#fuck solas. fuck him for trying to pin this on her.

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about my Rook hours </3

[nadas-dirthalen]

vir in theneras suledin. (1)

solas/lavellan, rated M.

synopsis: Immediately after the events of Tresspasser, the Dread Wolf is gone—and in his wake, the Inquisition is brought nearly to its knees, to say nothing of its Inquisitor.

Yet Ithalia's dreams tell a different story: one where gone is not truly gone, and a forest in the Fade speaks more truth than she dares let herself believe.

author's note: These chapters are short at first! Bear with me, I promise I'm going somewhere lol <3

content warnings: canon-typical violence mention, canon-typical depiction of severe injury, canon-typical amputation depiction, canon-typical profanity, canon-typical depiction of depression.

ao3 link!

When the Dread Wolf turns, her teeth clamp down until blood’s taste blooms on her tongue.

Ithalia shoulders the burden, the pain past all hope of comprehension. She feigns that the tears in her eyes are from parting—parting to the doom of everything alive—and not from the fact that she, herself, is…

No: she waits to move until his foot is through the last eluvian. Then his knee, next to vanish. His waist. His arm. His shoulder. She holds still until the last piece of him—an ear—ripples through the pane.

Gone.

She looks down at last, and then—only then—does the scream rip through her throat.

She is coming apart at the arm. The pulse of the Mark’s magic—his magic, the Dread Wolf’s magic—pushes out from her veins, sears her nerves, splits the skin.

It tastes the air and then fades into it. The world tilts as she watches it. Spins. Her lungs lose their understanding of how to breathe without wailing.

This is wrong, her mind signals dimly, too slow. This is wrong. An arm shouldn’t…

An arm shouldn’t peel away, blazing shuddering green and then…

Green and then gone.

Her stomach roils. Her vision blurs.

A voice erupts in this garden of stone.

“Is she—where the fuck is she…?!”

“She stumbles and falters, she begs him, why—”

“Dear boy, please. Just once. Is that to the left or right of us?”

The Iron Bull. Cole. Dorian.

Run. Run. Run.

But why should they? The threat is gone.

Gone.

“She is bare-faced—”

“Cole, darling, now is truly not the time—”

“There!”

Ithalia fights to turn, trying to will her back to move, but her head won’t turn. Her gaze is pinned to the crumbling ruin of her arm. Slick with gore, magic and skin fraying in unison.

Wrong.

Her head swims. Arms shouldn’t do this.

She forces her gaze to the grass around her, and then its green—lush, soft—rushes toward her face.

A white-hot burst of pain stops her fall. She shrieks, and it isn’t enough for the fire in her lungs.

“Shh—shit, I know,” the Iron Bull’s voice comes down from above. Two pillars—his arms—keep her from toppling. The sky above him, somehow still a carefree blue, whirls overhead.

Then all sears white again, an explosion of pain from where her wrist is ceasing to be.

“No, I—shit. Shit,” he stammers, strained. Ithalia fights to narrow her eyes. His brow is pinching. The sunlight haloes his form.

A tear glistens on his cheek.

“The Iron Bull,” Cole interjects. He is tremoring, somewhere Ithalia cannot see. “She is bare-faced. She… she is bare-faced and embarrassed…”

“Lift her!” Dorian calls over him. Then, “Maker’s breath, I might be sick.”

“What can we do?! She isn’t bleeding—not that I think. Fuck. Fuck.” The Bull grunts, and then the ground is gone from under Ithalia. They’re rising—he lifts her. “You need a healer. More than that. A miracle, maybe. Dorian, do you have anything to…”

“No! This isn’t—she isn’t dead, amatus. Like this, there’s nothing I can… A miracle is right.”

They all need so much more than that. They are all going to die.

“Of all the times you’ve had some quip, some move, now is when you stand still? Move! I’ll beg if I must!”

The Veil will come apart, and then they will. They all will.

It’s a fight for Ithalia to remember the bounds of her mouth through the ache ripping holes in her awareness.

“Solas,” she forces out, hardly more than a groan.

Dorian’s voice breaks down below. “We know.”

“He… I… He was here. And now…” She swallows—saltwater on her lips, bile down her throat.

“Save your strength,” the Iron Bull urges, arm hooked tighter around her shoulders, squeezing ribs.

“No.” A futile gasp. Each step the Iron Bull takes is a crack of lightning up her entire left side. The sky whirls overhead. “He was here, and now he—he is…”

“She is real!” Cole cries behind them. “She is real, and it means—it meant—everyone could be—could perhaps have been—”

“By Andraste’s left tit,” Dorian bellows, “not now!”

But all she hears is the thunder of the Bull’s charging steps. The break of every pained sound up her chest.

“It’s alright,” the Iron Bull says through the storm, between one eluvian and the next. “We’ll get you home.”

“No. Lost. Gone,” she gasps, eyes rolling. Then, as if the words will reach through a pane of glass and an impossible distance away, “Var lath vir suledin—ma ghilana, ma ghilana—la melana mir vhenas bora—”

“I know,” the Bull says, though he cannot possibly. “Hold on. Hold on.”

She does, she tries, but the dark comes chasing her frayed nerves before the next eluvian, and she falls helpless into its jaws.

[revvethasmythh]

okay I HAVE FINISHED. a few final thoughts below the cut

-yes, i romanced lucanis. yes, my personal canon has rook is a throuple with lucanis and davrin. we exist

-i was very aware going into this that there was criticism of the lucanis romance in general and honestly i don't even know if i can judge it accurately considering how much time i spent dicking around before moving the story along. my suspicion is that the romance plays pretty fine if you're consistently moving along, but has heavy lags if you're spending a lot of time dicking around as I did. i still enjoyed it! especially the final romance scene after coming back from the fade, that was good stuff. it's hard to build a romance with a character who is really scared of a relationship and is frightened to act on things, but i think there was room for one more small scene after you commit and before completing his personal quest, probably. just to smooth over the whole experience. i have thoughts, but they're kind of vague so put a pin in that. but again, overall i liked it and would do again. it ain't the fenris romance but, then again, what is?

-it was fun seeing the inquisitor and dorian back at it again! bonded for life after in hushed whispers best friends fr

-choosing harding for the distraction team AND bellara to deal with the wards absolutely felt like the perfect choices in my playthrough. harding's sacrifice hits very hard because she was always very "whatever it takes" about this and "if you need me like I needed you, i will be there. that is my promise to you" and her belief that the world is good and people can change was genuinely inspiring in that it made rook choose to take the high road and give solas one last chance to potentially fuck her over to see if she could save him (which he almost did, but didn't because of The Convocation Of 3.5 Women Needed To Change His Mind). rook would simply have not made that decision if she wasn't trying to honor harding's memory as best she could.

-bellara taking control of the blight FUCKED. there was NO waffling, no uncertainty, no "ifs" or "maybes" or "mights." she said "I CAN do this" and then she DID and I think it felt like fantastic character growth for her. great choice, no notes, honestly glad i chose her for this instead of neve (because it would have felt like neve whump at that point, she'd been THROUGH IT this game).

-i wish there was more of a discussion to be had with taash about what happened with harding or some resolution to it that wasn't one line of dialogue when you get back to the lighthouse. i wanted to do a proper check in about that (and be like! hey! don't say everyone you love dies! please let me help you taash!). but that's overall a part of the fact that there's little follow up at the end of the game, which, it is what it is. da2 did also just kind of END, so like. been there, done that i suppose.

-i had a lot of fun! there are clunky things and some awkward writing and it's an imperfect game, yeah--but i really, genunely did have fun and will play this more than i ever will inquisition or even origins. not to repeat myself but: it ain't da2, but then, what is?

[drag-on-age]

WIP Wednesday

Y’all okay I have more smut for you this week and it’s from the same WIP I shared last week and it is turning out a LOT filthier than I originally intended soooooo I hope yall enjoy this lmao I apologize for constantly tagging y’all for filth lol.

Under the cut because..... I mean you’ll see...

CW: D/S elements, orgasm control

Solas pulls out of her mouth to see a line of her spit connected between his cock and her mouth. Ellana’s eyes are half open and glazed over with lust as she pants trying to catch her breath and her body is flushed, bringing out the freckles that cover her from head to toe. 

But when he catches sight of a hand that has snuck its way between her thighs he tugs sharply on her hair, causing her to cry out in pleasure. He kneels before her and grabs the hand that was bringing her closer to her release. 

“No! Please please, let me come, hahren. I need it so badly,” Ellana begs.

“Did I tell you you could touch yourself?”

“No, hahren.”

“Then why did you feel the need to disobey me?”

“Because I need to come! I need it so badly, Solas. I want you so much just fuck me!”

Solas quickly rises to his feet pulling Ellana up with him. He spins her around so her back is to his front and pulls her flush against his body. He rubs his spit covered cock against her ass as he curls a hand over her throat squeezing gently. Running a hand down her body earns Solas a shudder and a gasp of desperation. When he reaches between her thighs to finally touch her slick folds Ellana raises her arms to hook them around his head and grinds down into the hand running light caresses over her clit. 

“Yes, please more!”

Solas adds more pressure to her wet clit and feels her grow tense in his arms. 

“Do you need to come, Ellana? Is this what you wanted?”

“Solas, yes! I’m going to-”

As Ellana is about to crest over the edge of her peak, Solas pulls his hand away from her.

“No! No please please-” Ellana tries to move her hand to touch herself, but before she can, Solas pushes her until she is bent over the bed. 

She moans as he pins her hands next to her head and leans his body over hers. 

“You are not allowed to come, Ellana. Only good girls are allowed to come. And you have been very, very bad.”

I am....gonna go hide and finish writing this lol...

Taglist: @kita-lavellan @silvanils @morganlefaye79 @retrowondergirl @kittynomsdeplume @noire-pandora @rosella-writes @anavakarian @afansrandommusings @inquisitoracorn @knuttydraws @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold @little-lightning-lavellan @varric-tethras-editor @oxygenforthewicked @emerald-amidst-gold

[crackinglamb]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @whataboutbugs and @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold, thank you lovelies!

Pretty much everyone I know is already tagged in Manka's post, but @thepotoosrevenge, @modernagesomniari, @ir0n-angel and @a11sha11fade, if you have anything you'd like to share, feel free to do so!

Me @ me: you know what you haven't shared in a while?

Something smutty. (¬‿¬)

She pulled at him with her hands, trying to urge him to go faster. He responded by taking her wrists and pinning them at her head.

“Not yet, arasha,” he murmured. “Another.”

“How are you going to manage that with your hands...otherwise occupied?” she gasped out, her body tightening around him as he found a new depth. His expression was pure cunning and he cocked his head at her, never stopping his thrusts into her. But each time his hips joined hers, she felt a jolt in her core. It grew, like a static charge. Her pinned hands clenched and opened on air and her legs wrapped around his waist until she could cross her ankles. He was picking up speed and the jolts were faster and stronger. “Fuck...Solas!”

She came so hard it hovered on the border of pain. Her whole body seemed to be spasming and only his tight hold on her kept her from bucking them both off the bed. She felt electric, too sensitive and thrumming. He finally let go of her wrists only to hold her hips as he sat up, dragging her with him. He watched himself move in and out of her. His eyes were dark in the firelight, hooded and shadowed and yet gleaming with reflections from the flames. Unbelievably, she could feel another orgasm building. She didn't know how long he held her on that edge, drawing it out until she was an incoherent mess, but when he at long last pounded into her with abandon, chasing his own release, she fell apart utterly, thrashing and crying out. In the haze of aftershocks she felt him spill into her.

He withdrew and curled around her, holding her lightly as she drifted in a breathless fog. “Satisfied?”

“Mhm...”

“Pity,” he said, leaning in close to whisper in her ear. “I am not.”

“Oh fuck...”

[wardenrainwall]

Words:   2,236

Pairing: Blackwall/Inquisitor Trevelyan (The Disaster that is Evelyn Trevelyan)

Rating: Explicit

Summary:  smut and angst because I can’t write anything else

--

Evelyn was angry. Every muscle in her body ached, from her shoulders down to the balls of her feet. And she was tired, so very exhausted, utterly drained of all energy. But the rift had been sealed and Haven was celebrating. People were happy and relieved. And she was livid.

 The gall.

 That bastard.

 How dare he?

 The Warden Blackwall.

 After whispering words that had gutted her, he acted as if he cared.

 When sealing the breach, near the end, Evelyn had hit her knees, so overwhelmed by the power that was pouring through her, and into the breach. And when the deed was done, she’d knelt there, head tilted back, staring up at it, and she’d tried to get up. Tried to get her body to move, but she’d been so tired, so empty that rather than struggle, rather than having to look anyone in the eye as she was forced to ask for help, she let her body go limp.

 Evelyn let her eyes roll back as she went down, grateful she was on her knees, which meant it didn’t hurt so much when she hit the stones beneath her. But she’d seen him before her eyes slid shut.

 Blackwall lurching forward, as if he’d catch her before she fell. Then she heard voices. Solas, confirming that the rift was sealed. There were cheers. And then she’d been wrapped up in that familiar scent that could only belong to one man. Leather and sawdust, and horses and… him. “I’ve got her,” Blackwall’s voice was low and rough and his hands gentle as he tucked one beneath her knees and the other under her shoulders.

 He didn’t falter, though it was a fair distance from the ruined temple to Haven. Evelyn ignored the voices and the words that were spoken. Seeker Pentaghast was still angry with her, which made sense since Evelyn couldn’t help but pick fights with the other woman at every opportunity. Varric was placating. Dorian was teasing the Commander about something and there was quiet chatter that blurred together.

 Only Blackwall was silent, save for when The Iron Bull offered a hand. “I’ve got her,” he said and no one else offered again. She felt the shift in the air, the sound of his boots on wooden floorboards before he laid her out on the bed in her cabin. He smoothed a hand over the top of her head and breathed out a long sigh before she felt him tug the blanket that lay neatly folded at the foot of her bed over her. He seemed to hesitate another moment and then he let quietly, closing the door behind him.

 Evelyn lay in that bad for at least an hour, seething. How dare he be kind. How dare he pretend.

