entrancelogs | [OPEN/EVENT] Time was thrown at the wind;

Entry tags:

[OPEN/EVENT] Time was thrown at the wind;

Who: Dorian Pavus & you!
Where: The gardens, then throughout the mansion and grounds.
When: 9/16 - 9/20
Rating: R, probably.
Summary: Dorian returns from his long visit home on the 16th, and is welcomed back by a nasty event the day afterwards. Splendid work, Wonderland! This log will have heavy spoilers for DA:I Trespasser, as a note to those who would prefer to avoid them.
The Story:

When Dorian awakes in the gardens, Dorian idly wonders if this is going to become a running theme-- for a few moments, he thinks he might be dreaming, but his memories of Wonderland come rushing back all at once. He'd only spent two months here before going home, if that, but those memories return as bright and vivid as though it's only been days since he left.

It hasn't. It's been much longer-- two years, and it feels even longer than that. 'Feels like ten,' he'd told Brennan when they'd met again at Halamshiral, forced to admit that after all that had happened, he felt old, tired, then quickly swept it under the rug with a series of jokes and irreverent remarks to try pretend the news from home didn't weigh on him quite so heavily. Brennan had known better, but he liked to think that some of their friends were fooled. Perhaps not. They'd all had ample time to get to know him, but it made him feel better, in part, to assume otherwise.

Once he regains his bearings, he's quick to make his way back towards the mansion. He looks different from the Dorian who had departed only a week before; aside from the change in his attire, he does look older, having gained a few more lines around his eyes, and his hair has just begun to grow out of the short crop he'd kept it in for so long, unkempt after the long, tireless haul through the Eluvians that still felt so surreal a part of him couldn't even be sure that it happened-- a small part, because the smell of blood and gaatlok and the bite of Qunari steel were too sharp in his memory to be anything but real.

He has to find Brennan. If Dorian has returned to this place, then Brennan must have, also, or so he wishes to believe. Too much has happened for them to be separated again now. Nearly two years apart had been trying enough, but now the Inquisitor needed his companions at his side, perhaps more than ever, and while business at home would be quick to steal Dorian back to Tevinter, here there was no such issue. Here he could help, see if Wonderland bought them more time to deal with this new problem that had been dropped in their laps.

On the 16th, he'll be quick to make his way to the room he shares with Brennan on the third floor, but can easily be caught making his way through the gardens or entrance hall before he reaches it, looking far more harried than usual. Later in the day, he can be found in kitchen or dining hall, and will be spending the early evening hours at a table in the library with a number of books laid out before him, though it's unlikely he'll be permitted to work late considering his week-long absence.

When the 17th rolls around, the curse will effect him the same as everyone else. The strangely darkened sky will catch his interest, and he's outdoors in the gardens when the curse itself strikes-- at 6:20 PM, he'll be caught in the downpour of cursed shards and the spell will take hold. He doesn't know many people in Wonderland well enough to have even minor grievances to be amplified-- but there are also those he does, few though they may be. To them, the curse will be especially unkind.

(OOC: Prose or action are both a-ok, I'll match you! If you want to run into Dorian on the 16th, feel free to intercept him before he finds Brennan or catch him in the evening in any of the common areas. For the Shattered Sight event, he'll be available throughout the mansion and grounds on various days if your character wants to encounter him, just put the location in the subject title! If you'd like to plot something more specific, toss me a PM or hit me up at

necrofancy.)

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Even if they'd never spoken of it, Dorian had knows. They all knew-- the story of how the Herald had been found at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had already been legend by the time he arrived, and that included talk of the Anchor's effect, the fact that it had nearly killed him before the breach had been stabilized. It hadn't been a stretch to imagine that the Mark could change and do harm once more, but they had all become so used to things as they were--

He had never given it much thought, to be perfectly honest, and whatever rumors he'd heard before now, it was something else entirely to hear it from Brennan himself.

"No," Dorian corrects him with a shake of his head, his mouth a grim, humorless line, nothing like what Brennan had come to expect from him. "He's returned, if only briefly. And it's not what you've done."

It was what he had lost, instead. Dorian exhales slowly, collecting himself.

"The Anchor was out of control. You were running out of time. I wasn't there when you went to meet with Solas, the rest of us were left behind, but when you returned-- the Anchor was gone, but your hand was too badly damaged to save."

