faderift | III. SEMI-CLOSED.

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.

'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."

"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?"

"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.

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."

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.

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.

There is a tense moment as Dorian flips through the ledger- but it is honestly better than Adelaide expected. Some care was given to the storing of his research and while finding every book he'd seen fit to pull from the shelves before he'd left may take some time, the bulk of it could be dome without harassment. He manages to be civil, Adelaide motions for the girl to move along. She has this.

What it is, precisely, she has? She isn't all that certain. But half of authority is pretending you know well enough what it is you are doing even if you do not; the rest is following through on that assumption.

Once they are alone she murmurs, low and not quite chiding. "Dorian."

That was inappropriate, you know better, what in Andraste's name crawled up your ass and died, this is a public facility not your personal salon- a myriad of options and precious few of them would end in anything but an argument. "What is this about?"

He has no particular desire to resume his research immediately, judging by the way he buckles the ledger closed again, but he is also reluctant to answer that question. If Adelaide hadn't shown up, it's probable he would have continued on his day and then reflected during a rare moment between 'hungover' and 'drunk' that his behaviour had been unworthy, and maybe wordlessly gifted the girl a pot of ink or a new pen, or something, and called it done.

Here, the mood motivating his behaviour still bristles through his nerves, and Dorian has to concede he does know better now rather than later.

"The short answer? I terrorise innocent library assistants for sport," he says, droll and sarcastic, a slightly caustic return to the usual. It's what will circulate, and it's what Dorian will let circulate. "The long, well-- I'd need a drink first." The invitation is so casual and flippant that it could just not be one at all, as if giving Adelaide an excuse to ignore it and end this cleanly. (Not that it might prevent Dorian slinking back to her later; he can feel the source of his personal misery like a wound that needs purging.)

"I am going to have to give you a low score for a distinct lack of amusing insults. You can do better than that." She's heard it, his talent for the wickedly and creatively perverse is nothing short of astounding- but it only truly works when there's some humor behind it that isn't malicious. Irritation breeds contempt and the last thing he or anyone in this library needs is a brooding Altus scowling at the library assistants.

Unless, of course, she left him with one of the Tranquil but that doesn't seem terribly wise.

"..." She could very well walk away, leave him to his misery- the situation has been diffused, she's done her due diligence, there is no cause for her to tend to his bruised whatever it is that gnaws upon him like a needling beast. He is not her student, not her responsibility but he is... a friend. After a fashion. That more than anything else has her sighing and motioning for him to follow her. "I may have one good bottle left."

This feels a little like he's following her with his tail between his legs, but he can't very well do much else when she meets him halfway and ushers him to follow with the word good appending promise of wine. Dorian keeps his notes with him to prevent further library mishap, and follows.

(If Felix weren't dying, perhaps this burden would fall with him. If Evelyn were still alive, perhaps the same could be said of her. Hopefully, Benevenuta doesn't fall off a rampart any time soon, or Adelaide trip into a volcano.)

It is a short walk to the room- her students within settling in for the day- Roul takes one look at her and one look over her shoulder before reaching behind a wooden case and offering her a leather bag. Within? Three bottles and two glasses. From there it's on to the vault- at this time of day it is quiet enough to earn them some privacy, with warmth they wouldn't have gotten in the garden.

Without further comment or question she pulls out two of the chairs usually reserved for meetings, motions for him to sit, and uncorks the first bottle. The glasses she fills a bit more than one normally would but- well. This seems like a particular sort of day.

There's a soft laugh slithered out between closed lips as the arrangement settles, but Dorian doesn't complain or comment in a way that might insinuate he is remotely capable of feeling awkward; he sits down with the languid possession of a large cat, tossing the leather-bound notes onto a flat surface nearby.

He takes the generous helping of wine in hand.

"I oscillate between being two kinds of drunk," he says. "Maudlin, and libertine. Given my proclivities, you'll only have to withstand the former."

"How good to know I shall only have to fear for Raoul's virtue rather than my own." Such things were not quite so uncommon in Orlais, nor were they terribly uncommon in the Spire. But perhaps there is a reason he opened with such a statement? She settles back in her chair, sipping from her glass of wine. "I had thought perhaps you and Benevenuta..."

They are often in one another's company, it is not so far a stretch of the imagination to assume the Northern mages of the Inquisition would find comfort wherever possible.

