#even dragon age fandom is small by comparison | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lairofsentinel · 3 years ago

Note

Do you think Oskar Fevras the artist whom you can buy in any way mirrors Gale? His story reminded me a bit of Gale’s in the whole hung up on your first love thing

Hello there!

Let me explain you how I understand Oskar Fevras. I think that may be an important key to see what I'm going to be concluding.

Oskar has the pretence of being a noble, and likes too much wealth and fame. His patron is his betrothed: Lady Jannath. The Jannath are a family of wealthy mine-owners in BG, who, according to the Main Char's "gossip" knowledge, have been passing through a scandal when they realised that Oskar was a commoner. Apparently Oskar is known as the runaway groom for this.

I'm not so sure to believe that the problem in all his drama is his commoner past. But he doesn't clarify it in a very explicit way. We only have this information from the narrator and it's like a "rumour", something you picked in the air in the city's gossip, so it can be slightly different.

He clarifies that the date of the marriage was never set... but clearly the intention was there. What happened? "Complications", he adds.

Oskar tells you that before his fame as a painter and his affair with Lady Jannath, there was another woman he wanted to spend his life with [which make me assume he was with her until the last moment of the proposal] but when he was offered marriage with Lady Jannath, who gave him a better future because her wealth, he thought "important to tell her about his past".

These lines are a bit inconsistent in their logic, no? You love a woman you want to marry, but then another one very wealthy, asks you marriage and you consider to tell her "you are a commoner" [if we assume the rumour is true].... There is no much connection with the concepts... unless Oskar is saying other thing in his vague way of explaining this story.

In my opinion, he is saying:

I was with this woman I wanted to spend my life with. But on the other hand, I wanted to be famous and wealthy, so I started a serious afair with a person who would support my art: Lady Jannath [it's implied he became her lover without never telling her he was with the first woman]. All was done in order to have fame and wealth. Then Lady Jannath proposes him marriage, and he considers it's reasonable to tell her about "his past" [his past as in, there is another woman, there was always another woman]. This scandal triggered, and because we are talking about a noble family in BG, we know they can control rumours, so they preferred to make it about his "commoner" past instead of his double-cheating.

When he explained his past to Lady Jannath, he was "forced" to escape and think about who to "choose". He doesn't know yet. "Fame and wealth suit me very well." But when he thinks in his first love... he hesitates. He says all this with a very light tone, yet, he makes of this a big dilemma, almost a performance of drama: to choose between true love or wealth to develop his skills.

I may have taken all this a bit more serious if it weren't for the last line he says. If something I've learnt by reading a lot of books of narrative and how to write narratives, is that professionals don't put useless lines in the character's mouths to be wasted. They have meaning.

When the rescue is finally done, he asks for money to fight the "discomfort of the road", and, unless this has been changed in this last patch [I don't play BG3 since patch 2 or 3] he says something that makes you understand that he is going to spend this money in alcohol [he says something along the lines "well, I should endure the road sober then"]. So this last bit showed us that he is not really a very trustworthy person, he hides the truth just to take some extra benefit of the situation [we don't see a real struggle in all this, more like a performance of a struggle].

It's true the situation is a bit vague and this interpretation may be wrong, but Oskar is not exactly an honest char. He has his love for over-dramatisation and present himself as the victim in situations that are not thaaaaat bad.

Now, how all this is similar to Gale? I'm afraid I don't see much similarity, sorry. You can stretch things a lot to make Lady Jannath to look like Mystra [Mystra is the one who gave Gale the deepest connection with the Weave, which is something that brings him joy and sense in life to Gale. She is a kind of "patron" for Gale? It's too stretched, Mystra is a goddess of particular behaviour in her lore] ... but you also can connect her with the first woman by using the weak link of "being Gale's first love". Where the Main Character fits in all this analogy? How all this situation has a relationship with Gale, his abandonment issues caused by a powerful, immense entity as Mystra, and how he made dire mistakes to get her attention again, like all devotees do in this crazy Faerûn? I don't see it, sorry. Gale's first love was Mystra, the most powerful goddess of the pantheon of Faerûn. Oscar's first love was a mortal woman. I'm afraid I can't see much to relate there beyond the fact that "people have first loves" that imprint a strong effect in a person's life [which is true for almost all humans in real life].

I'm not sure if maybe this question is motivated by all those terrible takes that Gale receives in this fandom. I think a lot of people have serious problems with the fact that Gale has an ex. For this, people are a mixture of being offended by that and also treat the party scene as if it were a "big" revelation, which is not?. Sure, he has an ex that inspires him complicated emotions but it's clear he wants to get rid of that event and move on.

Gale never plays two sides. He is always very clear about the fact of having secrets, about his boundaries [another thing that the fandom doesn’t forgive him], and how complicated is for him to speak about Mystra. If you get nice rolls, you can even tell Gale that he is dreaming with Mystra [like, the game makes you AWARE of it XD]... And he also tells you that the tadpole dreams are about power and desire... I mean, if the guy says that, and then dreams with Mystra....why some people are offended/surprised after the party!??? haha. The biggest mystery in this fandom.

Sure, the scene is not handled in the best ways, there are some weird lines, everything looks so high-school cheap drama. I get that... I don't know, we have to blame it for being Early Access and for Gale not being Larian's fave. But well... Gale has an ex. It's a fact, and one can know that very early if the fucking game couldn't be soooooo shitty bugged with his char.

Here is one of my videos [very old patch as you can see] where we can see the second dream: He says "These dreams are about desire", I pick the option of Mystra. "Yes, I dream with Mystra". You know by your own dreams that these dreams are very sexual in general... So, conclusion? Gale has an ex.

Oskar is playing with two women at the same time in the worst case scenario. In the best one, he abandoned his first love to follow wealth. Her first love [that, let's be honest, how much he loved her that he had no problem to cheat on/abandon when it comes to fame and wealth?] was put aside in favour of this noble. Then he leaves the noble one because he is unable to choose. He was the one who abandoned [or cheated, we can't say completely because it's vague] two women, not the other way around... Plus, to make things even more different, there is this small detail that the fandom always seems to be blind about because most of them only know Dragon Age lore: Mystra is the most powerful goddess in the damn pantheon xD Gale was a plaything in her grasp [this is the worst case scenario; I have a secondary interpretation, more kind to her, focused on Mystra's point of view]. But there is something very strong here that make these comparison too out of any frame to compare: She is not a normal woman... her power is not even compared with Jannath's. She is a Goddess.

So, in short: I'm afraid I don't see much in common. XD I mean, everyone has exes, every person with some age has a past even in Faerûn. Sure, this is Faerûn, so exes can go wild, I get it. XD And having exes is not always a "finished business" [specially when that comes with abandonment issues], but more like a WIP: something to deal with unresolved emotions from past partners that you want to move on, and sometimes a new partner may help you [or make everything worse]. I always read Gale that way.

Thanks for the ask!

7 notes · View notes

thethirdamell · 4 years ago

Text

I Yield (Borders Yet To Be - Part 1)

@pinkfadespirit tagged me for WIP Wednesday so here’s what I’ve been working on instead of AO. Thank you for the tag! This is part one of who knows how many. I was thinking of making it a one-shot, but it’s getting a bit long, so I’m still undecided on how to handle it. WIP Wednesday Tags: @mikkeneko @verifiedhawke @arcanefeathers @ushauz @wannakissrobits @degenerate-perturbation @thefluffynug @doctorhawke @nightingalerising @loneliii-aura @faux-fires and anyone who wants to share :) Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Rating: Explicit Tags: Romance WC: 3246 Main Pairings (M/M): Amell / Loghain

Summary: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

Sweat. Soaking his hair, his tunic, every inch of his flushed skin. His pulse was thrumming in his ears, so loud he couldn’t hear the harsh grunts he knew spilled from his lips as he took thrust after thrust. Damn him. Damn the Warden. Loghain was exhausted, every muscle trembling as he struggled to keep up with the man’s limitless stamina, his limitless mana, his limitless everything. Amell shoved him hard against the wall, and the sound that escaped him was more gasp than grunt.

Amell didn’t just have him, he dominated him. From the moment they’d started this, he’d been in complete control. Loghain couldn’t move, could barely breathe without the man’s allowance. There was so much strength in him - Loghain couldn’t call on a comparison. Not since Maric died, but Maric had never taken charge of him like this - had never ruined him like this. Amell grabbed him and turned him around, only to throw him on the floor.

Loghain hit his knees, and stayed there, breathing hard. This was what he’d asked for - what he’d wanted - and now that he finally had it - there was nothing left but to surrender to it. Amell advanced on him, but there was nothing hurried in his stride. Like he knew Loghain would stay there, exactly where he’d left him, exactly where he wanted him. Amell had taken everything from him, and there was nothing left now but his dignity, but somehow Loghain knew Amell would take that too.

“I yield,” Loghain said, letting his sword fall from his hand.

Amell stopped. Loghain hadn’t expected him to stop. He expected to meet his end at the Warden’s sword, thrust through his heart before the whole of Ferelden. Beaten. Bested. Utterly destroyed at the hands of the man he’d spent the past year fighting with more fervor than the Blight. Amell unlatched his helmet with his shield arm, and let it clatter to the floor of the throne room.

Dragonscale echoed on the stone in the utter stillness of the Landsmeet. Amell still held his sword, and could still drive it through him. Loghain still expected him to. Amell’s eyes swept over him, a bloody shade of russet that was difficult to meet for how they seemed to see through him. He wasn’t the Regent, or the Teyrn, or the Hero of Riverdane to the Warden. He was just Loghain - and Loghain had lost. He knelt, chest heaving, one hand to the floor and the other to his knee to keep him steady, and prayed Anora would look away.

“... I accept your surrender,” Amell said.

Anora wept. Alistair raged. The Landsmeet gasped, but no one was more shocked than Loghain.

Loghain had underestimated him. He’d thought Amell like Cailan: a child wanting to play at war. He’d never been more wrong about a person. Amell unified the country where he failed, arranging his daughter’s wedding to Maric’s bastard, and winning the allegiance of the bannorn, the elves, the dwarves, the mages, and now somehow, Loghain as well.

Amell wanted him for the Grey Wardens, or perhaps simply wanted his death behind closed doors. Loghain knew enough to know the Joining was often fatal, and far less glorious than a public beheading. It seemed a fitting punishment, all things considered. Loghain respected the man for it, though Maric’s bastard disagreed.

Alistair hadn’t contained his anger to the Landsmeet. Loghain and half the palace overheard their argument when they returned. Alistair locked himself in his room, which just left Riordan and Amell to oversee his Joining. Amell sat on a table, his gloves and a selection of vials laid out beside him, reading over a tome embossed with griffon wings.

He looked no less commanding outside of battle. He had an impressively strong nose and well-defined jaw, but there was something in his eyes. Blood red, shadowed by a strong brow and further accented by high cheekbones. He cut a leaner figure in Warden leathers than he did in dragonscale, and wore the dark blues almost regally, posture strong, raven hair braided back behind one ear.

It seemed only fitting to stare. Loghain should get the measure of the man that had spared him, but Amell was hard to read. There was a strategist in there, alongside a mage, despite Amell’s reliance on sword and shield. Strange Amell hadn’t used his magic in their duel. Or perhaps smart. Perhaps it had all been for show, and Amell could have killed him with a wave of his hand, but wanted to allow him some semblance of dignity before the Landsmeet.

A strong leader couldn’t have weak allies, after all. Loghain had never thought of himself as weak before, but he knew when he’d been bested. Amell was the better soldier. The better leader. The better man. He was competent, but that competence wasn’t terribly comforting if he was just now learning the ritual Loghain was to undergo.

“Am I to understand you’ve never done this before?” Loghain guessed.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Amell said.

“Quiet,” Riordan murmured. “The Joining is complex. He needs to focus.”

“You could at least get me when you're ready,” Loghain muttered, pacing impatiently. The less time he had to think this over, the better. The thought of leaving Anora alone didn’t sit well with him. She was formidable, strong enough to endure without him, but the memory of her tears of relief at the Landsmeet haunted him. He didn't want her shedding any more, and prayed it was mercy, not malice, that had stayed Amell’s hand.

“Trust me,” Amell said without looking up from the tome.

“I don’t see I have a choice,” Loghain said.

In time, Amell set his book aside and cast his spell, blood and lyrium weaving together in the silver joining chalice. It smelled like death, a scent so sweet it was noxious, and Loghain didn’t doubt he’d meet his end at it.

Riordan retrieved the chalice. The old Orlesian still bore the scars from his imprisonment at Howe’s estate, and there was nothing but practicality in his voice when he spoke. “You are called upon to submit yourself to the Taint for the greater good. From this moment forth you are a Grey Warden.”

“I understand,” Loghain reached to take it from him when Amell stopped him. Amell's hand clasped over his own on the chalice, and felt pleasantly warm contrasted with the cold silver. It sent an involuntary shiver up his spine, and made him acutely aware it had been years since anyone had touched him.

“Wait,” Amell said.

“Change your mind?” Loghain forced a chuckle. “Should we get the guillotine?”

“Join us, brother,” Amell said, his hand still resting atop his own, and it wasn’t just warm, it was soft, his grip firm and steady through the oath. “Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that can not be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.”

“My sacrifice?” Loghain fought back the urge to roll his eyes and wrench away. His pride wasn’t worth the loss of warmth, the loss of contact, the loss of compassion. Amell’s touch was like to be the last he'd ever know.

… strange that didn't seem so terrible.

“Yes,” Amell said.

“My death, you mean," Loghain cleared his throat.

“Death is just death,” Amell said. “If you die, I won't waste it.”

“See that you don’t,” Loghain drank.

Loghain lived, and that was all he could say of the matter. He was stripped of his lands and titles following his defeat, and felt smaller for it. In a strange way, he felt better for it. It was out of his hands now. His successes. His failures. They were on Amell, and Amell seemed to shoulder them well. Amell spent a great deal of time with Anora, Alistair, and Eamon, offering his advice on the state of the bannorn before he left for his fortress at Soldier’s Peak.

Loghain joined him, and all his companions. They hated him down to the last man, but Amell didn’t, or if he did, he didn’t make it obvious. He spoke with him, and ate with him, and acknowledged him the way it seemed he did the rest of his companions. The only distinction seemed to be that Amell watched him with a… unique intensity. An intensity Loghain only noticed because he watched Amell the same way. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, and honestly couldn’t say which of them had started it.

They took the North Road from Denerim towards Soldier’s Peak, and spent the night at a small town inn, where it seemed Loghain should speak with him. Set expectations for whatever there was between them. He knocked on the door to Amell’s room, one hard thump of his fist, and won a polite, "Enter."

Loghain let himself inside. The room, like all the rooms at the inn, was modest. An armchair and a couch set before a low table, where Amell sat with a selection of books and maps, his mabari at his feet. There was also a basin for bathing and a bed, both big enough for two, but Amell was alone.

That seemed strange, for a man like him. Maric had never been alone, not even when he should have been, women from all walks of life walking their way right into his bed. Rowan had suffered for it… but Loghain didn't want to think about Maric or Rowan. He wanted to think about Amell.

There was a lot to think about there. Amell besting him. Amell sparing him. Amell staring at him. His hair, free of its braid, curved to frame one side of his face and the wholly unwarranted raise of his eyebrow. Like Amell was intrigued by his visit, but there was nothing intriguing about him. He was a bitter old man who’d lost his country, his crown, and his companions all in one fell swoop.

… It seemed he should resent Amell more for that.

"Loghain," Amell said, closing the book he'd been reading. "Did you want to talk?"

Sitting seemed too presumptuous, so Loghain leaned on the armchair while he spoke, "What else could I want?"

"You tell me," Amell countered, with a strange lilt to his voice.

"I'm not here for a rematch," Loghain assured him. "Don't worry."

"I wasn't."

… Cocky.

“I passed your test,” Loghain noted, fighting back a smile and wondering why his face was so determined to settle on the expression. “Fate has a twisted sense of humor, it seems.”

“It seems,” Amell agreed.

“I suppose you think I'm some sort of monster,” Loghain continued. “More so since I survived your ritual: you keep striking at me, and I just refuse to die decently.”

“I may have to resort to magic next,” Amell said playfully.

“Oh?” Loghain raised a bemused eyebrow, his smile finally escaping. “What was all that nonsense with darkspawn blood and lyrium, then? A puppet show?"

"Something like that," Amell said mysteriously.

"It seems to me that magic has already failed," Loghain joked, though he wasn't naive enough to think the extent of Amell’s magic could fit in one little cup. "I’d recommend a sharp knife in the kidneys next time. Less impressive, but it gets the job done.”

Amell hummed thoughtfully, like he was considering it, before shaking his head. “The plan loses something when you’re the one suggesting it.”

“I suppose it does lack the element of surprise,” Loghain allotted.

