shivunin

[shivunin]

Ash and Bone

For a (belated) @cityelfweek: "All Soul's Day," I couldn't not write about my Ingellvar. Here is some (pre-Veilguard) mourning for a lost identity, working double shifts on a holiday, and Benevolence.

(2,042 Words | No pairings (Rook Ingellvar) | CW: Discussion of corpses/autopsies/death)

"Art is long, and Time is fleeting,    And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating    Funeral marches to the grave." —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Psalm of Life"

Out in the city, people were mourning—were celebrating.

Lenore removed her gloves and let her hands rest in the hot water for a moment. It was just warmer than was comfortable, the heat quickly painting red over her knuckles. Just before her skin began to sting, she reached for the soap without seeing it and ran it over her hands. When she dipped them in the water again, it turned cloudy, the bottom of the basin obscured from her sight.

Lenore had known very few of the dead while they had still drawn breath. Her connections beyond the Mourn Watch were few, and the deepest of them were ones she had been gladly rid of. There was nobody of hers to bring to such ceremonies, nobody for her to mourn.

Clean at last, she took the drying cloth from the table and absently passed it over each hand in turn. Her eyes remained trained on the water, where the cloudy soap swirled amidst the clear water.

One of her colleagues had told her that the city elves had their own All Souls traditions. That they did not exalt the statues of noble dead, nor parade the streets in their family colors. She'd said that they had their own rituals, that they involved the vhenadahl and traditions older than the ones the Chantry held. She'd said all the people of the alienage came together as one on that night, that they built a fire of their own that was not entirely like the Chantry's bonfires for Holy Andraste.

To varying degrees, Lenore had wondered all her life where she'd come from. She'd guessed that she was the child of one of the elves in the alienage, perhaps illegitimate and thus an object of shame. She knew by her own pointed ears that both parents must have been elves, but…well. Something had caused them to leave an infant in a crypt, and it hadn't been a loving relationship.

The beloved dead lying still on the table before her was not young. She had lived a long life; her family had left her here with a great many tears. Their care was a tribute, Lenore thought, to what she must have meant to them. Likely, they mourned outside in the city now too, ashes gathering in their hair, smoke marking their tear-strewn cheeks.

"I will take care with you," she informed the corpse now, lifting the first of her implements and applying it to cool, mottled skin. She had died of some long-running affliction of the heart, her family had said. Lenore could mark its effects on the skin of her hands, in the bursts of red dotting her eyes. "You must have been very kind. They will miss you a great deal, I can tell."

This body was not inhabited. In truth, it was not ready yet. Skeletons were generally easiest for the spirits to use, for they were easiest to mend. Still, the noble families tended to prefer a form of mummification in order to preserve as much as the decedent as possible. Occasionally, the removed flesh and organs would be cremated and returned to the families as a remembrance while the rest of the body walked the halls of the Grand Necropolis, home to a spirit.

"Your memories will live on, you know," Lenore informed the body, neatly cutting away the internal organs and slipping them into the appropriate receptacle. "A spirit is often able to recall more than you'd expect, especially for those with a strength of personality. It may even be able to share those memories with your family, though it will be an altogether different sort of conversation than you might have had with them."

It was a good thing, she decided, that most of her colleagues were in the city now to represent the Watchers. Some of them took issue with her talking or humming while she worked, and she had little interest in distracting them from their duties. Still, Lenore often felt she'd like someone to talk her through something so significant when her time came, even if she would not be there to hear it.

For a time, there was not much to say, so she hummed to herself instead. The family must have scraped together their entire savings to have their matriarch interred here rather than one of the smaller necropoles just outside the city. They had been unable to request a particular resting place, nor any special remembrance of her. Much of her flesh was food for the corpse beetles already, for they cleaned bones much faster and with less damage than most other methods.

Lenore hesitated, watching the beetles until her eyes went unfocused, and thought of bonfires in the alienage. She thought of the youngest family member who'd left this woman behind, a young girl whose dark braids had been tucked behind her pointed ears. There had been tears on her cheeks, but she had looked at the antechamber with wonder in her eyes.

Slowly, Lenore stepped back and let her hands rest in the now-cool water of the basin. She reached for the soap, nearly dropping it twice before she managed to scrub her hands clean. Red swirled in the water when she pulled her hands away at last, and she hastily scrubbed them dry with the still-damp cloth she'd used earlier.

