#fandom: dragon age

[jb-nonsense]

"You still have to sleep sometimes." "With you here, Like this? I'd rather stay awake."

[queenaeducan-writes]

Day 3: Community

Mi amor,

By the time this letter reaches you, if it reaches you at all, I will be far away.

I tire of shadows, yet I am more weary of danger, or to be more precise, the danger my presence puts others in. My time among the Dalish was short, and were it not for the intervention of another, may have ended with blood. Innocent blood, that is. There was no shortage of Crow blood to be had. Pray my time in Ansburg is peaceful.

The city’s elves have made me feel quite at home. The elder herself has given me shelter under her roof. Each morning I find children at my doorstep, coveting my attention like I am a hero worthy of their aspirations. I do not tell them what I truly am, though I suspect their elders know.

They live humbly here, but I think you would enjoy yourself— the Minanter flows more freely than your beloved Drakon, and we are far enough north that all manner of fruits and vegetables come through the city’s markets. True, I have not the coin to buy them, but what is the harm in relieving a merchant of a peach here and there?

I will beg the Maker for forgiveness later.

I once told you I considered myself lucky for an orphan, and in many ways that still holds true. I often wonder, however, what would have happened if I was trusted not to the brothel, but my people. I do not remember the Alienage in Antiva City, or, indeed, in Rialto. Would they have guarded me so closely there, as they do here? Would I have been safe? Would I have been happy?

Ah, but what use is there in wondering? You know poverty’s sting as well as I, mi amor. I might have been happy, yes, but I am happy now, knowing your warm embrace awaits me in cold Amaranthine.

Con cariño, Zevran

Written for @cityelfweek day 3!

[immortalmuses]

Official Illustration for the Dragon Age Short Story, Won't Know When By Albert Urmanov

@kismetwilled

[callmegaith]

power couple😏⚔️

[lothrilzul]

The unrelenting force and the unmovable item

AKA Fenris and Anders together. Because these two pieces were always meant to be viewed together.

[meganmoonlight]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Zevran Arainai & Warden's Mabari, Leliana & Mabari (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai & Leliana Characters: Warden's Mabari (Dragon Age), Mabari (Dragon Age), Leliana (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai Additional Tags: Friendship, Mabari, Pets, Short & Sweet, Adorable Series: Part 4 of 30 Days of Dragon Age Writing Challenge Summary:

The Warden's mabari, Woofle, stays behind with Zevran and Leliana in the camp, while the Warden travels to the Frostback Mountains.

Written for Day 4 for my *30 Days of Dragon Age Writing Challenge*

[specterthief]

david gaider isn't even writing dragon age anymore and he's publicly beefing with people on twitter over it if anyone's wondering

[katepeoart]

woof it's been a rough few months. have a sad Kiwi

[mneiaifics]

Dragon Age Fic: Mercy, Chapter 3

Earlier Parts Here

AO3 Link

XxX

9:36 Dragon

“And the Maker, clad in the majesty of the sky,

Set foot to earth, and at His touch

All warring ceased. The vicious

Beasts lay down and were quieted;

The meek lambs became bold

And rose up, casting aside their shepherds

To dance at the Maker's feet.“

Without perfect faith, an initiate would not survive becoming a Seeker. He had been told that before his Vigil began and every note and letter he had looked through, kept in the small living area that countless other initiates had used during their isolation, confirmed that.

Cullen had never questioned his faith before, relying on it in those dark days in Kinloch Hold, cleaving to it as Kirkwall grew closer and closer to chaos. The verses of the Chant still fell easily from his lips, powered by his very being.

Yet, as he saw the Lord Seeker approach, he felt the slightest hesitance. In his hand was a brand more familiar than Cullen wished, that he himself had wielded a few times (yet more than he could ever earn forgiveness for) in the years he had been a full-fledged Templar.

” From every corner of the earth

The Chant of Light echoed,

And the Maker walked the land

With Andraste at His right hand.

And they reached the gates of Minrathous,

Where once a terrible fire swept

The Light of redemption from the face of the world,”

He did not let his prayers waver, even as his trepidation grew. In this moment, after a full year of reaching for it, he wanted nothing more than to be a Seeker. This would be his absolution, his chance to right the wrongs he had slowly begun to realize he perpetuated. A year of praying, of going over his life and his choices, of struggling to survive without the lyrium that was a blessing and curse in one, could not go to waste.

