Sometimes it was easy to forget how young the Inquisitor really was. Few people probably even knew how young he was. In public the Dalish elf handled himself like a seasoned diplomat or a veteran general, not the young hunter who less than a year ago had known nothing of politics or war. All doubts and fears were kept hidden away, and there were plenty of those. So much so that Aldaron frequently threw himself into his work in an effort to prove himself worthy of the faith and trust so many had put in him. Or, currently, to win back some of the trust he had lost.
If you let him, Aldaron would work until he fell asleep at his desk or at the war table. If left to his own devices he frequently forgot to eat. So Dorian had taken it upon himself to make sure his lover remembered to take breaks and eat at least one meal a day. Sometimes it was difficult to get him away from his work, but Dorian was currently making a concerted effort. He'd already coaxed the elf away from his desk with a glass of wine and several soft kisses and had plans for much more when there was a knock on the door. Dorian planned to ignore it until he heard the door open and Cullen's voice call up the stairs, "Inquisitor?"
"Come in," Aldaron called back, pulling away from Dorian much to the man's disappointment. But the sun is up, and that means Dorian come second to the Inquisition.
Cullen reached the top of the stairs in only a moment. Dorian offered him an offhand greeting and stole the glass of wine out of the Inquisitor's hand before retreating to the bookshelf. He had been meaning to go through and get rid of all the absolute trash on these shelves. Aldaron probably wouldn't notice, and he wouldn't read most of these anyway.
"Inquisitor, I've just received the report from Wycome," Cullen was saying, but Dorian wasn't paying much attention.
Reports. This was bound to be dull. Maybe Dorian should leave now before it became awkward. He downed the rest of the wine and set the glass down on Aldaron's desk. "I suppose I should let you get back to work," he said, turning back around. "I've taken up enough of your terribly important time."
"No," Cullen's voice was sharp and startled Dorian into stopping as he moved to leave. The Commander cleared his throat awkwardly, "This should take only a moment," he said, "Then I'll leave you."
Dorian was confused. Cullen was acting strange. Aldaron, of course, didn't notice. He had already taken the report and was beginning to read it. Eager at first for news, Dorian watched as his expression grew troubled, and then downright horrified.
"No…" the elf breathed. His hands were trembling as they held the parchment. "This was supposed to keep them safe… Keep them away from the fighting." Aldaron's grip tightened on the parchment, wrinkling it, almost tearing it. Sharply he looked up at Cullen, face twisted with sadness and anger. "How could this happen?" he demanded with a ferocity that Dorian had rarely seen, "How could you let this happen?"
Cullen didn't seem at all shocked by this response. "I'm sorry," he said earnestly, bowing his head. "We… lost control of the situation. I accept full responsibility."
By now Aldaron had crumpled the report into a fist and was blinking back tears as he stared down Cullen. Dorian had no idea what was going on, but it was obviously bad. He never liked seeing his lover this upset. "Amatus?" he interrupted calmly before the elf could yell at Cullen any further. Whatever this situation was, he doubted that screaming at the Commander would make it better. It worked. Aldaron stopped, mouth half open, and turned to Dorian as though he had forgotten the mage was there. "What happened?" Dorian asked.
"He…" Aldaron began, possibly about to accuse Cullen again, but stopped himself. He sucked in a choking breath and blinked rapidly. "They… They're… gone," he finished quietly. His eyes flickered down to the parchment in his hand, now crumpled beyond redemption. "My clan. They're…" his voice hitched and he swallowed heavily. "They're gone."
Dorian remembered Aldaron telling him about his clan, and about the trouble in Wycome. He had a fairly good idea now what the report said. Dorian reached out a hand to his lover and the elf practically threw himself in his arms, report falling forgotten to the floor as he clung to Dorian's shirt and pressed his face into the fabric. Arms wrapped tight around his lover's shoulders, Dorian glanced up, caught Cullen's eyes and gave the man a curt nod. He understood why the Commander hadn't wanted him to leave, and was grateful that Cullen had stopped him. Cullen returned the nod gratefully and turned to leave, quickly leaving the room.
