#ashara i'm never irritating lavellan

[buttsonthebeach]

‘ i cannot be everywhere at once. ‘ - solas

100 Word Prompt Entry #2! Some Papae Solas fluff for you this time.

@dadrunkwriting

******

There were clothes on the bed, water on the floor around the bathtub, half-eaten slices of pear on the table, leaves in the entryway. Solas was exhausted, and not even willing to search for Ashara. Finding her would mean finding the latest mess. But he dropped the broom at once when he heard her wail. It was only a skinned knee. Still he held her close. Let her cry with all the force of her three-year-old lungs.

“You have to be careful, da’asha,” he said, voice fierce, arms tight. “I cannot be everywhere at once.”

How he wished he could.

[buttsonthebeach]

AHHHH @thevikingwoman !!!! This was the best!!!! and sooooooo in character for all of them hahahaha. I was laughing so hard. Thank yoouuu friieennddddd <3 <3

Happy birthday, @buttsonthebeach! You are such an amazing writing, beautiful person and wonderful friend. I hope you have a fantastic day :D. 

This is a very small gift, a piece set during Body of Knowledge, around chapter 11 - but it contains only the broadest of spoilers. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope I not too far off in characterization.

Ellana Lavellan x Solas, Ashara Lavellan | Post re-union | romance, family rating: teen, family fluff, smidgen of angst

Tomorrow

It’s a quiet evening in their house. Solas is reading, and so is Ellana, her head resting against the arm he has around her. She is solid and warm beside him, beautiful and his. He can see the curve of her breasts beneath the hem of her cotton blouse, if he looks just so. He does, and he has been stuck on this page for far too long.

His hand wanders, across her shoulder, down her collarbone, his fingers caressing soft brown skin. Ellana makes a pleased sound, and his finger grow bolder, stroking firmer, dipping lower. Ellana throws one leg over his, though she is still reading.

“Papae? Papae, where are you?”

Ashara. He turns and looks at her, and his hand reluctantly withdraws, back to Ellana’s shoulder.

“I’m right here, da’vhenan.” He frowns, then smooths his expression to a smile. It has been years since she woke and could not sleep without her parents. “We’re just out here. You can go back to sleep.”

“No, I know you are in the house.” She rolls her eyes. “Why are you not in the fade? I’m there, waiting and waiting and waiting for you, and you never come!”

Ellana unhooks her legs from his, and gives him a small smile. Your magic, your child, your problem, it says.

“Ashara, it’s not yet time for me to sleep. I’ll come find you later.”

“Then I’ll sit here. And wait.” She crosses her arms, and sits on the floor. The stubbornness is all Ellana, he thinks.

Solas returns to his book. She’ll get bored and go to bed. He wants nothing more than to touch Ellana again, to feel her pulse beneath his lips. He doesn’t though, and they sit quietly side by side.

Behind them Ashara shuffles and huffs and lets out a discontent whine. Solas sighs and gets up. He crouches in front of her.

“You need to sleep da’asha. You can’t sit here and wait for me. It might take a while before I’m going to bed.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to go without you. It’s boring. I have questions! And things I need to show you!”

She looks at him so earnestly, her blue eyes, her arms fiercely crossed over her chest, and he knows he is lost. Another sigh.

“Go to your bed Ashara. I will meet you soon.”

She jumps up, her curls bouncing, and she kisses his cheek. “Thank you, Papae!”

Solas walks by Ellana on his way to their bedroom, and he brushes his lips across her neck.

“Hopefully it will be brief, arasha. I’ll wake again later.”

“If I’m still awake, you better make it worth it, vhenan.”

“I’ll do my best.”

A little while later, Ashara is showing him a memory she found, and a spirit she met, and can you dream up cakes? As many as you want? So many questions and so much excitement, and the truth is he enjoys it all immensely. Sharing this talent and his knowledge with his daughter is a joyful gift.

At last, however, she is satisfied – for tonight, at least, and he bids her goodbye and leaves her to her own dreams. He wills himself awake, even though he knows it’s late.

Ellana is asleep next to him, on top of their blankets. He can’t help but touch her skin, to run his hand down her back and the inviting curve of her ass. His cock twitches. He considers waking her, for a moment, but it is far too late, and she is sleeping far too deeply.

Tomorrow, there is always tomorrow. And after tomorrow, there is another day and another after that. He doesn’t know how many tomorrows they will have, but this is enough. His daughter, his heart, his family. This is more than he ever thought he’d have.

[buttsonthebeach]

100 Word Challenge Masterpost

Hi all! I set myself a challenge to do 100 word prompt fills last week, and decided to create a separate masterpost for them. I’ll add to it if I do this again! Everything is broken down by pairing under the cut.

If you like the things I scribble, I have a Ko-Fi now! :D

Ellana Lavellan x Solas

“Swearing” - Explicit, slightly more than 100 words. Solas discovers that Ellana likes it when he swears.

“I cannot be everywhere at once” - Papae Solas and baby Ashara, and a father’s annoyance and love.

Gen - Ellana and Dorian being BFFs

“There’s nothing like summer in the city” - Ellana hates Val Royeaux. Dorian tries to persuade her otherwise.

Marian Hawke x Merrill

“Keep whispering” - Merrill longs for more closeness with Marian.

Zakir Cousland x Morrigan

“A rare moment” - slightly more than 100 words. Zakir is not the sort of man who says “I love you” often, and Morrigan isn’t the sort of woman who needs to hear it. Until he has to leave to searching for a cure to the Calling.

Ashara Lavellan x Lucius Talvas

“Woken” - Lucius wakes to Ashara distraught, and comforts her.

Ashara Lavellan x Laurence Marchand (Sad AU)

“I’ve come home to this?” - Mature. Laurence comes home to something unexpected from Ashara.

Saeris Lavellan x Vianne (Sad AU)

“Wondering what your kiss tastes like” - Saeris’s first kiss with Vianne has nothing to do with artistry and flirting.

“Grow” - Saeris and Vianne decide to adopt.

[buttsonthebeach]

Words of Wisdom from My OCs

Tagged by @dickeybbqpit for this one! Thanks, friend! This is a cool one.

Ellana

- Love hard, and protect the ones who love you back. They are the only things in this world that matter.

Ashara

- Read. Everything. All the time. There is no such thing as knowledge that isn’t worth it.

Lucius

- Don’t hold on to old dreams and old images of yourself. If they don’t fit anymore, let them go. Be open to that change.

Claudia

- Observe more than you speak.

Bonus, from the AU:

Laurence

- There is nothing that chocolate can’t fix.

Tagging: @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul, @myathemak-followingk, @myrddinderwydd, @ellstersmash, @solverne-02, and anyone else who wants to do this! No pressure, of course!

[buttsonthebeach]

prompt: claudia is ace af. anything. gimme

Ahhh my other babe that I meant to write about during Pride Month. I am sorry it is late but I hope you enjoy!

Claudia and the gang are from my fic Awakened.

Rating: G

Claudia was normally happy to see Ashara waiting for her when she got home - her friend had a key for that exact purpose - but this was not one of those times. Her shoulders were pinched tight - had been for hours - and she wanted little else but to go to bed with a glass of wine and fume silently about the world. With Ashara here, she would have to bury all of that.

“What’s wrong, lethallan?” Ashara asked at once.

Or talk about it, she supposed.

“Is that how you always greet people when you haven’t seen them in months?” she asked, not bothering to hide the sharpness in her tone. Ashara blinked her big eyes in surprise at it, pursed her lips. Claudia could already see her mind working.

“Just the ones I like. And the ones who have stormclouds on their faces.”

“How poetic.”

“An Elvhen turn of phrase. What’s wrong?”