"Sit down," Amell waved a hand at the armchair.

It was more suggestion than command, but it still disarmed him. Loghain couldn't remember the last time anyone had told him to do anything. More so, he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually listened. He circled the armchair and sat. Amell smirked, like he was pleased with him for following the order, however insignificant. His eyes wandered over him, like he was sizing him, but Loghain couldn’t imagine why. Amell had already beaten him.

What other reason could the man have to stare? Loghain straightened his spine and refused to fidget for it. He knew where he stood with the Warden and he wouldn’t be intimidated by it, but Amell’s stare didn’t seem threatening. It just seemed interested. Silence stretched, and it took Loghain longer than he cared to admit to realize he was waiting for permission to speak.

“Well,” Loghain cleared his throat. “What shall we do to settle things between us, then?”

"Things?" Amell raised an eyebrow.

“Is that supposed to be coy?” Loghain guessed.

“Do you want it to be coy?” Amell asked.

… Was Amell flirting with him? He couldn’t possibly be flirting with him. He was old enough to be the man’s father. His grandfather, if he'd been more adventurous in his youth, but he hadn't. He’d loved Rowan, and then Celia - though not half as well as she deserved - and then no one. Amell had no reason to flirt with him. Loghain had spent the better part of a year trying to kill him, and there was nothing flirtatious in that.

Loghain wasn’t a flirtatious person. He’d barely flirted with his own wife, and he’d never flirted with Maric - no matter his feelings for the man. He couldn’t begin to imagine the scandal that would have come from that, even if Maric had shown any preference for men. His King? It would have been as bad as… whatever this was. Amell was his Commander. Amell was half his age. Amell was waiting for an answer, smirking a little more for every second he delayed.

“What I want is for this to be over,” Loghain said before he embarrassed himself further. “You’ve won, Warden.”

“Amell,” Amell corrected him.

“... Amell, then,” Loghain said.

“There’s nothing to settle,” Amell assured him. “I expect us to work together.”

“Is that punishment meant for me or for you?” Loghain wondered.

“Did you want to be punished?” Amell ran his thumb over the tips of his fingers, a flicker of electricity playing over his fingers, but the magic seemed more static than lightning, his expression more thoughtful than threatening.

There was too much to think about there. Amell was absolutely flirting with him. Maric had told stories of the nights he’d spent with mages and their magic, and they assaulted him mercilessly the longer Amell held the spell. The short exchange felt like their duel all over again - Amell wearing down his defenses, and Loghain helpless against him.

It shouldn’t have been so appealing. It shouldn’t have been appealing at all. Loghain didn’t know anything about the man beyond his skill with a blade, but something in the roll of his fingers and the quirk of his lips seemed to suggest it was… quite a proficiency.

“I imagine you must have one in mind,” Loghain mumbled despite himself, wondering after the sensations. Pleasant, no doubt. Something that shivered across the skin. Something that wasn’t serious, and was clearly just meant to tease or torment him.

“A few,” Amell grinned.

“So just like that, we’re allies?” Loghain asked - refusing to read into that grin, that magic, those hands. Amell was just making fun of him, adding insult to the injury of his defeat with this whole exchange. “I can’t imagine it’s so simple. I don’t know what concessions you want from me. I expect my word will not satisfy you.”

“Did you want to satisfy me?” Amell countered.

“Mockery, then,” Loghain deduced. There was no other explanation. He stood, but Amell stood with him, a fast hand catching his wrist when he turned to go. It was the same hand as before - the same warmth, the same firm grip, and Maker - the magic. Amell cut off the spell with the contact, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.

Static rippled up his arm, sending a full body shiver through him. Amell had to have felt him tremble. Had to have known he was making a fool of him. They were enemies at worst, reluctant allies at best, and the thought that Amell might be after more than that was ridiculous enough as to be insulting.

“What mockery?” Amell asked.

“This,” Loghain gestured vaguely between them. “I’ve seen enough Satinalias to know when I'm being made the fool.”

“Fortune favors the foolish,” Amell said - and Maker preserve him but there was something captivating in him. Not just his eyes, but his scent, clouding his head for their closeness. He was something like blood and magic, and it spoke of the same power that had bested him at the Landsmeet and was besting him now.

“Fortune favors the brave,” Loghain corrected the proverb, feeling himself begin to sweat the longer Amell stared at him with those damn eyes, like fire, heating up his skin with all their impossible promises. “I am no fool and I will not be made one. You may have won, but I doubt it was done with sword alone. If not for your magic, I could have taken you.”

“Is that what you want?” Amell asked.

“What?”

“You want to take me?” Amell released his wrist, and caught his collar instead. His fingers barely skirted the fabric, but he might have wrenched for the effect it had on him. Loghain couldn’t focus on anything but the way his lips moved when he spoke, and the thought that they might have been softer than his hands. “You want to take my magic?”

“Damn you, Warden,” Loghain hated himself for whispering, but he couldn’t raise his voice any more than he could raise his head, tilted just slightly so the other man could reach his lips if he wanted. “What do you want from me?”

“You tell me,” Amell countered - his eyes were fixed on his lips, and the warmth of his breath spilled over them with every word. “What do you want?”

“I want you to let go of me,” Loghain lied.

Amell let go, and Loghain regretted it more than all the mistakes he’d made of late. The rest of his mistakes he’d made for Ferelden, but this one-... this was a mistake he could make for himself. It almost seemed worth the risk that Amell might be mocking him, might be too young for him, might be too much for him. Loghain cleared his throat, and took an unsteady step back. “Thank you. Goodnight, Warden.”

“Amell,” Amell corrected him.

“Amell,” Loghain repeated, and beat a hastier retreat from Amell’s room than he had from Ostagar. He took a cold bath in his own room, but he was so flushed from the exchange his skin may as well have warmed the water. This-... this was the real defeat. The real shame. Not at the Landsmeet, but here, in some backwater inn on the North Road, where he met his end not at Amell’s sword but his smirk.

Take him. Loghain couldn’t take him. One look, one touch, and he was ready to yield. The memory wouldn’t leave him, not even when he took a hand to his aching cock and beat a frantic pace against his racing heart. He hated the touch of his own hand - weathered with age and nothing like the supple youth he felt in Amell - but his release strengthened his resolve. If he didn’t even want the touch of his own hand, neither would anyone else.

#loghain #loghain mac tir #dragon age #amell #fanfiction #This is technically still Accursed Ones #Maybe an Accursed Ones AU #We're just trying to figure out how we have to retcon to make this canon #Come join the chaos in the Discord #Where the rules are made up and the points don't matter #wip wednesday #wip

23 notes · View notes

swordmaid · 4 years ago

Note

Super unpopular opinion in the gen fandom but Brienne as forever the Starks’ sidekick is so unappetizing. I don’t mind her official knighthood as long as it goes into how she reforms the system or the Starks respect her as an older sister/advisor. Whenever I read fics where Jaime dies & leaves her loveless so she guards the Starks is depressing to me? Like ‘oh, you loved the wrong man so you have to make it up to dedicating your whole life to the right family’ or ‘she’s loyal (ie dumb) muscle.

Yes, she is Duncan’s heir parallel but it is not a 1:1 comparison. She is his foil too. The characters’ genders, ages, and social statuses play a huge role in their arcs, personalities, and experiences. To have them end in the same place is just ??? Besides, Tarth’s place as an invasion means she will probably be thrust into a leadership role. Honestly, the only other worse ending is if she ends up with Hyle like a bad romcom written by a Nice Guy Incel whose inspiration came from a wet dream.

Also the Baratheon’s are dying, no one is officially in charge of it, the siege of Storm’s End is ongoing, Aegon’s forces are sweeping the area, Greyscale. Besides Davos, Brienne is the most significant POV from the Stormlands most likely to survive. Yes, she’ll probably find kinship & respect in the North. However, I’ve a hard time believing a woman who fears not being a good heir & is dutiful & compassionate even to people who were cruel to her would just abandon the place she grew up.

The Stormlands, like the Riverlands, are going to need strong and moral leadership when all of this is done, especially if Edric Storm is named Lord Paramount since he is just a kid and a bastard at that. Brienne, who has first hand experience with suffering and commits acts of small and large compassion, would be needed.

Same anon who ranted about Brienne, glad you liked my take! Wanted to add that if Brienne becomes a knight, I want her to lead reforms to take away knighthood from people who exploit it and focus it more on community engagement, knights other women, etc. while the show’s knighting scene is excellently acted, I feel :/ for it as a capstone for her arc because I feel like there are many plots that can come from and they just go oops, she’s Kingsguard now. Let’s not explain why she wants to!

Let’s not explore what it means to be a woman in a corrupt and toxically masculine field in such a visible job title! Let’s not explore the challenges of holding others accountable and how to stay ethical and not jaded/numb in a difficult job field. Let’s not explore how it will impact other women to see a female knight! Let’s make a knight and move on, people! We got CGI dragons and world’s most dull conclusion to film.

my reply is under the cut because this is already so long, but YASSSSSSS GO OFF!!!

I always and will forever express it--- i hate brienne as a sworn sword to the Starks. Gonna even go FURTHER to say that she’s not even MEANT to be a sworn sword. The fact that the two people she has sworn under died--and even if it’s out of her control--i think that’s going to have a play in her stance about this whole thing. I’ve said it before again, I don’t care about her getting knighting all too much as well because acquiring the title of the knight/ser isn’t what’s important--it’s her being recognized as one. we know, from the various of knights in the series, that having the title of ‘ser’ doesn’t mean shit when none of them uphold the values. we also know that hedge knights has a reputation of them being beggars with swords, and they’re usually frowned at. brienne achieving that recognition that she is a true knight without actually having the title of ‘ser’ herself would be important to her character imo because her character has been heavily and constantly judged by crowd perception throughout the series. even if she has the title of ‘ser’ who would believe it? if say, hyle knights her or jaime knights her, would other characters in the series believe that she actually has that title or would they think she’s just fucking around? achieving that crowd recognition--having that perception from the small folk etc. would mean so much more since it actually shows that you don’t need to be a ‘knight’ to be seen as a true knight, since all it boils down to is if you uphold the values or not (which she already does). though it would be nice to have, brienne doesn’t really need the title of a knight since she’s already one. she just needs to be recognised as one because so far, jaime, pod (maybe hyle?) is the only one who recognises her as one. (i would argue the lil kids in the orphan inn too)

I love the idea of her mentoring Edric Storm actually. Personally, I love entertaining the idea that Brienne doesn’t serve under anyone anymore, rather, she serves the small folk. her ‘political power’ comes from the influence that she garners from the people in the realm. and as you know with ice and fire, the opinions of the smallfolk & bannerman ACTUALLY matters like it’s not just a game between the great houses, and i think brienne will bring some relevancy to that. But in a scenario where she becomes an advisor for Edric Storm as some sort, I can definitely see her wanting to focus on the safety of their people first and foremost.

My mind is going off on a tangent rn but I don’t see her ruling over a land as well actually. I think a lot of factors will definitely come to play + it would depend on how this would end, but I don’t think Brienne would rule in some way. This is just mostly because I see so much ‘hero’ and ‘legend’ motifs peppered in her POV that if the series ends and she lives, the ending that I see her having is EITHER she’s gonna settle down with jaime somewhere OR she’s gonna go off with pod and continue to help and protect people ala dunk and egg. I’ve never seen her as a character who would rule; I don’t think she has any political agenda, but obviously that can be changed and I can be convinced otherwise but currently that’s where my mind is rn.

And I don’t want to think about the show’s knighting and Brienne being in the Kingsguard honestly dfkgdjg I refuse to have the show occupying my psyche like, no thanks!!! All I’m going to say that if brienne’s path leads to that in the books I’m gonna hunt down germ’s cabin in the woods

#but this is all so interesting tho like. i AGREE!!!#Anonymous

28 notes · View notes

sagemoderocklee · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! For the meta asks, would you do 1, 5, 8, and 17?

you did not come to play, lilac! thanks for all these questions! <3

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

oh lord. that’s a... question. i have. so many current projects, i don’t even know where to start. this is gonna be long so please bear with me lol i’ll probably give more detail for some fics over others, and i’ll only go over fics I’ve got documents for because otherwise we’d be here forever.

The Art of Love: so this one is obvious because it’s been in progress for the last 2ish years? no i think it’s three now. I won’t go into detail with this because the fic is roughly halfway through, so there’s plenty of content for that up! I’d say the progress with that fic is actually going really well, though. Unlike Alliance, which took 8 years--five years of writing, three of editing--TAoL has been up for way less time, and is already about to hit the halfway mark! I really need to get back to it, tbh because it’s been way too long since my last update.

Honor Bound (sequel to Alliance): so this is.... kind of on pause. I’ve got the first three chapters written, but my focus has been more on TAoL when it comes to my more complicated, long running stories, so HB has taken a backseat. I think I won’t get back to working on the Allied Nations Saga until after TAoL is done, in all honesty.

Find Me: this is my HS AU, which has been on the back burner forever and I feel terrible because I think it may honestly be my most popular fic. Unfortunately, AUs/slice of life stuff is difficult for me because I’m more interested in politics, so I lost momentum on this fic. It is about halfway done. I have a good chunk of chapter six written, but not enough that I could say I’m close to finishing it.

It Eats Your Heart: obviously I just started this one, and it’s a horror fic. I’ve really gotta sit down and do some major plotting on it because I only have some very vague ideas currently.

Pearl-Filled Lungs: this is one of like three ningyo AUs I have--the other are pirate/ningyo AUs (and ones actually a selkie not a ningyo). I started it last year for the GaaLee fest, and it’s been sitting unfinished for far too long. I finally sat down recently and plotted the whole thing out, so I’m hoping to get back to working on it soon! It’s only 5 chapters in total, so I don’t think it’ll take me super long to get through once I sit down and do it.

Who Dares to Love Forever: This is a working title, and I may change it. This is a fic idea I’ve had for a couple years, inspired by the song Who Wants to Live Forever by Queen. This particular fic is a vehicle for my sage mode!rock lee headcanon, and explores just how effective Chiyo giving Gaara her life would have been given she was an old biddy. So the idea for this fic is that Gaara’s running out of time because Chiyo only had so much to offer.

Absolution: this is another fic that I’ve had on the back burner for years. it was initially inspired by art by @brianadoesotherjunk but quickly spiraled into something much bigger because of course it did. This particular fic is one I’m extremely excited about. I need to go back over the first part, because I feel like it’s not quite right, but I do technically have the first part done. This fic follows Gaara struggling with bouts of narcolepsy that trigger nightmares induced by trauma and guilt from his childhood. These nightmares are incredibly dangerous for obvious reasons, but even more so because Temari’s baby is on the way. Temari and Shikamaru are married, living in the Kazekage estate, and with their baby coming and both needing/wanting to get back to work, they also need a nanny. Unbeknownst to Gaara, the year prior to the events of the fic, Maito Gai died, succumbing to the 8th Gate finally, and Lee has since been spiraling. His depression has become so self-destructive that he’s been taken off active duty. Shikamaru, along with the rest of the Konoha 12 (minus Neji and Sasuke), get together and discuss what to do. Tenten believes that Lee being a nanny would be the perfect thing. And so Rock Lee is sent to Suna, hired by Shikamaru and Temari as their live-in nanny...

We Need Not Be Yellow Tulips in a Garden of Gardenia’s, Yet We Go the Way of the Red Camellia: true to form, I decided that a hanahaki fic was something I had to do, and I was not going to pass up the chance at being as Extra As Possible with the flowery language, ergo the ridiculous title. I’ve gotten part way through the first chapter of this fic, but the whole thing is roughly plotted out and each chapter title is just as extra as the whole fic’s title.

Thirteen Strokes: so this is a fic I have--once again--had on my mind for ages, and--once again, because I am nothing if not a caricature of myself--inspired by a Florence+the Machine song, All This and Heaven Too. I started writing this the other night, as I wanna use it for GaaLee bingo. It’ll be 13 chapters, as per the 13 strokes that it takes to make the character for love, ai, in Japanese. The fic is from Gaara’s PoV, and follows his journey with and his relationship to love, with lots of worldbuilding and politics because it wouldn’t be an Eeri Original without those things.

Scarification: this is another idea for bingo based around the prompt shinshoubyou, which is a fictional disease where your emotions cause physical marks on you

Fill in the [ ]: another bingo idea, based around the prompt bouaishoukoigun, the fictional disease where you forget the person you love if it’s unrequited.

