Chapter Text
Dark clouds rolled in with the night. Outside the summerhouse on the cliff, already atmospheric to an unnecessary degree, a tortured noise echoed on the edge of hearing.
If there had been a passer-by - though there were never passers-by, not with all the ghost stories - they might have heard it through a window. And if they’d been a particularly intrepid passer-by, they might have crawled in through the window, getting covered in dust in the process, and tracked the sound to a corridor in the middle of the building.
If they had, they’d have found Dorian, dragging an entire oak table behind him. He had two legs braced under his arms, and two trailing on the floor, and every time he found the strength to pull it a little further, the thing screeched on the marble like a squashed nug.
It was unfair, really. The curse had been bad enough, but ignoring his father’s involvement (and he planned to, for as long as he could drink it down), it could almost be considered a natural hazard of his homeland. Curses, evil rituals, demons in inappropriate places; nothing that would raise more than an eyebrow or two in polite society. But heavy lifting? He had acquaintances who would faint at the thought.
Alas, he wasn’t exactly overburdened with friends or slaves these days, so he had little choice. The summerhouse wasn’t safe to stay in for too long, and he was developing an undignified habit of jumping when the ceiling creaked. No, the notes he’d found in the library mentioned an escape route through the floor down to a cave below, and it sounded… practical. It also sounded other things, like “cold”, and “unsuited for habitation”, but it did lack the main thing that was concerning him on the surface, “Qunari”.
Still, just because he’d become a demonic abomination and was currently squatting as a fugitive in a dead magister’s house, didn’t mean he was a savage. If he was moving into a cave, he was taking all of Vassilius’s incredibly expensive and tacky furniture with him. First the table, then maybe a set of chairs. A nice one for his workbench, followed by some comfy ones for relaxation. Perhaps even another little table to put ornaments on.
Dorian dragged the table over the threshold to the escape route room. One of the legs caught on the doorframe and protested almost as loudly as his arms. He swore at it, and when that didn’t entice it to move, he burnt a little chunk out of the wall around it. Finally, he managed to manoeuvre the table into the middle of the room, by which time he was sweating. It was really quite miraculous, given that half his skin was now some sort of leathery demon flesh and he’d never pictured demons as the sweating types.
He regarded the table with completely justified pride, even the one leg that he’d accidentally singed.
The spell was simple enough. Some small drawing on latent earth magic combined with a short incantation, and the item would drop through to the cave beneath. He read off the four words he’d written on a piece of paper.
The floor revolted against him. His feet flailed as they dropped, pulling him bodily through the ground, which proceeded to whack him in the face long enough to fill his eyes and mouth with dirt before deciding that the entertainment value had run out and spitting him out. He landed on solid rock. There was just time to roll over and groan, and then an entire oak table fell through the ceiling.
Miracle of miracles, it landed upright with all four legs outside his body, framing him like someone’s rather shoddy attempt at a tomb.
He opened his mouth to sigh with relief, and some mud trickled off the underside and dripped onto his face.
When he’d finally finished spluttering, he pulled himself out with a growing wonder at how much of the human body there was to bruise, and looked up at the ceiling. Somewhere up above, his set of chairs were waiting.
He looked back at the table.
He could work standing, he decided.