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WHO: Warden!Felix and OPEN. (Starters for Kaiden, Bruce, Dorian, Ellana, and Adele. If you want your own starter just ask!)
WHAT: Felix returns after his Joining and looks much better. Also he's hungry. (The Kaidan thread is during training, set before they return to Skyhold.)
WHEN: About a week or two after Felix's Joining.
WHERE: His training took place at the remains of Haven, the rest is at Skyhold.
NOTES: None yet!

Less than a month ago, Felix had been a dead man. Now, he's at least upright. Things aren't prefect. He still has the taint and he has the ever present fact of the False Calling to contend with, but he's not wasting away anymore.

People who had seen him before will know that he's doing better. His cheeks are fuller and he isn't stumbling. He's able to move without aid. Despite the less than perfect circumstances, he thinks it's wonderful. If it weren't for the fact that he was trying to put on a good face as the newest Warden, he might have tried to dance around like an idiot.

He's still acting a bit like an idiot, but rather than dancing he's trying to get food from the kitchens. The servants might be a little annoyed that he keeps pestering them, but at least he knows how to apologize and thank them. He pesters politely which is likely a nice change.

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Dorian can normally be found reading a book, or armpit deep in cataloguing. Currently, however, he is simply leaning against the railing, occasionally closing his eyes to the racket of ravens going on above. The circular library is a place of shadow and the quiet rustle of scrolls being unfurled and books being opened and shelved, firelight and filmy sun struggling through the thick windows.

He's starting to like it, actually.

But he looks up sharper than he would for any other interruption, pushing himself out of his slouch. He'd still been on an edge when Felix had first recovered, and Felix himself still sickly, and grappling with the change of status from mourning to anything else had been a trial. But this, with plainer evidence of improvement, and within the context of reunion, is more easily swallowed, and he heads on over.

"You're back," he asserts, sounding stupid and sunny even to his own ears. His smile is probably foolish too. Sentiment makes idiots of us all, but he'll allow himself the moment, setting a handsy grip at Felix's jaw and neck in a gesture of equal parts manful companionableness and study, fingers splayed. The other man's skin doesn't feel icy, or too hot, for once. "And you look so much like yourself again that I scarcely recognised you."

Felix feels calmed by the touch. It drives away any of the lingering conflict he feels about seeing his father. He smiles at the observation. He wished he could say that he felt more like himself as well, but the taint was still there, setting things to feel not right within him. That and the Calling, ever present and distracting.

Luckily, Dorian could be just as distracting. He reached out and put a hand on his friend's arm, then offered him a small half smile. It was more of an encouragement more than anything. "I'm almost certain I'm still me," he responded after a moment, teasing a bit. "I'll have to check the next time I'm near a mirror."

He still marvels at how it feels to say 'next time' and actually have hope that he'll be able to do what he plans. "In the mean time, I do need to discuss something with you." It was better to get to business rather than lingering and staring at Dorian's face fondly, though he was very tempted to do just that.

Dorian's eyes crinkle at the corners, but it would be kind not to point that out to him. His hand squeezes the nape of Felix's neck once more before finally releasing him. Public displays of affection don't often become him, and abbreviated though it is, Felix is an exception.

"There's no rush, you know," he points out, moving then to lean back against the railing that overlooks the rotunda. "No hurry to fit in every thing left unsaid in need of saying. We've our whole lives ahead of us. Granted, that may work out to be especially swift, what with our respective dedications to the protection of all of Thedas, and such."

And such. But Dorian tips his head. Listening, honest. "Go on."

Felix moves to rest by him, leaning up against the beams. He enjoys the easy affection. Dorian has never been afraid to touch him and that always meant something to him. Dorian meant something. Dorian will always mean something.

"I spoke to my father this morning. He and I both agree that it is inappropriate for a Warden to have a birthright." He reaches up and un-tucks the necklace he has worn under his robes for pretty much all of his life. This little token had such meaning to it, even though it was small and light to wear. It could get you things, even when tied to a home that was facing disgrace.

He removed it and bundled it into his hand before handing it over to Dorian. "The Alexius name doesn't have the weight it used to, but still - I want you to have it."

