#blights concerto

[cadaveerie]

Some facts (with spoilers from DATV) that we learned today about Dragon Age companions:

Lucanis' writer intended him to be panromantic and demisexual.

Emmrich was said to be in his early 50s before, but this info was from earlier in the writing. His writer sees him from somewhere between his mid 50s and early 60s at most.

wardens don't hear the calling anymore (although they still have the blight. the effects are just lesser). this applies to: alistair, anders, oghren, sigrun, nathaniel, velanna and davrin, and potentially bethany, carver, loghain, thom rainier and rook (and our HOF and any warden character): [link 1, 2]

They would have wanted Fenris to appear in Veilguard (maybe as a companion?) [link 1, 2]

the dreadwolf works alone. he doesn't have agents anymore [link]

(epler deactivated his bsky account so i dont have the exact words or screenshots, but he clarified a few hours ago that solas never liked working with others, and that especially with everything related to the rebellion he grew to dislike it. the inquisition gave him a little of that interest back, and his agents helped him with the dagger, but after a while he decided to go back to work alone)

some by weekes, from their writing notes:

"1) Taash never uses commas. (In dialogue or in codex entries that they've written, unless quoting someone else.)

2) In Veilguard, Solas never gives direct orders. (Barring maybe "think" or "remember".)"

some others by feketekuty, emmrich's writer, about him:

his favorite icecream flavor is rum raisin, he probably goes to perfumers that have set up shop in nevarra city around the necropolis, he'd probably speaks/understands Tevene, he'd probably be into classical music but also he'd enjoy a concerto or an organ recital. or even a a bold new orlesian opera if he's feeling daring (she keeps answering questions, and she also spoke about the "age gap" thing w older rooks in this thread)

and here is an old post w facts abt bellara fun facts :]

happy da day!

[blackberryjambaby]

tagged by the lovely @macbethwitches to share five of my favourite songs at the moment 🎧🫀 in no particular order they are:

1. you know who i am (leonard cohen)

2. sever the blight (hemlocke springs)

3. piano concerto no.2 (chopin)

4. they who must die (shabaka & the ancestors)

5. god is in the radio (queens of the stone age)

i'm tagging @squitsquid @lllinens @itssquash & @honeyandgray 🫀🌟🎧

[rainydawgradioblog]

Nobu Performs at the Seattle Symphony and I subsequently cry my eyes out

There is nothing quite like the solidarity that you get from silently wiping away your tears at the symphony as the fellow next to you does the same thing. I think Rachmaninoff just has that effect on people.

I went to see Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on January 28th, performed by Nobuyuki Tsujii (also referred to as Nobu by his fans) on the piano and the Seattle Symphony conducted by Jiří Rožeň. I hadn’t realized how famous Tsujii was until I showed up to Benaroya Hall. It was a packed house with a lot more people my own age in attendance than what you typically see with the usual symphony crowd. Despite my ignorance about Nobu’s notoriety, I was about to discover the reason for this justifiable fame soon enough. Nobu’s dynamic sensitivity was absolutely sublime, at times it seemed his fingers were merely brushing against the keys and then, just moments after, he would bring the piano up to its full capacity, all the while not sacrificing any clarity. It would be remiss to not mention that Nobu is fully blind, which makes his talent all the more awe-inspiring, given that he has to commit everything he plays to memory without the use of sheet music and goes purely off of listening to specialized recordings. As for the choice in music, it resonated perfectly with me in my current state. As someone who often finds themselves struggling with the blight of seasonal affective disorder in the Seattle winters, reading the program about how Rachmaninoff wrote his second concerto as he was exiting a depression made the music feel like a deliverance. The encore was an etude by Nikolai Kapustin, and I always feel my ego puff up a bit when I can recognize the encore, since it is not listed in the program and the pianist often doesn’t say what they've just played. I could truly appreciate the level of Nobu’s virtuosity with the Kapustin etude, as I had since recovered from the emotional journey Rachmaninoff had put me through, and my vision was no longer blurred by my tears.

Nobu’s performance was sandwiched between two beautiful works by Czech composers. The conductor, Jiří Rožeň, who specializes in works by Czech composers, led the charge with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture. I had never heard the piece prior to this performance, but it was delightful all the same. The night was closed out with Martinů’s Symphony No. 6, which was also new to me, but seemed to be in keeping with what I have heard from the composer in the past. The dissonance that Martinů employs often makes me think, “oh god that’s awful, I love it.” The joy of going to the symphony is that it is consistently introducing me to new pieces, even though I usually only buy tickets for the shows that are headlined by works that I already know.

Every so often, living in the Seattle area graces me with the opportunity to see a world class musician. I’m not entirely sure how to capture what I mean by “world class,” but I do know that it is a rare virtuosity, and outside of just technical perfection, it is a performance that has emotional breadth. I’m not particularly religious but sometimes it seems to me that some musicians have been sent down from on high. Perhaps they are connecting to a universal plane that is always there, but only occasionally tapped into. I experience shivers that start at the top of my head and travel to the tips of my fingers, and if that in itself is not a religious experience, I'm not sure what is. I felt it when I saw Daniil Trifonov perform back in November, and then again with Nobuyuki Tsujii. I am beyond excited for Rach Fest which is coming up in April. If you plan on attending, remember to wear waterproof mascara. 

