#I’ve seen so many names for Knights Templar | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

minghaocouture · 4 years ago

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Pairing: Templar!Kim Mingyu x Elf Mage!Reader Genre: Dragon Age AU, enemies (?) to lovers, angst, established universe WC: 5k+ Warning: magical lobotomy (through branding), language

A/N: So this is for @merakiiverse job au collab! I’ve been wanting to write a Dragon Age au for like...ever, and this just gave me the push I needed. So there are some terms from the game used in the fic but I did my best to explain them without taking away from the story. Also really glad i finished this before i got sick lol.

“Come on wake up!” You groaned, slapping away the hands of your best friend as he tried to shake you awake. You had gotten to sleep pretty late last night, having snuck into the circle library to do a bit more reading after hours so you were trying to bask in the last few minutes of sleep before your lessons today.

You heard a loud groan from the younger male before everything seemed to turn upside down and your frame was sent tumbling to the stone floor of the Apprentice Quarters with a loud thud and a shriek. Your eyes snapping open to glare at your dear friend Chan with his hands still gripping the mattress that he had just thrown you from.

Quickly you shoved your palms against the chilled stone flooring to push yourself up, as the male laughed hysterically and dropped the mattress back onto the simple wooden frame of your bottom bunk.

“Chan, I want you to remember that we are trapped in this tower together for the rest of our lives. So I will be getting you back for this.” You muttered angrily as you brushed off your scratchy white sleeping robes that the circle had provided for you. Fueled by frustration, you quickly fixed up your bed so that the senior enchanters wouldn’t be angry with you for making a mess.

“Hey come on, don’t be like that!” He quickly exclaimed, offering you some assistance with fixing your bed if only so he could get on your good side once again. It’s usually what he would do to try and get on your good side, things like taking your cleaning duties or distracting the templars so you can sneak into the libraries at night. “I woke you up for a reason!”

“And what would that be?”

“They brought in new templars, fresh new faces for us to make fun of!” He made a good point. During your extended stay in the circle Chan and you had taken to picking at the Templars that were assigned to ‘guard’ the tower, well the Templars that wouldn’t immediately attack or detain you for your teasings. You shuddered as you remembered being thrown into the cramped cell that was used for solitary confinement.

“How many this time?” You questioned, pulling your daily robes from the chest at the foot of the bunk beds that you and Chan shared. You swiftly stripped yourself of the uncomfortable white material of your night robes and slipped on the navy blue skirt, once again curious as to why the skirts had such delicate embroidery on the hem if they were simply to be given to mages. Maybe it was something to make your people think they were in a higher position than they were, either that or a small ‘oh here are some pretty robes, we definitely consider mages people!’ kind of thing. You weren’t too sure.

Chan took a seat on the bed as you tied the skirt to fit your waist, he wasn’t bothered by your disrobing at this point. After all, the two of you had been in this tower since you were children and it wasn’t like the tower offered much privacy for any of the apprentices. If you wanted that you would have to pass your harrowing, only then would you receive private quarters.

You struggled with your skirt for a moment, it being far too big for you, but it wasn’t like they made new robes for every apprentice; everything you owned was a hand me down from either a senior enchanter or...a tranquil.

“There were four of them, they all looked like they came right from training too. No old farts this time,” He explained, lounging on your too thin mattress as you slipped the top piece on, the long sleeves and thick fabric felt just as suffocating as it did every day, and it also continued to show your status as a lower being in the eyes of these people. The small gold trim wasn’t as nice as it was on the human’s robes, and you were sure that was the point. It was something that looked nice, but not as nice as the human mages robes that Chan wore. It wasn’t enough that your mage abilities make you a lesser being but your elven blood as well, you were certain that the Maker had a sense of humor when he made you.

With practiced ease you tied the laces of your sleeves around your wrists before working on the clasps of your belts. It was a constricting and suffocating outfit that made you feel quite claustrophobic at times. As if the robes were just as bad as the tower itself.

“Well, I guess let’s go check them out. Gotta let these newbies know that not all mages are just gonna let them walk over us.” You tried to seem optimistic but after being in this tower for almost 16 years, it was a little harder to force that smile sometimes. Which was why you were grateful you had Chan with you, the two of you looked out for each other no matter what happened.

He hopped off of your bed and took a firm grasp on your wrist before pulling you out of the shared apprentice chambers, ignoring the strange looks from the templars and other apprentices as the two of you dashed into the hallway on the first floor of your prison.

The two of you peered around the corner into the entrance hall as you watched the initiates be inducted by Knight Commander Greagoir, the head of your captors, he was telling them all about their duty to the citizens of Ferelden and the Chantry, all that nonsense. It was basically just propoganda to make these people feel like they had the right to place themselves above you.

The new initiates weren’t too impressive, once again all humans of course, because the precious Chantry couldn’t trust elves such as yourself to become Templars. Most likely because elves would be more likely to opposed the confining of people just for circumstances of their birth, at least the ones who weren’t already brain washed into believing the Chantry’s inane teachings. That thought always reminded you that even if you weren’t trapped in this tower, you would simply be in an alienage in one of the many towns around Ferelden, another prison. Elves simply weren’t welcomed or free anywhere, at least not in a human society. There were surprisingly three women and only one male this time, which was abnormal because women seemed to stray more towards becoming Chantry sisters than Templars. So that was interesting, you’d have to figure out their names. The only interesting thing about the male was his ridiculous height. He looked almost tall enough to be a member of the Qunari, all he was missing was the horns, or at least you assumed since you had never seen a Qunari in real life.

If only you knew what would follow this day.

***

“You know, you aren’t supposed to be in the library after lights out.”

You almost screamed in surprise at the unfamiliar voice. You knew the schedule for the Templars and usually you were able to skirt around and hide whenever it was time for their rounds to reach the libraries. Apparently tonight was determined to be different. Glancing up from your book you flashed the Templar a sheepish smile, instantly recognizing this man as one of the new initiates whose name you had yet to learn. It wasn’t exactly...forbidden but initiates were definitely encouraged to not give their name to the mages or learn the names of the mages either, it was probably so they didn’t connect that you were real living beings and develop a conscience.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I said I had an incurable illness that causes me to sleep walk around the tower, would you?” You were likely to be in deep shit because of this. Knowing how new recruits were, usually the super brown nosing type, they wanted to make superiors happy so that they could get promotions. Unfortunately for you, that usually meant getting mages into trouble.

Knowing this was probably why you were so shocked to hear the giant male snort, in an attempt to hold back a laugh. In all the years of living here, you hadn’t met a Templar who actually laughed at your jokes or smiled at you...like this male was doing right now. He glanced over his shoulder looking towards the opening in the shelves that hid the two of you from view. This library was almost perfect for hiding, the rows were like their own little hallways with bookshelves that almost reached the ceiling which was perfect for blocking the light of your candle when you were here at night. He must be checking to make sure that none of his co-workers had entered the library after him.

Soon his attention was back to you, a small boyish smirk on his faces as he spoke. “Well I suppose I’d ask you to tell me about this terrible illness, is it contagious? I’m not sure the other mages would like it if I was roaming the halls in my sleep.”

You were once again dumbfounded by this human. You wouldn’t expect him to think about what would and wouldn’t upset the mages, usually the Templars just did what they wished with no regard for those they were meant to be watching over.

“No, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t like that. Lucky for you, I was born with it just like my hideous magic.” You didn’t truly believe that your magic was horrible. If everything was done by the Maker for a reason, then so were mages! People were just taking Andraste’s “Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him,” thing a bit too far.

“I don’t think your magic is horrible. It’s a gift from the Maker! The Maker doesn’t give bad gifts,” He confessed, quite a controversial opinion for a Templar to have. With one more glance over his shoulder to make sure that the two of you were still alone, he pulled out the chair across from you and took a seat.

“I’m Mingyu. What’s your name?”

***

After that fateful night in the library, Mingyu and you kept in contact but only in the dead of night and only when he was scheduled to patrol the first floor library. Tonight was one such night.

“Chan is getting suspicious, ya know?” You mentioned, laughing softly from your seat at the table the two of you frequented. He raised a brow at you and tilted his head slightly, his lips jutting out in a small pout. He honestly looked pretty adorable like that, nothing like the fearsome Templar act he had to put on during the day.

“He thinks I’m shaking up with another apprentice and not telling him.”

“Imagine the look on his face if he knew you were just hanging out with me.” Mingyu retorted, going to rest his cheek on his palm only to remember that he was wearing his gaudy templar armor and deciding against it. This caused him to pout more and for you to laugh, making sure to keep your volume down so you weren’t caught by anyone else patrolling the area.

A silence fell over the two of you as your laughter subsided. It was here where the two of you were illuminated only by candlelight that you felt safe. That was something you weren’t used to feeling. In the Circle, there was a constant need to watch your back and be on your guard just in case some random Templar got pissy because you ‘looked at them funny’. It was a struggle for survival.

These nights were different though. You could almost imagine that you weren’t locked inside this tower you could dream about possibly being free and in the outside world that you vaguely remembered. Hell, how long had it been since you had seen the sun?

"How long have you been in the Tower?"

The question was innocent enough, but it definitely threw you off guard. It wasn't something you liked to think about often. It had been so many years ago and it wasn’t exactly a...pleasant memory.

"It's been...I think about 17 years almost? I developed my magic when I was around 6 years old and my mother was very devout. So she turned me into the chantry, saying that the Maker had frowned upon her and her family by giving them a Mage for a daughter." It hurt a lot thinking back on the day that your mother had abandoned you. Her pleas to the Chantry mothers, begging them to take you as she also begged for the Maker's forgiveness. Thinking she had obviously done something wrong if she had given birth to a mage.

You watched a frown set it self onto his face, obviously not having expected to hear such a thing. Most parents went so far as to hide their children from the Chantry, making them apostates, illegal mages, so that they wouldn't lose their precious bundles of joy. Just like Chan's parents. They had fought tooth and nail to keep him when the Templars came, it even cost them their lives. Chan didn't like talking about it but you knew that he still had frequent nightmares about that horrible day.

"What about you?" You questioned, diverting the attention from your situation and onto Mingyu. "Why did you become a Templar? I'm sure being a regular knight would have been just as nice, if not easier. At least knights aren’t also stuck inside the Circle tower." It may not have been a prison to the Templars, but they were still trapped inside these halls as well. Most weren’t really able to leave either unless they were going to visit their families, and even then that was rare.

He chuckled dryly at your words and shook his head.

"Something we have in common, I suppose. My family is also very devout, very deep into the teachings of the Chantry. All the men end up becoming Templars if they can. It's in our blood. So of course, as soon as I was old enough to hold a sword I was sent off to training to try and become the best Templar the Kim line had ever seen." The look on his face was one of melancholy, one that you recognized as a look that you had seen on other mages. The look of someone trapped in their own fate.

"Guess we're...kinda in the same boat, huh?" You gently nudged his arm that rested on the table with one of your fist. It was a small gesture, but one with meaning for both of you. Reaching out he gently, or as gently as he could while wearing full plate mail, took your extended hand in his own. The cold metal was a stark contrast against your heated skin, causing you to shiver lightly. He gave a small squeeze and a tiny smile made it’s way onto his face, as if he had been comforted by your words.

You felt your heart stutter for a moment, watching the features of his face in the candle light. It was still for a moment before he released you hand and stood from his chair.

"I should get back to my patrols before any other the others get suspicious. I'll leave a note in our spot when we can meet up again."

You were moments away from responding but stopped short as he leaned down and pressed his lips softly against your forehead. You were stunned still and silent as you watched him pull away, smiling at you once again, before slipping off into the night.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you stared after him in shock. Your face flushed with heat, and you knew that Kim Mingyu would be the death of you at this rate.

***

"I hope this doesn't offend you but...what is so bad about being made Tranquil?"

You winced slightly at his words, the thoughts of the Tranquil always frightened you. Of course, being a Chantry boy, he had been told from a young age that being made Tranquil was a mercy for mages. Because if you were Tranquil then at least you were alive. It was all a lode of rubbish. Instead of just answering his question, you decided to ask one of your own.

"Do you know Owain? The Tranquil who runs the Circle stock room?" He nodded slowly, unsure of where exactly you were going. "I arrived at the tower before he was turned. He was a kind man who took me under his wing and helped me adjust to life at the tower. I was very young and so very scared, but Owain had basically turned into a father figure for me. I cared for him so much." You felt tears prick at your eyes, threatening to spill over as you recalled the man you once knew.

"One morning, a few years after Chan had been sent here. I had to have been around 11, well we woke to find Owain standing in front of the stock room just like he does now. Only he was no longer the kind, father figure I had grown to love. He was so cold, lifeless. Being made Tranquil isn't a mercy to mages, it's taking every part of them that makes them who they are and ripping it away." You tried to keep quiet, but the more you spoke the more anger and fear bubbled in your guts. You had barely even registered that you had begun crying.

"You become a lifeless husk that holds the shape of who you used to be."

You couldn't bring yourself to look up from the table, to watch the emotions that were surely playing out on his face as he watched you cry. You were surprised at how silently he had moved, because you were soon pulled to stand and held tightly against his armored chest. It wasn't too comfortable because of the plate mail he constantly wore, the metal poking into your skin and it reminded you that while this embrace was comforting...it was also dangerous. Against your better judgement, your arms quickly wrapped around him and pulled him closer as you tried your best to keep your cries quiet. As you sobbed you heard him whisper soft nothings to you, but one stood out from the rest.

A promise that he would never let you be made Tranquil.

***

It wasn't long before those soft forehead kisses from before became kisses of passion. Soon you didn't need the candle light as your guide as you followed the curves of his body under his armor. Things changed quickly, and before you knew it two years had passed and you were hopelessly in love with Kim Mingyu. Something that should have never come to pass.

You were certain that at least First Enchanter Irving knew, he somehow knew everything that happened in the Circle Tower, and while you weren't a very religious woman, you found yourself praying to the Maker that Knight Commander Greagoir was still clueless. Unfortunately the one person you wanted to talk to about this was the person you were most determined to keep in the dark.

Lee Chan, your best friend.

"You should tell him." Mingyu, gently caressed your cheek, his gloves had been taken off long ago as the two of you lounged in your usual spot in the library. Your meetings had gotten farther and fewer between as he rose in the ranks of the knights and you stayed a simple apprentice.

If you were being honest you were a bit worried about that as well, but Mingyu assured you that it was nothing to be concerned about.

“Oh sure, that’ll go well. I can picture it now. ‘Hey Chan, you know the Templars who watch our every move and are sometimes ordered to strip us of our entire sense of self, yeah I’m in love with one of them. The tall lanky one that has been trying to joke with you, yeah the one you complain about all the time that’s him’.” You chuckled to yourself as you thought about his reaction to that, and not really realizing what you had just admitted. Not until you glanced over at Mingyu and found him staring at you dumbfounded.

“You love me?”

You froze, like a A million thoughts raced through your head, all of the best and worst possible outcomes. What if he didn’t feel the same way? What if this was just fooling around? What if he said he could never love an elf and he had just been using you? What if, what if?! Your heart thudded loudly inside your chest as you stared at him, unable to enunciate the way he made you feel.

Luckily for you all of those what ifs were cut off as his hand grasped the back of your neck and pulled you into a kiss filled with such fire that you could almost feel yourself being burned. Everything he wanted to say was trapped inside this kiss, you weren’t alone with your feelings and this kiss told you all you needed to know and more.

After a string of long, intense kisses that you were almost certain would lead to another round of light touches and soft moans, he pulled away. His forehead pressed against your own and a large almost blinding smile was plastered on his face.

“I love you too.”

***

You stared at the small flame of your candle in silence, he was late. Usually he was exactly on time, never early and definitely never late. It was too dangerous otherwise. Your stomach was in knots at the thought of what could possibly be keeping him. That’s when you heard the sound of armor clanking against the stone flooring, almost like the person was running. Since you weren’t entirely sure it was him, you quickly blew out your candle and slid under the table to hide.

The footsteps got closer and your heartbeat seemed to be almost as loud as the steps themselves. You only relaxed at the small call of your name. The familiar voice had you out from under the table in record time.

“You scared the daylights out of me Mingyu, I was worried something had happened.” You confessed, using a small bit of your magic to light the candle’s flame once again. The light gave way to the terrified look on his face, streaks of tears stained his cheeks, and you found yourself running to his side to wipe away the fresh batch that was threatening to spill out.

“Mingyu, baby what’s wrong?” You whispered, doing your best to comfort him by taking his hand in your free one and using the other to gently caress his cheek.

“We need to go. The Phylactery chamber, we need to find yours. I need to get you out of here.” His deep voice cracked as he tried his best to control his tears. He looked so frightened and pale even, despite his tanned skin. Your heart sunk as you thought of your Phalactery, the vial of blood that had been taken from you when you arrived and was stored inside a chamber with all of the other apprentice’s. It was the templar’s way of tracking you if you had ever escaped, and was the biggest reason you had never attempted to escape the circle.

What he was suggesting was crazy though, there was no way the two of you would be able to storm the Phalactery chamber, there were two locks and it required a fully realized enchanter to unlock one of them and you...had yet to be called for your Harrowing. So you tried to console him.

“Baby, what are you talking about? You know we can’t do something that crazy. If we get caught you’ll be kicked out of the order or worse, sent somewhere like Aeonar. Why are you ev-”

“They want to make you tranquil.”

Your heart stopped at his confession, eyes going wide as your blood chilled within your veins. Subconsciously you took a step away from him in disbelief, you didn’t question the legitimacy of his words because you knew for certain that he wouldn’t lie to you like that. Not when he knew your fear of being made Tranquil. You watched as he stared helplessly at you and began speaking once more.

“Knight Commander Greagoir thinks that...he thinks that you might be a blood mage. Even suggesting that you- that what we have is because of a demon’s influence.” He took a step forward to close the distance between the two of you, taking your hand back into his own. He liked holding your hand, he had said in the past, it made him feel loved so very loved.

“I know it’s not. I tried to talk to him but he...he wants me to perform the rite. Which is why we have to get you out of here!”

