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0. Genesis
When one considers the prestigious schools of magic that flourish in the Tevinter Imperium, Healing does not jump to the forefront of the mind. Elemental magic is so flashy, so obviously powerful, and so very much fun when applied by creative and daring individuals. Arcane knights are wickedly effective and so very impressive on the field. Necromancers command awe by their very presence but will settle for creating abject terror if proper respect isn’t shown. Even those who simply bind spirits into carrying out their whims seem to look more powerful than healers.
And yet, it’s the healers that everyone turns to on the battlefield, the last one standing amidst blood and carnage. It’s the healer who mends burns and breaks from duels, eases pain and pulls patients from the brink of death. It’s the healer’s barrier that turns away blades, snaps arrows on impact, and reduces a firestorm to an inconvenient haze.
It’s the healers that can turn a masterful assassination attempt into an after-dinner anecdote about knowing the strengths of the party’s guests.
Halward Pavus makes his personal reputation by raising a barrier on a fellow magister before the assassin can put his daggers in her. That he does it from halfway across the dance hall of a rather large party is a bonus; that he manages to keep the assassin alive for questioning despite the overzealous reactions of the magister’s guards is the kind of thing that people whisper about in corners for years later, using delicate terms to deflect from the gore.
He and Drusilla, the magister’s daughter, are married within the year. It takes them several more to have a child, during which time Halward’s renown as a healer spreads. The Pavus family has a history of being peaceable; it’s a bloodline of very intelligent people who do very intelligent things like eschewing the more foolish duels and petty feuds for grander, overarching academic goals. Halward has no plans break that image, but there’s a certain and very satisfying pride to showing people just how strong a healer can be.
When the time comes, Halward very nearly misses the big event. He’s there for the beginning, of course, but nine months is a long time, and there’s a wealthy Altus family in Minrathous whose matriarch narrowly survived her nephew’s attempt to hurry along the inheritance and would greatly appreciate his assistance in making sure that ‘narrowly’ remains a certainty. He makes it back to Qarinus with just two weeks to spare, both of which he spends pacing the halls and bothering the midwives. The older ladies are exceptionally patient with him; none of the three of them are mage healers, but they reasonably inform him that despite what the magisters think, some things are better left without ‘the magical touch’. The midwives cluck and chide and scold and shuffle about doing things he tries to analyze, but they give off the distinct impression that he is underfoot. It’s possibly the only time in Tevinter when Soporati can shoo an Altus.
The last hours are the worst; Drusilla curses creatively and so loudly that Halward’s certain it’s been heard all the way to Vyrantium. The three old midwives give an equally constant stream of encouragement, and then suddenly...
... it all goes quiet.
Halward bursts through the door before he even realizes he’s done so. Drusilla is passed out on the bed, eyes closed and head thrown back, her breath ragged and weak.
“What’s happened?” He demands, and the old women look up at him with great pity. One of them holds a small body, bloody and silent and unmoving.
“The cord, my lord—” one says.
“Such a shame—” another shakes her head.
“Around his wee neck—” says the last, but Halward is already upon them, claiming his child from their grasp. His son.
No.
Not like this.
This is his son, and he will live.
He won’t ever recall sending the old women out of the room. He does it, somewhere between the shaky incantations he’s calling up that fill the room with the vibrant green light of spirit magic, but he’ll never remember it. All of his attention is focused on the revival. It’s not been too long. Halward treats warriors who were out for much longer and brings back those who had much less life left in their bodies than one newborn who hasn’t even had a chance to open his eyes and see the world. He crafts miracles for friends, neighbors, allies, and even perfect strangers. Surely he can pull off one for his son.
His world narrows, focusing on the little black spot on the boy’s cheek by his eye. There’s an old wives’ tale about people with a beauty mark under their eye; supposedly, they’re destined for sorrow. Halward doesn’t care as long as the boy gets to live to see that sorrow.
He pours so much magic into the boy that he feels his bones hollow. If only he had time to grab a lyrium potion, but no, his son doesn’t have that time. Everything he’s done, all the study, all the work, all the power, culminates in this moment, and it’s still not enough. But there’s blood on his hands, and it’s already there so that the boy can live… surely…
He reaches across the Fade, feels the presence of that little life fading away, and seizes as much as he can. He grasps everything in one desperate pull and brings it back across, and he is rewarded with a tiny cry.