Photo credits go to Brandon Patoc, and special thanks to Courtney from the Seattle Symphony's PR team for helping me in my pursuit of becoming a regular symphony attendee.

Xoxo, Addie

[spectre-ship]

Memoirs of a Thursday Morning

One morning, I woke up at half past five. The sky was a deep, steely blue, like the sea, but more inviting. To say the world was drenched in shadows would be a false description; rather one might say that there was nothing but shadows, a strange world of a uniform hue, which simply darkened beneath trees. I decided to go out and watch the sun rise.

It was not an immediate decision. First I wrote down my dream last night (my dog died in it;) then I did my daily French lessons, so that someday I could consider speaking in that language with someone. But the idea tugged at me. I felt like it was destiny calling, which was ridiculous. But I got dressed. I got my water bottle and my leather bag and my denim jacket, all the rough outdoorsman’s things I might have brought to go hike in the mountains, and went outside.

It was six o’clock on a September morning. There was no breeze, and it wasn’t particularly cold outside, but the sun had yet to touch the air and the grass that day, so it was not warm either. It had been raining last night, evidently; here and there the dirt gave a little beneath my feet, and even though I’d waterproofed my shoes, my socks got wet.

It was still too dark to see anything as I began the walk up the road, hemmed in on both sides by walls of dense spruce. My house was surrounded by tall trees, and the sunrise there came late, long after the rosy streaks which we find so enchanting had dissipated, replaced by a harsh yellow shine only slightly mitigated by leaves. So whenever I wanted to see the sunrise, I had to walk up the road ten minutes, to a great valley filled with squat pine trees which grew for two years before being cut at Yuletide.

As I made my way up the road, I heard off to my right, from a pond I could not see but knew lay behind the trees, the wild cackle of a goose. At this, I realized the symphony of noises that surrounded me. A cacophony of birds—chickadees, crows, robins—played an atonal, arrhythmic concerto high in the trees. I quietly listened to them as I strolled east. They were awful musicians, but excellent artists. I heard other things as I made my way along, too: the loud tattoo of pinecones dropped by red squirrels, the flutter as some unseen flock took wing beyond the treeline. For the briefest moment, I caught view of an animal, too far away and too deep in the shade for me to tell what it was, before it turned away into the woods, and I did not see it again.

As I crested the small slope which preceded the best view of the valley, I realized that the world had lightened considerably. It was still blue, of course, but a lighter blue, the shade of the faded jeans I had on, or the urn containing my grandmother’s ashes. At last, I reached the edge of the vista. Beyond a telephone pole at the roadside, beyond the colossal division of young pines which stood at attention before me, stood the horizon: a great ridge, covered in hemlocks and spruce, from past which rose an overhead power line, a great tower of steel and wire. Past that, through a dip in the ridgeline, I could make out the misty outline of another hill, which was the farthest beyond I could make out. I checked the time. Sunrise would be ten or twenty minutes off. It was too wet for me to sit down, so I stood.

I pulled a pad of paper from my bag, and to pass the time, began to sketch the skyline over which the sun would soon rise. I was no great sketch artist, so I made a couple of attempts at it; initially I tried to draw the pines like a great collection of needles, and realized the power lines in a rough sketch, but I abandoned this approach and instead tried to convey the outlines of things. A crow’s loud caw broke my concentration. I collected myself and resumed my work.

Try as I might, however, I could not maintain my composure. Mosquitoes whined in my ear no matter how many attempts I made to swat them away. In the direction from which I had glimpsed that animal, I heard some strange noise, almost like a fox’s yip, and mused that it had either caught or become prey. Even the landscape that I tried to sketch began to bother me. The tower’s great height and seemingly impossible construction, looking from this distance like a mountain built from sticks, conveyed a certain grandiosity, like some great proof of humankind’s limitless potential; yet I could not help but feel that its rigid lines and strange, angular shape were a blight on the landscape, its colossal form a menace looming over the soft outlines of nature.

As I decided the sketch was good enough for now, and began packing it away, I realized that the blue of the world had faded to the light grey of ash or stucco. I hadn’t missed the sunrise; indeed, I stared at the spot it should have risen the entire time. I’d underestimated how heavy the clouds lay between the earth and sky, and realized with some resignation that I’d gone out to see something which would not happen today. I turned back from the horizon and started home.

On the return trip, I noticed things which I had not on the journey there. Squarely in the middle of the road, near the top of the hill, lay a frog crushed by some uncaring passerby’s car wheel. It had turned over onto its back in death, baring its pale stomach to the world. The birdsong and odd cackles and yips had been replaced entirely by an erratic drumbeat, the noise of pinecones I did not see being dropped by squirrels I did not notice. I glanced at a roadside sign, made illegible by years of sun and rain, but which I knew from the faded color read “POSTED / Private Property / Hunting, Fishing, and Trespassing is Strictly Forbidden / Violators Will Be Prosecuted”.

