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sorceresssundries · 2 days ago

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Every Shade of Sunlight

This is a BG3 anniversary gift for my friend @mercymaker <3

Pairing: Astarion/Maleane (m/f) - SFW

Word Count: 2k

Summary: It is the last night before the group go to face the elder brain, and Maleane takes Astarion to watch the sunset for possibly the final time.

"Darling, as much as I appreciate a little rough and tumble down a dirty alley, you’ve been dragging me through the city for quite a while now. Is there a specific dirty alley you had in mind? Or, did you just get sick of camp? Not that I blame you, my sweet. Gale has been particularly irritating this evening.”

“Perhaps he's just trying to squeeze out as many words as possible in our last few hours together?” Maleane replied, her eyes scanning the shadows diligently.

Astarion sighed. “Sometimes, I’m glad he hasn’t decided to blow himself up. Other times, I regret not persuading him to do it sooner. He is frightfully repetitive.”

Maleane rolled her eyes, and could feel her lover’s greedy gaze on her as she strolled through the hidden alley which ran through the bowels of Grey Harbour. She was trying very hard not to be distracted; she had a careful, precise, time-sensitive plan. If Astarion didn’t stop brushing his hand over hers or making suggestive comments, she would definitely end up fucking him in a dirty alley. That wasn’t what she had planned... at least not right now.

“Aha!” She turned to him with a grin and pointed to a dank, well-hidden ladder that looked so rotted one step might turn it to mulch.

He looked highly unimpressed. “Unless that ladder leads to a cultist to kill and a heavy treasure chest to break into, I think I’ll stay down here.” he sneered.

“It leads somewhere much better than that. Trust me.”

He raised an eyebrow, sceptical. “Better than murder and treasure? This sounds like a trap.”

She grabbed the ladder with confidence despite its decrepit appearance. “You’ll just have to see for yourself.”

With a wary glance, Astarion followed her up the ladder, his usual swagger slightly tempered with caution.

At the top, Maleane clambered onto a ledge and over a small railing to a tucked-away rooftop. The last light of the day bathed the space in a warm, golden glow, and the scent of blooming flowers filled the air. The rooftop was modest, nowhere near as spacious as Alfira and Lakrissa’s haven atop the Elfsong. This one was dingy, with weathered stone tiles underfoot and the faint remnants of old paint on the wall of the larger building that towered next to them. However, Maleane had done her best to breathe a little life into it.

A variety of plants, from hardy ferns to flowering vines, were strategically placed around the space, creating pockets of greenery and bursts of colour. Comfortable cushions, covered in bright but slightly faded fabrics, were scattered about, arranged on a couple of old wooden crates repurposed as makeshift seating. In one corner, a small wrought-iron table, a bit rusty but still sturdy, held a collection of candles in different shapes and sizes and a bottle of expensive wine

“This… this is unexpected.” Astarion turned to her, surprised.

“Don’t get too moony-eyed,” she teased. “I stole it all.”

“Well, then I'm even more impressed.”

“Come on. Sit.” Maleane gestured towards the makeshift bench while she poured out a glass of wine for them.

Together they sat, and spoke, and sipped their wine. Maleane resting her head on her lover’s shoulder as they watched the sun set on their final day with parasites in their heads. Tomorrow, one way or another, Astarion would no longer be able to bask in the light he had become accustomed to. It pained her.

The view from the rooftop was nothing short of spectacular. The Chionthar stretched out below, glowing with shades of gold and crimson. The sounds of the bustling city were muted, a low background hum—ambient sounds for the two lovers on a rooftop in the city they were trying to save.

“As delightful as your company is, it feels like you’ve brought me here for a reason, my love. Or are you just feeling sentimental?”

“Show a little patience, you’ll see.”

“Darling, I was a slave for almost two hundred years. Patience is the only thing I've ever had.”

She nudged him with her elbow, and nodded her head back towards the sunset. “Watch.”

He sighed dramatically, then quieted, watching as the sun he loved almost as much as her began to sink below the horizon. The shimmer of yellow, soft and tired after a long day, was slowly being dragged away. Astarion stared at it with barely concealed longing, all his usual bluster and facade dropped. He observed the sunset the way one would watch their lover walk out the door for the final time.

