Chapter Text
Right after they’d nearly been barbecued by the Abyssal High Dragon, Dorian and Inquisitor Lavellan fell into a hole.
There were some things that happened before that, of course – Iron Bull said some disturbing things in Qunlat, Cassandra found some loot inside the dragon’s skull (who knew?), Dorian whined about a nasty second-degree burn on his arm, and Lavellan prayed to every god there was that they’d be able to leave this abysmal desert soon. There weren’t enough trees. (In fact, there were none. There were maybe, like, three wimpy shrubs in the whole place. It was really unacceptable.)
So Dorian was complaining loudly while they explored the surrounding area for any more hidden loot, with Lavellan right behind him, fretting silently about his burned arm, when the mage tripped on a badly-placed rock, pinwheeled his arms, and fell spectacularly into a gaping crevasse in the ground. His flailing arms managed to knock Lavellan off-balance, and so it was that they both tripped and tumbled into the fissure, Lavellan landing heavily on top of him in a dark grotto that reeked of sulfur.
Dorian made a pained sound. “Get your elbow out of my –”
Lavellan shifted and tried to untangle their limbs. “Ow! You just kicked me!”
“Well I wouldn’t have kicked you if you weren’t so boney – ” The end of Lavellan’s bow smacked Dorian in the face, completely on accident. “Rude!”
A shadow from above fell over them. “You two need some alone time in there?” Bull asked, laughing.
Both of them glared up at him. “So help me, if you don’t get us out of here…” Dorian huffed and finally managed to stumble to his feet.
Bull snorted. “Can’t you get yourself out of there? Move some rocks around with your mind or something.”
Dorian folded his arms. “I’m not a force mage, thank you very much. I could set this whole place on fire…” Lavellan gave him a horrified look. “But I doubt that would help.”
“Get us out,” Lavellan called up. “Find a rope or something, I don’t know!”
Bull grinned salaciously. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of rope.”
Lavellan folded his arms. “Really, Bull?”
Dorian threw up his hands with an exasperated noise. “Just find Cassandra!”
“What’s the magic word?”
Dorian sent a bolt of furious violet lightning hurtling past Bull’s horns.
“Alright, alright!” Bull conceded, getting to his feet and going to (hopefully) find the Seeker.
Dorian and Lavellan stood as he left, disgruntled and covered in reddish brown dust. The cavern they’d fallen into was small and didn’t seem to connect to any spider-filled tunnels, thankfully, but Lavellan still didn’t like it. He frowned and peered into the shadows. “I hope he comes back soon,” he muttered.
Dorian huffed and leaned against a rock. “He’d better. I still need first aid, and we’re fresh out of elfroot, and if I don’t get patched up soon I’m going to get scars –” He paused as he noticed Lavellan’s anxious expression. “Are you alright?”
Lavellan looked away, grimacing. “Fine. Just…not a big fan of small spaces, is all.”
Dorian grinned. “Really? Like Varric? I suppose we should be lucky there was no Blight for you to take care of in the Deep Roads, then!” He raised an eyebrow. “Still, I think it just adds to your charm. The mighty Inquisitor, afraid of tight places.” He smirked.
Lavellan rolled his eyes, ignoring the innuendo. “And you actually like them? You complain about practically everywhere we go!”
Affronted, Dorian exclaimed, “I do not!”
Lavellan sighed and began ticking off places on his fingers. “The Hinterlands were too barbaric, the Storm Coast was too rainy, the Fallow Mire was too marshy, Crestwood was too plain, Emprise du Lion was too cold, the Emerald Graves had too many trees, the Western Approach has too much sand –”
“I believe you’ve made your point.”
Lavellan rolled his eyes again.
“Anyway, as a matter of fact I don’t mind caves.” Dorian shrugged. “They remind me of the crypts in Nevarra, actually, and those were quite fascinating.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting? Because it’s not. At all.”
Dorian chuckled. “Apologies. But I think you can rest easy – we’ve simply fallen into a glorified ditch. I really don’t think there’s anything in here that could actually hurt us –”
Crack.
