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“Monsieur Pavus?”
“Ah, Mother Giselle. To what do I owe the pleasure? Has my father come up with another plot to kidnap me? Or perhaps you’ve come up with some other way to get rid of me. Are you going to gift me a bottle of poisoned wine? I daresay that might actually work. I’m rather desperate for a proper drink,” Dorian replied as he repressed a sigh and leaned against the bookcase. Honestly, he was surprised it had taken the Revered Mother so long to come confront him properly.
“I have come to inquire about your dealings with the Herald.”
“Oh? Has the news already made its rounds? And here I was hoping that our weekly game of Wicked Grace followed by a blood sacrifice of virgins to the Old Gods would remain a secret for a while longer. How disappointing.”
“This is not a matter of jest! If you think that you can use your undue influence to manipulate him—”
“Manipulate him? My dear, I believe that is more your interest than my own.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing!”
“I’m being clucked at by a hen, evidently.”
“Don’t play the fool with me, young man!”
“If I wanted to play the fool, I could be rather more convincing, I assure you.”
“Your glib tongue does you no credit,” Giselle admonished just as Dorian caught the flash of metallic horns coming up the stairs from the corner of his eyes. He smirked.
“You’d be surprised at the credit my tongue gets me, Your Reverence,” he said lowly, more for the sake of trying to embarrass the Inquisitor than the Mother. He really did make the most fascinating expression when he was embarrassed, though he hid it well this time.
“Oh! I—” Giselle started once she finally followed Dorian’s line of sight.
“What’s going on here?” Kaaras asked, not that he didn’t already have a good idea. Everyone in the tower knew what was going on.
“It seems the Revered Mother is concerned about my ‘undue influence’ over you.”
“It is just concern. Your Worship, you must know how this looks,” she replied, and Kaaras had to resist the urge to laugh. It looked ridiculous, was how it looked. An escaped saarebas Tal-Vashoth with a glowing mark on his hand, acting as a religious figure for humans, whose only friend is a Tevinter Altus who ran from his homeland. And they were the only hope for being able to save the world, yet a Chantry mother with an Orlesian accent was spouting at the man about ‘undue influence’? There was no way Varric could retell any of it and make it sound anything other than completely absurd.
“You might need to spell it out, my dear.”
“This man is of Tevinter. His presence at your side, the rumors alone,” Giselle paused, and again Kaaras had to suppress a derisive laugh. What could the rumors possibly be? That he was a pet of the evil magister? If that was the case, Giselle had some serious courage to confront the man who was a powerful enough mage to leash a saarebas without anyone else noticing.
“What’s wrong with him being from Tevinter? Specifically?” Kaaras asked, though to Dorian’s ears, it was as close to dismissive as the Inquisitor could feasibly be without being outright rude. A rather nice play, he had to admit, but the Revered Mother was undeterred.
“I’m fully aware that not everyone from the Imperium is the same.”
“How kind of you to notice. Yet still you bow to the opinion of the masses?”
“The opinion of the masses is based on centuries of evidence. What would you have me tell them?” Giselle replied, and Kaaras was about to tell her that centuries of “evidence” also labeled all the Qunari as mindless brutes, yet she had named him their Lord and Savior for whatever reason, but Dorian spoke up first.
“The truth?”
“The truth is I do not know you, and neither do they. Thus, these rumors will continue.”
“Oh? I’d like to hear what these rumors are, exactly.”
“I… could not repeat them, Your Worship.”
“Repeat them? So, you’ve shared them before.”
“I… see. I meant no disrespect, Inquisitor. I meant only to ask after this man’s intentions. If you feel that he is without ulterior motive, then I humbly beg forgiveness of you both,” Giselle replied with a bow before leaving the way she came, and while Dorian was not fond of the woman, he almost pitied her.
“Well, that’s something,” Dorian said as he watched Mother Giselle’s retreat.
“She didn’t get to you, did she?” Kaaras asked, turning towards Dorian.
“No, it takes more to get to me than thinly veiled accusations.”
“You don’t think she’ll do anything?”