The Eagle’s Augury: an idea that allows me to play around with more worldbuilding and focus on Karura. In this fic, the curse (mentioned briefly on the Naruto wikia) that has led to every single Kazekage being assassinated, is coming for Gaara, and Karura is trying to warn him from beyond the grave. At the same time, Temari and Shikamaru’s marriage is approaching, and their ceremony is being held in Suna, with all the fan fair a marriage for someone from the Kazekage line should see. Again, another fic inspired by Miss Florence+the Machine, the song is Mother

Pomegranate Sun: this is a fic that I am... so excited about. Another fic that was originally inspired by a Queen song, Under Pressure, and has of course taken on a life of its own. This fic, I am actually going to be writing with @ghoste-catte! It’s an arranged marriage trope, and I’m super pumped for it! We’ve only got a little bit started, and it has obviously not taken priority for either of us since we both have a lot of fics on our plates.

The Ballad of the Dragon and the Phoenix: this is a fic I’m really excited but is going to take a LOT of research to get off the ground. I had this idea sometime last year, I wanna say? This fic is another self-indulgent headcanon about Lee’s origins, his family, etc. This fic starts when Gaara shows up on Lee’s doorstep, asking him to accompany him to another country for reasons Lee cannot understand. Gaara has been in talks with Phoenix Kingdom, hoping to forge a new relationship only to find that the Emperor wants to use shinobi for militaristic purposes. Lee doesn’t understand what help he could possibly offer the Kazekage, but he can’t very well turn him down.

okay, i’m gonna stop there. these are the ones I have titles and documents for, and honestly that’s probably way more than you wanted to know about lol

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

Despite the fact that most of my fics end up from Gaara’s PoV, I actually identify with Lee the most!

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Yes! Which is hard to find, tbh, because I am a sucker for political dramas with slow burn romances, but I don’t see a lot of that in the GaaLee fandom. I’m not as into like slice of life or short stories where the characters get together quick, I’m really not into established relationship fics unless it’s a sequel, so I tend to avoid those. I like AUs but it really depends on the AU, because I ultimately prefer the canon and I love seeing the way people write the shinobi world and all its rules and cultures and things. I’m just a big fan of worldbuilding, politics, and slow slow burns. Not this 25k SLOW BURN! crap because that is NOT a slow burn. I wanna see a fic that’s 200k words in and they still haven’t even figured out they’re in love! I like stories I can really sink my teeth into, ya know?

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

Oh gosh. I generally don’t think too much about it except like hoping people don’t think I’m like a stuck up asshole because of how I talk about my writing, writing in general, my hcs, etc. I mean, obviously I don’t expect everyone in this fandom to like me--and there are ppl I’ve gone out of my way to be vocally against because they do nasty shit--but largely I feel like I come across as too intense, so even the general population of GaaLee fans that I do want to interact with I’m always a lil nervous that people secretly don’t like me and basically are like “oh god this bitch again” when they see me in the tags. But I just get really excited and invested in my ideas, and honestly for the longest time this fandom was SO small and there weren’t a lot of people putting out content regularly so it was like a handful of us so I think it made me more emphatic about GaaLee lol I think I always like assume people aren’t as excited about my writing as I am or that people are like “too much politic, i need more romance”.

I’m always surprised when people really love my AUs, like Kado or Find Me have had such fantastic reception, and it’s like people just eat that shit up so much. And then I look at like Alliance or Art of Love and get kind of confused because I think by comparison those are more interesting and more developed than my AUs. I put a shit ton of work into everything I write, especially anything that requires research, so it’s not to say that I do less work per say, just that I feel like TAoL and things like it are more interesting and more developed, and the relationship feels.... somehow more to me there than in an AU.

a lot of my motivation really just comes from the lack of content this fandom had for so many years, and the fact that Naruto could have been a much more interesting series and I love worldbuilding so much. I think my motivation for each fic is different though. Like Alliance was started because I wanted to write something different from what was mainly in the fandom at the time because mind you I started that in 2010. But my motivation for TAoL is more wanting to tell a beautiful story with a complex narrative that looks at the failings of the shinobi world. Whereas like any slice of life fic is really just meant to be a fun break. And sometimes I write something literally just because I wanted to fulfill that trope for the GaaLee fandom--again, a lot of my ideas have been sitting for years and years and years (TAoL was an idea I had literally right after starting Alliance, but I didn’t get to it until 2017), so a lot of ideas that are old are because at the time that trope hadn’t been fulfilled yet in the fandom though that’s changing a lot with the recent GaaLee Renaissance of the last couple years.

7 notes · View notes

autopotion · 4 years ago

Text

Part One: The Character on the Left is Not Francesca

LINK TO DA4 COMPANIONS ANALYSIS MASTERPOST

I am going to clarify one thing right off the bat. This character is not Francesca Invidus, the mage from Tevinter who appears in the spin-off comics Deception and Blue Wraith, and the number one theory for this character I have seen so far on places like Reddit and Tumblr. She cannot be Francesca, because Francesca is not a dwarf. And this is our dwarf companion.

The proof is in the picture itself. I have slapped together a rough height comparison of her against a few other companions from the same concept art with their feet approximately lined up so you can see just how short this character is compared to the others.

As you can see from the mock-up, our first character’s head comes up to the Qunari woman’s waist and the middle of the human man’s chest. She is obviously quite small--not “human woman” small, but even smaller. Given that this is rough concept art, I realize the proportions of the dwarf might look wonky, but she is so visibly and REMARKABLY shorter than the other companions that I am astounded more people have not realized that this is our dwarf. The other proof that she is the dwarf is there is no one else in this companion lineup who could possibly be the dwarf, and Dragon Age has always had at least one major dwarf companion per game (Oghren, Sigrun if we’re counting Awakening [and also Oghren], Varric twice). Dwarves might be the least popular race, but they are also integral to the lore of Thedas, so I would be wildly and unhappily surprised if there are no playable dwarves this time around... especially considering this game takes place in Tevinter, which has such a good relationship with dwarves that Orzammar keeps subterranean Ambassadorias in every major city.

The only character our dwarf is close to in height is this guy:

... And there are other weird things happening with our friend Glow Face that I won’t elaborate on until my last post in this series. Suffice to say I don’t think Glow Face is actually human, so for the purposes of height comparisons, he doesn’t count.

With that clarification out of the way: I can understand if people thought the dwarf character was Francesca because of her outfit. Dwarves don’t wear robes! They can only be rogues and warriors, who wear leathers and armor, and everyone knows dwarves can’t be mages--but our dwarf is very clearly wearing mage robes, so she can’t be a dwarf! Despite the extremely blatant and narratively obvious height discrepancies, she can’t be a dwarf.

Except this character is not just a dwarf. She is the first playable dwarven mage in Dragon Age.

To be clear, our dwarf is not The First dwarven mage to actually appear in Dragon Age. Arguably, Sandal was. But that has never been confirmed on screen, despite the mounting evidence, so I’ll point to our other, most obvious and recent example: Valta, from The Descent DLC for Inquisition.

In case you forgot the details of The Descent (which is, afaik, the fandom’s least favorite DLC for Inquisition), Valta is a Shaper from Orzammar who has been traveling with the Legion of the Dead for some time, looking for the source of earthquakes that have wracked the Deep Roads since the creation of the Breach. At the end of the DLC, the Inquisitor discovers the source of the quakes to be a Titan, a very old, colossal creature with some innate connection to dwarves. It “recognized” Valta like a parent might recognize a child and, in a blast of lyrium, bonded with her. When Valta awoke, she released a blast of power that dwarves are not capable of unleashing, accidentally toppling over the Inquisitor and their companions. The Inquisitor recognizes it as magic. She denies this, but I think that’s because she’s on the verge of an existential breakdown. What she did was undeniably use an ability of arcane origin. The DLC ends on a cliffhanger, where Valta chooses to stay with the Titan, and your Inquisitor leaves with “more questions than answers.” You still don’t know what a Titan really is, why it looks like the Fade down there, or why Valta was able to cast magic.

Because of this cliffhanger, I actually thought Valta was going to be a dwarven mage companion for DA4 for a long time, especially considering Bioware has actually taken a DLC/expansion character with unsolved mysteries and made them a full companion in the next game (Anders/Justice). Given the information we have now, I no longer think that Valta is our dwarf--but I was wrong about the specifics, not the basics. This dwarf is a mage, and her presence will answer questions left hanging at the end of The Descent.

For my next point: I think there’s a good chance we actually know the name of this character. How could we possibly know that, you say? Why, she’s Bellara, of course! I’m not 100% on this, but the voice clip we got from the voice actress Jee Young Han was very illuminating. Firstly, she had an American/Canadian accent for the bit, so her character is most likely a Qunari or a dwarf. Secondly, let’s examine the line itself. As Bellara, Jee Young Han says: “No, it’s okay! That’s the good kind of rumble.” The Stone is the most obvious referent here, which is the only thing that can quake in a “good” way. And if so, it’s likely Bellara is making use of her Stone sense, which is something only a dwarf can have.

I don’t have any proof that Bellara is also our dwarf, but I’m PRETTY sure. Like 90%. It makes the most sense for the team to begin recording the lines of major characters over NPCs early on, plus this was during the bit of the video where they were clearly referencing companions.

I’m going to tie this post up with my personal pet theory for our dwarven mage companion. And that is: she’s going to be our apostate-with-an-agenda, following in the steps of Morrigan, Anders, and Solas. For one, it’s time DA4 cycled over to putting a woman in this position. For another, “dwarf mage” is the most wild card position I can think of. They don’t have Circles. There is no precedent for them, and all they have is an extraordinarily tiny community of like three people who can claim the same. If Bellara has Stone sense, it means she’s likely not a surfacer, since they lose their Stone sense over time... so what’s she doing in your party? The game isn’t set in the Deep Roads. Perhaps she is an agent of a nearby Titan who works with your team to stop Solas, especially given that the Evanuris and the Titans had a war thousands of years ago. Who can say?

Finally, I’ll end on a note of romance possibilities. Every apostate so far has been romanceable, and theirs are the most involved and contentious of the fanbase. (Looking at you, Solas.) However... Bellara is a dwarf. While I’m just as hungry for dwarfmance as the rest of you, Bioware has indicated previously that the reason they have not implemented dwarfmances is that they’re afraid the dwarves look too much like children in their romance scenes and they don’t want to be on the other side of that controversy. An easy way to solve this is to make a dwarfmance dwarf-locked (or maybe not make your dwarf women look so babyfaced >_>) but dwarves are the least popular playable race by far, and romances are expensive; that’s a lot of money to pour into a romance that only a very tiny subset of their players would ever see. Of course, that could encourage more people to play as dwarves, as well.

As for me, if we do get a romance with dwarven apostate mage Bellara, I hope it isn’t straight-locked like Morrigan and Solas were. It’s time for another LGBT apostate romance, imo.

LINK TO DA4 COMPANIONS ANALYSIS MASTERPOST

#dragon age #dragon age 4 #da4 #dragon age 4 theories #da4 theory #dragon age blogging

6 notes · View notes

laurelsofhighever · 5 years ago

Link

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Chapter Rating: Mature Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fereldan Civil War AU - No Blight, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Demisexuality, Cousland Feels, Hurt/Comfort Chapter Summary: Having arrived at Deerswall, plans are made for the push to Highever, but Rosslyn has a lot on her mind.

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

Twenty-fifth day of Firstfall, 9:32 Dragon

“Something isn’t right.”

Alistair pulled his gaze from the vista before them. “What do you mean?”

Under a brief easing of the weather, the king’s army stood outside Deerswall, massed on the flat plain that had once fostered so many refugees. Rosslyn sat at the front with Alistair, Cailan, and the senior officers of their guards, wrapped up in furs to ward off the wind as they studied the high, closed gate of the fort and the eerie quiet of its walls. A pair of crows hopped across the top of the eastern watchtower by the gate, but nothing else moved.

“They’ve abandoned it,” she realised. “There’s no one here.”

“Would Howe give up such an advantage so easily?” Cailan asked.

“He knew we were coming. It’s probably part of some larger plan, snake that he is, but we’ll still be better off inside than out until we’re ready to move again.”

“Or maybe it’s more simple than that,” Alistair replied. “Maybe it’s an ambush and they’re waiting for us to get too close so they can poke us with a lot of arrows.”

She nodded slowly; she had considered it. “Gideon?”

“Ma’am?”

“What is the size of the garrison here?”

The old commander shifted in his saddle. “Scout reports put the number at forty to sixty swords – what was left of the Red Iron after Wythenshawe.”

“Mercenaries have horses,” she murmured, and pulled down the scarf that covered the lower half of her face. Icy air stung her nose but she breathed deeply nonetheless, and marked the claggy, stale odour of mud and water, without a hint of smoke or animal dung to taint it. Beneath their feet, a trail of hoofprints led away from the gate, with lumps of manure scattered here and there at least three days old. The emptiness reminded her of Harrowhill, the cold, the quiet, even the blank walls fluttering with the Orange and White of the hated Bear. She turned from the banners with a curl of her lip, aware of the army at her back and Lasan’s nervous shift beneath her. Back then she had trembled, a lost girl stripped of everything she had ever known.

“Should we go up and knock?” Alistair asked, to fill the silence.

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Wait –” His hand shot out as she slipped from the saddle. “I didn’t mean to actually do it!”

“We need to know for sure if there’s anyone in that fort,” she replied easily, unslinging her shield from the saddle and buckling Talon to her waist.

“Then let someone else go.” He had dropped to the ground beside her, stepping around the groom that had come to take their horses’ reins. “Cailan –”

“You think I’ve the power to persuade her from this?” The king shook his head. “I trust Her Ladyship’s judgement, and her skill.”

“I’ll be careful.”

But Alistair moved closer, heedless of the ranks watching them, and laid a hand over hers. “We talked about this,” he murmured. “You – taking risks.”

“Would you have me send one of my soldiers to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself?” she asked.

“The problem is, you’re entirely too willing.” He attempted a smile. “The first sign of anything –”

“I’ll come back,” she promised, and squeezed his fingers. “Just try and stop me.”

She felt his eyes bore into her back as she started across the open ground with her standard bearer at her heels. Howe’s forces had been busy in the months left to themselves, bolstered the defences with stone bracing at the base of the palisade, and set a ditch in front of the main gate. They had even built a bridge over the lumpy, half frozen sludge at the bottom, though the only thing left of it now was a charred skeleton of pilings and planks doused by the rain before the fire could fully take them. It made a great delaying tactic.

Mud sucked at their boots. Their progress was slow, hampered by the search for caltrops under their feet and movement in the crenelations above, and as they crossed the invisible line that put them within arrowshot of the walls, Rosslyn raised her shield just a little bit, ready in case Alistair’s worry proved true. The moat stopped her reaching the whole distance to the gate, so instead she stopped at the lip of the bank and planted her feet as if she were exactly where she wanted to be, waiting for her standard bearer to raise the Laurels at her back.

No sign from the walls. The crowd stopped their preening to watch as Maddow opened his mouth to speak.

“Hail to Her Ladyship Teyrna Rosslyn Cousland, Falcon of Highever, Commander in the North, right hand of His Majesty King Cailan Theirin, true and just ruler of Ferelden, defeater of the traitor Loghain and the snivelling polecat Howe who waits on him!”

Rosslyn’s brow quirked. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”

“I thought we were trying to bait them, ma’am.” He shot her a grin, which only widened when she rolled her eyes and nodded for him to continue.

“Enemies of His Majesty! You are called on to surrender yourselves, this fortress, and its environs immediately to the grace of Her Ladyship, or else it is decreed to a one you will suffer a most painful death!”

Unimpressed, the crows resumed their business and let the last echoes of the challenge rebound off the palisade, but nothing else moved. Rosslyn counted to ten, and when no arrows came streaking from behind the walls, let go of the breath she had been holding and half-turned back towards her lines, a grin wild and triumphant across her face.

“What do you think?” she called to them. “Should I blow a raspberry?”

A chorus of jeers answered her, meant for the ears of whatever forces might be hiding behind the gate, and when even that met only silence, she nodded, once, and gestured for Maddow to follow her back to the ranks, where Gideon was already waiting.

“I want to be in there by nightfall,” she ordered. “The ground looks solid enough to put a bridge in, so get the carpenters to work on it – utility only, no flourishes. It needs to get everybody across and hold up until we leave. In the meantime, sweep the whole place for traps and anyone that might be hiding, groups of three at the least so alarms can be raised.”

“Aye, Your Ladyship.” The commander bowed, and turned to bark orders to the unit of scouts already waiting for orders, leaving her free to return to Alistair’s side.

“And now we wait?” he checked.

She huffed and went to loosen the girth strap on Lasan’s saddle. “And now we wait. It’s surprising how much of that there is in battle.”

“I see.”

“What’s that look for?”

“Uh…”

With a cough and a quick glance to make sure all attention was elsewhere, he sidled up next to her, settling his hand on the small of her back to keep their conversation close enough that no one could overhear. The touch barely reached her through all her layers of metal and cloth, but its tenderness, the clarity of his gaze, sent a lick of heat shooting along her limbs nonetheless, and she had to turn her face into her horse’s flank to avoid being overcome. She could see Loren and Franderel in the distance, guiding their horses over from the wing, but still too far away to trouble them yet.

