#at then end of tevinter nights I felt like she hated this man

[lucaniisdellamorte]

pacing my cage thinking about Lucanis' questline tbh

whoops spoilers in the tags

[utilitycaster]

yes I've played Veilguard all day yes I will do so for more time, tomorrow is my errands day. ANYWAY. This one does legit have spoilers beyond me fucking around, and I have spoiler tagged it as well, so you've been EXTENSIVELY warned.

Rook is not interested in whether Solas and Mythal were fucking. I, however, think they were.

Treviso quests were very fun and not too difficult!

Taash's companion quest, also very easy and enjoyable!

I have bought gifts for all companions except Harding (more later) because I don't know where the fuck the Black Emporium is. Dock Town baby I'm sorry. Anyway I'm a good team leader.

I didn't realize the Hall of Valor wasn't like, a real quest and just consists of Isabela, yelling NEVE GALLUS, THE WINTER FROM TEVINTER while you fight darkspawn. This rules and I think I'll go there later after Weisshaupt.

Morrigan has the memories of Mythal. I am putting off continuing this until I've done all the stupid questions in the stupid terrible Hossberg Wetlands but also, I recognize this might be blasphemy, but Morrigan babe you wish you were Neve Gallus The Winter From Tevinter. I hate to pit two bad bitches against each other which is why I'm doing this, because Morrigan seems to think she is a bad bitch and it's like girl I'm a nobody from Nevarra, why are you out here in your Victoria's Secret Valentine's Day Sale getup cocking your hip at me in the crossroads. Are you trying to impress me? it is not working.

the Solas memories really did a fucking number on like, most of the team, but in particular Bellara and Harding are going THROUGH it. Bellara's doing a bit better because like, she's got a PhD in Dalish history (hilarious that Davrin is like yes I am Dalish but I don't care other than avoiding discrimination against elves; I get that, man) but Harding...oh honey. sorry for doing this as a big movie night in which your religion was disproven, it was revealed that the ancient elves corrupted and destroyed the titans and this is tied to blight, AND you learned that Solas knew all this the whole time and didn't say shit to you. And THEN I did Harding's second companion quest where the Oracle doesn't answer her questions and the codex at the end literally ends with her writing "how loudly can I scream without everyone hearing me." Anyway Harding please go to Taash's room, they look like they give incredible hugs, and just. have a good long cry on their unbelievably huge shoulder. You will feel better. I gotta go to the stupid-ass Hossberg Wetlands with two beautiful men who want to murder fuck each other. At least your musical theme is incredible and my bond with you is higher than with anyone else because I felt so bad for you and because no one else's companion quests unlock until later. I will find you that goddamn tree. maybe I won't though because, as you probably know, Dock Town's fucked.

[tanaleth]

Illustration of a scene from my Lysette/Adan fic.

Detail view: 

Fic excerpt under the cut! 

Mattrin Gallifort, third son of the Bann of White River, had never wanted to join the Inquisition. He hadn’t wanted to join the Templar Order, either. Although at least that had been partially his own decision: promised to the Chantry at birth, his only other real option had been to take vows as a Brother. But luckily he’d proven good with a sword—as well he might after years of weapons training, tedious lectures, and daily sparring.

It had been, in fact, a lot of bloody work. Mattrin didn’t much appreciate that all it had gotten him was a lyrium addiction and a trip to the coldest, wettest part of Ferelden with a bunch of fucking apostates and Lysette fucking Rendall. Not that Lysette was such a bad sort, as it went, but she would have been somewhere near the bottom of his list of people to keep him company for weeks on end. Stubborn as a druffalo, and no sense of humor at all.

Mattrin shifted in his saddle. It was a struggle to maintain proper knightly dignity when riding through yet another cloud of vicious little biting insects. Lysette saw him fidgeting and turned in her own saddle to send him a flat look. Andraste’s tits. The woman wasn’t bad-looking, he supposed, but he’d as soon have bedded his sister. Did she ever smile? Erriala was more to his taste, but she was in Orlais and still hung up on old Tomas, besides.

The only other candidate for female companionship was no better: a necromancer who was a blood mage if he’d ever seen one. Nevarran, he thought, and that was hardly different from being Tevinter as far as Mattrin was concerned. No, there was little chance of a girl to keep him warm on this journey. Unless he found one in the bog.

Probably just as well. He’d be up all night scratching these bloody bites anyway.

“Any sign of the road?” called the elf at the head of the party. And wasn’t that another insult. Not only was the leader of their expedition no warrior, he was a knife-ear with a bow who nonetheless outranked any of them. Damned Inquisition.

“To the left, Lieutenant,” came a good-natured voice from behind Mattrin.

It was starting to rain again. Mattrin cursed under his breath as he tightened his reins and directed his horse to the left. They were two days out from the arl’s estate, and the roads just got worse as the elevation increased. The whole point of this blasted expedition was to find a secret route that’d make travel across the Frostbacks easier, but the terrain they’d found since leaving the Imperial Highway—well, Mattrin would almost have preferred the rocky pass north of Skyhold. And he hated the cold.

Almost as much as he hated babysitting apostates. The man riding behind Mattrin was another one, a Dalish git with ugly tattoos all over his bony face. It made Mattrin uneasy to have his back to a mage, but his attempts to take up the rear of the party had been thwarted by Lysette’s insistence that both templars ride alongside. She’d begun to feel something odd a while back, she said, and wanted Mattrin to tell her if he felt the same.

Probably just scared of the woods. Lysette was a city girl. He shook his head but then—he felt it too. A humming, just outside the edge of hearing. Not the insects. Something magical. His head shot up and his hand went to the hilt of his sword at the same time as Lysette’s.

But then it was gone, as quickly as it had come.

The rest of the party had noticed the templars’ momentary agitation, and Lieutenant Farrow held up his hand to signal a halt. He turned to look inquiringly at Lysette—why did everyone always look to her when Mattrin was the same sodding rank?—and she held up a finger in response. Wait. She was listening to the forest around them. Reluctantly, Mattrin did the same. 

For a long minute, all he heard was the buzzing of flies and the impatient stomp of his horse’s hooves on the mucky ground. A distant rumble of thunder that made him eager to reach the next town before the weather became truly intolerable and they had to set up camp in an actual swamp. Finally, Lysette turned to Mattrin with her eyebrows raised.

He shrugged and admitted, “It’s gone, but I felt it too. A triggered enchantment, or something. What about the mages?”

The elf mage furrowed his brows but shook his head. The Nevarran shrugged disinterestedly.

Lysette looked to Lieutenant Farrow. “We’d best ride alongside them. Unless you object?”

“No, go on.”

In short order, Mattrin found himself escorting a necromancer through the woods by moonlight. A high point of his career, this was. Lysette rode behind with the Dalish mage, Cillian, who called himself an arcane warrior—as if a mage’s tricks were anything like real combat. Skill and strength made a warrior, not borrowed power from the realm of spirits. That power wasn’t yours. It could turn on you in an instant.

Mattrin kept his charge firmly in his peripheral vision. She glared back at him with equal dislike. “I did not join the Inquisition to be placed under the thumb of a templar, Farrow.”

“You’re not under his thumb,” said the lieutenant sharply. “We’ve got a job to do, and I’ll hear no more from you, Sidony. Move out.”

Read the rest.

[deep-space-elf]

Cullen x Reader - Misheard

Summary:  Y/N wants to finally confess her feeling to Cullen, but when she arrives at his tower, she overhears something that makes her question his feelings for her.

Word count: 3326

Warnings: None really, expect maybe that it’s a little angsty 

A/N: You can also find this fic on AO3

Y/N felt a little silly, but she just wanted it to be perfect. She looked into the mirror for the 5th time in the last 10 minutes. The dress, a gift from Josi, really looked lovely on her, but would Cullen like it? Not so long ago, she always rolled her eyes at girls who would behave like her just then. Looking perfect for a man… But tonight wasn’t just any night. She was determined to confess her feeling for her commander, and it wouldn’t hurt to look lovely for that occasion, right?

She looked into the mirror once again, and shook her head. She was pretty sure that Cullen felt the same, and he has seen her at her worst, right after a whole mountain dropped on her, half frozen to death. Stop being silly and just go! No more excuses! She took one last breath and made her way to Cullen’s tower.

As she walked through the atrium under the library, Solas looked up from his book and raised one of his thin eyebrow when he saw her. A small smile played around his lips. “Good evening, Inquisitor.”

“Evening, Solas,” she said curtly and walked past him. Just before the door closed behind her, she heard Dorian asking Solas a question, that sounded strangely like “Is it finally happening?” and “It looks like it”. She was so not looking forward to the teasing, that she knew would be happening. But Cullen was totally worth it.

When she reached the tower, she hesitated. Her hand was already raised, ready to knock, but of course, her mind choose that moment to question her intend. What if he didn’t feel the same? Maybe he was simply nice and not romantically interested in her. She would make a fool of herself, and would never be able to look into his eyes ever again! That certainly would make war room meetings awkward.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange noise from the inside. She froze and waited. There it was again, but she couldn’t tell what it was. She looked around, to see if anyone was watching her, but luckily, the few people who were still wandering in the courtyard, were busy walking towards the tavern. She leaned her ear against the door, and waited.

There it was. A soft moan from Cullen. A cold shudder run through her body and her heart clenched almost painfully. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

Of course he could sleep with whomever and whenever he wanted, they weren’t anything but friends at the moment, but the fact that it happened on the night she wanted to finally confess her feeling, felt like a slap in her face. She couldn’t help but wonder why he choose to sleep with someone else, when he knew that she she was interested. Or at least she thought he knew. Maybe she was right before, and he simply wasn’t interested romantically in her. Tears of hurt and frustration blurred her vision.

She rushed back to her tower the same way she came.

“Inquisitor?” Solas asked, surprise and worry carrying in his voice.

She ignored him, threw the door open, and let it crash back in the lock behind her.

“What happened?” Dorian asked the elven mage.

“I’m not sure,” Solas said. “But she was clearly upset.”

Dorian huffed. “I’m going to kill him.”

Solas might not much like the Tevinter, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed by his loyalty to their leader. Especially after such a short amount of time. “I think that would only upset her further.”

--- 

She barely slept that night. Her thoughts kept repeating what she had witnessed tonight and how to handle the situation from there. She was hurt, though she knew she had no right to feel that way. Even if Cullen felt the same, they weren’t in a relationship, and he had every right to see whomever he liked. It just irked her, that he was giving her so much hope, but then slept with someone else.

Almost every exchange they had, in the last couple of weeks, were heavily streaked with flirting. A suggestive sentence here, a little shy smile there, and oops was that an “accidental” touch? There was tension between them, so obvious, even Dorian noted it while watching from the small window in the alcove he claimed in the library. Needless to say he teased her all the time about it, and constantly asked about updates about they liaison.

She had told him a hundred times that there was nothing going on, but Dorian kept on pushing. He knew she had feelings for their commander, and he insisted that Cullen felt the same. “You should see how he looks at you! I can see those heart-eyes all across the courtyard,” he would say. And she believed him. Dorian had a little mischievous streak in him, but he would never mislead her with matters of the heart.

But now she couldn’t help but wonder, if maybe Cullen was nothing more but fascinated with her, because she was the Herold, their Inquisitor, and not because he was interested in her as a person. Maybe she misread all their flirtation, and it wasn’t the way she saw things. After all, Cullen wasn’t very skilled with words, and sometimes, he said things without thinking, and correct himself - almost too late - what he had just said.

Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe… ugh. She rolled on her stomach and covered her head with a pillow. I hate being in love.

---

The war room meeting went as awkward as one can imagine. Y/N couldn’t bring herself to look at Cullen, even when he was directly talking to her. That resulted in several curious and questioning stares from her advisers, or confused and hurt ones in Cullen’s case. She knew she was handling the situation badly, even a tad bit childish, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“I think that’s everything for today,” Josephine said cautiously. Actually, there were still several things she wanted to discuss with the Inquisitor, but the woman was obviously not in the… what? Condition? Mood? Whatever it was, she assumed it was better to end it here, and discuss everything else, once their leader doesn’t look like she’s about to kneel over any second.

Y/N nodded. “Good.” And with that, she turned on her heels and basically fled from the room.

“Inquisitor,” Cullen called after her, “if you have a moment…”

“Sorry,” she answered, without turning around, “maybe later, but I’m rather busy.”

Cullen turned to the two other advisers, baffled by the Inquisitor’s behaviour today. “With what?”

Josephine only shrugged. Leliana’s eyes followed Y/N until she was out of sight, before she turned towards Cullen. “There is obviously something bothering her. Give her some time.” She didn’t however said that she assumed it had something to do with the commander. She noticed how uncomfortable Y/N became as soon as Cullen entered the room. Interesting.

Cullen shook his head. Sometimes it felt like every woman he knew, was ought to make his life even more complicated than it already was. He wondered if there was something he has done, that made her act so strangely.

He thought about the last time they spoke, yesterday morning, and couldn’t come up with anything that might have upset her. On the contrary, she even suggested they should have dinner together sometime, so Cullen could introduce her to all his favourite Fereldan meals. His heart had skipped a beat at the suggestion. His heart sank however when re realised that maybe she was regretting making such a bold proposal.

He had to get to the bottom of this. If anyone knew what was going on with her, it was Dorian.

---

Cullen found the Tevinter mage in the library, where he seemed to spend most of his time. He approached him, while the mage was looking for a certain book in one of the shelves. “Dorian? May I have a moment of your time?”

Dorian turned his head in his direction, and Cullen almost made a step backwards when he saw the hatred in the other men's eyes. Was everyone bugged by his presents today?

“Depends on what you want,” Dorian said, the usual playfulness in his voice was absent.

“I-I wanted to talk about Y/N,” Cullen said, scratching his neck.

The Tevinter turned fully to him, with his eyes narrowed. “What a coincidence! I wanted to talk about her with you as well,” he said mockingly. “Solas stopped me however. He thought it would upset Y/N only further.”

Cullen peaked up at that. So he was right, Dorian knew what was going on. “So she is upset. Do you know what caused it?”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because Dorian’s eyes narrowed dangerously now. “No, I’m not sure what caused it, but I have a pretty good idea who.”

“Who? Well, who was it?” Cullen asked. When someone upset her, he wanted to know, and maybe have a few words with them.

“Obviously, you!”, the mage almost shouted, which earned him a couple of “shhh” which he ignored.

“Me? But what have I done?” Cullen asked. He really had no idea.

Dorian crossed his arms over his chest. “I would like to know that as well. All I know is, she went to your tower last evening, and when she returned, she was crying.”

“Last evening? My tower?” Now Cullen was completely lost. She didn’t visit him yesterday, did she? All he remembered was going to bed, after another stressful day, which resulted in a terrible headache. “She didn’t visit me yesterday.”

Dorian crocked his head to the side. What was Cullen playing at? Whatever excuse the ex-templar tried, he wouldn’t get out of this that easily. “Yes, yes she was. All nicely dressed. Must be around nine.”

“I was already asleep at nine,” Cullen said. He sat down on a nearby chair, and rubbed his face with his hands. “Something is wrong.”

Dorian sat down opposite him, still not fully believing him, but he couldn’t deny that something was off.

“And she wasn’t with you?” Dorian probed.

“No!” Cullen said forcefully.

“Hmm,” Dorian stroke his chin. “Maybe something on the way there… but if something happened, why didn’t she tell Solas or me?”

For a moment they sat in silence, both lost in thoughts. Eventually Cullen got up. “Well, there’s only one way to find out. I go talk to her.”

Dorian nodded. “Tell her I’m there for her if she needs me.”

Cullen smiled. “I think she already knows that, but I’ll tell her anyway.” And with that he left.

“You surprise me, Dorian,” Solas voice came from below, as soon as Cullen had left the library.

Dorian lent on the cordon and looked down. “Oh? And why is that?”

“I expected at least one fireball.”

“Are you insane? Not in a library!” Dorian huffed and got back to the bookshelf, ignoring Solas’ faint snicker.

---

Well… that went horrible. Y/N sat on her bed, with her head in her hands. So much for handling it like an adult.

She knew had to get a grip. It may hurt, but she needed to get her feelings under control. After all, she was supposed to work together with him and couldn’t avoid him forever. Not to mention it was anything but fair to him. He didn’t do anything wrong.

After telling herself several times that she needed to stop moping, because that wouldn’t change anything, she got up and went to her desk. A pile of unread letters waited for her to be read and answered. Maybe this could distract her for a while.

Just when she was halfway through the first letter, she heard the door to her tower being opened and closed. She put the letter down and waiter for the visitor to announce themselves.

“Inquisitor?” Cullens voice carried up the stone walls.

He noticed. Shit. He noticed and is going to ask what’s wrong! What am I supposed to say? Shit, shit, shit!

“Up here,” she answered, and hoped he wouldn’t notice the slight waver in her voice.

Soon Cullen conquered the last steps. He knew he had to find out what happened yesterday, but he hadn’t thought about how to do that. Now that he was there, standing on top of the stairs, he silently cursed himself for not thinking of a plan before he marched into her private quarters.

“I- um, may I speak with you for a moment?” he asked and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yes, sure, of course,” she said and wondered if she demonstrate her nervousness any more obvious.

She gestured to the chair on the other side of her desk, and Cullen sat down, looking anywhere but at her.

Cullen cleared his throat. “I was wondering if I have done anything to offend you?”

Yes. No. Yes… but not really. I hate my life. She shook her head. “No, everything’s fine.”

“Then why… this morning, at the meeting, it seemed like you were avoiding me, and when I talked to Dorian, he told me you were upset yesterday, after, so he and Solas assume, visiting my tower,” he said, and finally looked at her. She was blushing an adorable shade of red.

The images of last night came flashing back. She standing in front of his tower, ready to knock, when she heard the moan. A moan she would have been delighted to hear under different circumstances. Her heart throbbed painfully and she swallowed a lump in her throat. “I- it- it was… nothing. Really. It was nothing to worry about.”

Cullen didn’t understand her. She was obviously upset, if not downright distressed. Something was bothering her, why wouldn’t she tell him. He thought they’d build a friendship over the last couple of month, and she would trust him enough to tell him if something wasn’t right. Maybe he had been wrong. He had hoped she would see him as more than just the commander of the Inquisition, but a friend whom she can tell everything as well. Ever since they arrived at Skyhold, he and Y/N would spend some time together, talking about anything and everything. They would even flirt occasionally, and Cullen had hoped that perhaps, she could feel something more for him. But it looks like he had been wrong.

It hurt, but he wouldn’t give up that easily. She may not feel the same for him, but if something was bothering her, he wanted to know and fix it. He would be there for her, as commander, as friend, as lover, whatever she choose him to be! “Inqui- Y/N,” he said softly, “I can see something is bothering you. Did something happened while you were on the way to my tower? Because I know, as opposed to what Dorian may thinks, that you weren’t in my tower. I sleep so lightly, I would have heard you knocking or entering. Please tell me what happened. I- we are worried about you, Y/N.”

Y/N looked at him with wide eyes. “Asleep? You were asleep?”

“Yes!?” it almost sounded like a question.

“Oh…” Suddenly she realised that he probably moaned in his dream, or even worse, his nightmare. And I ran away like some angsty teenager. Way to go, Y/N!

“What does it have to so with anything?” Cullen asked, still confused by her question.

A good question for which she had no answer, expect for the truth but that was not an option. For the second time this day, she put her head in her hands and groaned.

Cullen rounded the table and knelled beside her. “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

“I’m an idiot, that’s what’s wrong,” she muttered between her hands.

“I don’t understand…”

“I thought,” but she stopped herself. She couldn’t tell him the truth, it was too humiliating!

Cullen carefully took her hands and lowered them from her face. Her expression was a mixture of defeat and anger. Without realising it, he cupped her cheek. His thumb was softly stroking her cheekbone. When she looked at him with a questioning gaze, he froze. What was he thinking? He wanted to lower his hand, but her hand stopped him. It was his turn to look rather puzzled. She leaned into his palm, and both of them relaxed a little.

“What happened, Y/N,” he tried again, his voice barely above a whisper as if he was afraid that speaking too loud would ruin this moment.

“Like I said, I was an idiot,” she said with a sad smile.

“But what does it mean?”

She said nothing and only starred into his eyes. This beautiful shade of brown, in which she could easily get lost in. Her eyes flickered to his mouth. She had been wondering for some time what it would be like to kiss those lips. He was so close… it would be so easily to just kiss him. She looked back up. His looked so worried at her, it brought her out of her little fantasy, and she remembered that she owned him an explanation and maybe an apology.

“Cullen I-” But he pressed his lips to hers, before she could say any more.

For a second she was too shocked to do anything, but before she knew it, she was leaning into the kiss. His lips, so warm and soft against hers… But before she could truly savour the moment, his lips were already gone, along his his hand on her cheek.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me!” Cullen backed away from her and stood up.

“Cullen-” she said, a little breathless.

“I have no words for how sorry I am,” he continued to ramble.

She stood up and walked over to him, until she stood directly in front of him. “You don’t need to apologise.” This time it was her hand that cupped his cheek. “Just tell me, do you feel… could you imagine… I mean…” Why was this confession stuff so hard?!

“Yes,” he said, “I mean, that is, if you wanted to ask… I felt something for you for a while and…”

“Me, too!” she said. They were slowly closing the space between them. “I just never thought you…”

“Y/N? May I kiss you again?”

His husky voice send her shiver through her. “Maker, please!”

---

“Sooooo?” Dorian asked and plopped down next to her.

Y/N knew it was a mistake to have her breakfast in the hall, but eating alone in her chambers was always kind of depressing.

