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Archon's Balls be damned it was cold. Better off back in the north. Cozy Tevinter and the arms of some plump aristocratic idiot that his father saw fit to marry him off to. Anything, ANYTHING had to be better than this...waiting.Anything was better than the prospect of what the world would become without Him. If he'd known the Dalish came in such varieties of pretty as the Herald of Andraste he'd have defected sooner...no it would not have mattered if a dozen pretty elven men had paraded naked before him, he was lost on just this one.
"Cold...so cold...hand hurts...so bad but he couldn't take what was mine." The strange adolescent boy who had warned them of the Templar's attack jabbered.
Dorian had tagged along with the rest of the Herald's First Circle but had felt as alien as the spirit boy and not just because he was one of the hated 'Vint mages. As a lover of men, although not blatantly so, he felt he gave off enough signals that kept the women wary and the men moreso. Asides from Vivienne - she was so starched an upright he was glad he'd never met her back in the Magisterium else his father would probably have tried to make a match for him with her. Beauftiul as she was, she was old enough to be his grandmother, probably three times over. He shuddered. Cole continued to talk to him, but the boy made little sense and everyone was nervous of him, asides from Solas, but everyone was even more nervous around the Apostate.
"Can't someone warm these damn fires up." He snapped. "It is too damned cold."
"You could, your-dainty-arsed Lordship." Varric remarked dryly.
"Bah." He groused, hunkering into his robes.
"We all miss him." Varric added, a little more gently.
Not as much as I do. Dorian scowled at the embers.
"He is alive, just lost and finding his way between what is real." Cole laid an earnest hand on his arm.
"Would you just fuck off?" Dorian snapped.
"Hey! Let the kid alone, he's only trying to make you feel better, which, if I'm not mistaken, we were all trying to do."
"DIdn't ask you to." He grumbled.
"No." Varric heaved a weary sigh. "But I do know that you and Kae shared something and it isn't easy when that is gone."
"Like you and your precious 'Bianca'?" He hated being so acidic and hateful but he could not seem to help himself right now.
"Yeah, exactly like that." Varric muttered and turned away. "Maker's Breath you are a shit."
"That's Lord Shit to you, dwarf." but he couldn't keep a smile from tugging the corner of his mouth.
A cry went up at the edge of the camp. Dorian ignored it because there was usually some hoohah or other. Someone found a pebble that might be a sinister agent of the forces out to get them or something equally idiotic. What came of having so many people fleeing for their lives from a fucking archdemon and some horrific thing that everyone thought thoroughly dead. A slightly hysterical snicker trickled past his lips. His studies had shown him that death was something as easliy manipulated as the elements themselves.
Cole was scrambling to his feet, his preposterously large hat bobbing. Dorian flinched away as the boy clawed at his shoulder to gain his attention. "Dorian! He comes! He lives." He ignored the boy's ramblings but when the murmur went around the camp reached them that the Herald, thought lost. Dead. Sacrificed in order to save them all had just collapsed on the outskirts of their ruin he promised to listen more carefully to every word that strange spirit boy uttered from now on.
*
His heart was in his throat as he watched Commander Cullen carry the bedraggled and unconscious form of the Herald in his arms.
Pushing his way through the anxious crowd that surged towards their saviour, Dorian considered his status more important to the Herald than the former citizens of Haven so ignored the complaints and cries of umbrage.
"He is all right." Cullen gave him a kind smile, as if understanding Dorian's anxiety.
"He has no obvious injuries, he is just cold and exhausted."
Dorian indicated the spot by the fire that he had just recently vacated and with a gesture roused the fire up into a more heated blaze. Cullen gave him an appreciative nod and laid the Herald down gently on the blankets.
The mark was subdued but Dorian ignored it to take Kaelathras's hands into his, shocked at how chill the elf's fingers were, but relieved all the same that he'd been returned to him, was actually physically there now to touch, no matter how deathly cold.
After an anxious wait where he refused to reliquish his hold on Kaelathras's hands, the elf finally opened his eyes. Dorian felt his heart skip a little at the warmth he saw in his friend's eyes as he regarded him.
"Knowing you does not do my blood pressure any favours." Dorian complained. A little half smile touched Kaelathras's lips.
"My apologies," he rasped, "I was not expecting an archdemon to turn up and try to eat me."
"Nobody expected that!" Dorian scoffed, but he was unable to keep the tremble from his hands as he chafed Kaelathras's fingers in his.
"I was...scared for you." Dorian confessed eventually. "I worried that I would never see you again."
"I wasn't sure if I was going to make it." Kaelathras admitted. "When Haven fell I was very lost. I was not sure I was going to survive in the snow or find any of my friends again." Kaelathras tore his gaze away from Dorian's intense look and regarded Cullen, Josephine, Leliana and Cassandra arguing heatedly a short distance away. He sighed. Mother Giselle, noticing that the Herald was awake bustled over and all but shoved Dorian aside as she knelt to check on Kaelathras. Dorian made a face at the reverend mother's back, raising a smile from his friend.
"See, Sparkles, you got him back after all." Varric remarked behind him. He turned to give the dwarf a tight smile, in an effort to look apologetic for being such a bitch to him earlier.
As he glanced back towards Kaelathras, he felt his heart twist as he watched him struggle to his feet in order to intervene in his advisors' argument. Mother Giselle got the fraught citizens to sing a song together. Some old Andrastian hymn. Then Solas collared Kaelathras for a chat. Dorian watched on glumly. If he truly had Kaelathras back why couldn't he have him alone, at least for a little while? He realised that his motivations were not purely altruisitic. The sight of the Herald's tight ass and pretty face made him melt and Dorian knew he had quite the crush on their saviour. But as he watched the advisors continue to harangue Kaelathras with questions , he frowned. He could see Kael's already pale face turn even more gray and ashen the longer he was trying to stay on his feet.
Fuming, Dorian hurried over, seized Kael's arm and announced haughtily, "Right! That is quite enough of that! It is now MY turn to monopolise the Herald." The circle of advisors gaped at him in confusion.
"Dorian..." Kaelathras falters as he was hurried along beside the mage.
"Worry not, I am merely removing you from the perpetual headache that are your esteemed advisers who occasionally call you friend. They can jolly well figure things out for themselves for a while because you, my friend, need to rest."
Kaelathras gave him a grateful smile, "Yes, I really do."
Dorian sniffed loftily, gratified that he was right. As he settled the Herald back beside the fire, watching as the exhausted man drifted to sleep once more he made sure to snarl at anyone who would dare to attempt to disturb him.
And that was they way of things over the following weeks as Kaelathras, regaining his strength, used his native Dalish skills to scout ahead for resources and shelter. Each and every time Dorian's heart was in his mouth, but he tried to quell it. He could not afford to have such feelings for anyone, let alone a Dalish elven controversial figure. Dorian took it on himself though to make sure that the man these hundreds of souls relied on got his rest, plenty to eat and a break from his responsibilities, which usually involved fireside tales and ribald humour from Varric and the Iron Bull. And himself, of course, because his own debauched tales were the most entertaining. At least, that was how he hoped it was. For every tale of whoring or leaping out of some highborn lady's window he tried not to meet the elf's eyes for fear that he would know his lusty thoughts...