Alone now, the mage turned his full attention to Aldaron. The Inquisitor was trembling in his arms. Full body shudders from head to toe. He should say something, do something, but even after all this time Dorian still didn't know how best to handle Aldaron's tears. Comfort and reassurances were not his area of expertise. There was probably nothing he could say to make it better anyway. So he just continued to hold Aldaron close and rubbed his back in what he hoped was a comforting way. "Amatus," he said softly after a long moment of silence. "Can I do anything?" The elf shook his head without moving away from Dorian's chest. "Do you… want to talk about it?" the man tried.
That finally seemed to garner a response. Aldaron's grip on his shirt loosened by a fraction and he pulled away enough that Dorian could see his face. Though his eyes were downcast they were wet with tears. "I…" Aldaron began, but his voice hitched and cut him off. He took a deep breath, tried again, failed again, and spent the next several moments attempting to calm his breathing enough to speak. "You should read the report," he choked out eventually, and stepped out of Dorian's embrace. Dorian was reluctant to release him, but allowed his lover to pull away all the same.
Aldaron wandered out to the balcony as Dorian bent to pick up the forgotten report. It was crumpled quite badly, but with careful work he soon had it unfolded enough to read. He had to read it twice just to be certain he fully understood. It was a mess from start to finish. To say the Inquisition troops had lost control of the situation was an understatement. To Dorian it sounded more like they had never had control in the first place.
He understood, but he still did not know what to do to help. What do you say to someone who has just lost their entire family? Setting the report down on the Inquisitor's desk, Dorian followed the elf onto the balcony. Aldaron was leaning heavily against the railing, grip so tight his knuckles had gone white as he stared out at the mountains.
"Is it my fault?" Aldaron asked before Dorian could even attempt to offer condolences. The question caught the mage off guard. Aldaron turned his face toward him, eyes rimmed red and brows knitted together. He had calmed down enough to speak clearly, but was still obviously distraught. "I gave the order. They warned me that sending soldiers might just make things worse, but I didn't listen. I… I should have listened."
"No," Dorian said without thinking. "No one could have anticipated this. It's not your fault."
"It feels like it is," Aldaron's voice was barely a whisper now, and trembling as he fought to restrain his emotions. "I was supposed to protect them," he whimpered pitifully. "That was my job, and I failed."
"Amatus," Dorian sighed and took Aldaron by the shoulders, pulling him away from the railing and into his arms. Immediately the elf latched onto him again, arms around his waist and face buried in the collar of his shirt. "It's not your fault," Dorian said again.
The dam broke. The tears came with first a whimper, then a sob, a wail. Aldaron clung to him like a man drowning. He cried so hard his entire body shook. And Dorian let him. He didn't know what else to do, never did when Aldaron was in such a state, so he just held him for as long as necessary. When the sobs had finally quieted again to small hiccups and whines and Aldaron was shaking like his legs might give out, Dorian pulled him back inside the room and over to the bed. Aldaron refused to let go of him or move more than a few inches away, which made the trip a little awkward, but eventually he managed to get the elf to lie down in bed. Only then was he able to pry Aldaron's hands off his clothes. The elf was disconsolate. He wiped ineffectually at the tears on his cheeks and stared blankly up at the rafters as Dorian stripped of first Aldaron's and then his own clothes before climbing into bed with him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Dorian asked softly, laying down on his back and pulling Aldaron gently onto his chest. The elf shook his head slightly before resting it against Dorian's shoulder just above his heart. "Alright. I'll be here if you change your mind."
Aldaron did not get out of bed for the rest of the day. Barely let Dorian leave to find them something to eat later in the evening. It was only after many platitudes about everything will be fine, I'll only been gone a few minutes, I promise, that Dorian was able to pry himself away from Aldaron's side long enough to run downstairs and find a servant to bring them dinner. When he returned the Inquisitor was curled up in a tiny ball beneath the blankets, clutching a pillow to his chest. He ate only as much as Dorian was able to coax into him with soft pleas and murmured endearments.