“So what?” she asked him, not looking up from her plate.

“A little birdie tole me-”

“Was that birdie’s name Sera? Or Varric?” she asked.

“-that our dear commander visited you again last evening, but no one saw him leaving it. Not until half an hour ago.” Though it was a statement, the question he wanted to ask was clear. She wouldn’t make it that easy for him, though.

“That’s right,” she said in a neutral voice.

When Dorian didn’t ask anything else, she looked up, and regretted it immediately. He was looking at her meaningfully.

She sighed. “Yes, we stuttered our way through…”

Dorian laughed. “Oh, it must have been adorable! I want all the details!”

“All the details of what?” Cullen’s voice came from behind them.

Y/N quickly got out of her chair. “Cullen! Now that you’re here we can finally start with the meeting.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the table.

“But I haven’t had any breakfast, yet,” he protested weakly.

Solas sat down where Y/N sat only moments ago, watching the couple. “Should we tell them that this door leads to her chambers and the war room?”

“Nah,” Dorian said, “let them have some fun.”

[goth-surana]

Different Violence: Chapter Two

Main pairing: Anders/Male Hawke

Main Tags: hurt/comfort, whump, aftermath of torture

Chapter 2/3 (it grew! What can I say, chapter two got away from me)

Summary: This wasn’t the rush of battle, this was the aftermath of torture. This was methodically produced pain left in the silent air, left over after anything could be done about it. It was sickening. Hawke was a warrior, he was used to violence… but not like this.

Read on AO3 or below the cut

Anders slept restlessly, tossing and turning all night. Hawke couldn’t sleep at all, haunted by the events of that night. He felt so bloody useless, especially towards the end when he couldn’t even pull himself together and Isabela had to step in. 

Hawke had thought of himself as a strong person, but he was not strong in the face of harm to those he loved. He was frightened, scared shitless and panicked. How did Anders manage to heal him the number of times he had been in mortal peril, especially after the duel with the Arishok?

Whenever Hawke was in trouble, was hurt, Anders kept his calm and did what needed to be done. He had the iron will of a healer. Lives depended on him every day and he dealt with that, he had to watch his lover throw himself into danger countless times and he dealt with that. 

But Hawke also supposed that this wasn’t some normal danger. This wasn’t the rush of battle, this was the aftermath of torture. This was methodically produced pain left in the silent air, left over after anything could be done about it. It was sickening. Hawke was a warrior, he was used to violence… but not like this. 

Hawke sat up in bed, and looked over to see Anders peering up at him with tired eyes. Before he could think about what he was saying, he asked one simple question. 

“Who?” His voice came out scratchy, dulled.

“Who do you think?” Anders responded with the ghost of a wry smile. “Templars.”

Of course it was Templars. Deep down, Hawke had probably known it was Templars but desperately wanted it not to be Templars. Templars were so often anonymous in their helms, and so protected by the Chantry. If this had just been the Coterie or Tal-Vashoth or any other threat in Kirkwall… 

“Fuck,” Hawke whispered into the air. But his resolve held firm. “I’ll still make them pay.”

Anders’ eyebrows shot up, and he made to sit before hissing in pain and laying back down as he spoke. 

“No, Hawke, that’s too dangerous! You can’t get Meredith any more furious with you than she already is!”

“I don’t bloody care!” Hawke cursed, trying not to yell. Tears were forming in his eyes again, stupid useless tears. Tears because he was so useless. Deep down he knew Anders was right. What could he do to the Templars?

Anders regarded him with pitying eyes, and Hawke thought it was just rich that Anders was giving him pity right now. 

“Did…” Hawke’s words caught in his throat. He had to ask. He had to know, but… but this was Anders’ story to tell. 

“Did?” Anders prodded, lying back on the pillows and looking almost as sickly as he had last night. 

“What did they do to you?” Hawke asked in a whisper. 

He could tell Anders was tense. “Uh, hurt me?” He supplied, clearly a little confused. “Love, you saw what they did to me. It’s all over by body.”

“But they didn’t… they didn’t touch you? Not like…”

Fuck, this was hard to say. Maybe he shouldn’t say it. Maybe he-

“Did they rape you?” He asked before he really thought it through. The possibility was gnawing at the back of his mind. 

“No,” Anders said immediately. “No, love. They didn’t.”

“Your clothes-“

“They took them to get at my skin better, that’s all,” Ander assured Hawke. Once again, he tried to rise but fell back.

Thank the Maker. It was horrible that this had to be a fucking relief, that somehow what had happened to Anders wasn’t the worst it could be. But Hawke knew even if he had been violated, that still would have been better than dead. And even if he had died, it still would have been better than being tranquil. 

The idea of tranquility made Hawke sick. The idea that a fate worse than death was thought of as mercy, that every mage had to fear their mind being taken from them… it was horrible. Anders had once made Hawke promise to kill him if that ever happened, and Hawke had agreed with his heart in his throat. It would kill him to do it, but he would respect Anders’ wish. 

Really, what happened last night was so much better than it could have been. Anders was here, alive, with his mind intact. 

“I hate that I have to be grateful,” Hawke told no one in particular. “Grateful it wasn’t worse.”

“As do I,” Anders told him solemnly. “But nevertheless, I am. They did return me to you, as they said they would.”

“Why did they do this?” Hawke asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Because they could, love,” Anders sighed. “Because it gave them pleasure to hurt a mage they couldn’t control.”

Hawke hated this Maker-forsaken world, and especially this Maker-forsaken city. If it weren’t for Bethany, Hawke would suggest they pack their things right away and leave to a place where the Templars had less power. 

But even then, he knew Anders wouldn’t leave his clinic or the Underground. For better or for worse, Kirkwall was their home. 

“You do so much for this place,” Hawke told Anders. “You do so much and this is the thanks you get.”

Anders chuckled. “You get so angry on my behalf… I’m angry enough, you know. No need for you to be too.”

“No,” Hawke said. “No, I need to be angry because my lover was brutalized and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

“There are many things we can’t change,” replied Anders. “That’s why I do what I do. To make a world where things can be different.”

“I know, I know…” said Hawke fondly. He managed a smile. “You and your crusade for justice.”

From anyone else, it would have sounded patronizing. But Anders knew Hawke supported him, loved him even more for what he did. 

“Guilty,” Anders smiled back. They looked at each other, and Hawke was flooded with relief that he could be looking into Anders’ eyes right now. 

Eventually, Hawke moved the conversation to more practical matters. “I was told by Fenris that elfroot might help the pain. He said they likely poured magebane in your wounds.”

Hawke didn’t want to make Anders recall what had happened, but it was in service of aiding his healing. 

“They did,” Anders confirmed. “I can’t say I’d ever heard of that before last night.”

“It’s common in Tevinter,” Hawke explained. “Fucked up shit magisters do to each other and all…”

This also reminded Hawke of something. “Fenris told me to tell you he hopes you recover soon.”

Anders raised an eyebrow. “He’s not happy I’m finally getting a taste of what Tevinter is like, then?”

Hawke frowned. “He would never. I keep telling you you’re more alike than you give each other credit for. No, he was quite rattled by what happened.”

Anders considered this, but didn’t reply. That was as good an answer as Hawke would probably get regarding Fenris. 

“I’ll ask Merrill to help me make an elfroot poultice,” Hawke said. “And when you’re better, you’ll have to teach me. Last night made me realize how little I know about healing. That has to change.”

Anders smiled at him. “You did well last night.”

“No I didn’t,” Hawke replied with a shake of his head. “I could barely keep it together. I couldn’t stand seeing you like that.”

Anders looked like he didn’t know how to respond, so he just looked away. 

Anders sometimes did have issues reacting to how honest Hawke was with his feelings. It was to be expected really, with how he was raised. True feelings were never spoken of in the Circle, only half truths and witty deflections. 

Anders was nervously fidgeting with the blankets, and Hawke took the opportunity to place a hand on his. 

“You’re too good to me,” Anders sighed. Hawke didn’t like when he said things like that, never had. But that was an argument from long ago, one Anders was too delicate to handle right now. He may be putting on a strong face, but he had been through trauma. 

Hawke stroked a thumb across his knuckles, hoping to coax out whatever Anders was truly feeling. 

It worked. 

“I really was scared I’d never see you again,” Anders admitted quietly. “That was almost worse than what was happening.”

Hawke didn’t say anything, just kept up his ministrations and listened. He had often found that he had to give Anders space to think through what he felt and then to work up the courage to say it. The man may be a lit fuse when it came to his cause, but any deeper hurt was always buried. 

“I hadn’t felt that scared in a long time, honestly. I couldn’t even hear Justice. I was truly alone with those bastards.”

“They’ll never touch you again,” Hawke said. 

“You don’t know that,” Anders laughed bitterly. “I didn’t even get a good look at all of them. Their leader did most of… the work. I think he almost got off on it. But anyway, what’s most likely is that we’ll be in one of your meetings at the Gallows and the bastards will be right there, sharing their private joke while we both remain oblivious.”

Hawke hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Anders was right. 

“You shouldn’t come with me anymore, if I go there.” Hawke had never liked it when he did in the first place, but Anders insisted on following Hawke into that pit of snakes. 

“Probably not, no,” Anders agreed. He sounded so defeated, so sad. 

“Who knows how Justice will react now,” Anders continued. “It’ll be even worse than it was before. I can’t know I won’t lose control.” 

That wasn’t what Hawke had been worried about. 

The two men stayed in bed, silent, for a long time. Soon after Hawke had to leave to procure an elfroot poultice, which Merrill was all too glad to help him make. 

She seemed shaken by the events of last night. 

“They really just hurt him because… they wanted to?” She asked after needling Hawke with nervous questions. 

“Yeah,” Hawke told her. 

Merrill wasn’t oblivious to the abuses of Templars, she just didn’t involve herself in Kirkwall politics as much as most mages would. 

“If you need my help getting revenge, I’ll go,” Merrill told Hawke as she handed him the finished poultice. Hawke was a bit startled by the conviction in her voice, but he nodded and thanked her. 

He didn’t even know if he would be able to enact any retribution. No Templar would be punished for his actions, especially not when apprehending an apostate. But Hawke had always operated outside the law, as everyone in Kirkwall did.

He could find out who the Templars were, there had to be a way. And if he found out who they were, he could tell them in no uncertain terms that they would die if they ever touched Anders again. 

Or maybe this was all just wishful thinking. Hawke desperately wanted to do something about what happened, he hated feeling so useless. Anders deserved some kind of… some kind of justice. 

Hawke hadn’t thought of himself as a violent man before Kirkwall. In Kirkwall, all there was was violence. All avenues of change, of changing any little thing went through violence. 

And as nice of a man as Hawke was, as charming as the nobles found him for some fucking reason, he would do what it took to defend his family.

When Hawke returned with the poultice Anders was asleep. Even then, he didn’t look at peace. His brow twitched, he whimpered slightly. 

Hawke placed a hand on his cheek, stroked gently. “Shh,” he whispered, “it’s okay.”

“S-stop, p-please,” Anders whined into the air, voice weak. 

“Love,” Hawke said out loud. He gently nudged his lover’s shoulder, hoping to wake him gently. Whatever the fade had for him, it didn’t sound good. It never was with Anders, it was always Darkspawn or Templars or a cold dark cell. 

Anders shook his head, whimpered again. Hawke shook his shoulder a little harder this time, trying not to agitate the wounds but unable to let Anders stay in whatever torment his mind created. 

Anders gasped as his eyes opened, and then looked at Hawke. Panic turned to relief, and he slumped back against the pillows. 

“I brought the poultice,” Hawke told him. He wanted to say something about the nightmare, but often Anders didn’t want to talk about it. 

Anders nodded, and began to push the covers down. Hawke helped the rest of the way, and his heart ached at the sight laid out before him. 

Anders reached to undo one of the bandages, but Hawke caught the hand in his. “I’ll do it,” he said. Anders acquiesced with another small nod.

The wounds on his chest were still angry and red, but at least the wounds were healing. 

“How long until you get your magic back?” Hawke asked as he dipped a hand in the poultice. 

“Probably another day,” said Anders. “They gave me a lot of magebane, so I can’t be sure.”

Hawke applied the poultice gently to the first cut, feeling Anders flinch beneath him. 

“Sorry,” Hawke said for what felt like the thousandth time. Hawke kept going, applying the substance gently and slowly, trying his best not to aggravate the wounds he uncovered.

Anders watched him the whole time, surveying his own wounds in an almost detached manner. 

Eventually he did begin to relax, the elfroot taking effect. 

“Will these scar?” Hawke asked as he put away the supplies and re-tied  the bandages. “Or will you be able to heal them in time?”

“The one on my thigh might, but the others are shallow. If I get my healing back tomorrow I can just fix them the rest of the way, and that should prevent scarring.”

Good. Hawke didn’t want to have to be reminded of last night every time he saw Anders without a shirt, and he suspected Anders felt the same way. Hawke already didn’t like the sight of the massive sword wound on his lover’s chest, which apparently would have been fatal if not for Justice. 

“I don’t know what I should be doing with myself right now,” Anders said to no one in particular. “Justice would normally be telling me to go to the clinic or write… but I’m in no state to do either and Justice is still dull. Must be the poison.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Hawke told him, running delicate fingers across an unharmed area of skin. He had at first gone to stroke his arm, but had to stop himself. 

“Just… lie in bed?”

“Probably, yeah,” Hawke told him seriously. “That’s what people do when they’ve been injured.” Hawke didn’t say “tortured,” but that’s what he meant.

“I guess I’ve always been able to heal it right away and then walk the rest off,” Anders mused. 

Even if he did have his healing, Hawke knew this wasn’t something he could walk off. Did Anders know that yet, or was he still trying to pretend? 

The day was spent with Hawke in bed talking with Anders, trying to alleviate his boredom. Hawke could tell it bothered Anders that he couldn’t hear Justice, so he tried to take his mind off of it.

Eventually the poultice began to wear off, and Anders winced in pain whenever he moved. 

“Let me redress the wounds,” Hawke offered. 

Anders nodded and lay back with a huff. 

“I want a bath,” he complained as Hawke began to work the poultice over his chest wounds. 

“Those tunnels were bloody filthy. I know you already cleaned the wounds, but the rest of me still feels…Well, still feels like I got pushed around on a dirty stone floor…”

He said that with indifference, irreverence, but it made Hawke’s heart freeze. That was another detail Hawke hadn’t known before, another element his mind could add to the mental picture of what happened. 

Through the thundering in his chest Hawke heard Anders call his name. 

Hawke looked over quickly, and realized he had frozen in his task. 

“What?” Hawke asked, trying to shake off what his mind was showing him. 

“You just went away for a second,” said Anders. He had so much worry in his eyes for someone who shouldn’t be worrying about others right now.

“Sorry.”

Anders gave him a searching look. “It’s okay if… well, it’s okay if you’re not okay. I’m sure last night wasn’t fun for you either.”

Hawke’s heartbeat still thrummed fast, he still felt the pit in his stomach. This wasn’t about him, why did it hurt so much?

“You’re okay now,” Hawke settled on saying. “That’s what matters.”

“But you were still hurt.”

“Love, you were hurt. You were tortured.”

The word hung in the air, and Hawke realized now that this was the first time either of them had plainly called it what it was. Torture. 

“Many mages have gone through torture,” Anders said calmly. “It was just my turn, I suppose.”

When the bastards at the Circle locked him away for a year that had been torture too, but Hawke didn’t want to bring up any more painful memories. 

“It’s still fucked up,” Hawke said, barely a whisper. He felt his eyes well up with tears, tried to will them away. 

How could Anders lay there and downplay what had happened, write it off as just another thing that happened to mages? How was Anders so messed up, so used to his shit lot in life that he just played it off when this happened? Was this Justice’s influence, thinking that others had it worse? 

Hawke loved Anders more than anything, but sometimes he was infuriating. Sometimes Hawke was just baffled at how he laughed away what he had gone through, how he pushed down his own distress until it consumed him. Would he push this down too?

Anders was easy to love, but loving him was hard. It was hard because loving him meant someone you loved had been hurt over and over again, in ways you can’t begin to heal. 

Tears were sliding down Hawke’s cheeks now, his breathing hitched. All he could think about was last night, and how last night would not be the end of it. Even if somehow Anders truly did just walk this off, the sight of Anders screaming in pain and covered in gashes from literal torture would haunt Hawke until he died. The feeling of being utterly powerless would haunt Hawke until he died. So many things already did.

“Just let it out,” Anders encouraged softly. “You don’t have to be strong around me. Wasn’t that what you said to me last night?”

It was, but it was also hard advice to follow. However, Hawke would try. 

Hawke let himself cry openly, stopped trying to hold back the tidal wave of emotion. His shoulders shook slightly, and Anders reached up and beckoned him to lie down. 

Hawke went with him and lay with his head on the pillow next to Anders, Anders reaching over to run a hand through his hair.

“We’re both alright, love,” said Anders, “we’re both together and we’re both okay.”

Hawke tried to keep remembering that instead of dwelling on what the future might hold. 

[askdragonagecompanions]

Hello! May I request DAI romances reactions when they first realize they're in love with the Inquisitor? Thank you, have a wonderful day! :D

Dorian:  He never intended to fall in love with the Inquisitor. Feelings were dangerous and they complicated everything. The other annoyingly frustrating thing about feelings is that they didn’t listen to logic. Logically Dorian knew he shouldn’t fall for the Inquisitor, that many people would just assume it was a ploy by the Tevinter Mage to get the most powerful mage in Thedas in the palm of his hand. Kaffas… he was in too deep. The first time Dorian realized he had fallen in love with the Inquisitor was honestly just a simple moment. It was a few days after the Inquisitor had gotten Dorian’s amulet back for him. He had come to visit Dorian in the library. They had shared a few nights together, a kiss here and there but Dorian kept telling himself that it meant nothing. This was just a fling between them like back home, but the heart was a fickle ting. He found himself watching the Inquisitor look at the books. The way he always had a little smile whenever he was near Dorian, oh Dorian teased him for it and Maker that laugh. They sat down to read in a comfortable silence but Dorian’s eyes kept moving over to the Inquisitor. Now Dorian was the one who couldn’t stop smiling. Maker I love that man… The thought made his cheeks turn red and he quickly busied himself by reading his book. Feelings like that were dangerous but… maybe he could be foolish just this once? Maybe….

Solas: Solas keeps himself very busy with his plans, and he often gets stuck in his own head.  Honestly at first he just assumed his feelings towards the Inquisitor were just that of them growing closer. He considered them good friends and used that as his excuse as to why he kept bringing him through the fade while they both slept. It was actually during one of these Fade adventures that Solas realized he was in love with the Inquisitor. She was so fascinated and it just made Solas smile. He loved her curiosity, her love of the fade, her. That journey ended a little abruptly. He woke them both up and sighed when he sat up. He didn’t need to fall in love, but could he truly ignore these feelings? He never thought he could meet someone like her, but here she was. 

Blackwall: The moment Blackwall realized he loved the Inquisitor was not exactly a happy moment for him. The Inquisitor is an amazing woman, fierce in battle, a level head, and still so gentle. He has cherished the time they spent together and the closer they grew the more he realized this was not just simple attraction. He truly felt something for the Inquisitor and that was the problem. He was not who he claimed to be. The Inquisitor was always so brave and did what was right no matter the consequences. She didn’t run, but that’s what Blackwall was doing wasn’t it? He couldn’t continue this relationship until he atoned for his past sins. Even if the Inquisitor was going to hate him for it, she deserved the truth and Blackwall needed to do this. Besides living a lie wasn’t exactly a good foundation for a relationship.

Iron Bull: Bull always enjoyed spending time with the Inquisitor. They were fun, knew how to have a good time when things weren’t so intense. He wasn’t surprised when they came asking about the Bull. Most people were curious, and he wasn’t going to lie they were pretty attractive as well. Feelings were always complicated for Bull. He had lots of fun with the Inquisitor, and he was quite oblivious to his own growing emotions. The time they spent together in private was always amazing and special. He got to know a special side of the Inquisitor that was only for him. It wasn’t really until a few weeks after becoming Vashoth that it hit Bull. He was just sitting in the tavern, thinking about all of the crazy shit that had happened and his mind kept wandering back to the Inquisitor. How their smile seemed to brighten up the room, the way their nose scrunched up when they laughed, how even though an alliance with the Qun demanded the sacrifice of the Chargers but they wouldn’t allow it. They truly cared for Bull… He laughed a little to himself and covered his mouth. Shit… so this was what love felt like huh? 

Cassandra: Cassandra is absolutely horrible at realizing her own emotions let alone those of other people. It took her longer than she’d like to admit to realize that the Inquisitor was even flirting with her. Then she grew flustered because could this truly be happening? It felt like something out of the novels she read, the strong charismatic leader falling for the stoic and hardened seeker? If only… They were too busy for relationships weren’t they? They were but that didn’t stop her from continuing to spend more time with the Inquisitor. He was very charming and he knew just what to do to make her laugh. The moment she realizes she’s fallen in love with the Inquisitor is when he sets up a little picnic date outside of Skyhold. She was confused at first but then he started reading poetry to her and she couldn’t help but laugh a little. It was ridiculous and perfect. She couldn’t believe he would go through so many lengths just to impress her. He was sweet and she realized she truly did feel something for him. She wanted this to work, wanted them to work as a couple, so she let herself hope that it would. 

