Chapter Text
You’re not suggesting we’re similar.
How’s that mirror treating you?
In place of physical self-flagellation, Dorian had begun to tack the silent exchange onto the beginning and end of every conversation he had with Alexius. The man had withered in Skyhold, even with the lax imprisonment gifted him by the Inquisitor’s judgement. Dorian knew it had nothing to do with captivity, or the degradation of being a glorified research assistant to an enemy when once Alexius and his wife had been the most highly regarded thaumatologists in the Imperium, and therefore, by extension, Thedas.
The gnawing, unreconciled guilt over Felix’s death had hollowed Alexius out. Dorian found he could sympathize more fully than he’d been able to at the time of Alexius’ judgement. He had tried to talk to the man then, but his former mentor was too enthralled by Corypheus’ destined victory. Dorian had been furious, knowing anything like victory for Corypheus meant doom for all the world, flabbergasted that Alexius couldn’t seem to acknowledge that.
Now, though he didn’t wish for it, Dorian could fathom the appeal of the world ending, or at least going away.
Their first conversation had gone poorly. Alexius seeped bitterness whenever he looked Dorian’s way and Dorian’s lack of any outwardly emotional response seemed to make Alexius angrier still. It wasn’t until Dorian had stood and made to leave that things had changed, and that was due to the fact that apparently no one had ever bothered to tell Alexius his time spell had worked.
“Surely you knew,” Dorian had said, plainly taken aback, and Alexius had looked at him with eyes that burned.
“No.”
“I must have said-”
“No.”
There had been quite a few daunting conversations with paternal figures around that time, and Dorian couldn’t recall the exact words of his talk with Alexius as clearly as he did those he’d shared with his father. He had berated the man, surely, demanded answers, but… no, perhaps they hadn’t talked of the ruined future he and the Inquisitor had forged through. It would make sense that no one else did, either, particularly after Dorian had told the Inquisitor of Alexius’ obsession with the magic, the dangers of it. He had other research to turn his mind to, after all, by the Inquisitor’s orders.
“...It worked. Not the way you intended. Not properly. But it did.”
Dorian had left him, then, to let the idea sit and seep back into Alexius’ mind. Their next conversation several days later went somewhat more smoothly.
If his meetings with Alexius concerned anyone, they were keeping it to themselves. Evelyn asked him once if he was getting the answers he needed. Leliana had stopped him briefly to inform him if he needed new volumes for the library, Josephine was in a mood to be asked. That was the extent of it, and Alexius wouldn’t dare jeopardize his sudden increase in materials to pour over or time without a templar standing by just to spite Dorian. The subject of their discussions remained secret, save with the only other soul Dorian could stomach to tell, and then only because he knew there was no way forward without her expertise.
“The thing is, it has to be either a generator, or a catalyst, but it can’t be both, but it probably has to be a generator logistically, but it’ll be indescribably easier to make it a catalyst, and by easier I mean ‘theoretically slightly less than impossible’ as opposed to ‘theoretically mostly impossible’.” Dagna thumbed her lower lip, gaze distant but eyes bright. “I need to order some books from Josephine.”
“Discreetly, Dagna, please,” Dorian said. The dwarf’s boundless enthusiasm for all things dangerous and arcane was equal parts admirable and terrifying. Of all the residents of Skyhold, Dorian, as a Tevinter mage and Altus to boot, was by far the most suited to taking Dagna’s eagerness to rip the world apart to get to the magic underneath in stride. It had daunted even him, on occasion, but now he was purely grateful.
“Right, sure. Hey, does the Inquisitor know about this?” she asked, although it had taken her so long to come to the question Dorian doubted it would really affect her decision.
“No. This is a personal matter.” The familiar words dropped between them like stones, and even with the way the waterfall echoed through Skyhold’s broken, lower reaches, the undercroft seemed suddenly still and quiet.