"For the crematory," she told the hall guard several minutes later, offering him one of the boxes for that purpose. It was heavy with the weight of the organs she'd removed, the flesh moving oddly to and fro whenever it was not held level. "I believe there was some confusion over the receptacle due to the holiday and our current lack of apprentices. Please inform the Watchers there, per Ingellvar, that they are to select an urn carved of dark wood for the family, and that it is meant to be expedited for delivery this evening or tomorrow morning if possible. Here—this note is to go with it when it is delivered."

The guard saluted, took the box and the sealed letter from her hands, and marched off down the dim corridor toward the steps that would take him further from the heart of the Necropolis. Lenore returned to her workroom, head held high, and offered a fond smile at the sight of gleaming bone. The last of the beetles trundled away in a flash of jewel-green, already moving away to the next room and the next corpse.

"There you are," Lenoree told the skeleton, which was, after all, no less crucial or important than the bones of lords and kings and dragon-hunters alike. "They'll have something to speak to when they miss you without having to be around people they don't know. Won't that be a fine thing?"

The bones were inert, disconnected, resting neatly on the table where a woman had so recently lain. Her hands had been so very soft, lined with age, like a book whose pages had been thinned by time and use. Her eyes had been brown, like Lenore's, and her mouth had been limned with smiles past. All of that was gone now, but there was a certain kind air about the bones left behind that made Lenore smile.

"I believe it is time now," she told the skeleton, and took her gloves from the table where she'd left them.

Her left hand went first, then the right, each gleaming button at each wrist fastened in turn. She reached for her ceremonial grey cloak, thick and heavy with its intricate embroidery, and fastened the collar at her throat. She was methodical now, for she had done this next part many hundreds of times. Her staff was where she'd left it standing in the corner. She shouldn't have needed more than that, but she paused anyway.

The air hummed with something—perhaps this, too, was due to the holiday, which always seemed to summon a certain excitement in the spirits. Perhaps it was only her own imagination. Still, she closed her eyes for a time and listened to the hum of the Necropolis.

"Alright," she said after a moment, as if agreeing with a speaker unseen. "Of course."

Gently, she pressed a hand against her cloak so it would not brush against the bones. Gently, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the cool bone that would once have been the woman's brow. Gently, lovingly, she passed gloved fingers over the line of a cheekbone.

Silently, she lifted her staff and called to the spirits of the Necropolis.

They were restless, excited, murmuring almost loud enough to hear without reaching for magic. One of them stepped forward immediately, humming as it settled into the bones. The joints clicked as they joined together. The eyes brightened with an intangible flame. Lenore leaned back and smiled at it anew, her staff still held in the air.

"Welcome to the Grand Necropolis; moreover, welcome to your new home in this most beloved dead," she told it formally.

Benevolence sat up and turned its hands before it, the bones making soft noises as it did so.

"My thanks to the Mourn Watch," it said, the voice warm despite its echoing distance. "It is a fine vessel."

"I thought you might approve," Lenore told it, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Is there any act I might do for you to make you more comfortable?"

"Not at all," the spirit said, sliding from the table and testing its legs. "I am content."

This had likely not been the first body it had worn if it had such a firm grasp of speech. By the book, they were not supposed to select particular spirits for certain bodies. It was not something she did often, but still…if a closer fit in temperaments made for a happier spirit, was that not her foremost responsibility?

"I am at your service if you think of anything," she informed it, and spooled the magic she'd used to draw it here back into her staff with a practiced spin.

The spirit did not speak again, but nodded and turned toward the door that led deeper into the Necropolis. Lenore watched it, still smiling faintly, until the skeleton had faded into the gloom beyond.

There was more to do. Death did not wait for a convenient time to make itself heard; there would be others delivered to them this holiday and she was sworn to serve them as she had served this one. Still, for a time Lenore stood still in the chamber where a woman had recently lain. She rested a hand on the necklace around her throat, fingers woven in amongst the charms and adornments there.

She had no place outside. No home beyond the walls of the Grand Necropolis. Perhaps she might have once, but she did not belong there now. Still—it felt warm, felt right to offer the people she might've belonged to this one comfort.

"A home in life, a berth in death," she murmured to herself, running her thumb over a gem dangling from the fine chain.