Neither of them slept well that night, and the following morning left Skyhold on a mission to the Exalted Plains that had been planned for days and could not be put off for the sake of the Inquisitor's grief. Dorian had protested it vehemently while they dressed in the morning, but was pointedly ignored. In front his followers Aldaron was composed, if unusually quiet, and no one questioned whether he was fit to be leading an expedition out of Skyhold at the moment. Culled had asked if he was alright while Aldaron saddled his Hart, and the elf informed him curtly that everything was fine. He summarily refused to indulge any further line of questioning, and eventually Cullen gave up.
It took a full three day once they reached the Plains to sort out all the trouble with the Orlesian troops. The whole situation was a mess. "How is it that whenever we show up somewhere the situation is ten times worse than reports lead us to believe?" Dorian asked at once point. No one had yet given him an answer. Frustrating as it was, though, (all this trouble from one necromancer and a band of army deserters?) the action had been a good distraction for the Inquisitor. Since the news about his clan Aldaron had been despondent. It was not the same depression he had fallen into after Adamant. Certainly Aldaron was still experiencing bouts of self-blame for events he had truly had no control over, but there was nothing of fear in his behavior this time. No terrors, no mood swings, no sudden bouts of rage. Dorian might have preferred that, in fact. Aldaron showed no emotion at all most of the time.
The world did not allow the Inquisitor time to grieve the loss of his family, and Aldaron would certainly never allow anyone beyond his closest companions to know anything was wrong. Dorian was certain there were even people in his inner circle who didn't know.
Aldaron was very good at hiding his emotions when he put his mind to it. Of course if past experiences were anything to judge by the habit usually backfired horribly. At some point it became too much to hold in. Dorian had no desire to be again on the receiving end of an angry breakdown.
So when they had sorted out the mess in the Exalted Plains and the Inquisitor declared a detour to search out the clan of Dalish elves rumored to be in the area for once Dorian did not complain. Because while he hated trudging through the wilderness and wading through rivers he couldn't begrudge Aldaron the chance to connect with his people. And admittedly he was curious. Aldaron was the only Dalish elf Dorian had ever met. He told plenty of stories about life with his clan, but Dorian had difficulty imagining an existence so different from anything he'd ever known.
As they walked Varric was regaling them with tales of a Dalish elf he had known in Kirkwall. Dorian was not paying much attention. The Inquisitor himself kept jogging ahead, examining the ground or a tree or a stone. The Dalish were known for being secretive, but apparently Aldaron knew what to look for. Unsurprising, really.
Dorian could tell they were getting close when Aldaron seemed to get impatient with his companions, none nearly so good at dodging tree roots as he was. He would trot forward a few steps then look back at the man, dwarf, and Qunari trailing behind him, wait for them to catch up and then run off again. It was clear he wanted to race off down whatever path only he could see, but was restraining himself for their sakes.
They emerged from the trees onto a riverbank and it was The Iron Bull – perhaps due to his height – who spotted anything first. "That them, boss?" he asked, pointing downriver.
Aldaron's eyes went wide, he stood up on his toes, jogged forward a few steps and stood up on his toes again. "Yes," he said finally, breathless and excited.
Aldaron couldn't stop himself when he first set eyes on the sails of the aravels over the slope of the hill. There were so few elves in the Inquisition, and even fewer Dalish ones. It was with a strange mixture of joy and sadness that he hurried down the riverbank, practically running, and called out a greeting in their own tongue to the first elf he saw.
Over the past several days Aldaron had barely been able to function for all the grief in his heart. It seemed as though every little thing reminded him of someone from his clan, a friend, a family member. And then just when he thought the pain was subsiding it rose to the surface again, crippling in its intensity. There was anger there, too, at the humans whose own anger and greed had turned them on his people without remorse. He wanted to go to Wycome and find every single person responsible for the slaughter of his family, but he couldn't. So Aldaron had turned his anger on the demons and corpses and the men that infuriatingly called themselves the Freemen of the Dales as though this land belonged to them. It didn't.