Your mind seemed to be going a million miles per hour but also seemed to stop all at once. Your limbs had gone numb as you stared blankly at the floor in terror, you weren’t sure what to do. If you ran on your own then they would just send Templars to find you and with your phylactery, it would be quick work and both you and Mingyu would end up dead. If you followed Mingyu’s plan, you would most likely be caught and turned Tranquil anyway only with this route he would also be punished for his crimes. Lastly, If you stayed, you would be made tranquil at the hands of the man you loved. There was no winning in this situation, there was never a winning choice for a mage.

You pulled your hand from his grasp, causing a small pained sound to leave his lips, breaking your heart as it did so.

“You have to do it…”

“Y/N no! We talked about this I won-”

“We don’t have any other choice!” You cursed yourself after your outburst, though at this point you weren’t sure you could get into anymore trouble. “If you got caught you would never be able to see Minseo or your parents again!” You had spoken of his family in great detail before, and you couldn’t bear to know that he would never see them again just because of his attachment to you.

You didn’t want to be made Tranquil, but you also didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. This was the only option where at least one of you would be able to keep living freely.

Thinking about the fact that your days were now numbered scared you, the numb feeling from before seemed to linger but you couldn’t find it in yourself to cry. Not now, not when you had to seem like you were certain of your decision. He needed that from you.

So you swallowed your terror and gently cupped his cheeks in your hands.

“You have to do this Mingyu. There isn’t any way of getting out of this. Not that will actually work.” You muttered, voice soft as you kept eye contact with the male. You felt his hands reach up and rest over your own, and took solace in the fact that what the two of you felt was real. At least for a little while longer.

“If it’s you...it’s okay.”

You had never lied to Mingyu before, but...this seemed like a good time to start.

***

The grip on your forearms was sure to form bruises, but at least after this you wouldn’t feel them.

You stared before you as the branding rod held in Mingyu’s tight grip lingered over the open flame, making sure that the metal would be hot enough to etch itself into your skin.

You couldn’t stop the tears that fell from your eyes, and you had sure tried. You knew that seeing you cry could cause Mingyu to hesitate, falter or even flat out refuse the order which would make this all for naught. At that moment, you felt so hopeless. Everything you had worked for, everything you had lived for would be coming to an end. All because of that simple, unassuming brand that your lover held.

At the command of Greagoir, he moved the brand away from the flame and stepped towards you. Reciting the Chant of Light as he did so. It was supposed to bring comfort to the mages and remind them that this was the Maker’s will, you found the words mocking even coming from Mingyu’s lips.

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.” His voice strained as he spoke the Chant of Light, it broke your heart to hear him in such pain. His grip on the haft was so tight that you were almost certain that the metal of the rod would break.

“Foul and corrupt are they who have taken his gift, and turned it against his children.” His armored footsteps echoed against the stone flooring. Tears threatening to spill as he stepped closer to you. You felt the grip on your arms tighten as his fellow templars held you in place.

“Remember, that...that this is a mercy.”

With those last broken words escaping him, he lifted the sunburst brand and held it above your forehead. You saw the heartbreak burning in his eyes, and he hesitated refusing to move the brand any closer to your forehead.

Your eyes met his and watched as he desperately tried to keep his composure. You forced a small pained smile onto your face, and that seemed to be the only thing he needed. Not a second later, the metal pressed against your forehead and sparks of blue lyrium seemed to burst forth as the sunburst brand stripped away every bit of emotion you had to replace you with a husk that could no longer connect to the fade, to magic. A husk with free will but a husk nonetheless.

“I’m sorry.”

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lady-divine-writes · 6 years ago

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Never Have I Ever

A demon, an angel, a witch, several bottles of whiskey, and a 6000 year old secret. What could possibly go wrong? (2848 words)

“Never have I ever …” Aziraphale glances around the table, pausing on Anathema, poised with shot glass in hand, then Crowley, sinking into the yellow-and-brown paisley tablecloth, having already polished off an entire bottle of whiskey on his own and starting in on a fresh Jack Daniels “… plotted to overthrow King Richard the III!”

“Jesssusss Chrissstmasss!” Crowley hisses, picking up his shot glass and throwing back his whiskey, filling it immediately after and throwing that one back as well.

“Wait!” Anathema says. “You only have to take one shot for that!”

“Technically, I have to take three since that’s how many tries it took to dethrone the bastard.”

Aziraphale giggles as Crowley sloppily sucks down his final shot. He’s slightly less sloshed than his demon compatriot, but only just. Crowley’s eyes have begun to cross, and he’s toppled out of his chair twice.

A dozen more shots and Aziraphale may succeed in knocking the idiot out.

That would be a first.

“You know, I appreciate the fact that the two of you have been around since the dawn of time, but the things you guys pick are both obscure and bizarrely specific.”

“So …?”

“So, the point of Never Have I Ever is that you choose things that could apply to anyone. But the two of you seem to be on a vendetta to get one another wasted.”

“Fine, book girl,” Crowley drawls. “Let’s try this one on for size. Never have I ever … finished college.”

Crowley and Aziraphale both turn to Anathema - Crowley grinning like a jackal, Aziraphale with a snarky eyebrow raised. Anathema rolls her eyes and downs her shot. “Touché.”

“Congratulations! Ya got one!” Crowley says smugly. “May we continue? Never have I ever ...” The demon’s eyes glow with delight as they bounce from Aziraphale to Anathema … then back to Aziraphale “… sunken a ship!”

“Wha---what the Devil are you talking about?” Aziraphale barks, but he quickly reconsiders. “Are we talking a rowboat? Or an ocean liner?”

“Steamship.” Crowley pops the p, making Aziraphale’s head ring.

Aziraphale peers into Crowley’s eyes, silently enquiring, but he tuts in disgust when he figures it out. “You’re not going on about the Waratah, are you?”

“Oi! That was mah ship and you sank it!”

“I did no such thing! I commandeered it because I knew you were going to sink it!”

Crowley drops his head back on his shoulders and groans loudly – too loudly for drunk Aziraphale. “I already told you! No one would have gotten hurt!”

“No. You were going to do what you always do! Abandon those poor men on some deserted island with no way off! It was the 1900s! They had no cellular phones! No one would have known where they were!”

“And …?”

“They had families, Crowley!”

“Their fault. Not mine. What did you do with them anyway?”

“I reunited them with their loved ones, wiped their memories, and reassigned them to secure locations. It all turned out fine.”

“Still …” Crowley sniffs “… seeing as no one’s ever found the wreckage, it’s considered a sunken ship (hard k and another popped p).” He crosses his arms over his chest, affecting a superior pout. “Drink up.”

“I don’t see how that works in your favor but whatever helps you sleep at night. But you’d better take a shot, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“You mean to tell me that in 6000 years you’ve never sunken a ship?”

Crowley’s eyes pop slightly. “Quite right, quite right. Forgot about that.”

Aziraphale downs his shot, then reaches for the whiskey to refill it. He grabs the bottle around the belly and lifts, nearly tossing it across the bookshop when it comes off the table too easily. He brings it up to his swimming eyes and peeks around the label to get a look inside. “This one’s empty, I’m afraid.” He puts it back and rises unsteadily to his feet. “We’re going to need another.”

“Hold up!” Anathema grabs Aziraphale’s wrist and stops him. “We need to change the parameters of this game somewhat if we’re going to keep playing! I’ve taken maybe three shots to your, oh, let’s call it one-hundred-and-fifty!”

“You’re just sore … because you’re losing,” Crowley accuses with a belch in between.

“Wait wait wait …” Aziraphale slurs.

“Wait what?”

“Are we sure she’s losing? What exactly is the object of this game? Does the first person who falls down drunk win? Or does the person who remains sober win?”

“I …” Crowley squints his eyes painfully as he gives it a think. “I think it’s … it’s probably … oh, I don’t care! She’s being a sore loser! That’s why she wants to change the rules!”

“But you don’t even know what the rules are!”

“Don’t care. Things were going fine before she (*mumble mumble mumble mumble*) sore loser …”

Aziraphale surmises that his demon friend is grumpy because he thinks he’s winning, but Anathema has a point. They’re supposed to be having fun, and a game isn’t fun if you don’t get the chance to play. “Change how, my dear?” he asks her in an attempt to smooth things over.

“First off, anything that happened before the 90s is strictly off limits.”

“The 1790s?” Crowley asks, swaying like a snake as he tries to figure out which of the three Anathemas he’s seeing is the real one.

“The 1990s.”

“Pffft! The 1990s were dull!”

“Plus, be vague. I mean, believe it or not, there are things I have done in the broad sense that you may not have …”

“Not likely …”

“… but never have I ever …” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling, trying to come up with the most ridiculous thing she can think of in short order “… sold Napoleon Bonaparte’s dismembered penis on the black market.”

“Ha! Cheers!” Crowley crows, snapping his fingers to refill Aziraphale’s glass. They hold up their shots ceremoniously, then drink them down, slamming their empty glasses on the table in unison when they’re done.

“Good lord! You two can’t be serious!?”

“I sold it first,” Crowley admits. “But he sold it by accident trying to return it.”

“How do you sell a penis by accident?”

“It’s a long story,” Aziraphale says sternly, the thin line his mouth makes clearly translating his distress at the mention of his faux pas, “and I’d rather not go into it. But all right. From now on, we’ll be vague.”

“Great!” Anathema smiles triumphantly. “Let’s start over.”

“In that case, it might help if we were a little less sozzled,” Crowley suggests.

“Right.” Aziraphale clunks a second empty whiskey bottle on the table beside the first. “Fill’er up, Crowley.”

“What?” Anathema watches wide-eyed and grossed out as Crowley strains, bending over at the waist, white-knuckling the seat of his chair between his legs, making the most revolting noise imaginable, the level of the liquid in the bottle rising with every grunt. Aziraphale, in contrast, is much quieter with regard to his own evacuating, but the whole process between the two is far too reminiscent of something else entirely.

It almost puts Anathema off her drink.

“That’s your guys’ bottle now,” she says, getting up to retrieve a brand new bottle from a nearby shelf.

“Obviously,” Crowley grumbles.

She cracks the cap on a fresh bottle of Jack and returns to her seat. “Okay, since I’m still not convinced you guys fully grasp the concept of this game, I’ll start.” She sits up straight and clears her throat as if preparing to make an important announcement. “I’ll make it simple. Never have I ever been rock climbing.”

“Ugh!” Crowley drinks his shot, revolted at how banal her selection is. Of all the things she could have chosen, she went with rock climbing. What? Did baking seem like too much of a stretch?

When he’s done with his drink, he notices Aziraphale’s glass has gone untouched. He glares at the angel, who stares back in confusion.

“What?”

“You’ve been rock climbing. Take a drink.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Whaddya call that big stone gate ‘round the Garden of Eden?”

“A gate, not a rock.”

“If it’s made of rock, I’ll allow it,” Anathema declares.

“But I didn’t climb it.”

“You were on top of it.”

“Yes, but I just sort of … appeared there. And after I gave away my sword, I miracled my way back up.”

“Ya climbed a rock. Take a drink.”

Aziraphale sighs and raises his glass. “Whatever.”

Anathema beams. “There. Isn’t this fun?”

“Loads,” Aziraphale says. Crowley sputters obscenely in response.

“I’ll pick another one,” Anathema offers. “Never have I ever stolen anything.”

“Oi!” Crowley gestures at Aziraphale after he sucks down his shot and the angel hasn’t moved. “You need to drink!”

“Whatever for?” Aziraphale asks, righteously offended.

“You’ve stolen stuff before! I’ve seen you!”

“I’ve acquired. I haven’t stolen.”

“Same diff! Right, book girl?”

“I’d say so.”

“Name one thing I’ve stolen. Go ahead.”

“You stole that … that … wooden chalice thingy from the Knights Templar! And they were on your side!”

“I’ll have you know that wooden chalice thingy, as you so smartly put it, was the Cup of Christ! And I was moving it to a safe location. I tried to explain that to the chap on duty, but he couldn’t hear me.”

“He was six-hundred-and-seventy-three years old! He was deaf as a stump!”

“Yes but he looked amazing for his age, didn’t he?”

“After you took the cup, he died!”

“It was in the job description. He understood his fate,” Aziraphale says, dismissing the demon’s commentary with a wave.

“Right. And I’m sure that was a huge comfort to him!”

“I couldn’t say. Anyway, you haven’t proven anything. I have not stolen.”

“Fine,” Crowley growls, pouring his shot. “My turn. Never have I ever killed a six-hundred-and-seventy-three year old knight!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Anathema waggles a scolding finger. “That’s against the rules!”

“It’s necessary.”

“Of course it is, you sour serpent,” Aziraphale mutters, draining his glass. “My turn. Never have I ever nearly mowed down innocent pedestrians whilst behind the wheel of a vehicle traveling 90 when it should only go 30 tops!”

“What did we say about specific?” Anathema says.

“I don’t know. I think that could apply to anybody,” Aziraphale returns icily. “Have you seen the way you ride a bicycle?”

Crowley drinks his shot, mimicking Aziraphale while he does. When his glass hits the tablecloth, Aziraphale refills it. “Good of you to take your medicine, my dear,” he says. “Now whose turn is it to think of something?”

“I will,” Anathema says. “Someone needs to get this game back on track. Never have I ever worn high heels.”

“How high?” Crowley asks.

“I’ll say … four inches.”

With shaking heads and irritated sighs, Aziraphale and Crowley take a shot.

“Never have I ever ridden bare back,” Crowley says. This time Aziraphale and Anathema drink.

“Never have I ever eaten a rodent,” Aziraphale says. Crowley drinks his shot, snickering into his glass.

“What’s so funny?” Aziraphale asks.

“You picked one you’ve done, so you have to take a drink, too.”

“What? I’ve never eaten a …!” Crowley nods through Aziraphale’s protesting and the angel goes pale. “When?”

“1683. At that little restaurant in Naples. That crooked asshat of a chef wat served everyone rat and claimed it was chicken?”

Aziraphale goes numb, jaw slack, the abject horror growing on his face making Crowley snicker more.

“You had seconds,” he reminds him.

“Oh my Lord, you’re right!” Aziraphale’s lower lip trembles as he drinks his shot. “I’d forgotten. Though I think I forgot on purpose, to tell you the truth.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“Yikes. Okay. Never have I ever …” Anathema bites her lower lip, hemming and hawing between two questions - both of them fairly blah, she has to admit - when a third pops into her head that’s too good not to use, if for no other reason than to possibly get back at these two imbeciles if it lands the way she hopes it will “… had a crush on my best friend.”

Anathema half expects glaring yellow eyes behind dark lenses boring through her skull as a sulking demon reluctantly takes a drink, but Aziraphale downs his shot before anyone can reach theirs, leaving Crowley and Anathema looking at him strangely before he realizes what he’s done.

“Oh!” he squeaks when he sees two sets of eyes trained his way. “I … I was … I was in a rhythm. I don’t think I was paying attention to the question, I …” Aziraphale gulps, wiggling nervously in his seat. “Come again?”

“Oh, well, that’s all right,” Anathema says, pretending to believe him. She refills his glass and pushes it in front of him. “We’ll call a re-do. Do you want to do the honors, Crowley? Or shall I?”

Crowley doesn’t answer her. He leans towards Aziraphale, as amused as Anathema but much more invested in Aziraphale’s answer. “Never have I ever …” he says slowly, chewing each word thoroughly before it leaves his mouth, drawing Aziraphale’s full attention to it, “had a crush on my best friend.”

He stares Aziraphale down, unblinking, the angel shrinking farther and farther back as the demon inches closer, eyes locked so hard on Aziraphale’s, he can feel their hold on him like physical hands keeping him rooted to the spot. Crowley’s eyes don’t unnerve him. Not in the slightest. It’s the idea that the secret Aziraphale has held on to the longest is about to be unearthed, and by virtue of a common, vulgar drinking game.

Whose idea was this anyway? he thinks, mentally side-eyeing Anathema before he comes to the sobering realization that, in truth, it was his. He’d seen it on a TV show – the first TV show he’d watched in decades. He’d fancied it, thought it could be a lighthearted and fun way to pass the time, get to know new friends.

Ha.

But the longer Crowley stares at him, the more the expectant grin on the demon’s face begins to wither, and if there’s one thing Aziraphale doesn’t want, it’s Crowley’s feelings hurt.

This had to come out sooner or later. Might as well be now.

Aziraphale grabs the glass and throws it back, grimacing at a burn on the finish that has nothing to do with the alcohol. “Happy? Now you know.”

“Ecstatic.” Crowley bypasses his shot altogether, grabbing the closest bottle by the neck and downing what’s left in a single impressive chug.

Aziraphale gasps. “Are you … are you serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“How long?”

“How long do you think?”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows shoot up with the outlandish suspicion that he knows exactly how long. That he’s always known. “That long?”

“Yes, Aziraphale. That long.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think I was being subtle about it, really.” Crowley fidgets his fingers, worrying the thumbnail of his left hand with the index fingernail and thumb of his right. “I just … I figured that if you didn’t say anything about it then you probably didn’t … you know … feel the same.”

“But I did,” Aziraphale says softly. “I … I do. Feel the same.”

Crowley’s face lightens, something resembling hope lifting the corners of his mouth into a cautious smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

Crowley rises from his chair and saunters over to Aziraphale. Aziraphale starts to stand but stops when Crowley gets down on his knees, removing his glasses and tossing them aside to get an unfettered view of him as if Anathema isn’t sitting mere feet away.

“I … I thought …” Crowley starts, interrupting himself with a bittersweet cough of a laugh.

“Oh, my dear.” Aziraphale runs a soothing hand through the demon’s hair. “What do we do now?”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Crowley whispers, “I’d really like to kiss you.”

“I think … I’d like that, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Now that he has permission, Crowley wastes no time capturing Aziraphale’s lips with his own. After 6000 years, he’s tired of being subtle. From now on, he’s going to lay his feelings for Aziraphale on the line, out where the angel can see, and pray the important ones find their match alongside his.

Feeling like an awkward third wheel on a broken velocipede, Anathema begins gathering her things. “I’m just gonna go,” she says quietly, hopping out of her chair while demon and angel continue kissing. “Have some important, you know, witch business to get around to. I’m going to leave you two alone to … ahem … talk. But we should do this again some time. It was … educational.”

“Mmm … mind how you go, my dear,” a breathless Aziraphale mumbles between kisses.

“Right,” Crowley concurs, his hand sliding up into Aziraphale’s hair and pulling him deeper.