There would be nobody but her colleagues to mourn her. She had known this for a long time. It was fortunate, then, that she did not need that sort of love in order to be known for what she was: beloved of the Necropolis, rescued and adopted by the spirits themselves, named a Mourn Watcher by her own brilliance and dedication and not by any accident of birth.

Lenore did not have a family of the flesh to mourn; even so, she had a family of bone with which she would spend all the days of her life. It was the bone that lasted, of course. She reminded herself of this as the door Benevolence had vanished through swung shut on its own.

It was the bone that counted. The bones were all of her body that would be left behind, after all.

"Next," she called, reaching up to set her cloak aside and remove her gloves, one by one.

[shivunin]

dude i love how chill and selfless you are 😄 by any chance is your wildest fantasy to be Useful?

[shivunin]

Oooh Great Barrier Reef for June from the limited palette ask thing!

the she! :]

[palettes]

[shivunin]

Hi I need you to know that Only Ghosts has me in a fucking vice grip it just RULES I love angst like this and I don't think I could do a better depiction. Like that's not self depreciation, if I were going to take the angle of "character deals with sepsis" the deep roads broodmother fight would be The Perfect Time. Out of the way, limited resources, the very real chance that even with magic it simply might not be enough? Chef's kiss. I'm almost sad I can't do it with my Tabris but then I remember I can just read your fic again and feel that gut punch from someone else instead of myself.

Ahhhhh thank you so much 🥺

Only Ghosts is one of my favorite things I've written for Wen and Zevran and I'm so glad you enjoyed it too. A partner facing the others' likely death is one of my all-time favorite things. Also, I love to explore the more visceral consequences of things in magical worlds....like the Broodmother is nasty and no way did she not have some sort of wonky bacteria packed up in there.

But anyways! Yes! Thank you so much! 💗

[shivunin]

Ciao Grey! For kiss roulette number 22, with Cullen and Aislin.

E facciamoli scaldare un po' sti due🔥

You said to heat them up... 😌✨🔥 ~ French kiss

Cut before Tumblr comes at me with pitchforks, thanks you so much for asking, dear, any time! <3

[shivunin]

Ash and Bone

For a (belated) @cityelfweek: "All Soul's Day," I couldn't not write about my Ingellvar. Here is some (pre-Veilguard) mourning for a lost identity, working double shifts on a holiday, and Benevolence.

(2,042 Words | No pairings (Rook Ingellvar) | CW: Discussion of corpses/autopsies/death)

"Art is long, and Time is fleeting,    And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating    Funeral marches to the grave." —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Psalm of Life"

Out in the city, people were mourning—were celebrating.

Lenore removed her gloves and let her hands rest in the hot water for a moment. It was just warmer than was comfortable, the heat quickly painting red over her knuckles. Just before her skin began to sting, she reached for the soap without seeing it and ran it over her hands. When she dipped them in the water again, it turned cloudy, the bottom of the basin obscured from her sight.

Lenore had known very few of the dead while they had still drawn breath. Her connections beyond the Mourn Watch were few, and the deepest of them were ones she had been gladly rid of. There was nobody of hers to bring to such ceremonies, nobody for her to mourn.

Clean at last, she took the drying cloth from the table and absently passed it over each hand in turn. Her eyes remained trained on the water, where the cloudy soap swirled amidst the clear water.

One of her colleagues had told her that the city elves had their own All Souls traditions. That they did not exalt the statues of noble dead, nor parade the streets in their family colors. She'd said that they had their own rituals, that they involved the vhenadahl and traditions older than the ones the Chantry held. She'd said all the people of the alienage came together as one on that night, that they built a fire of their own that was not entirely like the Chantry's bonfires for Holy Andraste.

To varying degrees, Lenore had wondered all her life where she'd come from. She'd guessed that she was the child of one of the elves in the alienage, perhaps illegitimate and thus an object of shame. She knew by her own pointed ears that both parents must have been elves, but…well. Something had caused them to leave an infant in a crypt, and it hadn't been a loving relationship.

The beloved dead lying still on the table before her was not young. She had lived a long life; her family had left her here with a great many tears. Their care was a tribute, Lenore thought, to what she must have meant to them. Likely, they mourned outside in the city now too, ashes gathering in their hair, smoke marking their tear-strewn cheeks.

