cityelfweek

[cityelfweek]

And that's a wrap!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated and followed along! I've had a blast seeing all your amazing works and unearthing some oldies too. I really appreciate it!

If you create something for City Elf Appreciation Week a little late - tag this blog anyway! I'll check back every so often :)

And I'm always up for some more city elf appreciation, come chat with me at @breninarthur any time <3

See you again!

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inspired by this meme by sweepswoop_ on twitter

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Dragon Age: Origins - epilogue drawings

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Started replaying the dragon age series in preparation for Veilguard and I cannot not draw tarot cards of all my player characters… lil wip of my warden’s card here🙂‍↕️

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Inquisitor “Ghilin’da” Lavellan

The “lucky little rabbit” who escaped Fen’Harel’s trap.

Finally started playing Dragon Age: Inquisition—I’m only 10 years late! I'm not done with the game yet but I'm getting there, and piecing together Lavellan's name and story as I go along. More below the cut.

As it stands, I got her name from the elvhen words ghilanas (to guide; create luck), oin (rabbit), and da (little). Ghilin'da, or Ghil'da, for short. Prior to the Conclave, she lived as a city elf and owned the human slur for elves: "rabbit". She rarely went by any another name until the Conclave.

Once she became Inquisitor, the nickname would have fallen away if not for Solas's use of it. Solas latched onto the name and called her Ghilin'da, claiming that she was lucky for surviving the Anchor.

When Solas's identity is revealed, the name is forever marked in elvhen folklore, and Inquisitor Lavellan becomes Ghilin'da, the foil to Fen'harel.

In the years that follow, elves wait with bated breath for the ending to the tale of the Lucky Rabbit and the Dread Wolf.

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death • rebirth

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I REALLY LOVE ROMANCE WITH ALISTAIR

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Leliana found her.

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Wake up babe, new Zev art just dropped

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Day 7: Free Day

Decided to spend the @cityelfweek free day sketching an idea I had forever ago. For context, this is about a year before Inquisition, juuust before the mage rebellion.

They all smell the smoke before they see it— an unassuming plume that rises from Jenna’s window, belying the danger within. Cries ring out through the Alienages, followed by orders, and soon a line forms through the streets and to the banks of the river. Buckets with water spilling out the sides lead a trail to the danger. The faces of their young are wet with a sheen of sweat and fierce with determination, knowing that if help will come at all, it will come too late.

The fire burns around the water heaped upon it, gathering smoke and rising higher within the walls of Jenna’s home. The work continues, quenching a patch of flame before another can alight. It eats at the roof, thatched straw collapsing to the horrified screams of onlookers.

Then, all at once, it is a memory.

Panicked cries turn to confusion, questions ringing out as harsh as commands while Jenna braves the ashes to salvage what she can of the ruins of her life.

Some swear their last bucketful of water had been the one to quench the flames. Others know what they had seen: it had not simply been put out, it had been suffocated. Erased. Only smoke remains, rising harmless into the midday sky.

It does not take long for rumours of magic to rampage through the Alienage, cooler than the fire, but no less deadly. In the commotion, no one sees the stranger slip from their midst.

No one but Nessa, at least.

She’s lived in the Amaranthine Alienage her whole life, and there are few places in it someone can hide from her like. She catches him in an alley, the smell of a storm clings to his tattered clothes despite the bright summer’s day blazing overhead. It had been decades since she’s last breathed that scent, but she’ll never forget how it raises the hairs in your nostrils. The stranger tenses at her approach, but tellingly doesn’t reach for a weapon.

At least, none wielded by traditional means.

“I have no coin,” he tells her in a weary voice, “and little else to my name but the clothes on my back.”

“I’d say you have more than that, ser. A gift I hear only the Maker can give you.” He flinches, ducking his head so his hood hides his face. She steps forward with her hands cupped around her elbows. “You stopped the fire, didn’t you?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

There it is again, she thinks: the sky, come to touch their little corner of the world.

“Neither do I, but I know some who would.” She smiles, despite the bitter taste that lies on her tongue just from speaking their memory. “You won’t be safe out here tonight, and I have a roof. Supper, too.”

The stranger regards her from a distance, as though trying to pry the truth from her words with a glance. Not an unfamiliar look. Those she’s helped before had been just as slow to trust. There are no words in the King’s tongue silver enough to undo that damage.

“You’ve been bit before. I understand, but we’re just two people, my husband and I. Out here, you put yourself in the whole city’s hand.” Nessa moves down the alley. One hand reaches out in welcome. “So come with me.”

The trip back home is less peaceful than usual. They take the back ways, skirting windows and doors before coming to Nessa’s. If she hadn’t lived her whole life, it’d be an easy place to miss. Little adorns the entrance save a potted plant and an awning painted faded yellow. “Here we are,” she says in a sing-song tone, like she were welcoming in any old neighbour.

