genessia | [closed] go tell the world that I’m still alive

It'd been a few months now, and even as he rose at mid-day due to putting what he hoped to be the finishing touches on Alley's new hand, he felt a sensation all-together unfamiliar: uncertainty. What he'd attempted with this hand was something he, and to his knowledge, no one had ever attempted before. It meant there was an enormous margin for error, and beyond wanting to avoid all ideas of failure, he didn't want to provide false hope to his dearest friend.

So, it was with feigned confidence and great trepidation that he made his way down to the gardens, leaning against a post nonchalantly as he watched her work for a moment before calling out to her.

"Quite a quaint little garden you've got here, Alleyana. I'm impressed."

It was a lot bigger a setup than the couple handful of pots she'd grown things in at Skyhold. Which meant more results... but also more work.

But, well, wasn't like she was saving any worlds while stuck here. Two jobs or not, she had an abundance of time compared to the usual back on Thedas. And it was better to stay busy than spend time worrying about whatever foolish thing Solas might be doing right now without any proper interference.

"May as well have the usual potions, even as rare as trouble is here," Alleyana grunted, straightening up a short trellis with her singular, armored hand, and the end of the bar connected to her stump.

Even this would be a lot easier with, you know, hands.

"It couldn't hurt, I suppose." He watched her motions for a while, frowning at the use of a bar rather than a proper hand. Maker, please let this work. "Do you have time for a bit of a break?"

Dorian was a lot more preoccupied with the state of her shield arm than Alleyana herself was, these days. Part of it was that she'd had longer to adapt to it; part of it was... well. The Inquisitor had never been someone to try to work with what should be there, instead of just dealing with what was actually there.

"Of course," she finished straightening the trellis for the rashvine, and absently wiped her gauntlet off on her sash. "Did something come up?"

Look, if someone wanted her for something there was almost always a good reason. Old habits, and all that.

He took a steeling breath and motioned toward the indoors, smiling in an attempt to allude to more confidence than he was actually feeling.

"As it happens, yes." His calculations were accurate. He'd traced and retraced lines. It would work. "I have something I would very much like you to try on."

Had anyone else in their merry band of misfits said that, Alleyana would have been a bit worried. As it was, there was only one conclusion to come to about what Dorian was talking about.

Right.

The arm.

Alleyana eyed Dorian for a moment, then inclined her head and went inside. "It's already that far along, huh?" Look, building an arm and a wrist and a hand -- she hadn't exactly been holding her breath on it even being something he'd let her see, anytime soon. Trying on meant it was a good deal further along than that.

He smiled then, actually glancing down momentarily. Aside from working, researching, and not sleeping well, he'd been working on nothing else. His exceptionally rare bashfulness didn't last long, of course, and he nodded before shrugging as he headed inside.

"Naturally. If you wanted a delay, you should have given me a challenge."

"What challenge? Warping space and time, or ripping holes in the very fabric of reality are both so last year," Alleyana's tone couldn't be any dryer. Unless pointed a different direction, she moved with the assumption Dorian was keeping it secreted away upstairs, and started climbing them accordingly.

Look.

It took a while. Her knees were a hell of a lot older than Dorian's -- and carrying a hell of a lot more weight! That armor was no joke, as he'd found before. Nor was that massive spiked slab of a shield.

And she didn't trust the lift. Fight her.

He chuckled. Their casual banter had always served to put him at ease and there was no reason not to take comfort in it now. Leave it to Alleyana to keep things light-hearted, even if she wasn't feeling it. There was a reason she was the Inquisitor, after all.

"Two years ago, really, but is there any cause to count?"

She was heading the right direction, and he shook his head fondly as she made her way up the stairs. The lift really was superfluous with their few floors, but it had its uses.

It had its uses not lifting Alleyana twelve or more feet into the air, thank you very much. The blasted thing would get stuck, you just bet it would. And then some weird business or other would go down right on top of the house, like the sky breaking open... again...

Fight. Her.

"Two years ago, right," an amused snort. "Last year was eluvians and idiot dread wolves."

"Yes, and this year is new worlds and new horizons." He tried to sound optimistic as they made their way to his laboratory. It had to work. All his calculations assured him it would work.

"And no looking back, right?"

"I'm Dalish, Dorian," it couldn't be any dryer, that tone of Alley's, "all we do is look back."

R.I.P. joke, your time on this world was ever so brief...

He laughed as they made their way across the landing toward his study. "I am Tevinter, Alleyana, we're rather similar in that respect."

He moved to the door, holding it open for her. "After you."

