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The Hinterlands almost felt like home by now, they'd spent so much time in the area. People knew them; Ren found the citizens would flag them down and ask about the Inquisition, bring them fresh-baked goodies, or give them updates on how things had improved since the Inquisition had first begun. Even better, no one in the Hinterlands blinked an eye at her Qunari and Tevinter companions any longer. The Iron Bull and Dorian were Inquisition, now, and, as such, considered to be friends by the population of the Hinterlands.

Under normal circumstances, Dorian would have remarked on the change. Ren knew the suspicion he was still regarded with chafed at him, given how hard he fought on the Inquisition's behalf. But today their first stop was the rendezvous at the Gull and Lantern in Redcliffe village, meeting the retainer his family had sent, and the mage was more nervous than Ren had ever seen him. He had faced down demons of every stripe, giants, Red Templars, all without breaking a sweat, but the faintest hint of contact with his family took him down from the inside. Ren had to admit she sympathized. She breathed a sigh of relief every time she returned to Skyhold and hadn't heard from her own father.

When they arrived at the inn, Ren immediately offered to let Dorian go in by himself, but he looked at her, his eloquent eyes asking the favor he couldn't bring himself to voice. Varric and the Iron Bull took out a deck of cards and started a game of Wicked Grace while they waited, and Ren followed Dorian inside the inn.

It was completely deserted. Except for one man who stood up from a table in the back of the room when they entered. "Dorian."

The mage sighed. "Father." He shook his head. "So the whole story about the 'family retainer' was just … what? A smoke screen?"

"Then you were told." Dorian's father came forward, looking Ren over. He didn't appear as judgmental as she had half-expected he would; certainly less so than she imagined her own father would if they came face to face. "The Inquisitor, I presume. I do apologize that you became involved in this deception."

"I became involved to keep it from being a deception," Ren corrected him. "I thought Dorian deserved to know what he was walking into. I'm sorry you didn't feel the same."

"Had I told him I was here, he would never have come."

"Of course not!" Dorian snapped. "Honestly, Father, was it so far beneath your dignity to come to Skyhold? You preferred to skulk about in a tavern rather than come openly to meet me in my home?" He frowned, stepping closer to his father. "What is this, a kidnapping? An ambush? A warm family reunion?"

Magister Pavus sighed heavily. "Must this be how it always is between us, Dorian? You are my son!"

"Oh, now you call me that? After what you did?"

Ren looked between the two of them, both so stubborn. "You're both here," she pointed out. "Can't you at least try to talk to one another instead of shouting insults?"

Dorian snorted. "Yes, Father. Talk to me. Tell me how mystified you are that I felt I could no longer live under your roof and by your rules."

"There's no need to—"

"There is every need!" Dorian turned to Ren. "I prefer the company of men, as you know," he said flatly. "My father disapproves."

"Is that … a big concern in Tevinter?" Ren had to admit she was surprised, given the tales of debauchery she had heard about the Imperium—some of them from Dorian himself.

"Only if your entire existence is predicated on the need to create more little future magisters, to carry on the power and prominence of the Pavus line." Dorian's lip curled in a sneer. "Every Tevinter family chooses its children's mates carefully, to distill the perfect mage, perfect body, perfect mind. Perfect future leader." He sighed, and Ren thought she saw the glitter of a tear in his eye. "That was never going to be my choice … so he thought he would make me choose."

"Dorian, please, if you'll only listen to me," his father begged.

"Why? So you can spout more convenient lies? Plot new ways to take my blood so you can try once more to bend me to your specifications, against my will? He taught me to hate blood magic," Dorian shouted, his face very near his father's. "In a land practically ruled by it, my father stood alone in refusing to use it. I admired that. He called it 'the resort of the weak mind' … until it was my mind he found weak and wanting. When I refused to play pretend the rest of my life, settle down with some woman chosen for her bloodline and make little mage babies and hide who I really was in the shadows as though I was ashamed of myself … he tried to change me."

"I only wanted what was best for you!"

"What was best for you, you mean, for your fucking legacy," Dorian corrected. "You never asked me what I wanted." He turned and stalked to the door, ready to open it and leave.

"Dorian," Ren said. "Finish this. You'll never forgive yourself if you don't at least let him speak."

The mage didn't turn, but he didn't open the door, either. "Tell me why you came," he said softly.

