#gaadha mahariel

[atypicalacademic]

Thank you for the tag, @cumbiazevran ily!! Making my DA canon OCs in this picrew! Warden(s), Hawke and Inquisitor.

Rahvi Brosca, Gaadha Mahariel, Milena Hawke and Narein Cadash

Tagging @greyvvardenfell @ollifree and @wild-houseplant if you'd like !

[cumbiazevran]

I realised there’s nothing stopping me from talking about my blorbos tbh, so have some Blorbo facts

Juno Mahariel

Their mabari’s name is Vir Sulavenin

You know how DA:O has phylacteries and puzzles and stuff that sets you on fire for no reason, which seems deadlier than in the other games? Juno activates them all.

I mean all.

Mama Mahariel asked to name them Juno, of June, so they’d be Clever and full of Resources. turns out that also means that if they realise something looks like a mechanism, they’ll find a way to activate it. Imagine you’re a random warden and see the Warden-Commander walk to a stone in the wall that looks a bit misplaced and now there’s a revenant, a demon and who knows what other shit around. I’d quit.

Youngest of the Mahariel siblings (Eravan, the eldest, and Gaadha, their twin, belong to @atypicalacademic​)

Besties with Morrigan, whom they call the worst text replier in the universe, and Alistair, as in the King of Ferelden and the Warden-Commander are seen having a sleep over in a blanket fort and you wish you were invited

Besties and loved ones call them Juniper

Their greatest fear is being forgotten

Favourite food is walnut pie. Will stop paying attention to whatever you’re saying if there’s an unattended slice near them

Everything they said wouldn’t happen with Zevran happened. Zev starts flirting with them, they say this is not the time For That? Does That. Says won’t fall in love with Zevran? hey, hey guess what happened. guess what fucking happened.

Also romances (Kani’s again) Sahi Tabris and homevoid here isn’t very good at flirting. Got increasingly frustrated at being unable to express a crush that they were sure was reciprocated, told Sahi they were going to kiss them, and with shaking hands they grabbed his shoulders and slammed them so hard against the nearest tree, leaned in just as ungracefully and accidentally broke Sahi’s nose. Wynne had to heal them.

No one has let them live it down.

 Btw no one understand them like Sahi understand them, in their opinion.

In their worldstate, it’s Gaadha the one who finds the cure, and the warden arcane investigators the one who perfect it. Juno allows their wardens to take it at first signs of the Calling if they want to call it quits but Juno does not. Will not.

Juno is one of those people who is, actually, afraid of everything. While they work on it in time, people don’t realise how insanely anxious they are because they come across almost as authoritative. They have no idea they sound like this. They have zero understanding of why people listen to them and trust them in the first place. Hates that they’re the one who has to go get it done, but they’ll go get it done.

And you see, Juno has two things in this world. 1. Raging abandonment issues from their parents dying, Eravan being transferred clans, the years of sheer denial that Eravan or their parents weren’t coming back despite they damn well knew; all which gave them these underlying fear of being forgotten; 2. Not a goddamn clue why or how are they alive. In their hands is their own beating like a hammer as they try to ask everyone they know why are they alive, can someone please tell them why? They shouldn’t be alive because how many times a person can really cheat death?

Being a Warden gave them a purpose and a duty, while confirming something Juno has always known. They’re dead without dying. Their life won’t be half lived or less enjoyed because they are, but they are.

Decay exists as an extant form of life or something.

And yes that means they grow into those Wardens who are almost more ghoul-spawn than person. Hungering and humming a tune no one recognises. Hard as the Legion or Hard as a Hurlock? hard to tell. Steps in rhythm with every Warden around them. Literally has the same nightmares as Alistair. Always anticipates their recruits because it’s almost like the Warden Commander has a hive mind. It’s like seeing someone go from rabbit (about to pass out at the next unexpected noise) to jackrabbit (you run into one in the middle of the night. eyes refract light. this animal has seen beyond your skull and into the darkness in ways you will never comprehend. has heard your heartbeat and will make you hear it too, despite being the silliest creature you’ve ever seen)

I am convinced that if it weren’t for Sahi, who has no interest in dying a Warden’s death, Zevran would’ve followed them to the deep roads, despite Juno trying to prevent that. 

