#elfroot and words

[elfroot-and-laurels]

no idea if the PLEASE was to send prompts but 15 for Badhbh and Lucanis GOGOGOGOGO

It ABSOLUTELY was. And I thank you for your service.

15: Shaking Hands

Lucanis’s hands are shaking. Badhbh can hear it; though he holds them by his side, just far enough away from his daggers and belts and accoutrements of assassination, he cannot stop the shivering sound of leather rustling. Badhbh would like to say something. They would like to stop everyone, to tell the others to go ahead into the eluvian and back to the Lighthouse. They would like to stay here, in Treviso, covered in the remnants of Zara Renata’s macabre bath, even though they can feel the blood squelching in places blood should never be, if only for the chance to comfort Lucanis. For the chance to take his hands in theirs and stop the shaking. “You okay?” It’s pathetic, what they end up with. Two lousy words. But Lucanis pauses, and he looks at them, and he lets the tears gather in his eyes, even if he won’t let them fall. “Illario is right,” he says, and his hands still tremble. “No,” Badhbh says firmly. “He’s not.” “How can you be sure? Back there, I nearly—” Badhbh doesn’t look for the others, walking along ahead, back to the Diamond. The two of them will catch up. Instead, they take Lucanis’s gloved hands in their own, prosthetic fingers squeaking across the smooth leather. “I know who you are.” Slowly, Lucanis stops shaking. Slowly, Badhbh lets his hands go, back to his sides. “I’m not sure even I know that.”

[elfroot-and-laurels-moved]

"Biting your lover's lips amidst a kiss" for the kissing prompts 💗

I missed writing for Shadowheart and Imvae so. Here goes. :3

                “Do that again,” Shadowheart said, her voice playful and admonishing, “and I will have no choice but to assume Astarion has done more than sup on you.” Imvae grinned, shifting their lover’s weight on their lap and wrapping their arms more tightly around her waist.                 “You mean you don’t like it?” Above them, Shadowheart rolled her eyes. Really, she rolled her whole head, setting her long, white braid swinging with the motion. She brought her hand up, moving it from Imvae’s neck to their smiling face, tapping their dimpled and tattooed cheek with a single finger.                 “Naughty tonight, are we?” Not answering, Imvae mimed biting for Shadowheart’s finger, relishing in her giggle as she yanked it back. “Very naughty tonight!” Now Shadowheart moved, standing and extricating herself from Imvae’s grip only to bend over in front of them, her hands on their knees and her nose almost touching theirs. Her braid melted and rippled over her shoulder, and Imvae wanted to grab it, to pull her closer. It wasn’t often they had their own room, after all. Why shouldn’t they make the most of it? But Shadowheart spoke again before they could decide on their course of action.                 “If you have been turned into some dilute vampire spawn, I’d have no choice but to slay you.”                 “You’d have plenty of choices,” Imvae retorted, leaning forward. “Last I checked, we’re not monster hunters, and you never said you didn’t like a little bit of biting.” Pretending to think about it, Shadowheart looked toward the ceiling for a moment, and then the smile she was holding in her eyes broke free, and she kissed Imvae once more.                 “Say I do like it,” Shadowheart murmured against Imvae’s mouth. They grinned once more, standing up and pulling Shadowheart up with them as they did. “What then?” Imvae didn’t answer. Instead, they grabbed Shadowheart’s waist and sucked her lower lip into their mouth once more, biting down.

[eureka-its-zico]

Chaos in Their Bones Ch. 4

Ongoing Series

Synopsis: All your life you’d listened to your friend, Usopp spin wild tales about pirates and adventure. Pirates weren’t a thing that came often to Syrup Village, but one straw hat pirate and his crew changed all that the day they arrived. Now, you aren���t so sure if your sleepy little village was always pirate-free or if no one had been paying attention.  

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Genre: friends to lovers, frenemies to lovers, slow burn (I hope y’all like aching) eventual smut

Words: 8.7+

A/N:  This chapter is mostly filler from 1.04-1.05. This chapter also, once again has a POV from Zoro. I kept going through my options of what I could do to possibly give these two idiots more alone time and this was the result. The beginning, and introduction, of Sanji begins right at Chapter 5 and I already have too many ✨ideas ✨ that I know what to do with. Also, I did add in Zoro working out. It’s a brief mention, but I just found it weird he didn’t have any of those scenes (probably for damn good reason). As always, thank you guys for all the love and support. I hope you all continue to enjoy this story🖤 Much Love, Jenn

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Previous Next

“I don’t know, Doc. You’re starting to look a little pale.”

“And green.”

You’d been hugging the side of this particular railing since you’d sailed out of port. It was your first time ever on a ship and it wasn’t going too great. You’d heard about seasickness and even had sailors come asking for Naan’s Elfroot to chew to stem the tide while they were out at sea. You always thought they were being ridiculous. How bad could it be? 

Well, if your dry heaving was any indication - pretty bad. Of course, Zoro just had to make it worse. 

You glanced up from looking at the water that was gently tapping the side of the boat to the growing bane of your existence. One hand was tucked into the pocket of his jeans while the other rested on the hilt of his swords. He looked effortlessly cool as he watched you with - was that a smirk? 

He’d changed into a yellow shirt with fine detailing of gray lines running horizontally and vertically, which matched perfectly with his gray pants. 

Zoro was more of a fashionista than he’d let on. 

“It’s just the reflection of your hair,” you shot back at him. 

You could feel the next wave of nausea thrashing around in your stomach and you prayed you could keep it down. You were going to lose more cool points if you hurled again. Zoro squinted over the sun's rays to regard your current state. He must have been able to tell you were 0.2 seconds from hurling because, instead of replying, he simply twirled his finger indicating for you to turn around. 

You did as he instructed, but made sure to follow it up with a middle finger salute. 

“Man, you two always like this? You just met.” Usopp asked. 

Usopp tried doing the dotting friend routine by patting you a few times, awkwardly, on your back. It felt more like he was trying to get a burp out of you than soothe you. 

“It’s because they like each other.”

Nami pranced out of the galley and chose violence. It only took both you and Zoro to register her words before you both shouted: 

“I don’t like her.”

“I hate him!”

Nami wrapped her arms around herself as she looked you both over. A devious smile tilting the edges of her mouth and you had to look away before it turned into the shit eating grin you’d come to expect. 

“I’m sure you both do,” she teased. 

You wanted to prove to her that you meant it. Zoro would be the last person you would say you liked, like- like that. The man was literally the biggest pain in the ass you’d ever met. 

“Usopp,” you croaked, “can you get my bag, please.”

“I’m on it, Doc.”

At the sound of his feet hitting the deck, a groan of discomfort resonated in your chest. How could anyone think that sailing was fun? This felt like the absolute worst. 

When you first entered the Going Merry you couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. You’d heard Usopp tell you stories since he cleaned it everyday. It was as finely crafted as he’d described, and the white ashwood against the walnut was a stark contrast but complemented each other beautifully. There wasn’t another ship like the Going Merry and a one-of-a-kind ship should belong to someone as extraordinary as Luffy.

The minute you’d cast off into the giant blue you’d almost panicked. What if this was a mistake? You’d never been out in open water before nor had you ever left Syrup village. This could either be one of the greatest adventures of your life or a disaster. The only thing that kept you from flinging yourself over the side and swimming back was when you’d walked the stern and the glint of the sun shone down on the water. 

The sun’s rays illuminated the water like light reflecting off a crystal glass. One minute it was the deepest blue. The color was solid enough that your reflection was easy to see and in a matter of seconds after a ray of light touched its water, it took on a cornflower hue that made the water translucent. 

You’d been able to admire it for all of three seconds before you were embarrassing yourself over the port bow. 

“I’m back, Doc,” Usopp spoke softly as he placed a soft hand on your shoulder. He lightly tapped the bag against your hands to try and coax you to grab it. “Do you need me to get you water or anything?”

“Water is not going to help. It’ll make it worse.” 

You thought he was trying just to be his usual monotoned “Hi, I’m Zoro and I could care less,” self, but when you finally peeled your forehead off your forearm and looked at him he wasn’t even looking at either of you. He was curled up, like a lazy cat, against a couple of crates with his eyes closed and faced tilted towards the sun. With his hands infamously stuffed inside his pockets. 

“It would?”

You nodded your head only once in recognition before you started searching through your bag. Your hands started scrambling inside it a soft, “No,no,” building into a frenzy before you stopped searching.

“I’m guessing your magic little root isn’t in there.”

Zoro was still sitting without a care while you felt like you wanted to throw yourself overboard. 

“No. It isn’t.”

Mental note: Ask Luffy to stop at Irkhaven Isle to get supplies. 

Suddenly, Zoro stood in one graceful motion and walked off towards the galley. 

Ass. 

You turned back to the Going Merry’s railing and held on tight. Your stomach felt like you’d swallowed glass and got punched, it was so empty. Another groan was building in your chest when a cold bottle touched the back of your arm. 

The coolness to your skin sent a yelp of surprise from you, and sent you whirling to the presence beside you. Zoro was leaning back against the railing, looking as calm as ever, with a beer extended out between you. 

“Isn’t it a little bit too early to be drinking?” 

He rolled his eyes as he switched positions. He was now mimicking your current position against the rail but looked effortless and was still holding that damn beer out to you. 

“It’s for you.”

“For me? Zoro, I don’t think now is the time to be drinking-“

“Just drink it,” he growled, an obvious annoyance replacing his earlier calm. 

What hell, what was a beer going to do? At most, it would at least give your stomach something to actually throw up instead of dry heaving yourself into a six pack. 

You reached out and took it from him. Zoro continued to watch you as you placed the bottle to your lips, waiting for you to take a sip. 

“Could I get some privacy here?”

Zoro rolled his eyes but did as you asked looking off into the southside of the ship. You took that moment to take a long pull from the bottle. Surprisingly, it was damn good beer. You waited for the bitter aftertaste to kick in, but found it replaced with the tang of citrus. You immediately took another drink and another. It wasn’t until you were halfway to the middle of the bottle that you noticed the ship had been rocked a few times by the waves and yet…

You went to turn your attention back to Zoro and found him already staring at you. 

I am not blushing. 

You turned quickly to look back out at the ocean with both arms leaning over the railing as you took in the picturesque view. You couldn’t believe beer was making your sea sickness disappear. Out of your peripherals you waited for him to turn away from you. Unable to say it to his face as you played with the label that was peeling off from condensation. 

Alcohol. It was brilliant. You were sure your body was still feeling sick, but the depressant in the beer wasn’t allowing those receptors to acknowledge it. Tilting the bottle at him you asked, “How’d you know this would work.” 

“It’s how I survived all my boat trips. Old guy I’d met aboard my first ship when I was seventeen taught me that trick.” 

“Is that why you have so much booze? Cause you have a weak stomach?” 

Your question came off worse than you intended. You genuinely weren’t trying to insult him. He’d just helped you. Zoro has helped you. 

“No. I just like to drink.” 

His tone was void of all emotion. The little bit he’d given you quickly washed away and you wanted to kick yourself. 

Foot meet mouth. Mouth meets foot. 

You weren’t very good at this. The only friend you’d ever actually had was Usopp. The both of you know the tone of the other and every secret in between. You’d tried to make friends with the other kids in town, but holding up a frog as a friendship gift didn’t seem to go over too well. And on that wonderful trip down memory lane…

You straightened up and took a smaller sip from the beer before you leaned down to pick up your abandoned satchel. 

“Thank you, Zoro.”

The both of you stared at the other until the silence was washed out by the squawking of seagulls and the rush of water. Even now in this weird game of chicken, you knew you would be the first to give. His dark eyes staring straight through you until you felt exposed. You tipped the bottle for good measure and turned on your heel to make your way inside the safety of the kitchen. Your hand clutching the bottle close as your brain tried to make sense of what happened. 

Zoro helped you. He didn’t have too and for all intents and purposes you were surprised he didn’t just let you suffer, but he’d chosen not to. What did that even mean? He was just being friendly. It didn’t mean anything more than that. 

Instead of dwelling on the question, you sat down in the corner booth and took another pull from the bottle. 

——————-

After you finished your first bottle, you found another, and another until you’d ended up blissfully passed out in the booth. You were vaguely aware that Luffy and the crew had come into the galley at some point. The sound of Usopp and Luffy struggling to talk over the other was what forced you out of your nap.

“We all know who the Captain is.”

“It’s me.”

Two voices rang out as one with each ending in a high-pitch of surprise. It was his first day and already Usopp was trying to stir up mutiny on the ship. If you weren’t interested in staying unconscious you were positive you would’ve smiled. 

“Just call me Captain Usopp.”

“We already know I’m the Captain.”

It didn’t surprise you they were still giving out declarations of who was Captain. You waited for it to become a campaign, like when Townsfolk ran for Mayor, but the sound of Nami’s laughter followed by - was that Zoro?! - ended both men’s rant. 

“See, this is what it’s all about,” Luffy’s voice chimed in. “From now it’s going to be smooth sailing.”

He was his usual happy sounding self. You were willing to bet it was infectious, making everyone’s earlier laughter remain in the small creases by their eyes and the raise of their lips. Luffy was indeed a Captain and one of the best kind. 

Enjoying the moment abruptly ended, however, when you caught the sound of a whistle outside. It grew more intense by the second. Whatever it was, was slicing through the air with a force that was audible. You weren’t sure why it took so long for your brain to register that it wasn’t a natural sound. It was rectified, however, when something violently slammed into the Going Merry and sent everything trembling. 

Your back immediately shot up off the cushion of the booth. Eyes open wide as you stumble to your feet watching Nami and Zoro do the same. 

“What in the hell was that?”

“Luffy opening his damn mouth,” Nami replied as you followed behind her. 

You were wondering how Luffy’s mouth could have anything to do with the current sounds coming from outside. Your response died in your throat the minute you got out onto the deck. You followed them to the stern of the ship and finally saw what was waiting for you all was a very large, very metal, Marine vessel trailing behind you. 

All the blood drained from your body and whatever buzz you’d had left over from earlier was now completely gone. 

“It’s the marines! We’re under attack!” 

Nami rushed to the wheel to begin to try evasive maneuvers to get you all out of the way of the oncoming cannonballs. Another shot rang out from the marine vessel and you waited to be struck by steaming metal and found yourself vaguely relieved when it crashed into the ocean a few feet from you. 

“How did they find us?”

“Does it matter? They’re trying to blow us out of the water!”

What the hell were you supposed to do? 

What in the hell could anyone do against being shot at by cannons and a marine vessel that was gaining on your small ship by the second. You could see three figures standing at the bow of the ship, eerily watching as if waiting for something - or someone - to appear. 

Luffy grabbed the telescope and peered through the lens. You all waited for him to give an order and what he said next surprised everyone. 

“Grandpa?”

“Grandpa!”

“Did you just call that guy grandpa?” Zoro asked, his eyes carefully watching Luffy as he glanced through the telescope back at the ship. 

He didn’t answer right away. The sound of another shot being fired made all of you space out from one another. You could feel the tension singing through your nerves. The adrenaline was demanding you to move or do something else besides just hopelessly stand like a damn target. The fight or flight in you erupted to life with one key thought hoarding every inch of clarity besides one: run. 

This time when the cannon came crashing down it came right at the edge of the stern. An eruption of water covering you in a fine mist of water. You didn’t get a chance to decide on what to do when another shot rang out. 

“Hit the deck!” 

Usopp’s scream was frantic enough you didn’t ask why, and did as he instructed and became one with the wood. Seconds later, the sound of speeding metal whizzed by you and smashed into the railing behind sending wood fragments everywhere. 

You couldn’t stop the scream that tore its way from your lips as your body curled in on itself. 

What the hell did I sign up for? 

You could hear the sounds of feet clumsily finding their footing again as everyone began to get up. You wanted to stay where you were, but the sharp sound of Zoro calling you a coward resonated inside your chest. 

You could do this. You could totally hundred-percent do this. 

It was your turn to begin to get up from your place on the stern deck, and just as you moved to your knees someone offered their hand for you to take. Color you shocked when you looked up to find that hand was attached to Zoro. You must have been staring too long because he looked away, hand still out, and grumbled, “You going to keep staring at it or take it?”

Yup, and there was the Zoro you’d grown to know and loathe.

“It just burns you up inside to be so helpful, doesn’t it?”

Your voice oozed with sarcasm as you took his hand - maybe a bit too aggressively - and started to get up. Zoro saw your passive-aggressive hand smack and did you one better. He pulled you quickly to your feet, but that quickness came at the cost of your balance. Your feet couldn’t catch their footing back on the deck and you ended haphazardly colliding into his chest. 

As fast as it happened, it was equally as fast that you both dislocated yourselves from each other.

“Is everybody okay?”

“I think so.” 

“No. Not okay. Not even close to okay.”

“I second, Usopp,” you said. 

You weren’t sure why you raised your hand. It could’ve been you just really needed them to know that no - no, this was definitely not okay. 

Luffy took your concerns with a grain of salt, however, and ran over to the cannon - the only cannon - on deck. You’d only just meet him, but Luffy didn’t strike you as someone who held onto any ill will. So, you were surprised to see the determination burn in his eyes and the scowl to cross his face. 

What did your grandpa do to you? 

If you weren’t mortally in danger of drowning at any minute or being shredded in half by a cannonball, you might have asked. 

“Usopp! Fire back at them!”

“Or how about we sail away as fast as we can?”

