Work Text:
It was said that humans, in their freakish hybridization of flesh and spirit, forever wandered the Fade when the flesh slept. Tethered and bound between two worlds without fully living in the other. Spirits lived in the Fade, and dwarfs lived in the earth. Humans lived in neither and were torn between both worlds, and as such were a natural conduit, able to pull spirits from the Fade by their unnatural nature. Or spirits were able to seize that conduit for their own.
Such was what you got for living twice.
It was said that once humans had no magic until the Old Ones found them. They struck a bargain, power for power. The humans spilled blood, and the Old Ones uplifted a number of them, imbuing them with the ability to walk the Fade and pull from its wellsprings. Those humans were the first Dreamers, and for a time, they honored their pact.
Then the Old Ones suddenly went silent, and no one had heard from them since. It was only a matter of time without the original deal-makers (and without seeing a higher power to oppose them) before humans used their powers against the Fade. And they have warred ever since.
It was said that once humans wandered the Fade and used magic, but it was as if there was a barrier between them and spirits. Both groups wished to interact with the other, but it was impossible, until one day the complaints reached the realms of the Old Ones. The seven talked amongst themselves and debated on whether or not to allow contact, but Unity moved ahead regardless. At first, things were peaceful, but nothing remains peacefully forever, and conflict broke out. Mages learned how to use their new power to pull spirits across and bind them to their will, and at first, there was no defense. Wails met the realms of the Old Ones again, and Chaos intervened, giving spirits the ability to possess mortals in order to even the playing field, but ultimately and purposefully fixed nothing, as that would be boring. Then the Old Ones sat back and taught the strongest of the mages dark secrets in exchange for power, and thoroughly ignored the spirits since.
Many things were said, but no one knew for sure why mortals were the way they were, least of all Fortitude. But the inner message remained in each one: ‘Be wary of humans, for they shall snatch you and bind away your will.’
The secondary message was ‘fuck the Old Ones’.
So of course Fortitude knew it was a foolish risk, and not just by human mages. There were elven ones and qunari ones as well (though in truth he had a hard time distinguishing between the mortal races as they all looked alike to him). There were darker spirits who lurked near dreamers, and those didn’t look kindly upon those they deemed competition. But he wanted badly, so he pretended to heed the advice his friends gave him, and then he slipped off anyway to watch dreamers and the scenes they wove around them. And unfortunately, the best pictures he ever could see were those spun by lucid dreamers.
Sometimes, Fortitude would find that a darker spirit had overpowered or outcunned or wheedled some deal, and then had seized control over a mage. Sometimes, a spirit that had been lurking in the area would suddenly vanish, yanked through the Veil for whatever whims a mage wanted.
(In those moments, for the briefest moment Fortitude could almost make out something endless.)
Rarely, something akin to a melody would float through, information and request in one, and a spirit would slip through and then come back. See, sometimes a mage wouldn’t bind but would create a contract for a job, and the moment he found out about contracts, he knew he was doomed. Fortitude had started to hear that siren song of the mortal world.
He could be patient however. That was, after all, sort of his thing.
—
The mortal world was alien, and he could not make sense of the rules. The first time he was able to find a connection across it was overpoweringly bright, but the second time was muted and pressing. There were thousands of unrecorded noises that never seemed to make their way into dreams, strange sensations on his surface, and as endless as the glimpses he had seen. He would attempt to shape the landscape around him and found it unmoving. It fascinated him, but he could never stay for long. The mages willing to work with spirits got anxious if he lingered.
It was another spirit of Fortitude who gave him the advice. “Are you looking to be over there permanently, or-”
“No, not permanently,” he clarified. “But I never have the opportunity to savor it.”
She nodded. “You may want to look into working with necromancers then. They keep spirits around longer than spirit healers will.”
That was with who she worked with. She found nothing better than defying death itself, keeping someone who should be dead alive and restoring their body to healthy conditions.
He paused for a moment. “You speak of possession?”
“Of the deceased. Something of mortals remain when they die,” she said, “and necromancers like to use those remains for a variety of reasons. Usually battle, manual labor, or knowledge, though the second kind is oft through bindings alone and fully pulls you through to the unchanging world.”
“So just a connection then,” he said, uncertain if he was feeling disappointed.
She held up a finger. “A strong one,” she said. “A very strong one. If you are interested, I know a necromancer who is more or less trustworthy. You can see if it’s for you.”
“Thank you. I shall take you up on your offer,” he said.
—
She had neglected to tell him the greatest part of necromancy: in those remains were the memories and imprints of the deceased, beckoning for him to read and hoard away. The risk of being bound was ever greater working for necromancers, but oh what treasure you could find.
—
Eventually the first necromancer stopped sending out summons. The second Fortitude found he didn’t care for. Another died, and another began to look into certain types of magic that were exactly the kind Fortitude did not feel comfortable having his summoner know, so he stopped making appearances. But still he continued to search around until one fateful summoning.
“Ah, perfect,” the summoner said. Fortitude reached out slightly, intangibly, to brush the surface of the summoner’s mind. Dorian Pavus. “I have a single question for you.”
Ah. This would be only a brief stay then. Disappointing. Fortitude nodded.
“These particular ruins were filled with all sorts of secret passages and the like. Do you perhaps know of an exit? We’ve gotten sealed in.”
“You don’t need to mention that last part,” another mortal said, grumbling and hunched in on themself as much as their physical body could allow.