Damn her and her determination. She was like a dog with a bone. It was endearing most of the time. Frustrating now.

“Just assholes in the Magisterium. Junior ones, like me, but - assholes nonetheless.”

Claudia crossed to the tiny kitchen she called her own and glanced through her bottles of wine. At least she could keep that part of her evening plans.

“What were they being assholes about?”

“Maker, Ash -”

“What? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this upset.”

Claudia pulled the cork free with more force than was necessary, reveling in the pop as the pressure released. She poured until her generous wine glass was full, staring at the swirling red liquid of the Nevarran vintage, pretending she didn’t feel the weight of Ashara’s gaze on her.

“Me. They were being assholes about me.”

Claudia prided herself on being difficult to ruffle. She was, generally. She knew who she was, and who she wasn’t, and she took pride in herself, and she didn’t suffer the opinion of fools. Why wasn’t it working today?

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that.” Ashara’s voice was soft, and the hand she put on Claudia’s arm was more soothing than she might have guessed. Claudia let out a sigh. “Can I ask what about?”

“Oh, now you decide to stop being pushy. Why are you here instead of at Lucius’s, anyway?”

“He is busy tonight. Some function with Maevaris. And can’t I want to see you when I am in Minrathous, too?”

She’d gone too far with her acidic tone. Ashara sounded hurt now. Claudia met her gaze for the first time since she’d come into the kitchen and her blue eyes were so big, so open in their concern, so wounded -

She was a fool to think she would need a mask around Ash.

“Wine?” Claudia asked, already pouring a second glass. When she went to her plush purple sofa (which Dorian had insisted was too dark a color for her small living space, and which she loved anyway) and sat down, Ashara followed, tucking her long legs beneath herself and pulling a pillow onto her lap, her eyes still intent on Claudia. Their knees brushed companionably. Claudia let out another breath, connected to the pool of mana in her stomach, reminded herself to stay grounded in the moment, or the anger would not fade. She took a long drink from her glass and felt the warmth of the wine bloom in her veins before she spoke.

“Several other junior members of the Magisterium were talking about marriage today. They’re all working hard on making the best matches to seal alliances and wealth. I was ignoring them, but they drew me into the conversation anyway. When I told them I have no interest in the subject of marriage, they started teasing me. They kept saying I must be of an Orlesian persuasion.”

Ashara looked puzzled a moment. “That you like women?”

“Yes. Like Empress Celene. Except I’m not interested in women. Or men. Or anyone at all. And I told them that. And they just - stared.”

Saying the words to Ashara brought the feelings of that evening back - being gawked at like an animal in a cave. She’d lived with Dorian and Bull for a decade. She knew how Tevinter was about those whose hearts did not align to the ‘correct’ or ‘accepted’ modes of family life in the Imperium. She’d heard the slurs tossed at them whenever they appeared in public together. She knew why they retreated so frequently to their bordertown villa, where no one could hurl slurs at them. She would have been prepared for that. She would have laughed at them. She was Claudia Naevar, and she did not suffer the opinions of fools.

But they stared at her like she was something that shouldn’t exist. Something that made no sense. Something alien.

And it reminded her, suddenly, of when she was young and used to stare at herself in the mirror the same way.

She took another long drink of wine.

Ashara’s hand squeezed her knee.

“I am so sorry they made you feel badly, Claudia. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Claudia realized belatedly that she and Ashara had never discussed this before. Ashara wasn’t much inclined to gossiping about anyone’s relationships - but now she was surprised that it hadn’t come up in the two years they’d been close. Ashara had never once asked if there was anyone she was seeing, anyone she was interested in. She met Ashara’s eyes again, testing her. She wasn’t going to pry? Ask what Claudia meant when she said that she was interested in neither men nor women? That she did not dream of marriage or sex or children the way almost everyone else seemed to, and that she didn’t fully understand why others did? She held her breath, waiting. Ashara just squeezed her knee again, and took another sip of wine.

“I know that,” Claudia said at last. The warmth of the wine was still spreading and her tongue was looser, more free. “I’m not ashamed of who I am. I was when I was younger. When I first realized that I didn’t feel the way other people seemed to. When all the young mages were sneaking off from lessons to kiss in the library or empty rooms. I did once, you know. There was a girl, and she was pretty, and she kept smiling at me and asking for help and touching my arm, and one day she asked me to walk with her, and I knew what it meant. I was curious what it would be like. But I wasn’t - excited? Nervous? And she kissed me, and then kissed me again, and it was nice enough I guess, but… my world didn’t change. I didn’t suddenly understand. I didn’t really want to kiss her again.”

Ashara nodded. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest now. It was clear that she was focused intently on each of Claudia’s words, that she was pulling them in and dissecting them.

“And I would see Dorian and Bull when they were at home, the way they would touch each other and talk to each other - and then later, watching you and Lucius - it’s sweet. It makes me happy that other people are happy. But it doesn’t - I don’t feel like I need that. Like I’m missing anything.”

“Then you aren’t,” Ashara said, solemn and sure and confident as stone.

“I know,” Claudia said. The words were solid in her chest. The tension in her shoulders was easing. She did know. She knew who she was. She was a good person, an orphan and yet also an adopted daughter, a talented mage, an analytical thinker, a kind friend, an aspiring politician who wanted to make her homeland a more just place. She was missing nothing. As deep as that truth was, it was good to sit on the couch with a friend who was really listening, who knew that truth too, who could speak that truth back to her with clear conviction and a smile.

“You know what I think?” Claudia said, draining the last of her wine and standing.

“What?” Ashara asked.

“I think two things. One, we need more wine. And two, those assholes at the Magisterium can go fuck themselves.”

Ashara grinned and held out her glass. “I’ll drink to both, lethallan.”

[buttsonthebeach]

Can we see Ashara's list from "Something New"?

OF COURSE WE CAN! She’ll die of embarrassment, but that’s her problem.

(”Something New” is a one-shot tied to my longfic Awakened, in which Solas and Ellana’s daughter likes to try new things with her lover, Lucius. He teases her that she must have a list somewhere, and she denies it, but… anyone who knows Ashara knows that there absolutely IS a list, because she is a giant nerd and did a bunch of research on sex before they became fully intimate.)

SO, without further ado, here is Ashara’s list:

- Hickies? How? Is his skin too dark? What would they look like? Is it even worth it? Would he like it?

- From behind (why do they call it Fereldan style? Oh. I get it now.)

- Up against a door (does that even work? Could he hold me up? Are we too close to the same height?)

- Coming multiple times?? (Never works when I try it on myself)

- Spells to make him last longer (not that he has a problem!)

- Toys?

- Blindfolds

- Butt stuff if I can’t even write the proper name without feeling like my face is on fire, I’m probably not ready to try it

- While spooning - that sounds so lovely

- Both using our mouths on each other at the same time - how?? Me on top of him, him on top of me, on our sides? Seems tricky

- Speaking dirty to one another

- Food - cream or honey. Seems messy. But worth it.

[buttsonthebeach]

3 Gifs!

Tagged by @deleriumofyou to share these! (BTW Del I was dying at the ones you chose for Aslaug) I’m going to do my #1 favorite fictional daughter, Ashara!

But also:

REMEMBER THAT TIME I FORGOT TO TAG PEOPLE? Pepperidge farm remembers.

Tagging: @wardsarefunctioning for Jane, @cedarmoons for Ziah, @empresstress13 for Revasulahn, @mistressdreadwolf for Britannia, @water-whisp for Zephyr, and @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul for Herah!

[buttsonthebeach]

Chapter Eight of “Reckoning” has arrived!

