faderift | VI. SEMI-CLOSED.

[ The larger Inquisition camps are a bustle of activity most of the time, but none so much as before a battle is brewing. Tomorrow, the company will press on to Suledin Keep in the ongoing effort to purge this icy, ruinous wasteland of Corypheus' corruptive touch. For now, the sun is high in a cloudy sky, and training grounds have been segmented off and away from the rest of Cullen's soldiers, occupied by mages that duel with one another, share stories, repair their staves.

Oftentimes, Dorian manages to net some company -- from experienced apostates who wish to test their wild talent against his own refinement, through to young Circle mages who've never used magic to hurt anyone in their life. Sometimes he duels, often he teaches, but it's always training, always self-betterment.

He's alone, currently, but warming himself by going through a specific set of motions. His staff is polished black wood and serpentstone, and the air hums, a touch energised, at each measured, controlled swoop, making the shapes he will make in battle tomorrow, only picking up speed when momentum is called for, but otherwise practicing each one with slow deliberation. The dirt and snow beneath his feet scuff along beneath turning heels and pointing toes, and he is silent save for the swoop of staff through the air and the flap of black wool. ]

Edited 2016-02-25 11:56 (UTC)

[ Clarke has used magic to hurt someone, in her life. But it was a haphazard thing with no art, no precision, fire and blood straight from their hands. She was still an apprentice when the Circles fell, and she holds a staff like—

Like she pulled it from a corpse and was never shown what to do with it before she was set loose on a battlefield. Basically.

Like that.

She's walked by before, while he was working with other people, and turned her head to watch without stopping, and she's listened by the fires and learned that he's—she's told—a magister, which shouldn't make her feel safer but somehow does. Who would he be to judge. Not that she's planning to give him the opportunity. She watches now at a spectator's distance, with her fingers pink and chapped from the cold where they're exposed by her cut-off gloves and wrapped in a tight, amateurish grip around a plain, amateurish staff.

She waits for a pause. ]

Will you show me?

[ Dorian glances over, expecting to recognise whoever has approached him, and doesn't, thus netting her an added glance up and down that seeks out clues as well as such things as-- ]

Keep that level, [ he says, shifting his staff into an idling hold that is, nevertheless, more precise than the absent grip the young lady has on hers. ] Like so.

[ A tip of his head invites her nearer, into the vaguely defined space that constitutes the training ground. He's seen, by now, his fare share of Circle mages, young academics who are better versed in books and Chantry quotes than they are at holding the primary weapon that makes a mage, and so, he tells Clarke's story to himself before she can offer her name.

Not that he won't ask for it, too. ]

What's that you have to work with? [ The staff she's holding seems fairly stock standard, to him, but perhaps its imbued with specific qualities, cut from something that favours fire over water, ice over spirit. ]

[ Dorian doesn't look quite as wretched as he feels, only getting a double-take from those who might notice he hasn't been around for the past while. He has all four limbs, no drastic loss in weight, and he's fared better under the Western Approach sun than most of his whiter companions, gone a deeper brown as if in an effort to harness all that warmth he'd soaked into his skin. A beard is developing into a sleek, textural shadow over his jaw, the meticulous grooming of his hair grown wilder. His leathers are scraped and sand-raw, robe hem swinging above the clip of his boots as he roams through Skyhold in search of his friend.

He hasn't done much more than put his horse away and shed the ample furs and wools needed for the journey up the Frostbacks, and he scarcely gives notice to the large mabari dogging his heels.

That is, until he enters the room dedicated for dress fittings, and Max immediately rushes ahead, and Dorian curses lightly along with a missed, swooping hand for the dog's collar. Max is oblivious to the shriek of Orlesian dressmakers, dragging fabric out of the way of big paws and a drooling maw, one that attempts to press into Benevenuta's knees. Dorian stops where he is, regretful immediately, swiftly followed by a sense of resignation that this is happening in this manner. ]

( her first thought is a puzzled one; dorian, preceded at once by max? why is he not with hercules? he is so rarely far from his master's heel-- dorian with a beard, sun-darkened and not obviously harmed. well enough to come in search of her, and - )

You will excuse us,

( to the dressmakers, a frown developing as she lifts her gaze from max to dorian, a hand on the mabari's big head, light. her gown is half-finished; pins tack fabric in the underlayers in place, and she allows them to take it from her, holding her hand out for the robe she'd worn down to the undercroft over her corset and smalls. she and dorian shared a tent in the emprise; she is not particularly shy that he see her undergarments in the brief span of time it takes to trade one for the other.

when she's free of pins and orlesians, she holds her hands out to him. )

[ His hands smooth into hers, clasping gently with fingers and palms that have always been rough in the places they need to be to necessitate a battlemage's practice, but he is certainly in desperate need of a manicure. He might be mortified to notice later the little spots of insect bites visible as his wrist, but only dimly. ]

We last saw Hansen alive, [ he says, quietly. Max whines softly, which seems to touch a ripple through Dorian's calm, glancing down and aside at the dog. ] But in the custody of the Venatori.

We did try to pursue.

