Once upon a time, before the blight, even before his Harrowing, Widald Amell had tried to imagine his life and where it would take him.
His imaginings had not been filled with great expectations – at best he had imagined that he might be allowed to be a magical historian, keeping old knowledge from being lost to the sands of time. It was respectable, but… it did not qualify as a dream he yearned to fulfill. It was simply the best that life had taught him to expect.
Which is to say that in his wildest dreams, he had not considered freedom, travel, or adventure. He had never considered that common people would call him – a mage– a hero.
And he had never considered love.
Now he sat in his office, desk piled high with bills for repairs to the Vigil, complaints from citizens of the razed city of Amaranthine, requests and demands from citizens high and low, law books so huge and dusty that the Shapers of Orzammar would have been envious, and this was not adventure.
It was almost closer to being an historian after all.
But…
Stretched out on the floor by his desk using Dal's mabari as a pillow, Zevran held a book in one hand while he worked his way through the apple held in the other.
He was ruthless, he was conniving, he was not even human, and he was Dal's. All his. Body, heart and soul.
Zevran felt Dal's scrutiny and moved the book aside to smile up at him. "Are you well, my love?"
My love.
For a moment responsibility could go hang. He met Zev's smile with one of his own and nodded. "Glorious."