And with his daggers drenched in blood Aldaron still didn't feel any better.
But there was a clan here in the Plains. A clan meant a Keeper. Someone he could talk to who would understand and who might know what to say to make him feel better.
At the very least maybe he wouldn't feel so painfully homesick.
This clan was small, that was the first thing that Aldaron noticed as he approached the camp. Less than two dozen elves, Aldaron guessed, smaller than his own, although Clan Lavellan itself was not particularly large.
He greeted the first elf that came within earshot, a woman who returned the greeting but looked at him and his companions with wary curiosity as they approached. Aldaron imagined he must look a little strange to them, a Dalish elf in shemlen clothes. He had grown so used to these clothes that he didn't think about it anymore. By the time they reached the camp proper it seemed the whole clan was aware of their arrival – not at all surprising – but the aged Keeper was the only one to approach.
"Andaran atish'an, da'len." Aldaron's heart swelled at hearing the familiar greeting, something he hadn't heard for so long. "I am Hawen, Keeper of this clan. It is good to see another of the People, in this place from which we all came."
"Savhalla, hahren," Aldaron replied in kind, nodding his head respectfully. "It's good to see any of the People after so long. Although, I was surprised to hear of a clan camped so close to the shemlen forts. Has the fighting been causing you much trouble?"
The Keeper sighed, long-suffering and tired. "Where do I begin, da'len?"
Aldaron could only imagine how bad it was here, with the shemlen war raging on their doorstep. They were lucky none of the soldiers had blamed them for the demons and the corpses and come seeking bloody retribution. Although as he listened to Hawen, Aldaron realized the situation was not much better. It also became clear that the Keeper did not fully trust him. Aldaron was one of the People, yes, but he stood here dressed in his shemlen clothes, declared prophet of a shemlen god, leading an organization founded in the name of the Chantry. (Never mind that the Chantry had declared him a heretic, never mind that he had denounced Andraste at every chance. Words mattered little to the Dalish.)
But even though he understood, it still hurt. The first of his people he had seen since this whole mess began and they didn't trust him. He wasn't Dalish enough for them.
Well, he would just have to change that.
And he would do it whether or not his companions approved.
"So we're doing what now?" Dorian asked, walking beside Aldaron as they left the Dalish encampment and headed out onto the plains once more.
"There's a number of elven ruins in the area; shrines to the Creators from before Orlais stole this land from my people," Aldaron explained. He knew he was speaking harshly, and it wasn't like him. But actually standing here, in what should have been his homeland, it was difficult not to feel angry. "Keeper Hawen says some of them have become infested with demons, and those army deserters-" he refused to use the name the group had given themselves "-have been squatting in others. We're going to clear them out."
"I'll agree with you on the demons," Dorian commented, "But I'm less certain these Freemen – or whatever they call themselves – are any of our concern. We dealt with that necromancer already, I imagine they're rather harmless without a head."
"That's not the point," Aldaron argued. Maybe a handful of deserters weren't dangerous when they were no longer being manipulated by Venatori, but it still wasn't right for them to be defiling sacred ground with their presence.
"Then, what?" Dorian asked. "You're doing it to impress the old mage? You've already promised them an entire camp's worth of supplies, isn't that enough? At this point it just feels like he's using you."
Aldaron grit his teeth. He loved Dorian, but the man was infuriatingly ignorant at times. He didn't understand at all. The supplies had been a gesture of good faith. The Inquisition could spare the few resources the clan needed to get back on their feet. This was to prove Aldaron's loyalty to the People and regain their trust. He was still Dalish, and he still cared about the plight of his people even if he hadn't had the opportunity to do much about it. Here was an opportunity to do something, however small, and he wouldn't let it pass him by. "If you don't like it, then don't come," he bit out. "I'll do this on my own if I have to."
"Leave him be, Vint," Bull cut in. The only one of them likely to sympathize; long away from his people and surrounded by a culture so very different from his own. "Can't you see he's working through some stuff? This'll be good for him."