Sera: Oh it was so easy to fall for the Inquisitor once Sera got to know her. She had a great laugh and she was brilliant when it came to pranks. They were great together and Sera realized that she wasn’t just feeling friendship. The Inquisitor made her feel all mushy, like want to hug her and kiss her sort of mushy. The mushy feelings always complicated things so she waited a little, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t the only one with those feelings, and maker it was worth the wait. She couldn’t believe that Inkie told everyone that she loved Sera. Once she was done laughing Sera kissed her Inkie because, “Awe I love you too Inkie. Still can’t believe you said that to everyone.” She’s going to tease the Inquisitor, but it truly meant the world to Sera that the Inquisitor wasn’t going to hide her feelings. 

Josephine: The Inquisitor was always kind, it was very easy to get along with them. They would spend time together, Josephine would be able to blow off steam, and the Inquisitor would as well. When they were together time had no meaning and hours would pass by like minutes. She found herself missing them more and more whenever they were on missions. When they both agreed to having feelings she was nervous. She didn’t know if this could be anything more than a few dates because of her engagement, but her feelings only grew more. The Inquisitor always knew how to cheer her up after a long day, how to make her smile. She loved the way they laughed, how they could talk for hours about topics that interested them. When she realized she loved them it was just something so simple. She recieved a bushel of flowers with a small note, “I’ll be home soon

Cullen: Oh he’s so oblivious and awkward when it comes to his own emotions. He’s never really been good at them because he’s the “keep yourself distracted with work so you don’t have to deal with hard emotions” type. The moment that he realized he was in love with the Inquisitor was when they saw him at his lowest point. Quitting lyrium is taxing and sometimes fatal, the headaches are bad enough, but it’s the shakes and the small fevers on the bad days that really get to him. He doesn’t want to feel worthless. His mind kept saying that he should be taking it, that he’d be stronger if he did, but he didn’t want to wear that leash anymore. He didn’t know they were entering his office when he threw the vial against the wall and quickly apologized. They didn’t get mad at him, they just encouraged him and helped him calm down. It was then that he knew he was in love. They were so gentle, so caring. They saw him at one of his lowest points, they knew about his past, and they still encouraged him by telling him it was never too late to change. They made him feel like he could succeed and truly he loved to be around them. The way their face lit up when they laughed, the little twinkle in their eyes when they talked about the future, stolen moments where they were alone to just hold each other close, gentle kisses under the stars. He was in it deep and now he realized how much so. 

[buttsonthebeach]

Fire and Water

@kittlesandbugs was the nicest ever and got @bearly-tolerable and @ellstersmash a holiday gift, except really it was a gift for me because then I got to write about Makon and Athi!!

Thank you so much, you three <3 I hope you enjoyed it!

Pairing: Makon x Athi Lavellan

Rating: Explicit! Sexy times ahead!

********

The first time Athi Lavellan saw a grey hair in the mirror, she panicked, pulled it out, and then immediately set to questioning whether it had been there at all, an exercise which ended in her combing out all of her thick brown hair, searching for more, and then hating herself for doing it. She had never expected to be the kind of woman who obsessed over such things. Aging was part of life. She’d admired the rich silver hair of the older women in her clan before, how it caught the sun.

So she resolved herself then and there - no more obsessing.

Except the second time she found a grey hair, she did the exact same thing.

And the third.

And the fourth.

And then when she was in the market next, she started looking at the hair dyes they sold for the first time, trying to determine if any of the henna that came out of Tevinter and Rivain might work to keep the auburn luster of her hair. And then she found an Orlesian stall that sold creams for your hands and face, and owned by a very emphatic Orlesian merchant who swore by all of them.

She was halfway through counting out the exorbitant amount of gold she would need for the purchase before she snapped back to herself.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, making direct eye contact with the merchant, and then turning and leaving without further explanation. Why would she believe a man who came from a nation where they all wore masks, anyway? And weren’t laugh lines and crows’ feet just signs of wisdom, of all the joy life had given you? And she barely had them anyway. She’d checked carefully in the mirror for them before they left for the market.

“Which merchant tried to cheat you?” Makon asked, startling her out of her thoughts. He loomed at her side, big and gentle and handsome and looking exactly the same as he had on the day they met so many years before.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Athi Lavellan was a simple Dalish elf, and her partner - her handsome, clever, loyal, thoughtful partner - was a druid of the Donarks, destined to live for centuries.

“An Orlesian, of course,” she said. “Did you finish all of your deals for the day?”

“Yes.” Makon cocked his head, narrowed his eyes just slightly. “Are you well, Athi? What did the Orlesian do, anyway?”

“Nothing. Orlesian things. Let’s get going before we lose too much light.”

Makon watched her a moment longer, still skeptical, before he smiled, took her hand, and walked on.

It was two more years after that day that Athi gave in and started dyeing her hair, learned to make salves from elfroot that were supposed to rejuvenate the face. It was fine, she told herself. It was early for her to start showing these signs, anyway. She wasn’t really ageing. Wasn’t really starting to outpace Makon on the long road that everyone walked.

But then came the morning when she stood up from bed and her whole body was a symphony of popping sounds, and her neck ached all day because of how she’d slept on it, and she had to let the younger elves go on ahead of her to continue foraging because she just needed to sit and rest.

And there, sitting on that rock, watching the elves of the clan she and Makon had helped rebuild, bit by bit, after the devastation of the darkspawn - Athi Lavellan had to acknowledge that she was getting old.

It had been twenty years since she left Clan Lavellan to be with Makon. She’d gone into it with eyes wide open, or so she thought. She knew what it would mean to live among the druids and their ancient way of life, the cord that connected them all the way back to the seven magisters that tried to breach the Golden City - to their great ancestor Danu and the High Dragon that she was bound to. Makon and his kin would not change with the passing years the way she would.

“Are you certain?” Makon had whispered to her quietly one night when she first joined him. “I know what it means to choose this life, but you do not.”

Athi had rolled to face him, traced the shape of his strong square jaw, memorized the way the moonlight silvered his brown skin. Makon was speaking of the spouses that had gone before her in his long life. None of them had been druids, either.

“I am choosing you,” she’d said, and kissed him, hard, without reservation.

But Athi saw now that she’d been kidding herself when she thought she knew what she was getting into. Like someone who’d twisted their ankle, insisting they could walk it off, refusing to use a crutch, pretending the pain wasn’t getting worse. She realized after that day sitting on the rock, watching the others, listening to the jungle sounds she’d come to know, that she couldn’t ignore it any longer. It was hard to wake up every day at Makon’s side and see that he had not changed, then to go to the mirror and see that she had.

“Fuck,” she sighed, not a curse so much as an acknowledgement. She was getting old. 

She probed the pain as the day went on and found that it was not jealousy. Makon was the best person she knew. If anyone deserved to live a life that spanned the ages of Thedas it was him. She’d seen the same of many of the other druids she lived among. Their deep love of their jungle home, their peace, their gentleness. They deserved this. She, on the other hand, did not. She was brash and stubborn and she had not lived a life of peace before she came to live with them, and she would not sully their culture by treating it as a means to an end, a way of cheating death.

But did it have to hurt so much to look in the mirror and see those lines around her eyes and her mouth, the silver that showed through at the roots of her russet hair, the softness in her belly and her thighs that came with age? If she’d known this was coming all along, couldn’t she just - skip to the part where she accepted it?

She stewed in that feeling all day, even after she returned from the foraging trip. All the way until Makon came home from his audience with the king.

“Good evening, vhenan,” he said, warm and smiling, and Athi saw him and she did not regret a single thing.

“Hi,” she said, and went to him, and kissed him, with perhaps more force than she usually put into a welcome home kiss. It took him a moment to melt into it, but then melt he did, his lips parting, welcoming her in.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of such a greeting?” he asked.

“The usual. How handsome you are and all that,” Athi said, trying for casual - but she wondered if he could hear it - the knot in her throat, made up of unspoken words. Our time together is limited, and now I have undeniable proof that it is slipping away.

“I see,” he said, looping his arms around her waist, nuzzling into her hairline and leaving a kiss there. “Then how should I reward you for being so beautiful?”

Promise sat full and ripe between them - a promise they had taken each other up on many times before. The promise of pleasure, connection, intimacy, heat. It thrilled Athi as much as it had the first time to imagine taking him up on that promise.

“I think you know by now,” she said, leaning in to him.

Makon chuckled. “Let me at least wipe myself down before I join you. I was clearing jungle for the new huts all day.”

“I’ll be ready and waiting,” Athi said, warmth already pooling low in her belly at the thought of all the ways Makon would turn his careful attention on her now.

All of that came crashing down like a sudden storm of ice when she went around the partition that separated their living and sleeping quarters, and undressed, and took in her own body in the dim light. Her desire for him was undimmed but her body had changed so much since those first heady times. And surely he had noticed it by now. Did he miss the way she was before, young and strong and beautiful? Her stomach twisted, queasy and unsteady.

She heard him rustling through their food stores. Cleared her throat.

“Take your time eating, vhenan. I’m not feeling as well as I thought I was.”

She was already dressing again when he came around the partition, bare to his waist, only his simple trousers on now.

“Oh? What’s the matter? Ukior mentioned that you had to sit out for a while during the foraging trip today.”

Ordinarily, Athi loved their small, tight-knit community. At that moment, Athi felt like barging into Ukior’s hut and demanding to know why he felt the need to spread her business around.

And now she was naked before Makon, something she had never once worried about before. She had flaunted her body for him before, proud, in love, full of need - been vulnerable to him in her times of sickness, too. She hated the shame that roiled through her now, foreign as a fever.

“Just tired,” she said, trying quickly to gather her clothes again, turning away from him.

“Vhenan,” Makon said, and she could hear his frown in his tone alone, because they had known each other so many, many years. Years that were written on her body now.

“I said I’m fine,” she said, not hiding the fact that her teeth were gritted.

“That is manifestly untrue. What is it?”

“Nothing!” she said, turning to him at last with a huff, safe underneath her clothes again.

Makon’s eyebrows were still knit close. “I can’t force you to tell me what’s wrong -”

“Then don’t.”

“- but I would appreciate it if you did.”

Ah.

There.

He’d found her soft underbelly, the thing she tried to protect from the world. He knew he could not fight her temper, her stubbornness. But he knew he could remind her how much he loved her, and how much she loved him. Damn him. Damn the knowledge and closeness that twenty years could bring.

“It’s so stupid,” she said, and felt at once that knot in the base of her throat.

“I am sure it isn’t,” Makon said, closing the distance between them.

“I’m old.” Athi blurted the words on the heels of his. “I’m old, and I feel old, and I don’t see how you can desire me like this. I wouldn’t.”

Makon did not seem as shocked as Athi thought he would. The words were a shock to her. Saying them out loud left her with a raw, dangerous feeling, like she’d cornered herself. Her mind leapt next to his other spouses, the ones he’d watched age and die before her, and then she was angry that he was not shocked, angry that he had already experienced all of this before, that it could not hurt him the way it was hurting her in that moment.

It was quiet, she realized. She wondered how much her emotions had shown on her face.

“Well?” She said, raising her arms helplessly and then lowering them again.

“I think you should take your clothes off again,” Makon said, voice low.

“Why?”

“So I can show you exactly how much I desire you.”

Athi’s whole body flushed hot and embarrassed as it had not since she was a young girl.

“No,” she said, but none of the heat found its way into her voice.

Makon shrugged, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Very well.”

His little half-smile - his handsome face - damn him. 

Athi was already halfway across the space between them before she knew she was moving, already kissing him before the words of argument she wanted to say could slip out of her mouth. Just because I’m giving in to this doesn’t mean I’m not old, Makon. Doesn’t mean I’m not just going to keep getting older. Doesn’t mean that at some point you won’t find me too old to desire me. Instead she groaned hungrily, fiercely into his mouth, hoping he would understand from that sound alone all the feelings that were roiling within her.

His answering sound, the nip of his teeth on her lower lip, his big hands cradling her close, lifting her onto her tiptoes, tangling in her long brown hair, told her that he did.

Damn him, but she loved him. Loved his quiet equanimity in the face of her storms, his steady understanding of the world and all things in it. The sound he made when she leapt from her tiptoes and wrapped her legs around his waist. The strength of his arms as he held her there. The utter safety she felt, clinging to him, kissing him, mouths parting and rejoining and then parting again, the quick dart of his tongue and the way it made her toes curl against the small of his back, made liquid fire fill her belly, so warm she could endure anything as long as he kept stoking it, and yet unbearable in its own way.

She never wanted to lose this feeling. But even as Makon turned and pressed her up against one wall of their bedroom, groaning, his own body shuddering, making small attempts to grind against her despite the difference in their height, Athi became sure again that she would. This fire would die, as all fires did, and it was unfair.

She pulled back from their kiss and looked into Makon’s eyes, bleary now with arousal.

“I love you,” she said, throat close, words small.

“And I you,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers.

“No, you don’t understand -” she began, and there was not fire in her voice now. There was water instead. “I love you, and this isn’t fair to you, and I’m -”

“I know, love. I do.” He moved one of his hands to her cheek. “Let me love you, now.”

Letting go was not something Athi did easily. She was a fighter, a holder of grudges. But Makon’s quiet insistence was the ocean tide to her rocky shore and he would have this, now, her surrender, piece by piece. And Athi knew it was what she needed, too. So she dropped back to the floor, on her own two feet once again, and began stripping her clothes off. Makon stood, watching, and this brought the shame again, a flashfire all over her skin. She wanted to cover herself. The places where she had gone soft and sagged, the scars. All of it.

For fuck’s sake, Athi. Are you really going to be like this now?

Her own scolding worked. She kept her hands at her sides, even if they were in fists. Makon’s eyes were roving, searching, an explorer committing a map to memory, as though he had never seen her before.

“Gods,” he murmured. “I am a lucky man.”

Athi felt the impulse to argue bubbling up in her chest but it didn’t have time to escape before Makon was on her again, still fully clothed, kissing her everywhere but the lips now - her forehead, her cheeks, her ears, her neck, her collarbone - while his hands mapped the rest of her. The slope of her back and the peaks of her breasts and the roundness of her buttocks and thighs. The swiftness of it stunned Athi, stole her breath, overwhelmed any other thought but those of his closeness and the smell of his skin and the feel of his calloused hands. Her heart was in her throat already and he had not even touched her where she wanted it most. 

Yet even that need seemed secondary. Arousal was just one of the many things she was feeling as Makon turned her suddenly, making her face the wall now, bracing herself against it as he began his exploration again, this time beginning with the back of her neck, the spread of her shoulders, the long valley of her spine. He ran his nose along it, kissed it, traveled the length of her legs with his hands. They were places he had kissed and touched before, surely, in their twenty years together, but there was something new in all of this. This was not one of their lazy, comfortable joinings after a long night by the fire, as dreamlike and perfect as those were. This was something primal, something that seared, like looking too long at the sun.

Before Athi could adjust to the feeling of him behind her, Makon had risen to his full height and turned her again, crushing her body to his, kissing her hard on the lips. Then he was lifting her into his arms so suddenly it made her yelp. The motion had jostled her sore left hip.

“Okay?” Makon asked, his breath a little short.

“Yes,” Athi said. It did not matter. It didn’t. She wasn’t going to let it. She was going to be here, in this moment, with this beautiful man who loved her as she was.

He laid her down on their bed and hovered over her, looking down at her, simply watching for a moment.

“I am not lying when I call you lovely,” he said. “I never have been. Nature doesn’t look the same in all seasons, but each one has its beauties. People are the same. I look at you now, my love, and I still see each and every one of yours.” He ran his hand down the curve of her cheek. “Your eyes, your skin, your hair. I can see all the smiles we’ve shared in the lines of your face now. I think that might be the loveliest part of all.”

Athi did not fight the tears that welled up at his words. They trickled out and Makon caught them, one by one, wiping them away with his fingertips, and then kissing the tracks they’d left behind. He ended at her ear, and whispered quietly in the hollow there:

“I want to make you feel good. Can I, Athi?”

His hand was on her hip now. A promise. Arousal surged to the front of her mind once again, sticky and sweet already between her legs.

“Please,” she gasped, and kissed him hard and deep as his fingers slid inward, across her belly and down where she was soft and wanting, and it was as electric as the first time, the way his fingers rubbed up and down, exploring her folds, testing the depths of her desire.

“Gods,” he whispered, more to himself than to her, sliding one finger into her, and then two. Athi canted and rocked her hips, seeking more of the sensation, but he just held there, making the tiniest crooking motions, spreading her open, listening to her breathe.

“Makon,” she whined when this went on for a seeming eternity.

He hushed her, kissed her ear, nipped the lobe. “I want to remember this forever.”

It was the most beautiful thing he could have said, and he probably knew it, too (damn him). It brought the tears back, and was aging not about moving forward but about moving backwards, returning to adolescence, to the sense that your body was beyond your control, changing too rapidly for your mind to understand - to the last time in her life that it had been so easy for her to go from tears to smiles in an instant?

He hushed her again, kissed the tracks of her tears, kept working her with his fingers ever so slowly, brushing against the swollen-up place insider her, sending skitters of pleasure through her belly, not letting anything build too much.

“I have you,” he said, shifting now, resting his thumb against the swell of her clit.

Athi believed him with all of her heart. That brought a rush as sure as the first press of his thumb, that first slow, soft circle. Makon would always have her, no matter what. She was not the unlucky one in this partnership. She was the luckiest of them, because he had her, and she was safe, no matter what happened with her body, no matter how many years passed.

“I love you,” she gasped, turning her face, seeking his lips.

“I love you,” he returned, kissing her, pressing more firmly now, stroking her inside and out, still slowly, still trying to build her up.

Athi was panting when their kiss ended, wriggling against him, trying to quicken that pace. Her pleasure was a slow tide, pulling her out somewhere far away, flooding her with heat. She was so wet around his fingers that she could hear the sound of him working her and that only made her wetter, tighter. He made a low animal sound at that first pulse of her around his fingers.

“More,” she insisted, rubbing herself against him, shameless in her need for him.

She had to ask twice more before Makon obliged, his movements so quick they startled her as he moved suddenly from her side, withdrew his fingers from her entirely, and then moved down their bed, settling between her legs and sealing his lips over the sweetness of her sex before she even had time to process the idea of it. Now he did not waste his time. His tongue was everywhere, tasting and kissing and darting in and drawing circles and then finally (finally) sucking and licking the hard point of her pleasure, and just as Athi thought she could take no more his fingers slid back in and then she was all sensation, no thought, just a keening body, strung out on need, bending and folding and seeking more, more, more of the very thing that was breaking her.

Makon only left her hovering there once, which was a good thing, because as much as Athi loved him, she might have killed him otherwise. The second time he let her tip over that edge, made her come so hard she forgot anything other than what it was to feel good, to be full of that hard squeezing heat, to be shaking with delight. To love her body again, the way she had before.

When she came down from the dizziness of it all, Makon was there, leaning over her, smiling. He was naked now, his trousers and smalls finally shucked off.

“I can promise you that without a doubt, I will never be tired of seeing you like that. It will never stop being the highlight of my day,” he said, smug and tender all at once.

“Shut up and kiss me and then get inside me,” Athi said, arms outstretched.

Makon laughed, and he obliged her.

He kissed her, returning to slow movements again, gentling her, wanting her need to rebuild slowly. Wanting to take his time. Athi could read that in the softness of his kiss, the way he eased himself on top of her and then settled there, warming her with his weight, how sometimes he drew away and kissed her forehead or her eyelids instead. Each time he kissed her like they had all the time in the world, like there was nowhere else he would rather be. His fingertips retraced the paths they’d followed before. He was no longer an explorer memorizing a new map or blazing a new trail, but a lover returning to a favorite place. She was his favorite place. Even now that she had changed. It made sense when she thought of it that way, though, as she played the words he’d said earlier over and over in her mind. She didn’t love the trees less because their leaves changed in autumn or disappeared in winter. Why would he love her less?

So Athi let herself settle into the moment with him, enjoy the feeling of his warm smooth skin on hers, take in with a thrill how hard he was against her belly, the length and breadth of him there. She let herself think of nothing but how much she liked the sounds he made when she slipped one hand between them and held his cock tight, how his whole body went tight like a new-strung bow when she swiped her thumb over the head of him, starting stroking him slowly, and then faster, limited though she was by the space between their bodies.

“Ma vhenan,” he gasped finally. “Be gentle to an old man whose stamina is not what it was.”

“Liar,” she said, even as the words seeped into her heart. She looked at him and saw him unchanged, but that was not how he saw himself. He saw himself as an old man, too. One who perhaps felt too old for her when they first met. Who saw her drawing closer and closer to the age he felt, and was not afraid.

She kissed him on the lips, and wrapped her legs around his hips, and guided him into her, and it was as perfect as the first time, the way they fit together, the way he held his breath until he had bottomed out and then let it out all at once, like he’d been waiting for that feeling all his life. The way he stretched and filled her, and then held still, reveling in that moment of connection.

Makon rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes and stayed still even a moment after Athi expected him to move. He was memorizing this, she decided. Memorizing this because as much as she feared growing old and undesirable, he feared losing her. They were both in the jaws of things they could not control. They were - neither of them - alone.

Athi wrapped her arms and legs tight around him and held him close, and he held her too, and they were together, the two of them, perfect in their stillness, whole in their fear and their love. She kissed him, and they both spoke the things they could not express with words into that kiss.