     He held her pinned against the stone wall, the faces so close they shared breath. Her nose brushed against his and she could feel the tickle of his beard against her chin. “Ev,” he murmured and she stared up at him, his thumb was against her chin, sliding up, brushing against the edge of her lower lip.  

     Would he kiss her? Would he take that liberty? Did she want him to? No, of course, she didn’t, she silently breasted herself. “The kiss,” he started and licked his lips, and she knew, he was going to lean in, close that hairsbreadth of a distance and claim her mouth. “You know it meant nothing.”  

 His words were a bucket of cold water doused over her head.

 It meant nothing.

 Nothing.

 She’d kissed him, and he’d said it meant nothing. Seven years after last kissing her husband goodbye, she’d brushed her lips against another man’s mouth and he’d told her it meant nothing. Only, he was a liar. Evelyn knew he was a liar and that made it worse.

 Because he’d said it for her. Because he kept trying to take care of her. To be kind when she didn’t deserve it.

 Evelyn hadn’t been able to save him in that terrible future. He’d died protecting her, and all he’d wanted was a kiss.

 Throwing back the blanket she sneered at it, another act of his kindness, and got up. Slipping out of the cabin, she stuck to the shadows, seeing everyone celebrating, Evelyn didn’t want to spoil that for them. She walked out the front gates and past the stables and the blacksmith and he was there, as he so often was, leaning against the stone wall, staring up at the sky.

 Quickening her pace, she shoved his shoulder, catching him off guard. Blackwall straightened and looked at her, brows lifted, expectant. “Glad to see you’re up and about again,” he said and Evelyn grit her teeth.

 He’d known she was faking it. Of course, he did. He’d cared for her when she’d nearly died after taking on those demons. Of course, he’d known she wasn’t truly unconscious. “Fuck you,” she spat at him. “You fucking-” tears stung her eyes and she blinked rapidly. “Stop trying to be nice to be. Stop pretending that you care.”

 Sympathy flashed in his eyes and that only made her angrier. “You aren’t going to save me. You can’t fix me,” she snarled at him. “Go play the hero for someone else. I don’t need or want your kindness.”

 “Then what do you want from me?” he asked, arms over his chest, waiting.

 Evelyn made a blatant show of looking down at his crotch. “The only thing you’re good for.” She’d said it in hopes of a reaction. Obvious pity for how she was lashing out, or anger. Something. Anything other than the acceptance. Because she hadn’t meant it. Not about him. Blackwall was a hero, he was a good leader. Someone who people looked to when things were hard, or scary, and he easily slipped into that role, soothed the fears, and strengthened their resolve.

 His acceptance made her heart hurt, and that made her even more angry. Shoving at his chest, he let her push him back and around the corner of the building, out of view and blocked off by trees to anyone who might be walking along the road from the bridge.

 Evelyn wasn’t a leader. She wasn’t brave. She didn’t reassure people or make them feel better about what was happening around them. Since Alexander and Isaak had died, she’d fucked as many men as she could because, for those fleeting moments, she could pretend she was escaping all the pain that she held in her heart. So really, it was the only thing she was good for.

 “Ev,” Blackwall breathed her name as she hit her knees in front of him and tugged at the laces of his trousers. “Ev,” he said again, his hand sliding into her hair as she yanked his pants down enough, curled her hand around the currently soft length of him, and took him into her mouth. He hissed, groaned and she heard his head thump back against the wall.

 She wouldn’t apologize for what she’d said. Couldn’t apologize. No. This would fix it. They could go back to fucking each other's brains out and he’d stop trying to save her. His hand was gentle in her hair, his thumb stroking behind her ear as she moved her mouth on his hardening erection. Glancing up through her lashes as she drew back until just the head rested on her tongue she saw him watching her.

 Saw the softness in his gaze and her heart hurt. She wanted to lash out, to cause him pain because she couldn’t bear the weight of his caring. One of her hands curled around his hip, and she dug her nails into the skin there, drawing a groan from his lips. Evelyn bobbed her head faster, taking him deeper into her mouth until she felt him against the back of her throat.

 Carefully she pressed her teeth against his cock, felt him tense, and oh so slowly dragged them up his length. Just as she reached the sensitive head, he shuddered and tightened his fist in her hair. He yanked her head back, a sticky saliva trail clung from the tip of his cock and her lower lip. His breathing was ragged and there was so much heat in his gaze she felt scorched to her core.

 Blackwall dragged her up to her feet, spun her around, and hauled her bodily over to a stack of crates that were behind the building. One of the stacks was shorter, just one box high and he made quick work of yanking her breeches down before bending her over it.

 Evelyn heard him spit, then felt his went fingers slid between her thighs, over her already dripping wet sex. His curse was low and dirty and then with no preamble the swollen head of his erection pressed against her lower lips and he thrust his hips forward, burying his cock in her core. Evelyn shoved her fist against her mouth to quiet the keening cry of pleasure that threatened to escape.

 There was no slow build-up, no tenderness. He pounded into her hard and fast, one hand at her waist the other fisted in her hair. The pleasure was a violent storm and she felt it building until she teetered on the edge.

 And then he was gone. Her body empty and cold and it only lasted a heartbeat before she felt his tongue thrust into her cunt. His fingers dug into her ass, the leather warm and soft against her skin while his lips and tongue did wicked things to her. She was there again, almost to that crest when he drew back once more.

 A quiet cry escaped her lips and he yanked her upright, his cock, hot and hard slid between her folds but didn’t enter her. She was so wet, drenched, her lust slick and dripping down her thighs. “If it’s all I’m good for, I wouldn’t want to disappoint,” he rasped against her ear and it all seemed to happen in the same instance. Blackwall’s cock filled her once more, one of his hands slid between her thighs, his fingers, those damn leather gloves, slid over her clit, while the other clamped over her mouth, stifling the scream as pleasure raced through her body like lightning.

 She felt like a ragdoll the way he manhandled her, her body nothing but a vessel for pleasure. Her own pleasure was overflowing as tears rolled down her cheeks.       Don’t stop, don’t stop,     she silently begged, one of her hands sliding back to cup his ass, as he drove into her again and again.

 Blackwall didn’t let up, she felt the orgasm building again and she was trembling and then it washed over her, she sobbed against his palm, and her inner walls clenched down around his thick cock as he bucked, his body curling around hers, pushing and pushing as if he could somehow get deeper inside her as he pulsed and came, filling her with the wet flood of his release.

 The oh-so-soft brush of his lips against the crook of her neck broke her as he drew his hand from her mouth, down to wrap around the front of his shoulders, keeping her limp weight supported. “Ev,” he whispered and she shuddered against him with a silent sob. She’d die before admitting she liked his new shortened version of her name.

 Unlike the last time she’d wept after he’d wrenched delicious orgasms from her, he held her. His arms strong bands, his half-hard cock still buried inside her. They stayed like that for long minutes, until the cold got to be too much and he drew back enough to tug up her trousers and then somehow his own, all without releasing her. When he turned her, he kissed along her throat and her jaw, up over her cheeks, kissing away the remnants of her tears.

 Their lips were so close, his mouth hovering at the corner of hers. All it would take is the slightest shift and their mouths would meet. But Blackwall didn’t close that distance. He didn’t take what he could so easily have. “It didn’t mean nothing,” he murmured instead, his breath warm against her face. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since that first night in the tavern. I took advantage of you that day. You were upset and I never should have laid a finger on you.”

 But it was what she had needed. She’d been in shock, horrified by what she’d seen, and terrified of what was to come. And Blackwall had held her, cleaned her up, and healed a part of her that had broken in that future when she’d watched him die. “Stop being such a noble bastard,” her voice was hoarse, and she turned her face, closing those last few millimeters to press her lips to his.

 Blackwall didn’t react at first, frozen against her, until she sunk her teeth into his lower lip, and then he was kissing her. Hard and consuming and she clung to him as if he was the only thing that would keep her afloat in the violent chaos that had become her life.

 Evelyn didn’t know how long they stayed like that, holding on to each other, kissing as if their very lives depended on it before the clanging of bells and shouts had them pulling apart.

[pikapeppa]

Professor Solas/Lavellan: Oceanic

Chap 4 of Inadvisable (professor Solas modern AU) is posted!

In which Nare Lavellan throws caution to the wind when she officially meets Professor Solas for the first time. 😏 Featuring both Nare and Solas POV!

~4300 words; read on AO3 instead. 

*********************

- NARE -

Nare tapped her fingernails on her empty glass as she scanned the bar. I don’t see him, she thought in disappointment, then turned back to face her new labmates with a somewhat perfunctory smile. 

Merrill was in the middle of telling a story. She covered her mouth with one hand as she giggled. “After that, Professor Abelas has never eaten any of the baked goods I bring in. It was only the one time, though. I don’t usually put a tablespoon of salt in my cakes, I swear.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Tamlen said. “Professor Abelas doesn’t even eat storebought baked goods that are brought into the lab.”

“I think that’s how he got so tall,” Dagna said. “Not eating baked goods.”

Tamlen smirked. “Dagna, you think everyone is tall.”

She tutted and poked his hip. “Silly. I’ll let you get away with that comment since you always get the files down from the top shelves for me.”

Athera tilted her head quizzically. “Is Professor Abelas going to come to this mixer?”

“He already came and went,” Merrill said. “He always comes right when it starts and leaves within the hour.”

Athera’s eyebrows jumped up. “He came right at eight o’clock? I bet no one was even here yet!”

“That’s why he comes on time,” Tamlen said dryly.

Athera snorted. “That makes so much sense, actually.”

Nare briefly stopped scanning the room to grin at her. “Are you going to gossip about him now since you know he’s not going to show up?”

Athera scoffed. “I’m not going to gossip about a faculty member at the campus bar. I’m not stupid.” Then she smirked and elbowed Nare. “I’ll keep the gossip for when we get home.”

“Oh good,” Nare said brightly. “I still can’t believe you told Tamaris about your day while I was in the shower.”

Merrill clapped her hands. “Athera was so impressive today. You didn’t cry once!”

Nare looked at Merrill and Athera in genuine alarm. “Cry?” she exclaimed. “Why would you cry?”

Athera rolled her eyes, and Tamlen helpfully replied. “Professor Abelas is, uh, stern.”

“I think his face will crack if he smiles too much,” Merrill said. 

Tamlen cocked his head thoughtfully. “His frown does kind of look like a golem, doesn’t it?”

“Yep, it really does,” Dagna chirped, “and I would know. Golems were the focus of my undergrad thesis.”

“Were they really?” Athera said keenly. “I only had one single lecture during my undergrad that even talked about golems. What can you tell me about them?”

Dagna launched into an excited explanation of the role of golems in ancient Orzammar, and Nare took the opportunity to scan the room once more, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. Really, if she saw Professor Solas at this mixer, it would be better if she stayed away from him. 

But at the same time, if she stayed away from him and he saw her, that would be worse, wouldn’t it? She was his new Master’s student and they’d run into each other earlier today, even though he didn’t know who she was. If he saw her here tonight and she didn’t talk to him, it would be weird when she formally met him tomorrow in his office, as if she’d been avoiding him. And she had no real reason or excuse to avoid him.

Aside from the juvenile but persistent fantasies she kept having about his height looming over her and his gorgeous voice curling out of those plush full lips. 

She nibbled the inside of her cheek and tapped her empty glass. Then Athera nudged her. “You’re starting to make me nervous now,” she murmured. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Nare smiled at her. “I’m fine, I promise,” she said. Then she looked at her new labmates. “Does Solas — er, Professor Solas usually come to these mixers?”

Merrill nodded. “He does, yes. He’s probably here somewhere talking to someone.”

“Being told off by someone, you mean,” Tamlen drawled. 

Merrill tsked. “They only tell him off because they’re jealous.”

Dagna giggled. “Or because he embarrassed some Orlesian professor in one of their lectures by pointing out something wrong.”

Nare looked at him with wide eyes. “He does that in the middle of other people’s lectures while everyone is watching?”

“Yep,” Tamlen said smugly. “It’s kind of awesome, actually.”

Nare laughed, and Athera sighed happily. “I’d like to see that sometime.”

“You can, if you want,” Tamlen said, to Nare’s surprise. “Solas is insistent that all his lectures be open for anyone to audit. The administration almost had a fit at first because his classrooms were so packed that it violated fire regulations, but it’s calmed down a little bit in the past couple years.”

Nare stared at him. “Open for auditing? Wow.” That basically meant that Solas was doing his world-class lectures for free for anyone who wanted to listen. 

She sighed to herself. As if she needed more of a reason to have a crush on him. 

Merrill seemed to agree. “I think it’s brilliant. He’s trying to share the knowledge of Arlathan so openly! After so many years of their borders being almost completely closed to outsiders!” She sighed wistfully. “I hope I can go on an exchange to Arlathan someday.”

Dagna nodded enthusiastically. “That would be pretty amazing. Can you imagine how much we could learn?”

Nare smiled in agreement and glanced around, and her heart stopped.

There he was. Professor Solas was standing near the bar in a fitted blazer and a collared shirt, smiling politely as a dark-haired man spoke animatedly to him. 

Her frozen heart bolted into a galloping pulse. Oh gods, she thought. Oh gods oh gods. He was here. She was hoping he would be here, and now that he actually was, she thought she might pass out from excitement. Or from anxiety. One of the two. 

She tore her eyes away from him and smiled idly at Athera and the others, but she could barely pretend to be paying attention anymore. Professor Solas was there, standing right there not twenty feet away and drawing her attention more readily than a lighthouse beam.

All of a sudden, she couldn’t resist the beacon anymore.

She held out her glass to Athera. “Can you take this? I’m going to the washroom. I’ll be right back.” 

“Sure,” Athera said, but Nare was already walking away.

She twined her way through the crowd and slipped into the washroom, then stepped in front of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, but that could be chalked up to the crowded bar. Her hair looked good, half pinned-up and the rest spilling down her back in loose waves, and her makeup was surprisingly unsmudged. 

She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but it barely helped; her anxiety was burning away and being taken over by excitement alone — a kind of reckless excitement that Nare was not accustomed to feeling. But then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this kind of spine-tingling excitement about anyone. 

Honestly, she couldn’t remember ever being this desperately attracted to anyone. Too bad he had to be her fucking supervisor. 