Fortitude turned inward, scanning rapidly through the memories still contained within the bones. He wouldn’t have enough time to copy any of this, sadly, and would only have the faintest of impressions after. He found what he was looking for though and nodded once, leading the summoner to a false wall— fascinating, constructed barriers and traps beyond the maker’s death—and the mechanism to open it to the underground passages leading out of the ruin. Paranoia seeped out of the open passageway as well as thoughts of invaders, flashes of secret lovers, a feeling of panic and illogical thoughts of a lack of air.
“See, I told you so,” Dorian said to the other mortal. “No need to worry, always another exit. Thank you spirit. Off you go.”
And then the connection was severed, and Fortitude was alone in the Fade.
—
He wasn’t sure if Dorian intended it on purpose as the interaction had gone more or less well, or if Dorian didn’t realize he kept sending the invites out to Fortitude every time Dorian requested a summoning. Regardless, it had gone more or less well, and Fortitude had an immediate advantage against other spirits who might accept the calling. He began to fall into the habit of automatically accepting Dorian’s requests over other possible summoners (who he still worked for; there were occasional swathes of time when Dorian didn’t call for anyone at all, and Fortitude was not a one-summoner kind of spirit.)
Dorian also did not mind that he was, in fact, a spirit of Fortitude when it came to gleaning information out of corpses. Normally his particular kind were summoned for battle and rarely for information. Or bound for physical labor as Fortitude was ‘sturdier’ than other spirits. (In theory. Fortitude was a state of mind, not a physical state, and state of mind rarely factored into things when it came to being bound.)
“Why would you not seek for a spirit of Wisdom or Curiosity?” Fortitude asked one day, ignoring the maggots writhing in his belly.
“I- you seem content to do the job,” Dorian said, with a single blink. “Would you prefer if I only summoned you for battle?”
“No. I do not mind battle”—for Fortitude could not deny there was such a rush of power in battle, when Dorian siphoned power from the dying and dead into himself—“but I cannot savor your world as well when in the midst of it. I enjoy-” he trailed off, uncertain of how to phrase it.
“Sight-seeing?” Dorian hazarded, and Fortitude nodded.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Dorian said. “We mortals are fascinated by the Fade, so why not the reverse be true?”
That seemed like a generalization as a whole for both populations, but Fortitude politely said nothing.
—
Dorian sometimes began to let him linger for longer as a professional courtesy, though only when no one else was around for some reason. It was curious about the specifics, but Fortitude was happy to examine more and more the world around him, especially when Dorian required aid in old places.
“There is so much history here,” Fortitude said in awe, gently brushing the stone wall with his hand. “But you cannot feel it?”
It was a watchtower on the coast, hidden inside a cliff, imbued with magic so they could see out without leaving light shining. The watchtower had caught a number of Qunari that way looking to raid and/or invade. One of the watchers had been an angry, bitter man who had lost his legs. Another a widow, hating the sea wind but able to watch her children while she worked.
There had been a traitor at one point, who had been hung from those rafters. If he unfocused just slightly, he could almost make out the swaying body even if that had been so long ago.
“No,” Dorian said, and for a moment Fortitude could see a glint of envy in his eyes. “Unfortunately we mortals must make do with other methods.”
“That must make it difficult for your research,” Fortitude said.
Dorian looked confused, so Fortitude gestured to the area around him.
“Oh, I don’t research history,” Dorian said. “Not officially at least, though I do study it. It’s a fun little hobby.”
Dorian had once drug him to a labyrinth of catacombs under a city for his ‘fun little hobby’. More often than not, it was knowledge and not battle that Dorian summoned him for.
“What do you do as your calling then?”
“Mostly disappoint my father,” Dorian said dryly.
Fortitude paused for a moment. “That is sarcasm?”
“Yes. No, I work as an apprentice for a magister. Research, lab assistance, going to social events and pretending I actually care about so-and-so and don’t think she’s a nasty woman Thedas would be better off without, lab maintenance, whatever he asks of me.”
“That is your job,” Fortitude said. “But what is your calling? I work for necromancers. My calling is the beauty of resilience. These are different things.”
“I- don’t know,” Dorian said with a small frown. “Magister Alexius speaks of social reform, of trying to better Tevinter. I don’t think it’s possible, but it’s a pretty little dream.”
Mortals were so strange. He knew, logically, Dorian was an adult mortal, but you could not be self-aware and not have dedicated yourself to a calling in the Fade. Then again, there was a hint of bitterness in Dorian’s voice that spoke of frustration.
“I’m certain if you press onward, you will find a calling yet,” Fortitude said encouragingly.
“Thank you,” Dorian said. And this time, it was not as a precursor to having the connection disconnected.
—
The next several summons were all for battle. Fortitude couldn’t quite tell, but they seemed abnormally close together. Once he fell in battle, lost connection, and was immediately sent an invite back into the mortal world in the exact same battle.
Battle posed little risk for Fortitude. It wasn’t as if he was truly crossed over, after all, but rather given a link to a body to puppeteer. When the body was destroyed, the links were severed. Even through a corpse’s eyes, the world became so much clearer than the flashes he could get in the Fade, pressed up as close as he could.
While he himself could not tell the mortals apart very well, they made it easy for him by attacking him. That was nice and straightforward, though being attacked was unpleasant. It wasn’t as if it was truly hurting him, but the bodies still knew what was harmful to him in life, and thus he still had secondhand unpleasant sensations. It was not enough however to surpass the growing high of the dying, bolstering himself further and further (and Dorian as well). He did not even fully need to know how to attack as the bodies remembered how to; he merely dictated their actions and consumed the dying breaths of Dorian’s foes.
