#c: rion severan

[gwynbleiddyn]

they talk for hours.

Morrigan watches patiently, out of sight and mostly out of mind, a tremulous understanding strung between her and the Warden-Inquisitor Severan - now a shared tale that has endured ages, a Blight, and a son. Kerros briefly wonders whether Kieran would appreciate the irony of all this, but then he thinks he'd prefer sitting in the tree with him in Skyhold again instead of here, at the end of the world.

"tell me about them," Rion asks of the Veilguard. Kerros doesn't know where to begin. it feels like they're starting at the end. how much time has passed since he left home? has Cullen remembered to prune the rosebushes and tend to the lemon trees? does grandfather still call around every day, insisting on coffee and a conversation whether or not his father wishes to oblige? Kerros can see it clearly in his mind's eye, the way the garden is left untended as Cullen tends to Rion instead, too weak to leave his bed some days. he can see Amrun pacing in the terracotta kitchen, herbs drying on a rack, coffee brewing in a pot and poured in a cup that will be left untouched - truth be told, Rion doesn't taste much anymore.

Kerros blinks, and he sees his father, sat across from him. sick. tired. armoured, resolute, unyielding. he does not know how to stop fighting.

"you'd like them," Kerros answers. he tells Rion about Taash and Harding, his closest confidants - Rion's eyes lighten at the mention of the Inquisition's scout - and he skirts carefully around Emmrich's fondness of spirits, unwilling to test the weary mind of an ex-Templar. he explains Bellara's tenacity, her cleverness, how he wishes he'd met more Dalish like her in his time. he talks of Davrin's seemingly innate heroism, and how Assan keeps him humble. "and Neve," Kerros says, "she shares your sense of humour, but she's got more braincells to work with., soo...."

Rion chuckles, a faint and raspy sound.

"and there's Lucanis..." he leaves the rest unspoken, but Rion's gaze softens. he knows. and perhaps it is pointless to dwell on something his father will not live to see.

but he can pretend, for a moment, "...when this is done, we're going to Treviso. Cafe Pietra. best coffee this side of Rialto Bay, I promise. Lucanis is a man of his word."

it's easy to get lost in the details of his new life, but with each admission comes a little notch of pain, a fresh mark on his heart, slowly cutting away the fine threads that hold him to Skyhold, to the Inquisition, and to Rion.

he may be a shadow of himself in the here and now, but Kerros holds onto a vision of Rion so tightly that time can only bend around his fingers to touch it. it leaves fingerprinted indents, glimpses in the light, of a man whose shoulders could carry him around Skyhold without a care, even when the world was knocking at his door.

it is a small, fleeting moment, but he thinks he finally has an answer for Bellara's hero. why does he do it? because this story isn't fair, and he will fight it until he can't. no matter which way the tides turn, even if they win, Kerros will lose, and it will hurt more than everything that came before.

"i miss it," Rion admits. "the friendship, that connection. even in the Templars, the Wardens, it was those bonds that kept you going on your worst day, and trust me, the worst day will always come. your friends will keep you when the world won't."

Kerros swallows back the incessant grief, and smiles.

"yeah. i know they will."

[gwynbleiddyn]

→ Warden-Inquisitor Rion Severan, 9:52 Dragon

ten years gone in the blink of an eye. ten years spent chasing everything he cannot catch:

the Dread Wolf. firstly, for his ignorance and secondly, for his pride. the third reason, unspoken, unacknowledged: for being the mirror that Rion cannot break, lest he condemn himself too.

his son, in whose footsteps he used to follow for fear of losing him in the vast heights of a world unknown. now his son has grown wings, taken to the sky like a Rook, and Rion follows - not for fear of losing sight of him, but because he cannot keep up anymore.

and time, unravelling like a spool of thread before him where its end begins a song that he cannot ignore, a Calling. he must catch it before it runs out.

[gwynbleiddyn]

time is a tide that disobeys; part 2

oc kiss week 2025 prompt fill ft. Thalon Lavellan who belongs to the ever wonderful @ourinquisitorialness <3 thank you for letting me run riot with your son in the pursuit of Exploring Themes™

recommended listening:

loosely inspired by the 'worship' prompt because that's a doozy in and of itself, part 2 brings us to Skyhold, where judgement awaits. a direct sequel to part 1, where the days and weeks that follow Adamant begin to shape an unfortunate and long-standing reality -- that this will not be their story to tell.

-----

It doesn’t rain in Skyhold often, but when it does, it pours. 

The lifting summer air from the Hinterlands creeps upwards over the mountain, colliding with the sinking cold to call forth heavy grey clouds that burst as though pierced by the jagged offerings of the Frostbacks, and the deluge that follows is enough to harry most people indoors.

Except today. 

Today, the courtyard is full. Bodies stand shoulder to shoulder, faceless, indistinguishable to Rion where he stands, watching, waiting, from his spot on the wall overlooking Skyhold’s inner workings. There’s a restless ripple over the crowd, shuddering through the steady lavender tones that raindrops paint across Rion’s unique vision, his eyes working twice as hard to catch what his ears don’t. And as the restless hum widens from a dull grey into white, Rion knows they grow impatient.

