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I still make the mistake of turning into the rotunda, to climb the stairs to the library to visit him. I always forget that he can’t make that climb anymore, even with my aid. I still think that maybe, that little armchair hidden away between the shelves will hold him- but the chair was rotten, now, discarded somewhere I did not know, and he rested in my private quarters.
I still make the mistake of expecting to look up at him, like I had always used to. I look down at him now, as he lies still, breathing even in his sleep. Sometimes he wakes but says nothing, sees nothing. He stares straight ahead, and all I can get from him is the faintest spasm in his hand. I always prefer to think that this little action is deliberate, his one small act of comfort. My mother had warned me this would happen, she’d warned me to never call one of the invaders your heart. You make them dear to you, and you spend a few good years together, and then they die and you’re left with nothing but hurt. Most of my fellow Dalish thought it was good that the invaders were cursed to such a short lifespan, but I... I could never agree.
His eyes were bright and golden when we met, but that shine has long since left them. Glazed over, bleak- there’s nothing left here anymore. Once dark hair had turned white long ago, silvery, devoid of anything he’d once been so proud of, what he’d laughed at me over when I’d asked him if he’d used some kind of magic to get it to sit like that.
I cannot express just how deep the roots of grief run. Taken so unfairly, taken away from me, from our home. Taken, all as part of a curse I could never have hoped to fix.
*
We had met in a small village in the far south. I’d wandered from arrangements I had meant to make, wandered from those responsibilities. And there he was, beating down some assassin my “potential partner” had meant to send my way.
I hadn’t trusted him. Not then. How could I? His people always lied, and he could very well have been the one trying to cause harm. He’d insisted on helping me, saying it was the ‘Right thing to do,’ and that he couldn’t possibly let his homeland’s extremist population declare war on mine without doing something to stop them.
It took time after that, but eventually, Dorian Pavus had come to be a close friend.
*
A few years before the last traces of life would fall away from him, I’d asked him to talk to me about what he’d wanted to happen when he finally left me. He told me it was customary for followers of his faith to be cremated after death, that the fire represented not only the flames that had taken the blessed prophet Maker’s side, and her ascension to the heavens, but a cleansing process to ease passage through the fade unto deliverance. He told me then, that the ashes would typically be sent back to his homeland in an urn, to join the remains his long line of ancestors.
But his homeland had never been kind to him. He was far too deviant from their strict social system for that, and so, he had decided his remains would not make the trip back to the north, but he would have them scattered in the south, somewhere that had meant something to us both.
I considered letting them go over the peaks of the Frostback Mountains, letting them scatter across the snowy caps that we had, together, made habitable. He could drift and soar, but he’d always been terrified of heights. He didn’t want it.
I then thought, perhaps, of taking them along the western plains and letting them rest with the remains of my own people, that he was accepted to lie with my ancestors. That would make him the first, and likely the only northerner worthy of resting in the sacred grounds of my people. But the place had never meant anything to him, and the meaning of it was lost in the suggestion.
I’d considered the remnants of my predecessor’s former homes, where a mighty tree grew for each defender of our homeland, lush and evergreen, where the lands broke and twisted in intricate spirals of water and ice, just as the branches twisted and spiralled together in an endless pattern of glowing green light as the sun filtered through. Not dark, but never bright enough to hurt the eyes. Perfectly humid, the one temperature both he, from the north, and I, from the south, could enjoy. When I’d suggested it, he had turned it down as well. He didn’t want to be so far from his home, up here, from where we had experienced so much together.
For one so dear, it could be nothing less than perfect, but the flaws abound in all of these locations made the choice... Difficult.
*
When we weren’t spending time in the stronghold, I would travel the lands, Dorian always at my side, we made a few close friends.
Madame Vivienne, the leader of the loyalist mages and Warden Blackwall, one of few left of the sacred order, the protectors of all from any threat, were a few of those who joined us.
Vivienne and Dorian fought endlessly as we travelled together, yet always seemed to have enjoyed their banter. She’d insult his people, his ancestors, and everything he stood for, and he’d laugh, saying that ‘at least I, Vivienne, don’t need to cover myself in ridiculous frills to feel as if I’m worth something!’ They mock each other endlessly, and I would have been lost without them.
It had been one of those days, wandering, when Vivienne had told us that she’d received letter from one of her noble allies, questioning the truth behind rumours of Dorian and I being partners. She’d said that he’d written of it as an abomination, that I would lose his support if dare continue to favour the dreadful northerner any longer.