The body in his hands shudders, writhes, and wails. Halward gasps. He’s done it. He’s brought the boy back. He’s brought his son back.
He has a son.
Halward sinks to his knees and cradles the crying boy to his chest. Tears stream down both their faces.
He has a son.
I. Stimulus
Dorian is incredibly bright. Halward isn’t surprised by that; intelligence runs in the blood, and he was also early to learn his letters and sums. After that, however, he progresses into the basics of magical theory, and his son takes to that curriculum with the same ease. Halward starts with the foundations and the basic schools, then gives his son more and more complex concepts to work with, and though the boy sometimes struggles, no idea is beyond his grasp if he applies himself. He wonders, sometimes, if he should draw the line, if he’s giving him too much, but Dorian always figures it out.
He’s just six years old when he manifests magic. At that, Halward is surprised, because such developments tend to happen along with the rest of body’s major transitions into adulthood.
Halward is also grateful, because Dorian’s power expresses in a flash of fire to the oiled beard of a Laetan who was about to stab him in the back over a perceived snub. The man immediately drops his knife and screams, a spectacularly unwise idea with flames burning so close to his mouth.
“Leave my father alone!” Dorian yells, a scowl on his sweet face and his hands still raised to keep the fire burning. Halward scoops up his son and sweeps back several feet as he raises barriers around the both of them just in case the man has accomplices. Several guards come to restrain the man, at whom Dorian has yet to stop glaring. The fire isn’t overly hot; a well-trained and experienced mage could make a gout that size burn through bone, but while the beard flared up easily due to the oil, the actual heat is minimal.
“I’m all right, Dorian,” Halward says, patting his son on the back. “You protected me.”
Dorian looks at his father with such veneration and adoration that Halward makes a note to come home more often, to spend more time with his son before the boy goes off to study at the Circle.
“I did well, then?” He beams. His face is hopeful, and his gray eyes still pick up sparks of amber and crimson from the fire spell.
“It was an excellent first attempt,” Halward says, and sets the boy on the ground. “I will show you some enchantments that will make the fire burn hotter next time.” He misses the way the little smile flickers; his own heart is too bursting with delight. His son is a mage, and has shown his magic before even reaching his tenth year. In public, no less. Word will spread through the city by nightfall, rippling out through the Imperium. The seven Circles will practically cut each other’s throats to boast of a student that young, and one who managed to sustain a flame on his first try, no less. What a future his son will have! What grand things he will accomplish!
There are so many preparations Halward needs to make; letters to write to the Circles in preparation for the education to come, contacts to renew and favors to pull so that his young son will be safe while he’s away from home, materials to acquire for him now that he can move from theory into application…
It doesn’t occur to him, not just yet, to wonder why Dorian’s magical ability manifested when he was so very young. It’s enough that his son is exemplary, everything he hoped for and more. Halward is too busy, too blind, rushing too far and too fast ahead.
He strides forward.
His son follows.
II. Synthesis
Once Dorian enters the Circle, Halward doesn’t see him again for years. Part of it is the nature of the academic life; Tevinter’s Circles are neither as restrictive nor as controlling as their poor southern copies, but are instead elite halls of learning, where the pursuit of knowledge and the honing of skill is exemplary above all else. Family visitations, while not discouraged, are usually forgone so that the students may better apply themselves to their studies. The few times Halward is passing through Vyrantium, Dorian is always in exams, or a lab, or some other place from which he cannot be conveniently summoned. Halward is fine with that; as long as Dorian is making progress, he is satisfied.
But then one day Drusilla sends a messenger to him, asking him to come home in the middle of the day, something that never happens even when he is in Qarinus. Dorian is back, and with little explanation. The First Enchanter of Vyrantium has ‘suggested’ that the boy spend a few weeks at home, in the hopes that his parents will be able to snap him out of the dark mood that’s suddenly overtaken him. There’s a very subtle ‘or else’ implied.
Halward is shocked, to say the least, when he sees his son. Dorian is nearly as tall as he is, and the growth spurt has left him with little of the roundness of his early childhood. It’s easier to see which traits he’s pulled from which parent now. He has Drusilla’s fine bone structure in the cheeks and jaw, but Maker help him, he is stuck with Halward’s nose and eyebrows. Fortunately, he also has his father’s broad shoulders and, if his current development is any indication, he will have his mother’s elegant height.
Providing he stops slouching in a chair in a corner of the library like a rogue, of course.