Corypheus would’ve lasted like 5 minutes with this bastard. Sure they look like they’re about to start crying at any moment. they might. they’re practising for the funeral. Whose? The moment you see the Crossbow come out you’ll understand they mean yours.

Not even all the abandonment issues has fucked them up like the Architect did, however

Funniest thing they’ve ever done is recruiting Nathaniel, because again, imagine someone who looks in a perpetually anxious grimace speak to you in the most surefooted, authoritative tone you’ve ever heard. Sorry for you loss, guy tried to kill us and you’re a rich kid talking to an elf my guy. Anyway you have a juice appt at 9, see you later.

No one knows with what pronouns to address them when they meet them which results in stuff like them having told Sten their gender is Hunter after several tries.

Voted most likely to accidentally hack a confidential government site.

[atypicalacademic]

I know too many elegies. I want to bury noone else.

Warden-Commander Gaadha Mahariel, Hero of Denerim, storyteller of Clan Sabrae, brought to life in this gorgeous sketch by @ghostwise, down to her beautiful hair, to the melancholy in her golden eyes ❤️

[atypicalacademic]

Warden-Commander Gaadha Mahariel deserves the nicest things, for Once. (dollmaker)

[atypicalacademic]

Canon Worldstate: A Hundred Songs Of Valor

Hero of Ferelden: Rahvi Brosca

Hero of Denerim: Gaadha Mahariel

Champion of Kirkwall: Milena Hawke

The Inquisitor: "Deshyr" Narein Cadash

(picrew)

[atypicalacademic]

46. shimmer

"Can we stop here?"

Pressing a kiss of assent to Gaadha's cheek, Leliana eased her grip around her waist, letting Gaadha lower herself to the side of the small stream running across this corner of the Emerald Graves, quiet save for it's pleasant, watery hum, and the birdsong Gaadha told her heralded the start of spring.

Spring, already. A crescent moon cast it's sideways-smile, scattered starlight that danced between the leaves, shimmering silver and blue over the sparkling waters. There was but a smudge of green amidst the stars, a fast-vanishing vestige of what had once been the Breach. Leliana felt it's echo in her own heart, and the way it sealed itself shut anew as Gaadha tilted her head, just so, to lower her lashes, her golden eyes a sunrise all on their own.

She looked tired, winded already from the short walk, but she was smiling too, shifting her legs beneath the water to splash cold against Leliana's calf. This was good. It was better than yesterday.

What had taken the Blight's taint from Gaadha's blood had stolen much of her strength with it; a long walk would exhaust her for hours, and her old swiftness, the way she wove through the trees as though she danced with the wind- was all but gone. At times she would grow frustrated at it, at herself, tearing herself apart so she could find the last trace of the hunter's ferocity with which she'd once fought the Blight. At times, the weariness grew so much that it wore the face of despair, leaving her weeping in Leliana's arms until she could find the solace of sleep.

But Gaadha had always cradled loss as the hand of an old friend, and she held this too, this grief for the Warden she once had been, whispering gently to it until she knew it's name and all that it had loved and lost, until she could weave it into song, until she could love it too. And so tonight, she was smiling.

How could she be surprised? It was hardly the first time that her love had treaded so softly, yet so certainly the beaten path of recovery, turned to tender hope the ragged calluses of grief, turned to life the mark of death itself, to peace the open wounds of war.

Gaadha was the surety that spring would sleep beneath the earth and still open tentative eyes, soft, unfurling leaves, scatter rain like music upon earth that needed it, needed her.

When the thread of her thoughts were scattered by another splash of water, and Leliana made to return Gaadha's mischief with her own, Gaadha cut her off with a delighted gasp, throwing her arms around Leliana's neck and pressing her lips against hers.

"Distraction, my love?"

Gaadha shook her head, her hands cupping Leliana's face.

"Vhenan," She was beaming, bright as though it was her that wore the stars as adornment. "Vhenan, you're singing again."

Oh.