It’s fine, she thought. I’ll just introduce myself and talk to him a little bit. It’s fine. It’s perfectly innocent. 

She smiled at herself, then pressed her lips together to quell a stupid little giggle. Then, before she could lose her courage, she swept out of the bathroom and back into the bar. 

- SOLAS -

Dorian raised his eyebrows winningly. “Come now, Solas, you have to admit that a collaboration would be a huge opportunity. An exhibit developed and created by both of us focusing on the interplay between Tevinter and Arlathani culture over the centuries? People across Thedas will be discussing it.” 

“I will consider it,” Solas said. 

“You should,” Dorian said. “At most, a collaborative project could garner patrons and sponsors for several years’ worth of funding for both of our departments. At the very least, it will get people talking.”

“That’s not something I have had particular difficulty with over the past few years,” Solas said wryly.

Dorian chuckled. “True, true. You and Abelas and your controversial theories. Come, my friend, your glass is dry.” He leaned over the bar and signalled the bartender. 

Solas hastily held up a hand to stop the bartender’s approach. “Thank you, but no,” he said to Dorian. “And I’m afraid I will have to cut our conversation short. This mixer is intended for mingling with the students, after all.”

Dorian sighed playfully. “I hear your message loud and clear. You’re sick and tired of me nattering your ear off.” He stepped away from the bar. “I will let you be. But promise me at least that you’ll consider a collaboration.”

“I will,” Solas said. And he meant it. But just because he considered a collaboration with Dorian didn’t mean he would agree to one, even if it did mean more sponsorship and funding. The Ancient Elvhen Studies program wouldn’t need funding beyond the next couple of years, after all. 

Dorian clapped him on the shoulder, then wandered into the boisterous crowd. Once he was gone, Solas let out a sigh of relief. He was far more adept at these sorts of gatherings than Abelas was, and truthfully, Solas didn’t mind coming to these events; he was always willing to engage in a rousing academic debate or an in-depth discussion of art over drinks. But just because he enjoyed the debates and the discussions didn’t mean he wasn’t exhausted by the time the night was done. 

And tonight was only half-done. He’d only arrived about a half-hour ago, and he really ought to stay for at least another hour. It was simply unfortunate that tonight’s mixer happened to fall on the sort of lazy weeknight that Solas would have preferred to spend on his couch at home with a book in hand and Fenor purring happily in his lap. 

He sighed and glanced around the room. Then his heart flipped in his chest.

A beautiful young elven woman in the crowd was smiling at him. A young woman he recognized, actually. Long russet hair, big blue eyes, long bare legs in a dark red dress…

It was the woman he had bumped into this morning on his way to the library. 

Collided with, more like, he thought ruefully. He really should have known better than to read while he was walking, especially when he’d forgotten his reading glasses at home and had to squint hard at the page. 

He nodded politely to her. Her smile widened, revealing a dimple in her right cheek, and she slipped deftly through the crowd until she was standing in front of him. 

“Hi,” she said. “We meet again.”

“So it seems,” he said. He was a bit taken aback by her confidence; it was a contrast with how shy she’d seemed earlier today.

“I didn’t realize that you were a student here,” he said. As soon as the words left his lips, he felt foolish. How could he have realized she was a student? They hadn’t even encountered each other on campus.

Thankfully, she didn’t point out his inane comment. “That’s okay,” she said. “I wasn’t heading toward campus, anyway.”

He blinked. “That’s right, you weren’t. Where were you headed?”

“I went to the modern art museum to see the neo-Avvar exhibit.”

Solas raised his eyebrows. “Ah. It’s a fascinating display, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she said enthusiastically. “I love the range of mediums they use in their work. The textiles were especially beautiful. I don’t know anything about textile art, but I feel like it would have been so hard to dye the tapestries in that kind of colour blending without any modern tech.”

“The textiles are truly impressive, aren’t they?” Solas agreed. “Incredible that such meticulous weavework could be done with bare hands. The Avvar are known for not using machines for their weaving.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? I just assumed that they used a loom of some kind.”

“No looms,” he confirmed. “Those tapestries were made entirely by hand.” He chuckled. “I believe my fingers would seize if I ever attempted such a feat.”

Her smile curled mischievously. “I can’t imagine that. I think you have the right kind of hands for weaving.”

He looked at her sharply, amused and surprised by her boldness. “Do you, now?”

He was further amused when she blushed. “I just… I can tell you’re an artist by your hands,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows, and her cheeks flushed even further. “I just mean that your… you have beautiful hands.” She laughed and patted her pinkened cheeks.

Solas smiled helplessly at her. There was something utterly charming about her confidence combined with her embarrassment, and… fenedhis, he knew he shouldn’t be encouraging this. He had no idea what department she even belonged to. But regardless of department, she was a student, and he shouldn’t be encouraging any kind of flirtation.

His wayward mouth opened of its own accord. “Do all artists have beautiful hands then, in your estimation?”

She waved her hand haphazardly. “No, no. I’m just being silly. Mine are nothing special, for example.”

He studied her with fresh interest. “Are you an artist yourself, then?”

“I… yes, actually,” she said. “I’m, um… I’m a painter. Digital and traditional.”

A painter as well? That was a happy coincidence. “As am I,” he said. “If you are a painter, you should know that you ought not discount your hands as being nothing special. A person’s hands speak of their character, whether the hands themselves are considered classically beautiful or not.”

She tilted her head. “Can you tell me more about that, professor?”

A warm feeling bloomed in his belly, and he eyed her carefully. Her tone and her expression were innocent, but there was something about the way she said his title that felt… not entirely innocent, somehow. 

Against his better judgment, he held out his hand. “Certainly. May I?”

Her eyes widened. But before Solas could retract his unwise words, she lifted her left hand and placed it in his. 

He studied her palm and her fingers for a moment, then turned her hand over. “You are left-handed.”

She let out a breathless little laugh. “I… yes, I am. How did you know?”

“A writing bump, right here.” He brushed his thumb over the small callused bump of skin on the knuckle of her fourth finger. “Incidentally, you may want to reconsider the way you hold your stylus or your brushes in order to avoid fatigue.”

She gave him a teasing little smile. “Oh please. You should know better than to mess with how a painter holds her brush.”

He chuckled. “You make a fair point.” He studied her the back of her hand. “No nail polish, tidy short nails: also indicative of a painter.”

“Nice try,” she said. “You knew that already.”

He looked up in surprise at her drawling tone, then grinned and released her hand. “You have caught me. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything of note about your hands.”

She laughed. “Don’t say that. You figured out that I’m left-handed.”

He bowed his head politely. “You are overly generous with your praise.”

“Maybe you can make it up to me,” she said.

“What do you suggest?”

She cocked her head. “You could draw my hands sometime.”

His belly flipped. Her eyebrow was quirked, and there was no mistaking the coquettish angle of her head.

He cleared his throat and folded his hands behind his back. “I… don’t think so.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I… anatomy is not…” He faltered before he could tell the lie that anatomy was not a specialty of his. “It has been a long time since I did any anatomy studies,” he said instead. 

“Really?” she said. “I got the feeling that you’d be an expert at handling anatomy.”

The warm feeling in his belly flared hotly — and perversely. He gave her a chiding look, but he could feel his traitorous lips curling into a smile. “This is… hardly appropriate,” he said in a low voice.

Her cheeks flushed once more. She smiled at him, then dropped his gaze and tucked a stray strand of hair over her ear. “I know. I’m terrible, I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave you alone?”

No, he thought. Truthfully, there was nothing he wanted more than to continue this conversation with this alluring young woman. But he couldn’t keep this up. It was against university regulations. 

“It would be inadvisable for this conversation to continue,” he said carefully.

Her answering smile was sheepish this time. “You’re probably right.”

“The faculty handbook confirms that I am,” he said dryly. 

She laughed. “I guess so. Well, will you have a drink with me? Just a drink,” she said quickly. “A collegial drink, I promise.”

Her sky-blue eyes were wide and innocent – deceptively innocent. Solas eyed her shrewdly for a moment, then gave in. “I suppose one drink can’t hurt.”

She beamed at him and leaned over the bar to signal the bartender, and Solas idly studied the shape of her spine. Then his disobedient mind conjured an image of her bending over the desk in his office with her spine curved in a similar shape. 

Mortified by his own thoughts, he hastily tore his eyes away from her, but her voice instantly called back his attention. “Professor, what would you like?” 

Professor. She couldn’t keep saying his title. It was doing things to his imagination that it shouldn’t be doing. 

He looked at the bartender. “Half a pint of Arlathan pale ale, please.” He looked down at his overly-tempting companion. “And for you?”

“Vodka tonic for me,” she said, and she pulled her wallet out of her purse. 

Solas held up a hand to stop her. “Allow me.” 

A slow smile began to curl her lips. By the time she was grinning, Solas’s heart was pounding in his throat. 

She laughed softly. “Buying me a drink? That’s very collegial of you.”

Her tone was suggestive, and he liked it far too much. “It is collegial, in fact,” he said. “I can charge it to my department since this is a university-hosted gathering.” He gestured for the bartender to add the drinks to his tab.

 “Ooh,” she said teasingly. “That’s a clever loophole.”

Vixen, he thought incredulously. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought she was shy. She was bold and beautiful and tempting, and she made him want to be bold as well.

And that thought – that wish to meet and match her boldness – was one that he absolutely could not entertain.

He forced himself to hold back the flirtatious comment at the tip of his tongue. “It is not a loophole. It’s the truth,” he said instead. 

She nodded and sipped her drink. Her expression was pleasantly neutral, but her eyes on his face were sly and warm, and Solas knew he ought to look away. He ought to break from her gaze and look at something else – anything else, really, aside from this beautiful woman that he absolutely should not be thinking about in increasingly carnal ways.

But he couldn’t look away. Her eyes were so clear and bright, and even in the dim light of the campus bar, he could see that they were an unusually lush shade of blue: not quite sky-blue like he’d originally thought, but a deeper, richer shade closer to cerulean. 

Solas gazed into her cerulean eyes and sipped his ale, and she stared back at him as she sipped her vodka-tonic. By the time Solas had finished half of his drink, he still hadn’t broken from her steady gaze. Neither of them had said a word, and as he stared into her eyes and mindlessly sipped his drink, he slowly realized that not only were they not talking, but that they shouldn’t talk.  

No, he shouldn’t talk to her anymore. If he said another word to her, he would only be digging himself deeper into the hole she’d started. 

He finally broke from her heated gaze to drain the last drops of his ale, then placed his glass on the bar and leaned toward her slightly. “This is an impossible situation.”

She blinked at him – such an innocent gesture, but her pinkening cheeks betrayed her. “What do you mean?”

He lowered his voice. “You know precisely what I mean.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she grinned at him again: a bold, beautiful grin full of mischief and heat that made him want to sink into her right here on the spot. 

He licked his lips, and her cheeks flushed even more. Then her purse chimed loudly. 

He hastily stepped away from her, and she exhaled loudly. “Damn,” she muttered. She pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the screen. 

She wrinkled her nose, then looked up at him once more. “I have to go. My friends are leaving and I said I’d leave with them.” 

He sighed – with relief, of course, certainly not with disappointment. Truly, he should be thanking whoever had sent her such a timely text. “I see,” he said. He nodded politely. “It was nice talking with you.”

“You too,” she said. But she didn’t step away. She was studying him thoughtfully, and as Solas met her gaze, he realized what her eyes reminded him of. 

They reminded him of the ocean: the perfectly clear ocean off the coast of Arlathan. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to drown himself in her oceanic eyes. 

He stared at her, his heart pounding and the blood thrumming through his body in a way that was really not appropriate for such an event. Then she stepped close to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. 

He froze. She was lifting herself on her tiptoes and leaning in close to him. Her heated eyes were coming closer, and his lungs were frozen and his brain was completely paralyzed with excitement as she raised herself higher and nearer to his face…

He parted his lips – to tell her to stop, to back away, certainly not to invite a kiss – but before he could say a word, she brushed her lips over his cheekbone in a demure Orlesian greeting.

She lowered herself slowly back to her heels, and her hand left his shoulder. “Goodnight, professor,” she murmured. 

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t reply. The sound of his title in her voice and the brush of her lips on his cheek had left him utterly stunned. 

She smiled at him one last time, then turned away. His hand moved involuntarily to reach for her, but he stopped himself in the nick of time. 

A second later, she had disappeared into the crowd. 

Solas stood stock-still at the bar for a long moment. His pounding heart was a drumbeat in his ears, drowning out the cacophony of conversation and music and laughter in the bar. Heat and disbelief and desire were thrumming through his limbs and into his cheeks and — fenedhis, he couldn’t ignore it any longer: he was hard. Shamefully hard and throbbing, his mind totally preoccupied with the feeling of her lips on his cheek, brushing over his cheekbone so close to his mouth — such pretty smiling lips. Ah, to imagine those smiling lips wrapping around his shaft and taking him deep into her throat…

He rubbed his hand over his face. He couldn’t think like this. He didn’t understand why he was so deeply affected by this particular woman. It wasn’t like this was the first time a student had come onto him, and it had never been a problem before to tactfully rebuff them while making it seem as though he was unaware of their intentions. 

So what was it about this particular young woman — this particular student — that had so captivated him that he was suffering from all sorts of tawdry thoughts that he really shouldn’t be having?

I should avoid her, he thought. If he avoided contact with her, he could avoid having any further carnal thoughts about her. Perhaps if he asked the administration to look up her name, he could…

Suddenly he realized something: he didn’t know her name. 

She hadn’t introduced herself before launching straight into a conversation with him. 

He laughed softly at his own sheer idiocy. Had he even introduced himself to her? Had his wits entirely left him the second she’d graced him with that mischievous smile?

He drew a deep breath, then exhaled heavily and stepped away from the bar. Enough of this, he thought. You must stop thinking about this. He ought to spend more time speaking with the students; he hadn’t even spoken with any of the students from his own lab yet tonight. What he really should be doing was looking for his new Master’s student, Nare. Surely she was here tonight. Perhaps she had found Merrill and Dagna. 

I should have stayed home with Fenor after all, he thought morosely. With one last sigh, Solas stepped back into the crowd. 