“Okey-dokey then.” It takes several tries before Anathema verifies she has everything, hugging books, a newspaper, a scarf, and her coat to her chest as she scurries away through the stacks and shelves with a laugh in her throat when the moaning begins.

#good omens #Good Omens Fanfic #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #Frankie writes

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hunnybadgerv · 4 years ago

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For your fandom ask: H, N, S, and Z?

From the Fandom Meme

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.) Most of my fandom source texts are video games. Not sure why, but I don’t get quite as invested in films or TV shows the way I do with video games. And sometimes it happens with books, but only really rarely. I’m not sure why. I mean with books and shows, sometimes I’ve thought about writing things, but I usually don’t end up going through with it. I think because at that point I’m messing with only someone else’s characters and it is hard for me to get invested fully into work that is only the creation of another.

With video games, I get to participate in the world in a manner of speaking. There is an interactivity and engagement inherent to video games that creates a different focus and a buy-in that is not present in other sources, at least for me. I get to create a character and fit them into this world and watch them move through it--and sure they fall along a certain line according to the developers’ plans, but I do get to have a hand in it. It’s the reason I’m a sucker for RPG games.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice) I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what I’d say for any of my fandoms. But I do kind of sit at the edge of my fandoms, all of them. I’m not in the middle of anything in any of them, and I’m perfectly content there because I’m moderate participant at best.

1. I’d really like to see the Saints Row fandom revive itself. It used to be quite a lively and welcoming location. It seems that most of those that remain are the gatekeepers.

2. I’d like to see more respect and inclusion for Faith Seed. There is a group of people in that fandom that like to treat her like she is not part of the family. Despite this tendency in some corners of the Far Cry 5 fandom, most of the people I’m surrounded by also hold that Faith is a valid member of the family who should be included in discussions and representations of the Seed siblings.

3. This question would be so very much easier if I was a more active participant in my fandoms. Overall, I wish more of us, in all my fandoms, were still active on tumblr. A lot of people migrated away. Perhaps if I were more active in other places, I would still be able to reach out to them. Though I know many of them are on Discord, it’s just not a medium that works for my mind. Plus, I’ve kind of been cut off from things so long that I still struggle with maintaining connections with people. It’s something I’m particularly bad at.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged) Okay, so this is more difficult than I anticipated.

I’m both fearing and excited about the Legendary version of Mass Effect releasing in May. I really am looking forward to the graphical update and the game play cleanup. Though I really don’t know that I want to see them adjust the Mako controls, I loved that sketchy thing and the fact that if you tried hard enough you could climb over anything. I loved the Mako in all it’s flaws and fabulousness.

I’m also kind of concerned about the possibility of them altering the story or the characters in some way.

There is a tendency nowadays for fan opinions to be able to alter plans, story, and characters in media. And I really don’t want them to change the franchise in order to meet some loud corner of the fandom. I loved the game as it was, flaws and all. I really fear that they might institute some odd change to suit some rabid corner of the internet that will unravel the fabric of something I’ve loved for so long.

Though in the same vein, I’d love to see some changes here and there. Perhaps the ability to romance Ashley as fShepard, or Kaidan in the ME 1 timeline as mShep. I don’t know. But then again. If I rally for those sorts of changes, then I open myself up to the other potential changes.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged) Hmm. I really enjoy the templar’s lore in Dragon Age, but I wanted to see where else I might be able to take it. I thought, what if there was some magic in templars that allowed them to wield lyrium effectively. And I started doing some reading with old chivalric knights and ideas about knighthood and chivalry in histroy and literature and I wanted to bring that kind of sense into the templars lore, perhaps even a forgotten or overlooked bit of lore for them. And I started playing around with the idea of Templars containing or controlling their own magical ability that is only enhanced by the lyrium. And this kind of happened.

I put it under a cut because it is incredibly long.

Malcolm found his daughter sitting in the grass at the back fence. She had been crying and he was disturbed by the idea that his wife's concern may have been more warranted than he'd given it credit for. He sat next to her and leaned against the fence. "Tell me," he said trying to keep his voice even.

"I don't even know," she said weakly.

Malcolm slid his arm around her shoulders. "Did… did he?" He could barely say it let alone think it.

She shook her head. "No, Father," Aderyn said surprised that he could think that. "I really don't know how to explain it." She wasn't sure how to talk about this with her father. But he was the only person who might be able to help her. She explained some things, though not others. She left out the details about how Cullen had ended up shirtless. "I saw a glow, it was strange. There was no warmth either, which is why I can't figure out how I burned him. I can always feel the glow of fire," she said as she stared at the grass running the event through her head.

"It was a burn?"

"Well, not really. That's what it looked like. And Cullen said something," she said looking up at her father hopefully. "That there was nothing discernable."

"You should have brought him with you."

"What did I do to him?" she asked, clearly concerned. "And how can I control something when I don't know what it is?"

"Did he return to the Chantry?"

She shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know." He looked at her for a moment. "I was scared. No, appalled. I hid. I …"

"I'm sorry I can't assuage your fears. I'll see him as soon as I can. See if there is anything I can do," Malcolm said, hoping to reassure her some. He stood and offered her his hand.

"Aderyn!" They both turned to see him running up the path. He hopped over the fence and stopped when he saw her father's face. "Malcolm, pardon me."

"No need." Malcolm ushered them both inside and quickly into his small study. If what his daughter said was true he had to be objective, at least until he found out what had happened. He could be an upset father after he knew what had happened. Aderyn started to leave, but Malcolm told her he would need her assistance.

"Show me," Malcolm said as his fingers moved across the spines of books on a shelf. When he turned and saw the mark he dropped the books he'd pulled off the shelf. He glanced at the templar then looked at his daughter for a long moment. He clinched his jaw and gathered the books he dropped. The mage set the books on the table and touched the distinctive mark in the center of the young man's chest. "Did it burn?"

Cullen shook his head. "I didn't feel anything." He looked over at the unnerved woman in the corner. "Aderyn saw a glow. I can't tell anything about it, it's like there's no trace of magic to it."

Within the hour Malcolm was more concerned about what had occurred than that his daughter had been in a position to leave such a mark on the young man. He could find nothing in his research. The three of them had sat there for several hours as Malcolm searched through his books with the help of his daughter. When her father left the room in search of a rare volume he kept in a chest in his bedroom, Aderyn handed Cullen his shirt back and he stood and slipped it on again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered standing behind her. She leaned back against his chest and he set his hand on her hip.

"You have nothing to apologize for," she replied replacing her father's books on the shelves.

"It doesn't matter." "How can you say that?" she asked glancing up at him over her shoulder. She shelved another volume. "You can't hide what I've done."

"Actually, I can. Quite easily I must add. I'm not one for running around shirtless."

Aderyn would beg to differ, she'd seen the sight several times, but she couldn't make light of the situation she was in. She was too scared for him, for herself, but most of all, for her family. She turned around and leaned against the bookcase. "How can you not be concerned?"

He set his hands on the bookcase on either side of her shoulders and gazed down into her eyes. "You are more than concerned enough for both of us." She glared at him a moment. "I'll tell you a secret." He leaned toward her. "I don't think it's the result of magic."

"What then?" Her look changed dramatically.

"I think it's something else. More potent than magic." He leaned toward her, but she ducked under his arm as the door opened.

"Smart boy." Malcolm closed the door behind himself, completely this time. "It's not something that can be performed by a mage." He looked at his daughter who seemed most surprised by the news; she sat down slowly. "As odd as this statement is. It's templar magic." Cullen laughed, but it was cut short by the look on Malcolm's face and a glance at the seal on the cover of the book. "It's a promise. Sealed by a touch."

Cullen looked at him curiously. Malcolm touched the book then looked back to the templar. "If this is correct, Aderyn give me your hand." She reached out to her father and he turned her right hand over to look at it. He nodded and loosed her hand. Aderyn touched her palm then looked up at Cullen, it was completely smooth. She showed the discovery to the templar. He ran his fingertips across her palm.

"I've never heard of anything like this," Cullen said marvelling at the complete lack of any texture on her palm.

"It is rare," Malcolm said. "I didn't think it could be the cause, truthfully I always thought it was little more than another part of templar legend, part of the myth." Both of them looked over at him carefully. He sat down and closed the book. "An old friend claimed he was marked by his wife in such a way, ... on their wedding night," he added carefully. "It's determined by overwhelming trust and connection to another."

#Fandom Meme #ljandersen

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docholligay · 5 years ago

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Okay so: TREES IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND THE JEWISH TRADITIONS THEY STOLE THEM FROM.

Both Ben and Justin have seen this dude a handful of times in the show, maybe 2 or 3? I had basically no idea what it was about back then and it’s not like I have a TON of idea now, but I’m more willing to wade in.

So I can think of three, off the top of my head sitting here which this might be representative of.

1) The Tree of Life, mostly a Kabbalah thing so I doubt this is it. I’m gonna be real: Kabbalah is confusing as fuck, it is a the hyper-mystic woowoo branch of Judaism* and without saying anything unkind about Kabbalah, pragmatic Judaism is my flavor of Judaism. The Tree of life is also such a ridiculously complex symbolic idea that I don’t know if I think it would even WORK in this framework.

2) The Tree Judas hung himself from. Does this have a name in Christianity? I don’t actually know the answer to that, but I feel like it would. VISUALLY, I like this: The tree we’re looking at is gnarled and ugly and full of this feeling o that loss of hope, that fate has betrayed you and you never had any choice in your life but to be a traitor and known as that, honestly, the whole idea is fucked up. I don’t think its this, because so far there’s nothing that really has brought in STRONG Jesus language other than the appearance of the Knights Templar and Justin’s personal belief structure.

3) The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil which is where I’m deciding to go with it. ONe might think this tree is a little ugly for that to be true, but isn’t knowledge a little terrifying and bleak? Isn’t being free of naivete, to see evil, isn’t that ugly in itself, if necessary? TO obtain knowledge is not always a value-neutral or positive thing, think of how many things you have leaned that have caused pain or suffering.

*I’ve noticed in a lot of witchy groups and circles that the Kabbalah seems to be up for grabs. It’s not. If you run in these circles, you should be beating back against that the same way I assume you do with voodoo, santeria, etc. (Which if you aren’t doing I guess fair for consistency but you’re a puss)

#Doc watches Carnivale #Episode 10 #Hot and Bothered

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laurelsofhighever · 5 years ago

Link

Chapter Rating: General Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fereldan Civil War AU - No Blight, Romance, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort Chapter Summary: Revelations come in the aftermath of the attack on the Circle.

---------------

Fifth day of Firstfall, 9:32 Dragon

Tendrils of golden mist wove through the courtyard that enclosed the templar barracks of Kinloch Hold. Frost whorled away across the flagstones, thick as a coating of snow, silvering the summer’s cobwebs and the dainty, bone-thin ends of the birch that had been planted in the centre. As Rosslyn trudged across from the room she had been shown to the night before, a blackbird warbled in its upper branches, as if boasting of its triumph over the winter night, as if there had not been a slither of demons pressing like a boil against the skin of the world only the day before. She paused to watch it scrape its beak on the branch, her breath a thick white puff that vanished into the fog, and stuffed her hands into her armpits to keep her fingertips from being bitten. It was always so after a battle. The small things in the world returned to their normality, unconcerned for the scars left by human action, for the hollow remains of victory’s thrill through the blood.

Shaking herself, she walked on, drawing her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. The spare clothes the lay sister had left her were too thin for the weather, but she was grateful for them nonetheless. Her only other option would have been the shirt and gambeson she had worn to storm the tower, still stained with sweat and blood and ichor, and all the memories of what she had faced with it. She tried to turn her mind from it. The demon’s fantasy had been nothing more than smoke, and yet it had let her see her parents again. She had spoken to them, heard they were proud of her, seen them approve of the man she loved, and she ached so much for their arms around her again she hardly cared that it wasn’t real. And yet, when she closed her eyes, she didn’t see their faces, only heard the slick rasp of steel through flesh, a gasp, the heavy sag of a body as it crumpled to the floor.

Voices raised around the corner. She wiped her eyes, straightening into her general’s façade as footsteps approached and halted, the tail of the argument lashing with voices she recognised.

“Karyna, please –” Cullen begged.

“You said mages aren’t people,” Amell snapped. “How can you expect me to be reasonable after that – what does ‘reasonable’ even mean?”

“You saw the damage in there as well as I did, so many dead –”

“And most of them mages. My friends. They died because they chose that over becoming abominations.”

“You said yourself they would have attacked anyone who came into the tower!”

The enchanter snarled a curse. “What would you have done in their place? Greagoir was planning to slaughter them! We obey, we keep our heads down, we keep our magic locked away, and yet none of that loyalty is worth anything. We really aren’t people to you, are we?”

“It isn’t the same,” the templar stammered. “You –”

“The Right would have had us all murdered, with no reprisals. If I’d been in there, and the oh-so-valiant knight-commander had told you to strike me down, would you have done it?”

“I – that’s not fair.”

“See? You can’t even answer the question. I don’t think I want an answer.”

“Karyna!”

The mage’s footsteps didn’t slow as she hurried around the corner, blind to everything beyond her unshed tears. Rosslyn let her go. Sympathy tugged at her, remembering the drift of ash above Highever, but whatever her own misgivings about the Chantry and what she had seen of the Circle, the grief was still too present, and it was not her place to offer shelter from it. Instead, she gritted her teeth and stepped out from the shadows, ignoring the instant of panic that lit Cullen’s features crimson.

“My presence was requested in the knight-commander’s office,” she said. “Which way do I go?”

“Oh… it’s the second on the right down that corridor, Your Ladyship.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Did you…?”

“As you were, Lieutenant,” she huffed, already marching past him.

She arrived at the door to Greagoir’s office to find Alistair already inside, backlit by a spitting fire, leaning over a map with his weight pressing through his knuckles into the desk. The deep crease of his brows made her hesitate in the doorway. The Fade vision had seemed so real, and afterwards she had been too lost in her own thoughts to even consider the effect it might have had on him, to hear platitudes from the false stranger who had called himself his father. His skin was paler than it should be; dark circles bruised glazed, bloodshot eyes, and the gaunt twist of his mouth hollowed out his cheeks like paper.

A floorboard creaked beneath her heel. The sound startled him out of his reverie, and when he looked up, the fatigue that made her heart ache brightened into welcome, a smile all soft corners that lifted as he breathed her name.

“Good morning,” he murmured, reaching for her.

She smiled her reply as she took his hand. “It is now. How are you?”

“Tired,” he replied, shrugging. “But considering the alternatives, I’ll take it. how did you sleep?”

“Not well, if I’m honest.” She dropped her gaze, well aware of the blush stretching across her cheeks.

“That’s not surprising.”

A gentle hand rose to cup her face, and for a moment she let herself sink into the comfort, eyes closed and breath a soft huff mingling with his.

“It wasn’t just the dreams,” she said. “I missed you.” She pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist. “I kept waking up and you weren’t there.”

Wordlessly, he pulled her into a hug, squeezing tight as she buried her head against his shoulder. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m sorry about Maric.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t realise how much I wanted his approval. All those years I thought I put it behind me, but now I just keep wondering…” he sighed. “But it was all the demon. He was never interested, not even when I left Redcliffe.”

Rosslyn’s hand curled against the back of his neck. “We can’t know why he did what he did,” she soothed. “But really, does it matter? What you made of yourself is entirely down to your merit, and nothing can change that. I’m proud of you, if that counts, and you should be proud of yourself. I couldn’t have made it out of there without you.”

“It does count,” he told her, breaking the embrace so he could look at her. “There’s nobody whose judgement I trust more.”

She leaned in, drawn by the intensity of his gaze, but remembered at the last where they were and turned to glance at the doorway. The empty corridor stared back, draughty and silent. And Alistair was there with his fingers brushed against her jaw, ducking the last few inches to distract her with a kiss.

The instant his lips touched hers, a jolt of foreign heat sank low in her belly. Her hand rose of its own volition to bring him closer, the desperation thrilling through her echoed in the flutter of the pulse beneath her fingertips. They had almost died; they had encountered horrors and monsters and walked the veil-thin line of tension to the top of that cursed tower with no room for any thought but survival – and now that tension snapped. Alistair groaned as he pushed into her mouth, as she rose on tip-toes and wrapped her arms around his neck to banish every bit of space that separated them. The movement overbalanced him. He had to throw out a hand to save them from the edge of the desk, but he never faltered. Eventually they parted, breath sharp, giggling for air, just far enough to dart back in for soft presses against every part they could reach. She never wanted to stop.

“What is it?” he murmured, ghosting another kiss across her lips.

Her hands cradled his face. “The worst thing…” She swallowed and tried again. “I keep thinking – I know it wasn’t real, but it might have been, and… I wish they could have met you.”

“Oh, love…” He pulled her in again with a swift brushed kiss to her forehead. “We’ll get through this.”

“If it ever ends.”

“Hey now,” he chided. “Where’s my indomitable warrior goddess? Everything will be –”

The echo of footsteps in the corridor interrupted him. Clearing his throat, he withdrew to a respectable distance, though his touch lingered at her hand.

“Everything will be alright,” he repeated, and dropped her hand as the door banged back against the wall.

Cailan entered, with Irminric on his heels. The king shone his usual puppyish smile as he greeted them, but Rosslyn had spent long months in his company, and knew him well enough to see the brittle nature of his resolve; his cheeks bloomed with their usual rosy colour, but his eyes were bloodshot. How long had he tossed and turned thinking about Loghain’s reach, that it extended even as far as a tower in the middle of a lake cut off from the rest of Thedas?

She knew better than to bring it up. Instead, she crossed to Irminric and wrapped him in a hug.

“It’s good to see you alive and whole, couz,” he told her. “For a moment there, I thought I’d sent you to an untimely end – Alfstanna would’ve been furious with me.”

At the sound of her old playmate’s name, Rosslyn brightened. “How is she? I heard there were twins.”

Irminric nodded. “They gave her a lot of trouble before the end. The bairns are sickly, but the healer says they’ll all make it through.”

“When this is all over, you’ll have to go back to Waking Sea and play Uncle properly,” she replied, and realised the others were waiting politely for the pleasantries to be out of the way. “But until then, what are you doing here in a war council?” She had expected Greagoir himself after the revelation that Uldred’s rebellion was triggered by outside events.