As does he. 

His fingers drum idly on slick stone, hands free of heavy gloves and shoulders light with no armour to weigh him down, yet he still stands hunched - both against the rain and the shadow of Adamant, a memory that has yet to untangle itself from his waking thoughts. 

He grows impatient because beneath the steady downpour and roiling clouds, the crowds gather to watch Magister Livius Erimond pay his due. 

An empty, scarcely bloodied chopping block sits, lonely, on a dreary wooden stage down below. Erimond struggles in his restraints mere feet away from his end, a sole, looming guard his only company while they await the sword to carry out the sentence. 

The judgement had been rendered in flickering torchlight, amongst the scaffolding and skeleton of Skyhold’s throne room where the Inquisitor sat as judge and executioner, resolute. 

Rion had watched Thalon then with rapt, precise attention. He looked for every sign of conflict, a twitch of the hand or a sideways glance, anything that would give away a hint of uncertainty - enough that Rion would have used his voice as a counterweight to Thalon’s doubt, turned the tide, and placed the blame squarely on himself for the judgement. But in that hall, Thalon may as well have been a statue, caught forever in the shape of his brutal decree.

And Rion watches Thalon now, eyes fixed on his regal figure as he ascends the wooden steps with silent footfalls, the crowd’s murmur too strong for Rion to see any other sound. It isn’t a grand affair, they’d made sure of it; Erimond deserved the indignity of insignificance. It hadn’t taken Rion’s fit of rage and ruin to convince Thalon, either. The man’s fate was sealed the moment they stepped into Adamant and bore witness to the scale of his wrongs.

Words are spoken to the crowd, too far away and small for Rion to see. But Rion isn’t interested in words. He stares intensely, almost wiling Thalon to spare him a glance - just so he can see. Just so he can know that this is what he wants, and this is what he will do. And just before the Inquisitor turns to his duty, Thalon catches Rion’s eye at last, and Rion’s thundering heart slows with a sigh - relief. 

The sword does its work. The rippling hum begins to fade as Erimond’s body slumps to the wood, headless, no longer the centre of attention, and other matters of mundane means begin to fill the courtyard instead as Skyhold turns into another day. 

Rain pours, still. 

Droplets roll down the ridge of Rion’s nose, dripping down onto stone below. His hair lies flattened to his skull, his civilian attire near soaked through, and his usual vanity has tumbled from his list of priorities to lie in the muck and mud. All he has been able to think about for the last week is Adamant and its aftermath. 

My heart’s just angry, he’d told Nin. But that day, there had been a place for it. 

Today, there is room for reason. 

And reason tells him that this will be one of the nooses strung up on the gallows when the Inquisition ends. Erimond’s execution will sit at the receiving end of pointed, accusatory fingers in some far off future that Rion cannot see, but he knows it will come. They will point, they will cry, and they will call Thalon a murderer, a despot, Andraste’s herald turned zealot.

That is where his anger burns red-hot now, on this grey and dull day. 

Reverent green seeps into his vision, washing away the brown of the courtyard and turning his gaze to something kinder - Thalon, alone, approaching through the rain. His face softens as Rion turns to him, not quite a smile, but grim tenderness remains there in spite of what’s just transpired by his hand. 

“That was a cleaner cut than I would have given him,” Rion says, but his humour is hollow, carved out by something heavy. Thalon lets out a quiet hum of acknowledgement, gaze drifting to the courtyard below for a moment to see that it is nearly empty again. Erimond’s body has already been dutifully removed, but the spatter of crimson that decorates the wooden stage is a vibrant mark in an otherwise nondescript scene. 

It is surprisingly hard to look away from. But Thalon manages, after a moment, and his kind, grey eyes land on Rion.

“It had to be done. The Wardens…” he frowns, his thought left stranded in the damp air. Rion lifts a brow, plucking the thought to completion himself.

“...they would have kept him. Conscripted, probably. Too pragmatic to lose what pathetic little gain we could squeeze out of him, but that would have gone down poorly with the bastards who killed their friends under his spell. He wouldn’t have survived the first night before they tore him apart like a pack of wild dogs.” 

Rion grins, bitter and wild. A part of him would have relished the opportunity. 

“That, or he would have died in agony during the Joining.”

He turns to look back at Thalon, whose eyes are closed, and Rion knows he is resisting the image. Violence is never his first answer, and rarely is it his second or third either, but it is a language that comes all too easily to Rion’s hands. His shoulders sink with a gentle, quiet sigh, and he curls fingers around Thalon’s wrist, pulling him closer if he allows it.

“You did the right thing.” 

At that, Thalon’s pale stare is renewed, and he gives Rion the slightest of nods as a trembling breath leaves his lips. Uncertainty? Not quite. Something else. “I know. Thank you.” 

Thalon’s pulse thrums steady beneath Rion’s fingers at his wrist, and he slips his hand into Thalon’s own, squeezing. “I know you know, but I don’t believe you when you say it. What’s on your mind?” 

