Every priest and acolyte of the Choir

Turned their hearts and minds as one to

Their god's command. For the Word of Silence

Could not be ignored, and the fire burning

In the heart of the High Priest consumed them

As a wildfire consumes plains.

Silence 1:5

'I'll leave you two alone,' Lexi said, gathering sheets to hide his unsatisfied crotch.

'No, Lexi, don't,' Veldrin snarled. 'Anything I have to say to Dorian I can say to you; also, if you leave, I will kill him.'

'Yes, let us not kill me,' Dorian agreed, patting his lover's thigh and standing without sheets to hide his naked body. 'I'm sorry, Vel…'

'The fucking fuck you are sorry, Dorian! Morrigan? You put Morrigan in our house?'

'Technically, the Magisterium and Leliana did,' Dorian said. 'Vel, you would have never agreed to this visitation, thus…'

'Thus you just put Morrigan in our house?'

'Technically, it's my mother's house,' Dorian rightfully pointed out.

'I should really leave the two of you alone,' Lexi noted.

Another man caught in such a position with a lover of the same gender might have felt fear of being reported and brought down by being outed as deviant; Altus Alexius Hadrian felt nothing of the sort. He simply felt like his rapidly wilting erection was truly embarrassing.

'No!' Dorian and Vel shouted at the same time.

'Well, let's get on with the beatings at home that none speak of, then,' Lexi muttered. 'Never mind me, I'll just be on the bed, naked, and wondering who Morrigan is. Put some pants on, Dorian.'

'Yes, Dorian, do put some pants on,' Veldrin hissed.

'Oh, dear. Somehow, I sense both of you are angry at me,' Dorian sighed. 'That is less than auspicious. Just don't throw things at me, in my present defenseless state, you might bruise me…'

'Who is Morrigan?' Lexi asked.

'A dragon,' Veldrin muttered.

'Better watch the porcelain, then,' Lexi shrugged. 'I knew your mansion was large, but a dragon…'

'She is not a literal dragon, Lexi,' Dorian sighed, fastening his breeches.

'I assume not.' the other man sarcastically replied, 'If she were, you might have introduced her to the Archon, and his wife would be having a strop.'

'I am not having a strop,' Veldrin protested.

'Yes, you are, Amata,' Lexi kindly replied. 'Else you would realise dragons are regarded as lovely house pets, in Tevinter.'

'Not this one,' the elf sighed, sitting down and tiredly shaking her head at her husband. 'Of all things, Dorian…'

'I'm sorry, Vel.' He replied, biting his lower lip. 'I did not tell you sooner because it would have ruined your entire evening…'

'And you did need me to play nicely,' Veldrin growled.

'I'm sorry,' Dorian repeated, kneeling by her side – her anger seemed to be spent, so she merely shook her head again, looking thoroughly defeated.

'I hope Leliana made her travel in a barrel,' she huffed, making both men chuckle – sensing that the ill wind had passed, Lexi hopped out of bed and started to get dressed; he'd been slightly too fast to his feet.

'And you!' Vel said, making him cringe and freeze in mid-step. 'You don't really have to return to Quarinus in the morning, do you?'

'If I die, I don't.' Lexi replied, letting his shoulders slump. 'Otherwise, I fear my wife will have a strop loud enough to keep the entire Magisterium awake for a month, then proceed to the ceremonial immolation of my prospective seat.'

'I'm sorry,' she whispered; he chuckled. When she was sad, the tips of her ears literally drooped.

'Maybe I can stay another day, if you invite me in writing,' Lexi said, winking at Dorian. 'Mention the dragon – a threesome with an elf is one thing, but a threesome with a dragon…'

'Be careful what you wish for,' Dorian jokingly warned. 'This is one dragon who has a child allegedly sired by the King of Ferelden…'

Lexi whistled in appreciation. 'The threesome is sounding more and more promising.' He said; even Veldrin cracked a smile.

He gave up on any notion of dressing, and just sat on the side of the bed, questioningly glancing at his lover and his wife. 'No one else is contemplating a threesome, eh?' he ventured.

They most definitely were not.

'Are you sure you trust me enough for this?' Lexi asked, looking Dorian in the eyes; Dorian looked to Veldrin, and she nodded, briefly, yet neither of the two hurried to speak. The burden was once more on him.

'I gather, then,' Lexi thoughtfully began, 'that the stories of rampaging elven gods were more than fanciful inventions designed to get me in the sack.'

'Sadly,' Veldrin sighed.

'Well, that is indeed…less than auspicious,' he said, biting his lower lip. 'I thought it was the most creative thing anyone had made up just for my benefit. Is this creature truly a god?' Lexi asked.