The sound was faint, but Lavellan heard it over the lilting timbre of Dorian’s voice and held up his hand, taking a step towards the source. “There’s something…”
It was louder this time, like someone stepping on glass, and Dorian jumped a little, looking curiously towards the shadowed edge of the cavern. Lavellan crept towards it slowly; hand on his dagger’s hilt. He blinked, eyes adjusting quickly to the gloom. Dorian let a flame flare in his palm, casting the whole area in flickering orange.
Both of them froze when they saw it. “Oh,” Lavellan whispered. “That’s…is that…?”
“An egg,” Dorian said. “Kaffas, it’s one of that dragon’s eggs, and it’s hatching!” Sure enough, the egg shuddered, its mottled russet and tawny surface riddled with growing cracks. It was huge for an egg – probably as big as Lavellan’s entire torso. Then again, the Abyssal High Dragon had been on the larger side, so…
Dorian raised his hand, electricity sparking to life in it, aimed at the egg. Lavellan’s eyes widened and he grabbed Dorian’s arm instinctively. “What’re you doing?!”
Dorian stared at him, clearly unused to anyone interrupting his spells (or him in general). “What does it look like? I’m killing the dragon before it kills us!”
Lavellan frowned. “But it’s not a real dragon yet. It’s just a baby!”
Dorian’s brow furrowed. “We’ve dealt with ‘baby’ dragons before, Lavellan. They’re just as nasty and antisocial as the adults. Now, will you please let go of me so I can –”
Lavellan stayed firmly latched on to his wrist. “No. Those dragonlings weren’t hatchlings, they were like…teenagers, I don’t know! All teenagers are, uh, moody and aggressive, right?”
Dorian yanked his hand out of Lavellan’s grip. “I’m sorry, but I won’t risk your safety –”
CRACK!
Both of them stumbled back as the egg shattered, destroyed by tiny claws and teeth. A small heap of maroon scales and wings tumbled out of the mess of shell, wobbling as it got to its feet and tried to eat the last remaining bit of yolk on its face. Halfway through, it seemed to notice that it was not alone, and stopped to blink at them with large golden eyes. It sneezed with a little puff of smoke.
Dorian’s arm moved a fraction of an inch and Lavellan darted in front of him, shielding the hatchling and hoping he wasn’t making a terrible mistake by turning his back to it. “Don’t,” he warned. “You want to kill that baby dragon; you have to go through me first. And I don’t think you want to have to explain to Cassandra why the Inquisitor was electrocuted.”
Dorian rolled his eyes. “You’re being ridiculous. Move before it sets you on fire.”
Lavellan did not.
Dorian’s eyes narrowed. “You know I could blast you twenty feet away in a second.”
Lavellan glared. “You do that, and I’ll ship your ass all the way back to Tevinter for insubordination.” Dorian scowled and lowered his hand. “Dispel it,” he added.
Reluctantly, Dorian did. “Happy now?”
Lavellan didn’t answer. Instead he turned and slowly knelt down in front of the dragon, which still wasn’t showing any signs of attacking – as he’d expected. It had just been born, it didn’t inherently want to kill them, right? Besides, it was barely a foot in length and height, with tiny, damp wings hanging uselessly at its sides. It just kept staring at him almost…expectantly.
“Now what?” Dorian asked him snippily. “It would’ve been a mercy to kill it. Now its mother is dead, and it’s just going to starve here and die anyway!”
“No,” Lavellan replied. “It’s not.” He reached out and, biting his lip hard enough to bleed, touched the dragon’s head.
“What’re you doing?!” Dorian squawked. “It’s going to bite you –”
But the dragon did not bite him. Not even close. It started…purring. It leaned into his palm and padded forward unsteadily, nudging its head against his knee and continuing to blink softly at him. It was actually…pretty cute. Lavellan smiled and tucked a hand under its belly, lifting it up. The dragon squirmed a little but seemed to relax against the warmth of his chest, still purring.
“Oh, Maker,” Dorian said faintly. “You’re not seriously…”
“Inquisitor? Dorian? Are you still down there?”