“All right,” Dagna said, clearly forcing the words to approximate her usual earnest cheer, “well-”
“You have them,” Dorian said. A little noise crept back into the world. She nodded.
“I wasn’t sure,” she said feelingly, “if you would come for them, or… I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“I understand, thank you. I’d like to see them, if you have no other use for the materials.”
Dagna would always have another use for the materials. They were incredibly valuable.
“No,” she lied instantly, and then, not a lie, “I would never reuse them. They’re whole.”
Dorian nodded, and Dagna went to the bench where several runes glowed and fizzled in carefully crafted vices of her own design. She pushed a few bundles of what were probably priceless, Fade-touched minerals aside and dug around a heavy stone trunk for a moment, before withdrawing with an ornately carved wooden box and returning to Dorian with it, lid opened, contents upraised.
The tooth had been difficult to come by at all, let alone discreetly, but the result was well worth it. She had shorn it carefully in two, not an even divide but into pieces that fit like a puzzle, and were of an appropriate ratio for their respective intended owners. The sharp edges were rounded, just enough to make them safe for wear, with stormheart. It had been worked so smoothly it looked like dark water clinging to the edge of a knife. Near the broadest part of each piece the metalwork branched out into a design that strongly resembled Bull’s favored vitaar, and then capped the shards of tooth, providing a ring through which they could be strung on a cord or chain.
Dorian had no concept of how long he stood taking in the details, Dagna patiently presenting the heavy box. He swallowed in place of clearing his throat and said, “The work is masterful, of course. I… Thank you. I cannot tell you how much I regret he didn’t have a chance to admire it.”
“Would you like to take them?” she asked, gently closing the lid of the box.
He had no use for them, and felt a shadow of apprehension at another physical reminder of what was gone, but found himself nodding all the same, and mutely accepted the box when she offered it to him.
“Stop by in a couple days, I’ll have my head wrapped around this amulet thing.”
A couple days was enough time to visit twice more with Alexius, and discover the disturbing fact that Dorian slept better with a wooden box pressing into his ribs than a bottle of wine infused into his bloodstream.
The more they fell into a familiar rhythm, the faster their pace progressed. Dorian had worked the spell out once before, to draw them back from a tortured future and undo Alexius’ mistakes, but the task before him now required more finesse. He needed it to work. He needed to know it would. It was taxing, but Alexius was driven. Dorian would catch glimpses of the man who had come out of nowhere to save him from himself, and his heart would twinge faintly over all that was lost along with Livia, and Felix’s future. The other hurts he carried were more encompassing, though, so it didn’t distract him overmuch.
The voraciousness with which he and Alexius had pressed the Fade and all the rules of its engagement had, in Dorian’s youth, been both thrilling and grounding. It had given him something to dedicate himself to, challenge himself with, and revisiting those theories reminded him of how close they had come to shattering barriers perhaps best left in place. Livia had always been a balance, never holding Alexius back or even attempting to rein him in, but checking, always checking, preventing with her own magic the catastrophes that could have been.
She was gone, like so many others, and Dorian had no intention of recruiting someone to take her place. There were barriers that needed shattering, but the destruction had to be controlled, and channeled. It was heady, exhausting stuff to pick apart- spellcrafting was no meager feat- but after weeks of discussion and argument and exhaustive research, it was given practical form by Dagna’s gifted hands.
“So,” she began, the closest thing to trepidation Dorian could recall seeing her display, “it’s kind of both an engine and a catalyst, but only when it’s working.”
“Which means?” Dorian prompted, eyebrows skewing up and together.
“Which means when you use it now, it’ll be a catalyst, and if the spell works the way you’ve theorized it should, the amulet will become the focal point of bifurcation for every moment that passes while it’s in use, so since it could have been an engine it will be but because I made it a catalyst it’ll still be that, too.” She pulled an incredibly dull looking gem the color of dead moss out of a pouch on her hip. It hung from a copperish chain and steadfastly refused to wink in the light.