As I approached my home, I turned off the muddy road to trudge the same path through the wet, overgrown grass. I looked down and saw that, on my walk in the dark out to the valley some half an hour prior, I’d accidentally kicked over some mushrooms, too small for me to have noticed trampling. Feeling ever so slightly remorseful for my clumsy, lumbering actions, but knowing there was nothing to be done about it, I opened the back door and went inside.

[kaoruyogi]

How to Win Wars and Influence Nobles (Ch. 30)

Rating: E for Explicit/NSFW Content!

Check it out on AO3!

You’d think a video game lawyer could just drop into a pseudo-medieval universe filled with magic and demons and be totally okay with it, right?

Nah.

In the wake of her brother, Spencer’s, disappearance, Belle dropped into Thedas with luggage, but without a clue. After a brief but memorable panic attack, she resolved to be the best goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. Even if she was the only goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. And even if that obstinate asshole, Cullen, wouldn’t stop giving her the side-eye every time she walked into a room…Or every time he walked into a room with her in it…Or every time they walked into a room together…Or–Fuck it. You get it.

**WARNING** Scene involving childbirth below! It's not at all graphic, but it's there. I separated it from the rest of the chapter with my usual divider line of asterisks, anyway, just in case. Also, please see my notes at the end of the chapter! ^_^

Chapter 30: The Reality of Miracles

Cullen had always held some ambivalence for the term “miracle.” He heard the word overused in recent memory, but a true miracle always bore an eerie duality in its happening. It was duplicitous. On one side of the coin, miracles were wonderful. They seemed to prove the existence of the Maker, of something greater than one man, of something that could choose the righteous to survive above all others.

But the other side of the coin was darker. Black and wretched. The reality of miracles was that they must always be preceded by deep misfortune and calamity. The very nature of miracles required that their subject avoid death or disaster by only the narrowest margin through immeasurable strength of will or divine luck. The subject of a miracle would, therefore, be unlikely to consider what happened to them to be a miracle.

Cullen had been the subject of and borne witness to several miracles. His survival at Kinloch Hold was a miracle only because everyone around him died. His siblings’ survival during the Fifth Blight was a miracle only because their parents and hundreds of others died. Max’s survival at Haven was a miracle only because he avoided a crushing death under a mountain of snow by his chance position near an abandoned mineshaft after dozens of people died.

Thus, when Cullen first heard the phrase, “the miracle of childbirth,” he was dubious about its use. After all, how could the coming of life into the world result from the narrow avoidance of death? He remained dubious about the phrase for most of his life, never having been present to bear witness to such a miracle. His father had chased him out of the house during the birth of his siblings. The Circle healers had chased him out when the occasional pregnant mage gave birth. He chased himself out under all other birthing circumstances he had almost seen.

It was only upon the birth of his own daughter that he understood “the miracle of childbirth.” The entire ordeal was a brutal exercise in unending terror. A concerto of the unceasing screams of the Void. A whiff of the hot and rancid exhalations of ever hovering death.

At first, it all seemed manageable. Late morning wound into late afternoon, and Belle’s pain came in waves. She sat up in their bed, propped up by half a dozen pillows. The elven midwife called into the palace from outside the gates ducked in and out of the room to work minor magic over Belle’s stomach. She said all was well. But after shrinking periods of minutes, all did not appear well. Belle’s body would contract, twisting her neck and fisting her hands into the sheets so hard her knuckles turned the color of sun-bleached bone. Occasionally, she grabbed onto him instead. She inhaled through her nose, and her lip quivered as she blew the held breath out through her mouth. Sometimes she vomited. Sometimes she cursed. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she did all three.

Cullen was helpless. He hated it. He would have taken the pain from her without a second thought if someone gave him the chance. Instead, he did what little he could to bring her comfort. He held her hair back when she vomited into the ornate porcelain basin the midwife called silly. He measured tiny sips of water for her. He tied her curls up and away when she asked, though he regarded his efforts as slapdash at best. He let her crush his hands with every wave of her pain, his own negligible by any comparison. He held her up when the midwife suggested she walk about the room to speed the process.

Their mabari seemed to feel equally helpless. Charles paced around the bed, laying his heavy head on Belle’s hand in the quiet moments between contractions. Cullen began to signal him to move away, but she said she liked him there. She stroked the dog’s short fur with her eyes closed in the dwindling absences of pain.

The sun dipped away beneath the palace walls, and late afternoon gave way to late evening. Her spasming agony worsened by the hour. The midwife massaged magic into the small of Belle’s back, though it did little to alleviate the pain. She showed Cullen where and how to touch his wife to keep her blood flowing in the right direction and coax the child out of the womb. He ignored the dark scars on Belle’s bent knees caused by his temporary death all those years ago.

When the midwife stepped out, Belle turned to him, sweaty and severe and scared. “If I die—” she said.

“No.”