Then Makon moved once, a sudden, hard thrust that made Athi tip her head back and gasp sharply, and just like that she was back in the moment again, back in her skin, focused on nothing except how good it felt to be with the man she loved, on the flexing of his back and his buttocks as he thrust into her, on the sweet friction of him moving inside of her. He was steady, hard, unbreakable as the rhythm of sun and moon in the sky as he made love to her, and she clung to him, harder and harder, because it was so good, him filling her up, him hard and thick within her where she was soft and wanting and warm, the frantic rhythm of her own heart - and she clung to him because there were finally too many feelings within her to name them all and her need for him was one of them, unnameable and huge as a starless night sky.

So she just murmured three words to him over and over again, rocked back to meet each and every stroke of his body moving into hers: I love you, I love you, I love you.

And he replied, and each one was different, and each one made her cry: I know, I love you too, my Athi -

And then finally his whole body went rigid and he pushed himself hard and deep into her and he forgot how to breathe and he was coming, and Athi tried to memorize this exact moment, their sweat and their panting breaths and the feeling of him pulsing inside her, the ache in her muscles and her lungs. It was messy and beautiful and them and as precious as any moment they had ever shared when she was young and beautiful because it was theirs, real and true, more deeply felt than anything they had experienced in those early days.

The stiffness left Makon’s body and he softened, curled around her, no longer mindful of keeping his weight off of her. Athi ran her hands up and down his back, treasuring the way he shivered at the simple contact.

“Thank you,” she said.

“What for?” he asked, a sleepy murmur.

“For tolerating me.”

“Ah, that. It is quite a burden. I am glad you can acknowledge that.”

She hit his shoulder, no force behind the blow. She could feel herself coming down from the high of their lovemaking, even though he was still inside her, even though she could feel the wet warmth of their pleasure mingling between her thighs.

“I wish I could handle this with grace,” she said. He was starting to feel heavy on top of her but she still regretted it when he raised himself up, looked down at her. His hair was a mess now, falling long and brown around his face.

“I love you exactly the way you are,” he said. “Always. I love the fierceness of your feelings in all things. Even in this. Who needs grace when you have that fire in your heart?”

Athi wondered if this was just another sign that she was becoming an old woman - how easily the need to cry rose again. She quelled it this time. Even if she was becoming old and sentimental, there was no need to give into it every day. Besides - she would much rather put her energy into curling up against Makon’s back once he settled himself in bed beside her, memorizing the shape of it, the slope of his shoulders, the sound of his sleeping breathing. This moment, like all moments, would never come again. 

Athi was going to treasure it for every day remaining to her.

[oathbled]

Shiro Backstory Drabble

!!! content warning: mentions of murder, abduction, human trafficking, enslavement, rape, drug abuse, torture and ptsd.  !!!

Shiro sat cross legged atop a great wooden table, he made it look as if this was always how tables were supposed to be used, and everyone else had been doing it wrong for ages. The table he sat on was covered in books and ledgers all discarded as he flipped through each one at an impossibly fast pace.

“The hell is that?” Shiro didn’t have to look up knowing it was Sera peering over his shoulder.

He sighed and put the heavy Templar ledger down, knowing that these two would not just go away and leave him to his reading. He read through the names and rank of every single recorded templar ever recruited or knighted in all of the Free Marches and had come up empty. The name he was looking for was not there. Damn it all.

 He fixed her with a look that demanded to know what she wanted and why she was interrupting him. 

“Why are you reading all these Templar books? Don’t you like, hate them?” Sera asked, picking up one of the books and wrinkling up her nose. He shrugged neutrally.

“Know thy enemy.”

“Yeah well that’s dumb. We already know our enemy, or do you think knowing the names of all the red templars is gonna give us a leg up?” Shiro stood, unfolding gracefully, and gave Sera an amused look that did not reach his eyes. “If you want to know about templar stuff why not ask Cullen? He’s all about that stuff, and he was a templar back in Kirkwall right?” All though they both knew the only reason Shiro would approach Cullen willingly was with a knife. 

“This isn’t about the red Templars. I’m looking into the Templars that went rogue before  the mages rebelled.”

“Why? Aren’t the red ones the evil ones.”

“Templars were evil long before the red entered them.” He replied with a clipped tone. “Now are you going to tell me what you wanted?”

“Lady busybits is calling a meeting and she wanted you to be there.” Shiro hated being interrupted above all things and scowled darkly, but Sera had already flitted away to avoid the inquisitor’s wrath. He swore and slammed the large tome closed and stalked out of the library,  his mood as foul as the weather that raged outside.

As he descended the stone stairs memories washed over him. His body was not his. It was not the first thing they had taught him but it was the first thing he had learned. A heavy boot kicks him to the ground and he stays there, afraid to move, afraid another crack from the whip will cut his skin further. They tell him not to move but he can’t obey, because what touches his back is not the harsh lash of the whip, it’s not the cold edge of a blade, or even the forceful touch of a hand. What touches his back is burning and so is he. The smell of charred skin only made it worse as Shiro tried to twist away but the boot pushed him on his throat until the only noise he could make was a choked out sob. When the man pulled the brand away to inspect his handiwork Shiro pulled away into a corner as far away as he could get, his chest heaving. Every breath he gulped down was frantic and shallow, too short to make it to his lungs, just thick and quick enough to choke on.

“-quisitor?” Shiro blinked once, twice, and he’s back, standing over the oak war table, staring blankly at the map laid out sloppily on the grand table before looking up at Josephine and glaring. 

“I thought you were aware, my lady, how much I hate having my studies disturbed.” He growled, picking nonexistent lint off his robe, not intending for his voice to come out a sharp as it did, but still a far step from offering an apology.

“We were asking if you had any thoughts on troop movements.” He was silent, looking over the proposed movements and frowned.

“No, this will not work. See this choke point here? It will most likely be trapped and as the troops move through here they’ll be slaughtered. Move them here and here in two tight groups. It will take longer but at least our men won’t be used for target practice, or had that been your intention?” He said cooly before looking over at Leliana. “Will that be all?” His advisors shared a glance but Leliana nodded. 

He retired to his quarters after that, sinking into the chair of his desk, and pinching the bridge of his nose with a slow exhale. He picked up a quill, and stared at the blank parchment for a long time before dipping it into ink and drawing the design that haunted his nightmares, the one he felt every time he went to scratch at his scarred back. A twisting V and an I, burned into his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how long he stared at the inked parchment, but when he came back to himself it was dark. 

He didn’t understand and he hated that above all else. The men who had attacked his clan, who had taken him, had worn the armor of the human Order, and at least one of them could use Holy Smite— he had never even considered that they would be anything but Templars, but their names hadn’t been recorded in any of the countless records Shiro has scoured. They could have been zealots, or the records could have been damaged or impartial but something in his stomach churned, slow and sick.

“Varric.” The creak of the door opening should have alerted the Dwarf of his presence, but Varric started at the sound of Shiro’s voice. 

“Inquisitor! What are you doing here?” He knew how rare it was for Shiro to seek out someone of his own volition, even those in his inner circle.

“I have questions I think you are best suited to answer.” This seemed to be what Varric was expecting, since he nodded and gestured to an open chair across from him. Shiro sat, folding and unfolding the piece of parchment in his hands. He felt like his body was turning to stone, as Varric poured him a glass of Scotch. The sensation that had been boiling in his gut now settled like a whale carcass sinking soundlessly to the ocean floor. He was about to tell someone the truth. He was going to admit it. 

He’s breathing too fast, Varric has probably noticed, so he quickly grabs the glass of scotch and downed it. The alcohol helped soothe his nerves, a few more and he could be comfortably numb.

“What can I do for you snowflake?” Shiro doesn’t comment on the nickname, but merely gestured at his now empty glass. 

“I need your help finding someone.” He says, taking a slow breath. His fingers curl around the sheet of paper one last time before sliding it over to Varric. “You grew up in Kirkwall, I need to know if you recognize this symbol.” He said, with only a slight edge to his voice. 

He looked at the parchment, the swirling ink that was filling Shiro’s head. “Not off the top of my head, but I can look into it. Am I allowed to ask why?” Shiro forced himself to take a shaky breath. 

“Only if you pour me another glass.” Shiro replied after a long time. 

He drank the next glass as quickly has he did the first, and was clutching a third with unsteady hands when his words finally came. Varric waiting patiently as he built up to it. “It has come to be known that the reason I was at the conclave was because my clan’s keeper sent me there as a spy. This was a lie. My clan was killed in winter of 36 dragon.” Just saying it felt like airing out a wound for the first time and he had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself in check. Varric raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything, allowing Shiro to continue  his story. 

“We were camped just outside of starkhaven, preparing to head south, when a group of humans approached us. They were dressed in Templar armor, and claimed we were harboring dangerous apostates and demanded we hand ourselves over. I didn’t realize at the time they meant me, but my keeper did. We had several mages with us at the time, four or five more than a normal Dalish clan, all of them preparing to travel to different clans, and traveling with us for as far as they could.” Varic filled his glass only for Shiro to empty it once more. “It ended in conflict… It always does with humans. I had never experienced the Templar’s powers to kill all magic and I was powerless, caged and forced to watch as they slaughtered my family… Most innocent women and children… My younger sisters.”  He tasted blood in his mouth and swallowed forcefully. 

“Maker-” “They took the mages and left my clan to the wolves. They drugged us stupid, beat us, raped us… I don’t know how much time passed,  snow fell and leaves turned but it meant nothing to me. In my moments of clarity I realized we were moving westward toward tevinter, I had assumed they were taking us to a human circle-- they were templars after all, but instead it seemed they planned to see us as slaves.”

“I took shelter in my dreams. The fade was my sanctuary and each night I dreamed of tearing those men apart in the most terrible ways imaginable. These thoughts attracted Spirits, though I suppose Demons are perhaps a better term in this situation. Rage was the strongest and with every passing torment it’s offer grew stronger.”  This wasn’t relevant,  Shiro thought, he didn’t need to be sharing this with Varic, but once the words started he couldn’t stop them. The dam had broken on all of his festering secrets and now he had no hope but to swim and hope he didn’t drown.

“Uh, I think I see where this is going.” “It is different.” He snapped. “I am no abomination nor blood mage. I am not your blondie foolishly offering myself as a vessel. I did not bend to the demon’s will. I bent it to mine. The fade is so different from anything here, and you as a dwarf could not possibly understand. I convinced the demons that my captors would be easier targets for possession. That I would help them… Killing them was easy when they were nothing but mindless abominations- driven only by animal rage. Beasts now in form as they were in spirit.” His head ached with sharp, unrelenting pain, but memory of frozen blood and shattered bodies still brought him sick satisfaction. 

“That… That sounds more like slavers than templars.” Varic offered slowly and Shiro sneered. 

“Yes. So I have gathered. But this discovery did not dawn on me at the moment. Instead I went south, Joined the mages traveling to the conclave and planned to murder every templar I saw there… Instead I found Corypheus and he did more damage then I could possibly hope to. The irony is not lost on me I assure you.”

“I’m going to be honest, that makes a lot more sense than the spy story, knowing you and I don’t want to sound rude but why exactly are you telling me this Inquisitor.” That was a very good question; one Shiro wasn’t sure even he had the answer to.

“I’m not looking for council Varic. I want you to use your connections in the Free Marches to find out anything you can about the people that did this to me so that I can--” He cut himself off and scoffed, standing up sharply. “As for why you and not my spy master? Because I believe you are less likely to use this information against me. Do not prove me wrong.” He sighed, a painful thing that felt as if it had barbs stuck inside him, that cut and tore him up on its way out. “And do not tell anyone else what I have told you… Please.”

[enby-hawke]

Word Count:  4343

Pairing: Hawke/Isabela, Fenris/Hawke (broken up), Merrill/Hawke (mutual pining)

Summary:

Hawke is taking the breakup with Fenris hard, though only really Merrill knows how hard. To take his mind off of things, he decides to spend some time with Isabela.

I’ll put a preview in the tags but when it gets NSFW I’ll link. Don’t want to get shadowbanned.

Hawke’s eyes were burning and his throat was still hoarse. He had a major headache and had been sobbing on and off, his head in Merrill’s lap. She was the only one other than Bethany that he felt safe enough to express the depth of his pain. He had spent most of the day in Merrill’s apartment couch watching sappy chick flicks, only taking breaks when Hawke would break down again. Merrill would stroke his ears and hair and soothe him with some words. He would feel guilty pleasure thinking of Carver every time he took comfort in her presence.

“I’m so stupid,” Hawke cried suddenly, and Merrill patiently paused the movie to listen. Hawke was suddenly angry with himself. “I thought he was falling-in-love with me.”

She gazed down at him sweetly, her sadness in her eyes. “I think he was, Hawke. Is, I mean. He looked happy with you. Sometimes he even smiled.”

“Because I’m a joke.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How can I not be? I’m an idiot. He made it clear he hated me the day we met. He thinks I’m a monster.”

“No, he doesn’t.” She brushed curls off his forehead when his odd eyes turned up to gaze at her.

“Then why did he just leave? He won’t even talk to me.”

Merrill’s eyebrows knitted together as she frowned. “To be honest, Hawke, I think he’s scared.”

Hawke looked away, his eyes staring at the screen where the movie paused. The blond lawyer who he always forgot was either Jen or Janet was making her closing speech, where she would shock the audience and win the case with her specific baking knowledge that was otherwise irrelevant to the plot. “Of course he’s scared. I’m a blood mage, a curse.”

“He said magic was a curse.”

He wiped his eyes, the tears streaming again, and he looked up at Merrill slightly angry. “You’re defending him?”

“Hawke, I just don’t think he hates you,” she reached over and squeezed his hand. “I can’t imagine what he’s been through, but I know about being scared to be vulnerable. Maybe he wasn’t ready.”

Hawke looked back at the screen. Jen or Janet’s pink dress suit stood out from the drab courtroom and she pointed at the screen straight at Hawke, her face full of conviction. “So you’re saying to hold out for hope?”

“I do,” Merrill said brushing his big ear that had the most lopsided point. He looked back up at her, full of hope and he was drawn back into those meadow green eyes. For a moment Hawke thought they would kiss and he held his breath, she leaned in, he drew closer. But the way the light glinted made her eyes almost the same color as Fenris and pain stabbed his heart and he turned his head back to the TV, ending it. He thought of Carver, forcing him into his mind, reminding him why he could not go there.

“Is it stupid that I still love him? We broke up before we even started dating.”

Merrill smiled. “Love is never stupid and always stupid.”

Hawke laughed, genuinely. Merrill always knew what to say.

They resumed watching “Legally Stupid” but Hawke couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the movie. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he almost kissed Merrill, his face burning as he laid in her lap. He had almost blown it. But he would keep thinking of that moment, a welcome distraction for his broken heart.

He didn’t return to his mansion that night. He went to the Hanged Man and parked himself right behind the bar, greeting Corff. Hawke thought again of how he almost kissed Merrill, kicking himself, and then promptly ordered 5 shots of Jack whiskey and downed them all down then ordered two more. He scanned the bar for Isabela and found her already in a game of Wicked Grace with Fenris, Varric, Sebastian and three of Varric’s templar friends that he’s introduced to at least five times but he hadn’t bothered to remember their names. He stared at Fenris, in a deep chat with Sebastian, his white hair falling in those dreamy green eyes as they turned upwards into a smile. So he was happy. Hawke could be happy, too.

He carried the shot glasses to the table just as all the men collectively groaned.

“Sorry, fellas, looks like I win again,” Isabela grinned collecting the coin on the table with two outstretched arms.

Varric laughed, gathering the cards and dealing again. “I told you not to take that bet, Choir Boy.”

“I will prove that you’re cheating, Isabela,” Sebastian said, his voice playfully cross.

Isabela turned to respond when Hawke placed the two shot glasses in front of her. She looked up at Hawke and smiled wryly. “A present for me?”

“If you like,” Hawke shrugged. “It could also be a bribe.”

“Oh,” she raised an interested eyebrow, downing the first shot. “And what am I being bribed for?” Then she downed the other.

“Fuck me,” Hawke said bluntly, causing Sebastian to spit out his water, but nobody else seemed shocked. Hawke was avoiding Fenris’ gaze and Fenris was avoiding him, but anyone who looked could see the Tevinter elf reddening, his eyes stony and hard.

“Ooooh,” Isabela cooed. “Interesting, but I don’t know if I feel like it right now.”

Hawke threw his head back and groaned childishly. “Fine,” he whined, turning his back. There was always porn. “Come over when you change your mind.” And he began to walk away.

“Hold on,” she called out in a sing-song voice. He knew that was going to happen. “Hawke, what color are your underclothes?”

Hawke turned around, grinning cheekily. “Wanna find out?”

“I don’t know. You put on the most childish things,” she turned to the table pointing at Hawke. “This man has a whole collection of cartoon dragons, superheroes, and dogs. I don’t want to fuck a man with Captain Ferelden on his crotch.”

Hawke was already drunk and not even phased at the scattered laughter. “I’m not ashamed of that. Those were collector’s edition.”

Isabela rolled her eyes. “Hawke, learn to collect things that are actually worth something.”

Hawke shrugged. “So we fucking or not?”

“Hmmm,” Isabela simpered, pretending to think deeply with her hand on her chin. “How about you take off your pants first and then I’ll decide.”

Hawke didn’t even wait to debate how he would show her his underclothes. Without complaint, he started undoing his belt. Scattered hoots and whistles encouraged him and he stripped to reveal tight black women’s panties that hugged his skin and showed off the bulge in his crotch. “Happy now?” he asked and stepped out of his pants. Everyone behind him started laughing hysterically.

“They’re decent. Turn around,” she ordered.

So Hawke threw his jeans and belt over his shoulder and showed off the back of his panties. There was an arrow pointing down in white that said, “With an ass like this who needs big tits?”

“Cute, right?” Hawke grinned. He had little shame, to begin with when he wasn’t drunk, but in the bask of the drunken hoots and hollers he was brazen. Sebastian was shielding his eyes as if he was looking into the sun. Fenris averted his gaze, nursing his drink, pretending he wasn’t there. The templars were laughing drunkenly and one of them, the red-headed mustache guy, slapped Varric on the shoulder. Varric snapped a picture, for posterity.

“Hawke,” Corff said from behind the bar, in an annoyed, tired tone. “This is a public business. Get dressed or get out.”

“I’ll be out of your way in a minute,” Hawke called back and gave a thumbs up.

He turned back around to see Isabela giggling, her hands holding her ample sides. “Oh, Hawke,” she said wiping her right eye. “You’re too easy.”

“Hey, easy gets me laid. Let’s go before I get kicked out,” he leaned over the table and grabbed her hand.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she laughed, and scooped her winnings into her bag. He helped her over the table, almost getting knees in food and spilling drinks. Both still laughing, he dragged her into her room and promptly shut the door.

Read the rest on AO3

[tryvyalsynnes]

Chapter two of Hawke’s Mabari is up on Ao3!

2. Arguing with Anders

“There are going to be puppies?” Fenris climbed down from the rock and crouched to see. The female’s belly looked like a regular mabari one.

“Yes,” Anders grinned. To the couple he said, “I can tell you how many and what they are if you like.”

The female eyed him cautiously and perked her ears, but Hawke’s war hound let out a scandalized bark.

Anders was beaming. “Let me help you unwrap the presents. I’d like to have the string; I can use it.” He opened their war hound’s backpack, pried the string off each package and tossed them to the she-hound.

She fell on them and ripped them open, demolishing the contents, crunching through the bones, shredding the paper to get at the blood soaked in it.

Fenris got a better look at her. Her muscles stood out in bold relief. She had seemed like a creature of pure power but seeing her close and watching her eat made him think differently. He and Anders shared a sidelong look.

The female mabari was starving.

She was thirsty too. Fenris opened his pack and pulled out one of his cooking pots, emptied a skin of water in it and set it down for both dogs. She scrambled to the pot and sucked in water. Hawke’s mabari waited politely while she drank her fill.

“She must be a survivor from the bandits.” Anders was still smiling. He was sitting on the rock again with a small pile of tangled string in his lap, picking out the knots. “She seems to by herself out here.”

“That battle was a while ago. What do you think she’s been eating?”

“My guess is the dragon we killed. That can’t be good for her. It must be putrid by now.” Anders looked at the she-hound, winding the bits of string he’d salvaged into a ball. “Is that right? Is that where you’ve been denning, sweetheart? With the dragon?”

The mabari female woofed, her ears flat.

Fenris felt sorry for her. He liked coming to the Wounded Coast and walking its trails, but he would hate to live in it. It was true to its name, a wasteland battered by storms blowing in from the sea. There was hardly any game. It was not safe either; riffraff of every sort were attracted to the caves in the area. “She cannot stay here. We have to take her back to Kirkwall with us.”

“Where will she stay? With whom? It can’t be Hawke. If it could be him, he’d be here in our stead. He was leading us, and he was first into battle like he always is. He probably killed her previous partner.”

The female mabari angrily agreed, snarling. Maric whined sadly.

“She can’t stay with any of us. You know how he is, he never knocks, he just barges in, and once he figures out what’s going on, he’ll try to meet her, because he likes to fix things. She can’t be anywhere near Hawke; she’ll have his throat in an instant. It’s a good thing she doesn’t hold us responsible as well as Hawke.” Anders looked at the female apologetically. “Although for what it’s worth, we’re sorry.”

“It is a shame. Merrill’s house would otherwise be perfect. She could teach them all sorts of things. She knows all the old stories and the puppies would enjoy the rats.”

“And we won’t take her to the Chantry. It’s completely out. There’s no telling how she or the babies will end up.”

Maric’s head jerked up. He huffed indignantly, outraged.

“Perhaps the Guards will take her in? The puppies will all become guardsmen and women. They won’t have the opportunity to be fostered into noble houses, but it’s not a bad life.”

