He's nearly eight.
It can't be long now until Dorian gains his magic - he'll show it young, the best always do - but until then, and despite all his other lessons it mostly feels like waiting around. In this moment, he's waiting around in the estate of his nearest neighbors, while his parents have gone off to one event or another, the social obligations of rank. His father considers Magister Merula a friend, though - a real friend, not just alliance or obligation - and a true mark of that trust that Dorian is allowed to be here now.
Dorian's mother thinks it less a matter of friendship than a House that lacks the ambition to be a true threat.
Either way, on this rainy afternoon Dorian is happily sequestered on a low table, inks, paints and pencils all spread out around him, an equally industrious counterpoint to the Magister's only daughter, Aeliana, her papers covering any bare space on the other side of the table.
He wonders, later, if there'd been any discussion of an arrangement between them, any truth to his mother's occasional claim that House Merula was hoping for a match. Either yes or no, it wouldn't have mattered for all sorts of reasons, the least of which is Dorian himself. In less than two years, the demands of title and country will see them set at opposite ends of the Imperium, and they will soon lose touch. Much later, he would learn that Aeliana had suffered the cruelest of fates - no magic at all, one of those misfortunes that happened now and then to even to the most pure-blood families.
When he hears of it, Dorian feels quite sorry for her.
Years after that, he'll wonder if Aeliana felt she got the better deal.
In this moment, though, they are still only children, raw potential waiting to be set to purpose. Aeliana practices her penmanship, careful tangles of nearly-identical letters marching across the page. Dorian's own contribution to the moment is slightly less academic - a drawing of a whole - flock? Flight? Pride? - of gryphons attacking what could charitably be called a dragon. It doesn't seem to be quite epic enough, so after a moment he adds a few more gryphons attacking a horde of darkspawn. It might help if he had any idea what a horde of darkspawn looked like, but 'artistic license' sounds like a good defense.
When he is a proper mage, Dorian will make his first order of business bringing back the gryphons, because… gryphons. Obviously.
A gift to the world, not just for the Wardens but for everyone. He's not sure how long it will take once he has a proper place to study and access to the right texts, but his father says he can achieve whatever he wants, as long as he has the will to do it. He is a scion of House Pavus - nothing is beyond him.
So Dorian will keep a pair of them in a tower of his own, and fly them everywhere, though he hasn't quite decided on their names. 'Death from Above' may not set the proper tone.
At her own table, higher and tilted and covered with layers of the thinnest parchment, Aeliana's mother lets out a slow breath, focused on keeping her hand steady as she sweeps a wide arc across the page. She is an architect, and though the buildings in the Imperium's cities are old and grand and dwarf-built is made to last, time yet conquers all, and those buildings that do succumb must be made to match those that remain, with extra care for whatever magics may lie in adjacent stones.
It's not true that people are entombed in the foundations of the city's buildings - not anymore, at least. It was all rubbish to begin with, Aeliana's mother says, mostly superstition and corner-cutting in place of decent magic and nothing that isn't easily surpassed by a bit of proper calculation. Better than having demons creeping into the wine cellars, at any rate.
She's good at her work. Magisters are always altering and adding on to their estates outside of the cities, and there seems a steady stream of projects both civil and private that pass by her table. Dorian thinks it all quite interesting, though his Mother says it has a bit of a lowborn whiff about it all, and that she's constantly surrounded by lesser mages - Laetans, even Soporati workmen. The wife of a Magister ought to have some standards, surely.
He likes her books. Aeliana's mother may keep her designs to the classical, preferred style but she has an entire library of books, some nearly as tall as Dorian himself, pages and pages of illustrations of art and buildings from not just Tevinter's long history but far beyond the borders of the Imperium. Maps of the layout of the Orlesian capital at Val Royeaux, and repair manifests from the Gray Warden citadel at Weisshaupt, and even a few details from the old, old ruins of Seheron. If Dorian were not who he is, he'd be a little worried over how much he had to learn about the world.
The sound of footsteps down the hall has them all looking up the moment Magister Merula steps into the room, windblown and damp - there are spells to avoid such disarray, though it seems he was in too much of a hurry this evening to bother. At her table, Aeliana's mother smiles, but does not look up from her careful illustration.
"I thought you wouldn't arrive until tomorrow."
"There was an unexpected reprieve. The assembly ended… rather sooner than anticipated."
Which means a Magister - or several - got themselves killed, likely for doing something stupid, trying to kill someone else, or trying to kill someone else stupidly. Dorian is already old enough to know what those sorts of pauses mean, the deliberate, polite turns of phrase, though it still makes the adults happier if he pretends not to.
