#cedarmoons

[witchyligea]

Aphrodite

Tags for my posts and reposts: #aphrodite #aphrodite art (paintings, drawings, moodboards, poems etc.) #prayers to aphrodite #e-offering to aphrodite

Who is Aphrodite? -from @sabrinathepolytheist Why do I believe in Her?

Aphrodite Worship Ideas for the Very Busy Student (July 29)

Learning from Alwyn Oak: Self Care (an e-offering to Aphrodite) (August 12)

Learning from cedarmoon: Aphrodite & Glamour Magick

link to my masterpost

[talexior]

Timelapse: https://youtu.be/ahf-9qgEoK8

Been busy for a little while, but I've built up some new art to show you guys over the next days/weeks!

This is Ophelia Cedarmoon, a druid of the Fire Ashari, that I was commissioned to paint recently. Hope you like the artwork!

[in-arlathan]

Writer's Round-up 2022

It's that time of the year again! Time to have a look at what I've achieved and celebrate a bit! <3

Thank you @midnightprelude and @barbex for the tags. Tagging forward to @johaerys-writes, @mogwaei, @serial-chillr, @faerieavalon, @juliafied, @dreadfutures, @baejax-the-great, @thebookworm0001, @rosella-writes and anyone who likes to join.

Let's goooooo!!

Words written (published or not, WIPs included!): So, having a look at my writing tracker, it seems like I've written 110,515 new words in 2022. This includes a lot of WIPs that I started and then put on hold or had to put in the trash because they weren't working. All in all, my writing year looks like this:

Adding to that, I published around 100k words across 4 novellas. I had to edit those original works a lot in 2022, so I'm not counting them as “new words written” but I celebrate the publication of those works nonetheless.

Smut scenes: Like, 4? I think? I'm not really a smut writer, although I do like to write them from time to time.

New things I tried: Hmmm… I'm not sure if I tried new stuff this year. I've continued working on the stories I had already started and picked up writing original works again. But I did participate in exchanges like @dasmutquisition and @arlathanxchange for the first time, which was really cool. The exchanges were a surprise to me and made me write for ships I've never written for, which was a challenge and a rewarding experience at the same time. I also did a giveaway at the start of the year that resulted in 3 fics that were so much fun to write! So I guess gifting others with fics was a new thing I tried in 2022.

Fic I spent the most time on: “The Rebel's Ascension”. This fic was such a massive undertaking and took a lot of time to write and edit.

Fic I spent the least time on: I was talking to @noire-pandora one day on Twitter, and then the silly idea of “A Wolf's Wardrobe” emerged. It took me about 30 minutes to write.

Favorite thing I wrote: No surprise here: “The Rebel's Ascension”. I spend more than 3 years on that fic and I'm super proud of it. I can't believe I finally finished it in 2022.

Favorite thing I read: I didn't read that much fic this year (sadly) but I absolutely loved “Ouroboros” by cedarmoons. I also want to give a shoutout to “An Immodest Proposal” by @midnightprelude, which was a gift I received for an exchange.

Writing goals for next year: All in all, I'm pretty happy with the things I wrote and all the projects I've got planned to write in 2023 including “The Rebel's Ruin”, some other DA fics and more original works. That being said, I really REALLY want to increase my yearly word count to 200k. There are so many stories I want to tell and I really need to get a move on. Let's see if I can do it. :)

And that's it for this year. I wish you all the best for 2023. <3

[emmg]

Oh, this post summoned me, all right. As someone who practically moved in on AO3 during the Solavellan era, I don’t just have a badge—I have the whole darn uniform. Connoisseur, angsty-fic addict, tragic-romance aficionado, reporting in. Yeah, that's me. You know those 3AM scrolls through 50k words of heartbreak and awkward tension? That was my gym.

Favorite angsty one shot: ghostlike by cedarmoons. It's vague, it's trippy, it's weird, it's the emotional equivalent of staring into a foggy mirror and going, “Am I crying or is that just condensation?” You decide.

Favourite long soul-crushing fic: It Is Not Enough by NamelessShe. The Everest of Angst. Solas fucks up, the Veil comes down, the world is a dumpster fire, and guess what? They still love each other. Too bad love isn't going to fix, you know, the apocalypse. Everyone is mad, everyone is angry, and my dark heart is happy.

Favourite fluffy escapism/modern AU: Message Sent by Aicosu. A text message sent to the wrong person leads to an affair.

Favourite Donut fic: Doughnut Rebel by salesman. Exactly what it sounds like. You’re welcome.

Favourite seduction-through-letters: the pen, too, can open wounds by SubparLizard. They write letters. It's painful, it's gorgeous, it’s a slow-motion emotional train wreck. 10/10 would read again while pretending not to tear up.

Look, you could throw any trope at me, and I’d have a fic locked and loaded. I lived on AO3 during the Solavellan crisis. Camped there. Slept under the bridge like a narrative-hungry troll, begging for more angsty egg content. So yeah, name a trope—I dare you.

Psssst. Dragon age fandom.

Could you drop your favorite: Solavellan, Emmrook and Dorian/inquisitor fanfics?

Thank youuuuuu 🫶

[dinoswrites]

for kai -- 16, 39, 44

16. Which does yourcharacter idealize most: happiness, or success?

This is the first time she has seen her father since she wassix years old.

Twelve years have changed him—though she wonders now howmuch of that is her flawed memory of him, young as she was. Some part of herstill expected him to tower over her, perhaps—to scowl down at her from somegreat height, and ask her why she is covered in dirt.

He is still taller than her—and he still stands straight asan arrow, though she doesn’t remember him having such a belly. But he’d neverhad the warrior’s bulk the other children’s fathers carried, and his hands areworn from quills and shaking hands, not from spears or mending sails.

She has no memory of him bending to scoop her up. No memoryof him bending at all.

Part of her honestly had started to think he wasn’t evenreal—that she’d just sprung from the earth, fully-formed, and imagined adistant father who sent her away to learn about magic in somewhere cold,somewhere far from the sea of her childhood memories.

But here he is. Standing in the doorway, staring at her witha blank expression, as if he expected some wild-haired child, covered toe toknee in mud and sand, instead of a young woman with perfectly ironed pleats inher skirt.

She breaks the silence first. “Hello, Father,” she says,with a perfectly poised curtsey.

That seems to snap him out of it. He blinks only once beforehe strolls into her little room, his gaze finally falling to the things she hascollected there. To her bed, immaculately made—to her books, neatly lined up onthe shelves.

His gaze rests on the bonsai on her desk, drinking in the meagresunlight from her window.

“What,” he says, “is that.”

It’s a tiny tree,moron. She bites the inside of her cheek. “My first year botany project wasto—”

“I read your reports,” he snaps. “Why do you still have it?”

She stares at him, incredulous. “They were just going tothrow it out after the project was complete,” she answers, slowly. “I asked ifI could keep it. My instructor agreed, since it was an old tree, and my gradesfor the semester were exceptional.”

He scowls at the plant as if it has personally offended him.

When she grows tired of watching him do that, she asks, “Whatbrings you all the way across the ocean, father?”

“Good news,” he tells her, though his scowl only deepens. “Thereis an opening in Princess Akeakamai’s retinue for a witch with some skill withplants. Of course I was happy to report to her mother the Queen that you haveperformed adequately in that regard, so the position is yours.”