Rion knows he may as well ask him to pluck a grain of sand from an hourglass. Still, Thalon tries, his smile thin but appreciative nonetheless, and he returns the squeeze.

“I hardly enjoy playing the judge and jury to begin with, but this particular judgement sets a precedence, Rion. What comes after this? How far does the Inquisition reach, and to what end?” His shades of green grow a little more wilted by the word, like a great tree choked by the creeping doubt of ivy. Rion’s heart twists a little, caught on the hook of his own fears now echoed by Thalon, whose resolute spirit has kept him steady all this time in lockstep with Nin’s gentle fire. 

Unfortunately, doubt is a difficult weed to cut. It tangles and trips, and it has them bound on this precipice, on this wall overlooking the heart of the Inquisition, and the remnants of its latest bloody judgement laid clear for all to see. 

Thalon’s hand is less a gentle reassurance in this moment, and more a warning - if doubt thrives here, it will not just be one of them who tumbles from the tower.

Shaking his head free of that thought, Rion turns away from the wall, turning Thalon to face him too. The longer they stare at their choices, the harder it will get to look beyond them. 

What can he say? Rion knows in his heart that there is no end that any of them will walk away from, unscathed, unmarred, untouched by an image that is steadily being painted by the world as witness. It has already happened to him - the Hero of Ferelden fell long ago, and in his place is someone Rion doesn’t recognize, but the world does. 

He taps along Thalon’s knuckles with his thumb, as if he might find a response somewhere in the contours of skin and bone that he has come to know almost as entirely as his own. He wonders, briefly, would it would be like to step into Thalon’s skin, feel the weight that must be on his shoulders, see the world through his eyes… and listen. Would he hear the whispers in the hall? The accusations thrown across the Summer Bazaar of Val Royeaux? Where at least Rion can turn his eyes away, Thalon cannot. 

Another gentle squeeze of Rion’s fingers pulls him from his thoughts, his storm-laden gaze flitting upwards to Thalon.

“I don’t expect an answer, I just…” Thalon’s brow furrows again, words consistently - and uncharacteristically - eluding him. “It’s a strange feeling, to be so powerful and powerless at the same time.”

It’s a difficult notion to grapple with. Rion doesn’t really know where to begin with it - it’s not a problem he can attack with a sword or a well placed army, and there is nowhere on Thedas where he could keep Thalon safe from it either. Despite that thought, he moves so that he’s half sitting and half leaning back on the wall, and guides Thalon to stand in the gap between his knees, as if he could offer a moment of invulnerability with Rion between him and the rest of the world.

Just a moment.

“I wish I could give you that answer, but I’m not that clever and we both know it,” Rion offers a half-smile, hands resting at Thalon’s waist once he settles, fingers clutched tightly into the fabric of his coat. He waits until he sees a glimmer of a smile in return before he continues, reassured. “But I do know what I believe in, and who I believe in. I don’t paint you as Herald, as Lord Inquisitor, but I know that… in another time, someone else will think I did. I’ll be the tyrant swinging his sword, gutting his Wardens for a chance at life, and you’ll be the messiah that allowed it.”

Thalon winces, hands raised in complaint but Rion gently catches his left, the Anchor, and pulls it to his chest.

“But we aren’t that. What we are is Dalish,” even Rion surprises himself with that, “and we will tell the stories. There will always be people who tell the wrong one, but there will also be people telling the right one too. You know I don’t trust easy, but I trust Nin when he tells me that and I love him enough to believe it.”

A breath of relief fills his lungs as he feels Thalon’s hand at his face, thumb brushing the scars on his cheek. Rion grins up at him, leonine and proud, unable to hide his appreciation as Thalon opens his mouth to speak. “You are remarkably eloquent when you want to be.”

A sweet kiss follows, warm and comforting amidst the cold rain. There isn't much else to say, but a safe, unspoken understanding settles between them as Thalon presses his forehead to Rion's, laughing at the rain sliding down his nose. He sweeps it away with a thumb, brushes the edge of Rion's lower lip, and unknowingly anoints the Warden Commander into the belief that they will endure, one way or another.

Rion has no idea what true devotion feels like - faith has eluded him with each attempt to reach out and find it, both in Andraste, and in the Dalish gods whose colours left Rion wanting. Even now, scarred as he is by Elgar’nan’s rage, he longs for something gentler.

But he could breathe a little easier if devotion felt like this.

[gwynbleiddyn]

helloooo I'm here for the oc kisses 💕 i would like to submit a nin and rion reunion kiss 👀 no theme/flavor in particular (i trust you completely tbh), and as a song i'll give you 'Once in a long long while' byt Low Roar, not one which represents nin best, but it's one that i really like and have been listening to a lot lately haha

<3333 PERFECT CHOICE NO NOTES, and i really enjoyed this song!! thank you my friend, i had so much fun with this one (read: fun for me, potentially horrifying for everyone else in the vicinity, the peacocks escaped WHAT CAN I SAY)

plus recommended listening for this one:

------

time is a tide that disobeys; part 1

oc kiss week 2025 prompt fill ft. Nin Lavellan -- Rion encounters a brief reunion on the walls of Adamant in the wake of a cataclysmic siege that leaves more questions than answers.

