The thing is: he tries not to think about the fact he'd been here before. It opens too many possibilities, they all of them terrifying. Was it another version of him? Some Not-Fenris? Or was it him and his memories were wiped by magic, returned to Thedas only to be dragged back again? Either way, it unsettles him, in the same way that considering his lyrium tattoos as magic unsettles him. And fortunately, there's other things to worry about.
So! You are Fenris, correct, at least, implies a lack of familiarity, and yet his hackles are raised already. This is also what comes of being an antisocial nut who knows, like, three people, so.]
[Dorian thought this little snag might come up, which is why he isn't saying anything in person at the moment. He'd really hate to have his insides ripped out before finishing his introduction.]
I'm from our world, Thedas, I'm a friend of Inquistior Lavellan and Iron Bull, I don't know if you've met. They tend to be the welcome wagon.
[Ah, well, that makes things altogether different, doesn't it? Not bad, necessarily, but worrying. Although Lavellan is an elvish name, so perhaps he needn't be utterly defensive.
Like, he's gonna be. But at least not all the alarm bells are ringing.]
No. But that is no fault of theirs; I have kept to myself these past few weeks.
Makes sense I suppose, this is a new environment and everyone is a stranger to you. You'd want to be cautious...that's fair. I believe Isabella is here as well but she's difficult to keep track of.
[Just the one friend? That's sad. Dorian would like to extend his olive branch in friendship, but that did not work out well last time.]
Not really, I...didn't have much of an opportunity to earn your trust [might as well rip the bandaid off right now]...what with being a mage and one from Tevinter, you were rightly skeptical of me and I understood it. Made it difficult to get to know you or check on your wellbeing before you disappeared.
[She is indeed here, and the mention of her name earns a point in Dorian's favor: not that he constantly approves of Isabela's friends, but at the same time, a friend of a friend, so on and so forth.
So that's nice. And then the bit about the mages happens, and there goes the goodwill.
At least he doesn't try and lie. He doesn't offer too-sweet claims of friendship, of brotherhood; he doesn't even evade what he is, which is, honestly, everything that Fenris hates (and, shamefully, fears, deep in the pit of his stomach). Even the mention is enough to get his pulse spiking, and god, but he's never been more grateful for these devices and how they provide distance.]
I doubt very much you care for my wellbeing.
[It's a growl, but honestly: of course Dorian doesn't. Why would he? It would be like approaching a noble and asking if they cared for a random elf; why would they? The fact that Dorian contacted him is, hm, worrying, all the more so because he doesn't understand it. Because it's--
Assume the worst. Assume that he is like every other magister in existence; assume that he wants Fenris at best for his blood and at worst for his lyrium. Imagine that it must be exhausting to be used to comforts and slaves and being powerful; imagine that you found someone who was a slave, and could be again. Assume that this man is like every other magister he's ever known, and this is just a trap to get him to trust him before he collars him.
Is that logical? It's certainly accompanied by a leap of emotion, a flare of raw panic that leaves his hands shaking, though his expression is still. But is it right to assume that?
After all: they are on equal ground here, aren't they? In the same way he isn't automatically given strange looks because he's an elf, in the way that everyone here, himself included, is touched by magic. Perhaps this man could enslave him, yes, but it would not go so smoothly as it would if they were home. And to his credit (though Fenris is loath to give any mage credit), all he's done is speak cautiously and carefully, not arrogantly or cruelly.
So . . . and this is hard, this is asking a frankly enormous amount from him, but: assume the best.
Assume that this man is . . . what, genuinely worried about Fenris? That he exists here in a void, same as they all do; that to find someone else, anyone else, from their world, brings a rush of relief. Not quite the rush he'd felt when meeting Isabela, but there's something to be said for speaking to someone knowing they'll know all the same cultural cues as you. Know the slang, know the history, know anything about home . . . yes, there is a relief there.
He mentioned an elf. A qunari, too (most likely, but really, what human or dwarf has a name like Iron Bull, it's not a leap in logic). That's . . . mm. Certainly strange behavior for a magister, who has no friends at all, just people he uses and people he tries to get a leg up on.
It's odd. This man is odd, and he isn't grandstanding like a magister nor sneering like one. He isn't demanding Fenris' location, either, or trying to pull at a leash that no longer exists. He's just . . . talking.]
What is your goal here?
[What a sentence. What an awkward, blunt thing to ask, but it's the best he can do in response to his chaotic thoughts. What is your goal, friendship or slavery or simple connection, because that's so much easier than trying to decipher it. And then, belatedly:]
And your name.
[Because that's important too. It's entirely possible they've met before, at some party in Tevinter long ago.]