“I’ve never seen you command like that,” Alistair said, with the slightest tinge of pink at the tips of his ears. “Not even at Lothering – when you swooped in and saved me, remember?”

“Does it bother you?” She had grown up hearing comparisons between herself and the more elegant ladies of the court, the ones like Anora who kept to their arms training as a formality only and never tried to go to war.

His touch rose to the back of her neck, playing with the loose strands that had fallen out of her braid. “I wouldn’t say it bothers me, at least not in a bad way. It just makes me wonder what you would have been like raising horses on the coast – if you hadn’t had to deal with all this.”

“Would I have met you, then?” she asked.

“Of course,” he answered, and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Blight wolves couldn’t keep me from such beauty.”

A smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. “And you think a line like that would have worked on me?”

“Ohhhh you? No, I’d have better lines for you. Trust me.”

“Such as?”

“Well, let me think…”

“Your Highness, Your Ladyship!” Franderel reined his charger sharply to a halt and dismounted, with Loren not far behind. “I trust everything is going well?”

“Fine,” she replied, leaning back out of Alistair’s reach as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “We were just about to join His Majesty in his pavilion.”

Her vassal nodded, either oblivious or choosing to ignore it, and gestured towards where servants had already posted the War Dog standard and offloaded the tent canvas from its supply cart. “Shall we, then? It will be good to finalise the details of our campaign to the north, even if we may have to face the prospect of getting underway before we can fully claim Deerswall.”

“Why don’t we keep the doom and gloom until after lunch?” Alistair made the suggestion with a smile, but he kept close to her side, gaze narrowed at the elderly bann.

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“His Majesty has sent outriders to establish a perimeter,” Loren offered, interposing between them, “so if we are forced to stay outside the walls tonight, we won’t be caught unprepared.”

At a stalemate for the moment, they left their horses with the grooms and weaved through the ranks of soldiers being kept busy with menial tasks while the carpenters and the advance worked on the bridge and on clearing out the keep. Others still had been sent into the surrounding forest for firewood, and on the few cookfires already established here and there, the rest lined up for their midday meal. It would likely be nothing more than thin meat stew bulked out with vegetables and hard bread, but on such a cold day with damp nipping at the fingers, it would provide welcome warmth for a few hours, and the smell was already rising through the camp.

“How are your lands coping with the refugees, my lord?” Rosslyn asked Franderel, to distract from the cavernous feel of her stomach.

“Many moved on to the west where fighting was less likely to spread, Your Ladyship,” the bann replied, falling into step beside her. “Those who stayed have been a mixed blessing – extra mouths, but also extra hands to help with the harvest. And extra eyes to watch the northern border for trouble.”

She nodded. “Highever will not forget the generosity shown to its people.”

“West Hill is only glad to offer assistance when called upon. And…” He allowed a smile. “I am also relieved to see our worst fears turn to smoke. I knew your father, fought with him. It seems you’ve inherited his talents.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

She decided not to push the issue, despite her suspicion over his apparent sincerity, and only nodded her acknowledgement as Cailan waved them over to the table he had set up by the supplies, already in attendance with Teagan, Knight-Captain Irminric and a bevy of servants swirling around them. He had decided to forego the entire pavilion, choosing optimism instead, and had directed the servants to pitch only a windbreak and a roof over his map table in case it rained. The openness of the arrangement allowed a view across the entire camp, with Deerswall as a backdrop and a fine detail of cartography splayed across the war table readable in the daylight.

“Ho!” the king called. “Are we on track?”

“That depends on what surprises the Red Iron left for us,” Rosslyn answered.

“Tch, cowards. Although in fairness, I doubt I would dare brave the Falcon’s wrath waiting inside a wooden fortress!” He greeted the others and ushered them around the table. “In an ideal world, the keep is perfectly safe, and we will be in it in time for a decent night’s rest, which means we will have limited time in the morning to prepare for anything but an immediate departure. As you can imagine, if the rumours of the queen’s presence at Castle Cousland prove true, we must reach it – and take it – as soon as possible. Since we can do nothing further to aid us in that for now, we should solidify our plans.”

Loren bowed. “We stand ready, Your Majesty.”

“Good. Now then, the spear of our attack will come from two fronts.” Cailan rearranged the maps to find one of the northern coast, which he smoothed out and weighted at the corners. “One group, led by Her Ladyship and Prince Alistair, will travel along the coast and infiltrate the castle to secure the queen and the gates ahead of the army’s arrival.”

“Castle Cousland’s walls are nigh unpassable,” Franderel scoffed. “And there can be no certainty that any within those walls are yet loyal to the Laurels. How many are you taking for this venture?”

“Enough,” Rosslyn replied. “Our strength will be my knowledge of the castle, rather than numbers. Without the help of a dragon to breach the curtain wall, the keep could never be taken in time to ensure Queen Anora’s safety.”

Cailan sighed. “There is no ideal solution to this, but no better. The second force will approach as if for a traditional siege, with as much fanfare as we can muster. This main force will be both diversion and bait to try and draw out Howe, and once we have him, Loghain will have nothing left behind which to hide. You have thoughts, my lord Loren?”

The bann startled out of his frown. “What of Loghain’s forces?”

“If this is a trap, then we will turn it against the trapper. We have surprise on our side. He will expect to face an army with nowhere to run, with a castle for his defence, when in fact, thanks to Her Ladyship’s actions, the opposite will be true.”

“I see.” Loren stroked a hand along his chin. “It might still be wise to send an advanced guard ahead, in case the teyrn is not where he is expected to be.”

“That’s unlikely,” Rosslyn interrupted. “Loghain is an experienced general, and for the first time, our forces outnumber his. He’ll want every advantage he can get, which means having Castle Cousland at his back.”

“Still,” Irminric reasoned, with a glance in her direction. “It would not hurt to be wary, if we could find a unit suitable for the task.”

“I would like to volunteer,” Loren said, and at Rosslyn’s blink of surprise, drew himself up. “I have spent months watching the border, hearing of your successes, and I wish for an end to this as wholeheartedly as any of you.”

“How will Your Majesty know if this… infiltration force has succeeded?” Franderel asked.

“We are due to meet in six days after Her Ladyship leaves for the coast,” Cailan replied. “Once Howe’s colours are struck from the tower, her party will open the gates to the rest of our forces, and we let our enemy beat itself to exhaustion against the walls.”

“Most of the mages will stay with that force. We expect the most casualties there, and if Her Ladyship does not manage to reach the gates it in time, they will make the greatest difference in fending off an attack. Given the lack of templars, they will need a guard.”

“Would my knights be suitable, Captain?” Teagan asked. A slight hesitation shook his voice, but he had adapted quickly to the idea of being Arl of Redcliffe in his brother’s place, with all that entailed.

“They will, my lord.”

The jangle of mail alerted them to the arrival of a messenger in blue, who bowed low, cheeks flushed pink as she started to speak.

“Your Ladyship, Guard-Commander Gideon said to inform you the bailey and upper battlements are clear for occupation, and the bridge will be completed to standard in an hour.”

“Thank you, corporal. Have units start to move across as soon as possible, and draft more people into the search of the keep to speed the clearance.” Rosslyn waited for the messenger to leave before turning back to her audience, her back straight and her voice steady. “One question remains before we set out. My volunteers are ready, but what about the ship we commissioned?”

“It’ll be waiting for you at Rothsbridge, Your Ladyship,” Franderel replied. “Supplied and ready, as per your order.”

“Good.”

Despite the mask of confidence, nerves jittered beneath the surface, turning her stomach and shortening her breath no matter how many times she forced her muscles to relax. The prospect of finally going home lurked at the back of her mind, pushed aside for as long as the council discussed troop placement and travel times, but every detail only added to the weight of reality pressing down on her, and would not be ignored forever. This was the campaign for Highever. The end she had wanted for so many months was suddenly in sight, real, complete with the very real consequences they would all suffer if she failed.

Even once darkness fell and the last of the army had squeezed through the gate, and the Amarathine banners were torn from the walls, her mind wandered, dwelled on what she might find, how little might remain. Without people to occupy them, most of the rooms on the private floor would have to be shut up, the furnishings covered with dust sheets to ward off damage. She would be expected to move into the big room at the front of the house that had always belonged to the teyrn, never mind the sea view in her own chambers, or the fact that she could never think of the big room without hearing her father’s jokes and her mother’s deep, rich laughter.

What had become of her parents’ things – the dressing sets and the lifetime of trinkets? Oren’s toys? How much of her whole life had been thrown aside, or melted down for coin to fund the ransacking of the rest of the teyrnir? The more she tried not to think about it, the more she dreaded having to walk the halls again, accompanied by nothing but draughts through ancient corridors, the echoes of her own solitary footsteps. The heat of battle forced her mind to other things, but once the war finished and everyone went back to their lives, what could she do?

She lay awake for an hour trying to get comfortable, trying to put it from her thoughts, until her patience snapped and she threw back the bedcovers hard enough that they half-buried Cuno. He opened one bleary eye, but she soothed him with a murmur and he stretched out with a doggy sigh that took him back to sleep. Nobody would bother her at such a late hour. She threw on shirt, breeches, and a gambeson for warmth, and headed to the stables.

Alistair would have to go to Denerim, to fulfil his duties as heir apparent. She scowled at her boots as she dwelled on the idea. It was one thing to have their affection for each other made public, but to live together without any formal arrangement between the two of them would cause scandal in the court. Anora would never allow it. And she would never ask him to shoulder such a burden.

The horses greeted her with soft snorts and sweet breaths. As she slipped into Lasan’s stall with a grooming kit on her arm, he turned to her with a low nicker that eased her worries away. Spending time with the large, graceful animals always calmed her, and after topping up her charger’s supply of hay and water and discarding her gambeson on a hook outside, she lost herself in in long strokes of the dandy brush, working from neck to haunch until even the thickest parts of his winter coat gleamed like marble. She spotted burrs in his tail and teased them out with a comb, then looked for anything else the grooms might have missed, details that might keep her mind focused just a little bit longer. She couldn’t take him with her, after all. Her mount for the morning run to Rothsbridge stood further down the line in the narrow barn allocated to the geldings of the messenger service.

A hoof stamped in the straw.

“I’ve overstayed my welcome, huh?” she asked, coming up to stroke her horse’s ears.

He pulled his head away from her, swishing his tail and giving a meaningful tug on his haynet.

“I see I’m dismissed.” She shook her head and left him with a final pat. “Don’t bully the hands too much while I’m gone.”

A rustle in the straw alerted her to another presence as she bolted the stall door.

“There you are.”

She smiled and turned, and found Alistair leaning against the post by the door. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

“You definitely aren’t,” he replied.

Whatever response she might have given died under the soft scrutiny of his gaze. He was already moving forward, reaching for her, warm and solid, a strong heartbeat to calm the tempo of hers.

“The plan will work,” he told her as her arms slipped around his neck.

“It’s not the plan,” she breathed. “It’s after.”

A sigh, the embrace tightening about her shoulders. “We’ll face it together.”

“I’m glad you’re going with me.”

He loosed a chuckle above her ear. “We both know you just need someone to carry the bags.”

She snorted, because he said it to make her laugh, but she pulled back nonetheless, just enough, and threaded her fingers into his hair. “That isn’t true.”

He searched her face. She nudged forward, drawing him down, until he leaned the last little distance and kissed her first, starting with a hand feathered along her jaw, the tiniest of steps to eliminate what little space remained between them.

“Is anyone else here?” he asked, without breaking away.

Unable to speak, she merely shook her head. The kiss deepened, they moved. Alistair’s hand stretched out to brace them both as her back met the wall, while hers roved, pulling him closer at waist and neck. The press of his body trapped her, all strength and safety like she had never known with anyone else, and when a groan tore from his throat with an involuntary stutter of his hips, she took it, and answered, and followed him when he turned his head to pause for air. For a moment they stood, sharing heavy breaths, unmoving save for the whisper of hands across cloth, the slight sway as their senses righted and reminded them of the ground beneath their feet.

“We, uh, never got to finish our conversation,” he managed, voice rough, fingers soft as rain as they slipped beneath the fabric of her shirt and wove delicate, distracting circles across her back. “I’ve been thinking about it – about what might have happened if we weren’t interrupted.”

She leaned into him, grinned as her touch on the back of his neck made him shudder. “So have I. What… what would you have said?”

“That…” He swallowed, untangling her fingers so he could take them in his. “I want you, and I’ve wondered – imagined – what it would be like for longer than is probably decent. And I want – I’m willing to wait, until the perfect time, the perfect place, until you’re ready, and it’s what you want.”

The words held a practiced air, as if he had rehearsed them, scanned them for any misinterpretation, and now he held himself before her, all brittle hope as he waited for a response. Rosslyn’s doubt all but bled away, her uncertainty not for what she wanted, but that the lack of wanting before might show itself in the moment, in other ways. She tightened her hold on his hand.

“You think it would be worth the wait?”

He sighed, disbelieving. “You’re worth everything already, but that… it would be special.”

A bright knot of tension coiled beneath her ribs, expanding around her heart until her breath stalled and her limbs shook, but in its suddenness the strength of her yearning defied mere words. Her silence drew his brows together, however, and the purse of his lips as his gaze dropped to their linked hands was unacceptable.

“I love you so much,” she told him at last, laying her free hand against his cheek. “I’m just… not sure how to explain it. I haven’t changed – what I am is the same, and my feelings for you don’t…” She stopped, biting down on a growl. “I don’t see you and desire you like I’ve heard other people say. But I feel you, and this isn’t close enough, and I want – I want to be with you for that. I want to touch you and never stop, I –” the words were tumbling out too rushed, an embarrassment buoyed by disbelief that such an admission was hers at all. And she was too easily distracted. Alistair’s spare hand still lay at her waist, still turning circles against her skin with the blunt edge of a nail. “I don’t want you to stop doing that.”

It took him a moment to work out what she meant. “You like that?”

“Mmhm.” Her eyes closed to better concentrate on the trail of his touch, but when she tilted forwards, he dodged the kiss and let his mouth run the length of her jaw instead, all the way to the pulse point at the top of her neck. There, he paused, the tip of his tongue flicking against her skin as he wet his lips.

“I want to learn every inch of you by heart.”

She realised her lungs had stopped working. A snide part of her wanted to deny the rush of heat through her limbs, the tingle low in her belly, as merely a reaction to the road ahead or some vain hope that this might finally be the cure to whatever ailment had left her cold all her life. Terror gripped her through that tiny instant of doubt, but Alistair stood ready to lead her away from the precipice. His eyes darkened to the rich, sweet hue of spiced mead as he looked at her, his fingers careful as they left her waist to play with the wispy hair at the back of her neck.

“Breathe,” he reminded her, with a fond twist to his usual cocksure grin. It faltered. “Would – what I said, is that alright?”

She caught his face again, her focus slipping to his mouth. “As long as you let me do the same with you,” she answered.

The shudder that ran through him wiped away any hesitation about claiming his lips again. He pushed her back into the wall as he opened to her, smirking at the noise the movement startled from her throat. Deliberately this time, the cover of his body rocked forward, a slow, cautious push against her hips. His head dropped to her shoulder.

“Is this alright?”

All she could manage was a strangled hum and a nod. She knew enough to recognise the long, hard line trapped between his body and hers, and thought of it made her stomach flutter. She kissed his neck, cradled his head in her palm. Every nerve sang like a plucked string. In the stalls around them, the horses shifted in their sleep, a small noise amplified by the darkness and the need for discretion.

She squeezed his arm. “Someone will find us here.”

“And we can’t have that.” He chuckled and dragged himself away, though his hands lingered. They followed invisible tracks along her sides, as if memorizing the shape of her ribs. “It must be getting late – we can’t stay here all night.”

Without losing each other, they wandered from the stable and paused at the trough to wash their hands of dust. A thin rime of ice lay like a skin over the water. Rosslyn threw her gambeson around her shoulders like a cape as she broke through with a bucket to fill the washing station, grateful for the extra layer and for Alistair’s warmth huddling next to her. He fished stray wisps of straw from her hair as he waited for his turn with the horsemaster’s caustic soap, and smiled at the way she blushed, which only encouraged the spread of heat across her face.

Nobody bothered them as they picked their way around the sea of canvas tents to the keep steps. The only movement came from the guards on the battlements, and without the light of either moon to lessen the darkness, the night closed around them like a curtain, allowing them the privacy that came so dearly in daylight. Tucked under Alistair’s shoulder, with his arm around her trying to stave off the chill leaking through her still-open gambeson, Rosslyn almost allowed herself to believe they were like any other couple, leaning into each other, stealing each moment as they found it, all but inseparable, and barely caring what the royal guards thought of them as they passed.