She wrings her hands, catches herself doing it, and letsthem hang by her sides again.

���Your instructors needed to be persuaded to accelerate yourgraduation.” He reaches down to adjust her quill at her desk, so it is lying ina perfect parallel line with the windowsill. “They did not understand theurgency of the matter.”

Accelerate hergraduation? “Urgency?” she parrots, frowning in confusion.

Her father exhales through his nose, short and irritated. “Theprincess is eight,” he informs her, “andspoiled besides. Her mother allows her whims to flit where they please, insteadof demanding focus of the child. It is entirely possible that by the time wereturn, she will have lost all interest in plants and this opportunity willhave been wasted. You must return as quickly as possible so you can make themost of your chance.”

Her heart starts to race, frantic in her chest. “My chance?”she asks, faintly.

“To impress her. She’s a child, I assume it will be easy.Throw some sparks in front of her face, turn her parrot gold, they like thatsort of thing.”

Judging by her time spent with the younger children at theschool, she’s pretty certain that would make most children cry. She’s toooverwhelmed to inform him of that, however.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “I have—I have seniorprojects to finish, I have to stand the examinations, my honours botany finalis still ongoing and won’t be complete for another—”

“What don’t you understand, girl?” he snaps, turning on hisheel. He stares at her incredulously, as if she has said something entirelyunexpected. “I sent you here to learn something useful, you have vexed me at every turn by excelling at makingplants grow, of all things. I have come to inform you that I have a place foryou, at court, and you stand there as if I’ve told you to jump in the oceanduring a storm.”

He steps towards her, and she suddenly feels very small. Asif she really is that girl, covered in dirt, with him towering over her, lipcurling in distaste.

“Your examinations start in three days,” he informs her. “Afteryou complete those, I am taking you home, where you will finally be of use tome.”

He storms out of the room, leaving her standing there, heartin her throat, and her blood rushing in her ears.

39. Has yourcharacter ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (orunaffected)?

She is playing with Cinis while he rolls on her lap, bellyexposed, and in his excitement he bites her hand a little, not even hard enoughto draw blood.

“Ouch,” she says, very softly, but her fond smile doesn’tfade.

Julian, sitting at his desk, nearly launches himself acrossthe room, sending papers flying.

“I knew it,” he blurts, “that demon cat bit you, didn’t he?Let me see it, is it infected—”

Cinis hisses and darts away as Julian takes Kai’s hand. Thecat hides under the couch as Julian turns her hand over and over, browsfurrowing as he probably looks for some kind of gaping wound.

“Julian,” she says. Her voice has grown less rough in theweek since she found Cinis, but she still finds herself speaking softly, hardto break the habit.

“Where is it,” he grumbles. “Where—”

“Julian,” she says again, holding up her other hand. “Thisone.”

He tries to grab that one, but she pulls it away at the lastsecond, grinning. “I’m fine,” she tells him, when he reaches for her handagain. “Just playing.”

Julian blushes a little. His shoulders slump, and he letsout a fond, if somewhat embarrassed sigh.

He messes up her hair, and then regards the glowing eyesstaring at him from under the couch. “I’m watching you, Matchstick,” he warns,without any real threat backing his words, before turning and going back to hisdesk.

44. How difficult oreasy is it for your character to say, “I love you?” Can they say it withoutmeaning it?

She and Asra are sitting on the step of the baker’s shop,pressed close together to give room for the line of people slowly gathering tobuy bread. They are splitting a loaf of pumpkin bread between them, while thecrowd passes them by.

He is telling her a story—something about his childhood,with Muriel. Faust is helping him, supplying one-word prompts when he getsdetails wrong, though he often stops and argues them with her. And she can’thelp but laugh every time, as the snake and the young man seem to have eachremembered the event entirely differently.

“You did not tripthe guard,” Asra says, “I did, with a spell.”

Trip! Faust insists,waving back and forth in the air. Me!Trip!

“It was a spell,Faust,” he insists, laughing, his cheeks dimpling. “You were so small you couldhardly trip me!”

He’s barely touched his half of the loaf, he so absorbed inthe story, and the subsequent playful banter with Faust. She’s been eating hersas slowly as she can, too happy to let this moment play on as long as possible.And it’s a nice enough day—not too hot out, the sun shining, a cool breezewinding up through the streets of Vesuvia from the docks.

The sun is in his hair, in his eyes. They’re sitting soclose that he’s pressed up against her—and as he and Faust disagree on theorder of events, his arm slips down around her, resting comfortably at herwaist. As if they always sit this close—as if being pressed together, no spacefor anything but old stories and laughter between them, is the most normalthing in the world.

There are silver flecks in his purple eyes. So small thatthere’s no way to notice them, without sitting this close. They make her thinkof her old stone magic lessons, in a tower in a place far away from here, aplace so very different from where she sits now. Lepidolite—for tranquility,for calming the mind and aiding focus.

How odd, she thinks. There’s nothing tranquil at all abouttheir surroundings—someone is arguing the price of a loaf of bread with thebaker, trying to barter him down, their argument almost drowning out Asra andFaust. The crowd is a dull roar around them, a never-ending whirl of colour andnoise and life in the background. Asra himselfis loud, and bright, and wild—he wears shining bangles on his wrists, thebright coat she’d bought him, and he uses sparks of illusion magic to aid inthe story, to try and show Faust what reallyhappened, even as she adamantly refuses to believe him.

All this colour, all this vibrant activity—none of it ispeaceful. It has nothing in common with all the meditation gardens from hertextbooks, or the reflecting pool at her aunt’s shop.

She’s never felt more at peace in her entire life.

“Asra,” she says.

“Yeah?” he turns to regard her instead, so she can trulystare into the depths of his beautiful, complicated, impossible eyes. Is sheimagining it, or is she the only thing his restless gaze seems to linger on, thesedays?

I love you. Sheknows it—she’s known it for months, now.

But still, even though she knows, the words do not leave the safety of her heart, the insideof her throat.

“Let’s say Faust tripped the guards,” she says instead, herstomach twisting with disappointment in herself.

Asra doesn’t notice. His eyes twinkle with amusement, and heinclines his head. “Alright Faust,” he says, “you somehow grew five feet in aheartbeat and tripped the guard. Singular.”

Many! Faustinsists. Six!

Asra laughs. “Two.”

Seven!

She rests her head on Asra’s shoulder. His arm curls alittle tighter around her, pulling her somehow closer still, as he and Fauststart to barter on the number of guards chasing Asra and Muriel, while theirpumpkin bread grows cold in their hands.

[empresstress13]

@cedarmoons has made me cry my quota for the week tonight with her beautiful writing , and I loved every minute. As it is her birthday, and as I love her OCs, I decided to do a sketch of her fantastic - and sadly tragedy prone- Ariala Lavellan. She’s a fantastic character. ❤️ Theia, I hope your birthday was filled with joy, and your year is likewise joyful and lovely!

[fandom-age]

text overlaid atop the dragon age logo that reads “@cedarmoons’s Solavellan fic "beloved" is the most beautiful angst I have ever read!! SO well written!”