It was… disturbing how satisfying it was. Death was far more rare in the Fade, and he idly wondered if that was why Hunger was almost always driven to cannibalization, if this is what they got from it.
And energy could change you, he knew this. Taking from a single source acclimatized one to that source. Fear became ‘Fear of Drowning’ and Valor to ‘The Battle of Threepines’ or ‘Perfection of Archery’.
But was there anything wrong in being a necromantic spirit? He enjoyed the work, and it gave him cause to further his calling.
—
Then one day, Fortitude returned from a summons by another necromancer, and found that in his absence, Dorian had sent out a calling. With him not there, Dorian had accepted another spirit’s aid. Not his.
This shouldn’t be upsetting. Dorian used other spirits before Fortitude. Sometimes Dorian called upon multiple spirits, and Fortitude would work with others (though the cast changed; while some lingered longer than others, he was the longest one there.) There was no contract that said Dorian could only take Fortitude’s aid, and hadn’t Fortitude just come from seeing another necromancer?
And yet something awful began to stir in him regardless, ignoring silly little things like ‘reason’ and ‘sensibility’ and ‘hypocrisy’.
It was complete coincidence that Fortitude stopped talking other calls, he told himself, instead focusing more of his time to sifting through dreams and finding thin places to where he could almost peer into the mortal world.
Coincidence. That was all.
—
The calls themselves were laced with intent/flavor. Knowledge was laced with curiosity and resilience, the perfect endless task, and was far more stylized to the task on hand. Battle was an urgent sending in rapid, standard protocol.
This one was different. Knowledge, but urgent and angry. Fortitude snatched it before anyone else could have any strange ideas, and the connection was made around him. Ceiling, walls, Dorian and another living human. There was a sturdy desk, and then bookcases filled the room before filling up with books. Fortitude pushed the corpse onto its feet while other details finished springing into existence, and he scanned the corpse’s skull for basic details.
Ah.
“The lovely lady you are in just recently tried to kill someone I care about,” Dorian said. “I need to know who put her up to this.”
“Who hired her,” the other human said slowly. Fortitude wasn’t entirely sure why, but Dorian stiffened ever so slightly. His mouth opened just barely before closing, whatever he had been planning on say gone.
“Give me a moment,” Fortitude said, and he looked deeper. Curiosity or Knowledge or Fear or Endings would all be faster in theory, but Fortitude had done this for a while now, enough to make up for his lack of natural advantage.
Her name was Cordia Libania, and that connected to Soporati, calculation, the struggle of all mortals to survive, and so she lashed herself to talents and hired herself to an assassination agency, one of many in Tevinter. Nothing personal, just death, which churned power that Fortitude could disturbingly almost make out even from here. Forty-seven kills, eight failed attempts, contract rescinded. Didn’t normally accept hits against mages but then this target didn’t even really count as a mage, now did he?
“Are you sure you are using the right kind of spirit?” the other human—Magister Gereon Alexius, the corpse’s memory whispered—asked Dorian. “Or that this will even work? It’s not-”
“There’s more than one way to get information out of a corpse,” Dorian said. “Just let him work.”
Gereon raised an eyebrow.
“She does not know who made the contract,” Fortitude eventually said, “but if you can get me a map, I can point you were the agency is and where she accepted the contract against Felix. It does not have an organizational name in order to remain harder to find. She takes her contracts from a person under a false name who in turn receives the contracts from another person, also under a false name.” He paused for a moment. “People approach these mortals in other areas, private rooms in restaurants, conversation while riding alone, to make these hits.”
“I’m familiar with that brand of assassination habitry,” Dorian said.
There were maps in the desk which were laid out in front of him, and then small magical pins that had to be clicked to stick or unstick from the surface one put them on. (Maps were valuable and time-consuming to make.) He then relayed the description of where she had accepted the contract and the nature of the person she had accepted the contract from.
“Is Felix unshaken?” Fortitude then asked.
Gereon’s eyes narrowed. “Never you mind,” he said before turning to Dorian. “We’ll need to investigate this further. It’s been helpful, but you know the testimony of a spirit is considered invalid.”
“He,” Fortitude corrected. “I have a gender.” A number of spirits didn’t, but he did have one, and Dorian had politely introduced his gender already.
The polite thing in return would be to use it.
“Thank you Fortitude,” Dorian said quickly. “I appreciate your aid.”
And the connection vanished.
—
Gereon had been rude. Fortitude mulled through the events, and he was certain Gereon had been at fault. Still, he couldn’t feel as if he had somehow caused a blunder. There was no saying how long it would take for Dorian to summon him again, and doubly so that it would be somewhere private where they could mull over history.
He felt- awful was not the right word. Fortitude didn’t know the word for what he was feeling. He would ask others, but he was uncertain he would be adequately able to explain what feeling he was having, that he couldn’t even tell what it was, in such a way that they would be able to go ‘ah’ and name that feeling.
Instead he debated on taking a considerable risk, but Fortitude was filled with this burning need.
A single summoning would not have been enough, but Dorian had summoned him time and time again, and though Fortitude did not know why things worked the way they did, he could always find Dorian.
He waited in a swirl of anxiety until he could faintly feel Dorian’s presence in the Fade. Still he hesitated for a moment, contemplating. He hadn’t ever reached out to Dorian in the Fade. This could backfire. He didn’t want things to backfire. He liked working with Dorian and didn’t want to jeopardize that in any way or make Dorian feel uncomfortable about spirits approaching him in the Fade.
