Chapter Text
Dorian was very relieved when the rep from the Skyhold Symphony Orchestra finally called. He’d made it through the final round of auditions and was expected at an afternoon rehearsal the next day. Barring unforeseen circumstances, his first paycheck would not be far off.
That, even more than returning triumphant to the stage, was good news. He’d cut back on luxuries to make money last, and his meals were mostly beans and rice at this point, but he was still fast approaching his limits. He’d reached out to the SSO in a way that was too desperate to be called a whim, remembering that Alexius had always held grudging respect for the Fereldan institution. And, after all, Dorian had turned his back on Tevinter, on his teacher, and his parents. Why not insult them one step further and play for entirely the wrong team? He smirked at himself. The Imperium didn’t know what it was losing.
Well, that was that. He had a job, and he was on his way to a likely-sounding apartment. Things were looking up for this twenty-nine-year-old runaway. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the bus windows and suppressed a shudder. He needed a real shower and a real mirror soon, things would start looking decidedly down. Stubble and smudged eyeliner was good for very specific mornings after, not a good everyday look.
With an ear splitting screech, the bus rolled to a stop in front of a black of buildings that Dorian tried very hard not to call a tenement. A sign by the sidewalk declared, in faded blue letters: Haven Apartments. This was the place.
Hefting his violin case and swinging his duffle bag onto his shoulder, dorian shuffled off the listing bus behind a grumbling dwarf. He vanished into one of the buildings while Dorian scrolled through his texts. Building 4… the one with the broken steps. Not too hard to find. He hit the buzzer next to number 309 and waited. The name “Smith” was written on a piece of white masking tape next to it.
He was almost fifteen minutes, but that wasn’t his fault. He’d spent half an hour planning his route with a very kind older lady, and they’d agreed that it was either fifteen minutes too soon or an hour too late. Dorian hadn’t wanted to annoy his potential roommate by changing the time by that much. As he stood on the cracked front step, it occurred to him that this might be just as annoying. Maybe they had wanted more time to clean before he got there?
Worried, Dorian began to smooth his mustache, a habit that his mother had always discouraged. The memory of her scolding was already tinged with an unpleasant twist of homesickness, and Dorian stroked his mustache more vigorously, annoyed.
“Hi there!” a cheerful voice broke into his nervous fretting, and Dorian looked down to meet a wide smile and bright brown eyes, watching him over a stack of thick books and a small pile of boxes. One box was clear and filled with… gears and runestone, from the look of it.
“Are you new in these parts?” the dwarf radiated enthusiasm. “Could you do me a favor open that door there? I’d do it myself, but…” she shrugged and tapped her nose against a box. It wobbled and something in it made a small chiming noise.
“Well, I would,” Dorian said hesitantly, “but I believe it needs some sort of code?” In Tevinter, he could have unlocked it with a spell, but his education had been mostly in music and some theoretical thaumaturgy, so he was a bit spotty on the interactions between magic and electronics. He know not to cast an energy spell at a light socket, but the specific internal machinations were a bit beyond him. This door, certainly was.
“Of course, silly me! I really should rig up some sort of remote for myself. But that might defeat the purpose of the security measures, and the super probably wouldn’t like it. Hm, but if I never told anyone…” she trailed off, into her own mind. Dorian waited patiently. He was early, after all. “Oh! Right! The code is 8664. You really have to jam the 4, it sticks a bit sometimes. The keypad was a bit lower than Dorian would have placed it, but of course it would be, if dwarves lived here as well as humans. Accommodation of more than one group-- just one more thing to get used to here in the uncharted South.
The 4 did stick, but the door swung open with a loud buzz on his second try. Dorian felt a bit of unreasonable pride at this tiny success. His new friend didn’t seem to mind the short wait, chattering along merrily. He followed her into the building and up a flight of stairs before she stopped suddenly and spun around to face him.
“I’m so sorry! I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Dagna. I’d shake your hand, but…” she shook the boxes again. This time, the chiming box toppled off its precarious perch. Before it could ht the ground, Dorian grabbed it out of the air with a small spell. He didn’t know if the mysterious noisemaker was fragile, or explosive, or what.
