“this might be a weird time to mention it, but you smell really great.” sounds like something taren would say to dorian i'm just sayin
@dadrunkwriting!
Bringing you some Fallow Mire huggins! Canon-ish. Pavellan. Gen and sweet :3
forgot this was in my drafts and determined to finish it tonight. thanks ro! sorry for the wait
--
"Do you know," Dorian remarked with a curious pause, head tilted slightly to the side, eyes glittering in the conjured light, "you give the strangest compliments?"
His speech was inflected, but it was not a real question so much as it was an amused observation. He shook his head lightly, breathing out an almost-flustered laugh.
Taren liked the laugh, liked the eyes, wasn't sure about the rest of it.
"Dropped right out of nowhere, and I have -- what? An inspiring repertoire of knowledge on banned magical theory?"
"You wouldn't say so?" Taren smiled and shrugged the still glinting curiosity off.
"From Agata to Vitus, but it's another thing to hear it put so... plainly." Dorian shook his head again, smiling on his way back towards his book.
"Would you prefer my compliments be given less plainly?" Taren tried to smirk. Dorian seemed to prefer smirking to a genuine smile.
"Not at all, and I ought to return one," he replied, "You've a lovely gift for the arcane of the arcane yourself."
"The --? oh." The wordplay was clever. Taren told him he was clever, plainly, before he could think better of it, and Dorian chuckled and shook his head again.
"Never change, Inquisitor."
---
"Don't let me disturb you," Dorian waived Taren's startled attempt to rise from his seat off with an outstretch hand. "Only taking some midnight reading of my own, I'll leave you to yours."
"You could join me," Taren ventured.
Dorian eyed him, huddled as he was in a nearly-hidden corner of the library, well past dark. He hadn't conjured any extra light from that which glowed from the dim, smoky stubs of candles in a holder overhead. His eyes didn't need so much light as human ones did to read by, but the library was still more dimly lit than was really comfortable for inviting in company.
"I was planning to take mine to my chambers. Don't you have some of those?"
Taren shrugged beneath his blanket, the one he'd brought down from his comfortable, if isolated, chambers. "I like how the library feels."
At that, strange a comment though it was, Dorian only nodded. "I suppose you don't get as much time to revel in it."
"Mhm."
"Nor so much time alone with your reading, I'll --"
"Really," Taren interrupted the politeness too quickly, "stay if you like. That is, I'd like you to stay. I enjoy your company, even..." liked how he felt, too. "Even just quietly."
"Ah. In that case..."
Dorian took a seat with his book, sitting with less comfortable a recline in the chair beside Taren's. He brightened the space with a flick of his magic, but not by much. They turned pages in the dimness for some unknowable length of time. Taren absorbed himself in the feeling, more than the text, relaxed into the quiet. Occasionally, he stole glances at the other mage's face, admiring the concentration between his brows. He held his tongue from saying anything about how delightfully serious he looked.
He woke to a cautious prod from Dorian's hand at his blanket-covered shoulder.
"Inquisitor," Dorian murmured, "I think it may be time you took leave of me, no matter how compelling you find my company." He was smirking again, the comment sarcastically self deprecating, but still playful.
"M'comfortable," was all Taren managed to mutter back.
"More so in your bed, I expect."
More so in yours, Taren thought, but did not say.
He rose and gathered himself instead. With a parting pat to Dorian's shoulder, he paused.
"Thank you, Dorian."
"Whatever for, Inquisitor?"
"For your company."
"Mm, riveting, I know."
"It was comforting. I -- I often feel lonely, up there in that tower." Taren shrugged with the words, forthright and vulnerable as they were. "And I always enjoy your company."
A stunned smile flashed across Dorian's face before he blinked it away. "Very kind of you to say, Inquisitor."
----
"Fasta vass --" Dorian's curse came with panting as he kicked aside the newly re-killed corpse that had fallen at his feet. "Thank you for that."
"Of course," Taren said, hiding his smile behind a wipe of the back of his hand. He flicked the gooey black-blood and viscera of the swampy undead off of the blade of his staff.
"I may be a necromancer but this," Dorian went on complaining, "this is very much not within my purview. And did -- did you just stab it?"
Taren shrugged. "Staff's got a blade."
"So it does." Dorian's lip curled halfway up to a smile. "Well, best keep getting on with it. How many more of these fun little veilfire rune stops are on this path, you reckon?"
Taren squinted into the foggy distance, then shook his head. "Suppose we'll find out. Come on, watch the water."
"Yes, yes. Wouldn't want to ruin our boots." Dorian sighed and followed his lead, taking careful steps from one half-sunken bit of wooden walkway to the next.
He complained some more as they walked, careful to disturb the water as little as possible, but muttering under his breath all the way. Taren chuckled at some of it, and the complaints grew more dramatic and exaggerated the more he did.
"This is funny to you, is it?" Dorian shot back eventually, furrow in his brow, but a telltale glint in his eye.
"Mhm, you have a delightful way of expressing distaste. Almost makes this fun."
That won him an actual laugh. "And leave it to you to find a bright side in my misery. Flattered, Inquisitor, really."
"Watch out!"
Dorian turned and swerved just as a reaching undead's hand missed a grasp for his ankle. Taren swung at it with the blade of his staff, cutting away the arm and then aiming a quick jolt of force magic to push away the rest of it.
Dorian hopped back in surprise, bringing his own staff forward, cursing again. His startled leap brought him toppling back into Taren. Taren braced, throwing an arm around the mage and pulling him into himself to keep them each from falling from the slippery path and into the curse-infested waters of the greenish swamp.
Dorian turned, steadying himself against him, taking too long a moment with his hand at Taren's shoulder, his wide-eyed face close enough to his own to feel the warmth of his breath.
His breath was minty.
A faint scent of something else clung to the fabric of his robes, cutting through the dank of the swamp.
Taren pulled him in slightly closer, adjusting his feet, trying not to fall. And...
Like incense, and a little bit floral, and a little like the library.
He held him longer, even though both their feet were now steady enough to let go.
"This might be a strange time to mention it, but you smell amazing," he said.
Dorian laughed and gave his head a slight shake. He stepped away, moving carefully to a higher, drier section of the path. "Good, well, something ought to. Maker, this place."
Then he spared Taren a backward glance, slightly smiling. "Delightful timing," he added, "almost makes this fun."
15 notes
·
View notes