"You should change. Take off that cloak, at least. You're dripping everywhere."
A servant steps quietly in to help the Magister out of his dark outer robe, while another quickly attends to the puddles he has left in his wake.
Magister Merula has servants, not slaves, though this is another detail Dorian won't stop to reconsider until nearly two decades later and half a world away. He had made them all Liberati soon after becoming a Magister, which his father said was a foolish way to start off, encouraging sloppy work with no accountability, but it seemed a halfhearted sort of critique, as if he thought he ought to say it more than he actually cared.
Dorian will spend a great deal of time wondering how much his father actually cared about any number of things.
"Keep away." Merula's wife says, waving a hand before he can take more than a single step toward her. "You're still damp. I won't risk you ruining all my work."
The Magister sighs heavily. "Shunned from hearth and home? How cruel! But certainly my doting child has prepared a joyous welcome for her paterfamilias?"
Aeliana's glare is the mirror of her mother's, gathering her own work close. The Magister laughs, feigning a stagger as if struck a mortal blow.
"How am I to endure? Where are my allies? What say you, young Pavus? Surely you'll take pity on me?"
Dorian proudly holds up his epic battle scene. If it gets damaged, he'll simply have to draw another. Maybe with two dragons this time.
"Is that an eyeball in its claws?"
"On fire." Artistic license.
"Gruesome." Merula grins. "Your father will be proud. Here, a token of my patronage."
Dorian drops the paper just in time to catch the orange, which also draws Aeliana's eye, and her father chuckles.
"Ah, now I have your attention. What a surprise."
She runs to her father for a souvenir of her own, a chain of tiny, dark opals and bright pearls that winks and glows where it catches the light. At the table, her mother smiles in approval, amusement glittering in her eyes as her husband gives her a hopeful look.
"I am not so easily bribed, husband."
Dorian's hand hovers above the page, dripping a few tears of vermillion that soak into the thirsty parchment, but he barely notices. His mother has never smirked at his father so, all playfulness, happy to have him home. His father never looked back, with a smile barely hidden behind his eyes. As if there is a whole conversation hovering silent in the air between them, charging the whole room with warmth and light.
"Indeed." The Magister moves to a sideboard, where a glass of wine waits. "You're still working on that aedicula? I thought they said it would be acceptable as it was."
Aeliana's mother makes a sound, as if the word is pure insult. "Acceptable, perhaps. As it is intended to outlast me by several centuries, I'd prefer to do it right."
"Well, I hope you might be able to set aside a bit of time for a new bit of work." The Magister sets a document down, a raised gold seal prominent in the center of the fold. It doesn't mean anything to Dorian, but Aeliana's mother gasps, nearly dropping her pen. "It seemed they might wish to renovate the main pavilion, and I can't guarantee anything, but I did my best to put your name forth."
Her wide eyes flick from the paper to her husband and back again.
"I thought that Magister Vinicius had already…"
"Oh, yes he made a very good case for why he ought to be able to buy up the rest of the North Quarter for his own private concerns, but as I explained, there were several buildings of great historic worth within the bounds of Vinicius's appetites, as well as a public garden that had long provided great enjoyment for the people. I also pointed out that any significant structures built in that area would likely spoil the view from the Archon's own windows. Happily, he agreed that it would be no great loss for a Magister who already had so much to his name, and a significant benefit for the city. A matter of eminent domain." He smirks proudly. "Which I believe means permanent protection for the gardens, the grounds, and a little plaza where a very fine girl once agreed to be my w-"
He's cut off, because she has pushed away from the table, scattering pens and brushes as she leaps into his arms. Dorian is glad they're paying him no attention, he couldn't stop staring if he wanted to.
It's like trying to decipher some impossibly foreign language, as the Magister lifts his wife up, spinning her around, and they're laughing. He has never seen… his own parents rarely touch, let alone… and Dorian looks over, but Aeliana has barely noticed the scene unfolding in front of her, still concentrating on her work. As if nothing about this moment is exceptional at all.
"Not easily bribed, and yet I persevere." Magister Merula holds her close, and they simply… look at each other for a long moment, before she draws him into a long kiss. Neither of them have stopped smiling. Content in each others company. Oh, Dorian knows this all must be unseemly - the proper words are 'reserved' and 'dignified ' - but that implies there any real feeling to be held back. He didn't know. He didn't know it could be like this. Compared to this, his own home suddenly seems as bloodless as a gutted fish, a portrait painted in ash.
Imagine, if there were someone out there to look at him like that. If he could have this moment for his own, to live again and again. Dorian's never wanted anything so badly in his life.