Maleane, however, only watched him as light muted and the shadow of dusk fell over his face, turning his eyes from shining scarlet to a deeper maroon—so much deeper they could almost be mistaken for brown. His skin looked less pale, his fangs hidden beneath the straight line of his lips. He looked the way she imagined he did when he was alive.

She often wondered what he was like in those days, when he was young and human and fragile. Did he ever steal bottles of wine and sneak away to hidden rooftops in the city he lived and loved in? What did he look like, smell like, sound like? Maybe his words used to sound different slipping off a tongue that wasn’t silken and practiced. Perhaps his vowels were rounder, his accent softer, uncut by the sharp points of his teeth.

Maybe he was an entirely different person, or perhaps he was exactly the same. Maleane would never know, and Astarion would never remember.

She grieved for the person he was before, loved him for who he was in this moment, and steeled herself to protect the person he would become. No one stayed the same; everyone was as changing as the seasons, and contained as many colours and streaks as the sunburst sky. Her heart ached as he mourned the death of the day, the final one he would possibly ever see. Then, his expression shifted. He looked confused.

Maleane smiled and tore her gaze from him to follow where his eyes were fixed.

Right there, in the day’s final moments, when only the very top of the sun was visible - it turned green. Just for a few magical, unexplainable moments, a vibrant, clear flash of the brightest emerald. And then, it was gone.

“Did you see that?” His disbelief reminded her of a child watching snow fall for the first time.

Maleane hummed in contentment and put her hand over his. “Sometimes, when the sky is clear and the weather is right, just in the final moments before the sun disappears - it turns green.”

“Why?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know, I'm sure there’s some long, boring explanation that Gale could tell us about. It’s supposed to be a sign of luck, a good omen.”

“How did you know it would happen?”

“I didn’t. I hoped.” She sighed as his cool thumb brushed over her knuckles. “I used to watch out for it when I was a child. Most people don’t even see it. They sit under the sun every day and never know all its colours. Lives are lived and days are long and no one stops to see the sun turn green.” His eyes are fixed upon her now, the sun long forgotten. “I wanted to show you every shade of sunlight. Gods knows how long it will be before you see it again.”

“If I ever do.” His voice was weaker than she had ever heard it.

“You will.” Hers was made of iron.

They sat there for a while, the two of them, as the orange and purples and reds of the sunset stained sky melted away into inky blue. The light followed the sun below the line of the horizon, where it sat and patiently waited for tomorrow. Who knows what it would cast itself over the next time it appeared.

Dawn could clutch at the burnt-out corpse of Baldur’s Gate in the morning like a grief-wrecked parent, and wake the birds to sing songs of sorrow. Or… it could raise its arms in celebration, light up the homes of the saved and slip through the stained glass of still-standing temples and cast colour across stone floors. Shimmering through the tears of grateful worshippers which would stain the feet of the Gods, making their worship look like diamonds.

The Gods didn’t deserve their tears. It would not be the Gods that saved them, Maleane thought bitterly. It would be up to her small group of misfits and outcasts. The chosen and the cast-aside. The faithless and the faithful. The tortured vampire and the lost girl from the woods.

No-one would thank Astarion. The gratitude of the morning sun would not reach him. He would slink, shadowed and unrewarded, once again back into the darkness. He would not be alone though, Maleane would make sure of that.

“Have you ever been up here before?” Maleane asked, It was strange to imagine Astarion as a young man. Just one of the people she had seen settled and happy in the routine of their day in the city. It was a heartbreak to think about how she was so grateful to have found him, and yet the only reason he was in her life was because he had been killed, dragged back from death, and mistreated so poorly.

“Who knows darling.” He sighed. “I don’t remember much, only blurred faces and whispered names. I distanced myself too much to remember particular details. I don’t even know who I was, let alone where I've been.”

He took a long sip of his wine and became lost in clouded thoughts.

“I’ve been a victim, and I've been a monster, and, ridiculously, some kind of hero. I don’t know who I really am, or which one I'll be when all this is over and I have to deal with normality” He pulled a face as though he'd just bitten something sour.

“All of them.” She said, simply. “You’re a person.” She touched his face, cool and perfect. Brushes her fingers down and along the chest that has no rise and fall to it. “Full of burnt orange, and flashes of scarlet, and a yellow so blinding it could be pure white. And also, in rare little moments right before darkness - flashes of green.”