Ashara takes her first test to become an arcane warrior, and is definitely, totally fine mentally and emotionally. You can ask her yourself. Even Lucius and Claudia get to ask her in this chapter! And they get to walk down a street in Tevinter just the way @hansaera drew them in this stunning picture, and everyone is happy and everything is fine. (Can you hear my sarcasm yet? Well, she does see Claudia and Lucius...)

Keep reading below the picture and the cut for a preview!

She found Claudia dreaming of the debate floor in the Magisterium, except every magister had been turned into an angry, screaming nug, and there was no roof, and the sky above was green and black.

“Oh, thank the Maker,” Claudia said when Ashara banished the spirits who’d taken those forms. She hugged her close, to Ashara’s surprise.

“What, because the nugs are gone?”

“No. Because you’re here.” Claudia drew back and appraised her. “I knew you were safe, but it’s still good to see you myself. Why haven’t you called Dorian with your mother’s crystal? He was worried sick, you know. He and Bull both. They put on a brave face, but I could tell. You should speak to them, in waking or here in the Fade.”

“I’ll try to, soon. The truth is I have barely seen my mother, even though she’s back in Enasan now.”

“And why is that?”

“I’m joining Enasan’s army. I have been very busy with that.”

Claudia did not hide her shock. She even took a step back. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.”

“Ash - I can’t believe it. You, a soldier.”

Ashara stiffened. How many more times would she be forced to have this conversation? “What do you mean?”

“It’s just that you are one of the kindest, gentlest people I know. And you’re so headstrong. When was the last time you actually listened to something someone told you to do?”

“Two days ago, when I did every single thing my superiors required of me in a fairly grueling test.” There was no need to mention her flare of magic at the end, and the fact that while it was not explicitly forbidden, she thought it was at the time. There was no need to mention that nearly everyone she had shared this news with expressed the same shock and concern.

Claudia raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. I’m surprised. That’s all. I just - I can’t picture you dedicating your life to so much death. Especially after what you just went through. Are you sure you’re okay? It’s barely been a month since the attack in Clermont. Don’t you need more time to heal before you make such a big decision?”

Healing. Ashara hadn’t even thought about healing. She wasn’t even sure it was possible. Some part of her would always be hooked around that day, like a thread tied to a needle.

“My country may not have that kind of time.”

[buttsonthebeach]

ok ok ok. this would not be canon. prompt: ashara and lucius are invited to to a fancy council thingie to talk about something important, but it is assumed that they are still together. they have to pretend to be in a relationship for it to go smoothly. UST and HEA would be nicest!

ANON. ANON. I know it has been forever but can I tell you how happy this ask made me?? I love Ashara and Lucius so much. So so much. It adds 10 days to my life every time I find out that someone else loves them.

Have some shameless, fluffy fluff, and I’m sorry for the wait :) I am always down for more SFW or NSFW prompts for these guys!

Ashara’s dresses are from this post - her first dress is the bottom right picture, and her second is the one above it (far right of the second to last row).

Pairing: Ashara Lavellan x Lucius Talvas

Rating: Teen for some sensuality, but absolutely nothing beyond that

Note: In an AU of Reckoning, Ashara and Lucius meet again at a Council on Arcane Affairs in a time when prejudice against elves is running high, and must confront the end of their relationship at last.

************

1.

When Lucius saw Ashara on the first night the International Council on Arcane Affairs, hosted in Cumberland, he couldn’t breathe. Mostly that was because of the absolute, undiluted rage in her face as she argued with one of the guards hired for the event. He so rarely saw her angry. But also it was also because of her stunning gown - thin gauzy blue folds draping into a small train on the floor, a high waist, a deep V neckline and thin straps made of tiny blue roses, with more scattered throughout the skirts. Her curls were piled on her head in an intricate hairstyle studded with more of the roses. She was stunning. That was why he could not breathe.And because he had not seen her at all in the year since their relationship ended, and yet he still knew the exact place of each freckle on her cheeks.“This is absolutely preposterous,” Ashara was saying as he approached. “I have an invitation to this conference. Of course it includes an invitation to this dance. Aren’t there dances every night this week?”“I’m afraid this event simply isn’t suited for mages of your - kind. Not after what happened in Clermont.”

Ashara’s face, if at all possible, grew more angry. Lucius felt that anger spill over into him. The murky incident in Clermont - blood magic, elven immigrants, illegal Orlesian templars, intrigue at court - had been the fixation of too many people in the last weeks. To think Ashara could have been involved - she had almost worked for Vir'anor, the group involved in the incident, before Enasan’s top university offered her a coveted position - or to generalize what happened there to all elves… it was ridiculous. No one deserved this treatment.What Lucius did next, he did without thinking.He walked up to them, and put his hand on the small of Ashara’s back, the same way he had done a hundred times in the year that they were lovers.“There you are, amata. I know Magister Tilani will be thrilled to see you tonight. I hope these men have not kept you waiting.”Lucius was not sure whose eyes were wider - the guards’, or Ashara’s. Those blue, blue eyes. She smelled like crystal grace, and the fabric of her dress was soft and thin and he could feel her warmth and suddenly the last year, the loneliness, the million ways he questioned his decision to leave her, evaporated.“Oh,” Ashara said. “Emma lath. I thought I could get in without you, but apparently these men do not realize that we are both honored guests tonight in our own right.”“Indeed. We can always speak to Magister Pavus about this, though. Doesn’t he arrive soon?”“That will not be necessary,” the guard said quickly. Then, more grudgingly: “Enjoy your evening.”He kept his hand on Ashara’s back as they passed into an antechamber situated before the main ballroom. She seized hold of that hand and dragged him into a corner of it.“Lucius! I didn’t even know you would be here. That was kind of you. Kind, but unnecessary. I would have gotten around to dropping Dorian’s name eventually. I like your beard.”She had not changed. Her words were quick as her mind and she was so, so close.“It is no trouble. I did not want to see them harm you.”A change came over her - like she remembered, suddenly, that day a year ago when he ended their relationship, saying that he did not want to hold her back from the life she so richly deserved among her people back home in Enasan. She put more distance between them, backing towards the center of the antechamber.“Yes, well. How have you been since - that is to say, how are you?”Things had gone well for him since their relationship ended. He’d made great strides towards his dream of creating a magically-powered printing press, having partnered with dwarven enchanters from Kal-Sharok and merchants in Vyrantium to secure the necessary resources and contacts to make his plan a reality. He had made new friends. He had moved to a nicer flat in Minrathous. But somehow, all of that stuck in his throat, looking down at her now - no longer an abstract idea or memory that he could pretend didn’t hurt him, but instead a real woman - tall and curly-haired and lovely and no longer his.

“I’m well,” he lied. “Shall we go in?”

2.The International Council on Arcane Affairs was formed from a partnership between Grand Enchanter Vivienne and Minaeve, the new leader of the College of Magi, who had taken Fiona’s place after a sudden illness. Apparently they had grown close during their time in the Inquisition. So it was even more ridiculous that the anti-elven sentiment continued to circulate at the event, despite earnest attempts to stamp it out.

Lucius had thought that the whole charade between he and Ashara would be done after that first night. They’d spoken for a while - she still lived with her parents in the capital city of Enasan, she’d made a few friends at the university, her research into the possibility of spirits crossing the Veil without suffering harm or changing their nature was going well - and he’d lingered close to her for some time after that, making sure no one else gave her trouble. But surely it would go no further.

But that was before the protest began outside the grand dome of the College of Magi on the morning of the second day. Before the throng of people flinging mud and rotten food and offal at the white marble, demanding they hand over every single elf mage inside, to answer for the dead Orlesians in Clermont.

