A solid form arose from warm, dancing shadows caught behind the thin fibers of translucent drapes. One sculpted head, paired by round shoulders and a long torso darkened the divide as a dripping brown arm slipped through and dipped into the nearest basket for a fresh towel.

"You must be new, I just hope not too new. Perhaps all the rumors brought you so promptly. The lurid legend of Dorian Pavus must be astonishing, suspect to leave one quivering with anticipation. I dare say, every word is true." He chuckled, certainly pleased with himself, limbs limber and stretching in veiled display. "Sit while you can darling."

From the curtained bath stepped a man very different from the elf she'd abandoned in haste two levels below. Solidly human by ear and build, impeccably shaped, elegantly mustached, burnished skin a glisten, his black hair teased from beneath a small towel, another only marginally larger hung dangerously loose from his hips. Even naked, he glowed with opulence and privilege. Oil and candlelight worked their hazy charm, seductive even, under different circumstances.

Yet this second dweller also had her feet itching to run for the front door. A window would suffice, were any to open with a merciful gale, if it meant a prompt escape from the awkward and frightening situation.

"Speechless? Have I dazzled you already into a stupor?" With a haughty huff, he threw the towel he'd been drying his face with aside and in an instant the initial impassioned embers of his hazel eyes were blinked away, adjoined by an uncertain cough. "Well… they certainly don't send me people like you often. I think there has been a slight error with a few devilish details."

"What do you mean people like me, like elves?" Chiyo bristled, her rigid back pulled away from the door it had been plastered to. "And no one sent me, I came here of my own accord."

"Oh yes, it's the elf part that's peculiar. Ha!" The Tevinter man dropped onto the nearest lounge, more or less mindful of his devious covering. "You're cute. I'll give you that, not my type, though. Call it a… lack of substance, or just that awful coat as a turn-off. But I'm afraid there's no coin here to be earned tonight, my lady, as I have other arrangements and I never pay a professional in person. It's vulgar."

The short silence that spanned between them was bruising and terse as she processed his flowery words and felt the barbs hidden within.

"… a professional?"

Dorian, as he'd dubbed himself lifted a crafted brow. "A courtesan, harlot, mistress, embodiment of carnal desire. Don't play so coy. Smoldering temptress would be more becoming. And lace, not white. You don't have the posture for satin, it would wrinkle."

She'd been called many snide and rude things in her dispersed travels, but never once had her vocation been so offensively confused, "I am not a prostitute, Ser."

"Then what in Andraste's burning blazes are you doing in my summer abode at this hour?" He was already reaching for the nearest wall plate, probably to summon someone to escort her away—directly to the police if she had any inkling. His hand hovered above the button below the inset speaker, waiting for an answer.

Because you're hearing voices come out of your recorder, because a weird man showed you pictures of ghosts in the cellar, because you've lost your mind trying to advance your career, because if you don't get this one right you'll have to move out of yet another tiny apartment and probably have to live with your mother…

"I'm a writer, researching mysterious findings newly unearthed in ancient ruins." She couldn't lie, at least not with any poise or skill; the truth would have to be a good enough banner to fly beneath. "There's an interview I need that can't wait till morning. The photographer in your basement has information—"

"Solas? That dog, he didn't even tell me he was here tonight!" Dorian slapped his leg with surprise. "Are you his inamorata? I've never seen him with a woman, but what a terrible cover story you've concocted to hide your liaisons! Like he has any shame worth shrouding that would hold a candle to mine."

A hard blush hit her cheeks, standing scarlet against Chiyo's ashen hair and fresh tan. "I just met him yesterday!"

"All the better," he stood and meandered to his dresser, fetching a hung robe and slipping it on just as dampened decorum, at last, fell away. "If ever there was a man who needed a distraction from himself it's that one. His eyes look too long on the departed. A touch of real would set him right. Pictures simply cannot satisfy empty hands left wanting."

"Can we please talk about something else, anything else?" The elf pleaded, hiding her face behind scrunched hands at the first hint of revealed, perky cheeks and toned thighs.

"Only if you stop barricading my doors like an ill-placed statue. If it's ghost stories you actually want, you'll have to suffer through mine too. My steamy night shall not be the only one put on ice."

Sightless, she felt for a chair, afraid to peek beyond a sliver between obstructive fingers. Onto an overstuffed settee, Chiyo stumbled where she promptly affixed her blindered vision onto the decorative stitching on a pillow.