“I like that idea, actually,” you chimed in, a hand scratching the back of your neck. “That’s a solid plan if I ever heard one, Usopp.”

“Run from the marines?” 

Luffy looked between the three of you. He couldn’t believe that Usopp, Nami, and you were apparently so quick to not want to put up much of a fight. You did enjoy not being a sea decoration. 

“No. Never! Nami trim the…sail thing. Let’s sink their ship!”

“Wait, what? Are you crazy?”

You had to back up to stand next to Zoro as Luffy waved for Usopp to join him on the stern. The two of them grabbed a hold of the cannon to bring it towards an opening in the back. 

“Let’s sink their ship.” 

“Luffy, we don’t have time for this!” Nami interjected, but Luffy wasn’t listening. “They’re going to come up alongside us! If they do, we are finished.”

“Our odds keep sounding better and better,” you mumbled as you made your way over to Nami. 

“You are our Navigator. Do something.” 

Nami let out a groan before her whole demeanor changed. No longer was she trying to flee or get Luffy to see reason. Suddenly, she turned to Zoro and ordered him to go down and pull the sheet in. He didn’t waste a second before he brushed past you and down the stairs. 

You waited for her to order you to do something, anything, but she must have known it would’ve been like explaining math to a baby. You didn’t even know what she’d even just asked Zoro to do. Apparently, neither did he. 

“Which way is port?” 

A heavy sigh left her as she shouted back, “It’s the left!”

“Have you ever loaded a cannon before?”

“Yeah, yeah I’ve loaded tons of them,” Usopp replied coolly.

You had to give Usopp props. He was literally the master of bullshit and could keep a straight face even though you both knew the only thing he loaded was his imagination. 

“This is just a different model I’ve never seen before.”

“Usopp, you load the cannon in the barrel. Light it and then get the hell out of the way!”

Following Nami’s directions, Usopp rushed forward towards the barrel. You thought he was going to make it when the ball slipped out of his hand and landed with a heavy thud on the deck. You rushed forward to grab it before it rolled down the stairs, but didn’t notice Usopp rushing to join you in the hunt. What neither of you failed to notice was that the vibration from dropping the cannonball dislodged the others. 

In a split second, you and Usopp collided into one another and when you stepped back to stand up your heel caught a ball. You had barely enough seconds to lean yourself forward as you slipped down the stairs, taking each stair with a thud just like the cannonballs. 

Your knees slammed into the edge of one of the stairs, but the balls under your hips kept you slipping. You tried bending your knees to slow your descent only to have them successfully bump every step on the way down. 

“Oh shit, Doc are you okay?” Usopp shouted down after you. 

“I’m fantastic,” you grunted as you came to a stop before the last steps. 

You weren’t trying to remove yourself from the stairs. You could feel the pain in your knees growing with each passing second. You were willing to bet when you stood up, that dull throb that was beginning to resonate under your skin would shoot out like lightning the minute you stood up. Unfortunately, you’d forgotten who was at the bottom of the stairs with you. 

“Are you going to get up anytime soon or do you enjoy just laying there?” 

You were ready to tell Zoro where he could shove his swords when a gruff voice you’d never heard cut over the chaos. 

“Pirate vessel, by order of the marines, lower your sails and submit to my authority.”

You were willing to bet a million berries if that man wasn’t Luffy’s grandpa that wouldn’t even be an offer on any table. Ever. The sound of Zoro’s boots coming closer caused you to peel yourself up just enough before he - did he really just step over you? 

“Oh, you asshole,” you seethed. 

You scrambled to your feet to chase after him when you noticed another cannonball headed straight for the Merry. But where was the sound of the gunpowder? What felt even more unbelievable was what came after. 

Sure, Luffy told you he’d eaten a Devil fruit. He’d told you his body was made of rubber but seeing was believing. You watched as Luffy began to inhale air and his body blew up like a…balloon. Luffy was becoming an actual balloon of skin until the cannonball landed in the center of his stomach. He took the entire impact and flung it back at the marine vessel. One minute, you could hear the return fire whistling through the air. The next, you watched as the crow’s nest above the mast exploded and seconds later it came crashing down. 

Everything grew silent aboard the Merry as you all registered what you���d just witnessed. You were still staring at Luffy and back to the now very much on fire marine ship when Usopp’s surprised laughter cut through the silence. 

“That was amazing! You just saved us!”

“You didn’t tell me you could do that.”

You could feel your own smile slide across your face as the adrenaline began to bleed away. The aftershocks of the thrill of battle - no matter how unsuccessful - left you feeling ready to do it all again. Or take a nap. 

You were joining in on the laughter as you looked back at Nami, and at Usopp who was jumping in excitement with Luffy. You looked over at Zoro and found your earlier excitement drained from your body. Sure, you’d seen him smirk and look like the grumpy cat who ate the canary, but you’d never seen him smile. 

Sometime during the battle the wind had tussled up his hair making him appear like he’d just woken from a nap. It made him softer, less broody, and the grin that lit up his face actually reached his eyes and scrunched his nose. 

It was safer in the village. 

You wanted to say the thought was because of what had just happened. Even as Luffy ordered Nami to get you out of the area, you knew it wasn’t because of the danger. Hell, as much as it was a mess of a first battle, the adrenaline of it all was demanding for a release. Maybe you’d be able to use that as an excuse for why your heart was beating so wildly as you watch Zoro run a hand through his hair. 

The ship suddenly felt too constricting. It didn’t allow enough space between you and the swordsman who resided on this ship. You tried to shake your head clear of all those thoughts and turned to run after Luffy. You called his name as you carefully took the stairs down after him. 

“Something wrong, Doc?”

“No, no,” you waved him off. “I just - I wanted to ask a favor.”

“You can ask me for anything.”

You weren’t sure if you would ever get over how genuine Luffy was. Every word he said to you he meant it. You could probably tell him you needed the sun, and whether physically attainable or not, you knew Luffy would try his absolute best to bring it to you. 

Because Luffy was just that kind of Captain. 

“Would it be a bother if we stopped at an island? I’m in need of some supplies.”

———————

Luffy didn’t hesitate to say yes to your request to stop at Irkhaven. It only took you all of four seconds to explain what it was, where it was, and why you needed to go before he sent you to Nami to give her the coordinates. While you’d never physically gone with Naan to harvest the ingredients you’d grown up using, she made sure to tell you often how to get there. 

Just in case the day came she couldn’t. 

What you hadn’t expected as you walked through fields of lavender was to have Zoro trailing behind you. 

“How much longer are we going to be out here?”

“Until I have enough of everything to last us a while,” you called over your shoulder. 

You didn’t need to look behind you to know Zoro was shooting daggers into the back of your skull. While he hadn’t been happy being volunteered to go with you onto the island, he hadn’t argued with Luffy either. 

You stopped midway out of the lavender fields and took out your small knife to begin cutting gently through the stems. After you had a good enough bundle, you sheathed the knife back in its place on your satchel where you reached inside to grab a pre-cut piece of string. 

You could still feel Zoro watching you, as you tied the lavender together in a tight bundle. 

“I wasn’t aware picking flowers was life-saving medicine.” 

This time you did look over at him. Zoro, the strong and proud pirate hunter. The demon, Luffy said was his nickname. Looking at Zoro now, even in an endless field of lavender, he resonated power. You held no doubt he had earned such an intimidating name through grit and blood-soaked swords. 

He looked out of place next to you in a place meant for healing and you couldn’t help but wonder if it was more what he projected than who he was. While Luffy told you happily about the scary parts of Zoro (which Luffy by no means actually saw as scary) he’d also mentioned Zoro never went without a specific sword.

Remembering Luffy’s words, your eyes quickly darted down to the white-sheathed katana. If you had to put money on it, that was the one that held a deeper meaning to him. It was the one he clutched the tightest and his hand fell on absentmindedly. 

Once you knew the bundle was secure, you playfully poked it in his direction. 

“It does heal. It calms the mind and spirit. It creates restful sleep.”

“It stinks.” 

“You are absolutely impossible,” you grumbled, your eyes rolling as you turned away from him. 

You placed the bundle inside your satchel and started forward. You didn’t need to look back to know that Zoro would be behind you. This time you were leading him towards an eyeline of trees you’d spotted a few feet back. They looked promising to hold green chiretta. 

“So, why did Luffy send you with me?”

You came out first from the field and onto a path that was being taken over by the vegetation. 

“Because you don’t know how to protect yourself.”

“I can too.”

“A pot doesn’t count.”

You spun on your heels, satchel swinging, and caught it with your forearm just before it swung into your hip. You were pleased to see the unexpected action had caught him by surprise. Not the typical surprise that Usopp, or others, gave where it might be exaggerated or a gasp and step back. No, Zoro’s was the briefest flinch in the corner of his eyes. Blink and you would’ve missed it. 

“Hey, that pot kicked ass.”

“You got lucky.”

“Okay, Mosshead, then what do you call this?”

You lightly tapped your cheek to indicate the very noticeable bruise that was just beginning to fade from his left cheek. 

“I call that luck.”

You let out a huff as you turned and faced forward. Leading him towards where you needed to go and reminding yourself that you needed to focus on the task at hand. Not Zoro. 

“You carry a knife with you but you don’t use it.”

He stated it as a fact. Not a question. Zoro already knew that it wasn’t used for self-defense. 

“I use it to treat and clean infected wounds and forage for ingredients.”

“But not for self-defense.”

You found yourself whirling on him again and this time he was prepared. His hand resting on the edge of his sword and hand infamously tucked inside his pocket. 

“I’m a doctor, Zoro. I follow Naan’s oath to never do harm to anyone-“

“And what if to help someone - yourself - it meant that you had to take a life to save theirs?”

He’d taken a step towards you. His whole body radiated with an intensity you hadn’t been prepared for. You could feel your muscles straining to stay in place; to not retreat. Zoro had closed what space you’d had between the two of you until all he’d left were a few measly inches. 

“I try not to let it come to that.”

“You don’t always get to decide like that, it's not how the world works. You keep thinking like that and you’re going to be a liability.”

Your eyes narrowed in on him and you felt yourself get on your tippy toes without thinking. Your index finger pressed into his stupidly hard chest as you looked up at him. 

“It is not a liability to give a shit about people, Zoro. To care about who they are with their own wants and dreams. What makes someone a liability is not knowing who is worth that effort and who isn’t.” 

You dropped back down onto your heels and turned to stomp your way into the trees. What did he know? So, you weren’t exactly a swordsman or incredibly stretchy, and while Usopp wasn’t necessarily the bravest man on the planet he was a damn fine shot. Nami could kick ass and was the best navigator. What did you bring to the table? 

No. You wouldn’t let him make you think that way. 

You hadn’t realized you’d gone farther than intended into the forest of trees until you noticed not only the green chiterra growing all over the sides of them, but also what looked like gold cap mushrooms. One that you knew to be poisonous. 

You put it in the back of your mind. You weren’t here to get things to harm people. That wasn’t who you were and you wouldn’t let this newfound journey, or anyone, change that. You unsheathed your knife from your satchel and started carefully scraping off the moss from the bark of the tree. 

“I could train you.”

Those four words stopped you mid-scrap. It had been roughly a few minutes - only a few - since you’d both been silent. You expected the rest of your time out here collecting ingredients to go relatively dull with you both pouting in your respective corners. Out of everything you could’ve expected, those four words were most definitely not it. 

“Huh?”

God, you really needed to get it together. 

Zoro grunted out a, “Fuck me,” before he gave you his full attention. 

“I said I could train you. If you want.”

Was it possible that Zoro, the demon pirate hunter, was nervous? You couldn’t believe it, and for that exact reason you didn’t think twice about it. However, you couldn’t pass up the chance to tease him. Just a little. 

“Did Roronoa Zoro - the demon pirate hunter - just offer to teach me how to kick ass?”

This whole entire trip was turning into one unexpected thing after another. The last thing you would’ve thought you would earn from your teasing was a grimace, maybe a smirk if you were lucky. Instead, your words generated an actual smile from the demon himself and you were devastated. 

“I thought you said you never heard of me?”

Oh, right. He was talking and he needed you to word back. Right. You could do that. 

“Luffy,” your voice cracked on your captain's name and you pretended to cough to clear your throat. “Luffy was telling me about the first time you guys met. It was truly a riveting moment.” 

“Okay, let’s back up,” you began, your fingers motioning like a wheel. You’d been sitting with Luffy at the table eating breakfast. What had come over you to ask about how he met Zoro was still currently pending investigation. Luckily for you, Luffy wasn’t going to question you on why you wanted to know. “Did you just say you met him tied up inside the marine yard?”  “He’d given himself up. Never told me exactly why he’d done that actually.” Luffy was perplexed for all of a millisecond before he sank his teeth back into the dry meat in his hand.  “Oh, well I’m sure he was happy you let him down.” “Actually, he told me to get lost.”  Yup, you were choking on a piece of toast. Luffy just stated it like it was useless information. Not that his first mate didn’t tell him to essentially fuck off during their first meeting.  “He told you to get lost?” “Yeah, he did.” “So, why did you even bother staying there? You could’ve just left.” A smile began to grow on his lips. It wasn’t his usual radiant one that could rival the sun, but a thoughtful one. It told you the memory of meeting Zoro meant something special to Luffy, and it made you regard the interaction a little less harshly.  “I couldn’t just leave him there. Not when he has a dream to fulfill.” While you were still debating on whether Luffy was a real person, there wasn’t any denying that he searched for the good in people. Whatever it was he’d seen in Zoro told Luffy he was a good guy.  “So,” you drawled out the o, “he told you to get lost and for some reason your brain heard those words as, ‘follow your dreams’.” “He isn’t a bad guy, Doc. I know Zoro is more than just a pirate hunter with a scary nickname. He is someone with a dream, just like you, and I’m going to make sure he reaches it.”

Looking at Zoro now, you could see what Luffy saw in him. Sure, he was quick to anger and even more quick to say shit without thinking it through, but who wasn’t at times? You had experienced first hand the good that lived inside of him. 

He’d helped you when he didn’t have to when you were sick. He shared a part of himself, a small part but still a part, to see who he was underneath all the attitude. While you weren’t in the business of hurting anyone, you debated on whether letting him train you would at least make you useful enough to save other members of your crew - maybe Zoro - if something came up. 

You did hit someone with a pot and punch Zoro in his face. What could learning a few moves going to do? 

“Alright, demon pirate hunter, I’ll consider it.”

—————————

He wanted to throttle Luffy. 

The way you kept looking at him - saying his nickname - was stirring something foreign in his chest. He may not know exactly what it was but he didn’t have too. His body was telling him plainly he should take back his invitation to spend more time alone with you. You were only going to get in the way of his goal. 

All of those made sense why he should retract his invitation and head back to the Merry. And yet…

“If it pumps up your ego, I’ll say it as many times as you like. For a price.” 

You wiggled your eyebrows at him and it was so unexpected Zoro wanted to laugh. His offer to help train you had been in the back of his mind, but when he went to offer it, it’d gone rougher than he’d intended. He hadn’t meant to make you feel bad - to call you a liability.  It wasn’t that he thought you would be an actual liability for Luffy. 

You were a liability for him. 

The way you were looking at him now, the smile on your face, gave him all the warning he needed to know you were a dangerous wildcard. He’d made a promise to Kuina and you felt like the one thing that could keep him from it. 

Whatever the feelings you were stirring in him were something he needed to be wary of. Zoro wasn’t going to have any of it. He made a promise a long time ago and he wasn’t going to let you or anyone else get in the way of him keeping it. 

He was so lost in thought that he wasn’t aware you’d gotten so close. It wasn’t until your fingers slid over his ear, placing something behind it, that he was jolted back into the present. 

“Oh, shit I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Your voice was breathy and sweet with your wide eyes looking up at him with something dangerously close to reverence. Close like at the dinner table. Close like when he’d tumbled out of the well and landed on top of you. Zoro still had the way your body felt under him burned into his memory. One he’d tried to erase with the bottles of liquor that now sat empty inside his room. 

His hand moved up to feel what you’d placed behind his ear, and his fingertips were greeted by the soft give of flowers. 

“Did you seriously just put flowers in my hair?”

Your response was maddening. Zoro watched as you brought your hands up to join your shrug, as if he wasn’t standing there, flowers now pinched between his fingers. 

“I think you look cute.”

Cute. 

“Yeah. That’s not me.”

In a show that it wasn’t him, that you and your stupid flower giving were just another nuisance, he opened his fingers and let them fall to the ground. Zoro watched as your eyes that had been brimming with sunshine were darkened by clouds of sadness. Even your earlier giddy step was replaced by slouched shoulders that suddenly looked as if the world weighed heavily on them. 

“Okay.”

Your reply was meek. If he wasn’t straining to hear it he would’ve missed it. You didn’t give him another glance or yell at him for being an ass. That was what he had expected; what he was still waiting for. Zoro had known you for a couple of days and within that time came to learn you were the most maddening person he’d ever met - second to Luffy. This? He didn’t like this. He liked it better when you fought back. When you told him what an asshole he was and when you touched him without thinking. 

Zoro watched as you went back to gently maneuvering your knife under the bark; skilled hands that removed pieces of that weird-looking fungus. You pulled an empty glass from your bag and, with the same gentleness, pushed it past the lip of the bottle to hold it inside. 

Cute. 

That’s what she’d called him. 

I am not cute. I’m the demon pirate hunter, Roronoa Zoro. 