He then hesitated a bit longer, and then longer even still, second-guessing his plan, his purpose, his life, and generally everything about himself. Eventually he steeled himself, and then he was slipping into Dorian’s dream. He made no attempt to mask himself but waited awkwardly as it began to load around him. (Cold, but not unpleasantly so, dust and confusion and stone, akin to the catacombs under that one city.) Had Dorian been another spirit, he would have been able to communicate properly, show lack of ill-intent directly into the mind. Dorian was a human and couldn’t interface like that.
Dorian had also noticed him and was staring at him.
Fortitude just then realized Dorian hadn’t ever seen him really. Corpses he had been puppeting, yes, but not himself as a spirit.
“I- hello,” Fortitude said. Why couldn’t he just interface? Everything would be easier if he could just interface! How did mortals make these kind of introductions to each other except of course they didn’t as they didn’t have a need for ‘hello you’ve partially seen me around before but it is now I, the spirit you work with.’ Why didn’t he think this through? “…we work together,” he said, scrambling. “I did not know how else to get into contact with you.”
Dorian raised an eyebrow. “You can’t just whisper into my mind when I am awake? Demons do that just fine.”
Maybe he could just project himself out of the dream, wipe clean, and start over working for some other necromancer.
“…it had not occurred to me to do that,” he said. “Would you rather we speak that way?”
“Seeing as you are already here and have my curiosity piqued, we might as well talk here. What did you want to talk about?”
“I felt as if I made a blunder with Alexius,” Fortitude stated, using the last name for formality. He normally didn’t care one way or another for formality, but he was attempting to smooth over being rude, possibly, and being informal could be rude. “I did not want to cause problems for you.”
“He is concerned about my flagrant use of necromancy,” Dorian said. He didn’t sound one way or the other as if he disapproved of Alexius’ statement. That did nothing for Fortitude’s growing anxiety. “He has also pointed out that normally a spirit isn’t always there at beck and call nor should be that available.”
“I haven’t always been there,” Fortitude protested lamely.
“Yes. Once,” Dorian said dryly. “Normally when a spirit is this interested in someone, it is not a good sign, but then it isn’t like you have randomly started showing up in my dreams.”
Fortitude began to heavily consider the reset plan. “Again, I merely wished to see if everything was well. I don’t want to ruin this.”
Both eyebrows raised. “’This’?”
“You say ‘thank you’,” Fortitude said quickly. “Every time. I don’t get thanked, not by others. Maybe Nevarran necromancers thank their spirits? I don’t know as I’ve never been in that area.” He was babbling. Stop babbling. Babbling was not appealing. “But you always thank me before severing the connection, and I appreciate that.”
Dorian said nothing at that, so he pressed onward. “Most necromancers would not let me linger or discuss history with me. I enjoy that, and so I don’t want this to ruin. I don’t want to have to find someone else.”
He wasn’t sure he could find someone else, and meanwhile Dorian stood there, still in silence. He could almost feel thoughts rapid firing in his mind, but he didn’t know what those were. Were they kind? Unkind? Paranoid?
And then just like that, Dorian was gone, remnants of the dream fading around him. He had woken up.
Shit.
—
Fortitude did not get invites for a while. And then for a while longer until eventually he came to the conclusion that he had fucked it up. He could in theory reach out to Dorian when he was awake, but Dorian had been wary of him. Fortitude had forgotten that aside from his own precautions about mages that mages also had precautions about spirits. Very natural, understandable precautions!
He could probably have dealt with this like a full-fledged spirit not prone to the whims of emotional status like growing wisps. He could have. He didn’t.
“He will never love you,” a Despair demon said, patting Fortitude on a shoulder. “No one ever will. And you will die alone, forgotten, with no one to cherish your memory.”
“Thanks. You are a horrible person,” Fortitude said. Despair simply shrugged before winking out, reappearing a good deal away and coincidentally out of combat distance.
Now, he could sit and wallow or he could do things while also wallowing. In theory he could not wallow, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case. Alright, so he had to plan for the worst. Dorian no longer wanted him around, worst case scenario. Now he could work for other necromancers that weren’t Dorian, or there were areas where the Veil was thin. He could still peer through and observe history there, or at least try. Battlefields were always a good area or often used buildings or old ruins gleaming with history.
...Dorian loved ruins and had opinions on history that he was always happy to talk about to a target unable to go anywhere.
Fortitude steadied himself. Yes, Dorian was unlikely to call upon him again, but he couldn’t let that dictate what he would and would no longer do. It would sting for a while, but he would move forward like he always did. He was a grown spirit, and if he didn’t accept rejections would happen, he would never truly advance as Fortitude. He-
The faintest ping registered at the border of his perception. Summoning invite from Dorian, non-battle, not open to other spirits.
—
The area seemed to load extra slowly just to spite him, but the corpse and Dorian were already in view. There was no one else.
Fortitude scanned the corpse briefly. “Another assassin,” he said. A paralysis glyph faded around it which had been obscured by the grass. He was outside in a field, and it was night.
“It made things convenient, trying to off me in a place with no witnesses,” Dorian said off-handedly. He clutched his staff in both hands, wringing it back and forth. “I… apologize. What Alexius had said got stuck in my brain.”
“You do not want to be possessed anymore than I want to be bound,” Fortitude offered.
“That’s the goal,” Dorian said brightly. “But you had seemed interested in me, and I was perhaps being overly cautious.”
…oh.
Oh that’s what that was. ‘Interested’.
Oh. Oh fuck him sideways.
