genessia | There is literally no song that fits this theme okay

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There is literally no song that fits this theme okay

Who; Dorian Pavus and Alleyana Lavellan
What; Just home things
Where; Casa Inquisition a.k.a. Skyhold II
When; May 22nd? Afternoon? Sure...
Warnings; Possible (read probable) discussions of abuse, injury, and maybe other things. I'll update if I need to.

Troubling as it was, knowing what was transpiring if not exactly when, having a bit of time away from work to enjoy their new estate was nice. He'd taken the previous day to stock their wine cellar (or at least a random room on the basement he's now dubbed their wine cellar) and he's now reclining in a very comfortable recliner in the main room on the main floor, enjoying the natural light from the large front windows, sipping a bold yet gentle red from somewhere called "Italy", and reading a bit of classic literature from the same world. Thus far, "Great Expectations" was proving a great disappointment, but he was going to let the book run it's course and see where it left him. Maybe the importance of the holidays played a larger role than he was prepared for.

Ah, well. It was a refreshing perspective, at least. Thedas wasn't known for it's first person narrative. Maybe he'd pass the idea long to Varric, if he remembered anything from this place.

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"Measurements?" Alleyana blinked, "That's fine. Is it going to be sturdy enough?"

There was a reason her current substitute was made of the strongest material on Thedas.

He tilted his head to the side for a moment before smiling. "I do know what I'm doing, you know. Why, I even venture beyond a library on occasion and perform more practical tests than can be completed in a laboratory."

Hey look, Dorian hadn't realized how damn heavy her shield was, he may not realize how much force she exerted on that arm. It was a valid concern! Alleyana just shrugged one shoulder, feeling weird without the weight of her usual armor bearing down on it. "Right, well, what do you need me to do?"

His smiled turned more pleased rather than haughty. "Well, I will need to measure the other, so they're of a size, obviously." He motions toward her door. "Would you care to join me in my study?"

And the twinkle in his eye says he's very pleased to have one again.

The other... arm? Alley supposed that made sense, and got up from the chair to follow. "I suppose the stump, too. Like, diameter and such."

He nods as he leads the way from her room across the landing his his. "Yes, precisely! How else is it to fit?"

He's never actually fitted anything like this before, of course, but he's also been looking into the process by which one would make a prosthetic limb. Never let it be said Dorian Pavus does anything halfway.

"Yeah, I don't know much about this stuff. I just got my bar and then got to work." As long as she could secure a shield to it, she'd figured, that was good enough. Having more, having better, hadn't fully occurred to her as an option.

"Well, yes, I believe we have something in common there." He opens the door to his study for her. Inside, she'll find his desk covered in tomes, scraps of paper, stacks of more scraps of paper, vials of things on shelves and none of it seeming to be in any sort of order. "Thankfully, I'm a fair hand on research."

It also felt weird to be walking around without even the heavy bar attached to the stump. It was like the limb was even more gone than usual, with that side feeling so bizarrely light. It actually threw off her balance just slightly, though she was correcting for it.

The state of his desk wasn't a surprise at all. The Inquisitor had known Dorian for a while, after all. "Yes, I've noticed."

Research was a lot of what he'd done in their group, when she wasn't dragging him out on excursions.

He moved to his chair, clearing away a pile of notes to allow her to have a seat before going to his desk to retrieve things he'd already collected: measuring tape, compass, things like that.

"I've chosen a material I can easily carve, is light, and can easily be enchanted to be a lot less destructible than it's inert state. Obsidian. It retains its shape under wear, and shouldn't off-set the weight of your right arm over-much." He motions to the chair. "If you'd be so kind."

Alleyana had hesitated initially to sit down, but went ahead and did so when he prompted it. "I wear a heavy gauntlet on my right arm, too." So weight wouldn't be much of an issue, really.

"Yes, quite." He breathes a sigh as he starts about taking what measurements he needs. "My point, of course, Alleyana, is to allow for the wearing of a gauntlet on both arms."

He looks up to her pointedly for a moment. "I'll not have you breaking it."

Alley helpfully moves her stump this way and that, and even her remaining arm, however it seems useful for the measuring. Ridiculous, fuzzy black glove and all. She was actually fairly subtle about keeping that hand from being touched at all unless Dorian specifically tried to measure it, and then she'd go stock still for the duration.

"...I suppose I'll have to find a smith, then." The old gauntlet had turned to stone and crumbled to dust with her arm, after all.

He chuckles. "All in due time. I don't even have a rough version as of yet." He pauses in his work, eying her gloved hand with a bit of apprehension. He doesn't want to invade her privacy, but he's going to have to.

"Though, when one does exist, we'll of course have several fittings, and I'll want to be certain it works." Maybe a bit of a teaser would soften the need to unglove that hand.