Brennan goes still at those words, rocked by the understanding of them, and for a moment he couldn't breathe, something tight and choking gripping at his lungs. It struggles between panic and despair, a wave of grief that has him closing his eyes, hand spasming around the Anchor as he curls his finger into a fist for a moment, grip tight, white-knuckled.

Then he exhales, diverting his gaze across the room as he lets his mind wander past the sheer loss implied in that statement and looking for something else to focus on than what that will mean for him.

"He found a way to remove it," he breathes, sounding slightly wondering and slightly worried. "I didn't think it was possible. After Corypheus tried and failed, and then the orb was shattered... I thought it would be permanent. This... Maker." He trails off, running out of words as he lifts his other hand to rub across his face, overwhelmed by this information. "His timing is still as impeccable as always, I see."

"Perhaps he always knew how, he simply lacked the power." His frown persists, dark eyebrows drawn downwards, and he knows that they've come to a dangerous twist in the plot, one he simply can't keep to himself and yet isn't quite sure how to breach and give it the proper weight it deserves.

To be perfectly honest, he's still not quite sure how he feels about it.

"The Anchor," he begins again, his voice soft, his words chosen with care, "It was his to begin with. Solas is-- not who we thought he was, though it seemed that he never meant for things to happen the way they did. How much of that is true, I can't say. I'm not certain anyone can."

Brennan goes carefully still at those words, his hand dropping back to his lap as he gives Dorian a narrow-eyed stare. Things with Solas had been tense and worrisome ever since the mage had vanished after the fight against Corypheus, without so much as a goodbye or an explanation. He'd been trying to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but...

"What do you mean?"

"You remember that he told us the orb was an ancient elven artifact. The anchor was the key. Both-- belonged to Solas." He exhales slowly. Brennan will need more context than that, but there's so much to tell that he supposes he ought to just have out with it, let Brennan ask whatever questions might follow as he will. "He is none other than Fen'Harel. Responsible for the creation of the veil between the Fade and the mortal realm."

"Fen'harel?!"

Brennan absorbs that information with a shocked look, trying to reconcile the Solas he knew from the elvhen of legend. And he.... he created the Veil?

The Inquisitor abruptly pushed himself to his feet, rocked to the core and needing to move. He turns, pacing the length of the room, needing the motion to help him sort through the puzzle pieces that were slowly and dreadfully clicking into place. Solas's vast amount of knowledge on the Fade, on spirits, on ancient ruins and the misconceptions of ancient elves. The conversations they'd had about changing the world and the consequences tied into it. The words he'd exchanged with the Sentinel in Mythal's temple.

"Maker... How... How is that even possible? Solas? But he fought with us against Corypheus. Are you saying this... this was all his doing?"

It felt like a betrayal, one that rocked him to the core, far deeper than what he'd discovered about Blackwall when it was revealed the man was not who he'd said. But this...

It was not supposed to happen this way. Those had been some of the final words he'd said to Brennan before he vanished. He hadn't understood at the time, but now...

"I wish I could say with confidence that I had the answers," Dorian offers grimly-- there hadn't been time for the Brennan he'd left in Halamshiral to explain everything in detail, not with the pressing matters of his damaged hand and the council itself, but even if there had, he's not certain he would have learned more. Solas had ever been fond of secrets, after all, and his explanations were always conveniently vague to suit his needs, for as long-winded as they had the potential to be.

"What happened with Corypheus didn't seem to be his intent-- and yet I can't say whether or not what he does intend is any better."

"Do we know what he intends?" Brennan asks, pausing in his pacing long enough to shoot Dorian a searching look. Oh, the things he's going to obsess over now. Not that it will do him any good, trapped her as he is, his hands tied. At least he still has both of them to tie, he supposes, shaking his head with a wry grimace.

"Maker. Right when I hoped we'd earned a measure of peace for a while."

"We do."

And for the life of him, Dorian wishes that they didn't. He wishes he hadn't come back with this knowledge in tow, wishes he could keep it to himself, but he can't-- Brennan needs to know, and even if Dorian had tried to keep it secret, he knows he would have failed. Brennan could read him in ways no one else had ever been able to.

He exhales slowly, his expression remaining somber, brow creased with worry as his dark eyebrows knit together.

"He intends to restore the world as it once was-- by bringing down the Veil."