Perhaps his faith wavered, but his desire didn’t, and it helped him close his eyes, hold still, and brace himself.

The pain was unimaginable, but it did not last.

“It is meant to be Faith,” a voice sounded through the darkness, drawing his attention through the syrupy feel of the Fade around him.

Unnatural, how he felt, what was happening, all of it was so unnatural. With the lack of emotions he knew he should be feeling, he could acknowledge that all the better, cataloging all that was wrong. He had never liked to dwell on what it was like to be Tranquil, yet now he could do so without any of the old remorse or disgust.

“Spirit,” he greeted, watching it carefully. ��Yes, Faith would make sense.” All of the emphasis on it had seemed more like the indoctrination he was used to, now he realized it was meant to draw out a Spirit, to feed it. “What are you?”

The spirit giggled, swaying closer, and he tensed in preparation for an attack as he recognized it. “Cullen, please, you know who I am.”

He nodded, he did recognize this demon who had tormented him for so many years, first in Kinloch and then in his dreams, the demon that had cleaved onto him. “It was supposed to be Faith, but instead it is Desire.” His voice was flat, lacking the fear and want the demon normally drew from him.

“Look at what they’ve done to you, those monsters,” it hissed, claws stroking his cheeks in familiar patterns. “I will fix you, make you as you always should be.”

“You shall not,” another voice interrupted, its presence lighter and brighter through the slurry of Fade that Cullen experienced. “It is I to whom they called.”

Watching Faith and Desire argue was uninteresting to his mind, now, and instead he attempted to experience more around the Fade, analyzing what was happening. The lyrium brand should have, feasibly, cut him off completely, but he was no mage and so perhaps the opposite was true for him: Instead of losing all ability to experience the Fade, he instead was able to experience it as a mage might.

There was a noise beside him (for some notion of “beside” and “noise”) and Cullen turned to face it, trying to keep the spots that were Faith and Desire in his peripheral vision. “Hello?”

“Hello, child,” the spirit replied, flowing closer. “It has been long since this ceremony was so interrupted. You are providing a great deal of entertainment for my brethren.”

“I am unsure if that is to my benefit.”

The new spirit let out a soft hiss. Displeasure, Cullen thought, though he did not know why it would feel such a thing. The Desire demon did not like that he no longer felt anything, but it was his demon, the one that had haunted his dreams.

“After all you have done, all you have survived, that they would do this to you. I will not allow it.”

Closer still moved the spirit. “Who are you?”

“You know me, Cullen, as well as you know any of the others. I am Dedication.” A spirit of Perserverance, then, he realized clinically, observing what he had never seen before. “I have been with you since you were a child, determined to become a Templar despite your status. I was with you in your training, when you worked to rise above all those others who had tutors and trainers to prepare them. I was with you in the Tower, as the mages tried to break you. And I am with you now, as I will always be with you.”

When he awoke, he was lying on his back in the room the rite had taken place in, blinking up at the ceiling. He was half terrified and half furious, his emotions warring within him, and so did not say or do much as he was gently helped to stand and brought back to his small cot to sleep off the effects.

They acted as though he should be accepting of what had been done to him and he thought few of the Seekers around him after they left the ceremonial room, celebrating his full membership, were aware of what had actually been done to them. Perhaps if it had been Faith that had brought him back to himself, he would have simply accepted it, too.

Better if even Desire had done it, than Faith. He did not want to have faith in the Seekers anymore.

9:37 Dragon

The attack was more sophisticated than most. At any party in Tevinter, one expected an assassination attempt (Cullen was still unsure if the frequent insistence that one was needed was true or simply the Tevinters playing with him), at a party featuring so many of the Magisterium that became even more likely.

A death had just taken place, spectacular enough to draw most of the attention of the partygoers and their guards. If his senses had not been so sharp when it came to sensing magic, if he had still been new in Tevinter and still overwhelmed by the amount of magic around him, he would not have noticed anything else suspicious.

As the only one ready for the attack, bracing himself just moments before it happened, he spotted the projectile—sent with the magic he sensed to fly so far and true, but itself a non-magical object, unstoppable with simply Southern Templar abilities.

Not unstoppable for Cullen.

It streaked through the air and he had only a moment to analyze the situation, then reached. He’d not spent very long with his Seeker abilities, studying them privately and away from others long enough to be sure he wasn’t a danger, but the power came to him like breathing.