I've very little interest in seeing anyone suffer more than necessary here over the arbitrary laws that this world operates by...[That was certainly the truth he didn't want to see anyone suffer here any more than they had to and that included crystalization and loss of one's self here. He was well aware of Fenris and his predominately lone wolf disposition and often liked to check in with those from his world...regardless of whether or not they wanted to hear from him.
Though given his history with mages and magisters he couldn't just dismiss Fenris of his concerns, until recently Dorian had not given much thought to slavery other than how it had been the norm and how his family had treated theirs well. It took walking away from his previous life and taking up arms with the Inquisition that his horizons began to broaden and the scales of his ideal began to fall from his eyes.]...but that's fair enough considering what you've been through under the less than courteous circumstances involving other magisters and mages.
[He was very elegant in that he didn't mention Fenris's previous master by name, Dorian only knew Danarius by reputation, he never kept company with him nor did his father. Clearly he was corrupt enough for Halward to not move in circles with him, not that his father held the moral high ground after what he attempted on Dorian.
That wasn't to say they'd never crossed paths before or that Dorian wouldn't recognize Fenris on sight given that his father was a magister and Danarius was a magister, their paths must have crossed at some point and Fenris was very recognizable, in no way could he be seen as understated. He doubted the elf would recognize him, however, his family name, perhaps, but Dorian? The mage doubted it.]
My goal here? To check on you, to make certain you are doing alright and are wanting for nothing. I've potions and things if you've a need for anything like that.
[Made from stock that came from their own world, naturally, but that was neither here nor there.]
Ah, forgive me for being a bit on the belated side, I'm Dorian Pavus, though I think my father's name might be more familiar to you. Halward Pavus.
[His mind whirls. Pavus? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, he remembers Halward. A magister, just like any other magister, not particularly better or worse. Danarius had been beneath him in terms of power, and so he'd been labeled not a threat in Fenris' mind, all those years ago. Back when all he'd worried about was Danarius.]
It is, yes. Or was, once.
[When he'd been a slave, he means. Which! Apparently Dorian knows all about that, and it's not shocking, not if he'd known the Other-Fenris, but still.]
Your father is not nearly so generous, not to elves nor slaves. What inspired the change in his son?
[It's almost eerie, honestly, or at least is weirding him out a fair bit. This is the sort of generosity he expects from-- well, from Hawke, frankly, friend to every poor soul who came across her path, offering coin and aid ridiculously generously. It's admirable, but more than that: it's unusual in their world. Kindness is so often rewarded with pain, after all.]
[Dorian had often wondered how much his own father knew about Danarius and his wickedness and how he was simply complicit in it so long as he was maintaining the moral high ground himself. Perhaps he was as complicit as Dorian who believed, for the longest time, that owning slaves was perfectly fine as long as they were well cared for and not starving on the streets like those in the alienages. It was normalized in him not to think of it as being abnormal.]
Generous is a loaded word, I suppose when my father, who preached to me the evils of blood magic and instilled within me a hatred of it abandoned his own principles and planned on using blood magic on me to make me more...pliable? That might have been the starting point, at least in changing the framework of things I knew to be true.
[Of course that was only a very small part of it.]
I left Tevinter, headed south to help the Inquisition and the time I spent in Ferelden, making friends with people so unlike myself and yet so alike in all the ways that matter. Hearing them, listening to their criticisms, viewing what they had to say as constructive, and seeing my world from a different perspective? It changed the way I think and that I want to do the right thing.
[Though the right things wasn't black and white not was it easy and it was hardly fun, but he would figure it out.]
For me, that means changing Tevinter, culling the magisters, and redefining their purpose. It was never meant to be a committee of mages, but those who are qualified by their merits to be leaders and arbiters of the social ills and disputes. Instead, magisters are more content in hoarding their own power and allowing things to slide.
He'd steeled himself throughout each of those points, waiting for the inevitable drop. Of course, blood magic has its place, he'd readied himself for, or naturally, I wish to keep some of the oldest families around. A hint of where they'd both come from, a taste of the inevitable backlash that Fenris just knows is coming.
Except it doesn't. It simply ends on an alarmingly sane note, and he doesn't know what to do with that.]
I . . . see.
[It's not that he wholeheartedly agrees with it. But it's also not Anders' delusional rants, full of pointless fire and idiotic reforms.
(It's possible he's still furious with Anders, even three months later).
But it is sane, and that's more than Fenris ever expects from magisters. He wonders vaguely what the Other-Fenris thought, and then decides it doesn't matter.]
That was not the answer I expected-- not from a mage, and certainly not from someone from Tevinter.