"Mmn," Alley went on in, eyeing the room. How much chaos was in here?

A memory struck her, and she snorted.

"When I first started getting yanked into these other worlds, I met a guy in a library right as he was hucking a book he didn't like through the air. Made me think of someone."

Someone.

No idea who.

The vaguest hint of a smirk touched his lips as he waved a hand toward the desk at the somewhat center of his study. Scattered about were stacks of books, some open, some stacked upon others that were open forming precarious piles about the room.

He moved to his desk right along with her, moving around the cluttered surface to the drawers on the other side.

"An appropriate treatment of sub-par literature. He sounds like a man with refined taste."

He'd had her sit last time she was in here, for the measurements of her stump, so Alley did the same this time and started working on detaching the blackened dragonbone bar currently serving as her forearm.

"I'd introduce you, but he doesn't leave his house much anymore."

A little sad, there. Easy to miss, if one didn't know the Inquisitor so well. But she'd let things go as they would; Sanzo had his father and his 'roommate' here. That was plenty people to look out for the young punk of a priest.

It seemed strange to keep such an important project in so innocuous a location, and it hadn't always lived in his bottom right desk drawer. When it was in its experimental stages when the folded Dust was still unstable, he'd kept it in a warded vessel, but now it was sturdy, if not in need of adjustment to Alleyana's body.

"Ah," he commented as he pulled the wrapped arm, deceptively light, from the locked drawer in his desk. "He's become a hermit, then? How unbecoming."

"Happens a lot to people here," Alleyana set the bar and its usual attaching hardware somewhere on the desk where it seemed less likely to cause an avalanche. Then she went about shoving the dragonhide leather of her sleeve up as much as she could from the scarred, faintly green end of the stump. "In his case, he's got his father here, and a boyfriend, so I figure he's being looked after well enough."

Inquisitor momma bear, always looking after people whether she actually wanted to or not.

"His father and a boyfriend." While she organized herself, he set about clearing a spot on his desk, a place he'd been meaning to organize for weeks now, to make room to work. The adjustments could be made later. Now, he only needed to make notes and take measurements. "It sounds as though he has his hands full, but he should count himself blessed you deem them sufficient to care for him in your stead." He smirked mischievously at her.

Afterward, he moved to a far bookshelf that slid to the side at the press of a button, to reveal the replacement arm he'd been working on, a shining black stone covered with dull blue runic carvings. He picked it up easily enough, belying a lightness that seemed impossible for the amount of stone that went into it's carving.

"Well? What do you think? Be honest. Whatever you may say, I can assure you I've faced harsher criticism."

"Are you suggesting I'm a busy-body, Dorian?" Alley asked dryly, clearly aware that the answer was 'yes' because... well, she was.

The arm was... interesting. She leaned forward in the chair she'd sat in, squinting a little at it.

"Looks fancy. And fragile."

"You? A busy-body?" He clicked his tongue. "Wherever would I get that idea? You certainly never came to ask about my dealings as a 'concerned friend', me and everyone else in Skyhold." He smirks playfully before holding the prosthetic before her to be examined.

"Yes, well, the fancy magic runes make it much less fragile than it appears." He motions to thin lines lacing around the arm and curling around each multi-jointed finger. "They also allow for natural articulation. If I've done my work properly, I should only need to make a few adjustments. Shall we begin, or do you have questions?"

To be fair, if she hadn't been as much of a busy-body, Thedas might have fallen apart. Alleyana tapped on the surface of the prosthetic with her sharp gauntlet fingertips, curious what the sound would be. "Is it stone like it looks?"

Though she offered up her stump as she asked it, curious how it would attach. That gruesome bolt hole was there in the middle, threaded right down into the bone, because nothing could go wrong there.

The prosthetic made a thick clack at her tapping, sounding every bit the solid stone it was, and Dorian smiled.

"It is, but deceptively light, unlike the stone from which it's carved." He'd taken measurements of the attachment point months ago, and the end which would cradle her arm was formed to the size. Runic etchings matched the greenish pattern left behind by the Anchor, as well. If he'd managed this properly, it would use the residual force of the Anchor to function. He lined up the prosthetic, sliding the coupling into place. Her arm would feel warm and flowing, not unlike the healing of Spirit magic, as the arm's anchor snapped into effect. It would require adjustment, but he smiled regardless.

"You see? Magic. Can you feel it?"

"Stone is pretty brittle, Dorian..." Alleyana started, but trailed off quickly as the arm was lined up and slid into place, more than a little distracted by the feel of it all. Slightly wide-eyed, too.

A few of the fingers twitched, and her eyes went a little wider. "...Maker's balls."