[rosenrotxiii]

beloved by cedarmoons is by far the most depressing Solavellan fanfiction I’ve read

Can anyone please recommend some extremely angsty Solavellan/SolasxOC fics? I mean the sort that made you literally sob }:^)

[doritopaw101]

Tell about the RaggedYellow family situation

I took some stuff from Yellowfang’s secret.

Tw: abuse, child neglect, cheating

So background info:

For the Royal system, the heir will always be the firstborn unless other circumstances come into play such as the cat being a basturd or being proven to not have the skills of a leader. This varies between guilds.

In this au, Featherstorm is Raggedmoon and Scorchwind’s older sister (thank @the-erins-forgot for this one). Though, she’s their half sister. Their father is Cedarmoon with their other father being Hal. Russetfur is still Ragged and Scorch’s half sister too.

Ragged, named Ratpaw then Ratpelt still kills Hal. They were mocked due to Hal’s reputation for causing trouble in the guild and for Cedarmoon to have had kits with him was quite the scandal and especially since Rat took after him.

(Note: Cedarmoon only slept with Hal due to grief after losing his late mate, Treestorm)

Cedarmoon made Ratpelt his heir which caused an uproar in the guild due to Featherstorm being healthy and able and Rat’s muddied bloodline. Featherstorm did start a coup and the guild was splint but over time, Featherstorm let it go die to many of her guild mate dying. Doesn’t mean she isn’t still sore about it but she made up for it by being the Monarch.

Anyway:

Ratpelt’s relationship with Murkstorm can be summed up in one word: toxic. Didn’t help when Rat was on their case when they became a warlock.

They had their kits, Marsh, Blaze, and Adder. Raggedpelt quickly favored Adder and seemed to forget about her daughters. They just got used to it and said it was normal for Raggedpelt to not even remember their names. Murkstorm and Newtspeck made up for it though.

So when you do what Cedarmoon did, it sets a president.

Raggedmoon made Brokentail her heir, when he was the runt of his litter. Again, it caused an uproar and since Murkstorm and Featherstorm backed Marshpaw, it was even more hostile.

Raggedmoon ignored it all and didn’t seem to care. She made Foxheart her second and even had kits with her so soon after Murkstorm gave birth. She made one of those kits, Strikeheart, her second after the death of Cloudpelt on Brokentail’s words and completely ignoring her warlocks.

However, Raggedmoon did sometimes think of her daughters with Murkstorm. So she pushed for Marshpaw to be a warlock to make up for everything. Marshpaw nor Murkstorm were impressed but Murkstorm could mange training both Marshpaw and Palepaw so they went with it.

Raggedmoon also pushed for Blazepaw to start training as a teacher when she graduated and once again, Blazepaw wasn’t impressed but went with it.

Yeah the family situation is awful.

[modernhypocrite]

Quote from this fic I’m reading and it’s gold.

The Inquis and Solas are talking about how Varric will portray the Egg in his next book:

“The bald elf spun, mage staff crackling like like the city after a good man’s murder. Moonlight glinted off of ears like the knives you never see coming. And the apostate said ‘better to FADE OUT than BURN AWAY!’“

Everyone, please, do yourself a favor and read this fic

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12298590/chapters/27957672

[witchyligea]

Learning from cedarmoon: How to connect with Aphrodite | goddess of love & beauty (an e-offering to Aphrodite)

Once again, these aren't notes from this video but rather me writing my thoughts, because that's just how I brainstorm.

🌹I honestly don't really believe in masculine and feminine energies. Maybe I'm a little prejudiced but right now I disagree with it. Maybe it's because social media often takes what's marketable and leaves the important details out. I would love to hear your thoughts on this though. 🦢I do agree that because we are expected to be productive, useful, succesful and perfect all the time in today's society we are quite unbalanced. However I disagree with women being the "recieving" energy when we've always been working and doing things throughout history. Women worked before the industrial revolution unless they were rich. Their labour was just not recognized. I'm not talking about just housework and looking after children. Women would work in fields along with their husbands, or without them and their husbands would be the ones getting the credit, earning the money, owning property. 🪞Devoting the time you make to take care of yourself to her is a good offering and way to connect with her. Now that I think about it, the time I felt so connected to her and had heard her a few times (I'm still not completely sure if it's because my brain made it up or not, but I don't think those thoughts were mine.)I was spending a lot of time just sitting in the dark and listening to music by myself. Just meditating, doing energy work and trying to figure out how to actually start witchcraft. Researching her and trying to figure out worship her without an altar.

💐Putting some extra work in because you deseve it could be in the form of changing your sheets, keeping the spaces you spend the most time in often nice looking or making yourself a nice cup of coffee. Dressing up just to solve a test in the library or go on a walk. Making time to paint your nails and do your skin care.

💖I wouldn't write about myself as if I am a goddess, however I sometimes do try to see myself through someone else's eyes. When I am interested in someone I adore what would be considered flaws to other's. Once a girl told me that she wanted to get plastic surgery because she didn't like her slightly bumpy nose when I adored her for it, along with everything else about her.

Link to my posts based on this playlist

[adjectivebear]

here’s a thought: since mc and asra get to experience each other’s feelings at will, i have no doubt in my mind that asra would implement that during sexy times. imagine the pleasure of feeling both your and HIS pleasure at the same time...i would write it if i was good at it :c

nsfw. the beach scene. asra x gen mc

contains: blowjobs, descriptions of cis female anatomy, tender asra lovin’, subby asra, praise kink lite

Keep reading

[zichqec]

"If Cedarmoon investigates the dead seagulls, he will notice they look rotten, sickly. He may come to the conclusion that the birds may be spreading this sickness somehow..." That thing smells dangerous, and he's not staying near it any longer than he has to. Seastar needs to know, now, so they can deal with this properly. Why must I make myself suffer with weird angles XD

[dinoswrites]

Black Coral Chapter 22: Blood in the Water

Solavellan, Mermaid AU. Ongoing.

Masterpost | Read from Chapter One | Read on A03

My ko-fi

Content Warnings available on A03 version.

It takes immeasurable time for Solas to catch his breath.

His lungs ache. His muscles burn—his whole body feels like it’s been coiled too tight, for too long, and is slowly, bit by bit, unwinding, but not without resistance.

But all over every inch of him, his skin is alight with a power he hasn’t felt in… Well. Never felt it quite like this.

How deep have they gone? The air his battered lungs drag in tastes stale on the tongue, but he can feel currents of energy running through it as easily as they do through water. The pull he always feels on his heart is strong, steady like a second heartbeat in his chest, and as his breaths struggle to even out he feels like he might just follow it. Roll into the water and let it take him where it will.

But he does not. His breaths become less frantic, less gasping, and the tension in his body unravels, and he becomes more aware of things like hard rock underneath him. Cold air on his throat and chest, where his shirt has been ripped open. Aevalle beside him, trembling, clinging to him.

He puts the pieces together slowly, as his memories after vomiting up seawater are understandably scattered, but—her hands on his face, then his neck…

Ah. She knows, now.

He holds her a while longer—because there is no comfort to offer her, in this moment. Whatever fascination he might have with these depths, whatever he might discover here, he cannot leave them. Were he to try and shift his shape now, his gills would not form, and he would suffocate and die before he could swim anywhere.

A fitting end, for all he has wrought.