“Thank the Maker,” Drusilla says when Halward arrives, standing up from the chair opposite of their son and gesturing for him to take it instead. “Perhaps you can talk some sense into him.” She sweeps out of the room, pinched lines around her eyes the only sign of her distress. It will last for only a moment; her masks of composure are better than his, but more brittle, and hold just long enough for her to escape the situations that shatter them. Dorian also gets this from her; he, however, has yet to master the mask.
“Dorian,” Halward says, sitting down across from his son. “What happened? Why are you not at the Circle?”
Dorian startles at hearing his father’s voice, jumping to awareness from whatever distraction haunts him.
“Father,” he says, voice cracking. “Father—!” He starts to get up, hands outstretched, but Halward stops him with a look.
“Dorian, speak to me. Explain why you are here. This is a very important year in your studies, isn’t it?”
Dorian sinks back down, and his fingers tighten around the arms of the chair instead. He casts his gaze to the floor and breathes deeply for a moment, centering himself on the steady rhythm. In and out. In and out.
“We went to the Fade. It was part of an exercise. Everyone in the class did it, but I—” He swallows, face flushing.
“Were you unable?” Halward can’t fathom the idea of his son being unable to navigate the Fade; he remembers Dorian spending ages pouring through the tomes and grimoires he procured for him as a child, puzzling out the Veil and what lay beyond it before he could ever manipulate a spark.
Dorian shakes his head furiously. There are tears welling up in his eyes, and his knuckles are white from his grip on the armrests. His shoulders shake as he breathes. Halward’s control wears thin, eroding towards the kernel of fear that was buried in his chest the moment he first held his child.
“My son—” he says, and Dorian’s head shoots up. Their eyes lock. Dorian doesn’t even blink.
“Something over there called to me,” he says. “It said my name, and it sounded wrong, and it laughed at me when I said so. It asked me… It asked me when I was coming back.”
“You know better than to listen to demons,” Halward says, but the words tear at his throat when he speaks, coming out rough and harsh. Dorian flinches, gaze dropping back down to the gold-speckled tiles of black and white marble on the floor.
“It asked me when I was coming home,” he says, “and it was so beautiful, and it felt good, but I knew it was wrong. I had to come home. I needed to be home.”
Halward says nothing, because that seed in his heart sprouts, blossoming into memories from years ago. Memories of desperation, memories of audacity, memories of reaching and grasping and pulling…
But what did he pull? He was so sure at the time it was his son’s soul, but had there been enough of it? Or did he bring something else back with him?
His thoughts race, compiling a diagnosis from events he hadn’t realized were symptoms. The ease with which Dorian picked up magical theory. How early he manifested his magic. How naturally it came to him to pour energy from the Fade into the shapes he wanted. Did he bring a spirit across in his temerity? Or did whatever spirit his son encountered in the Fade simply find out how close he came to dying and decide to torment him with it?
Dorian waits in silence while Halward thinks, but in the end, it’s the expression on the boy’s face that makes his decision for him. He cannot stand to see Dorian in so much pain, emotions writ clear in the furrowing of his brows, the tightness of his lips, and the tears on his lashes.
“My son,” Halward says, watching as something like relief melts across Dorian’s face. It drags his shoulders down in a long sigh. Whatever furnace of tension burned inside him cools, conflicting components finally smelted together.
“Father?” He raises his head again, and this time, Halward stares into grey eyes so much like his own, searching for any sign of something dangerous. He sees nothing but his son’s reverence, pure and raw as unprocessed lyrium.
“It will always be difficult in the Fade.” Halward says carefully. “There will always be demons trying to trick you, offering you things you want, or things you think feel right. You cannot keep running home every time you are tempted.”
Something gutters in the grey, but Halward presses on.
“You are Dorian of House Pavus, my son and heir, and you don’t need any spirit teaching you blood magic or any other nonsense to become a great man. Blood magic,” his hesitancy catches his voice, turning his words into a deprecating grimace, “is the resort of the weak mind. You are smarter and better than that.”
Smarter and better than Halward himself. He’ll teach his son not to rely on it, not to use it, not to touch it. His son will be greater, unsullied. His son will never have to have the fear that he has tainted something dear to him.
His son will be more.