"And why do you believe this stone is in any way ordinary?" He smiled at her reaction, pleased with the success so far, though he notes the disconnect mentally and reaches for a closed notebook off to the side of his desk, opening it and taking a pen as well.

"Perfect. Now then, can you move it voluntarily? I'd like you to try."

"It feels so weird, not at all like the bar," it wasn't just a weight drilled into the bones of the last remaining few inches of her fore-arm, she could feel the residual Anchor reacting. Something in the arm was trying to sync up with it... and not quite getting there. But close. Like two tuning forks just a bit out of pitch with each other.

She wasn't a mage, no, but between her many physical trips into the Fade, and having Fen'Harel's own power coursing through her veins for years, Alleyana was a great deal more sensitive to this stuff than your average warrior would be. That was the power that had created the Veil itself, after all.

But even distracted as she was, Alley nodded. "I'll try to make a fist."

Twitch-twitch, went several of the fingers again, before one half-curled and the thumb tucked up properly. The rest mostly ignored the cue, other than the pinky finger which started to wag up and down furiously.

"Yes, well, I doubt your bar was crafted by a fully-vested enchanter of the Minrathous Circle of Magi." He nodded at her suggestion, and looks pleased with the level of motion rather than annoyed, making notes before setting down his work, taking hold of the prosthetic and twisting, releasing the seal the magic had formed.

"Brilliant." She may not think it looked like a success, but Dorian looks beyond pleased as he sets the arm down on his desk, then moved to a drawer to find a compass. "Yes, I think this is going to work." As though there had been a doubt he hadn't voiced.

"I mean it's not just dead weight," Alleyana rolled her eyes at Dorian. The man was confident in precisely two things in life; his looks, and his magical abilities. Sometimes to such a degree she was pretty sure he was trying to compensate for how unconfident he was in everything else.

"Well, I'm glad that was a good sign," the Inquisitor noted, prodding very carefully at the stump with her remaining hand. The Anchor's remnant had been riled up enough for the greenish cast to the skin there to be glowing, just ever-so slightly. "Careful, or you'll get my hopes up."

"Yes, that's rather the point." Such observations about Dorian's confidence (or lack thereof) were precisely unnecessary and would be wholly and duly denied if they were ever voiced.

He nodded, his smile confident. "They should be. A few more adjustments and you should be well on your way to hefting, well, that beast of a shield of yours."

"It's a perfectly wonderful shield, Dorian," Alleyana returned, instead of further addressing her hopes -- raised or otherwise. No, the mage hadn't suggested it wasn't a good shield, but banter was banter.

Gotta deflect them feelings! It was no wonder they were such good friends.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "It's quite delightful, Alleyana, and it brings out the green in your eyes."

He set about storing things away, leaving his notebook atop his desk. He'd be working on more calculations soon, now that he had more information.

"Not that you need any help to be beautiful, of course, or look any more deadly."

Alleyana snorted at that, picking up her dragonbone bar off the desk and beginning the slightly gruesome work of threading it back into the bones of her stump. "Yeah that's me, a real looker."

Couldn't be dryer, that bit. Then, without looking up from her task, "You... don't think there's enough Anchor left for him to fuck with things, do you?"

He frowned at the question, looking over his notes rather looking to his friend. There was nothing Dorian hated more than not having an answer.

"I...don't know. If I had more of a knowledge of the nature of the mark in the first place, I may, but..." He breathed a sigh, finally looking up. "I'm sorry, Alleyana."

There'd been enough of the anchor left for Dorian to utilize it, which suggested heavily Solas could as well, but he didn't feel the need to put that to words.

Not to worry; Alleyana had followed the same logic to the same conclusion. "I'll just have to make sure incapacitating me won't be enough to undo the measures we take against him. I... I think he'd do it, if that was all that was between him and his goal. He's willing to have us all burn, after all."

Betrayal never sat well with Dorian. He'd felt it too keenly too many times. He imagined, of course, so had Alleyana, and she'd bared more to their so-called 'friend' than he had.

He grimaced, nodding, his jaw tight. "I suppose he would, wouldn't he? All of this was his mechanization, after all."

"...Yeah," Alleyana pulled the supporting straps around the stump tight and rolled her dragonhide sleeve down to cinch around the base of the bar, not looking up. "All to try to fix a different fuck-up he orchestrated a few thousand years ago that split our world into two different layers of existence."

It was one thing when a miscalculation, you know, burned your house down or something. Another thing entirely when it had such far-reaching effects on the entire world.