Dorian mostly takes it on automatic, even as uncertainty flashes through his eyes, an uncertainty turned down towards the token in his hand. The expected response is likely 'honoured' and probably, he will get to that, but the weight of a terminated bloodline rests in the middle of his palm, catching the light, and putting a strange new sheen on the thrill he'd experienced on seeing Felix upright and whole.

But that's far more important to Dorian than the rest, a fact he remembers quickly, and his hand closes around it. "If I must," he says, a touch of humour in his tone. Bittersweet. "They take their little secret Blight club very seriously, don't they?"

Sigh. But he nods, once. "Thank you. I'll look after it-- somewhat better than my own, I suspect."

"They do," Felix agrees, though he doesn't seem to actually mind. "Though given what they offered in return, I'm hardly one to complain." He is breathing, after all. That's far more important than anything else that could have been offered. He wants to make the best of it.

The final saying though, that has him a little worried. "What did you do to your own?" he asks. He knows things haven't been the best for Dorian since he and Felix's father had their fight. He just hadn't been in the right place to ask about it. He had been preoccupied by his own death, not that he doesn't have that looming over him, he wants to be there for his friend.

"Sold it for petty coin."

That sounds like a joke, because it's delivered like one, and is inherently ridiculous on its own, and Dorian's mouth is crooked-- but there's a steel in his eyes that is too serious, an edged annoyance, and something else.

"I'm accumulating back a little wealth to rectify the matter, as soon as I deem it worthy." His fingers splay around the pendant Felix gave him, and clench closed again as he lets out a sigh, unable -- unwilling -- to skip over the matter with Felix, while holding the Alexius birthright in his hand. "I was angry, and in actual need of the money, if you can imagine! These two things worked in fantastic concert, and here we are; my having not starved on the road at any point, and yet feeling a little foolish for it."

He tips his head, knowing he's leaving out details, but it's not in his nature to volunteer the entirety of a story in one rush of breath. So he adds; "At the time, mind you, it felt a little good."

It felt a little good makes Felix frown a bit. He knew that Dorian wasn't exactly on the same page as his parent, in part by the way that his father had found Dorian and taken him in. Indeed, Felix had come to terms with the idea that most altus did not have as good of a relationship with their parents as he had had, and that had been something he was very grateful for.

That said, it was still strange to think of anyone thinking that selling their birthright might 'feel good' unless they were doing it to spite their parents.

"Did something happen back home?"

"Come on."

Dorian pushes himself out of his own lean, turning his shoulder to Felix to lead him away. Eye contact broken clean, even if his expression doesn't change with exception to the fine lines softer at his eyes. "If we're going to talk about home while the sun's still out, we might as well do so beneath it. There's a balcony this way."

And it's away from anyone who might listen in. They might not even care, but the idea of any part of this being absorbed by anyone he doesn't intend to hear it is too mortifying to consider.

Felix understands Dorian's desire for privacy so he follows without complaint. Honestly, he likes the sunlight just fine. He especially enjoys it now.

When they get to the balcony he gives Dorian whatever time he needs to speak. He ends up cleaning against the balcony edge for a bit, just enjoying the fact that he's outside, that the sun is shining, that he's with someone he cares for dearly.

His expression is open and waiting because he thinks Dorian might not respond well to an expression of the worry Felix feels in his chest.

By the time they've left the shadowy library, the Alexius birthright had disappeared. Slipped into a pocket, out of the way, leaving Dorian's hands free to find the stony ledge of the balcony. His hands are free of jewelry, save for one black ring that doesn't take a lot of inspection to judge is polished wood, set with gleaming serpentstone. He sold a lot of things before he sold his birthright.

Which was as economically savvy as it was sentimental. "You remember the last time I spoke to your father, before Redcliffe," he says. "And how he and I fought."

And then Dorian had left.

"I never returned to Minrathous, after that. Nor went home, again. I tried to disappear, much in the same way I had tried when Gereon found me that first time. Silly thing," he says, contemplatively, "to imagine anyone of any blood can just disappear in Tevinter."

Felix moved a little closer as Dorian spoke. He was silent and he didn't try to touch Dorian just yet, even when the desire to reach out and place his hand on his arm was there.

He didn't want Dorian to respond to sympathy by retreating. For now, he's open, and listening. He can guess where this is going and he wants to give Dorian the space he needs to say it.