"Vinicius will hardly be pleased."
"It may make him somewhat interesting, at least for a while." the Magister calls to a servant, "Tila, if you would look after the children, I believe I shall take my wife's advice, and get out of these wet clothes."
Dorian watches them disappear down the hall, arm in arm, her head on his shoulder, still speaking to each other in soft, warm tones. It will stay with him for hours afterward, when his parents have returned and he is home again, tucked away in his own room and watching the moon through the window. Unable to sleep, still with no idea exactly what he'd seen or what it meant.
He knows better than to ask, even if he had the words.
"… Dorian?"
He takes a somewhat ragged breath, the air smelling like warmth and dust and Inquisitor. Hands are pinning his wrists loosely to the wall, at least until Thierry lets go, and smiles, breathing a little hard himself.
"Hey, there…" He tips his head, running the back of a knuckle along the curve of Dorian's jaw. "Where'd you go?"
"Hm? No, I was just…"
Daydreaming. It's been getting worse at a rather catastrophic rate. At least it seems the rumors are still at a fairly low simmer, even though a day hasn't passed before he finds himself with the Inquisitor in a shadowed bit of grass behind the tavern, or catching a quick kiss on an empty staircase as Thierry goes to meet with Leliana. Or now, in a dusty ruin of a room on the outer wall that he'd been asked to help 'survey.'
Dorian Pavus, trying to keep a low profile. Speaking of signs of the apocalypse.
"I was just… I knew someone once who would have loved all this."
After Aeliana had failed to show any talent, Merula had quietly stepped down, retired early to some peaceful, unimportant bit of countryside. Dorian wonders if his wife turned to teaching, or if some busy courier had ensured a comfortable retirement hauling designs back and forth to the city. He wonders what she would have thought of Skyhold. Or of him, now. They'd never known how one simple moment in their lives had shaken up his entire world.
Vinicius never did get that garden back, either.
"So, what do you think? Is it worth even considering it? A fancy new mage tower?"
One of the Herald's pet projects, what Dorian thinks he distracts himself with, little bits of concrete happiness amidst so much daunting uncertainty. He wants a dueling arena as well - a proper one, something permanent, and they've traveled to what he thinks is a perfect spot, very near to Skyhold. A short walk through a narrow canyon that opened to a wide plain, with a stunning view of the mountains beyond, distant waterfalls spilling snow-colored light across spans of gray stone.
Of course they'd taken the time to lay down the guidelines, and while they were making sure the space would be generous enough it seemed only sensible to take a few practice shots, a bit of a warm-up that had quickly turned into a rematch. Maker, but his southern brute loves to fight. It didn't take long before Thierry's sleeves were singed to the elbow and the focus stone threatened to rattle loose in Dorian's staff with every hit, but they'd only stopped when the echoes reached them through the gap, Inquisition scouts out searching for their errant leader.
Probably a good thing they'd been interrupted. A few spells and a bit of sweat and Dorian tends to forget the value of playing coy. He'd been sure the Inquisitor would resent him for it, his supposedly wanton Tevinter suddenly prim and proper as a Chantry sister, but Thierry hasn't pushed things, seemingly content to let Dorian set the pace.
As if they have the time for any proper degeneracy. Even Dorian isn't that fast-
Except for the clever little spell he's teasing out of time. In theory, he - and anything he feels like doing - ought to be as fast or slow as he wants it to be. Now there's a thought worthy of some… extra research.
For the moment, Dorian leans back on his heels and examines the currently underwhelming space. "Well, I suppose with a bevy of wards, some new beams, a few tons of stone, a pallet of roofing tiles, a miracle… maybe a candlestick or two…"
Which gets him kissed again, as it ought. It's been impossible to keep this from the more observant members of the Inquisition, though Dorian's still not sure if Sera actually is aware of anything or just enjoys filling any conversation with lewd innuendo until it bursts. Varric must know, if only because the dwarf lives for this sort of thing, the source of half his income and most of his amusement. Dorian may keep the Seeker as his high-water mark. Once Cassandra notices, all bets are indeed off.
And, of course, there's Mother Giselle. The Dorian of years past wants to smirk at her every time they pass in the hall, slip his arm through Thierry's when only she's there to see it. Of course, this Dorian was the also one that spent as much time skirting the disastrous consequences of his preening self-congratulation as reaping any rewards.
