#Harding

[nerd-elf]

Thoughts?

[jjthebunbun]

Valentine’s DA-y 1: Lace Harding

Being able to really lean into the Cupid angle for Lace and some of the other veilguard archers was a lot of fun.

[coffeecacao]

Not bleak enough...? Severe spoilers beneath cut let's dissect this.

Dwarves have been unwittingly selling their own ancestors' blood for desperately needed coin, blood which grants every other race the wonder of a magic they can never access because their dreams were stolen by the gods and then twisted into a blight which killed countless people. They were once a mighty people, literally broken down by the gods and cast down in a war because spirits used Titan blood to gain corporeal form. The dalish elves' own gods are sacrificing them in rituals because those gods see their face marks and still see them as the slaves they were used to mark. We see Solas go from a frightened idealist to a man broken by war and doing whatever it takes through centuries of memories. The grey wardens are mostly decimated in a gruelling battle at Weisshaupt, a place know throughout the series as the core of the order, held up as its secure foundation, now devastated. Varric dies and Solas manipulates Rook's mind into seeing him, this firm foundation they can go to throughout the game, only to learn he was a figment conjured for the purpose of Solas manipulating them. Neve's consistent attempts to make the city she loves better one case at a time only disillusion her and it more and more. Harding's understanding of herself and her faith are both shattered and she has to put herself back together. Bellara lost her brother in an event she blames herself for, only to get him back, only for him to have allied himself with a god who turns their people into demons, then he redeems himself, only to die right in front of her, again. Lucanis was tortured and forcibly demon possessed in prison for a year, only to get out to his mother figure being "dead," only then to learn the man he grew up with, his only friend, betrayed him and caused all of his suffering. All Davrin wanted was a purpose, only for the griffons he devoted his life to to be stolen from him and threatened with a slow and brutal death in the form of a blight administered by an elf who was forced to do so ages ago by the very order he has devoted his life to. Emmrich lost his parents as a child and as a result is terrified of death, and is forced to choose between losing his newfound family, Manfred, and dying himself one day by giving up lichdom. Taash was constrained by their mother in a desperate attempt to protect them from the Antaam while not losing what their mother saw as their identity, the Qun, and when Taash broke their binds to finally tell their mother who they were, their mother rejected them, only to accept them mere moments before her brutal death right in front of them. Rook has to choose whether to save one city or another from a dragon attack, either option resulting in civilian deaths and decimation. Rook is trapped in a prison of their own regrets after being forced to sacrifice a beloved team member. Yes. They all overcame these things. Because this is a story about fucking redemption, and overcoming trauma.

[rook-knavery]

Family Meal.

In which Lucanis has his first dinner with his new team. Unfortunately, Harding is cooking.

//

So much unease, Spite rasped into his ear. Smells like worry. And onions.

//

The one known as Rook approaches.

After arriving in the fade, at a place dubbed the lighthouse, Lucanis was introduced to the team and then left on his own to settle in. The place reminded him of the ossuary in some aspects. It was otherworldly, brilliant in some ways and terrifying in others. And it made his eyes itch all the way down to the nerve. Just like the ossuary. When the entity known as the Caretaker appeared to escort him to his room he didn’t say just how thankful he was that he was lead to the pantry. It was an enclosed space, a safe space. It would have limited privacy, but no one would be able to sneak up on him if he was distracted, and that suited him and Spite just fine.

It seemed like only minutes after he settled into the space there was a quiet knock on the door, and Lucanis called out to allow entry.

The door creaked open, and Rook’s head poked inside. The elf’s hair reminded him of winter sunsets, a vividly pale hue of gold that almost seemed just shy of white depending on the light, bouncing with playful curls that almost hid the ends of her pointed ears.

“Settling in?”

Lucanis replied with a polite, “Yes, thank you.”

There was an unease that tensed his muscles at her arrival; a byproduct of a year of torture. A visitor was never good news in the ossuary. It would be hard to break away from some of the reactionary tendencies he had built. A visitor didn’t mean pain. Not anymore.