"He hasn't learned a thing. I'm going to stop him, Dorian, and hopefully he'll live to learn better."

But she was under no illusions about the odds of everyone coming out of this alive, both on her side and Solas himself. It didn't mean she wouldn't aim for that anyway. That was a big difference between her and her vhenan; the Inquisitor would aim for the best outcome while knowing how unlikely it was, and would be prepared to roll with the results.

If the results were that she had no choice but to kill Solas...

Well, she would be prepared for that.

Edited 2017-10-12 08:09 (UTC)

"If I have any say in the matter, Alleyana, we will stop him."

He shook his head. "He helped us stop Corypheus on the grounds the man dreamed of a world that could no longer be. His situation is the same. We've all grown and adapted to a world separated. It would destroy us all including his own people. Surely he must know that."

The Inquisitor nodded, glancing up finally. "We, yes."

The comparison to Corypheus was spot-on, of course, and disturbing considering Solas' views on the ancient magister before.

"He seems to think his people would survive. Remember, he doesn't think of modern elves as his people at all; in this case it would be those pockets of ancient elves like at the temple of Mythal. I guess there's a lot more tucked away and sleeping."

Unfortunately, it was really hard to force someone to sit down and be rational when they were effectively a God. But that was exactly what needed to happen, at least in the best case scenario.

Dorian continued to organize his things, as much as Dorian ever organized anything, looking thoughtful. There were countless unexplored areas in Thedas of course, but if Solas was heading to the Imperium he could only think of one place to look.

"The Viridis, west of the Imperium. Throughout our history, there have been those who organized expeditions to explore that vast forest, but none have ever returned. It's...something of a legend. It's said, though, that the forest was once part of the great elven empire. I wonder..."

"Sounds likely; Abelas and his people weren't the most keen to let us out either, at first, and they kept that temple from being documented this whole time."

A lot of people wouldn't have even made it into the temple itself, with all the ambushing elves in the forest.

"There was a huge chamber full of elf-sized sarcophagi underground that we found after your time; makes me wonder if that was another... cache of ancient elves. If so, they'd better be damn good swimmers when they wake up."

The more Dorian learned of the elves of the past, the more he realized they were relics that had no business in the modern day, much like the ancient magisters of his own homeland.

"How likely is it Solas will listen to reason, do you think?"

Alleyana was suddenly very interested in the fitment of the bar on her stump, even though she'd already attached it back on as it usually was. It only lasted a moment, at least, before she lifted her head again. The expression on the Inquisitor's scarred and busted face was one of deep pain.

"Is that before or after we leave him no choice? I may... have to kill him."

Either way. Backed into a corner -- and that was the best outcome of their efforts against him -- what would the Dread Wolf do?

"If it comes to that, it should be me. I saw everyone's deepest fears at Adamant; his is dying alone."

If Solas wouldn't be moved from his trajectory, he'd have to be stopped anyway. And if it meant killing him... at least if she did it, it wouldn't quite be that, would it?

Edited 2017-10-19 11:53 (UTC)

All men die alone. It was a fact few questioned, and even more accepted with a sort of vague resoluteness. Granted, Solas was a man unaccustomed to the thought of his own death, having lived ages. Dorian supposed when not being faced with his mortality, death would be a difficult medicine to swallow. Still, Dorian found it difficult to stomach Solas' betrayal, and not only of Alleyana, or the Inquisition. Solas had betrayed the world.

"You've suffered enough because of his actions."

"Everyone has," Alleyana stated simply, "but he was one of us."

Her responsibility, was what that meant. She was the Inquisitor and Solas had been part of her Inquisition; part of the inner circle.

"Besides, if he has to die to save the world, I want to at least be able to say goodbye. I'm beyond furious with him, Dorian, for everything. But I'm not just furious."

"I know." Among many other things, Dorian was terrible when it came to handling feelings, especially when that also resulted in having to confess his own. He busied himself with organizing his desk, but responded.

"I have no intention of imagining what you may be going through, Alleyana, but suffice to say you'll have a mage at your side, provided you have need of one."

"I'll always have need," Alleyana noted, a little gruff because the words weren't really. "You're one of the most trustworthy people from our group, Dorian. Even if you weren't a mage, I'd want you in on this."

Her words were beyond appreciated, and his tone was gentle, warm, and grateful when he responded, even if his expression and general demeanor suggested otherwise.

"Naturally. You can always trust I'll bring enough proper fashion and taste to the group to cover for our less...distinguished members, I suspect."

Alleyana couldn't help but smile very faintly for a moment. "Of course."

[closed] go tell the world that I’m still alive

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject