#harea lavellan

[spindleweedss]

4 and 9 for Harea for the pride asks!

Thank you!!

pride asks

4. Is your oc's environment supportive about their identity? How does this impact them? Clan Lavellan very much allows Harea to express her identity in ways that are meaningful to her - so long as it doesn't affect the survival of the community. She is free to incorporate traditionally masculine elements into the way she styles her hair, and there is no expectation of her having children of her own, as she contributes in other ways.

In the Inquisition, however, she struggles with the fact that most people don't understand the way she presents herself enough to truly support her. She is seen as a Dalish Woman, rather than the Dalish Masc-of-Center Queer Woman she presents as. This lack of recognition for her identity makes the first months of working with the Inquisition all the more lonely. (It does get better, eventually, especially if Merrill shows up at Skyhold)

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it? I like to think that the Dalish have an understanding of gender that makes room for nonbinary and gender non-conforming individuals, and Harea has grown up with that worldview. Growing up, it helped her find a gender expression that feels like her.

[shift-shaping]

🌤️Share your favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP.

:D

From the most recent update/chapter of raven:

"No," Harea said firmly. She put one arm around Enaste's shoulder and pulled her close, frowning at her bonded. "The only person I trust to deliver Harea the Second is Noodle the First."

[gaychocolatehomicide]

Impulse Control Asleep, Post Drafts

I'm trying to post more/more regularly so here's a draft of a thing that I feel confident enough about to put it here. I'm putting a more extensive summary directly under the cut, but tl;dr it's a Meet the Protagonists piece.

Word Count: 7059

Current title is Not Alone, from Apotheosis 1:8

So Andraste said to her followers: "You who stand before the gates, \ You who have followed me into the heart of evil, \ The fear of death is in your eyes; its hand is upon your throat. \ Raise your voices to the heavens! Remember: \ Not alone do we stand on the field of battle.

Excerpt that will probably go in the summary when I post it:

Even though he knows Harea cannot have survived the explosion of the temple, Rogelan stays where he is. He would rather let the approaching humans capture him than risk any more harm coming to his cousin. She and Isene have been his to protect since before any of them had their vallaslin. His heart grieves, even as his mind shrinks from understanding the destruction that surrounds him.

Then Harea breathes.

The more extensive summary is as follows: I want to establish the immediate canon divergence that happens with my three inkys playthrough, and how the three of them play off each other at least a little bit. It is, I will admit, a little Rogelan focused. And Harea is by herself when she's conscious, but really her role in the first 1/3 of the storyline is "soft thing to be protected" rather than an actor in her own story, so I think I can be forgiven for it.

The things I'm most wobbly on (and would therefore deeply appreciate critique/suggestions regarding) are the battle in Ise's section and (minor spoiler) Andraste's characterization in Harea's. I will love you forever, please tell me your opinion on how well those two things play.

Anyway

__________

Rogelan comes to consciousness with his arms wrapped around his cousin's shoulders, and for a moment he thinks it's all been a dream. The shem conclave, the shouts for help, the explosion. The running, seemingly endless running through a nightmare landscape, hounded all the way by humans with pitchforks or sword-emblazoned armor. He feels the sun on his back and the heat of a fire near at hand, and Harea curled up under his arm for warmth or protection from her bad dreams, and he imagines himself safe at home with the clan. 

Then he opens his eyes. 

The many small fires nearby produce oily black smoke, and the sky is a sickening fade green. All around him lies what is left of the shattered Temple of Sacred Ashes. A troop of nervous shems with their swords out are approaching, looking battered and shaken. Dangerous. Like they're hunting an excuse, or perhaps a scapegoat. He looks about for his sister, but he sees only blasted corpses. None of this, however, is as awful as what he holds in his arms. 

Harea's body is blackened and charred by fire. Rogelan's first instinct is to leap away, horrified, and perhaps retch up the contents of his stomach. He stops himself just in time, terrified that she will collapse into dust and embers if he takes the support of his arms from her. The delicate features of her face are nearly unrecognizable. It is only lifelong companionship that tells him the thing he's holding was once his cousin. Nothing moves for an eternity of seconds. 

A crackle of green energy pops and shudders between their bodies, somewhere in the vicinity of where Harea's left hand ought to be. Rogelan stares, completely at a loss for what else to do. He doesn't know how he's managed to come through whatever has just happened alive and largely unhurt, but it seems that he is the only one. The squad of shems is getting closer. If he doesn't move soon, they'll be on him before he has a chance to defend himself. If he does move, he risks Harea disintegrating. Even though he knows she cannot be alive, Rogelan would rather let himself be taken by the humans than let her fall apart. She and Isene have been his to protect since before any of them had their vallaslin. His heart grieves, even as his mind shrinks from understanding the destruction that surrounds him. 

Then Harea breathes. It is an abrupt, shuddering gasp—the inhale of a person surfacing after a long dive beneath the surface of a lake. Flakes of charred skin shake loose and flutter to the black ground with every tiny movement. Rogelan barely has time to process this development before the unique green-and-gold shimmer of Harea's magic swirls out from that odd crackling vent in her hand, curling its healing tendrils up and around the two of them. He finds what minor scrapes and bruises he has managed to acquire disappearing beneath the gentle, probing light. 

Rogelan watches the magic, which is blended oddly with the black-green light of the fade and with another radiant sun-bright energy that he doesn't recognize. It surges in great pulses now, enveloping Harea and forcing Rogelan to take a few steps away despite his resolution to support her. He raises his hand to shield his eyes from the suddenly blinding light, which leaves the silhouette of a woman wreathed in flame seared onto his corneas in the heartbeat between realizing he needs to look away and doing so. An armored hand comes down on his shoulder, steadying him when he stumbles over a lump of something he doesn't want to identify. 

