III. SEMI-CLOSED.

[liberalum]

WHO: Dorian Pavus and the continued adventures of less dashing people.
WHAT: After briefly reuniting with his father, Dorian returns to Skyhold to navigate the current local turmoil and not have feelings where anyone can see.
WHEN: The latter half of Haring.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: This is a catch-all for pre-planned threads, rather than open prompts. PM or plurk me if you'd like to do something!

Comments

courtyard. alistair.

[liberalum]

Since the beginning, Dorian has been sensitive to southern sensibility surrounding the best practices of mages and training their magic. He has no real desire to scare and intimidate (or give in to the strong impulse to do with regards to some) and has so adjusted; magicless staves training, silent glyph casting, sparkles out of view. And with the event of the Abomination having taken place while he was away, it would be imperative now, more than ever, not to test frazzled nerves by acting like a magister who can't resist putting his talents on display.

But today is not exactly about showing off, for all that it looks exactly like it.

The sound of the staff cutting the air is drowned out by the sizzle and zap of unworldly electricity, arcing off his hands and serpentstone both. Forks of lightning seem to spring wild, but are continually funnelled towards the practice dummy lashed to its post. (The Inquisition must go through so many of these.) Black scorches are blossoming on yellowed canvas, and licks of flame gutter and flicker under the onslaught of magic.

His movements are practiced, but not stilted, flowing elegantly from one manoeuvre to the next, if more than a little unnecessarily forceful, draining himself both physically and of that elusive energy that makes a mage a mage. The air is warm, agitated in feeling, and smells of ozone.

[byblow]

Alistair has always liked magic. Feared it, of course, because every reasonable person should fear something that can light them on fire at a distance without warning or opportunity for defense, but also liked it. It's interesting, and often pretty. He's been looking for Dorian with purposeful haste since he woke up--water downed, elfroot for the headache, a chunk of bread to settle his stomach taken on the go--but the display slows him down on his way across the courtyard.

Pretty.

The lightning, not Dorian. Or, you know, objectively both. Alistair doesn't have to like men to know what they look like. But it's the lightning he's staring at. Other than briefly scratching the constant itch of his curiosity, the delay allows him to wait until Dorian is in the midst of a particularly elegant swing of his staff to let his Chantry-honed willpower reach out, while he's chewing and swallowing the last of his bread, and cinch shut the open channel to the Fade.

"I need to talk to you," he says, and brushes a few crumbs off his shirtfront.

[liberalum]

The staff swoops overhead, a blur of black stone and wood and crackling light, coming down to swing on a pivot to throw raw magic aimed directly for the dummy and-- nothing happens. The familiar tug and pull of power hurtling through the staff is absent, unbalancing Dorian just enough that he staggers backwards, one arm flung out to stop himself from further indignity.

Disoriented, he turns to look once over the wrong shoulder, then back around the right one until Alistair comes into view. It feels a little like he hit the bottom of his well of mana earlier than anticipated, and for a moment, his eyes flash angry and indignant, and tension knots at his spine, drawing up his posture. Almost as if he expected a confrontation, and is good and ready for one. The hold he has on his staff isn't relaxed.

But then he sort of registers who it is. Not a Templar come to reprimand him, just Alistair.

He stamps the blunt of his staff into the ground to lean on, other hand planting on his hip. He glances back at the dummy -- variously scorched, still smouldering in some places -- and by the time eye contact is regained, a little humour has eked back in, on a delay. "You're far too late. He's done for."

[byblow]

"Not yet," Alistair says. "He might never be the same, but there's hope. I think."

This isn't intentional double-speak. He doesn't realize until he's said it that it might be, and then he makes a face to himself, a little wincing, while he gives his crumby shirtfront one last pluck. The good humor never left his face, even when Dorian looked ready to claw him or whack him with that staff, by some of it drains out now.

"You mentioned your friend was sick. Felix."

The dummy is done for, on second look.

[liberalum]

The good humour in Dorian's face is late to arrive, thanks to his already black mood and a rough joke twinging his sense of, whatever, control, dignity-- but it's there, anyway, around the time Alistair appears rueful. A raised eyebrow, bidding Alistair to get to the heart of the matter.

And then he does, and Dorian's expression doesn't exactly change, save for a slightly wintry quality to his grey stare.

Something's changed since they talked last. Or progressed, as it were. That, and maybe he gets Alistair's wince. "I wouldn't say it's his winning, defining attribute," he says, that frost laced in his voice. It's probably not personal. He levels his staff back into both hands, though neither end points at Alistair as he drops his gaze to study it.

Checking. Little tongues of electrical fork over polished wood and stone. "But irrevocably true, yes."

[byblow]

It's probably not personal; if it were, Alistair wouldn't mind. He watches Dorian's downturned face while Dorian watches his staff, with a removed sort of compassion--something he's only really capable of, that removal, when there's a layer of duty in the way. He likes Dorian, and he likes people generally, but he doesn't know Felix, and regardless, he isn't here to offer mercy. He can't save his life. He only might be able to take it for something more interesting than a pyre.

If he thinks that enough, maybe it will sound convincing if he ever has to explain himself later.

In the meantime, he settles his weight onto his back heel and crosses his arms.

"What would you say is his winning, defining attribute?" he asks. "Or his top three. Is he any good in a fight?"

[liberalum]

"Ha. No."

The blunt end of his staff returns to the ground in casual lean against it, and Alistair is once again rewarded with Dorian's focus as incredulity glimmers past the ice. "Not unless you wish to define a fight as his battle with what's currently killing him. A losing battle, but one sustained over years. Perhaps there aren't many men for whom that would be true.

"But put a staff in his hands and he's liable to sheepishly hand it off again. He's a mathematician and a scholar, but no battlemage." His head tips to the side. "Why? Are you looking for an adversary or a date?"

[byblow]

A brother.

"A date, let's say."

Mathematician and scholar--they aren't the least promising words. Not the most, either, but Alistair isn't really looking for a reason. Just an excuse. He never looks too thoughtful, even when he is, but there's a faint line between his eyebrows.

"--years?" he asks, late. "He's been tainted for years?"

[liberalum]

There's a pause, there, filled with the sort of look someone gives you that implies your curiousity is not only no longer welcome, but bordering on rude, although it's difficult to tell where the line was to be crossed, or if Alistair already crossed it, or if Dorian is just having a terrible day! The past compounding to a point of pressure.

Who can know. The point is, it's only a pause, as he continues on anyway. "His father became something of an expert in how to preserve human life beyond its natural decline when saddled with life-wasting illness. As did I. There are remedies, magics -- not of the blood kind, I should specify -- that can assist someone in living with anything for that long.

"But it was never comfortable for Felix. It was never about his comfort. He endured, more for his father than for himself. It was infuriating to witness."