“Don’t fucking ‘no’ me, goddamnit. If I die, you have to let Mia and my parents help you. I don’t want you alone when you raise our little girl.” A fat tear sliced through the perspiration on her pink cheek. “You need your family, and she needs hers.”

His vision blurred, clearing with the streak of moisture down his face. “You will not die. You can’t. I can’t…” The notion choked off his voice.

She gave him a wavering smile and wiped away his tear with her thumb. “I promise. I’m doing everything I can not to die. But if I do, you can make it, okay? You and her. You can make it. And you better, or I’ll turn into a spirit thing and cross the Veil to whoop your ass.”

Cullen laughed. It came out thick and stunted. He nodded and kissed the back of her hand. He held it to his forehead to conceal the two additional tears that loosed themselves in an attempt to betray him. His mouth began to move in silent prayer, begging the Maker not to take her away, not to leave him with the biting memory of another death, not to compel him to mourn every time he looked in their daughter’s eyes.

“Do not take her,” he whispered through trembling lips. “Maker, I beg you, please do not take her from me.”

Late evening succumbed to the murky blackness of early morning. The part of morning which could hardly be called morning. Belle was exhausted. She laid back and closed her eyes and stopped breathing more than once. The midwife tasked Cullen with keeping her awake, and Belle might have spurned him had her contractions not been all but constant.

When the time finally came for her to push, she made a valiant effort. Her moon face turned red, eclipsed by excruciation. She laid sloppy hands on his cheeks, and she pulled him to her, and she wept that she couldn’t do it. He promised her that she could. He asked the Maker not to let him be a liar. She pushed and screamed for so long he had trouble remembering a time before pushing and screaming. He would swear he never heard her take a breath, though she wailed and grunted with all the force of a torrent.

“I can see the head. Just a little longer. A few more hard pushes.”

Cullen’s heart crammed itself into the back of his throat. It beat there, loud and fast, obscuring his words and dizzying him. Belle pushed for a little longer. She pushed a few more hard pushes. The midwife gasped and made a sound like she discovered a lost and ancient treasure. A baby cried. Belle’s body went a little slack.

She was still alive. Still conscious. She made a delirious sound he realized was laughter as she sobbed and panted. He began to breathe again.

Belle held out her arms and wiggled her fingers for the source of the piercing and squeaky little shrieks. “Give me my Sadie,” she said, hoarse and happy. “Give me my little Sadie Jo.”

They had agreed on the name not long after discovering their child would be a daughter. She was named for Belle’s mother. Her middle name, Josephine, was meant to honor a dear friend they thought they might never see again. Even after returning to Thedas, they decided to keep the name. It had grown on them both, and they could not imagine a raising child called anything else.

The midwife wrapped up squealing little Sadie in linens much too fine for such a use, and she set the baby on Belle’s chest. Belle laughed and cried and grinned, and Cullen kissed her damp forehead. He kissed his daughter. Their miracle.

When all was said and done, the midwife excused herself for a moment. Cullen thanked her and watched her leave, and he caught a glimpse of the world outside their room before the door closed behind her. More aptly, he caught a glimpse of Sera slumped over Rainier’s shoulder, both of them half asleep. He also caught a glimpse of the glimmer of Dorian’s outfit and the tip of Iron Bull’s horn. He tilted his ear to the door and listened.

The midwife’s voice said, “They’ve had a healthy baby girl. Mother’s doing well,” and a flurry of relieved noises followed. He had no idea how many of their friends had been waiting there, nor how long they had waited, but he felt a sudden pang of gratitude for their presence. No one had any need of their gracious worry now, however. There had been a miracle.

*****

It was a gray day that morning. Belle would be happy when she woke. She loved gray days. She loved gray days, and she loved their new daughter. He had little doubt she would want to see the two together, but she was asleep. And Cullen would not wake her just yet.

Although his primary reason for not rousing his wife was that she needed rest more than anyone he had ever known, he had to admit some selfishness in his ulterior motive. He had read, in at least one of the half dozen books he purchased upon finding out Belle was pregnant, that it was crucial to the bonding process for babies to have skin to skin contact with their parents. He did not recall when the book or books recommended he start that skin to skin contact, so he opted to try it just then. In his view, he could not hold her soon enough.

He doffed his tunic and snuck over to Belle’s side of the bed where Sadie lay in a small padded basket atop a sturdy table. He almost tripped over Charles, who had curled up just beneath the makeshift bassinette. The mabari lifted his head at the sound of Cullen’s bare footsteps, and he eyed the man before him for a moment. Despite being the object of his own hound’s suspicion, Cullen felt certain that his choice to rescue the dog from his Orlesian fate was the right one. True to Cullen’s word, Charles would make the perfect protector for Sadie.

The mabari continued to watch as Cullen reached into the basket to lift out his daughter. Charles’s ears perked up higher at Sadie’s little snorts and squeaks, but they returned to their tentative position when she calmed against Cullen’s chest.