The parents listened, their eyes and ears following the turns of the conversation, and then the female pointedly turned her back. Hawke’s dog looked from her to them, his ears drooping.

“Well, I suppose there’s no point in discussing it now. We can think about it later.” Anders set aside his string, drew his hunting knife, and held out his hand, demanding the rabbit Fenris had caught.

Fenris reluctantly gave it; he’d wanted it for their supper, not the she-hound’s. Anders butchered it quickly, skinning it and cutting it open, and threw it to the female.

The three of them watched her tear it into bloody chunks, devouring it.

“Go get us another rabbit, or a pheasant, or both. She and I will set up camp.” Anders crooked a finger at the female. “Come here, sweetheart, let me see that cut over your eye. It looks infected.”

The she-hound looked at Anders warily, licking blood off her muzzle, and crept closer, sniffing at the mage’s knees.

Fenris got a handful of quarrels and their crossbow. It was a simple hand-held thing with a bronze trigger, nothing like Varric’s Bianca. He’d bought it for them when they were without Varric, and he and Anders were good enough with it to be able to hunt, if the quarry wasn’t too far away or moving. He and Hawke’s war hound set off to flush game.

“Do not worry,” Fenris followed the mabari’s gaze. The dog was looking back at the camp where Anders was still coaxing the female closer. “He will talk to her.”

There was some dense scrub upwind near the water. It was the only place on the coast they hadn’t been, and if there was any game, it would be there. Fenris strung the crossbow and sent the dog into the bush.

Fenris knew his words to Hawke’s dog were empty; no matter what they said and did, the female would not come to Kirkwall. She did not know them. Her ears had perked when he’d mentioned Merrill and the possibility of an education for her puppies, but Fenris knew as soon as the she-hound learned about the mirror, she would not go anywhere near Merrill’s house.

A quail burst from a tangled mass of leaves and branches. Fenris shot it.

They had to figure something out. Mabari relied on their human owners or their pack for survival. The female’s situation would only get worse as she got gravid and less able to hunt for herself. Two days of their time was not going to be enough.

Fenris and the dog went back up the hill with their prize, Fenris trudging, deep in thought, the dog bounding ahead. Anders had their tent up and a fire started, and the she-hound was warming her belly. Her cut had become a ragged scar, and she was lying beside the fire with her head on her front paws, dozing. Her tummy was so full it looked stretched.

Fenris handed the quail to Anders, got a mug, mixed some wine with water, and settled by the fire to watch the mage work. Anders scalded and plucked the bird; soon there were pieces of quail frying in a covered pan. Anders made tea and cut up potatoes, an onion, and carrots.

Fenris added tea to his watered wine.

Hawke’s mabari was cuddling with the female, lying beside her, lifting his head now and again to touch noses with her. She kept drowsing; it had likely been a long while since the last time her belly had been full.

They did not talk about it, for the sake of the dogs, but it was obvious they were both thinking the same thing. Anders’ brow was furrowed, and he glanced at the dogs often while he laid out their bedrolls and hung his herbs to dry.

The situation was a quandary. They both had to be in Kirkwall. Anders had the clinic, and Fenris supported himself with mercenary work out of the Hanged Man; he spent his days there.

Anders held out a wooden bowl of quail, fried potatoes and sautéed veggies. It smelled delicious. Fenris took it. “Who has first watch?”

The mage settled down on the other side of the fire with his own bowl. “The dogs do, and both watches. They can sleep tomorrow.”

Maric’s eyes cracked open and his ear twitched, and then he rolled onto his side, heaved a sigh, and started snoring.

Fenris hoped it meant the dog agreed.

The quail was delicious, beautifully herbed and seasoned. For a beggar, Anders was a masterful cook. Fenris guessed Anders had learned while he’d been a Warden; southern circles did not teach cooking. Even in Tevinter, few mages learned anything other than magic. They could not afford to waste the time.

They ate in silence. The night air was still and warm, the sky clear; it was an ocean of stars. Fenris sat leaning against an outcropping with the bowl on his lap. The healer was sitting like he was, on the other side of the fire with his own bowl, relaxing, looking out to sea, but his smile had disappeared. He looked like he usually did, arrogant and impatient, as if existence was more trouble than it was worth.

Fenris sighed. Something about the day had been perfect for them, maybe it had been the weather, or having a mystery to solve, but they had not fought, or even talked much, only enjoyed themselves and each other’s company for once. He had just decided he needed to get away from Kirkwall more often, even if it was with the mage; he could remember few times when he had been as content, but the mage’s current mood reminded him of all the things about Anders he did not like.

The she-hound finally stirred, lifting her head sleepily. She got to her feet, and, with a backward look, left the fire. Hawke’s dog went with her.

The two mabari disappeared into the night.

Fenris tensed. Old fears made his hands shake.

Anders was easy to fight with; he was a blind idiot with no appreciation for logic, and he treated Fenris like an equal. Still, even after all the time he’d spent away from Tevinter, Fenris had trouble talking back to a mage.

To his credit, Anders waited a full minute and a half until the dogs were out of earshot before he started griping. “This is Hawke’s fault. He should have seen to this aspect of his hound’s life a long time ago, and then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Scowling, the mage stood and fed scraps and bones to the fire, wiping his bowl thoroughly with some dead grass. “She won’t come back to Kirkwall with us. She’ll have to be cared for here, on the coast.”

“I gathered as much.” Fenris’ voice sounded hard and cold even to his own ears. “You sound like you have issues with it.”

“I’ll make you a list of the things you’re going to need to get her through. You’ll have to pay close attention to her. I’ve heard Mabari pregnancies are difficult.”

“I have heard the same. You can blame the Magisters of Tevinter for it.”

Anders gave him a dirty look but refused to be distracted. “She’s been too long without food and clean water, and she has worms. You’re going to have to find a way to weigh her and then I’ll mix something up.”

“No, I will not.” Fenris put his bowl on the ground and glared up at the mage. “You will. It is why you are here.”

“I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to; I have no time to spare for dogs. I have people to look after.” Anders picked up Fenris’ dish and wiped it too, tossing the fouled grass into the fire. “But if there are problems, or when she’s close, let me know, and I’ll come.”

“I will not come here alone, not regularly, every day at the same time. It’s too dangerous. I might as well look for Danarius’ slavers and hand myself over. You know I do not go anywhere without a group of allies, either Hawke’s or my friends, mercenaries like myself.”

“Oh please.” Anders scoffed, getting busier as he got angrier. The pan clattered when he flipped it upside down so the fire could burn it clean. “You talk about leaving Kirkwall at least once a month. We’ve defeated everyone, his apprentice, what’s-her-name—Hadrianna? He’s not going to come.”

“He will. If only for revenge, to scrape the lyrium from my skin. I’m sure I’ve become a significant embarrassment. He has to win.”

“But if I’m along to protect you, you’ll feel safe? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you trusted me.” Anders’ laugh was mocking. “This is new.”

“I will feel safer. You, I, and the dogs make four, which should be enough; we took Hadrianna and her underlings with only four. I trust you will not want to face Hawke without me or his war hound. You know I will fight to the death unless I’m captured, and so will the dog.”

Fenris was keeping himself in control, but his temper was rising; he could feel his face flushing. “It is not me who is needed here, it is you! I am only here as your bodyguard. You should feel ashamed. It’s not any animal asking, it’s Hawke’s war hound. He is our faithful companion; he’s fought with us, helped us, even saved our lives, and this is how you repay him? He has asked nothing of any of us in return, only this. Are you really going to forsake him?”

“Listen to me. I can’t be here. I have… things I need to do. The clinic—”

“No, you listen to me! When has the clinic ever stopped you from leaving with Hawke? Your clinic is almost empty these days; you said so yourself. You have the time, or you should.” Fenris glared. “What are you planning, Anders?”

“It’s not like I’d tell you.” Anders face was shadowed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Correct. I do not.” Fenris’ voice was icy. “If you will not help, I will ask the Order. I believe Knight-Captain Cullen is partial to mabari. He might even lend me a capable healer, if a loyal one still exists.”

“Ha! He’ll just confiscate the dog, and you and Maric will never see her again.”

“And then she will get the best care possible.” Fenris let the hint of a mean smile show. “And so will her children.”

“Those puppies were fathered by Hawke’s dog.” Anders’ voice was like flint, hard and brittle. “You’re not going to raise them to be set on mages.”

“Is there another choice?”

“Damn you to the Void! You have no idea what you’re asking!”

“It will not be that bad.” Fenris wheedled, scenting victory. “Besides your care, the dog will need food and water twice a day. We only need to spend our nights here; our days will be the same.”

“Yours, maybe, but mine won’t.” Anders’ scowl deepened. “At night I help with the Mage Underground, and you may not be a target out here with me along, but I am. They’re still after me.”

It was a valid point. Anders was safer in his clinic, with his volunteer army and Darktown between him and the Order. “We’re both unprotected without Hawke. I swear I will hide you and defend you as you will me.”

“You’ll do one better.” Anders smiled; it wasn’t a nice smile. “I still have to find the time for everything I need to do. You’re going to help me get mages out of the Gallows.”

Fenris thought about it, staring into the fire.

Anders’ mad quest to free every mage in southern Thedas was the last thing he wanted to be part of, but Kirkwall was already a cesspool. Anders would help mages escape whether he got Fenris’ assistance or not. If it was the only way to get Anders to agree… “Done.”

“What?” Anders’ mouth dropped open. “Just like that? I expected you to run to Hawke the moment you found out what his war hound wanted. This situation is technically his problem, not ours. We’re making it ours. What are you getting out of this?”

“It is the right thing to do.” Fenris scowled up at Anders, daring him to disagree. “Hawke would do whatever he could, even if Maric was not involved. We can do the same.”

“You’re more likely to betray the Mage Underground than help. How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You don’t!” Fenris glowered up at Anders. “But when have I ever interfered? I have done more, I have gone with you and Hawke and killed on behalf of mages. All I do is disapprove, and I will when work with you, mage, you can count on it. It will simply be another assignment, one without pay. The why of it, the foolishness you are engaging in, is not my problem.”

Fenris could see Anders was angry. His skin was flushed, and his mouth was set in a thin line, but the healer didn’t answer. He was not looking at Fenris, but at the fire.

“Are we agreed?”

“I suppose.” Anders sighed. “I can’t say the day was wasted. It was good to get away for a while, and spend some time doing something other than… the usual. I love how you always make me feel like a cad.”

“You prioritize all the wrong things. Look after yourself. Do what you can and leave the rest to others. You’ve won freedom. Let it be enough.”

“It isn’t freedom if it can be taken away in the blink of an eye.” Anders scowled at Fenris but let out his frustration with a breath. “As you well know, but never mind. We still have to work out how and when are we going to do everything, where we’ll be staying, what we’ll be eating…”

“Tomorrow.” Fenris passed Anders the wine skin. “Tonight we rest.”

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke modern AU: Attachments

Chapter 2 of Damned Spot, the modern bartender AU, is up! Read here on AO3.

Chapter 1 is here, for those who’d like to catch up! 

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

Piper curled her feet up on the couch and lifted her mug. “All I’m saying is that maybe you should try a different strategy. Your usual ‘I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s bang’ routine doesn’t seem to be working with our resident broody bouncer.”

Rynne groaned as she poured a dash of milk into her tea. “But that’s the only routine I have,” she complained. “And it usually works so well.”

Piper snorted into her coffee. “You could always try having, you know, a normal conversation with him.”

Rynne sighed heavily as she joined Piper on the couch. “Well, maybe I just enjoy torturing myself with my futile attempts. He frowns at me so often that it’s like getting a hit of lyrium when he actually smiles.”

Piper elbowed her gently. “As if you would know what a hit of lyrium felt like.”

Rynne gave her a rueful little half-smile. “True enough.”

Piper patted her knee sympathetically, then gulped back the rest of her coffee and hopped up from the couch. “Well, I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for lunch.”

Rynne stretched her legs out on the coffee table and idly picked up a nearby fashion magazine. “All right. Tell the handsome Mr. Rutherford I said hello.”

Piper smirked as she pulled on her boots. “Sure you don’t want to join us? You’re not going over to help your mum this afternoon, are you?”

Rynne shook her head. “No. She hasn’t texted or called, so I’m going to assume she’s fine on her own for once. But I won’t crash your date with Cullen. I’m good here - I might make some cookies for Isabela. She’ll probably be starving when she gets home. You know how she fucking hates craft service food.”

Piper smiled. “Aw, that’s a good idea. She gets back from her film shoot tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“Yeah,” Rynne said. “And Merrill will be back from that, um… what is that thing called again?”

Piper shook her head in fond amusement. “The Arlathvhen. The clan meeting -”

“Right, right,” Rynne said hastily. “The Arlathvhen. She’ll be back from that in another week. I bet Bels will want to throw a party when we’re all home together again.”

Piper grinned wickedly. “Ooh, I certainly hope so. I need a good excuse to make Cullen grind with me. He never wants to dance in public at the Hanged Man.”

Rynne smirked. “Of course he doesn’t want to dance with you in public. You’re a filthy bitch when you’ve had a few drinks.”

Piper cackled. “You know me too well.” She grabbed her bike helmet from the hall closet and opened the door. “All right, lethallan, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” Rynne said absently. She flicked through the magazine for a few minutes, then pulled out her phone and tapped through to her contacts.

She scrolled through the contacts until she found Fenris’s number. She stared at it for a few seconds until she began to feel like a stalker, then tossed the phone onto the coffee table. She’d managed to get his number ostensibly on the grounds of work-related emergencies, but she hadn’t yet found a plausible excuse to text him.  

She hoped Piper was right, and that Isabela would want to throw a party when Merrill came home. Rynne, Piper, Merrill and Isabela lived in a huge luxury condo that Isabela owned, and it was a great setting for parties. A party would be the perfect excuse to get Fenris into a more relaxed atmosphere. He always seemed so tense at work, which she supposed made sense what with the risk of getting swung at by drunken idiots at any moment. But Fenris’s brand of serious readiness seemed more… well, serious than a bouncer job required.

Mysteries on top of mysteries, she thought. Fenris had been working at the Hanged Man for almost a month now, and most of the information she’d managed to learn about him was just confirmation of hints she’d gathered the first time they’d met: that he was from Tevinter, that red wine was his drink of choice, that he didn’t like karaoke or any other activity that put him in the spotlight, and that he did not like being touched.

But there were a couple other things she’d noticed that both intrigued her and made her feel worried for him. It seemed that Fenris trying to hide from someone. He used a flip phone, and when Rynne had teased him about it, he’d frowned and changed the subject. She’d also observed that he paid for everything in cash, which made her think he didn’t have a credit card and thus was trying to avoid being tracked down that way.

Either way, Fenris and his whole situation piqued her interest more than anyone Rynne had met in recent years, but it also made her feel oddly protective of him. It was easy for Piper to suggest that she simply have a normal conversation with him, but she didn’t want to prod for details of his life if he was purposely trying to keep it hidden from someone. So she was stuck with her usual brand of raunchy flirtation, which Fenris didn’t seem to hate, but also didn’t seem to particularly enjoy either.

She picked up her phone and idly scrolled through her social media accounts, but her mind was still on Fenris. Finally she stood up and went to go bake some cookies.

It was just a matter of finding some common ground with Fenris, that was all. And Rynne didn’t mind taking the time to figure out what that common ground might be.

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

Fenris knocked on the door to Varric’s office. “Varric?”

Varric glanced over the top of his reading glasses, then slung his legs off the desk. “Come on in, elf. Got your pay right here.” He placed his papers back on the desk, then bent over to unlock a drawer.

Fenris sidled cautiously into the crowded office. The walls were lined with shelves upon shelves of books and files, and there was a heaping pile of unopened mail on the corner of Varric’s desk.  To Fenris’s eye, the office was cluttered almost to the point of being claustrophobic, but he got the sense that Varric could pull any given receipt out of the mess in less than a minute.

He approached the desk, and Varric held out an envelope of cash to him. “Don’t get mugged on your way home.”

Fenris smirked. “That won’t be a problem. I will see you tonight.” He turned to leave.

“Hey, elf. Hang on a minute.”

Fenris turned back, and Varric gestured for him to approach. “Have a seat. You want some coffee?”

Fenris shook his head. “No, thank you.” He took a tentative step closer to the desk, then sat in one of the two chairs when Varric waved again for him to sit.

“Is something wrong with my work?” Fenris asked.

Varric frowned. “What? Oh, no. You’re doing great.” He shot Fenris a lopsided smile. “I think you’re pulling in more customers, actually.”

Fenris frowned. “How so?”

Varric’s smile widened. “With your whole brooding, good-looking bad-boy thing. I’ve been hearing a lot of whispers from the patrons.”

Fenris shot the dwarf a chiding look. “Is there some other reason you asked me to stay, other than to taunt me?”

“Heh. All right, all right, no need to be touchy.” Varric studied Fenris for a moment over the top of his glasses, and Fenris gazed back at him with a growing feeling of awkwardness.

Finally Varric leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk again. “How are you settling into Kirkwall?”

Fenris shrugged and stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. “Just fine, thank you.”

“Have you seen much of the city yet?”

Fenris shook his head. “I have been busy.”

Varric tilted his head. “Doing what?”

Fenris raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Working at this fine establishment of yours, obviously.”

“What else?”

Fenris frowned slightly. In truth, he hadn’t done much of anything since moving to Kirkwall. He’d been spending most of his spare time simply milling around in his spartan studio apartment in Lowtown. He didn’t know anyone in this city except for the people who worked at the Hanged Man, so it wasn’t like he had anyone to spend time with outside of his working hours. But he also wasn’t particularly inclined to make any friends. The more people knew him, the more likely it was that his whereabouts would get back to Danarius and his thugs.

Danarius would come for him eventually. Fenris knew this. But he wasn’t prepared for the confrontation with his former boss just yet. Fenris had no weapons in Kirkwall except for a handful of knives and a handgun, and he would need a lot more than that to deal with the number of men Danarius was sure to throw at him.

Fenris’s only concern was making enough money to get some adequate weaponry on the black market, and he had to keep his head down until that time. When he was ready, he would go to Darktown and carefully put out the word to the right people that he was in Kirkwall. And when Danarius came, Fenris would use his finely honed skills one last time and take the Tevinter crime lord out, along with any of his cronies that he brought along.

To this end, it wasn’t Varric’s business what Fenris did (or didn’t do) when he wasn’t working. In fact, it was for Varric’s own good if he didn’t know.

“Is there a point to this line of questioning?” Fenris asked.

Varric shrugged affably. “Kirkwall’s an interesting city, that’s all. You should get out more. See some of it. I bet Hawke and Piper would be happy to show you around.”

Hawke. Fenris’s belly did a funny little swoop at the mention of the dark-haired bartender. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. She was constantly flirting with him, in a very obvious and very sexual way. But she seemed to flirt with everyone in this manner, including Varric, and Varric certainly didn’t take her seriously, so Fenris didn’t think he should be taking it seriously either.

But he’d noticed something about her flirting that he rather appreciated. Hawke was a very… touchy-feely person, it seemed. She greeted her friends with hugs and kisses, and she touched the hands and faces and arms of every stranger she flirted with. But after the one time she had touched his hand, on the very first night they’d met, she had never tried to touch him again.

It was rather perceptive of her to notice his discomfort with being touched. The tattoos that spanned his body didn’t hurt anymore, not like they had during the first few weeks after he’d gotten them, but the memories of Danarius’s private physician rubbing lyrium salve into the raw and reddened marks still lingered. The resentment Fenris held about the tattoos on his skin was more of a scar than the tattoos themselves.

He pushed the bitter thoughts away and turned his mind back to Hawke. Yes, it had been perceptive of her to notice that he didn’t like being touched. And considerate, too, to adjust her style of flirtation to make him comfortable. It was… endearing, almost.

He shook his head slightly. It didn’t matter. Hawke certainly didn’t mean anything with her indiscriminate flirting. And it wasn’t like Fenris was in any position to reciprocate, anyway.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind - just a flash of an image, really, barely more than a passing fantasy: his lyrium-lined fingers stroking her bare and golden shoulder.

An uncomfortable flush of heat lit the tips of his ears, and he forced his attention back to Varric. “Have they lived here for long? Piper and Hawke?” he asked.

“Just a couple of years,” Varric said. “Rynne came here… oh, about three years ago now, with her family. Piper came on her own about a year later. She’s from a Dalish clan based out in Ferelden somewhere, but you’ll have to ask her more about that.”

Fenris nodded, then surreptitiously cleared his throat. “And… and Hawke… She lives with her family, you said?”

Varric shot him a knowing look: a very brief look, but enough of a look to make Fenris’s ears feel hotter still. Then he began to organize the papers on his desk. “Nah. She and Piper live with two other friends in a fancy place in Hightown. But Hawke sees her mom a lot. Spends a lot of time doing errands for her, chores around the house, stuff like that.”

Fenris frowned. “Her mother is ill?”

“Nope,” Varric said. He tidied his papers into a stack and didn’t elaborate.

Fenris curiously narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t press. He knew only too well the value of privacy.

He shifted slightly restlessly in his chair. “Well, if you haven’t anything else you wished to discuss…”

Varric looked up at him and smiled. “All right, I get it. Go on. I’ll see you tonight. But think about what I said,” he added as Fenris rose from his seat. “This is a good city. It’s got its gritty parts, sure, but it’s an interesting place. Lots of interesting people. You should get to know it if you’re going to be living here for a while.”

Fenris nodded once. “I will… consider it. Thank you.” He turned away and left the office.

