people around North like little ivory Nugs. It's called "slavery" here".
"You're saying that like it's a bad thing".
"Depends on who you ask".
Zarreth did ask a lot. The mage was like a sea sponge attached to Dorian's side even when he was away from a proper bath - absorbing any information on the Imperium with a deepstalker's voracity. That was a trait he shared with other Sourthern mages, it seemed... Back in Redcliffe, Alexius and the other Venatori at first couldn't get rid off the rebels that dragged behind their every word and deed.
If Dorian learned anything from his time in the town, was that the Circle enchanters on one hand, had little idea what the Imperium was, due to the taboo quality of the subject in their "prisons", and subsequently, on the other hand, twisted what little information they had on Tevinter, into a legend that painted his homeland into the land of milk and honey for the Magi kind.
For Alexius, that was a good thing. It made putting the ignorant folk under the sole of his boot much easier. For the apostates it was bad news, and Alexius didn't hurry to break their fantasies. Their fervent enthusiasm benefited him all too well.
The Herald - and oh dear Void, these dirty, pious fools got a mage Herald of Andraste, que the horror! the horror! - didn't differ from those mages in the slightest.
His first inquires, after they got back in Haven following the time-travel escapade, were as naive and far removed from adequacy as possible. The ex-Circle mage's mind had trouble imagining a society flipped on its head, and when he succeeded, the result was idealized - a consequence of the mental effort taken. But, like with chess, they were getting there - Trevelyan got filled on the truth, and from Dorian's point of view, only good could come of it. For his Southern brethren... and him, by extension.
After all, he could see where Zarreth and the rebels came from. A rather horrid place, to be honest. Horrid enough to have a routine half-smile plastered to his face whenever a Southerner began to spout "opinions" on anything magic-related. As days went on, as Dorian explored the Haven and the surrounding lands more, the way Fereldans and Free-marchers treated the Magi folk, the way their whole way of living structured and wrote out what a mage should be - he couldn't blame Zarreth or Fiona for holding idealistic perceptions of Tevinter. Anything could be seen better than that.
There was a degree of savagery to the culture that Dorian couldn't keep noticing, and couldn't keep from hating: if not it, then his own inner judgment of these people's customs and way of life.
He nodded to his thought, and took a Nug with his other Dragon. The pyromancer's eyes widened and he practically wailed aloud.
"Your figures are disappearing like the snow", Dorian purred.
"And you're a cheat!"
"It's impossible to cheat in chess - it was designed so".
"What's the point of a game where there's no cheating allowed?"
"There! There's some of that magister coming out of you again".
"And that's shameful, you wager?" the Herald was evidently amused.
"Not shameful, just peculiar for a Southerner. But a lot about you and your folk is strange and... I'd even say, enticing? The Imperium can get a little repetitive here and there. You got all these rifts and rebellions and what will you, going on. Checkmate", Dorian announced, barely glancing at the board as his Dragon entered the Keep.
Seeing the game end to his favor, he lounged back, regarding the other mage with a long, evaluating look, then focused on the writings and tomes, fingers playfully running and tapping across the parchment and finer paper. It was good, to sit like that beside a warm fire, making small talk with practically the only person in the Inquisition who had regarded him with any resemblance of respect and friendship.
Ferelden turned out to be an ass-freezing, icicle-filled nightmare that seeped into his bones at almost any given time, and that wasn't limited only to the weather.
Likewise, Haven in particular turned out to be a rather chilly place for Dorian. The Altus finally admitted to himself, that he had expected a different kind of turn - something involving throwing flowers to his feet for saving the day back at Redcliffe, bards singing ballads of "Pavus the Magnificent", mothers shoving newborns into his arms, asking for permission to name them in his steed... well maybe something more subdued, but not what he got actually - borderline hostility and disinterest.
No matter how much he would joke about the supposed "evil" of his homeland and himself, the ice didn't break. Trevelyan and Solas - and to a lesser extent, Varric, being the busybody dwarf that he was - were the only ones to actively involve himself with the Tevene man. The elf, though, had a hard time getting rid of the sneering lines etched into his face, the workings of his forever unforgiving mind up on display without much veiling.
It all had been... below his expectations. No one practically rushed to get to know the Altus mage: the shining gem of House Pavus, the savior of their beloved Herald, and all in all, such an exemplary, good-natured pariah. He was cast out from his own family to prove his progressive views on the decaying nature of the old Imperium true. But nobody the other side of the fence praised him for it.
Irrelevance dulled Dorian's spirits. He wobbled a figure on the board.
"I'm seeing you're making quite the progress with the primal school here", he addressed Zarreth's research. "It's no Vyrantium, I see that quite well in your notes - forgive me for looking at them, but there are some jarringly wrong conclusions and sigil schematics - but it seems that a few of the Redcliffe mages were right. Your Circles do give a decent education. No comparison, though, of course!"
Zarreth smirked. He set his chess pieces aside and gathered the notes, looking over the shoulder for the First Enchanter to float out of his field of view - Vivienne's impossible headpiece bobbed about a lower bookshelf like a sinking ship with its sails up.
"Talked to the Circle mages?"