Cassandra’s voice made the dragon squeak and crane its head up curiously. Cassandra was leaning over the edge of the fissure with a long rope coiled in her hand, squinting into the shadows.
“Yes, we’re here,” Lavellan called back up.
“Thank the Maker,” she said, relieved, and uncoiled the rope, tossing the end down to them. “Will this work?”
“Perfectly, thank you!”
Dorian shook his head and hissed, “This is an awful idea.”
“I’m not leaving it,” Lavellan said stubbornly, cradling the hatchling closer.
“Bull is either going to try to kill it or keep it for himself,” Dorian muttered.
Lavellan took ahold of the rope. “He can try.”
*
“Inquisitor, I still think –”
Lavellan strode forward, past Cassandra. “I know what you think, and I am electing to ignore it.”
She frowned. “My family has been hunting dragons for centuries. I believe I know more than enough about those creatures to tell you with absolute certainty that you’re putting yourself and everyone else in danger by taking that thing with you.”
Dorian piped up, “Exactly! She is exactly right! Bringing a baby dragon to Skyhold won’t end well for anyone.”
Bull was practically skipping alongside Lavellan. “Hate to say it, boss, but they’ve got a point. I mean, dragons are great, but they’re not so great to keep in castles full of people. Sure, it’s little now, but everything grows up eventually.” He paused. “Hey, maybe we could keep it locked up somewhere in the mountains and then when it got big, we could train it as some kind of super-weapon –”
“What is wrong with you?” Lavellan asked. The dragon yawned. “I appreciate all of your concern and…suggestions, but the dragon is staying with me. I will make sure no harm comes to anyone in Skyhold and if anything happens, you may hold me responsible.”
Bull shrugged. Dorian huffed. Cassandra gave him a worried look. “Inquisitor…why are you so intent on ‘saving’ this dragon? We’ve killed eight high dragons already, including this one’s mother, and you never hesitated to deliver the final blow.”
“Maybe that’s why,” Lavellan murmured, more to himself than to her. “I don’t know. They’re just…they’re noble creatures. It’s a shame to kill them. Maybe…maybe there’s more to them than the beasts we fought.”
Cassandra made a sound that suggested she didn’t agree at all, but thankfully stayed silent as they approached Frederic’s campsite. “Besides,” Lavellan said hopefully, “maybe our draconoligst friend will have a solution.”
He walked with the others to the lonely little tent, and Frederic looked up from a thick stack of manuscripts. “Oh! You have returned! Marvelous. And…oh, my. Is that what I think it is?” He sounded a little faint.
Lavellan nodded. “Unfortunately, the dragon attacked and we had to kill it. But we, ah…fell into a hole and accidently stumbled upon one of its hatchlings.”
“One of its eggs, actually,” Dorian cut in. “And for some reason, our dear Inquisitor decided to keep it.”
Frederic clapped his hands. “Oh, this is too good to be true! I predicted that she wouldn’t be nesting this time of year, but since you found the egg away from her cave…she must have abandoned it! Oh, what luck! What a stroke of fate!”
“I guess so,” Lavellan muttered.
“May I see it?” Frederic asked with excitement, and Lavellan hesitated before holding it up for Frederic’s examination. The dragon wriggled uneasily as Frederic poked and prodded it. “Oh, this is quite a find, Inquisitor. It’s a female! The female high dragons are the rarest, you know. Very important, since they lay the eggs and such…” He studied one of its tiny horns. “Fire dragon, yes, but the father was something else…there’s no telling what!” Frederic straightened up and if Lavellan could see behind that annoying mask, the man would probably be beaming. “This will be a huge asset to draconology. I’ll learn so much more when I dissect her!”
Lavellan snatched the dragon back. “What?!”
“Dissection? Oh, it’s very standard, you just cut open the belly and head of the –”
“I know what it is!” he snapped. “And you’re not dissecting her.”
“Great,” Dorian said sarcastically. “Now it’s a her.”