The highest floor of the keep had been set aside for the king and his closest companions, and it was deserted. They halted awkwardly as they came to Rosslyn’s door, limned by the low, harsh light of the storm lantern in the alcove opposite, and stood with hands still linked and eyes averted in a vain attempt to prolong the moment before they had to part. Her heart thumped a harsh rhythm in her ears, but before she could say anything, Alistair caught her chin and with the smallest hesitation leaned down to tilt a kiss against her mouth. She reacted instinctively, closed her eyes, stretched upwards to make it last. He stroked her face as he pulled away.

“Goodnight, my love.” His smile turned self-conscious. “Just think, the next time we’ll be sleeping in beds, we’ll be in Highever.”

“Alistair.” She kept hold of his fingers as she glanced to her door and back. She felt her mouth twitch in a brief, reassuring smile, but nerves quickly stole it away.

“You…” His glance mirrored hers, eyes wide. “When I said – down in the stable, I didn’t mean for any of what I said to pressure you.”

“I know.”

“And… you’re sure you want me to – to spend the night? With you?”

Every fibre of her body ached towards him, the feeling too strong for words. She loved him. She wanted to know what it was like.

“I was under the impression that it’s not the done thing to leave – after,” she tried, and winced when the nervous, joking tone fell flat. “I… we wouldn’t have to do anything, but regardless, I don’t know if I could sleep without you, not tonight.”

To her surprise, he giggled. “Woman, do you know how many nights I’ve had to bully myself into not knocking on your door because I thought you’d turn me away?”

“I won’t,” she promised. “I want this. If you do.” She barely had time to raise her eyes to his before he came crashing down to meet her once more.

#dragon age #dragon age: origins #dragon age origins #da:o #alistair theirin #alistair x cousland #cousland #rosslyn cousland #the falcon and the rose

28 notes · View notes

dicedungeons-and-dragons · 4 years ago

Text

Waylan’s Sabbatical (5/?)

A chunk of writing following our party NPC (and my Son) as he breaks away from the party. Our campaign uses names of places from various fandoms for fun but they have no real relation to the source material. (We also call the Raven Queen Nara because of some hasty Wiki reading)

TW: Mentions of past torture, general violence, injury.

Part: First | Previous | Next

The next time he makes his way back to the ruined castle is because there’s a storm coming. He spots the clouds gathering as an inky blotch on the horizon and notes the various creatures desperately trying to go to ground before it hits. With so many monsters in the forest he doubts he’ll find any kind of proper shelter that will keep him safe from the onslaught he thinks is coming. So after a short debate, wondering if the Black Knight will extend the same hospitality as he had the first time, he decides that he’s better off dealing with the lich than the stampede of creatures moving through the woods.

He gets to the ruins before the rainfall starts. There are fresh bodies in front of the castle and he doesn’t bother to pick through their belongings, instead making his way straight to the front gate and calling inside,

“Black Knight!” His voice echoes against the stone, dulled under the sound of the raging winds. “It’s Waylan, I was hoping that I could find refuge from the storm with you!”

There’s a long pause and he has to leave soon if he’s unwelcome. He could probably get to some of the spider catacombs, blast out one of the smaller caves with a few fireballs and take shelter until the rain passes.

But what remains of the gate starts to click and groan as the old chains are used to lift it from the ground.

“You are always welcome, traveler.” His voice is low, but Waylan catches it as he ducks into the ruins. It’s still loud inside, enough cracks in the old stones that the wind is rattling through, but it’s not too much. And it’s certainly warmer inside.

“Thank you.” He says genuinely.

“The storm might not pass for some time, follow me.”

Liches play the long game. Waylan knows that. Knows that creatures that live for hundreds of years are more likely to stab you in the back after you’ve shown it to them twenty times, but there’s little motivation for the lich to kill him. There are enough adventurers that come to the castle that he must have sacrificed enough souls to live for another two hundred years at the very least. So he follows the knight through the halls, up a spiraling staircase and out onto one of the towers.

“If you are going to stay here you will need water.” Waylan spots the overturned barrels that look like they’ve been up here for years, but a few of them aren’t crumbling with age. “The well turned putrid many years ago.” He and the Knight set them upright to collect the rain water. But as the first few drops begin to fall the Knight ushers him back inside, and not a moment too soon as the sky splits open into a downpour.

“Thank you.” And he means it. “I don’t mean to continue to impose.”

“You cannot impose here. What you do is visit. The dead outside impose.”

“Still, you saved my life last time. All I did was burn some spiders you could have killed yourself.” The Black Knight concedes the point with a nod before gesturing for Waylan to follow him back down the staircase.

“Allow me to show you what remains of my home.”

****

There are places in the castle that cannot be traveled through, areas where the floor is too weak to support weight, areas where the vegetation has collapsed the ceiling, but aside from the areas that are unsafe there are no places that are off-limits to Waylan.

“Where are you from?” The Knight asks. He stokes a fire to life inside of a study, larger than the meeting hall of the council building. Waylan is eating a portion of rations, sat on the stone floor. The expensive rugs that had once likely lined the entire room have been eaten away by insects, sunlight, time. It feels ancient as he sits with this creature who has existed here for centuries.

“I’m from Oshime.”

“Ah. When I was alive there were only nine provinces, I believe there are more now?”

“A few.”

“I have not heard much about the world beyond Okren since I became this, will you tell me about it?”

Waylan hasn’t ever been much of a talker. Not when it wasn’t trading sarcastic barbs, but he’s safe and dry so he figures he owes the lich at least some world history.

****

After waiting out the storm he comes and goes from the castle. The lich seems to enjoy his company and Waylan appreciates his reserved demeanor, which considering liches are evil creatures probably says more about him than anything else. But it’s nice to have a ‘home base’ to return to as a resting point between the deeper sections of the Dark Forest and the kingdom’s capital. Eventually the Black Knight even shows him a different entrance into the palace, through a servant’s tunnel that allows him to slip in and out when the lich is not home.

He never asks where the creature goes.

The lich always asks why he’s still traveling the forest.

****

When another storm drives him back to the castle a few weeks later he finds himself alone. The lich is nowhere he can find and without much else to do he begins to wander the castle. Everything is swathed in a thick layer of dust, so it’s easy enough for him to spot a door that looks like the knob has been polished in comparison. Waylan hesitates in front of it, inspects the floor, and the lock, the lintel above. Because he’s seen Ray stabbed, poisoned, and dropped into enough pits to know that checking for traps is an essential part of being an adventurer.

But the door reveals no ill will.

So he turns the knob and enters.

Nostalgia hits him like a warhammer to his sternum as he peers into the dark room. It’s a massive space, nearly triple the size of his own modest bedroom back home. And here is another moth eaten bed and what what once ornate furniture that’s long since gone to ruin, but the desk, that stretched the entire length of one wall, is mostly intact. There are bottles and books strewn on every surface, piles of crystals, scrolls, tapestries, cauldrons, beakers, even a small pile of scrying bones left casting an ill fate from two hundred years ago. There is magical paraphernalia from what he suspects were all corners of the world at one time.

He wonders briefly what Faith did with all of the things he left in the basement of his home. If she had to go through his and his father’s stuff, the boxes of his mother’s belongings that were stored up in the attic. Maybe he’ll ask her about it if he sees her again.

Waylan is careful as he picks through the room. The books on the table are too fragile, even the slightest touch sends the brittle pages crumbling. But the ones sandwiched into the bookshelves are a little better. Their spines are loose and the binding fragile, but he manages to open a few of them. Some are in common, others in what looks like elvish, even some celestial. He knows four languages, but even common isn’t helping him here. Not when the books are written in such an outdated form.

When the Knight opens the door hours later Waylan is sat on the floor, having found the one text written in draconic and using it to translate the common notes scrawled in the margins as best he can. At least dragons hold a longer lasting fidelity to their language, though it shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how long they live.

“How long have you been in here?”

“I don’t know, since mid afternoon maybe? You weren’t home.”

“I’m aware.” The Knight exits the room and Waylan just shrugs and continues scrawling notes into the small journal that he’d bought once he realized that if he kept scrawling notes on his map he wouldn’t be able to read it anymore. He makes it through another two and a half pages before the door opens again. The knight carefully picks his way across the floor until he can kneel down beside Waylan. “It’s past midnight.”

“Shit, really?” Where had the time gone? He startles when he sees the Knight offer him what appears to be a steaming cup of tea. “Thank you.” He doesn’t point out that the Knight long ago told him that he doesn’t bother with stocking things to eat or drink. It’s not hard to make tea from the plants in the forest, and he already knows the lich keeps herbs on hand for whatever reason. “Is this your room?”

“No. My room was down in the barracks.” He sits back, looking around the room. “This was Prince Westly’s room.”

Waylan is a lot of things-- sarcastic, rude, broken-- but he’s not stupid or unobservant. “I’ll put everything back. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You can’t intrude on a space that has not belonged to someone in two hundred years, Waylan. He would have been happy to show you every inch of this room, all of his research, a dozen times over if he thought you were interested.” It’s the first piece of information the lich has offered him about the old inhabitants of the castle.

And for some reason he feels like he owes a bit of his own history in return. “Where I grew up there weren’t any magic users. That was big city stuff. When I could suddenly light my hands on fire I didn’t have anyone to teach me. So I got my hands on as many books as I could find. They helped me get through the years I was alone.”

Waylan feels the tectonic plates of their relationship shift. It’s slight, and he’s cautious, but he doesn’t see the harm in it just yet. He wonders what the reverberations will shake loose.

#cotd fics #Waylan's Sabbatical #dnd fic #waylan #corzaren #oc: waylan #oc: corzaren

2 notes · View notes

vannahfanfics · 5 years ago

Text

Whatever May Come

Category: General Fluff

Fandom: Yona of the Dawn

Characters: Yona, Soo-Won, Zeno, Jae-Ha, Shin-Ah, Kija

Requested By: Yiren (Ao3)

Yona breathed a small sigh of relief and sank back into her throne seated beside Soo-Won’s as the harrowing Dragon Festival finally came to its conclusion. She knew that her dragons were only being paraded around for a political agenda, and she knew they were all strong and capable, but even they had their limits; though the fighting had concluded with only minor injuries, she still knew they were spent (and hurt) and that left her with lingering anxiety. She turned her head to her left to see that Soo-Won had already vacated his seat to go mingle, most likely to congratulate the two Generals on their victories. Yona pursed her lips slightly, remembering how the crowd had been so gleefully cheering about their supposed engagement. Yona had no idea what Soo-Won was planning… and that disquieted her, greatly.

Yona rose from her seat to be escorted by the Sky Tribe soldiers down from the arena bleachers to the preparation tents. She was about to indicate that they should just take her back to her room until she heard Geun-Tae’s loud, booming voice mixed with Soo-Won’s light, carefree yet somehow authoritarian tone. The Earth Tribe official was seemingly congratulating Soo-Won on their engagement as well. She sniffed haughtily; did everyone just assume that they were now an item simply because they were seated next to one another? This debacle was sure to throw kinks on Yona’s cause to riddle out the complicated political environment of her home country and get to the bottom of the deadly night between Soo-Won and her deceased father… Abandoning the soldiers, whom she ignored as they scrambled about squeaking that Yona should not enter a tent unannounced, she marched right over to where the voices where emanating from.

“Oh. Hello, Princess Yona,” Geun-Tae blinked in confusion as she literally stormed onto the scene- with all the grace and poise of a regal princess, of course. She dipped her head politely then straightened up to eye him like a hawk, until her red eyes were captured by the small-statured woman hovering next to him with a swaddled baby in her arms. Yona instantly brightened, because like many other people her age, she was not immune to the delicate charm of a baby. Her dawn-colored eyes sparkled with wonder as they beheld the little child, and the mother and father both took notice with matching amused smirks. “Would you like to come closer?” Geun-Tae offered. Yona nodded eagerly and scampered over to lean over the baby, gasping in pure delight.

It was the cutest thing she had ever seen. Its cheeks were rosy-pink like the freshest of carnations, with plump little lips and doll-like eyes that peered up at her with similar enrapture. Its tiny hands grasped at the cozy blanket wrapped snugly around it, little wee fingers no bigger than mere garden worms, and atop its head was a fluffy tuft of hair. Yona giggled and wave at the baby, earning a delighted smile and endearing coo from the baby. She looked up at Geun-Tae with a positively radiant smile.

“What a beautiful baby!”

“Thank you,” his wife responded jovially. She happened to look over at Soo-Won, who was watching her with soft eyes and an ever softer smile, and Yona immediately flushed red.

“What have you come here for, Yona?” the king asked languidly after a second. Stiffening because she really had no other reason for charging in besides asserting her dominance, she searched her mind frantically for a viable excuse.

“I-I want to see my dragons,” she arrived at finally. It wasn’t even a lie, either; she had not been permitted to visit them since their arrival in Hiryuu Castle, and she desperately wanted to survey Jae-Ha’s and Kija’s wounds for their severity. Being locked away in her bedroom with no contact with them was as close to torture as she could ever get, even worse than her imprisonment with Lilli. To her great relief, Soo-Won dipped his head in a courteous nod.