"I will take care with you," she informed the corpse now, lifting the first of her implements and applying it to cool, mottled skin. She had died of some long-running affliction of the heart, her family had said. Lenore could mark its effects on the skin of her hands, in the bursts of red dotting her eyes. "You must have been very kind. They will miss you a great deal, I can tell."

This body was not inhabited. In truth, it was not ready yet. Skeletons were generally easiest for the spirits to use, for they were easiest to mend. Still, the noble families tended to prefer a form of mummification in order to preserve as much as the decedent as possible. Occasionally, the removed flesh and organs would be cremated and returned to the families as a remembrance while the rest of the body walked the halls of the Grand Necropolis, home to a spirit.

"Your memories will live on, you know," Lenore informed the body, neatly cutting away the internal organs and slipping them into the appropriate receptacle. "A spirit is often able to recall more than you'd expect, especially for those with a strength of personality. It may even be able to share those memories with your family, though it will be an altogether different sort of conversation than you might have had with them."

It was a good thing, she decided, that most of her colleagues were in the city now to represent the Watchers. Some of them took issue with her talking or humming while she worked, and she had little interest in distracting them from their duties. Still, Lenore often felt she'd like someone to talk her through something so significant when her time came, even if she would not be there to hear it.

For a time, there was not much to say, so she hummed to herself instead. The family must have scraped together their entire savings to have their matriarch interred here rather than one of the smaller necropoles just outside the city. They had been unable to request a particular resting place, nor any special remembrance of her. Much of her flesh was food for the corpse beetles already, for they cleaned bones much faster and with less damage than most other methods.

Lenore hesitated, watching the beetles until her eyes went unfocused, and thought of bonfires in the alienage. She thought of the youngest family member who'd left this woman behind, a young girl whose dark braids had been tucked behind her pointed ears. There had been tears on her cheeks, but she had looked at the antechamber with wonder in her eyes.

Slowly, Lenore stepped back and let her hands rest in the now-cool water of the basin. She reached for the soap, nearly dropping it twice before she managed to scrub her hands clean. Red swirled in the water when she pulled her hands away at last, and she hastily scrubbed them dry with the still-damp cloth she'd used earlier.

"For the crematory," she told the hall guard several minutes later, offering him one of the boxes for that purpose. It was heavy with the weight of the organs she'd removed, the flesh moving oddly to and fro whenever it was not held level. "I believe there was some confusion over the receptacle due to the holiday and our current lack of apprentices. Please inform the Watchers there, per Ingellvar, that they are to select an urn carved of dark wood for the family, and that it is meant to be expedited for delivery this evening or tomorrow morning if possible. Here—this note is to go with it when it is delivered."

The guard saluted, took the box and the sealed letter from her hands, and marched off down the dim corridor toward the steps that would take him further from the heart of the Necropolis. Lenore returned to her workroom, head held high, and offered a fond smile at the sight of gleaming bone. The last of the beetles trundled away in a flash of jewel-green, already moving away to the next room and the next corpse.

"There you are," Lenoree told the skeleton, which was, after all, no less crucial or important than the bones of lords and kings and dragon-hunters alike. "They'll have something to speak to when they miss you without having to be around people they don't know. Won't that be a fine thing?"

The bones were inert, disconnected, resting neatly on the table where a woman had so recently lain. Her hands had been so very soft, lined with age, like a book whose pages had been thinned by time and use. Her eyes had been brown, like Lenore's, and her mouth had been limned with smiles past. All of that was gone now, but there was a certain kind air about the bones left behind that made Lenore smile.

"I believe it is time now," she told the skeleton, and took her gloves from the table where she'd left them.

Her left hand went first, then the right, each gleaming button at each wrist fastened in turn. She reached for her ceremonial grey cloak, thick and heavy with its intricate embroidery, and fastened the collar at her throat. She was methodical now, for she had done this next part many hundreds of times. Her staff was where she'd left it standing in the corner. She shouldn't have needed more than that, but she paused anyway.

The air hummed with something—perhaps this, too, was due to the holiday, which always seemed to summon a certain excitement in the spirits. Perhaps it was only her own imagination. Still, she closed her eyes for a time and listened to the hum of the Necropolis.

"Alright," she said after a moment, as if agreeing with a speaker unseen. "Of course."

Gently, she pressed a hand against her cloak so it would not brush against the bones. Gently, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the cool bone that would once have been the woman's brow. Gently, lovingly, she passed gloved fingers over the line of a cheekbone.