[novamm66]

From Earth to Sky - Chapter 2

Arriving in Haven & Working to Close the Breach

--

The sun had just dropped below the horizon when they rode into the village of Haven. Cullen and his soldiers dismounted and immediately began setting up their tents outside the village walls. As Cassandra dismounted, the gates opened, and Sister Nightingale descended the steps to greet them.

“Welcome back, Cassandra,” Leliana said, “I hope your trip was successful.”

The two women clasped arms in greeting before Cassandra replied. “I couldn’t find Hawke, but I did find us a Commander, and hopefully, Divine Justinia can get answers where I failed.” Cassandra glared over her shoulder at Varric, who was watching the camp set up with interest. “Also, we were delayed by an ambush by soldiers from Tevinter,” she continued.

“On Ferelden roads? That’s unexpected.” Leliana’s eyes narrowed.

“I agree. The timing is too close to the Conclave not to be suspicious.” Cassandra shook her head. “How did the first day go?”

Leliana sighed. “Everyone is posturing like peacocks, trying not to show too much of their hand. You would have hated it.”

Cassandra snorted. “I guess I should be grateful then.” Her fingers traced the barely healed scar on her face.

Leliana laughed then gestured towards the path leading to the temple. “The Divine is waiting to speak with you and the Commander. Shall we…”

Cassandra gripped Leliana’s arm as every hair on her body stood on end. She recognized the feeling of magic being drawn together, but she had never felt anything on this scale before.

“What...?” Cassandra’s question was interrupted when the magic was released. A column of energy arched from earth to sky, followed by a cloud of fire. Then the shockwave hit. Glass shattered, horses and people screamed, and everyone was knocked to the ground. The sound that followed, of the very mountains moving, drowned out all the rest.

Cassandra clawed her way to her knees, a ringing silence in her head. Her eyes were blurry, unable to focus. When they cleared, she was barely able to process the world around her. As she climbed to her feet, her hearing returned. People were shouting, calling for help, but all Cassandra could see was the vortex of fade magic that had swallowed the sky.

The temple. The Divine.

Without another thought, she broke into a dead run up the valley.

—

Varric wasn’t even pretending to clean Bianca anymore. His crossbow sat armed and ready on his knee as he watched the restless crowd outside the Chantry. All they needed was a spark, and an angry mob would be born.

Things had gotten worse in the days since the Breach opened. Everyone who could stand and hold a weapon fought the tide of demons that kept appearing from the fade rifts. But the number of able-bodied fighters was dwindling, while there was no end of demons.

Fear permeated everything.

Varric’s presence was largely ignored. He spent his time fighting alongside whoever was going up the valley or helping with whatever he could in the village. The Seeker, Curly, and Nightingale were simply trying to keep peace in the town and to stem the tide of demons that threatened to wipe them out. If something didn’t change soon, they would fail.

The Chantry door opened, and Cassandra stepped out into the sun. Varric watched the crowd break up as her eyes swept the square. No one wanted to risk the wrath of the Seeker. Varric relaxed his hold on his crossbow when she crossed to the fire, where he sat and collapsed next to him. She wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her head in them with a groan.

Varric stood and filled his empty bowl from the pot over the fire, cleaned his spoon off in the snow and then sat back down next to her. “Here. You should eat something.” He said, holding the bowl out to her.

Cassandra raised her head and stared at the bowl a moment, her eyes hazy, before finally accepting it. Varric sat, watching the people milling about in the square as she ate. Neither spoke as she finished and handed the bowl and spoon back to Varric, who cleaned and stowed them away.

“Why are you still here?” Cassandra asked. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared into the fire, and while the question was blunt, her voice was soft, almost sad.

“Are you sick of me already?” Varric chuckled, retaking his seat.

“I am sorry, that wasn’t…” She sighed, her cheeks turning slightly pink. “I simply mean that you are free to go if you wish.” her eyes drifted up to the hole in the sky. “It would be wiser to be as far from here as possible.”

Varric chuckled, “Wiser, yes, but I’ve never been known for my wisdom. And anyway, if I left now, someone else would get to tell this story, and I couldn’t live with that.”

His reply startled a laugh out of her, and Cassandra’s voice was light. “Yes, that would be tragic.”

Varric’s heart gave a sideways thump. He would have to be dead not to admire the strength and beauty of the woman next to him, and sarcasm was something he always found attractive. Before he could pursue that line of thought, the Chantry doors opened with a bang, attracting Cassandra’s attention. A messenger paused on the steps until his eyes found the Seeker, and he hurried across to where they sat.

The messenger saluted, then spoke. “Seeker Pentaghast, the prisoner is awake. Sister Nightingale is waiting for your return before speaking to her.”

“Thank you.” Cassandra rose quickly to her feet. “Master Tethras, would you inform Solas and accompany him to the first rift? I will bring the prisoner to meet you.”

The moment Varric nodded his response, Cassandra was turning away, but she paused and turned back. “Andraste, protect you, Varric.” She said. There was something in her eyes that Varric could not pin down, and it disappeared before he could get a handle on it.

Then she was gone.

—

Varric’s reputation as a storyteller made him immensely popular in the village of Redcliffe. The mages were preparing to move to Skyhold, but until then, Redcliffe was busting at the seams. Their party’s’ fireside was always filled with people hoping to hear news and stories from Varric himself, and they were rarely disappointed.

But tonight was different. Varric had disappeared after Kiaya had woken up. Kiaya was finally past the worst of the poison from the knife wound she had sustained. Once awake, she told them more details of the future she and Dorian had been thrown into against their will.

Cassandra had noticed that when they spoke of the spread of red lyrium, Varric had gotten quiet. Every time they came across the stuff, Varric would withdraw, and it was always a while before he would join in the fireside banter again. But tonight, he had simply disappeared. Now it was getting dark, and Cassandra was growing concerned.

Her feet carried her towards higher ground and eventually up towards the abandoned windmill that overlooked the village. As she got closer, she started to hear the thump and crack of someone chopping wood. Rounding the last bend, she saw exactly that.

Varric was wielding an axe expertly as he split logs. His shirt and coat were tossed over a stump, the sheen of sweat on Varric’s skin gleaming in the light. It was the expression on his face that gave Cassandra pause. Varric was furious, a deep scowl etched into his features. He swung the axe with more force than was necessary, burying it deep into the block with each stroke.

She didn’t interrupt him. Instead, she sat down. The tension in Varric’s back eased a little, but he didn’t say anything and continued his work as the light faded. When it was fully dark, Varric buried the axe head into the block with a loud curse. “I should have dropped that shit down a deep hole when we found it. For that matter, I should have spit in Bartrand’s eye when he told me the plan for the expedition. He might still be alive if I had.” Varric angrily snatched up his shirt and dried off while pacing across the clearing.

“All the pain and suffering that that shit caused in Kirkwall, I could have prevented it. It was just too easy to let things lie after Meredith got her hands on it. I thought that it ended with her. I was a fucking fool.” He sighed and sat down next to her. “However long it may take, I’m going to fix the damage I have done.”

Cassandra had never been good at offering comfort. She couldn’t disagree with anything he said, but her heart ached at the defeat in his voice. Cassandra missed the joy of life that he always seemed to have, and for the first time, Cass wondered what it cost him. Right now, she simply wanted to make him smile again.

Varric sighed and spoke, the rare uncertainty in his voice wringing at her heart. “You never did tell me why you dragged me to Haven, Seeker. I mean, what could I have told the Divine that you couldn't say yourself?”

“I thought she needed to see your chest hair for herself.”

Varric’s jaw dropped, and he gaped at her. Cassandra was starting to regret opening her mouth until his face split into a wide grin. He burst into laughter until tears formed in his eyes, and he was gasping for breath. “Maker. Think she would have been impressed?”

Cassandra answered his grin with one of her own, although it felt rusty. “Certainly. I also knew she would ask you to help us.”

“Me? Help the Inquisition?” Varric said, wiping his eyes.

“A crazy thought, I know, yet here you are. The Inquisition has done great things, and you have been a large part of them. Don’t forget that.”

Varric’s grin melted into something softer, warmer, and Cassandra got lost in the hazel of his eyes. Whatever was happening, Cassandra wasn’t ready, so she looked away, swallowing, her throat suddenly very dry.

“It is getting late. We should return to camp.” She said, her voice only shaking a little.

Varric’s usual expression had returned by the time she looked back at him, but something had changed, and Cassandra needed time to think.

“You’re right, Seeker. I am suddenly starving,” Varric said as he put on his jacket and picked up Bianca.

“You may regret saying that. Dorian is cooking, and he raided the Alexius’s foodstuffs. I expect it to be interesting.” Cassandra said as she stood and stretched.

“Oh, I hope it’s spicy.” Varric laughed. “It’s been ages since I’ve burned out my stomach lining.”

--

Chapter 1

Thanks!

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [987]

By the time Cassandra finally arrives at the Lavellan estate Bull feels like he’s ready to crawl out of his own skin with tension. Lord and Lady Lavellan have long done the same, practically abandoning their house to the mercies of the Archon’s puppets within. Every chance he gets Lord Lavellan retreats to the grounds to hide and stalk and vent his frustration out on the landscape. Lady Lavellan has turned disappearance into an art form.

Mahanon is the only one stubbornly sticking out, though parts of his old blood can’t help but leak through.

Aedan and Ellana spend every day like some sort of picture in the worst of ways. Oh, they’re certainly a picture perfect couple. But fuck, they make Bull want to vomit looking at them.

They take walks around the lake, they go for horse rides across the grounds, they sit in the drawing room and play instruments or read from books in the library. Ellana has an embroidery hoop and while Bull’s only see her at it once or twice he’s fairly certain she’s embroidering a copy of the Archon’s crest.

At the present Bull has Mahanon distracting Aedan by taking him on a very, very long horse ride across the grounds and then bringing him up to one of the sitting rooms for tea or an afternoon refreshment.

It was surprisingly easy to get Aedan to agree. Or maybe that’s what they’ve been made ino. Creatures that agree.

Cassandra looks just as haggard as Bull feels, impossibly, and shoulders straight past him into the house.

“Which room?” She asks, sword already drawn and burning bright with the particular powers of the Templar and Seeker order as she strides up the stairs.

“You’ll know it when you feel it,” Bull answers. “Busy schedule?”

She shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says with as much earnest sincerity as he thinks they can both handle right now.

Casandra nods briskly, stopping in front of the sitting room Sylaise and Solas had spent the entire week working on warding and enchanting before reluctantly having to leave to assist the other elders in trying to contain the chaos of the other elven houses. Bull can see the outline of blue around her irises as she examines the magic, picking it apart and deciding how to best approach it without destroying the work already done.

“How did you get her inside?” Cassandra asks.

“You can sense her from out here?”

She shakes her head. “I cannot sense her at all. It is more like — it is as though someone has painted part of a landscape perfectly black. It is an absence that I cannot help but notice.”

Bull slowly nods. The description sounds close to what he was feeling whenever he looked at either Aedan or Ellana.

He moves past Cassandra to open the door when she breathes in slow and nods at him.

He enters and sees Ellana sitting in the only chair in the room. Before Solas had left he’d promised Bull that he would get Ellana into he room.

“Ah, the Iron Bull was it?” She says this every time she sees him. As though she doesn’t remember. It could be that, it could be her being willful. “There’s something very particular about this chair. I can’t seem to stand back up. If you would be so kind as to assist me?”

Bull moves forward and sits in the chair immediately in front of hers while Cassandra slides around to stand behind her, sword ready. Bull nods and Cassandra jabs her sword downwards, right on top of the invisible rune Sylaise traced onto the floor. The rune activates, triggering all the other runes and sigils and spells forming a containment circle.

Ellana looks startled, but not alarmed. Cassandra’s mouth moves quickly, chanting the words for incantation for Nullification at the same time she pours energy into the containment circle.

Bull leans forward when Ellana tries to turn to look. “Ellana. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Alright,” Ellana says, turning back towards him, still smiling. “That’s splendid to know. But could you please help me out of this chair? That would be ever so wonderful.”

“Ellana, I’m going to ask you some questions. Your family is very worried about you.” Bull starts to pull power into his voice as he slides away from the Iron Bull back into the man he was years and years ago. How easily his mind puts him back into this place, this space.

“Oh dear, that’s awful. Whatever are they worried for?” Ellana asks, sounding well and truly worried.

“Ellana, when you were away, did any of the staff at the academy hurt you?”

Ellana gasps, a wounded sound, like his question has shocked her delicate sensibilities. “Of course not! The Archon only employs the most splendid and well respected people.”

Ellana’s hands, on the arms of the chair, are straining to try and push herself up.

“When you were at the academy did anyone cast some sort of spell over you?”

Ellana’s arms jerk, and he can see her really, really, really trying to pry herself out of the chair. But she isn’t moving. Her arms are tense, and he can see tendons and veins rising with ugly exertion that defies the bland pleasantness of her face.

“Of course not. That would be awful. You shouldn’t use magic on people. It’s very rude and uncouth. The Archon disapproves of such uncivilized behavior.”

Bull pushes more power into his voice. The circle pulses. He can feel it waver, just for a moment, as Ellana’s eyes dart down to her hands.

“I am not uncivilized,” she says, though there’s a sort of edge to her voice that Bull hasn’t heard the entire time she’s been here in the sense that she’s hasn’t had any sort of edge to her anything. “I’m a lady. I’m obedient. I’m quite docile and gentle. You’ll see that I’m very tame. I’m not like the other savages.”

Bull’s eye narrows. The edge of her paper face is peeling back, just a little. He needs to snag it in the right way.

“Of course you’re a lady. You’re Lady Ellana of house Lavellan. The Archon can’t take that from you.”

Ellana’s eyes dart to him, and the smile is starting to slip. He can see just a little of the whites around her eyes as she continues to try and rip herself up and out and away.

“I do not think I like your questions,” she says. She grunts as her head suddenly bows, shoulders shaking as she tries to free herself. Over her head Bull sees Cassandra’s brow furrow in concentration as she works on keeping the spells together and on track.

“I don’t think I like your answers,” the Iron Bull replies. Bull pulls more power, pushing for truth rather than responses this time. It’s been so long since he’s done this, it’s making him tired too fast, but something in it feels — right. “Ellana — “

He hears a grinding sound, low and grating as Ellana rocks in the chair that remains firmly in place as she starts to well and truly try and thrash her way out of its magic.