When Rook stepped into the pantry, now dressed in comfortable leathers more suited for relaxing than fighting, Spite appeared and approached. He arrived in a swirl of radiant purple and fade smoke, dipping his head down to inspect the darkened pitch of her eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose.

No blood magic; smells like…

Another inhale redirected Spite’s attention down towards a cloth bag that was clutched in her hand, the handle taught with weight..

… food?

Rook, oblivious to the entity trying to see into the bag, smiled gently as she said, “This is where Caretaker put you? We could put you somewhere else if this isn’t to your liking. I know it doesn’t look like there is space, but the lighthouse has been surprisingly accommodating. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I got stuck with the room with a giant fish tank as a wall. Feels like a bad joke considering I can’t swim.”

Crow training had him immediately commiting the factoid to memory. Rook could not swim. It was a weakness for certain. And a fish tank wall might be an issue for him as well. It would do him well to avoid her rooms.

“And yet you came to the ossuary,” he replied, hopefully good naturedly. He was out of practice. Then followed up with, “The room will suit me fine. The Caretaker chose well.”

Rook nodded, and then took a breath. There was an awkward pause, and then her lips pulled back in a grimace as she said, “So there is no nice way to put this…”

Up to this point, Rook had avoided addressing the demon in the room — no, that was a lie. In the ossuary, when Spite had pulled a bridge of bones from the fade, she had said, “Wow. Tell Spite thank you.” But what she hadn’t done was call him an abomination, and she hadn’t tossed around ideas on how to rid him of the demon. At least not out loud. Lucanis suspected that this was the moment that that would change…

“Harding is a terrible cook.”

Well, he did not expect that.

“And while she is an awful cook she really, really, enjoys cooking and trying out new recipes. She wanted to make dinner tonight and while you may ultimately assume that it is some kind of blatant attempt at your life, please know that isn’t the intention. It’s really just that bad.”

Lucanis’ eyebrow quirked upward, and the whispers of a smile started to pull at his lips. The person who rescued him from the ossuary couldn’t swim. The person who hired him to kill Elvhen gods wouldn't tell some regular dwarf woman that her cooking was bad.

Oh, Caterina, this is who you put your trust in?

“So as a sort of… welcome-to-the-team slash dinner-isn’t-a-murder-attempt gift, I asked Teia to throw together a welcome package before we left Treviso. You can obviously visit home whenever you want, but I figured while you were here…”

Holding up the bag, Rook stepped forward to pass it off to him. Lucanis accepted it, immediately peeking inside.

A jar of green olives caught his eye, stuffed with cheese and garlic. There was a parcel wrapped in wax paper labeled ‘prosciutto’, and a roll of what could only be crackers wrapped in a tea towel and tied shut with twine. There was a bottle of wine, and a few other unmarked parcels. Lucanis’ mouth began to water. The food in the ossuary could barely be called food at all. He swallowed once, twice, before he managed to speak.

“Thank you. That is quite considerate.”

“No hard feelings if you don’t come to dinner. I’ll make sure we keep it down if you’re resting. I can’t promise that you won’t get any midnight visitors sneaking snacks though, with this being the pantry and all. Especially not tonight.”

Rook took one step back then twisted on her toes to make her leave. Spite prowled after her, and when she suddenly turned to look over her shoulder the phantasmal image faltered its steps with a flinch. It almost seemed as if she looked right at Spite.

“Welcome to the team, you two.”

I’m a part of the team?

And with that Rook left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Lucanis promptly returned to his bed, pouring the contents of the bag out onto the bedding. He didn’t even bother opening the unmarked packages, and instead dove right into cracking into the jar of olives. The brine coating the olive was bitter, salty, steeped in the perfect earthiness of garlic. Red pepper spice assaulted the edges of his tongue, burning but welcome. Then he bit down and—

“Mierda,” he sighed, eyes slipping shut as he savored his first bite of real food in a year.

In the ossuary he had thought long and hard about the very first thing he would eat when he got out. Sometimes his mind circled on pastas; simple dishes loaded with flavor and accompanied by bread and wine. Other times he craved his favorite coffee and delicate, airy, tea cakes. Then there was the craving for steak, something thick and robust, dripping with juices.