[He says it a little blankly, unsure on how to process that. It seems an oddly perfect answer, and he wonders if it's a lie. It's certainly possible.]
I can't claim that I was always of this mindset and I will not, I have a responsibility in knowing I was part of a system that was complacent in everything. In the use of blood magic, in the abuse of magic, in the suffering of slaves...and I comforted myself by saying "my family treats our slaves well" and "slavery is better than living in the alienages."
[Dorian inhaled and exhaled slowly, it was difficult having the scales fall from one's eyes.]
Those excuses came from a life that normalized such things and I realized I was just appeasing my own guilt and making excuses for inaction. Then I met people, people I never would have met in Tevinter because they would have been slaves...and I'm very glad that I met them.
[He was glad that he had Fenris's ear at least.]
I would pontificate about the wrongs of rounding mages up and locking them in towers when it hadn't occurred to me that we do the same thing to people in Tevinter. I find it's not an argument I can make without dishonesty, not any longer. If slaves can be rounded up, locked away, and abused then there is no reason that mages cannot...it's just a bad argument.
[Well this was a deep topic, he hadn't intended to go quite this far.]
Ah, but I only wanted to know if you were well or if you needed anything. I have plants from our world so I am able to make potions and tonics if you require any of that.
[This is going to take thought, frankly. It's too good to be true, and yet riddled with just enough detail to make it seem honest. He'll have to think about this and then get back to Dorian, but he knows now he wants at least to meet him.
So, with that said:]
I would not turn down a healing potion.
[He's not, like, bleeding out right now, but on the other hand, he makes a habit of wandering around the black market just to pick a fight, so he's not at his best either.]
Exchanged somewhere in public. I can offer chroma.
[Dorian was...cautiously optimistic, he didn't expect Fenris to trust him, but the fact that he wasn't shutting him down or having fits at him seemed to be a positive step in the right direction.]
There is a place called The Tea Kittle located it level 3 of Lower Lunatia, it's a cross between a library and a tea shop.
[He agrees that a public place might be safer for the both of them overall, not that he was expecting a confrontation.]
Oh, I don't require any sort of payment, I have more than I need.
[He's not above getting free shit from magisters, but at least for this first meeting . . . it makes them more equal. And in this city that throws him so off-kilter, he'll take what he can get.]
I'll see you in a few hours, then.
[Presumably Dorian knows what he looks like, Fenris figures. Even if he doesn't, there's only so many people who dress and speak as though they're from Tevinter. He'll figure it out.]
Sorry for the lag, summer has been killing my drive
[Dorian couldn't imagine anyone who wouldn't know what Fenris looked like after Danarius put out wanted posters of his rogue runaway, he made the elf incredibly distinct so that he would certainly be difficult to miss no matter where he went or how far he traveled. It was a monstrous thing to do to mark someone the way Fenris had been marked and Dorian had heard tale of other subjugations as well, but he would not bring it up, but to mark him in a way that made blending into the background and avoiding attention impossible. Dorian could not imagine...and for him who enjoyed the pleasure of attention would likely take for granted the solace he could get from privacy anytime he wanted.
Anyway he waited at the teahouse, just outside, looking as conspicuous as possible, wearing clothing from their world and carrying a mage's staff so he would be as recognizable as if it had been branded on him. As promised he had brought potions with him and was sitting readily at a table just outside the shop with tea available along with a variety of snacks to share if Fenris was hungry. It was polite anyway.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
because it is time the introduced themselves
[yeah he's being trepidatious because last time this did not end well]
...you are Fenris, correct, are you faring well?
absolutely yes
The thing is: he tries not to think about the fact he'd been here before. It opens too many possibilities, they all of them terrifying. Was it another version of him? Some Not-Fenris? Or was it him and his memories were wiped by magic, returned to Thedas only to be dragged back again? Either way, it unsettles him, in the same way that considering his lyrium tattoos as magic unsettles him. And fortunately, there's other things to worry about.
So! You are Fenris, correct, at least, implies a lack of familiarity, and yet his hackles are raised already. This is also what comes of being an antisocial nut who knows, like, three people, so.]
It depends on who is asking.
no subject
I'm from our world, Thedas, I'm a friend of Inquistior Lavellan and Iron Bull, I don't know if you've met. They tend to be the welcome wagon.
no subject
[Ah, well, that makes things altogether different, doesn't it? Not bad, necessarily, but worrying. Although Lavellan is an elvish name, so perhaps he needn't be utterly defensive.
Like, he's gonna be. But at least not all the alarm bells are ringing.]