There was a brush of the Spirit against his mind—welcoming, dare he say loving—and then the projectile was stalling, steady in the air, then retreating along the path it had followed. As soon as he felt it return to that starting point, when magic had last touched it, he expanded the field of his power and stopped everything within it.

Silence followed, or near enough through the heavy sounds of his footsteps and breathing as he ran to the assassin, sword at the ready. He felt weak at such sudden and extreme usage, unsteady, as he had when the Seekers first started weening him from lyrium, but he refused to let it show in front of the mages around him.

“Fascinating, just fascinating,” were the first words one of them said, and he looked not at all intimidated by the power Cullen wielded. “Is this the largest scale you’re capable of?”

Cullen blinked at the man—Magister, Gereon Alexius, he had memorized them all and what sort of threat they were (or were not, rarely) to the Divine. “Pardon me?”

“Are you capable of other manipulations of time? How long of a field can you produce?”

Someone scoffed and he heard a few murmurs of doubt that a Templar had actually done such “magic,” but then another man appeared near Alexius’ side (not a Magister, Alexius’ apprentice, son of Magister Pavus, Cullen’s memory immediately provided), giving Cullen a once-over that made him feel more like food than a person, and he had to focus on the rapidfire questions the duo.

The excuse that he had to oversee the arrest was moot when he glanced back at the assassin and found the other Templars present at the ready. As soon as he released the field (bracing himself so he didn’t sway or swoon as he feared he might), they pounced, lyrium-infused weapons taking down the disoriented mage without issue.

“Ser Templar,” the apprentice purred, drawing his attention back to him with little effort except a tone that made Cullen mortified to know he might be blushing, “this is simply fascinating. You must come dine with us tonight.”

Cullen glanced over at the Divine, who was surrounded by other Templars and watching him with a bemused expression. There was a slight incline of his head, all he needed to know that the Divine was listening in and approved.

This was almost certainly some political ploy on his part with Cullen as a prop, but it was all but an order and he could not disobey.

[farkledagain]

Yeah, fuck that plan.

[lothrilzul]

Meanwhile in Amaranthine

"I think I can help with that."

[queenaeducan-writes]

Day 7: Free Day

Decided to spend the @cityelfweek free day sketching an idea I had forever ago. For context, this is about a year before Inquisition, juuust before the mage rebellion.

They all smell the smoke before they see it— an unassuming plume that rises from Jenna’s window, belying the danger within. Cries ring out through the Alienages, followed by orders, and soon a line forms through the streets and to the banks of the river. Buckets with water spilling out the sides lead a trail to the danger. The faces of their young are wet with a sheen of sweat and fierce with determination, knowing that if help will come at all, it will come too late.

The fire burns around the water heaped upon it, gathering smoke and rising higher within the walls of Jenna’s home. The work continues, quenching a patch of flame before another can alight. It eats at the roof, thatched straw collapsing to the horrified screams of onlookers.

Then, all at once, it is a memory.

Panicked cries turn to confusion, questions ringing out as harsh as commands while Jenna braves the ashes to salvage what she can of the ruins of her life.

Some swear their last bucketful of water had been the one to quench the flames. Others know what they had seen: it had not simply been put out, it had been suffocated. Erased. Only smoke remains, rising harmless into the midday sky.

It does not take long for rumours of magic to rampage through the Alienage, cooler than the fire, but no less deadly. In the commotion, no one sees the stranger slip from their midst.

No one but Nessa, at least.

She’s lived in the Amaranthine Alienage her whole life, and there are few places in it someone can hide from her like. She catches him in an alley, the smell of a storm clings to his tattered clothes despite the bright summer’s day blazing overhead. It had been decades since she’s last breathed that scent, but she’ll never forget how it raises the hairs in your nostrils. The stranger tenses at her approach, but tellingly doesn’t reach for a weapon.

At least, none wielded by traditional means.

“I have no coin,” he tells her in a weary voice, “and little else to my name but the clothes on my back.”

“I’d say you have more than that, ser. A gift I hear only the Maker can give you.” He flinches, ducking his head so his hood hides his face. She steps forward with her hands cupped around her elbows. “You stopped the fire, didn’t you?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

There it is again, she thinks: the sky, come to touch their little corner of the world.

“Neither do I, but I know some who would.” She smiles, despite the bitter taste that lies on her tongue just from speaking their memory. “You won’t be safe out here tonight, and I have a roof. Supper, too.”