The springtime sun was bright and warm when he stepped out of the Hanged Man, but he pulled up his sweatshirt hood and shoved his hands into his pockets nonetheless. As he made his way back to his apartment, he mulled over what Varric had said.

He knew Varric was just trying to be helpful. The clever dwarf seemed to have an avuncular outlook towards all of his employees, and his fatherly feelings seemed to extend to Fenris as well. And Fenris was grateful; Varric had hired him despite knowing next to nothing of Fenris’s employment history or his past, and had also unquestioningly agreed to pay him under the table, despite the undeniably shady implications of such a request.

But Varric’s intentions and goodwill didn’t matter, not really. Fenris had good reasons for keeping to himself. He couldn’t build any attachments, not when he knew he would eventually leave this city with a pile of bodies in his wake.

His unruly mind conjured another memory: Hawke’s laughing face as she handed him a glass of red wine across the bar, wine that matched the crimson of her lips.

He pushed the thought away. Stop, he sternly told himself. There was absolutely no point. He was here to hide and to make some cash, that was all.

There was no place in his cursed life for anything - or anyone - else.

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

“Hello, handsome! The usual?”

Fenris nodded at Hawke. “Yes, thank you,” he said. He took a seat at the bar as he usually did during his break and waited silently as Hawke filled two steins of beer while simultaneously making change for a twenty-dollar bill.

She filled another pint glass with water and added a slice of lime, then slid the glass to him. “Any interesting stories tonight yet?”

Fenris smirked faintly. She always asked him this during his breaks. At first he had simply said no; being a bouncer was a tiresome job, and Fenris didn’t find anything particularly compelling about turning drunken frat boys and businessmen away or throwing them out of the bar altogether when things got rowdy.

But one night, Fenris had given into her lighthearted persistence and told her about the gold-handled kitchen knife that some idiot from Val Royeaux had pulled on him at the door. Hawke had laughed so hard that Fenris didn’t have it in him to deny her the stupid little stories.

He lifted the glass of water to his lips. “I turned away some fool who had left his ID at work. He said his sister was inside and that she could vouch for his age.” He took a small sip of water. “Do you suppose I should have given him the benefit of the doubt?”

Hawke’s face lit up. “I don’t suppose he had short brown hair and a face like a baby’s smacked bottom?”

Fenris choked in surprise at this extremely colourful description. “What?” he spluttered.

Hawke grinned at him. “He almost sounds like my brother Carver. Now that would be hilarious if you’d turned him away.”

Fenris wiped his mouth and stared at her. “Your…? Should I let him in next time so you can confirm?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Hawke chuckled. “If he forgets his ID at the police station, it’s his own fault. I don’t know how Aveline copes with him, he’s such an absent-minded berk.” She grinned impishly, then slipped away to help a few more patrons.

A jolt of apprehension dampened Fenris’s amusement. He waited until she’d mixed a few cocktails and poured a couple of shots, then drifted back over to him with a smile.  

“Your brother is a police officer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She leaned her elbows on the bar and smirked ruefully. “Ironic, really, given… ah, never mind.”

Fenris frowned. That was a cryptic comment to make. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to elaborate, but he also didn’t want to pry; he wouldn’t like it if she pried into his past, after all. But it was good to know Hawke had a family member in the police force. All the more reason to avoid getting close to her.

He sipped his water in silence as Hawke scooped some tips off the bar, then briskly wiped it down. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you have any ridiculous siblings?”

Fenris glanced at her. Her face was friendly and casual, and it was a completely innocuous question to ask. Or it would be, at least, for any normal person.

He sipped his water as he stalled for time. Then, for some reason, he decided to answer her question. “A sister,” he said tersely. “She’s dead.”

Hawke stopped wiping the bar and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh. Shit. I’m… I’m sorry, Fenris.”

He shrugged and glanced idly around the bar. “It’s all right,” he said. It wasn’t, really, and it never would be. But there was no other socially acceptable response when people expressed their sympathy.

“No it’s not,” Hawke said.

Fenris looked up at her in surprise. Her usually cheerful face was serious.

“It sucks, having a family member die,” she said. “My dad is dead, and it sucks. So… yeah.” She gave nervous little laugh and continued wiping the bar. “It’s not the same as your sister dying, I’m not trying to say that, but I just… I feel you, I guess. That’s all I mean to say.”

Fenris didn’t reply. He stared at her in silence until she shot him an uncertain little smile, then she drifted away along the bar and kept on working.

He watched as her smile appeared again, and he watched as she flirted with the customers and laughed with Piper and filled people’s orders. He thought about the seriousness of her expression, and the hint of melancholy he’d seen there - the first hint of it that he’d yet seen on her pretty face.

He finished his water and checked his watch; his break was over, and he had to return to the door to take over from Keran. He stood from the bar stool and walked along the length of the bar until he was standing in front of Hawke again.

She smiled as he handed her his empty water glass. “Finished? I’ll have your wine ready at the end of the -”

“Hawke,” he interrupted. “Thank you.”

She stopped mid-sentence and looked him in the eye without speaking, and Fenris’s breath caught in his throat.

Then her smile softened, and she shrugged casually. “Hey, no problem. Now go bring me some more funny stories, all right? Make yourself useful for once.” She winked, then wafted away to unpack the dishwasher.

Fenris watched the swaying of her hips as she walked away, then stepped away from the bar and returned to the door. He nodded brusquely at Keran, then waved imperiously for the next wave of patrons to come forward and show their IDs.

Don’t, he told himself. You cannot do this. You cannot come to like her. He had fled to Kirkwall to keep his head down and hide until the time for his revenge was ripe. There was no place in his life for any kind of attachments. Not to this place, and not to any of these people.

Especially not to the shameless, flirtatious, beautiful human woman who was working behind the bar.

[gin-and-stardust]

I Promise I’m Better than This

Dorian stiffened when he heard footsteps approaching from behind. It was late, and he had been the only one in the library for some hours. He thought better when he didn’t have people shooting him mistrustful looks every time they walked by him. Slowly he set the book down and tilted his head enough to get a look at the entrance to his alcove.

To his surprise, it was the Templar he occasionally stared at when he was out training with the troops. Arthur is his name, I believe. It set Dorian on edge, if only because this seemed random and he was a Templar.

“I didn’t disturb you, did I?”  Arthur asked softly, “I didn’t think anyone would still be awake.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow, “I wasn’t doing much to have been disturbed.”

“Ah, well,” Arthur coughed, “I’ll let you get back to it. Sorry again, and good night.”

Arthur stepped away from the opening and moved deeper into the library. Dorian watched him for several seconds as he picked out a book and settled in one of the uncomfortable chairs by a table.

Not exactly the standard southern Templar. Dorian shrugged to himself and pulled out Medicinal Herbs of Ferelden, which he read more to keep himself occupied rather than research. He sat back down in his chair and for a few moments, he read mindlessly. In the distance, he could hear the occasional rustling of a page turning.

Eventually Dorian realized that he had been staring at the same page for the past ten minutes, listening to the other occupant’s progress. He bit his bottom lip before standing up and sauntering over to Arthur. The Templar was curled up in the chair in a way that seemed impossible knowing how large the man truly was. It looked nothing short of uncomfortable if Dorian had to guess.

Dorian “accidentally” bumped against the foot hanging over the side of the chair. Arthur twitched and glanced up from his book. Instead of the look of annoyance that Dorian expected it was merely one of curiosity. He wasn’t sure why he was over here, much less trying to engage Arthur in some kind of interaction. Maybe he was hoping for something positive for once.

“Yes?” Arthur kept his eyes on Dorian.

There was no look of disgust.

“I was simply concerned over your posture, you’ll become a hunchback by the time you’re thirty.”

Arthur frowned, and his head tilted further to the left, “and why the concern over my posture?”

Later, Dorian would blame the forwardness of southerners for the slip of his tongue, “You’re rather too pretty to have a hunchback.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

Dorian swallowed, wondering how he was going to cover his gaffe. It wasn’t a lie, Arthur was pretty with his reddish-brown hair that looked soft to the touch, pale green eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose. The deep scar that ran alongside his nose added to his looks. Saying it aloud, however, was something that Dorian had never thought would occur.

“In that barbaric southern way,” Dorian countered.

Arthur grinned softly, “well, if it counts for anything I think you’re pretty in that stuck up northern way.”

That statement caused Dorian to momentarily lose his train of thought. Arthur suddenly shrunk down and the tips of his ears turned red. He suddenly stood up and knocked the chair over in his haste.

“Shit,” Arthur cursed and bent down to pick it up.

Dorian wasn’t entirely sure what he should do with this rapid retreat. It stung, as all minor rejections do but he wasn’t sure why Arthur was the one fleeing when he had done the rejecting. Or would if the question was ever asked.

Arthur gave him one last look, indecipherable in the low light of the library before he bolted out of the door. Once more Dorian was left alone.

Codex Entry: Torn Journal Page

I am an idiot and an ass. I’ll be lucky if he wants to talk to me again. Why can’t I control myself around handsome men? Hazel is going to have a field day. At least I can tease her about getting nowhere with the Commander.

I should probably apologize to Dorian. Even if he doesn’t want to ever talk to me again.

… Also, did he mean it when he called me pretty?

“I’m sorry.”

Arthur held his breath as Dorian turned towards him. The face was neutral, so Arthur was going to accept that as not being completely hated. From what he gathered Dorian always had something to say about something he didn’t like.

“Whatever for?” Dorian asked.

“Uh,” Arthur coughed, “for whichever of my actions offended you.”

“So, the running out in the middle of our conversation?” Dorian quirked an eyebrow.

Arthur nodded, “yes, that was not the impression I wanted you to have of me.”

Dorian’s face shifted, and Arthur sighed as he looked to the roof hoping that there was a divine sign. In some ways the Herald was lucky, she got the glowy hand for a hint. He fiddled with the hem of his tunic poking out from under his armor.

“And what impression did you think you left me with?”

“That I’m careless with people,” Arthur replied, “that I just say whatever comes into my head and damn the consequences, which I try not to do, but sometimes it happens and it usually ends… badly?”

Dorian chuckled, and Arthur noted it sounded a little strained. I might be projecting.

“I was hoping that you’d give me another chance to make a proper introduction,” Arthur smiled, but it felt hollow.

“And why,” Dorian said as he leaned back with his arms crossed, “would you, an upstanding citizen of the Free Marches, want to be associated with an evil Magister from Tevinter?”

Arthur blinked, his arms dropping to play with the hem of his tunic that wasn’t tucked under his armor, “you aren’t evil, you risked everything to warn the Inquisitor in Redcliffe, and I thought you said you weren’t a Magister?”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” Dorian tilted his head.

“I think it’s unfair that people judge you because you’re from Tevinter,” Arthur replied, “it has to be lonely.”

Dorian leaned forward, his tone low, “and why would you think that?”

Arthur shrugged, trying to ease the tension, “I mean, it isn’t the same but it’s kind of similar, but people have certain judgments about me because I’m a Templar. The mages just keep glaring at me.”

Dorian let out a soft breath, “they think you hate mages because you’re a Templar?”

“Yes,” Arthur nodded, “but that isn’t the case. They think it is because I support Circles, but they don’t know I would support changing them to something less prison-like, and that I only think the Circles are helpful because they teach Mages the dangers of the fade and demons and blood magic.”

“You aren’t worried about places turning into Tevinter?” Dorian leaned back.

“I think any place should be worried about rampant blood magic.”

“But not that the mages will take over?”

“I rather like our current government, but most mages are decent enough until they get mixed up in bad blood magic and then become powerful in society.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow, “alright.”

“Alright, what?” Arthur frowned.

“We can have a new first introduction.”

Arthur smiled, “I’m Arthur Trevelyan, but most people call me Art or Artie.”

“Dorian of House Pavus,” Dorian grinned, “and just Dorian is fine.”

[blustersquall]

Only Make Believe // Chapter 28: Aboard the Peraquialus

New chapter for those reading. As always, the chapter is also on AO3 for those who prefer reading on there. 

No warnings for this one.

December 29th

--

The drive from Kinloch to Gwaren took only a few hours with clear traffic and it was late afternoon when Cullen drove the car into port. The harbour in Gwaren was the biggest in Ferelden and was used almost exclusively for commercial travel. Huge luxury liners and ferries came and went at all hours of the day, gathering passengers and dropping them off after weeks on the ocean, sailing warming climates in opulent surroundings with every comfort that money could provide.

It took some time for Cullen to find the dock where their ferry was berthed. There were ships upon ships and not a single one was designed to do anything but impress. Each liner was a behemoth of design and engineering - even the smallest of them was probably the size of a small city.

When Cullen found the correct dock, he stopped the car suddenly and stared up for a few seconds, his mouth hanging open a little.

"This cannot be the right one," he stated, quickly reaching for his phone from the cup holders. "This is..."

"It's the right number," Nevena pointed out, watching him frantically scrolling through what she could only assume was the last-minute booking email for their ferry. "And the right name. You said it was called 'Peraquialus', right?"

"Yeah. But... I was expecting..." Cullen glanced up over the top of his phone, "you know, a ferry. Not... a garish… whatever that is."

Nevena giggled, "You sound like such a snob."

"How so?" he threw her a distinctly unimpressed look.

"Garish?" she teased. "Cullen, it's meant to be the definition of luxury. I doubt they'd appreciate your scathing review before you even looked around."

Cullen shrugged and Nevena saw the tips of his ears grow a little pinker, "I think my idea of luxury and the idea of whoever designed this differ greatly." He returned his phone to the cup holders and gripped the steering wheel. "It's the right dock number, the right time, and the right name," he sighed. "Maybe there's a smaller one tucked behind it?"

"Don't sound so disappointed," smiled Nevena, reaching across to touch his arm, "you'll only have to endure it for one night."

He drove towards a pair of men in high-visibility jackets who checked the booking information on Cullen's phone. After everything was confirmed, they directed them to where they could board the ship with the car and explained what to do once they were parked up.

There were only a handful of cars and three tourist coaches along with Cullen's car inside the onboard car park in the hull of the ship. Even though she doubted many people saw the car park, it was kept neat and clean, if cold. After Cullen grabbed their bags from the trunk and locked up they followed signs for the lift and ascended to the deck level. Once there, they were greeted by a man dressed in a black blazer and white trousers, the uniform of the ship crew. Once more the booking was checked on Cullen's phone for confirmation, and another crew member was summoned to lead them to their cabin on the deck below.

Walking through the halls lined with doors, Nevena noticed they were not alone by any means, and that most passengers were in their later years. Some seemed to be travelling alone, whereas others were in groups or couples. There was music playing over well-hidden speakers, soft, inoffensive jazz to give a relaxed ambience to the brightly lit hallway.

Their guide talked animatedly as he led the way, describing the ship, how long it had been actively taking passengers and what amenities were available - several swimming pools, two onboard gyms, six restaurants, various clubs and games to keep guests occupied. He explained that the ship started its journey in Ferelden and then stopped in Kirkwall to take on many of its passengers before continuing its four-week journey around Antiva, Rivain and Tevinter before the return trip.

When Cullen mentioned he and Nevena were only staying one night, set to disembark in Kirkwall, their guide lost his enthusiasm and carried on the rest of the trip to their cabin in relative silence. Clearly, he was only paid to make a good impression on long staying guests.

Their room was decorated simply, white throughout with red and blue accents. They had a window which looked out over the sea, a double bed with one side tucked up against the wall, and a door leading to an en-suite bathroom they shared with the empty cabin next-door. The crew member showed them how the lights worked, and where there was a call button they could use at any time to contact a member of the crew if they wanted room service. He waited awkwardly in the threshold of the door until Cullen thanked him curtly and ushered him out.

"I think he was waiting for a tip," Nevena remarked, unzipping her bag.

"Well, he wasn't that friendly," replied Cullen, placing his own bags on one side of the room. "Which of the many restaurants do you want to eat at?" he asked. She could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"Don't be a grouch." Nevena went to him and curled her fingers into his jumper, leaning up on tiptoes to peck his lips, "You can endure all this grandeur for a night."

"I am not grouching," Cullen huffed but wrapped his arms around her waist none-the-less. "We could order room service."

"Or we could make the most of our time on a cruise ship and have some fun," said Nevena, tapping the end of his nose. "Whatever we do, I need to make a video call to Roselyn first. I've been promising her I would for days and we haven't really stopped long enough for me to do so." She extracted herself from Cullen's arms and returned to her bag. "She said she has some news."

"Do you want me to go?" he asked, pointing at the door. "In case it's private?"

"It's up to you." Nevena sat on the bed after pulling her laptop out of her bag. She started to untangle the power cable. "She won't mind if you're here. She's probably curious to know what you look like, actually."

"Really?"

"Well, she's never met you."

"That's true." Cullen tutted. As Nevena powered on her laptop and waited for it to load, she watched Cullen busy himself with unpacking a few items of clothing for the following day. She found herself smiling while he went about his task.

A pleasant warmth settled inside her, like the one she felt in the small memorial chapel earlier that day when he kissed her. It was a sensation that was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. One she could not recall ever experiencing with Rick or even boyfriends before him - not that there were many in the past anyway. She experienced it whenever she looked at Cullen, let alone heard his voice or felt his touch. A pleasurable flutter in her chest that she'd felt since meeting him, that had only grown over their time together.

At first, it was something she tried to ignore - telling herself it was foolish to be so giddy over an arrangement and a fake relationship. Now... now, though, it didn't feel so foolish. After all, the things they felt, the things they did... they were real, weren't they?

Of course, that begged the question: what, exactly, were they?

The contract was still in place, but it hardly seemed necessary now. They were no longer in the presence of her family, the arrangement that put them together was done, albeit earlier than anticipated, yet neither of them had mentioned or broached the subject of ending their agreement prematurely. Perhaps they were both afraid of the same thing, that the contract was the only thing binding them together. That, perhaps, if they brought it to a premature end they would realise there was nothing really between them. That it was all a daydream. A wonderful rose-tinted fantasy, but a fantasy none-the-less. They would realise that without those words and pieces of paper locking them together, there was nothing but air between them.

Was that true, though?

Nevena nibbled her bottom lip as the screen of her laptop sprang to life. She didn't want to think it was. After everything they'd been through together, after everything they had learned and disclosed and shared - to think it was all a fantasy caused a sharp pain to shoot from the middle of her chest down to her extremities. She didn't want to doubt. She hated the feeling of it looming at the back of her mind telling her she was fooling herself; that Cullen was biding his time and simply waiting for the contract to end and then he would tell her what he really thought of her and her past actions. She hated the part of her brain that filled her with unease and fear, the part of her brain that mocked her for allowing herself to be so vulnerable with him, and that it would be for nothing, or be thrown back in her face.

It was never simple. She couldn't just enjoy this, and let it play out naturally. Allow things to progress and see what happened one day at a time. She had to second guess herself. Worse, she was second guessing Cullen, too. Cullen, who had allowed himself to be as open and honest with her as she was with him. Cullen, who was a gentleman. Who was kind, and warm towards her. Who hugged her when she cried and kissed her without hesitating. Who made feelings she had never felt before starting to awaken. Cullen, who made her feel safe and secure, protected, wanted, heard, desired.

Loved.

That thought jarred Nevena from her spiralling fears and she snapped her eyes to her laptop screen. Loved? She let out a long breath and pushed her fingers back through her hair, tilting her head to look at the ceiling, the light fixture - anywhere until the sudden lurch in her stomach settled and the tightness in her chest relaxed. Where had that come from? And why was she thinking it? It wasn't possible for people to fall in love over the space of a few weeks, was it? Real life wasn't a fairytale. It wasn't as simple and easy as that. Love, relationships, they took weeks, they took work, they took effort. There was no reason for her to think or suspect he loved her. There was no reason for her to think she was in love with him...

Except she was, wasn't she? No matter how she might try or want to deny it or rationalise it - perhaps that was what it really was. The reason for all her doubts and fears and the gnawing sensations that clung to her stomach, maybe it was because she was in love with him. Maybe it was simply her attempts to deny it, to run away and block it out. After all, love was frightening. She wasn't sure how love really worked, or even if she'd be good at it. Could a person be good at love?

Lifting her hands, she dragged them down her face and groaned into her palms releasing her frustrations in little bursts. When she peered over her fingertips, she saw Cullen looking at her from across the room.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

Nevena quickly put a smile on her face, swallowing hard on the thud of her heart at the back of her throat. "Mhm-hm," she managed to nod, "My laptop takes a while to load. Just reminds me I should look at the sales once I'm back in Denerim, look for a new one."

"Ah," Cullen nodded, "I can't help you there, I'm afraid. Laptops are not my forte, but I can certainly come with you when we're back in Denerim."

A flutter in Nevena's chest almost made her lose her breath. "That... that would be nice. Maybe your presence can stop me from being targeted by salespeople. I seem to attract them like a magnet."

Cullen chuckled as he pulled a dress shirt out of his bag and hung it up. "I'm going to have a shower briefly," he said, approaching Nevena and leaning his hands down on the bed beside her. The mattress dipped under his weight. "We've had quite a full day, after all."

"We have."

"Then, I thought, I would go and investigate these restaurants and we'll meet up once you're done talking to Roselyn? I don't know about you, but I'm worn out."

"I am pretty tired," Nevena smiled. "Dinner and an early night seem like a sound plan to me, that way we'll be fresh for our arrival in Kirkwall tomorrow morning."