“I’ve been given a new assignment,” he told her with a shrug. “It seems the knight-commander wants someone to oversee the distribution of the supplies he’s donating to the cause, in exchange for saving everyone in the Circle.”

“You mean he’s sending you away in almost-disgrace for going against orders,” Alistair supplied with a wry tilt of an eyebrow.

“A small price for what you managed to do.”

“Just about,” Rosslyn groused.

“What’s the plan now, then?”

With the call to business, Cailan grinned and stepped up to their borrowed desk, shuffling papers away to expose the northern stretches of Ferelden on the map. Counters purloined from the knight-commander’s chess set had been laid out to represent the location of their forces, though some slipped their place in the tidying. As the king righted them, he talked. The Highever Guard with Eamon in tow was still somewhere around Lakehead, a strong enough force for a skirmish, but not for a pitched battle.

“We’ll cross to the eastern shore today and catch up with the bulk of the army,” he explained, still moving counters. “After, we should all arrive in Aeylesbide around the same time – Bann Ferrenly is expecting us. From what his scouts report, activity in the north has slowed as the cold weather has set in, and aside from a few outposts, our enemy has retreated to the strongholds already in their possession.”

Rosslyn’s heart quickened in her chest. “If we’re gathering our entire force at Aeylesbide…”

Cailan nodded to her. “We’re going to take back Highever, yes, and not a moment too soon.”

He paused to let her absorb the swell of emotion, the anticipation leaping like a deer through her veins at even the distant prospect of seeing home again. She had missed the rugged coastland, the cliffs and the sea breeze and the pastures of long grass rippling like silk in the wind. The fields would be barren now, laid bare for the first snow, and no doubt Howe had taken the dragon’s share of the harvest to bolster his own forces through the winter, leaving her people with scraps for food and nothing but rotting twigs to feed their fires. In the dream, she had returned a hero, with the sun shining, her parents proud on the steps of the keep to welcome her, the people happy and healthy and cheering her name. And that was the knife that truly made the demon’s tricks twist in her gut – even if she succeeded in taking back the city and the castle, even if she caught Howe and got her revenge, it wouldn’t bring them back; it wouldn’t make the fantasy real. A small part of her mind enjoyed the irony of the situation, that the goal for which she had yearned for almost a year was now within reach, just as she lost the stomach to face it.

I’m counting on you to see them safe, her father had told her as the dust settled over Glenlough. No matter what.

She felt the shift of weight beside her, Alistair lending her strength even though their company meant he couldn’t touch her. She exhaled a shaky breath, grateful, and turned her attention to Cailan once more. He had been waiting for her to continue.

“Your victory at South Reach has taken the last foothold away from Loghain,” he said. “And now we must cut off his retreat. The Bannorn is ours, and once the North follows suit we’ll be able to march on the capital without fear of being caught in a pincer movement. Once we’re mustered at Aeylesbide, we can finalise the details.”

“You’ll have a contingent of mages as well,” Irminric added, with a grim twist of his mouth. “We’ve nowhere to put them now until the tower is fully cleared, and with the number of templars killed we don’t have the resources to send them all to other Circles, either.”

Alistair scowled, but held his tongue. Meddling in Chantry politics was not a battle they could afford in the moment. “We may be able to finish this before the spring, if we don’t end up with a siege at Denerim,” he said instead.

Cailan frowned. “If Loghain is still a man of the people, he wouldn’t put them through that.”

“I’m afraid we cannot take that for granted,” Irminric replied. “Not if he’s become an abomination.”

“I thought only mages could become abominations?”

The knight-captain folded his arms, stroking the trimmed edge of his beard. “Only mages can summon demons from the Fade, it’s true, but once in our world the creatures may work on the minds of anyone they choose, usually someone with whom they find an affinity – an emotional connection. It’s possible Loghain’s allied magisters were the ones to perform the summoning, though whether it came before or after the Landsmeet, I cannot say.”

“It doesn’t matter for the moment,” Cailan decided. “I have faith in your abilities, Knight-Captain, but we have yet to reach Loghain before we can free him of the demon’s influence. No, first we must take Highever, and quickly.” At the questioning glances sent his way, he let the last of his cheerful façade drop into worry. “The queen has been sent there from Denerim, and we haven’t heard from her since. It’s possible he suspects she’s been aiding us.”

The implications settled over them like the fog outside, wrapping them in silence. Of them all, Rosslyn was most familiar with the aid rendered by Anora’s intelligence, regardless of her motives for betraying her father, but so far, her position had allowed her to avoid being used as a pawn. If her safety were threatened, however, Cailan would have to capitulate or risk losing the goodwill he had built up in his months in the field, and Ferelden’s entire future along with it.

Alistair was the one who broke the silence. “Why wouldn’t Loghain send her to Vigil’s Keep? That’s far less exposed if he wanted her out of his way.”

“He wouldn’t want to give Howe that much power,” Rosslyn answered in a low voice. “He’s already shown himself capable of betrayal.”

His hand fell to her arm. “Still, it’s rather convenient, don’t you think?”

“We don’t have a choice,” she answered bluntly, without looking at him. “And my people have suffered enough.” And I’ve spent too long wanting Howe’s head on a spike to back down now. “You know, Your Majesty, if you had told me this sooner, I might have outlined a strategy for you already.”

Cailan fiddled with one of the counters, suddenly uncomfortable. “Well, my dear…” He pressed his tongue between his teeth, looking for the right words for whatever he wanted to say. “I would have, but I had hoped you would be persuaded to take a step back from this one.”

“Why?”

The frostiness in her tone blanketed the whole room, so even the fire seemed to dim. Cailan shrank away from it with a sigh, trying to deny the flush in his pale cheeks, and nodded to the rest of their company. Irminric obeyed the silent order and bowed out of the room with a mumbled excuse, but Alistair, sensing what was coming, stubbornly refused to take the hint.

“Brother, if you might…?”

“Your Majesty, what is this about?”

Defeated, Cailan sighed. “Some might deem it inappropriate for you to have a part in Anora’s rescue, considering the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” she asked, though her eyes had narrowed. “Anora’s presence in Highever changes nothing but our approach, and it’s my home. Would you sit in the supply lines while we took back Denerim?”

“I… no. I would not.”

“Then please don’t tell me this is some misguided act of chivalry to try and protect me from the worst of the fighting.”

“Maker, of course not!” the king cried. “My lady, you have proven yourself time and again, on the field and off. The matter is… more delicate than that.” Sighing again, he turned to pace across the confined length of the room, either gathering his thoughts or trying to work out the frustration evident in his voice. “It has become clear to me that, for the good of Ferelden, whatever existed between Anora and myself may no longer be… supportable. And so I find myself facing the possibility of a future where I am a king alone – in need of a queen.” He paused, took in her posture, cleared his throat, and dropped his gaze to the desk. “I… was hoping that, in time, you might consider being that queen.”

Her stomach turned. Despite what Alistair had said to her the other day in the meadow, and the sense it made once she knew everything Eamon had done, part of her had not believed Cailan really had plans for her. He turned that hopeful, guileless smile on her now, uneasy but not discouraged by her blank, silent shock, and stepped around the desk to take her hand in both of his. She felt the warmth of his skin, the callouses on his palms, and it was surreal.

“I had also hoped that, uh, circumstances would have allowed a more romantic proposal,” he allowed, with a self-conscious glance at Alistair.

“Your Majesty –”

“Cailan.”

She shook her head and extracted her fingers. “Your Majesty. I have no desire to be queen – I’m sorry.” Her heartbeat felt thready. “I would have always refused you… even if my heart didn’t already belong to someone else.”

Cailan blinked. “Someone else? Who?”

For a long moment, embarrassment stopped her tongue. Heat crawled across the back of her neck and pulsed behind her eyes, until she finally gathered the courage to lift her eyes to Alistair’s. He was smiling. She couldn’t help but return the expression as relief washed over her, too aware that even though they agreed they would bring their relationship into the light, the expectation had been something more controlled, planned, and definitely not straight off the back of another man’s proposal. When his fingers brushed against hers, however, she laced them together instinctually, finally remembering to breathe as his fingers squeezed their reassurance.

Cailan glanced between them, bewildered.

“If it makes you feel better we were planning to tell you,” Alistair said.

“This… well.” The king shook himself. “How long?”

They paused, unsure of the answer. For Rosslyn, at least, the love had grown so slowly, through distractions and misunderstandings and distance, and yet as she searched through her memories even that first morning, when he had stood enshrined by the dawn light and offered her his blanket and shared her breakfast, was touched with a sense of belonging too big for her to describe.

“From the beginning,” he offered, raising her hand to kiss her knuckles.

Her breath caught.

“And you’re happy?” Cailan asked.

She blinked, drawn back to the present, and smiled at him even as the revelation overwhelmed her. “Very.”

“Huh… You really are in love, aren’t you?” A puff of air blew through his cheeks, giving way to a wry chuckle at his own mortification. “Well then. In that case, little brother, you should be congratulated on winning the esteem of such a fine lady! You’ll have to tell me how you did it, eh? And you, my dear,” he added, turning to Rosslyn, “be sure he treats you as you deserve, or I may have to start another war to defend your honour.”

“As you will, Your Majesty.”

“The two of you… honestly.” He laughed again. “Who else knows of this?”

The warmth in Rosslyn’s chest cooled, feeling Alistair tense at her side. She cleared her throat. “About that – there’s… an allegation we have to make.”

“Allegation?”

“Against Arl Eamon,” Alistair supplied. “He intercepted letters between Rosslyn and me, to try and separate us.”

“Surely not…”

But Cailan listened all the same as they told the story, both what Eamon had done, and the ways he had tried to cover for himself once he was caught. It was unclear whether the initial idea was his, since King Bhelen was obviously so keen to be rid of his sister, but it was clear enough that the old arl had not acted under duress. When they finished, still leaning into each other for support, they watched as Cailan reeled back to lean his weight on the desk as if winded, his mouth pulled down at the corners and his brows knitted in a frown that added years to his face.

“Thank the Maker Teagan is with us already,” he murmured. “I will have to look into this. In the meantime…” He sighed, and fixed a smile in place. “We must continue as we are. We still have a campaign to plan, don’t we? It would be very poor sport if this one setback inconvenienced everything.” He glanced down at their joined hands and looked away, clearing his throat as he returned his attention to the map.

#dragon age #dragon age: origins #dragon age origins #da:o #alistair theirin #rosslyn cousland #alistair x cousland #cousland #king cailan #ferelden

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stitchcasual · 6 years ago

Text

Official Business

My piece for the @afterkirkwall zine! I’m so glad I got to participate in this; I love a good excuse to write for viscount!Hawke ^_^

Check it out here on AO3 or keep reading under the cut!

-------------------

Hawke grips the neck of the bottle tight as he braces his other arm against the wall, sinking down onto the steps. He didn’t use to feel this old, couldn’t say for sure when he’d first noticed the creaking in his joints or the additional ache in his back, but they’ve been demanding more of his attention lately. Aveline chuckles at him, but he notices she’s taking longer to sit as well. None of them are as young as they were the day they first set foot on Kirkwall’s docks. That’s good, in a way: the Hawke of ten years ago would not have taken well to the mantle of viscount.

He looks over his shoulder at Fenris, standing at the top of the steps where he has a view of the whole of the main hall in the Viscount’s Keep. Fenris would, perhaps, argue on the merits of Hawke taking the office even now. Fenris believes in him, in what he’s trying to do here, but he also worries for what it’s doing to him. Hawke waves off the frown he sees gathering on Fenris’s face and sets to the delicate task of getting the cork out of the wine bottle.

Across the landing in a position mirroring Fenris is Bran, quill, ink, and parchment at the ready. Despite Hawke’s protestations that this is a gathering of friends and nothing more, the fact that the viscount, the guard captain, and the knight-commander are in the same room means Bran must be too. Hawke angles his head to try and keep Bran out of his visual range, preferring to ignore his aide as much as possible when he can.

Hawke drinks from the bottle once he has it open, then stuffs the cork back in and jerks his head at Aveline. She has time enough to say, “Hawke, don’t you—” before she abandons speech in favor of catching the bottle as he tosses it to her. Cullen chuckles, though his laughter fades quickly, choked off by the glare Aveline fixes him with and the bottle as it once more flies through the air. Hawke grins and spreads his legs out in a careless sprawl so he takes up about five of the stairs.

“It’s looking good out there, Hawke,” Cullen says after he drinks, walking the bottle over to pass it back to Hawke before settling himself on the steps below Bran with a grimace and clank of platemail.

“Oh, sure, Hightown is starting to come together.” Hawke swigs at the bottle and leans forward to rest both forearms on his thighs. It puts him a little off kilter, but he’s only had two sips of wine so far; he’s not worried about falling yet. And anyway, he knows Fenris won’t let him get hurt.

The keep is empty this late at night, only the staff and guards around, and none of them are too close by since Fenris and Bran are. It’s the only time Hawke lets his guard down and only with these few people. Of course, it also means that if Fenris decides that tonight Hawke’s earned a bump on the head if he falls down a few steps, there will be no one to witness it. No one who would worry over him, anyway. Those here have seen him take worse hits and live.

“I take it you don’t have much cause to be in Lowtown these days, Knight-Commander.”

“Just what I see on my way from the Docks.”

“I’d recommend a detour next time you come through, but only with a large armed escort.”

Cullen raises his eyebrows and turns to Aveline, who frowns first at Cullen and then at Hawke before actually drinking from the bottle that Hawke tosses to her. She points the neck at Cullen, shaking it as she speaks.

“Yes, the Guard is still stretched thin. We’ve lost a lot of good people over the last year. If you’d lend a few templars to my patrols, we’d have less trouble.”

“You know I can’t—”

“Oh, I know very well what you can and can’t do.”

Aveline nearly pegs Cullen in the face with the wine bottle, but it’s not for nothing the years he’s spent training and drilling with Hawke. Cullen wraps both hands around the bottle, staring at the carpet of the landing.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“The Gallows needs to change,” Hawke said, opening the door to Cullen’s office in the Templar wing.

“Good morning to you, too, Viscount.” Cullen looked up from the parchment he’d been poring over and stood, saluting.

Hawke waved a hand, dismissing any further pleasantries. “What’s different since we killed Meredith?” He closed the office door and crossed to lean against the wall next to Cullen’s desk.

“We’re fighting for stability right now. It seems a poor time to institute changes. Once things settle down—”

“You don’t have that time.”

“It’s only been a few weeks!”

“And keeping things the way they were before will end with us in the same position we were just in. You know I respect what you do here, but it isn’t working.” Hawke stared at Cullen and arched an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

Cullen straightened, but even his full height couldn’t match Hawke’s. “You know you have no true power over the Gallows.”

“I know.” Hawke shrugged. “But you’ll listen to me anyway.”

A silence took the room, the two men sizing each other up. Cullen paced around the front of his desk and crossed his arms. He’d have the advantage in a fight thanks to his armor and the absolutely ridiculous thin cotton shirt Hawke wore as part of the viscount’s official wardrobe, but Hawke just watched him without moving an inch himself, as though he felt no fear. Considering what he’d personally seen in just the last month, not to mention the last seven years, perhaps that response had already been drained out of him.

Cullen sighed and rubbed a hand across his brow. He sat on the edge of his desk, rolling a hand at Hawke for him to continue.

“You need to let go any templar even suspected of anything untoward with one of the mages.”

With a tired wave at the papers on his desk, Cullen said, “Do you realize how many of them that is? How many reports Meredith had that she did nothing about?”

��I’ve got suspicions. Send those templars away, get them out of Kirkwall. I don’t want any of Meredith’s old guard sticking around. Bring in new recruits, train them right. Meredith taught them fear; you can teach them respect.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It won’t be. But you can do it. How’s your supply of lyrium?”

Cullen reached over and grabbed one of the papers, handing it to Hawke. “We’ll start to run low in a few months. I’ve gotten letters like that from a few suppliers already, saying they can’t risk sending their people and product into a ‘warzone.’”

Hawke snorted and passed the letter back. “I’ll talk to some people. I know a guy who might be able to help.”

“Of course you do.”

Hawke smiled, spreading his arms wide. “Unlike you, I had a life for the past few years. Now, tell me what your plans are.” When Cullen frowned at him, Hawke rolled his eyes and gestured at the wall toward the Gallows as a whole. “I know you have ideas for how to change things, even if you’re not doing anything yet. Tell me.”

Cullen had years of ideas, most of them discarded by Meredith for being too soft, but Hawke listened to them and nodded his agreement. He may not be a templar in name, but Cullen had trained him as one for a while and his lived experience with his sister and father counted for a lot. His mind made quick tactical work of situations, and as an outsider, he was able to point out some of the flawed logic circuits Cullen had grown used to after so long in the Order.

They talked until past time for lunch and there came a knock at the door. Hawke opened it to Fenris, who whispered into his ear, and Hawke groaned. He turned his back to the hallway, slowly walking backward toward Fenris, and pointed at Cullen.

“Start now.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Do you ever miss the way things used to be?” Cullen asks, hunching his shoulders within his armor, and Hawke is struck by just how young Cullen looks. He often forgets that Cullen is the same age as Bethany, given how much rides on his shoulders and how well he’s handled it. While Hawke feels every bit of his thirty-three years and has definitely begun to look it, sometimes it appears as though Cullen ages backward, that all the responsibility he’s taken on only serves to highlight the youth he should have had. Maker knows it’s not fair, but Hawke has long since stopped believing he’d ever get a fair shake.

“Well,” Hawke says, looking up at Fenris. “How many’s it been so far this year? Couple of poisoning attempts, one memorable noble lad who thought he could sneak a broadsword into the keep stuffed down his trousers.”

“Three poisonings,” Fenris says, one eyebrow arched. “And that incident was last year.”

“Stabbed himself in the calf,” Hawke recalls, smiling wistfully. “Highlight of my month. But if that’s all I have to deal with in terms of life-threatening situations, it’s leagues better than getting impaled on a Qunari battleaxe a few times.”

Cullen concedes the point, shrugging and nodding. Aveline’s face tightens and she frowns; Hawke doesn’t think any of his friends have gotten over the few months they all spent fretting over whether or not he’d wake after the injuries he sustained in his fight with the Arishok. Fenris still traces the scars sometimes, after anyone gets particularly close with their assassination attempt.