But after a while, the air grows too cold for comfort, and his fatalistic thoughts turn not towards himself, but the woman in his arms. Who, unlike him, has a chance of getting back to the surface alive.

“Vhenan,” he says—and winces at how it scrapes over his throat.

She clings tighter to him, but makes no move to reply.

He tries again. “Vhenan. We cannot stay here.”

He feels the rush of her breath on his exposed skin; warmth over his heart for a fleeting moment, before the chill in the air returns. A prolonged exhale, slow and trembling. She hesitates a moment longer before shifting again—and surprising him as she presses a kiss to the skin above his heart.

His breath stills a moment as she lingers there. But then he feels her lashes flutter against his skin, and then another rush of breath before she pulls away.

She helps him sit up after he fails to disguise a grunt of pain, and he doesn’t have it in him to refuse the anchor of her hands on him as he tries to catch his bearings. Everywhere she touches him she leaves a hint of warmth against the cold in the air—and as he is steadied at last, she reaches up and runs her hand along his jaw, cupping his chin in her palm.

He allows himself a moment to lean into her touch—and he watches her a while, the light from her throat reflecting off the water just beside their little ledge in sporadic bursts. He catches many glimpses of too-wide eyes, the shadow of her jaw a tight black line above the green flicker of the ancient magic forced upon her.

He casts a minor light spell, and lets it hang in the air between them. He watches it light up the scatter of scales still dotting Aevalle’s form like so many freckles, and watches her pupils shrink to narrow slits as they catch the light. Still half-shifted, even above the water, and though he finds her mastery of changing her shape as fascinating as always, now it is tempered by the knowledge that he will never see for himself the limits of what she can do.

“I doubt you can return the way we came,” he says, gently withdrawing from her touch. He undoes the last few buttons of his shirt with cold, fumbling fingers, and shrugs out of it as Aevalle shakes her head.

I’m not leaving you, she signs.

He thinks of an eel, twisted by time and stale water—and all the other times her drive to protect someone or something has nearly gotten her killed—and he cannot reply. He can only smile as he places his shirt and shoes on the stone beside him.

There is enough standing room for him to step out of his trousers, as well—they are water-logged, and will only drag him down as they move forward. Before tossing them aside, however, he reaches into the pocket—and, with some relief, pulls out a leather string, on which hangs the black coral Aevalle carved for him, and a single tiger shark’s tooth.

He turns them both over in his hands for a moment—he finds the coral undamaged, still humming in some soft pitch with its charms, and the tooth much the same—before he ties the string around his neck, and lets them both rest against his bare chest.

Solas draws the light spell to the roof of the little cave they are in, and he and Aevale both lean over the edge to get a better look. The way they came stretches out on one end, and on the other side Solas can make out the shape of another passage through the hard, cold rock surrounding them, completely submerged. There’s a current moving through it, rich with an ancient power—though something about it makes a chill run up his spine.

“There is only one way forward,” he says, looking back over at Aevalle. “It is completely submerged.”

She closes her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath.

When she opens them again, she immediately signs, I’ll scout ahead.

“Absolutely not.”

She ignores him, slipping off the rock shelf and into the water.

“Aevalle,” he hisses—feeling for all the world like he should whisper down here. “We do not know what lies ahead.”

That’s why I’m scouting, she replies with short, tense movements.

“Vhenan—”

If there’s air here, there might be some further ahead.

“—it’s not safe—”

Stay put.

Any further protest he makes dies on his lips when she ducks below the water once again. He stands helplessly on the rock and watches the glitter of her scales slip through the opening, and disappear from his sight.

He stares after her until the last ripple created by her passing has faded away, and the surface of the water is utterly still. And then he stares a little longer, as his frustration mounts—but she does not immediately turn back. He lets out a huff, and runs a hand over his neck, and the uneven scars there—and then just staring becomes impossible, and his knees begin to shake as his body reminds him how close to death he just came, so he sits on the ledge, scowling down at the water, as if that will somehow convey his frustration to the woman he loves.

His brow hurts from all his glowering by the time she resurfaces—but the lecture he’s been planning dies on his lips when he sees a smear of blood across hers.

“You’re bleeding!” he says, leaning forward to heal it.

She waves him off before he can. It’s just a scratch, Solas. Save your strength.

He lets out a sharp breath—but she is right. It is, on further examination, a minor scrape, and will heal on its own without his intervention. So instead he leans back, his hands resting on his knees once more, and finds himself frowning down at her.

How long does your air spell last?

“How did that happen?” he asks instead of answering her, gesturing to the cut on her lip.

She works her jaw back and forth. Answer my question.

“Answer mine,” he snaps. “You can’t just—swim off without me, without discussing it with me—”

I told you what I was doing!

“And I had to sit here and wonder if you were off getting yourself killed!”

But I didn’t and I’m fine—

“Were you fine when the Grey Wardens thought you were a demon and were going to kill you? When a giant eel dragged you under the water? When a diseased dragon nearly tore you in two?”

She starts to sign, but her hands shake and she has to stop—she clenches them, closes her eyes, and takes a few deep breaths, and Solas knows her well enough now that he waits. He holds his tongue and waits for her to breathe, to collect her thoughts and steady her hands.

I had to clear the way, she signs, her motions deliberately slowed. Her hands still tremble a little. There were some rocks—I almost didn’t move out of the way in time when one of them fell.

He sighs, and runs his hand over his head. “Ten minutes,” he tells her, taking her cue and letting the argument simmer. “After that I need more air to replenish it.”

She tries to smile a little, but it falters before it ever really starts. There’s a way through, she signs. Opens up into another cavern—and there’s air. We’ll have to swim fast, though.

He allows a crooked half-smile in return. He almost offers her some assurance—I promise that I am still a fine swimmer—and even opens his mouth, but something in her expression makes him pause. Something about the set of her jaw, the thin line of her lips, and how wide her eyes are as she stares up at him—he’s seen that look before, though he can’t quite place it.

“Of course,” is all he says before he slips into the water.

She turns almost immediately to lead the way—but she pauses when Solas reaches out and grabs her hand.

She looks back at him, a frown creasing her brow and her head tilted slightly in question—but he only tries to smile again, and squeezes her hand a little.

“Ar lath ma,” he tells her.

The hard lines of her expression crack, and her lips tremble—and for a moment, he sees the absolute terror she is trying so hard to contain. He tugs her to him, and she folds into his embrace, her tail fins brushing against his bare feet, her scales smooth on his skin as she tucks her face into the crook of his neck and takes a deep, steadying breath.

She rests one palm over his heart—and it races a little in response.

Aevalle leads him through the tunnel, one hand on her spear and the other clasping his tightly. His light spell illuminates their way, distorted through the bubble of air keeping him alive. He can see most of his surroundings—a dark, slick stone, eerily void of life, closing in on them with every kick of Aevalle’s tail.

The water surrounding him, however…

It feels almost like being in the stale, stagnant water trapped under Seahold—or at least, the sense of wrongness is the same. But where that water had been dead, lifeless, what little power remained in it twisted by time and isolation, here the ambling current is slow, but alive. Rich with the kind of dread that makes his skin crawl—the sensation of being watched, from every angle, though there is nothing around.

His skin begins to itch—and he has a close his eyes a moment, to keep old instincts at bay. As the itch slowly feels more like a burn, the longer he is submerged, the thinner the air becomes around his head—as his body half-remembers what it should do, to pass through water easier. Faster.