Dorian helplessly shrugged, and sat on the floor at Vel's feet. 'He appears to be, yes,' the Magister said, 'but the application of the term seems somewhat loose – if he is no god, then there are no gods at all. Just extremely powerful, ascended mages.'

'That should get Radonis' fires going,' Lexi said, dryly. 'It also explains his unprecedented, generous behaviour with Orlais and Ferelden; if this elf is an ascended mage, then we were always right in assuming magic is the path to godhood. We simply used the wrong spell.'

'Or you are simply of the wrong race,' Veldrin replied, smirking.

'Or that,' Lexi wisely admitted. 'Maker's breath,' he whispered, 'I heard whispers of this, but I had genuinely assumed they were smoking the wrong spindleweed…'

'It also explains why the two heads of the Chantry are finally coming together,' Vel softly said. 'If Solas created the veil, then there is no Maker, which makes Andraste an exalted lunatic and the Chant of Light a convenient lie.'

Dorian shifted uneasily 'I would not go that far, Vel,' he intervened. 'Think of what you say about the Dalish – the fact that their culture is not based on literal truth does not make it less valid. It's the same with the Chant; perhaps it was not divine inspiration, but it was inspirational, and in the end, that is all that matters.'

'Very convenient if it inspired us to slaughter them, Dorian,' Lexi scolded.

'Let the one elf in the room be progressive,' Dorian muttered. 'Stay on the correct side of the racial divide, will you?'

'I am not being progressive, I am being impartial,' the Altus frowned.

'Under the circumstances, impartial is progressive,' Dorian said, frowning in his turn. 'Why do you think both Leliana and the Magisterium thought keeping things from Vel was a good idea?'

'Because they are unpleasant, elf-hating fools?' Lexi shot back, genuinely feeling irked on Vel's behalf.

'Leliana is not a fool and she is not an elf-hater,' Veldrin said.

'The unpleasantness still needs to be explained,' Lexi replied.

He liked the woman, and he had liked her from the very first moment he'd laid eyes on her; his love affair with Dorian Pavus was two years short of a decade, and he'd met her three years into it. If there had been a moment when he had truly been afraid of losing Dorian, it had been when he'd returned from Orlais with a wife; Lexi had recently married, too, but he'd thought Dorian braver than himself – they had agreed Dorian would not return from the south with the clap, but they'd not agreed anything on wives, thus Veldrin had been an unpleasant surprise.

Until, of course, he'd actually met her, considered her, then genuinely imagined a threesome. Amusing, expressive ears aside, Vel was a person to him…even though she was an elf. He'd never known her as Inquisitor, and she hardly looked stern enough for the title; the thought of her facing unpleasantness truly annoyed Alexis Hadrian.

Deviants, women and elves, he thought, need to stick together.

'You should not take unpleasantness so very lightly, Vel,' he said. 'You should not take being lied to so very lightly,' he added, aiming a reproachful glance at Dorian.

'I am not,' Vel sighed. 'I am here, ruining your night, am I not?'

'I don't mind,' Lexi said. 'There will be many other nights.'

She leaned back in the chair. 'Fucker called me the she-wolf,' she rasped. Dorian looked away.

'Who told you that?' he asked.

'Leliana did,' Veldrin answered. 'She did not say – my, it is nice to see you again. The first words she spoke to me in five years were that an agent of Fen'Harel called me the she-wolf, and that she hoped, for my sake, that I was no longer the she-wolf, because all wolf pelts, male and female, look the same in the dark once separated from the flesh.'

'Then, I come home to find Morrigan,' she followed, 'and also come home to the knowledge that the one person I trust is being as honest to me as the last person I trusted. And you, Lexi, think I am having a strop.'

'A justified strop is still a strop,' Lexi said. 'So, how are we planning to save the world? By fighting a god with a dragon?'

'Worked well the last time,' Dorian shrugged. 'Sadly, Corypheus was certainly not a god, and Solas was there when we did it – we might need to get a tad more creative.'

'And,' Veldrin cuttingly asked, 'am I to be in on this plan, or will you, Morrigan and Leliana plot in the basement, while I knit socks?'

The Magister sighed. 'This was not my choice of action, Vel, and if you must know, it was not Radonis' either; it was Orlais who insisted…'

'Charming,' the elf muttered. 'I see absence has truly not made Leliana grow fond of me.'

'Wasn't Leliana,' Dorian briskly refuted, turning around to look her in the eyes. 'It was Marquise Briala.'

'Briala?' Lexi inquired, frowning. 'What does Empress Celine's sweet-meat have to do with this?'

'No good deed goes unpunished,' Dorian said, reassuringly patting Veldrin's knee. 'Apparently, since the Winter Palace, she has taken a deep dislike to…shall we say, people she perceives to have ascended as she has.'