He could feel his jaw flexing at the thought. Cute. Zoro has been called many things in his life, but cute was never one of them. His hand clenched and unclenched on the Wado Ichimonji as if asking - begging - what he should do. 

He couldn’t stay here much longer. Zoro didn’t know what to say and you obviously had no intention of speaking to him anytime soon. 

“Fuck this,” he whispered as he stalked off back out of the trees. 

He made it to the edge of the clearing where the sun fully broke free from the shade of leaves when you called to him. 

“Try not to get lost, Zoro. We both know you’ve got shit directional

skills.” 

He refused to admit he was happy to hear you say something. Even if that something was your usual shit-talking. Zoro grunted as a reply and quickly went back to walking out of the clearing when something - small and pure white - caught his eye out of his peripherals. 

It was huddled against the bark of a tree. Its petals were open and stark against the darkness. It took him a moment to recognize those white petals. What he found amusing was how the flower always seemed to be carrying its own weight on its shoulders; the neck of it dropping down like it’d just received devastating news. Zoro didn’t know why he gently plucked it from its resting spot. He couldn’t explain why after that he turned to head back in your direction. 

Zoro was trying to get away from you and here he was bringing a fucking flower back. You turned at his approach, your mouth already forming over some word. You never spoke what it was you wanted to say and you didn’t seem like you wanted to try either. 

Zoro placed the snowdrop behind your ear. Perfectly placing it to where the hanging bulb hugged the top of your ear to hang against your hair. 

“You left to go find flowers?”

Zoro shook his head. He stepped back just enough to see how it looked. He was a dumbass for doing this. 

“No, I was going to head back to the ship-“

“Figures-“

“When I saw this snowdrop by itself,” Zoro continued over you. “It made me think of you.”

“That feels oddly specific.”

He didn’t like how you were looking at him. More accurately, he didn’t like how you looking at him was making him feel. 

“It’s a snowdrop. They’re one of the most delicate flowers in the world.”

There it was. The darkening of those previous clouds now cracked to life with the spark of your anger. Zoro had to admit, he enjoyed getting you all riled up. What he wouldn’t tell you, is because they only grew at certain times and usually in the snow, it made them one of the most resilient flowers because they could grow under any conditions. 

“Are you calling me delicate?”

A huff left him as his eyes rolled up into the treeline. 

“I was trying to apologize earlier.”

“Oh.”

You’d started all that storm building just to deflate but also- 

“You sure have a way with words,” he teased. 

“My bedside manner is not the best, I’ll admit. I once told a dying man a joke about a pirate and marine having an entanglement. Naan said it probably wasn’t the most appropriate time.”

For some reason, Zoro could picture it. A man dying and you, being your nervous self, trying to make him laugh to ease his passing. The thought of it alone made a smile curl at his lips, and he tried to gently shake it away. To look at anything else but you. 

“What do I gotta do to hear one of these world-famous Doc jokes?”

He waited until his face was neutral to look back at you. Both hands rested on his swords as he watched you fill the bottle to the brim and place it securely inside your satchel. 

“For that kind of service? You have to be dying.”

“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

You were a pain in the ass. A pain in his ass. From the moment he met you until now and probably would continue to be. A pain that made him think of things outside of his goal. You made him think past his promise. Who was he if he didn’t keep it? He should’ve never offered to train you or willingly spend more time with you. He was going to have to take it back. It didn’t matter if it hurt your feelings or made you hate him. Maybe that’s what he needed to do to make you hate him-

“What are you doing?”

Zoro prayed that his face was devoid of any emotion. The panic that bloomed in his chest didn’t spread to where you could see. You’d placed your hand over your chest in a way Zoro knew too well. 

“I,” it was the first time Zoro ever heard your full name. “Promise to be the biggest pain in your - Roronoa Zoro’s ass - from now until whenever.”

For the second time, his hand was clutching onto the Wado Ichimonji today. While you spoke, Zoro could swear he saw flashes of Kuina standing behind you. The look of disappointment growing on her face. 

“You made a promise.”

Zoro couldn’t bring himself to speak. He couldn’t trust what he would say. So, he simply turned back on his heel and made a beeline back for the edge of the trees. This time when he reached it he didn’t stop. He had to get back to the safety of the ship where he could barricade himself from you behind wooden doors and booze because Zoro could really use a drink.

————————-

It has been two days inside the fog. Two days of Zoro avoiding you like you carried the plague back with you from Irkhaven. 

When you’d made that promise it was only meant to be good fun. You replayed over in your mind to see if you’d said something wrong - done something wrong to warrant the sudden extreme cold shoulder. 

Besides the time you’d been with Nami and Usopp, all of you shared thoughts about the naval battle that had happened and, who could forget, his very real vice-admiral of a grandpa. Who could launch cannonballs like paperweights. After that, Zoro didn’t come around you or close to you.

Sure, you would see him when he lounged on the deck napping like a cat in open spots. Hell, if Zoro wasn’t sleeping he was either drinking or training. You’d catch glimpses of him on the upper deck lifting weights with his arms and, sometimes, his mouth. 

The first time you saw him lifting eighty pounds with his teeth, you had about a thousand questions racing through your mind. If you thought he would answer you if you spoke, you might have asked him. 

You weren’t sure why it bothered you so much. It shouldn’t have even mattered whether he talked to you or not, but he’d offered to train you. Why bother asking to do something that required his time if he wasn’t willing to give it? These sorts of questions had been your own personal plague since he’d begun to give you the cold shoulder. 

You’d been sitting with your legs hanging out of the side of where the cannonball had blown an unfortunate hole through the Merry’s railing. It killed you to see her so broken; her intricate leafling design ruined all because of what felt like a family spat. Letting out a sigh, you pulled your legs out from over the side with a hand holding onto the rail so you didn’t fall into the sea. 

Once you were securely standing without fear of going overboard, you wrapped the leather cord that secured the pages of your journal around it. You were just finishing up tucking it in when Usopp began to shout, “I see something.” 

How anyone could see anything in this mess was beyond you, but then again Luffy was at the front of the Merry using his nose to guide you guys out of the fog so…yeah. Stranger things could and did happen. 

It was enough to garner your attention and bring you walking up to join the rest of the crew that had assembled. 

“I see nothing,” you stated. 

“I don’t know how anyone could see anything in this soup,” Nami agreed as she stirred the ship in the direction Luffy called. 

“You guys don’t see the red lights? How can you not see them?”

“Because, Usopp, I don't have eyes like an Eagle.”

You could feel the happiness your comment brought him as he continued to point in the direction of said light.

“Just keep your eyes posted right here in the center and you’ll see it, Doc. 

“3 degrees starboard, Nami and keep it straight.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t sit up there Luffy,” you called up to where he sat, legs wide, on the Merry’s headpiece. “What happens if you slip?”

“You're his crew mate. Not his mother. He doesn’t need you coddling him.”

You turned to find Zoro standing a few feet behind Usopp. He wasn’t looking at you but he’d just spoken to you. His first words in two days and it didn’t surprise you in the least they were his usual asshole tone. 

“Oh, so he can speak. What a shocker.” 

Zoro side-eyed you but still refused to acknowledge your presence. The soft bruise that was there two days ago at Irkhaven was all but a faded memory. You were tempted to make it a fresh one. 

“Okay you two let’s focus on-“ Usopp stopped mid-sentence as his eyes scanned over something in the distance. “What’s a baratie?”

You looked where he was and finally saw it. Red neon was bleeding its way into the fog. It was enough to make you forget about Zoro, your lack of clean clothes, or what had happened the last couple of days. It was land. You were finally going to actually put your feet down on something solid that wasn’t just the Merry. 

Nami stirred the Merry in and easily parked it at the next available dock. Immediately, people rushed out to begin tying the ship's ropes to posts to secure it in place. 

“Is it just me or does this look like a restaurant?” 

You meant your question to be open-ended. To allow anyone to answer in case what you were seeing was in fact a floating restaurant in the middle of the ocean. However, you were leaning against the rail next to Nami, with whom you pressed arm and arm. 

“I think it is.”

You were all still staring over the railing when Luffy asked excitedly, “Do you guys know what this means?”

“We stock up on supplies and keep going so the marines can’t find us?”

“We head back to Syrup village where it’s safe?”

“No - let’s go eat!”

You felt the blood drain from your face. You didn’t have much in the way of something to wear at an establishment like this. You were willing to bet you couldn’t just walk in wearing - or smelling - like you all did. You were getting ready to tell Luffy you’d hang back on the ship when you felt a hand gently wrap itself in yours. 

Glancing down at your interwoven hands and back up, you found Nami, her lips together in a soft smile, as she gave you a light tug to follow her. 

“Come on. You can borrow some of my clothes.”

You let out a raspberry, your hand squeezing hers briefly in relief. 

“Nami, you are a lifesaver.”

“That fish better have a bar.”

You weren’t going to say it out loud, but you agreed with Zoro. You were going to need the blissful ignorance of alcohol to make it through a dinner where you possibly ended up sitting next to him. 

---------------

As always, thank you so much for reading. Comments and reblogs are welcome.

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[armyvulcan]

ok, ok, w knowledge that emmrich was the LEAST romanced companion it has me churning my noggin for EMPHASIS of how rook and emmrich function as a couple

1) when emmrich heads to the kitchen after his routine studies, he anticipates his favorite blend of tea, but smiles when the teapot is already steaming, and his particular blend of herbs and spices are already awaiting in his preferred fainted lilac teacup he brought from the necropolis

2) after unsheathing her filthy, mud-ridden and bloody armor, rook’s body whines for an hour long soak to her (un)surprise of a bath, hot and humid of elfroot, and bergamot, bubbling over onto the tile, her silk robe — deep, blue/red purple — draped on the side table

3) in their few evenings free, away from their companions and other gods-fucked-the-world disasters, they read; rook enticed w missives from inquistor lavellan, unaware at the few moans leaving her lips as emmrich massages her foot, his thumb working the ball of it — he wonders if she knows she’s a toe-tipper

4) emmrich arrived at his wash basin, his face caked with soot and debris, making his crinkles more prominent, doesn’t question the newly wrapped package of his preferred lotion, and face oil, but instead applies it more liberally in his cleansing — it’s rook’s turn to sleep over

5) at the conclusion of their group council, where tensions are high and words were strewn across without remorse, and everyone left unsteady, unconvinced, rook doesn’t move from her chair, but instead burrows her head in emmrich’s navel, and huffs small, agonizing cries, emmrich’s hold on her hair tightens as they grow louder

6) when faced between his life-long determination, or the reanimation of his first, his once only, companion, panic barely sheds light to emmrich’s body besides the white knuckling of his grip on the anatomy table, and rook to the left of him, her arms draped over him, secure and steady, ready to catch him should he fall

Tldr; don’t you DARE tell me they don’t have such an understanding for each other, their love is sooooo fucking pure besides the crazy sex they have

[vancalox]

very still, without reaching

(ashara lavellan x solas. 2250 words. post-solavellan ending. hurt/comfort. major veilguard spoilers. read on ao3)

The nature of her own regrets become apparent soon enough. Mostly, as they appear to her in the fade, they relate to her regretting so very little.

There are exceptions, of course. She and Solas pass them sometimes on long, silent walks together; small, ugly things carved into barren rock, almost impossible to catch in the shadow of Solas's own towering monuments of despair. But they are there, and Ashara can always sense them before she sees them. Her least favorite recurrence pertains to a rock she threw at some shemlen farmers when she was a girl. They had returned later in the day, but they could not distinguish the difference between Dalish vallaslin , and so chose to take out their vengeance on the whole of her clan, instead. 

They had never truly forgiven her. Of all the statues of contrition this place has manifested over the months they've been here, this is the one she can't yet bring herself to face.

But there are, unexpectedly, great works of beauty here, too. Oftentimes she sees herself and Solas carved into the cliff faces, or jutting out of canyons. Old echoes of embraces, stolen kisses, intertwined fingers. She suspects their prison doesn't quite know what to do with these complicated memories, but it does its best to use them against her even so. She had regretted those moments once, after all. Or at least she thought she had. Her time in this place offers an alternative school of thought; that she had never truly regretted the choices leading her down this dinan'shiral of theirs, but rather the heart of her shame is more that she could never truly bring herself to regret them at all.

Once the fade understood this, it course-corrected. Now if she sees those statues at all, it is because she wants to.

Solas has made little progress. It is harder for him, with his regrets so numerous and so at odds with his ego. On a good day he makes her worst mistakes look infinitesimal by comparison. Sometimes he disappears for days on end, wandering aimlessly, pulled one way or another by the compass of his guilt alone. When he returns, as he always does, he says nothing, only holds her very tightly and does not let go.

In all the months (or perhaps even longer) that they've been here, they have spoken very little. More time is needed before either one of them is ready to face that looming conversation. For now, quiet comfort takes priority. For now, sex suffices. For now they sit on the edge of yawning chasms for hours on end, watching the shifting rocks, the starless skies, the shadows in mournful, flittering dance at the edge of their vision, and find solace through a tender silence in which no words are yet necessary. And when he begins to get it in his head that perhaps they are necessary, she stops him with a long, languid kiss until she feels those worries melt away between them.

It is a terrible place he's built, but it is not so terrible facing it together.

And it gets easier still. The nature of the Evanuris' prison was always to contain the regrets of beings who thought themselves gods, but she is not a god, and neither is he. Her regrets are not so insurmountable to overcome, given time, and soon, slowly, she finds the world around her starts to mirror the world inside her. At first, a singular star in the sky. Then, below it, a wisp of elfroot growing between the crack of a barren rock. The fade cannot be mapped by mere cartography or magic, but a learned mage can always find their way with enough discipline. And Ashara was, before stepping through that final rift, a very learned mage.

When Solas departs on his lonely journeys, she cultivates the place in secret. She was never one for dishonesty, and so it's the only real secret she has. She shapes the space sporadically over many months in the image of her late mother's patch of camp among their clan. With some . . . creative liberties here and there. The tent is warm and green like her mother's was, but with all the ample space and utility (and — admittedly — luxury) she had grown accustomed to over her many years as the Inquisitor. Some ugly shemlen cottage wouldn't do, and she never had a full night sleep in her Skyhold quarters, anyway.

She dreams up the smell of incense, and many multicolored rugs, and a bed that's warm but not too soft. Books; a table with two chairs; a big bathtub to share. The small fire pit in the centre might have burned the whole tent down around her were it abiding by the laws of the physical world, but it does not. It abides her.

The hardest part was the damned trees. Several times she nearly lost everything, locked in a seemingly endless standoff against the will of the very prison itself. But Solas made this place to contain monsters, and Ashara need only remind herself that she is not one. She never was. Whether the magic of this place recognises that — or if she truly did best the fade by sheer audacity alone — she couldn't really say. All she knows is that one day the trees stood tall — leafless but very much alive — as if they'd been there all along, and her impossible little clearing was all but complete.

"I've found a place I think you ought to see," she tells Solas soon after, reunited in their usual spot after several long days apart.

He seems especially exhausted this time around. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and breathes deeply. "Then I am yours to guide, as you see fit." 

He clings tightly to her hand as she leads them on, aided by the lonely light of her beloved star. Samahl , as she's come to calling it — named after her nephew. Solas would see Samahl too if he ever looked up, but he keeps his eyes defiantly low, avoiding the overhead statues of a handsome, crumbling man with Mythal's vallaslin , whose wounded gaze seem to follow Solas wherever he goes.

He will find it in himself to meet those eyes one day, a long time from now. In the meantime she lifts her head to the sky for both of them, and presses onward through the gloom.

He stops short when he sees the clearing of trees in the distance, bordered by infinite wasteland. Ashara squeezes his fingers with her own and urges him forward. "Come."

"That . . . cannot be."

"It is. Come."

Soon the cracked earth beneath their feet sprouts small, unassuming blades of grass. The riverbed they pass remains as dry as bone, but carries the unmistakable smell of wet earth after recent rain. Closest to the centre of the clearing, Ashara herself notes leaves on trees that were not there the day before. 

Solas's brow furrows, and he makes a strange noise when they reach the point where the grass is most concentrated. As it exists now, the grass is too patchy to be called a meadow, and yet it grows strongest and greenest in a perfect circle around her little tent as if it were the sun itself, nourishing by proximity. 

The tent glows faintly, lit up by the hearth and candlelight within. But it is a strange glow, which seems to extend to the whole of the outer clearing, cutting through the endless mist and shadow. For months her world has been a haze of muted gray and monochromes. This space, by comparison, bears a subtle vibrancy she might've missed if she hadn't grown so used to its absence.

The violets of his eyes are clearly visible for the first time since they arrived, shining as they scan about the clearing. "How can it be that I feel you so vividly in this place?" he finally whispers, incredulous.

"I made it," she says. "It's mine. Will you come with me a little further? I didn't bring us here to watch grass grow."

She had hoped he might at last be baited into a smile, or a sultry retort, but he only frowns at her with those same sad, uncertain eyes, and takes her hand once more. 

"It's much larger inside," she says. "Come."

"As you say."

He has to duck his head to slip inside the tarp, but the interior is as large and spacious as promised. Her fire bathes the walls in bright flickering hues of yellow and orange, and Ashara watches him give an involuntary shiver of pleasure as its warmth passes over and through him. It's a nice sight. Her pyromancy has inspired no shortage of pain and terror over the years, but in truth, it was always watching the relief of her companions faces when she warmed their soup in midwinter that had made her feel the most accomplished. 