There’s a sharp keening noise as Ellana shakes her head, dark hair coming loose.

“Ellana. Tell me what happened. What did the Archon do?"

“Took,” Ellana bites out, eyes darting away from Bull’s as she struggles to free herself. The word itself seems to take a toll on the rapidly eroding mask that was on her. She looks afraid of the word that Bull managed to get out of her.

“Took? He took something from you?”

Ellana shakes her head, eyes closing shut as she presses her lips together. He can see her jaw clenching, every muscle in her body tightening as if that could help her right now.

“What did he take from you Ellana?”

There’s a sharp crackle of energy as the circle wavers again, the entire room seeming to groan with the tremendous loud of magic it’s being forced to bear and bear witness to. Cassandra’s grip on her sword tightens as she struggles to maintain the containment spell. But when Bull looks at her she nods for him to continue.

Bull repeats, firmer and with every ounce of power he has, “What did he take from you, Ellana?”

Ellana’s head bows lower. Bull can see the bones of her hands raising underneath her skin as her fingers grip the armrests of the chair. Her nails shake, shiver, and finally puncture through the upholstery. The fabric rips as she curls her talons.

Her dark, shiny hair slides over her face free from the elegant updo she’d pinned it into earlier, as she shoulders hunch, back contorting as she curls forward straining against the magic holding her in place.

The grinding sound persists. Bull tries to see past her hair and catches sight of something — at last — familiar.

Black, thick, and almost gleaming with magic, blood drops from somewhere on her face and stains the simple cloth of her skirt.

One drop. Another. Several more. A rush of it.

Lavellan blood. Old blood. Magic blood.

The grinding sound grows louder. And louder. More furious with every passing heartbeat.

“What did they take from you?”

Agonizingly slowly Ellana lifts her head and through the strands of her hair he sees a flash of the animal, the wild, the violent thing he’s narrowly dodged the past few days. The thing that’s been hatefully straining against the veneer, waiting for a chance to escape and hurt.

The gnashing, he realizes, as Ellana lifts her head to to meet his gaze, is her teeth.

Her long, pointed, black blood coated teeth.

Her eyes, almost entirely white with fury, lock onto him as she snarls out through the grinding of bone —

“They took my teeth.”

And with a radiant, absolutely devastating, scream, Ellana lunges straight through Cassandra’s containment circle.

[elfrootaddict]

WIP Wednesday (like, super-super WIP lol)

Whoops! The day got away from me guys! So I’m posting this on Thursday 🙈🙃

Here is a snippet from my Halla & Wolf series - vol. 4 Growing Pains

This weeks tags: @kita-lavellan @mrstethras​ @silvanils @noire-pandora @followingthewolf @queen-kass-the-writer @faelavellan @jarakrisafis @superstitious21 @medlilove 

Context: My inky, Lana, is in the Hinterlands to meet mother Giselle but Lana and her party come across mages and templars fighting in the Crossroads Village. Lana has only fought demons and never people. She’s never taken another’s life.

WARNING: This contains describing death and dying - please only read if comfortable.

“Is everyone alright?” asks Cassandra as she rests her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. “Herald? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” answers Lana with relief. “You’ve got a nasty cut on your forehead though. Here, let me heal you.” 

“No that won’t be necessary,” refuses Cassandra with a brief wave of her hand as she stands up straight. “We can attend to our wounds after we’ve found the villagers.” 

“Agreed,” adds Solas with concern. “Let us search for them.”

“Very well,” remarks Cassandra with a subtle nod before turning to Varric. “Varric, stay here with the Herald. We’re going to look around.” 

“You got it,” agrees Varric as Cassandra runs east and Solas west, and then turns back around to regard Lana with a gentle smile as he folds his arms across his chest. “You did good, kid.”

“Thanks,” murmurs Lana sheepishly, but then turns sorrowfully around as she sees the bloodied village with all the corpses surrounding her and Varric. “It’s uh... it’s just a lot to take in right now. There’s so much-”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, at the corner of Lana’s eye, she catches a glimpse of a templar viciously leaping off a boulder's edge just behind Varric with their sword aiming straight towards his back. With his helmet removed, she sees the murderous, vengeful and monstrous intent in his eyes and his mouth stretched wide as he cries out a loud warrior cry.

As if in slow motion and in a blink of an eye, Lana instinctively pushes Varric aside with her left arm while simultaneously slamming her staff onto the ground, just as Solas did moments before, with her right. With her connection to the Fade still strong she expels an explosive direct force that sends the, still mid-air templar, flying several paces back and across the village. The templar violently crashes into a fallen tree at an alarming force, and once the dust surrounding the templar settles, her heart immediately drops to her stomach as she notices a razor sharp, broken branch the size of a man’s arm sprouting through the left side of the templar’s chest, just above breastplate. Panicked over what she has just done, Lana gasps for air as she sprints towards the impaled templar. 

Flailing her staff to the side, she crashes to her knees and tries to assess the damage she has just done, “No! No! No! Creators, no!” her hands begin shaking uncontrollably as she hovers over the templar’s impaled body, unsure of what to do next. “You’re… you’re going to be okay! I’ll… I’ll heal you! We just got to get this out!”

“Lana!” shouts Varric from behind as he starts running towards her.

Still on her knees and eyes filled with frightful tears, she turns to Varric panicked, “No, please! Help me! We need to help him!” and turns back around to regard the unconscious templar. 

Having finally reached her side, Varric cries out sympathetically, “Listen, even if we got it out-”

The templar eventually gains some sense back and quickly notices Lana assessing his fatal wound, and swings his right arm to tightly grab her by the throat and shouts. “Don’t you fucking touch me… you demon!” and spits directly into Lana’s face. But with so much blood loss, the templar quickly loses his remaining strength and releases his grip around her neck. With his blood starting to slowly choke him from within, the templar begins coughing violently with blood spilling out his mouth and running down his armour.

Ignoring the warm blood and saliva on her face and the dying templar’s demand, Lana presses her hands lightly around the branch sprouting from the templar’s chest and then releases a white-blue pulsing energy as she desperately attempts to heal him, “I’m sorry…” cries Lana hysterically. “I'm so, so sorry! I didn’t mean to do it… I didn’t want to hurt you… I only wanted… I only wanted you to get away...” 

“Herald!” cries Cassandra from afar as she runs towards them. “Step away!”

Solas also makes his way back, and once hearing his arrival, Lana looks up from the templar and cries, “Solas, please help me! There must be something you can do! We have to try! Please!” 

Cassandra and Varric look at Solas with concern as he drops his head and sighs, “Ir abelas, lethallan,” and slowly kneels down next to Lana sympathetically. “He’s dead.”

Unable to remove her wide, lavender eyes from Solas, they begin to fill with more tears as she cannot believe what she is hearing. Ever so slowly however, Lana reluctantly turns back towards the templar and sees his lifeless body lying pinned to the fallen tree and his eyes glazed over, staring into nothing.

With Lana still using her healing magic on the dead templar, Solas subtly lays a hand upon Lana’s and gently guides them away. Upon releasing his touch on her hands, Lana slowly brings them to her lap without removing her gaze on the templar. The templar’s warm blood drips from her hands and starts to stain her specially made Dalish robe. 

Having realised it is truly over and there is nothing more she can do, the true shock and reality hits her like a ton of bricks falling on her chest. With no more tears left to shred, her breathing slows and she just blankly stares at the lifeless eyes of the templar before her. The man she killed. 

[darksunrising]

Sola Gratia (6/?)

Masterlist

Rating / Warnings : General audiences, no particular warnings.

Fandom : Bram Stoker’s Dracula, BBC’s Dracula, various Dracula and vampire lore.

Part 6/? (3370 words)

Author’s notes : After a small break, here is part 6 of Sola Gratia ! It’s technically the first chapter of the second part, but I’ll number them continuously to not be confusing !

Hope you all enjoy !

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Thank you for your compelling conclusion to this seminar, professor Rieder. I would like, once again, to thank all whose interventions have made these few days a most instructive and enlightening event. Now, for the part all of us have been waiting for since this morning, I will see you at the buffet next room over.”

Scattered laughter and clapping closed my statement. A growing buzz filled the room, and I contained a sigh of relief. Turning off my headset, I laid it on the table next to me, giving a few awkward smiles to the eminent researchers still at my side. I focused my attention on the familiar face sitting front row, shoving her scattered notes in her bag. One smile of hers would have stopped a cyclone, and thus I melted inside when she hurried to meet me, pulling me in a bear hug. She was so tiny she couldn’t raise me past tiptoes. I closed my eyes, hugging her back. Her hair smelled like coconut oil, and lavender. She pushed back, still holding my shoulders.

“That was great, see, told you you’d kill it !”, she exclaimed, eyes glimmering with joy.

“Leaaaaah, stop it, you’ll make me believe it”, I replied, letting my head fall back. “I still have to hear from Laurent.”

“Heh, speak of the Devil !”, she taunted, her eyes set somewhere over my shoulder.

Laurent, my thesis coordinator for the past two years, was not a cheerful type person. He was six feet tall, salt more than pepper hair, neatly trimmed, the mustache always curled at the tip, and small, golden rimmed glasses. On anyone else, he might have looked like a nice grandpa. However, his strict demeanor and constantly furrowed eyebrows denoted an uncompromising attitude, which had proven a challenge in my research and field work. I was all the more taken aback by the huge grin plastered on his face as he came over to firmly shake my hands in his.

“Excellent work, Eris. I couldn’t be more satisfied !”, he bellowed. “You will have to come take a drink with us now, I won’t have you escape this time !”

If you weren’t used to his manners, he might seem a bit blunt, even abrasive, but his comment made me smile. I nodded, and he left me after a friendly pat on the shoulder, still having me stumble. Leah was almost vibrating with excitation, as per usual. Where she found her energy, I’d never know. She took hold of my arm, and practically dragged me to the reception room. The committee spared no expense, as the whole seminar had been financed by an anonymous donator, who had been more than generous with his funding. As we got in, we were greeted by a groom, holding a plate of champagne glasses. A bit over the top, if you asked me. Still, I was  on par with the standing of the venue, the National Museum of Natural History. It was huge, old, and honestly, so stuffy in the scientific department I had to think twice before I accepted to coordinate the seminar.

I had taken a million years finding an outfit that wouldn’t clash with the tone, and wouldn’t have me looking like a talking toad in a bowtie. Leah looked great as always, her long, strawberry blonde locks bouncing freely on her shoulders, wearing a perfectly tailored bustier pantsuit. she could have worn a sack of potatoes and looked better than me, still awkwardly trying to walk in a straight line with the pair of stilettos she bought for me. Still, I’d rather suffer the little mermaid’s martyr than disappoint her.

She grabbed two glasses for us, and had a few steps back, guiding me further into the center of the room. She handed me my glass, and held up hers.

“To the first of many symposiums saved from death by your exceptional organizational skills”, she stated.

“To the only reason I didn’t panic and make a fool of myself for three consecutive days, Leah Fox”, I threw back at her.

We toasted, and took a sip. The room was packed. Still enough room to actually breathe, but I never were one for social situations of that type. Of any type, really. As soon as that glass was empty, I would beg Leah to get back to her place, which was, thankfully, close-by. I’d have to almost get across the whole city if I were to go back to mine, and in the state of exhaustion I was in, no way that was happening.

“Hey, don’t look- Do not ! - but there’s a guy looking at you from over there”, Leah told me.

I kept my eyes on her obediently, as she seemed to study said man. She had a look of mischief in her eyes that  announced trouble with a thousand golden horns. I indulged her.

“Well, will you at least tell me what this Mystery Admirer looks like ?”, I enquired.

“He’s your type, I gotta say. Tall, dark and handsome, you know ?”, she started, being less and less discreet about her staring. “Oh, and he knows how to dress, I have to ask where he found his tie pin- Oh, fuck, he saw me, abort mission !”

She winced, knowing full well we couldn’t just run away like schoolgirls. Not if we wanted to keep some form of good reputation among the dozens of career-relevant academics chatting all around us. Seeing her head gradually lift up, I sighed, and prepared myself to get some human interaction. I put on my best fake smile, and turned around.

“Eris Cetero, I have been dying to meet you again.”

All sounds faded. Heart sinking into my stomach, I barely even heard the crystalline sound of the champagne glass as it broke between my fingers. I barely heard Leah’s cry of surprise, or felt the warmth of the blood gushing from my palm. I only saw the red around ocean blue eyes, and a split-second, sharp smile.

My knees gave out under me, his arm slipped around my waist, catching me before all lights faded, blown out like candles in the wind.

~-~-~

Muffled sounds of chatter were my first perception. Then, right after, a burning sensations from my nose to my lungs, that made me choke. 

“Eris ? Are you awake ?”, Leah’s worried voice came to my ears before the golden halo of her hair above me. I could only respond with a pained groan.

“I should hope so, this is very potent”, a silky, deep voice commented outside my limited field of vision.

“I know, but no offense, who carries smelling salts on them in 2020 ?”

“I do, and they proved useful, did they not ?”

She sounded cheerful, as she always did. Every sentence he uttered had the effect of a sledgehammer to my chest. I tried to sit up, and leaning on my had me crying out in pain.

“You’re injured !”, she exclaimed, laying me back down, a hand over my chest. “Just rest a little, will you ?”

“Leah, you have to leav-”, I tried to warn her, too faintly for her to even notice I spoke.

She turned her attention back to him. “Tell me, Professor Balaur, you were about to tell me how you met our faint-hearted friend ?”

Professor ? That didn’t sound right, by all accounts. I couldn't get rid of a faint ringing in my ear. Spots of light danced before my eyes. I had to do something. My heart was almost beating out of my chest. The back of his eyes caught the light just a second. Sharp teeth flashed before my eyes, as they had been embedded in my brain for the past two months, every time I spent too long, staring in the shadows.

“Please, call me Vlad. You do well to remind me, it is a good story.”

His voice was sickeningly sweet. Leah didn’t mind, seemingly genuinely interested in what he had to say, leaning into the palm of her hand, propped up on her elbow. Fighting through the numbness, I decidedly sat up.