“I hadn’t actually thought it through,” Dorian continued, ignorant of Fortitude’s dawning revelation. “I confess I’m not a very perceptive sort? I had just assumed- the point is we do good work together, and I shouldn’t simply take the level of dedication you have for granted. That’s not fair to you. I do try, but I have made blunders before and undoubtedly will again in the future.”
“Thank you,” Fortitude said and finally the sky began to load in. It was cloudy, but there were small lights scattered around the area. “Does this mean you still wish to work together?”
“Yes,” Dorian said. Okay. It was important to not read too much into that. He looked downward briefly before looking back at the corpse he was possessing. “I… do confess I miss having someone to talk to about history. Would you believe that a spirit of Curiosity abandoned a corpse to flee back into the Fade? It dinged my pride.”
Fortitude laughed. It made an awkward gurgling noise in the corpse.
“Apologies, there seems to be some blood in the lungs,” Dorian said. “Puncture wounds. I didn’t think this through, but then I only had the idea of summoning you after I killed the assassin and saw an opportunity.”
“They may have been squeamish. Or bored. Curiosity are prone to sudden bouts of boredom,” Fortitude offered. “Or any number of reasons.”
“Right,” Dorian said, more to himself, and then brightened. “So since it’s been a while, what have you been up to?”
—
Normally when Dorian wanted to meet, he would find a way to summon Fortitude to the mortal world. He was fine with Fade meetings, but perhaps it was habit of connecting him across. So it was curious when Dorian wanted to meet specifically in the Fade. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous which in turn made Fortitude nervous.
“I have been advancing my knowledge of necromancy,” Dorian eventually said. “And there is something I would like to try. It does however require the aid of a spirit.”
“Most necromancy does,” Fortitude said slowly. Not all, as there were ways to animate corpses without the use of a spirit, but necromancy was infamous for involving spirits.
“Beyond what most necromancy allows for,” Dorian said. “This requires a great deal of trust. You may have noticed the recent uptick in assassination attempts?”
“Your political allyship with Mae is frowned upon,” Fortitude said. Dorian had taken to interviewing the dead assassins in private, saying it would be more comfortable for the both of them without anyone else lingering about.
Like Gereon.
“Yes, she’s really got the Magisterium’s smalls in a twist,” Dorian said fondly. “I’ve always admired how open she is about everything. Anyway, my own openness in approval has apparently won me some enemies, and I don’t even have a seat. I’m merely a bystander in all this. But the point is, I have been having a classic journey of realizing the limitations of my own morality and would like to take a protective step to keeping me alive as long as possible.”
It dawned on him suddenly what Dorian must be talking about. “Simulacrum,” he half-whispered.
“You are aware. Good. Yes. That,” Dorian said.
And now Fortitude saw the difference. Necromancy required the use of spirits. A simulacrum required the aid of one, for the necromancer would not exactly be able to stop them from anything nefarious when the necromancer was unconscious and/or on death’s doorstep. Hence, most necromancers, at least the ones Fortitude knew of, didn’t hold to such practices because mages were rather wary about the whole possessions deal. Or even beyond that, the simulacrum wasn’t a connection; it was a true summons, pulling the spirit from the Fade from the energy leaching out from the necromancer’s dying body, letting them assume a disturbingly large chunk of the necromancer’s power while still being connected to the Fade, and then just hoping for the best.
In theory one could bind a spirit to be a simulacrum, but for some strange reason, those bound never put their entire heart into it and always found a way to ensure an early pyre for the mage.
Or ensure an early death and then possess that corpse, but frankly, Fortitude couldn’t judge them at that point.
“What would be my primary goal?” Fortitude asked. “I presume preservation.”
“Yes, the goal is to keep me from being dead,” Dorian said. “Likely you will have to kill anyone attempting to kill me. Maybe make a ruckus if you are unable to help me.”
“I know some healing,” Fortitude said, and Dorian’s eyebrows raised. “That would be after your enemies are dead, however, since that would likely disrupt the connection. Ergo, it wouldn’t be very good healing.”
“You know magic?” Dorian asked. “I didn’t think- I’m sorry; I never asked. I just presumed you didn’t as I hadn’t witnessed you performing any.”
“Some. I learned a bit of the art from another spirit of Fortitude who worked for a spirit healer,” Fortitude said and then added, “this is the Fade. It would be more safe to presume a spirit could use magic than couldn’t.”
“A fair point. Learn something new every day,” Dorian said lightly. “There is however one last snag. The magic that allows this is…”
“Binding?” Fortitude suggested humorously.
“Of a sort,” Dorian said. “It’s not an invite but an actual summons, after all, and that could be inconvenient. Just off doing your things, and then suddenly you are in the mortal world with people standing over my pretty soon-to-be corpse and having to deal with all that.”
“I am aware,” Fortitude said. “Not all jobs have tidy schedules.”
“Right. Job,” Dorian said strangely, and Fortitude felt as if he had made yet another blunder.
He liked Dorian though. He wanted Dorian.
…safe, that was. He wanted him safe.
This required a great deal of trust both ways. It was probably a stupid, senseless risk.
“I agree,” Fortitude said.
“Thank you,” Dorian said with such sincerity that Fortitude was gathered with the impulse to hold his hand.
He didn’t though.
—
For such grand magic, the spell was short. It was not possession, nor was it a binding, but it was something kindred to both. Afterwards, Fortitude found that he could always tell where Dorian was in the mortal world and his state of health.
And apparently, Dorian could now tell the same.
—
Healthy mortals fought death. Sadly, death was a certainty for them all instead of a possibility. And so they fought tooth and nail to stay alive for as long as they could, fought each other, fought Hunger and Fear, fought their own aging bodies. And for Dorian, he fought against his father and the pressures of society, and then he fought to keep his friend alive.