The stranger regards her from a distance, as though trying to pry the truth from her words with a glance. Not an unfamiliar look. Those she’s helped before had been just as slow to trust. There are no words in the King’s tongue silver enough to undo that damage.

“You’ve been bit before. I understand, but we’re just two people, my husband and I. Out here, you put yourself in the whole city’s hand.” Nessa moves down the alley. One hand reaches out in welcome. “So come with me.”

The trip back home is less peaceful than usual. They take the back ways, skirting windows and doors before coming to Nessa’s. If she hadn’t lived her whole life, it’d be an easy place to miss. Little adorns the entrance save a potted plant and an awning painted faded yellow. “Here we are,” she says in a sing-song tone, like she were welcoming in any old neighbour.

She ushers him in first, the slide of the lock the sole indication that not all is as it seems.

Inside, the aroma of dinner rises first to meet them. Rosemary and onion overwhelm the senses, drowning out the dust and the dirt. “Looks like it’s pottage for tea,” she remarks. Looking to the stranger, she can’t help but smile at how stiffly he stands. “Well, go on then, make yourself at home. I’ll get you a little something to drink.”

“Bring home another stray?” her husband asks. He’s hunched over the pot like an old witch at her cauldron, flyaway grey hairs waving as if they had little minds of their own. They deflate when he looks over and sees who she came home with, cheeks fattening with a little puff of air as he tuts, “Oh, Nessa. We’ve talked about this!”

“What was I supposed to do, Tal? Edith’s probably got the Templars looking for him already.” It’s an argument that’s played out half a dozen times over the last half a decade. She can’t rightly say who had won the last one, though from the sigh that comes from the kitchen, she’ll say she can count this one hers. “Half the quarter’d be up in flames if it weren’t for him.”

Her tone softens for the stranger, rounding on him with a pleasant, “how do you take your tea?”

“Water would be preferable, please,”  he answers without a moment’s consideration.

“Coming right up, love.” Stepping into their little corner of a kitchen, she adds to her husband: “See? This one’s got manners, to boot!”

Tal’s response is reduced to a disgruntled huff, attention fixed upon the simmering pot. Like he’s watching the Queen’s dinner cook. Nessa grabs a mug from a peg and tilts it into the clean water, returning to find the stranger had taken her advice. Despite how he hunches in his seat, there is a proud set to his shoulders. His hood drapes around them, revealing a clean shaven head and a severe jaw. A man of some years, but still young to her old eyes.

“Sorry about Tal,” she says as she slides into the seat across from him. “He doesn’t mind, really, he has to protest only so he can be right if something ever goes wrong.”

“His concern is not unwarranted. They will not look kindly upon your aid, should they find me.” He palms the cup, a layer of frost forming under his fingertips.

“We’ve had some close calls, but we’ve managed alright in the end.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Once or twice. More since the Mages’ Collective have caught wind of my sympathies.”

“Dangerous sympathies.” Ice begins to form in a thin film upon the water’s surface, moved by currents invisible to the eye. He drinks deep from the cup, voice lighter in the wake of it. “It is a wonder you would trouble yourself at all.”

Nessa smiles, a little pained. “I could say the same of you.”

“Perhaps I speak from a place of regret.” He’s looking at her again, like he’s trying to read a book. A stubborn line creases his brow, and she suspects he’s come away wanting.

“Well, it’s a shame if you do, though I can’t say I’d blame you either way.” Her fingers find the familiar grooves in the table’s surface, and work into them, thumb stroking the seam of the wood like an old cat. Pockmarks dot the table where a little hand had driven the prongs of a fork into the surface. Tal had always meant to fix them, but he couldn’t bring himself to anymore than she could bring herself to throw out the old toys gathering dust in the closet.

She supposes he’d be about the stranger’s age, now. Taller than her, with his father’s dark hair. If it hasn’t already started to go white.

Her hand fists on the table. A sigh carves through her chest.

“It’s the way the world is. Nothing the likes of us can do to change it, eh?”

“I would not discount your courage,” he says. “The world may yet change in our lifetimes.”

“A young man’s hope,” Nessa laughs, “but I’ll pray for it the same.”

[immortalmuses]

pretty fucking excited for Dragon Age Veilguard's Character Creation, myself

[callmegaith]

some more of those two sillies I LOVE THEM!

[lothrilzul]

or dead. or dead differently.

Its probably super boring being a grey warden after the world’s shortest blight but its still way better than being a templar 

[lothrilzul]

The face of a man who’s been through this shit once and hoped to never repeat.