“I appreciate your interest, Frederic,” Lavellan continued, “but I’m keeping the dragon with me at Skyhold for as long as possible. You’re welcome to return with us and study her as much as you’d like without harming her, but I won’t allow you to cut her open.”
“Oh,” Frederic said, surprised. “I…see. Well, Inquisitor, that may be a wiser path of study. This way, I can study her at every cycle of life! Oh, yes, that will be much better! I happily accept your offer!”
“Alright, then get packed. We leave at dawn,” Lavellan said.
“Bet you five silvers Vivienne’s gonna throw a fit,” Bull said to Dorian as they returned to their own camp.
Dorian made a face. “Everyone is going to throw a fit. Except maybe Sera.”
Unfortunately, Lavellan couldn’t argue with that.
*
The dragon, Lavellan quickly discovered, liked to eat. A lot. The entire journey back to Skyhold was spent trying to appease her growing hunger with nugs, birds, fish, rabbits, and whatever else they managed to find. It was only when they crossed the Frostbacks that her appetite began to wane. Frederic surmised it was because of the cold – she was a desert dragon, a fire dragon, and she wasn’t meant to live at such high altitudes.
“Will she be alright?” Lavellan asked worriedly, glancing down at the dragon (which was bundled up in his coat, asleep).
“Just keep her warm; that should do the trick! A fire dragon freezing to death – now that would be most ironic.”
So it was that the dragon went wherever Lavellan did, tucked between layers of clothing and burrowed into his bedroll against his chest. She was still only about the size of a small cat, but she was definitely growing. Her wings had also dried out fully, though they were too small to fly with, and her scales had brightened and sharpened slightly. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to have figured out she could breathe fire yet. Even still, Cassandra kept fretting about making all of Lavellan’s armor fireproof and jumped whenever the dragon so much as sneezed. It put everyone on edge, and Lavellan nearly kissed the drawbridge in relief when they finally arrived back at Skyhold.
Their reception was…interesting.
Cullen and Josephine protested, of course, but Leliana was enchanted by the little creature and immediately volunteered to help set up a place in which to keep her. Vivienne did, in fact, throw a quiet fit, and Sera did, in fact, squeal with glee when she saw her. Blackwall stayed far away from her, Varric made some joke about Hawke adopting her, Cole kept going on about happy dragon thoughts, and Solas gave Lavellan a pat on the back that made him feel rather like a dog.
(Solas just made him feel like a dog most of the time, actually. He practically reeked of condescension.)
Still, it could’ve been worse. In the end, Leliana managed to convince Josephine to let the dragon stay, and Cullen was reluctantly forced to relent. They made the spare room off of Lavellan’s main quarters into a little dragon nest, with blankets fire-proofed by Dorian. If the way she curled up and fell asleep immediately was any indication, the dragon found it satisfactory.
There was much talk of what would be done with her when she started to grow (and grow, and grow), but for now Skyhold was filled with uneasy yet amused talk of the Inquisitor and his new pet. Some couldn’t quite believe it, since most hadn’t seen the little dragon – or their Inquisitor.
A rule had been established soon after Lavellan was named Inquisitor – for a full day after he returned from missions, he was not to be disturbed by business – no war table meetings, no worried advisors, no frantic Revered Mothers, et cetera. His only concession was “if the world is ending,” and so far that hadn’t come to pass. So after the dragon was settled and secured, he practically collapsed into bed, closing his eyes and wondering when he’d become more used to this feather down mattress than his old cot back home.
He’d thought sleep would come quickly for him, but as he lay there he couldn’t seem to clear his mind at all. It had been a year since everything changed, since he’d been ripped from everything he knew and forced into a position of power he’d never particularly wanted. It was hard sometimes, to acknowledge how powerful he really was, yet he was reminded of it almost every day.
The people saw him as their savior, chosen by a prophet of a god he did not even believe in. All too often, the Inquisition, his followers, seemed to forget that – that he was not one of them, would never be one of them, and if not for the mark on his hand he would be invisible to them – or worse. He had grown up in a different world, one without humans, Templars, the Chantry, rebellions, and war. He missed the trees that never ended, the soft grass under bare feet, the sounds of the forest and the sounds of his people, the People, whom he missed so dearly.