"Yeah. It's strange, really, for me at least. In the Imperium, we are told that your Southern Circles are glorified prisons, you know... Templars running around with mage babies in their jaws, chomping on them - quite a dashing reflection of what the local folks thinks of the magisters, you don't find? But anyway, ahem", Dorian jokingly suppressed his humor. "Yet, Lady Fiona's people, the few I had the pleasure to talk back there, actually said they like it in the Towers. Safety and ability to study in peace, like you obviously did. So where's the truth? Leashed or loved, what is it?"
Zarreth blinked slowly, momentarily lost in thought. Then, as he looked back from his parchment to Dorian, his brow arched in an expression of total incredulity. The Altus thought that the other mage, for a moment, was balancing on an edge between explosive laughter and indignant outrage, the Veil thinning in the space around them as if under a great outer pressure. In a second though, the sensation dissipated, and Zarreth just curled his lips in a small cynical grimace.
"Listen, Dorian. You've told me that your Circles are prestigious embellishments, right? Magi offspring contending for getting the best education nobility can get, a pavement into the Magisterium?", Trevelyan cocked his head to the side.
"More or less".
"Well here, it's the other way around. Circles, are, basically, orphanages. Unwanted children and youngsters, picked up from...everywhere, really. Too many people, too little Circles", Zarreth shrugged. "Remember? "Magic is meant to serve man, not rule over him". In Ferelden, Free Marches and beyond to the South, well, the Circle is an equalizer. When you are a mage, nothing else matters".
The pyromancer stuck a hand out and began curling his fingers down as he counted.
"You get elves from the alienages, these shabby, pathetic things from the slums. You get the Dalish, who are plucked by the Order at times, just to keep them nice and docile in the woods. You have the empty-eyed peasant kids, fat farmer daughters and the little street-rats who fire off their natural magic at a city guard when they steal a lump of bread, " Zarreth wiggled a narrow, sooty thumb. "You get the noble offspring, heirs to fortune and power, children of wealthy merchants and blacksmith's apprentices".
Dorian nodded, prompting the other man to carry on.
"What food was served in your father's house?"
"Pardon?"
"The food. In Qarinus. Was it nice?"
"What a strange question, rogaessi! Quite out of the blue, too..." Dorian frowned. "The answer is yes, though. Father wouldn't settle for some commoner chow, no. Our cook, Gania, she could bake a whole pheasant, stuffed with Rivaini sourfruit and.."
"So... now that you've tried what Flissa makes down the corner", Zarreth was grinning by that point, seeing Dorian's enthusiatic recollection of Tevinter morsels. "Or say, scout Harding - no, Dorian, don't give me that look, I'm not going to clean your bile off the floor! Anyway, what would you stick to?"
"I've nothing against these fine women and their handling of a kettle. I miss the better cuisine, of course".
"That's because your taste had known variety, and now your stomach grieves for the time it was full and happy", Zarreth remarked. "Many of those who were taken into the Circle of Magi, my friends, rivals, nobodies - they were the kind of people who hadn't a warm stew in months."
The mage paused, straightening his writings with the edge of the palm - he frowned, mulling his next words over, finding the correct words for the Tevinter to fully understand.
Dorian waited patiently, observing the way the Mark rippled through with sickly light, following every motion. Finally, Zarreth let go of his work and met Dorian's gaze straight-on - murky, bloodshot yellow staring dispassionately into light, animated green. Where the Tevinter, despite all his disappointments, harbored hope and a (slightly tattered) belief in justice, the apostate pulled over a cold, reptile calculation devoid of much sentiment.
Dorian felt that it masked something - but what, he couldn't understand.
"When you had nothing, the Circle gave you everything - shelter, food, clothing, every single thing an alienage elf or slum-orphan would've killed for. Offered peace to the terror of a lightless, hopeless life. A warm bed in exchange for a Templar's eye over you - the deal is fair! Of course they loved it, clung to it like a rabid mabari", Zarreth gulped audibly, swallowing some of the unnecessary venom in his voice. "To this day, many lament the Circle, for it was their anchor to some form of a decent life... They were content with their oatmeal slush, because the only thing they knew aside it was an empty stomach".
Whatever it was, Dorian decided, it just tempered him. Swallowed it, then warped into armor.
"But not all of us had been of the same limited perception. When you knew the taste of food, wine, freedom, then what the Circle offered appeared in a different light, as you can guess..."
Zarreths fingers curled, hands turning into claws as a shadow of pain passed his face.
"Tranquil - I don't know if you've ever talked to them in Vyrantium, but I, at Ostwick, had - say they feel good. Serene. Un-disturbed", The pyromancer chuckled ruefully, the sound merely clicks from the depths of a dry throat. "However, what they also say, is that they don't remember how or what they felt before the Rite".
"What would they say if they could compare", Dorian finished the thought quietly. The other mage nodded. "I see now".
"That's a grim matter, anyway", Zarreth pointed out. "I'd rather we cut the wonderful recollections short before we begin sobbing in each others coats, Dorian. Just - don't get sold on the merry Circle elf chipper about the generous Chantry. They'd be shoveling shit under other circumstances, and they think Templar shit stinks nice - er".
"Well, your Worship, we could always count on you to make things better by envoking something as exciting as excrements into the equasion", Dorian chuckled amiably.