She was so very small in his large hands. Tiny and amazing. Her birth-swollen features were still muddled, her eyes still gray at never having seen the sun, but she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was hot against his skin, and he looked down at her and hoped her cheeks would always be this round. He closed his eyes and put his nose to the fine tuft of near colorless hair atop her head. Her scent was otherworldly. She smelled of softness and newness, and he breathed her into himself.

Then Sadie began to fuss, and Cullen began to panic. The realization that all the books he read had not prepared him to be a real father poured over him. They were all theory. They told him only what to do if a fictional baby fussed. Not one of them told him what to do when his newborn daughter, his Sadie, started to fuss.

Out of this sudden and crushing sensation of inadequacy and terror, he began to pace and sway. His daughter began to settle. He breathed out a slow sigh of dizzied relief, and soon he found himself humming a soft tune he had enjoyed in Washington. It reminded him of what he felt with this fragile new life in his arms, this overwhelming urge to protect. He would lay down his life for this tiny girl. The odd word or two of the song slipped through his lips as he hummed.

“May no man’s touch ever chain you,” he sang, and then he hummed again. “And as for the clouds, just let them roll.”

Sadie, his beautiful and perfect Sadie, huffed and snored against his chest. All the world melted away. All the politics and the Orlesians and the Inquisition sloughed off of his shoulders, and it was just him with his daughter and his sleeping wife, and it was just them and the gray day outside the window.

An unsubtle knock and the opening of their door whipped his head around. His grip on his daughter tightened, and he heard Charles stir and stand at attention. Cullen tried to recall where he put his sword.

Josephine stepped into the room, a world-worn and weary look marking her. She blanched when her eyes landed on him, and he remembered his shirtlessness. Then she saw his daughter in his arms, and it was as if every practice of courtly decorum she had ever learned evaporated in an instant.

She cooed a bit too loud and said, “Blessed Andraste, she is so beautiful!”

Cullen put a finger over his lips before pointing to his sleeping wife, and Josephine grimaced her apology. She crossed the room to speak in whispers and to see the child.

“Oh Maker,” she said, holding a hand on her chest, “just look at her. Congratulations, Commander. She is perfect.”

“She is,” said Cullen, proud as anything that someone else saw what he saw. He turned to allow Josephine a better view of his little girl’s tiny face. “I would like to formally introduce you to my daughter, Sadie Josephine Rutherford.”

Josephine clapped the hand not on her chest over her awestruck mouth. Her hazel eyes welled up, and she shook her head. “Me? You’ve named her—I—” It was the first time he had ever seen her at a loss for words, and it brought a wide smile to his face. She swiped away the tears that tumbled free and beamed. “I am truly honored. Truly.”

“I am glad. Belle picked her name, and I quite liked the sound of it.”

Josephine let out a soft giggle. “As do I.” She cast an appreciative look toward the bed.

Cullen watched Josephine watching Sadie for a few long seconds. He began to feel slightly uncomfortable at his state of undress and the nearness of her head to his right nipple. “I can only assume you needed us for something?”

“Oh, of course. Apologies. Just moments ago I could think of nothing else, and now I’ve become so distracted I did not even remember why I came here.” Her dourness returned by a half measure. “Just a few moments ago, Maxim met with the Exalted Council. He declared that the Inquisition will remain active as an honor guard and investigative force for the Divine. Then he left the chamber.”

“Can he do that?”

Josephine shrugged. “He just did. And he has strongly suggested that the Inquisition take its leave tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning? I don’t know if Belle can walk, much less travel. It’s too soon.”

“I know. I have arranged for a healer and a wet nurse to meet with you this afternoon and to travel back to Skyhold with us if need be.”

“She won’t want the wet nurse. She has been quite adamant about feeding Sadie herself.” Cullen glanced at his wife. Her eyes remained closed where she lay.

“It is merely a precaution,” said Josephine, placating him with a gentle gesture of her hand. “There can be a great many difficulties involved with feeding a newborn, I am told. If anything, the wet nurse will simply be available to provide assistance and instruction for Belle.”

“She and I will discuss it when she wakes. But please make certain the healer arrives first.”

“Of course.” Josephine looked from him to his daughter and smiled again. “I will leave you all to rest.”

“Thank you.”

Belle stirred in their bed just as the door clicked shut behind Josephine. She gave him a bleary grin when he approached. The left side of her mouth tilted up more than the right. She was a beautiful mess. A few loose curls embedded themselves in pillow-shaped dents on her cheek, while the mass of her hair remained tied in Cullen’s helter-skelter knot. He leaned over, keeping a careful grip on the baby, and pressed a lingering kiss to his wife’s forehead.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She motioned to him in a vague and lilting wave. “Well, all this is so cute I think my ovaries might just explode. Which would just about match the rest of the décor down there. It feels like someone shoved a nuke up my pee hole and let ‘er rip.” She winced as she adjusted herself to sit up a little. “Jesus.”

Cullen said, “I’m sorry,” because what else could he say? He felt more than a touch responsible for her pain.

“It is what it is,” she said with a slight lift of a shoulder. “So Max decided fuck diplomacy and just declared the Inquisition would continue, huh?”

“You heard all of that?”

