My Warden (COMPLETED)

The Wolf

9:44 Tevinter

Despite his life constantly veering to the left, Cullen never expected to find himself in the Tevinter Imperium where blood mages ruled and templars were little more than yappy lap dogs, neutered and chained from effecting any change. The city they traveled to was unlike anything he'd seen before. Where Kirkwall bore the occasional mark of the Imperium under her bones, the Marchers made it their own. Val Royeaux was its own painted up city, a bit like a war horse with ribbons knotted through its mane - power lurking below the glitz. But this city loomed around him overstuffed with architecture built upon even older and ancienter still. A modern building sat next to the crumbling ruins of a columned facade baring the faces of what looked like the old gods. They strolled past an ancient chantry built perhaps before the third blight, its walls made of plain sandstone, unnoticeable save the etchings of Andraste. A lone chanter stood outside speaking the heretical verses of the north. Streets weren't laid out in any plan, but undulated through the city as if someone placed down cobblestones while pursuing a cat. And moving through it all were mages, brash as the bright sun. They bore their staves glittering in jewels and priceless metals as a badge of honor. Robes were the fashion, of course, but even those were more decadent than the typical mage fare in the south.

"And I'd believed Dorian extravagant," Cullen mused to himself watching a man waltz past with pomegranate juice dripping onto his silk slippers embroidered with a family crest in golden thread.

Darius didn't speak much to either of them aside from a few curt suggestions that they voice few words seeing as how they both bore rather obvious accents. Of course, the king smirked and shouted, "I have no idear what you mean." Uncertain how to respond, their guide only nodded along and kept up their march deeper into the city.

"Where are you taking us?" Cullen asked. He walked beside the man while somehow Alistair and Honor slipped into the back. Realizing they'd both been rather quiet for awhile, Cullen turned and found an empty space where king and mabari should be. Wonderful.

Darius, unaware of their new problem, spoke up, "To the center of Asariel. There is an open air market located upon the old Imperium's circus ground, one of the largest."

"A slave market," Cullen spat, needing to dig deeper into that wound. His fingers itched just being near this many mages -- countless could be malifecarum or worse. Would abominations themselves walk freely through the streets?

"Yes," Darius bowed his head, "a slave market. One we will be disrupting, hopefully permanently."

Cullen's eyes trailed a woman with her hair rolled up like plump sausages, each link pinned around her head in a circle. Three elves trailed behind her, they couldn't have been much older than ten or twelve but they didn't behave like children given free run at market day. Their heads hung low out of fear of risking eye contact, while the tallest one held onto his mistress' skirts to keep them out of the dust.

"Are you a magister?" Cullen asked.

Darius chuckled, "You do draw from the south. No, I am not."

"But you're of high standing, a mage in the Imperium. An altus?"

That drew the mage's attention, his baggy eyes twisting towards the southern barbarian who never managed to knot that cursed shawl over his head. "You are aware of our...? Yes, I am an altus, but it is complicated. More complicated than I'd prefer to go into."

Cullen shrugged. "I only wonder what would push someone of the higher class to risk his neck for sl- the elves."

"I wish there was an easy answer to that. Some momentous event when perhaps a slave saved my life and asked only for freedom as recompense. A heartwarming story to appease people uneasy with their higher lot in the life. There are a few in our small group who bare those tales, but I'm afraid mine is not as simple to pin down," Darius slowed and shook both of his hands as if knocking away excess water after washing them. "While some try to enact change within the laws of the Imperium, others prefer a more direct approach. I, without the backing of my sundered family, require the latter."