[atypicalacademic]

The Hero of Ferelden and Hero of Denerim said sapphic rights 😌 (picrew)

[atypicalacademic]

Divine Victoria dances with her Dalish wife.

[atypicalacademic]

Of Her Kind

Dragon Age

Words: 570

Rahvi Brosca x Gaadha Mahariel x Leliana (like, in the background)

Warnings: references to alcohol, violence, physical abuse, starvation.

*

The rusted gates swung with a glower of the guards’ eyes- averted now, begrudgingly, when Rahvi threw an answering glance over her shoulder. Cracked-tile gave way to raw rock, and the jagged craters lining the sides of the streets like her scars lined Ravhi’s skin. A young woman, face done-up and hair braided, scurried out of one of the moss-eaten ruins, her faux-silk skirts pitched up just as Rica had once held hers in the vain hope it wouldn’t trail the dust.

She nearly dropped them when she froze, catching Rahvi’s gaze, calculating the weight of her coin-purse and the strength of her armor, the familiar grey eye that stared back at her, opening and closing her mouth with a muted nod of part-apology, part-recognition, before she hurried away.

The rest were hiding, she knew, hiding as they did when the Commons were a-stir, when the nobles’ frustration spilled from the Quarter to the streets and they took to Dust Town for a punching-bag alive enough to wail, sick enough to die without fighting back.

She’d almost forgotten what hunger smelt like.

She shifted the weight of the eyes on her back, dragging her feet with enough noise so they knew they could show if they wanted, hide if they needed. Fresh blood-splatters marred the writing on the dilapidated walls, the same cry for uprising she’d ignored ‘til it boiled inside of her at the Proving that began and ended everything.

For it had a smell- empty bile and fevered flesh, lichen hacked up from stomachs too burnt to hold it, a cloud of warmth as quietly familiar as her mother’s hot tears and her liquor-soaked breath, sooty fingers pressing black trails down Rahvi’s bruised cheek as she rubbed, and rubbed, and-

It was her mother’s scent, and her own behind her armor, her sister’s beneath her silk, Leske’s behind his quicksilver smile, deeper than blood and sweat and tears and time.

(And Ancestors, she’d known, as she’d tried to drown it in ale and blood and someone else’s mouth on hers. Too late, as it’d seeped into her when she was born, as whole and heavy as the rune branded into her bronze skin and the cleaved socket behind her eyepatch.)

And now it’d taken her as any sickness would, hadn’t it? The kind that made her want to turn around and hack at the Commons with her maul until the stone shattered, until their bones shattered, until every golden rock framing every Paragon salted the earth beneath her feet, gold good enough to make up for her full belly and her scavenged armor that still gleamed and the maul she’d bought with coin ripped off the pockets of looters, still worth a month’s wage that Beraht spared her, that Jarvia had her kneeling and bleeding like a surfacer's war-hound for.

If this was what knowing better felt like, she didn’t sodding ask for it.

Leliana’s eyes followed the brand patterned on to the skin of a beggar- fainted or dead, crushed beneath someone else's boot over the piss-sodden, vomit-soaked stone, all the way to the one against Rahvi’s bronze skin. Gaadha’s gloved fingers brushed against her clenched fists, curling gently around her wrist.

But it was Alistair who spoke, cutting through the silence.

“So this place is..”

His voice was soft, gentled with understanding, and the uptick of a question didn’t ask for an answer.

By the Stone, she’d say it anyway.

“Home.”

[atypicalacademic]

Codex Entry: Gaadha Mahariel

Loose paper tracked through the mud, left behind in the wilderness of the Hinterlands, by the dying embers of an abandoned fire-

Quiet, always the quiet. I lay beside Merrill last night, and my mind wanders. Wanders, I think of what I would write when she leaves me too, and I missed her, missed them all, so much that I woke her up with my weeping. I want it to be morning so I could sing with the birds. I can’t bear the silence.

*

Found a cove by the riverside, all nettled and beautiful. White flowers, healing, it’d do us well to stock them. I made a chain for myself, for Fenarel too, and the sun rose while we fished. I went with Terron, told him how I feel as though there’s a river in my chest, and I’m losing grip in the current. I don’t want to drown, there in the quiet, in the dark.