No. But that is no fault of theirs; I have kept to myself these past few weeks.
[He has, like, one friend.]
Did you know me?
no subject
[Just the one friend? That's sad. Dorian would like to extend his olive branch in friendship, but that did not work out well last time.]
Not really, I...didn't have much of an opportunity to earn your trust [might as well rip the bandaid off right now]...what with being a mage and one from Tevinter, you were rightly skeptical of me and I understood it. Made it difficult to get to know you or check on your wellbeing before you disappeared.
no subject
So that's nice. And then the bit about the mages happens, and there goes the goodwill.
At least he doesn't try and lie. He doesn't offer too-sweet claims of friendship, of brotherhood; he doesn't even evade what he is, which is, honestly, everything that Fenris hates (and, shamefully, fears, deep in the pit of his stomach). Even the mention is enough to get his pulse spiking, and god, but he's never been more grateful for these devices and how they provide distance.]
I doubt very much you care for my wellbeing.
[It's a growl, but honestly: of course Dorian doesn't. Why would he? It would be like approaching a noble and asking if they cared for a random elf; why would they? The fact that Dorian contacted him is, hm, worrying, all the more so because he doesn't understand it. Because it's--
Assume the worst. Assume that he is like every other magister in existence; assume that he wants Fenris at best for his blood and at worst for his lyrium. Imagine that it must be exhausting to be used to comforts and slaves and being powerful; imagine that you found someone who was a slave, and could be again. Assume that this man is like every other magister he's ever known, and this is just a trap to get him to trust him before he collars him.
Is that logical? It's certainly accompanied by a leap of emotion, a flare of raw panic that leaves his hands shaking, though his expression is still. But is it right to assume that?
After all: they are on equal ground here, aren't they? In the same way he isn't automatically given strange looks because he's an elf, in the way that everyone here, himself included, is touched by magic. Perhaps this man could enslave him, yes, but it would not go so smoothly as it would if they were home. And to his credit (though Fenris is loath to give any mage credit), all he's done is speak cautiously and carefully, not arrogantly or cruelly.
So . . . and this is hard, this is asking a frankly enormous amount from him, but: assume the best.
Assume that this man is . . . what, genuinely worried about Fenris? That he exists here in a void, same as they all do; that to find someone else, anyone else, from their world, brings a rush of relief. Not quite the rush he'd felt when meeting Isabela, but there's something to be said for speaking to someone knowing they'll know all the same cultural cues as you. Know the slang, know the history, know anything about home . . . yes, there is a relief there.
He mentioned an elf. A qunari, too (most likely, but really, what human or dwarf has a name like Iron Bull, it's not a leap in logic). That's . . . mm. Certainly strange behavior for a magister, who has no friends at all, just people he uses and people he tries to get a leg up on.
It's odd. This man is odd, and he isn't grandstanding like a magister nor sneering like one. He isn't demanding Fenris' location, either, or trying to pull at a leash that no longer exists. He's just . . . talking.]
What is your goal here?
[What a sentence. What an awkward, blunt thing to ask, but it's the best he can do in response to his chaotic thoughts. What is your goal, friendship or slavery or simple connection, because that's so much easier than trying to decipher it. And then, belatedly:]
And your name.
[Because that's important too. It's entirely possible they've met before, at some party in Tevinter long ago.]
no subject
Though given his history with mages and magisters he couldn't just dismiss Fenris of his concerns, until recently Dorian had not given much thought to slavery other than how it had been the norm and how his family had treated theirs well. It took walking away from his previous life and taking up arms with the Inquisition that his horizons began to broaden and the scales of his ideal began to fall from his eyes.]...but that's fair enough considering what you've been through under the less than courteous circumstances involving other magisters and mages.
[He was very elegant in that he didn't mention Fenris's previous master by name, Dorian only knew Danarius by reputation, he never kept company with him nor did his father. Clearly he was corrupt enough for Halward to not move in circles with him, not that his father held the moral high ground after what he attempted on Dorian.
That wasn't to say they'd never crossed paths before or that Dorian wouldn't recognize Fenris on sight given that his father was a magister and Danarius was a magister, their paths must have crossed at some point and Fenris was very recognizable, in no way could he be seen as understated. He doubted the elf would recognize him, however, his family name, perhaps, but Dorian? The mage doubted it.]
My goal here? To check on you, to make certain you are doing alright and are wanting for nothing. I've potions and things if you've a need for anything like that.
[Made from stock that came from their own world, naturally, but that was neither here nor there.]
Ah, forgive me for being a bit on the belated side, I'm Dorian Pavus, though I think my father's name might be more familiar to you. Halward Pavus.
no subject
It is, yes. Or was, once.