Silently, she lifted her staff and called to the spirits of the Necropolis.

They were restless, excited, murmuring almost loud enough to hear without reaching for magic. One of them stepped forward immediately, humming as it settled into the bones. The joints clicked as they joined together. The eyes brightened with an intangible flame. Lenore leaned back and smiled at it anew, her staff still held in the air.

"Welcome to the Grand Necropolis; moreover, welcome to your new home in this most beloved dead," she told it formally.

Benevolence sat up and turned its hands before it, the bones making soft noises as it did so.

"My thanks to the Mourn Watch," it said, the voice warm despite its echoing distance. "It is a fine vessel."

"I thought you might approve," Lenore told it, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Is there any act I might do for you to make you more comfortable?"

"Not at all," the spirit said, sliding from the table and testing its legs. "I am content."

This had likely not been the first body it had worn if it had such a firm grasp of speech. By the book, they were not supposed to select particular spirits for certain bodies. It was not something she did often, but still…if a closer fit in temperaments made for a happier spirit, was that not her foremost responsibility?

"I am at your service if you think of anything," she informed it, and spooled the magic she'd used to draw it here back into her staff with a practiced spin.

The spirit did not speak again, but nodded and turned toward the door that led deeper into the Necropolis. Lenore watched it, still smiling faintly, until the skeleton had faded into the gloom beyond.

There was more to do. Death did not wait for a convenient time to make itself heard; there would be others delivered to them this holiday and she was sworn to serve them as she had served this one. Still, for a time Lenore stood still in the chamber where a woman had recently lain. She rested a hand on the necklace around her throat, fingers woven in amongst the charms and adornments there.

She had no place outside. No home beyond the walls of the Grand Necropolis. Perhaps she might have once, but she did not belong there now. Still—it felt warm, felt right to offer the people she might've belonged to this one comfort.

"A home in life, a berth in death," she murmured to herself, running her thumb over a gem dangling from the fine chain.

There would be nobody but her colleagues to mourn her. She had known this for a long time. It was fortunate, then, that she did not need that sort of love in order to be known for what she was: beloved of the Necropolis, rescued and adopted by the spirits themselves, named a Mourn Watcher by her own brilliance and dedication and not by any accident of birth.

Lenore did not have a family of the flesh to mourn; even so, she had a family of bone with which she would spend all the days of her life. It was the bone that lasted, of course. She reminded herself of this as the door Benevolence had vanished through swung shut on its own.

It was the bone that counted. The bones were all of her body that would be left behind, after all.

"Next," she called, reaching up to set her cloak aside and remove her gloves, one by one.

[shivunin]

Dragon Age Inquisition Tarot, full set: 1/4

[shivunin]

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

[shivunin]

Delighted that the first day of sapphic week is toxic yuri so I can subject everyone to more edeline/lenore drama 😌

[shivunin]

give your characters exes.

give them a variety of exes. give them relationships that shaped who they are but did not last. give them people they tried very hard to love but it didn't work out. give them situationships that taught them things. give them something deep that was real but could not endure. things that hurt. things that ended amicably. people with whom hot passion cooled to warm affection and became undying friendship.

no more first and only. give me the context of what made them know the next or one after was final and right.

[shivunin]

I can't fuck with people who are fundamentally uncurious.

[shivunin]

Hey! If you have ocs you need to hear this

Your oc is really cool and Im glad you made them :)

[shivunin]

32 and 35 for Arianwen too!

oooh thank you again for all the prompts!!

For Crying and Touch-Starved, here is Wen leaving Vigil's Keep for the last time:

A Sickly Song

(Warden Tabris/Zevran Arainai | 825 Words | CW: terminal illness (the Calling)

“But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,          And the sound of a voice that is still!” —Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Break, Break, Break”

The Wardens couldn’t wait for Zevran to make it back to Vigil’s Keep. 

Wen knew that. She’d known it some thirty minutes ago, when she’d removed everything from her pack for the second time and fit it all back inside again. He wouldn’t make it back in time; he couldn’t have known, when he’d left for a brief trip to Antiva, that the seams of the sky would split open and the song she’d been dreading for more than a decade would begin to play its sickly tune for them all. 