“Ah. And I’m sure, Vivienne, that you agreed with him? Worried for our dear leader’s reputation?” Dorian had scowled at her, just as he always did. I remained silent, as usual, watching and waiting for her to tear strips off the both of us with her precise words.
“On the contrary, dear! I assured him that the only abomination was his handwriting.”
We’d both muttered our thanks to her. Acceptance was strange for us both, but Dorian... It had been completely alien. I hoped that perhaps, he would become used to the luxury.
*
“You’ve only got another decade or so,” I’d said to him as he sat in his little armchair between the shelves, surrounded by books I owned but he had claimed long ago, and then used as evidence to mock my real librarian’s poor sorting skills.
He’d given me the evil eye for that comment, resuming his reading. Of course he would, always ignoring what was inevitable until the last moment. Typical of him, really, to do this when I needed to speak to him most. He needed to understand, but he’d still refuse. He’d always refuse. Rather live in blissful ignorance than face the pain of the unavoidable.
“Dorian, please. We need to talk about this.” I pleaded to him. Pleading, always pleading. I wish I could say I have changed.
“Soren. No. We are not having the lifespan talk right now. Puts us both in a shitty mood.”
His complaints were fair enough. It was important, sure, but what wasn’t, now? Our time together was limited at best. Why should we spend what little we had remaining speaking of things that really, neither of us wanted to discuss? And if he had complained to me every time I had almost gone and died on him, well... We wouldn’t have had much time to do more enjoyable things.
It’s a small memory. It’s not even one of the eventful ones. Looking back, however, I wish I’d paid more attention to what he had been reading. The arcane had always been his favourite subject, but age regression... That was new.
*
“So Dorian. How is it you get your hair to sit like that?” I’d wondered aloud, not the first person to ask and most certainly not the last.
It hadn’t even been a good time to ask. We’d just been ambushed by a small group of Dalish wanderers, thankfully not from my own clan, and only just come out of it with our coin intact. In the rush to defend ourselves, Dorian had been tripped, and landed straight in the mud around our little camping spot. Only now was he beginning the tedious process of picking off the now dried bits of dirt. His hair, dishevelled and out of place, was more than just mildly displeasing to him. Which, of course, made it highly amusing for me, pulling those little clumps out from his locks.
“Soren! Give me a minute, please!” He swore. How dare I- Clearly I, also being Dalish, was responsible for the attack, “This is why you never trust the Dalish! Feral, really. All of you. Just wanted to see any of my kind embarrassed, hm?”
“I do enjoy watching you people fall,” I’d admitted as I continued my task, “But you never answered the question.”
He’d let out a long sigh, taking a moment to calm himself again, before he spoke, “There’s nothing too special about doing it. But I suppose proper hygiene to the Dalish is as good as magic.”
I’d been tempted to push him back in the mud for that.
*
I remember once, when we were both young, we’d hide away from Sister Nightingale’s prying eyes by ducking down into the garden, past the herbs and in the rotunda by that lovely oak. When Ambassador Montilyet came searching for us, it was that same place we’d hide. Commander Cullen was the one man who knew where we’d vanished to, but he was a good man, and he’d kept it a secret from them, and never sought us out when we were there.
That oak was the one that had stood since long before either of us had come this far southwards, much older than either of us. I had always admired it for its strength, for the way it remained strong when I climbed it, for the privacy it offered, and for the way it felt under an ungloved hand.
We’d spent many, many hours together there over the years. His ashes would be safe here.
“Let me rest there,” he’d said, when I had suggested it, “Let me rest there.”
*
There is no peace in living. I have watched myself crumble, slowly, as he grew old and I did not. In many ways, he had been the one to retain his youth, while I was the one who slowly grew ancient. Each year he had lived and lasted, I had died for two. As his face grew wrinkled, I had never paid enough attention to the way the wrinkles had shaped his face, changed it.
In youth, his mouth had been touched by the faintest line of cruelty. But he’d aged gracefully, and the washes of sin had slowly faded, covered up by the marks of laughter, marked by the happiness, and acceptance, that he had enjoyed. In dull eyes, life had still laid, right from the beginning. I hadn’t realised.
When he had finally gone, the fire had been just as bright as he had deserved. And as ashes, he’d fallen gracefully, scattered among homely treasures which he could continue to nurture.