He did not expect to have an olive first, and he did not expect such a simple, small morsel to be so utterly perfect.

By the time the dwarf known as Harding had come to start preparation of the evening meal, Lucanis was decidedly not hungry after an afternoon of slow snacking, but he decided to put his best foot forward and join his new team for their evening meal. It was a good faith gesture, their first steps in a partnership.

Plus Spite was informing him of everything Harding was using for the meal and it sounded like a hearty beef stew with bread.

Beef. Onion. Carrot. Potato. Spite’s voice whispered in his mind, and Lucanis thought that maybe he was hungry after all. It was hard to mess up stew, or soup.

And yet when he finally stepped out of the pantry and bid the women of the lighthouse a good evening, the elf known as Bellara rushed forward, a goblet in her hand. Bellara was with Rook when she came to the ossuary. Even when she was expressing her unease (“He’s… possessed by a demon, Rook.”), the veil jumper radiated warmth with her earnest smiles and her kind eyes. There had been so many people he had encountered in his life that wielded friendliness like the sharpest of knives but hers seemed genuine. At least so far.

“You’re going to want this,” Bellara said as she offered the cup.

Lucanis didn’t need to bring the goblet to his nose to smell the wine. It was a sharp smell, and far too sweet. It wasn’t a wine that he would enjoy. Plus he wanted to go through this evening with his wits about him. He did not know these people.

“No that’s—“

She cleared her throat pointedly, then leaned in just slightly, her chipper voice lowering as she said, “You. Are going.” The goblet was pressed into his hand. “To need. This.” And then, as if that didn’t nail the point home, her brows shot up to her hairline and her eyes got big enough that the whites surrounded the caramel brown of her iris. Then she retreated back to the table before he could try to decline again.

The human mage, Neve, was standing at the dining table, cutting massive chunks from shabby loaves of bread. The knife sawed at a dense crust, scattering crumbs all over the table. She cast him a glance, then asked, “Where are you sitting?”

Neve didn’t go out of her way to be friendly, didn’t treat him with big smiles and welcoming words. Instead he was the recipient of dark, appraising study like he was a bug in a jar. It would be off-putting if she didn’t survey the others with a softer version of the same stare.

Lucanis surveyed the space. Plates and bowls were set in a group at the end of the long table, and they had included enough for him to join. A thoughtful gesture after such a direct warning. He made a gesture at what looked like an unclaimed seat, and she nodded before tossing two thick slices of dense bread onto the plate.

“Almost done,” Harding called from the hearth in front of the blazing fire, dipping a ladle into a bubbling pot of what most definitely looked like stew.

So much unease, Spite rasped into his ear. Smells like worry. And onions.

Lucanis didn’t like the way his muscles jumped when the door leading to the courtyard swung open and Rook stepped in. The wine in the goblet sloshed dangerously against the rim. It prompted him to place the drink down by his plate of bread.

“Hello, Lucanis! It’s so nice of you to join us!” There was no time for kind smiles as Rook made a beeline to Neve, stepping in so close that their bodies touched as she lifted her mouth to the human woman’s ear. Spite appeared just beside them. Rook’s mouth moved silently–

Spite snickered.

What did she say?

Rook says she left dinner in Neve’s room.

The scrutiny in Neve’s hardened stare lifted into something akin to relief and a slanted smile eased the severity of her features.

“Thank you, Rook.”

Rook then migrated to Bellara, who had gathered the bowls from the table and was standing off to Harding’s side awkwardly. There was too much tension in her figure to be natural. The same kind of closeness was established. More whispering that was so quiet that Lucanis couldn’t hear.

She left food in Bellara’s room, too.

“Alright, Harding, are we ready to eat?” Rook asked with a clap of her hands. The tone was enthusiastic but her expression was anything but.

“Yep! It’s ready!”