III. Entropy
But time passes, and Halward watches, cautious and concerned, until he is certain he was wrong about Dorian. The dread that bloomed on the day the boy was sent home from school flourishes in Halward like an invasive vine, twining around his heart and choking him over the course of years. He catalogues tells, archiving every little detail about Dorian that betrays him:
The dismay on Dorian’s face when one of Halward’s oldest allies arranges an assassination attempt; foiled, of course, because Halward expects it by now, but perfidy rankles with Dorian every time.
The hardening of Dorian’s eyes when one of his peers lies to him, as common place misdirection and flattery meant to build alliances across counter-purposes instead constructs a labyrinth of sharp, bright, empty smiles.
The way that Dorian will sometimes stare at old maps, hands spread across the depiction of the Imperium like a lover’s caress, teeth worrying his lower lip, disappointment bowing his head, and gaze somewhere so far beyond the present.
Something burns in Dorian that Halward doesn’t recognize, something hungry buried deep inside beyond the reach of simple observation. It gnaws away at the boy he knew, who hung on his every word like it answered the fundamental questions of the universe, and what remains are doubt and dissatisfaction.
Dorian graduates because, whatever else Halward suspects him of being, he is a talented and capable mage. He works with Magister Alexius, throwing himself into theoretical magics considered advanced even by the most senior enchanters.
Halward should be proud. Instead, he’s terrified.
He’s afraid that someone will find out that Dorian isn’t quite what he appears to be. He’s afraid that Dorian is something less than human, or something more, and either way it could make him dangerous. He’s afraid someone will find out that Dorian is the result of Halward’s audacity, and that they’ll destroy everything he’s worked for all his life along with the legacy of his House.
Halward is afraid of Dorian.
At a gala, he watches Dorian flit across the dance floor, weaving through circles of highborn mages without lingering until he pauses at a group of young men who attended school with him, handsome and wealthy and without concern for their futures. The group fragments with his addition, dividing into pairs and trios who bend their heads closer in private conversation.
Halward watches the smile that curls across Dorian’s face as he and the man with whom he converses slip off to the side, away from the main party. And suddenly, he knows what has hold of his son. It comes to him in a flash, epiphany singing in his nerves like lightning.
He knows how to fix this.
He knows how to save his son.
Blood to begin, and blood to end.
Only it doesn’t end. It doesn’t even happen. Somehow, Dorian finds out that Halward plans to use a blood magic ritual on him. The confrontation goes… poorly. Dorian, seeking some kind of sympathy, pulls Drusilla into the meeting. Halward never told her what he did while she was exhausted from the birth, and they spend little enough time together these days that he has not confided in her his fears about their son. His position is hobbled by his secrets.
“How could you?” Dorian hisses, and Halward has to steel himself against the tears in Dorian’s eyes. “After all you taught me—”
“You risk the reputation of our whole House.” Halward says. “Your unnatural desires must be dealt with.”
“Unnatural?” Dorian recoils from Halward’s false calm and unmoving certainty.
“There’s a perfectly reasonable compromise.” Drusilla attempts to mediate, though neither of them are willing to hear it. “Dorian, just marry whomever your father chooses and produce an heir, and you can dally with whomever you’d like on the side as long as you’re discrete.”
“I don’t want to dally,” Dorian snarls, “and I don’t want to just… just… lie about who I am for your convenience!”
“What you are is an aberration, and must be fixed!” Halward snaps back. The words hit hard and hit home.
“You can’t fix me.” Dorian pleads. “I’m not broken.”
“Dorian—” Drusilla starts. “Halward—”
“It’s for your own good.” Halward says with grave finality. Dorian shakes his head, grey eyes fixed so that Halward can see the defiance temper to determination.
“No,” Dorian says. “No, it’s for your good, for your legacy. For these stupid lies, and all the corruption, and friends you can’t really trust. I won’t do it! Do you hear me? I won’t let you change me!”
“Get out.” Halward says, fury eating away at him that this thing that wears his son’s face and speaks with his voice defends itself so well. If his son was just his son, not carrying the tainted evidence of Halward’s oversight, he would be proud of how he stands up for himself. But it is not, so he cannot. If it will not be bound, then it must be banished. “You are no son of mine.”
“Halward—!” Drusilla starts to protest, sees the look on his face, and falls into miserable silence.
Dorian’s mouth opens and closes again without any sound. The tears finally fall, streaming from the eyes his father gave him. He takes a ragged breath. Then another. Steps back. Bows at the waist, formally. Distantly. Stands up straight. Meets Halward’s gaze one last time.