Maybe she could dream up soup next? There are several potted plants next to her little bed. Elfroot and crystal grace, and some others even she doesn't recognise. Not quite right for soup, and yet . . . Had she put those there? Or has this dream of hers now taken a life of its own? She ponders as much, settling in amid her thick fur blankets, waiting for Solas to compose himself.

"I made this place for you as well," she tells him when he makes no move to join her.

He shakes his head despairingly. "No."

"What?" Ashara scowls. " Yes ."

"No."

" Yes ."

"This cannot be, Ashara," he snaps. "The very will of this domain is such that —"

"I don't know what to tell you. I outwilled it."

He scoffs. "The greatest tyrants of the Evanuris could not outwill it."

"I am not the Evanuris. Neither was your little bird friend, and she flew free."

"That is different. Rook had —" 

He stops himself. For a moment he looks briefly shocked, as if struck. And then his features settle. Lips pressed tight, eyes down. He seems impossibly small inside this place, and not just because it's bigger on the inside. The light doesn't touch him quite so eagerly as it touches everything else. His very presence in her room casts a long, misshapen shadow which seems to crawl unnaturally across the floor, cutting through the glow of her fire until it's very nearly pooled at her feet. 

A chill follows. 

" Varric ." Ashara holds his gaze in silence until he looks at her. "Deiadre had Varric ."

Beside her, a candle flickers. "Yes."

Ashara reminds herself: his regrets made this place. They unmade Skyhold, and nearly the world itself. They will do worse to them both now, if she allows it. 

"She had Varric, Solas."

Even in the rapidly dimming light, she can make out the unsteady rise of his chest. "She had Varric," he echoes.

"And you have me."

Solas's face falls. But then the room brighten. A little. 

He lets out a long, unsteady breath and closes the distance between them. Her little wooden bed creaks under his weight. She shifts the blankets to better drape over his broad shoulders, and he reaches out in turn, hesitating before resting his hand on her thigh. He leans down to press a kiss to the gooseflesh raised on her clavicle, courtesy of the lingering chill.

"That you would offer such a thing at all is more a testament to you than any clemency I've not earned," he murmurs against her collar. He tilts his head up as if to look upon the room, though his gaze remains soft and steadily focused on her. "This is a gift, asha'era. I did not mean to undermine your efforts, or the feat of having made this. It is perfect, just as you are. But it may not survive my presence."

"Why not? I did." 

Now Solas looks away. She cringes; inhabiting the fade has done nothing to improve her eloquence. Quickly she continues, "But even so; if it does not, we'll just have to get over it and bring it back come morning."

"And do you think you'll feel the same a dozen centuries from now? Perpetually warring with my regret?"

"I know which side I'd place my bets in a fight between regret and love."

If he has a retort for that, he's wise enough to keep it to himself.

Time in the fade passes imperceptibly. Surely their kiss lasts days, and what comes after even longer. The candles are less a gauge for the passing minutes but instead the strength of her resolve when his own doubts creep in. When the light flickers, when the incense sours, when the wind outside picks up to a roaring howl; then she focuses her efforts. Her fingers scraping down his chest, a well timed roll of the hips, a kiss with enough tongue to remind him how much he used to enjoy using his own. And still does, apparently.

In the morning — or what, at least, finally feels like morning — the trees have dried up and grass outside their tent is dead. But the tent itself is warm as ever and the air outside feels crisp and fresh and, above her, if she squints, she can make out the faint but ever-present glint of her Samahl in the sky. 

The grass will grow back. She will see to it . . .

. . . Tomorrow. This morning, she would sooner crawl back into bed and see to other things.

[inquisimer]

For arlow and viago 😭 ❛ i don’t want to understand, i want you to stay. ❜

THANK YOUUUUUUU I am ALL up in my feels about them ;-; this is set well pre-canon, right after Arlow is released from (my version of) "how not to get possessed" Crow Edition

Arlow de Riva & Viago | 972 words | cw: implied/referenced torture, child abuse | @dadrunkwriting - veilguard

-

She is ragged, rubbed raw when they dump her on the stoop of Viago's estate. They rap on the door, once, twice, three times, because she could not lift an arm to do it herself. And then they leave her there, shivering and utterly drained, still bleeding where the manacles had held her. Still aching where the Fade had dug its claws into her.

But she is alive. That is more than most of the others can say.

Viago opens the door himself--of course he does, because he does not employ a staff, would not give anyone such access, no matter how thoroughly vetted. She wonders, as a soft string of curses fall from his lips, how they even knew to leave her here. Its location is a closely guarded secret.

(She will never know about the gold and threats exchanged, when first she was taken. As soon as she has passed, he insisted. Not a moment longer.)

His arms are gentle, slotting carefully under her legs and at her shoulders; he is trying to avoid the bruises, the welts, the weeping wounds. If she could find her voice, she would tell him not to bother--there is nowhere that does not ache, in some shape or form. But he is trying, and she focuses on that, rather than how the world spins as he lifts her, carries her down the hallway to a familiar room. It is not hers, but she spends a great deal of time here, being poked and prodded--poisoned--pressed for answers and learning how to describe what he needs to know.

The cot she usually sits on is made up with softer blankets and pillows than is typical. As if it were waiting for her, and knew that she would not be in a state for the harsh, cold crinkle of paper. But that is foolish--there is no one in the estate except Viago, and Viago is not the type to prepare such creature comforts. If her mind were not so muddled--

She blinks, and Viago presses a vial to her lips. He does not need to tell her to drink; she lets him tip it down her throat without hesitation. Bitter elfroot, and acidity. At her side, over her knuckles, and where it is seeping down her temple, blood clots as her skin knits itself back together. Though the gash over her shoulder blade only gets about two-thirds of the way there, and she knows that it will be a scar.

Experimentally, she reaches for it with her magic. It is new, this power within her, and awkward like a third arm, or second tongue. It is also weak, drained by the price the Crows have exacted. But she has paid it--she is alive. She has been judged, and not found wanting.

For once. Perhaps for the last time.

"Stop that," Viago snaps, as if he can sense that she is pushing past limits that have long since been flattened. "You will make it worse."

The tendril of mana blinks out into nothing. He cuts her ruined tunic away, pursing his lips together as each snip reveals bruises, burns, and more ribs than he'd been able to see three weeks ago. But he is not surprised. Necessary, as so many painful things are. When the pain fades, confidence will take root--in confidence, safety.

With short, clinical strokes, he cleans her skin and a tiny sigh parts Arlow's lips. She has nearly forgotten what it is like to be touched with an intention that is kind.

He takes his time. Tends each of the wounds with the appropriate salve, or balm, or serum. His gloved hands are more gentle than they have ever been when he urges her to lean forward, but he offers no apology when he draws the needle through her flesh, sealing another mark into her skin.

When he is finished, he wraps her in fresh clothes and brings her to rest before the fire. Hands her another potion, diluted this time, and gives strict instructions to sip, slowly.

Despite the fire, despite the ghost of his care lingering over her skin, Arlow feels a chill. This is the part where he leaves. She knows--understands, even. So much more than a child should have to. Of all the ways Viago covers his skin, he has never treated her with kid gloves.

She does not want him to leave. But it is not her place to ask him to stay.

Her eyes drift closed; for a moment, her heart stutters, afraid of the darkness that waits behind her lids. But the fire makes it warm and orange; the cold and dank to which she has been relegated remains firmly--if a bit too near--in her memory.

In that halfway place between waking and sleep, she imagines tender hands tucking a blanket around her. Shifting her on the pillow so that her neck will not be so terribly cricked in the morning. It is nice of her mind, to cushion her recovery with such niceties.

Gloved knuckles brush a stray hair back behind her ear. A softness that she will not remember in the morning, nearly gone to the Fade already as she is. Which is why he offers it, of course.

"Well done, parajito," Viago murmurs. She will not remember that, either, or the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth. When he is stern and exacting in the morning, she will not remember that he was proud of her, or relieved to have her back under his purview.

But that does not change the fact--he is.

He tucks the blanket more snugly under her chin, smooths the wrinkles over her legs. For the first time in three weeks, she is resting easy--and he leaves, for the first time in three weeks, to do the same.

[rookinthecrownest]

Bedtime Stories For a Demon, Night 3: The Girl Who Knew Despair (Lucanis x Rook Fanfic)

*Endgame spoilers for Veilguard ahead

** No seriously if you havent played to the end of the game dont read this

Soft candlelight flickering. An exuberant chorus of voices outside the door, celebrating victory. The smell of alcohol and Embrium and Elfroot in the Diamond’s infirmary. The Cantori Diamond, still standing like the rest of Treviso. Free of the Blight and the wrath of a God’s anger.

Thanks to Rook.

Madeleina.

Lucanis sits on a wooden chair by her bed. He asked Teia for a private room in the infirmary – a request she was happy to accommodate for Treviso’s saviour.

As grateful as he is for her help in Treviso – and he is incredibly grateful, he’s equally infuriated by her recklessness in battle. Not many can claim to have injured a Blighted dragon and lived to tell the tale, but even fewer would have been stupid enough to try and conceal a mortal wound until they were bleeding out on the ground.

He remembers the blood spilling like a crimson waterfall from her mouth. Choked gasps for air as she drowned in it. The thud of her body as it hit the ground while Viago was mid-sentence thanking her for her help.

A shard of ice from the dragon’s last attack before it fled had lodged itself into her chest, piercing her right lung. She must have quickly removed it before anyone else noticed, and her thick mage’s overcoat hid the worst of the damage. The dragon’s attacks only left them with enough time to worry about their own survival – hurling cold, sharp death their way with brutal force and terrifying speed. Even with Spite’s wings, he was barely able to dodge them.

He and Davrin quickly dragged her back to the Diamond, with the help of Teia and Viago to clear the way for them.

Madeleina was still choking on her own blood.

Hemothorax, he thought bitterly. Mierda.

The idiot actually apologized to him for getting her blood on his nice coat while her death rattles filled the air. He is fairly certain he told her to shut up. He desperately hoped those were not the last words he would ever say to her.

Lucanis started barking out orders for supplies – alcohol, a thick needle, and a mage who could heal. He needed to decompress the pressure on her lung and get the blood out before it completely collapsed. One of their mages, Lucrezia, stood at the ready to assist. She had given Madeleina a cloth to bite down on. Davrin, Teia, and Viago stood around the bed and held her limbs down.

Mercifully, Spite was quiet enough to let him get through the procedure. One he hadn’t done in a long time, but still remembered well enough.

He poured alcohol over exposed chest to sanitize the skin.

He inserted the needle through the fourth and fifth ribs in the mid-axillary line. The mage sucked the blood out of her chest, using wind magic to create a vacuum. The blood came flowing out and spattered onto the floor. Agonized cries through the fabric of the towel. Terror on her face, limbs shaking, while he stitched her back up. The mage casts a healing spell to help mend the rest of the damage and hopefully restore some of what was lost.

Then, silence as she finally fell asleep.

Davrin, the new member of the group, stood beside her after Teia and Viago had left.

“Is she going to be alright?” He asked quietly.

Lucanis didn’t have an answer for him. He was fairly certain she was out of immediate life-threatening danger. But she lost a lot of blood, and nearly lost a lung. Only time would tell how well she would recover. If she would fully recover.

“I’ll watch over her – you should go back to the Eluvian. See if you can help Neve and the others in Minrathous. It might not be too late” He answered, nodding towards the door. “We’ll meet you back at the Lighthouse when she wakes up”

When, not if, because he refused to let her die for the crime of choosing to help him. He didn’t need that on his conscience.

Mercifully, Davrin didn’t fight him on it and left soon after.

He’s not sure exactly how much time has passed. There’s no windows in the infirmary, so he measures it in forehead towel changes. Four by now, at least. Maybe a few hours he estimates.

A soft and pained groan, and the rustling of bed sheets fill the quiet room. He looks up to see Madeleina’s green eyes fluttering. She hisses and holds her right side, her face twisting with pain. She coughs, but this time, no blood comes sputtering out of her mouth. The warm towel on her forehead slips off.

“L-Lucanis?” she asks quietly, blinking at him with glassy eyes. She groans again “Ahh… Venhedis…”

“Hey, take it easy” Lucanis holds a hand in front of her, “Try not to move too much right now”

Madeleina frowns, and speaks with no small amount of strained effort “We … won … right?”

“We did. But you almost died” He points to her chest, “Would have died, if that wound kept bleeding out. Why did you try to hide it?”

“Didn’t want … to ruin the …  ‘we survived… a Blighted dragon attack’… party” She smiled weakly. Her voice was raspy and uneven. She was gasping between words. “You … know me … I hate to bring… down the mood…”

Lucanis clapped a hand to his forehead, “Mierda… unbelievable”

His frustration only grows when he sees her trying to sit up, grunting with effort. “What did I just say? You’ll rip your stitches.”

I worked hard on those, he wants to add.

“Min…rathous …. Need to get … back” She winces as another wave of pain sweeps through her body. Madeleina manages to get herself upright and leans against the headboard of the bed. “Neve … Shadow Dragons…”

Lucanis frowned deeply, “You’re not going anywhere. And if you are, it’s back to the Lighthouse.”

Madeleina sighs and leans her head back, hitting it against the headboard softly. She looks utterly defeated.

“They need my help Lucanis…” she whispers, staring at the opposite wall. She’s starting to blink away tears. “I … I left my city to burn”

He’s not sure how to comfort her. He settles by saying what is in his heart, uncertain if it will be enough to assuage her guilt.

“But Treviso lives to fight another day because of you. Free of the blight, free of Ghilan’nain” He pulls his chair closer to the edge of her bed. “And none of us will ever forget it. I won’t forget it”

Lucanis realizes she was forced into an impossible decision. Madeleina was a Shadow Dragon, she was from Minrathous. He didn’t expect her to aid Treviso. But the relief that flooded his chest when he saw her come to his home’s defense was indescribable.

A tense quiet passes between them. He watches, helplessly, as she bites her tongue to keep a deluge of tears from streaming down her face.

“You saved a lot of people today” Lucanis says quietly.

Madeleina shuts her eyes tight and bit down on her bottom lip. Her voice is quivering as she replies, “And doomed so many more.”

“You don’t know that” He leans forward. “Davrin left some time ago to help, he might have- “

“Don’t” She hisses, her chest heaving. “Don’t … do that”  

His brows lift in surprise, taken aback. “Do what?”

The defeated look on her face as she turns to him makes his heart sink into his stomach.

“Give me hope …” Madeleina says weakly, as her shoulders start quaking. “I … I don’t … deserve…”  

He isn’t sure if letting her cry it out is the right thing to do, but lets the sound of her quiet sobbing fill the little room. The weight, the magnitude of the choice she had to make is not lost on him. How unfair it all was. Few things in life are fair, he knows that better than anyone. But forcing someone as young as her make that kind of choice had to be up there.

He sees Spite manifesting beside her bed, a purple doppelganger of him. Spite leans in closer, it’s face – his face, twisting with anger.

Smells like salt and ice and smoke. Not right. Not RIGHT. The demon howls. Lucanis pinches his nose bridge and sighs. Spite’s gaze drifts between Madeleina and Lucanis. He frowns at Lucanis, Make. Her. Right.

“Mierda, not now Spite…” Lucanis whispers, exasperated.

Madeleina sniffles and stops crying for a moment. Her eyes are red and puffy. She wipes her nose with the sleeve of her tunic. “Spite’s bothering you?”

Lucanis crosses his arms over his chest and frowns, “Don’t worry about Spite. You have enough to deal with right now”

She looks around the room, as if she could see him.

“Would Spite … like a story?” Madeleina asks, after a few moments of silence.

Spite tilts his head and leans in closer to Madeleina. He grins maniacally and nods. Yes. Story. That will make her Right.

Lucanis is quick to answer, “Absolutely not. You need to rest, Madeleina. Leave Spite to me”

He’s still not used to the feeling of her name on his tongue.

She sucks in a deep breath, one hand holding her right side. Then, she’s looking at him with an uncharacteristically stern look on her face. “You … always say that”

“Say what?”

“That Spite… is only your problem” She grips her blanket tighter.

“He’s my demon. Of course he’s my problem”

Madeleina sniffles again, her brows drawing together. “That’s not … how being on a team works, Lucanis. We help each other”

“You’ve helped me more than enough” He replies, gesturing around the room, “You saved my home. I can’t ask any more of you than you’ve already given”

Madeleina blinks slowly and draws her knees to her chest, considering his words.

“I … want to help …” She frowns, and she’s staring at the opposite wall again.

Spite’s apparition has disappeared, but he can still feel the demon rattling in the back of his mind.

“You can help by resting” Lucanis rises from his chair, “Are you hungry? I can bring you something to eat”

Madeleina shakes her head. “No… but … will you stay? Just for a little bit”

He stands above her for a moment, letting the request hang between them. He knows he should let her get some rest before they make their way back to the Lighthouse. Before she has to face the other side of her decision. Yet, he finds himself increasingly unable to say no to her bright green eyes and tired smile, and that worries him deeply. What it means, what it could mean.

He sits back down in the small wooden chair, and she gives him a weak smile.

“Thank you”

“It’s the least I can do” he returns the smile in kind.

Madeleina is quiet for a moment. Thoughtful.

She raises one hand, and it starts glowing a familiar blue.

“Madeleina – “

“Please – just let me tell the story” He knew her well enough to know that tone would brook no argument. He can do nothing but gesture for her to continue.