“Kinda tough to sleep through one of Josie’s more purposeful knocks. She cried at Sadie’s name, didn’t she? It sounded like she was crying. She totally cried.”

He puffed out a laugh, trying so desperately to keep Sadie from waking. “She did.”

“Yeah,” said Belle with a long and self-satisfied nod. “Called it.”

Without warning, a molten hot liquid trickled down Cullen’s stomach. He flinched and stepped back on instinct, and his wife snorted. It did not take him long to realize what that molten hot liquid was or its point of origin.

“You’ve officially been indoctrinated,” said Belle. “I was wondering whether piss, shit, or puke would get you first.” She held out her hands and flexed her fingers. “Gimme my girl. You can get cleaned up and put your shirt back on. Or don’t put your shirt back on. Do you.”

The world was a vastly different place when she held their daughter. Belle had somehow remained the same woman he loved and metamorphosed into a doting mother all at once, and all in the blink of an eye. She glowed with that child in her arms. He watched her look down at Sadie, and he saw a future stretch out and yawn open before him. He saw lazy mornings and smiling faces. He saw scraped knees and round tear-streaked cheeks. He saw his family huddled together and overflowing with love.

“I love you,” he said to his wife as he sat on the bed beside her, his bare skin wiped clean of newborn urine.

“I love you, too,” she said. She chuffed. “You’d better love me after all this, damn. I hope that healer can magic my vagina back together. That’d be nice. I would genuinely appreciate not worrying if my fucking uterus is going to fall out when I pee.”

Cullen shook his head. Belle had never been anything but straightforward. It was a blessing, really, strange as it was. He had no stomach for insincerity or frivolity in matters of communication. “I’m certain there is something they can do.”

“Let’s hope so. Incidentally…” She paused as a coy look overtook her. “Sorry our daughter’s accidentally Orlesian.”

“No.”

*****

The journey home to Skyhold was a trial of faith and patience. The healer Josephine enlisted was very skilled, and had done wonders for Belle in the time allowed. But she still suffered a great deal of pain while traversing the roads of Orlais. Cullen rode beside the carriage at all times, listening to the anguished whimpers seeping out of his wife and child with every bump and stone beneath the spoked wheels.

He wanted to stop the caravan. He wanted to stay put long enough for his wife to heal. Neither option was available to him. The Inquisition needed to beat a hasty return to Skyhold while leads on Solas’s spies and plans were plentiful, and while the members of the Exalted Council were stunned enough to accept Max’s decree as fact.

The trip was made much more arduous by the hardship of learning to be parents in transit. For over a day, Sadie refused to latch to Belle’s breast to nurse. Belle sobbed into Cullen’s chest each time the wet nurse took their daughter away to feed. It would not have been so bad in Washington, he had to admit. They would have had formula and breast pumps, and Belle could have nourished the child herself instead of passing her to a stranger.

Even after the latching problem was solved, neither Belle nor Cullen slept during the night. Sadie’s shrill cries woke half the camp on an hourly basis. She needed to be fed or changed or burped or rocked. He had never heard a newborn quite so loud. Belle told him it was a family curse. He might have liked to know about such a thing before maintaining the misapprehension that he might ever sleep again.

Cullen had grown accustomed to being awake at all hours of the day and night. His withdrawal symptoms and perpetual nightmares saw to that. But even he was slouching in his saddle by the time they rode through Skyhold’s portcullis. Through the shaded window of the carriage, he saw Belle’s eyes rolling around, lids fluttering in an attempt not to drift into the blissful abyss of sleep. Sadie nursed with gusto, much as she had done on a constant basis throughout their journey home. He wondered if she had been possessed by a demon of gluttony at the moment of her birth.

Dov, Ilana, Spencer, and, to Cullen’s surprise, Rosalie were waiting in the courtyard when the Inquisition retinue returned. They all beamed, and Rosalie fidgeted. Cullen helped Belle and Sadie onto solid ground—Belle still had some trouble closing the distance between the carriage floor and the earth, up or down. She did her level best to smile at their family, though her sagging eyes belied her exhaustion. Cullen suspected his did the same.

Dov looked spryer and more excited than Cullen had ever seen him. Eudora’s magic had clearly done him some good. Spencer’s attention was wrapped up in Charles, who bounded up to the man as if they had known each other their entire lives. Ilana asked in her most gentle and understanding tone if she could hold little Sadie, and after some hesitance, Belle handed the baby to her. Ilana took her with all the care of a woman that had just remembered what it was like to hold an infant of her own, and she smiled down at her granddaughter. Dov hung his head over his wife’s shoulder to join in the outpouring of love.

Cullen wished his parents could have met his little girl. They would have been proud, he thought. They would have loved her fiercely, and they would have adored Belle. His father liked a woman who spoke her mind. His mother had been proof of that. She would have seen Belle as kindred right away, and frankly, she would have harassed him about why it had taken him so long to make his move.