“Very well.”

~~~~~~~~~~

What Yona was not anticipating was that the entirety of Soo-Won’s council would have to go with her. The king, as well as Geun-Tae, Joo-Doh, and Kye-Sook, all accompanied her to the quarters where her beloved companions were being housed for the duration of their alliance. Yona’s lips were pursed in a very obvious pout, because although her top priority was ensuring that her dragons were safe and being well-tended, she also desperately wanted to discuss things that most definitely needed to be deliberated well out of Soo-Won’s ear shot. Unfortunately, there was nothing for that. She announced her arrival and slid open the sliding door to be immediately greeted by Zeno’s giddy smile and open arms.

“Princess! Zeno missed you!” he trilled with sheer elation as he jumped at her to envelop her in a tight hug. Yona laughed lightly, already cheered by his bubbly personality, and lovingly rubbed the top of his blonde-haired head. Not a moment later, Ao came skittering across the floor to climb her dress and sit chittering on her shoulder, to which she responded by using her index finger to stroke his soft brown fur. To her amazement, however, he soon abandoned his perch to leap the distance between herself and Soo-Won, clawing up his robes to sit on his shoulder instead. The long-haired king looked in bewilderment at the tiny creature which had set up camp on his shoulder before blinking and tapping the top of its head repeatedly in an affectionate gesture. All four of the dragons and Yona were all staring it uncontained shock at Ao’s seeming indifference to, and daresay approval of, Soo-won. After reveling in the pets being showered down upon him, the chipmunk hopped down to run back over to Shin-Ah, who scooped him up and stroked his striped back.

Yona crossed the room to sit in the space between Jae-Ha and Kija, who were lying on their backs swathed in bandages and wearing identical embarrassed grins on their face.

“Are you two all right?” she asked them worriedly. Jae-Ha smirked and gave her a dismissive wave of his hand, while Kija nodded eagerly and asserted, “Of course!” It wasn’t very convincing as he cringed and grabbed at one of the areas that was covered with binding. Yona inhaled deeply, then exhaled even deeper; all these boys of hers, they were all so reckless and overdoing it all the time… A small smile crossed her lips as she stared down at them both with nothing short of pure love. She would never have it any other way, though. She turned her head as Soo-Won crossed the room to seat himself a fair distance away from her. Geun-Tae and the others settled themselves against the wall, arms crossed and watching their interactions with interest.

“Your performances today were very riveting to watch. I appreciate you two giving it your all out there. I trust your injuries aren’t giving you too much trouble?” Soo-Won smiled innocently. Jae-Ha and Kija exchanged side-eyed glances before the both of them sat up, the blankets falling around their bare waists. Jae-Ha was confidence incarnate, smirking as he ran a hand through his jade-green hair.

“Of course. This is nothing!” His beaming smile was laced with challenge. Kija, on the other hand, was blushing lightly as he looked off to the side and tried to seem unbothered.

“Indeed. Yoon is very talented at what he does. We’re in good hands,” he answered calmly. Yona heaved another small sigh; their dislike and mistrust of Soo-Won was certainly palpable. To the king’s credit, he maintained an entirely unperturbed aura, nodding eagerly as if he we very relieved at their pending swift recoveries. The two of them suddenly looked to the princess.

“With the princess here, we’re liable to recover even faster, right, Kija~” purred Jae-Ha suggestively with a wink at the bashful white dragon. Yona giggled; she had come to miss even his unabashed flirtatious jibes. Kija fidgeted and clawed at the sheets nervously, already sweating. He stammered some quiet mumble that made Jae-Ha laugh heartily in victoriously embarrassing him, and Yona smiled at the two of them. She could almost fool herself into thinking that things were the same… but as she eyed the three military officials out of the corners of her eyes, she was sadly aware that it was not. Yona was currently sitting behind Kija and Jae-Ha such that their broad, strong backs were to her. With a small, stifled sob, she suddenly lunged forward to wrap her arms around them and pull them both two her. She had her head down to hide the tears brimming in the corners of her eyes, but she could feel their surprised glances boring into the crown of her head.

“You two… Please don’t overdo it, okay?” she asked in a hushed whisper. She managed to force back the tears and looked up at them with a small, broken smile. “You know that I couldn’t stand… to be without any of you.” Kija instantly went as red as a basket of tomatoes and began gasping reassuring remarks like a fish flopping about on water, while Jae-Hae managed to maintain his collected composure, though the blush dusting his cheeks betrayed him. Zeno jumped at her from behind to wrap his arms around her middle and nuzzle her shoulder affectionately, and Shin-ah even came up to her to stroke her dawn-colored hair soothingly. The importance of her words was not lost on Soo-Won, who was staring at her with wide eyes, but Geun-Tae seemed to miss it.

“Ah! Look at how he’s blushing! Eh, do you have a crush on the princess, Whitey?” he guffawed good-naturedly as he crossed his arms and threw his head back in laughter. Joo-Doh and Kye-Sook seemed largely unamused in comparison.

“I-I do not!” Kija gasped, abhorred and giving the Earth Tribe General an affronted look. Jae-Hae smirked wryly and leaned forward to peer teasingly into his face.

“Oh? How unbecoming of you, Kija, I thought you were supposed to be the princely one, and yet here you are getting handsy with the princess…” When Yona had hugged him, he had reached around her back to settle his hand reassuringly in the middle of it, the perfect place to be proper, but with a hiss he hastily retracted his hand. Jae-Ha began laughing raucously until he suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and grasped at his chest, having tweaked his wounds.

“Serves you right!” Kija snorted in derision. The room burst into raucous laughter, but from the way they were all looking at her from the corners of their eyes with small smiles, she knew that her sentiment had gotten across. She just wanted them to be careful, because she had no idea of what was to come. She let the two go as they continued to squabble with one another, finally breathing easy. My strong, capable dragons… Whatever happens, we’ll get through it together. As she opened her eyes to look across the room, Soo-Won was still staring so intently at her. She had no idea what was running through his mind at the moment… Ever since that dreadful night, she really had no idea what he was thinking or plotting at any given time. Not even an inkling…

She cried out in alarm as she suddenly heaved a large sneeze. All the conversation in the room ceased as she abruptly began sneezing in rapid succession, hands held up at her body rocked back and forth with the force of the gales leaving her body. I- What? What’s wrong with me all of a sudden?! She thought wildly on about her fifth sneeze. Had a sudden draft brought dust in the room? She was too busy ailing in sneezes to notice that Soo-Won had gotten up and crossed the room; when she finally stopped and rubbed at her nose with her sleeve pitifully, her head was suddenly jerked upwards so Soo-Won could press his forehead to hers. She stared owlishly at him for a moment, and then her face turned the color of her hair.

“Eh?”

“Sneezing like that, surely you have a fever,” he mumbled. Jae-Hae and Kija were sitting on either side of her, both staring at him slack-jawed at the very intimate display. Soo-Won straightened up and shrugged out of his outer layer of robes, spinning them around to delicately drape them over Yona’s comparably small shoulders. Still reeling in shock so hard that her vision was spinning a little, she looked at the three soldiers to find them all wearing the various stages of grief on their expressions- Geun-Tae looked confused, Kye-Sook seemed like he was angry, and Joo-Doh was stony-faced but his body posture implied that he was already on the tail end of the spectrum of emotion. Yona flushed further. Soo-Won had checked her temperature that way since they were both very little, and it just saddened her greatly, because now, it was under such different circumstances… As she looked down at the wooden floor miserably, drawing the robes around her with one hand, his hand suddenly appeared in her field of view. “Princess, you may be falling ill, so you should probably return to your quarters so you can be tended to.” Yona wanted to argue that she felt just fine and she wanted to sit there with her dragons, but that just wouldn’t do, she knew. With a small sigh, she took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“Do you have to go?” Zeno sulked with watery eyes as he scampered over and hugged her arm. She forced a sweet smile on her face and leaned forward to nuzzle his cheek, like he so often did her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back very soon. Take good care of the others, okay?” Zeno nodded eagerly and raised a hand to his forehead in a salute, making her chuckle. She really couldn’t be down for long with his sunshiney personality so bright and uplifting. Yona bore farewell to the others- and Ao- before Soo-Won accompanied her back out, followed by his entourage. Silence settled between them as they walked alongside each other, with his robes about her shoulders dragging behind her because they were simply too big.

“What are you planning, Soo-Won?” she asked him finally as they arrived at the door to her chambers. She rounded on him with an almost feral ferocity, face hardened like the mountainside. He looked down at her levelly, betraying nothing at all.

“’Planning’? Nothing at all. I’m just seeing… what will become of all this,” he answered cryptically before bowing his head lightly to her. “Goodnight, Yona,” he murmured softly. It was the two of them alone, as the others had split off as soon as they had entered the castle proper, and when he looked back up at her his eyes were glimmering with something she couldn’t name. She instinctually went to shrug out of the robes to return them to him, but he held up a hand in refusal. “Keep them.” He whirled on his heel and off he went, with Yona’s perplexed gaze trailing after him. She lingered there in the doorway for a moment, simply wondering…

What will become of all this? Of us? Herself, her dragons, Yoon, Hak, even her country as a whole. She didn’t have the answer to that, and that revelation made her shrink into herself, Soo-Won’s robes swallowing her deeper like they were drawing her into false security. For the first time since her father died, Yona felt truly alone and defenseless.

The smiling faces of her dragons, Hak, Yoon, and all her other friends she had made along the way flashed before her waking eyes, bringing the tiniest of smiles to her faces as reassurance flooded through her quivering body. No, Yona was never alone, and never defenseless.

Not when she had so many people behind her. Whatever was to come, Yona would face it all with an army at her back… And that was the most reassuring thought in the world. Smiling despite it all, she retreated into her room, dropping the robes at the doorway as the setting sun gleamed from the window. The sun set, but yet she still blazed as brightly at the dawning sun.

It was far from over.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

Tag List: @searchfortheonepiece

#yona of the dawn #yotd #akatsuki no yona #yona #soo-won #kija #shin-ah #jae-ha #zeno #fluff #cutesy #general fluff #fanfiction #fanfic #akatsuki no yona fanfiction #yona of the dawn fanfiction

9 notes · View notes

takaraphoenix · 5 years ago

Text

So, @kimmycup tagged me in this game. Let’s do this. Alternately titled:

Let me rant about the difference in receiving feedback on FFN vs AO3

Because I am really getting lost in the math behind “most popular” fic. And it’s most definitely more than just “reaching a different audience” when the feedback for one and the same fic differs between over 1k comments on one site vs not even reaching 100 comments on another site.

Author Name: Takara_Phoenix

Fandoms You Write For: Okay so let‘s only involve the ones I am still actively involved with, not the ones that are like... eight years old and I haven’t thought of them once, yeah? That’d be: Percy Jackson, Shadowhunters, Marvel, Rise of the Guardians/How to Train Your Dragon, Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, Vampire Academy, Jungle Book, DC Comics/the Arrowverse, Descendants

Where You Post: AO3 and FFN, but occasionally also on tumblr - when it’s prompts or drabbles

Most Popular One-Shot: Depends on where you ask. And what you define as popular. Personally, the only value I see are in comments - kudos are literally just the press of one button, they mean nothing, and hits aren’t an indicator of much either considering it counts as a hit even when you opt out after a paragraph.

I’ve only had my AO3 for five years now, meaning that the fics on FFN still had four more years to simmer on there and gather attention, I suppose. Meaning, a fic posted for the first time obviously gets more attention than a four years later mass repost on another site.

On AO3, the oneshit with most comment threads would be How to Court the Prettiest Omega Ever in Five Years or Less, my first PJO ABOverse fic, featuring Nicercy. Which, you know, is only 37 comments on there. Seriously I genuinely blame the existence of the kudo function for the overall lackluster comment-response on AO3 because “press one button vs actually writing words”... but that’s a different conversation to be had. (I mean, seriously, in comparison, this fic has 51 comments on FFN... and it is by far not the one with most comments I have over there).

The clear winner if you look at FFN is Something Went Wrong, my first Minotaur/Percy smut fest with a whooping 116 comments. And yes. Positive. Genuinely did not expect that when after weeks of debating, I decided to post this story. *chuckles* (Again, for comparison, this fic got a total of 8 comments on AO3... eight... the difference there is staggering... Which, I’d like to tag on that, on top of the kudo-nonsense, the fact that AO3 displays total amount of comments to the readers and not comment threads is also misleading and I don’t think it helps, because I think you’re more inclined if you see it’s only 8 comment-threads in total on a fic you like vs it showing you 16 comments as the total comment-count.)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: THIS IS TOO HARD TO ANSWER. I’d have to consult my chart, but that hasn’t been updated in ages. Because overall amount of comments means little if you don’t also take into account the amount of chapters - 50 comments on a oneshot are a lot, 50 comments on a 5 chapter fic, not so much, and 50 comments on a 50 chapter is frustrating to receive.

Okay, let me go full nerd on this one. Y’all know I love charts. There was a time where I was interested enough in finding this out that I had a chart going of all my multiple chapter fics. With a collumn on how many chapters the story had at that point in time, how many total comments on AO3, how many total comments on FFN and what, by combining those two numbers and dividing them through the chapter-count, was the average amount of comments per chapter.

However, that chart had last been updated on December 31st 2016. There’s been a lot of influx, lot of new stories and other stories gaining/losing popularity, so when I now say Meet the di Angelos with a 2016 average of 57,25 comments/chapter, that is completely exclusing ten fics I wrote since then.

Damn now I really wanna update the charts...

Also if you can’t tell by now how much actual feedback and comments mean to me, I genuinely don’t know how else to convey it... xD”

If you go by total comment-count - which, again, is misleading because you gotta keep the chapter-count in mind - it’d be Chasing Fireflies on FFN with 1749 comments (on 102 chapters. And, again, for comparison, 88 comment-threads on AO3. 88 vs 1749 is insane) and Percy and the Ghost King of Summers High on AO3 with 749 comments (on 50 chapters. On FFN that’s actually on 990 comments. Far smaller difference here compared to other stories).

Though I dunno, if you measure popular by fanart received, Summers High comes in with five, while my Chasingverse is in with 6... and multiple fanfictions written for it.

Favorite Story You Wrote: Favorite to write, or favorite to reread? There’s a difference there. I’m insanely proud of Chasing Fireflies and the plot and world I created there, the character development. I... don’t really reread it it’s over 500k long I don’t have that time.

Currently, I am really loving The Primal Instinct, it is sooo much fun to write, I get to put basically all my favorite headcanons in there, I’ll get to write Aline and Helen more and Jace’s interactions with others, it features both my favorite OT3s at once. (And it is faaar from my most popular one. Just, feel like mentioning this because my numbers-obsession may read as only writing for comments, which I don’t, I mainly write for myself. The comments are just... very, very nice treats to receive. Also, I love numbers and charts and were curious to see if there is a kind of trend there in what does receive most attention sooo...)

Story You Were Nervous to Post: Uuuh every new thing. Every time I step outta my comfort zone. Trying out a new pairing for the first time. Venturing into a new fandom for the first time. Experimenting with a new kink and wondering if this would be too much. Literally every single time, still.

How Do You Choose Your Titles: On a whim. I suck at titles. Mostly I try to force alliterations because I am a sucker for alliterations, but otherwise I do try to go with “as it says on the tin”, or I try a pun/being clever. Aside from my Triton/Percy fics. Every single fic I’ve written for them is named after a song from Disney’s The Little Mermaid franchise and I have yet to run out of songtitles to use for fics and hey, by then they’ll probably have included a new song in the live-action remake so there’s that! :D

Do You Outline: Depends. Oneshots? No. I just write those. Multiple-chapter fics? ...Depends. xD

If I have a clear vision for where it’s going to go, I do tend to divide into chapters and make myself small notes on what goes into said chapters. Mostly, it’s just a rambled “and x happens and then y” at the end though and then I see how I can make it fit into chapters.

Complete: 795 stories on AO3! Damn, I’ve been busy.

In-Progress: As of right now, 4. Because this week features my Ace Awareness 7-parter, though technically we’re right now down to 3 multi-chapter fics because the next one is only due to be released and join the rotation!

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: Well, that is two entirely different things now.

Coming Soon:

Shadowhunters, Asmodeus/Jace, “The Royal Consort of Edom” oneshot on the 23rd

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Alec/Jace, “Nesting 101″ oneshot on my birthday this Saturday

Percy Jackson, Nico/Percy, “Something Borrowed, Something Green” oneshot on the 30th

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Jace, “Dancing with the Monsters in the Night” an out-side-of-schedule oneshot for Halloween

And I do think that that is what constitutes “soon”.

Not Yet Started:

HTTYD/RotG, Hiccup/Jack, “The Origin of the Blue Hoodie”, planned for November 27th

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Jace, “Set-Up by the Guard-Cats”, planned for December 4th

Descendants/PJO, Nico/Percy, Ben/Carlos, Uma/Audrey, “Demigod Defenders of Auradon”, planned for December 11th

A-and that is as far as I have planned my schedule ahead. Those three are the only fics on my personal schedule that I haven’t started working on yet. I don’t like to plan ahead too much, because then you just completely lose interest in the story by the time you get around to actually writing it.

Do You Accept Prompts: Prompts, not so much. Requests, yeah. For one, prompts always seem so demanding, while requests are more polite - and also more structured. Prompts are always like “here have one quick trope thrown at your head” and like... I do have a well-enough planned-out schedule with more than enough fics of my own set, I don’t need to try and turn one random prompt into an actual story. But if someone has a specific request, a pairing and an actual plot, that they really wanna see, I do always hear them out, I may not always like the pitch and thus not accept them all, but on the overall I do accept requests.