It would be impossible to exist in Skyhold and be unaware as to the difference in standards surrounding matters of sexual preference -- that being, no one seems to care. It's not an alien concept. Indeed, no one seems to care in Tevinter, either, save for if you're of a certain caste, save for if you insist on not keeping it in private, save for if you have no desire to live a life of lying, save for a great many other qualifiers that makes Dorian still feel a twinge when he outs himself to a woman who, like so many southerners, doesn't care.

He does have to smile, though, at this last part.

"She's a lovely woman, who'll terrify whatever man her family finally herds her into wedlock with. My family would still object to such a union, even with her titles. Bloodlines--"

He pauses. "It's difficult to explain to southerners, even ones with noble breeding. Especially, even, because you'd likely think you already understand. Marriage as a duty, good breeding, wealth and inheritance. Tevinter is another animal. I have my reasons for getting away, and this past trip to Redcliffe-- well, there, it caught up with me. I didn't expect it."

She could speak. Attempt to ask after the specifics as she, for all her noble breeding, is terribly removed from that entire world by the dint of being a mage; something that Dorian isn't spared in the slightest. Apparently it only makes things all the more complicated. But this seems difficult enough without her offering the opportunity for tangents and she sits back instead; listening. Much as she would for one of her troubled students in the Spire, though with a great deal more sympathy and wine.

There hadn't been wine for those conversations.

"An unpleasant shock?"

"My father had claimed to have sent a retainer to meet me in Redcliffe, and bring me to him. He'd asked Benevenuta to lead me there in ignorance, although of course, she told me. I expect that he had partway counted on that, because there wasn't any retainer. He was there in person. I might have been just as unpleasantly shocked if he'd arrived at the gates of Skyhold."

Dorian pauses, there -- maybe musing over that mental image, allowing himself a twinge of an almost-smile -- and takes a generous pull of wine. "I'd lost my temper, but endured the rest. To answer your question more directly, I suppose I'd been looking for an excuse to do it again."

His tone seems to recognise the shittiness inherent of that, even if the actual words don't shape out an apology. A vein of irritation still present.

"If you are going to snipe and harass someone after enduring that you may as well do so to someone that is more or less required to endure said harassment out of some misplaced fondness for you." And at the moment it truly is misplaced; she's been accused of being prickly and ill tempered in the past but at least she'd never had the gall to lash out at those that truly couldn't help it or had no means of snapping back.

Appearances, after all, matter. Even in the Spire.

Still. She tops him off before he's finished his first glass as that? Sounds like less of an 'unpleasant shock' and more 'ugly family reunion.' "Benevenuta had asked if I'd spoken to you; I suppose this is why."

"That's one way to look at it."

Losing his mind in the library hadn't exactly been a calculated choice, but he doesn't want to speak to it directly if he doesn't have to. Dorian tips his glass obligingly at the top up, watching the dark red trickle from bottle to glass rather than the woman doing the pouring. "Funny thing, he said we were alike. Too much pride." He looks back up at her, taking back his glass. "Once, I'd have taken that as a compliment." And sipping again, swift on the back of the last.

Not just any compliment. He'd have been stupidly happy. "I've disappointed you," he adds, a sudden shift of attention.

"I am often disappointed." She doesn't bother corking the bottle. Either he or she will have need of it and likely the other two before this conversation is over- another reason to have this talk in the vault. Less likely for them to be seen or heard before, during, or after their conversation. Gentler, in as much as she has the capacity for social gentleness and as much as Dorian would care for it (he doesn't), she adds. "As I have impossible standards, do not hold it as a badge of honor."

It doesn't make him particularly special, disappointing her, nor is it so great a failure that she'll hold it against him. He is human. A fascinating, wildly intelligent and charming human, yes, but still only human.

"Why is it, precisely, your father attempted to ambush you in Redcliffe?" As a Magister he couldn't very well come to Skyhold, that much she knows. But what had his business been?

Not so terrible, then. He can often recognise when he's gone too far with someone, usually when he's already sped across that line and waving them goodbye. Her humour is brisk and hard edged and Dorian is reminded immediately that it's among the things he likes about her. He can feel, a little, his own bridling loosen.

Especially as she eases the already difficult path and asks the question.