Adamant. 

A crumbling reminder of the Wardens and their legacy, long besieged by demons and slowly being reclaimed by the desert that it once protected. Now, the Inquisition’s long reach has claimed it for itself, its iron hand indiscriminate as to who it smothers beneath its grasp. 

The Warden Commander reaches for a handhold in the stone as he ascends a final staircase from where the Fade spat him out. His hand, silverite-gloved and heavy, crushes fragile rock, but enough of it remains for him to pull his aching body past a missing chunk of a staircase, blown out by weaponry fired at his own command.

Somewhere below, Erimond waits in chains. As far as Rion can see, Wardens lie dead along every wall and every staircase, pointless sacrifices. Behind him in the gullet of the Fade, now closed, Hawke fights a battle they cannot win.

Nearly all of this is him. His voice. His word. His tactician’s guile, served up on a platter to the Inquisitor who could only pick from death or death. A part of him grieves that, in all of this, it isn’t ever life he can offer. 

He continues upwards, and Rion’s boot kicks aside rubble as he plants one foot in front of the other, the Fade rolling off of him in waves in his wake - a slow arrow through the rolling fog, otherwise impenetrable. His skin hums with a faint melody he cannot quite hear, but he knows it well. The Fade is not new to him. He has walked in it and around it for as long as he can recall, and its mercurial form is what gives the waking world its sound in Rion’s eyes.

Stone scrapes across his vision, white and stark. It is consumed by a bubble of black and grey, bulging and popping as flames break around him. There is no mighty roar of falling towers or heaving groan of a collapsing foundation here, no sound, just light, painting the slow decay of a lifetime.

He stares down at Adamant in ruin. No desert sandstorm could polish its stone to diamond now.

Both hands braced on the parapet wall, Rion lets a heavy sigh escape his chapped, dry lips. He’s parched, throat about as dry as the desert they’re in, and the adrenaline keeping his aches at bay is beginning to ebb dangerously. Sweat beads at his brow as nearby flames lick at his skin, and he can see them out of the corner of his eye - that black and grey on the edge of his vision, bubbling away, drawing closer. 

It is a different kind of fire that makes him lift his heavy head. Brighter. More vivid. White-gold, molten, as if someone had squeezed the sunlight like juice from a sweet orange and offered him a drink.

Warm, warm hands are at his face in an instant before Rion has a chance to greet Nindarhmen as he deserves. A kiss meets his cheek, then the other, then lips, and there are words spoken against him that he cannot hear, but he can feel the relief in them. 

“Nin,” Rion mumbles, reluctant to pull away, but eager to see him. He is granted a little space, enough to catch sun-gold eyes and the familiar framing of white vallaslin along his skin, patterns that Rion could recall even if all other senses were lost to him. 

“You didn’t return with the others,” Nin says, in gentle threads of orange. They’re easy for Rion to grasp and pluck from the air, easy to read, easy to know. He reads the silent question left within, and nods in acknowledgement. He’d slipped away when Thalon had his attention elsewhere on the field, a steady hand guiding the chaos spilling out of the tear in reality. Racing through the fortress after Erimond hadn’t left much time to take stock of whose blood soaked the ground, and Rion wanted to see it for himself. 

“I needed a moment,” Rion admits. He is armor-clad, both in person, and in spirit. Nin looks at him, brows raising gently with suspicion that he keeps to himself, and Rion only offers a thin and weary smile. “This isn’t the only Warden outpost I’ve watch go down in flames.”

“Ah,” Nin sighs gently, recognizing the shadow of Amaranthine in Rion’s words. 

“It’s fine, Nin. It’s– it’s fine. I just wanted to see…” See what? Rion isn’t sure. The cost of it all? To recognize some dead faces, to shore up his guilt in case it wasn’t enough already? He doesn’t really have an answer, and he find himself reaching for Nin’s hands still gently cradling his face. Even through gloves, he can feel Nin’s fire lingering beneath fingertips and he turns his face to kiss one palm, and then the other, where he seems to freeze in place as his eyes meet a dead, glassy stare of a Warden on the ground whose legacy will die with this fortress. 

Here, Rion’s breath shudders, and his armour is rent asunder. It is a vulnerable, awful place to stand, and he wishes he were anywhere else at all. 

The faintest hint of pressure at his jaw turns his gaze back on Nin, who then lowers his hands to clasp at Rion’s elbows instead, fixing him in place, stopping him from stumbling down a familiar and unforgiving path. 

“Vir dirthera, Rion,” Nin tells him, gentle and reassuring, but there is no room for argument either. “The past grows still and quiet no matter which way you leave it behind, and all it can do is shape your future. So we tell the tales, regardless of how they end.”

Fighting Nin’s wisdom would be a battle already lost for Rion. But he is used to fighting losing battles, is he not? He’s been in one from the start. 