The scars on either side of his neck, however, do not react to the water around him. They only feel colder, the further they swim.

Eventually she leads him up, and he breaks into air—old and strange, yes, but air he can breathe. There is no ledge here, only rocks that jut out from the wall at odd angles and cast strange shadows on the water’s surface. He slings one arm around one as he catches his breath and steadies himself, and Aevalle runs a hand up and down his back.

“I’m fine,” he assures her.

The concerned lines on her face do not ease. You’re lying, she accuses.

He allows himself a small, frustrated huff of breath. “It’s not an easy spell to maintain,” he admits after a moment. And as she keeps frowning at him, pressing closer to him, he adds very softly, “And it is… difficult not to change shape.”

Her eyes flick down to his neck once, then back up to his face.

“Old instincts,” he says. “Hard to let go of.”

She cups his face in her hand, and bites her lip.

“Where do we go from here?” he asks.

She makes a face, but swims far enough away for him to move the light spell through the water below them, illuminating the cavern walls.

There are two separate openings in the hard, cold rock surrounding them. He can feel a current moving through both—and though ancient power moves through it, something about it makes a chill run up Solas’s spine.

Which way? Aevalle signs when he looks up at her again.

“I am not certain,” he answers.

I’ll scout them both, she replies, but Solas grabs her arm as she turns to go.

“Wait,” he pleads.

She makes a face at him, and he lets her go so she can sign, Do you see any other way out of this?

“For me, I see no way out of this. Aevalle—” He reaches forward and grasps her shoulder. “Aevalle, I fear there is something down here, something that will discover us eventually, and I need you to promise me that if you find a way forward that I cannot follow, you must take it.”

Her eyes widen, and she moves her hands to respond—

“Ah,” comes a voice from the very stones around them, “I was wondering when you would acknowledge my presence.”

Aevalle whirls, raising her spear and putting Solas at her back in the same motion.

“Such ferocity,” the voice continues—its tone low, rasping as if spoken through a wounded throat. It sounds familiar in a way that makes a chill run up Solas’s spine, though he struggles to remember where he has heard it. “How quickly you fling yourself into danger every time you’re frightened, little siren. Always trying to make up for when you didn’t.”

She stiffens, and Solas sees her grip turn white-knuckled on her spear.

“What manner of spirit are you?” Solas asks, casting his gaze at the ceiling above them, searching for any sign of movement.

The spirit tsks. “Such manners,” it drolls, “sneaking through my domain unannounced, and then making demands of me. I suppose I can only expect so much from a… humble artist, is it?”

“You are hardly a spirit of hospitality,” Solas replies, cool and even, “or you would not hide yourself so far from polite society. Instead you choose the Grey Wardens—what drew you here? Their power? Their arrogance?”

He thinks he sees the shadows shift in the water to their right, but when he looks directly at it, nothing seems to have changed. “You expect me to be Pride? Or Rage? Such base urges, such paltry drives. I have no interest in them.”

“You do not seem to be in a rush to clarify,” Solas muses, “and you seem to be amused by my guesses—you are secretive in nature, then. And what secrets in particular you are drawn to, I imagine, are less savory than childhood crushes or money changing hands under a table.”

The surface of the water ripples, about five feet in front of them—Aevalle points her spear at it, but there is nothing there. The ripples spread from the center until they fade away, and the surface of the water is still once again.

“The kind of secrets that keep you up at night,” the spirit answers, “the kind that cause you to wake, screaming, but stay your tongue when you look for comfort. The kind that sit with you, and fester while your hands tremble. Like the memory of dark, flooded tunnels, and blood in the water.”

Aevalle thrusts her spear at nothing—Solas doesn’t even see a shadow—and the spirit laughs in reply, ripples spreading from three points on the water’s surface without anything touching them.

The laugh fades as the water’s surface stills once more, and Solas’s ears ring in the sudden silence.

“We need to keep moving,” he says, and he does not fight the urge to keep his voice low even though he knows it’s pointless.  

She glances back at him uneasily. But after a moment, she turns long enough to sign with one hand—sticking out a pinky finger and thumb, and then thrusting the hand forward and down—before she slips back under the water again.

Solas exhales, and though he doesn’t like it he waits.

This time, however, he does not wait alone.

“Harellan,” the spirit calls, after some time has passed. “How many times have you watched her swim away, now? Again and again, she slips out of your grasp—just like all the other beautiful things you’ve ever tried to save.”

“Banal nadas,” is his tight-lipped reply.

He hears a low, rasping laugh, just over his shoulder. He does not turn—he knows that there is nothing there, even though the skin on the back of his neck rises and a chill runs up his spine.

“Tell me,” it whispers, a hot breath rushing over the tip of his ear, “how long does she have until the power in her throat kills her?”

His jaw clenches, but he does not respond.

“Not that you’ll live long enough to find out,” it amends.

He can’t tell how long he waits in silence for Aevalle to return—counting his breaths is mind-numbing, but he lacks the focus to do that and resist every instinct he has to change shape. He bides his time by closing his eyes, stretching his senses out into the water surrounding him, and trying—and failing—to find a current that will lead them out of here.

Aevalle emerges once again—so silently that he would miss it, had it not been for the flicker of power in her throat—and looks immensely relieved to find him where she left him, unharmed.

Okay? she signs, one-handed, unwilling to put away her spear for even a moment.

“It has not said anything of which I was not already aware,” he replies. That answer only makes her brow furrow further, so he adds, “I am fine, vhenan.”

She studies him a moment longer, and bites her lip before nodding. She gestures to the passage she scouted before signing and shaking her head no, and then reaching for his hand.

He takes it, and if he clings a little too tightly to her she does not seem to mind.

This next passage is somehow darker and colder than the last—longer too, it seems. She does not let him go, and he finds himself immensely grateful for the iron grip of her hand on his. Solas struggles to keep air around him while he breathes, while they move, and tries to ignore the current all around him as Aevalle swims. Her tail fins caress his skin with every kick of her tail, and something else moves through him as they whip through the water at what is probably an unwise, but wholly necessary, pace.

It’s the pull he feels, and ignores, with every crashing wave. The pull that made him turn his back from the ocean and live for years away from its shores, once as welcome in his chest as the beating of his heart.

It is so, so difficult not to answer it.

Aevalle comes to an abrupt stop, swimming suddenly upward and circling above, shifting her grip on him as he flails and slows his speed before she yanks his arm, hard, and their movement completely stills. Solas focuses a little more on his light spell, and it brightens—enough that he can see a wall directly ahead of them, collapsed stones all piled on top of each other.

She starts to tug him backwards, but Solas shakes his head. He can still feel current moving through it, slow draining that it is. She bites her lip, but he loosens his grip on her hand until she lets him go, taking her spear up with both hands and pointing it at the wall as she watches.

He lets the light spell fade—he does not have the focus to maintain it and still have air to breathe—and they are plunged into near-darkness, punctuated by the erratic flicker of green from Aevalle’s throat. He raises his hands in front of him, and starts to gather the currents that have stalled here—he can feel them so strongly that he almost swears he sees them, twisted and strange and wrong but strong, rich with the power that pools at the deepest part of the ocean.