“Leah, we have to leave”, I snapped, ignoring her protests. “Now.”

“You don’t seem well enough to go on your own”, the Count stated, his silky voice not helping with my nausea. “I could give you a ride, I have my car parked here.”

“Well, I live nearby, so we can manage”, she began. “But... Considering her state, I would love the help. You’d have my eternal gratitude, and I’ll invite you in for a cup of tea !”

Invite you in. No. No way. Not her.

“I have to go home !”, I blurted out. “I… haven’t fed Zardoz this morning and he’ll- he'll wreak havoc if I don’t.”

Leah gave me a puzzled look. She knew I was lying. She could always tell. She didn’t understand why, but she wouldn’t ask. She trusted me. I promised myself I would tell her, at some point. If I had no other choice.

“Well then, you can’t take the bus in that state”, the Count commented. “For my peace of mind, would you let me take you home ?”

No, absolutely not. He kept his gaze locked on mine. I couldn’t let him anywhere near Leah. Never mind me, she had to be safe.

“Alright”, I yielded. “Go home, Leah, I’ll be fine. I just need a second to get my bearings, I'll be fine with...” I felt like I had to swallow bile. “With Vlad.”

She hesitated, and I gave her the best smile I could muster. She agreed to take her leave, after making me promise to call her as soon as I got home. Scribbling my address on the back of her visit card, she handed it to the Count, and planted a kiss on my forehead. With a last wave, just like that, she left. I couldn’t contain a sigh of relief. A gloved hand appeared in my field of vision.

“If you think I’m coming with you, you’re even more insane than I thought”, I snapped at him, not giving him the satisfaction of eye contact.

“Oh, Eris. Let’s not pretend like there is any other outcome to this situation.”

No matter how much I hated it, he was right. I gave him my arm, and saw his hand twitch as it brushed against the bandages. Leah had gone so overboard I could barely flex my fingers, but on the flip side, no blood seeped through. I wondered how he managed not to go feral when the cuts were still fresh. He took hold of my briefcase, and we left.

Trying to dissociate myself as much as I could from the situation, I barely could make sense of my surroundings as the Count guided me to the outside. I heard myself say goodbye to Laurent as we passed him, giving a bullshit explanation as to why I was leaving with him. The word “date” was thrown around, which I’d have to be angry about later. I focused on not snapping my ankles on the stairs. Curse high heels and feminine fashion standards.

We crossed one of the side doors at the entrance, and stepped outside. For a second, the night’s fresh air made me feel better. The large street, occupied only by a grassy railway, was lit by the orange glow of street lamps. In my fuzzy mind, It looked like a Van Gogh, a blur of light and colors, and the faint sound of the wind rustling into the trees. A welcome silence, after the noise of the inside.

We stopped near a car. Black, sleek, elegant design. A step up from the creepy old van I rather imagined, if I ever got abducted. He opened the passenger door for me.

“I’m not getting in”, I told him, a bit stubbornly.

“Listen, I have told your friend I would get you home safe, and I will. I behaved myself even though you… Well.” His gaze lowered to my injured hand, which I instinctively hid behind my back.

“Why, why on Earth should I trust anything you have to say ?”

“Because, dear, I may be a monster, which you seem so adamant to believe, but I am not, and never have been, a man to go back on word given.”

Looking at the situation objectively, I didn’t have much of a choice. No tram anywhere in sight, no people to scream to, and anyway, the Kitty Genovese thing made it clear that witnesses don’t do anything for your survival. And in her case, she was murdered by a human, which I wouldn’t be so lucky about. If he really took me home, that would bring him further from Leah, which was a substantial advantage. Taking a deep breath, I nodded, and got in the passenger seat. After making sure I was settled, he closed the door, and went around to sit behind the wheel. He typed up the address on the screen, and turned on the GPS. The car’s windows were tinted, and the interior was lit by a soft band of red led lights. Fitting.

“Seatbelt”, he commanded.

“Since when do you even know how to drive ? I would have expected a hearse, drawn by undead horses”, I sneered.

“I am not the Grim Reaper, Eris. Also, everybody knows how to drive, these days, it’s an easy skill to pick up.”

“Huh, pick up, is that what you call it ?”

He laughed. As soon as I went back home, I had spent every waking hour I had to spare researching things like him. That proved to be a difficult task, given that 90% of the hits were either literature, were it good or bad, conspirationist websites with very disputable sources, or witnesses with incoherent, horny accounts of their meetings with seductive succubuses. I figured I had to not be the only one, but there was absolutely no way of finding anything credible, as truth often makes a worse audience than embellished fiction.

At this point, I only had random bouts of legends I classified by percentage of credibility. Silver burned his skin, but didn’t seem necessarily lethal. It did seem to leave a scar for a long time, I thought as I watched the thin, white circle on the back of his hand, relaxed on the wheel. Antlers didn’t seem to be efficient either, or at least, not in a permanent manner. I wasn’t sure about direct sunlight, but cloudy weather seemed to be just fine to him.

“What are you thinking about ? I can sense it’s a tad violent”, he teased, keeping his eyes on the road.

“How are you here ? How are you alive ?”, I jabbed at him.

“Are you disappointed ?”, he replied in a slightly mocking tone.

“Thoroughly.”

“Well !”, he laughed. “Strictly speaking, I was not alive to begin with. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

He tapped on the wheel as he drove. The rhythm reminded me of something, though I couldn't quite place it. He had his hair cut, and was clean shaven, I noticed. Overall, he looked pretty much like a normal man, late fourties, more handsome than the usual, maybe, objectively speaking. He looked sharp, intelligent. Dangerous.

“Are you going to kill me ?”, I asked, turning my attention to the road as well, trying not to have my voice shake as much as I physically was.

“Kill you ?” He seemed to think a few seconds. “No. Not yet, at least.”

“Then why are you here ? How did you find me ?”, I blurted out.

“I tasted you, I’ll always know where you are”, he softly replied. He glanced at me, lingering a little. “As for why, let’s say that I am… curious. No one even tried to stake me since that funny little man Van Helsing.”

I huffed out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Among all who could have taken interest in me, it had to be an immortal, bloodthirsty creature, who could smell me to the ends of the earth like a hellhound.

“Stalker”, I laconically commented.

“Stalk- What ? I’m not a- How dare you even-”

He sounded genuinely offended. My sudden fit of quiet laughter cut him off. His outraged expression softened, and he let out a sigh, taking back his composure. He took a right into my street, and parked in front of my buiding. After turning of the engine, he leaned back into his seat.

“Before you leave, I have something for you.”

He reached behind my seat, and handed me a wooden box, wrapped a red silk ribbon. I gave him an inquisitory look, to which he didn't respond. If he wanted to kill me, I ventured he would find a more dramatic way than a booby-trapped box. I mean, he wasn't an Acme character. I untied the ribbon, noticed a lock. The Count handed me a key, attached to a thin, golden chain.

“I’m more of a silver kind of girl”, I teased.

“Very funny, but also a lie”, he replied, sliding a finger along my ear, and the three golden rings piercing it.

A shot of electricity ran through me. He was about to lower his hand, yet I felt his touch, barely grazing along the small scars I knew were still swollen, still red, under the foundation I used to cover them up. Dozens of them, little cuts. Broken glass is something sharp. I heard him take an inspiration, as if to say something. I took the key, worked it into the lock. The lid opened on red velvet, in which was incased a colt. A gun. A gun ?

“That is a gun”, I flatly stated.

“Not just any kind of gun. This one is loaded with custom-made white oak bullets.”

I remained speechless a moment, taking it from its case. The metalwork was intricate, and the handle, distinctively polished antler. I wonder if…

“It is. I thought it would be… appropriate”, he told me, as if he had  read my mind.

Appropriate. I scoffed. None of it was appropriate.

“It’s simple of use, really, cock the hammer back, point, squeeze the trigger”, he explained.

“I know how a colt works. I’m more concerned of the reason why I now have one.”

“I would like for it to be a token of trust.” He shifted in his seat to face me. “I want to know that I am no threat to you. Should you not believe it, you now have this.”

I tightened my fingers around the grip. “Will it kill you ?”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes”, he nodded. “I have never died before, however, so this is brand new territory.”

He laughed at his own questionnable joke. I cocked the hammer back, and set the barrel against his chest. “Give me a good reason I shouldn’t do that right now.” He didn’t seem phased in the slightest, which had me doubt the actual usefulness of his gift. He leaned in, his face inches from mine.

“Curiosity”, he whispered, tilting his head to the side. “Everything you study in literature, I lived. Everything event you try to make sense of, I witnessed. Every battlefield you excavate, I have bled on it.” 

I lowered the gun, and looked away.

“As for myself, you have made me curious of this world again.”

“Why me ?”, I muttered, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. His cool breath had the fine hairs of my neck rise up.

“Well, what can I say, except that you have touched my heart ?”

“Dear God.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, and groaned. “I’ll shoot myself.”

“What do you say ?”, he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I could almost feel his lips brushing against my cheek.

“Won’t you invite me in ?”

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Taglist : @carydorse @angelicdestieldemon @bloodhon3yx @thewondernanazombie @battocar @moony691 @mjlock @thebeautyofdisorder @my-fanfic-library (tagging you if you wanna take a look !)

[patricianandclerk]

Vigil

My Ask | My Ko-Fi | My Ao3 | Dragon Age Discord | Requests always welcome!

The sounds of Elvish were surprisingly calming, actually. Lavellan’s voice wasn’t anything like Daisy’s, when he spoke in Trade – he had a kind of posh accent he’d obviously learned to use, and Varric couldn’t deny it didn’t work. When he gave his speeches, the nobles took notice even if he was an elf with bloodwriting on his face.

He wondered, sometimes, if Daisy would like Lavellan.

He was very focused on his Dalish heritage, on the Elvhen people as a whole, and the way he told stories, the way he knew stories… Yeah. Yeah, she’d like that about him, like that he came off as a fusty old Dalish hahren even though his eyes were bright and new and his face was still relatively youthful.

Varric leaned back in his seat, and he watched Lavellan’s face as he prayed, quietly, his voice a constant litany of Elvish. It wasn’t like how Cassandra had prayed, earlier, the Chant running past her lips like water, flowing to meet the air. You could hear the names on his lips, the different gods he called on, and he’d lit a candle at Cole’s bedside, a talisman wrapped around the white wick.

There was no god on it – it was just an elf root leaf carved into silver, a symbol for healing, or something.

Cole’s room was small. Not many people really fit in it at once: there was the bed, a single mattress on a plain wood frame, and there was barely a gap either side of it for Cole to move down, the dresser beside the door only just able to open out all the way. Varric had been worried, given how the kid had… Well, not how Cole had died, but how—

Anyway.

He’d been worried that it would be too small, but he’d actually picked it, and Varric had watched Blackwall help him pin blankets and tapestries to the stone walls, and affix rugs on the stone floors, so that every single surface was soft with fabric, even the awkward bends in the stone where they went to meet the pink-stained glass of the window. Cole said that it was nice, to have such a small room with such soft walls. Varric hadn’t argued.

The roseglass made the light into the room come in warm pinks, and it laid a pink spotlight over Cole’s chest, rising and falling under the blankets, his head tossed to the side.

You could believe he was sleeping, his expression was so peaceful.

Varric looked away from the boy, and instead at the rest of the room. Books were piled high on the dresser, the only reason they were in any order at all because Dorian or Solas always picked them up and stacked them properly whenever they came to see Cole and saw that they were in disarray. He had a stuffed nug with wings that Krem had made for him, sitting on the dresser, and scattered on the surface beside it were various knick-knacks, rocks he’d liked the look of, paint swatches, tools, some scattered thread and needles. Varric knew the drawers were mostly the same – he only used one drawer for clothes, and one for armour.

Lavellan and Varric were both sitting on chairs they’d just managed to squeeze into the space on either side of the bed, Varric with a book in his lap, Lavellan leaned forward, a candle held in his palm.

Wax dripped slowly over his loosely clasped hands.

Varric didn’t want to ask if it hurt – he knew it did.

“Lethallin,” said Solas from the doorway. He said something more, in Elvish, and Lavellan looked up at him, his expression not changing. Solas’ stern tone softened, and he said something else.

Lavellan nodded, and he set the candle in his hands aside the one on Cole’s end table, on the little plate to catch the wax, and Varric looked at the wax marks on the elf’s hands, the red streaks of not-quite-burns where wax had peeled away, and the wax still clinging to the skin in places.

Lavellan’s face was a mask without expression – he was a born diplomat, in that sense. He didn’t show a thing on his face if he didn’t want to.

Lavellan said something; Solas, his face falling, replied, and when Lavellan came toward him, he actually reached out and touched Lavellan’s shoulder. Solas wasn’t a very touchy-feely guy, but Lavellan slumped a little, leaning into his palm, and Solas murmured something that sounded reassuring, quiet.

“Ma serannas,” he heard Lavellan say, and Solas stepped back to let him past. His gaze landed on the candles beside Cole’s bedside: Cassandra had left a tiny icon of Andraste against the cloth wall, but it was at the elvish trinket that Solas’ lip curled.

“He was praying,” Varric said softly.

“Yes,” Solas murmured. “He would do.”

He reached for the chair Lavellan had been in, and to Varric’s surprise he set it down beside Varric’s, sitting down beside him, setting his elbows on his knees, his mouth against his steepled hands. Somehow, he looked graceful, even sitting like that, leaned forward.

“How long ‘til we know?” Varric asked.

“Another thirty hours or so,” Solas murmured, his gaze on Cole’s face. “We will then be able to see if his body is digesting the venom, or if it is succumbing. In any case, even if the venom weakens him, we will then be begin using magic to better heal him.”

“I thought magic activated the venom or something,” Varric said, thinking back to the panicked, scattered explanations that had poured out of Dorian’s mouth as he’d carried the boy back to camp, all but begging Solas or Vivienne to tell him he was wrong. “That trying to heal him would just kill him.”

“At the point where the venom is definitely killing him,” Solas said quietly, “using magic would lower his odds only marginally more.”

There was something grim in the way he said it, and Varric could see his hands twitch.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Varric said. “Kid’s a fighter.”