It sang to her even now, sweet fingers sinking into her mind. She had thought it would be a horrible thing, the Calling. She had thought it would be like the nightmares, like the itch she felt in her hands when darkspawn were near. It was neither of those things—it was, instead, like the sound of friends in a room nearby, the music of voices which she would hear better if only she opened the door. Her hands ached for earth under her hands, for the movement of rock beneath her. If she could cast away her consciousness and crawl into a tunnel now, she knew she would do it without questioning. 

That was why the lot of them were leaving for the Deep Roads now. Right now.

Still alone in her quarters, Wen growled to drown out the sound of that seductive hum and slipped the last thing—a lovely pair of knives, a gift from her husband—into the pack with the rest. Holding the handles had not given her a tenth of the satisfaction she felt when she held him, but it was the only substitute she had.

The rest of the Wardens waited for her by the gates. She couldn’t—she couldn’t leave them to face this alone. Wen scrubbed her hands over her face, clawing away the signs of her tears, and took two sharp breaths. When she left the bedroom, she was the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, hair tied sharply back, armor immaculate. She had not disliked living here; the place was as she’d made it, as she’d demanded it be. It would have been easy to spend more years here—she had thought she’d have more years. 

Wen had thought she would make it to thirty-five at least. She had not thought she would fall so far short of such an easy goal. 

She left the dressing gown Zevran had given her across the foot of the bed, left his clothes in the wardrobe, left behind the memories of their time there together. When he came back, he would see them and know that she hadn’t wanted to leave without him. He would know; she was certain of this. 

“All ready?” she asked, looking over the assembly of Wardens before her. 

There were plenty of them leaving with her; only a few would stay back as long as they could. The eldest of them, the most experienced, those who had been Wardens longest would all be leaving with her. Only the youngest, the freshest, would stay behind. They heard the Calling, too, but it was a faint and thready thing. She could hope for no better, she supposed.

Nathaniel held out her gloves for her and she took them, sliding her hands neatly into the leather and fastening the buckles that would hold them on while she rode to Orzammar. 

“Ready enough,” he told her. “Horses are saddled, packs are stowed. Only thing left is you.”

“Right,” she said. 

Still, she hesitated. 

“The letter—” he began in a quieter voice. 

Wen lifted a hand and he stopped speaking immediately, though his eyes saw too much when he looked at her. They always had. 

“Let’s go,” she told him, handing her things off to be added to the cart pulled in the rear. She stepped forward and her Wardens turned from their conversations, moved as one to face her. 

“We go to the Deep Roads,” she told them; they already knew this, but she told them again anyway. “We go not to abandon this place or to give ourselves to the Calling. We go to fight, to follow rumors of a cure. If there is a way to end the Blight, we will find it.”

As speeches went, it was not much, but they raised their fists and cheered as if she’d just delivered the most eloquent of orations Wen nodded to them and strode down the ramp to her horse, a grey thing prancing past the others. A widowmaker, she’d been warned when she bought him. He had carried her faithfully this far, though; she could not fault his service, nor his trust in her. 

Wen held out her hand to be inspected, passed Widow the carrot she’d tucked away in her pocket, and swung herself up into the saddle. She didn’t look behind her at Vigil’s Keep as she rode away. 

The only thing she cared about wasn’t there, anyway.

[shivunin]

Things haunt, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

[shivunin]

The Gates of Weisshaupt

For Day 4 of DA kiss week: Landmark, here's some Arianwen and Zevran. Set just before Inquisition.

( Zevran/Female Tabris | 1,098 Words | No warnings)

"Are you quite certain?" Zevran asked, looking up the mountain.

The gates of Weisshaupt rose above the the surrounding crags of rock, imposing and seemingly immutable. Wen followed his gaze to them and looked for a long moment, ignoring the sting of cold air against her numb cheeks.

"They called me," Wen said. She could see movement at the gates, patrols moving back and forth across the ramparts.

"I will not be able to follow you," Zevran warned. "Not for some hours yet. It is not so easy a place to creep into."

"Do you think I can't get out on my own?" Wen asked, looking at him sidelong. He grimaced and turned to her at last.

For a moment, she could see the urge in his eyes to deflect, to make some silly joke. Perhaps, even after all this time together, he would think to charm her, to win her over to his side. After a moment, his shoulders slumped in resignation.

"It is a fortress, mi vida. There are far more of them than there are of you."