“He has lasted longer than what is supposed to be possible?” Fortitude asked.
“A year longer,” Dorian said, exhaustion permeating his self. “And he should have a few years left.”
No longer did Dorian leave the estate unless necessary. His life revolved around Felix and research for Felix, to the point where even his dreams primarily conjured up the Alexius estate with few other locations.
Fortitude flickered with confusion. “You do not wish to continue.”
“It is not that,” Dorian said. “Some miracle cure would be wonderful, and I want to try, understand.”
“Of course,” Fortitude said, because that was right.
“But I do not wish Felix to die neglected and alone,” Dorian said. “Surely there can be a better balance of research while also being there for Felix. Actually talking to him in between running experiments. Taking him out for walks or snacks or the like. Despite our efforts, he will die. If not of this, then of something else, and so ignoring him serves no purpose, which Alexius doesn’t seem to understand.”
“He doesn’t like that you spend so much time with him,” Fortitude said. He didn’t say that this was because Gereon suspected Dorian’s relationship with Felix to be romantic. One of the few stipulations Gereon had imposed at the beginning of the apprenticeship was for that very thing to not happen. Dorian could have sex with whatever other male suited his fancy, but not his son.
(Dorian had apparently responded at the time with a sardonic ‘does that mean you are still on the table’, and Gereon had laughed at that.)
The point was, Dorian didn’t, nor did he desire Felix in such a way, but the stress was only souring Gereon regardless.
“Perhaps then he should spend more time with his dying son,” Dorian said bitterly, the landscape around him becoming harsher in response. Air thickening and oppressive, curtains heavier, fire in the hearth giving a shaper contrast of light.
“He should,” Fortitude said firmly. “You both give him strength to press on.”
“I- thank you.”
“I hope he doesn’t die,” Fortitude offered lamely. What do you say to people for whom death is inevitable?
Dorian gave him a small smile regardless. A small one, but one that resonated through him, not an offered smile of politeness.
—
When Gereon cast Dorian out, Dorian self-destructed it seemed. For the most part, he vanished. He did not visit Fortitude or call upon him, instead drowning himself in alcohol (a low-level poison; Fortitude was forever aware of Dorian’s condition) or other strange substances. Or flesh.
Any resonant joy, any discovery, all that had been stripped, and Fortitude worried. Dorian did not stop Fortitude from reaching out or talking, but Dorian no longer seemed interested in anything at all.
You can make it, Fortitude tried to tell him during the day. Just one more day. See where this leads.
He lost his location at one point. When he refound him, Dorian was far elsewhere, and death had been in his wake. Dragged off and drugged. Nothing lethal, so nothing Fortitude could stop. It began to occur to him that any number of horrible things could happen to Dorian that Fortitude wouldn’t be able to stop as long as said things wouldn’t nearly kill Dorian. And he worried.
“I don’t know how much longer I can make it in here,” Dorian said tonelessly one night.
“Keep moving forward,” Fortitude said, but Despair had firmly grasped its talons into Dorian, and unfortunately metaphorically. Fortitude could fight a literal Despair demon. He was less certain of what to say here. “You could always escape?”
Dorian snorted. “And go where? Do what? Have his hired thugs drag me back again after killing more people while I- I have no purpose. You can understand that, yes? There is nothing for me. I had something, and then I fucked that over, and now I have nothing at all.” Shame colored his tone. Did he feel guilty?
“Perhaps,” Fortitude said. “Maybe you did.”
“How reassuring,” Dorian said dryly.
“Lies would make things meaningless,” Fortitude said. “Maybe you have wasted your single shot at your limited lifespan. But you aren’t dead yet, and it is impossible to know for certain. I am not telling you to be hopeful for the future. Perhaps the future will be as bleak as today. Maybe it won’t. Endure however you must.”
“Yes, go right back to all the fucking and alcohol and drugs, sounds lovely.” Sarcasm.
“You are hiding from your emotions because you don’t want to die,” Fortitude said. “You are distracting yourself on purpose.”
Dorian’s breath hitched. “But it can’t be healthy.”
“Neither is dying. Ideally, you would not. Ideally, Alexius would not have cast you out because you wanted him to spend Felix’s remaining years with him instead of holed away and neglecting him. Ideally, your father wouldn’t be a murderous, self-centered bastard.” He brightened slightly. “Your father’s power extends all over Tevinter, yes, but he does not have as much sway down South. Granted, down South is a terrible place to be a mage, but perhaps you could try Nevarra. Or you could become a pirate.”
“That’s a jump,” Dorian said.
“Pirates hire mages,” Fortitude said helpfully.
“But I don’t want to be a pirate,” Dorian said. “Let me indulge in petulance here, but I want Felix alive. I want to make changes with Alexius. I want my father proud without having to marry some horrific woman I would spend the rest of my life loathing, and I want someone to- But none of those matter now. None of them are going to happen.”
Fortitude supposed it was not easy having almost every last one of your dreams crushed under heel in a short amount of time and then being ripped out of the supposed safety of a lover only to find out later that several staff had been killed on the way to abduct you.
He was not a fan of Halward.
“Perhaps not,” Fortitude said. “Maybe none of your dreams will come to pass. Maybe they will. Maybe you will find new dreams, or maybe you won’t.”
“If you are going to do this ‘Fortitude’ thing, can you at least be cheerful about it?” Dorian asked.
“No.”
“Fantastic.”