"Good," Cullen kissed her. One of those toe-curling, spine-tingling, wonderful kisses that made her head swim and made her want to put her laptop to the side and pull him into bed. Her heart was thudding in her ears when he pulled away, brushing her nose with his in an act of pure, unabashed affection. The look he gave her as he pushed off the bed was like the feeling of sitting in front of a fire on a cold day or listening to heavy rain on the window while safe and warm inside. Cullen gave her a sense of home and that… that was an overwhelming realisation. "I won't be long."

Once he was in the bathroom and Nevena could hear the shower running, she sent a quick text to Roselyn while connecting to the ship's wifi to ask if she was around. Almost immediately, Roselyn shot back a reply that she was waiting for her to get online and to hurry up. Nevena put her phone to one side, waited for everything to load up and logged into Skype. Within seconds, she had an incoming video call and answered.

"Finally!" Roselyn gasped over the speakers, swooning back in her chair over-dramatically. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see your face again!"

"I'm sorry," Nevena smiled sheepishly. "It's been kind of... crazy."

"With your family, I'm not surprised," snorted Roselyn.

"Hi Nevena!" A male voice called from off-screen. There was the sound of two dogs barking as well.

"Hey Alistair," Nevena called back. Roselyn turned her head, clearly watching her husband off-screen. "How are you? Did you two have a good Christmas? What's the news you wanted to tell me?"

"So curious all of a sudden!" Roselyn replied, her smile broad. "So many questions! I have questions for you, too. Like, where's this rent-a-date guy? What was the craziness at Ineria's you mentioned? And why did you leave?"

"You answer mine first," Nevena shot back, grinning. "What's this news you mentioned?"

Roselyn's eyes widened, her face lighting up. Alistair came into the frame, sandy brown hair a little mussed, red-faced, and smiling down at Roselyn as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

"I'm pregnant!" announced Roselyn, throwing her hands up excitedly.

Nevena clapped a hand over her mouth, gasping and then descending into exuberant laughter. "You're pregnant?!"

"I'm pregnant!" Roselyn repeated, her smiling growing. "Finally!"

Nevena screamed, almost rocking back onto the bed and dropping her laptop. "You're pregnant! I can't believe it! Congratulations!"

"Thank you!" Roselyn laughed. "I wanted to wait and tell you when you were back, but I've never been the most patient person. I had to tell you!"

"Do you--"

"I heard screaming," Cullen poked his head out of the bathroom door, hair wet and dripping. "Are you okay? Wait -- why are you grinning?"

"Roselyn is pregnant!"

Cullen blinked, "Oh, uh – congratulations, person I don’t know… beyond a couple of phone calls…” He grimaced.

"Thank you!" called Roselyn. Cullen quickly ducked back into the bathroom, reappearing a few moments later wrapped in a towel. "Is that the guy? The Cullen Rutherford guy? Can I see him?"

"I can hear you," Cullen said, glancing over at Nevena.

"In a second," Nevena said dismissively, fighting to keep her eyes on the screen but finding her gaze drawn to where Cullen was pacing around with nothing but a towel and water still clinging in places to his body. Now she had seen his scars, he must have been feeling a little more comfortable around her, not quite so self-conscious.

She hadn't seen him naked, or nearly naked before - doing so made blinding heat travel through her belly to her face and between her legs. The scars did nothing to detract from his appearance. His broad chest and shoulders, the tight muscles in his back, toned arms and legs, a layer of softness around his trunk. The hair on his chest was darker than that on his head, and the trail leading from his navel underneath the towel was darker still. Her comment about Michelangelo's 'David' when they first met had been spot on.

Cullen began to get dress, either unaware of her eating him up with her eyes, or ignoring it completely. He pulled on his boxer briefs under his towel and Nevena bit her bottom lip. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to turn her eyes back to the screen and Roselyn.

"S-so, uhm -- how far along are you?" she asked Roselyn, hoping the camera wouldn't pick up the flare of colour she could feel on her cheeks.

"About sixteen weeks," Roselyn replied, leaning her cheek in her palm, her lips drawn into a smug smile that made Nevena realise Roselyn had noticed her ogling, even if Cullen had not.

"Sixteen we..." Nevena's attention snapped right back to Roselyn. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I wanted to," Roselyn said, her voice becoming apologetic, "but we didn't want to tempt fate. We wanted to get past the risky stage before we started telling people. Given how hard it's been for us to conceive."

"No, I understand. Makes sense." Nevena glanced over at Cullen, watching him pull a dark red wine colour shirt on and begin to button it up. The fabric formed over the muscles in his arms and his chest in a way she hadn't seen his other clothes do before. He looked smart. And sexy. And she was glad she had her laptop on her lap, and Roselyn to talk to because if not she might have marched over there and ripped the shirt off him - buttons and all. "I'm really happy for you," Nevena said, looking back at Roselyn. "You've been trying for so long. If anyone deserves it, you guys do."

"Thanks," smiled Roselyn.

"Now, Nevena," Alistair bent a little to fit more into the frame, "Perhaps you could tell my wife to stop fussing about the nursery and relax like the doctor ordered. I've tried, and she won't listen to me." He looked almost cross when he looked at Roselyn. She poked her tongue out in reply.

"You heard him," Nevena laughed, "you have to look after yourself a bit better now. Is it a boy or a girl? Do you know yet?" Roselyn's smile grew again. Nevena was sure she had never seen her smile this much before in her life. Except perhaps on her wedding day. "What? Don't tell me you're having twins or triplets or something?" Silence, and more broadening of Roselyn's smile. "Stop smiling so much! You're creeping me out!"

Roselyn gave a bark of laughter, covering her face with one hand and sticking up two fingers on the other. "Twins."

"Twins?!"

"Twins."

"Only you would take four years to get pregnant, and become pregnant with twins," giggled Nevena. "You guys must be so excited!"

"We are." Alistair kissed Roselyn's head as he stood and walked out of frame.

"Excited and kind of terrified," added Roselyn. "But so far so good. The midwife says everything is normal. The babies are the right size. I've just got to take it slow."

"Which must be torture for you," said Nevena.

"Nev?" Cullen called for her softly and she lifted her head. He was fully dressed, hair smoothed and combed back. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, he wore black trousers and carried a black blazer hanging over his right arm. He was possibly more attractive all smartly dressed than walking around in a towel. "I'm going to head out and look at the restaurants. Text or call me when you're done, and I'll tell you where I am, okay?"

"Okay."

“Waitwait! I at least want to get a look at you!” Roselyn called from the laptop screen.

Cullen gave Nevena an uncertain look.

“Do you mind?” she asked him.

He sighed, “no, go ahead.”

Nevena turned the laptop so the camera would pick up the image of Cullen across the room. “Hi!” Roselyn said.

“It’s nice to meet you finally. Sort of.” Cullen offered a sincere if awkward smile. “Once we’re back in Denerim it would be nice to meet in person.”

“Yes, absolutely.” Replied Roselyn. “How tall are you?”

“About six-one. Why?”

“Just my curiosity, which is now satiated. Turn me back around.”

“Nice meeting you,” Cullen called.

“You too.”

Nevena smiled, small and grateful watching Cullen as adjusted his jacket on his arm, took a breath and allowed his shoulders to visibly relax. He approached Nevena on the bed and kissed her soundly, cradling the back of her neck, before she could speak. She returned it, just barely managing to retain her senses and remember Roselyn could probably see and hear everything. She bit her bottom lip as Cullen pulled away, smiling that tingle-inducing smile of his. He kissed her forehead for good measure. “See you in a bit. Have fun catching up with Roselyn.”

There was silence from Roselyn until the door to the cabin clicked shut and Cullen was gone.

"I heard lip smacking!" Roselyn crowed. Nevena wasn't sure if she was accusing her of something, or simply pointing something out. "I heard lip smacking and definitely saw kissing. He’s gorgeous, by-the-way! But that’s beside the point, it’s your turn, what is going on? Tell me everything."

Nevena sighed, wondering where to begin. "Alright."

She explained, in detail and at length, everything that had transpired since she left Denerim to go to Haven with Cullen. Roselyn listened intently, nodding and asking clarifying questions every so often, but silent for the most part. As she recounted the experiences of the past few weeks, Nevena realised just how much had happened, and how much she had learned and changed in such a short space of time.

She wasn't sure if it was everything she had discovered that had forced the change, or simply having Cullen there as a method of support - but she felt a little stronger in herself. More resilient. She knew if she'd been there alone she would never have stood up to Ineria. She would never have confronted her father about the truth or answered back to Katrin and Clotilde the times she had. She was sure she would have either turned tail and run on Christmas Day if things transpired the same way, or she would have shut up and taken her sister's abuse.

Cullen made her stronger. His presence, or maybe it was just his quiet confidence that she was feeding off. Something of his that he was allowing her to borrow when she was in desperate need of it and failing on her own. She was grateful to him for being with her through all the strife of the last few weeks. He had been a stranger at the start of it all, now she could not consider her life without him in it.

"...and now we're on a ship, heading for Kirkwall to spend New Year with Varric Tethras. We're going to go to Ostwick too, I might find out something about my mother there."

Roselyn's expression was a small, but severe frown and she was staring down at the keyboard in front of her in thought. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"It sounds like you've had quite an eventful time."

"Something like that."

"I'm a little annoyed you didn't tell me what was happening. I could have come and got you. Or helped in some way." She looked at Nevena though the camera. “But, I get it. With all that going on, I doubt calling me would have even crossed your mind.”

"I know," Nevena picked her fingernails. "I just... I didn't know what to say or do, and I didn't want to bother you with it.”

“You wouldn’t have been bothering me,” Roselyn told her with a sisterly gentleness. “I know that’s not how your brain would have seen it, though. I’m sorry you had to experience all that. Especially without a full support system around.”

“It… I had Cullen there, he helped me stay calm and rationalise things."

"Hmmm..." sighed Roselyn. "Well, at least you're not alone. And it sounds like he's not a terrible human being."

"He's not," Nevena felt her heart quicken in her chest, "Rose, he's not. He's... you would really like him. I know you would. He's kind and gentle, and protective. He listens and asks questions. He cares, Rose. He really cares. About me." Hot tears welled up in her eyes and she gulped them back. "I... I've never met anyone like him. I've never felt like this about anyone--"

"You do have it bad." Roselyn leaned her chin on her fist, elbow on the table, and a wry, playful smile on her lips.

"It's..." Nevena searched the cabin with her eyes as if looking for inspiration, "do you remember that night in college when you came back from your first date with Alistair?”

“Hmm…”

“You’d been saying goodnight to him for ten minutes. When you finally came in, you closed the door, you leaned on it, sighed, and said you were going to marry him."

Roselyn smiled at the memory. "I--"

"Did she really say that?!" Alistair's voice came from off screen. "Did you really say that, Rosie?"

"I... yes. Yes, I did.” Roselyn replied, looking across the room to where Alistair was sitting off-screen.

“Aw!” Alistair crowed, “I never knew that! That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard! Thank you Nevena!”

Roselyn laughed, her attention returning to the screen. “I do remember saying that, yes.” 

"Being with Cullen... it feels how I imagine that felt to you," Nevena explained, "and I like it. It’s wonderful and freeing, and exhilarating and… the happiest I’ve ever felt. I like him."

"Sounds like you more than just like him," said Roselyn with a playful smile. Nevena blushed and lowered her eyes. "Have you told him how you feel?"

"No." Tucking her hair behind her ear, Nevena shifted for comfort and jiggled her laptop. "It probably sounds stupid, but I'm afraid."

Roselyn pursed her lips. "Given your experience with Rick, I don't think it's stupid of you to be cautious. What is it you're afraid of, exactly?"

"That it's all... kind of... make believe." Nevena tutted to herself. Even she thought she sounded moronic as she searched for how to explain herself. "We met because I was trying to lie to my family. We've been put into this position because of a contract. We've been thrust together because of the contract. What if it's because of the contract and circumstance I feel like this about him? What if it's because of the contract he is the way he is with me?"

"Nev," Roselyn sighed and pushed her fingers through her hair, "listen to yourself. You're over thinking. Letting your doubts get the better of you."

"But--"

"This is the first time I have ever seen you like this. It might be the light, but I'm sure you look different. Happier, glowing somehow. I don't know. Think about it logically, the contract he gave you and wrote up, it stipulates you guys being together while you're with your family, right? And where are you now?"

"On a ship, bound for Kirkwall," Nevena replied in a small voice.

"Exactly," Roselyn said. "The contract became null and void when you decided to leave Haven and take an extended road and boat trip to the Free Marches. The contract is no longer holding you together. It's done. There's no magic spell that's going to break at the stroke of midnight like in Cinderella. What is keeping him near you, is you... Do you really think he wouldn't have gone to all this trouble, all these lengths if you were just a client to him? If he didn't feel something for you?"

"I..." Nevena opened and closed her mouth. "No... no, I guess not."

"I know it’s hard for you to stop doubting yourself, to stop the fear you feel, and I get that you’re scared of letting yourself feel what you feel for him, but I don’t think you have to worry about whether it’s manufactured or not. It's genuine and honest. And he clearly reciprocates," Roselyn's expression softened, "and how could he not? I mean, aside from the fact you're completely amazing, you're one of the kindest and most patient people I know. There's clearly something about you that has him drawn to you, otherwise, I don't think he'd still be there. Accompanying you on this pilgrimage? Introducing you to your favourite author? Inviting you as a plus one to a New Year’s Eve party? Sounds like he has some serious feelings towards you, too."

"What if you're wrong, though?"

"I'm never wrong."

"Rose..."

"In this case, I really don't think I am," Roselyn smiled. "But don't listen to me. Listen to yourself. What do you think he feels?"

Nevena stared at the door to the cabin as if expecting Cullen to walk in and proclaim out of the blue that he was head over heels in love with her. She wanted to laugh. As if that would happen.

Roselyn was right, though. She was over-thinking, over-analysing, the way she always did. She could never just let things happen and be happy with them. She could never allow things to progress naturally and go at their own pace. She always second-guessed herself, worried that she was wrong. Or reading the signs incorrectly. Years of mental torture at the hands of Rick had her well trained, and it was a hard habit to break.

She was certain of only a few things, mainly that she had feelings for Cullen that ran deeper than friendship and mere lust. There was something intense and overwhelming about it. Something that had her dangling over a precipice and all she needed to do was take a leap of faith to find if she would fall or fly. She was certain too - though less so - that Cullen had some feelings for her. Perhaps they didn't run as deep as those she had, but she wanted to believe her own emotions were matched and returned. After all, in the small memorial chapel, hadn't he said he'd 'never felt anything like this'?

Like what? What was the 'this' he was referring to? And why did he have to be so vague about it? Couldn't he have been more specific? Why did everything have to be so confusing and annoying?

With a small groan, Nevena ruffled her hands through her hair. "I don't know what he feels."

Roselyn tutted, "Have the two of you even talked about what you're going to do when you get back to Denerim? You're living in each other's pockets now, but what about when you get back?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think he's realised the contract he wrote is null and void because you're no longer in the location of it?"

"I don't know."

"Do you--"

"I don't know, Rose," Nevena snapped, suddenly. "I don't know anything. That's the worst part. I don't want to talk to him about it, in case it suddenly becomes too real and he realises this isn't what he wants! That I'm not what he wants."

"Nev..."

"I mean, who would want me, anyway? I'm so broken and mangled by past experiences, why would he want me when he could have someone else who is normal and isn't broken or just about keeping it together? Why would anyone want to waste their time with me, when they could have fun with someone who isn't neurotic, who isn't an idiot, and who doesn't have a pile of emotional baggage they have to carry around with them?" Nevena was panting when she stopped talking. Breathing hard, flushed, and overheated. Roselyn was staring at her on the screen.

"Do you feel a little better now?" she asked, her voice sympathetic.

"Yes," Nevena said. She was glad Roselyn understood her, that she didn't mock her for her way her mind worked. The near constant sense of self-deprecation she carried around with her. Roselyn took it all in her stride and did what she could to help Nevena understand herself.

"Good," Roselyn pushed her hair back, "now you listen to me, Nev. Who wants you? Cullen-fucking-Rutherford wants you, that's who. And you want him, more to the point. You have issues, but who doesn’t? And Nev, you're getting there. It's a slow process, but think of where you are now in comparison to three years ago! You need to stop beating yourself up and denying yourself the things you yearn for because you're afraid. Or because you don't think you deserve it. You deserve to be happy, and if Cullen Rutherford makes you happy then fuck the contract that's null and void anyway, pin him down on the bed and ride him until he can't bloody walk!"

Nevena heard Alistair choke on something off camera and begin to clear his throat.

"You're not an idiot. You're not broken. You're amazing. He'd be lucky to have you," Roselyn continued, glancing over at where Alistair must have been sitting. "If you tell him the contract is done because the terms were breached, and he calls it quits, then he wasn't worthy of you. But I don't think he'll do that. From everything you've told me he seems genuine, and determined and good for you. Maybe him taking you to meet Varric Tethras - clearly an old friend - is his version of taking you to meet his parents?"

"Maybe," Nevena chuckled, managing to smile a little.

"Everyone has emotional baggage. You've helped him with his by the sounds of it. He's been helping with yours... You deserve to give him and yourself a chance." With a sigh, Roselyn dropped her shoulders, relaxing her position. "Wait until you get to Kirkwall, settle in, talk to each other, see what you both want from this. Make sure you're on the same page."

Exhaling quickly, Nevena nodded, wiped her eyes and slapped her palms on her thighs. "Okay." She sniffed. "What do I do in the meantime?"

"Tease him until he's within an inch of his life."

Nevena rolled her eyes, "Rose."

"I'm serious," Roselyn waved her off. "I threw in that backless ivory dress we bought last year when you were packing. Wear that.”

“That is more underwear than a dress.”

“Just humour me and try it on.” Roselyn grinned, “What have you got to lose?”  "

With another eye roll and a vaguely disapproving look in Roselyn's direction, Nevena did as she asked and climbed off the bed to her suitcase. She began to dig through the clothes inside. Her heart was racing and her blood was thundering around her body as though she'd been running circuits around the ship. For the first time in what felt like days, she was clear-headed. As though a fog she didn't know was there had been lifted and now she could see a path ahead of her.

A path that had Cullen Rutherford as its destination.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I know it's not a long or as hard-hitting as the previous one, and there's a lack of Cullen, but I felt it necessary to have something of a filler chapter, given how heavy going chapter 27 is. I hope you don't mind. Still, I tried to make this chapter interesting and engaging, and it's nice to see Nevena actually admitting how deep her feelings run.  Plus, it was nice to demonstrate that Nevena has a support system outside of Cullen and to show some more of her friendship with Roselyn. Although I admit again, I'm a little leery. Worried you all are going to feel she's feeling things too fast. 

I certainly hope you enjoyed this chapter. What do you think is going to happen next? Do you think Nevena will actually summon up her courage and tell Cullen how she feels or be brave enough to discuss the contract with him? Or do you think she'll chicken out at the last minute?

Thank you for reading. As always, please let me know your thoughts in the comments/tags/reblogs, and I'll see you in the next chapter! <3

[cha0ticmimzy]

Here Lies The Abyss, part I

Author’s Notes: Word slips out from the soldiers about just who Sylthana is, and what she’s done. Cullen chooses the wrong time to approach her about it.  Word Count: 1943 Warnings: Spoilers for Here Lies The Abyss, and slight gore? Not really much of anything. 

“So, it’s true?” Cullen asked, voice soft as Sylthana carefully examined her blades. He’d been surprised when he’d entered her chambers only to find her entire bed and the desk covered with various blades of different sizes and poisons- so many poisons. “Your past?”

“Yes.” Came the simple reply as the rogue stood, holding a blade up to the light. It was crafted in such a way that down the center lay a vein that held poison. The poison was poured into it by the handle- a small panel that could be pressed upon, opening the chamber to hold the poison. Far safer compared to simply dousing a blade in poison and calling it a day! “I was a blade for hire. You knew that already.”

“No.” Cullen shook his head, leaning back against the wall beside the fireplace. “You know that isn’t what I meant, Sylthana.”

“What do you want me to say, Cullen?” She exclaimed, spinning around to face her lover. “That I’ve killed more men than you have? That I’m the creature parents tell their children of to get them to behave? That I could put the Antivan Crows to shame with some of the murders I’ve done?

"Or do you wish to hear of the exact details? How I’ve flayed men alive while they screamed out their secrets? How I’ve broken bones, pulled out nails, all to send a message or for coin?” Cullen’s face had paled, but she didn’t stop. He wanted the truth- he would have it. “Or better yet, what about the time I was sent to Orlais to slaughter an entire family while they slept? All aside from the child? I’ve done horrible things, Cullen. And once this whole… Shit show is over, chances are- I’ll do them again.”

Cullen was silent, studying the woman before him. Fierce- he’d known that from the first time he’d seen her, in the War Room. Terrifying- yes, he knew that as well, from watching her training against Solas and Varric’s attacks. Monstrous? The thought had never crossed his mind. But now, know that she was the Shadow of Fereldan- that she was a murderer, and a very accomplished one at that… It sent a chill across his skin. Heat, anger, coursing through his veins.

“I’m not a good person.” Sylthana whispered, oceanic hues dark with subdued anger. “I won’t pretend as if I’m some saint. I’m not.”

Cullen frowned, finding himself at a loss for words. She wasn’t a horrible person, nor a monster. But he couldn’t ignore the horrors of what she had done.

“… If you aren’t going to say anything, leave.” Her voice broke through the silence, and he noticed that she was shaking. He wanted to reach out, to touch her, but- “Leave. Now.”

“… You aren’t a horrible person.” He murmured before he turned, making his way down the stairs quietly. He tried to ignore it, tried his best- but the sound of her sobs pierced the silence, then came the sound of glass shattering. Brow furrowing, he opened the door- and closed it. Let her think he left.

