#dahlian lavellan

[thedragonagelesbian]

well now im kind of missing her.... not enough to play inquisition, but still.

[thedragonagelesbian]

14 and 9 for the spots to kiss prompts?

kiss prompts!!!

doing 14 now.... may come back for 9 (kiss on the ear) later!

14. a kiss on the chin

"Do you miss them?"

"Always." It was always a marvel, how much softer Josephine's hands were than hers, scented with lingering hibiscus lotion and a stray smear of ink tucked into the nail bed of her pinky. Their evening herbal teas were cooling on the table in Dahlian's bedroom as they drew close to each other and the fire. Whatever they had been talking about before, the only thing Dahlian could focus on now was Josephine's fingers against her cheek... and Solas', almost a year and a half ago now, wiping everything away. A ghost she couldn't get rid of no matter how hard she huffed at the memory. "In all my years, I have never felt so foolish as I did that day."

As raw and bare as her face, every last defense that she had used to stave off vulnerability within the Inquisition stripped away.

Staring at her reflection in the water and wondering what all the wrinkles and grey hairs were worth if she was still so heartbreakingly naive.

"I am sorry," Josephine offered softly. "If you return to your clan, would you be able to perform the vallaslin ritual again?"

"I don't know." Honest and objective first, and then sighing, honest and scared: "I don't know if I want to know, though that is foolish too."

"Matters of home and belonging are never easy." Josephine touched some of those wrinkles, smoothing out Dahlian's forehead as her own brow furrowed to match it ever so slightly. "When I began to train as a bard, I tried ever so hard to disguise my Antivan accent. It feels silly in retrospect, but I was convinced that the more Orlesian I seemed, the better I would fare among the nobility as one of their spies. Perhaps it is not precisely the same thing, but--"

"No, I understand," Dahlian assured her. "Did your family ever know?"

Josephine gave a small laugh, soft and melodic. "No. When I returned to Antiva after everything, the moment that I stepped off the ship and smelled the peppers drying in the sun, I knew that I never wanted to turn away from that part of myself, even when my work took me away again."

Dahlian's mind flashed to strips of spiced jerky, bites of smoke and peppers and fat stolen during the long hours spent over her forge as Clan Lavellan's craftmaster. It suddenly hurt to swallow. "If only the Inquisition did not make it so difficult to turn back."

Josephine's forehead wrinkled again, as it so often did when Dahlian expressed her discontent with what the Inquisition had demanded of her, first as its Herald and then as its leader. No matter how many times Dahlian had assured her that she did not blame Josephine for that, that she had always been one of its brightest, most soothing lights. After a lifetime of caring for her family's fortune and future, Dahlian supposed, taking responsibility came far too easily to the eldest Montilyet.

"You're in the wrong place," she said suddenly. Josephine's fingers had drifted down to her jaw, graceful in the tracing of the bone but incorrect. "The vallaslin, it was higher up."

"Show me."

Dahlian took Josephine's hand in her own and lifted it again to her forehead, guiding her along the v shapes that had once marked her between the eyebrows. "First, the forge." She brought Josephine's fingers down her temple and along her cheek. "Then, the ironbark." Across her lips, held there for a moment, savoring the warmth of their skin together. "And then the roots, as a reminder that we never use more than what we need of the land for June's crafts." Finally, grazing the chin, the throat, skimming the top of her collarbone.

Josephine followed the movements with eyes ever sharp, as if staring hard enough could pour the ink back into her skin.

Solas had said that he saw Dahlian as she truly was. Had he ever understood what the blood of blood writing meant? The intermingling of her body--her essence--with the People.

And then Josephine's mouth replaced her fingers. Gentle in her kisses, retracing the path that Dahlian had drawn, that her Keeper had drawn decades before, where it had hurt the most. Even more than the dots underneath the eyes, the sheer softness of the throat, the fluttering pulse, the vulnerable jugular, every instinct screaming that pain there meant death, and how proud Dahlian had been to bear it as generations had before her.

There was no pain now, except in her memories, but this could be a memory too. Shared, embodied, saliva instead of blood and Josephine's lips on her chin.

It would be a good memory.

[thedragonagelesbian]

ocs + dragon age demon pairings

yippeeeeeeeeeeeeee

(tagging folks who expressed interest tytytytyty ily all smmmmm @hexblooddruid @fllagellant @ghostwise andddddd if any of you want to share for your ocs... 👀👀👀)

Vidreu Aeducan ~ Desire Demon

Dru is tricky because they aren't strongly motivated by the kinds of emotions that demons feed on. They're largely guided by academic curiosity and dispassionate pragmatism, but she could be tempted by forbidden knowledge in a heartbeat. (Indeed, she defiled the Urn of Sacred Ashes for precisely that reason.) A desire demon could readily exploit that thirst-- for answers, for understanding, for secrets.

Luc Surana ~ Despair Demon

Everything that Luc has--his anger and his snark and his defiance--either grows out of or masks a profound sense of nihilism. Nothing matters, there's no point in trying, and caring is just setting yourself up for heartbreak down the road.