“Cheer can come later,” Fortitude said. “This is not a time for cheer. Things are terrible, but if you need to distract yourself from that, please do. Just keep moving. If you do, you will find something.”
“You can’t promise that,” Dorian said.
“No, but there is a strong chance. Maybe you won’t, but you definitely won’t if you don’t keep moving.”
—
Fortitude familiarized himself with the spirits in this area of the Fade. There were not many, either taken by mages, or warped out of distinction by the occasional invasion from the Qunari. The city itself was almost beautiful, a place resilient. Neither storm nor Qunari invasion nor the repeated times it had been razed to the ground stopped the city from rebuilding, reforming, and moving forward. He wished he could pass on the sense of endurance to Dorian, but that was not a thing he knew how to do.
Dorian, meanwhile, did not escape. Guilt and shame stayed him as well as despair and a complete lack of hope for the future. He remained alive though. He also still refused to marry a woman. He hated himself for defying his father still (defying his father, or defying his sense of familial duty regardless of his parents), but still he defied.
He clung not to stories nor to the distraction of sex and alcohol (his primary forms of self-distraction it seemed from his history), but to sheer spite.
Whatever worked.
—
There were two ways to make blood magic more effective: quantity and quality. You could spill more blood, whether donated or taken, sit on a throne of corpses for your spell. Or you ripen the blood with emotion, usually fear or terror, but rage and protection and compassion worked as well.
Thin cuts, horizontally, across the right forearm, one after another. Light enough that with healing magic, it would not scar, but more psychologically distressing than one long cut. Blood was spilled, but not enough to truly hurt Dorian; that was not what Halward was going for. Dorian was bound and drugged to dampen his magic, set almost delicately in a paralysis glyph. Not even able to scream. Definitely able to feel of course; the methodology required that.
Dorian was fine, physically, and Fortitude could not step through.
Blood swirled around Halward’s fingertips, and Fortitude could not step through. He lashed through the house, searching for a corpse, an animal, another mage, anything he could fit himself into and came up empty.
Dorian was slightly wounded but not on death’s doorstep, and Fortitude could not step through.
He returned, panicked, even morbidly hoping he had missed a body, that this spell had required someone to die so at least there would be someone he could fit himself into.
“I’m sorry Dorian,” Halward said, sounding somewhat sorry, and then he lifted Dorian’s other arm in one hand, knife in the other.
But being a simulacrum was a two-part nature: a little bit of binding, a little bit of possession. He knew not what magic tied mortals and spirits together, allowed such things to happen in the first place, only that it was as old and as powerful as the collected history of the world. And he and Dorian had only strengthened that bond under the agreement of Dorian to satisfy Fortitude’s curiosity in return for Fortitude to protect him. The strengthening had been under contract, only necessary and forced when Dorian was near death, but that was dressing on the bond itself.
There was a sound like a mirror shattering, and then the next thing he was aware of, Halward was against a wall, reeling. For a brief second, Fortitude was stunned. But no he was in the room, in the mortal world, and by his nature of being his simulacrum, he was allowed magic, even if Dorian could not cast.
Banish the paralysis, throw Halward back again, shove Dorian towards the stairs because he wasn’t moving and this was not the time to stand around in shock. Throw up a barrier between him and Halward, flicker to behind the door and shut and lock that. Seal it as a precautionary measure.
And then the brief burst of strength began to fade, and he felt himself slipping away.
—
It took him a while to come to. He felt strange after, and not in a good way. Like he had hollowed himself out. Like maggots had eaten his insides, leaving only bones and a deceptive skin shell which had then frozen solid. Or like he had turned himself inside out but then settled that way.
He would live, however. He was not sure about Dorian.
When Dorian slowed, Fortitude whispered for him to push onward. When the wounds on his arm became inflamed and infected, Fortitude sent what healing magic he could from the Fade. (Dorian sickened but did not die. His wounds healed, but they left faint scars.) When Dorian fell hungry and used the solution of finding company in order to keep his physical body alive, Fortitude ignored his own upset, twisted feelings and instead gained the aid of a Compassion spirit as to direct Dorian towards men who did actually care on some level. And when Dorian grew depressed once more, Fortitude engaged in fisticuffs with a Despair demon.
And then when someone approached Dorian with a knife-
“I had him,” Dorian said sounding mildly offended. To him. In the mortal world, pulled through once more. “I’m not drugged to my gills in magesbane this time!”
And then another time, a mage who called upon lightning, and Fortitude found himself through and physically beating said mage with their own staff.
“I’m fine!” Dorian said, fire dancing in his hands. “I have! My magic!”
Fortitude hit the mage again just for good measure.
—
Dorian went to an estate of Mae’s to hunker down for a while; he did not like to stay in any place for too long (for some unnamed reason that didn’t make Fortitude bitterly wish he had killed Halward earlier), and would be there for only a month. Three months tops.
“Promise me that you will only come out if I am actually threatened,” Dorian said to him in the Fade. It still resembled the Alexius manor which pained Fortitude.
“I-”
“Promise me.” And Dorian was deathly serious. He steadied himself, head in his hands, before looking up at him. “You must understand how this would look to others. A spirit that follows someone around is bad enough. A spirit that springs through the Veil all on his own when he feels a certain someone is being threatened? I would vouch for you, and they would not listen, and then they would kill you, and I would be alone. And I can’t have that, so please just- at least wait until I could at least reasonably pass for unconscious? Or at least have a head injury of some sort?”
“…I will use discretion,” Fortitude said softly.
…was Dorian shaking?
