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?"

gardens. marcel gerard.

[liberalum]

The striking of wooden staves is a regular sort of sound in the gardens, although one day, the gardens will become nice enough that someone will start objecting to earth being churned beneath the feet of enthusiastic battlemages-in-training. For now, Dorian and one of the southern mages who've been willing enough to learn to overlook the whole Tevinter thing are left alone, going through quick and practiced motions that seem equal parts dance as they are sparring. No magic appears involved, fighting only with ordinary staves of oak.

The other mage reaches out, swatting a solid strike to Dorian's ankle, and she almost seems to startle that the blow landed at all, pausing when he curses and hops backwards, as if expecting sudden repercussions. But the most she gets is a wave of surrender.

"Run along, remind someone else of their old age," he says, satisfied when she rolls her eyes, issues a small bow, and heads back towards where some of her friends had been watching. Of them, Dorian doesn't look, turning his back to gingerly head for a different corner, wondering if he'll chance his own attempt at a healing spell before his ankle swells up like a nug. There are shadows in and around his eyes, and this has been his first attempt to get back into the rhythm of Skyhold since returning from Redcliffe -- until now, it's been a lot of quiet reading, a lot of tending to Felix, and a lot of drinking until passing out.

Which probably explains today's slower reflexes.

But he makes for a handsome hangover victim, arms bare to the elements and otherwise immaculately groomed, save for the thin film of exertion damp on his skin. He is hard to miss, even for the uninitiated -- if 'the mage with the mustache' is a leading description, he is definitely that the most.

[slaveking]

Ah ha, a mage. A mage, Marcel observes, with a moustache. He's been cruising through various parts of Skyhold the past few days, visiting taverns (sometimes hungry) and backing out of brothels (too poor) and perambulating through the slow-growing market (also too poor— but he carries himself with sufficient authority that few minded him looking). By now, he's acquired a shirt that looks somewhat local in construction, to replace his cut collar. He even managed not to spill the blood of its original owner anywhere on it.

The jeans, though. If anything is going to mark him as an outside, it's going to be some combination of those, the mark on his hand, and/or his accent, when he calls out—

"Need some help?"

His long stride takes him into view, around the boulder he'd sat upon above Samoueth when they had talked about this very encounter. He has one hand in his pocket, but the one with the luminous mark across his palm hangs free. Despite Ariadne's warning across the talking stones, he continues to play it a little loose with his exposure as a Rifter. Part of this is, he doesn't think he'd be very convincing as anything else. The rest is primarily arrogance. "Where I come from, we respect our elders." His eyes are clear. He smiles. He isn't hungover.

[liberalum]

Dorian is surprisingly observant for someone who could be described as frequently up himself; he knows Marcel is a rifter on sight, even without spying the signature handglow or the queer weave of his trousers. This information doesn't seem to make him wary, but interest that is somehow also guarded seems chill in his expression, even though his mouth curls a crooked smile.

"I've turned twenty-five for the past five summers, now. I intend to continue to do so for many more."

He doesn't stop his pace, but it's not out of dismissal, simply finding a place to sit down and rest the deadwood stave next to him. Hooking bruised ankle up onto his other bent knee, he hovers a hand over it. "No need. Perhaps you're the one after some help."

Having heard the sending crystal transmission, himself.

[slaveking]

"I have been." That the mage heard his transmission is the next conclusion to jump to. Marcel slows his stride to watch him hobble around and find somewhere to sit, his brow slightly knit. He is mildly concerned that Dorian means to check out, after multiple warnings about the way people see Rifters here. Fortunately, those concerns are allayed pretty promptly. A smile digs in the corner of his mouth when Dorian settles. He studies the way Dorian handles his tender ankle.

There is something Marcel could do about that, but this wouldn't be the time. "Marcel Gerard. You fit the description for one Dorian Pavus." He lopes over to Dorian's perch, and then drops himself down a few feet away. "Maybe his younger brother." Marcel smiles, his teeth a flash of contrast against his rather dark complexion.

"I wanted to ask him about the war. Seems like a lot of people know the name of this guy you're all up against, but not a lot about-- what he is. And how that works." He makes himself look relaxed, letting his posture fall slack into a mild slouch. He rests his elbows on his knees and resists the urge to stare at the staff Dorian had left propped up nearby, even if it's long enough to reach him easily.

[liberalum]

Hand in place, magic is swift to follow. A faint green gleam glimmers over his leather-clad ankle, seeming to sink past the tough fabric and ostensibly to the bruising below. Dorian's nose wrinkles, and his fingers move; the next moment, a few runic symbols settle on the same spot, glowing blue-white, and a mild amount of frost colours white over brown. A touch of healing and a touch of cold, and he's done by the time the rifter has given his explanation.

Dorian turns a look back over at him, a little brighter than it was before, thanks to kindled amusement. "They also know he's a Tevinter," he says, "or that he says he is. And I'm a Tevinter. Surely, we must know each other, it's such a small country. Is that why you got me?"