“Every choice they had in life was taken from them and they died as traitors. Do we tell that story too?” 

Rion’s fingers twitch, restless and angry, but uncertain. Moments later, Nin’s hands find his own.

“Yes, we do. And the ones that will follow - we are not done yet.” Nin squeezes Rion’s hands. “Thalon has Erimond. I suspect his mind is already made in the matter of the magister’s fate, but I think he needs your heart in this decision too.”

“He doesn’t need… I…” Rion’s brow scrunches, eyes closing as he struggles to find the words. He takes a breath, steadying himself, using Nin’s presence as a tether, and tries again. “My heart’s just angry, Nin. Doesn’t have much room for anything else anymore.”

That’s a lie, and they both know it. Nin and Thalon both hold space there, comfortably, without question, in amongst the labyrinth of complexities Rion attempts to simplify into a single, hard, unbreakable line. 

Nin’s smile holds that knowledge safe. He will allow Rion his armour for the moment if it lets him walk out of Adamant in one piece.

“Then maybe anger has its place today. Come,” Nin nods over his shoulder, gesturing for Rion to follow as he begins to turn away. Rion keeps hold of one of his hands, however, and gently asks for him to pause a moment as he closes the distance and kisses him again, far too gently for a man who only has anger in his heart. 

“Thank you.”

Nin hums gently in appreciation, eyes searching for a reason in Rion’s face as he steps away, gesturing for Nin to lead the way once more. 

“For what?”

An impossible question to answer. 

Rion smiles back at him. 

[gwynbleiddyn]

in this essay i will explain how rion can survive the next ten-- [gunshots] [sirens]

[gwynbleiddyn]

→ Kerros 'Rook' Severan-Laidir

"Varric, you're asking me if you can take my son on a wild goose chase for Solas, of all fucking people..."

"Look, I've tried talking to Kerros, you know I have -- I was there in Skyhold when he was all scraped knees and fairytales, you think I want to see him on the trail of the most dangerous man in Thedas? Shit, even I'm not sure I want to be on this trail right now. Point is, he's a grown man... grown, Rion. And he lives in this world too. I'm not asking you, Scars, your son is telling you. "

The nickname is pointed. A callback to a better time, when both of them had no idea where the Inquisition would lead. The snarl drops from Rion's lips, his face softening.

"I know."

And then Rion is silent for a moment longer than Varric would like. He can do nothing but watch and take note of the man he once called Inquisitor, and more importantly, the man he now calls an old friend. The carefully constructed fingers of Rion's left hand clamp tightly around the head of his walking stick, his weight growing too heavy for his own legs to bear. It's punctuated by the strain at the corner of his eyes, the tightness of his mouth. Pain seeps from him with every breath, shuddering, as though he was stood on the icy banks of the Emprise du Lion ten years ago, and not drowning in the evening sun on the shores of Rialto Bay.

"Can you keep him safe?" comes the inevitable question any reasonable father would ask.

"No." Varric shakes his head. Not a promise anybody can make, these days, least of all him. But he lifts his heavy hands, hesitating for a moment over Rion's own before they envelop the gloved construct over the top of his walking stick. It's jarringly cold and devoid of a pulse. Varric briefly recalls the feeling of the anchor pulling at reality, and his stomach begins to twist and churn in memory of something that no longer exists. "But I can promise I will try, with everything I have. You gotta let him fly, Rion, sooner or later."

Another pause, but this one seems less... reluctant. More considerate. Rion's gaze shifts downwards to Varric's hands, and a slow, sad smile crosses his face.

"What was it you always called him? For stealing your rings when you weren't looking..."

Varric smiles, eyes stinging. They both pretend it is the sunlight. "Rook."

[gwynbleiddyn]

"How are you so calm?!" Kerros whisper-shouts, conscious of the figures milling around in earshot. His fingers tremble and tap along the wooden edge of a makeshift war-table, strewn with torn maps and wine bottle corks -- fragments of an attempt to make some sense from within the eye of the storm.

He feel his father's gaze boring into the side of his head. It's pointless trying to avoid it, so Kerros turns to him, swallowing around the lump that has lodged itself in its throat ever since stepping foot into Minrathous.

"You're here," Rion answers.

Kerros frowns. What a ridiculous and entirely useless thing to say. He's here, sure, but so is an army of wardens. A horde of assassins. A collection of Lords. In actual fact, there is a veritable sea of people swarming through the ruins of this blighted city who almost certainly have more to offer in this moment than he does, spilling their own blood in defense of it while he dithers around a war-table with fumbling fingers and pretends to know what he's doing.

Much like a child stumbling around in his father's boots while everyone else prepares for the inevitable fall.

Kerros snorts in disbelief. "That's funny."

Rion smiles. It is a small and fleeting thing quickly tempered by a pained grimace and a sigh, his eyes flitting to the war table where he is lost in memory for a moment. The silence stretches out for too long, and Kerros reaches out gently, knocking the hard metal of his father's arm.

He waits until Rion looks at him before he speaks again, ensuring he can see.