"I never meant to drive you to the Inquisition …"

"You didn't." Dorian looked back over his shoulder. "I am here because I am needed here; because I can do some good here. Because I believe in the Inquisition's cause. This is my choice, Father, one that I made freely. Once I had a father who would have known that."

As Dorian began to pull the door open, his father said slowly, painfully, "Once I had a son who trusted me. A trust I betrayed. I came here to talk to him, to ask him to forgive me. To hear his voice again." The magister's own voice broke on the last words.

The door stopped, half-open. Ren put her hand on Dorian's. "Go," she said softly. And she left them there, joining the Wicked Grace game in progress outside.

When Dorian emerged, blinking in the light, looking somehow raw and vulnerable, the Iron Bull and Varric both got up, heading for the horses, leaving Ren and Dorian to talk as they followed the other two through town.

Ren kept silent, waiting for Dorian to begin. She hadn't the faintest idea how she would react if she were suddenly faced with her father and forced to have a conversation with him; she didn't envy Dorian the experience.

"He says we are too alike; that we both have too much pride," Dorian said abruptly. "Once I would have been overjoyed to be like him. Now … I'm not so certain. I don't know if I can forgive him." He looked down at his boots, kicking a rock out of his way. "Can you forgive someone for trying to condemn you to a life of screaming on the inside? Worse, for trying to do a blood ritual to change who you were, fundamentally?"

Ren felt sick to her stomach at the idea. Her father had tried to order her to be what he wanted, but to stoop to blood magic? That wasn't right. She walked quietly next to him for a few moments, until they were climbing the hill outside the village. "Are you all right?"

"No," Dorian said immediately, and she treasured his honesty. Not long ago, he would have brushed her off with a flippant answer. "Not really. But … I am glad we came." He looked at her, his eyes clear and without anger for once. "It wasn't what I expected, but … it's better than nothing." A little smile played across his face. "Maker knows what you must think of me after all this."

"I think you're brave," Ren said. "It isn't easy to abandon tradition and walk your own path."

Dorian smiled. "It may not be easy, but it appears to be what lands a person in the Inquisition. Which is not at all a bad place to be."

"I suppose that's true." Ren chuckled. "We're all mavericks in one way or another, aren't we?"

The Iron Bull and Varric were waiting for them at a crossroads up ahead. "We weren't sure if we were heading back to Skyhold or not," Varric said as they caught up.

Ren glanced at Dorian, who shrugged. "I could continue killing things, if that seems to be the general consensus," he said.

"All right, then. Varric, Bianca's waiting for us at Valammar, right?"

He sighed, then nodded, then sighed again.

"No time like the present," she said, putting her hand on the dwarf's shoulder. He grunted, trudging on ahead, clearly in an unusually non-talkative mood.

Ren walked with the Iron Bull, feeling flutters in her stomach at his nearness that were completely ridiculous, given how often they'd had sex. Still … something had shifted recently, and it was as though she was seeing him with new eyes.

"Darkspawn, huh?" He nodded, the gleam of battle in his eye. "I can kill some darkspawn."

"As long as you don't get yourself tainted." She looked up at him warningly.

"You've got my back if I do, right?"

"Oh, I've got your back. I'll kill you in all sorts of ways you wouldn't enjoy."

"How could you kill me in a way I'd like less than Blight sickness?"

Ren narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't get yourself tainted, and you won't need to find out."

He laughed heartily, and she couldn't help laughing along with him, even though she was seriously concerned about taking him into the Deep Roads, given how much of his skin was exposed to potentially tainting wounds. She'd have left him out of this part of the expedition if she'd thought he would have agreed to it.

Bianca was waiting for them just outside the door that led into the Deep Roads. Something about the dwarf's body language—closed off and a little bit fidgety—had Ren's hackles up. But Varric didn't seem to notice anything unusual, so Ren put her concerns aside as artifacts of her own feelings about descending into the earth.

Dorian, although still looking a bit raw from the interview with his father, was entranced by the architecture; the Iron Bull by the masonry. They hung back, leaving Ren walking with the two dwarves. Varric was quieter than he'd ever been, in Ren's presence at least. He rose to Bianca's occasional attempts to draw him into walks down memory lane, but only partway, and each foray was briefer than the last.

There was plenty of evidence that the Red Templars had been mining red lyrium down here. And every piece of evidence seemed to weigh more heavily on Varric's shoulders than the last.