“At least one person ought to know”

Her face awash in eerie blue light, Madeleina flicks her wrist.

She looks like she is struggling to keep the illusion alive. He sees a bird’s eye view of a small village, nestled between a dense forest and a mountain range. It flickers in and out and lacks the usual care and detail of her illusions.

“Once… upon a time … in a land far, far away…” her voice is shaking, and she’s using her free hand to keep pressure on her right side. “There was a small farming village. And… in that village… lived a family.”

Another flick of her wrist and the mountainside village vanishes, now replaced by three figures. The man is tall and lanky. He has a lyre strapped to his back. His hair is wild and curly, much like Madeleina’s. His eyes look like hers too. The figure of the woman is maybe a head shorter, with long, pin-straight hair. She has Madeleina’s high cheekbones. The same nose and lips and heart-shaped face. Finally, he sees the figure of a young girl. A young Madeleina. All wiry limbs and wild curls.

“Eurydice, Orpheus and their daughter”

The figures rotate in the air between them.

“Eurydice ran the town’s bakery, and Orpheus played at the local tavern”

The figures ripple and a young Madeleina is now helping the figure of her mother bake bread.

Madeleina’s glassy eyes looked sorrowful.

“They didn’t have much. The village was small… there were no mages … only regular people.”

She smiled ruefully. “But they were happy. Orpheus,” She paused and waved him back into existence, “Kept their home alive with music and stories” He’s playing the lyre for his wife and daughter, while he chases her around an invisible room.

“And Eurydice made sure a warm meal was always on the table”

Her mother brings a plate of something to the young Madeleina, who wastes no time devouring it.

Madeleina sucked in a deep, shaky breath, before continuing.

“One day, their daughter discovers she can use magic”

The figure of young Madeleina is laughing as blue spheres of light dance around her. The figure of her mother brushes a hand through her unruly hair and pulls her into a tight hug. The figures ripple, and she furrows her brow to concentrate harder. They become solid again.

“Her parents are so happy for her. It means she will become Laetan, instead of Soporati. A chance for a better life. Her mother wants to do something for her”

Madeleina winks out of the scene, and Eurydice is pulling a garment out of a small chest.

“A new dress, she thinks… One from her youth. Her daughter is finally big enough to wear it” Madeleina blinks another tear from her eyes. “But wants to dye it her daughter’s favourite colour. She can’t afford a fancy dye but can make her own. Her daughter wants to help. She’s old enough to go pick the elderberries deep in the woods.”

The figure of the mother disappears, and a young Madeleina is in the forest bordering the village, placing berries in a large wicker basket.

“But the girl didn’t know what was coming for them, or she never would have gone to the forest that day”

He frowns, and a feeling of dread takes hold deep in his chest. He knows that whatever comes next is not likely to lead to a happy ending.

“A Venatori blood mage had escaped capture in Ventus.” The young Madeleina flickers out of existence and is replaced with a tall, cloaked figure, holding a stave in one hand and an amulet, glowing bright crimson, in the other.

“He held a dangerous amulet in his possession. The Amulet of Liberum” Madeleina whispers, “Forged by a Dreamer centuries ago, it held a pocket of the Fade inside it. Allowed the wearer to store an infinite number of demons and summon them at will with blood magic”

The cloaked figure arrives at the border of the village, her village. It takes a knife and runs it across his hand. The blood seeps onto the amulet in the other. The bright red glow becomes even more intense, and a horde of demons springs forth. They rampage through the streets, tearing the nameless and faceless villagers apart.

The scene shifts to her parents, backing away from the demons. The father, Orpheus, stands in front of the mother with a small dagger. It does him little good. They are both swiftly torn apart by demons.

The figure of the mage comes back into view, and sucks them back into the amulet, before disappearing.

Madeleina’s expression shifts between anger, grief and sadness. Something he is intimately familiar with.

“The girl comes back from the forest to see her entire village slaughtered”

The form of young Madeleina drops the wicker basket. She is walking through the main path of the village, by ruined houses and bodies torn apart. Bodies of people she once knew.

She comes to a lone house on a hill. Her home.

Madeleina breathes in sharply.

“Madeleina – you don’t have to …” He begins, but she holds a hand up to stop him.

“Yes, I do” she says, resolute. She shifts on the cot and brings the illusion back to life.

The young Madeleina is standing over the bodies of her parents, mutilated beyond recognition. She falls to her knees, and the figure starts screaming. He can almost hear it. The raw anguish rippling in the air like a shockwave.

“She screams and screams until her throat is dry” Madeleina says quietly, “Keeps going until she’s cried herself to sleep.”

The young Madeleina is still on her knees, her eyes closed, and the bodies of her parents disappear.

“In her dreams … a voice finds her in the Fade”

A faceless figure, layered in several layers of tattered cloaks, hovers above her.

“‘Have you lost all hope, child? Has it become too much to bear?’ The voice asks her. And it was … it was all too much …” Madeleina says, her voice barely above a whisper. “The voice offered to take her pain, her regret – everything, away. ‘So much for one so young’ it said”

Lucanis frowns. Spite’s rage prickled under his skin like a starved beast gnawing at the bars of its cage. Spite hates Despair.

He watches as the familiar blue glow of Madeleina’s figure starts to change colour. Veins of black light crawl up her legs.

“The Demon’s name was Despair. And it would eat everything she was, everything she would be”

As the tendrils of black light crawled further and further up her body, Madeleina continued.

“It ate her love, her hope, her joy” her lip quivered, and the figures flickered again. “It ate up her life until nothing was left”

Lucanis made a fist as waves of rage surged through the back of his head, the pressure behind his eyes mounting.

The tendrils were now creeping along the left side of her face. The figure only looked up at the Despair demon above it and continued to be consumed.

“But the girl didn’t know that the Templars who had tracked the maleficar had arrived at the village. One of them, a young man by the name of Tiberian Mercar, found her” She waved the figure of a tall man, adorned in Templar heavy plate armour, into existence.

“He would have been right to strike her down where she stood. She was becoming possessed. She was becoming an abomination” Madeleina wiped a stray tear from her eye with her free hand.

“To this day, she’ll never understand why he didn’t.”

The Templar, instead of drawing his sword, steps closer to the young girl. Lucanis watches with bated breath as he pulls the girl into a hug.

“’It will be alright child, you are going to be alright’” She says, her voice hitching. “Whether he really meant it, or he was just trying to comfort a girl moments away from dying, she’ll never know”

A bright, golden light shines from the figure of the Templar, and then slowly envelops the young Madeleina. The black light is dying out, overcome by the warm glow shared by the two figures.

“But that simple act of kindness brought her back from the brink of despair, from the brink of the abyss” Madeleina’s lips quirk into a sad smile. “He saved her that day, in more ways than one”

The Templar and the girl stand and begin walking away from the cloaked figure.

“The Templar couldn’t take care of her, so he asks his brother to adopt her into his family” She waves to life four new figures – a man, a woman, and two small boys. “His brother agrees, and she goes to live with them” The young Madeleina walks away from the Templar and towards her new family.

“The Mercars are a military family. One of a precious few non-mage families in Tevinter who enjoy more than a modest life” Madeleina explains, “She’s given an education, nice clothes, and a seat in the Circle of Minrathous. But everything comes at a cost”

The figures all wink out of existence, and are replaced by Madeleina, in apprentice robes, standing alone amongst a sea of other robed figures.

“She can never whisper her old name – the one her parents gave her. She can never tell anyone she’s not a true Mercar.” She fists her blanket, gathering the fabric in her right hand. “When the family agreed to take her in, they erased all of what she was. She was not a foundling, but a long-lost member of the family. She’s named after a great-great-great-great-grandmother, the last in their lineage to be born a mage. It gave them more legitimacy that way”

Madeleina’s eyes fall and all the figures disappear. “And in time… she forgets who she was before she joined them. Forgets her own name”

She brings her knees closer to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Lucanis releases a breath. He wants so badly to reach out. A hand on her shoulder. A hand on her arm. Anything to provide some kind of comfort. But all he can do is listen, as if some invisible rope binds his arms to his sides.

Madeleina gestures with her left hand, and a young Madeleina is standing next to an older, tall, rather handsome man.

“But she wants to help, so she finds those in the Magisterium working for the greater good” She continues. “She finds Magister Dorian Pavus, and he brings her into the Shadow Dragons. He gives her a cover to use so her family doesn’t grow suspicious. She tries to do good, tries to make use of the second chance she was given”

The figures blink out of existence a moment later. Her face falls. “But she never feels like she’s ever going to get there. Always feels like she's falling short of some unattainable goal”

“Madeleina…” Lucanis starts, but he doesn’t know where to go from there. What to say.

“That’s why I chose to come to Treviso” Madeleina is looking at him now. “I… I didn’t want another defenseless city to suffer the same fate as my home town – as Arvanitum did”

Lucanis clasps his hands together in front of him and leans forward.

“Whatever the reason you chose to help us … just know we’re grateful” He gives her a small smile. “Thank you for sharing that with me”

Madeleina gives him a weary smile in return. “It feels nice to have someone know … the Shadow Dragons, Dorian, Neve – I was never able to tell any of them. On paper, there are no survivors from Arvanitum. On paper, I am dead”

Lucanis rises to his feet and takes the towel from her pillow.

“For whatever it’s worth …. I’m glad you’re only dead on paper” He chuckles and twists the towel in his hands. “But you need to stop tempting fate, hm? Contract is no good if the employer dies”

Madeleina snorts, “I promise if I get another mortal wound, I’ll come right to you”

Lucanis grins, “Deal”

He motions to the bed, “Get some rest, we’ll go back to the Lighthouse when you’re ready”

Madeleina groans as she slithers back down into the bed. She yawns and turns to her side. “Alright … I should… need…. to check in with Varric soon ….”

Lucanis hesitates a moment before leaving the room. As he closes the door, he wonders to himself.

Who is Varric?

[bitchesofostwick]

codex: notes from the inquisition

i'm rewriting that letter (THAT one; minor veilguard spoilers for those who haven't gotten there) not because i didn't like it (i loved it) but because i can and because i wanted ellinor to be able to respond. tag list: @elfroot-and-laurels @captastra @mournholdmushroom @vvakarians @galaxywhale @creaking-skull

My love,

It seems one of the pups got to my half-written work before I could, or before Tara could, for that matter. She’s a good mum and usually keeps a close eye on all of them, but if it takes a village to raise a child, I’d dare to say it takes two villages to raise a litter of mabari.

I’ve wrapped up all I could at Skyhold. Our quarters here felt strange enough to return to after all of these years. They feel stranger still without you here beside me. But I leave the fortress behind in good hands, and although I’m surprised at how many Inquisition veterans so quickly answered our calls for aid, I am eternally grateful. I make for Minrathous tomorrow morning, though I loathe to imagine how I’ll fare at sea again for the first time since returning to Ferelden from Kirkwall. I know what you’d say—take the longer route through Orlais. But first, we both know that’s counterintuitive to the urgency at hand, and second, I’d rather let Dorian win a score of chess games against me before I spend a minute longer in Orlais than I have to, for anything.

Speaking of Dorian, he told me in his most recent correspondence that you’d already tried to adopt about ten cats from the streets of Minrathous. Darling, we both know Cat isn’t fond of competition, we’ve got a full house as it is with the new pups. How do we plan to feed these cats? To house them? To transport them back to Ferelden? Please consider…reconsidering.

I digress. Ellinor, I know you are more than capable—of anything, of everything and more that I could never dream of doing myself. You are the strongest person I know. Still, it goes without saying that I worry for you. I fear for your safety—it’s kept me awake, tossing and turning, every night since you left my side. All these years, and I’ve never been able to stop worrying. If I could be there now, be your sword and your shield and your advisor all over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. In a single breath. All this is to say please stay safe and be careful, and I will be there as soon as my feet can carry me.