More inclined to accept birthday requests than random requests, because random requests would be put into the rotation of my schedule and, well come on that shouldn’t be a surprise, they tend to be pushed off then in favor of fic ideas I came up with myself because there’s nearly always more enthusiasm about writing an idea that you came up with yourself than the idea of someone else. Whereas birthday requests have a set date that doesn’t disturb my schedule and I am a big softie who has a weakness for getting gifts myself so I do like to do something nice for someone so they get something special for their birthday.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Most excited to write? Well, that’d be the Descendant/PJO crossover atm, because that is something very new and shiny and I do love shiny, new things to experiment on. But also The Prince of Pluto, my next multiple-chapter fic that I have already started writing.

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it! <3

#Fanfiction #Comments #Tumblr Tag Game #this turned out long #xDDD #About Me

15 notes · View notes

w-re-writes · 5 years ago

Text

Fictober - Day 17 - “an honest muttonhead”

Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1867

Rating: General Audiences

Prompt: “There is just something about them/her/him.”

Unbeknownst to him, Cleos is the third wheel in a ridiculous road trip. His wife helps him through it.

(read on ao3)

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

Cleos Frey had never been a saint, but he was sure he did not deserve this punishment.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" His cousin, Jaime, said from the back seat. "Of course the Warrior would beat the Maid. It's right there in the name."

The gigantic woman in the passenger's seat exhaled with resignation. Brienne Tarth, she was called. Another employer of Catelyn Stark's. Reliable, strong. She’d been his manager for the past months, and Cleos liked her. Not the least because she’d also done an enviable job of ignoring Jaime’s constant japes. At least, until he managed to get under her skin.

"You're bypassing the fact," Brienne explained in a tired tone, "that the Warrior cannot harm the Maid. She's an innocent. But if she asked him to fight for a just cause, he could even get killed. She’d win any fight between them."

"But the Warrior cannot die!"

"But that’s not the point!"

Mother have mercy.

Cleos hadn't seen Brienne upset by anything until Jaime arrived to the Tully headquarters to oversee their negotiations with Tywin Lannister. Purchasing company branches was a merciless bloodbath, and Jaime had been sent to do what he did best—to rail people up until they yielded.

Jeyne help , Cleos texted his wife as soon as he got signal. They were waiting for Jaime to return from taking a leak in the woods. He’d insisted, despite the pouring rain.

What is it?

I’m this close to put myself in front of the car. Miss u.

Miss u too. It's Jaime, just tell embarrassing stories re him as a kid. Thats how genna shuts him up

Cleos glanced up at Brienne, who was also frowning and tapping on her phone.

Its nit just him , he typed back.

The girl too?

They nvr stop fighting

Rlly?

Its exhausting. Like Ty and Will

At that moment, Jaime closed the door with a self satisfied smile.

"All good, coz," he said ruefully, shaking his umbrella in an obnoxious way. "Let's go."

Cleos glanced at Brienne, who nodded her approval, and he started the engine.

-------

This whole excuse of a road trip had been Jaime's idea. Cleos had said it was a ridiculous notion, with the weather they’d last the Seven knew how long. But Jaime had argued back. Flights had been canceled due to the storm, but by car it'd only be 7 hours to King’s Landing. "Shorter than waiting for the storm to blow over," Jaime had smiled. "We all win."

Yeah, right . Cleos had begun to wonder if he was trapped within one of the gods’ big jokes.

"Everyone knows that a blade blunts after hitting bone," Brienne was saying, raising her voice over the rain outside. "So a sword is not a good weapon during a zombie apocalypse."

"But the aesthetic," Jaime shook his fists at her, faking emotion. "What else do you have during the zombie apocalypse but aesthetics?"

He makes her laugh tho , Cleos texted Jeyne later, when they stopped at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. They were all slightly damp, but for some reason Jaime managed to make it look classy. Brienne and him just looked annoyed.

Thats good?

Yeah, shes young but very serious, tries to hide it

That she's serious?

That she laughs

Brienne returned to the car from her expedition into the management store. "The road is closed," she announced, squaring her shoulders and handing Jaime and Cleos an apple juice box each. "But the man said they're cleaning it up and it should be done by tomorrow."

"There's no way around it?" Cleos asked. Of course the gods would make it harder for him. Of course.

Brienne shook her head.

"It'd take us three hours to get to the other road," Jaime chimed in, slurping his apple juice. "Not worth it."

"Then another five hours to circle back to King's Landing," Brienne agreed, not reluctantly. "Can you stop that?"

Jaime gulped his drink with added noise. Brienne rolled her eyes before turning to Cleos.

"The man said there's an inn further down. We should stop there for the night."

Cleos felt his face wrinkle in pain.

"Slumber party" Jaime finished his juice, looking straight at Brienne. "Yay."

-------

Cleos u old fool , Jeyne had texted, adding two laughing emojis. Cleos frowned.

We r eating smtng n staying at an inn, call u soon , he sent her. Then he quoted her last message: Why?

"Coz, the Boss says they only got one room," Jaime's hand patted his shoulder. "We'll all have to share."

"The boss?" Cleos deepened his frown.

"Two beds, though," Brienne walked past them, carrying most of their bags on one hand. "And if you keep calling me Boss I’m going to expect you to shut up and do as I say, Lannister."

"Am I not doing that already?" he teased her, watching her stomp upstairs with determination. He gave a short laugh, picked what was left of their luggage, and trailed after her. Cleos checked his phone and followed, wondering just how insufferable dinner would be.

"No no no no no," Brienne was shaking her hands. "Under no circumstances would the Blue Knight lose to the Golden Knight. There’s a story about it."

“But only the one story,” Jaime insisted, nudging Cleos with an elbow as he cut his meal.

The inn was packed, and they’d been cramped into a corner. Cleos was not a short man, but he was sandwiched between the biggest woman he’d ever met and his cousin's inflated personality in the tiniest, primpiest table in the seven kingdoms. The tablecloth even had lace, which he knew because he had been inspecting everything in his immediate surroundings while his companions spoke nonstop.

"Are you saying it’s not canonical?"

"“I’m saying there’s a chance they never actually fought."

Cleos tried to remember when his remark about the decorative armour in the parlor had turned into a discussion about the age of heroes, or whatever this was. His mum used to tell him and his cousins stories about knights and dragons, and Brienne had been delighted when he'd told her. She loved all of that stuff. As for Jaime… Cleos hadn’t even known Jaime still cared about the stories.

-------

Is she touching her hair? Jeyne’s reply chimed in his phone.

Cleos stopped the fork halfway to his mouth and glanced at his left. Brienne was talking about a historical TV show, tugging her hair behind her ears at least twice in the process.

Yes. What does that have to do w anythng? He texted back.

Is he listening to her? That message had a laughing-with-tears emoji.

Cleos looked to his right. Jaime had cupped his cheek on one hand, following her every word.

His brow furrowed so fast in realization he felt a muscle tear.

Can't be, he sent. It didn’t feel adamant enough. Impossible , he added.

-------

Cleos had been at some office events where both Brienne and Jaime had attended, and he never thought… Surely Jeyne was wrong.

Brienne had sighed in relief when she had told him they’d reached an agreement. They were about to sign the contracts with Uncle Tywin, which was why they’d been traveling to King’s Landing in the first place. Jaime had been unfazed by the result, as usual, even though him and Brienne had written the final document.

Then again…

Cleos looked at Jeyne’s stream of emojis making fun of him (including some suggestive combinations of hand gestures and eggplants), and then again at his manager and cousin.

They were radiant.

-------

Like everything else in that godsforsaken inn, the room was small and cozy, with lace decorating every textile in view.

Cleos sat on the edge of one of the beds, while Brienne threw herself in the other. Jaime was opening cabinets and doors, like a cat inspecting a new room.

Their not flirting , Cleos texted Jeyne, one handed, opening a couple of buttons on his shirt.

Sounds like it to me

"Hey," Jaime produced a box from one of the shelves. "Kingdompoly! What say you, coz? Shall we play, for old time’s sake?"

Cleos huffed. "Will loves it," he said. "So that means we’ve had to ban it from the house. I pass."

Jaime laughed. "Very well. And you, Boss? Fancy a play?"

"What are you, ten?" Brienne was decidedly not looking up at Jaime, intent only on her book, the edge of her mouth curling up just so. "Only if you’re prepared to lose."

"Ah, a challenge. You boast."

"Of course. My sisters hated me because I won all the time."

"That's because you weren’t playing me."

-------

Are u still up?

Cleos had grabbed the spare key and beseeched the safety of the lobby. The rain was still pounding, but the waiting area was quiet in comparison to the tourney-worth of cackles the two blonds had been making.

The phone rang at the tune of the Rains of Castamere and Cleos picked up gratefully.

"Hi, husband mine." Jeyne's grin was palpable in her voice. "How’re the lovebirds?"

"Fighting," Cleos chuckled. "Over Kingdompoly."

“Kingdompoly?"

"See what I do for our sons?"

Jeyne laughed. "I know. They miss you."

"And me them."

"But are you sure? I was rather hoping I had something to tease your mum with. Her favorite nephew, flirting with a Stark. Can you imagine?"

"I just told you. It's not flirting. They fight. And she's not a Stark, exactly."

"Is it fighting or is it bantering?"

Cleos mentally ran through months of constant teasing, chattering, endless nights of working together, heads bent into one single purpose.

"It’s not flirting," he insisted, stubborn as ever.

That made his wife laugh. It was warm.

"Well," Jeyne continued. "Come home as soon as you can and I'll show you proper flirting, then."

Gods, he missed her.

-------

Cleos walked into their room an hour after. He'd assumed Jaime and him would share a bed, so his surprise was genuine when he discovered two large bulks in Brienne's.

Tip toeing his way through the carpet, Cleos peeked over the pink dossel. Kingdompoly was sprawled out on the mattress in disarray, Brienne asleep against the headboard, and Jaime tucked against her leg, his curls resting on her thigh.

Cleos bit his lip.

His first instinct was to wake Jaime up, a million arguments about impropriety crossing his mind. But they both looked strangely peaceful. And gratefully quiet.

Look what I found , Cleos typed to Jeyne.

It was a bit clumsy, but he managed to angle the camera, adjust the flash, and snap the picture.

Jeyne sent back a billion head-exploding emojis.

I told u!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She didn't have to seem so smug, but Cleos didn’t mind too much.

I got u something to bother mum with , he replied, sliding into his own bed.

My hero ! She said, with a heart emoji.

Cleos chuckled for himself, and peppered his text lingo with a smiley face for his wife.

Sinking into the pillow, Cleos glanced at his travel companions one last time. They breathed slowly in absolute comfort, holding each other in the bed. Maybe Jeyne wasn't so far off, after all. There is just something about them.

With a knowing grin, Cleos drifted into sleep.

#fictober19 #fictober2019 #jaime x brienne #my fic #cleos pov because why not #third wheeling like a pro #i wish this was better but it's done so #there u go

14 notes · View notes

degenerate-perturbation · 5 years ago

Link

Chapters: 8/? Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe Additional Tags: Established Relationship Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one who was shackled next to you? What do you have in common, save for the chains that bound you both?

The young man arrived unassumingly, much like all the rest.

The Ferelden Wardens had been so depleted since the Fifth Blight, that if any good had come of the siege, it was that the Wardens’ fame was growing. Recruits were flowing in, from Amaranthine and beyond, from as far as Gwaren. Men and women from every walk of life came to pledge their lives to vigilance.

Yvanne had placed herself in charge of recruitment. She appreciated the bitter irony of it, but the importance of that paled in comparison to what she would do as the self-appointed head of Warden recruitment. She could tell people what they were getting themselves into—exactly what would happen during the Joining, what would happen if they got unlucky, what their approximate chances of surviving was. She could describe the life they would have afterwards—the dreams, the shortened lifespan, that constant feeling that something was scratching at the back of their heads.

Yvanne had the sense that she wasn’t supposed to tell civilians these things, that they were secrets. But she figured that if the First Warden wanted to come and make it her problem, she’d deal with him then, and not before.

Some of those that came turned away and went home when they understood what they would be signing up for. But, most stayed.

She set herself up in the Great Hall, sitting behind an oaken desk she’d had dragged into the space where the Arl’s throne had once stood. There she met with each recruit personally, recording their names and professions and where they had come from. This kind of administrative work should have been Garavel’s—he was the new Seneschal, after all—but somehow Yvanne could never get used to him. He looked so young. He didn’t know the system she and Varel had worked out together. It was easier to just do it herself.

So when the broad-shouldered young man came forward to meet with the Warden-Lieutenant, at first he seemed completely unremarkable.

“Name?” she asked, not quite looking up.

“Rolan.”

“Place of birth?”

“Jader.”

“Previous occupation?”

“Templar.”

The scratching of Yvanne’s quill ceased abruptly, blotting the sheet she was writing on. Her breath caught. Rolan only continued to smile blithely.

She lifted the pen, scattering sand over the blot.

“I don’t think so,” she said icily, not looking at him.

His light brows drew together in confusion. “I swear, ser, it’s the truth. I served in—”

“I’m not accusing you of lying,” she corrected. “I’m denying your petition to join the Grey Wardens.”

At first he stared at her, uncomprehending. “What?!” He slammed his hands on the table, rattling it. She suppressed the flinch. “But the Wardens need skilled warriors! I’ve trained in arms and armor, I understand discipline, I’m an able warrior. How can you turn me away?”

“Like this.” She took the parchment on which she’d written his name, crumpled it up, and incinerated it. She enjoyed his obvious fear as he startled backwards, eyes wide. She brushed the charred remains off her desk. “I wish you a pleasant journey home to Jader.”

He struggled to master himself. “Can’t I at least know why?”

“Certainly.” She smiled. “Many of the highest-ranking and most valued of our Ferelden Wardens are mages. I cannot ask them to tolerate your presence, given your abilities and your prior occupation.”

“Is that what you’re concerned about?” His lip actually trembled. Pathetic. “It isn’t like that at all. I’m not here as a Templar. I’m not a Templar at all anymore! I came here because I wanted to do something noble with my life, something heroic.”

“Oh, I see. You didn’t finding standing over helpless imprisoned children with a sword too rewarding? Wanted something a little more personally fulfilling, did you?”

He sputtered. “This is completely against—this isn’t—I thought the Grey Wardens took anyone. I thought you were desperate for recruits.”

Not that desperate, she thought acidly. His raised voice and the small fireball she had just created were drawing attention. Some of the Vigil’s soldiers had their hands on their weapons, watching the situation carefully. Yvanne gestured for them to hold, but Rolan was still talking.

“I thought anyone could come here and turn over a new leaf. You shouldn’t be able to hold my past against me.”

“Maybe not,” she said cheerfully, “but I am. Good day, ser. ”

He stood there gaping. Then he straightened, his jaw twitching. “You don’t have the authority to turn me away.”

“Oh? How interesting,” Yvanne said, disinterestedly. She demonstratively paged through some of the documents on the desk, not looking at him. “And here I thought I was the ranking recruitment officer.”

“ You aren’t the Warden-Commander.”

Yvanne’s smile disappeared.

“ You’re not the one who slew the Archdemon and lived.”

She felt her eyebrow twitch.

“ She’s an elf; I know that much.”

She vividly imagined what it would be like to fill this fool with lightning.

“I want to talk to her .”

“You do, do you?” Yvanne said, clasping her hands on the desk in front of her. “I’m afraid the Warden-Commander is very busy, and unfortunately can’t take time out of her day to talk to every fool that demands her attention.”

“Fine, then.” Rolan crossed his arms. “I’ll wait.”

Yvanne’s fingers tightened over her knuckles. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “I’ll camp outside the walls until she has time to see me. Every day I’ll come in here and ask to join the Wardens and every day I’ll ask to see the Commander until I get a no directly from her lips. Then I’ll leave. But not before.”

She could tell he meant it, too. She’d have to deal with him every single day until he finally got the rejection from the person he wanted, and every one of those days was another day that a Templar was within smiting distance of her. Within smiting distance of Loriel. And Anders. And Velanna. Yvanne felt a flare of the old hatred, not in her heart, but somewhere in her gut, that pool of brewing roiling viscous bile that for so long had laid quiescent.

She needed to get rid of him.

“Fine,” she snapped. “If you are so desperate to be turned away by the Warden-Commander herself, I’ll oblige you. This way. Garavel, tell anyone still outside to wait. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

She rose from the high-backed wooden chair, so abruptly that its legs scraped horribly on the stone floor, and marched off towards Loriel’s office. She would end this quickly and never deal with this cockroach again. He followed her dutifully through the halls, at least doing her the service of remaining silent.

She banged on the Commander’s office doors, waiting hardly a second before barging in. Loriel startled, looking up from sheets of parchment covered in glyph diagrams and arcane symbols beyond Yvanne’s comprehension. Her brow crumpled when she saw her and she opened her mouth to say something before catching sight of Rolan.

“Yes?” she said smoothly, her puzzled expression schooling into glasslike neutrality. “How can I be of assistance?”

Before Yvanne could say anything, Rolan dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “I wish only to pledge my life in service to the Grey Wardens. I wish to protect the innocent, to fight the darkness, to be the shield that stands before the night. I would give my life to it.”

Loriel allowed a drop of confusion to enter her expression. “I see. And is there a problem?”

“I’ll tell you what the problem is,” Yvanne said, dripping with every bit of her old venom. “This man is a Templar.”

Loriel’s expression did not so much as twitch. “Is that true?”

Rolan hesitated. “I was a Templar,” he said, “in my old life. But no longer. I seek a different path.”

“I see.” Loriel laced her fingers together in front of her and looked down at them.

“Oh, come on!” Yvanne burst out. “Surely you can’t possibly—”

“Yvanne,” Loriel cut her off. “ Please.” Yvanne caught the tight, desperate plea in her eye. She bit her tongue. Rolan was still kneeling.

“You understand,” Loriel said finally, leaning forward, “that the Joining is often fatal.”

“I do.”

