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They all fall in love with the Herald in small steps somewhere along the way. He steals their hearts during missions, frantic sprints through battlefields, long evenings spent in the Haven's tavern and in bits of overheard conversations. It shouldn't be so easy, truely, but Cassandra can't help the fact that her exasperated glances soften. With time Sera's hands become more steady when she talks, and Varric's laugh starts to sound like he means it. Even Solas is finally drawn from his shell and joins them around the bonfire, sitting with his legs crossed and patiently answering eager questions from that unbelievable menace. And Dorian... Maker's breath, Dorian has it the worst of them all.
The Herald flirts, shamelessly and with everyone, and Dorian suspects it's just a part of that "being nice" business he can't bother himself with, because that would mean that he wants to stay for anything other than duty. And then Haven falls and Dorian realizes that somehow he managed to lose something he never suspected he had, never dared to want. And how typical it is to realize that only after it's already gone from his grasp.
As they climb through the snow, Sera seems jittery and lost. She keeps looking back over her shoulder like maybe the darkness would break in fear of her arrows and give them back the sacrificial lamb whose throat they cut to escape from their own deaths. It doesn't help, but she can't stop herself from it any more than Dorian can quiet down the cruel calculations that still echo in his head. There is no chance. None. The Herald is a mage and a human, and all his brethren stumble through the mountains like a herd of drunken sheep, unused to the weather, climbing and even walking for that long. If he lived through the attack at all, he had to be half dead after that avalanche, and this kind of trek... It's impossible. It has to be.
"You are hurt," says a voice at his elbow and when Dorian turns to protest all he sees is an atrocious hat. A true monstrosity, so ugly that he has to contemplate it for a moment in silence, giving the boy enough time to continue. "You are hurt and he's hurt, stumbling, the night is so dark and the light bites deep into his hands like a wolf, harsher than the snow. But look, the embers are glowing!"
“Now, I know it was all a very traumatic experience-”
"You are not looking," the kid says and turns his head, as if to listen to some far away sounds, ignoring Dorian completely. "Look!"
And then he sees that: a flicker of green light on the white side of the mountain, high above their camp. It’s just a sparkle, really, and if Dorian allows himself to stop and think he will dismiss it as nothing.
Instead, he allows himself to hope.