As Rosalie hugged Belle too hard, and Belle warned her about the dangers of milk stains on everknit wool, he thought about the first time he met his wife. She called him all manner of names he did not yet understand. She threatened him. Her knee very nearly met with his testicles. If someone had approached him after she fell unconscious and told him that soon he would love her, that soon he would marry her, that soon she would give him a perfectly round and squirmy daughter, he would have had them shackled and thrown in the dungeon for their obvious insanity. It would not have stopped it from being true. He loved her desperately, and he married her because he knew he could never be parted from her, and she gave him a perfectly round and squirmy daughter he would die to protect.

Dov told them he made some modifications to their tower, and Belle gave him a wary look. He bade them follow him up, and Ilana carried Sadie along. Belle seemed almost relieved to be divested of their daughter for the walk. Cullen helped her up the stairs while she laughed and griped about their plenitude.

The tower was dark when Dov opened the door. No fire in the lower fireplace. No candles flickering on tables. No sunlight streaming through the shuttered windows.

“Let there be light!” said Dov.

A dull and metallic flick echoed through the space, and all at once, there was, in fact, light. An assortment of rounded glass fixtures was strung up about the room, dangling from the ceiling and jutting out from the walls. Each random bowl or glass held a series of glowing strands that reminded Cullen of the expensive light bulbs in Washington. Together, they cast a warm and welcoming glow throughout the lower half of the tower.

“Holy shit, Dad,” said Belle, mouth and eyes agape. “You really did it.”

“Yeah.” Dov walked into the center of the room as he looked around and crossed his arms. He had a proud look to him that tugged at the corners of Cullen’s mouth. “Braided up the wires with leather so no one’ll get shocked.” He pointed to said wires. “Had to get kind of random with the bulbs since we didn’t want to pay a glass blower if this didn’t work. The whole thing’s powered by one rune. Dagna was already on the right track when I went to see her the first time. She was just having trouble with the alternating current.”

“Wait. How was she already on the right track?”

“Cullen never told you? He gave her a bunch of your chargers and asked her to try to make them work.”

Cullen’s hand found the back of his neck. His wife contorted to look at him. “What?”

“Maker’s breath, that was so long ago. I had forgotten. It was meant to be a surprise. I wanted you to be able to listen to your music whenever you liked.”

Belle’s mien shifted in the way it always did when she was about to tell him he was adorable or sweet. “That was really sweet of you,” she said, exactly as he thought she might, and she took his hand. He gave hers a little squeeze. “Thank you.”

“We rigged up the upstairs, too,” said Dov, plainly more enthusiastic about his work than the small displays of affection going on around him. “And the undercroft. Doing our place next, and Dagna said she was going to talk to your friend, Max, and see if he wanted it in his room, too. We’re talking about trying to put a generator wheel into the waterfall under this place.”

“This is really awesome, Dad. Seriously. Really fucking awesome.” Belle stepped into the center of the room to embrace her father. He patted her on the back. “Thank you,” she said into his neck.

“You’re welcome, Cutie.”

Sadie seemed to realize something was happening that did not involve her. She began to wriggle and whine in Ilana’s arms. Cullen was standing close enough to sniff out the reason. Belle moved to take up the child, but he stepped in before she could. He was determined to be a good father and a good husband, and that meant he would change his fair share of soiled diapers and calm his fair share of tantrums.

Belle told her parents she and Cullen were going to change Sadie and maybe, just maybe, try to take a short nap. Ilana said they could always send someone to get her if they needed a break. She truly was a kind woman, and Cullen was glad for her presence as their daughter’s grandmother. Belle thanked her before following him up the stairs.

He was grateful for Belle’s foresight in preparing their quarters for Sadie’s arrival. She had a portion of the large room cordoned off with wooden screens to create a separate space for the nursery, and she filled it with a soothing blend of charm and necessity. She had a fine changing table, crib, waste bin, and chest of drawers crafted of cherry wood, and she littered the space with pillows and cushions and stuffed animals. He had not the slightest inkling where she got it all. He knew only that the haphazardly sewn stuffed bee with a tiny bloodstain on it came from Sera’s unskilled hand.

Belle had been painting a mural in the room she picked for a nursery in their home in Washington. One wall was beginning to look like a misty and wooded mountain range in the haze of morning. She bought a dozen shades of green paint to make certain it turned out as she hoped. It was more than halfway finished when they were pulled back to Thedas.

She let out a long groan when she laid in their bed, and Cullen smiled. He opened the diaper. He tried not to gag at the sight of the mess before him, and for the most part was successful. Charles followed him in, and even the mabari balked at the brown-green horror. Cullen had helped change Rosalie’s diapers in his boyhood, but one never truly acclimated to the particular color and texture of infant waste. Nor did one ever truly acclimate to the odor.

The flesh of Sadie’s face had calmed since her birth, and he began to see little hallmarks in her features. She had Belle’s ears and chin. Her hair was fine and soft as spiderwebs, making it impossible to discern its future color. It felt too early to know with any certainty, but he believed she had his nose. “The Rutherford Snoot,” as Belle once called it. He gave Sadie a delicate tap on her Rutherford Snoot, watching her blink in her infant shock and return to squirming.