Terron did not laugh. He gave me his hand, told me to hold on tight. That way the river wouldn’t sweep me away.

*

Falon’din guide me, lest I forget, burn me true, for I am what is left of the ashes you bear. Falon’din walk me through, for the sky weighs heavy, and I am so afraid.

*

There’s talk of a Blight. Juno worries for me, that I don’t laugh as much anymore. They want to know what it is I’ve been carrying alone. They’re gentle when they ask, wanting to help. I asked them if they’d listen, and they did, they told me it would not reach this far. In my dreams I’ve buried Mother a million times. I know too many elegies. I want to bury no one else.

*

Hahren Paivel tells me to be careful, to put it out of my mind if I can’t bear it. He must know I can’t. Where do I put it? What becomes of me when I do?

*

Mythal’enaste, to this song in my breath. Long as I carry it well, I will never be alone again.

@ollifree and @cumbiazevran thank u for cousins 😘

[atypicalacademic]

Made Eravan Mahariel aka Dalish Dionysus on the Inquisition engine to look at his pretty face 😌

[atypicalacademic]

🌹!

OWO 😘

"And I was wrong, wasn't I? Again. I believed the tales." Gaadha's eyes stung, a tell-tale flame that rattled her heart. "I hoped too much, and I hoped that that was enough. I thought love-" The tears fell freely now, and she allowed them, herself, that much. "I thought love would last forever."

[atypicalacademic]

A Song Stuck In Their Head

@aria-i-adagio thanks for the tag 💞

Pick a song that fits your OC's headspace, but think less about lyrics and more about sound. What gets at their general mood without words.

I have way too many OCs but I'll pick my Main Canon DA ones 👉👉

Rahvi Brosca

Gaadha Mahariel

Milena Hawke

Narein Cadash

Jievan Barkhius

If you'd like, @sunrisenfool @into-the-daniverse @dani-dont @ollifree @greyvvardenfell @asras3rdeye you like musics 👀

[atypicalacademic]

Heroes of Thedas;

Rahvi Brosca, Gaadha Mahariel, Milena Hawke, Narein Cadash

picrew

[atypicalacademic]

Eravan Mahariel, elder brother to Gaadha Mahariel. He's four years older than Gaadha, and a mage. When his magic manifested he was chosen as the Keeper's First to a clan in the Free Marches, where he remains to this day. Gaadha and him were very close to each other, so even if the two see each other over Arlathvhen, his departure had struck her hard as one of her earliest memories. He married a city elf, Savannah Mervas, from the Wycome Alienage, and the pair have a daughter, Kurinji, Gaadha's beloved niece. He couldn't be prouder of his sister, and he couldn't be more worried.

Picrew

[atypicalacademic]

In Kani's canon worldstate, everyone survives their origin, warden or no.

Picrew

From the top;

Rahvi Brosca - Hero of Ferelden, Founding Paragon of House Brosca of Orzammar. Though she gave up her life taking the killing blow to the archdemon, her people, by the Legion of Fire, and her lovers, Gaadha and Leliana (Divine Victoria), immortalize her in both song and history. (Ok she doesn't survive The Blight soz)

Gaadha Mahariel- Hero of Denerim, former Warden-Commander of Ferelden, Dalish Ambassador to Marquise Briala. (both Rahvi and Gaadha were wardens of the fifth blight.)

Sahi Tabris- High Chancellor of Ferelden

Aurelia Cousland- Right Hand of the Divine

Leonard Cousland- Teyrn of Highever

Tarannum Surana- Teyrna of Gwaren

Tatiana Amell- "Witch of the Waking Sea" (no that's not a courtly title but wouldn't you rather be an urban legend too)*

Vijaya Aeducan- Deshyr of Val Royeaux, Princess of Orzammar

Varshini Aeducan - Owner of the famed Paragon's Palaquin in Llomerryn, liasion to the surface for merchants of Kal-Sharok

*(Tatiana's older sister Claudia stayed in the Gallows and then the Circle of Montsimmard, instead of coming to Ferelden.)