Hoping I Don’t Float Away


This is a gift for @littlexabyss. Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

The prompts I went with were:
• Something inspired by my favourite song
My favourite song is “The Bends” by Doomtree.
• Anything to do with AUs, bookshops and music stores.

Hoping I don’t float away
By @tikaon for @littlexabyss

Dorian had known, like everybody knew, that the conclave was scheduled to begin the very day he arrived in Redcliffe. It had been on the news for months now, the uneasy truce, the tense negotiations, the faces of all the important people with long titles speaking on the evening talk shows. Going on and on about Kirkwall and mages and fear upon panic upon hysteria.

He had ignored most of it though, too preoccupied with his own little escape project to take much interest in politics anymore. And thus it was that he was almost completely surprised to arrive in a city on high alert. The police were everywhere, and they were conducting “random” searches that were about as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Dorian had already been forced to abandon his staff on the train when it pulled into the station. At least he could use the ruckus it caused when it was found unattended to duck through the gathered people into the relative safety of the station hall.

It was a tiny station all in all, befitting such a small town, and woefully unsuited to the veritable throng of visitors that were now trying to push through it. Dorian went with the flow as best he could until at last he was pushed out into the freezing open air.

It was late Umbralis with Satinalia fast approaching, and the weather showed it. Thick fog pressed down low on the houses, threading through the streets with icy fingers, half obscuring the lights in the windows and the neon signs over shops. Dorian walked down the street slowly, trying to get his bearings. Walking without his staff felt strange and awkward, and the cold would not stop biting into his skin. He thrust his hands into his coat pockets instead, and with his right he fiddled with the key he had been given. It was a small and innocuous copper key, supposed to open a room in the peacock inn. The seediest place in town, Dorian was certain, but it had been chosen to be his safe-house. For now.
If he managed to get there.

He heard the templar patrol before he could see them, and that might very well be what saved him. The sound they made was unmistakable. Lock-stepping steel on stone, coming from behind. Even for him, it was an effort not to quicken his steps, keep his head down while he looked for the nearest possible escape. He hadn’t been paying attention. That didn’t mean he was stupid.

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