“You are every wonder, my sweet,” he said to her. “Every wonder in every world.”

Belle was already asleep when he brought Sadie out of her nursery. He set the baby in the ruffled bassinette Josephine gave them, and her namesake wriggled in her swaddle at the newness of it all. He sat down in the ornate chair Belle positioned at her bedside for nursing, and he took in the splendor of his family, and his heart felt full. Sadie battled against her closing eyes in a final attempt to take in the strange world around her. Belle lay still, save for her slow breaths. She was crystal in that moment, fragile and cutting and glowing in the mellow golden sunlight, and she was magnificent. Oh but she was magnificent.

Despite his awareness of Solas’s new threat to Thedas, and despite all the work he knew to be piling upon his desk as he sat there, Cullen was at peace. His life had not gone at all as he had planned, yet somehow it was so much better than he ever dared to dream. Not only had he survived his life as a Templar and as Commander of the Inquisition, but he had managed to build life anew out of the rubble of a man he had become. He had seen horrors. He had seen worlds. He loved, and he was privy to love. He became a husband. He became a father. He would never be satisfied with his atonement for the wrongdoings of his past, never feel worthy of his new life, but in that moment he found a kind of serenity in himself. In that moment he knew. All was well. All would be well. His eyes drifted shut.

Those who were joined together would never be put asunder.

*****

Notes: Finally, a little peace for our beleaguered Commander and his beleaguered Belle...

Side note: I know there's a whole lot of stuff about being new parents in this chapter that you might find...off-putting? But my sister and my best friend recently had babies, and I thought it was really important to represent what that's like. It's exhausting and frustrating, and sometimes it's super gross. I wanted to be real about it because I'm a little, teeny, itty bitty little bit tired of seeing the trials of new parenthood glossed over, or even out and out lied about. So there you go.

We're almost to the finish line!!! I'm so grateful to you for being with me through this massive journey, but I'll be gushing about that way more in the end notes of the next (last!) chapter. <3<3<3

[lenn-ey]

how did your ocs meet each other?

*dabs*

after «SEASONS» arrived in chance and fausto’s hometown, they formed an unsteady alliance while finding a new place to live. they decided to set upon the capital, since if nothing else, there’s got to be a rogue scene there, right? so, they decided to watch each others’ backs as they ventured to the capital, and then separate from there.

at the capital, protests are raging at the SOL headquarters. many religious figures are denouncing the creation of laurea as against karmic destiny, or the will of aleph, or what have you. raider just so happens to be counter-protesting at a public event, preaching about how, in one way or another, laurea was meant to come into being.

chance and fausto, arriving at the capital, see this public event and the very, very expensive oneirological equipment being showcased there, and they decide to fuck shit up. of course, they’re rushing in blind, and get basically decimated by security at the event, escaping only when one of the protesters tries to assassinate laurea in the chaos and raider defends her.

later, chance and fausto are looking for a way to make quick cash, and chance suggests they kill the daemon allegra that’s supposed to be arriving in the capital soon. fausto declines, revealing how they got their curse and denouncing daemon-hunting as entirely unsafe. they go their separate ways, and chance decides to fight allegra.

on the night allegra’s scheduled to arrive, SOL is attempting to test laurea’s military capabilities, and raider is spectating, interested in seeing what she can do. just before allegra’s arrival, fausto tries to talk chance out of fighting her, but out of the blue, allegra appears before them with a resounding melody.

laurea is totally incompetent at fighting her, only able to throw objects at her. SOL concludes that her magic is mostly class-luna (”divination”) and begin to pack up. laurea refuses to leave, because she knows what happens next is immensely important. raider, fascinated, watches at a distance until laurea levitates him down to meet her.

just as chance is readying his weapon, allegra passes him by, floating to the center of the city, directly towards laurea. music, lights, and dancing spirits follow her closely. chance and fausto chase allegra, but are unable to land a hit on her. fausto asks why they don’t just go home, since allegra doesn’t seem to be doing any harm. chance thinks that’s a good question, says fuck it, and starts dancing in the street. fausto joins in, and neither of them mind when allegra displaces them onto a spectral drum, parading through the streets.

laurea explains to raider that, whatever happens next, it is immensely important to the pair’s fate, and indeed the fate of the world as they know it. she does not know why, as the sight she has been blighted with is blissfully dark in this regard. but she does know that much, and as the concerto approaches, she invites raider to dance. he accepts.

eventually, the song resounding throughout the capital has caused everyone to leave their homes, dancing in the moonlight and, at the end of the night, the spring rain. chance thanks allegra for the show, but tells her that she has to leave, soon. she knows. she lowers chance, laurea, raider, and fausto to the ground before vanishing into the rain. laurea remarks that chance will make an excellent daemon-hunter; nobody else would have thought to simply ask a daemon to leave this world. of course, remarks raider, you can’t always ask nicely and expect them to go. an assassin appears, and is subsequently dispatched. laurea remarks that they would make excellent daemon-hunters.

chance concurs, and then has an excellent idea.

[juichi-bey]

Holy shit