Something dies in Dorian, as surely as if Halward took the knife and put it through him. Halward watches the light go out and sees something else crystalize in the ashes, but before he can do anything else, Dorian turns.
Dorian walks away.
IV. Singularity
Halward half expects Dorian to come crawling back, unprepared for life beyond the sheltered privilege of his class. Then he gets word that Dorian sold the Pavus birthright amulet to an Orlesian merchant and left the Imperium entirely. It shocks him enough to realize that this is real, it’s happened, he’s lost him.
The demon is gone, but so is his son.
Regret comes creeping in like the most exquisite of poisons. Where doubt darkens and decays the memory, regret sharpens everything, makes it brighter, and heightens every sensation. Every feeling is more intense, relived over and over, sustained and spun out in variations by those sharp, sweet words: “if” and “almost”.
If he hadn’t brought too much across…
He almost explained...
If they just tried harder...
He almost saved him...
Despite how little time Dorian actually spent in the family house, it seems emptier without the prospect of his return. The vacuum echoes with memories and emotions long gone: the sound of small feet running across the tiles, the rustle of pages turning in cherished books, the bubbling laughter of delight in some shared discovery, the swell of quiet pride, even frustration and anger are preferable to the numbness left behind.
And then Halward hears that Dorian joined the Inquisition. It’s an off-hand comment thrown out during a conversation about Magister Alexius’ abrupt departure to the south and subsequent denouncement by the Archon after some incident with the growing force down there, just a casual mention that the so-called Herald of Andraste was assisted in Alexius’ downfall by a Tevinter Altus called Dorian, and, ‘oh, Magister Pavus, isn’t that your son?’
Halward is in Ferelden before he even fully realizes why he’s going. Of course he has his concerns. Dorian joined the Inquisition. It’s an organization founded by a group of jumped-up Templars. They’re called the Inquisition, for Maker’s sake. If anyone would find out what Dorian was, it would be people like that. And even if they don’t, surely southerners in the middle of a mage-Templar war won’t take kindly to a Tevinter Mage.
Underneath that fully rational fear, another dread grows. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he’s never needed to try and bind the spirit he brought back with his son’s soul. Maybe he’s committed the greater sin by trying. Maybe he can’t do anything for his son at all. Maybe he never could.
He writes a letter to a Mother in the Chantry who has some connection to the Inquisition. And then he waits.
His retainer informs him when Dorian reaches Redcliffe, and Halward clears out the tavern in preparation for the meeting. The last time he tried to talk to Dorian, he hadn’t been able to explain himself because of a third party. He doesn’t want to repeat that mistake.
Only Dorian isn’t dropped off by Mother Giselle, he’s accompanied by a tall man in full plate mail wearing the Inquisition’s sigil on his chest. Of course he’d come with the Inquisitor himself, a man who looks like he has no intention of waiting outside.
Dorian steps through the door and immediately notices the lack of patrons.
“Uh-oh. Nobody’s here. This doesn’t bode well,” Dorian says, and it’s the first time Halward has heard that voice in nearly a year. He’s no longer surprised by how much he’s missed it. He steps out of the stairwell.
“Dorian.”
Dorian turns, concern sublimating to anger.
“Father.” It hurts to hear that word still afforded to him, turned to a weapon as it is. “So the whole story about the “family retainer” was just… what? A smoke screen?”
“Then you were told.” Of course he was. Halward’s beginning to think that the Maker himself has something against him having this conversation with Dorian. He steps forward, out of the half-light of the stairwell. He’s faintly aware that he’s pinching the first finger on his left hand, a nervous tic he thought he rid himself of years ago. He distracts himself by glancing over to the Inquisitor. “I apologize for the deception, Inquisitor. I never intended for you to be involved.”
“Of course not.” Dorian hisses, stepping up. “Magister Pavus couldn’t come to Skyhold and be seen with the Dread Inquisitor. What would people think? What is this exactly, Father? Ambush? Kidnapping? Warm family reunion?”
Halward sighs. He remembers the sarcasm, dripping off Dorian’s words like poison on a knife in the years before things fell apart entirely.
“This is how it has always been,” he tells the Inquisitor.
“Considering you lied to get him here, Dorian has every right to be furious,” says the Inquisitor in a low, sharp tone of his own.
“You don’t know the half of it!” Dorian turns to the Inquisitor, his voice taking a vicious edge. “But maybe you should.”