Before he heard one of the rabble say: “Most of the knife ears aren’t even staying here. They’re in taverns and inns around the city. We should flush ‘em out of their holes like the rabbits they are. There are only so many inns that give rooms to their kind.”

Lucius’s heart was in his throat. Ashara had mentioned the inn she was staying at that - the Dirty Duck, or the Black Swan - or maybe it was called the Black Swan but locals called it the Dirty Duck -

He found it quickly enough. It was a decent inn but not one of the nicer ones, and it was close to what remained of Cumberland’s alienage. A sovereign got him Ashara’s room number from the bored serving man in the tavern area, and his long legs ate up the steps two at a time.

She was still radiant.

Her hair was wrapped in green silk and she was wearing a long linen tunic and her leg wraps and she seemed utterly bewildered to see him.

“There’s a bit of an incident outside the College,” he said. “A crowd of anti-elven protestors. They were threatening to come and find the inns where elven guests were staying and do -” He felt heat creeping across the back of his neck. “Well, I didn’t wait that long. You shouldn’t stay here. There are so few places in the city that will rent rooms to elves, and if this kind of sentiment continues…”

“Fenedhis,” Ashara swore. Her face fell. She turned and went into her room, and after a moment’s hesitation he followed. “I can’t believe this. Everything my parents fought for. And humans still react this way.”

The door shut behind Lucius. They were alone. In her room. With her rumpled bed. She never made her bed. He knew that because of all the times they’d shared a bed, because he knew the smell of her skin in the morning and what it was like to kiss her shoulder when it was warm with sun -

“I can’t believe it either. It’s ridiculous,” he said, though the words felt like they came from somewhere outside of his body. Ashara was pacing now, her arms wrapped around herself.

“I suppose the easiest thing to do would just be to go home. But that’s what they want. I refuse to be intimidated that way. I’ll go there myself now and tell them that. I have every right to be here, and -”

“Come stay with me.”

Again, Lucius’s words came from someone that was and wasn’t him. Ashara stopped pacing and looked at him, her eyes wide with shock. She was flushed. What was he thinking? He couldn’t ask her to come and stay with him - what would she think?

“Would that even work?” she asked. “Aren’t you and Maevaris staying in one of those expensive new hotels near the center of the city? I don’t even know if they’ll let me in.”

She said it with such bitterness, and he wanted to go back to the college and shake every protestor there by the throat. How dare they make anyone feel this way. How dare they make her feel this way, when she had such a good heart, such a keen mind, so much to give the world.

“I’ll make sure they do.”

In hindsight, the problem that arose next was a rather obvious one.

He forcefully, calmly, told the (human) servant in the entryway that Ashara needed a key to his room, and that she was staying with him, and the servant glanced between the two of them and said:

“I take it this is your wife?”

Of course.

Of course he said that.

Well done, Talvas.

“Yes,” Ashara said, putting her arm around his waist. “I am his bondmate.”

And of course Ashara used the Dalish word for spouse, and her hair was still wrapped so her long, bladed ears were on full display, and her normally wide eyes were narrowed and angry. And of course his heart leapt all the same at how close she was.

This would not end well.

3.

“I’m sorry, you’re going to need to explain this to me again,” Claudia said. “In what universe, present, past, or future, was the only solution to this problem to pretend that you two are married?”

Claudia never did mince words.

Lucius sighed and pinched his temple.

“I already did explain it. The protestors -”

“And you didn’t think to have her stay with Mae? Or to stay with her at her inn until Dorian and I arrived and she could come stay with us? And somehow she didn’t think to mention any of these options either?” Claudia took another long sip of her wine.

“I don’t know, Claudia. It’s all that came to us.”

They were in one of the small sitting rooms in the College, in-between salons and discussions of all kinds. Ashara had gone to a different one from the two of them, and she was not back yet, which had led to the two of them sequestering themselves while they waited. They had not had a chance to talk in private that day before that moment.

“Fasta vass, Lucius. You two are the biggest idiots I know.”

Lucius’s anger flared. “I am trying to help her. To protect her.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “So did you two sleep in the same bed last night?”

Lucius’s back still hurt from the night he’d passed on the floor. “Of course not. That’s not what this is.”

“Indeed.”

Lucius threw up his hands. “Claudia, this isn’t easy for me. Why would I do something that hurts me, if not to help her?”

Because it hadn’t been easy, lying there that night, hearing the rustle of her in the bed nearby, her quiet sleepy sounds. He was always one to sprawl out in every direction when he slept but he always made an effort to hold her while she fell asleep, when they shared a bed. Did she still have nightmares about what happened in Oruvun? If one woke her, what would he do? He could not kiss her eyelids and her forehead and her lips until her breathing slowed again.

It had not been easy when he woke before her that morning, stood and stretched, and saw that she had kicked off all her covers in the night, and was in her smalls and tunic alone, and he was greeted by the sight of her long legs, her skin nut-brown against the cream-colored sheets, her thighs dotted with yet more of those freckles.

Claudia, for her part, did look shocked at his vehemence. She put down her wine glass.

“I think you should stop and think about why it hurts that much.”

4.

Ashara insisted that he sleep on the bed on the third night, and that she could sleep on the floor. He woke up at one point to the weight of her sitting on the edge of his bed. She said something in Elvhen. Her hand rested feather-light on his shoulder. He found that he could not sleep the rest of the night, waiting for some sign, some sound, that would tell him it had not been a dream. That maybe, just maybe, this was hurting her too. Walking hand in hand through the throngs at the various events in that glittering marble building. Calling each other amata and arasha and husband and wife Averting their eyes or leaving the room when they changed back in their room.

That maybe it was hurting her too because she also wished so badly that all of this was real.

5.

It was on the fifth day that he kissed her, without any premeditation, of course.

The gala that evening ran late, and she was wearing another beautiful gown, handpainted cream-and-rose silk this time, a fuller skirt, and a neckline that plunged nearly to her navel, leaving that perfect expanse of skin between her breasts bare to the warm Nevarran air. She was laughing, stumbling against him, and that was when he saw two or three men coming down the road towards them, rough-looking sorts, angry-looking men, and before he could think of anything else he had pulled her to one side of the road, turned so that she was nearly against the building, and kissed her, trying to shield her from sight with his body. His heart raced in his ears. She made a startled sound - and then she melted against him, her hands on his waist. The men passed them by. He stepped back from her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I know this is all supposed to be fake, I don’t know why I -”

She took his face in both her hands and kissed him, and her gown was smooth and cool under his hands but the skin on her back was hot, and when she parted her lips she tasted just like he remembered.

She pulled back, her breath already drawing short. She gestured nervously with her hands while she talked.

“No - I - now I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. You had your reasons why you ended things and we haven’t even talked about any of this, and I’m sure I’m just taking advantage of your kindness -”

He kissed her, and he let every ounce of longing, every regret he’d ever felt in the time they’d been apart pour into that kiss. A fine tremor ran through his hand where it rested on the small of her back, and this time they were both out of breath.

“Then let’s talk,” he said.

She beamed at him. “Okay. In the morning. And - I think maybe I should stay in Claudia’s room instead.”

6.

The International Council on Arcane Affairs was full of watching eyes, and naturally people had noticed that the daughter of Fen’Harel and Maevaris Tilani’s protege had been seen in each other’s company and were even, reportedly, claiming to be married. So people did talk when they arrived to the sixth day’s events separately.

But, more importantly, they talked that afternoon, in one of the libraries.

“The moment I saw you,” Ashara said. “The moment you put your hand on my back and called me amata -”

“I know,” he said.

Ashara wet her lips.