“I can hold this for you,” he said into the small silence that Dagna’s sudden lack of chatter left between them. She gaped at him. “Actually, if you’re Dagna, I should introduce myself as well. I’m Dorian, I texted you about the apartment? I know I’m early, but…” This was really very awkward. He know that magic wasn’t as all-pervasive in the South as it was in Tevinter. Most mages lived in the Circles or in Colleges, studying magic and keeping to themselves. The old Templar order had faded into obscurity in the past century, but he imagined tradition held strong in Ferelden, just as anywhere else. Magic was probably not a common sight.
Dagna’s eye narrowed and suddenly-- Dorian thought she might do most things suddenly-- he found himself the object of intense scrutiny. He tried not to fidget.
The serious look cleared as quickly as it came, and Dagna was beaming again. “Oh this is great, just great! You’re a mage? And a well-trained one, but the looks of it! Get that door there, 309, that’s the one. It’s not locked, i’d just popped down to Dennet’s for these books, i was hoping to be back before you got here, i thought i’d left myself enough time… I know I did! Are you early? Sit anywhere, I’ll put these down and get us some coffee. Do you like coffee?” she continued talking all the way up the second flight of stars and as Dorian opened the door to a cozy, cluttered apartment.
Dagna vanished through an open door into what was probably the kitchen, and Dorian lost track of her words as he set down his bags and looked around. He was in a small entry space that lead quickly into a living room. A coat rack with arms at both human and dwarven height was on his left, adorned with no coats, but instead the fabricless skeleton of an umbrella, a wide brimmed hat out of an Anderfels western, and three feather boas. The walls he could see were all painted a soft sky blue, and directly across from the front door was a small view with a passable view of the Frostback mountains. The living room held, just barely, a loveseat, two armchairs, a coffee table, a small television set, and probably a dozen bookshelves.
The titles of the books were varied and fascinating. They ranged from romance novels to treatises on the architecture of the Fade. there books on magical theory, bird-spotting guides, and a few leather-bound monsters that could be described as tomes
The walls were decorated in the same eclectic taste. Travel brochures, sketches of the Deep Roads, band posters, and a disturbingly detailed diagram of Darkspawn anatomy were pinned up at random. A solar system mobile spun gently just above Dorian’s eyelevel, suspended from a ceiling fan. A clock ticked softly, leaning against a pot of sprawling crystal grace on the window sill. Its face had been removed, and the hands spun backwards as the gears shifted. Other pointless, or perhaps simply mysterious, contractions resten on bookshelves and chair backs. One emitted a puff of blue mist every few seconds. It felt a bit like he’d walked into a magister’s study in an old fairy tale, and Dorian loved it.
Taking Dagna at her word, he shifted an annotated translation of the writings of Koslun-- that must have cost a fortune-- and a dog-eared copy of Drakestone for Dummies: a Beginner’s Guide to the Geology of Thedas off a high-backed red chair that looked like it belonged either in a museum or a throne room. The other chair was green and orange paisley, and Dorian was not about to sit on that.
Behind him, Dagna puttered about in the kitchen, apparently scolding the sugar for not being where she’d left it. He could see three doors down a small hallways, and assumed they were the bedrooms and bathroom. Dagna returned, and settled a tray with two cups of coffee and an honest-to-Maker Tevene porcelain sugar bowl, complete with gilded rim, on the scratched coffee table. She beamed at him across the steaming cups and Dorian smiled back, picking one up.
“So! I’m Dagna, yes, hello! Properly, this time.” she shook his hand firmly. “You’re Dorian and you’re looking for an apartment.”
“Precisely. I’m from Tevinter,” he bagan, and Dagna nodded cheerily, “I’m hoping to start over here, to be honest.” He wasn’t really sure what to say. He’d never negotiated this sort of thing before.
Dagna was happy to fill in when he hesitated. “Well, I’ve got a spare bedroom, so let’s compare notes and see if this’ll work.” she began to tick off items on her fingers. “Your share of rent would be 450 a month, which is really a steal for a place with actual glass in the windows. For another 50, you can reserve a parking space in the lot, but i’m guessing you took the bus here? Yeah, their schedule is shit. There’s a small grocery about five minutes’ walk away, but they’re not super diverse. I go out to the old Alienage for anything really dwarven, you’ll want to do that too if you want anything spicier than instant noodles. There’s a great farmer’s market on Tuesdays. Rules of the house are: no fire, no doomsday devices, no big parties without two days’ notice, we stay out of each other’s rooms, anything that gets the cops down here is strongly discouraged. We can split the cost of wi-fi. now , about the magic.”
