It's been a good life, filled with love and friendship and more happy years than Trevelyan expected. But all good things must end. That's the aphorism, and it must be true because lately he's always in pain.
Cancer.
The healers gave him six months, but that was two years ago. He's always been tenacious, after all — but that only helps for so long. He can feel the cancer deep in his bones, spreading its roots, overtaking him. Such a mundane illness for a mage who nearly died so dramatically fifty years ago from a piece of the Fade burned into his hand.
Dorian's been wonderful — a true comfort. But it's obvious he's grief-stricken already and weary of being a caretaker for a dying man. It's awful, really, but Trevelyan's grateful it's happening to himself and not the other way around. He couldn't bear to watch Dorian suffer, day by day, at the hands of a ravaging illness.
"I don't want to lose you," Dorian confesses. "All these years and it still hasn't been enough."
"I know. It hasn't. I love you."
What else is there to say? After half an age of sharing their lives, they've come to rely on each other in a way that neither could have fathomed when they were both young men. Dorian's about to lose his longtime partner. What a devastating blow. But there's one saving grace, perhaps. Through the years, they have made and kept a lot of friends. Trevelyan's so tired — and in so much pain — that he doesn't really want to see any of them. But he lies about it and so Dorian reaches out, contacting a small army of people, who start showing up as visitors day after day.
"Look out for Dorian, please, when I'm gone," he tells a few of them — the ones he knows will actually want to.
It's all very sad. But at a certain point he simply wants it to be over. The cost of his life has become too great, and he needs the pain to stop.
When the end comes around — as it must — he lies in bed and holds Dorian's hand. He's gasping for breath, but not finding relief, and his mind is a jumble of words and pictures.
"Thank you for a beautiful lifetime," Dorian says.
And then there's nothing left but a dazzling, brilliant light.
The light fades. His boots are wet and the air smells like mold and rat droppings. He's standing in a dungeon and the walls hum faintly with the unnerving sound of red lyrium.
"Maker's breath, what happened?" Dorian says.
To Trevelyan's eyes, Dorian looks about twelve years old. He's not really that young, of course. But to a man who's lived to almost ninety, a thirty-year-old almost looks like a child.
"Redcliffe," Trevelyan says. "And if this is death, then it's not what I expected."
He's looking down at his left hand, returned to him now after so many years of its absence. The faint glow of the anchor is there.
"So you remember also!? Our home– you stopped breathing and then there was a light–" Dorian reaches for him, excited and relieved, no doubt, that he hasn't been thrown back in time with no one else to share his memories.
Before Trevelyan can reply, their conversation is cut short by the sudden entrance of a Venatori guard. His eyes glow red from the lyrium and his face is twisted, not with rage, Trevelyan notes, but pain. He's seen it enough in the mirror to recognize a body that's ravaged and wrecked.
"I'm sorry but we simply don't have time for you," he says, and with a simple flick of his wrist, he casts an ice spear, impaling the man with a killing blow.
He's thirty-five again, it seems, but with all the memories, skills, and wisdom of a much older man. And even better than that, he's not alone. Dorian Pavus, his husband of fifty years, stands beside him.