“But you were the one who ended things, Lucius. And I accepted that - and - so much of what you said that day hasn’t changed. Your life is in Minrathous and mine is in Enasan. I don’t know that I could ever live in Tevinter long-term. Not as an elf. You could come to Enasan, but things are so unsettled now, after what happened in Clermont…”

She was right. She was. And good things had happened in Lucius’s life since he walked away from her - but as he sat there in a library bathed in light, not quite touching her, he realized that none of them quite compared to the way he felt when he looked in her.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “If you are willing to try - I know that I am. I want this to be real.”

“Me too, vhenan.”

She took his hand, and smiled at him, and he realized in that moment - it already was real. It always had been.

7.

They didn’t make it to the seventh day of the council. There were too many other lost days they needed to make up, too many smiles to share, too many plans to make.

Claudia was the one who came looking for them, although when she took one look at them, she had only one word to share: “Finally.”

[buttsonthebeach]

I commissioned @learielle to draw Solas and Ellana on their wedding day (with Ashara being excited that her parents finally decided to tie the knot) and I’m dyyyyiiiiinnnnnggggggg it’s so perfecttt (and there is nothing sad about this wedding whatsoever no sir).

You can read about these three and this wedding in Body of Knowledge :)

I can’t recommend Learielle enough! Snag a commission while you can!!

[buttsonthebeach]

Look what a beautiful job @destinyapostasy did with Ashara, Solas and Ellana’s daughter! My cheerful and kind and smart and not-at-all-naive-or-impulsive-or-terrible-at-making-decisions girl <3

[buttsonthebeach]

Let Us Be Young

Title from @stardustlings because I have an actual phobia of naming things!

I had this sitting around for months and finally decided to post it. It is a deleted scene from the epilogue of Awakened.

Pairing: Ashara Lavellan x Lucius Talvas (OC x OC)

Rating: Explicit for first-time blow job sinfulness

Note: In which Ashara is a dork who overthinks everything, and Lucius is head over heels in love

*****

“I want to try it,” Ashara blurted the night after her birthday, when they’d already been nestled in his bed for some time, lips locked, sighing into each other’s mouths, rocking against each other with increasing need.

“What?” Lucius said, catching his breath, trying to think around the ache in his groin and how he wanted to pull her smalls aside and drive into her already. It had been a revelation, the night before, the two of them together for the first time. He couldn’t process anything but the desire for more of that, so close to her, so connected, it felt so good, but she was giving him an expectant, nervous look so he’d have to figure out what she wanted first.

“Tasting you. I want to try it.”

Oh.

That certainly made it difficult to think again. Maker, he couldn’t remember ever being so turned around by the thought of a woman - so enveloped in her smell and touch and the candlelight in her eyes.

“Can I?” she said.

He shook his head quickly, trying to focus again.

“Yes. Of course, if you want to.”

His heart beat faster. When was the last time a woman used her mouth on him? It had to be - two years ago. Cassia. She’d been so eager to please. She was the first and only lover he’d had who was like that - until now.

“Good,” Ashara said, smiling.

She squirmed out from under him and Lucius rolled onto his back, waiting, watching as she found a length of blue ribbon on the bedside table and tied back her hair. He felt himself pulse and shivered. She seemed to catch sight of that and smiled again, already looking pleased with herself. He slid himself out of his smalls then, slowly, hiding the nervous tremor in his hands, and her eyes drifted down to his cock where it lay against his stomach.

“So - I read some - but - you’ll tell me what feels good, right?”

“I’ll try. I mean - it all feels - good.”

“But some things have to feel better than others.” She sat on the bed. His eyes drifted to the peaks of her small breasts where he could just see them through her shift. She was so lovely and so close and there was an intensity in her gaze that made him want to shiver again. He’d watched Ashara apply herself to any number of things over the months he’d known her, and he knew his pleasure was about to be the subject of her careful, attentive scrutiny.

“I mean - I suppose. I haven’t thought about it much. But - I’ll say something either way. And I will warn you when I get close, so you can - stop, if you would like.”

“Will it feel better if I don’t?”

He fiddled with the comforter beneath his hands, overwhelmed already just at the thought of her mouth on him.

“It can feel good both ways.”

“But what feels better?”

Lucius realized, abruptly, that he’d never had a lover ask what felt good for him. It was more awkward - more nerve wracking - than be might have guessed.

“I - would certainly enjoy it if you used your mouth the whole time. But I understand that it can be - ah - unpleasant.”

“I’ve tasted it before,” she said. “It wasn’t too bad.”

Lucius felt his blush deepen. “I’d imagine there’s a difference between licking up a little and having it - well -”

Now Ashara blushing too. But she met his gaze steadily, determined, confident nonetheless. “I like it when you come. I - like the idea of being close when it happens. It’s arousing.”

She did hesitate at the last word. This was new for her, too.

He held out his hand.

“Then take that off, and come here.”

She pulled off the nightgown and he had only a moment to admire the long, graceful lines of her body, the random freckles that dotted her skin, her breasts, before she straddled him and kissed him. She held him close, warm skin against warm skin, tangled her hands in his hair, and groaned like that was all she’d ever wanted in life. He returned the sound, ran his hands down the length of her back, squeezed her thighs. For an instant he was aware of how many other people were in the house - Claudia, Dorian and Bull, Maevaris and her husband and Krem and Maryden and Ashara’s parents, Maker forbid - but then her hand crept down between them and circled his cock and she stroked, slow and firm, until he couldn’t stop himself from groaning into her kiss.

Her smile was pleased again when she pulled back. It made his heart hurt with joy to see it.

She made her way slowly down his chest and his stomach after that, kissing and nipping, pausing at his nipples until he snorted with laughter (“Not there?” “No, not there, amata.”), until she reached the tip of him and swiped her tongue across his head and he groaned and got so hard he couldn’t see straight.

“There?” she asked, and he managed to glance down, and just seeing her there made him throb.

“Yes. There.”

She dove in after that, taking as much as she could in her mouth, sucking a little, darting out her tongue, moaning quietly. There was no rhythm to it, no art - just the earnestness of her exploration, the heat of her mouth, the softness of her tongue painting stripes on his shaft. His head swam. His balls already felt tight with need. He grunted and found himself rocking his hips, seeking a pattern, something that would pull the building heat of his climax straight up from the root of him. That threw her off, making her go still and glance up at him.

“Sorry,” he murmured, running his fingers along her jaw, shivering to feel the way it extended, to see her lips spread around his length. “Don’t stop.”

She hummed and he felt it deep at the root of his cock and then she was bobbing - slowly, too slowly - but it was good, her lips so soft, her tongue circling the head now and then. She started to go faster but then her noises were more distressed than pleased, and it wasn’t enough pressure, and then there was a graze of teeth -

“Ah,” he said, reaching out and stilling her. “Careful.” She pulled off him at once. “You can - ah - wrap your lips around your teeth and then - you don’t have to worry.”

“I’m sorry. Was it good, though?”

“Yes. Very good.”

“But what did you like best?”

He laughed, but even then it was more of a groan, because of course she expected him to have the words to explain what was best about something that was frankly amazing no matter what, because she was here with him and she wanted him for who he was. This wasn’t a favor or a quick release or an offering. It was -

“Here. Did you like this -” she bent her head and licked him long and slow, from base to tip, swirled her tongue around the tip, and then back down. The air left his lungs. His eyes were closed but he could feel her gaze on him. “Or this?”

Her mouth enveloped him and she took him in, inch by inch, and he saw stars. He felt himself start to swell. The warning was on the tip of his tongue - and then she pulled back. From any other woman it might have been a deliberate act. A controlling one. Her words would have been coy. But when he met Ashara’s eyes they were bright with curiosity, with eager focus. His heart beat faster.

“That,” he said, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he only meant the sucking pressure of her mouth on his cock.