The women worked together to serve dinner. A bowl was passed from Bellara to Harding. Harding filled the bowl with a most generous portion of stew. The steaming bowl was passed to Rook, or Neve, who would take turns delivering the hot bowls to the table. They seemed to come together and operate with an ease so seamless that Lucanis felt as if he was intruding. He felt like he should step in and help, but there was no room for him. Not yet. Perhaps he could do the dishes. The group settled into their preferred seats. Harding to his right, Neve at the head of the table, with Rook directly across from him and Bellara at her side. They fell into easy chatter.

The dish was indeed a stew, Lucanis ultimately decided. The broth was thick, but more like a gravy and yet it seemed as if the vegetables had taken to floating. Curious. Lucanis gave the contents of the bowl a couple of good stirs to help cool it off, then he brought his first spoonful to his mouth.

Slimy, was the first thought. Not broth. Not gravy. Slime. Muck. Were there mushrooms? Why did it taste so earthy? Like Harding took a handful of mud and used it instead of any sort of roux, or base.

Lucanis’ eyes darted upward. He immediately caught Rook’s gaze. There was no gleaming joy of a barely contained ‘I told you so’, just a raw sort of sympathy. Then he made the dire mistake of pressing his teeth to the chunk of potato that managed to accompany the slime and…

The potato crumbled. It did not crush under the weight of his bite, it did not mash as a boiled potato often want to do. The potato actually crumbled. As if Harding hadn’t been cooking them for the past hour.

Bellara caught his eyes as she brought her cup of wine to her mouth. Taking a hearty, audible, gulp. Lucanis followed suit. The wine was indeed too sweet but he was just happy to rinse the taste of mud from his mouth. It was then that he noticed that the three women who were not Harding — who was eating the food like it was normal — were all using the bread. They would tear off chunks and dip it into the bowl, but they never seemed to dip it into the slime. The bread would come away dry. They merely gave the illusion that they were sopping up broth. The bread was dinner, and Neve had given him two fat slices while everyone else only got one.

Rook’s welcome package was quite suddenly a most treasured gift.

Lucanis joined the others in breaking off a piece of bread, and going through the motions of pretending to dip it into the muck in his bowl.

Once there was a break in conversation he said, “I used to enjoy cooking. It has obviously been a while, but would I be able to cook you all dinner tomorrow?”

Harding said, “That would be great! It’s usually me or Bellara doing the cooking—“

“Yeah, but Bell gets distracted and burns it,” Neve drawled.

Lucanis did not miss the shared glance between Bellara and Neve; nothing that seemed hostile or embarrassed. It looked more like they were both sharing a joke. One that he almost felt that he was in on. Alleged experts in their respective fields, tasked with saving the world, and not a single person at the table had mentioned the sorry state of their food.

While he would endeavor to never let Harding cook a team dinner again, he decided that he would never mention it either.

[lostiel]

dragon age the veilguard | progression deep dive

[gabrielcrossleyart]

Here's a Harding portrait! Figured it was about time I drew her!

[drathe]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard DA Keep tiles <3

[whoisnotmyname]

I love this line lmao

[bemp0]

After work hours

[mosswiind]

all together now

[garsils]

Some Paella shenanigans. Rook was taking the picture

Based on this ancient Spanish meme:

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Ranking the Veilguard companions Hookup Potential based on the kind of bed situation they have going on in the Lighthouse

(im in early act 2 so have no idea what further romance scenes are actually like, this is just jokin time without any romance spoilers. just pics of how their respective rooms in the lighthouse look and some basic characterization we know about them)

Taash: 8/10

In another game or the real world I would only rate this a 5 because they have no pillows or addition blankets. however they do have a real bedframe AND it's big enough for 2 which means the they are doing better than 90% of the rest of the Veilguard so this score gets boosted. And while there's not many blankets, there are plenty of braziers around the room to keep you warm, and Taash is probably their own miniature furnace to cuddle up to. Crucially, they also have a whole wheel of cheese next to the bed, which means you don't even have to leave the covers to get a snack after.

Lucanis: 1/10

Oh no. I'm not even going to comment on the pantry angle because everyone else asks him about that to begin with, so this is just about the bed. Unfortunately the bed is a cot made of uneven wooden planks with some blankets on top of it, and is only wide enough for 1. This is because Lucanis hates sleeping and doesn't want to do it, so the less tempting his bed is, the better for him. Unfortunately this means sleepover potential is dreadful and you will have to find alternate solutions. He does at least have another blanket to go over him and one that's presumably being used as a pillow, so, he gets a 1 instead of a 0, but I am still planning on gifting him coupons for a back massage for Satinalia.