"I've been toying about with Storm magic, you see. It's the same principle our brains use to stimulate muscle movement. I mean to make it a fully functioning replacement." And he looks down to her other hand once again. "And, as such, I need to record an accurate size."

"...You're not going to want to make it look like this one," Alleyana noted with a faint frown, also looking at her gloved hand. Always, always gloved. The stretchy, fuzzy fabric didn't entirely conceal the wrong shape of it. The full gauntlet did a good job of that, but nothing less than articulated metal plates could make it appear normal.

He cleared his throat before nodding. "Certainly." That came out wrong. "That...is to say, I can see that."

He sat back, leaning against the corner of his desk and crossing his arms. "Enough of this awkward beating about the bush, yes? Whatever you hide beneath that glove, it can't be as hideous as that beast tromping about our garden, and I tolerate it just fine. There's no call for self-consciousness."

Alley stared at him for a long moment, as though considering refusing.

...A long moment.

"..."

Then with a sigh, she lifted the hand to her teeth and nipped the very tip of a finger, tugging the glove off in one motion -- and wincing around it as she did so. Alleyana, who could take a staggering blow from an enemy and not wince, winced at this, the cloth unbearably rough as it slid over skin that always felt like the nerves were all completely exposed.

The skin here was deathly pale, scars in layers. It had been skinned, it had had nails driven through it, and not a single bone in the back of it or in any of the fingers was straight. Veins routed strangely, a tendon strained against the skin at a joint. She didn't even have fingernails anymore, the nailbeds were so ruined with scarring, a fingertip bone pressing so hard up against one it was a wonder it hadn't split the flesh open.

That hand was an absolute horror that shouldn't function. At all.

Edited 2017-07-02 04:16 (UTC)

If she pays attention to his face, she'll watch his heart warring with his mind. Intellectually, he finds the unveiling of this mutilated hand fascinating, the researcher in his wanting nothing more than to figure out how this destroyed appendage continues to function. Meanwhile, the gentle man inside Dorian, the one who cherishes Alleyana as his closest and dearest friend, is experiencing second-hand heartache at the state of it.

Obviously a very old collection of injuries, he can only lament her not having access to a gifted spirit mage. A true healer could have done, well, something at least. Nuts and berries did nothing to heal torn flesh or set shatter bones.

It took effort to pull his eyes from it and meet her eyes, and years of practice to smile amicably in the face of it.

"It's just a hand, you know. One, admittedly, that has seen it's undue share of abuse, but a hand, nonetheless." He looked back down, moving back to her side and crouching there. "I'll be gentle."

It had an extremely limited range of mobility, the fingers unable to close with any strength much past something the thickness of her sword hilt. They also couldn't lay totally flat, at all.

"Good, it's..." impossible to describe, really, but Alley tries anyway, "it's like touching an eyeball."

On her end, anyway. One part weird and two parts agonizing if not handled with the utmost care.

"This was the worse of the two, before the Anchor."

"Really? It doesn't look like an eyeball at all." But really, Alleyana, there's a thought. And he is remarkably gentle while he measures what he needs to measure before taking up the glove she removed.

"Alright, then. That should suffice. Allow me."

"I mean that's kinda what it feels like to have it touched," Alleyana grunts out quickly in between measurements. "It's a little hard to describe."

It wasn't always bad, but it was always strange. And it was easy for it to go bad. She eyed him with the glove for a moment, then shook her head. "It's scratchy as hell. I'll wait until it's dry enough to fight the leather one back on."

"Ah." What else could he say to that? The idea have him the shivers, but he was being attentive so he didn't give it much thought.

"No need, if you're not of a mind." He nodded at her denial of the glove. At least now he understood why she always wore it, sad story as it was.

"Alleyana, you are, of course, under no obligation whatsoever to answer, but..." he shook his head. "Nevermind. Whomever did this to you, you clearly got on their bad side."

"Or their good side," Alleyana grunted, but that tone wasn't one that preceded a story.

She wouldn't mind too much, telling it, but... not today. The Inquisitor was about full-up on the experience of being as she was, after having to have her hair brushed and braided for her, and having her stump and her remaining hand measured.

"I'm gonna go clean up my gear," Alleyana said after a moment, getting to her feet. The best time to clean armor was while not wearing it, after all. And by the time she was done, she'd be dried off enough to change back into it. Not having the weight of it on her was... always strange.

Dorian nodded, not disappointed in her lack of story or anything like it. He smiled amicably, bowed slightly at the shoulders, and moved towards the door.

"Enjoy your cleaning. It sounds positively riveting."

Alleyana's reply was another grunt, which... yep. Off she went.

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