"I am them," she reminded him, and nudged her horse closer to his. "You know why I came."

Of course he did. It had been her or all of her Wardens, called to account for their "questionable actions." Wen was still not clear on which of their actions had drawn the attention of the First Warden, but she had little intention of serving them to him on a platter. Whatever blame there was to give, she would take it. Let Sigrun and Nate and the others run the keep in her absence; they were all competent enough to manage fine without her.

Even so, she ran her thumb over the ring finger on her left hand. There was nothing to feel through her leather gloves. The band of red ink tattooed around her finger was not raised, would not be visible unless she removed her glove entirely. She touched the space over it even so, thinking of the vows she and Zevran had made to each other. They had decided to marry after she had rescued him from a similarly impossible situation.

"This is not like Antiva," she told him, and he flinched slightly.

Just as she'd thought. He was remembering, too, the days he had spent at the hands of a torturer. She had slaughtered all of the Crows who had kept him there; he was doubting now that he could do the same for her if she faced a similar fate.

"This will be a conversation," she went on, and reached for him. He took her hand and squeezed hard. "Perhaps they will strip my rank. As if I care about it. Even if it was a fight, I will kill him if he makes a move. I am faster than him. The guards will not catch me in time."

Zevran laughed, but it was a strained thing.

"And afterward, Arianwen? What will you do then, when his body lies bleeding on the floor and every other Warden draws steel? Where will you run from the entire order of the Grey Wardens, hm?"

She tugged on his hand until his horse sidled closer, huffing its irritation at their odd behavior. Its breath rose as steam in the crisp mountain air, dissipating slowly in her periphery.

"Where will you run from all of the Crows?" she asked, disentangling her hand from his to draw the glove from her hand. The frigid air clutched at her bare skin, but Zevran's cheek banished the worst of the cold when she pressed her palm to it.

Slowly, Zevran closed his eyes and pressed his cheekbone against her hand. Time had added details to his face almost without her noticing: the fine lines at the corners of his eyes had deepened, and silver had crept its way into the sun-gold of his hair. When he closed his eyes so softly like this, whenever he trusted her not to strike at his vulnerabilities, she felt a fierce resolution to destroy anything that had ever hurt him. It was a long list, and one she had made dramatically shorter with her own two hands.

Perhaps he felt the same sort of thing. Maybe that was why he seemed so uneasy about this trip.

"I am not good at comforting," she told him after several long moments. "You know that."

"I would certainly hope so by now," Zevran snorted, opening his eyes again. He lifted a hand and pressed hers more firmly against his cheek.

"I'll come back to you," she said, leaning toward him. Zevran mirrored her, first pressing his forehead to hers and then leaning closer still to kiss her.

Their lips were faintly chapped, roughened by weeks of riding. Still, kissing him was always a thing of clear, quiet joy, like a beam of light passing through rushing water. However old they got, whatever paths they'd walked, this had remained the same. She loved him. The world may change, but this would not.

When Tabris angled her hand lower, her smallest finger pressed against the vein just below his jaw. His pulse pounded against her fingertips, a wild thing held in place by several thin layers of skin and tissue. She found she could relate.

"I hope it helps to hear," she said when she pulled away, already reaching for her glove. "Wait at the inn. I'll find you soon."

Zevran lifted a brow, the corner of his mouth lifting in a sardonic smile.

"Of course, Warden-Commander," he said, somehow managing to give a deep mock-bow in the saddle. "As you say, Warden-Commander."

"Ridiculous man," she said, rolling her eyes, but caught his hand and kissed the frost-reddened knuckles. "Be well. Be safe."

"I do think I should say the same to you," he said, squeezing her hand in return.

"I will," she said, though she knew he had meant it as a joke.

Too long waiting here in this pass. If she did not go now, she would forsake the Wardens entirely and run off with him into the wilds of northern Thedas. Wen straightened her back and turned, facing the great griffons over the gates of Weisshaupt.

"At the inn, then, mi vida," he called after her. "Soon. Do not give me a reason to find the back way in."

The smallest of smiles found the corner of her mouth, allowed now only because nobody would see it. Wen lifted a hand in response and rode away toward the fortress of the Grey Wardens. She did not look back.

[shivunin]

one thing about me i’m the leaver. i will leave

[shivunin]

the author's barely disguised longing to be a real person