He takes a breath of air—and his skin burns, alight all over but for the scars on his neck. Cold, dead skin that does not react to the water surrounding him.

He thrusts his hands forward, and a lance of ice spears the rocks ahead—and they burst apart, and the water that has built up around them surges forward.

Solas is swept up in the current—he thinks he feels Aevalle’s fingers brush his arm, but he is torn from her too quickly to catch her grip. He is sent spinning through the rushing water, currents whirling around him even as he tries to reach for them, to calm them long enough for him to slow down, to get his bearings—

He crashes into a hard, rock wall—cracking his head so hard that his vision spins for a moment, and the pain that shoots across his skull nearly causes him to drop the air spell. Before he can recover, or even think to move, the current swells, doubles in strength—and pins him to the wall.

His head still spinning, his heart pounding, he manages to take one lung-burning breath before the force of the water shatters his spell.

Water rushes over his face and nearly right up his nostrils—his whole face lights up with an agonizing pain from the sudden change in pressure, and it takes immense control to keep himself from crying out.

Just as he starts to reach for his own reservoir of power, to attempt to redirect the current, he feels something grab him.

His nails dig into the wall—hard, bare of any trace of life—but the hand that grips him has smooth scales, and there is the flutter of fins on his skin as they are whipped about by the current pinning him. Aevalle shields him with her body, as if her small form can fight the fury of the ocean’s depths.

It is the reprieve he needs to focus—and as he pulls his hand from the wall, muscles burning with the effort, the current assailing them is blown back. The vacuum nearly sucks him clean off the wall—and without skipping a beat, Aevalle is pulling him up—swimming dizzyingly fast, as his lungs burn and his ears ring—

They burst from the water, and Solas’s harrowed, desperate gasps for air echo back at him.

He coughs, curses, and then coughs again—Aevalle shakes as she holds him, her nails digging into his back, and her breaths tremble as they rush over his cold skin.

“I’m—” he tries to say, but coughs again; his lungs too desperate for air to allow him to speak.

That rasping voice rises, as if from the water around them, “Is that the best you have to offer me, Solas? I was worried there for a moment that my fun would be over so soon.”

There is just enough light for Solas to make out Aevale raising her spear into the air, threateningly.

The spirit laughs in reply. “How very brave of you, little siren. You and your stick against the void.”

Aevalle clings tighter to him with one arm, and raises her middle finger on her hand holding the spear.

As Solas’s breath returns to him, he feels that he can reach out further—and he has the sense of a vast expanse of air above them, an even deeper well of water below them, and something very large moving around them, somehow both above and below.

“I see that I’ve managed to get under your skin, little siren,” it muses. “Though I wonder—why don’t you simply tell me to go away? I’d listen if you asked nicely enough.”

She blows a frustrated air of breath through her nose.

It hums thoughtfully. “A shame. There hasn’t been a voice like yours in the world for ages—not since a thief from Kirkwall, who took something he didn’t understand from the flooded halls below the Winter Palace. And he would never have a fraction of what’s been sewn into your flesh.”

There is enough light reflecting off the water around them for Solas to see Aevalle’s features twist in confusion.

“Oh how frightened he was, of the things he’d done finding you. But it wasn’t his past that killed him. Would you like to know, little siren, whether your father drowned or bled out in the water?”

There is a low rumble, almost like a growl, somewhere below them. Solas and Aevalle look down at the same time, but beyond Aevalle’s tail fins there is only a vast black depth.

“But perhaps,” the spirit says, its voice pitching low, “it is better to show you.”

Solas feels a faint rush of water coming from far below him—something moving unnaturally fast, somewhere in the vast depths below them.

Then that something lets out a scream.

The distance between them muffles its piercing qualities to a dull, high pitch—warped and muffled by the water between them, Solas cannot distinguish it from the cries of any number of spirits or underwater creatures.

Aevalle, however, goes completely still for half a heartbeat. Her nails scrape over his back as she freezes in place.

Then without warning, she grabs his arm and starts swimming.

He’s so surprised that he nearly swallows a mouthful of water—but he recovers quickly enough, and she only swims along the surface, heading in a seemingly random direction, skirting along the edge of the wall that Solas was pinned to.

Something screams again—significantly closer this time.

Solas closes his eyes, and casts his awareness out—behind them and below them, four large shapes are approaching at a rapid speed. His magic has a difficult time determining their shape—or rather, finds that their shape is shifting as quickly as the currents they are swimming in. Spirits, then—but not ones with good intent.

Instead he focuses his attention forward—and he feels through the currents moving below them, until he finds one that leads away from this chamber, into another passageway.

He casts the air spell once more, and pulls Aevalle’s hand—directing her where to go.

She changes course without hesitation—diving with one great kick, pulling him under at a dizzying speed. Once underwater, he sends a glance backwards and sees a number of points of pale green light, flickering in and out, growing steadily closer.

The closer they draw, the more they mimic the demon of Pride his friend became—green light shifting to a blue crackle, and their cries become low, warbled laughter.

Their forms are mere illusions, he knows—but that makes them no less unsettling.

He loses sight of them as Aevalle pulls him into the tunnel.

She barrels forward at a reckless speed—so quickly they nearly collide with a wall when the tunnel veers sharply upward. She pulls up in time, though Solas has to brace himself with one hand on the hard stone surface as his momentum carries him forward, before following her up. He throws his hand forward, curling his wrist and splaying his fingers, and a ball of light bursts into the water ahead of her.

Just in time to illuminate a demon, its jaws unhinged to expose too many long, curving teeth, and a mouth large enough to swallow them whole.

Aevalle yanks him to the left—quick enough that the creature lunges forward into empty water, its great jaws snapping down on nothing. She thrusts her spear forward in the same movement, piercing its gills with the ironbone tip, and then ripping it back out sideways, goring a great hole open in the creature’s side.

She is moving again before it even screams. Solas watches the water behind them turn black with its blood—and as they race upward, he sees the first of their pursuers burst through the cloud with a snarl.

They round another corner—and another, veering sharply one way or the other. Upwards, always upwards, passing by a dozen intersections and choosing always the one that rises, the one that will take them closer to the surface—

From a hole in the wall below them, a demon launches itself at Aevalle’s stomach as she searches for a path upward.

Solas freezes it in place with a thought. Their light spell winks out of existence, and Aevalle swims with only the light in her throat until he can cast it again.

He hears something ahead of her scream with rage—and the water darkens with its blood, and he watches some many-limbed thing fall through the water as they rush past it, only to be buffeted out of the way by the creatures following them. Easily more than twice its size—slowed in their pursuit only by their bulk in the tunnels they race through, but still gaining on them.

Above them, Solas catches a glimpse of something reflecting the light from Aevalle’s neck—a great many somethings, like a hundred small eyes peering down at them.

He throws his arm out, and a dozen javelins of ice form, then shoot ahead of Aevalle—piercing into the flesh of some great, large thing Solas cannot see.

They hear its screams of pain well enough. Aevalle darts to another open path just fast enough to avoid large, sharp claws, which clasp only on the water just behind Solas’s heels.

The effort, however, causes Solas’s air bubble spell to falter—and then, under immense pressure of the water they race through, collapse utterly.

He manages to take a breath before it does. Aevalle glances back to see him, one hand clasped over his mouth, and her hand grips his tighter.