“Dorian, there’s no need to—” Halward has little hope left of explaining himself. Even if he had the opportunity, he’s not sure he could, anymore.
“I prefer the company of men. My father disapproves.” Dorian doesn’t even bother with a bright, false smile, but launches directly into what he believes to be the crux of the matter. It surprises Halward a little to hear it; he forgets sometimes the exact disagreement that sparked their last ultimatum.
“I’ll need you to explain that.” The Inquisitor says.
“Did I stutter? Men, and the company thereof. As in sex. Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“This is not exactly news, Dorian.” The Inquisitor just shrugs, perfect acceptance, concerned only for the distress it brings his companion.
“And why should it be? Why should anyone care, I have no idea.” Dorian’s response is dredged through bitterness that sends icy spikes of fear into Halward’s soul for reasons he cannot yet put to name.
“This display is uncalled for.” He says, trying to shake off the dread.
“No, it is called for.” The heat of his ire puts them back on more comfortable ground, albeit no more conducive to the actual conversation. “You called for it by luring me here.”
“This is not what I wanted.” Halward shakes his head.
“I’m never what you wanted, Father. Or had you forgotten?”
It’s the use of the word ‘never’ that cuts him and prevents him from replying as surely as a knife through the throat. Incredulity gives way as Halward has to stop— has to think— and recall all the times he was so unspeakably proud of his son. Horror washes over him, as terrible as any blood ritual, as he comes to the conclusion that somehow he never made it clear. All the puzzles, all the tests, every accolade and award, and his son thought none of it was enough.
The extent to which Halward failed his son stretches before him like the void itself, threatening to sunder him with his own shame, and it’s only the Inquisitor’s curiosity that keeps him anchored.
“That’s a big concern in Tevinter, then?”
“Only if you’re trying to live up to an impossible standard. Every Tevinter family is intermarrying to distill the perfect mage, perfect body, perfect mind. The perfect leader. It means every perceived flaw — every aberration — is deviant and shameful. It must be hidden.” Dorian throws Halward’s own word back at him, and it lands like a body blow. Halward is still reeling, unsure if he’s even drawing breath anymore or if he’s choking on his own guilt.
“So that’s what all of this is about? Who you sleep with?”
“That’s not all it’s about.” Dorian’s venomous hiss injects
“Dorian, please, if you’ll only listen to me—” Halward begs. Halward Pavus has never used the word ‘please’ as anything more than a pretense of courtesy; a man of his power has never needed to, but he begs now.
“Why? So you can spout more convenient lies?” Dorian surges forward like a oncoming storm, and Halward knows that judgment is coming. “He taught me to hate blood magic. “The last resort of the weak mind.” Those are his words. But what was the first thing you did when your precious heir refused to play pretend for the rest of his life? You tried to change me!”
Dorian’s righteous ire melts, draining away to reveal the kind of innocent heartbreak that only children have, and only in that moment when they realize that their beloved parent is human and fallible. It is the shattering of ideals set in a human face, heroes on pedestals crashing down, angels plummeting to the ground with their wings ablaze. It is devastating to behold and worse still to be the cause of it.
“I only wanted what was best for you!” Halward knows. Suddenly and completely in a way he should have known years ago, the way he should have remembered all along, he knows. This is his son. Whatever else he is, whoever he chooses to be, none of that changes the truth.
He loves his son, and his son hates him.
“You wanted the best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that!” Dorian storms off to the side, placing his hands on the bar and glaring down, staring beyond it the way he once stared beyond the maps of Tevinter. Halward watches him, heart aching with reminiscence, and knows he deserves it. He ruined this.
The Inquisitor walks up beside Dorian, stern face softening with concern.
“Don’t leave it like this, Dorian,” he says gently. “You’ll never forgive yourself.”
At that moment, Halward is ready to believe that the Inquisitor really is the Herald of Andraste, or at least chosen by the Maker to remind them of His mercy. Dorian heeds the Inquisitor’s words almost immediately, pushing away from the bar and storming back to face him.
“Tell me why you came,” he demands, gray eyes adamant as steel, but some familiar light glimmers in the depths.
“If I knew I would drive you to the Inquisition...” He tries to explain the danger, tries to express the fear, but it won’t come out properly. It’s been buried inside too long, festering, and it falls apart as he tries.