He would wait.

She didn’t need to be alone.

Three weeks. Three weeks had passed since that night. Three weeks since Sylthana had told Cullen to leave- and he left. Or, well- he didn’t leave. She knew he didn’t: after she’d stopped crying, she could hear him occasionally shift.

In the morning, though, he was gone.

She avoided him as much as she could, but eventually, she had to see him. She had to, because Adamant. Because of that damned mission. They needed to see what was happening, and Cullen’s men would be there. He would be there, leading his men. So would Hawke, and King Alistair. Two men she never thought she’d meet.

How odd, that in just a few months, all of this would happen.

Swallowing down her pride, she finished packing away her weapons and potions, pausing to stare at the coin Cullen had given her.

She slid the coin into a hidden inner pocket within her armor before leaving her quarters.

The Western Approach was hot, and sandy, and hot. Too bright, too. Solas stood to her right, Cassandra to her left, and Bull directly behind. Perfectly flanking her. Before her, the fortress stood- tall, imposing. Something was wrong- she could feel it in the air. The wind didn’t blow here, as if nature itself had sensed something was wrong.

Hawke and Alistair met her at the entrance, both men tall and menacing, yet holding a worried air about them. Hawke explained that blood magic was being performed, and that he would take pointe as she and Alistair went in first.

The sight of the fade rift made her blood curdle as her mark reacted to it.

“Inquisitor! So glad you could make it. Lord Livius Erimond de Virantium, at your service.” The man spoke, voice holding hints of a Tevene accent, as he bowed low at the waist. A mockery. Just the sight of him was enough to cause her skin to c r a w l. How disgusting.

“I’m guess you’re not a Warden,” Alistair spoke up beside her, drawing her gaze to the king.

“But you are. The one Clarell let slip.” Erimond spat out, disgust lacing his words. “And you found the Inquisitor and came to stop me. Shall we see how that goes?” He sneered.

“Looks like you’ve already done some of my work f o r me.” Sylthana chimed in, a cold, cruel smirk curling her lips.

“What, him? We simply needed his blood. Oh- were you hoping to garner sympathy? Maybe make the Warden feel a bit of remorse? Wardens, hands up!” As if puppets upon a string, the remaining wardens lifted their left hands. Sylthana bared her teeth in disgust as she drew out her blade. “Hands down.”

“Corypheus has enslaved them.” Alistair snarled out, disgust evident within his voice.

“They did this to themselves. You see, the Calling had the Wardens terrified. They looked everywhere for help.” Erimond shrugged, as if it explained everything. Sylthana found herself hating the man more with every passing second.

“Including Tevinter.” Alistair finished, eyes narrowing.

“Yes, and since it was my Master who put the Calling into their little heads, we and the venatori were prepared.” The snake of a man continued to speak. All Sylthana could picture as slicing his throat open and letting him choke upon his own blood. “I went to Clarell full of sympathy, and together, we came up with a plan.” A moment passed as his words sunk in to those present. “Raise a demon army, march into the Deep Roads, and kill the Old Gods before they wake.”

Horror settled upon her bones. Beside her, she felt Alistair stiffen. Solas hissed softly, and Bull let out a disgusted grunt.

“Ah, I was wondering when the demon army would show up!” She pitched in, sarcasm coating her words. Behind her, she could hear Solas’ approving chuckle.

“You… Knew about it, did you? Well then!” Erimond was thrown off his game. A sly smirk curled Sylthana’s lips as she listened to the waver in his voice. “Here you are. Sadly for the Wardens, the binding ritual I taught their mages has a side effect. They’re now my master’s slaves!

"This was a test. Once the remaining wardens complete the ritual, the army will conquer Thedas!” Erimond finished.

A snarl curled her lip upwards, a sharpened incisor gleaning in the desert sun. “That’s all I needed to know!” She all but growled out, bloodlust filling her veins.

Erimond smirked. “Oh, please,” voice saccharin, he tossed a hand up, red coating it before Sylthana’s mark activated. Pain ripped through her, causing her to let out a yelp as she doubled over, grasping her wrist.

“The Elder One showed me how to deal with you in the event that you were foolish enough to interfere again.” She collapsed, knees thudding against stone harsh enough to make her teeth clack before she doubled over. It felt as if liquid lightning were filling her veins. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. “That mark you bear? The Anchor that lets you pass safely through the Veil? You stole that from my Master. He’s been forced to seek other ways to seek access to the Veil.” Erimond explained, seething with hatred.

Sylthana let out a soft gasp as the pain subsided. Slowly, she rose to her feet- only to allow the Anchor to activate, closing the rift before her. “You talk far too much.” She murmured, more to herself than anything, as Erimond began to scamper away like a dog with its tail between its legs.

“Kill them!” Erimond called out in command. Battle broke out, demons and wardens alike fighting. It ended just as quickly as it started, however- Sylthana tried not to think of the innocent, confused wardens whose lives had been stolen from them.

Hawke jogged forward, blood splattered across his armor. “They refused to listen to reason,” he explained.

“You were right,” Alistair began, “thanks to the ritual, the Wardens are enslaved to Corypheus.”

Sylthana didn’t want to admit the sympathy she felt as she left the Western Approach.

Skyhold was chaos when she returned. Soldiers were readying themselves for battle, healers were scattered here and there. Scouts were constantly coming and go to and fro. She almost missed the Western Approach.

Had it not been for the blood magic.

Quietly, she slipped away, hiding within her chambers for a moment of peace. Which didn’t last long, for the sound of her door opening reached her. Heavy footfalls thudded upon the stairs, armor clinking with each step. Cullen. She knew it before she could even see his blond hair appear.

“Josephine told me where you were. I… Hope I’m not intruding?” He stood awkwardly at the top of the stairs, as if he were ready to take off the moment she dismissed him. It sent a jolt of pain through her, but she dismissed it quickly.

“What is it?” She asked as she began to clean her blades. Cullen shifted his weight before approaching slowly, akin to how one would approach a wild animal. It made her want to laugh. Then again, perhaps that’s what she was- some sort of wild animal.

“I… Wanted to check in and see how you were.” His voice was so soft, so gentle. Oh, how it pained her to have hurt him. 

Sighing, she turned, sapphire gaze taking in the worry upon his face. “I’m fine. Tired from the journey back, but fine otherwise. Have Josephine and Leliana gone to the War Room already?” She asked, turning to strip off her armor. It wasn’t as if she were stripling down completely just enough to get the heavy breastplate and chainmail off. Yet, she still heard him move, turning his back to her.

A gentleman.

“They have.”

“Good.” Armor successfully taken off, she turned, and went to move past him. That is, until she paused mid step and looked up at him. “Cullen… I’m sorry.”

“You needn’t-”

“I do. I’m sorry. And I promise, we will talk- after all of this. Let’s get through this, and then we can talk.” A nervous weight settled upon her shoulders as she studied his expression. Relief danced with worry in his eyes, but he still nodded. Slowly, he grasped her hand and raised it to his lips, brushing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Of course. Lead the way, Inquisitor.”

[a-tear-in-the-veil]

Things I LOVE About My OTPS

                                       Ara Hawke x Fenris 

Hawke and Fenris make my heart smile so hard. They are my all time favorite OTP.  There is so much I love and adore about their relationship and how it came to be, but I will try my best to not ramble. Well, *cracks knuckles* here we go. First, let’s talk about how these love birds met. Ara, Carver, Varric, and Anders are out in the middle of the night on a job-and it’s just an absolute shit show. The chest they were sent to retrieve is empty and they’re being attacked by what might as well be a small army. Then here comes Fenris. Who lights up like a fucking glow stick, and proceeds to literally rip out this guy’s heart with his bare hands. As you can imagine, Carver, Varric, and Anders are all completely mortified, but then there’s Ara who is like “unggh hhhhoh boy.” That’s not even the best part. Fenris finds out that she’s a mage, and he straight up tells her that magic is a plague. Immediately after, she calls him handsome and he giggles. Everything about how they meet is incredible. There’s another moment, that I just noticed, where Fenris comes around the corner when you see him for the first time and after he speaks he stops in his tracks right in front of Hawke. It almost seems like that’s the first time he looks up and sees her. (Or that’s what I like to imagine at the very least.) 

Fenris doesn’t really know what to think of Ara when they meet. It freaks him out that he’s attracted to a mage. In fact, he’s a bit grumpy about it at first. He also doesn’t expect her to accept his offer for help, or for her to show up on his doorstep one night either. He’s so accustomed to being alone, it’s hard for him to believe that anyone would take the time to check up on him. Ara also listens to him and asks for his opinions instead of writing off his experiences he’s had with mages. They share different opinions, but he respects that she makes an effort to understand his point of view. She’s also much louder than the Tevinter magisters.... and she tells a lot of jokes that makes her brother groan... but Fenris adores it. He doesn’t take long to warm up to her. 

Yes, they were attracted to each other from the start, but ultimately they started off as close friends (Who practice their flattery on each other). Which created a strong foundation for their relationship to grow on. After the deep roads expedition, Hawke is probably about as close with Fenris as she is with Varric, and Ara is Fenris’s closet friend at the time. They’ve spent countless evenings at Hanged Man with the rest of the crew, and, since moving to Hightown, Ara and Fenris walked home together almost every night. Not to mention, there’s nothing like a near death experience, like the deep roads, to bring people closer together. (Except for Fenris and Anders.. They somehow hated each other more afterwards.) 

By the time Act 2 starts, they’ve devolved real feelings for each other beyond friendship and just being physically attracted to each other. And they don’t know that they like each other for a while. It’s not that they are necessarily oblivious, they just don’t say anything because they don’t even consider that the two of them being together is a possibility.  It’s not until one night, Ara jokingly tells Fenris “I might be able to help with your problems.. Or give you a few more,” that they actually stop and acknowledge their feelings for each other. I think everyone else always knew how they felt about each though (well, except Anders). They’re very endearing, it’s almost like they’re school children. Fenris laughs at all of Ara’s dumb jokes, and there’s lots of blushing for both parties. They’re extra protective in the field, especially when one of them gets injured. (Fun fact, when they go to the Gallows/the Circle for the first time, Fenris is incredibly concerned for Ara’s safety.) 

I could talk about them all day long, but I’m gonna try and wrap things up before I write a whole book. 

They just become such a bright light in each others’ lives. They continually support each other through everything no matter what their relationship status might be at a given moment. (Ara drops everything she was doing to chase down Hadriana with Fenris. After Fenris leaves Ara the night they were together, he still shows up to be with her when he mom is murdered. He leaves and Ara waits for him for 3 years, and she never stops being his friend in the meantime. Etc). They’re completely and unapologetically themselves with each other. They admire each others’ strength (and will always be there for each other in their moments of weakness). Their contrasting views give them a new perspective rather than tearing them apart. The whole world could be burning down around them, but at the end of the day they will always have a home with each other. <3 

Tagged By: @haloneshiral (I’m having blast doing these and reading about other peoples’ OCs) 

Tagging: @my-da-phase @lairofsentinel  @kuroo-is-my-weakness @suntail123 @galactic93o9

In case the prompt is unclear: write about you love about your OTP 

[forthelulzy]

But My Aching Soul

Filled a @dapromptexchange prompt.

Rating: M

Warnings: Major and Minor Character Death.

Words: 2,365

Summary:

He used to sit on the porch and pen letters, bent over an upended fire log for his table instead of the perfectly serviceable writing desk inside. Letters, only a few of which would ever be sent.

Many years after retiring to the countryside, Hawke gets sick, and Fenris deals with the inevitable reality of being alone again.

Read on AO3

We had a little cottage, high in the Fereldan hill-lands, far from anywhere of note but close to our hearts.

He used to say if he squinted from the porch on a clear autumn afternoon, he could see the village where he’d stayed two glorious months, him and Carver and Bethany and their mother and their father. We went, a few times for a few reasons, but like so many things it had been destroyed in the Blight and rebuilt unrecognizable. The people did not know him, more salt than pepper, still-strong hands around his ‘walking stick’, and he said many times that he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

They recognized me, and I had no such qualm. We did not need them, I said, and that was that.

He and I built the cottage ourselves, with some help from Aveline — dear Aveline! She was gone too soon after — and even years later he would mumble into his beard about the crooked mantel that she put in. I never had the heart to tell him that it was me. It was his way of remembering her fondly, the big sister after losing the little one, both taken with none of the dignity they deserved.

A gentle home for two old fighters, with sturdy walls supporting a roof that never leaked, not once. Quilts everywhere, gifts from Merrill that we were grateful for on winter nights, even if the early attempts were… unconventional. As the years passed her skill, and our collection, only grew.

He used to sit on the porch and pen letters, bent over an upended fire log for his table instead of the perfectly serviceable writing desk inside. Letters, only a few of which would ever be sent. Quill to inkpot to paper, pause to chew on the nib, start again. Letters, to his friends and his enemies and people he’d never met. Though I had read every book I had ever gotten my hands on since he taught me, and I knew he wouldn’t care if I read one or all of them, I let them be. Sometimes he would look up at me, though, to where I sat at his side, as always, and though I was reading or mending a hole in a quilt or staring off into the distance sipping my tea, I would feel his gaze fall on me, and soften.

And he would ask me. Ask me what? What word he was looking for, if this word meant what he thought it meant, if that phrase was ‘too Fereldan’. If he needed a spelling, I’d bring down the well-thumbed dictionary and show him that yes, it was really a silent T, and we’d roll our eyes at Orlesians.

I didn’t have to read the letters to know they held his grudges, his fears, his hopes, and his passion in every penstroke. I could see it, just in his face as he tapped the quill against his chin. The beard would grow bushier as his hairline receded, but it was the same gesture across the years until he didn’t make it anymore. This was his, his catharsis and his ritual against a world that had tried to take everything from him.

The letters, those never to be sent, were carefully labeled and stored away. Boxes and boxes of letters, neatly left to gather dust. Most addressees shared their boxes, as most addressees got one letter and never more. Those close to his heart each had a box all to themselves, their piles growing across the years as he worked out his hate, regret and love. His family, his friends. Meredith who got his pity by the end, Trevelyan who got his respect, and Alistair who got nothing but had given him the most precious gift: time.

And me.

When the news came of Aveline — of the rock thrown as she took off her helmet to better address the crowd, not as an authority to struggle against but as a fellow Kirkwaller who had dreams, aspirations, a family — we held each other as we cried, and the next morning he wrote his last letter to her. I found him, standing out in the dew-laced field next to the little hole he had dug for Aveline’s box of letters, shivering in the pre-dawn chill as he drew the earth over the grave with magic. I watched him from the porch until the sun rose from behind the far hills, watched his shoulders heave and shake and then settle. When the rooster started crowing, he turned and came back to the house, to me.

We did not speak.

It was over a decade after that Isabela was lost to the sea, and that night we drank in her honor and that morning I woke with a raging hangover to empty space in our bed and knew what he was doing. I could even imagine what he had written in that final letter, for I felt it too. Of all of us, I’m sure she would find her own death most fitting.

Then Sebastian caught some wasting sickness while on diplomacy in Antiva and slowly dwindled down to dust, leaving no heirs and sending Starkhaven into another civil war. He had never liked Sebastian as well as I had, but he stayed up all night with me as I wrote my own letter, this one to go into the box with his. He let me pile the dirt over the box with my own hands, and I will always be grateful for the feeling of earth under my palms, burying my regrets symbolically, even as halfway across the known world my best friend was ashes in an urn.

Time passed quickly and quietly. Around the time Merrill’s yearly quilt arrived, her largest one yet and themed after the legendary golden halla of her people, I found him wrapped in it, and a dozen others, complaining of the cold though it was a balmy spring day, unseasonably warm. I trundled him off to bed, force-fed him tasteless but hot broth. I knew he would be fine when he had the energy to complain about it.

But after that he wasn’t quite the same. He caught colds more often. Even in the height of summer, he got one, sneezing into a handkerchief three times and blaming it on allergies he had never had. He took longer and longer to fetch water, and claimed he was ‘sightseeing’. He would hold me at night, but rarely more than that, promising ‘tomorrow’.

When his hands began to shake, I knew. When he knocked over his inkwell and burst into hysterics as ink blotted out his carefully crafted letter to Varric, I held him. Because he knew too.

Anders’ box we never buried, for we could never know which rumors were true. We heard a dozen times that he had been executed, and heard he had been spotted in a border town somewhere a dozen more after that. Truthfully, the world will likely never know what became of him after Hawke let him go. Anders probably died in a dank cave somewhere, alone and forgotten but for his legend, not himself, bones picked over for carrion. The thought… I do not know what to make of it. Or he reinvented himself, perhaps in Tevinter as he always wanted — except… except I know he did not actually want that — and let his old self pass into myth even as he continued on. I don’t know what to make of that thought, either.

He grew worse. I did not take him into town. I did not send for a healer. Is that selfish? I did not want them to see him as a doddering old man, did not want them to poke and prod and declare what we already knew: that there was nothing to be done. Because I knew that, to hear it aloud, that I would break. He was all the light and joy I had. He was all the reasons I had. Is that selfish, that I wanted to keep him to myself for the last precious time we had together?

He knew that, as his body was failing and had failed, that his mind would go too. He was no storyteller, he told me and kept telling me, but someone had to keep these memories. I think he was even then somewhat fading, but I dutifully did what I had not done before: I wrote his letters for him. Sat by his side of the bed, or at the writing desk as he dictated from the armchair, and wrote the letters with the emotions broken free from their cages by his failing health. To Bartrand, to his cousin Solona, to Feynriel — all people long dead but whose ghosts still haunted him. He even wrote to Knight-Captain Cullen — who, it was said, had retired to the countryside with Inquisitor Trevelyan and didn’t live all that far away — saying that only the Maker could offer absolution but he could offer forgiveness. He said to send it when he was gone.

And to Merrill and Varric, he spoke until my hand could barely hold the quill anymore. To them he sent his boundless love. To them he sent his memories of them, and his wishes for their happiness.

And then there were the things he left only for me. These he did not dictate, but shared into the darkness of our bedroom long into the night. I held his hand, fragile as a newborn bird, under the covers as he whispered memory after memory. I did not need the words to know he loved me, but these he said too. Could I survive, without this man beside me?

One night as we lay abed, like so many nights before, he told me about the village on the far hill, and his family in the last months they would be whole. Good memories, happy memories. His father, so tall and strong and proud. So like himself, just in a bygone time. He turned out a lot like his father, he mused to me, but he held an anguish in him that did not come from something forever lost.

I love you, he said. Good night, we said, as we had so many nights before.

X

I knew, before I opened my eyes, that he was gone.

He was smiling in the eternal sleep, peaceful and somehow so full of promise that it would be all right. I brushed his cheek one last time, and got up.

Already the house was so empty. I dressed, joints creaking, and stepped out onto the porch.

“He’s gone, then?”

It was Merrill, perched on the swing, legs drawn up under her chin. She aged, too, though I hadn’t seen her in many years. Her hair was longer, and white, but the layers of wrinkles couldn’t hide the vallaslin, nor could cataracts completely cover her sparkling eyes. Her head peeked out from over a cacophony of colorful wool scarves.

I nodded, too tired to be properly surprised.

She turned her head from me, watching the sky. “I’ll help you with the pyre, if you need it,” she offered, though her voice trembled. Perhaps looking away helped her, too.

“Thank you.”

She uncurled, and followed me into the house. Neither of us were strong enough alone, though he was half the weight he was when we had met. Together we managed to wrap him in linen, and carry him to the field. Though I did not tell her, she led us to the unmarked, open area where we had buried the letters. On rough dirt where nothing grew, we laid him down.

Merrill looked at me, then across the rolling hills through the misty morning haze at something only she could see. My throat would not open. She held out her hands.

As the fire engulfed him, my love, my everything, Merrill opened her mouth and sang.

And I felt, in that lament in a language I had never bothered to learn, all the years at once. My years, his years, our years, and the eons gone by unremarked. It came, with a crushing oneness and a gentle sigh. It bore me down into the soft dirt, cradled me like a lover as I gasped out my soul, wailed at the incomprehensible solitude of carrying on. Still the song poured out of her, and the flames. I screamed, I wept, I raged against the unfairness of it all. I was alone.

X

“You should know,” she said, walking back. “I was visiting Varric a week ago. He’s gone, Fenris. Dropped dead one day with no warning. I rode as fast as I could to beat the courier, but it…” She trailed off as I opened the door and walked inside, leaving it open for her to do whatever she pleased. Did it matter, anymore?

She looked around the house, at our comfortable clutter. At the various knickknacks gifted to us over the years by our friends. A mermaid figurine. A crooked mantel. Quilts. I sank into his armchair, the one closest to the fireplace, and thumbed the golden halla’s antlers. Merrill, ever restless even in old age, puttered about. I let her be.

Until she found the letters.

“What are these?” she said, holding up Varric’s box. I glanced over and started, having forgotten about them.

“Those—”

“Oh, this one is yours!” she exclaimed. She put down Varric’s box and picked up mine, looking at it from all angles. “Oh, it’s got a note on it.”

“Give that to me,” I snarled, getting up as fast as my joints would allow and grabbing it out of her hands. The note, pinned to the top, fluttered. I looked down at it, read it, only dimly aware of Merrill looking over my shoulder.

“Oh, da’len,” she breathed.

Fenris,

I know I will someday leave you. I will leave you as my father left my mother, as Bethany left Carver, as my mother left me…

That last night, I had thought it grief for his long-dead father in his voice, in his eyes.

I know better now.