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No Biffy for the night. Dorian's research has come to an impasse. Darrow is one frustration after another, and though Dorian keeps a smile on his face, near day-in and day-out, inside he is clawing at the walls. As much as he tries to accept that this is his lot for now, he can't. Not when Corypheus is back in Thedas, oppressing and smashing and shitting all over everything with his great fucking dragon and generally being an ancient bastard shithead. One of their bastard shitheads.
Tevinter started the world down this path and Dorian will be damned if he doesn't make sure that at least one Tevinter is there at the end to do something about it. No more lies, no more obfuscation, no more the Imperium pretending it didn't shit the bed.
He puts his bed together. He gathers a shallow bowl. He uncorks one of the lyrium potions that he will need to find some way to replace eventually. Poured in, the dilute lyrium is silvery-green, glowing gently. And Dorian drinks it.
Dorian's eyes roll back. He slumps backward onto the bed; not death, but sleep.
His corner of the Fade rushes in to meet him, the walls go up on a great mansion, dripping in silks and gold, brightly lit, smelling of lemon balm and sunshine and the acid of the thousands of books that line shelves on walls and the heavy-lidded, sweet scent of red roses. Normally, his own little fiefdom could reveal great insight to Dorian; Fade-walking could not tell the future, but a well-trained mage could use it to his advantage in much the same way.
But something outside of the mansion pulls Dorian away.
He crosses the unreliable, barren void of the Raw Fade until he reaches the edge of something else. Deep, dark, heavy, ancient, powerful; moreso by far than his own little lordling's retreat.
He doesn't quite remember having completely crossed the boundary. This doesn't surprise him. Time, like all things, doesn't work according to anything so urbane as rules in the Fade. It's simply that, the next thing he knows, he's riding through a very old forest, blue-green and filled with moss and mist, on the back of a massive mount. It looks like a hind, larger even than the great lovely Bracelian that Dorian favored in the Inquisition. He's never seen this color before, though. A great white beast with antlers spreading like the horizon, flanks streaked with pale green. The same white as the robes swathed around Dorian's form.
There is a presence in the forest. Or more than one. Or the forest has a presence of its own. Dorian has no way of telling. But he isn't afraid, because the beast between his knees is not. It wears no tack, has no reins that Dorian holds. His wand rests in his right hand.
He wonders if he should call out into the trees.
The hind carries him ever onward.
Tevinter started the world down this path and Dorian will be damned if he doesn't make sure that at least one Tevinter is there at the end to do something about it. No more lies, no more obfuscation, no more the Imperium pretending it didn't shit the bed.
He puts his bed together. He gathers a shallow bowl. He uncorks one of the lyrium potions that he will need to find some way to replace eventually. Poured in, the dilute lyrium is silvery-green, glowing gently. And Dorian drinks it.
Dorian's eyes roll back. He slumps backward onto the bed; not death, but sleep.
His corner of the Fade rushes in to meet him, the walls go up on a great mansion, dripping in silks and gold, brightly lit, smelling of lemon balm and sunshine and the acid of the thousands of books that line shelves on walls and the heavy-lidded, sweet scent of red roses. Normally, his own little fiefdom could reveal great insight to Dorian; Fade-walking could not tell the future, but a well-trained mage could use it to his advantage in much the same way.
But something outside of the mansion pulls Dorian away.
He crosses the unreliable, barren void of the Raw Fade until he reaches the edge of something else. Deep, dark, heavy, ancient, powerful; moreso by far than his own little lordling's retreat.
He doesn't quite remember having completely crossed the boundary. This doesn't surprise him. Time, like all things, doesn't work according to anything so urbane as rules in the Fade. It's simply that, the next thing he knows, he's riding through a very old forest, blue-green and filled with moss and mist, on the back of a massive mount. It looks like a hind, larger even than the great lovely Bracelian that Dorian favored in the Inquisition. He's never seen this color before, though. A great white beast with antlers spreading like the horizon, flanks streaked with pale green. The same white as the robes swathed around Dorian's form.
There is a presence in the forest. Or more than one. Or the forest has a presence of its own. Dorian has no way of telling. But he isn't afraid, because the beast between his knees is not. It wears no tack, has no reins that Dorian holds. His wand rests in his right hand.
He wonders if he should call out into the trees.
The hind carries him ever onward.