But the final blow was the worst, the one that came far into the thaig when Bianca finally revealed where Corypheus had learned the secret of where the original idol, and all the red lyrium that had come after it, had been found. From her. Because Varric had given her the secret, and she had been unable to keep herself from studying the stuff, and from searching out someone else to help her with it when her own stock of knowledge ran out.

Bianca was defiant; defensive. Varric tried to retain his outrage and his anger, but he wasn't used to the emotions, and eventually he threw up his hands. "Don't worry about it," he muttered before stalking out of the room. Dorian followed him, and the Iron Bull, leaving Ren and Bianca staring at each other.

Putting her hands on her hips, Bianca stepped up to Ren. "If anything happens to him, I'll feed you your own eyeballs," she snarled.

The effrontery of it, after she had betrayed Varric without so much as an apology, pissed Ren off. She looked down at the dwarf. "If anything happens to him," she echoed, "eat your own eyeballs, because it will be your fault. Keep that in mind. All the people Corypheus slaughtered when he attacked the Inquisition at Haven? Also your fault. Come near my Inquisition again and they won't be able to find all the parts of you to return to the Stone. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Bianca snapped.

"Good." Ren turned her back on the dwarf. She hoped the darkspawn ate her.

Varric was silent until they got out of the Deep Roads. In the sunshine, he took a deep breath. "I hate the sodding Deep Roads. Nothing good ever comes out of them."

"I'm sorry, Varric."

"Yeah. Me, too. Just when I thought I knew how much of this mess was my fault …"

"What Bianca did isn't your fault," Ren told him.

He snorted. "Tell yourself that. Maybe you can believe it, but I can't." Varric shook his head. "Anything else on the agenda for this trip?"

"You up to killing a dragon?" She said it softly so the Iron Bull wouldn't hear.

"Oh, sure, why not. This day really can't get any worse; might as well get mauled by a giant flying lizard." Varric looked up at her, trying to summon a smile. "Don't mind me. I'll be all right."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Maybe later. Not now. Let's go kill your dragon."

They could hear the dragon at the Inquisition campsite nearest her hunting grounds. Her roar practically shook the mountains as they came closer, and the Iron Bull searched the sky, his eye shining. "We're fighting her, right? Tell me we're fighting her!"

Ren nodded, grinning. "Oh, yeah. We're fighting her."

"You are fucking awesome, boss," he said, still watching the dragon as she wheeled and circled above them.

"I don't suppose you've given any thought to how you're going to get her to come down here where the two of you can bang on her with your shiny sticks, have you?" Dorian asked.

Ren looked at him and at Varric, both of whom seemed significantly less exhilarated by the idea of dragon-fighting than she and the Iron Bull were. "Your call, boys. Flame blast or crossbow bolt."

They sighed, exchanging a glance of tolerant irritation, then Varric unslung Bianca and Dorian hefted his staff, and they let fly at the same time. The dragon roared a battle cry, whirling far above their heads in her search for the source of the sudden attack. Next to Ren, the Iron Bull puffed out his chest and roared back as best he could, answering the challenge.

"You two stay back here where it's safe," Ren told Varric and Dorian.

"No shit," the dwarf responded, tucking himself in between two rocks. From that position he could fire at the dragon, but she would have a hard time reaching him.

Dorian stood near him, his eyes on the dragon, his staff in motion. Flames hadn't seemed to do much to the dragon, so he had switched to ice. She cried out and tumbled to the ground as the weight of the ice on one wing dragged her down.

"Ready?" Ren asked the Iron Bull. He grinned wildly at her and ran onto the field.

The dragon might be down, at least for the moment, but she wasn't incapacitated. A jet of flame burst forth from her; the Iron Bull rolled away from it just in time. Flattening herself on the ground, Ren could feel the heat of the flames passing above her.

Ren got to her feet, circling around the dragon while the Iron Bull drew the beast's attention. He was shouting something at the dragon in Qunlat, something Ren couldn't quite catch. Oddly, the dragon seemed to, and Ren could have sworn the dragon bowed her head at the Iron Bull.

Several crossbow bolts were embedded in the dragon's wings now, and Dorian was keeping them coated with a layer of ice. The dragon kept beating her wings in an attempt to raise herself off the ground, the powerful wind from the motion knocking Ren off her feet and dragging the Iron Bull closer to the dragon's side. He wasn't complaining, however. His sword was in constant motion, hacking against the dragon's body, scoring the thick hide but not quite penetrating it.