Bellara: 4/10

This setup is perfectly fine for sleeping. It's the lighthouse standard little bed couch thing, has a mattress/cushion, is elevated off the floor, has a pillow, and she's got her blankets folded below. Perfectly serviceable for getting a good night's rest which we know Bellara is not because she forgot to sleep again. However, it's very much a one person sized setup. You might be able to cuddle for a while but if one of you unconsciously tries to roll over you are going right to the floor. Ouch.

Lace Harding: 5/10

You might be wondring "why is sleeping on the floor rated higher than bellara's" and the answer is because this means you are not rolling off the bed onto the floor. it's not going to be comfy but we are not ranking comfort here we're ranking sleepover potential. Harding has managed to make this space look homey and the canopy gives the illusion of being in a tent or canopy bed to help with that illusion. There are rugs down on the floor plus the blankets and pillows--we know Harding is used to sleeping on the ground due to her career as a scout, and I'm sure she can scrounge up more blankets to make the cushioning big enough for the both of you. Your back WILL hurt in the morning but you'll get to have a fun night first.

Neve: 3/10

Girl I know you can do better than this. Which means you're not trying to on purpose, so, live your life I guess. I will say this cot IS bounds nicer than Lucanis's--you can see its a stretched canvas or hide on a frame rather than wooden planks, so it will have a little more give. However they are not THAT much comfier which I know having slept on this modern equivalent many times. Neve also apparently has 0 pillows or blankets so you're out of luck there, as well as the problem of it only being wide enough for 1 again. This woman has too many other things going on to think about romance so your Rook is going to be the one improvising on that matter I think.

Davrin: 10/10

Now here is a man who has his life together. Double or queen size mattress, rustic bed frame he probably lovingly carved and assembled himself by hand, and not only are there sheets AND blankets AND pillows, they are are full on matching set and this knight in shining armor dutifully makes the bed every morning. There's also enough pillows for two! While the remains of a giant corpse is hanging above you all night, the spacing of the ribs still gives you lots of room above to manouver, so just don't worry about that. As a bonus you'll probably even have a baby griffon come to cuddle in the night which is such a cute thought we're going to ignore how much worse getting stepped on by a griffon foot would be than even the biggest fattest housecat trying to stand on your stomach at 4:30am. My one criticism of the setup here is that due to the bed's positioning if the person on the inside needs to get up in the night they'll have to awkwardly crawl over the person on the outside, however everyone else's bed situation is so dismal I'm not even going to subtract a point for that. Great work Davrin.

Emmrich: ???/10

Where... does this man sleep. Peepaw I KNOW you can't be sitting in that armchair all night you need your beauty rest!!! There are 0 beds or cots or floor blankets in this man's room. HOW am I supposed to break his pelvis if he has nowhere for us to lie down??? We can't risk that old man's spine on the cobblestone.

Wait... unless. No, surly not. I mean--jk. Unless...? 😳😳😳

is daddy necromancer gonna fuck me on the sacrifice slab... 😳😳😳🥵🥵🥵

Bonus:

Solas 11/10

does not matter where he actually slept bc once my inquisitor Gets Him again they WILL be fucking on top of the piano in front of the mural in his Yearning Room

[winter-wise]

Harding: With a name like Volkarin, I figured you're also nobility?

Emmrich, who grew up dirt poor with working class parents and a commoner surname:

[maia-beans]

Veiltober - day 9, Harding

HARDING!! Our fav flirt. Fav rogue. Fav everything!! I can't freaking wait to see where her ark goes with all the dwarf stuff.... I'm foaming at the mouth to find out vuzrehbohbortbhtpuyfuduhkjhfj

Enjoy her looking fierce!

Prompts come from sweet sweet @lynnerdo

Bye!

[point-maitimo]

Four portraits of new companions! Three more to go <3