"He wanted to talk to me," he says, low, a little cynical in his mild disbelief. "And go so far as to ask for my forgiveness."

Which he hasn't given, if the pause that follows is to be of any indication, a pause punctuated by another sip of wine. "Bloodlines," he says again, looking at his glass of wine again rather than at her. "I've had a betrothal since I was born, a woman picked not for her assets but her breeding, to cultivate continued perfection." There's no trace of ego, there; a hint of distaste, if anything. "That's an old argument, and not why I fled south. When he thought I might make something of myself despite forever ducking that obligation, the letters littered with hints and suggestions tapered off.

"When he thought I was only going to bring about disaster for the Pavus legacy, he took matters into his own hands. The last I saw of him -- prior to Redcliffe -- was after his disastrous attempt to fix me."

She has students, here. Those she is beholden to, those she must stand before as a fixed point in this chaotic storm. Dorian has never been one of those people. Even at his urging for her to step forward and be reasonable he has only ever seen her at her most human. The fight, the garden, dealing with Felix. It is not so long a list of those she can be human around that she'd gladly drop one.

Aside from that he's terribly charming, in his way, and thoroughly intelligent. When he's not giving her some manner of headache he's more than good company and a source for decent wine.

She remains silent while he speaks- waits him out with the barest gesture that yes, she's aware, she's attentive. The weight of words is heavy in the air, the taste of them bitter- twisting to absolute rot at that last bit. 'Fix him.' The avenues by which such a thing can be attempted are few and far between but the most common-

"Blood magic. Your own father intended to use blood magic to fix you?!" She'd met his ire and he's seen her frustrated. Seen her angry with grief and fear; but this? A whole new shade- the temperature in the Vault plummets- frost coating her fingertips, winding her breath in thick clouds between them for the moment her temper well and truly spikes. It passes soon enough, but- "That absolute sack of shit."

Dorian has a famously good opinion of himself, never slow to inform people of his talents, his charm, his looks, his intelligence, and yet, while he doesn't so much as startle at the edge of her ire, the look he does lift back at her does seem a touch surprised. It should not be -- he knows how repugnant that southerners especially view such magics -- but

he's only ever told one person, and Benevenuta channels her passions differently.

His magics run naturally warmer, and with a little touch of good humour despite himself, he dances the fingers on his free hand, little flames encircling his knuckles as the warmth winds through the blanketing chill, even as said frostiness is on its way out, a strange sort of acknowledging mingling of one spell with the other. His mild show of magic dims too.

"He hadn't always been. He had always taught me that it was a low form of magic. A last resort of the desperately weak."

And he falls silent, at that, the hand he'd summoned warmth with closing into a loose fist as if literally taking reins of whatever turmoil is brewing beneath the surface. If only anger wasn't so exhausting, he could just be angry all the time, and not this. Conflicted in a way he likely would not be if he was the one listening to this, rather than the one being listened to.

"And he would be so desperate to change you to suit his own desires? Does he not know the risks involved- no. He is a Magister, of course he does, and he thought them acceptable." That does not do well for her opinion of the man. There are cultural notes here she doesn't understand, the emphasis on bloodlines, the perfect child; politically there is a bit of that in Orlais but the matches are made about influence rather than offspring more often than not and even then-

She is a mage. Such things are not her concern.

Jaw locked and teeth grinding she slips through her exercises, breathing slow and steady to center herself and draw in that chill. "He is the worst sort of fool."

The desperately selfish sort. Nothing good ever comes of them.

It's strange -- had Adelaide not understood, or attempted to defend Halward, well, Dorian would likely be angry and say the things she's saying now. As it stands, there is a curious urge to defend him. To parrot the unlikely claims that he had acted in Dorian's interest only. He manages to stop himself with a strange, abortive sound in his chest that might have been a laugh if he'd been in the mood for laughing.

"Better dead," he agrees, as to the risks, the knowledge thereof. "Or a drooling vegetable. Most men like me are content to do their duty, keep everything else behind closed doors. It's one thing to bed another man, but not done to love one."

He is silent, for a moment, then; "I didn't think I'd ever see him again. And I was prepared to fight whatever retainer he'd sent for me if necessary -- I'd been unprepared, the last time."

III. SEMI-CLOSED.

library. adelaide leblanc.

library. adelaide leblanc.

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