She smiled, and bent her head to her task again, and this time there was more pressure, and no teeth, and he pressed his head back into the pillow and scrunched his eyes shut and didn’t hold back the way he groaned. Her rhythm still faltered now and then, leaving him teetering, cock hard and balls drawing up but just not quite enough to bring him over because she kept having to regroup -

“Your hand,” he said at last. “You can use your hand instead.”

She broke away again, her voice a little hoarser when she spoke. “But I want to finish you like this.”

“Use both. Here -” He sat up enough to take hold of her hand and begin pumping it up and down his length. Void, he thought he might come then, watching them together. He saw the clear fluid begin to leak from his tip, felt his breath growing short. “Now - your mouth -”

This time he couldn’t help but put a hand in her hair as she took him back inside her mouth. He needed something to anchor him against the pressure he felt building between his legs. He needed her to keep tugging hard on his shaft and sucking at his head. He - fuck, fuck, fuck -

“I’m going to come,” he managed to gasp, feeling it rise, feeling his cock go rigid, feeling how each stroke of her tongue was sweet agony now. But she didn’t stop. Her hand went faster and, Maker, she groaned around him and he shot into her mouth, pulsing, pulsing, and she sputtered a little, but she stayed, and sucked hard, and he groaned yes, yes, and pulsed once, twice more, coming until he was dizzy with relief, shaking.

She kept sucking through his aftershocks, until he winced and had to ease her back.

“Too much,” he murmured, pushing a few curls that had fallen in her face back. She nodded, and then swallowed, grimacing briefly. “Sorry,” he said. He wanted to add more but his words failed him, seeing the flush extending down her shoulders and chest. She sat back and he could see that her nipples were tight.

“Good?” she asked with a smile, clearing her throat. All he managed was a laugh, and a hand on her thigh where she knelt beside him.

“Yes, amata.”

It was easy, from there, to draw her down to him so he could kiss her, and then to pull her against him, and then to feel the way she ground herself against him.

“Now you,” he said quietly in her ear, and he could feel her shiver.

He got her onto her back and then his fingers into her cunt and she was so wet already, so swollen with need. Her breath went high and quick right away. He nuzzled against her cheek.

“Do you like this?” he asked her, pumping sure and gentle between her thighs, his thumb just resting on her clit, and it was just as frightening, just as exhilarating, to ask a partner what they wanted as to be asked.

“Yes,” she said, writhing against him. “Like that - please -”

It didn’t take long for her to come - she was the most sensitive woman he’d ever touched, in any case, and she was wound so tight now - he thumbed the rise of her pearl quickly, lightly, pumped his fingers within her, until she was clawing the sheets and saying oh yes, yes, yes yes yes and she was gone, her body tight and hot and slick around him, and his hand was coated in the evidence of her pleasure, and he looked at her in that hazy after and thought Maker, I love her, I love her, I love her.

The thought shocked him like ice water.

He’d called her amata, yes, knew he felt more for her than any woman he’d known, but he had not thought those words yet. Not with such intensity. He looked at her, her breathing evening out, her eyes half-lidded. He loved her. He loved the way her mind and he loved the blue of her eyes and he loved having her close to him and he had no idea what to do with that feeling.

Ashara smiled at him and ran her hand up his arm.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello.”

She started to giggle, a little nervous, maybe, the way he sometimes felt after sex, when he realized how exposed he was. That wasn’t why he was nervous now. He kissed her and she made a happy sound and he thought it again. I love her.

“You know what I want now?” she said when he parted. She was already biting her lip, already trying not to laugh. He brushed the curls from her forehead again.

“What?”

“A snack. Those little sandwiches Maevaris had the cook make today - aren’t there some left over?”

“I think so. Why are you smiling at me like that?”

And she was, grinning like a fool, trying not to laugh.

“Would you go get me some? I’m very comfortable, you know.”

He loved her.

He loved the way she smiled and he loved that she always, always stole something from his plate when they were eating and that he could read every thought and every feeling in her mind just by looking at her face.

“Very well. I suppose I can go all the way to the kitchen for you.”

“Thank you, ma’lath.”

Ma’lath.

He carried that word with him as he threw on his clothes and as he went downstairs. It left him in just as much of a daze as the sensations he was replaying in his mind, the sight of her between his legs -

“Master Talvas.”

The sound of Solas’s voice startled Lucius enough that he almost dropped the plate of sandwiches he’d assembled. His heart beat wildly.

“Ah. Apologies. I hope you weren’t - did you want one?”

Well done, Talvas.

Solas looked vaguely concerned. His eyes went from Lucius’s face to the plate of sandwiches to his bare feet. Lucius had done nothing with his hair, he realized. Hadn’t even run his hand through it. It was probably a mess.

A very, very obvious mess.

“I am fine, thank you,” Solas said after a long moment. “I was simply curious as to who was in the kitchen at this hour.”

“Ah. Yes. I was hungry.”

Solas waited another long moment. The sandwiches were small but there were too many of them on the plate for one person. Lucius felt his skin prickle. Why was he so afraid of this man?

“So I can see. I shall not keep you, then.”

“Yes. Good night.”

Lucius took a breath when he was on the staircase and alone again. It was absurd, really. He knew Solas was a good man, and not an unreasonable one, and Ashara was an adult, and so was he, and there was very little reason to be so intimidated by him (except that there was) -

“What happened?”

Ashara was sitting up in bed when he returned, looking concerned, her eyebrows as high as they would go. Something about the sight of her there soothed him at once. He loved her. She was here waiting for him. Nothing else mattered.

“Nothing. Make room, will you? I brought enough to share.”

They sat there together in the candlelight and ate little sandwiches and they were warm and close and her curls tickled his skin and it was more than he ever thought he would get in his life, this one moment. When it was time to sleep he kissed her forehead and let himself feel the intensity and beauty of those words again. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her.

[buttsonthebeach]

prompt: smol spoon solas

Apparently Black Friday/Thanksgiving food coma day is one of two days a year when I am capable of unrepentant fluff with 0 angst! Have some domestic family fluff, including a poor sick Solas who just wants to be cuddled.

Pairing: Solavellan, post-Trespasser, reunited.

Rating: General

Note: Ellana leaves home expecting to come back to one sick child (Ashara) and instead comes back to a different one (Solas.) Fluff ensues. Set sometime around the beginning of Chapter 11 (”Dreams”) of Body of Knowledge, when Ashara is about 5.

****

Ellana would be lying if she didn’t admit she enjoyed the diplomatic trips that took her away from home for a few days. It was good to have time to herself on the journey and to spend her day focused on adult conversation and not on telling Ashara for the hundredth time that no, she could not have chocolate for lunch and no, she could not climb the bookshelf, or answering one of her thousand daily questions about bees, quilts, dwarves, or the particularly large knot on one of the wooden floorboards of their house. She loved her daughter with a fierceness that blinded her and her heart still ached every time her monthly bleeding came and she knew there was no second child - but there was something to be said for the company of other grown elves.

She did feel guilty leaving Ashara this particular time. The poor thing had a fever, and last she saw of her she was curled up in Solas’s arms, bleary-eyed and utterly inconsolable.

“I’ll be home soon, sweet one. I promise,” she said.

“But I’m sick.” Ashara’s reply came from the vicinity of Solas’s neck, with all the conviction a five-year-old could muster.

“Mamae will be home before you know it.” Solas put a hand, chilled with magic, on the nape of her neck, pushing her sweaty curls aside. Ashara sniffled and burrowed further into him.