[slaveking]

That word did come up. One that Marcel does not yet really understand, evidently. "Partly," he says. "I'm not sure. Mostly, seems like being a 'Magister' is a pretty big part of this guy's gig, and that seems linked to. Tevinter. Culture." Does Tevinter describe a group of people large enough to have its own culture? He'd gone for some hours thinking it was actually a surname, before determining that was rather unlikely given that Pavus was a few letters apart and naming conventions are fairly similar to the ones back home.

He'd asked around a little. Gotten some irritable comments about money and irresponsibility and corruption. The plot had thickened, in the days since he'd spoken to Samouel.

"You all get to live to be real ancient and super powerful, or is that just the Tevinter Magisters?" He juts his chin at Dorian's ankle, the most recent evidence that there's something to him, anyway. "You on your way?"

[liberalum]

"I'll likely walk again," is droll, settling both feet back on the ground and tentatively flexing his ankle. "My talents usually run hotter and scarier, but a little light healing isn't beyond me."

With that out of the way, Dorian can focus on Tevinter Imperium, 101, because it doesn't surprise him in the least that the rifter can't get a comprehensible explanation out of a southerner. "I will say that much of what we understand Corypheus to be is based mainly on what he himself has told us, and what we theorise about our ancient history. But let's start with a glossary, shall we?"

He turns his attention out towards the gardens, where another sparring match is beginning. Again, no magic is flung around, and it seems to clip at a slower pace than the fight he'd been engaged in.

"I'm a mage of the Tevinter Imperium, a country placed far north of where we are now. My father is a magister, which means he has a seat on the Magisterium, the upper house of the Imperial Senate. He isn't going to live to be real ancient, particularly when the life expectancy of a magister must have numerous assassination attempts factored in. Politics, you know. You'll catch your usual southerner calling any mage from the Imperium a 'magister' out of ignorance, and usually as an insult, what with us being so dastardly and so on. But otherwise, he and every other magister currently alive are as mortal as you or I."

(Funny joke. Dorian doesn't even think that he might be wrong.)

"Now, to speak of the ancient magisters. The story goes that Tevinter magisters of an ancient time opened the gate to the Golden City, with the purpose of usurping godly power for their own gain. Their corruption tainted the Golden City, turning it Black, and they were transformed into the first darkspawn and cast back into the waking world. Corypheus is one of these magisters, of which number seven. And all of this is the stuff of debate and mythology, you know -- the Imperium has its own version."

He tips a look sideways. "How are you following thus far? Tell me if I ought to slow down. Some of what I'm saying is common knowledge to the average Thedosian, and other parts obscure."

library. adelaide leblanc.

[liberalum]

There's a scuffle, going on, of the verbal kind, with Dorian's voice carrying more clearly than the other, female voice that seems to be aware they're in a library.

"They were right here, in a neat stack-- yes, I am quite sure. Just because you couldn't divine their order doesn't mean there wasn't any! -- Maker's arse, girl, I leave Skyhold for a week. What is to do you think we do up here? Read for pleasure? Yes, the Study of the Fifth Blight by Sister fucking Petrine is exactly how I like to spend my-- oh, don't start."

...and so on.

Someone is in a mood, anyway, and Dorian has the little library assistant cornered near the nook he so frequently occupies, which has, in his absence to Redcliffe, been tidied. Unfortunately for him, as well as the woman who has begun to look flushed and upset, and Dorian's flash-in-the-pan anger lapsing into exasperation. Which is probably not helpful, either.

He doesn't look over initially at the sound of any approach, although whoever was in the library before have since slunk away and scattered.

library. adelaide leblanc.

[fleurdesel]

'He seems upset' the Tranquil had said when he brought the beginnings of this tension to Adelaide's attention. Dismissing him for the moment to sort out where, exactly, he is and why he 'seems' upset takes long enough for the discussion to become all the more heated, for one of voices to lift and carry in a tight clip that is familiar for all that she's never heard him quite so frustrated.

Seems upset. Adelaide makes a mental note to applaud the Tranquil's capacity for understatement.

Adelaide winds her way to the argument in progress, stopping just alongside them to clear her throat. "I think she has had enough, Dorian."

He had asked her to be the voice of reason. It is only his fault if she must do so against him when he is, in fact, being unreasonable. "Let her get back to work. We'll find what you were researching."

[liberalum]

"That isn't the point," comes more emphatic italics, even as the young woman's eyes widen in thanks to Adelaide for being rescued from this situation. If Dorian seems ruffled by the intrusion of someone he at least makes motions to respect, well-- he was already that to begin with. "Hard enough to glean a single morsel of useable intelligence out of this dust trap, but now I'll have to start over!"

"Please," sighs the assistant, "Magister Pavus, I have your notes set aside, no one knew when you'd be due to return--"

"And I'm certain they're not all bundled together at random, yes?"