“You didn’t.” Dorian fumes, and Halward can hear the disappointment there. “I joined the Inquisition because it’s the right thing to do. Once, I had a father who would have known that.” Halward has no answer to the rejection; he can only close his eyes and bow his head. Dorian twists away and heads for the door. The sight of his back causes the icy remorse buried in Halward’s heart to slip and spur him into one last attempt.
“Once, I had a son who trusted me. A trust I betrayed.” He can’t stop the hope that sears through him when Dorian stops and turns back towards him. The words blaze their way out, fueled by grief and the prospect of returning to that empty house and its echoes of could-have-beens. “I only wanted to talk to him. To hear his voice again. To ask him to forgive me.”
The light that died in Dorian’s eyes in their last confrontation rekindles and flares up. Now, for the first time, Halward knows its name.
It is hope. It’s hope, and Halward can never forgive himself for letting that light go out.
Dorian glances to the Inquisitor, who nods and then steps outside to let them talk.
And his son talks with him.
V. Ablution
Halward arrives at Skyhold on a half-overcast day, a scant few weeks after he and Dorian have their talk. He doesn’t come with a full retinue, but instead joins a caravan of pilgrims and Chantry folk on their way to see the fabled Herald of Andraste. He, too, wishes to see the walking beacon of mercy, but his petition is not as Magister Pavus, Lord of Asariel. He comes to ask as Halward, who is still making stumbling steps towards reconciliation and still has more audacity than humility.
He crosses the bridge with half a dozen others and feels immediately out of place in a way he didn’t even in Redcliffe; at least in Ferelden he still had some semblance of control of the situation. Here he is anonymous, without power, without consequence, noticed only insomuch as is necessary for the busy population of the fort to avoid colliding with him. He moves through the courtyard and passes by a boy, pale and thin and composed mostly of floppy hat. At least, he thinks he does. No, he must be mistaken; there’s no one there at all.
He lays out his request before Ambassador Montilyet and the Inquisitor himself. Dorian is not present, potentially another mercy from the Herald, since asking this favor in front of his son is something even Halward does not dare. He offers little in recompense, no longer because he fears the connection to the Inquisition itself, but because Dorian has not asked for it. Dorian’s contributions to the Inquisition are entirely his own, without the backing of his House or homeland, and cause for pride untainted by his father’s legacy. Halward refuses to impose again.
The Inquisitor and the ambassador exchange glances and take a few moments to confer. Given the accompaniment that came to Redcliffe, Halward doesn’t doubt that at least one of them uses the opportunity to hunt down his son and ask Dorian’s opinion. The decision comes surprisingly quickly, and it’s the Inquisitor himself who takes Halward to see Gereon Alexius.
Time has not been kind to Alexius, either by the weight of the events of the past years or by the gravity of his meddling with it. Halward remembers the man from years ago, brilliant and impassioned, who once seemed like such a good choice of mentor to his son. He wonders, in that first moment when they stare at each other through the bars, how Alexius remembers him.
“Halward,” Alexius bows his head. He sounds tired and worn through, a defeated man in every sense of the word.
“Gereon,” Halward replies and nods in response. “I heard about Felix. I am very sorry for your loss.”
Pain flickers across Gereon’s face that he doesn’t bother to hide; Tevinter’s customs hold little meaning for him in the Inquisition’s cell.
“Are you here for Dorian?” Gereon asks, deflecting. “He won’t go with you, you know.”
“I know,” Halward sighs. “We have… already had that discussion.”
Gereon sits up suddenly, hands gripping the bars of his cell tight enough to pale his knuckles. There is some fire’s spark left in his eyes, some ember’s heat left in his voice that prompts the Inquisitor to ease his shield out in front of him.
“And what did you say to him this time, Halward? What words did you waste while your boy is still here to hear them?”
Halward raises barriers over himself and the Inquisitor with practiced ease, but it turns out to be unnecessary. Gereon’s agitation is mundane; intense, but not magical.
“We are both fools,” Halward pitches his voice low, “and our sons became greater men than we could ever hope to be. We failed them both in our attempts to save them.”
Gereon’s resistance burns out quickly, gutted by his grief.
“Your son yet lives,” he hisses, but Halward shakes his head.
“The lines I crossed were inexcusable and passed long ago. I see this now, but then… I did not. I came to ask…” Halward pauses, hands trembling. “Will you tell me what I missed?”
Gereon blinks. His eyebrows arch up, and he looks to the Inquisitor, who just shrugs. Halward doesn’t blame him. From what little he has seen of the Herald, the man makes an excellent moral compass.