He twists round and finds a human only a few inches shorter than himself, with curly hair and a concerned expression. Of the shems within easy reach, he's the only one whose sword is sheathed. The hand he doesn't have on Rogelan’s shoulder is similarly raised to protect his vision, but his attention is on the severe-looking woman whose armor announces her as a Seeker of Truth—to Rogelan’s understanding, a sort of super-templar tasked with apprehending dangerous rogue mages and lyrium-mad runaways from the ranks of the Order. He's met two or three of them over the years, hunting the same quarry. They don't make him feel easy, but knowing one is around removes some of the defensive terror from his immediate sense of panic. At least there will be someone in authority to reason with. 

The light subsides after no more than ten rabbit-fast heartbeats. Rogelan drops his hand immediately, unsure what he's expecting to see. Whatever he’s expecting, it isn't what he finds. Harea, looking completely uninjured but for the strange crackling thing in the palm of her left hand, stands shakily where her charred corpse had been just moments ago. The light which had engulfed her now shines, like dawn on a snowy morning, from her eyes. She looks at the Seeker, who has her shield up but is making no threatening movements just yet. In a voice so unlike her own that Rogelan has trouble believing it's coming from her throat, Harea speaks. 

“Be not afraid, truth seeker most valiant / what has been forgotten has not yet been lost. / The Maker’s song-weaver, from silence unending / stands now before you, mantled in light. / Greet this, my champion, guide her and keep her / for darkness is coming to cloak all with night.” 

Whatever this is, it isn't Rogelan’s cousin. He can sense the power rippling off of it like heat from an open forge, and he can see its words striking the Seeker like a smith’s hammer. Most of the other shems are blasted back by the sheer force of this thing's presence. Then the creature turns its flaming gaze on Rogelan, and he feels the weight of its attention. He can't look away. It monopolizes his focus in a way he has never experienced before; the nervous shem soldiers with their swords out stop mattering. So do the smoldering ruins of the temple, the warbling rent in the sky overhead, and the gnawing terror of not knowing where Isene is. Nothing matters, suddenly, except hearing what this entity has to say to him.

“Protection incarnate, hear truth and heed it: / souls beyond number cry out for your aid. / The weightiest matters, for leadership lacking, / fall on the foolish and ruin is wrought. / Gifts of the elf-gods, your sword arm and shield / in righteous defense of your duty upheld / now called by their Makers, to battle unbroken: / Stand for your People and save all the world.” 

The light abruptly leaves Harea’s eyes as soon as she finishes speaking, and she crumples to the ground. Rogelan breaks out of the shem soldier’s grip and rushes to her side. He pulls her into a half-sitting position against his chest and frantically checks for a pulse. When he finds it, he finally lets himself breathe. She's alive. Whatever else is going on, whatever that thing was that used her body to deliver its… prophecy? None of it is important. As long as she's alive, he hasn’t failed completely. 

“What… was that?” The Seeker demands, as if Rogelan is supposed to know. 

Before he can respond, a wall of fire goes up between the Seeker and the two elves on the ground, effectively ringing Rogelan and Harea with roaring flames. The fire flickers blue-green at the edges, and another ten-halla weight lifts off Rogelan’s chest. He holds a hand up, though he doubts it can be seen above the magical fire, and shouts in Elvhen. “Isene! It's alright, stand down.”

The flames give a surprised flutter, then burn low and go out. The assembled soldiers have parted to give their Seeker a clear line of sight to the unfamiliar mage, inadvertently making a gap for Rogelan to see his sister half-crouched atop a chunk of tumbled masonry with her staff raised. He slips an arm under Harea’s knees and stands up, carrying her with the ease of long practice. The Seeker has her shield up again and is glowing faintly with holy light, presumably prepared to throw down a Spell Purge to clear the fire and then charge. She seems nonplussed by the sudden deescalation. 

“You're alive!” Ise leaps down from her perch, slings her staff into its clasps at her back, and crosses the distance between them in almost the same motion. All the shems take an instinctive step further away, with the exception of the Seeker and the man who’d arrested Rogelan’s earlier stumble. “Is Harea okay?” Isene sounds almost as panicked as Rogelan felt just moments ago. 

“She's fine,” he assures her in the common tongue. “I don't know how, but we both are. She just needs to rest.” More quietly, and in the language he hopes no one else present speaks, he adds, “We’ll talk about it in private.”

Ise looks like she has about a million questions, but she just nods. On closer inspection, Rogelan can see that her clothes are torn and signed, her face is bruised, and there are angry scrapes on both her arms. She's also favoring her right leg, though she's doing a decent job of hiding it. Wherever she was when the explosion happened, she wasn't entirely spared its effects.

The Seeker breaks in before Rogelan can ask after Ise’s injuries. “You are all under arrest,” she announces, “on suspicion of involvement in this.” 

“You think we had-” Ise flares, but Rogelan kicks her surreptitiously in the ankle. 

“We understand your suspicion,” he says over her immediate protest. “We’ll come quietly; we don't want any trouble.”

The Seeker eyes Ise’s staff and the leaf-shaped elven long blade still at Rogelan’s hip. “Drop your weapons and follow me.”

“Of course,” Rogelan agrees peaceably. “My hands are a bit full at the moment, but I won't stop one of your soldiers from taking my sword.”

“You can't be serious,” Isene hisses in his ear. “These shems will string us up as scapegoats the moment we let them disarm us!”

“If we don't do as they say,” he murmurs back, keeping his eyes on the Seeker, “they'll kill us right here. I recognize this one's armor. We may have a chance to negotiate, but not if you start lighting people on fire. I can't fight and protect Harea at the same time.” 

She grinds her teeth, amber eyes shifting nervously from soldier to soldier, clearly calculating whether she thinks she could take them all on alone. After a tense moment, Isene arrives at the same conclusion Rogelan came to. It's too risky. She makes a frustrated sound and unslings her staff. When the Seeker holds out a hand, Ise puts her weapon in it. The man who caught Rogelan earlier approaches and unhooks the scabbard from his belt. He brings it to the Seeker, who tucks it under her arm. 

“Thank you, Cullen. Go meet Leliana at the forward camp and tell her what we found here. I will take them back to Haven.” 

“Alright. Send us as many men as you can spare.” The soldier, Cullen apparently, snaps off a salute and jogs back towards the rim of the crater. At a hand signal from the Seeker, the remaining troops form up around Rogelan and his family, and they all follow at a slower pace, accommodating Ise’s limp and Rogelan's unconscious burden. Harea doesn't weigh enough to slow him down, but he's content to let the shemlen take as long as possible to get wherever they're going. His mind races. 

He has a duty to protect the two mages he brought to this place, and Fen’Harel himself couldn't stop Rogelan from fulfilling that duty. He’ll think of something. He just needs time.

***

Isene hates letting other people touch her staff. She crafted it herself, and there are secrets woven into the wood. The fact that decoding those secrets would take a magical genius more versed in the history of the People even than herself—a difficult achievement, as Ise is the most educated member of her clan barring Harea and Keeper Istimaethoriel—does not stop her from being nervous any time she has to hand it over. She doesn't even really like Rogelan holding it, and she trusts her brother more than anyone. 

The woman in the eyeball armor leads them out of the crater and onto the snowy mountainside, carrying Ise’s staff and Rogelan’s sword. It's obvious that no one here knows enough about what her brother is to be prepared for his unique fighting style, because they didn't take his shield or the symbol of Elgar’nan he wears around his wrist. It's only a little comforting. At least he’ll be able to use some of his abilities, though he's probably going to do everything he can to stop it from coming to that. The Vir Atish’an has too strong a hold on him, in Ise’s opinion. 

Between the two of them, they could've fought their way free of these shemlen in the crater. Once they get dragged back to town, though, there will be no chance of getting away again. Even by herself, the common troops would be easy pickings. It's the eyeball-armor soldier that she's worried about. Rogelan says he recognizes the armor, but he hasn't told her what that means, and the stranger is still holding Ise’s staff. She's getting more frustrated the longer they walk. The snow beneath her bare feet starts to hiss with every step as she turns her nervous energy into heat and vents it out of her palms and soles. 

Rogelan shoots her a warning look, but his obvious wariness only winds her up even more. A high, distant whine begins from somewhere overhead. It doesn't sound like the wind. Ise turns around to look, so she's the only one who sees the meteor of green-black fade stone come hurtling down from the enormous hole in the sky. She shouts an alarm and tackles the nearest soldier out of the impact zone. Rogelan dives to the side as soon as Isene yells, as do two more soldiers and the eyeball woman. The remaining five are crushed beneath the hurtling stone. 

Ise’s shem cries out in pain or fear, she doesn't particularly care which, and she doesn't have time to figure it out either because a black tarry substance begins to bubble from the earth not two arm spans away from where they landed. Ise rolls back to her feet, calling fire into her hands. Magic is usually harder to create and control without her staff, and she knows that if she's not careful she’ll burn herself, but when a demon erupts from the bubbles, she decides it's worth the risk. Opening her mind, she reaches out to touch the source of all magic. Every time she's done this staffless in the past, she had to coax the energy into the real world like she was trying to light a campfire with wet wood. That's not the case this time.

Today, it feels a little like trying to drink from a mountain waterfall during the spring thaw. She reaches, and instead of a trickle she receives a torrent. A gout of flame bursts from her hands, exploding into a helix of red-orange-yellow-white-blue so hot it turns all the snow in a fifteen foot radius of where Ise’s standing directly into mist, then boils even that away. She incinerates the demon and only narrowly misses the soldier she just tackled out of danger. Fortunately for everyone, Isene’s magic has always been too powerful for her own good, and Keeper Istimaethoriel has spent years teaching her how to clamp her mind closed around a spell gone wild. 

That training is the only thing that saves her. 

On instinct born from hundreds of hours of practice, Ise turns the blast of flame skyward, away from anyone who might get caught in it. She balls her hands into fists and throws all her energy into shutting the door that she’s opened. The column of fire narrows, growing brighter and hotter almost as though it’s aware that it has only moments left to vent its full fury. Like the beam of light coming through a closing door on a sunny day, the magical fire shrinks, shrinks, shrinks. And goes out. 

A tidal wave of fatigue sweeps over Isene. She stumbles sideways, away from the fade-rock meteor, and manages to stagger as far as the nearest intact snowbank before she collapses. The welcoming embrace of the snow cools her superheated body, hissing as it melts around her. She can hear the sound of continued fighting, but there's nothing she can do about it just yet. She has to lie down. 

Ise drifts in and out of consciousness for a while, unsure exactly how much time is passing. It must not be too long, though, because the fight is still raging when she surfaces. She levers herself up into a sitting position and thinks, Alright. No staffless magic when there's a hole in the sky. Good to know. 

Isene isn't primarily a martial fighter, but she can hold her own against most opponents at least long enough for Rogelan to come save her. There's more than a few downed branches, casualties of the meteor, not to mention the dead soldiers' weapons to choose from. She doesn't need magic. She stands, prepared to discover that she's been left behind by the tide of battle. Not so. The shem soldier she tackled out of the way has taken up a position in front of Ise’s snow bank and is holding off another of those shade demons. The thing is clearly on its last legs, so Isene grabs a sturdy looking stick off the ground and joins her unlikely protector. 

