these newer low-key type promos seem to do well lately so uh like or reblog if you’d like to write with queen berúthiel of tolkien’s legendarium. indie, selective, slow as fuck. dragon age, modern, dark tower, asoiaf verses available; very crossover friendly, multiverse + multiship, ten strange cats. of age + not the least bit a new blog to tumblr. (est. march 2013, so basically ancient by tumblr standards)
Dorian could not have hurt him more in that moment even if he had turned and struck him. He barely even acknowledged his words, simply pulled away his hand and turned his back on him. As though Fenris was insignificant. As if he were nothing more than a slave.
It was not the first time that Dorian had spoken to him like this, for they had gone over their lines, practicing for hours in the privacy of Dorian’s estate, making certain that their act was a perfect thing; but it had always come with warning and preparation, with kisses and jokes to ease the memories that the both of them circled like wary strays. He had not until now seen the true face of Dorian’s mask, and the sight of it was a horrible thing indeed.
And Fenris should have expected it. He had already been prepared to remove his hand, knowing that their privacy would soon be interrupted, but perhaps he had been foolish to think that Dorian would be eager to cherish the last moments that they would have together, that he might have some comforting word or reassuring touch for him.
Foolish, he chided himself, even as his heart ached. He does not need you as you need him. And you thought you were strong enough for this.
He clenched his jaw, and drew in a fortifying breath through his nostrils. “Dominus,” he made himself reply as he followed, and it was a rebuke for the both of them; mostly for himself, to remind him of this terrible dance that they must make, but cold enough that he hoped it would strike Dorian as deeply as Dorian’s words had struck him. Let them both play this game, then, he thought, and let it devour them entirely.
Met and led into the beast’s lair by the house steward, they were soon announced to a room dim with the silver cast of incense and witchlight and, Fenris noted with some grim sense of satisfaction, all of the people he had guessed would be here. He might have been gone from Tevinter for two decades, but some things did not change. And there was Calvisius senior himself, resplendent in black and scarlet, approaching them both—no, he had eyes only for Dorian—and his smile was wide enough to swallow them both, his arms spreading out as though to welcome a brother.
“Lord Dorian,” he greeted, giving away no tells as to whether he approved of Dorian’s traditional dress or found his facade an amusing one. “Welcome. I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you accepted my invitation.”
That hurled Dominus struck Dorian like a knife, sliding between his ribs and seeking out his heart. He felt himself bleeding internally even as he strode onward, not allowing his step to check or his shoulders to curve. He could not flinch, could not take the time to lick at his wounds.
He’d had a lifetime’s practice at merely bearing them, and showing no signs of his pain. Or few, in any case; a childhood of acting out and an adolescence and young adulthood of self-destructive debauchery had not been merely for Dorian’s own enjoyment, after all. He’d known even then that it was an attempt to either salve the pain -- or end it.
But this wound was not mortal, in any case; he’d survive this as he had survived many others. He had to. For Fenris.
And so he only walked onward, following the steward through elegantly appointed hallways and across an open, colonnaded peristylum. Finally, they were shown into a small, intimate, but still quite luxurious salon of the sort reserved for gatherings of friends and close acquaintances only; there was a compliment implied in the mere fact of being issued into such a space, and Dorian was not incognizant of it. He was a master of this social game and its rules, little though he loved to play it.
Heavy incense curled silver through pierced lazurite censers and a less cloying but still thick, bitter scent mingled with it told Dorian that someone in the room was a smoker of kohl pipes. Lyrium glowstones shone silver-blue in sconces upon the walls; and witchlights danced in a hanging Serault-glass lantern low above the table upon which a deck of elaborately painted cards lay in rest, awaiting the players’ hands.
Dorian bowed for his host, a mage’s bow with right hand before him and left, grasping the shaft of his Staff of Abnegation, behind his back. Relimbering the staff into its baldric frogs, he smiled wide and wicked. “Lord Calvisius. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to receive the invitation.”