Now, he mostly just wants to ask what she hopes to achieve, if she and those she speaks for really, truly believe he's out to destroy the Inquisition. He doubts it - more likely she believes he is only a callous rake and heartless sybarite. Dorian wants to tell her not to worry. Despite all evidence, he's rather adept at the supporting role. None of this is about him, not truly. It's about the Inquisitor, and Dorian is just as committed as the rest of them as making sure he succeeds in saving the world, and in staying in one piece long enough to do it. The dice rolled in Dorian's favor this time, and so his part in this comes with some lovely side benefits, but that doesn't mean he's forgotten the end game.
The Herald won't come to you for help, dear lady, because you need him to be the Herald.
A simple matter of chance, of convenience, the stars all lining up to have him be the one that Thierry turns to, and whatever Mother Giselle's fretting, Dorian understands what that entails. It means he shoulders whatever he can of that burden, he watches the Inquisitor's back and - when the time comes, when Thierry needs him to - he steps away. He lets go.
The question of course, of what Dorian do with himself afterward… but again, this isn't about him.
"Well," Thierry says, "maybe we'll trip over a quarry or two in between Rifts."
"Ah, is it finally time for the thrilling debut?"
Thierry rolls his eyes. "Behold Thedas, your Inquisitor. The Man Who Didn't Blow Up. Again. Durability is the Maker's greatest blessing."
Nearing the hour of Skyhold's official grand opening, the Inquisition making its first big move since Haven. Most of the walls have even returned to being walls. At least in the most well-traveled sections. Of course, they've already had visitors, and it's telling that despite what happened to Haven, there are still many who consider Skyhold safer than the places they've fled.
Cullen's been training his forces hard as ever, and the Nightingale's been busy gathering reports on where to go and what to do, while Josephine takes offers of allegiance that are mostly thinly-veiled requests for aid. Word from Orlais suggest the Empress might not survive long enough to reach her assassination, and there's still no solid word on that troublesome demon army. At least there are plenty of Venatori to murder, whatever the details. He likes to stay positive.
"I've seen worse claims to power. Should I consider this my call to arms?"
Dorian doesn't let it sound hopeful, that he cares much one way or the other. He certainly doesn't act as if it might not be a given. The obvious thought that maybe the Inquisition vanguard will not improve with the addition of a Tevinter at the fore.
"Yours is an open invitation. Of course, there are countless tasks as valuable for you here in Skyhold that involve less risk of camping /or/ decapitation."
"Obviously you haven't been in the library lately. It seems our elf is in a bit of a snit."
"Stop pestering Solas."
"Taking his side? You wound me!" Dorian sniffs. "Oh all right, I may have pilfered a few supplies. A few herbs. Maybe some wine." He makes a face at the Inquisitor's nonplussed expression. "No apostate can possibly appreciate a 4:90 Black. If he wanted to keep it that badly, he should have known enough to ward the bottle."
"So, you'll be joining us in the field, then?"
"I could be persuaded. Perhaps a few compliments on my peerless magical skills."
Dorian keeps forgetting not to do this, that he shouldn't bring attention back to the… situation between them. Venhedis, he should just have slept with the man and been done with it, back when it didn't matter. He doesn't know what to do when the Inquisitor looks at him like that, and it happens far more often than it should. Whatever's in that gaze, Dorian can't measure up to it, and doesn't know how to give it back. It makes him want, when he damn well knows better.
It makes him want, when he still doesn't have the words.
"No one I'd rather be stranded in time with, then or now." Thierry says. "I meant that. I still do. It's going to be dangerous, probably even more than we expect, but I can't say I don't like to watch you in action, and you're flashy enough to keep most of the fire off of me."
Dorian's eyes narrow.
"Am I a fighter or a fishing lure?"
The Inquisitor pauses. A moment passes. And another. Dorian sighs, but Thierry holds up a hand.
"No, hold on, I'm still trying to decide."
He flicks a bit of lightning back, listening to the Inquisitor yelp and laugh. Maker, but he adores this idiot.
"How much do you think it would cost to have Iron Bull carry a palanquin?"
"Not nearly as much as it will to keep him from feeding it to you."
"Pity," Dorian sighs, "I do suppose I'm willing to join you in stopping and or wreaking havoc. Grudgingly, mind you. Maybe I'll blow a few new holes in Orlais, as a matter of civic pride."
Thierry grins. "The Inquisition thanks you for your service."
"Yes, I imagine it will." He smirks. "So, this was a purely professional meeting?"
"Absolutely." Thierry says, with a hand firmly on Dorian's ass.
"Good." He's already grown quite fond of letting his arms slide low, curling his fingers in the curve of the Inquisitor's back. "Just as long as we keep these boundaries clear."
"Clear as Serault glass." Thierry murmurs, and leans in.
1. Time distortion magic in the bedroom. Magic serving man!