"I'm sorry. I'm just... scared."

"Of course you are." Rion's gaze softens, and there is no shortage of comfort in a father's understanding. "I was scared too, when I was standing where you are -- the first time, at least."

The smile returns, but is gone in a blink. Kerros can feel the tension radiating off of him, listening to breaths that turn shallow as they try to keep the pain at bay. Why is he here? He's too sick.

"The Wardens knew how to deal with a Blight. An Archdemon. None of that was a surprise," Rion continues, and he leans forward slightly as a breath slips through gritted teeth, hand bracing on the table. "But I was still fucking scared of it. Of dying. Of losing other people. Cullen. Leliana. Morrigan. What happens if I fuck it up? Only the end of the world."

Kerros listens intently. He's heard stories of the Fifth Blight more times than he can count, varying from fond reminiscence to angry recollection. The truth always hid somewhere in-between, in the moments where Rion allowed himself to be known -- even to his son. Moments rarer than they should be.

Rion shakes his head, muttering under his breath as he shakes off his sickness to stand upright again. "Then came the Breach. The Inquisition. Solas. That whole crock of shit."

Kerros huffs out an almost-laugh. Rion's disdain for Solas has always been palpable, but it has never been relatable -- not before now. He nods, this time in understanding, and gestures for his father to continue.

"What's the difference, Kesi? Between the Wardens and the Inquisition? What changed?" Rion raises an eyebrow, stance relaxing as the last of his pain recedes for the moment.

"Uhh... you...uhh... experience? You had more experience? Wisdom and yadda yadda--" Kerros attempts a feeble answer, but Rion shakes his head again. No. Okay. "Time? Power?" No, and no. "I don't know, dad. Come on, we don't have time for--"

"--you." Rion interrupts, arms folding across his chest as he matches his son's level stare. "Between the first time and the last time I stood at the end of the world, you came along. This tiny, shrivelled little thing, screaming your lungs out so hard that even I felt like I could hear you."

Kerros' thoughts unravel abruptly, like thread caught on a nail, split and fraying into useless fragments.

"You scared the shit out of me - more than any Archdemon could. And it wasn't the little things, like... how should I hold you? Or are we feeding you right? Or were you sleeping? We could handle those fears, silly ones, ones we could unlearn as time went on and you grew up just fine," Rion explains, and Kerros feels that all-too familiar knife twist in his chest each time Rion's voice struggles against the blight coursing through him. It is getting worse by the minute in this forsaken place.

"What really fucking frightened me, Kes, was just... everything I didn't know. Who you were going to be. What you were going to do. This world had been so hurtful to me, so what the world was going to do to you?"

Kerros doesn't know what to say. He swallows again, watching as Rion begins to fiddle with some of the makeshift map markers. He nudges a would-be contingent of Crows through a hastily drawn street, scribbled over thrice and relabelled in varying hands as people argued over directions a mere half hour ago. Rion casts his eye over the table, silence stretching between them, leaving Kerros feeling as though he is chasing a receding tide.

"Dad?" Kerros wiggles his fingers in Rion's line of sight, catching his attention. Rion seems unwilling to look up. He sniffs, rubbing at his nose under the pretense of adjusting the metal adorning his bridge, and clears his throat. Kerros pretends he doesn't notice.

"Varric was right," Rion admits. "Rook, he called you, because you were always a resourceful little bastard. Did he ever tell you that?"

This time, Kerros shakes his head. His throat grows tight, grief shutting the way for any words to follow.

"Yeah. You always, always found a way. Through anything. Into anything. Out of anything. And that's what gave him hope in all this. Hope that he died with." Rion knocks over a cork, looming at the epicentre of the Archon's Palace. "You have cut through every single fear I had for you like it was nothing. At every turn, you surprised me. So yes, Kesi. I am calm because you are here."

The broken stone fragment that represents Elgar'nan topples as Rion knocks his knuckles against it, before he pushes away from the table and turns to Kerros, hands gently cradling his face - one cold and unfeeling, the other, a perfect fit.

All at once, every little doubt that had been threatening at the edges of Kerros' mind, like the shadow threatening to swallow the sun overheard, grows silent, and now he instead finds himself afloat on his father's words alone, adrift on an open, gentle sea.

"So I know this too: you will find a way, my little bird, varanharel, because that is what you do."

[gwynbleiddyn]

making rion in veilguard was both a cathartic and deeply terrifying experience

he cut all his hair off at some point when maintaining it got too hard to do between surviving the anchor and also the blight and seeing him ragged and worn down with a buzzcut and the life actively leaving his wrecked body while he watches his only son wade into the horrifying dangers of a broken world he helped make is SOMETHING

[gwynbleiddyn]

Reunion kiss — Rion/Halla — defiant/defiance — “I’m Not Your Hero” by Tegan & Sara 💖💖💖

FUCK YEAH THIS WAS A GOOD ONE <3 the song slaps, and gave me some good brainwaves for the drabble!!! thank u my friend

set at the end of Trespasser, in an imagined moment after returning from the Crossroads for the last time but before facing the Exalted Council for the final verdict. lil sad, lil sweet, and i have missed the bisexual disasters greatly

defiance is the perfect word for these two

---

She kisses him, fervently, gently, everything all at once to communicate nothing less than what she means: love, entirely. Love, in spite of. Love, absolute. Lips ghost his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the scar at the top of his lip. But today, he tastes of salty tears instead of her favourite sweet port wine. 