That stops Brennan in his tracks, his restless pacing forgotten as he turns and stares at his lover. For a moment, he's rendered completely speechless by the announcement, brain fumbling over how bloody terrible that would be.

"But he helped us close all the bloody rifts and they were bad enough! What does he think is going to happen to everyone if he tears down the whole sodding Veil at once? It would be..."

A disaster. Something that would make the Breach opening above the Conclave seem like a triviality.

He shakes his head, unable to believe it. "That can't be right, Dorian. Not Solas. Something must be wrong. He might be strange, yes, but to cause such unimagined destruction and chaos... I do not believe that of him. I can't. Why would he even want such a thing?" He loves the Fade more than anyone I've ever met, and the spirits that inhabit it. He's not only endangering everyone on our side of the Veil, but his companions on the other. What in the Maker's name is he thinking?"

"All I know is what you told me," Dorian reminds him gently, though there's a mournful note behind his words all the same. "I wasn't with you when you spoke to him, and there wasn't much time to talk due to your needing tending to-- but what you were able to tell me, you didn't seem angry. Concerned. Determined to stop it, but also determined to change his mind."

He frowns again, shaking his head once as he reaches out to lace his fingers through Brennan's, the warm, secure grip as much for him as it was for Brennan himself.

"The impression you gave me was that he seems to think he's righting a great wrong. Even so, we cannot let it come to bear."

Brennan frowns and gives Dorian's hand a light squeeze before tearing it free and going back to pacing the room, needing to move, too restless to stay still. He falls silent for several long moments, needing the time to piece through the information he's given. It's not like the reports he gets to update back home but this... this is more personal than any small problem he has to delegate aid to, or one he can solve with sword or coercion.

He doesn't know what to think of it.

Finally he stops and sighs, raking his fingers through his hair again. "Maker. What a mess. And there's nothing I can do about it either. Not from here. Not like this." He pauses then and turns back to Dorian, giving him an apologetic glance. "I'd hoped your trip home would have been one more pleasant than this. I'm sorry it wasn't."

Dorian watches him for several moments, leaning forward to clasp his hands together and rest his weight against his knees, considering. Was there anymore more he could say to make this easier to process? Anything he might have done better to keep to himself? He's certain the answer to the latter is no, secrets would do them no favors, and he owed Brennan more than that. For all they'd been through, he deserved better. He deserved the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

"I'm not certain anyone who returns to Thedas is in for a pleasant trip back home," Dorian reasons with a faint smile, only managing to be halfway teasing. "Our time here has put what our world has been through into sharp relief, as it were. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you." Because he would have wanted nothing more than to come back and tell him that peace had been maintained, that Ferelden and Orlais were rebuilding and stronger than ever, that the Inquisition was appreciated for all it had done.

"You're right. There's nothing to be done about any of it from here, but-- I thought you should know, all the same."

Brennan comes back then, sinking down onto his knee in front of Dorian as he catches his hands in his own and leans up to kiss him, his expression uncommonly serious.

"I'm glad you told me," he answers, giving Dorian's hands a light squeeze. "And I'm glad you're safe, relatively speaking. We'll figure out the rest. It's what we do, right? No matter what weird shit the fates or the would-be-gods decide to throw at us next. We'll handle it. In the meantime I intend to enjoy the time we have here, strange as that may be." He pauses, but gives Dorian a serious look again. "I am sorry about your father though, Dorian. I know things were still... complicated."

He comes away from the kiss looking almost wistful, his father's fate resting heavily upon him as it had at the Council, though here there was far less reason to lean on false optimism. He had done it there for Brennan's benefit as well as his own, but he wasn't certain he could do it again, not after all that they'd seen, not when his own future seemed such a small thing compared to what the remains of the Inquisition now faced.

"Complicated is putting it kindly, I think," he says honestly, withholding a sigh. "I never imagined that he would have left me anything. Not after all our differences. Head of House Pavus. Magister. It still doesn't seem real."

It was easier to focus on that, he thought, than the fact that he and his father would never properly reconcile.

He lifts a hand to cup against his lover's face, his gaze serious and sympathetic. "Maybe it was a way for him to try and make amends, one last time."

That was more optimistic than the alternative, that this was just another way to force the responsibilities and expectations he'd had on his wayward son in a manner that was far more difficult to walk away from, especially considering Dorian's feelings about his homeland.