“Will you give me a kiss good-bye?” Ellana asked, running her own hand up and down Ashara’s back. She did feel very warm. Anxiety tightened Ellana’s chest. It was surely a small cold and nothing more. Solas had all the right herbs - he was the one who made medicine whenever one of them was sick anyway, and he could use magic to keep her comfortable.

“No,” Ashara replied with a convincing amount of betrayal in her voice. Ellana’s chest tightened further.

“That’s fine, da’vhenan. I love you.”

Solas braced their daughter enough to lean down and give Ellana a kiss instead. He already looked tired. She knew what awaited him while she was gone and felt a twinge of pity mixed with relief.

“I will contact you at once if she gets any worse,” he said. “You will not be far by eluvian.”

Thankfully, there’d been no need for that. Her visit with the Orlesian marquise who wished to inspect the site of a new garrison that would be close to his own lands was an easy one, and she’d seen to some other small matters in the area during the three days she was there. If Solas had not reached out to her in dreams, it was likely because of his own exhaustion. She was happy when she walked up the short path towards their home, relieved to be back, to hold both of them again. When she opened the door she breathed in deep the smell of home and felt herself centered once more. It was good to be away and good to come back. She was lucky.

“Mamae!”

She heard Ashara’s quick step in time to put down her bag and kneel to accept her hug - which nearly knocked her over - and then to pry Ashara loose and look her over.

“You look better, love. How do you feel?”

“Good. Mamae, come see!”

She started pulling on Ellana’s hand at once and she was filled at once with trepidation. Had she gotten into the paints again, determined to be like Papae? What she found instead was the man in question, sprawled on the couch, covered in blankets and pillows of various sizes approximating a lumpy mountain peak. There were books on top of that, and then her prized stuffed nug at the very top. Solas for his part looked unusually pale, and his eyes were closed. One of his hands was pressed to his forehead.

“It’s Skyhold,” Ashara said cheerfully. “But I need to make the towers. Can we get rocks from the garden?”

At the sound of her voice, Solas stirred and opened one eye.

“You’re back.” His voice had a distinct rasp. He coughed once, hard.

“No!” Ashara said shrilly, before dissolving into worried Elvhen as she went to shore up the blankets he had disturbed with his notion. Solas, for his part, just looked at Ellana forlornly.

“Oh, vhenan,” she said with a sympathetic laugh, kneeling down by his head and putting her hand on his forehead. Sure enough, he was as warm as Ashara had been on the day she left. “When did you catch it?”

“The day after you left. She’s been fit as a fiddle, of course.” He coughed again, grimacing.

“Papae!”

“I take it this was your idea,” Ellana said. “Clever. She stays occupied and you get to take a nap.”

“In theory, yes. In practice, the foundation of Skyhold has fallen and hit me in the head twice, and its architect makes constant and impossible requisitions.”

“Are we going to the garden now?” Ashara asked, appearing at Ellana’s side.

“I am afraid we’ll have to finish building Skyhold another day. Your poor father is going straight to bed.”

Ashara was distraught until Ellana promised they would instead take a walk to the market and buy fresh food for soup, and perhaps a cake or two if the baker wasn’t sold out already. Solas gratefully shuffled off to their room, his broad shoulders slumped, without another word. He was rarely ill, and never failed to find the experience distressing in the extreme. She wasn’t at all surprised that they didn’t see him until they were back from the market and done making the soup, which Ashara carried to him on a tray with a look of absolute focus. She brought him her nug, too, insisting that it would make him feel better. He accepted her offer with a tired, fond smile that made Ellana’s eyes prickle with happiness.

“Sleep, ma’lath,” she assured him. “You’ve earned it.”

After dinner Ellana helped Ashara braid her hair, and told three bedtime stories and gave four good night kisses and then watched her count the beads on the shiny new meditation bracelet Solas had made for her while Ellana was away, until the numbers trailed off and her hand went slack. And even then she lingered, watching the rise and fall of Ashara’s chest, the sweep of her eyelashes on her freckled cheek, the little faces she made as she dreamt. She was luckier than she had any right to be, to live in this house and to be this girl’s mother.

She tiptoed around their bedroom as she readied herself for bed, assuming Solas was long since asleep. His back was turned to her. She eased slowly under the covers when she was done, grateful to be in her own bed once more, and reached out to touch Solas’s back once, lightly, just for the reassurance of his presence. He stirred, to her chagrin.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He coughed in response, and muttered something plaintive in Elvhen.

“What was that?”

“It’s so cold. Come warm me.”

Sighing, she sat up so she could feel his forehead.

“Solas, you aren’t cold. You’re burning up.”

“I feel cold.”

She rose from the bed.

“Let me get you something for the fever.”

When she returned with the medicine in question, he’d wound himself deeper into the covers, and only opened one eye in response to her voice. Then he sighed and unwound himself, accepting the potion as if it was some great indignity.

“Honestly,” she said at the face he made when he was done drinking it. “I thought I was coming home to take care of one sick child and I got another.”

“I am not a child. Now will you come and warm me?”

Even in the dark she could see the blue of his eyes - the eyes he shared with their daughter - and his soft full lips and the broad chest that still transfixed her so. It wasn’t merely that he was still so handsome that he occasionally took her breath away. It was that he was hers. That he stayed.

“Yes, ma vhenan. I will warm you.”

She returned to their bed and curled up behind him, sliding the stump of her left arm under his neck and draping her right arm over his side, then fitting their hips together so she was pressed tight against him. Their difference in height meant that her face did not quite clear his shoulder, and she left a line of kisses there that made him sigh.

“If I get sick too, I’m blaming you, and you’ll have to take care of me,” she murmured, even though she felt peace washing over her just from the warmth and nearness and smell of him. Her heart outside her chest. He took her hand.

“Gladly.”

[buttsonthebeach]

prompt: modern solas (or ellana) catching their kids taking weird filtered pics of them (im thinking it's a selfie with one of them and the daughter is using one of those dual filters)

Who wants some random, humorous, holiday fluff?? Cause you got some! My first time writing a modern AU with these characters. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Pairing: Modern AU Solavellan

Rating: Teen for one swear word, I suppose

Summary: Ashara can’t resist the urge to prank her father, even during the holidays.

*

In retrospect, Solas should have been suspicious when Ashara asked so sweetly if he would take a selfie with her. Usually her methods were far less subtle. She’d dash in front of him and shout samahl! and as he looked up she would take the picture and then dart away again, cackling. It didn’t matter how many times he told her that he didn’t enjoy taking pictures, and that he liked it even less that she posted them on whatever nonsensical social media platform she and her peers were devoted to now - she got entirely too much enjoyment out of his annoyance.

But this time it was Wintersend, and even though he was in the midst of chopping garlic and herbs, the house was warm and he could hear Ellana and Saeris in the other room, their words indistinct but their voices unmistakable, and it was sweet, wasn’t it, that his oldest daughter would come to him at that moment and say:

“Let’s take a picture together. We have to. It’s my last Wintersend before college!”

“Very well. Let me wash my hands first.”

She was nearly his height now. He didn’t have to bend down like he did when she was young and Ellana was taking pictures every chance she got. How time flew. It didn’t seem so long ago that he and Ellana sat by their warm fire and enjoyed the glow of the lights on their tree while he ran his hand over her six-months-swollen belly, willing the time to go by so he could meet his firstborn child - it certainly hadn’t been that long since she was a nine-months-old toddling thing pulling ornaments off the tree - and now she was seventeen. He let that feeling of nostalgia suffuse his smile as she pulled up the camera, got her face close to his, smiled wide, and took the picture.

“Perfect,” she said, and there was a laughing edge to her voice, which was his first giveaway.

“I didn’t get a chance to see it,” he said as she made her retreat from the kitchen, which was his second giveaway.

The biggest giveaway was the raucous laughter that came from the living room not a minute later.