“At least you listen to me when I tell you what the Guard needs, Hawke,” Aveline mutters. “Meredith was a nightmare as acting viscount. Even if we could go back to the way things were, I wouldn’t trade it for the progress we’ve made.”

“Not enough progress.” Hawke extends one hand toward Cullen, making grabby claw motions. Cullen rolls his eyes before gently lobbing the bottle across the landing to him. “Can’t do work in Lowtown without Hightown screaming about it; the Docks need more berths in working order because operating at half capacity isn’t going to cut it long term, but no one wants to see work slowed on their projects to cover it. And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to convince Kirkwall as a whole to band together. I’m as good as useless.”

He takes a long drink of wine but doesn’t miss the look Aveline gives Fenris; Hawke estimates in a day or two Fenris might say something about it, but he won’t tonight. Hawke sets the bottle on the landing next to his right foot and reaches up to remove the viscount’s circlet from his head. He twirls it around two fingers for a minute, ignoring the scandalized gasp from Bran, before setting it on the stair in front of him.

It’s the most obvious symbol of office that he has, the one thing that separates him from everyone else in a fancy tunic. The one thing that everyone else in a fancy tunic seems to want to take from him, not like any of them would know the first thing to do with it. As much as the burdens of being viscount weigh on him, as much as he loves and hates Kirkwall in equal measure most days, he’s the only halfway qualified person left in the city.

“Well, I’d rather have useless than inept,” Aveline says. “Now hand over that bottle; I need more to drink if you’re going to be this morose tonight.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“I can spare one additional patrol per day into Hightown, but that’s it, Hawke. You can tell those nobles that they’re not more important than any of the other citizens afraid to leave their homes at night.”

Hawke sat on Aveline’s desk, ignoring the scathing look she gave him. He’d missed her more important papers, he was sure of it, and at least he hadn’t dragged over a chair and placed his boots up there. He’d learned from last time. He shrugged with one arm and sighed.

“I can tell them anything I like. They still think I’m deliberately shorting them. And before you ask, yes, I’ve tried blaming it on you.”

Aveline glared at him.

“If it makes you feel better, they didn’t believe me. Turns out you’re more beloved than I am.”

“I’m shocked.”

Hawke glared back at her.

“Look, Hawke, you’re doing what you can, and I’m proud of you for that. It’s only been a few months since...everything; give them a little longer to come around.”

Hawke picked at a piece of parchment on Aveline’s desk, dropping it and raising his hands in surrender when she slapped a hand down on it. Aveline shoved Hawke off the desk and he let her, sinking with a groan into a chair instead.

Aveline raised an eyebrow as she rounded her desk to sit in the chair next to him.

“Can you talk to Cullen? He won’t listen to me when I ask for templar assistance on the patrols.” Aveline leaned forward, staring intently at Hawke. “I mean it. I really think seeing their insignia would curb the banditry we’re seeing. People respect the Guard, but they respect the Templars more.”

“I’ll do what I can, but he has his hands pretty full with everything at the Gallows.”

“And I have Hightown, Lowtown, Darktown, and the Docks. Feels a bit uneven if you ask me.”

Hawke dug a thumb into his temple below the metal of the viscount’s circlet. “You’re doing great?”

“Don’t patronize me, Hawke. Just get me some help.”

“Maybe Sebastian will loan some people for an extended assignment if Cullen doesn’t come around. I’ll ask him; I’ve got to send him a message anyway.” Hawke glanced at the door to Aveline’s office, closed for their private conference. “Anything else?”

“I think that’s everything for now.” Aveline followed his gaze, and the smile she gave him when she looked back was soft. “How’s Fenris?”

“Better than I am, most days. At least he gets to threaten people with violence.”

“Hawke,” Aveline warned.

“I’ve been extremely polite,” Hawke said. “Much more polite than any of them are to me, at any rate.” He sighed and looked again at the door. “It’s hard sometimes: this...situation is a lot like the one Danarius had him in.”

“He chose this one. That’s important.”

“I know.” He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “Donnic still like being your subordinate?”

Aveline blushed a furious red. “Shut up. That’s none of your business.”

Hawke smirked. “As long as you’re still happy, that’s all I need to know. Just making sure I don’t need to dust off my sword and pay him a visit.”

“Don’t you dare, Hawke. I don’t care if he walks out on me; he’s a damn fine guardsman, and I need as many of those as I can get right now.”

“Fair enough.” Hawke levered himself out of his chair and saluted Aveline. “See you next week, Guard Captain.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Hawke chuckles and kicks the bottle over, letting it roll across the landing to Aveline. He waves at Bran and makes a drinking motion with his hand. Bran rolls his eyes and sighs, but disappears for a few minutes to return with another wine bottle for them. He takes up his notes again, waiting for something like official business to happen. Hawke sets to digging the cork out of this bottle and fervently hopes they’ll manage to avoid anything like official business for the rest of the night.

It isn’t often he has a moment to relax like this, and less often that Aveline and Cullen are both in the keep at the same time to indulge him. Between the three of them, they’re all the city has for leadership, and it keeps them busy. Aveline may have her office in the same building as Hawke, but she’s on patrol nearly as often as the rest of her people, and Cullen spends the vast majority of his time at the Gallows, mediating between the templars, mages, and concerned citizens. Meetings with all of them are usually hurried things, no time for beating around the bush, and that’s something Hawke has come to greatly appreciate after his days spent listening to nobles wax poetic about what’s gone wrong with the city before finally circling around to their specific grievance.

He raises the bottle in a toast to Aveline once he’s freed the cork. “To being useless.”

“Hear, hear,” Aveline says and drinks.

Hawke passes his bottle to Cullen, who laughs and shakes his head but drinks too.

“I’ve actually been very productive,” he says, as he hands the bottle back to Hawke.

“No one needs to hear it,” Aveline calls, her voice loud in the stillness of the keep.

Hawke looks up at Fenris, who pointedly directs his gaze elsewhere and only smiles with his eyes so no one else can tell, then over at Cullen, giving him the best shit-eating grin he can conjure. Which, given the wine and the hour, is pretty good, and Hawke laughs, with Cullen not far behind.

“You sound like Isabela!” Hawke crows to the empty room, flinging his arms out wide. Cullen rescues the wine bottle before it can go flying.

Aveline gasps and nearly throws her bottle at Hawke before thinking better of it and drinking instead.

“How dare you! You take that back, Hawke.”

That only causes Hawke further merriment, and he leans back against the wall, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes as he laughs.

“I’m gonna—tell her. She’ll be—so proud!” he says, barely able to catch a breath.

After a few more indignant noises from Aveline, each less grumpy sounding than the last, she joins in the laughter, and the three leaders of the city absolutely do not do anything remotely approaching official business for the rest of the night.

#dragon age 2 #viscount!Hawke #cullen rutherford #aveline vallen #after kirkwall zine #durill hawke #drinking #stitch fic

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sinsbymanka · 5 years ago

Text

Update: Girl with the Arrow Tattoo Chapter 36!

Full fic is over at AO3! Modern Thedas AU with magic, demons, and so much angst and pining. Just... so much.

Well, Maria thought to herself, she’d been a semi-decent Inquisitor for approximately seventy-two hours. In all honesty, a better run that she expected to have before she finally ran into the one thing she could not do.

That one thing was reading a fucking speech.

She buried her face in her hands, ignoring the scattered notecards all over the floor, the ones she’d thrown there in a fit of pique. She couldn’t meet Josephine’s anxious gaze one more time, but she felt it on her shoulders anyway. The silence hung over them like miasma, poison she was going to choke on.

“Alright, Inquisitor.” Harding kept her voice carefully light. “Maybe we need to try something a bit different.”

Maria looked up, spearing Harding with a glance she hoped conveyed her complete exasperation with the entire situation. She’d had it with the camera pointed at her damn face, the notecards containing Josephine’s carefully chosen words, and Harding’s disappointed little wrinkling her brow. She felt like screaming.

Instead, Maria sighed and bent down, sweeping most of the cards back into her hand, shuffling them back into order without thought. She stared at the neat, precise handwriting until her eyes ached. The words flowed when she read them in her mind, but the second she tried to push them into the air, they turned to lead weights and awkward silences.

“Let me see those.” Harding plucked the cards from her hand and frowned at them.

“Perhaps I should rewrite it. Again.” Josephine stepped forward over Maria’s shoulder. “Allow me…”

Maria wasn’t certain that rewriting the speech she was supposed to be giving would help any more the third time around. She’d still be nothing more than a wooden puppet, dull and lifeless, stumbling over the simplest words, unable to look at the camera without turning red and stuttering.

“Good idea! I’ve got a better one.” Harding grinned and held Maria’s gaze before tossing the cards over her shoulder where they fell like a deck of cards, scattering in all directions. Maria huffed a small laugh, shaking her head.

“Does that mean we give up and I can go do something productive?” Maria asked. She had a little under a thousand things on her to-do list. Re-establishing connection with the outside world came with a cost, after all.

It turned out, everyone thought they were ghosts. Orlais and Ferelden had rescue teams scouring the area, the meager forces either country could spare with Ferelden trying to clean up from the witch rebellion and Orlais in full scale civil war. The would-be rescuers were more than a little confused to discover that so many people had escaped Haven, found a magical fortress, and flourished in the aftermath.

But it was Maria’s continued, implausible, survival that really astounded the world. Unfortunately, she was trending across all the social media channels. Again. Harding’s footage of the avalanche that buried Maria had gone viral almost immediately. Memorials sprung up in the most unlikely places, from Denerim’s chantry to the docks at Ostwick. Josephine released a statement, but it became increasingly clear it wouldn’t sate the appetite of Thedas. They wanted Maria, more than just the photographs of her greeting the rescue teams. More than the stolen video clips of her wandering Skyhold carrying supplies. They clamored for her to speak, to tell her story, to shine her attention on them.

Maria didn’t really think even her sputtering on camera would be enough. She worried the world wouldn’t be happy until it swallowed her whole, honestly.

“No more reading off these cards.” Harding stated, fiddling with her camera for a moment before putting it back on it’s tripod and dragging her chair over to Maria’s. Harding sat down and leaned forward, lightly placing her fingertips on the back of Maria’s palm. “To be honest, you suck at it. A lot.”

“The honesty I need to hear.” Maria joked weakly, sagging back in her chair. “Tell Josie to give it up.”

“Inquisitor…” Josephine sighed. Harding shook her head and smiled apologetically.

“Sorry, we’ve got to try one more thing before you’re off the hook.” Harding tapped her finger lightly on Maria’s skin. “Tell me what happened.”

“Fuck, Harding.” Maria raised her marked hand to her forehead and rubbed away the impending headache. “You were there. You know what happened.”

“I know.” Harding said softly. Maria fixed her gaze on Harding’s and watched as the woman swallowed some great emotion, a shudder passing through her. “Hard to talk about, isn’t it? I swear every time I try to remember, I can hear the people we lost screaming. Smell the smoke.”

Maria gulped down her own panic, the fear that she’d look up and see the dragon’s wings darkening the sky through the pretty windows. She sounded like she was begging, but she didn’t care. “Harding…”

“What happened first?” Harding pressed softly. “I was back with Varric, I couldn’t see. I heard the gunshots, they said you were on the frontline.”

She’d been. With Solas, then Bull. The girl who died beside her, choking on her own blood. Maria never even knew her name. They’d lost so many people, and Maria never knew any of their names. She flicked her eyes to the camera and Harding squeezed her hand.

“Don’t look at it.” Harding directed. “Look at me.”

If she looked at Harding, she may cry. She blinked several times, trying to bring her expression under control. The silence stretched on until Maria let out a long, heavy breath. “The Templars came in armoured SUVs. We barely had any warning, so we erected barriers out of anything we could get our hands on. They’d been poisoned by the red lyrium, like we saw on the news in Kirkwall with the Knight Commander, but there were so many of them. They didn’t care if we shot them, they kept coming out of the darkness like a nightmare.”

“But the Inquisition had explosives.” Harding supplied softly. Maria nodded, focusing on Harding’s hand on hers.

“Yes.” Maria’s voice sounded a bit more sure. If she ignored the camera, ignored Josephine’s silent presence, and just focused on Harding it was easier. “Yes. They’d been left there. The Inquisition requisitioned your drone to deliver the explosives…”

Harding gently prodded Maria through most of it, but the words flowed when she spoke. The templars. The dragon. Corypheus. The avalanche. One rolled into the other, but by the time they got to Skyhold, Maria felt raw, scraped clean on the inside. Harding pulled back, looked at Josephine expectantly.

“We will need to edit it for length and clarity.” Josephine nodded, all business, but Maria saw her hands shaking as she typed something into her tablet. “But…. forgive me.”

Josephine wiped her face briskly with her sleeve, shooting Maria a watery, wan smile. “I was not prepared to be so moved. I will remember that you should not be scripted. For the future.”

“Well, Inquisitor.” Harding smiled, tears in her own eyes as well that she dabbed away. “How was that interview you said you’d never give me?”

Maria laughed, the sound relieved and choked. “Maker.” She wheezed. “Did you get me saying that on camera the first time? If so, you should tack it onto the end.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Harding stood, extending her hand to Maria. “Not bad, Inquisitor. Not bad at all.”

“I try.” Maria reached automatically for her phone in her pocket, frowning at the ever present notifications while she allowed Harding to hoist her up. She skipped the emails, those she needed to pick through at night when she wouldn’t be interrupted and they wouldn’t keep multiplying on her. The text messages usually were more urgent.

Usually being the key word. The first one, of course, was from Sera. It consisted of a string of nonsensical emojis (fried shrimp? Who actually used the fried shrimp?) plus a blurry photo that could have been Cullen’s desk chair on top of one of the turrets. She sent a simple thumbs up and moved to the next one.

Varric. Again. She opened up the message, hunching her shoulders defensively as Hading and Josephine talked over her, to read the string of messages.

Varric: Let me know if you get this. I made another minor adjustment. Maria: Stop fucking with it before you fall off the walls. We don’t have health insurance here. Varric: Let me guess, no worker’s comp either? Maria: Negative on the workers comp. We may have beer, though. Varric: That’s the best medicine. Hey, do you have a minute? Maria: Also negative. Cullen wants me to meet his senior officers and introduce myself properly. Varric: Right, when you have a second. Maria: Sure. Varric: How about now? Maria: Leliana’s explaining Orlais to me. Varric: Right. Let me know if you figure it out. Varric: Later tonight? Maria: I can’t, I’m going over supply manifests with Josephine. Maria: Maybe tomorrow. Varric: So, it’s tomorrow. Just in case you haven’t noticed. Maria: I’ve been told. I’m sorry, I’m swamped. I’ve got a speech to memorize and give for Harding and Josephine. Varric: Alright, Princess. I’ll stop bothering you - come by when you can. Varric: And in case nobody told you yet today, you’re knocking this Inquisitor thing out of the park. Best inquisitoning I’ve ever seen by far.

Fuck. Fuck. Why was this so fucking hard? Three days of messages, three days of ducking around Varric wherever and whenever she saw him. Three days nursing her bruised ego and railing against her own stupidity for believing for even a moment Varric fucking Tethras truly…

He’d be what she needed, if she asked, because he was kind, because he felt bad for her, because she wasn’t bad to look at. But she could never be what he actually wanted, and that… that stung. That stung far more than she could deal with just now on top of everything else. She certainly couldn’t spend time in his orbit, smelling his cologne, listening to his sinfully rich voice, waiting for his smiles and his laugh.

But she couldn’t ignore him either. She couldn’t.

Maria: Wait until you see whatever just happened on TV later then decide my prowess.

As she typed the message, another one popped in. She swiped to view it and fought back a smirk.

Dorian: Fasta vass, come here. Maria: Where are you? Dorian: Follow the sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

What did she do to deserve Dorian Pavus’s histrionics today? Maria simply pulled up the group chat, typing one simple question into it.

Maria: Anyone point me to our favorite neighborhood magister? Dorian: I am not a Magister, you heathen. Bull: Have you tried following the trail of spilled wine? Sera: or smell of hair wax Vivienne: Second floor rotunda, darling. You can’t miss his ostentatious shirt. Maria: Thanks Viv.

She slipped her phone back in her pocket and frowned at Josephine. “I’ve got to go.”

“I will email you the final footage for your approval.” Josephine declared smoothly, making a note in her tablet. Harding simply saluted lazily.

“Don’t.” Maria groaned, making a bee-line for the door. “I’m not going to watch it anyway. Just… whatever works. Do that.”

She fled before Josephine could argue, flying through the crowd in the great hall before anyone could stop and catch her attention. She found that speed was the key for moving across Skyhold, because if she slowed down for even a moment, she got roped into a hundred different projects of varying degrees of importance. She slipped into the rotunda and turned toward the stairs…

“Inquisitor.” Solas called. “A moment?”

Well, at least it was just Solas. She paused and turned to look at him. The elf was studying the blank wall in front of him, frowning thoughtfully. “What’s up?”

“I find the act of painting meditative and I wish to design some murals for this room. I asked Skyhold, but I believe the spirit wishes you to make the final determination.” Solas turned his back on the wall and pierced her with his gaze. “Would you like to see some sketches before I proceed?”

“You can paint?” She asked instead, curious. Solas simply smiled.

“I can.” He admitted. “I think I do so rather well. One of my few true talents.”

Sera could draw too, although she sincerely hoped Solas’s paintings were much less provocative. Sera’s most detailed sketches seemed to feature big breasted women in various states of undress. Maria wondered, momentarily, if it was an elf thing. Then, she internally winced and scolded herself for being a bit racist.

“Yeah, sure. I don’t need to see them. This is kinda your office, isn’t it?” Maria waved at the room, empty of all but a neat little couch and a tidy desk littered with papers. “Whatever you want to do.”

“A dangerous offer.” Solas smiled warmly down at her. “I shall try not to abuse the privilege. I thought, perhaps, to create a visual history of the Inquisition? The destruction of the conclave, the Inquisition’s formation, recruiting the witches at Redcliffe and…”

“Haven.” Maria whispered softly. Haven. She ached with it’s loss and all the fallen they’d left, so raw and fresh again after the interview. She feared she would carry it with her the rest of her life like a scar on her heart.

