Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 9: Torrance

      She'd come to him like a dream on a cloud. An angel of light with raven hair and soft bronzed skin. A lovely tune of harp strings playing as she spoke.

He's had so many dreams of her before. Ones even more vivid, even more... sundering than this. But this, this dream in which she confesses her love and then takes him sinfully in her mouth, thus rips him in half, rouses his very soul. There is not one inch of him that does not gravitate toward her.

He feels her mouth around him, pulling him in, sucking him down, moaning his name against his hard cock. He can't remember a moment that he felt better than this. But just as he feels his release beginning to crash into him, just like on every other night, he wakes up.

But this night, the tension in the room, in his loins, it's too much. He raises himself from the bed, covered in sweat and feeling tired but wide awake all at once. He feels as if he could rip the world apart with his energy but at the same his muscles tell him no, scream at him, rest, please. He goes to the washroom in nothing but his leather trousers, his chest still heaving from his fever dreams, and dumps the freezing pale of wash water over his head.

He starts at the chill of it but steels himself, willing his nerves to calm. The hair sticks up on the back of his neck as the hair on his head stays plastered to his temples. It hangs in dark curls around his head, now soaking like a drenched mop. His chest heaves harder and now he's shivering. He takes a breath and rubs his eyes of the sleep, urging himself on.

He replaces his night shirt over his head, tugs his boots onto his legs and puts his arms through the sleeves of his fur lined coat. He buckles his sword to his side with pride and resolved himself to go out into the cold. It is when he opens the door, revealing the snowy battlements beyond that he freezes, going stiff with fear.

He braces himself for the onslaught as he steps out, shutting the wooden door behind him. She turns to face him and he is immediately met with the scent of her hair as it billows in the wind. She stands at the wall of the battlements, looking out over them at the forests beyond. Her eyes are dark but beautiful like a glaze of chocolate in a never ending fpuntain. It never hardens. It is like molten lava, always flowing, ever curious.

She looks away from him just as quickly as she glanced his way. "You look a mess, Torrance." Olive Montilyet tells him with no more than a blank face. "I couldn't sleep." He lies, paralyzed by her presence. He makes no move to go toward her. Only watches her, stalk still. She chuckles to herself minutely at that. "They say it happens because someone was dreaming of you." She tells him without looking at him, keeping her gaze on the tree line. He shudders to think who it might be Certainly no her. It only sets the chill in his bones further.

"But as fate may have it, I too cannot sleep." She looks to him then. "It seems we are in someone's dreams together." She stretches her arm out over the stone and pats the space beside her. "Come, join me." He means to do this with hesitance but his body takes him there by wind, carrying him with celerity. She pulls her fur coat tighter around herself and snuggles into it.

"Are quite warm enough, milady?" Torrance questions, seeing her warm breath come out in puffs over the battlements.

She smiles at him and he cracks a little bit at the sight of it. "Not quite. But I expect I'll live." She says as though it is nothing. Olive has never been one to draw attention to herself. She prefers to dwell in shadow and mystery. Where people seek fame and power, Olive wants only for information and knowledge. She is the opposite of her twin. Where Camille is bright and shining and bubbly, Olive is dark and wild and quietly curious. The only time that lovely bubbly side of her shows is when the least amount of people will see her. And even then is it rare.

"You shouldn't be out here by yourself in the cold." He tells her but, as usual, she has a quick retort.

"I am not by myself though, am I? Not anymore?" She smiles that smile at him.

Torrance swallows, forcing back that feeling in his throat as it urges him to speak the truth. "No I suppose you're not, not anymore."

"We both know that bit about dreams is all shit. So what's keeping you up?" She tilts her head to the side, looking up at him with those gorgeously dark eyes.

"I'll share if you do?" He requests with as much of a smile as he can muster. She seems to weigh her options for a moment, wondering whether she should really tell him what has her stalking the battlements at this late hour. There is silence between them for a few minutes. Silence and the whipping of wind, of trees, of sky. The scar from the breach still lies within it, a mark the sky will bear forever, just as the Inquisitor will forever bear the scar from her own mark. Or would have, had she not died that night on the fields before Skyhold, falling prey to Templar trash. "I told my sister something Nicolynn told me in confidence." She pauses, clearly upset about it.

"I thought it was harmless. She's my twin; I tell her everything. Needless to say, she told Octavia. And Octavia wrote to Anthony. That is why he is back. Not because it is the anniversary of his parents death, not to mourn with his poor little sister that has been deprived of a brother all these years, but to steal Nicolynn away. To ensure that she doesn't hurt herself, or anyone else." She looks at Torrance then. There is a look in his eyes as if he is uncertain of her words. "He is no Templar. But his father was. And I have to wonder, is he going to take her to Val Royeaux to keep her safe?" She looks to the cobblestone floor then, not wanting to admit it, to let the words fall from her lips. So he says it for her. "Or to lock her up."

Olive nods, hating that she feels this way, but feeling it nonetheless. He sighs, a heavy sigh. "It's about her magic then? What you told Camille?" Olive only nods again. "What was it?" Olive looks hesitant but tells him anyway. "She doesn't expect to be able to hold out against it this year. Because of their abilities, mages have heightened emotions. Even the slightest of upsets could enrage them, cause them to go slowly insane. But to an untrained mage like Nicolynn, with no experience of controlling or wielding her power, and an event such as this one, it will destroy her, inside and out. It is only a question of how many of us she will take with her." She makes that very plain to Torrance as he stands beside her.

"Nicolynn practically raised me. I was her charge, her ward. There wasn't a thing she would let others do for me. She and Anthony cared for Adelaide and I together and only on occasion would they permit Keiran to help. She is not a bad person. She would never allow herself to hurt any of us." Olive arcs an eyebrow up at him as he speaks.

"It is not whether she will do it or not, Torrance. It is whether she will be able to control it." She looks at him with a morbid, dreadful gaze and he has to resist the urge to reach for her hand. It is sated quietly when she instead reaches for his. "So, what about you? Why can't you sleep?" He dreads giving her the real answer and comes up with something in his head. His mouth opens to give her words but then he doesn't. It catches his eye, small and faint but there, burning. He watches as the billowing of flames caresses a small circle of stone. A campfire. "There's someone here, outside the gate."