“Rion,” Halla murmurs. His eyes are closed. Her thumbs gently tap at his cheeks until twin flashes of sunset-grey regard her with idle devotion. “You can’t give up. Not now.”

His smile is a poorly worn one, bloody and broken – like the rest of him upon his return from the Crossroads. He stands here in the shadow of Halamshiral with the Exalted Council awaiting a final verdict on the future of the Inquisition, and he looks nothing but a remnant. Still armour-clad, what remains of his left arm is bandaged tight and strapped against the side of his chest, which heaves against every wave of fresh pain, stuttering and starting as his voice catches in the web of his throat. 

“No. No, I’m not the one giving up,” he says, forcing his words out with all the finesse of a blunt hammer to red-hot iron. “This pathetic, hateful little world has turned its back on me too many fucking times.” 

Her heart, the anvil. But Halla remains defiant in the face of his defiance, and always has done. She cradles his face, looking upon every mark the world has left on him. 

There are many.

“But I’m not. Cullen isn’t. Your clan, our home, the Boeric – none of them are. Fuck the Chantry. Fuck the Wardens. They used you for what they could, and threw you to the literal Dread Wolf when you became more trouble than you were worth to them.”

“I’m always trouble, Halla,” he laughs. It is a weak, pitiful sound of a drowning man, and Halla’s heart sinks along with him.

“Yeah, I know, Ri. Trouble loves you,” she almost laughs too, but it is more regret than rapture. Of course, she fell for him because of it. “But so do I. Enough to know this isn’t what you want.”

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. From beneath dark lashes gold eyes flash, not brutal and angry but… rebellious. There is an innate part of him which acts as flint to a striking stone, ready to light up at any moment, and Halla knows it well – she has it too.

“What do I want, then?” he asks her, and his words are contorted, twisted by a sound he is trying to trap. Like someone tip-toeing the edge of grief. 

Shaking her head, Halla sweeps a hand through his hair, trying to calm him. “Tell me.”

“Why?” Rion’s voice wavers. “You can’t give it to me. Nobody can.”

“Give you what?” she pushes for an answer, her hands coming to rest and linking behind his neck. A safe place remains within. 

Rion pauses, catching his emotions in one steady sigh. He swallows, a faint wince chasing up the last of his raging thoughts, and then, finally, the storm clears from his eyes. 

“Time. You can’t give me time, darling, and I just…” he falters, brow furrowing. He can’t say anything else. He can’t be angry at what can’t be changed. “I can’t waste what little time I have left trying to fix this world. I didn’t break it.”

His voice cracks, splinters, its fractal pattern stamped with violent fervour - that of a man unwilling to die, but the choice has been made for him long ago. 

“They try to say it’s an honour, a privilege to fix it, to have a hand - quite literally - in its reshaping,” he continues, a brief glance down at the spot where his left hand no longer rests, “...but all it’s done is take time from me. Time from my son. Time from you.”

Against a storm swell, Halla mirrors Rion’s steadying breath from earlier. Her hands drift from his neck down to his chest, settling carefully over his armour, avoiding the bindings of his arm. She observes for a moment where it ends at his elbow, freshly staunched and hastily strapped, a makeshift solution to tide him over to the next problem - the Exalted Council, awaiting a decision.

Part of her suspects that this is all his life will be until the Blight catches up with him. No rest, no reprieve, only the endless attempt to outrun the inevitable. And with the Inquisition’s fate looming, what little time he has would be devoured by a cause he has come to resent. 

“Rion,” she places a finger under his chin, lifting his eyes to her again so that he can read her. His skin is rough with both stubble and scar, but his gaze is impossibly gentle. Her stomach flips, breath seizing with momentary anger that she won’t be able to keep him forever. “Is it in your heart to carry on?”

He blinks, slow and thoughtful. His breaths come slow and steady, the last of his anger receding. And then he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, the movement barely enough to dislodge Halla’s fingers at his chin.

It’s the answer she’d expected, but still, her breath shudders as she juts her chin out, breathes in deep, and smiles up at him, defiant.

“Then you look divinity in the face and say no.” 

[gwynbleiddyn]

🎓 for rion pls give me a blast from the past

AUGH IM CATCHING UP ON THESE--

from this ask game!