"We've been killing these people for the past three days," Dorian argued. And it still hadn't helped. That part went unsaid, but Aldaron knew Dorian was thinking it. Perhaps the others were, too. Bull and Varric were perceptive; they had to have realized something was off with him. "Varric, back me up," Dorian requested, turning to the Dwarf.
"No, I'm gonna have to agree with Tiny on this one," Varric replied with a shrug. "You know how elves get about their ruins." Then he favored Dorian with a sideways look, "Or maybe you don't."
Dorian pursed his lips and glared down at Varric for a long moment, then turned away from him. "Well, I can see I'm outnumbered. I'll just be quiet, then."
Aldaron wasn't sure why the mage was protesting. Some misguided feeling of concern? Aldaron hadn't been the most forthcoming about his feelings, he knew that, but Dorian had to see that clearing demons and humans out of elven ruins was different from clearing them out of human forts. He was protecting the sacred places of his people.
He would have to talk to Dorian about this eventually, but not now. The man fell silent, as promised, and at the moment Aldaron was glad for it.
They cleared out demons and a small group of Venatori from two of the elven ruins without incident. It was not until they reached their third destination that they ran into trouble. The shrine was underground, cramped and dark. Not a good place for a fight, even an expected one. Five men in Orlesian heraldry were waiting at the bottom of the steps, an attempted ambush that ended very badly for one. Aldaron, moving at the head of the group, had expected to find people here, had been poised to defend himself from just such an ambush. At the first sign of movement he sprung into action, spinning out of the way of a sword and striking out with his own blade. This attacker was dead in moments, but the rest would not be so easily done in.
Dragonbone or not, the Inquisitor's daggers could not easily pierce full plate armor. The confined space did not allow for much maneuvering, either, which put Aldaron at a distinct disadvantage. Plate armor did, however, make an incredible electricity conductor. A shock of lightning from Dorian temporarily paralyzed one soldier and gave Aldaron the opening he needed to slide a blade into the space between the man's helmet and breastplate. Another went down with armor cleaved straight through by The Iron Bull's axe, and the fourth to crossbow bolts in the chest and neck.
Four bodies on the floor in steadily growing pools of blood. There had been one more, hadn't there? Yes. A rogue like him.
Aldaron's eyes darted from shadow to shadow, body tense still even as he heard the others begin to relax. They weren't safe yet. There! A flash of movement in a dark corner, moving toward – "Dorian!" No! No he couldn't loose any more people. He couldn't lose anyone else that he cared about.
Without thinking he ran for the man. Dorian looked shocked and confused, eyes wide and mouth open to speak when Aldaron slammed bodily into him, knocking the mage out of the way and off his feet. He felt his dagger connect with flesh where he'd held it out blindly in the direction of their last assailant. It was buried deep in the throat of a young man in Orlesian armor, too slow to keep from impaling himself on a weapon that appeared in the blink of an eye. Unnerved, Aldaron kicked the body away and took a step back. Then stumbled.
He felt shock more than pain at first. Off balance, lightheaded. Gasping, he staggered to the side. With wide eyes he looked down at himself. Blood was seeping through the outer layers of his clothing, staining the cloth and leather bright red around the hilt of a blade sticking almost comically from his side. But his mind could not register how it had happened. Then the pain hit, sharp and intense and burning, stealing his breath and making him stumble again. Daggers fell from his hands and clattered to the ground, but he didn't hear them. Pressed a hand to the growing red spot at his waist and then pulled it away to stare at his bloody palm in confused horror.
How underwhelming, something in the very back of his mind whispered. Explosions and avalanches and archdemons and darkspawn, and what finally did in the Herald of Andraste was the chipped blade of an army deserter.
He thought he heard someone screaming his name, but they sounded so far away. He could barely register anything except the blood and the pain. His vision began to blur, he felt weak, tired. Beneath him his legs gave out, knees buckling, sending him to the ground in a heap. Reactions sluggish, he was unable to catch himself and landed with a thud, skull bouncing off the stones. And then everything went dark.