“The upside is, if the spell does work and you do move backward in time, because it could have been either and still worked, if something changes in a way that means I would have made it the other way, it’ll still have worked. Paradox avoided.”
Dumat’s bones, what are you thinking? Dorian pushed the thought down and nodded a little, chest swelling with the dangerous fullness of hope.
“And if it breaks, or we never reach this point? In the… bifurcated timeline.”
“Not a full timeline,” Dagna said, “theoretically it’s just…. the moment, and the fabric of the world will snap itself together around that moment to enclose it in the singular timeline. Or, you know, the fabric of the world will unmake itself, I guess that’s possible.”
“Yes, I misspoke. But if we never-”
“I don’t know,” Dagna said. “There’s no way to know.” They stood silently for the space of a few breaths, before Dorian reached out and lifted the chain from her fingers to wind it around his own.
“Very well. The spell is as sound as I can deem it without performing it, and I trust your immeasurable skill.”
“I don’t know if this can be done, but I hope it can,” she said, voice dropping like she was imparting a secret. “And if it’s going to be anyone but the Inquisitor trying it, I’m glad it’s you.”
Dorian nursed that confidence through the rest of his preparations, held it close in his mind and kindled it with thoughts of the Iron Bull. If he did this, as Dagna and Alexius both believed he could, he would hear Bull’s laugh again, all the myriad variations of it; the slow rumble, almost beneath the threshold of human hearing, reserved for wry amusement in lazy conversations; the raucous booming most heard on tavern nights with the Chargers or after a particularly good exchange with Sera as they traipsed through some unholy mud pit; the quick, warm chuckle that had graced so much of their early verbal sparring, that had made Dorian feel warm under ribs and in the pit of his belly, that he had initially mistaken for ire.
He would give anything to hear that laugh again.
Dorian brought the amulet, a glut of lyrium, and the wooden box that held the split dragon’s tooth to Bull’s room. It remained unoccupied, despite Skyhold’s increasing demand for space, though some of the furnishings were stripped bare or had been repurposed. The writing desk was still there, scarred and tilted on uneven legs, and Dorian set his materials out on it, draped the amulet’s chain around his neck and then, though it was foolish, lifted the half of the dragon tooth that was his and dropped it over his head. He rubbed his fingers over the half that was Bull’s.
It was the middle of the day, and the sounds of activity filtered in through the hole in the room’s roof. Dorian watched the sky past the beams, finding his focus- Alexius’ words, Dagna’s faith, Bull’s laugh, Bull’s scars, Bull’s eye. Not the pile of ashes in a cold stone grave set into the foundation of Skyhold, but the breathing, warm, compassionate man that had given Dorian a future beyond the Inquisition to strive for.
He drank three lyrium potions. The Fade pressed in at him from all sides, reaching to meet the power he kept in check through sheer will. He cast, first drawing glyphs in the air around him and then gathering the rest of the spell in his mind, channeling it through his body. The amulet grew cold against his chest to the point of burning, and his focus sharpened.
The day they had left to do battle with Corypheus, he had lounged tersely on Bull’s bed as the qunari strapped on his harness, secured his brace, dressed himself for battle. At the last moment, and with unnecessary sharpness, Dorian had snapped, “Here, sit.”, and retrieved Bull’s eyepatch from the table next to the bed. The Iron Bull humored him, sitting his bulk on the edge of the mattress, and Dorian had carefully fastened the leather straps around Bull's horn, along the groove of scar tissue that knotted Bull’s brow, and carefully behind this ear. Then he had kissed him fiercely, both hands cradling Bull’s jaw, and Bull’s massive arms had wrapped around Dorian like a shield.
That was the moment. That morning clear in his mind, Dorian pushed his will outward, into the amulet which seemed to roil and churn like the sea, and there was a flash of unbearably bright green light as the glyphs shattered, and then the world was turbulence, and then the world was gone.
Then, Dorian was in Redcliffe.