Calvisius Senior laughed with every evidence of good nature, but Dorian thought he detected something calculated in the sound. “Ah, but you must call me Martial!” He made a self-deprecating moue. “A bit of a school-boy nickname, certainly, but all those who are in regular attendance at these little games of mine do use it.”
Dorian smiled somewhat thinly; the false intimacy of this offer was not to be denied, of course. “Martial, then. And if so, I must be simply Dorian.”
“Ah, my boy, I doubt you are ever simply anything.” Martialis’s eyes were keen and sharp as a raptor’s behind the genial smile. “Come, allow me to make introductions to my other guests for the evening!”
➜ Play with mine’s hair (aaaand from dorian-sai)
Those that praise glass windows for letting the light shine through only get it partially right. There’s something about them magnifying that light, something that’s been magical to young Cuthbert and always, always his favorite thing about large, looming bay windows the likes of which are wrapped around the castle tower that the Inquisitor claims as his own.
Well, what better time and opportunity to explore his quarters than when he is sweating and sweltering in the desert out west, and they be wallowing in mild summer sunshine here in the mountains?
“Look you here, Dorian.” Bert has pulled a book out of the shelf next to the balcony, and holds it so that he can examine it by the sunlight coming in. His lips are curled into a small, wondrous smile. “I think I’ve found our dear fella’s diary. Had another long-winded discussion about faith with Cassandra. Sera blabbed something about Blackwall and Josephine today, don’t know what to think of it. Ah, and this one, this one might be useful: Freezing to my bones again, it’s drafty up here, wish I had one of those crocheted blankets mother used to wrap me in. Ay-yi, that sounds just like me in winter!” His laughter is a trickle of slow, soft rivulets running down a windowpane. He snaps the book shut, but keeps his index finger between the pages as he makes his way over to where Dorian is reclining on the couch the color of faded greens and golds. Oh, the Johnses had one just like that, he thinks with a pang of homesickness that isn’t the first today, nor will it be the last.
Roland had a tower room just like that.I went snooping around my da’s office just like that.
Cuthbert sits before the couch, cross-legged and with his back against Dorian’s legs, and Dorian’s hand lazily carding through his mane of brown hair.
My mother touched my hair just like that.
Healing either comes in small stitches, or it comes as madness, the thing they call irina and whisper of in reverent tones. To Cuthbert, rapacious, tumultuous ka-mai that he is, it came and comes as both, and sometimes it comes as the needle that undoes the stitches already done.
“More?” He asks, and blinks, and focuses his eyes again on the book in the simple, unassuming leather case with the empty front panel. If he seems unfazed by reading from someone else’s diary, he is because he does it for an honest cause. “The Storm Coast is deserving of its name. Wish I had a cup of hot chocolate every time I went there. Maybe Josephine can arrange to have something shipped.” Cuthbert slaps the book closed for good. “Well, there you have it. You go talk to the lady ambassador, and have her bring some chocolate in. A name-day gift that’s as sweet as it is felicitous, say true and say thankya.”
|| indie + selective HAWKE of da2 || multiverse + multiship || art credit ||
Of course Dorian saw through him. Fenris felt a fool for ever trying to hide it from him, but then again, his honesty was just what he needed right then. He needed to know that it wasn’t he alone who was afraid; needed to know that when they stepped into this, they stepped into it together. Filled then with a rush of relief to know that he did not walk into the lion’s den alone, he claimed Dorian’s lips with his own, and the grip that he returned on his lover’s fingers was tight with determination.
He was still holding Dorian’s hand when the carriage rolled up to Calvisius’s estate, as though he had not yet found the courage to release the death-grip that he had on his fingers. He had thought that perhaps it would get easier, the closer that they drew, knowing that there was no backing out; but instead the ball of dread in his stomach had only grown larger, and now more than ever was he glad that he had eaten only a small dinner, for anything larger surely would have rebelled by now.
The carriage jolted to a stop, and he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, ears clamped back against his skull with distress. Any minute now and they would by exposed…
“Amatus,” he said suddenly, not knowing exactly what he feared the most but knowing that they would face more than just an interrogation once inside that hated place. “Whatever they might say about… myself, and Danarius, in there… Do not believe it. Please.”
He’d sat in the carriage in a tense silence, his attentions divided. Half had been spared for the elf beside him, fingers clenched so tightly around his own. Dorian knew, far too well, just how difficult all of this must be for Fenris – as difficult as it was for Dorian himself, though in a far different way. Dorian’s façade, after all, was one of power assumed and draped around his shoulders like a mantle of heavy silk – like the mantle of heavy silk he indeed wore, its peaked cowl hanging between his shoulder blades. His façade was of a strength and a power he would reject utterly, a cruel and overweening arrogance which men like Calvisius believed was only their due – but reject it or not, hate it or not, the fakery which he must needs perform tonight was no actual threat to him. It only made him safer, more powerful, more in control.
Fenris’s, however… Fenris’s game of make-believe was far, far crueler and demeaning, reducing him from a person to a thing, a mere possession. A valuable one, maybe, but a possession all the same, and just as disposable, as salable, to be used as the owner willed and perhaps, later, discarded once all usefulness had been served. Fenris had made himself more than that. He had taken his own power and he had worn it as armor. Tonight, he set it aside again. He was vulnerable, and far more fragile than he looked.
In the south, they played chess, and the most numerous but least powerful pieces were called pawns. In the north, in Tevinter… they played Archon, and the analogous pieces were called slaves. That was no mistake.
The other half of Dorian’s attention had been on the evening itself. He had to prepare himself, to take that persona he was meant to inhabit and to inhabit it fully. To put himself into that mindset and allow it to consume and ride him, until all of his reactions were without flaw, all of his true instincts were overridden and entirely hidden. He had to be the Magister’s heir, the perfect scion of an ancient and powerful house now returned to his homeland and his rightful role. It was a persona he’d spent a lifetime both rejecting and perfecting; and one which he had thought to set aside entirely in the south. He rehearsed it now, considering and practicing the sorts of questions he might hear and the responses he might thus need to give, the attitudes and opinions he must display. It nearly made him queasy but he would do it, and it would be as perfect as it had to be.
The carriage jolted to a stop and Fenris’s sudden, urgent whisper threatened to tear Dorian out of the calm, dispassionate place he had been cultivating, in which the real truth of him could sit and look out and scream without being heard while the façade of Lord Dorian spoke.
“Of course not,” he said, but his tone was distant, the words neatly clipped. He could not be warm toward Fenris, not tonight. They mustn’t see it. “Stand at my right elbow,” he instructed; Dorian was left-hand dominant, did not want his casting hand fouled. “Speak when I address you; do not answer them unless I allow it. If anyone looks to touch me without my clear invitation or acceptance, prevent it.” All things they had already discussed, but he issued the instructions again, quick and terse, as reminders. This – this would be the first real test of their elaborate game of let’s-pretend. If they failed it… well, that did not bear thinking on.
The carriage door opened and Dorian, having already disentangled his fingers from Fenris’s, descended to the stones of the courtyard, arrogantly and with supreme self-possession disdaining the arm a footman offered. He did not look back to see if Fenris followed.
for Dorianmance Week ,because I just had to <3<3<3
It’s magic, baby
Finally I can publish this :D The Dorian piece I was working on during the livestream. It’s been so long since I was able to paint something like this, I’m so happy this is done.
Practicing watercolors with my favorite necromancer
Did Fenris want to look handsome and imposing? Perhaps it was the new outfit, or perhaps it was simply where they were going that evening, but he wanted nothing better than to be invisible right now. He could survive this, he thought, if he could simply stand at Dorian’s side and be as overlooked as the other slaves there would be; but these were Danarius’s old acquaintances, and he knew that he would be under just as much scrutiny as Dorian tonight. He had been Danarius’s crowning glory, before he had killed his own master, only to return now at the heel of an up and coming heir. Scandal enough with his past; even more with Dorian’s in addition. Their act had to be perfect; neither of them could afford to set one foot out of place tonight. Not if they wanted to move any closer to their ultimate goal.
Imposing he might have looked, but he went to his lover like a stray creature in need of a reassuring touch. It was so tempting to lean against him, to let himself be held, but he still had somewhat of a grip on his dignity and he pulled himself up short, disguising the aborted movement by reaching up instead and straightening out Dorian’s tunic. How strange it was to see Dorian in a magister’s blacks and silvers—how strange, too, to see his cheeks clean of hair, and despite his efforts to mask his distaste his nose wrinkled a little as he studied it, one hand lifting to touch his jaw.
“Not as prepared as your poor face,” he said, his lips quirking at the teasing joke, though a moment later his hand retreated to hide the way that his fingers trembled. Not the time for weakness, he chided himself, gaze dropping to better focus on where he turned Dorian’s pendant the correct way around and plucked a stray hair from the front of his clothing. He turned the question back on his lover, hoping to escape Dorian’s questioning. “And you?”
“Never,” Dorian answered with full, simple honesty. “I’ll never be prepared, not really. Is there any way to really be prepared for this?”
Fenris’s nerves hadn’t escaped Dorian’s notice, of course not. His heart ached to see his lover putting on such a brave face for him, pretending that all was well, that this was just another party. This was not just another party, and they both knew it. The tremble in Fenris’s fingers said that. The way he reached out so yearningly to Dorian but refused to let himself cling said it also. He deserved Dorian’s honesty, now and always.
“Remember what we’re doing this for, yes?” Dorian asked, his tone not quite light but refusing to be laden with all his fears, all the same. “Remember how we’ve practiced all of this. Can’t know quite what they’ll say, not exactly, but we know it won’t be pleasant.”
They were so close. Fenris had told Dorian how the man whose invitation they would be accepting tonight, Calvisius senior, had been a close member of Danarius’s cabal. If any would have succeeded to the mantle that foul thing had left empty, it would have been Calvisius. If anyone knew where Danarius’s papers were -- or had them in his possession, miracle of miracles! -- it would be Calvisius.
He took Fenris’s fingers and kissed them as they trembled in his grasp. “I won’t lose you, amatus,” he vowed. “I won’t leave you, either. Stay close tonight, no matter what happens. I don’t want you alone with any of them at any time, yes? Not done, to touch another man’s slave,” and here Dorian’s lips twisted with disgust at their facade yet again, a show of emotion he’d have to repress later on, “but I don’t think we ought trust them to keep to propriety.”
i hope you tried the ham they were serving, by the way. tasted of despair.
so this has been my main blog for over two years now. i've made a lot of good friends in that time and i've seen a lot of good people come and go, from the fandom and from my life more generally. i'm definitely grateful to them all; but for one reason or another, i haven't really kept up with the changing community and have ended up on the edges of it, which is fine. it was mostly my choice, anyway.
but that said, after two years, i'm really missing the excitement and motivation of a new fandom, new blog, new friends, new threads, all that freshness and potential. being at the edges of the community is fine until it isn't... and i think it's contributing a lot to my lack of motivation to be here lately.
so, this is not a goodbye, per se. i'm not deleting the blog, i'm not dropping threads. but i'm just not going to be here as much (which, since i've been here so little, means it won't be a huge change anyway i suppose). i'll focus on completing or continuing to build the things i've spent two years building, but that's all, at least for a while. maybe i just need a break; who knows. but in the meanwhile, i'm going to let my current queue run out. i won't take on new threads or begin building new relationships. etc. etc.
i haven't yet decided which blog i'll spend most of my time on going forward, but it'll either be my hawke or one of my existing tolkien blogs, probably. if you need or want the links, feel free to ask.
all right, darp. it's been real. i'll be around.
prєttч σrnαmєnts fσr dσríαn ₍ . ❛ ෴ ❛ ₎◞ nєхus mσd вч kσrí c - dσwnlσαd hєrє
my endless love apparently
Yes, I’m as tired as I look……