(In the AU where Alistair breaks up with him after the Landsmeet, Luc summons one by accident teehee)

Cyrus Hawke ~ Pride Demon

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh won't someone please tell him what a good boy he is and what a good job he's done bleeding out for others, won't someone please give him a good grade in self-sacrifice.

As a general rule, I'm a strong believer that the best demonic temptations are precisely those that characters wouldn't think they'd be affected by, because if you know something is a flaw of yours, you can guard against it. Cyrus' humility is very genuine, but below it is a profound craving for recognition that he won't let himself acknowledge, making it the perfect weak point.

Dahlian Lavellan ~ Sloth Demon

Dahlian has been tired since the moment she first woke up in Haven, weary under the mantle of Inquisitorial duty and constantly performing as its cold, professional leader. It would take some prying to pull her away from that duty, toward restfulness, but wouldn't it be so nice to share just a moment's repose with her daughter?

Yiseeril Trevelyan ~ Hunger Demon

Yiseeril's pride is dangerous, yes, but she's been haunted by her own personal hunger demon/Fade tongue situationship, Vanity, for years and knows how to resist her temptations. What could be fatal is pushing that pride to its extreme, past ambition and into apotheosis, starved for power and sated by nothing short of godhood.

[thedragonagelesbian]

vivienne saying 'the villagers will slow you down' but being one of only two companions to approve of saving everyone...... that genuine kindness & care flickering beneath the mask of ice....................

[thedragonagelesbian]

Also its 'lady montilyet' and 'mistress lavellan' non fucking stop. First names are for women who are not engaged in an agonizing twenty month slow burn courtship

[thedragonagelesbian]

Shipping josie with an older woman has unlocked a lot about her romance for me tbh

[thedragonagelesbian]

@yetanotherlesbianonthiswebsite replied to your post “well now im kind of missing her.... not enough to...”:

I love her????

​she loves you too!! she's physically incapable of choosing love over duty, even when it's a duty she was forced into and resents, but still!

[thedragonagelesbian]

i love all the infected characters who are chanting/praying when you find them in 'in hushed whispers', not only begging a higher power for deliverance but also maybe trying to block out the song of the red lyrium and the blight, trying to hold onto & listen to anything that is not this cursed elegy

which brings me to dahlian discovering theneneria singing this to herself...

[thedragonagelesbian]

Getting swarmed by wolves while you're trying to destroy the pillars w/out attacking the pride demon is kind of juicy tbh....... they started attacking during the cutscene so everyone was getting fucked up before the encounter even started, both bull & cole went down, dahlian got badly injured... and solas, barrier-sheathed and fine, wondering just how much of this world he's willing to lose

[thedragonagelesbian]

anyway thinking post veilguard dahlian josie wedding thoughts...... it would be such a sweet ending for her story, dahlian having finally gotten closure with solas and reconciled with her daughter, able to move forward in a world that they're all working to rebuild

(also theneneria is definitely operating under the assumption that josie & her mom are already married, because the last she heard of it was an overly formal letter years ago from josephine asking for her blessing to pursue the relationship)

[thedragonagelesbian]

@hexblooddruid me too........... & it's such a shame that i have to wait until the very fucking end of the game to see them reunite

im so curious to see what happens if you go the redeem solas route (which theneneria will, for dahlian) without encouraging lavellan to get back together with him (obviously dahlian is happily with josie & even if she was still in love with solas, she can't not pick theneneria this time. She has to come home this time.) & to what extent it'll be different from the regular redeem dialogue with inky.

And i'd say that dahlian's feelings for him, passionate though they once were, have largely transmuted to the duty-bound coolness with which she has to view much of the world--not even able to be angry with him, just apathy and determination to weather this horrifying new world that's grown out of his (and theneneria's) mistake--except that solas has done the One thing that can still move dahlian: hurting her daughter by trapping her in the fade

There's some real sympathy too, especially discovering the nature of his relationship with mythal, how could there not be, having herself been set upon a path of duty from which she did not allow herself to waver even as it destroyed her most cherished relationship? But she can't forgive what he did to theneneria, and she certainly can't join him

[thedragonagelesbian]

@hexblooddruid replied to your post “submitted an abstract AND a paper today......”:

What specialization are you going for?

​artificer!!! former craftmaster june-devotee that she is, hands never idle and always tinkering

dahlian's go-to combat strategy up to this point has been to run right up to enemies, throw caltrops, and get out of the way with leaping shot (+ the upgrade that lets you go into stealth afterward); artificer will give her plenty of new toys to play with

[thedragonagelesbian]

hey you know what fucked up part of in hushed whispers i forgot about the part um the part where everyone you rescue sacrifices themselves to buy dorian time, so dahlian watched her daughter die in front of her and wasn't allowed to process it at all and just has to keep going like it didn't happen. because it didn't happen. right.

[thedragonagelesbian]

yaaaaaaaaaaaaay mods

[thedragonagelesbian]

i think theneneria should show up in the 'in hushed whispers' dark timeline...................... just for maximum pain............................

[thedragonagelesbian]

theneneria lavellan concept... queen of the saddest brown eyes ever

+ mama dahlian