“Haven.” Solas repeated. “It weighs on you. I am sorry.”

“I think we’re all still reeling.” Maria tried to make her tone light, shrugging. “How did you ask Skyhold? About the murals? Varric keeps trying to talk to her through Cole but I don’t think it’s going well.”

“It is not, but Varric is a child of the stone. He does not understand such things.” Solas muttered, examining the walls.

Maria flinched just a bit. Well, maybe she should have asked about the painting skills being an elf thing then. If ‘children of the stone’ was getting thrown about so casually, it certainly would have put him in his place.

“I want to understand.” She insisted instead. “You know about spirits. You said some of them were your friends. Can you… can you introduce me? Is that how it works?”

“You wish to learn? About spirits and the fade?” Solas asked, incredulity lacing his voice, piercing her with his eyes.

“Yes.” Maria answered sternly, lifting her chin. “You’re the expert. I can clearly do… something with this mark on my hand. Teach me about the fade before I shoot myself in the foot.”

Solas continued to look down at her, blinking slowly, before he shook his head. “You are full of constant surprises.”

It wasn’t a no. Maria smirked. “So… you will?”

“Cadash!” Dorian shouted from above them. “I can hear you distinctly not making your way up here. Solas can wait his blighted turn.”

“If you wish.” Solas smiled, hesitant. “But Dorian is right. We will do so at another time.”

“Great.” Maria grinned, waved her hand at the walls. “Have fun. Don’t let Sera help.”

With that parting bit of advice, she sauntered to the stairs, leaving Solas to his quiet contemplation. She made sure to take her time, lingering an extra second before emerging onto the next floor.

Which… had sprung bookshelves. Apparently. She blinked, looking around, taking in the rows of empty shelving. Dorian stood in one of the new alcoves, scowling and tapping his fingers on the wood. “Was putting me on blast in the group chat strictly necessary?” He asked grimly.

“Next time, you’ll answer my question instead of being so dramatic.” Maria tipped her head to the side, examining his tailored black shirt with the intricate silver embroidery over the shoulders. “I don’t think that shirt is so bad at all.”

“Because you have proper taste.” Dorian sniffed. “You also have an empty library.”

“Odd.” Maria agreed, tracing the nearest plush armchair with her fingers, taking in the rich velvet upholstery. “Wasn’t this Cullen’s office yesterday?”

“That’s over on the battlements now, under his bedroom. Frankly, I think he’s happier.” Dorian waved Cullen’s migrating office away dismissively. “This lackluster excuse for an archive is outrageous. And Fiona will not see reason.”

Maria finally noticed the other figure on the floor, the elf glaring holes into Dorian’s back. Fiona stepped forward, pleading. “Inquisitor, you must understand, I cannot simply agree to hand over our history for the perusal of…”

“Ethnocentrism at it’s finest!” Dorian sniffed. “She’s concerned I’ll find something useful her people missed.”

“His people tried to enslave us!” Fiona lifted her chin, icy and regal. “I will not…”

“Dorian did an awful lot to prevent that from happening.” Maria wouldn’t sit here and just… let Dorian be slandered. Not when he was the only one who knew what Fiona’s idiocy nearly cost them. “What’s the issue?”

“All the knowledge of the southern circles is sitting, abandoned, in their shoddy little prisons.” Dorian pointedly didn’t look at Fiona, but stared imploringly at Maria instead. “It should be here where it can be studied, where perhaps we can use what we find. Even Madame de Fer agrees, but unfortunately Fiona is rather distraught that my grubby little Tevene hands will be all over it.”

“Those tomes are quite valuable!” Fiona insisted. “They must be left in…”

“The circles you ran out of?” Maria broke in, raising an eyebrow.

“Until they can be collected by the witches and catalogued appropriately…” Fiona persisted.

Maria fought the urge to roll her eyes and balled her hands into fists, hunching her shoulders. She bit out the words like bullets. “Grand Enchanter, your witches joined the Inquisition because it wasn’t a very good idea to keep going it alone. May I remind you, now is probably an even shittier time to strike out solo.”

Fiona bristled. “Are you saying we would no longer be welcome if…”

Balls. Who the fuck had time for this? Maria rubbed her forehead, attempting to soothe the headache returning with a vengeance. She lowered her voice to a steely command. “I’m saying that maybe you should remember you are part of a team and act accordingly. Which includes treating everyone here with the same respect you insist on receiving.”

Fiona set her jaw and looked like she had every intention of continuing to argue, so Maria turned to Dorian instead. “I’ll get Cullen to see if we can spare some people once we’ve got a clear path in and out of Skyhold.”

Maria paused, shooting a disdainful look back at the elf. “Unless that’s going to be a problem, Fiona?”

“Of course not. Inquisitor.” Maria could feel the acid on the other woman’s tongue. “I hope this decision proves wise and that you are not judged harshly on your… trusting nature.”

With that, the woman rotated robotically on her heel. She reached the nearest door and pushed it. The door remained resolutely shut even as she struggled. It finally fell open only once she pressed her entire weight into it, leaving Fiona scrambling in a rather undignified manner to regain her balance. Maria heard Vivienne’s voice drifting from the other room before Fiona slammed the door shut behind her. “Careful, darling. A fall at your age would be disastrous.”

Maria barely covered her laugh with her hand, immediately looking up to see Dorian not even bothering to hide his smug satisfaction as he spoke. “Well. That felt rather vindicating, didn’t it?”

“Is that why you wanted me? To make her give you books for our new library?” Maria asked, trailing after Dorian as he settled into one of the plush chairs at a rather sturdy table. “I’m guessing we can’t just order the ones you want online and have them shipped?”

“If only. Although I do wish to place an order for some items from my homeland. Nothing illegal to get southern panties in a twist, I promise, just some charts. I confess I’m not entirely certain what our address is, however. Not to mention whether or not we’re eligible for two-day shipping.” Dorian’s fingers continued to tap, anxiously, on the wooden surface of the table. Maria wrapped her arms around her waist and waited. “You know. Corypheus claims to be Tevinter himself. A Magister, in fact.”

“He didn’t look human to me.” Maria replied, shrugging. “He looked like a demon. Don’t demons lie? A lot?”

“Perhaps.” Dorian mused. “They say the blight is punishment for the sins of our Magisters who dared to walk in the realm of the Maker.”

“They’re also rather convinced I’m the Herald of Andraste.” Maria shrugged her shoulders a second time. Humans were strange. Fuck if she knew what the truth was behind Corypheus. Honestly, she didn’t see how it mattered one way or the other.

“Not Andrastian, I take it?” Dorian teased, but the longer she listened, the more she heard something wrong under his light tone. He continued talking regardless, the words meaningless. “Not that I blame you. Boring stuff. I was raised Andrastian, of course, but I’m afraid that I’ve been lying about attending services to my eternally disappointed mother for…”

“Dorian.” Maria interrupted. “What’s wrong?”

Dorian’s fingers lost their rhythm, the incessant tapping ceasing while his dark eyes bored into hers. “You’re rather observant today.”

“Survival instinct.” Maria claimed. One she’d finely honed. “Don’t change the subject. What’s happened?”

If it was bad news, Maria wasn’t sure she could handle any more. Dorian simply sighed, slumping in his chair. He was silent for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “I received word from a few of my remaining friends back in Minrathous. Do you remember Felix?”

How could she forget Felix? Their, admittedly few, interactions were branded in her mind. Him stumbling against her, him pleading with his father, the ghoul with the unseeing eyes and Leliana’s arm around his neck…

“I never asked...” Guilt churned in her stomach. She hadn’t asked, she’d fled and let the Inquisition deal with it because she’d been choking on Varric’s blood and Hawke’s inferno. She’d been a weak, spineless thing good for nothing but being led back to Haven by her nose.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that again. She was the Inquisitor now and she had to deal. She choked down the memories and took a deep breath, clenching her hands into fists until her nails cut into her skin, the pain a stark reminder of where she was, whose eyes were staring at her. “I never asked how he was. What happened to him and…”

And his father. The man who would have killed them all.

“You were exhausted and there was no need for you to manage the fallout after… after everything.” Dorian frowned. “It was my mess to clean up, after all. We packed them on their plane and sent them back to Tevinter. Alexius was arrested as soon as he stepped foot in Minrathous on the King of Ferelden’s insistence, although I’m sure he’ll be quietly released once it’s diplomatically safe to do so. Felix…”

Dorian’s voice grew hoarse with emotion, his eyes dropping to his hands. “I’m afraid Felix has passed. He pulled a thousand strings to get in front of the Senate, to deliver a rousing speech denouncing the Venatori cult and warning the Magisterium, and… then I suppose he laid down his sword.”

Maria felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving them both floundering as Dorian struggled to bear the grief written all over his face. Maria’s numb lips asked the question before her brain could process it. “He was sick?”

“The blight. He was on a research expedition with his mother into the abandoned Deep Roads. She… she passed several months ago. Alexius is alone now. I suspect all he really wished was the power to save his son.”

Dorian’s raw devastation was the only thing that prevented her from pointing out that he’d nearly killed the entire world and everyone Maria had left in his mad quest to save Felix. She couldn’t forgive him. Not even for Dorian.

But she knew better than to say it. Particularly when Dorian covered his face with one hand, the slight tremor in his shoulders the only sign of the sobs he struggled to hold back. Maria unwrapped her arms from her torso, hesitating only a moment. With Dorian sitting and her standing, she stood just a bit taller than him. She stepped forward, tentative, and rested her marked palm on his shoulder. His free hand reached up almost immediately to cover hers, a silent gesture of gratitude while his long fingers wrapped gently over her hand and squeezed.

“He was the best of us, you know.” Dorian murmured beneath his hand. “You could always count on Felix. If he had not been my friend, I… I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know if I would be here now.”

“He clearly thought you weren’t half bad either.” Maria offered, at a loss for anything else to say with that weighted confession in the air. “He went along with your crazy plan in Redcliffe, didn’t he?”

Dorian’s laugh sounded broken, laced with unshed tears, but it was still warm and unbearably soft. “Of course he did. It was a brilliant one.”

Dorian dropped his hand from his face, eyes shining with emotion. His fingers gripped hers again. “At least Felix wasn’t the only decent sort kicking around Thedas.”

Varric tried not to be overly obvious in his leisurely stroll to the rotunda. Up the courtyard steps, through the gallery where Vivienne set up her alchemy table because she claimed the light was ideal. Fiona nearly ran him over in her hurry to escape past the other witch, her face blotchy with fury.

Maker’s balls, what did Dorian do? The last thing Maria needed was Fiona deciding to cause trouble because Sparkler stepped on a few toes. Varric scrubbed his hand across his jaw, casting his eyes back down at the group chat while he ambled past Vivienne holding up a glass beaker to the light.

“Leave Dorian to his tantrum.” Vivienne advised, lifting her eyes from her work. “I’ve found the Inquisitor is the best one at talking him down. She’s more than capable.”

“And miss the material for my next book?” Varric asked cheerfully. “Never.”

Vivienne shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

He would. At first, he’d been… understanding of Maria vanishing into the ether. He even tried to convince himself it was better, tried to talk himself into some gratitude that she wasn’t rubbing her rejection in his face. She was being kind, that was all, and sensible. Extremely sensible.

Except Varric needed to talk to her about an over growing list of items. He’d prefer to make his confession about Hawke in person, after all. He still needed to explain how the new AI on her phone worked and assuage any worries about robot eavesdropping, which was always better done face-to-face. The wi-fi in the castle was still spotty and she seemed to be the only one who could reason with her damn…

As if it knew the direction of his thoughts, when he placed his hand on the door leading to the rotunda and shoved, Skyhold kept the door stubbornly shut. A gloating declaration that the group chat messages didn’t say Maria Cadash was looking for Varric Tethras, did they?

“You learn to read?” Varric grumbled quietly, praying to the Maker himself that Vivienne couldn’t hear him. He pressed forward again.

The door didn’t budge. Varric knelt to examine the lock, frowning, but the knob rattled. It was, he thought, like a snake warning someone they were getting too close to its territory.

“If you think I won’t pick this lock, you’ve got another thing coming.” Varric threatened. He had damn good lockpicks, and nothing but time. At the very least, he’d put some good scratches into…

The door slid open silently just a crack, relenting to his whims. Or so Varric thought. When he went to shove it the rest of the way, it held fast. Varric could see a sliver of the room, now filled with empty shelves and plush chairs. One of those chairs contained Dorian Pavus, Maria standing in front of him, close enough to fall into his lap. She had her hand on his shoulder and as he watched, Dorian dropped the palm that covered his face to the table beside him. Varric could see the traces of lingering emotion etched into his handsome features. Maria smiled, a tenuous thing, but still there. She shook her head in silence, refuting whatever he’d said. Dorian took the hand he had trapped on his shoulder and lifted it, bringing her knuckles to his lips and placing a chaste, courtly kiss on them.

The door closed gently, like a mother tucking their children into bed. A clear signal that Varric was interrupting a moment. One he had no part of.

And the author in him, at least, could see the beauty in it. Dorian playing the part of an exiled stranger chased from his homeland, a prince in all but name trying to do the noble thing and fighting evil despite losing his family fortune meeting. Maria starring as a former criminal with a heart of gold, one who found herself lifted from the gutter to lead the righteous in a fight for the very soul of the world. It was a damn fine story. Varric almost wished he would have come up with it himself. Almost.

The rest of him felt sick with envy. A monster inside him desperately craved the right to place a kiss on Maria’s skin, the opportunity to have her lean towards him with that same sort of careless intimacy, to have her fall against him the same way she had their doomed night in Haven.

But it wasn’t him. Yet again, it was someone else who had that privilege. Varric turned, blindly stalking past Vivienne. He tried to ignore her sharp, lingering gaze on his shoulder blades. It didn’t burn as much as the jealousy in his stomach anyway. He threw the door open and emerged on the walls back above the courtyard. Down below, he could see children drawing on the ancient walls with brightly colored chalk. Their laughter rang brightly, full of sheer joy.

It hit him like shrapnel and he ran from it, back up the battlements. He wasn’t sure, entirely, where he was going. He just needed to keep walking, to put the picture of Maria and Dorian firmly behind him until he could look at it with some distance. Until it didn’t feel like holding a bleeding heart…

“But it’s not like that!”

Cole’s furious protest from behind him made Varric stop short, turning to watch the kid scramble after him. The kid’s cheeks were flushed pink like he’d run halfway across the castle to catch Varric. He huffed to catch his breath, staring down Varric with panic. “No. She wanted to show you, but it knotted up all your strings. He needed her. Loss comes in waves, a small smile sneaking snacks into the study. Gone. He’s gone now and he was one of the last bits of home that didn’t cut the wrong way. She knows grief. She understands how to carry it.”

“Kid, it’s fine.” Varric pinched his nose, hard, hoping the pain would clear the image from his head. Maria’s flushed cheeks, her shy amusement as Dorian’s lips brushed her skin. His princess in her castle with her devoted knight at her feet. Not him. Never him.

“But it’s not.” Cole protested vehemently. “You’re both so scared. But the fall isn’t far and it’s soft underneath the walls. Alone isn’t safe. If no one knows you’re alive, you aren’t.”

The kid’s imploring tone softened, his eyes bright with emotion. “Tell her. You have the words and she’s been silent for so long.”

He had a million things to tell her. But having her shoulder his bruised heart wasn’t on his list. “It’s alright.” Varric repeated. “It’s complicated, kid.”

“It isn’t.” Cole protested.

Varric’s phone vibrated in his hand and he looked down, the unknown number flashing across the screen. It could only be one person. “I gotta take this.”

He transferred the call directly to his earpiece, answering with a small amount of wariness while he turned his back on Cole to stare out over the mountains. “Hello?”

“I’ve got good news.” Hawke’s sanguine voice was just what he needed to hear. He closed his eyes to bask in it for a second. “And I’ve got bad news. Which do you want first?”

“I could use some good news.” He looked back over his shoulder, but found Cole had vanished as suddenly as he appeared. That… probably didn’t bode well. He sighed and leaned on the battlements, looking out instead, ignoring the prickling in his gut.

“The smuggler you sent me didn’t slit my throat on the freighter to Jader. Which, by the way, rhymes.”

Varric chuckled almost against his will. “And the bad news?”

“You know that sleeping thing I said I’d do on the ship? Well, guess who forgot how much she hates sea travel. I hope you’re not expecting me to be in working order when I climb those damn mountains, Varric, because I’m going to need a nap.”

Guilt twisted inside him uneasily. He didn’t want Hawke exhausted, falling prey to red templars or Venatori on the road. “You can stop and rest, Waffles. A day or two isn’t gonna kill us.”

“It may.” Hawke joked. “The way your luck’s been lately? I won’t chance it. Besides, the more distance in between me and Fen I can get is best.”

If someone didn’t know her well, they’d miss the hitch in her voice, the careful lightness almost smoothing it over. Varric sighed. He hadn’t heard a word from the elf, but he hadn’t expected to. It wasn’t exactly Varric asking Hawke to come that caused the problem. It was Hawke declaring she was coming alone.

Varric wasn’t entirely sure how that fight played out, although he knew it ended with Bethany sealing the lovers in separate rooms for a good long while. Hawke had her way, like she usually did, but Varric knew that wouldn’t last long either. The second Broody stopped brooding, he’d be off like a rocket on Hawke’s tail. It might take him a bit longer without Varric’s contacts smoothing the way, but Broody had experience smuggling himself out of and into places. He’d make it, eventually, Varric was certain.

“Should’ve just taken him with you.” It’s what Varric said the first time. And every time he’d spoken to Hawke since.

Hawke gave varying reasons why he couldn’t come. The first, that Bethany needed him (patently false. Sunshine was perfectly capable of defending herself). The second, that he was just as much a fugitive as she was, clearly also false.

“Bring him into a hotbed of Tevinter magic?” Hawke scoffed. “I’d never hear the end of it.”

Another lie. Hawke wasn’t telling him something and she was hiding it from Broody too. That meant it was almost definitely going to bite them all in the ass. Eventually. Hopefully after they dealt with their Corypheus problem.

“Any idea what your ETA is?” Varric asked. “Your trusty dwarf would very much like to get all the yelling and threats against my life done and over with.”