“You have yet to leave his bedside. You must sleep, sometimes, Varric.”

It was the first time Solas had ever actually used his first name, Varric thought, and he felt a pang in his chest, looking at Solas’ face, at the guarded expression on his face.

“I’ll sleep here,” Varric said.

“He is lucky to have you,” Solas said quietly. “That he has chosen to be so… human…” Solas trailed off, and there was something in his face that Varric didn’t know how to pinpoint. Like Lavellan, Solas could be very guarded, when he wanted to be, but it was so hard to actually figure out what he did feel, when he felt it.

“You know,” Varric said, not sure if he was misjudging things, but… “You know, Solas, it isn’t like he’s chosen me over you. He just wanted… Well. It was his choice. You said that, after, you said it was his choice.”

Solas met Varric’s gaze, and he looked so damned sad that Varric fel`t it punch him in the chest. There was sorrow in his face, in the downturn of his lips, the way he—

“No,” he whispered. “You’re quite correct, of course. It… My apologies. I am so used to feeling that I might assist, with my powers of healing. It ails me that I should be so powerless, seeing a friend so deathly ill and being unable to aid except by waiting.”

“Me too,” Varric said simply. “You ever…” He thought about the Fade. Thought about Solas’ stone in the graveyard, Dying alone, written on the carved stone. Thought about leaving Stroud behind, how easily it could’ve been Hawke… “Do you miss anybody?”

“Like your Lady Bianca, you mean?” Solas asked. “Or your man Hawke?”

“Sure,” Varric said, not letting it cut at him. “Like that.”

Solas leaned back, laying his hands on his knees. “No,” he said. “But, at times, I miss���” He set his jaw. He didn’t talk about what came before – Varric knew that, that he didn’t talk about it, whatever it was, whatever he was like, wherever he came from. He knew there were scars under Solas’ tunic, because Dorian had seen them, once, when they stopped to bathe in a spring out in the desert; he knew that the village he said he’d come from was a ruin, when Leliana sent a scout to see.

“He said to me, once, that you shouldn’t be on your own,” Varric said softly, “but that he wasn’t enough. What do you think he meant?”

“You might ask him,” Solas said softly. “When he wakes.”

There was pain in his voice. Varric wondered if he should feel guilty, trying to talk about Solas instead of about Cole, because… Fuck, it was like how Solas had said. Felt like nugshit, to be powerless. You wanted to try to fix other stuff instead, even though Varric knew he wasn’t gonna fix Solas any time soon.

Varric leaned forward, and Solas’ hand was warmer than he would have expected under his own, the flesh more calloused than it looked at a glance, a few scars to be felt under Varric’s fingers as he wrapped his hand around Solas’ and squeezed.

Solas didn’t look at him, but Varric heard him gasp, softly, a little inhalation.

“You won’t die if you let someone touch you,” Varric said.

Solas face gave a twitch, but he said nothing.

“He dreaming?” Varric asked.

“No. He is resting, apart from the Fade, separated. Tomorrow… for good or for ill, he will dream.”

Solas’ hand remained in Varric’s.

When Varric fell asleep, at some point, he woke to find Solas gone. Blackwall had taken up the vigil instead, and Lavellan’s candles had burned all the way down.

[baejax-the-great]

Also 21

21. Thigh-high stockings and garter belts

Thank you so much for the prompt! The list it came from ishere. If you were hoping for smut… I’m sorry, but it’s not where my brain went.Also, part of me was like, Fenris wouldn’t go along with this stupid plan. Andthe rest of me was like, Fenris married Hawke! Half of his life is just goingalong with stupid plans!

I couldn’t make this work with the timing of QVT, so we’regoing to pin this under multiverse theory, in a world in which Fenris and Hawkeskip the honeymoon, or maybe in which Lara manages to keep control over herapartment.

Read over on AO3

(QVT is a modern AU with a main pairing of  Solas x Lavellan and a side pairing of Fenris x Hawke)

~~

Hi Fenris! I receiveda package without a name on it, so I opened it. But… I don’t think it’s for me.Do you want to come get it?

That seemed normal enough, right? Lara’s thumb hovered overthe send button. Should she have offered to deliver it to him? No, that wouldonly make this so much worse. There wasn’t much she could do. The package wasopen, she couldn’t hide that she saw what was in it, so better just to pull thebandaid off and be done with it.

Maybe she should just leave it outside her door.

I am nearby right now.I will come take a look.

She couldn’t lock the door on the man who gave her a freeapartment.  So he liked wearing lingerie.Maybe he wasn’t shy about it. Lara could be mature about this. She waited,trying to find a natural position to sit in.

Fenris opened the door, swore to himself, shut it, thenknocked. He hadn’t been up since she moved in, and obviously wasn’t used toknocking on his own door. He blinked twice at her choice of wall decorations—plasticsheets covered in equations—and asked for the package.

“It’s over on thecounter,” she said, waving toward his old kitchenette. “I’ll just um, I’ll just…yeah.”

She tried to pretend she wasn’t watching him examine theshipping label. His brows furrowed, and he pulled out the offending products.

“I did not order these.”

Two garter belts hung from his fingers, soft lace danglingin the air. The matching stockings were still in their plastic wrap.

“Well I didn’t.”She was met with his calm, skeptical face, and felt a whole-body blush seepingthrough her skin. “And if I had, I definitely wouldn’t invite you over to come…look through them.”

He placed the garments back into the package and pulled outthe receipt. “Perhaps someone purchased them for you. A gift.”

Her face burned even harder. She couldn’t even begin toconsider that Solas would do this. They weren’t even… they’d barely even started… She crossed her arms over herchest.

“And maybe Hawke purchased them for you.”

“Hawke wouldn’t—”

He paused. Lara narrowed her eyes at him, daring him tofinish that sentence. Hawke wouldn’t forget his address? Hawke wouldn’t forgetto leave a note? Hawke wouldn’t buy him lingerie? They both knew she would.

Fenris rubbed a hand over his face. “What size are they?”

Both of them now held a garter each, looking at the labels. “It’sjust numbers,” Lara said, “Doesn’t mean anything to me.”

It was the same with the stockings. As Lara tried not to admirethe seam on the back, she had to admit that the buyer had good taste. Please, please don’t be Solas.

Fenris pulled out his phone and started texting Hawke. Therewas no amount of money in the world that could tempt her to ask Solas if he hadbought her underwear. Well, actually there were many sums she would acceptbecause money was useful, men were plentiful and dignity was fleeting, but it wasunlikely Fenris had any money to speak of.

She held a stocking up toward him to gauge the length. Hehad at least five inches on her, and while she had never worn this stylebefore, it looked too long. Upon catching his glare, she brought her hand backdown. “Maybe you should… try it on. See if it fits.”

“Me?” Fenris looked pointedly at the stockings in her handand back at Lara.

They stared at each other for what felt like hours, waitingfor the other to back down. “We’ll both try them on,” Lara finally huffed.

“What?”

“One pair each. That way we both can feel like idiots.”

“So just another day then.”

“Exactly.”

Fenris took the bathroom and Lara went to her bedroom. Shewas absolutely not about to try to figure out how a garter worked, so she puton the shortest shorts she owned and got to work rolling up the stockings. Asshe suspected, they were way too long.

“Fenris,” she called, walking into the hallway, “These aren’t—Oh.”

Hawke was standing in her living room. She gave Lara a onceover, biting her lip and stroking her chin. “That… is not quite how I imaginedthem looking. Tell me, do your shorts happen to say ‘physics’ on the ass, orsome other delightful expression?”

A clatter from the bathroom saved Lara from having torespond. Hawke threw open the door, and Fenris tumbled out. Hawke caught himbefore he slipped across the floor. Lara knew she shouldn’t look, but fuck did Fenris look good, even if hehad chosen to put the garter on over his briefs and then promptly fallen on hisass before he could attach the stockings.

“How does anyone walk in these?” he grumbled.

“They don’t, mostly. Are you done giving Lara a show? I don’twant her getting any ideas.” Hawke glanced at Lara, who was unabashedlyenjoying the view. “Well, any more ideas.I have a hard time believing you werethe one to suggest putting on my lingerie for what I can only imagine was somesort of practical joke?”

“That is exactly what happened,” Lara said, pink from headto toe and still staring at Fenris’s thighs. “And we succeeded at the joke andit’s over now so I’m going to take these off.”

From inside her room and beyond the pounding of her heartwithin her ears, Lara heard Hawke say, “Happy honeymoon, husband. I didn’treally intend for these to be a ‘his and hers’ matching set but I can’t say Ihate it.”

Fenris’s response was muffled, and then Hawke was laughing. Larafolded up the stockings neatly, added the garter belt to the pile, gathered allthe courage and poise she had left, and entered the living room.  

“Enjoy your honeymoon,” she said, unable to meet Hawke’seyes.

She turned on her heel to flee, when Hawke exclaimed, “Meteor!Of course that’s what they say. Because your ass is out of this world.”

Lara slammed the door to her room. She was going to have toget new friends. She was never going to be able to look at Hawke again, she wasnever going to be able to wear these shorts again, and she was never, ever,going to forget Fenris’s legs.

[buttsonthebeach]

Two Moons

I had the distinct pleasure of doing a short scene commission for @dirthara-mama and GOD do I love Ayelet and Solas together! Thank you for the commission, dear friend <3

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions (Slots currently open for March/April!)

Pairing: Ayelet Lavellan x Solas

Rating: Explicit. Smutty times ahead!

***************

The disagreement was a small one over whether or not Brother Genitivi had been entirely fair in his discussion of Pride demons in Fade and Spirits Mysterious, but it was starting to gather steam before Ayelet took Solas by the hand and dragged him away from his desk and towards his bedroom. It was gathering enough steam that he did not properly realize what she was doing until they were already there.

“Yel,” he said as she pushed open the door that led to his sparse quarters. “I am serious. Genitivi completely misinterpreted the primary sources in the chapter in question. Pride demons are not any more likely to congregate around Circles because of the practice of Harrowing young mages. It is Chantry propaganda meant to pin the sin of pride entirely on mages and prop up the idea that mages must be broken before they can be trusted.”

He was trying for stern but it didn’t seem to be working, because they had only been intimate twice now, but he already knew what was in store, and his body already wanted to betray him. His skin was prickling as she pulled him along. He could not help but draw close to her, orient his body to her. She was a moon and he was the tide and he was beginning to think he didn’t have a choice in that matter.

Yel closed the door behind him. She took his face in her hands.

“I’ve seen the primary sources. He went a little astray, but the stories of Pride demons possessing mages in Circles are well documented. I don’t think it’s because mages are prideful, of course. Now kiss me.”

Solas wanted to resist her. This was supposed to be purely physical, and it had been, and for the relationship to remain that way, he needed to be cautious. He needed to be in control. He didn’t like that just the sight of her, the smell of her, had his body buzzing, the skin of his sex already prickling, his core already swelling with heat.

He didn’t like how widely he’d smiled when she approached his desk that afternoon with Gentivi’s book in hand, how much he anticipated their talks, how much he wondered about her when she wasn’t there.

He fisted his hand in her hair and he pressed her back against the door to his room and he kissed her, and he pushed all of it aside. Everything that wasn’t Ayelet Lavellan and her smooth warm skin and her hungry sounds and the strength in her body and in her mind.

She responded at once, and for a split second Solas started to think he might have been wrong. Maybe she was the tide, she was the one pulled along by him - the way she curled into him, wrapped her legs around him, let him lift her up - but then she was against the door, sitting up high, like he was her mount to ride, and she was tipping his head back and kissing him for all she was worth, and he knew he was melting into it. He held the backs of her thighs, her ass. He bit back a whimper when she slid her tongue along the seam of his lips, slipped past it. When she rubbed herself against him, legs spread wide, he couldn’t stop the whimper anymore.

“Think we can stay like this?” she asked when they broke for air, gasping. “Can you hold me up?”

He had not had her like this yet. Up against a door, half-clothed, in the middle of the day. The thought thrilled him, filled up his cock with pressure and need. It throbbed against his leggings. He rooted himself in his stance, drew on just enough magic to strengthen himself, and reached between them to fiddle at the laces of her pants. He was grateful she wasn’t in armor or some fancy frock devised by Leliana and Vivienne and Josephine. He was grateful for many things he hadn’t expected to be grateful for when he first woke from uthenera. Like the earthy smell of her, the wetness and warmth he could smooth between his fingers when he slipped them past her smalls, her gasp, the sound of her head thudding backwards against the door.

“Okay?” Solas asked, his voice strained. His shaft ached, pulsed, longed for the tightness his fingers now danced against.

“Fine,” Yel said. “Better with you inside me.”

Solas buried his face against her neck and his fingers in her cunt and she was still new to him, he was still learning how deep to go, how fast, what rhythm she liked. But this was ancient, too. This connection. The way everything dropped away.

Focus.

“Yes -”

The sharp and sibilant sound of the word, the slap of her palm against the door, the way her cunt fluttered around his fingers as he found the right spot to press on, the slickness of her - he could focus on all of that. All of these ancient, animal things, and none of the thoughts that plagued him when he caught sight of her across a room, or felt her hand brush his as they studied a map together.

“Kiss me again,” Yel said, and Solas obliged.

He lost himself in that kiss, in the fumbling that came after. Yel rode against his hand and he could not quite hold her there long enough to make her come, and they were making too much noise against the door, and this was not only supposed to be purely physical but a secret to boot. So they stumbled away, shedding clothes, and she was naked in his room, and that was a first. Not that this room meant much to him. It was a temporary home in a temporary world, and she was a temporary lover - that was the point.

And yet -

“Come here,” Yel said, impatient, spread out on his bed, legs wide, the lips of her sex dark and inviting, so inviting his cock got harder still, flexing, releasing. He had to resist the urge to cup himself as he stood there, looking at her. Yel narrowed her eyes. Her black curls were arrayed against his linen sheets and he had never seen something so beautiful.

Focus.

“Come here, or I’ll start explaining why you’re wrong about your theory of how necromancy is an unfair binding of spirits,” she said.

Solas was on her, and it was moon and tide all over again, because he came down to meet her at the same time that she rose up, breasts soft and warm against his chest, legs wrapped tight around him, nails raking down his back.