For a moment he stood there and questioned if he even wanted to know. Then he sighed and followed her.

Their living room was fully decorated, tree, trimmings and all, - and still a mess of unwrapped presents and plates from Wintersend breakfast - and his wife and both of his daughters were in the middle of all of it, looking at Ashara’s phone and cackling. Saeris was actually on the floor, holding her stomach. Ellana had set down her spiced wine and was wiping tears from her eyes. And Ashara was between them, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

“What was it this time?” Solas sighed, already resigned.

“Nothing,” Ashara said, although her innocent act left much to be desired.

“I see - then nothing is what you’ll find on your plate this evening, while the rest of us enjoy our roast and root vegetables and -”

“It was Saeris’s idea,” she said at once, handing over the phone. Typical. Someday she would sell her soul for a cheeseburger or some other nonsense.

It turned out she hadn’t taken a picture at all, but a short video, showing the two of them as they posed and smiled in the kitchen - except that after an instant of them looking normal, several things appeared on top of their faces. There was a pair of antlers on top of Ashara’s head, and a small red nose laid over her own, and a scarf around her neck. He, on the other hand, appeared with a sickly green complexion and grumpy black eyes and the word GRINCH under his face.

“Really, Ashara?” He sighed.

“It was Saeris’s idea!”

“You have to admit it’s pretty funny, Papae,” Saeris said, having recovered herself at last.

“I am not a grinch. I happen to enjoy Wintersend.”

“You do look like a bit of a grinch right now,” Ellana said.

“Did you already - post this, or whatever it is you’re calling it now?”

“If I say yes, do I still get peppermint brownies after dinner?”

“No.”

“Then I absolutely, definitely, certainly did not post it.”

Saeris burst into a fresh bout of giggles, looking at her own phone - where Solas had no doubt there was an identical copy of the same video.

“I see. Well then. I suppose this grinch will return to slaving away in the kitchen all by himself.”

“We can help!”

Helping was a loose term - Ashara and Saeris spent more time stealing scraps of food than anything else, and eventually he banished them - but Ellana stayed, and when the roast was in the oven she turned him around and put his hands on his waist so they could sway to the sound of the music he could hear drifting in from the living room, overlaid with the sound of their daughters’ chatter.

“They’re kind of a pain in the ass, aren’t they?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Well, they get it from somewhere.”

He scoffed, and she kissed him anyway, and together they stayed in the warm kitchen and drank in the sights and sounds of their family and the end of another year.

[buttsonthebeach]

“Reckoning” is here!

It is with great excitement and totally no nausea at all that I announce the first chapter of my latest long fic in the Hamilton x Dragon Age series, Reckoning.

It takes place in 9:68 Dragon and follows Solas, Ellana, and their 22 year old daughter Ashara as they grapple with forces who seek to destroy their family and the new elven homeland of Enasan. It will be (I hope) a character-driven story entwined with the politics of Thedas and centered on questions of identity and legacy.

A little taste of Chapter One, which focuses on Ashara (as drawn by the ever talented @hansaera):

The last name Lavellan did provoke questions from some of the bolder immigrants they escorted, but it didn’t appear that the Agostis were that type. Ashara didn’t like drawing attention to who her parents were, even as she missed them each day, even as she felt a surge of pride when she reminded herself of who she was (that surge of pride was another good distraction).

“And it really won’t be a problem if we don’t speak that much Elvhen when we get there?” Livia asked on another day.

“Not at all. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I don’t think more than half of Enasan speaks it fluently. Most young elves do, of course, because they learn it in school.”

“Is that where you learned it?”

“Well - no. It’s one of my first languages. My father only spoke Elvhen to me when I was a baby, and my mother only spoke Trade. I spoke both by the time I was old enough for school.”

She didn’t spell out the implications of that, but she watched them in Livia’s eyes. It was enough to guess, surely, that her father was one of the awakened Elvhen. It was common enough knowledge in Thedas that such people existed, now.

“I see.”

Later that night, she saw Livia scribbling something onto a piece of vellum that was already covered in her cramped writing. She’d started painstakingly writing crosswise across it - some old trick to save the precious material. Ashara made sure to buy her a fresh, blank book in the next town.

“For your studies. I insist,” she said, pressing it into the other woman’s hands. She was only two years older than Ashara herself, and yet she seemed both older and younger depending on the moment. In that moment, she looked as small and excited and nervous as a child.

“Ma serannas,” Livia said, without stuttering once over the syllables.

Later that night, Ashara watched them sit a little ways apart from the rest of the group and start to practice, each of them one after the other, mother, father, and son, tracing the shapes of the ancient words. Her heart swelled. She wasn’t looking for anything at all. She did good work here. She helped people find their way to better lives, shared the culture she was proud of, kept up the good work her parents started. Nothing was missing.

Except that by the time they were part of the way through Nevarra she was restless again. How could she be restless when they covered so many miles a day? But she was. And then she would sit at the fire and see Livia and Vito and little Sylvio - their quiet, intimate world apart from the rest of them - and then she would wonder fiercely, suddenly, what that was like.

[buttsonthebeach]

OC Myers-Briggs Types!

I decided to take the Myers-Briggs test found for free here for my darlings, and it was quite a lot of fun! The results are so accurate. OMG everyone else do it and tag me because I am so interested in Myers-Briggs and in people’s OCs. (@galadrieljones, @empresstress13, @tel-abelas-mofo, @solverne, @thevikingwoman, @idrelle-miocovani, @destinyapostasy, @hansaera I would especially love to see this for your OCs if you are so inclined! No pressure though! And for real if I didn't tag you, do it anyway, because it’s so. interesting.)

Putting it under the cut so I don’t annoy people with my long post but it was so interesting and I want it all in one place!

Ellana Lavellan - ISFJ-A: the Defender (as drawn by the incredible @lady-redhaired)

introverted - observant - feeling - judging - assertive

“If I can protect you, I will.”

Man, this description nailed Ellana. I especially love this part: Though sensitive, Defenders have excellent analytical abilities; though reserved, they have well-developed people skills and robust social relationships; and though they are generally a conservative type, Defenders are often receptive to change and new ideas.

Ashara Lavellan - ENFP-T: the Campaigner (as drawn by the amazing @hansaera)

extraverted - intuitive - feeling - prospecting - turbulent

“You can change the world with just an idea.”

Ashara was the only one I was able to call correctly without taking the test. If a “charming, independent, energetic, and compassionate” person who “values social and emotional bonds” doesn’t describe her, I’m not sure what does.

Lucius Talvas - ISFJ-T: the Defender

introverted - observant - feeling - judging - turbulent

“We are not born just for ourselves.”

Another Defender over here, which may explain part of Ashara’s attraction to him - he rounds her out so nicely. I especially love the part that describes him as someone who has “a tendency to underplay their accomplishments” and who may allow “more cynical and selfish people are likely to take advantage of [his] dedication and humbleness.”

Claudia Naevar - ISTJ-A: the Logistician

introverted - observant - thinking - judging - assertive

“That’s all very interesting. Now give me the facts.”

Ahh, I laughed so hard at this when it came up. Once again, it fits the ever calm, cool, and logical Claudia to a T. She is absolutely focused on “integrity, practical logic, and tireless dedication” and she also has no patience for those who are dependent on others to get things done.

Saeris Lavellan - INFJ-T: the Advocate

introverted - intuitive - feeling - judging - turbulent

“Here, let me show you the right path…”

No surprise here - you can see how Saeris has some things in common with her older sister, but is ultimately more cautious and quiet. She has the inborn sense of “idealism and morality” as well as the determination and talent to take concrete steps to make the lives of those around her better.