( she is so still, her hands in his; the weight of her fingers barely-there, almost limp, her expression unchanged and everything about her very - still. she doesn't suck in a breath or buckle at the knees or press a hand to her mouth, overcome; she stares through him for a long moment as if he isn't there, and does absolutely nothing at all. max nudges at her knees and her lips twist but if it was going to be a grimace or the preface of something else, it never gets there -

she nods, very slowly, and knows something of anger.

hercules fucking hansen is a warden. more than that, he is a warden of some years; doing stupid, heroic things is entirely in his wheelhouse. getting captured. of course. he will have thrown himself headlong with nary a thought to - he is not afraid, she thinks, and she could scream this whole fucking castle off its foundations with how angry she is that he has handed her that fear to carry. she didn't ask this. she didn't know. she hears we last saw hansen alive and some part of her seizes and she hates him, irrationally and immediately - not dorian.

hercules, who she has never yet managed to manage to her satisfaction.

if he dies it will serve him.

her grip - becomes a grip. and then becomes a bit uncomfortable. and then-- )

And the others?

( perhaps anders will have had the decency to die. )

They returned, safely.

[ It's not really said like he expects her to feel better about it as a result, only stating a fact. Beneath her gripping hands, his own are pliant, there to be gripped, and only curl in return as hers loosen again.

His eyebrows raise as he inhales a breath, and adds; ] Including the dog. [ Obviously. ] Although he's been in a bit of a state ever since.

Hansen's a Warden, and therefore, in a way, among his own kind. I have faith he won't have a chance to nobly sacrifice himself any further before we can talk the Inquisition into moving properly west.

( she does not feel better, but she absorbs the information. she could ask after the injured, but dorian is in front of her whole enough, and hercules is captured, and she doesn't care. the wardens can look after their own. they apparently love nothing better, so let them. she wishes them joy of it, the secretive bastards.

(later, she will remember that she doesn't dislike sabriel and inform her of hercules' capture; she will want to be kept appraised of what the wardens do next. right now, they could all march single file to the deep roads without turning a hair on her pretty head.)

she studies dorian's hands in hers. they need a bit of attention. moisture. a manicure. they can attend to that shortly. )

Yes.

( her voice sounds very far away. she feels a little as if she's underwater; she looks up at him abruptly, eyes huge in her fox's face for an instant before she shutters the expression to neutrality. and -

buries it in his shoulder. )

[ He's polite enough not to draw attention to her feelings, meeting wide eyes with a steady look of his own. Just because one person makes love to another person does not in itself connote love, not exactly, nor even generalised attachment, but it hadn't stopped Dorian from giving a particular damn as to the particular Warden left behind.

He's hopeless, that way.

Awfully, it seems as though he wasn't all the way wrong, but he can respect and understand the shuttering up. Perhaps they can have a drink. Or she can step into an embrace and his arms can slide easy around her, ahead of his thought process.

He sighs, just subtly, more felt than heard.

Men, right.

He's long since left behind the smell of the desert; there is, instead, the persisting dampness that comes with cold weather journeying, and also something faint, like old blood, and that elusive smell of storm soaked into his armors. ]

We have one of them in our custody, [ he says, incidentally. ] He'll either be helpful or dead, or both, by the time this is all done with.

( her voice is muffled, but not the malice in it -- )

Come, Dorian, let us not limit ourselves.

( the venatori can absolutely be helpful and dead by the time this is all done with, and if she is given an opinion in the matter, she has that one ready to be expressed in the very strongest terms. something upon which to work out some of the anger that she wasn't prepared for when she woke this morning and readied herself for a day she hadn't intended to involve this much -

whatever this is.

this is not how she planned anything. at least dorian is here. )

True! We could entrap his spirit into eternal servitude, find something appropriate out of one of those charming books you leant me. Make it do a little dance.

[ He pats her hair, absently detangles where one curl has gone awry. ]

The spirit, not the book.

[ He eases her back, with the hope of sharing a smile, even if it's like his, which is small, wry, barely counts as one at all. ]

We shall keep him in a jar--

( she allows herself to be moved, but does not smile. still, all is not entirely lost;

she presses her palms to his stubbled cheeks, eyes wide with sudden recognition, processing information she had a moment ago been far too preoccupied to take in, a small whistling noise of oh escaping her.

your perfect facial hair, dorian, what happened. )

Now, now, don't give me that look.

[ His hands lift to cover hers. ]

I've recovered from far worse. Besides, you should see the state of our dashing ginger Warden.

[ He draws her hands back down, and holds them once more. ]

Is there anything I can do? Besides dig up a nice robe and keep you in your cups throughout this soiree I've been hearing talk of.

( it takes her a moment to process that and realise he must mean alistair. hercules is not the only redhead in the wardens, he's just the only one she's immediately thinking of - and she frowns, again, but leaves whatever thought prompted it unvoiced. there are a lot of things, probably, that benevenuta is not going to say out loud, the next several weeks.

--and pulling a face; )

Keep me out them, Dorian.

( if she's just going to be a mean drunk, better not to go at all, but not going at all isn't an option. )

VI. SEMI-CLOSED.

inquisition camp, emprise du lion. clarke griffin.

bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

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dress fitting room, skyhold. benevenuta thevenet.

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