"And we couldn't have that, could we? No, too much at stake to just leave it be."

He is aware of Felix's silence, as aware as he might be of a hand placed on his shoulder, but silence can't be shaken off. It opens itself up to be filled with words. Dorian addresses the view, rather than the man at his side.

"He-- my father," he supplies, patiently, a momentarily lapse in pretending he's not soliloquising to the cold, impassive mountain range beyond, "he had me taken back to Qarinus. It was a struggle, and it wasn't pretty, nor particularly dignified. But he had a plan, this time, where words had failed him before. He intended to use blood magic in an effort to alter me."

It still doesn't sound like a real thing to say. It's perverse, and in a sense, shameful -- not just on Halward's behalf, but Dorian's. But he's had practice in turning that edge of anger outward, directed where it's appropriate, but less practice in confessing it to a third party. His voice is steady, but heartbreak puts a raw edge on it.

"If he couldn't make me listen to reason, he could at least change my proclivities and secure the marriage he'd been planning since before my birth. Fulfil at least one of the tasks set out for me."

Felix's reaction in immediate his eyes widen a bit and he feels as if there's some kind of vice gripping his chest. Blood magic? All because he couldn't accept Dorian for who he was? It's horrifying, even more when you know all that could go wrong with such a thing.

Felix is well aware of how Tevinter works. He's been aware ever since his grandfather tried to have him assassinated for the crime of being a weak mage. But somehow he had thought Halward above all of that, maybe because Gereon had been his friend.

But then, Gereon had fallen far too. At least he would never resort to blood magic.

"Dorian..." Felix says and then he does close the gap between them and put a hand on his friend's arm. "That's horrible. I'm so sorry you had to face that alone."

"Ha, well. I'd have hated for anyone to have been party to it, so there is that."

But there's no shrugging away Felix's hand. It would be a hypocritical thing to play at being above such gestures after years of Felix being at the mercy of his own sickness where Dorian could see, and so, his hand rests over the other man's knuckles in acknowledgement, even if he isn't looking.

"It told me well enough where his priorities lay, at any rate. I've only met with him once since then -- somewhat recently, but you were-- I would have told you, but you were ill. I didn't want something like that to be among the last things we spoke about. And I know how you are; you worry."

"I do worry," Felix responds. He squeezes Dorian very lightly, just to make a point of showing that he's there. "You are worth worrying about."

He still can't believe Halward would have done such a thing. It makes him angry and frustrated. Even the best among them fall to the temptations. His father had done it, and now he found that Dorian's had as well. The best they could do was try to be better than their parents.

"It's probably best I wasn't there. I would have tried to hit him. That would have caused me to pass out from the strain and then you would have been the one worrying." A pause. "Please tell me that you didn't go alone. There had to have been someone with you." At least to make sure there was no longer a danger.

It's these little moments where Dorian wonders about whether he ought to have fallen in love with Felix properly, quickly followed by another little moment of berating himself for getting starry eyed over men with nice jaw lines telling him he's worth anything at all. All the same, his posture loses just a touch more tension, and there's a fond glance spilled Felix's way.

"No, no. He took care of that well enough. He contacted an acquaintance of mine here in Skyhold -- a noble girl," she's literally his age, "Lady Thevenet, whom he tried to convince to lie to me about the circumstances of the meeting. She didn't, obviously, but we both went anyway. We expected to meet a retainer, but he came all this way in person."

This is the bit where he relates what happened, but Dorian hesitates over it. Mixed feelings war amongst themselves.

"He said he had only wanted me to be happy," is said, with enough irony and eyeroll to make clear where Dorian's feelings on that lie.

"You can be happy as you are," Felix responds. He relaxes as well as Dorian explains he wasn't alone. If he had had access to his wealth he would have wanted to buy Lady Thevenet a gift of some kind. He was glad that Dorian had friends who would look out for him, though it was hardly surprising. Dorian was charming, as well he knew.

"I know everyone wants you to think otherwise, but you can be. You deserve to be. To the Void with anyone who disagrees." That's probably the strongest language that Felix allows himself, but he feels this so deeply and completely.

"He needs to learn that and leave you to it. Not try to change you."

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