“Well,” Gereon sits back, settling in rather than withdrawing. “Where should I begin?”
The Inquisitor lets them talk for hours. Halward drinks up Gereon’s stories of the years Dorian spent under his tutelage like they are the antidote to the toxin of his fear. So much is already corroded, and secondhand accounts make for a poor patch, but anything is better than leaving the holes to fester in his heart.
Eventually, however, Gereon’s voice grows hoarse and Halward’s knees and back begin to protest. They are not young men anymore, something they remember grimly as they part.
Halward plans to begin the return trip to Tevinter in the morning. It’s the only way he’ll get back in time for the next Senate meeting, and he’ll have missed two already to come south. The Inquisition has been more accommodating than he dared expect, and it wouldn’t do to impose on the Inquisitor’s —or Dorian’s— good grace any further. Besides, there is something vaguely resembling a plan growing in his mind, some tiny hopes seeded by his discussion with Alexius, and they must be tended promptly lest they wither.
Sometime before dawn, he wakes to see a pale young man in a floppy hat standing at the end of the bed the Inquisition generously provided. The youth is still and very quiet, completely unperturbed when Halward instinctively brings up his barriers.
“To begin. To be. To become. You looked, but didn’t listen; heard, but didn’t heed. You thought you broke him, had to fix him.” The boy said in a terrible, low tone that was simultaneously curious and condemning. “He doesn’t know, can never know, the lines you crossed— Oh. He doesn’t know.”
“Who—” Halward gasps. “What are you?”
“I’m Cole,” says the young man, as if that should be answer enough. “You’re the one he’s angry with.”
“You… know Dorian?” Halward stares. Something about the boy seems off, but he’s tired and grief-sick and he still has to try and find a way to explain to Drusilla why their son isn’t coming home, so he can’t really dedicate the level of concentration he normally would to this problem that may very well be a dream.
“He said I could ask him questions,” Cole replies. “He answers me, even when it hurts. He holds on to the hurt so tightly. It’s all tangled together; love and hate and hurt. I can’t help him without tearing it.” Halward feels a pain in his chest, and beneath the brim of the ridiculous hat, the boy’s jaw tightens.
“That sounds like my—” Halward catches himself. “That sounds like Dorian.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Cole asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “I know. I can hear it. Can you? Are you listening now?”
Halward does, and is, but the words won’t make it to his lips. They don’t even make it to his throat, but lodge in his lungs like a dull knife, dragging under his ribs with every breath. He wonders if this is some kind of divine punishment, if he died in his sleep and is now being judged by some agent of the Maker. Surely that could be no less painful.
“I’m just me,” Cole shakes his head in answer to his unasked question. “And you’re just you. Tell me, say the words and face it in truth, what is Dorian?” The young man tilts his head so that Halward can see moonlight-pale hair and ghost-blue eyes that stare straight into the heart of him. Halward’s heart pounds in his ears; the confrontation he has dreaded for so long makes the old fear claw at him inside like a wild animal, but it is met and matched by something older and deeper. The conflict, which has never been balanced before, remains uneven, only this time it’s the other side that wins.
“He is my son,” Halward hisses.
“Yes, he is. Remember that, this time.” Cole vanishes, and Halward sits alone in the grey pre-dawn and wonders why his heart races.
He leaves Skyhold with even less fanfare than he arrived. His retinue will meet him at a village at the foot of the Frostbacks, and from there he will make the long journey back to Qarinus, hopefully finding some way to break the news to Drusilla that won’t result in her hexing him into the next Age.
He glances back once, at the archway that connects the fort to the bridge. He doesn’t expect to see more than the stone walls that protect the keep’s residents from the cold, but to his surprise Dorian stands on the stairs, hands clasped behind his back and face more or less neutral.
Halward commits the sight of him there to memory; tall, proud, strong, and so very much greater than he could have ever hoped. Seeing him there kindles the embers of his own hope and reinforces the plans he began to lay out while listening to another old man who failed to give the world to his son.
He bows deeply to the man who surpassed him, pride put aside for respect. Dorian’s detachment gives way to surprise and he bows back hesitantly.
Halward turns and steps onto the bridge. There’s a boy there, thin and pale and mostly floppy hat, watching him with clear blue eyes and a soft smile. He whispers as Halward walks past, as if he can read Halward’s mind.
“Instead of changing him to fit the world, change the world to fit him.”
Halward has such hopes for his son.