Veldrin shook her head in dismay – Dorian shrugged. 'Radonis genuinely likes you,' he said, 'and it was sternly made very clear to Orlais that the need for secrecy from you would end once Morrigan was found and delivered to Tevinter, barrel or no barrel. Briala took this to mean you are working Radonis on your back. Or on his back. Or both, and sideways.'

'Delicious,' Lexi chuckled, finding that Vel's ears had suddenly perked. 'So not only is our Vel sleeping with a god, she is also sleeping with Radonis? I am envious of your love life, my dear!'

'If I had one,' the woman sighed. 'I don't think Briala actually believes this manure.'

'But then…' Lexi began.

'But then she doesn't need to believe it to spread it,' Veldrin said, with a quick nod. 'She is not liked by the people in Orlais, while last I looked, I was still a bit of a Divine Herald.'

'The question being which god, of course,' Dorian agreed, 'but drumming up your Tevinter connections can only harm you.'

'Are there any people even left in Orlais?' Lexi asked, arching an eyebrow.

'Very few,' Dorian answered. 'Which is, of course, concerning, but also a blessing in disguise. The elven exodus was the singular proof we have that Solas is, in fact moving, other than Veldrin's word.'

'Which, as we see, does not weigh much with Leliana,' she said.

'No,' Dorian agreed, 'and the fact that Radonis likes you – us both, in fact - is a very sharp double edged sword. Old friends aside, my enemies in the Magisterium become your enemies in the Magisterium, as idiots keep mentioning my name as Archon candidate…'

'And I wake up to Morrigan,' the woman sighed.

'And you wake up to Morrigan,' Dorian said. 'The Magisterium is really rattled, Vel,' he followed, 'and sadly, in my opinion, they are not rattled by Solas.'

'Can't say I blame them,' Lexi shrugged. 'It's hardly like this wolf of yours is creating a massive hole in the sky for all to see and report on. The only thing he is, so far, is a threat to everyone's purses – Maker knows what would happen if the ladies who lunch of Minrathous have to peel their own apples.'

'Eh,' the Magister said, reproachfully eyeing his lover, 'you are really being too flippant. It's not apples, it's fields and orchards and mines; I am unsure how well your estate in Quarinus would fare without slaves, Lexi.'

'Or yours for that matter,' the Altus stung back.

'Very true,' Dorian responded, not taking offence for the natural state of things. 'The mass disappearances of elves in the south have already made us tighten our regulations.'

'With the obvious issue being, of course, how far further you can oppress the people before they rebel,' Veldrin sourly noted.

'We have plenty of experience with that,' Dorian said, dryly.

'You,' the woman replied, 'have experience of sporadic revolts, not a genuine uprising led by a figure who is regarded as a god. The last time that happened, you lost half of the Imperium and your own gods, and the world got introduced to the questionable blessing of the Chant of Light. Don't get coy.'

'Fen'Harel is hardly Andraste,' Dorian muttered.

'Indeed,' she angrily returned, 'Solas is hardly Andraste, since Andraste was an utterly unremarkable human barbarian with dangerous delusions. Solas, on the other hand is, at least, a very remarkable being with extraordinary powers, a ready-made army and dangerous delusions…'

'…and if you said that to Leliana or Cassandra, in the tone of voice you are using with us now, either would stab you in the throat.' Dorian scolded.

'Do I look like I care? Leliana knows my views on her precious Andraste well enough,' Veldrin said. 'I have not exactly gone out of my way to hide them.'

'He has a point, Vel,' Lexi said, softly. 'These are dangerous times to have opinions that differ from those of the many, especially if you are…'

'An elf? A mage? When is it a not dangerous time to be an elven mage?' she shot.

'A very special elven mage,' the Altus replied. 'I agree with most of what you are saying, but if you say it outside of this room, you'll find that you are not only a she-wolf and Radonis' pillow warmer, but a maleficarum. That Dorian is a maleficarum. That I…'

'Alright,' she said, resting her forehead in her hand; her ears were drooping once more, and Lexi felt sorry.

He stood and wrapped the sheets about his waist. 'Anyone for a drink?' he asked. 'Situation seems to call for it.'

'Would not mind one,' Dorian said, managing half a smile. 'Trouble is, we only have two glasses.'

'That is alright,' Veldrin laughed, 'I'll have the bottle.'

'Those are dangerous words too,' Lexi jokingly warned, as he filled his and Dorian's glasses. 'Just be careful you don't wake up in a Chantry cell, or in bed with this dragon lady.'

'Call the templars now,' Vel hissed, grabbing the wine bottle once it was in her reach, and all but making Lexi lose balance of the trey.