Dorian blinked at her. She talked so quickly.
“I have no problem with it! Some people round here do, because people love to hate what they don’t understand. Me, if I don’t understand something, I want to take it apart and figure it out, so don’t worry… well, that did sound a little bit threatening, didn’t? I mean, it’s all good. So’s your being a ‘Vint. you’re clearly not a walking caricature of bigotry, so I think we’ll be alright. You might have noticed I tinker a bit? Well, more than a bit, really. I’m in grad school, engineering, don’t worry, I hardly ever blow up anything that isn’t supposed to blow p. That’s why my last roommate left. She was a bit too jumpy, really. Well, that’s that, unless I’ve scared you off? I’m trying to say, I think we’d get along, and if you want to, this place is definitely open to you.”
“I think we’d get along too, Dagna.” Her smile grew even brighter, and Dorian felt himself grinning back. “I’ve only got these two bags, and I’ve got enough cash-- would you mind-- of you’re open to it, I’d just… move in now?”
In hindsight, maybe he should have considered staying at the motel one more night. Moving in this fast couldn’t possibly be the done thing.
But Dagna just nodded and kept sipping her coffee, and told him all about her dissertation.
When their cups were both empty, she showed him the other rooms in the apartment: the kitchen, bathroom, her door, and his room. It was small and dark blue, with soft carpeting, and Dorian fell onto the mattress with a sigh. Dagna’s last roommate had left sheets on the bed, and Dagna said she’d washed them, but there were no pillows. He’d go shopping soon, but for now, this was plenty.
If only his father could see him now. Living with a dwarf, determined to stay out of the closet, sleeping on a bed without pillows or servants to fluff them. He told the tiny Halward Pavus that lived in his head and constantly criticized him that he was determined to be best friends with Dagna, and imagined him fainting and falling off a cliff.
---
He woke up hungry a couple hours later, and Dagna decided it was time for a small tour of the neighborhood. Stashing his violin under his bed and gratefully touching up his hair and face, Dorian followed her out into the late afternoon sunshine.
Not far from the front door was a food truck-- another novel experience-- where Dorian discovered that what Tevinter restaurants called “Fereldan-style burgers” were poor imitations of the true greasy glory. He regretted asking what they were made of when the question launched Dagna into in-depth explanation of Fereldan farming practices. He regretted it even more when she got to the point and told him he was eating druffalo. He’d met a druffalo once, in a petting zoo in Tevinter, and as smelly and shaggy as the beast had been, he’d been charmed despite himself. Felix had laughed himself silly over the pictures Dorian had taken of himself by the pen.
They ate on a bench in a tiny park and Dagna talked about everything that came to mind. Dorian was happy to listen. She was open and authentic in a way that people just weren’t in Tevinter, at least not in the upper classes where Dorian had spent his whole life.
Maybe he was still in shock, or experiencing some weird mental lag, or the grease of the druffalo burger was going to his brain, but everything just seemed brighter. The clouds that hang hung over his bus ride had cleared, and the little patch of greenery around him seemed soft and cheerful. Dagna knew half the people who walked by, and waved at everyone, whether she knew them or not.
Doiran petted his first mabari, a round, slobbery puppy, and learned all about Dagna’s life. She spent a lot of time in the labs at her university, which she called the Undercroft, writing her dissertation on something extremely complex and groundbreaking, examining the properties of lyrium as a power source. Originally from Orzammar, she’d come topside to study and had never looked back. She loved nature documentaries and sci-fi, and engaged him in an aggressive trivia competition. That took them all the way through a trip to the grocery store and back to the apartment, and ended in a tie-- a mutually despised Star Trek sequel had been released under a different name in Tevinter. Something about the Magisterium's censors had deemed the original title too provocative. This strayed dangerously close to topics that Dorian was not remotely ready to deal with, so he asked if there were any bars nearby.
As he was coming to expect, Dagna lit up like veilfire in an elven ruin. “We have to go to the Herald! The Chargers are playing there tonight! They’re great, you’ll love them.” she pointed to an eye-searing yellow poster on the wall.
The text screamed Bull and the Chargers-- Musical Mercenaries in huge block letters. Aside from a dragon eating part of the final S, it provided no other information.
Dorian shrugged. “Sounds perfect.”