A heavy wallop upside the head-equivalent stuns the shade demon long enough for the soldier to run it through. It melts back into the ground, and Ise spares her shem a bright (if probably rather manic) grin before charging off towards the rest of the party. She hears a string of inventive cursing, then the sound of her shem following her. Good. Rounding the meteor, Isene has a few heartbeats to assess the situation. 

Eyeball woman and one of the other soldiers who was quick enough not to get crushed are fighting back to back, cloaked in the bright blue glow of templar magic. A hunched shape that looks like a lava flow with arms and a shade demon are closing in, though they flinch away from eyeball woman’s sword. The second soldier who survived the meteor has her back to a tree and is currently unmolested, but her shield arm hangs limp at her side and there's blood oozing from several holes in her armor. 

Rogelan is doing his thing. His right hand is wrapped around his symbol of Elgar'nan, and from it a blade of light gleams like the morning sun through a thick fog. His shield, a deceptively simple looking piece of ironbark, is glowing with the subtle runes worked into its face. A silvery surface covers it now, both a reinforcement and a mirror at the same time. The lava-thing facing him breathes a gout of fire, and Rogelan’s mirror shield catches that energy and hurls it back at the creature. He stands, an immovable bulwark between Harea’s crumpled body and the onslaught of two shades plus the lava-thing. 

As Ise watches, her brother begins to recite an old prayer in Elvhen, and blue-white plate armor spins itself out of the air and onto his limbs. She hears her shem skid to a stop behind her, presumably to stare at this working of what must, to him, look like more magic. They don't have time for gawking. She turns around and grabs the front of her shem's breastplate so she can haul him towards the battle. 

“Come on, I'm no use against that lava-thing without my magic, so it has to be you.” She shoves her shem in front of her. “Just like the shade demon, right? Ready, go!” 

Whoever trained these soldiers, they knew what they were doing. Her shem only freezes for about half a heartbeat before realizing he's been given an order and going to carry it out. He's clearly running on pure battle-instinct at this point, something which Ise has no compunctions about using to her own advantage. Sure, he wouldn't take orders from her in any other situation, but if she barks instructions in an authoritative tone at a man whose entire focus is on staying alive, she's discovered that most trained fighters will obey reflexively. 

Isene's shem rushes to help Rogelan, darting in between the shade demon and the lava-thing to deliver a textbook shortsword thrust to the thing’s back. Ise wades in after him, using her improvised club to disorient the shade demons. The influx of reinforcements and the invocation of Rogelan’s Shalathe armor are enough to turn the tide. They send the shade demons slithering back into the dirt and sandwich the lava-things between the blue gleam of a templar anti-magic field and Rogelan’s reality-enforcing aura. There are ten full seconds of ringing silence while everyone catches their breath. Then Rogelan dismisses his powers and goes to check on Harea, Isene sits down and plants her stick in the muddy dirt, and the three shem soldiers group up with their eyeball-armored leader. 

The injured soldier doesn't look so good; she has a hard time leaving her tree to join her fellows, and her protestations that she's alright are cut short by a bout of painful sounding coughing. Looks like a lot of broken ribs, from where Isene is sitting. The eyeball woman gives her a potion, but it's obvious that the general healing-factor boost isn't going to be enough. Ise lets the fretting go on for a few minutes before her conscience won't let her ignore it anymore. She groans quietly and hauls herself back up to her feet, then crosses the clearing to the group of soldiers. 

“Hey, eyeball armor,” she taps the woman's shoulder. Rogelan snorts a very undignified little laugh from somewhere to their right. 

Eyeball woman turns her head to glare at Isene. “You may call me Seeker Pentaghast. What do you want?” 

“If you give me my staff back I might be able to help,” Isene doesn't have the energy to be snarky. 

“Are you a healer?” Seeker Pentaghast’s tone abruptly grows more polite. There is a sudden hopefulness in her eyes, too. If she hadn't seen the change happen, Ise might not have been able to identify the near-despair that had characterized the woman's face before. 

Isene holds out her hand for the staff. “An indifferent one, but anything's better than nothing, right?”

Seeker Pentaghast hesitates. The wounded soldier makes a pained noise as one of her compatriots helps her shift position, and her raspy breathing grows shallower. Ise gets her staff back. 

“Do what you can.”

“Alright, clear a space.” Isene uses the blunt end of the staff to scoot the shems out of the way. “I don't know how much control of this I'm going to have, and I don't want to catch any of you if I have to get rid of some excess energy.”

Rogelan joins the larger group, carrying Harea again. “Farther back than that, please, gentlemen.” He moves them another few paces away. “‘Getting rid of excess energy’ means bolts of fire. You really don't want to be in the way.”

“I will stay here,” Seeker Pentaghast informs Ise from her position at her wounded soldier's side, “in case of emergencies.”

“It's your funeral,” Isene shrugs. She kneels beside the injured soldier and cracks her knuckles. Ise’s been told that her healing feels like getting slapped in the face, but she's fairly sure even these shem soldiers would prefer to feel slapped than dead. With both hands on her staff, she closes her eyes and focuses. Magic flows smoothly from the fade, through Isene’s staff, and out into the soldier. She thanks all the listening gods for the gate attenuators and magical channels she’s built into this staff over the years. It stabilizes the flood of energy enough that she can be precise without the fear that she'll do more harm than good. 

A glowing map of the woman’s body flashes into being in Ise’s mind, with areas of disruption picked out in red light. It's a process that requires intense concentration, but little by little Isene coaxes those areas back into the right shapes. Broken bones are the worst; she has to grasp each little fragment of bone and each disconnected blood vessel, carefully rearrange them, and then knit them back together. She can feel sweat breaking out across her forehead. Creators, she wishes Harea were awake. Her cousin can do this stuff in her sleep. 