“They would be afraid of me,” Fortitude said. Dorian was afraid for Fortitude. “Why are you not afraid of me?”
“I… trust you. About as much as I can, I think. I’m not a very trusting person to start with. You also fought off my father for me, seemingly breaking the known rules of the Fade to do so. If anything, I should ask why you trust me or are this invested in my wellfare?” He asked it lightly, as if it was a joke.
“I- you-” Fortitude was quiet for a moment because words were not his strong suit, but he desperately needed to get these words right. “I do not wish to upset you or make you uncomfortable. I am content with this and do not wish to jeopardize our workplace relationship with-”
“With what?” Dorian asked. Was he closer? Was Fortitude closer? Did one of them move closer, or did the Fade move them closer, or was Fortitude just reading too much into the illusion of physical space in the Fade?
“I only want you to be happy,” Fortitude said, almost unhappily.
Dorian stared at him. “With what?” he repeated, softer this time.
“I care about you,” Fortitude said, “a great deal. I have for a while now. I would not have taken up your offer if I had not, but somewhere along the way, the feelings… shifted.” Perhaps became more protective than they should have, but a little protectiveness seemed natural in this situation. “I want- I know you are a mortal more often than not in the unchanging world, and I am a spirit usually in the Fade. I don’t know how things work between such groups; perhaps other spirits might know, but not me.”
“What are you saying?” Dorian asked.
“You are not the only one who likes men,” Fortitude said. “And I’ve had feelings for you for a while now, but didn’t want things to become too awkward. Especially after you were concerned about my interest in you period, let alone- let alone feelings.”
Dorian stared at him in silence for a moment, eyes wide. Fortitude nervously flickered, wishing he would say something, just knowing Dorian would suddenly wake up, and then they wouldn’t talk for several months likely, even if Fortitude manifested in the mortal world, and everything was a disaster.
But instead, Dorian reached forward, gently touching his skull through his outer layer of buzzing green energy, before sliding his hand down to rest cupping his mandible. “I didn’t think- why?- How long?”
“Do you mind?” Fortitude asked.
And then Dorian was kissing him. A sensation of kiss, of being kissed, a memory composite of other kisses imposed upon him. Fortitude reflected this, drawing Dorian closer to him, and they remain embraced far longer than what was likely possible in the mortal world.
Eventually they pulled away, and Dorian was smiling so radiantly. “’Do you mind’? Really?”
“I don’t know. Or didn’t know,” Fortitude said lamely. “Thought-reading is not my specialty.”
Dorian laughed, bright, and then looked sheepish. “I apologize. That was probably a bit rude of me. If it helps at all though, I’ve been having awkward feelings for a while now as well.”
Fortitude responded to this by kissing him again.
—
He was good and didn’t needlessly show up while Dorian was at Mae’s, even if there was someone slandering Dorian.
Dorian was lighter. Not light, not better, not untroubled, and he still seemed to have anxiety over the relationship itself (but then Dorian seemed to be insecure in that area to start with), but he was lighter. Mae also helped (with Dorian not being horrifically depressed; neither of them told her anything), but in a few months time Dorian left and continued his way hiding around various locations in Tevinter. And then that expanded to the Free Marches, Nevarra, and Orlais. That proved to be interesting as there was a ‘war’ going on between the Andrastian Templars and Southern Circle Mages (as in, Templars were slaughtering mages who no longer wanted to sit in towers and wait to be slaughtered and had thus spread out in order to minimize the slaughtering), and Orlais was also in a civil war.
And then one day, Dorian received a letter from Felix. The Venatori were plotting things, whispers of an Elder One, eyes in Ferelden of all places.
“You don’t like Ferelden either?” Dorian asked. “Aren’t you a spirit? It’s not like you have been there.”
“I’ve been around there,” Fortitude said dryly. “Once. There were a lot of wolf spirits. And dog spirits. And other assorted canine spirits.”
Still Dorian felt that if a Tevinter cult was causing a ruckus in the South, surely some Tevinter mages should stand against them, so he sent out letters to various ally-acquaintances, tried appealing to people’s sense of patriotism.
No one volunteered.
“It looks like it will be just us,” Dorian said. “Maker knows I have nothing better to do.”
He said it self-depreciatingly, but something stirred inside Dorian, strong enough that even Fortitude could feel it. A cause. Another chance at proving himself worthy at something, at being more than the Pavus family failure. At meeting Felix. At making some positive change in the world.
“Thank goodness we are good at killing people,” Dorian said.
“And surviving,” Fortitude said.
“Yes well. This might test that,” Dorian said, but all those stirrings were becoming brighter. The long connection. The results of endurance, of pushing through and surviving regardless. “You’ll probably be happy to dramatically throw yourself in any perceived harm’s way. You know, for a simulacrum, you really are bad at the whole ‘almost dead’ aspect.”
Fortitude ignored that. “Will I have to hide around Felix?”
“Felix? No.” Dorian paused before softly adding, “You won’t have to hide around him in any sense of the word. He might be the only person I know of that wouldn’t disapprove of us.”
Fortitude brightened at that. Yes, let other people know Dorian has someone who will adequately love and protect him. Everyone should know. And then he stamped down on that before his strange, protective feelings made him start imagining fighting every last person in the world for Dorian.
But he absolutely would.
“Though should for some reason we have to interact with Southerners, that would be a yes,” Dorian continued. “Only death’s doorstep. I would say not even then, but I do like staying alive. I’m not sure Ferelden knows there is a difference between a blood mage and a necromancer, and I don’t want to push it. However I doubt that should be a concern.”