"Would you bring our furtive visitant up please, and some wine—at least seven years—while you're there. Send anyone else away. Thank you." Dorian lifted a finger from a button beside his looking-glass before he selected a comb to amend his wasted, sultry state of dishevelment. A touch of wax to the mustache and a dab of cologne behind the ear completed the ritual.

"So are you another pursuer of phantoms and detective of dreams like Solas or were you pulled into this web by mistake? The fellow finds the most unusual of company, but I bet the same could be said of our odd relationship." He stroked his smooth chin in the mirror, then, one by one, he began to slip the gold loops from his digits and ears. A plink and a ringy-wobble, each thin band was retired for the evening. "Now he floats in and out of my life, stories just tantalizing enough to keep me utterly hooked... Oh, could it be the scornful tale of a lady drawn by the pauper into a castle not his own? Falsely rich and dashing, she falls for the deception until the real prince returns."

"Like I said, it's just an interview," Chiyo assured as she studied the swirling beadwork until her corneas began to burn from the prolonged focus.

Another laugh, but this one sounded less the thrown dagger. "It was just a drink, a curious conversation over coffee, and now I have a living, breathing haunt of my own with keys to my houses."

Once again, without a knock or warning, the door opened and a sleepy guest was submitted by a pair of white gloves. The butler stepped in only to place the requested wine upon the entry table with the accompanying glasses. Short of even the shallowest of bows, he was gone again.

"Solas! Speak his name thrice and the specter appears." The eccentric gentleman set his hands to pray. "Though a little moaning or chain rattling would have been a nice forewarning."

Bleary-eyed and yawning, Solas rubbed his brow with the sleeve of his sweater.

"Was pulling me from bed truly necessary? I was going to find you tomorrow with new materials readied. Patience is not your strongest virtue and smudges on my prints are an unneeded signature to your patronage."

"I wouldn't have even known of your presence if you hadn't invited over the press to my bedroom in the middle of the night. What a state to be found in," Dorian pulled the wide yawn of his robe closed tight to his throat. "I'll never feel safe to undress again, not when just anyone could discover me so vulnerable."

Solas blinked and shook his head as if he'd misheard, but a slow pan of the room soon had his awakening gaze firmly set upon the uneasy creature hiding on the sofa. "Writer?"

"With a purpose this time," Chiyo waggled her fingers in meek greeting. "Although ending up in this… boudoir wasn't a part of my original plan."

"What are you doing here then? I thought you'd deemed me insane and fled back to the safe surety of your trackless words." His attention to her became speckled with curtness, there was a distinct soreness in his voice that the elf seemed intent on easing with a draught of wine. The cork popped free and a rapid glug marked the fullness of his glass.

Perhaps she shouldn't have been so haste to dismiss him after pressing hard for information. She could have just given him his film and moved on, the whispered words simply marked as poor audio feedback. Instead, she'd barged her way in and pried for secrets, only to refuse them upon receipt.

Chiyo slouched, sheepish for her rebuff of needled truth. "I needed someone to make me feel less crazy, actually… something happened after we parted. There's no explanation for it…"

"A change of heart," Solas knocked back a large mouthful, his throat roughened by the acrid liquor. "Or did a spirit whisper rude phrases in your ear?"

From her coat pocket she fetched the recorder, its light flashed blue like a dying pulse, power cells near drained. She offered it up by the strap, almost afraid to touch much of the unnerving little device. "Funny you should mention that. I think you'll find a segment towards the end rather peculiar. Don't waste the battery, I didn't want to risk replacing it."

Now he was interested, all past transgressions forgiven in an instant. Solas, with a quick exchange of hands, had a half-empty glass traded for the journalist's nifty tool. He fondled the buttons, unsure of which to press first. "Tell me plain, what have you brought me?"

"You captured a face," Chiyo locked eyes with a pair of sharper blue. Accompanied by the dark circles that hung beneath Solas' lids, weariness soon fled and was replaced by intrigue. "I might have snagged a sliver of their voice."

"Is it raunchy, like an eons old affair?" Dorian tittered, measuring out a drink to wet his tongue with though it needed no further loosening. "Or at the least earth-shattering. The dead shouldn't waste their time discussing anything less than the meaning of life and which nobles were sneaking side dishes behind their spouses' backs."

"Show me." There was a tremor of excitement in his hands as he joined her on the settee. "Please."

Juggling the glass, Chiyo showed him the tiny switch and adjusted the volume as high as it would go. Crinkling static emitted from the box as two pointed ears pressed in, joined by a rounder one who leaned over the sofa's high back.

Dorian puckered his lips after several empty seconds went on wasted. "I don't hear anything. If this is part of your game—"

"Shh!" The elves in his bedroom were quick to reinforce the silence.