All of my love, yours, eternally, Cullen

~~~

Darling,

You’re right about the urgency we’re dealing with. I don’t even have to say this, because you’ve seen it firsthand as well as I have. But in better times, I certainly would suggest you take the longer route to get here. I know you despise Orlais. Believe me when I say you’re going to despise Tevinter as well. In fact, when I told our friends you were on your way, Harding took on an especially sympathetic expression, and Dorian merely cackled in my face. There’s magic abound here, love. And I know you’ve gotten more used to it, and I know you cope better now than you used to, but I still need you to know. It’s not like the south. It’s unchecked and it’s everywhere, and I just want you to be prepared.

Maevaris is looking forward to meeting you—Dorian’s all but sung your praises to her—and so is Rook, though she reminds me at times of Hawke and I imagine your personalities may clash a bit, were the situation at hand not so dire. Morrigan is here as well. I can just about see your eyes rolling as you read this. So get it out of the way now, before you arrive.

As soon as your feet can carry you? Poor Lady. She’s quite spry for a mare her age, and it’d wound her to know you discredit her efforts this way. I promise not to tell her you said that.

I’m sorry—it’s not fair for me to joke. I know you mean every word that you say. In truth, it hurts my heart to see you worry this way, especially after all the pains we’ve gone through to build a quiet life for ourselves after the Inquisition. I wish it were not so. I wish this wasn’t happening. I wish we were at home again, picnicking in the fields with no bigger concern than what fruits we want from the market the next day, or which friends we want to visit with next. I hate that I have to be here. I hate that I’m without you. Worst of all, I hate that you have to travel to Tevinter of all places just to be with me again. If it were in my power, I’d have made sure you never set foot in the city of Minrathous, because I know you’re going to hate it here.

Dorian saw me write that. He said you need to grow a thicker skin.

Anyway. I’m being careful. I promise. I will see you soon, my love.

Yours, Ellinor

P.S. I did not adopt ten cats. Dorian made me put one back because apparently it belonged to the fruit merchant, and I was “stealing.”

[secret-smut-sideblog]

It Happened Quiet

(a short lucanis x f! rook drabble. cause I'm normal and not impaled in a spike pit 👍)

PG-13 - developing feelings, drug use (weed), sloppy makeout yesss, spite being a shit, yearning, pining, the works

Masterlist

-

"You're kidding." Rook's eyes stayed on the ceiling. Taking the royal elfroot cigarette as he offered it back.

"Cross my heart." Lucanis edged a smile, his body heavy and still.

The herbs had been her idea 'Old elf remedy,' she claimed. Something to help him sleep. Rook had offered to stay in case he had a bad reaction. And he had been planning to sleep, but they had fallen in loose limbs on the pantry floor. Just enjoying each other's proximity and pleasantly lost in deep winding conversation.

It was all very new to him. The imbibing herbs, sure, but moreso, the pleasure of her company.

He liked her voice, the way her Nevarran accent softened and fluttered over words. He liked how easy it was to be near her. Like she had always been there, he just hadn't looked up at the right moment yet.

How the conversation had landed on intimacy, he wasn't sure, but talking with her proved to be a journey led with many delightful detours. But the herbs had taken most of the shame out of him, so he didn't mind.

She propped her head on an elbow, peering down at him good naturedly. Pointing with the two fingers holding the cigarette.

"All that suave and you've been with 'two, maybe two and a half' lovers?" She appraised him, but then seemed to really consider it. To consider him. "Well, I guess you were probably not afforded a lot of private time, huh?"

He tapped the tip of his nose, confirming her. He liked how intuitive she was. Explaining himself was often a shameful exercise. One he was always in fear of failing, somehow.

"Hmm, I mean, I don't have much room to talk." She mused, falling back in a flop. "I'm only experienced from my little impromptu trip from Necropolis." She waved her hand above her head.

"Is that so?" He led.

Keep talking. Talking to us. Talk all night.

Spite's distant, hazy voice demanded. He couldn't even refute it. He wanted the same.

"I mean, for the most part. I'm still not used to all the touching. The living are so warm." She offered the word almost in disgust, and Lucanis couldn't help but laugh. Finding his own hangups not that strange in her disclosure.

"Gloves help." He offered.

"True. But people usually aren't into being fondled with gloves that have handled the dead."

"My gloves are blood-soaked, too, cariño."

The endearment slipped out before he could catch it, but she took it without breaking her stride.

"Oh sure, but the whole assassin thing, it's romantic, no?" Her accent picked up, lilting through words. Setting his foolish heart fluttered under the calm of his limbs.

"Eh, whose to say." She sighed as if he had verbalized his disagreement. "I should let you sleep, anyway."

No! Don't let her leave!

"Goodnight, Lucanakis."

His heart fully shuddered in his chest. Bolting up onto a forearm to pause her gathering her things.

She stared wide-eyed at his sudden intensity, but didn't pull away from it. Appraising him more with curiosity after a moment.

Panic hot in his belly.

Now what, little man? Spite cackled. Tick, tock! She's waiting!

But he was wrong. Cause it was her.

She smiled sweetly, seeing his intention. Sitting cross-legged across from him. Only taking his hand.

Her touch was a shock to his system. Skin cool and rivaling a petal, curling his fingers over hers. Thumb gently grazing his knuckles.

Just that small intimacy was overwhelming. Spite hissed demand after demand in his ear to let him in. But Lucanis narrowed his world to just the sweet of her caressing. Staring at their joined hands in astonishment.

He wondered how she learned this. This tenderness. Was it inherent in her? Was it in him as well, somewhere deep and dormant? Or is this how she touched corpses as they were tended?

The thought sent no disgust through him. He imagined the peace of being still and cracked open down the middle in her care. Her kind hands soothing him on a gurney. No longer there to feel her touch but given softness regardless.

Such a silly thing. To be gentle with a corpse.

He liked her so much.

Oh. Oh no.

His hand reached out tentatively to her knee, watching the appendage as if it was foreign to him. Cupping the curve under his palm. Strong and solid beneath his uncertain grip. Testing that same sweeping of his thumb, looking up to gauge her reaction.

Her lips had fallen in a soft part, hazy eyes seeking his own reaction. Darting over his lips in turn.

She leaned toward him, the air softened in anticipation. A warm and heavy miasma surrounded them. A pocket of the world where only they lived.

His hand trembled on her knee, frozen in place as she drew ever closer. Heart crashing into his ribcage. Eyes darting over every inch of her beautiful face. So near him that he could feel the breath leaving her.

Her hand raised and slid over his cheek. Fingers splaying and holding the tender of him. Pressing her cool balm into the frantic skin.

He nearly whimpered as his eyes closed, leaning his cheek into her palm like a hopeful stray rubbing against a leg. Basking in just one fleeting moment of comfort.

This was more than enough to last him for months. Years, even. Then the plush of her lips slid against his mouth.

He moaned, a small sound. Maker, she felt like lightning. Arcing across him in urgent pulses. His body fired on all cylinders as he gathered her to him, grasping into her sides. Kissing her back with rising fervor.

No, closer. He needed closer.

He crushed his lips into hers, moaning in earnest from deep in his chest. Rising onto knees, pulling her up with him. Smearing his need into her perfect mouth.

Fuck, more. More!

More!

Spite's roar pulled him away. Gasping and reeling back from the animal hunger he hadnt even known had been coiled inside him. Shame flipped in his belly.

But Rook only found his eyes again.

"You okay?"

"It's Spite." He shook his head mournfully.

"I could entertain him for a while, give you a break." She rose back to feet, smiling down at him with her cardigan folded over her arm.

"No!" He shuffled to feet.

Yes! YES!

Spite danced gleefully around her.

She gave a little jump and laughed, feeling him there.

"I have a lot of experience with spirits, Lucanis. All kinds. I'll be okay."

Yes, she's fun! You're never fun!

"Don't go far." He urged in a solemn hush.

"I won't. Get some rest." She smiled as Spite had already started playing with her hair, surely in an effort to annoy her. But she seemed to find it endearing, appraising her invisible tormentor with the teasing scowl you give a misbehaving child.

Spite seemed delighted by this turn of events, fully devoting his attention to her. Following as she left the pantry in a quiet sweep of feet.

Lucanis closed his eyes, settling in a slump against the wall. Alone. Maker, he hadn't been truly alone in so long.

Reverent in the silence.

A gift. A moment of peace.

He leaned his head into his palms. Groaning out through fingers.

"Mierda..."

He really liked her.

~

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Right under the wire! Thanks for the tag @heniareth!

It is statistically unlikely to still be Wednesday for most of you, but tagging back @dreadfutures @dungeons-and-dragon-age @elfroot-and-laurels @pinayelf @inquisimer in case you have anything you want to share (no pressure, as always!)

Here's a bit from a WIP set immediately after the not-a-kiss scene with Lucanis, ft. Lenore being Totally Normal:

(Lucanis/Rook Ingellvar |486 words | vague romance progression spoilers)

Shouldn’t be watching him like this. It’d been days since they’d almost kissed. She’d been strong. Focused. Had kept things aboveboard and friendly, no matter how much she wanted to ask him… What? What could she say, really? How’s your head feeling these days? Pretty clear? No, that was silly. There was too much else to be worrying about to worry about whatever was between—whatever she’d imagined was between them.  “Well, I did remember it was Lace’s turn to cook,” she told him, focusing on the cutting board with far more attention than was warranted, “and Davrin may have mentioned something about an alarming amount of cheese earlier…” “It was for a cheese soup, I believe,” Lucanis agreed, and his hands moved in her periphery. Taking another sip of coffee, presumably. She suspected it was a proportionately significant component of his blood content at this point. She wasn’t going to watch the way his lips moved when he pressed them to the rim of the cup. 

“You can’t be serious,” she said, though she knew he was. Lace had been most of the way through grating a block of cheese when Rook had walked in.  “You don’t think she would?”  Rook laughed at that, settled the lid on the pot, and turned away again. There was half a block of grated cheese to do something with now—a troubling thought, since none of the rest of them were Fereldan and thus did not share the scout’s love of cheese.  “Well, in any case,” she went on. “The letter came in earlier. I may have waited until she’d started cooking to let her know.” “Devious.” “You wouldn’t be the first to say so.” She tapped her hips, surveying the available ingredients before selecting a likely-looking loaf of bread. Lucanis shifted in her periphery. Despite herself, she looked at him. He’d pressed a hand to his head, forefinger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose. “Spite?” she asked, and he nodded. “He want to say anything in particular or is he just hungry, too?”  The muscle in his jaw twitched. Slowly, deliberately, he set his mug on the table beside him.  “It is nothing worth sharing. I will make more coffee. Would you like some?”  What could she say? Pity would shame him and sympathy was hardly better. She sometimes wished she had Emmrich’s talent for hearing spirits. Perhaps if she could address both of them at once…but no. Maybe letting him do something for her would help.  “If you’re making it.” “Sweet, with cream,” he said.  The soft sounds of metal and glass to her left told her he’d already begun. Could he see her smiling? Surely not. She’d turned her head enough that she wouldn’t be caught.  “You remembered.” “How could I forget?” he said.  She laughed. He didn’t, but distracted as she was by the absence of the bread knife Rook hardly noticed.

[vir-tanadahl]

The Wolf's True Path

Summary: This short tale captures a rare moment of peace between Solas and Lavellan as Solas reflects on his past before his journey of redemption continues.

The fourth installment of what was a three part series.

The Burden of the Dread Wolf

A Wolf's Atonement

The Wolf's Return to Wisdom

From a short distance, Solas gazes at Lavellan with eyes filled with admiration and longing. His path of atonement has been long and arduous, but now, as if in recognition of his efforts, the Fade has granted him a moment of respite. The once bleak and desolate prison that he had crafted to hold the powerful Evanuris shifts around him, transforming into a peaceful sanctuary. The shadows recede, revealing a space bathed in gentle warmth and untouched by regret. Solas takes in a deep breath, savoring the freedom and peace that surrounds him, if only for a brief respite from his troubled journey.

As Solas exhales, he feels the weight of centuries lifting from his shoulders. The air shimmers with ethereal light, and he can almost taste the sweetness of possibility on his tongue. Lavellan turns, her eyes meeting his across the tranquil expanse, and for a heartbeat, time seems to stand still. He takes a tentative step forward, his bare feet sinking into soft grass that wasn't there a moment before. Flowers bloom in his wake, their delicate petals unfurling in a sea of color. The scent of elfroot and crystal grace fills the air, reminding him of long-forgotten forests and ancient magic.

This path of atonement forces him to confront each of his regrets, including the one that set him on this course—it all began with Mythal. He had once been a Spirit of Wisdom, content in the boundless realms of the Fade. But at Mythal's behest, he took on elven form, crossing into the physical world, not out of personal desire, but because she had asked for his aid. He admired her, revered her, and in his devotion, he heeded her call, stepping into a reality he had never intended to touch.

He committed terrible acts at Mythal's behest, driven by his reverence for her and the belief that they fought for freedom. But everything changed when Mythal and the other Evanuris began to claim themselves as gods, a path he could not follow. Elgar’nan assured him they would relinquish their commands once the war with the titans was over, arguing that the elven people needed guidance and that leadership was necessary. Mythal wanted to help the people rebuild and unite, to bring them under a single banner.

But the idea sickened him. They hadn’t fought for freedom, the very reason he had crossed into the physical world, the reason he had committed such atrocities in her name. No, they fought for conquest and control, to rule this world and their people. And in that realization, he saw the truth of his reverence—and the depths of his betrayal. But…even then, he had hoped Mythal would come to see reason, yet she never did and he failed to save her after he told her that the other Evanuris were attempting to access the blighted magic they had sealed away.

The memory of the day he asked Mythal to meet him was comes forth in his mind. He had been nervous and unsure if she would meet him. As she walked towards him with a guarded expression, he couldn't help but feel relieved that she had actually shown up. "You are the one who walked away," she said, her words cutting through him like a knife. Then she surprised him by saying, "I never turn my back when my friend needs me." The accusation that he had abandoned her stung, as it suggested that he hadn't been there for her when she needed him the most.

It was after this meeting that Mythal confronted the other Evanuris, challenging their attempts to harness the dangerous magic of the Blight. It was then that they betrayed her, these so-called gods who had once stood beside her. And because he had turned away, because he had abandoned her when she needed him most, she was left to face them alone. She died as a result of that betrayal—a loss that set into motion that would change the course of the world he once knew.

The echoes of Mythal's essence resound softly in his thoughts, reminiscent of a bittersweet memory: “I pulled you from the Fade you loved and sent you into war. I used your wisdom as a weapon… and it broke you.” It was in that moment, he received a validation he didn't realize he needed - an acknowledgement that Mythal had played a significant role in shaping his path, guiding his choices. Though he willingly followed her call, it was a decision influenced by her goals, her perspective.

Solas watches as Lavellan moves through the newly formed space—a forest reminiscent of Arlathan in its prime, lush and overall untouched. She wanders among the vibrant foliage, her fingers brushing over the leaves and flowers with quiet wonder. Her eyes are filled with awe as she inspects the rich flora around her, marveling at how the Fade could create something so vividly real, so tangible.

His mind drifts back to when they first met, to the moment she approached him after they had sealed the Breach in Haven. By then, he already knew he couldn’t reveal that he was Fen’Harel; he’d learned that lesson bitterly. When he had first awakened in this changed world, he’d sought out a Dalish clan, hoping to learn more about what happened with the People. But the encounter had been disastrous, leaving him disillusioned and wary, the weight of his identity a secret he felt compelled to bury.

He had resigned himself to hiding his true identity as Fen’Harel, instead seeking to reconnect with the part of himself that existed before he became the Dread Wolf. It was unexpectedly refreshing to be seen as just Solas—to be treated like the person he was before the weight of his mantle shaped and hardened him. With her, he felt a rare freedom to rediscover that forgotten self, unburdened by ancient titles and expectations.

Lavellan surprised him when she challenged his contempt for the Dalish, refusing to rise to anger even as he dismissed their preservation of elven culture as mere shadows of the past, inaccurate and diluted. Instead of meeting his frustration with hostility, she responded with grace and quiet conviction, pointing out the value in their resilience and the strength required to hold onto their identity, however fragmented. Her response humbled him in a way he hadn’t expected, disarming him with a kindness and understanding that lingered long after their conversation ended.

And she was curious—about him. She listened with genuine interest to his tales of dreaming in the Fade, her eyes bright with intrigue. She hung onto his every word, even though some of the stories he shared were memories he had lived directly. Her curiosity was sincere, unguarded, making him feel seen in a way he hadn’t in ages.

She was inquisitive, not only willing to listen showed a willingness to be open to new information that challenged her current belief. Her interest spanned everything he held close to his heart—the ancient elves, magic, the Veil, demons, and spirits. She even surprised him with questions he hadn’t expected, like whether coexistence with spirits and demons was truly possible, a means to prevent conflict rather than provoke it. She sought his wisdom with a sincerity that stirred something deep within him, pulling him back to a place of longing and nostalgia.

The memory plays vividly in his mind. She had looked up at him with bright, flirtatious eyes, her expression open and genuine as she spoke of how much she enjoyed getting to know him. It had been centuries since anyone had shown such honest interest in him, free of ulterior motives.

He had been guardedly curious, tempered by his instinct to keep others at a distance. But there was something about her warmth, the ease of her laughter, especially when she playfully turned his own words back on him. The memory sharpens at the moment she gently teased him about an evasive answer, stirring in him a forgotten sense of playfulness—a feeling that had lain dormant for ages.

Solas remembers the mix of pleasure and unease, realizing even then how effortlessly she had pierced his defenses in that brief exchange. Even now, the memory makes his heart quicken. Lavellan’s kindness and humor had drawn him in, making him acutely aware of his own loneliness, a longing he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a very long time.

Reflecting on that moment now, he realizes that she had, unintentionally, planted a seed within his heart. Without harshness or force, she had gently challenged him to confront his assumptions about this new world, unsettling the certainty he’d held so tightly. The experience was both enticing and terrifying, as he had long resigned himself to solitude. Yet, with just a few simple words, Lavellan became startlingly real to him, revealing a connection he hadn’t felt in ages—a kinship that was achingly tempting, stirring in him a desire for companionship he thought he had buried forever.

After that... he simply couldn’t help himself. Another memory surfaces, vivid and intoxicating, as he recalls the way she had held his gaze, brimming with confidence, curiosity, and a playful spark. His heart quickens now at the thought of his reply, deliberately smooth as he suggested he had “yet to see it dominated.” Her eyes danced as she echoed his words back to him, teasingly: “Indomitable focus?” Her voice lingered in his mind, a gentle, teasing challenge that made him want to respond with wit and depth.

“Presumably. I have yet to see it dominated. I imagine that the sight would be… fascinating.” It had been an invitation, subtle yet unmistakable, for both of them to imagine what it might be like to lower their defenses. He found himself drawn irresistibly to the spark of her spirit and intelligence, feeling his own walls weaken as he acknowledged the magnetic tension between them—a connection he could neither deny nor easily resist.

Her kindness and grace, even in the face of opposition, were nothing short of remarkable. She had been captured by Seeker Cassandra, imprisoned, and falsely accused of causing a disaster he himself had brought upon the world. Yet, even amidst the chaos unleashed by his own reckless actions, she stood strong, resilient in her innocence. Her ability to remain steadfast and compassionate despite it all left him in quiet awe.

