Dragon Age Inquisition: Faith

Loyalty

Dorian was starting to get the feeling that people were watching him.

With the Inquisitor, her Commander, and Bull all gone to the Hinterlands, Dorian had rather more time on his hands than usual and no one to play chess with. He found himself visiting parts of Skyhold that he did not normally frequent, and he noticed that he seemed to be the object of more attention than he would have expected. Soldiers turned their heads when he passed; some actually pointed. Even a few pilgrims seemed to stop to stare when they saw him. Dorian was not a fool—he knew that a Tevinter mage would be the subject of some curiosity in the South. But the stares and quiet whispers seemed excessive even by those standards, and he was certain that some of the attention was new.

Finally he cornered Varric, Skyhold’s most attentive gossip-follower. “Is there some reason that everyone is looking at me as though I’d been caught doing something obscene on the floor of the chapel?” he demanded.

Normally Varric would have been delighted to share something that he knew and Dorian didn’t. In this instance, the dwarf grimaced and was silent. “Tell me, Varric.”

“You’re not going to like this, Sparkler,” he warned.

Varric was right. He didn’t.

Dorian confined himself to the Inquisition’s paltry library for several days after his conversation with Varric. He knew he was sulking but did not particularly care. It was absolutely, infuriatingly unfair that in Tevinter he was a pariah for preferring men, while in the South he was now a pariah for allegedly bedding the wrong woman. And that wasn’t even the worst rumor! No, the worst was the one about blood magic. Or maybe the one about him secretly being an agent of the Magesterium sent to entice the Herald into pledging the Inquisition to Tevinter.

He should have expected this, he supposed. And the most obnoxious part about it was, part of him couldn’t blame the Inquisition’s people for looking at him with suspicion. Hadn’t he come from Tevinter because of his disgust with all that was wrong in his homeland? Some of the South’s ideas about Tevinter were ridiculous, of course, but there was more truth in the worst of the rumors than he would have liked.

Still, he’d sweat and bled and stomped up and down the most ghastly places in Thedas on behalf of the Inquisition. He’d helped, damn it. Some part of him, some silly, childish part, had hoped they might notice.

Almost out of spite, he waited in the courtyard for Cecily and her team when they were spotted returning from the Hinterlands. He noticed almost immediately that the skin on Bull’s back was too smooth and puffed and new—he’d been healed, but the injury had been serious. Idiot man, Dorian thought, torn between annoyance and worry. The Commander, too, looked a bit paler than he should, and the careful way Cecily was watching him told Dorian that Cullen was not entirely well.

Behind them, a group of the Inquisition’s soldiers bore a dragon’s skull in a cart.

“Well. It looks like you had an exciting trip,” Dorian said, keeping his tone light.

The Iron Bull laughed and gave him a grin that promised all sorts of very interesting things later. “Next time there’s a dragon, you’ve got to come too,” he said, clapping Dorian on the back. “There’s nothing like it. Dragons!”

Cecily rolled her eyes fondly. “Prepare yourself. He’s been like that ever since we set eyes on the creature.”

Dorian smiled back at her—and immediately caught two Inquisition soldiers exchanging a knowing look. He cursed his stupid pride for making him come down here and greet everyone in full view of all Skyhold. “Inquisitor,” he said formally, forcing the smile from his face. “When you have a moment, there’s something you probably ought to know.”