Now that she was listening to it, the words were slightly less eerie the second time. Chiyo's heart raced regardless, though she'd never blame the proximity of the weary man beside her, only the exhilaration of discovery.

A soft male voice, hardly more than an audible whisper emerged from the static. "…ash'inan laim… lasa esh'ala itha."

"Someone's eyes don't… no, their ability to recognize is damaged… they want her to see… see what?" Solas had closed his eyes, focusing on the phantom speech and translated to the best of his knowledge. He stumbled, unmindful to that he was being watched, his own tongue snagging as he mouthed the words back, but it was a valiant effort.

Chiyo had seen it before, that same broken look about the face of an elder who reached for a term no longer there but the memory remained somewhere deep in their blood. The younger elves seldom bothered to try, perhaps too removed and unaware of what had been lost and how much had changed in just the last few generations.

"Leal banal'rasen sil o'tarem." A new voice, another one, deeper and more audible than the first. Chiyo hadn't heard it when she'd pitched the device aside.

"The… the darkness, it's… Oh, rasen, rasen, raaaasen…" The bald elf paused and pressed the recorder to his temple.

"Weather, or raining… or maybe it's…" Chiyo picked her own brain and found it lacking as well like the pages of a book long ago torn out and lost.

But lightning struck them both in unison and the answer came forth. "Cloud!"

"Yes, it's clouding judgment, they should alleviate the cause." Solas beamed and awaited anything more.

Dorian clapped, equally amused by their guessing game. "This is a fun sport, but I don't know the rules!" Once again he was hushed and preemptively filled his busy mouth with wine instead of more chatter.

The next bit was acutely heated and spoken too passionately for much clarity. A garble came first though the tail-end could just barely be made out. "—elvar'nas melanane tarsul em'an!"

"An evil has befallen." Solas was more confident in his choice. His knee began to bounce with animated eagerness; the tempo only grew with another long stint of static blurred muteness.

In her own heated excitement, overtaken by the energies vibrating through the room, Chiyo found too late the edge of the glass already pressed between her lips and the rush of pungent alcohol coursed across her tongue. Not to mention it was a glass used by a practical stranger, her face grew flush again… Perhaps there was no harm in it, he'd handed it to her absentmindedly after all, though there was a strange intimacy in the mistaken offer normally reserved for those closer espoused.

He wasn't Dalish. It shouldn't matter at all. Custom or not. Plus the wine was delicious, albeit robust. She steeled herself to drain the glass. There. Now he couldn't drink after her and she could put her mind temporarily at ease.

One more string of words had inked out, and she'd missed them to her own obtrusive thoughts.

"I do not… shall not fail or, maybe falter is more suitable in this instance. And the last word, brother, a strong male bond." Solas at long last opened his eyes again when nothing new emitted, he quickly found the marker to reverse the copy, intent of giving it another listen.

"Oh, that gave me the shivers." Dorian shuddered through his gleefulness. "Look at my arms, almost goose-fleshed! Now that is what I call riveting evidence! But how do we spread the information? There will be nay-sayers and calls for speculation, hoax and fraud come to mind…"

Strumming the bowl of his wineglass with the manicured edge of his nails, the Tevinter-bred man began to wander about his apartment, lost wholly to his verbalized considerations.

"Well…" Part of her hoped the lyrium would run out this time, least she have to relive again the preserved embarrassment. "I'm ready to listen if you're still interested in sharing what you know."

Solas' initial elation had begun to cool, now it seemed processing what he'd heard had taken over his faculties. "Somethings are best shown for what they are, there are few words that I can offer that would explain what has taken years of constant search into consumable understanding."

"You know," Chiyo relaxed into the comforts of her seat at last. "Someone once told me that if one could not explain something simply enough that a child could grasp it, then they themselves were the ones who did not wholly comprehend."

"That would be true if there was an exact science to what I do, but even now I must make guesses and experiment until results are achieved. This is not a field many come upon naturally." With a click, the recording resumed with its recount of notes made hours before she'd ever met him. Like a personal journal being laid out on display, Chiyo clenched her jaw and pleaded silently with the gods that nothing too embarrassing would come blurting out.

Maybe she could distract him, knowing too well the difficulties of talking and listening all at once. "Then start with how you came about such an obscure hobby?"

"I had a dream." His luring statement was too simple and innocent.

Following it was sure to be one hell of a nug-hole with unknowable twists and turns. Those were her favorite leads.

"Tell me about it."

Oh dear, it was going to be a long night indeed.