An exhausting five minutes pass in tense silence. At the end of it, Ise has to stagger a few feet away to be sick into a convenient bush, overwhelmed and overheated by the effort. Someone helpfully arrives to hold her hair back. She wipes her mouth with the back of one hand and looks up to find her shem soldier, the one she tackled, giving her a sympathetic smile. 

“Here,” he reaches into a pouch and offers her a packet of trail rations. “It's not much, but it looks like all that took a lot out of you. You should eat something, if you think you ca-”

“I could kiss you!” Ise snatches the food and begins to wolf it down gratefully. Salt pork and hard cheese replace the taste of bile in her mouth, and she washes it down with half of her water skin. The whole process is made more difficult by the staff still in her hand, but she's not letting the thing out of her grasp again until she's sure there won't be anymore demons falling out of the sky or crawling up from the ground. 

The feeling of Rogelan’s solid presence at her shoulder draws Isene from her desperate focus on her snack. She glances up at him, gauges the exact shade of stern worry on his face, and then raids his belt pouches for more food. He always has food. Indeed, after only a bit of rummaging she comes up with two bruised apples, a bag of mostly crushed nuts, and half of a rather squished sandwich still wrapped in wax paper. Some conversation or other is happening, but she can't make herself care about it until she's about halfway through her findings. Besides, the look on her brother’s face says they're in danger, but it's nothing urgent. The sandwich and nuts are gone by the time Isene looks up. 

“-ngerous, with or without our weapons,” Rogelan is saying. “The only thing keeping us disarmed does is put everyone at a disadvantage. There are only six of us now, we all need to be on guard.” 

Seeker Pentaghast makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. Then, she nods. “You are right. I have a great many questions for you, but they must wait until we are back in Haven. It seems the road will be dangerous. You should be able to defend yourselves.” 

“Thank you.” Rogelan shifts Harea’s weight to one arm so he can take his sword and return it to its sheath. “Is your soldier going to be able to keep up with us? We’ll need to move quickly.”

“Corporal? How are you feeling?” Seeker Pentaghast asks the injured shem soldier. 

“I'm alright, Seeker.” The soldier is back on her feet, though she hasn't picked up her shield again. “That healing hurt like a right bastard, but I can keep pace now. S’not far back to town. Get some proper rest when we're safe.” 

“Good.” The Seeker turns back to Rogelan. “Can your sister keep up as well?”

“I'm right here, you know,” Ise says waspishly. 

“Eat your apple,” Rogelan retorts. To the Seeker, he says, “She’ll be fine. Healing isn't her forte, but food will help with the exhaustion, and as your corporal said, we can all rest when we're safe. Let's get moving; we don't want to be here when the next round of demons arrives.” 

The group marches, double-time, up the path towards the town of Haven. Isene sends up a silent prayer to whoever happens to be listening. She prays for safe passage as far as the gates, but more than that, she prays that her cousin will wake up soon. She feels magically lopsided without Harea. Ise isn't cut out for Keeper duties.

***

Harea stands on a wide, smooth road paved with broad stone slabs of an unfamiliar pale stone. The road stretches out ahead of her nearly as far as the horizon. It buckles up over some low hills in the distance, then it splits to run in two different directions along the edge of her vision. Closer at hand, it passes through a vast military encampment. Men, dogs, and horses gather, rank upon rank of soldiery forming up into a mighty host. 

There aren't many details to be picked out at this distance—closer than the hills still isn't very close—but Harea can see a block of elven archers in rough-hewn armor that looks like it was cobbled together from scavenged pieces of enemy equipment. She sees men so tall they look like giants, towering over the diminutive elves and carrying enormous axes or hammers. There is one at the head of the host wearing rich furs and scale armor, and at his side another of those huge men wielding a tower shield. She blinks, and the shield-bearer suddenly has two spears in his chest. She blinks again, and he's gone. The commander of the host stands alone. 

Overhead, thin pale clouds scud against an overcast sky. The sun is veiled behind a pile of wispy clouds that do little to dim the light but instead diffuse it so that everything is cast in an eerie, almost-shadowless grey glare. Harea turns at the sound of a breath behind her. She finds herself standing before towering gates made from black iron, decorated with the scowling faces of metal dragons. The gates are closed, but then a sound like someone is gliding a city-sized blade over a rough whetstone begins, and the gates begin to swing open. To either side of the huge doors stand a pair of statues so large it's shocking that they don't collapse under their own unfathomable weight. 

Beside Harea, looking up at the gates, is a human woman not much older than she is herself. The woman has tan skin and hair on the blonder side of sandy, freckles, and grey-green eyes the precise shade of the clouds before a bad storm on the plains of the Dirthavaren. There is a wicked looking short blade at her side and a buckler clipped to her right gauntlet. She wears leather armor that looks finely crafted, though Harea isn't an expert on such things. The armor is scarred with the marks of battle, and her boots are muddy. This is a soldier—an experienced one, if the signs are to be believed. She glances over at Harea and smiles a sad little smile. 

“It's almost time,” she says. Her accent is hard to place. Ferelden, certainly, but maybe from farther south than Clan Lavellan ventures. Chasind or Avarr, perhaps. 

“Time for what?” Harea asks. She doesn't remember how she came to be here, but for some reason it doesn't seem important just now. 

“For my great test. And yours too, incidentally.” The woman looks back up at the slowly opening gates. In a conversational tone, she continues, “Did you know, I spent eighteen hours behind these gates? I had more than half a day to consider the forces that brought me there. I spent most of it thinking of inventive curses to wish on my husband. And my captors, and the Archon. I suppose I should've been praying, or singing, or thinking virtuous thoughts, but I was too angry. I'd been betrayed, after all.”