'Oh, Dorian,' the Altus laughed. 'I hope the dog house in which you spent the best part of your youth is still in good condition – I've an intuition you will move in there again as soon as I leave.'

Vel drank three impressive gulps before lowering the bottle.

'If I had had a choice…' Dorian softly said; unexpectedly, she caressed his shoulder and shook her head. In turn, Lexi sat on the floor joining the small huddle.

He did like the woman, he thought. Whether he liked her being so physically expansive with his man was an entire issue altogether – fortunately, as if he'd sensed Lexi's thoughts, Dorian lay down on the floor, putting his head on his lover's thigh, and Vel thought nothing more of her touch. She merely narrowed her eyes and looked at the bottle, obviously trying to see how much wine was left.

'I'm angry at myself,' Vel said, taking another big gulp. 'For not seeing this coming, and also…Also,' she followed, 'I think I sadly remember what you all forgot, and that my first contribution to your planning may not be easy to stomach.'

'Which is?' Dorian asked.

'That whatever solution Leliana and Morrigan think they have, killing Solas…'

'Would hurt you deeply, Amata, and for this I apologise,' the Magister rushed to reassure.

'There is no hiding that it would,' Veldrin softly spoke, 'and I thank you for your understanding, Dorian, but that is not my concern. My concern is the fact that killing him might be a terrible mistake.'

She leaned her elbows on her knees and put the bottle down; in turn Dorian briskly sat up.

'What do you mean?' he asked.

'Well,' the woman sighed, still not looking up, 'the essence of Mythal has survived for millennia, and it was the Evanuris who killed her. Solas himself could not kill the Evanuris, he could only banish them, so if we do, physically, kill him…I do not know whether we would truly be stopping him.'

'You are right,' Dorian dryly responded. 'That is not a very relaxation-inducing thought.'

Lexi felt less than alarmed.

'Let's think this panic through, Vel,' he said. 'You are an educated person, you cannot actually think he is immortal.'

'I do not only think he is one, I believe he is one,' Veldrin replied. 'He is one of my gods – an evil one by legend, but still, one of my gods. And that is why I am so unpleasantly surprised by Morrigan's involvement in all this; if anyone knows that that the elven gods, or…'

She paused to have another mouthful of wine, for courage.

'…or indeed, the first of my people, are immortal, it should be Morrigan. She has already killed Mythal's physical shape, and she knows that the physical shape is irrelevant. I even think Mythal took Flemeth's corporeal form to taunt her, and show her she cannot truly be killed.'

'Flemeth?' Lexi asked, frowning.

'Morrigan's mother,' Veldrin sourly clarified.

'Oi!' the Altus exclaimed, in sincere surprise. 'No wonder the woman is a dragon – if Dorian's mother were an immortal, he'd be the reincarnation of Dumat.'

'And if yours was, you'd be my High Priest,' Dorian smirked, drinking his full glass in one breath. 'Refill, Vel,' he said, stretching his arm out.

'What is this?' she bitterly chuckled. 'Do I look like an elf, to you?'

She nonetheless winked and refilled his glass – to Lexi's surprise, his lover finished the second one in one gulp as well, then, again, stretched his arm out.

'Refill,' Dorian ordered, looking like he had trouble keeping the last glass down.

'Slow down, Amatus,' Lexis said, furrowing his brow in concern.

'That's what I am trying to do,' the Magister sullenly said. 'Because, frankly, I am starting to get ahead of Vel in this, and I do not like where my mind is going at all. If Fen'Harel…I mean Solas,' he apologetically corrected, towards Veldrin, 'is anything like Mythal, then killing him will truly be most unwise.'

'And I am unsure Leliana and the Magisterium will accept that,' Vel sighed. 'Last refill for you,' she warned. 'I need to slow down to the point of snoring, soon.'

'Well,' Dorian muttered, 'there's this little magical chord in our bedroom, and it is tied to a little bell; if you pull it, someone nice miraculously comes upstairs and brings you wine. Get your own; I have some wolves to stave off the door, so to speak.' He ended, with a crooked grin.

Veldrin frowned. 'Such as?'

'Such as the fact that I have the very intimate conviction that Radonis and the Magisterium will only be too happy to keep a defeated Solas alive – which I would be perfectly delighted to accept, if it meant putting him in a gilded bird-cage in your chambers and making him exchange sexual favours for food. Sadly, I don't think that if they have access to an immortal mage, whose knowledge of ancient ascension magic is tremendous and who probably has the location of every world-ending artefact branded in his mind, the Magisterium will prove, eh…Much restraint.'

'That's not a very nice thought at all,' Lexi cringed, emptying his cup, in turn.