She goes a deeper redder, tips an apologetic look at Adelaide, murmuring something about how she isn't sure, she should go check--

"And it's Lord Pavus," Dorian adds, quieter but sharper. Some odd, wild nerve twinged badly. "Or Altus, if you're feeling enlightened. How many times do I have to shout it from the rafters until someone remembers?"

[fleurdesel]

"At this moment I'd be more inclined to call you Apprentice Pavus, as you are acting less like a lord or a respectable mage and more like a child." She has half a mind to tell him to sit in the corner until he stops sulking- but only half. Though it is edging to more than half the longer he menaces this poor girl. To her, she motions away. "Fetch the notes. I shall handle the rest."

The rest being Dorian and his foul temper, but so long as she looks at it as though she were truly wrangling an ill humored student and less an unreasonable contemporary, she can manage with some sense of authority.

[liberalum]

A sharp insult is enough for Dorian's ire to remove itself from the assistant and fix on Adelaide as he turns to look at her, gaze wintry and sharp, though he keeps it bridled-- at least until the assistant's removed herself from the area of effect.

His arms fold across his chest. It doesn't help his cause to be taken seriously.

On closer study, he looks exactly as overtired as the cranky child that Adelaide's accused him of behaving like, all dark circles about his eyes and with the extent of his energy funnelled only into argument, now that it's done, there isn't much left over. "It might seem silly to you, and everyone else in this decrepit ruin, but it's important to me."

[fleurdesel]

Without a witness requiring some semblance of professionalism, Adelaide relaxes her bearing somewhat. Staff tucked against her shoulder, eyes on Dorian cool and considering, brows lifted. Waiting for some manner of explanation as she's certain neither she nor that girl will ever be given an apology.

"Tell me when I said your research was silly and I shall apologize." She has in her own time been in his shoes, though it'd been less careful tidying and more mischievous peers that had moved her books and notes about. "You are overtired and overreacting."

Much like a child- which begs the question as to what happened in Redcliffe to leave him in such a foul temper upon his arrival. Not that he'd handle this with grace and poise under normal circumstances- but there'd be less arguing and more oblique teasing.

[liberalum]

The fight appears to leave him visibly, although perhaps not all of it; the squaring of his shoulders slack a little and his glance past Adelaide is indirect. If there's a genuine apology waiting for her or the assistant, it's knotted up in pride and whatever other trappings exist within him, and perhaps not yet fully quickened.

"You didn't," he concedes, after a moment.

Sure enough, the assistant returns with a leather-bound folder, of kinds, containing loose leaf parchment, which does indeed seem to be a little haphazardly stored away, but not without care. Dorian takes it from her, flipping it open, and though his jaw tenses in irritation, he doesn't renew the verbal lashing the girl appears to brace herself for. He glances at her and sort of sees it, and forces out a prim, dismissing, "Thank you," and closes it again.

She sort of looks to Adelaide to see if it's well and good to leave again before she'll do so, gladly.

mess hall. cassandra pentaghast.

[liberalum]

Usually, Dorian takes his meals up into the library and get scowled out for putting red wine in proximity of invaluable codices, or he might visit someone in seclusion for dinner, such as Felix, Adelaide, Benevenuta. Rarely does he deign to dine with the rabble. Maybe he is that snooty.

Maybe he doesn't mind others assuming he is that snooty. Regardless, today is the exception.

Cassandra's relative peace over dinner is thus shattered as Dorian sits opposite her, setting down the usual Charming Rustic Fare of brown meat in brown... brownness, and his helping of ale. There's a mild thump as something else is set down between them. "A little bird told me you were in the market."

It's a book, leather-bound, but cheap. The title printed is Passion's Blade. "That one is terrible in a manner I think you will particularly enjoy."

[cicatrices]

Cassandra seems unbothered by the brownness, mechanically slicing a chunk of what must be potato with the side of her fork. She looks up when Dorian sits and down when he plunks the book on the table. Her expression, immediately annoyed at being interrupted, darkens further and further at recognition first of the mage and then of his offering. Can the furrows in her brow grow any deeper? Science wonders.

She turns back to her meal, stabbing the potato with a vicious clank of cutlery on dish. "You were told wrong. I am sure I have no interest in such things. "

[liberalum]

Dorian winces, just a little, at the sound of Cassandra's fork scraping the bottom of her bowl. Meanwhile, he's all table manners, spearing what is probably lamb with his fork and slicing away a modest bite with his knife and using it then to gather brownness and-- oh, something encouragingly green. It was probably a plant.

"No?"

Freeing his hands once he's swallowed, he picks the book back up again, flipping open the cover to the little summary printed within. "'As the bastard nephew's daughter of the King, Avice has everything to prove. Although she could never compete as a lady of court, her skill with a blade is unparalleled across the realm. But everything changes when she is charged to protect the mysterious yet handsome ambassador of the enemy kingdom that she must make her choice: duty, or love?'"

He sets it down again. "Utter tripe, really, although I did find myself digging out another candle to finish it, somehow. And to think, I'll never get back those hours."