“Depends on whether or not I can steal a car, how far that car can get me, and if I have to walk through snow up to my tits to get up there.” Hawke mused. “I’m in Jader now. Bet I can make it by tomorrow night.”

“Take a nap.” He ordered. “Then you can start back up again.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Varric.” Hawke teased.

For some reason those words sent an icy shiver of dread through him. They felt like a bad omen, and Varric wouldn’t count himself superstitious, but…

“Be careful, at least.” Varric pleaded. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but we’d be lost without you.”

“Varric!” He could see Hawke’s extravagant reaction in his mind, her fluttering hands, her mouth dropping into a startled, theatrical o. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Of course I care.” This was closer to honesty, to vulnerability, than either of them cared to go. But he’d called her here. Pulled her into danger again. His best friend, maybe the truest friend he’d ever had. If there was a time to be real, this moment with them standing on the edge of the end of the world was it. “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”

Especially if she got hurt trying to save his ass.

“It’s gonna be alright, Varric.” Hawke soothed immediately. “No need to get sentimental on me now. Besides, you need to save some of the good shit for my kickass memorial service, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” He laughed weakly. “Pyrotechnics are already ordered, just like I promised.”

“Excellent!” Hawke cheered. “Now, let’s see if I can remember how Fenris taught me to hotwire a car. See you soon, Varric.”

The line clicked dead before he could get another word in. He huffed a laugh, shaking his head, staring out over the mountains. His head felt quieter already. Hawke was coming, fuck, maybe she’d know what to do about…

“Cole told me I needed to find you.” Maria’s quiet voice was almost lost in the wind. “He said it was important.”

Oh yeah, he knew the vanishing spirit kid was gonna be an issue. He spun, gluing on a smile, trying to replay the conversation. He hadn’t called Hawke by name, had he? Maker’s breath, how long had Maria been standing behind him, silent as a ghost, still as one of those statues of Andraste. Her eyes were unfathomable, the sky during a storm and she wore an expression Varric couldn’t quite read. It could have been anger, but it seemed to lack any heat. Maybe it was just weary resignation, a woman preparing for her eventual martyrdom.

Her eyes flicked to his earpiece and she jerked her chin at it. “Bianca?”

Bianca. Hell, if she thought he was talking to his AI, he’d take it. And it was an excellent segway to the things he actually needed to talk to her about.

“Nice to see you too, Princess.” He greeted, softening his smile into something more real. “Speaking of Bianca…”

Maria shut her eyes a second too long, opening them on a shaky exhale and plastering a wooden smile over her features before she interrupted him. “You seem fine. Cole thought you’d be jumping from the battlements, but I can see he was wrong.”

Maker’s ass, Varric was going to have a talk with the kid. The last thing he needed the woman whose dad ate his gun worrying about was who’d be swandiving off the keep. Varric wasn’t that dramatic by a long shot. He grinned playfully. “It’s a long way down and we’ve got Netflix again, so I’m off the danger list.”

“I can see now why you were so eager to get it up and running. I’m glad it worked.” Her facade was far too brittle, he felt like he’d shatter it with just the wrong word. She wasn’t even looking at him, but past him, into the abyss beyond. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Listen, if you’re okay I’ve got to go. I’ve got a million things and…”

She impatiently shoved her hair back from her face. Varric watched, wary. “Maria…”

“Varric.” She snapped. “It’s fine. It’s fine, everything is fine.”

Cause anything that had to be said three times was clearly true. But Varric couldn’t think of the right words to say to fix… whatever had just gone sideways. He wished he was brave enough to take her hand, intertwine their fingers together, make her stay put until he got to the bottom of it.

She knows grief. She understands how to carry it.

His tongue froze inside his mouth while he tried to find his words. But really, he only wanted to say one. Just one. Stay.

Instead, Maria’s false smile seared itself into place. “See ya, Varric.”

And as he watched, Maria fled back into her castle, leaving him bereft. Again.

Varric: In case nobody told you yet today, you’re knocking this Inquisitor thing out of the park. Best inquisitoning I’ve ever seen. Princess: Wait until you see whatever just happened on TV later then decide my prowess. Varric: Let’s forget whatever happened on the walls. I didn’t mean to get you worked up. Varric: I watched your interview. You did great. Varric: Talk to me, Princess. Please.

Varric stared, morosely, at his phone. He’d been assigned a tiny broom cupboard off the side of the courtyard by Josephine, although he swore it had been larger. Now it seemed to barely contain his desk, bed, and a dresser with enough room to walk from one to the other. It also, Varric thought snidely, had some sort of issue with the heat. His crackling fireplace looked quaint, but it served no functional purpose. His room constantly felt somewhere just above freezing.

He tore his eyes from the accusing light of his phone, his unanswered messages, and looked back at his tablet. He forced himself to watch the whole interview twice, even though it felt like rubbing against sandpaper to see Maria’s mouth spin the story of their desperate fight for survival, their half-baked flight into the void.

Her own near brush with death before she stumbled into his arms. She left out that part, the way he held her, the way she tried to fight him off before relenting. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she didn’t remember it at all.

The last five minutes were easier to watch. He hit play again, watched the last of the clip begin to roll, Maria’s voice quietly spinning magic as she spoke to Harding. “I want Skyhold to be a safe place. Not just for the people who fled Haven, but for everyone. The world is in danger from magic we don’t understand and we have to work together to take care of people who can’t fight on their own.”

“Before the attack on Haven, people were frightened of what the Inquisition represented. Do you think the purpose has changed?” Harding asked calmly.

“The attack on Haven did change us.” Maria insisted, a flicker of fire in those stunning eyes. “It changed everything. The Inquisition will unite Thedas around a common goal, protecting our people. Not just from Corypheus, but from the worst parts of these wars. Starvation, homelessness, and disease can kill as many people as a dragon. We have to be ready for that too. The Inquisition will serve everyone who needs us. Regardless of what they believe.”

Maker, she was good. But the best part was what happened next. Whoever made the decision to leave it in was a genius. Her whole interview she’d been calm, although at times her eyes gleamed with both fury and unshed tears. There’d been no trace of nerves, Harding gently soothing them away as she was being interviewed.

“Thanks Inquisitor.” Harding said, easily casual, falling back into reality.

Maria’s eyes flicked directly to the camera, then back to Harding. A slow, small, triumphant smile tipped up one side of her lips, her eyes still glimmering with emotion. She looked heart wrenchingly vulnerable, easy to adore, and at the same time recklessly, amazingly brave.

“Thanks Harding.” Maria breathed, shoulders relaxing, just before the image cut away to Ruffles.

Judging by what he’d seen of the coverage, it was nothing short of a rousing success. A near miss that made their Herald a hero, made her an Inquisitor with just enough blazing courage to delight the masses.

Varric hit stop on the video again, spared a chagrined glance at his phone. His own messages lingered pathetically.

Bianca.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. Nobody knew.

Except, of course, that probably wasn’t technically true. Somebody in Rogue Tech, Bianca’s secretary at least, had to have some idea. Hawke knew, although she was very good at pretending she didn’t know anything. What's-his-name might know. Varric didn’t care that much, but he might.

How good was Nightingale? Good enough to ferret out his darkest secret?

But even if Nightingale discovered their sordid affair, it’d been cooling for years. Fuck, he hadn’t even seen Bianca for at least a year. Kirkwall going to shit really ruined any furtive liaisons. Nightingale did know about Bianca’s digging in Maria’s past, of course. Was that enough for both women to draw their own conclusions?

Varric ran through his phone call with Hawke, again, listening with an outside ear.

Of course I care. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.

He could have been talking to anyone, but she’d thought he’d been talking to Bianca. Maybe the real Bianca. If she’d heard what he’d said. If…

She heard. She definitely heard. That’s why she thought he’d been working on the communications so hard, to contact a lover. After, of course, attempting to seduce her in Haven. No wonder she wasn’t answering, no woman would. Even if she didn’t care about him, even if she’d rather keep him as a friend, the thought that he’d been lying or using her…

His journal was open beside his phone, lines scrawled unsteadily on a blank page, the Lovers tucked in between the pages.

I never tasted the stars before your kiss Never relished the flavor of the universe imploding But now I’m watching from the center of the flames Awash in the uncertainty of oblivion Wondering if this is what it feels like to burn.

Fuck. Fuck.

It was getting late, but not so late that she wouldn’t still be awake. Varric needed to fix this, the longer it festered, the worse it would get. He’d already waited over a day and…

He stood, knocking his chair back into the bed, grabbing his coat from where he’d thrown it on the comforter.

Thank Andraste he did

The trickle of dust from the ceiling was barely visible in the dim light of his shoddy lamp and inefficient fire, he barely had time to recognize it for what it was before the stone above him cracked open, dumping plaster and stone and one sputtering, irritated woman on his bed.

He blinked, shocked, down at Hawke’s sprawled form. She squawked, sitting up, coat askew, backpack slung half off, covered in snow and rubble.

“Maker’s balls, Varric.” Hawke asked, inquisitive blue eyes skipping around his room, a teasing smirk twisting her lips. “Why did they stick you in a closet?”

He didn’t bother answering. He pointed up at the rapidly closing hole above his head. “Explanation, Hawke?”

“I was a bit lost. Maybe it’s the castle’s idea of a shortcut? You weren’t kidding about it being a bit of a diva, hm?” Hawke stretched, examining his repaired ceiling with a good deal of curiousity. “I like it when impressive medieval fortresses come with attitudes.”

“Why didn’t you text me?” Varric demanded, exasperated.

Hawke simply grinned, sitting up in the mess that had been his bed, extending her arms. “I wanted to surprise you! And look, I did!”

She certainly had. And, as always, her timing was horrid. Varric chanced a glance back at his phone. The second he did, he watched Hawke’s sunny smile drop from the corner of his eye. Without her mask, Varric realized how fucking exhausted she looked, how brittle her own bravado was.

“Varric?” She asked softly.

“It’s fine. Let’s see if we can clean off the bed. You look like you’re running on empty. We can wait until tomorrow to…” Varric thought it would be excellent if the castle decided to clean it’s own mess up, but somehow he doubted that would happen.

“I’m fine.” Hawke protested immediately. “I’m good to go, I swear. And I wanna meet her.”

Her. Her. The inspiration for his latest shitty attempts at poetry. The woman he couldn’t get out of his head because she’d gotten under his skin.

“Tomorrow.” Varric promised. “When’s the last time you ate? Real food, not candy bars and coffee.”

“Varric.” Hawke repeated. And in that moment, he knew she’d seen. Somehow, he’d let his guard down long enough that she’d managed to glimpse his battered, broken soul. His insecurity and his vulnerabilities all laid bare. “What happened?”

“Food first.” Varric muttered, tugging his coat on. “And fucking beer if I can find it. I’m gonna need it if you’re expecting to hear how badly I’ve fucked this one up.”

#girl with the arrow tattoo #inquisitor x varric #inquisitor cadash #modern thedas #varric tethras #varric romance #cadash x varric #mutual pining #queen of the slow burn #these idiots #HAWKE ARRIVES

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tonks32 · 5 years ago

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Hawke X Cullen- Aftermath

Takes place after their first meeting which can be read here. Should I just bite the bullet and start writing this as a full length fic?

Headache brewing, Cullen pushed himself up further in his chair, cursing at the pain striking along his newest scars. He absently stroked the harden skin peeking out from his breastplate and up the side of his throat. Nearly two months and still they pained himself greatly. His mind left the paperwork that was in desperate need to get done and went back to that afternoon on the Wounded Coast. Cullen woke hours later when the moon was high in the sky surrounded by the remnants of his battle and potions left for him by his savior.

A mage.

It was no surprise to find her and the others long gone. If they lingered, he would have been duty bound as a Templar to take her into the Gallows. Only, the mere thought sickened him. Pushing to his feet, Cullen stalked to his office window, watching mages train in the courtyard under the very watchful eyes of other Templars. They cast their spells, used their magic freely but looking under their looks of concentration, Cullen could see they used it in pure terror. He could see it, more clearly than before his near death experience, the fear that one wrong move or word would mean being dragged away for lashes or time in isolation. Or worse, much, much worse, be rendered tranquil.

So, why, knowing the rumors of the Gallows, with the fear of being turned tranquil, had that woman risked it all to save his life? He stroked the scar again while remembering the tips of her fingers against his skin. Soft against the brutal pain. Light cutting through the darkness trying to claim him.

Cullen had wanted to ask her himself, but finding an Olivia in a city such as Kirkwall seemed to a fruitful endeavor as two, almost three months later, he hadn’t seen or heard a single mention of the name. Wasn’t it for the best anyways? He silently wondered. If he found her didn’t that mean he would only have to turn her for magic even if her gallant use of it saved his life.

Could he even do it? The question had Cullen turning from the window to his small work area. A top of his desk were dozens upon dozens of missives about possible apostates all around town, out on the coast, and even taking refuge in the woods. Would she be among them? Had her choice sent her underground? Cullen knew mages were using the underground tunnels of Darktown to avoid capture. He was in the middle of reading a report of a clinic being run by a mage that so far had avoided any Templar investigation.

All magic wasn’t bad. It couldn’t be, could it? Meredith was quick to see blood magic everywhere she looked and for some time, especially after the fall of the Ferelden circle, so did Cullen, but recent experience had him seeing things in a different light. Or was it just her?

A knock on his door prevented Cullen from once again diving into the answer to the question that kept him up most nights. “Enter,” He commanded, moving back behind his desk.

“Sorry to interrupt, Knight-Captain.”

“What is it?” Cullen wondered crumbling up the report he’d been reading and pitching it in the trash.

“Knight Commander has asked if you would come and take a look at the newest batch of recruits,” The older Templar replied. “They’ve gathered right inside the main gate.”

Cullen stopped himself from saying. Ever since the incident with Wilmond and lack of any resolution to what possessed the man, Meredith had been taking extra precautions on anyone wanting to pledge themselves to the order. Why she insisted he met every single soul, Cullen couldn’t say. For some reason, he had the Knight Commander’s trust and he wasn’t sure what to do or how to feel about that. “Very well.” Heaving his shield onto his back, Cullen followed the messenger, not at all saddened about leaving the mountain of paperwork on his desk. “Anyone that stands out.”

“A few,” Greyson answered. “There is one who I’ve heard rumblings about. Or at least the name anyways.”

“What name would that be?”

“Hawke, Ser.”

Yes, he’d heard the name. The Knight Commander had even asked Hawke to help look into the missing Templar recruit but never had the opportunity to meet the man. The name was also one Cullen heard spoken often in the shadows of the street of Lowtown. Mercenary. Helper of those in need and brushed off by the Viscount. A person of interest. A person, in Meredith’s words, to keep an eye on as the name had been linked to the smuggling of apostates at one point in time.

If they decided to throw their weight in with the Templars, then they couldn’t be as dangerous as the Knight Commander thought them to be.

There was a group of about ten men and women standing at attention right inside the heavy gates of the Gallows. Many of them were young. To young, Cullen silently noted regardless of the fact he was much younger when he joined the order. Green. Cullen walked up and down the line of protentional recruits, studying their faces, seeing fear jumping into their eyes. He wagered not many had seen battle if any. That would make training much more difficult for both them and the order.

Cullen stopped in front of a dark-haired boy that looked shy of eighteen winters. “What is your name?”

“Carver,” The young man spoke after a clear moment of hesitation.

Something flickered in Cullen’s memory, trying to break loose and fully form. Cullen noted the man’s moss green eyes were focused on a fixed point over his shoulder, never making any attempt to fully look at him. Was he hiding something? Why did that name sound familiar? “Sir name?”

“Hawke, ser,” Carver answered. “Carver Hawke.”

“Ah, you’re the Hawke I’ve been hearing so much about.”

The young man let out a soft snort. “Most likely my sister, Ser.”

“Does that mean you haven’t used a sword, Hawke?”

Carver’s face hardened. “I have, ser. I use to be a solider in the Ferelden army before… before the Blight. I was at the Battle of Ostagar.”

“You’re Ferelden?”

“I had to be dragged away from the fight after Loghain’s betrayal forced our army into a rout. My family and I had to flee Lothering not soon after.” There was much bitterness in Carver’s voice as he remembered all of it.

Cullen cocked his head to the side. “How many winters are you?”

“Nineteen, Ser.” Carver stood taller under the Knight Captain’s gaze. “I joined the army when I was seventeen.”

“Brave of you.”

“Some would call it foolish.” Carver’s green eyes finally left the spot he’d been staring at to fully look at the Templar. He couldn’t keep them from flickering down to the three nasty scars running down the side of his throat. “I was eager to prove myself as I am now.”

Cullen resisted the urge to touch the scars as it would lead him to think of the woman who rode death with him. He gave the young man a nod. “I’m glad to hear it, Carver. I can only hope good things will follow.”

Carver watched Cullen walk away and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The knight captain didn’t recognize him. Carver would be cold-hearted if he didn’t acknowledge a small part of him was joining the Templars to see where they were in discovering his sister’s magic. As much as he hated living in her shadow, she was what little family he had left and would protect that part no matter the cost.

#dragon age #cullen rutherford #Hawke #cullen x hawke #Fanfic #writing #mine

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sarsaparillia · 5 years ago

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title: dreadfully unsolicited advice summary: Leandra Hawke invites Grand Enchanter Fiona to join her for a cup of tea. — templar!au coda; Leandra, Fiona.

rating: t+ word count:3700+ genre: gen/family/angst sort of notes: anyway i love leandra hawke and you all can just deal with that. here’s part... ix holy shit

AO3 | FFN

—

The reports come in from Adamant nearly too fast for the Inquisition’s spymistress to keep up.

But only nearly.

Sister Nightingale burns oil ‘til midnight, and oftentimes much later. Thre news out of Adamant is grim; down near half the numbers they’d gone in with, which is still better than she had expected. Down to half is better than down to a quarter; she’ll have to send Charter on recruitment again.

(Wasteful, but necessary. Charter has a decent sense about people, and the Nightingale learned her lesson with Painter. Close, but not too close.)

She is halfway through skinning the next report when she almost spits out her wine for the laughter.

Oh, but the Maker has a very queer sense of humour.

Nightingale reads through the missive a second time, pleased when the letters don’t change. She cannot say she is not amused by the though, and she smiles an old killer’s smile.