Harea frowns, confused. “I don't think we've been introduced. Have we?”

The woman smiles again. “Not formally, but I think you’ll be able to guess who I am in a minute or so. I certainly know you, Harea Elgadira, First of Clan Lavellan. You're a descendant of a very good friend of mine. I hope, if you do nothing else with the gift I'm going to give you, you make sure his name is restored to the Chant. The fools who removed it have heard from me too, but by that point they weren't in a place to do much about it.” 

Hearing her full name from this apparent stranger isn't as discomfiting as one might expect. Something about her pleasant, matter-of-fact voice makes Harea want to trust her. By the same gap of logic that lets her avoid wondering how she got to these black iron gates, she doesn't question the feeling of trust. 

“I'll do my best,” Harea says doubtfully, “but if you're talking about the Chant of Light, I'm afraid I don't have the power to change it.” 

“Oh, of course not. Not yet, anyway. The test comes first, and then the power. The Maker learned that one the hard way, with me. Jealousy is one of those mortal vices he didn't really understand before all this.” She sighs and looks up at the scudding clouds. The gates have opened wide enough for Harea to see through them now. Another line of soldiers, these ones in black armor with red trim, waits behind the gates. The woman stretches her neck, then rotates her left shoulder a few times, like she's warming up her arm to swing her sword. “It won't be long now. Listen, and don't interrupt. Before I have to go, there are a few things I'd like to tell you.”

Harea nods and obediently falls silent. 

“For what it's worth, I think it was a good thing that I trusted the people who betrayed me. They didn't deserve it, but I didn't know that until it was too late. I've thought about it a lot in the time since it all happened, and I’ve decided that the choice to trust them says more about me than it does about them. What kind of person would I be if I didn't trust the people closest to me? My world would be the same as the evil I was trying to destroy!” The stranger gestures towards the towering juggernauts on either side of the gate. 

“Your test is going to be long and difficult. That's why it's a good test. If you survive—which I believe you will—you'll be in a place to do a lot of good. It will be easy to give into your desire for revenge at that point, and while I endorse a little revenge here and there, you need to stay focused on that first thing; on making the world better. Your faith will be an incredible asset, but don't be afraid to question from time to time. Following blindly is a good way to get led off a cliff. 

“There are about a hundred more things I want to say to you. You're about to be thrown into the thick of things, and I know you're the perfect one for the job, but I wish I could spare you some of the hardship that's coming. But these gates are just about open, and I couldn't stop all this even if I wanted to. Here's the most important thing: there is nothing in the world that is always good. Courage can turn to foolishness, patience to paralysis, wisdom to pride, and love to control.

“In the same vein, there's very little that's always bad—barring needless cruelty and the Blight. Fear can become prudence, stubbornness becomes loyalty, impetuousness becomes decisiveness, and envy becomes a drive for self-improvement. No matter what you are told, I need you to remember that anger isn't evil. Anger can be righteous. Sometimes, the feeling that the oppressor tells you is a baseless and counterproductive rage is actually the Wrath of the downtrodden. Don't let them take that from you.” 

The gates are more than half open now. Behind them, there lies a vast city. By some trick of the light, the flat glare overhead makes its buildings look almost black. Closer, though, the vanguard of an army is ranged around a tall wooden structure. It takes Harea a few seconds of staring to place the structure, because her people don't use them. A memory surfaces. When she was a child, she’d been looking for useful herbs when she came upon a human funeral at the edge of the forest. They laid out their dead on a wooden pyre. This one is grander by far, but it's the same basic shape. Split logs laid out horizontally, placed to allow air to rush up between them and ringed with tinder sticks. 

One other difference between the funeral pyre Harea saw years ago and the one she's looking at now stands out starkly: there is an upright post at the center, wrapped in rope. 

The woman standing beside Harea puts a friendly hand on her shoulder. “I hate to leave you, but I've got to go now, and so do you. The world is a mess in your time, as it was in mine. All we can do is our best.” 

She turns Harea further towards her so that they're standing face to face for a moment, and bends her head to press a kiss to Harea’s forehead. It feels like a benediction. The last thing she says is, “Good luck.” 

Harea blinks, and she's gone. But no, there she is, tied to the post atop the pyre like she'd been there the whole time. Overhead, the clouds roil and darken as a storm rumbles ominously closer, creeping along the edge of the horizon. The host outside the gates cries out in shock and realization, and Harea gasps with them. 

Unlike her cousins, who distrusted the humans and their religion—and rightly so, for it was a group of Chantry zealots who struck down Rogelan’s father in front of him—Harea has always been curious about what the Mothers were preaching. It began as simple delight in the music. The Chant of Lights is a beautiful poem, and the choirs who raised their voices in song each morning and evening from every little village Chantry drew a younger Harea like a halla to an elfroot patch. Over the years, she's gotten bold enough to creep into the back pews and listen to the sermons. 

She can't say she believes everything the Chantry teaches, but Harea likes the idea of a Creator who can be called back by faith and song. The story of Andraste is a touching one, and it's nice to believe that something so powerful and inscrutable as a god could be moved by a mortal’s impassioned plea. She doesn't see why the Maker and the Creators can't both exist, except that the people who believe in the one hate the people who believe in the other. She knows the old stories of how that conflict came to be; she knows about Red Crossing, and the Exalted Marches, and the political backbiting in Halamshiral and Val Royeaux. Her cousins are angry, but it mostly makes Harea sad. 

All this to say that Harea, more than most Dalish, knows the Chant. She knows the human stories about the Maker and His Prophet, and the terrible fate that befell her. She realizes where she is, and who she's been talking to. 