Lavellan knew, deep down, that his clan had probably labeled him a traitor. All of his advisors’ attempts to reach his family had failed. If they did not want to be found, they would not be found. They were elves, and there was nothing they were better at than hiding.
But Lavellan couldn’t hide from anyone anymore.
He made a soft, miserable sound and curled around one of his pillows, closing his eyes tightly again. Back home, everyone was close, and Lavellan could scarcely remember a night where he had slept alone. But tonight his bed was cold and his chest was hollow and the room felt terrifyingly empty.
Then there was a low scratching sound and a soft snuffle, and Lavellan sat up immediately, ears pricked and eyes shining in the darkness. His hand strayed to his knife, tucked between mattress and bedframe, searching the shadows for an unfamiliar silhouette or a glint of metal. His eyes narrowed. One of the reasons he’d trained to be an assassin was to fight fire with fire – Leliana had warned him that he would undoubtedly make enemies. So he waited, heart pounding, expecting someone to leap towards him at any moment.
Instead, the scratching started up again, and he realized it was coming from the direction of the spare room. He blinked. A piteous whining sound filled the air, and he remembered the dragon with a jolt of surprise and…guilt? Sighing and sliding out of bed, he padded across the floor and tentatively opened the door.
The dragon stared up at him before quickly darting forward and nuzzling at his ankles, eyes wide and beseeching. She made the sound again, and he knelt down and scratched behind her little ears. “Hey,” he murmured. “I thought you were asleep.”
She rubbed her head against his bare arm and he winced at the slight scrape of scales, the points of her horns scratching and drawing a few beads of blood. He expected her to just keep rubbing, but instead she paused, nostrils flaring and jaws opening, and Lavellan stumbled back as he realized she was scenting blood, following instinct. She was, after all, a cold-blooded carnivore, and it was very possible she saw him as a tasty warm-blooded snack. Perhaps…perhaps Dorian had been right. Baby or no, her teeth were sharp enough to do serious damage to nug flesh, and unfortunately Lavellan doubted elf flesh was much stronger.
Fenedhis, he was going to lose a hand.
But when she opened her mouth, she didn’t lunge, she didn’t bite. She just…licked him. Very, very gently, tongue flickering like a snake’s and rasping like a cat’s.
“What?” he said stupidly. The dragon sat back on her heels and then rolled over onto her stomach, tongue still lolling. “Yes, yes, you’re very cute, but…listen, should I be worried? Are you going to eat me?”
The dragon sneezed equivocally.
Lavellan stood unsteadily, gingerly examining his arm. It was clean and remarkably free of bite marks. He wondered how long it would stay that way. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced. The dragon rolled back onto her stomach, watching him climb into bed. He’d just settled in when the dragon started whining again, scratching at the bedposts and flapping her wings feebly. He grumbled and peered down at her. “What d’you want, dragon?”
She whined despondently, pawing at the bed.
“You’re kidding,” he said.
She tilted her head.
“You’re not kidding.” Lavellan threw up his hands and relented, scooping the dragon up and plopping her down onto the end of the bed. “If you set anything on fire, especially me,” he warned, “you’re going to have a bad time.”
The dragon just cooed happily and toddled over towards the head of the bed. “Oh, no you don’t.” The dragon, dissuaded, continued towards him, nudging his side and curling up against his chest. Lavellan stared at her, because…really? The dragon looked at him sleepily, and…well, she was rather warm. Very warm, like she held a little furnace inside her belly, and he supposed she sort of did. Hopefully not an active furnace, or he was going to wake up very charred and very dead.
But somehow he doubted that would happen.
Carefully, he reached out and ran a hand down her back, where soft beginnings of spines were forming, a formidable suit of armor for one of the most dangerous creatures in Thedas. And said creature was snuggling with him. Lavellan snorted, patting the dragon’s head and closing his eyes. He either had the worst luck, or the best. He just wasn’t sure which yet.