Behind them, he hears the snarling of the demons approaching them—too close now, too close by far—

Without warning, he bursts into open air. As he draws it into his lungs with great, desperate breaths, he turns below him and sends a blast of energy at the way they came. It shoots from his palm like a jet of water, colliding with the rock wall and collapsing the tunnel in on itself before they can be followed.

He hears their pursers shriek with rage, and he knows it will not hold.

Aevalle tugs at his hand, but he shakes his head and tries to steady himself enough to speak.

She draws back to him, and he blinks seawater out of his eyes until he can see her—lit only by the light of all his mistakes reflecting off the water surrounding them. Her eyes are wide, her brow furrowed, and she is gasping for breath herself.

There is enough light also for him to see the ceiling, just above their heads—and that the water level in this chamber is steadily rising.

“Vhenan,” he manages to say, right as she drops her iron grip on him to press a trembling palm to the side of his face.

She presses her forehead to his, and he can feel her whole body shaking with exhaustion.

He closes his eyes—and he tries to ignore, for a moment, the feel of the water slowly rising above his shoulders. To focus on her, the feel of her skin on his.

When she reaches down for his hand again, he says, “Vhenan, you have to leave me here.”

She inhales sharply, and recoils as if he’s burned her.

No, she mouths, and then immediately snaps her mouth shut, as if she’d almost spoken out loud.

“I am only holding you back,” he tells her, reaching for her shoulders. “That rubble will not hold those demons long—I can give you the time you need to escape.”

She just shakes her head, and tries to shove his hands away from her.

“Vhenan,” he says, as the water reaches his neck, “I was never going to leave this place alive. We both knew this.”

She shakes her head again, tears welling up in her eyes and spilling down her face.

“I wish—were there any other way—” He reaches up to cup her face, and wipe her cheeks with his thumbs. “Ar lath ma. Save yourself. Please.”

She bites her lip—and as the blood from her earlier injury smears across her teeth, something in her expression changes.

He hears a roar and a crash behind him, and the shifting of rubble.

Solas looks back, turning away from her to face the demons slowly clawing their way through the barricade—and then Aevalle grabs his shoulder and yanks him back to face her.

He opens his mouth to protest, and her lips crash into his.

He lets out a surprised breath—but she only clutches him closer. It’s hardly a romantic kiss, hardly graceful—her bottom lip slips full into his mouth, smearing the copper tang of her blood over the tip of his tongue. She kisses him harder when he tries to pull back, and she must drop her spear because he feels both her hands on his neck, keeping him in place.

Her thumbs ghost over the scars on his neck, her fingers covered in calloused skin instead of scales, and he realises what she’s trying to do.

“No,” he hisses, breaking the kiss. “Aevalle—you’ll drown—”

But then his mouth is full of water, and she is pressing her forehead to his.

He tries to push her off, but she digs in her nails and clings tighter to him. Her eyes closed, holding her breath, and not budging, even as he tries to pry her fingers from him.

Completely submerged, so far below the surface and the land above, the pull he’s felt his whole life completely surrounds him. It feels like an impossibly slow and steady heartbeat, of a creature so great in size and strength that his own is fleeting, frail in comparison. As his heart races, as his lungs strain, as his skin begins to burn in answer to it—all over but the scars on his neck, cold and unfeeling.

Like he is swept up in a great, slow intake of breath, it pulls at him.

Ma vhenan—she will drown, she will drown—

But under that great pull—closer, smaller—he starts to feel something else. Another tide, calling to him—like the rush and retreat of a wave on a beach.

It sounds like a heartbeat. Outside him—but somewhere close.

Ma vhenan, he thinks. Ma vhenan.

His lungs burn.

Beat by beat, the racing of his heart begins to slow to match it. Beat by beat, the rush of blood in his ears begins to fade away—and he hears only her heartbeat, and the rush of water moving over them.

Where she touches him, he feels unbearably hot. Her blood churns with the seawater in his mouth and it is warm, growing warmer with each beat of their hearts, matched in tempo, as they float there—utterly suspended, completely oblivious to everything else around them.

Just his heart, and the ocean—and the heat from her palms slowly spreading through the cold scar tissue on either side of his neck.

And between one heartbeat and the next, it’s like something in him unravels. Some hesitation he forgot he had, some small thing holding him back—there one moment, and gone the next. It does not feel like any great epiphany; it feels like a small release. Like the first breath of salt air, after years spent inland.

He opens his eyes—and Aevalle pulls back, scales once again dotting her face like so many freckles, and she smiles at him.

He lets out the breath he was holding—and for the first time in countless years, water rushes over his gills.

All at once, Aevalle goes limp in the water, and the rock barricade below them is blown outward.

Solas sheds what is left of his clothing, and in a heartbeat his shape is changed—and the sensation of his legs fusing together is a little dizzying, after going so long without it. But then his tail curls, and he blinks and his vision shifts, catching more light than before. And his whole body feels light, fluid, so full with life and power in a way he’d nearly forgotten, it’s been so long.

In one motion he catches Aevalle with one arm—she is fully shifted and breathing, but weakened—and turns, extending his open palm to the creatures racing toward them.

The first is impaled by three spears of ice, and is kicked back with such force that it collides with the other two, its momentum pinning them against the stone. The water immediately surrounding them begins to boil, and the creatures begin to writhe and scream—and they frantically change their shapes to try and escape, but the ice spears remain, unaffected by the heat.

Solas lingers only long enough to snatch up Aevalle’s spear, and then to raise its tip toward the ceiling.

The ironbone spearhead makes an excellent focus, even though that was not its makers’ design when they carved it.

He blasts a hole in the cave’s ceiling, and races through one long, spiralling tunnel—and he cannot keep a grin off his face, for the sheer delight of it, water rushing through him and past his fins as he moves through it with all the ease of one born to it.

Every wall he comes across, he breaks apart with his magic—which comes so easily, in this form, at such a depth—until finally he breaks into open ocean, right into a strong current and a school of glittering fish that scatter at his arrival.

He grins at them—nearly chases them, for the delight of it, but his vhenan kicks her tail weakly, slipping out of his grasp as she starts to ascend.

But she takes his hand, as she slips out of his arm—and he looks up at her, her fins and hair flowing in the current around them, and he sees exhaustion written in every line of her body, every weak movement of her tail.

He squeezes her hand a little.

“Allow me, vhenan,” he says—and his voice carries through the water with more magic than sound.

She looks back down at him, her eyes wide—ah. He supposes that is not something the Dalish have remembered how to do.

But he can only smile at her—and then with a kick of his tail, he starts to pull her gently towards the surface.

It is almost a shame to break to open air—to a clear night sky, the full moon shining high above them. There is a sliver of sunrise to the east—just a lightening of the horizon, nothing more—and a series of small islands scattered along it. Welcoming enough, Solas thinks, as Aevalle slumps against him.

They stumble to a rocky beach, and Solas feels a pang of regret at leaving the ocean so soon—but Aevalle collapses the moment she tries to stand on her legs, and it seems only natural to sweep her up in his arms. To press her skin and her hunting leathers up against his bare chest, and to let her head come to rest on his shoulder.