"Does this mean you can't sigh heavily and scold me now every time I slip and call you a magister?" he adds after a moment, letting his tone turn teasing once more.

"Mm." It was a non-committal sort of noise; as much as he wants to agree with Brennan and lean towards optimism, it's difficult to be anything but troubled by it. In his heart, he believes that his father did want to mend things; their conversation in Redcliffe hadn't been under the most ideal circumstances and served to remind Dorian of why he was so angry to begin with as a result, but Halward, for his part, had tried.

It did not absolve him of guilt, and it did not change things, but it helped Dorian to remember the father who had cared about his son rather than his legacy.

"I was appointed Ambassador as a favor to him, you know. To make sure I was out of harm's reach for a time, I think, though I cannot say for sure."

He smiles after another brief pause; it doesn't reach his eyes, but he's willing to move forward with false cheer, to leave his mourning behind, if only for a few moments.

"Certainly not. I'll scold you all I like-- or do one better and refer to you as 'Inquisitor' in return."

Edited 2015-12-15 00:49 (UTC)

"Ouch. That's just uncalled for," Brennan counters with mock wounded dignity that lasts for all of three seconds before fading back into warm fondness once more. He hesitates, studying his lover for a long moment before reaching out and drawing him close. He knows logically that a hug's probably not going to fix anything, but Dorian still looked like he needed one. And he'd missed him. And Brennan never really required a reasoning for an embrace with the mage anyway, just finding comfort in drawing him close and wrapping himself around the other man, when Dorian allowed it.

He brushes his cheek lightly against Dorian's, exhaling softly, one hand stroking along the mage's spine as he wished there was something more he could do than just this. Some way he could keep his lover safe and protected - from anything that would hurt him. Not just physically - Dorian's defenses were already best against that, but these wounds were something different and far deeper.

"I love you," he finally states softly, seriously. For now, it's what he can do.

"And I you, amatus." He lets the embrace do exactly as intended-- an offer of comfort meant to center him, reassure him, and while it doesn't do anything to change any of what had happened during his visit home, it helps return him to the present, reminds him that he has not lost everything and that for now, there is no distance keeping him from the one person who matters most. While he refuses to let that inevitable distance break them-- it's one less challenge he's glad to do without now that he's returned.

He pulls back just enough to card his fingers through Brennan's hair, pushing it back from his face and gently tucking it behind one ear. "I wish I had brought you better news-- but I'm glad to be back here with you. More than I can say."

"The news can wait to be dealt with when we need to handle it," Brennan counters with a soft smile, turning his face into Dorian's touch, pressing a kiss to the heel of his hand. "There's nothing we can do for it right now, so it can wait. What matters to me is that you're here, and back, and safe. And I suppose I can get away with being grateful that, despite how unwanted our kidnapping might have been, at least this place has offered us a respite from home to share together in exchange for our presence. It's not something I'm going to waste."

"I knew I could count on you to take this in stride," Dorian remarks with a faint but genuinely appreciative smile, exhaling slowly. While Dorian himself was prone to fixating on things behind closed doors once they got serious enough that he could no longer play them off with his usual forced cheer, Brennan had grown quite practiced at tackling whatever their situation tended to throw at him, as well as accepting when something was simply out of their control-- as most things were now, with them stuck here in Wonderland.

Not for the first time, Dorian thinks that being 'stuck' isn't quite so bad-- and quite possibly not the right word for it.

"You were sleeping," he reminds Brennan, "And I'll admit, I'm overdue myself." Their series of skirmishes with the Qunari had been exhausting, simply put. "Perhaps we should relocate?"

Brennan was quite used to sorting through problems and separating them into categories of 'to be dealt with later' and 'messes I can fix now' - it seemed like most things fell into one of those two ever since he'd become Herald and problems had started landing on his lap on a daily basis. To do otherwise would have left him completely overwhelmed and never getting anything accomplished.

Wonderland, it seemed, was just adding new and interesting twists to his organization system.

For the moment, he just leans in and kisses his lover once more. "There's not much else for us to do about it at the moment and I can be content with that. And with what I have right now. At the moment, there is nothing that sounds more pressing on my agenda than taking you to bed and curling up with you there for as long as I can. So yes, a relocation sounds perfect. Come on," he adds, offering the mage a hand up with a fond smile before leading him off to bed.

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[OPEN/EVENT] Time was thrown at the wind;

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