“I am not wrong,” he groused, pretending he was not reeling at her nearness, at his need. “Am I the arcane advisor here, or are you?”

“I am your Inquisitor,” Yel said, nipping at his neck, his shoulder, and if she already bore his mark was it not fair for him to bear hers? (Focus.) “I say what is right and what is wrong, don’t I?”

They were rocking, rubbing together, and with a little readjustment Solas could press himself inside her, but he did not want to rush this. He did not want it to be over yet.

Yel had other plans, evidently, because she flipped him over and settled herself onto his cock with a long, breathy sigh.

“Fuck,” he said, unable to prevent the blasphemy of such coarse language, even though Yel above him, riding him, was all that was holy in this world. He could not help but blaspheme. Not when she was so warm, so tight, so eager in her movements.

“Yes,” she breathed out, raising her arms above her head. “Touch me.”

He could not resist. He ran his hands over her, held her by the hips, helped her find the rhythm and angle she needed.

“So good,” she groaned. “You feel so good, Creators -”

He wanted to tell her that they had no place in a moment like this. He wanted to flip her back over and fuck her harder than she was fucking him. He wanted to exist only in this moment forever.

Yel grew even more urgent, more frantic, and he read her trembling correctly, moved his right hand to the ripe bud of her clit and rubbed it quickly, up and down, side to side, and Solas watched as Yel’s mouth dropped open and she came, rippling and hot and wet around him. A sound escaped him at the feeling, strangled and startled like he’d been knifed. It was that intense, being there with her, feeling her pleasure from the inside out, watching her shake and moan. His left hand dug into her thigh as she rode it out. He was trying to hold himself back, trying to prove this one last time that he had control, that he was the master of this situation. That seeing her open and vulnerable and beautiful in her release meant nothing.

“Your turn,” Yel said, breathless. “What do you need?”

Solas did not trust himself to speak. He showed her instead. Turned her over onto her back and pushed her legs back, spreading her wide, and buried himself in her. It was her turn to make a sound that was nearly pained, to scrunch her eyes up tight.

“Too deep?” he asked, withdrawing.

“No,” Yel said. “Keep going.”

“As my Inquisitor commands,” Solas said, allowing himself a smile.

Yel bucked her hips up and ran her nails down his arms.

“You’re such an ass,” she said. “Why do I keep you around, again?”

Why indeed?

Solas pushed that thought aside as he moved within her, slow at first, and then faster, because he was already so close, because this moment could never last forever anyway. Nothing lasted in the world that he had broken. So he let himself get lost, let himself stop pretending he was the one in control, and he moved faster and faster, felt himself get harder and harder and harder until he was so hard he could not stand it, until his release burst out of him, each wave so powerful it made him curl his toes, made him gasp for air.

His climax made him drop down to his elbows, his whole body pressed against Yel. She welcomed him again. Wrapped her arms around him and pulled him the rest of the way. It was the closest she had ever held him. It was the closest anyone had held him since uthenera. He could hardly believe the luxury of feeling so much skin against his own. He buried his face against her neck, half expecting her to draw away. There had not been tenderness between them before. But to his surprise, one of Yel’s hands traced a path up his spine and to the back of his head, and she cradled him there, and let out a soft sigh, her breath fanning against his skin and making his skin prickle.

They stayed like that a while. Solas could feel his heart slowing, and he could feel the pulse of her own, and this was another moment he did not want to end. But Yel remembered herself, and cleared her throat, and he obligingly shifted away from her and let her rise.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should get cleaned up. I have to meet with Josephine and discuss travel arrangements to Halamshiral. Thank you, though. This was just what my afternoon needed.”

There was something unusually stiff in her manner. Solas cleared his own throat.

“I am glad I could oblige you, then. You are sure all is well between us? I would understand if you had - changed your mind about our arrangements.”

Yel looked down quickly, then gave him a tight-lipped smile.

“Not at all. Although if you don’t admit that I was right about Genitivi’s interpretation - which, I have to stress again, is probably the first time he was ever right about anything - I will tell Josephine that I want you, Vivienne, and Dorian to all ride together to Halamshiral. We’ll draw lots as to who kills who first.”

Solas laughed, and just like that things were easy again. They were easy when Yel cleaned herself off and dressed and left, when he did the same. They were easy when he returned to his books, when he stood in the rotunda after everyone else had gone and studied the blank walls and wondered what fresco he would design to commemorate Halamshiral after they returned. They were easy when he reviewed his plan for making contact with several cells of agents sympathetic to his cause and larger plans.

But then that night he was lying there in his bed, remembering how it felt to be held by Ayelet Lavellan - how it felt to really hold her - and suddenly things were not easy at all.

[bigasswritingmagnet]

Commiseration, or, How Dare He?

Fandom: Dragon Age

Rating: T

Summary: Hawke and Cadash are as bitter about Varric not being a romance option as we are. Maybe more. 

AO3 link | Commissions 

“It's not fair,” Cadash whined into her pillow. Hawke, leaning against the bed with her legs sprawled before her, reached back awkwardly to pat the woman on the hand.

“I know,” she said, taking a long pull of wine. They’d started at the tavern, but there were so many people there, and the weight of their titles had made conversation difficult. Up in the tower, passing bottles back and forth, it was much easier to be Hawke and Cadash.

They had begun by commiserating over the stress that expectations can place on a person, on titles and stories that grow and grow, until you feel you are drowning in your own shadow. As the bottles emptied, however, this turned into good old fashioned drunken bitching about everything.

Politicians, Orlesians, Orlesian politicians, Cullen, the Chantry, the templars, the mages, Cullen again, bad ale, people asking you to make decisions for them and then getting mad about what you chose, then, inevitably, Varric.

Friendly, attractive, infuriatingly unavailable Varric.

“He's just so…” Cadash hesitated, trying to think for the right word through the drunken haze.

“Kind? Intelligent? Clever, compassionate, fun, loyal-”

“Hot.”

“Maker, tell me about it. Would it kill him to button his shirt? I know everyone jokes about the chest hair but it actually is extremely alluring.”

“I just want to touch it,” Cadash said, reaching out to grope at the air. “Just once.”

“That never goes away. You will always want that.” Hawke pushed the wine bottle into Cadash’s still-grasping hand. The dwarf arranged herself with difficulty into a somewhat-upright position and drank deeply.

“And his arms,” Hawke went on. “He gives the best hugs. Which are also the worst hugs.”

“The first time I saw him with his shirt off I thought I was going to die. How could you stand to be around him for seven years?”

“Because not having him around is worse than pining,” Hawke said, making a face.

“I'm not pining,” Cadash protested. “I’m lusting.”

Hawke made a noise of agreement.

“If I could just make out with him a little,” she said. “Just to get it out of my system.”

Cadash sighed wistfully.

“I bet he's an amazing kisser.” The dwarf snickered suddenly, drunkenly. “I bet he's good at lots of things, with that silver tongue.”

Hawke groaned loudly and put her hands over her face.

“Shit. You're right. You're absolutely right. Don’t say that, I can’t think about that. Maker, I hate him.”

“You wanna know what one of the first things he ever said to me was?” Cadash slithered off the bed and onto the floor, meeting Hawke’s eyes with a frantic look. “So, so I just met him, right, him and Solas and Cassandra and we’re all on the mountain. And he guesses that I’m in the Carta, right? And I tell him he has a good eye, and Cassandra says something about him having a big mouth and he says, he says…”

“Just tell me and get it over with,” Hawke said, bracing herself. “I know it’ll be terrible.”

“And clever hands.”

Hawke tumbled over sideways and collapsed on the floor.

“That’s not fair,” she said, practically wailing.

“I know!” Cadash exclaimed, waving her hands and sending a good portion of the wine splattering over the very expensive carpet. “And I’m just standing there, next to this extremely attractive man who is basically telling me he could introduce me to the Maker with one hand--”

Hawke choked and started to laugh the breathless, wheezing laughter of the truly drunk.

“--ten minutes after he more or less says he’s married to his crossbow and I’m supposed to just let that go and go deal with the giant hole in the sky instead? How is that fair? Where’s the justice?”

“Would you just--” Hawke tried to get out between giggles. “Just drag him behind a tree, with Cass-Cassandra and Solas standing there?”

“Yes!” Cadash said, with such fervor that it set Hawke howling again. “I would have made them stand there and wait. I would absolutely do it! I wouldn’t even hesitate. If he came-- If he came up those stairs right now, I would kick you off the balcony.”

“I,” Hawke announced, “would fuck Varric Tethras in the middle of the qunari compound. While it was still full of qunari.”

“I would fuck Varric Tethras in the square at Val Royeaux.”

“I’d fuck him in the deep roads.”

“I’d let him fuck my deep roads,” Cadash countered, which set them both off. When they got themselves under control, they were laying side by side, staring up at the high stone ceiling.

“Do you think he knows he’s doing it?” Cadash asked, because if anyone was going to know, it was Hawke.

“I don’t think he’s deliberately trying to torment us, no,” Hawke said. “But the bastard definitely knows how attractive he is.”

“How uncomfortable do you think this conversation would make him?”

“I think I’d rather not find out, if it’s all the same to you.”

Cadash hummed in agreement, and the two women lapsed into miserable silence, lost in private thoughts. If Varric did know how they felt, he might even feel guilty. He would certainly change his behavior, if only to make them suffer less. As frustrating as he could be, neither woman wanted their friendship with Varric to change.

Hard enough to want someone you couldn’t have; it was even harder when he was a friend you couldn’t bear to lose.

“His voice, though,” Hawke said suddenly.

“Ugh, I know. It’s like his voice is having sex with my ears.”

Hawke laughed, scrunching up her face.

“Ewwww.”

“Shut up! Shut up, you know exactly what I mean.”

“The first time I met Varric, he stopped a pickpocket who stole my coin purse. Pinned him to a wall with an arrow--” She mimed firing a crossbow, squinting one eye closed. “He gets my purse back and punches the guy and sends him running off. He walks over to me and Bethany, twirling the crossbow bolt like a bloody stage performer, and says” She affected a ridiculous, gravely voice, a poor imitation of Varric’s pleasing baritone. “Varric Tethras, at your service.”

“That bastard,” Cadash breathed.

“So bloody suave,” Hawke groused. “Then he has the gall to propose an entirely platonic business partnership.”

“Downright cruel. It should be illegal to be that charming.”

“You know what else is cruel?”

“The cold, unfeeling universe?” Cadash suggested. Hawke held up the wine bottle.

“We’re out of alcohol.”

“Shit. That is cruel.” She groaned. “And if we wanted more, we’d have to go downstairs--”

“--and walk past Varric,” Hawke finished for her. Her eyes narrowed. “And listen to him make his jokes. With his voice. And his face. And his shirt.”

“I hate that fucking shirt.”

“We should burn it.”

“Then he’d be shirtless. That’s even worse.”

“Hmm. True. So now what do we do?”

Cadash thought about this, drumming her fingers on the stone floor.

“We could have sex?”

Hawke considered this for a moment.

“Sure, why not?”

“Do you think Varric does threesomes?”

Walking past the door to the Inquisitor’s chambers, Varric heard the faint echo of pealing laughter, and wondered briefly what the two women found so very funny. He shook his head. Probably best if he didn’t know.

[cicide76536]

Fenris, Anders,

OHH! Let’s do Fenris first!Favorite thing about them: h i s  v o i c e like HONEY have you heard it? Gideon gives Fenris life holy hell and uh, fisting? can I say thatLeast favorite thing about them: Well uh... nothing? I understand his opinions about mages and the bitterness and.. his drinking...?? I don’t remember canon anymore I live in fanfics and headcanons omg but tbh I can’t come up with my least favorite thing about them ! Favorite line: Fish, fish, more fish- PlAugGh!brOPT: Fenris/Sebastian and Fenris/Isabela? They are best buddies! OPT: ok it’s like everybody knows already but Anders/Fenris. Sometimess add Garrett or Bela in ! But Fenders is my jam.nOPT: Fenris/Danarius because fuck you.random headcanon: Fenris takes long bubble baths in his mansion while drinking wine and trying to read some poetry.unpopular opinion: This question somewhat scares me but uh xD I think Fenris enjoys Merrill’s company. He doesn’t like her being a bloodmage and is sometimes loud about it but Merrill gives him some comfort and sweetness - no one can hate Merrill, not even Fenris. Once Merrill made Fenris a flowercrown and even though Fenris scowled at her he still kept it and still has it even tho it’s ... pretty dry. I like to think it that way and therefore I think Fenris still enjoyed Merrill’s company, but not visibly.song i associate with them: LORN - The Gun because Bright lights, cold screensSo man must know what I meanOld wars, bad dreamsStarlights must lead where they layNew scars, dumb genesMy lady loves looking down at meNew name, no meaningStill looking for the same old feelingfavorite picture of them: There are too many!! But the one drawn picture where he laughs and holds his stomach. I don’t seem to find it but it’s my favorite!!OH and now Anders!Favoritething about them: OH GOD His passion for mage rights and how romantic he is!! Least favorite thing about them: I don’t knowFavorite line: [Nat saying You don’t always wear robes, do you?] Not when I’m naked I don’t.brOPT: WELL Isabela/Anders again! Best buddies!!!!! And Ariana/Anders too!OPT: Fenders SURPRISE!nOPT: Ummm..... Anders/Cullen is something I can never really see eye-to-eye with.random headcanon: This is modern AU But Anders works as a doctor and he has a special bag of cat stickers. Every time a child comes to his treatments he always lets them choose a cat sticker as a reward and he is happy but also a bit sad because some of his favorite stickers are gone xD He sticks some of his favorites on his laptop or wall or somewhere and if his patients draw him cat pictures he always pins them on his wall or somewhere and is really grateful for them.song i associate with them: Apulanta - Vasten mun kasvojaniI’m sure there’s a good translation for this song but it’s just.... it’s just Anders and his mage rights. You can ask me for some bad translation tho if you want!favorite picture of them: THE ONE IN THE POST WHERE THERE’S ALSO MORRIGAN AND SOLAS, And Anders stares at you and there’s orange background and his eyes are shimmering and I CAN’T FIND IT BUT IT’S AMAZING!!!!