She ushers him in first, the slide of the lock the sole indication that not all is as it seems.

Inside, the aroma of dinner rises first to meet them. Rosemary and onion overwhelm the senses, drowning out the dust and the dirt. “Looks like it’s pottage for tea,” she remarks. Looking to the stranger, she can’t help but smile at how stiffly he stands. “Well, go on then, make yourself at home. I’ll get you a little something to drink.”

“Bring home another stray?” her husband asks. He’s hunched over the pot like an old witch at her cauldron, flyaway grey hairs waving as if they had little minds of their own. They deflate when he looks over and sees who she came home with, cheeks fattening with a little puff of air as he tuts, “Oh, Nessa. We’ve talked about this!”

“What was I supposed to do, Tal? Edith’s probably got the Templars looking for him already.” It’s an argument that’s played out half a dozen times over the last half a decade. She can’t rightly say who had won the last one, though from the sigh that comes from the kitchen, she’ll say she can count this one hers. “Half the quarter’d be up in flames if it weren’t for him.”

Her tone softens for the stranger, rounding on him with a pleasant, “how do you take your tea?”

“Water would be preferable, please,”  he answers without a moment’s consideration.

“Coming right up, love.” Stepping into their little corner of a kitchen, she adds to her husband: “See? This one’s got manners, to boot!”

Tal’s response is reduced to a disgruntled huff, attention fixed upon the simmering pot. Like he’s watching the Queen’s dinner cook. Nessa grabs a mug from a peg and tilts it into the clean water, returning to find the stranger had taken her advice. Despite how he hunches in his seat, there is a proud set to his shoulders. His hood drapes around them, revealing a clean shaven head and a severe jaw. A man of some years, but still young to her old eyes.

“Sorry about Tal,” she says as she slides into the seat across from him. “He doesn’t mind, really, he has to protest only so he can be right if something ever goes wrong.”

“His concern is not unwarranted. They will not look kindly upon your aid, should they find me.” He palms the cup, a layer of frost forming under his fingertips.

“We’ve had some close calls, but we’ve managed alright in the end.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Once or twice. More since the Mages’ Collective have caught wind of my sympathies.”

“Dangerous sympathies.” Ice begins to form in a thin film upon the water’s surface, moved by currents invisible to the eye. He drinks deep from the cup, voice lighter in the wake of it. “It is a wonder you would trouble yourself at all.”

Nessa smiles, a little pained. “I could say the same of you.”

“Perhaps I speak from a place of regret.” He’s looking at her again, like he’s trying to read a book. A stubborn line creases his brow, and she suspects he’s come away wanting.

“Well, it’s a shame if you do, though I can’t say I’d blame you either way.” Her fingers find the familiar grooves in the table’s surface, and work into them, thumb stroking the seam of the wood like an old cat. Pockmarks dot the table where a little hand had driven the prongs of a fork into the surface. Tal had always meant to fix them, but he couldn’t bring himself to anymore than she could bring herself to throw out the old toys gathering dust in the closet.

She supposes he’d be about the stranger’s age, now. Taller than her, with his father’s dark hair. If it hasn’t already started to go white.

Her hand fists on the table. A sigh carves through her chest.

“It’s the way the world is. Nothing the likes of us can do to change it, eh?”

“I would not discount your courage,” he says. “The world may yet change in our lifetimes.”

“A young man’s hope,” Nessa laughs, “but I’ll pray for it the same.”

[cityelfweek]

local elf twice divorced despite having never married everybody point and laugh

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@cityelfweek has been going on all week. Seeing the new and old works on my dash has been absolutely fantastic!

I didn't think I would have time to participate, but all the love for city elves got me excited, so I whipped up a quick story with my OC Loran from his childhood in the Starkhaven alienage.

This story does include fishing and a brief mention of animal death.

--

When he finally came home out of the rain, knees muddy and hands scraped, Loran went to hide with the only quiet person in the room. His grandmother had spent the storm next to the stove, swaddled under their best blankets. She’d grown so old that she looked young again; she resembled her newest grandchild, born only a fortnight ago, more than she did any of her black-haired daughters. Still, she smiled when Loran kissed her waxy cheek, and her bony grip was strong when she took his hand.

"Oi, Fish Fingers."

Caught, Loran met his brother’s bright eyes. He hated the nickname even though Ru always sung it out like a compliment. 

"We're going to the river tonight," Ru told him then went back to poking the cook pot. “Eels are out.”

Only Talea, looking up from the table where she was rolling biscuits, found room to argue with Ru. With long brown curls and an upturned nose that was now dotted with flour, she was called one of the prettiest girls in Starkhaven before she married Ru. He’d heard his brother call her beautiful every day since their wedding, but Loran always thought her face was too small. Whenever she looked at him, her eyes and mouth shrank tighter.

“Can’t you wait til morn?” she asked, voice pinched. “They’re so slimy.”