Up there on the pyre, Andraste gazes out over the world with calm grey eyes. The archers in the host that surrounds her take aim at something out in the field and loose their arrows in a great storm that blots out the sun. A shuddering moan goes up from the army outside the walls. Many of them lay down their arms. Several Tevinter mages in ceremonial robes start pouring lamp oil on the pyre, using magic to splash it up to 

Andraste calls out in a voice that shouldn't carry as far as it does, yet somehow echoes across the plain, “Maker of the World, forgive them! They have lived too long in shadow, without Your Light to guide them! Be with Your children now, O Maker!”

A man in elaborate mage armor mounts the pyre at her side. The Tevinter army begins a slow beat, stamping their feet or clashing their weapons together, increasing in pace as their leader climbs the scaffolding. He turns to face the assembled Alamarri horde once he's reached the top. 

“Today, I end this war!" he shouts, but his words don't have the same weight as Andraste’s. When she spoke, it felt like every living being heard her words at the same instant. The Archon, for it can only be Archon Hessarian, lacks the overt gravity of the Prophet. He sounds like a man howling into a mountain blizzard, expecting to be heard despite the wind screaming around him. 

Hessarian lifts his arm high and calls fire from the air to the palm of his hand. A shuddering gasp rises from the Alamarri. The Tevinter soldiers’ beat speeds up. The clouds overhead run before a cold, rain-scented wind from the north. Thunder rumbles. 

The Archon touches the fire to the post above Andraste's head. Wood and oil ignite. The sudden fierce conflagration draws in so much air that Harea’s hair whooshes forwards around her face, and a wall of suffocating heat pushes the ranks of soldiers standing closest to the base of the pyre away. They stumble into their fellows, making the whole formation shudder. The Archon rises above the flames like a bird riding the thermals, hovering without seeming to put any effort into it. 

Both armies watch in rapt silence. The sound of distant thunder falls quiet, and the wind dies down as the world seems to hold its breath. Across the wide plain and throughout the crowded city, the only noise is the crackling of fire. Overhead, the dark clouds drift across the sun. Andraste burns, but she does not scream. 

Harea wakes up.

[gayhawkelatehomicide]

Meet Rogelan Lavellan, my tall tough son. He's saddled with a tremendous responsibility from birth by his clan, and then THIS happens to him. He, like all the rest of my trio Inquisitors, does so much better when he's not by himself. Here's the beginning of a thing I'm writing about him and his mage siblings in the Hinterlands. The title right now is "The Lights in the Shadow" from Benedictions 4:11

"Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.

In their blood the Maker's will is written."

     Corporal Vale meets the man who will soon be Inquisitor, and at first glance, he's not impressed. The fellow isn't particularly arresting: just a tall, heavily armed elf with a hooked nose and sad eyes. The tattoos are a bit distracting, but once you've worked alongside enough runaway dwarves with big blocky casteless brands on their faces, you get to where you can ignore pretty much anything. The future Inquisitor—who introduces himself as "Rogelan Lavellan, Inquisition agent" and leaves out a number of things that Vale will consider fairly important parts of a complete introduction, once he learns about them—looks like every other Dalish exile running with the kind of sell-swords who spend every winter halfway to banditry. The long scar at the corner of his mouth that carries across his cheek and up to the missing tip of his left ear, marring the smooth lines of his tattoos, just adds to the effect. 

     Still, Seeker Pentagast is behind him, and she seems to think he's worth talking to. So. Vale gives him the laundry list of shit he needs done in order to keep this refugee rabble from starving, freezing, or getting caught in the crossfire of this stupid war. Lavellan listens attentively, asks a few pertinent questions, and then leaves. Vale figures he's seen the last of the man, and that he'll either get the help he asked for or not. He won't bother getting his hopes up. Asking the people at the top to actually do anything doesn't get results most of the time, and he has no reason to suspect this will be any different. 

     From his hilltop command center, he watches the Seeker's small party wander around the Crossroads for a little less than an hour, stopping frequently to talk with people, before they head north towards the King's Road and Master Dennet's farm. The horses are why the Seeker herself came all the way out to the Hinterlands, after all. Vale hardly expects her to abandon her mission over the issue of a few hundred malnourished, hypothermic peasants. He sees the last glint of the sun off the Seeker's polished armor as they pass into the tunnel and heaves a sigh. He gets back to work.

     The next week passes without significant incident. There are few minor skirmishes because the rebel mages or rogue templars object to even a modest encampment of people who refuse to be intimidated by them, a brief brawl between a pair of mothers in the bread line, and some worrying reports of maybe-not-bandits on the East Road, but nothing to write home about. On the evening of the sixth day after the Seeker and her party come through, Vale is walking between the rows of tents towards his own bunk when he smells something delicious. He's usually a more controlled individual than this, but when you've been soldiering on half rations for nearly a month, the smell of fresh stew will draw you like Orlesian nobles to wyvern territory. 

     Later, Vale will not be able to recall how he got from the hillside path all the way to the poacher's fireside. All he knows is that he was headed to bed hungry again, and then he was seated on a stump by a campfire with a half empty bowl of hot stew in his hands. The poacher, the one with ideas about the rams in the hills, shoots him a knowing smile from under the edge of his hat which has Vale's cheeks warming from more than just the food. He gets a second bowl, and then a third. While he eats, he watches a seemingly endless rotation of refugees with pots of their own come and go, taking cut meat from a pair of substantial ice chests that the poacher is guarding. Those who don't have their own campfires to return to are welcomed one and all, until the poacher's fireside is crowded with happily chatting people. 

     Just when it looks like they'll run out of food, the steady stream of newcomers slows to a trickle, then stops. The poacher scrapes the last of the stew out of the pot into a bowl for himself and plunks down on the ground beside Vale's stump; this is, incidentally, one of the only remaining clear spaces close to the warmth of the fire. He tucks into his dinner as Vale is finishing the last of his own fourth bowl.