His memory flashes to them dream-walking in the Fade, where he had taken her back to Haven after its destruction. He’d shared his frustration and confusion, his attempts to save her, and the worry that gnawed at him—a worry that, even then, hinted at something deeper. She had, undeniably, changed his world.

Solas closes his eyes, resting the back of his head against the rough bark of a tree, letting himself drift into the memory of her warmth as she dared to bridge the space between them. Her kiss was a soft yet daring act, a gesture that left him feeling both vulnerable and intensely alive. He savors the lingering sensation of her touch, the softness of her lips, and the way his own restraint shattered as he pulled her back not once, but twice, unable to let her go. But it was that second kiss, that moment of surrender, when he truly lost himself in her—giving in to a desire he’d tried so hard to deny.

As his mind wanders further down the path of this memory, he comes to a realization that Lavellan had not only held the key to saving the world at the time, but also to saving himself. The mere thought of her sends a warm rush of comfort through him, like a blanket on a cold winter night. In that moment, Solas understands the true depth of her impact on his life and how she single-handedly changed his destiny for the better. Her presence was not just a means to an end, but a source of hope and healing for his soul.

Solas opens his eyes again, scanning the horizon for her. Lavellan's figure emerges from behind a cluster of shimmering trees, their leaves rustling softly in a nonexistent breeze. She moves with grace, her steps light and purposeful as she navigates the ethereal landscape. Her eyes, filled with wonder, dart from one marvel to another, drinking in the beauty of this Fade-crafted vision of the ancient Arlathan Forest.

As she approaches, Solas feels a familiar tightness in his chest, a bittersweet ache that has become his constant companion, mingling with a profound, unyielding love. He watches her, drinking in every detail - the way the ethereal light catches in her hair, the gentle curve of her smile, the spark of curiosity that never seems to dim in her eyes.

The name slips from her lips like a caress, carrying with it a warmth that seems to weave its way through his mind. "Solas," she calls out, her voice filled with awe and admiration. "This place... it's incredible." A small smile plays at the corners of his lips as he looks upon her. "Arlathan Forest is quite beautiful," he responds softly, taking her hand and pulling himself to his feet. As he steps closer to her, one hand lands on her waist and he leans down to kiss her. Lavellan tilts her head up and meets his lips, savoring the taste of him.

With a bright smile on her face, Lavellan exclaims, "Let's go look at the river!" Her excitement is infectious and Solas can't help but chuckle as she practically dances in place. “It is a river,” He remarks, but his own lips curl into a smile at her enthusiasm.

She gazes up at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “But it’s a Fade river!” she exclaims, her laughter echoing through the air as she eagerly takes his hand and pulls him along. He joins in her amusement, a genuine chuckle escaping his lips, his guard completely down in her presence. “That is it,” he responds, unable to hide the smile that spreads across his face as he allows her to lead him, her infectious enthusiasm captivating him and drawing him into the moment. He finds himself charmed by her unbridled joy and unwavering curiosity, feeling alive and free in her company.

As they near the riverbank, the soothing sound of rushing water envelops them. Lavellan's face beams with joy, and Solas can't help but feel his own mood brighten in response to her infectious happiness. She takes off ahead of him, eagerly examining the river and its inhabitants in hushed fascination.

Solas finds a comfortable spot and settles in, observing Lavellan as she discovers the wonders of the Fade with childlike wonder. He can't help but smile at her, reminiscing about their time together in the Inquisition. He remembers when he first approached her for assistance with a troubled friend, and how she had instantly shown her unwavering empathy and support without hesitation. Even back then, she saw past his guarded facade and understood the gravity of what he had asked of her.

The memory of his first encounter with his friend floods back to him. He remembers seeing his friend—a Spirit of Wisdom, now twisted and corrupted into a Pride Demon by the foolishness of mages. It was a heart-wrenching and alarming sight. Despite everything, he held onto a fragile hope that there was still a chance to save his friend, that somehow it could be restored to its original form.

Lavellan had acted without hesitation in aiding him, going above and beyond what was necessary. She had even gone as far as to disrupt the summoning circle in an effort to save his friend, despite the complexity of the task. Her selflessness and determination to fight for a corrupted spirit left a lasting impression on him, stirring something within him that he couldn't quite explain.

He remembers, painfully, how he had failed his friend even then. They had confronted the mages responsible, his anger simmering as he accused them of torturing and destroying a being of wisdom—a friend who had been twisted and killed by their reckless ambition. The rage within him was overwhelming; he would have struck them down, consumed by anger and the need for revenge, if Lavellan hadn’t intervened.

The memories of his failure still pained him. He and his friend had confronted the mages responsible, and he couldn't contain his anger as he accused them of torturing and destroying a wise being. His friend was killed due to their carelessness, and he seethed with rage towards them. He wanted revenge; he wanted to strike them down. But Lavellan stepped in, preventing him from acting on his anger.

In a vital moment, her voice reached out to him like an anchor, soothing and steady. With gentle yet firm words, she brought him back to reality and reminded him that seeking revenge on the mages would not bring his friend back. Her words cut through the storm of his anger and quenched the flames burning within him, guiding him away from the brink. He can't help but wonder, if he had acted on his initial impulse that day, would it have added yet another weight to the regrets burdening his soul?

Lavellan wades into the water, her legs kicking with awe and surprise. "It's like it's really here!" She exclaims to Solas, her disbelief evident in her tone. He tilts his head slightly, a smile playing on his lips. "Because it is real," he chuckles. "You know what I mean," Lavellan laughs. "I know we’ve talked about how what happens in the Fade is real, but I just didn’t expect it to…actually feel so real!"

Solas chuckles at her enthusiasm. "It is certainly new," he concedes, a small smile playing on his lips. "To be completely aware in the Fade is vastly different from only experiencing it through dreams." Lavellan laughs as she nods in agreement, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "I couldn't agree more," she says. "This is much better than our time at Adamant." Solas shares a nod of affirmation, adding, "Indeed it is."

As Lavellan wanders and explores, Solas shuts his eyes and allows himself to drift back to those intimate moments he shared with her within the Inquisition, not long after they had faced the truth about his friend. He recalls seeking her out one evening, finding her on the balcony outside her chambers. The night was calm and serene, and in the gentle radiance of starlight, he posed a question that had been weighing heavily on his mind.

He inquired, his voice gentle but filled with curiosity, "What were you like before the Anchor?" He pondered if the Mark had changed her essence in any way, if there was a reason other than his own fondness for why he felt such a strong connection to her. Maybe he was searching for a justification that would make sense of his intense emotions - something that went beyond his heart's desires.

When she confessed that she had not changed, he felt a twinge of disappointment. It finally dawned on him that his feelings for her were no longer just curiosity; they were deep and real. He had always seen this world as dull and lifeless, like walking among the Tranquil. But being with her, someone who radiated such genuine beauty and individuality, challenged his entire perception. She was more than just an exception; she was proof that there was still vibrancy, complexity, and depth in this world. And it made him uneasy in a way he didn't want to admit.

Naturally, she was curious for him to explain his fascination, and he admitted her subtlety and wisdom defied his expectations. In their conversations, she challenged him to question his longstanding views of the Dalish, her unwavering spirit and insight quietly challenging his biases. He found himself admiring her mind, her resilience, her compassion—qualities that set her apart from anyone he had ever known. Each moment with her deepened his respect, making her more than just a fleeting connection; she became someone he valued profoundly, someone who reshaped his understanding of the world.

Being around her always caused him to teeter on the brink of losing control. The memory of their kiss is still vivid in his mind: the softness in her voice as she asked about its meaning, the intense stare in her eyes that seemed to see right through him. He can recall his own response - "I have not forgotten the kiss" - spoken with a rare vulnerability, a confession he struggled to even acknowledge within himself.

She moved in closer, crossing into his personal space with her hands clasped behind her back. Her posture seemed to convey both surrender and a playful command. As he started to turn away, she reached out and gently touched his arm. Her words, a simple plea of "don't go," echoed in his mind, stopping him from retreating any further. In that moment, he could feel the strong pull of his instinct to flee, and the words lingered in the space between them: "It would be better in the end." But it was his next confession that would haunt him more than anything else: "But losing you would..." - an incomplete confession that left him exposed and vulnerable.

Solas lets out a wistful sigh, reliving the memory of their kiss with vivid detail and longing. Her lips, so soft and warm, ignited a fire within him that still burned just as brightly as it did on that day. The kiss started off gentle, but soon he was lost in her, pulling her closer and deepening their connection. His arms enveloped her, his hands exploring every curve and contour of her body as they shared a moment of intense passion and desire.

In that brief instant, he felt a surge of happiness and an ache in his chest as he acknowledged his conflicting emotions. Love and duty battled for control over his heart. As he whispered "Ar lath ma, vhenan," those words echoed in his mind as a definitive surrender, a strong bond between their souls.

As Solas slowly opens his eyes, he notices that she has disappeared from view. But her laughter echoes through the air, filled with joy and freedom. He remains seated, closing his eyes again with a gentle smile on his face as he takes in the delightful sound of her exploring. He is content to let her roam while he basks in the moment.

The connection between him and Lavellan is unlike anything he has ever known, intricate and layered in ways he never imagined. There are moments when she reminds him of his former self, before he entered the physical realm. Maybe that's why he forbade her request to accompany him on his quest to destroy the Veil; she was a mirror of his past self, unencumbered by thousands of years and untouched by the cost of his choices.

He didn't want her to suffer the same fate as him, being led astray from her purpose. While Mythal no longer has the same control over him as before, it does not erase how that control over him had warped his beliefs in ways he feared sharing with her and causing her harm. Mythal’s guidance was driven by a relentless sense of duty that had forced him to go against his own morals repeatedly.

Lavellan, on the other hand, possessed certain qualities that reminded him of Mythal - her strong leadership skills, her love and protection for the elven people, and her authoritative presence. But unlike Mythal, Lavellan also grounded him in compassion and integrity. She showed him a path where fulfilling his duties did not have to sacrifice kindness, and she embodied a way of being that was both powerful and gentle. In every sense, she served as a reminder of the person he used to be and the person he still had the potential to become.

How could he impose on her the same fate that had been imposed upon him? Determined to break the cycle, he made a conscious effort to treat her as an equal, respecting her autonomy and moral decisions even when they differed from his own. Unlike with Mythal, whose guidance had often disregarded his own agency, he consciously chose to respect Lavellan’s independence, valuing her as a partner rather than a tool. In doing so, he hoped to give her what he had lacked—a voice, a choice, and the freedom to walk her own path.

Mythal had been controlling, molding him into someone he had tried to resist becoming with Lavellan. While he would occasionally offer guidance to her, he always did so with a deep regard for her beliefs and made sure not to compromise her values. In hindsight, his dynamic with Mythal had felt stifling, weighed down by feelings of regret. He began to feel more like a pawn than an equal, left with a lingering sensation of being manipulated.

His dedication to Mythal had been multi-layered, almost worshipful - a loyalty fueled by obligation, by an unyielding determination to carry out her wishes and goals, even if it meant sacrificing parts of himself. With Mythal, it was always about fulfilling duty and wielding power, no matter the consequences.

But with Lavellan, everything changed. She gave him something he didn’t know he was missing: the chance at healing and, maybe, even redemption. Ever since their journey started in Haven, she had slowly and unconsciously encouraged him to find a path that matched his inner desires. She became a safe haven for him, a calming refuge—even when he refused to heed her advice and stayed on his destructive path, she stayed by his side, a constant reminder of who he truly was.

She is his heart, the center of his being. He has come to realize and finally accept that his feelings for her surpass any sense of duty or obligation; they go beyond even the concept of love itself. His love for her is fueled by the desire to protect her, to safeguard her light and keep her safe from the corruption that has consumed his own soul. In her, he sees the purity and goodness that he thought he had lost, and he would do anything to ensure she remains untouched by the darkness he has experienced.

“Solas!” Lavellan’s voice rings out, causing him to open his eyes. “Join me over here!” He rises from his spot and walks towards the sound of splashing water. “Vhenan?” He calls out as he pushes through the surrounding plants, catching a glimpse of her standing in a body of water.

She had removed her outer garments and was the water dressed only in her undergarments. "Look, there's even fish!" She exclaimed with a giggle of delight. Solas pauses at the water's edge, a fond smile playing on his lips as he watches Lavellan's childlike delight. Her joy is infectious, and he feels a warmth spreading through his chest. "Indeed there are," he says softly, his eyes following her graceful movements in the water. "The Fade reflects our expectations and desires. Your curiosity has brought these creatures into being."

Suddenly, Lavellan plunges beneath the water, disappearing below the surface in search of whatever mysteries might lie within this strange Fade-bound lake.

Solas watches on, reflecting on his past and how Lavellan has impacted him. In a way that Mythal, with all her godlike power, could never achieve, Lavellan had accomplished something truly remarkable. She had accepted him fully, embracing every aspect of his being in a way he hadn't experienced since before his existence in the physical realm. The feeling of belonging and acceptance flooded him, filling the voids that had long been empty within his soul. It was as if he had finally found his place in the world, and it was beside this incredible, understanding woman who saw him for who he truly was.

As Lavellan resurfaces, water cascading down her face and hair, Solas finds himself transfixed. The droplets shimmer in the ethereal light of the Fade, creating a halo around her that seems to embody the very essence of her spirit. She beams at him, her eyes sparkling with excitement and wonder. She emerges from the water, and he watches as she dries herself off. "Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks her with a soft smile. She looks up at him and returns the smile. "I did, thank you for letting me wander," she replies before walking over to him.

Solas tilts his head down, his eyes meeting hers. “Of course,” he says softly, reaching out to gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. A small smile plays on his lips as he watches her reaction. She leans into his touch, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment. When she opens them again, there's a warmth there that makes Solas's breath catch. She steps closer, closing the distance between them. The scent of wildflowers and fresh water clings to her skin, intoxicating in its simplicity. Solas finds himself leaning in, drawn by an invisible force he can't quite name.

Their lips meet in a tender kiss, soft and sweet. Solas pulls her closer, one arm wrapping around her waist as the other hand tangles in her damp hair. Lavellan melts into him, her body molding against his as if they were made to fit together. Lavellan leans away from him, tilting her head to look up at the sky. The sun has set and the stars are beginning to appear in the fading light of the Fade. “Do you want to stargaze before we go to sleep?” she asks him, a hint of hope in her tone.

The corners of Solas's lips slowly curl upwards, his eyes crinkling with warmth as he gazes down at her. "I would find that most enjoyable," he responds in a low, melodic voice. Solas gently takes Lavellan's hand, intertwining their fingers as he leads her to a small clearing nearby. The grass beneath their feet is soft and cool, swaying gently in a nonexistent breeze. Above them, the Fade sky shimmers with countless stars, each one brighter and more vibrant than any seen in the waking world.

They settle down on the grass, Solas sitting with his back against a tree, while Lavellan nestles between his legs, her back resting against his chest. His arms encircle her waist, holding her close as they both gaze up at the celestial display above. "It's beautiful," Lavellan whispers, her voice filled with awe. "I've never seen the stars so clearly before." Solas hums in agreement, his chin resting lightly on the top of her head.

Solas's lips curve into a gentle smile as he gazes up at the starry expanse above them. "The Fade often reflects our deepest desires and memories," he murmurs softly, his breath warm against Lavellan's ear. "This view... it reminds me of nights long past, when the world was younger and the Veil did not yet exist," his voice is low and melodic, filled with a mixture of nostalgia and longing.

Lavellan intertwined her fingers with his and gave them a gentle squeeze. "I know that you long for the time before the Veil," she says, trying to offer him some comfort. Solas lets out a soft sigh, thinking back to his memories from earlier that day. "Yes, I do," he replies. "But if I had not created the Veil..." He pauses, lost in thought for a moment. "Our paths would never have crossed."

Lavellan turns her head slightly, looking up at him with a gentle smile. "And I'm grateful that our paths did cross," she says softly, her eyes shimmering with affection. Solas feels a warmth bloom in his chest at her words. He tightens his embrace, drawing her closer against him. "As am I, vhenan," he murmurs, his voice low and tender, as he presses a gentle kiss to her temple.

They drift into a comfortable silence, each lost in thought as they gaze up at the star-studded sky. Solas’s eyes wander across the constellations, memories of ancient stories and myths flickering to life with each familiar shape. Gradually, he begins to share these tales with Lavellan, his voice low and soothing as he recounts the ancient lore, weaving each story with care. In that quiet moment, he shares a precious piece of his former world with her, the distant stars bridging past and present in a way that feels both intimate and timeless.

[elfroot-and-laurels]

Days 3 & 5: Faith and Home

An excerpt from A Study of Dalish Clans: On Tradition and Ceremony, by Brother Genitivi.

Clan Lavellan is among the many Dalish clans that have evolved their own unique style of vallaslin, the ‘blood writing’ that marks the full entrance of a child into adulthood and therefore into clan membership. In Clan Lavellan, and their nearest relative clan, Clan O’Cathasaigh, all blood writing dye is made with the vibrant—and rare—dye of the royal elfroot plant, whose leaves, when crushed and treated with the proper assemblage of herbs and magic, turn to a blue more rich and royal than any human dyes. When a child prepares to become an adult and choose their vallaslin, Clan Lavellan engages in much celebration, and there are many days of ceremony that precede the actual event of the vallaslin application.

First and most important are the retellings of their oral histories and traditions, in which the child entering adulthood must join with the clan’s Keeper to share the stories. By the end of the storytelling ceremony, the child will have demonstrated their knowledge of their chosen god and therefore their chosen vallaslin, proving their worthiness for taking on the markings that will shape their future. Second, and most complicated, comes the process of making the dye, which sometimes requires weeks of foraging to produce the amount of royal elfroot leaves needed, as well as the additional components secret to the clan’s Keeper. The third and final step is the ceremony of the blood writing itself, a private moment for the new adult and the Keeper, meant for reflection, contemplation, and commitment.

[elfroot-and-laurels-moved]

for the kiss promps: finally kissing the person you’ve been pining for . - for cullen and la''ara?? (also good luck with your grant applications!!)

Thank you Rhia! Nothing more humbling than having to write why you believe you should get funding so you can finish your degree 🥲 And I already have their first kiss written out for their canon but...technically this still counts since Cullen is the one who instigates that kiss.

