Kitchen And Craft Wix Corner (Exciteable Bird, Enter At Own Risk)

To elaborate:

• Dorian loves scandal, even somewhat secret scandal. Thom Rainier is a capable soldier who evidently was/is desperate enough for coin to commit treason against the Orlesian Empire, and doesn't ask too many questions. Both are things no doubt prized more highly in Tevinter, especially in conjunction with a keen sense of regret and longing for belonging, and while Dorian isn't one to deliberately exploit that, he would feel a certain kinship with this pariah who took an offer only for it to come back and bite him in the ass big time.
• Rainier is an extremely capable warrior, and while of marcher descent, he has spent enough time in Orlais to know a good deal of the fuckery of the Game. Couple that with his past experiences as a mercenary for about two years maybe, and you have yourself a man well acquainted with the seedy underbelly of things, yet desperate for a chance to redefine himself as a new person with honor and values.
• huehuehue rainier in tevinter armor big sexey
• He could still end up in Ferelden if he was hired on as one of the Alexiuses retainers to make communications between Felix and Dorian easier. If he initially posed as a loyal part of felix's staff it would allow him to still be the one knowledgeable of the Blight in the Inquisitor's inner circle. Also delicious delicious Rainier and Dorian keeping their knowing eachother secret >:3c
• Hell he could probably still initially be pretending to be a Warden, and have that be the role he plays that gets him into the Alexius house
• .... wait that would make him more of a Left Hand, huh, being all sneaky and shit..............
• either way, this way we get *double* the betrayal, first when it comes out he isn't a warden at all and was Dorian's man all this time, and then when the truth about his past before that comes out.
• ... Dorian probably doesn't know about that if he fished Rainier out of the soporati army and whisked him into his personal service, huh.
• I really need to figure out at least one, if not two potential tevene aliases for rainier to use if i should write this.

 

*pounds hands on table yelling FUND IT*

 

I will see what I can do :P

 

in all honesty I would love to play around with this, as we all know I'm a big slut for high stakes political intrigue and dress porn and besides Antiva, Tevinter is really rife for it, lbr
The thing is with the Marisela fic I can gloss over the active involvement things because Josie mostly is on the receiving end of things, the reasons/extent of the plot are layed out in canon and Marisela basically just murders her way through obstacles to keep Josie safe. Most of it will focus on emotional aspects over the inter-guild rivalry anyways.
This idea is much more complicated and needs me to keep track of more moving parts

 

Time for the Conspiracy Wall of Fic Planning

 

listen i already do that, don't test me to make it worse.
I have a quill and ink and I am not scared to tea stain some paper

 

-hundred yard stare-
are thom rainier and dorian pavus capable enough to exchange secret communiqués right under Sister Nightingale's nose all the while pretending they do not know eachother from before?

 

i stg they'd try and think they were getting away with it and not be getting away with it at all

 

Leliana: ... Should I tell them how very unsubtle they are being?
Josephine, also a trained Bard and renowned player of The Game: Ah, let them have their fun, Leliana, as long as your agents can get hold of the cyphers reliably :)
Leliana: ...
Leliana: Josie you don't want me to tell you what's in those secret messages. You're too pure for that.
Josephine: >:o

 

actually let me add to the elaboration above:

• rainier isn't picked up out of the soporati army
• dorian meets rainier at a fightpit
• Where Rainier is as a debt slave
• there's a brand on his arm, usually covered by a sleeve/bracers by the time they join the inquisition
• Eventually Rainier will wear a piece of cloth with House Pavus' crest tied over it.
• This is a worldstate with a Hawke who romanced Fenris
• Hawke knows immediately what he is seeing.

 

[shamelessly enables this au]

 

remind you to offer you some of my pre-stained paper when you come over on sunday
its old and a bit flimsy, though.

 

I mean I am half joking I put my plot scribbles in a random google doc bc that's more portable than a conspiracy wall :P

 

I know he is going to go by Calum Domitius while with the Alexiuses.
there's a whole lot of things going on with that I've not enough words rn to explain.
He will also call Dorian 'carus' when in intimate settings likely. That being a petname akin to 'dear' or darling as far as I can tell, but also meaning expensive and high prized and in some instances just meaning the 'high value' or 'exalted' bit that is synonymous with 'altus' >:3c
No the question is, does he have a name name or merely a starting number to use while in the pits.
I'm currently leaning towards 'starting number and usually being called nothing but 'Marcher'. Domitius could be a bit of a teasing/sarcastic nickname Dorian gave him and when he was to be hired by the Alexiuses he panics and just goes with that for his lastname

 

if anyone has any suggestions about the name things feel free to tell me btw xP I'm bad at this shit and do not know latin, what else is new

 

Blackwall stealing @Caelus Domitius' identity I see, keeping up the fine tradition

 

okay, to be fair, Domitius is an Actual Literal Roman Family Name In Real Life, but frankly. frankly him posing as yet another brother of Cael's is a hilarious thought.
He's the incapable soporati brother, you see, an embarrassment. Dorian is just trying to get him employment. Why he looks like a marcher you ask? He's also a bastard, that's why he's not a mage don't question it so much

 

Domitius is also presumably derived from 'having been tamed' which is why it felt appropriate for thom :P
Calum from calumnia (various lie/cheat/calumny meanings) but is also an actual scottish name meaning 'dove king'
in this instance the connection with Inanna-Ishtar and thereby Venus/Aphrodite is the most interesting one, both for the hope and justice associations and like, you know. love, fertility, marriage, all that good stuff.
Also the name sounds good leave me alone xP

 

The only real canonical association with doves i can find is Kios/Zazikel (obscure to the max but it's there and tevene so like)

 

Me: i need a casual name for thom before he picks up his Tevene Alias
dark me: just stick with 'Marcher', it worked for Anders
Me: okay I see where you're coming from, but it's probably lazy