Dragon Age is not mine and I make no money from this.

"Did you hear? Amell passed his Harrowing!"

"He's a gifted mage. Of course he did."

"I bet my Harrowing is going to be next."

"Come off it."

"No, really. First Enchanter Irving was dropping some pretty obvious hints to me."

"If they hear you talking like that, you'll never get to take your Harrowing."

"Piss off, Dorian. You could try being happy for me."

Whispers were often heard, muted conversations in the Tower's stone confines. Raised voices were a rare thing as no one wanted a Templar's attention too focussed on them, even the First Enchanter only just spoke above a whisper and Greagoir trusted him and his ability to resist possession completely.

However, the Circle Tower of Kinloch Hold clasped within her walls more than just the Mages and Templars who were immediately obvious; she was also home to many depravities and problems, privy to secrets, both good and ill. And those with magical talent who were caught in her embrace rarely escaped.

In the past, the First Enchanter had been understanding of his Mages when they asked for leave. They could head out to sit by the lake, or visit a nearby village, or perhaps even go for a walk in the surrounding countryside. There had been objections though, folk from the nearby villages complaining, comments passed along by farmers out in their fields, children who mentioned things to the chantry sisters; the Mages of Kinloch Hold were not supervised properly, the Mages were terrorising both towns-folk and animals, the Mages were running around unchecked, free to summon whatever they liked and spell cast wherever they wished.

Of course, there was no real truth to this. No Mage ever left the Tower without a Templar in tow, they rarely did anything more than enjoy a breath of fresh air once out the musty old stone rooms, and there was only one recorded incident of a Mage harming a villager, which was in response to the villager deeming it appropriate to attack the Mage in question, but still the Seekers came.

They say the Seekers only visit a place if it is truly troubled. They call them the Seekers of Truth, but in their ranks, they hold secrets of their own; though these secrets of rarely anything too dire, there is a bias amongst the Seekers, a bias the majority of Thedas believed also, the idea that Mages ought to be imprisoned, for both their own safety and the safety of others.

First Enchanter Irving tried desperately to convince the Seekers that the claims against them held no truth, but the Seekers could not see any truth but their own. They saw Mages who could receive a pass for no reason other than to sit outside. They saw how the Templars held a comfortable friendship with a number of their charges. They saw the close relationship between Irving and Greagoir.

They decided they saw enough and instructed Kinloch Hold to tighten its restrictions. No Mage was to go outside unless they had a valid reason, a reason that was to be discussed by more than just the First Enchanter. The Templars were to keep a respectable distance from the Mages to avoid losing perspective, this went for the First Enchanter and Knight Commander too. Mages were to obey the curfew that had been in place for centuries, but rarely bothered with.

The list went on. Though the response seemed petty to many, the Mages were forced to obey, the risk of the Seekers returning and beginning a hunt for any 'possessed Mages' too great for them to ignore.

By 9:38 Dragon, there were some Mages in the Tower who had never been outside since they had shown magical talent. Mages who couldn't remember the feel of rain on their face, or what grass felt like… there were even Mages who had been taken at a young age with no memory of what a tree was like. After all, looking at a picture in a book did not help when they had been inside for over a decade. The way out had been barred to all but a few Mages for over 15 years.

Mages were taken to Towers, usually between the ages of 6 and 12, when untrained magical talent was likely to spark at some point. However, there were mages who avoided this fate, apostates who learned to control their magic early enough that they were safe from suspicious neighbours.

However, in Kinloch Hold there was one young man who had not entered the Tower in the usual way.

At the age of 7, Dorian Pavus had been taken from his family's summer home in Southern Tevinter and dragged to the backwater country of Ferelden, where the stranger had proceeded to blackmail his family. Halward Pavus had refused to stoop to giving in to blackmail. He had sent people out to retrieve his son, but it was too late. The stranger had started shouting about this boy being a Mage, about how he had seen him talking to a wisp and how he may be possessed.

The boy was taken to Kinloch Hold, where he was questioned in a language he didn't understand, deemed an apostate (for he did have magical talent but it was trained, in deference to the fact that it was uncouth to accidently set a noble's dress on fire) and marched off to his new life.

By the time the child had grown into a young man, he too had little memory of outside. He had a few scant memories of another life; of hot summers, of tall parents scolding him for slouching, of the sun as it travelled its beloved path across the sky, with the moon creeping along behind it. They were distant though, like his knowledge of Tevene; he knew a sentence or two of his native language, but he couldn't even tell people what his native language was called. As a child, home had always just been home and the idea of Tevinter and there being other countries had never cropped up.

Still, he could swear in Tevene, with an echo of a woman's voice scolding him for using foul language. He couldn't remember her words, more the tone, but he clung to the idea it was his mother.

There were those in the circle who could remember their mothers, those who had only been in the circle a short time and those who had entered at an older age. However, Dorian did not want to discuss his family with them. He did not want to consider others, not when he could remember years of bitterness as he learnt the language, as he struggled with basic understandings of things he had never needed before and had had to endure their laughter as he puzzled out squiggles on the page.