Ren ducked under the dragon's body while the Iron Bull was distracting her, looking for weak spots in the softer underbelly, stabbing deep into the flesh with her daggers. The dragon didn't seem to notice; the flesh was easier to penetrate here but there was so much of it that Ren wasn't doing much damage. But at last the dragon seemed to feel one particularly deep cut, swinging its body heavily and hunting for Ren with her sharp-toothed jaws.

When the dragon turned away from him, the Iron Bull bellowed in primal triumph, thrusting his great sword into the neck, just behind the dragon's ruff. She shrieked, whirling as best she could back to him, a great rumble preceding a jet of flame that he barely managed to scramble away from.

Ren dodged a convulsive kick from the dragon's back leg, rolling away just in time to have the tail smash itself against her. She got dizzily to her feet, her ears ringing, fumbling in a protected pocket for a healing draught. Drinking it down, she rejoined the fray as her hearing cleared.

Slowly, slowly, they wore the dragon down, their greater agility pitted against her massive strength. Bite by bite they bled her, their blades digging into any space they could find that might do damage. It was hot, dangerous, sticky work, both of them liberally daubed with the dragon's blood, and some of their own. Ren was glad Varric and Dorian were relatively protected. She could tell the mage, at least, was tiring, but at least they weren't bearing the brunt of the dragon's attacks.

At last the Iron Bull gave a shout of triumph, managing at last what he had been trying to all along—he thrust his sword deep into the back of the dragon's throat as she was in midroar, and the momentum as the head dropped to attack him helped force the sword up through the roof of her mouth and into her brain.

Her long neck and heavy head fell forward, the Iron Bull jumping out of the way at the last minute.

"Ha!" he howled at her. "See that! And who killed you? The Iron Fucking Bull!" He yanked the sword out of the dragon's mouth, holding it up above his head as he tipped his head back and roared in a fairly good imitation of the dragon.

His massive shoulders were gleaming with sweat, his body splashed in blood and covered in scorch marks, practically glowing in triumph, and Ren, getting to her feet after a kick that had sent her flying across the battlefield, thought she had never seen anything so damned sexy in all her life.

She cast a glance in the direction of Dorian and Varric. The mage called to her, "We'll head back to camp, get some men to come and clean this up."

Yes. They would want the bones and the blood and the teeth, she thought. But … not quite yet. "Take your time," she shouted back, and Dorian's grin in response said he had a fair idea of what she meant.

By the time the mage and the dwarf were out of sight, the Iron Bull had finished his victory dance, or at least paused in it, and when Ren looked back at him she found that single grey eye fixed on her, the heat in it practically scorching her where she stood.

Then she was in his arms, their mouths coming together in a violent mashing of lips and teeth and tongues that just wasn't enough; it barely touched the roaring fire inside them. She could taste the dragon's blood in his mouth, or in her own, or both, a burning spicy taste that only heightened the need in her.

"Fuck me, Bull," she managed to gasp.

"Yes," he growled into her ear. "Now."

Between them they wriggled her pants down and then he bent her forward so that her cheek was pressed against the still warm skin of the dead dragon. It felt smooth against her skin, supple.

The Iron Bull's first thrust was not gentle, and Ren braced an arm against the dragon's side to keep her balance, pushing back against him. She wanted more, harder, faster, deeper, rougher, her breath coming too fast to be able to speak.

He slammed into her, over and over. His big hand tangled in her hair, pulling her back against him, her head pressed into his shoulder, his mouth hot and wet against her ear. "Ataashi," he muttered thickly. Then again, louder, "Ataashi!" Ren turned her head and his mouth covered hers, feverish kisses to go with the pounding of his cock into her. Her fingers were between her legs, frantically rubbing, trying to keep time with his movements.

With a mighty shout, he gave a last thrust, and Ren felt her own climax coming, rushing toward her like an avalanche, and then it was sweeping her along with it, and all she could do was hope the Iron Bull's arms around her didn't give out before she could stand again.

And then the fever had passed, the fire cooling, and they hastily rearranged their clothes. The Iron Bull took her face in his hands. "You okay?"

She nodded. "I'm good." Grinning, she added his usual phrase. "Better than good."

"Me, too," he said, pressing his face against her hair, breathing in deeply. "Can we do it again?"

"How many dragons are there in Thedas?" Ren winked at him.

He chuckled. "Not enough."