“Do what? Yours is the good opinion I care about, not hers,” Dorian replied, but Kaaras was still frowning with concern. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but the assumption in some corners is that you and I are… intimate,” Dorian continued cautiously. For Kaaras’s part, he felt the back of his neck warm in what was becoming a familiar sensation almost any time the other mage was around, even as he nearly laughed. Was that the rumor the woman was concerned with? If anything, such a thing could be spun as more peace-making than sinister.
“That’s not the worst assumption they could have, is it?”
“I don’t know, is it?” Dorian replied with a small smirk, and Kaaras tried not to roll his eyes even has the back of his neck burned hotter.
“Do you always answer a question with a question?”
“Would you like me to answer in some other fashion?” Dorian retorted, and Kaaras couldn’t help a chuckle. A chuckle which made Dorian’s stomach flip in a completely ridiculous way.
“If you’re capable,” Kaaras replied with what could almost be described as a grin, and then Dorian simply couldn’t resist. He stepped forward, reached up and pulled Kaaras down by the neck all in one fluid motion, crashing his lips against the larger man’s, and Maker he’d been wanting to do that since that first horrible, wretched absolutely wonderful joke back at Haven.
Kaaras was so surprised that he forgot to uncross his arms even as he closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss. He’d never thought… Well, he vaguely hoped in some tiny corner of his mind—sure, Dorian flirted, but that was just… The Maker must be real, because his lips felt divine.
All too soon, those heaven-sent lips left Kaaras’s but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes just yet, for fear that he’d just lost his mind completely, until Dorian spoke up again, his breath sweet and warm and still so close.
“‘If you’re capable.’ The nonsense you speak,” Dorian said, and somehow Kaaras managed to get out a coherent thought again.
“You realize this makes the rumors somewhat true.”
“Evidently,” Dorian replied before moving back towards his own little nook in the library. “We might have to explore the full truth of them later. In private.”
If the back of Kaaras’s face was burning before, it was completely set aflame now as he headed back down the stairs, not quite remembering why he had headed into the tower to begin with. His feet led him back towards his chambers and he walked up all the stairs in a daze, until the door to his room shut behind him. Then, a laugh bubbled up from his chest and he covered his mouth as he grinned to himself.
While he was in Haven, he had tried to keep as much distance between himself and the others as possible. He hadn’t trusted them and he didn’t want to get attached to them. If he trusted them and also became attached, it would have made their betrayal all the worse or would have made him have an even more difficult time leaving and be all the more guilty when they got hurt because of him. As an escaped saarebas, his trust had been betrayed too many times already, and he’d seen too many people he’d come to care about be hurt because of his own selfishness.
But then he was thrown into the future with a Tevinter mage with more charm in his little finger than Kaaras had in his entire body and he trusted him. He didn’t want to get close to him, but he was attracted to Dorian’s wit and charm like a moth to a flame. Kaaras no longer had any way to escape the Inquisition either, not now that he was the leader, and he had also come to trust many of the people around him. And between the massive forces of the Inquisition, Leliana’s spies, and a mutual enemy, he also felt that he was mostly safe from Par Vollen. Odd that Kaaras was safer with an “evil god monster,” as Sera had put it, after his head than he ever had been since his magic manifested as a child.
He’d been becoming content with his life, especially with having one person he could actually consider a friend, one person he actually trusted who knew where he came from. Flirting with the handsome, charming man was just an added benefit.
But more than that? Kaaras never truly gave name to any hopes that anything more than that was even feasible. After all, how long had it been since he’d been with anyone for more than a quick lay? A decade? That sounded about right. And for the last few years, he hadn’t even bothered with that much. Not since that one pretty bar maid in Ostwick tried to pull a knife on him the moment they were alone. Granted, he found out later from the city guard that the Qunari attack in Kirkwall had killed her sister, so she hadn’t exactly attacked him because of him personally, but after that, he realized it was just safer to not bother.
But now, for the first time in his life, he started to feel like he might not have to keep running. If he could manage to save Empress Celene and prevent whatever could allow Corypheus to create a demon army, if he could manage to defeat Corypheus and stabilize Thedas, maybe he would actually be able to call Skyhold home. Maybe he would be able to convince Qunandar that his place in the Qun is best served outside of it. Maybe he could actually know peace himself.
Of course, that would all take time and effort and there were more uncertainties than he could count, but for the moment, he finally had hope and was happy to just have a kiss.