Dorian was, by no means, the only child who had been unable to read anything written in the King's Tongue, but he was the only one unable to speak it. As a result, the child had grown spending his time with his tutors and with his books. Occasionally he had asked about outside while he had grown, and Enchanter Wynne (the most patient of his tutors) had only occasionally answered him.

By the time Dorian reached 19 years of age (the same age as the future Hero of Ferelden, though Dorian marked his birthday on the day entered the Tower, as he had been unable to tell anyone his birth date when he had first arrived as opposed to his actual birth date and no one really celebrated any year but their 18th in the Kinloch Hold), the young man no longer asked about outside. He did not wonder what the sky looked like, and if it was a bright blue. He was not concerned with anything more troublesome than whether or not to grow a moustache.

Well, perhaps that was not entirely true. There were two other things that sat at the back of his mind. The first was whether or not he would ever get to take his Harrowing, something he was old enough to do since passing his 18th birthday but had apparently yet to impress the First Enchanter enough to have his try.

The second had to do with a Templar. He was one of the youngest in the Tower, only a year or two older than Dorian, and he was gorgeous. The Mage was unsure of how to approach him though, as he had never partaken of the regular pass time of so many mages in the Circle; no, for a little over two years now, Dorian had had his sights set on Cullen.

Unfortunately, for all that there were thousands of books throughout the Tower, not one explained how to seduce a Templar. There were a few fiction books dotted about the place, but one had to search to find them, and many were about princesses being rescued from Towers by a Knight in Shining Armour. It seemed thoroughly unfair that there were so many Knights in Well Polished Armour here, but not one of them was inclined to rescue Dorian from this place; not that he particularly wanted to be compared to a princess, but he was awfully attractive.

The thought had Dorian frowning once more into his small shaving glass as he debated on a moustache. Would Cullen like one? Would it look dashing? Should he ask someone their opinion?

Looking up, Dorian sighed. He was not popular, having never gone out of his way to form friendships with anyone. Of course, there were a couple of fellow apprentice Mages who spoke to him, aware that his silence and ability to blend into the shadows let him hear all sorts of gossip… and in Kinloch Hold, where few pass times went unnoticed by Templars, gossip was frequently ground up in the rumour mill and spewed back out, mixed with numerous falsehoods.

The other main pass time was sex; trysts in empty rooms and empty corridors, brief embraces in Kinloch Hold's passages as people rushed to finish before they were spotted by any roaming Templars.

Perhaps he could ask someone? Clenching his fists into the deep purple material on his apprentice robe, Dorian considered his options and the possible consequences. Could he ask someone? Was he willing to subject himself to the whispers of the other Mages that he had mostly managed to avoid so far? Was it worth it?

Standing, Dorian shook his head and hurried out the dormitory. No. The answer was unequivocally no. There was no way he would willingly put himself through that, not when there was no escape, no way to avoid the people who gossiped, not when he was likely to be around them until he passed his Harrowing, and likely beyond that when they accomplished the same and joined him in the Harrowed Mage Quarters on the next floor up.

Moving quickly, Dorian hurried to where the other man was most frequently posted, near Irving's office.

"Oh, h-hello." Cullen gave him a slight grin once he caught sight of the young Mage. "I-uhh, how have you been?"

"Are you alright?" Dorian asked, his smooth voice a vast contrast to his thundering heart.

"Yes. Yes, I… I've never done a Harrowing before." Cullen's hazel eyes seemed haunted as he stared off to the side. "I was picked as the Templar to deliver the killing blow if… if… Well, you know."

Dorian smiled sadly as Cullen's shoulders sagged. They weren't exactly friends, never had conversations longer than 10 stuttering minutes, but Dorian was quite taken with him and it tugged at his heartstrings to watch the man's misery.

"Are you alright?" He asked again, feeling calmer now and he stepped forwards to lay a hand on his chest, his shoulders being too awkward with the Templar Armour on.

"Y-yes. I'm more relieved than anything. Greagoir said that Amell's Harrowing was the quickest and easiest he'd ever seen!"

"How did you find it?" He asked, curiosity welling up inside him, lending him the courage to step closer.

"Ah, y-you know I can't talk about that." He rubbed his metal encased fingers over the scruff on his chin and grinned wryly at Dorian. "Sorry."

"I wish they would tell us what to expect." Dorian sighed, leaning against the wall beside Cullen.

"No you don't." Cullen replied, though his voice was pitched so low that Dorian rather suspected he wasn't supposed to hear it.

"Do you have time to join me in the library?" Dorian blurted out. "Venhedis, I meant to ask better than that."

"Ask me better… to go to the library?" Confusion bled into Cullen's expression as he looked over at the younger man.

"Indeed." Dorian did his best to look seductive, though he suspected it wasn't working when Cullen excused himself to go attend his 'other duties'.

Regardless, he would find a way to make this happen. There had to be a book somewhere it the library that would inform him on how to get Cullen to notice him.