“You’re very sweet.” He lifted her hand to kiss it “Nothing at all like the angry little forest sprite I first pressed my blade to.” He teased, and flashed his pointy teeth in a genuine smile.

“What can I say, turns out the threat of ceremorphosis, being thrown into a group of strangers, lifting curses, slaying dragons and becoming the partner of a vampire will change a girl.”

He gifted her with some of his sparkling laughter, a sound so sweet and imperfect a monster would never be able to make it. “Partner,” he said, clinking her wine glass with his own. “I like that.”

Their last peaceful moment was abruptly shattered by another shuddering quake from the elder brain, barely contained and thrumming with anxious, threatened energy, awaiting their arrival.

“This was wonderful while it lasted, darling,” he sighed, rising and extending his hand to her. “But I guess nothing lasts forever.”

She gazed at him, pale and ethereal, bathed in fresh moonlight.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Maleane replied, as her fingers entwined with his. “Let’s wait and see.”

He kissed her then, beneath the warm blanket of dusk, with the fervour of a man gasping for air, for life, for her. She knew that no matter what came next, even if it meant centuries in the shadows, she would stay by his side.

She would be his light, his mirror, and the home he could always return to.

“Please don’t kiss me like it’s our last night,” she murmured softly, a trace of anxiety creeping in for the uncertain hours ahead.

He smiled against her lips. “My love, I’m kissing you like it’s our first.”

#reblogging an old one #I love writing for my friends OCsssss #bg3 astarion #astarion #astarion fanfic #no smut all feels #astarion ancunin

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sorceresssundries · 4 days ago

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Ok here is my mini essay I've been working on I hope you're ready....

A different possible explanation.

'Time travel’ in Dragon Age works differently to how it does in typical science fiction. There are no alternate timelines, and no paradoxes. Instead, time magic is tied to the Fade and the spirits that reside within.

In the Fade, time is not a straight line. It loops, bends, and flows at different speeds - the way time works in a dream rather than in reality.

Because of this, time travel in Dragon Age isn’t really about traveling to another point in time. It’s about experiencing a possible version of time - a vision of something that might happen, or something that once did.

Spirits in the Fade can replay events from long ago, often over and over, as if those moments never ended. They can also show glimpses of the future, built from what they sense in the waking world: based on the hopes, fears, and intentions of living people.

These visions feel real to those experiencing them. When a mage taps into the Fade in places where the Veil is thin or torn, they can be shown a future that is likely to happen based on what is currently unfolding in the living world. It's not an illusion. It’s not a lie. But it isn’t technically real either. It’s a state of magical possibility. What’s seen in the Fade is a reflection of how things could unfold if certain choices are made or left unmade.

Alexius states in a journal entry that he cannot travel back to before the breach, as the fade is the wellspring for the magic needed. This implies that it is the fade and it’s inhabitants creating this alternate future based on what they can see through the new ‘window’ into the waking world. Once the breach is closed, they can no longer make an accurate prediction on what will happen.

This idea is further supported by the nature of spirits within the Fade, who often reflect what they observe in the waking world. They are drawn to strong emotions and ideas, and they form identities around those impressions. A spirit exposed to a powerful thought, such as fear of an oncoming war, or the desire to stop a god-like entity, might manifest that future as a scene, allowing a mortal who steps into the Fade to see what could be. In this way, time travel is not completely precise. It reveals what might happen if certain paths are followed, not what will definitely occur.

Loves, darlings, my horde of digital weirdos (lovingly)....

I am writing something (shock I know)

And I need some help with the lore/theories/ideas about time travel in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have my own ideas about how and why it works, and also why it wasn't used again (If story stakes and rules have already been set up, time travel will break them) BUT I also love time travel because when it is done well it is *Chef's kiss*

My idea will probably fuck with the canon because canons were meant to be fired, but if anyone has any posts they want to point me to, or theories they have it would really help get the old brain wheel rolling.

Thank you, love you.

(Send me messages, anons, replies, ANYTHING. Nerd out all over me, plz.)

#dragon age inquisition #dragon age #TIME TRAVEL BABY

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