                La’ara’s heart thrums in their chest, like the beating of a bird’s wings. The sudden space between her mouth and Cullen’s is strange and unwelcome—a sudden shift of reality after so long spent wanting to kiss him. When they focus their eyes once more, are really able to see Cullen in front of them, they understand why. Cullen looks down at her with eyes half drunk and half terrified, searching her face for any telltale sign of regret. A strange thing to do when their fingers are still twined with the ends of his curls at the nape of his neck.                 “I—I’m—” he begins, and already La’ara can feel him pulling away, back into himself, rationalizing his self-denial.                 “No,” she says, cutting off his apology before it can begin, pressing her lips to his once more, the first time she’s ever done so. This kiss is even more hungry than the first, more conscious and aware, more purposeful and seeking. This kiss is everything that has been building in La’ara’s chest since they first met Cullen back in Haven. This kiss is the end and the beginning and it is not enough, she isn’t close enough. They stand on the tips of their toes, palms flush against Cullen’s cheeks now, and despite themself, they can feel tears welling in the corners of their eyes.                 When the two of them break apart this time, Cullen is smiling.

[covertleathers]

Pulling Cords (Rookanis Fanfiction)

Chapter 4: The Verdant Wyvern

Title: Pulling Cords

AO3 Link

Rating: 18+, Explicit, Gradually intensifying sexual tension, nudity, etc etc

Relationships: Lucanis Dellamorte/m!Rook (They/Them pronouns)

Key words: Yearning, teasing, jealousy (if i get there)

The cup had grown cold.

There was also a growing pain in his left side that was begging to be addressed, it is likely Lucanis has broken a rib from his last excursion to the Anderfels a week before. Very rarely did pain linger for him, however, getting hit with a meter long club from an ogre had clearly left its mark. Harding should have some elfroot in her garden that he could use. First thing in the morning he will have to catch her before Rook leaves again.

He was alone, as usual when the rest of his comrades excused themselves for the night after dinner. At the table, he sat in his normal place at the right hand of the head chair. An old, yellowing book and various scrolls splayed out before him. Focus was slipping through his fingers.

A small part of Lucanis had expected Rook to make their normal appearance; gliding into the kitchen as if suspended in air. In anticipation, he had prepared the drink he knew they usually craved at the small hours of the night. 

However, it was the second time since their return from the Wetlands that they didn’t show. He disliked wasting chocolate, it was slightly more difficult to get with the Antaam leaching from Treviso’s ports. Though, throw in a few more sovereigns and there is always a shipyard hand eager to assist. They always remember who pays. Perhaps it was for the best to have this time to research alone. Rook could be…distracting from time to time. 

The quiet was eating at him. Even the murmuring fireplace had become soothing white noise. Crackling, simmering, and the occasional sound of the logs splitting under the intense heat. It was lulling him into a state of quietude that felt dangerous. 

Nevarran scholars didn’t have to complicate their writing with unnecessary details, but of course he had to chew through two hundred pages detailing the deviating familial Pentaghast lineage to learn about some poor possessed bastard of a mage who was locked away in a dungeon under his family’s estate. His end was a drawn out and painful transformation.

NOT. DONE.

Abruptly, he stood. Push it down. Not tonight. He wasn’t going to lose time again.

Another cup of the steaming black. Down the throat. He clutched the coffee counter with shaking hands. A splitting headache traveled from the back of his neck to his temple as if a giant’s cleaver came down on his skull. His eyes, dry from lack of sleep, ached. Spite was pushing against his psyche like mad.

LET. ME. OUT.

“No prep tonight?”

“Rook.” Lucanis let out an inaudible sigh of…relief? And straightened, rolling his neck coolly. Again, he was unsure how he never heard their arrival. He hummed, “You’re late.”

“Ah, well, I got caught up in some reading,” They said with a small laugh, a salve to his mind. “I’m sorry.”

 A balm seemed to settle in the air. He turned to Rook, in their usual night robes, standing at the open doors of the kitchen, a green book cradled against their hip, and a gentle breeze following close behind them. Without hesitation, Rook strode to his side and grasped the cold mug of chioccolata calda, then swiftly shook their head to stop him before he could protest it.

“It’s Bellara’s turn to cook tomorrow. I’m doing research instead.” The assassin poured himself another helping of coffee, trying to ignore that Rook had closed the distance between them. Though, he did not step away, either. 

“Whatever you’re reading, it’s better than that.” He gestured to the book and scrolls he had spread out on the table. Lucanis moved back to his seat, running a hand through his hair to check it wasn’t as disheveled as he felt. Eyes up. Breathe. Rook waited for a brief moment, as if they knew following closely behind would put him on edge. Then, they followed with silent, delicate footsteps to stand beside his chair.

Lucanis tried to ignore that his face was about the same height as Rook's navel. He also tried to ignore that they had draped a golden chain around their waist, intertwined with the Mourn Watch green sash.

“Oh, The Drakon Manuscripts on Demonic Dominions Volume Seven,” Rook mused as they leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look. The chain clattered against the armrest. Lucanis took another gulp of his drink. “I was forced to read that as an apprentice. Horrible to get through. I will never understand nobles and their obsession with pedigree.”

“We can agree on that,” he replied with a grunting laugh. 

Rook’s skin smelled like cinnamon and charcoal. Smokey plum hair fell around their shoulders like storm clouds. Lucanis could tell they had recently washed it with the way a vanilla scent breezed his way when they moved. Always overwhelming the senses. They pulled out the chair to his right and sat, looking at him excitedly with the book propped up before them.

“I was hoping to keep you company while you worked,” They ventured with a steady gaze. “Oh well, we can read together anyway, if you don't mind company. There’s a story in here that I think you would like.”

Lucanis raised an eyebrow as he met their eyes over the rim of his cup. “What’s this about?”

“Wyverns,” The young mage said affably, crossing their legs with an electric look in their lavender eyes. A jolt of excitement made Lucanis nearly drop his coffee. Rook laughed, “I knew that would get your attention.”

“Why wouldn’t it? I love wyverns.” Now curious, he tried to peak over the edge of the book as Rook opened it, who tutted and pressed it against their partially exposed chest.

They had placed one of Assan’s feathers as a bookmark, the tuft of grey peeking from about a third-way into the pages. Rook placed it aside amongst the many scrolls on the table. 

“This story is called The Verdant Wyvern. It’s Nevarran.” They continued with a one-sided smile Lucanis knew too well. “You should know we have a great appreciation for them culturally. Can I read it to you?”

“Of course.” He sat forward a bit.

Rook mirrored him, leaning over the book like a lover.

“A daughter of the great King Witoslav was born under a sapphire moon. In celebration of her birth, he gathered all the highest beings to his High Court to celebrate her naming. Elves, Dwarves, Kossith, and even Spirits danced among crystalline lights in peace,” Rook rested their head in their hand as they read, a look of serenity painted their features. “All was not in amity, however. The King and the Queen had neglected to invite the powerful yet wicked Meredite, Witch of the Chaparral—”

“Rook, you said this was about wyverns,” Lucanis muttered. He was beginning to wonder if this was some kind of ruse to get him to listen to one of Bellara’s writings. 

The young mage hissed defensively, “If you’d let me bloody get to it.” Clearly, this meant quite a bit to them. Lucanis sighed into his drink, realizing that it would soon be empty. 

“Anyway, where was I…right. Meredite arrived in a burst of emerald smoke, so all encompassing, the jubilant attendees fainted from it. In her fury for being overlooked, she cursed the baby girl with poisonous touch.” Lucanis’ ears perked at this. “Every human that would try to touch her bare skin would surely perish by sunset, the witch declared, before disappearing the same way she came. The Queen rushed to calm her crying babe, but just as the witch said, quickly fell ill with plague. She passed before the night was over. 

“With great sorrow, the King sent the babe, Oteria, to live and grow in a tower at the edge of the world. This way, she would be no danger to anyone else. Oteria grew well-read, but isolated and lonely. One day, she is roaming in the fields outside her tower when she comes across…” They paused, looking at Lucanis excitedly. 

“A wyvern?”

They chuckled. “A wyvern. Tall as a man, long as a rowboat with glittering verdant scales. It was curious about her. Oteria cried in terror at its glistening venomous teeth. She fled to the ocean, where she nearly drowned, refusing the wyvern’s offers of help as it swam behind her—”

“Wyvern’s don’t swim. They both would have drowned.”

Rook’s lilac gaze turned almost deadly for the second interruption. He smirked, feeling their irritation delight him a bit. Lucanis swore he could feel a certain something snicker at the back of his mind. 

“You’re impossible,” they said. For what it was worth, Rook could never stay mad for long. They matched his grin, rolling their eyes before they continued: “Oteria wakes in a lavish suite in a castle far away from her tower. Little did she know, the wyvern who rescued her was King Stanimir, a once beautiful man who was cursed by none other than Meredite…”

Black.

Lucanis’ eyes snapped open with a tense breath. Coming back felt like coming up for air after being held underwater. It was too similar to being waterboarded at the Ossuary. Blinking the darkness away, his head was swimming. He was in the pantry, sitting up with his back against the wall. Candles still lit. Where was Rook? Had they seen…?

“Spite finally gave you up, did he?” A silky voice asked from the doorway. Rook was leaning against the doorframe watching Lucanis with soft care. 

Lucanis had to stand. Frustration boiled in his chest. “How long was I gone?” 

“A couple of hours,” They mused. “He really seemed into the story. I told him he couldn’t be out of your room and could only hear the rest if he stayed in the pantry.” 

Rook, for whatever reason, didn’t seem fazed by what had happened. Maybe it was because of their Mourn Watch experience? They took a few steps inside. The book was still in their hand. 

Looking them in the eye was suddenly very difficult. The question came out as a low rumble, “He didn’t do anything to you did he?”

“Ha, no. A little resistant, but for whatever reason he listens to me.”

Lucanis crossed his arms, trying to blink away the pain in his eyes. For whatever reason, it was lingering more and more. He rolled one shoulder, then the other. “I missed the rest of the story. It was just getting interesting.”

They laughed. Like honey to his senses. 

“I am going back to my room,” They said as they stretched and yawned. Lucanis turned his gaze to the stone floor. They paused and he could feel their gaze singe his skin. 

“I wouldn’t mind reading it again. Just don’t fall asleep next time.”

[watersdeep]

Davrin x Lucanis WIP snippet i wanted to share ✨️

"That was a Dalish recipe you made tonight," Davrin finally said. His words nearly wavered from the nerves that sank their claws into him, but he forced his confidence through. Nervous for complimenting Lucanis on a good meal? He really needed to take a walk or something. Fighting darkspawn never made him feel this way.

"Yes, I know." Lucanis pulled his eyes up from the knife he was drying briefly to look at him before continuing drying the cutlery.

The silence that fell between them made Davrin uncomfortable. He didn't like the silence, it left him alone with this thoughts and if he had to listen to the distant whispers of the blight within the crossroads any longer he might just go insane. "Since when did you know how to make a Dalish meal?" Davrin asked, forcing the silence away.

This time Lucanis did not look up from drying when he spoke. "I know a lot things, but you just never cared to ask." That same uncomfortable silence fell over them as Davrin's eyes drilled into Lucanis' head. As if sensing the growing frustration within Davrin, Lucanis looked up to meet his eyes — not without sighing and rolling his own eyes in response. He leaned against the counter with his hands, and Davrin forced himself to keep his eyes on Lucanis and not the way the other man's hip jutted out in his stance. "I had overheard you and Bellara talking about it a few weeks ago and wanted to make it myself… with creative liberty of course. Ram is very expensive to import to Treviso and I chose to use spring onions rather than elfroot."

"Oh, don't try to pity me. I'm sure you can afford it," the jab slipped far too quickly off Davrin's tongue. He was always ready to throw something at Lucanis.

In that moment he anticipated something witty, or even down right cruel, back from Lucanis. Another jab at a Grey Warden death, a joke about being a father to a baby griffin in the middle of the world falling apart, something that would be akin to a knife plunged into him and twisted in a wicked, yet exciting way. But what Lucanis did instead was the biggest surprise of them all.

He laughed.

Not just a quick chuckle, but a laugh that caused his eyes to crinkle and a smile to pull up on his lips. There was a playful look in Lucanis' eyes that would have had Davrin weak in the knees had he been anyone else. A look that lured him in, but still gave nothing away yet he wanted to know more.

"I have been known to splurge once in a while," Lucanis replied, pushing himself to standing upright. He dried his hands off on his shirt; the motion pulled down the slightly opened button up shirt to revealed the slightest glimpse of chest hair. Davrin pulled his gaze back up, the tips of his ears burning in response.

Just say thank you for the meal and leave. He reminded himself. But truth be told, Davrin did not want to leave. Not yet.

"You're an expensive man to shop for," Lucanis continued as he walked towards the wine rack behind him, searching what few bottles they had and pulling one off of the shelf. "Do you want a drink?" He held up the bottle and two glasses between them.

"I don't know. I should get go—," Davrin's words halted in his mouth as he finished processing what Lucanis had said. "What do you mean I'm an expensive man to shop for?" He raised an eyebrow at Lucanis. "Don't tell me you made this just for me?"

"And if I did?"

[kirain]

Dare I ask... Emmrich & Lucanis love triangle?

Ooooh, I'm so bad at love triangles! I hardly ever write them. I hope this is decent!

The room was heavy with the scent of blood and sweat, the candle light pooling in the hollows of Vae's unconscious face. Her breathing was shallow, strained, and her body trembled under the fever that gripped her. At her side, Lucanis sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together in accidental prayer. He refused to look away, even as his chest tightened with guilt.

The bandages around her torso were soaked through, the crimson stain a dagger twisting in his heart. He wanted to scream, to curse the gods, the Venatori—and most of all, himself. You were reckless. Weak. This is your fault! His teeth clenched, his nails biting into his skin as he felt the darkness inside him stir: Spite, coiled and restless, feeding off his turmoil, and surprisingly upset.

"She's going to die! Because of you!" the spirit snapped, his voice rattling the bars of his cage.

Lucanis parished the thought, refusing to let it take hold, but the guilt remained, festering and raw—until an anguished sound broke through the haze of his stupor. Vae shifted, her face contorting in pain. With a strangled gasp, she shot up, her eyes wide and unseeing, before she dropped back down onto the bed with a shrill cry, clutching her side.

"Vae!" Lucanis leaned closer in an instant, his hands hovering uncertainly before settling gently on her shoulders. "Don't move. You'll only make it worse."

"Ugh..." Her breathing was ragged, her fingers moving to grip the sheets, desperate for relief.

"Hold on. I have something."

Quickly, Lucanis reached for the small cup on the table beside him, the liquid inside a bitter-smelling concoction Emmrich had left behind. When he touched the handle, he felt a pang of envy, but swiftly eased it to her lips.

"Drink this," he said, his voice more pleading than demanding. "It will help."

Vae hesitated, her face scrunched in discomfort, but she nodded. With Lucanis' aid, she sipped slowly, grimacing at the taste, before the diligent assassin laid her back against her pillow, willing the medicine to work.

Before long, her heaves waned into exhausted pants, the lines on her face fading slightly as Lucanis set the cup aside. Much to his relief, the elixir—whatever it was—soothed her pain better and faster than he'd expected, though it did little to soothe his worry.

"Vae?" he whispered. "Are you—?"

When her breathing steadied, her eyes fluttered open again, glassy but searching. For a moment, they lingered on Lucanis, revelling in his uninjured form, but then they seemed to bore past him.

"Emmrich..." she rasped, "is he all right?"

The question tore through his soul, harsh and unrelenting, though he knew he had no right to feel that way. "He's safe," he said, forcing a stoic expression. "Everyone is. We put the Venatori down. Every last one, including the one who hurt you."

Vae groaned, looking about the room. "Where... is he?"

"He went out," he said, his tone flat. "To find more elfroot for your wound."

Vae's lips curved into a weak smile as she sighed, her eyes closing again. "Thank you," she murmured.

His stomach turned. Even after everything, she was inexplicably kind. "I'm sorry," he muttered, his throat tight with the weight of his unspoken desires. "This is my fault. I should've seen that bastard before he—"

"Stop..." Vae wheezed, weakly brushing her hand against his, unknowingly causing him to flinch. "You can't see... every enemy, Lucanis. It's not your fault... at all."

"But it should have been me. You took the blow."

"And I'd do it again."

Her words wrenched the air from his lungs. In that moment, all he wanted was to hold her, to steal her pain, to tell her how deeply she mattered to him. But before he could utter a word, the door creaked open, and Emmrich stepped inside.

"Vae!"

The older man dropped the bundle of elfroot in his arms and rushed to her side, sliding to his knees. At the sound of his voice, Vae's eyes struggled open one last time, landing on his overwrought face. When her vision cleared, she gave him a bright smile—one so full of warmth that it shattered something in the depths of Lucanis' psyche.

She didn't look at anyone else that way.

"Emmrich..." she whispered, her consciousness slipping.

"Oh, thank the Maker!" he sobbed, his voice trembling. "I'm here, darling. I'm right here." He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "You're going to be fine. The blade went deep, but it missed every vital organ."

"Sorry for... scaring you..." she mumbled.

"No. Don't apologise, dearest. Just rest." He caressed her cheek, lulling her into a peaceful slumber. "I promise, with my remedies, you'll be back on your feet in no time. That dreadful wound won't even leave a scar."

Lucanis stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. He didn't intend it, but it was too late, his back tensing as the legs chipped the marble with a violent hiss. Emmrich glanced up at the sound; though not in suspicion, but gratitude.

"Thank you for staying with her," he said, his tone vexingly polite and sincere. "I can't tell you how reassuring it was for me, knowing she wasn't alone while I was out."

"Of course," was all Lucanis could muster.

Then, he turned and left the room, leaving Vae in Emmrich's care.

-----

The hallway was cold, the silence oppressive. Lucanis clutched his fists, his nails digging into his palms as he walked, each step a battle. Once he was far enough away, he collapsed against the wall, his muscles throbbing. To his dismay, his eyes glowed a vicious purple, and Spite's voice echoed in his ears.

"Get rid of him," he snarled. "He makes you feel bad. I. Don't. Like it."

Caught in a malicious snare, the assassin's hand drifted to the dagger at his hip, his thoughts clouded with anger and jealousy. Against his will, his eyes flicked to the door, the image of Emmrich writhing beneath his blade unnaturally appealing. Kill him. Kill him.

"No!" he roared, slamming his knuckles against the stones. Spite growled as the pain knocked his hold, though not entirely.

"Why?!" he screamed. "Tell. Me. Why!"

"Emmrich is a good man," Lucanis winced. "You like him."

"No! I like. Vae! I want her. You want her," the addled spirit sneered.

"I do," he admitted, struggling to maintain control. He finally understood—this was his doing. "And that's why I have to let her go. It's called 'love', Spite."

"Love?" Spite repeated, spitting through his teeth. "What is 'love'?"

"It's what we're feeling, Spite... what I'm making you feel. It's why you're mad at Emmrich. It's why we want Vae."

"Then take her!"

"No," Lucanis shook his head, sternly. "That would only hurt her. You don't want to hurt Vae, do you?"

Spite paused, his grip on Lucanis slipping. "Why would it... hurt her?"

"Because she loves Emmrich. If we took him away, it wouldn't make her love us, it would only hurt her."

"But we. Hurt. Instead!" Spite cried, confused.

"Yes," Lucanis chuckled. "Sometimes that's what love is."

"Pain?"

"Unrequited." He straightened up, moving his hand from his dagger to his chest. "If we truly love Vae, we'll want her to be happy, even if it isn't with us." His fingers bunched in his shirt, his brow furrowing. Spite was still fighting. "Or do you want her to feel what we're feeling? Is that it, Spite? Do you want Vae to hurt?"

The voice fell silent, the purple sheen in his eyes slowly ebbing away. His body was once again his own, and though he could sense Spite's ambivalence, and he felt terrible for making him feel the grief in his own heart, he was glad the spirit relented, at least for the moment.

"Thank you," he sighed. "I know it's difficult. Complicated. But this is the right choice. I'm... proud of you, for putting Vae first."

"Shut. Up."

Lucanis smirked, glancing back at the door one last time before continuing down the hall.