“And you understand that should you live, I will be your Commander. Warden Amell, as Warden-Lieutenant, would also be your ranking officer.”

“I do.”

“You realize I am a mage. As is she.”

“I do, ser.”

“As well as several other Wardens that have my complete trust. Free mages, whose actions you may not always agree with.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You aren’t uncomfortable with that?”

“No, ser.”

She pierced him with that deep inky gaze of hers. “Knowing that any disloyalty, any failure to comply with orders—any intentional disruptions of the Wardens under my protection—may mean that your life is forfeit?”

“Yes, ser.”

“You would abide by the oaths and customs and bounds of the Grey Wardens? You would sacrifice yourself, if need be?”

He had been nodding along, and now his head bobbed up and down like a clucking chicken. “I would. Ser. I so swear it by the Maker.”

She kept silent a while again. Then she sighed. “Very well. If you wish it, you will be Joined along with the others at the end of Harvestmere. You may report to the recruit barracks.”

He thanked her, and bowed his head again, and thanked her another time, and exited the room practically backwards, and didn’t even ask where the recruit barracks were.

Yvanne waited until the sound of his footsteps was well out of earshot, then slammed the door so hard the hinges rattled.

“What the hell was that !” she shouted.

Loriel noticed that the cap was off the inkwell, and carefully replaced it.

“That’s a fucking Templar, you realize?”

Loriel started cleaning the tip of the quill pen she’d been using, examining the tip as though to check whether it needed sharpening.

“I mean, Andraste’s bleeding tits ! We’ve spent how long trying to get away from these bastards, and you’re inviting one of them over for tea and biscuits? To stay in my Keep? To be part of our Wardens?”

Loriel put down the quill and started organizing the sheets of parchment littering her desk.

“I don’t understand! Have you lost your mind? Are you possessed by some demon of discord and confusion? Just what are you playing at?!”

Loriel left the parchments in three neat stacks on the desk, placing the quill and inkwell in their proper places.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me! To all the Warden mages! To us. ”

Her voice caught. She collapsed into a nearby chair, exhausted. “I— I just—” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Finished?”

“Yes,” Yvanne said morosely.

Loriel rose and stood in front of Yvanne’s chair, where she sat hunched and twisted. She bit her lip, rubbing the knucklebone of her thumb.

“I understand how you feel,” she said carefully. “I’m not entirely comfortable with it either, but my position is—” She hesitated. “—precarious. My people value me more than they fear me, but if I started to behave politically like a mage and not a Warden, that might change. I need to be seen as neutral. The Wardens are meant to be a clean slate. A chance to atone. If I deny that chance to a Templar, how does that make me look? Besides, wouldn’t you rather he be a Warden than a Templar?”

“I’d rather he be dead. ”

“We don’t get to choose that.”

“Since when?” Yvanne demanded. “We’ve killed lots of people. Duncan killed Jory, just for being afraid. Why shouldn’t I kill Rolan now?”

Loriel looked evenly at her. “You won’t do that.”

“No,” she said savagely. “But I ought to.”

“Oh, Yvanne.” Loriel took her cold dry hands in hers. “How long are we supposed to stay afraid?”

“That’s not—” Yvanne sputtered, pulling her hands away and standing. “It’s not about that.”

How she hated when Loriel turned those big sad eyes on her. She held her elbows close to her body, looking small. “Isn’t it?”

“It isn’t about who he is. It’s about what he can do.” Yvanne flashed back to every smiting bolt she’d ever felt, to the warehouse, how they’d barely survived...

“If we need to fear that man because of what he can do, then why shouldn’t everyone fear us for what we can do?”

“Maybe they should fear us,” Yvanne said darkly.

“You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t know what I mean.”

“I do know.”

Yvanne said nothing.

“Look,” said Loriel, sighing again, “we aren’t Circle mages anymore. If we’re going to live— really live—we’re going to have to accept that.”

“What are you talking about?” It came out sharper than she meant it to.

She threw her hands wide. “I mean, we aren’t prisoners anymore! And that man isn’t our jailer. Don’t you understand? We’re out of the tower. We have to knock down the walls or we’ll never be able to live.”

“I thought we were living. I was. Weren’t you?” Yvanne swiped her thumb over the ring on her finger.

“I’m—” Loriel faltered. “I’m doing my best. It isn’t easy.”

A steady gaze. “You didn’t tell me.” But I knew, Yvanne thought. I knew, but I thought, with enough time...

“Because I don’t think it’s any easier for you.” She took a breath. “If I choose to be a frightened Circle mage rather than the Warden-Commander, I’ll never escape. Neither of us will. We’ll always be looking over our shoulders, waiting to be caught. If we can’t move past that, we’re doomed.”

“You can’t make that choice for me.”

Loriel looked down. “Maybe not. I’m sorry. But I stand by my decision.”

“I…” Yvanne sighed. “Maybe you have a point. But I might need some time.”

“Alright.” They stood not quite looking at each other. Yvanne’s fingernails dug into her palm. Loriel fiddled with her wedding ring until it chafed. “I love you,” she added.

“I love you, too. But sometimes I don’t understand you at all.”

A faint smile. “Isn’t that the joy of it?”

Yvanne went to her and kissed her lightly, to show that she wasn’t angry, although she was, and left the office. And Loriel was left alone to sit and idly review her diagrams and consider all that had been said and done.

She hadn’t lied, exactly. It was true, all that she’d said. She had pinned her life, and Yvanne’s life, and so many other lives, to the Grey Wardens. If she had done that, it had to mean something. She had to make it mean something. Otherwise she was a monster, wasn’t she?

And it was true, that they had to stop being afraid. That was why she’d done it.

But really...

She’d done it because she’d seen a Templar kneeling before her, and known that his life was in her hands. Known that she could kill him, if she wanted to. Yes, her position was precarious, but not that precarious. Yvanne was right about one thing: Duncan had killed recruits. At least one that she knew of, for such a petty reason, and there were probably more. And who was Duncan, compared to the Hero of Ferelden, the most famous Warden-Commander in centuries? Who would have stopped her? Who would have breathed a word against her?

He’d been at her mercy, and it had felt so good.

It had shocked her, just how good. All these years she’d been a little mouse, afraid for so long that she had not realized what it had been to not be afraid. She’d feared her parents’ anger, she’d feared the shemlen outside the alienage, and she’d feared the Templars, always the Templars. It had made her into what she was, the fear. Now that it was gone, its absence was intoxicating. She wanted more of it, that un-fear. The way she felt watching an ogre barrelling down at her and knowing it would not touch her, the way she felt consorting with darkspawn and knowing she had the upper hand—that was how watching Rolan kneel before her felt.

Yes, she was ashamed, but it was a perfunctory sort of shame. She knew she ought to feel it, anyway. Ashamed enough that she did not want to tell Yvanne, did not want her to know. Yvanne thought her better than she was, and she loved her for it. Maybe she needed someone to see the best in her—else all the worst in her would come up and choke her to death. So she felt just enough shame for that. But only just.

How pathetic it would have been to send him away. To let him win. To admit that even now—as Arlessa and Commander and blood mage and the greatest necromancer that had lived in centuries—she was still afraid of a man for the symbol on his armor.

No. She was done. The Templar could stay if he wanted. and maybe he’d die, and maybe he wouldn’t. And maybe he would be a good and loyal Warden and he would do good things with his life, and that would be good.

And then again, maybe he wouldn’t. And Loriel would boil his blood inside his veins, and that would also be good. But she would never be afraid again.

Not ever.

—

“Did I hear correctly? There’s a Templar among the recruits?”

“Yes,” Yvanne said moodily. “You heard correctly.”

Anders shook his head. “Are you sure? It could be that I’m having spontaneous massive bleeding in the brain.”

“I could give you a once-over, I guess,” she joked weakly.

“You have to talk to her.”

“I already did.”

“Well, can you do it again?” he demanded.

“I could, if I wanted to invite additional strife into my marriage.” She snorted. “But I won’t.”

He rounded on her. “You’re going to allow a Templar into the Wardens to avoid a little marital strife?”

“Step off,” she snapped. “I’m not happy about it, either.”

Anders fumed. “You know this is obviously an attempt by the Chantry to spy on us. I’m sure of it. It wasn’t as though they were going to stand for this many free mages in the Wardens. It was bound to happen.”

“Right, well, I don’t know about all that—”

“What, you think I’m being paranoid?” Anders demanded.

“No? I just meant—”

“And what about Justice? You think this Templar isn’t going to notice a possessed corpse walking around?”

Yvanne threw her hands up. “I don’t know! Half the time, I have no idea what Loriel’s thinking. But she’s always come through before, even when I didn’t understand what she was doing or why.”

“Yeah, well,” Anders said darkly, “You weren’t at Drake’s Fall.”

Yvanne’s hands tightened on the bannister. “Don’t remind me.”

“No, I just meant…you didn’t see her.”

She had, though. She thought about telling him. She’d told Loriel, who claimed it hadn’t bothered her, that she had nothing to hide, but she’d told nobody else. Even thinking about it gave her an unpleasant sinking feeling in her stomach, like she was doing something shameful that needed to be hidden.

“What, exactly, happened at Drake’s Fall?” she asked instead.

He raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you?”

“She did. She told me everything,” Yvanne said, more defensively than she meant.

“So you know you she made a deal with it,” said Anders. “That darkspawn, the Architect.”

“Yes, I do.” Yvanne drew herself up. “And what about it?”

Anders shook his head, staring off like he was struggling to understand. “She talked to it like...I don’t know, like it was a colleague! An old friend, or something!”

“Doesn’t shock me. She’s always been diplomatic.” Her expression darkened. “Even to the worst monsters.”

“You don’t understand,” Anders insisted. “You didn’t see her. It was like she was a completely different person.”

“You don’t know her like I know her,” Yvanne said smoothly, but inside a little voice wailed, She was, she was different! Who was that woman I saw? I didn’t know her.

“I s’pose I don’t,” Anders muttered. “But it was bad. I mean, I’m not one to judge, personally—Loriel’s a big girl, hey? She can wheel and deal with ancient darkspawn magisters all she wants, no skin off my nose. But Sigrun and Justice didn’t feel that way.”

Alarm bells rang. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they really didn’t feel that way. I almost thought we’d end up fighting to the death about it.”

Loriel had vaguely mentioned their disapproval. Yvanne had even seen part of the argument, in a fashion. But to the death?

Anders was still talking. “It didn’t come to that, thank the Maker. She talked them both down. But for a second there I really thought I’d have to...anyway, it didn’t come to that.”

Yvanne couldn’t help but notice that Anders had failed to mention who he would have sided with, if it had come to that.

But it hadn’t.

“Nothing would have happened,” Yvanne said, less certainly than she would have liked. “They wouldn’t. She’s their commander. Their friend.”

“She was , anyway.” He paused. “Justice probably doesn’t have any hard feelings. You know how he is. Doesn’t really hold grudges. Funny, isn’t it? A spirit of Justice that doesn’t hold grudges?”

“Right. Funny. Ha, ha.” Yvanne had probably never pronounced a hollower laugh.

“In that case, we should figure something out for Justice before the Chantry’s little lapdog goes crying all the way to a Revered Mother about the revenants the big scary mage commander is hiding in her tower of horrors.”

“Probably,” Yvanne muttered, pushing past him.

—

Yvanne roiled deep in one of the worst moods of her life.

She’d been in a lot of bad moods in her life, but never this particular awful combination of contradictory feelings that overlapped and bled into each other like oil swirling upon water. It was giving her a headache. Every time she tried to be angry at Loriel, she felt guilty. And every time she felt guilty, she felt self-righteous at the very idea that she had anything to feel guilty for when she was so obviously in the right. And every time she felt self-righteous, she felt pathetic. Why did she possibly need to be so defensive here in her castle where she and her wife were the rulers?

She and her wife, she thought. Who’d have ever thought such a thing? Who could have ever imagined?

And yet still here she was, roving through her castle like a caged tiger, heartbroken and pulsating like a poisoned vein of lyrium.

She didn’t understand, she just didn’t understand. What Loriel had said made sense. They did need to let go of their past, fully become Wardens and not mere Circle mages. It all made perfect sense and Yvanne still didn’t understand. She thought again of the strange cold woman she had seen in her visions, who she recognized but did not quite know, who was not her Loriel. If only she hadn’t looked, she could have brushed off Anders’ words like so much goosefeather down. But as it was….

She found herself, almost against her wishes, making her way to the new recruits’ barracks.

When she got there, a few of the recruits, two human women and an elven man, were playing dice and chatting about something. Yvanne almost barked at them to get back to their duties before realizing that it was the middle of the night, it wasn’t their patrol, and they didn’t currently have any duties.

“Have you seen Rolan?” she asked instead as they all hurriedly rose to salute her. They didn’t know. He’d gone out less than an hour ago. He hadn’t said where he was going.

What was he playing at? Did he think she would not notice? Did he think her so stupid? She couldn’t stand for that.

She thanked the recruits and turned on her heel. It was late and dark and the lit sconces provided only barely enough light. She could have lit a magelight, but didn’t. This wasn’t a mood to be lit.

The Templar was not in the kitchen. He was not in the entrance hall. He was not in the courtyard.

Finally she found him, in the little chapel at the edge of the Keep. She hadn’t quite finished renovations here yet.

He jerked as she approached, as though startled out of deep prayer.

“Hello, Rolan,” she said, sliding into the pew beside him. She smiled broadly and clasped him on the shoulder.

“Good evening, Warden-Lieutenant,” he said, although it was well past evening. “Do you need me for anything—ser?” He remembered just in time.

“Are you a pious man, Rolan?” Yvanne asked, ignoring the question.

“I like to think so, ser.”

“One would have to be quite pious to be in the chapel this late at night, wouldn’t you say?”

“I enjoy the quiet,” he said, nervous. “It’s peaceful.”

Her grip on his shoulder tightened. “Is this piety why you joined the Templars, Rolan? Did you feel it was your duty?”

“I...suppose so, ser.” His voice wavered. Only slightly, but it did. Good.

Several times he appeared to try to speak, but every time he thought better of it. “I think I’d like to return to the barracks, ser. It’s late.”

She released him. “Yes, so it is.”

He rose and made for the exit, made to escape.

“Wait a moment, Rolan,” she said softly. “That’s an order.”

He stopped and turned around, his head lowered. “Ser?”

“I just wanted to make sure we both knew exactly where we stand,” she said. “After all that unpleasantness from before.”

“Yes, ser.” He bowed his head in contrition. “I’m sorry for how I behaved before. I hope we can put that behind us.”

She regarded him. “You’re very good at being deferent, Rolan. I suppose they taught you that in the Order.”

“Yes, ser.”

“But it won’t help.”

He straightened anxiously. “Ser?”

“I don’t know why the fuck you’re here,” she hissed, advancing.

“I explained—”

“Shut up. You know, one of my Wardens thinks you’re a Chantry spy here to report on the Commander’s activities. What do you think of that, Rolan?”

“I—”

“I said, shut up!”

He tried to speak, but whatever he had meant to say, he suddenly found his magically tongue leaden in his mouth.

She scrutinized him. “I don’t think you’re a Chantry spy, Rolan. You should find that encouraging. If I thought you were a spy, you’d already be dead. But lucky for you, I don’t think that. I think you’re probably telling the truth. I think you really believe all that garbage about a second chance.”

He gave a series of tiny, desperate nods.

“But it doesn’t matter what you fucking believe. While you are here you are a danger to me and mine. So mark my words, Ser Templar—”

He tried to take a step back. He moved quickly enough that it looked to her like an attempt to get away. A wordless gesture sent him slamming backwards against the stone walls, not enough to injure, but enough to hurt.

“Did I say you were dismissed, Ser Templar? We were having a conversation.”

She held him pinned against the wall with the force spell, his feet several inches off the ground.

“I suggest you stay still,” she said. “If I had to paralyze you in order to finish our conversation, I might accidentally stop your lungs.”

He gave the fainest suggestion of a nod, sweat pouring from his temples.

She strolled up. He was a big man, round-shouldered and burly, and she had to lift her chin to look him in the eye. “The Warden-Commander may have granted you permission to remain here. And I will not go against her decision. If you wish to stay, then by all means, stay. But let me make something perfectly clear.” She bared her teeth. “If you give me so much as a hint that any of your loyalty to the Order remains, I will kill you. The Commander could kill you painlessly, easily, with barely a thought, but I am not her equal. If I decide to kill you, I may well get sloppy. It may take you many minutes to die. And what long minutes they will be. If you give me so much as a hint, a breath, an inkling of a suggestion, that you are more trouble to my people than trouble to the Commander’s reputation, you will die, and no one will question your death, and that will be that. If, of course, you decide to stay. Do you understand, Ser Templar?”

She released her hold on him just enough to let him nod. Tears sprung to his eyes. They were a watery blue. He was terrified of her.

It suddenly occurred to Yvanne that this boy was probably younger than she was.

She stepped back, a ringing in her ears. He didn’t move. Of course not, he wouldn’t dare. “You—You may go,” she said.

He fled before her fury like a mouse before a lion.

She could have killed him, Yvanne realized. She could have killed him right then, and nobody would have stopped her. Not that she’d never killed anybody before, but never anybody helpless. And he had been helpless.

Shame filled her, hot and acrid. She shouldn’t have come here. Loriel had been right about everything.

Yvanne half-hoped her threat had worked just so she wouldn’t have to see anybody so afraid of her again. And hoped that he’d live, if he stayed, so that she’d have a chance to make up for it, somehow. No light, save from the candles, filled the chapel, and that was just as well. She felt sick and ugly.

She went to the courtyard, taking deep gulps of night air. Her lungs hurt. She drew water from the well, cold clear water, splashed it on her face, then stood gripping the cistern until her heart slowed. She lowered herself to the ground, her back against the stone, looking up at the stars.

Maybe she’d never fully escape the Tower. Maybe a part of her heart was still locked in it. Maybe she’d spend her whole life still trying to escape it.

But she had to try.

She sighed and stood up to go back inside and to bed. At least now she could stop being angry with Loriel. She hated being angry with Loriel.

Yes, she’d been right. Time to move on. Time to live.

—

Rolan lived through his Joining. Yvanne lived to be glad of it, then lived to regret it.

#dragon age #femslash #dragon age: awakening #amell #surana #dragon age femslash #dragon age: origins #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

4 notes · View notes