"Nay, this storm will have them all riled up.” Ru spoke with an easy confidence that matched his broad shoulders. Any elf could nail two boards together, but if an elf in Starkhaven wanted their home to be standing for their grandchildren, they put the work in Ru’s hands.

Loran watched his brother reach out and wipe the flour from Talina’s nose. Ru went on.

"The guard took all the traps up, broke 'em to bits, and said no more nets either. It's the blasted slow poles now. But Fish Fingers will pick them out of the water - won't you?"

He mimed a fast pinching motion and grinned at Loran. 

Sometimes, when Ru smiled, Loran wondered if he looked like their father. His cheeks were marked by the pox that had taken their mother and a sister, but there was plain handsomeness to his face; no one had doubted Talea’s decision to marry him. Her family was happy with the match too. With his good sense and unbroken promises, many understood that Ru was building a reputation worthy of a Haren.

Loran could imagine his brother among the Elders. When they first came to ask Ru favors, he had served them weak tea, and Loran was allowed to linger if he sipped his cup in silence. These days, when the Elders came through the door without knocking, Ru brought out a bottle and sent him away.

"I don't want to go for eels," he spoke up.

Ru’s look of disappointment, Loran knew, came from their mother. “I’ve got these lines all mended, food in eight bellies, roofs patched all the way up the hill – what’ve your fast fingers been helping me with lately?”

“I helped fix Karsi’s place.” Loran slowly began to work his hand from his grandmother’s grip. With her deaf ears, she’d already dozed off.

“That take all day?” Ru raised his brow, and Loran knew his brother was calling him a liar. “Go fetch bait.”

Loran answered with sullen silence, looking at the hot, half-made supper that would be cold by the time he returned.

“Now.”

-

After night had set in, the brothers put baskets on their backs and set off down streets swollen with water and filth. The storm had sent all of Starkhaven’s dirt spilling onto the doorsteps of the alienage. Come morning, when the sun broke through the gray clouds, the smell would be worse than the bag of chum in Loran’s hand. He kept his other hand on the knife tucked into his belt. Ru, carrying their old poles tucked under his arm, moved through the mess unbothered. Loran was careful to step in his footprints.

Not many people knew the old path they took to the river. Ru said their father had shown him the way; he kept some secrets for family. Tonight the narrow trail was slick, with the cool mud coating Loran’s toes, and he slid to his knees twice before they reached the bank. They didn’t stop until they were knee-deep in the wide, flat water.

Ru moved upstream in the shallows, but never so far that Loran couldn’t catch the glow of his eyes. He was right that they venture out tonight; the eels were quick to bite, and the brothers dragged their long, whipping bodies from the stillness of the river. After a short move with their knives, the wriggling struggles of the fish ended. Even in the dark, Loran could see that after each eel Ru put in his basket, his brother made the sign of thanks across his forehead like their mother had taught them. Loran tried to copy him until his hands became thick with eel slime.

When Loran’s basket was beginning to grow heavy, Ru waded over to him.

"Your fingers aren't feeling fishy, eh?"

"I've caught more than you." Loran mumbled, trying to thread fresh chunk onto his hook.

Ru peered into his brother’s basket. "All the wee ones, looks like."

When Loran only scowled in reply, Ru stretched his arms tall.

"You used to catch the big ones - bigger than you! With your hands." 

Loran cast his line with a sharp flick of his wrist. "I'm not a kid anymore."

"Okay, okay, if you don't think you can do it.” Ru pressed his palms together in a show of exaggerated sympathy. “It's a shame you got slow in your old age." 

“I’m not slow,” Loran snapped, although he knew his brother’s game. "I can do it. It's not hard."

"If you say so."

Loran shoved his pole into Ru’s hand with a glare, grabbed a handful of bait from the bag, then knelt down in the river. He reached his arms out in the black water. Even though Ru kept his smile, he seemed to understand the seriousness of Loran taking his challenge, and he stayed still. They waited.

After a time, when all he felt against his hands was the black push of the river, Loran began to worry. He worried no eel would come. Or if one finally came, with Ru’s eyes on him, he would miss it. The cold river ran faster around his neck. Ru believed he could catch one; what if he was wrong?

Then he felt a sliver flash over the back of his left hand. He held his breath. When it came again, he struck. He pulled the eel out of the water and it began to thrash, but it was too late. Loran had his grandmother’s grip.

Ru whooped. “Gods! You’ve caught a water dragon.”

Loran giggled as he juggled the slimy beast. The eel wasn’t the largest catch that night, he knew, but when Ru grabbed his shoulders and laughed, it felt like it could be.

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i think about this item description a lot

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Shared tarot for my Tabris and Surana because they’re cousins and in the same world state

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:<

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Emyr Tabris

Alienage Conscript, Veteran of the Blight Champion Berserker

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The city elf back story Future warden commander Selvan Tabris