There is a cave only a few steps up the beach—and it is small and damp, but there is soft moss inside, and it is there that he lays her down. As his knees rest on the ground, he feels his own exhaustion catching up with him, in spite of the racing of his heart.

He stares down at her, and takes a moment to gently brush her wet hair away from her face. Just catching his breath, and revelling that they are alive.

They should have died down there.

And yet…

“Vhenan,” he says, softly, as if that one word can contain all the wonder he feels in this moment.

She reaches up and presses one shaking palm to rest over his heart.

He feels an incredulous grin spreading over his whole face—and her hand moves to tangle her fingers around the cord of his necklace, and he can only shake his head and laugh as she pulls him down next to her.

Solas wraps his arms around her, buries his face in her soaking wet hair, and she presses her face into his neck and takes a deep, steadying breath. She starts to cry—and he holds her tighter, while she clings to him, until her sobs fade off, and her breaths even out as she falls asleep.

He stays awake a little longer—marvelling at just the feel of her breathing against him as his eyelids begin to flutter shut, and his exhaustion begins to win out over the wonder of what has passed this evening. Matching her breath for breath, in the rise and fall of their chests in tandem with the waves outside their cave.

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Dark Forest Resident: Applecreek 

Aliases / Nicknames: Bestie, Johnny Appleseed, Applejack 

Gender: intersex trans tom 

Sexuality: polysexual, biromantic 

Family: Petalnose (mother), Goldenshade (father), Mapleheart (sister), Stormberry, Icefeather (brothers) 

Other Relations: Sparkwhisker (mentor), Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, Cedarmoon (best friends/crushes) 

Clan: Treeclan 

Rank: warrior, loner 

Characteristics: kills to impress crushes, goofy, reckless, loves pulling off pranks, skilled at growing plants 

Number of Victims: 15 

Number of Murders: 5 

Murder Method: placing large amounts of apple seeds in fresh-kill 

Known Victims: Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, Cedarmoon, Sparrowthroat, Seedclaw (killed), Basiltail, Darkpetal, Feathertuft, Thornbreeze, Redbelly, Gorsepounce, Brindledusk, Crookedeye, Juniperstripe, Lizardleaf (poisoned) 

Victim Profile: best friends/crushes, senior warriors who his crushes disliked, other senior warriors (accidentally), elders (accidentally) 

Cause of Death: decapitated by falling tree branch 

Cautionary Tale: N/A

Story: 

Applecreek was a normal cat for most of his life. He was a skilled tracker with a keen knack for sniffing out plants. He had a fondness for the fruit he was named after in particular, and even figured out how to grow apple trees. He was a good son, a good brother, a good apprentice, and a devoted friend. Maybe a little too devoted of a friend.

Applecreek, Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, and Cedarmoon had been as thick as thieves from the ripe age of one moon old. They were almost never seen apart, and they only seemed to grow closer as they grew older. This was especially true for Applecreek, who eventually developed crushes on his three friends-- crushes that were incredibly obvious to every cat in all five Clans except for the actual objects of Applecreek's affection. 

He tried so hard to show them his true feelings. The idea of growing apple trees originally came about as an idea to impress them. Again and again, Applecreek tried to show how he felt, with almost no success.

These hapless attempts of trying to impress Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, and Cedarmoon often came at the expense of their Clanmates, who Applecreek would prank in hopes of seeing his friends laugh. Most of the time, it was brushed off, as the targeted Clanmate simply stared at Applecreek with pity and sympathy. 

But with how hard Applecreek tried, he was bound to go too far eventually.

Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, and Cedarmoon had been complaining about Sparrowthroat and Seedclaw, two older warriors, constantly interrupting all of their games. Naturally, Applecreek felt that the perfect solution to this was a good old prank. Maybe this would be the one that got his friends to notice him!

He knew apple seeds were quite bitter, so he tore down all of the fruit he had grown that season, tore out their seeds, and stuffed as many seeds as he could in as many pieces of fresh-kill as possible. Sparrowthroat and Seedclaw were bound to eat at least one, and the disgusted expressions on their faces as they tried to remove the taste of the seeds from their mouths would be priceless!

Applecreek went to sleep that night feeling excited about tomorrow. He woke up the next morning to the sound of multiple cats throwing up just outside of the warriors' den. Snickering, he stepped outside to see Sparrowthroat and Seedclaw's reactions... only to see that it wasn't them vomiting. 

It was Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, and Cedarmoon. Sparrowthroat and Seedclaw were instead lying in the middle of camp, vomit caking their mouths, their eyes glazed over, and their families sobbing over their lifeless corpses.

Horrified, Applecreek guided his friends into the medicine den. But it was too late. Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, and Cedarmoon soon began having violent seizures, and in mere minute-long intervals, they passed away one by one.

Applecreek had only just let out his caterwaul of pure grief when unsheathed claws cuffed his shoulder. He whirled around to see the deputy--Sparrowthroat-- and Seedclaw's sister, Hawkbush, her teeth bared and her face tearstained. She screamed that Applecreek was a murderer, that she should kill him right there and then.

The only reason why Hawkbush didn't kill Applecreek right then and there was the timely intervention of the leader, Wheatstar. Wheatstar did, however, sadly inform Applecreek that he would have to be exiled. He knew that Applecreek hadn't meant any real harm, but the harm he had done would almost certainly bring doom to nearly half of the Clan. 

When Applecreek demanded to know what Wheatstar meant by that, the leader flicked his tail outside of the medicine den. Poking his head out, Applecreek saw almost all of the senior warriors and even a few of the elders staggering around shakily, vomiting, clutching their heads in pain, panting, and overall suffering... suffering because of him.

Applecreek didn't need to be told twice. He ran out of camp and never looked back. He spent the rest of his life a wandering loner. Other loners, rogues, and kittypets spoke in hushed whispers of the cat they called Johnny Appleseed, of how he did his best to spread seeds throughout the land, but strangely avoided apples and apple trees.

More than that, they spoke of the way he always seemed to be crying, how he always seemed to be muttering the names "Liondust, Kestrelwhisper, Cedarmoon" under his breath over and over, and how, when threatened, he always just stood there, as if waiting for them to give him what he deserved. 

He did this even as the apple branch splintered off of the tree, falling down and cleaving right through his neck.

Additional Information:

--Submission by @starfalcon555​

--As you can tell by the last paragraph, this guy is loosely based on the folklore tale of Johnny Appleseed!

--The other cats that fell victim to apple seed-induced cyanide poisoning were cured by the combined efforts of all of the medicine cats, hence why Applecreek only has five murders under his belt.

--I feel like this guy would be besties with Fleathistle and Fadingstar for obvious reasons, lol

--With the deaths of Sparrowthroat and Seedclaw, Hawkbush is the only surviving kit of Snailstar. Snailstar and their family just keep going through it, huh?

--Hawkbush does eventually become Hawkstar, though! So that's a plus :D

[ib-gomes]

hey i know the post is like 3 years old but i just saw that when you did a commission for cedarmoons, you painted my vallaslin mod onto one of the elves and i just wanna say that i'm honored that you drew my vallaslin (even though i know it's probably from your commission reference), but it doesn't matter because i'm still so flattered! i LOVE your art! have an awesome day <3 :)

Ohh the one with the GORGEOUS tree design? It is one of my favorite commissions ultil now and I knew straight up which one you were talking about. ♥