She does owe Lady Leandra one back for that little stunt the Hawke matriarch pulled with the apprentices. While it had been a stunt that Nightingale agreed with in theory, it had still made her life markedly more difficult, and if anyone can appreciate how difficult Nightingale’s life already is, it is Lady Leandra Hawke.

Things used to be so simple, Nightingale reflects.

But maybe they had never really been simple, and had only seemed to be so, and the Maker has always been a cruel taskmaster. She thinks of her love, sequestered away in Denerim at the behest of another monarch, and does not have to reconsider.

Sister Nightingale yawns, stretches. Her spine pip-pop-pops, and the hour burns so late. Her eyelids droop.

But still: one last letter to write and send across the Waking Sea, and then she will rest.

—--------------------------------------------

Skyhold is much as Leandra Hawke had imagined it would be: a could draughty castle in the middle of the mountains, with a quickly-growing village sprung up at the bottom of the valley for trade, a truly impressive dearth of structural integrity and sense, and a very large number of Carta dwarves whom Leandra eyes shrewdly and thinks loudly in their direction, don’t make me write to your mothers, because I can and I will, do not test me.

(The Carta dwarves shuffle off. Leandra is appeased.)

But for all its drawbacks, Skyhold is big enough to house a proper mage tower, and has plenty of space for Leandra’s own charges. When they’d been riding up, the youngest of her templars had shuddered and shaken her head. Sommat’s not right here, m’um, she’d said, and Leandra had been inclined to agree.

However.

Her charges will be safe here, and there is no Divine to call the Exalted March that Leandra has spent more months than she can count dreading. Skyhold itself is walled in from all sides, which is both a blessing and a curse; they’ll see their enemy coming clear for leagues, but they’ll have nowhere to run if it comes down to it. And—

Well.

Leandra has missed her grandchildren.

“Liana, darling, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Leandra reminds the oldest of said grandchildren.

“S’rr’ee Gran,” Liana says, with a full mouth. All three of Leandra’s grandchildren eat as though they’ve never seen food in their lives before; if Leandra’s daughter was anything but what she is, Leandra would think that she were starving them. But the truth of the matter is that really, they’re simply all growing children, and they need energy to continue doing that.

Leandra reminds herself of the regular bill to feed fifty-odd mage children and six teenage templar-initiates, and tries to count her blessings.

Carina seems to have finished, because she’s started to push her food around her plate in a gesture very reminiscent of her mother. Leandra thinks that this is fitting: if Carina is Bethany in miniature, then Liana is Alistair, and Malcolm, for all that he is the youngest of the three, is Leandra’s own Marian exactly.

Her daughter’s children all each have their own mannerisms, but it’s rather amusing to see which one fits where, all the same.

And oh, but she does love them so dearly.

“What is it, Rina, sweet?” Leandra asks. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”

Liana looks at her twin, just as she always has done whenever anyone is addressing her twin. They exchange wordless glances, and then Liana opens her mouth.

Leandra holds up a hand.

“Lia,” she says, only a little stern. One day, they’ll learn. “Let your sister speak, please.”

Liana slumps backwards, put out. Leandra knows that she’s truly the one who forces them not to communicate in tandem as they prefer, but she also does think that Carina needs to learn to use her own words, and not always rely on Liana’s ability to interpret her ever thought.

They won’t always be able to do that, Leandra knows. She thinks of Revka only for a moment, and then she puts the thoughts away.

“…Are we going to keep staying with the Grand Enchanter?” Carina finally asks. She pushes the food around her plate some more, brows furrowing together with the concentrated effort of it. “Or are you going to look after us, Gran?”

The Grand Enchanter.

Ah, Leandra thinks.

The Grand Enchanter is the reason, no more and no less, that Leandra has made the whole long trek all this way, to this godforsaken, better-forgotten place. Her grandchildren are part and parcel to it, certainly, and the scolding that Marian and Carver are both going to get, as well, but—

Grand Enchanter Fiona is Alistair’s mother, and Leandra wants to know why on the Maker’s green earth she’s only learning about this now.

“I think we’ll share that, darling,” Leandra says, lightly. “There’s no reason to uproot, not when your mother and father will be back so soon. How does that sound?”

All three of them brighten. Leandra isn’t offended; they’ve been uprooted enough, her grandchildren, and there’s no reason to do it with exception for her pride.

Leandra has never put much stock in pride. It only ever makes a mess, does pride.

“Thanks, Gran,” Carina says, very softly. She wiggles a little in her chair, reaching over to throw her arms around Leandra’s side in a haphazard attempt at a hug.

Leandra smiles. They really are a very wonderful set of grandchildren, and they’ll grow up to be wonderful adults, too; they’re shaping up for it already, Liana and Carina, and Malcolm is going to put Marian to shame with the trouble he’s going to manage to stir up, in all likelihood.

If Leandra were a better person, she’d probably try to put a stop to the trouble bit.

But she is not a better person, and Leandra privately thinks that frankly, the world could use a little more trouble, so long as it’s the good kind. Malcolm isn’t likely to try to set Orlais on fire, overmuch. And really, the Orlesians could probably use some well-planned ruckus.

It would certainly shake up their little Game.

Never let it be said that Leandra Hawke is not a petty person. She is. She simply hides it better than most other petty people do. Orlais is Val Royeaux is the Divine, and despite the fact that Justinia is dead, Leandra still hasn’t forgiven her yet.

Perhaps it is unhealthy, to enjoy spiting a dead woman so.

But Leandra is perfectly aware that the Divine had had the power to have stopped Knight-Commander Meredith in her holy silverite-greaved tracks, and she did not.

There are many things that Leandra cannot, will not, forgive, and this is among them.

And so, for the issue at hand: if Malcolm starts another holy war, it won’t be anything that Leandra’s oldest hasn’t already done first. She supposes that really, it could be far worse; Malcolm is arguably less feral than Marian ever has been in her entire life.

Leandra can hold her peace.

Right now, she has bigger things on her mind.

For example: how in the Maker’s hallowed name to convince Alistair to even speak to the Grand Enchanter once he finds out, because he will find out, and Leandra knows her son-in-law; the boy balks the second anyone so much as brings up the breath of who his parents might have been. This only gets worse, when whoever it is brings up who Alistair might have been. It would be adorable if it weren’t so frustrating.

Other lives, Leandra thinks, bemused. Other worlds. Perhaps what it would like to be dead; she wonders, sometimes, about how that long, nightmarish stasis down in the dark of the foundries would have gone, had her youngest not been there.

Yes, dead and dying and drowning all the time.

But—

She banishes the thoughts. This is not the time for them. She is here with her grandchildren, her little monsters, and they are not anywhere else. There is no loss to them. There is no pain. There is only bright clean joy, and love, a thick smear of love.

Leandra returns her attention to the table.

She can think on the little deaths of her own life later.

—------------------------------------------------

When the Grand Enchanters knocks on Leandra’s chambers, she leaves the letter she’d been writing at the desk with the ink still wet, and pulls the door open with a flourish and a smile.

An accepted invitation to tea, albeit a strange, hesitant acceptance all the same; this is far more pleasant than the alternative.

Leandra had prepared herself, for the alternative.

“Lady Hawke,” Grand Enchanter Fiona says. She is a slim woman with a low, musical voice that would be very lovely to listen to read. Her skin is pale, and her eyes are very, very dark.

“Oh, Grand Enchanter, please, come in! I’ve made tea,” Leandra says, gestures inside gently enough to coax a recalcitrant cat. “Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would have the time, what with looking after the children.”

The Grand Enchanter relaxes minutely, and steps inside. “They have been no trouble.”

“No, I can’t image they would be,” Leandra pronounces, as she leads the Grand Enchanter to the parlour. “At least, not Liana and Carina. Malcolm—he’s very much like my eldest. Too much, perhaps. But I am glad they’ve not turned you off them entirely. They can be a bit of a handful, but I suppose you’d know that.”

The Grand Enchanter shrugs delicately. “Less than most.”

Leandra laughs, very softly. The tea set sits low on the trolley, laden with little teacakes and a large teapot that steams thinly. The cups are bone-china, brought from her Leandra’s own mother’s collection; Kirkwall’s dwarven artistry, again. “Give Malcolm a few years. I think he’ll give the Carta a run for their coin. Rina’s too shy for it, but Lia’s like her father.

“Is she?” the Grand Enchanter asks, perhaps a little too quickly, as they sit.

Leandra pours. Guests first, as she was taught. Pearlescent tendrils of steam drift through the air.

“Mmm,” Leandra hums into her tea, when they’ve both settled at last. “She is, yes. Less self-sacrificing, of course, but that’s not a bad thing. Alistair is liable to get himself killed, I don’t know how my daughter puts up with it.”

The Grand Enchanter’s knuckles are white as she sets her teacup down in lieu of an answer.

Leandra smiles into the brim of her cup, to hide.

Got you, she thinks.

“‘Ow so, may I ask?”

“Alistair? Oh, it’s simple, really. He loves my daughter more than life itself,” Leandra sighs. Truths. All truths. “It’s why I never objected, you know, even when he was still a templar.”

“I assume ‘e was not a very good templar?”

“My daughter is a mage,” Leandra says, a little wry. “He can’t have been that good at it, as they did end up married. Chantry law doesn’t mean much to either of them, I’m afraid.”

The Grand Enchanter makes a tiny noise, like a broken heart.

“I’ve been told he takes after his father,” Leandra continues, pretending blithe obliviousness to the Grand Enchanter’s growing melancholy. “But, you know, I don’t think that’s quite right. I met Maric, once, and they’re nothing alike. Frankly, I think Alistair takes after you.”

Leandra’s tea freezes in its cup.

(Oh, what a waste.)

“I am sorry, Lady Hawke, I do not follow,” says the Grand Enchanter, voice frosty.

“He has your eyes,” Leandra says, easily. “Liana and Carina do, as well. I’m sure you see the resemblance far more clearly than I, but it is there.”

“‘Ou told you?”

“A little bird,” Leandra tells her. “Oh, do sit down, Grand Enchanter, I didn’t invite you here to threaten you.”

The Grand Enchanter sits.

Slowly, jerkily, but she sits.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that Alistair loves my daughter more than life itself,” Leandra says, lightly, as she pours herself another cup of tea. She’d had the foresight to keep more than two cups on hand, and thank the Maker for that. It is a truly lovely Rivaini blend that Isabela ships out special from Llomeryn. That pirate of Marian’s is really the girl’s saving grave; Leandra doesn’t know what Marian would do without her. “I would never do anything to put them in harm’s way. Threatening you would be profoundly counterproductive! What would be the point?”

“Then why?”

Leandra sets her teacup down, very, very gently.

“You’re their grandmother, too,” she says. “I thought you might want to get to know them, as such.”

The Grand Enchanter slumps back into the striped salmon-and-cream silk of the pillows. “I do not have the right.”

“Of course, you do,” Leandra says, breezily. “They are your grandchildren.”

“I should not, then.”

“That’s a different thing,” Leandra says, delicately drinks her tea. “Please, Grand Enchanter, drink your tea. I only have so much, and it would be an atrocity to let it go cold and then have to get rid of it. It’s darling, I promise.”

The Grand Enchanter sips hesitantly from her cup.

Leandra smiles at her.

“There,” the Hawke matriarch says, all well-pleased when startled pleasure flashes across the Grand Enchanter’s face. It is very good tea, if Leandra does say so herself. “Now, tell me, why should you not?”

And, haltingly, the Grand Enchanter spills out the whole sorry tale. It’s a long one, and a sad one, and Leandra gasps and exclaims at all the appropriate parts. Even as her voice grows hoarse with use, the Grand Enchanter continues; she could give Varric a run for his money if she wanted to, Leandra thinks.

“But that—that is why,” the Grand Enchanter croaks the words, has to clear her throat. “He was better off without me.”

“But that’s untrue, isn’t it,” says Leandra, raising her eyebrows.

“Pardonez moi,” says the Grand Enchanter, and Leandra’s tea freezes over a second time.

(For burning Andraste’s sake, Leandra thinks. Orlesians.)

She pours herself yet another cup of tea; it pours still steaming. Thank the Maker for a good old-fashioned flame run. She’ll have to see if Sandal can’t do something about reinforcing this one, it has been such a delight.

“He’s not been better off without you, has he? It’s untrue to say he has,” Leandra says. “And rather silly, if you think about it.”

“I am an elf, Lady Hawke.”

“Yes, and he spent ten years in Redcliffe living with the mabari in the kennels and in the kitchens like a servant, and then he was sent to the Chantry to become a templar,” Leandra says, flatly. “Which was the worst thing for him, if I may say so. No child is better off without parents who want them.”

Grand Enchanter Fiona presses her lips together so hard that they turn white and bloodless. “You do not have any understanding of what it means to be a half-breed. He—non. You do not.”

“No,” Leandra readily agrees. “I don’t.”

“But?”

“No buts,” Leandra says, for this is true. She has no concept of what life would have been like for her daughter’s husband if he had grown up in his mother’s care, and she will not pretend that she does. “I have no idea what that would be like.”

The Grand Enchanter’s shoulders loosen infinitesimally. The acknowledgement seems to be enough. “I did not—I wanted to keep him. More than anything.”

“But?” Leandra echoes.

“But it would ‘ave been very selfish of me. Ferelden—” the Grand Enchanter closes her eyes, and her accent comes a little thicker than a moment ago with the pain, “—Ferelden gave ‘im a chance to be happy. And ‘e is ‘appy, is ‘e not? I cannot ask for more.”

Leandra looks steadily at the other woman for a long, heart-rending moment. There are so many things that Grand Enchanter Fiona missed; the twins, Kirkwall, Malcolm. They’re memories that Leandra wants for her to have, because they’re memories that she ought to have.

The question, as always, is about where to begin.

But—

Ah, Leandra thinks. There.

“Do you know how I knew that your son loved my daughter?”

Grand Enchanter Fiona lifts her head. Her eyes swallow all the light in the room, and Leandra adjusts her mental moniker: Fiona, now. Only Fiona.

“How?”

“I eloped when I was twenty-one,” Leandra says. “He was an escaped Gallows mage. Quite the healer, in fact, except when it came to healing himself. And do I promise, this is important—” Leandra breaks off to smile at the confusion on her companion’s face, “—because half the Hinterlands knew that my husband was the only healer worth a sovereign between Lothering and Kinloch Hold. They even had a special knock.”

Leandra pauses to exhale a dagger of pain. Think of Malcolm hurts, even after all these years. It might always hurt; she sees so much of him in Bethany. “Bless her heart, my daughter isn’t half so good as he was. but it happened sometimes after he died, even still.”

“And?”

Leandra laughs. “And one day, when Alistair came to walk Bethany to the Chantry for services—because they’d taken to doing that to have more time together, if you can believe it—we had one of those visitors. A dying little boy. Alistair walked in without knocking, and my daughter’s magic was everywhere. I thought my heart was going to stop. A templar in my house and my mage daughter, with her hands glowing on some boy’s chest!”

Fiona inhales like a knife-cut.

Leandra sips her tea, continues. “He looked at her, and all he said was, what can I do?’.”

The remembering doesn’t hurt so much, Leandra realizes. Somehow both the most transformative and the most terrifying moment of her daughter’s life, she’s sure, and now it only makes her smile. She shakes her head, the crows’ feet at her eyes creasing deeper. “But that’s when I knew. He’d have done anything for her.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because that little boy’s mother was an elf,” Leandra says. She wonders, idly, where they are now. “Perhaps it still matters to some people, but it doesn’t matter to my daughter, and I doubt even more it matters to your son.”

“What is your point, Lady Hawke?”

“My point is that you ought to give them the chance to decide for themselves, rather than just pretending that it all doesn’t exist. You don’t stare at Alistair, I would hazard, but you certainly do stare at the twins, and you’d let Mal get away with murder. It’s very telling, Grand Enchanter.”

Fiona manages a smile at the mention of Leandra’s grandson. “He is very solemn, for someone so small.”

“He’s going to drive them stark raving mad, I think,” Leandra says dryly. “He really is just like Marian was, when she was that age. Poor dears. They have no idea what’s coming.”

“Would it not be better to warn them?”

Leandra laughs again, eyes sparkling. “No, I don’t think so. Learning each other through it is half the fun!”

Fiona is very skeptical of this. “I truly do not think so, Lady Hawke.”

“Call me Leandra, please,” Leandra says, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. “But stories aside, we do have a practical matter on our hands, and it does need an answer.”

Fiona tilts her head in question.

“Do you want to tell him, or not?” Leandra asks. “It does change where we go from here, after all, and it’s no small decision.”

Grand Enchanter Fiona makes a noise like a wounded animal. A flicker of regret goes through Leandra; regret, and pity, and yet—resolve. They all deserve a denouement, and Fiona, in particular, deserves to call her grandchildren her own.

But—

“Not yet,” Fiona says, whispers, an endless maw of grief inside of her. “I cannot—not yet.”

“Yes,” Leandra agrees. She pulls herself back from the brink, because she is not Marian, and she understands that sometimes, people need time to come to terms with what they are. “Perhaps not yet.”

—----------------------------------------------

Leandra’s children return from the desert more or less in one piece, which is nothing less than she’d expected. Marian’s run off without even saying hello, and Carver is apparently the new Warden-Commander of Orlais—Leandra is going to have some words for the First Warden, when she gets around to penning the self-important twit a letter—but Bethany and Alistair seem to be alright.

This lasts all of a day, and then Leandra finds out that Sister Leliana has taken it upon herself to make Alistair aware that he is not, in fact, an orphan.

Leandra would applaud the Nightingale for her impeccable timing, except that Alistair is not, actually, an adversary!

That girl, Leandra sighs.

Knives before niceness. It never works the way a person expects it to. The Nightingale might be the Inquisition’s spymistress, but she still has so very much to learn. The only thing to do, now, is to find Fiona and to inform her of the coming ballistae. There is not much time; they need to decide how they’re going to go about this, and they must do it quickly, before the news hardens Alistair to the possibility of a reconciliation, entire.

They are all, Leandra thinks, so very, very young.

(Timing, Nightingale, Leandra thinks, wearily. Timing!)

And as such, Lady Leandra Hawke gets up from her desk, and makes her way outside.

—

fin.

#dragon age #leandra hawke #fiona #templar!au #seriously this won't make sense unless you've read the rest of it #but ANYWAY i love leandra hawke so much

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