[When he'd been a slave, he means. Which! Apparently Dorian knows all about that, and it's not shocking, not if he'd known the Other-Fenris, but still.]
Your father is not nearly so generous, not to elves nor slaves. What inspired the change in his son?
[It's almost eerie, honestly, or at least is weirding him out a fair bit. This is the sort of generosity he expects from-- well, from Hawke, frankly, friend to every poor soul who came across her path, offering coin and aid ridiculously generously. It's admirable, but more than that: it's unusual in their world. Kindness is so often rewarded with pain, after all.]
no subject
Generous is a loaded word, I suppose when my father, who preached to me the evils of blood magic and instilled within me a hatred of it abandoned his own principles and planned on using blood magic on me to make me more...pliable? That might have been the starting point, at least in changing the framework of things I knew to be true.
[Of course that was only a very small part of it.]
I left Tevinter, headed south to help the Inquisition and the time I spent in Ferelden, making friends with people so unlike myself and yet so alike in all the ways that matter. Hearing them, listening to their criticisms, viewing what they had to say as constructive, and seeing my world from a different perspective? It changed the way I think and that I want to do the right thing.
[Though the right things wasn't black and white not was it easy and it was hardly fun, but he would figure it out.]
For me, that means changing Tevinter, culling the magisters, and redefining their purpose. It was never meant to be a committee of mages, but those who are qualified by their merits to be leaders and arbiters of the social ills and disputes. Instead, magisters are more content in hoarding their own power and allowing things to slide.
no subject
He'd steeled himself throughout each of those points, waiting for the inevitable drop. Of course, blood magic has its place, he'd readied himself for, or naturally, I wish to keep some of the oldest families around. A hint of where they'd both come from, a taste of the inevitable backlash that Fenris just knows is coming.
Except it doesn't. It simply ends on an alarmingly sane note, and he doesn't know what to do with that.]
I . . . see.
[It's not that he wholeheartedly agrees with it. But it's also not Anders' delusional rants, full of pointless fire and idiotic reforms.
(It's possible he's still furious with Anders, even three months later).
But it is sane, and that's more than Fenris ever expects from magisters. He wonders vaguely what the Other-Fenris thought, and then decides it doesn't matter.]
That was not the answer I expected-- not from a mage, and certainly not from someone from Tevinter.
[He says it a little blankly, unsure on how to process that. It seems an oddly perfect answer, and he wonders if it's a lie. It's certainly possible.]
no subject
[Dorian inhaled and exhaled slowly, it was difficult having the scales fall from one's eyes.]
Those excuses came from a life that normalized such things and I realized I was just appeasing my own guilt and making excuses for inaction. Then I met people, people I never would have met in Tevinter because they would have been slaves...and I'm very glad that I met them.
[He was glad that he had Fenris's ear at least.]
I would pontificate about the wrongs of rounding mages up and locking them in towers when it hadn't occurred to me that we do the same thing to people in Tevinter. I find it's not an argument I can make without dishonesty, not any longer. If slaves can be rounded up, locked away, and abused then there is no reason that mages cannot...it's just a bad argument.
[Well this was a deep topic, he hadn't intended to go quite this far.]
Ah, but I only wanted to know if you were well or if you needed anything. I have plants from our world so I am able to make potions and tonics if you require any of that.
no subject
So, with that said:]
I would not turn down a healing potion.
[He's not, like, bleeding out right now, but on the other hand, he makes a habit of wandering around the black market just to pick a fight, so he's not at his best either.]
Exchanged somewhere in public. I can offer chroma.
no subject
There is a place called The Tea Kittle located it level 3 of Lower Lunatia, it's a cross between a library and a tea shop.
[He agrees that a public place might be safer for the both of them overall, not that he was expecting a confrontation.]
Oh, I don't require any sort of payment, I have more than I need.
no subject
[He's not above getting free shit from magisters, but at least for this first meeting . . . it makes them more equal. And in this city that throws him so off-kilter, he'll take what he can get.]
I'll see you in a few hours, then.
[Presumably Dorian knows what he looks like, Fenris figures. Even if he doesn't, there's only so many people who dress and speak as though they're from Tevinter. He'll figure it out.]
Sorry for the lag, summer has been killing my drive
Anyway he waited at the teahouse, just outside, looking as conspicuous as possible, wearing clothing from their world and carrying a mage's staff so he would be as recognizable as if it had been branded on him. As promised he had brought potions with him and was sitting readily at a table just outside the shop with tea available along with a variety of snacks to share if Fenris was hungry. It was polite anyway.]