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

too long he exists in my braincell in every waking moment on this finite earth

in reality maybe 11-12 years? give or take. although he technically existed before that as a creation from the LOTRO days of yore <3 specifically, a character called Narion, who was one of my first LOTRO boys -- he eventually evolved into Rion when i decided to try out DA:Origins, and he's gone on a ✨journey✨ since then. he's truly the blorbo of my heart, favourite old man, there will never be another oc like him in my repertoire 😔

[gwynbleiddyn]

rion, one arm lighter, slowly succumbing to the Calling, sipping a margarita on some tropical smuggler's paradise in rivain after getting married and absolving himself of the world's problems: im retired

da: veilguard: think again old man

[gwynbleiddyn]

So how does Rion feel about his Elgar'nan vallaslin after everything that happens in Veilguard? 👀 Or does it not matter to him?

OH MAN this is a question with needlepoint precision and i love it <3 i haven't fully uncovered Veilguard yet so this might be a bit thin on the detail for now but hooooo boy

i think it's a weird one, a weird mix of feelings there - some are more transient, more in the vein of vanity which is hardly an uncommon occurrence for Rion, and others are more insidious and hard to untangle.

to start with, being raised the way he was - a mix of andrastian and dalish and rivaini and everything in between - i don't think Rion had a particularly strong tie to the elven gods in the first place. which adds some context to the next part:

Clan Severan tend to get their vallaslin much later on in life than other Dalish clans grant theirs - usually as a coming of age ritual, iirc, i could be totally wrong tho. but in any case, to Clan Severan, vallaslin isn't a right of passage as much as it is a mark of survival, granted only when it is seen to be required or earned. almost like a protective ward. 'you have persevered' it says, 'may the gods grant you peace' and the unspoken truth that comes with it is knowing that the recipient has suffered for it. still a sacred mark, but perhaps for different reasons.

Rion got his at a young age, by Severan standards, not long before he left for Kinloch Hold. that in itself is not a nice thought. and Rion kind of went into the ceremony with the assumption that his vallaslin was granting him protection for the road ahead, but something was said to him in that ritual that forever changed his outlook on it.

"may the gods show you what you cannot hear"

a tiny drop in the ocean of that ritual which lasted hours, and of course probably said with good intent, but it set the first of many thorns in the proverbial lion's paw. elgar'nan's mark clawed its way onto Rion's face over agonizing hours - given because of the god's connection to the sun, a symbol deeply revered by Clan Severan and meant to show the love that Rion was regarded with - and all Rion could think was how much they pitied him. it upset him a lot, and it's not something he's really told anyone.

after that, he kind of just ascribed his own meaning to it. elgar'nan, god of vengeance. elgar'nan, "cause he was good at farming, or some shit." elgar'nan, whose light burned so brightly that the abyss couldn't contain it. all much nicer than, "the only god my clan thought could help me" when it comes to explaining to curious minds.

so between all its nebulous explanations it became meaningless, for a while. but i think as that bitterness kind of quelled and Rion matured into the eventual Grey Warden and Inquisitor we know him as, he began to see it more as a mark of survival - as intended - but in spite of the way people perceive him. he survives because he made sure of it, because he's sharp and horrifically stubborn, and not because some absent god deigns to pluck the strings of fate just enough to allow this broken elf to live another day -- out of pity.

so all this to say: i don't think Rion cares. his vallaslin has long been separated from elgar'nan. if anything, now it's even sweeter to wear the mark of the god who couldnt help you even if he wanted to, and know that you have done what he could not: survive.

[gwynbleiddyn]

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH IN WAYS BOTH WEIRD AND UNKNOWABLE IM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH--

[gwynbleiddyn]

i think rion's retirement is going poorly

[gwynbleiddyn]

i am so excited to gnaw at datv lore and context like a rabid dog discovering bone marrow for the first time but specifically because i am very interested in kerros' self-perception as a dalish elf

rion was (is... was.... somewhere in between) dalish if you look at it objectively, but he was also a ephemeral city dweller and wanderer, and a templar, and a warden, and everything and nothing much at all packed into a broken little body of an elf lacking identity outside of his titles

kerros grew up in that shadow, regardless of how much love and care it held - it still dampened his worldview prematurely, to a point where being dalish is not a facet of his character yet. so how will he react to the elven gods? he has memorized the shape of elgar'nan's branding on his father's face. it is a static thing, unchanging, even as time carves lines into skin. is he marked this way forever? beholden to a set of ideals that will now be turned on their head? kerros has no markings yet, in the tradition of clan severan who only claim their vallaslin after a significant event, and i wonder if he ever will after knowing what their intended use was and whatever else emerges from the elven pantheon's presence in veilguard. but like vallaslin is not what makes a dalish elf, right? what else is there? the language? the nomadic nature (or semi-nomadic, in the case of clan severan) forced upon them by orlais? is it the endless pursuit of a lost time, a lost culture, a lost power?

in his mind, kerros doesn't have those connections that inform his identity outside of 'son of the warden-inquisitor who also has pointy ears' and im just very excited to see how fucking damning it's going to be sitting in the cradle of the death of arlathan (tevinter) surrounded by reminders that his storied gods are real all while being pushed and pulled in the direction of the promised land where the dalish regain their history, when his heaven is already here and it looks like a floating city of ships in the glittering rialto bay

[gwynbleiddyn]

Kerros Severan-Laidir sounds suitably impressive and completely jarring