     "Feels good to see this lot fed, don't it?" The man grins up at Vale. 

     "It does," Vale agrees readily. "How'd you manage it?"

     "Not me," the poacher shakes his head. "Couple of elves in Inquisition gear came out of the woods with those boxes and enough dead rams to fill 'em. Said they'd be back tomorrow. Dunno if they're crazy or just brave as hell, but I have to say I believe 'em." 

     "Huh." Vale finds himself utterly lost for words.

     "Yeah, that's what I said. I guess we'll all see tomorrow evening, eh?" 

     "I guess we will."

     They sit in companionable quiet for a time as most of the visitors to the campsite thank their host and bid him farewell, heading off to shiver through the night with whatever warmth they can scavenge. The poacher happily eats his stew, and Vale doesn't feel the urge to leave just yet. He wants to let his stomach settle, he tells himself. The moon is half-up when he finally gets up from the stump and sets his dirty bowl atop the stack that people have left on the now-empty ice chests. 

     "I'll have somebody come help you wash these," he suggests.

     The poacher nods gratefully. "That'd be a great help, Corporal. I wasn't lookin' forward to that job."

     "Of course, serah..?" 

     This earns Vale a derisive little snort. "No need to serah me. Name's Kerrel."

     "Well then, Kerrel, until we meet again." Vale tips his helmet and turns heel to march back to his bunk, trailed by Kerrel's merry laugh. 

     ***

     Sure enough, the next evening Vale himself meets a trio of hunters emerging from the trees to the south with two more ice boxes aboard a horse-drawn wagon laden with enough dead rams to fill all four boxes and keep the whole encampment fed for a tenday. Along with them comes a pretty Inquisition scout named Ritts, carrying a map. She asks directions to Recruit Wittle, which Vale gives, and shortly there is a patrol headed out to round up caches of food and blankets that the rebel mages were hoarding. Vale catches the girl's arm on her way back out of camp.

     "Who found all this?" He asks, gesturing to her map and, more generally, the sudden influx of aid. 

     "Serah Lavellan, Corporal," she answers promptly. "He's been all in amongst the hills, hunting these caches. I heard he's headed north next, to clear out the arseholes on the King's Road."

     Vale blinks. "What, the mages and templars?"

     "That's right," Ritts smiles. "He's a stand-up man, that one. If he says he'll do it, I believe him."

     And for some reason, when she says it, Vale finds himself believing it too. He snorts derisively anyway, and turns her loose. "I'll believe it when I see it."

     "As you say, Corporal," Ritts says. Something about the way she says it gives Vale the impression that she knows what he really thinks. She gives him a cheeky little grin and trots off to catch up with Wittle's patrol. 

     ***

     When you're as far out in the middle of nowhere as the Hinterlands, information does still get to you through the official channels. However, it's usually about a week and a half behind the rumor mill, if not slower, and significantly less reliable. Corporal Vale learned long ago to listen to the whispers that the soldiers share when they think nobody's listening, and to take them just as seriously as any dispatch from headquarters. 

     The whispers going around camp say the Herald of Andraste is coming to close some of the holes in the air that keep belching out demons. Vale hears from several of his better-connected subordinates that the Herald herself has been seen on the road to Redcliffe. He doesn't hear anything from Haven, but that's to be expected with the lines of communication as patchy as they are. He decides to have one of the nicer huts cleaned up and cleared out, just in case.

     Three days later a wagon train comes rattling down the mountain path. It stops at the camp in the hills before trundling on down to the Crossroads, where a motley crew of Inquisition agents hops off. A man Vale identifies immediately as a sergeant squints doubtfully at the surrounding terrain, spits, and starts to make his way up towards Vale and the command post. Meanwhile, a pair of elf girls crawl out of the back of the lead wagon. The first, a tall redhead with green face tattoos, stretches like a cat before slinging a staff that's at least 30% blade casually over her shoulder with the ease of long practice. The second, a small-framed blonde, moves much more gingerly, treating her blunt-ended staff as a walking stick more than a weapon. 

     The rest of the Inquisition soldiers don't seem to know how to react to the pair: one young man starts to offer a hand to the blonde, but the redhead turns and snaps something at him that has him snatching his hand back and double-timing it away from the wagon. Vale watches them for the minute or so that it takes the sergeant to hike up to the command post, and in that time he's decided that they have to be some sort of related. They're also obviously both mages, which is making several of the refugees closest to the wagon visibly nervous. Somebody will have to do something about that, and sooner rather than later. 

     "Corporal," the sergeant greets Vale as he reaches the top of the hill.

     "Sergeant," Vale nods back, eyes still on the mages.

     The sergeant follows his gaze. "Worried about the girls? Don't be. They're no trouble." He sucks his teeth for a moment, then changes his mind. "Well, I oughta say they're worth the trouble. The redhead is a hell of a fighter, and the little one's a healer. The pair of 'em kept my men alive through a couple of bad bandit ambushes. Speakin' of which, you've got trouble on your east road, Corporal Vale."

     "Don't I know it," Vale says sourly. "We could use that healer of yours if you can spare her for a bit. I've got some men who might not make it back to civilization. But you've got me at a disadvantage Sergeant...?"

     "Aw, shit, sorry. I've been reading Scout Harding's briefs. She's too thorough for a recruit as new as she is. Makes me think the Nightingale's been in here. Apologies," he puts out a hand to shake, "I'm Sergeant Mayes. I hear you're doing good work out here, Vale." 

     Vale shakes it, then shrugs modestly. "I'm doing what I can. Are you here to take over?"

     "Andraste's sweet bosom no," Mayes makes a superstitious warding sign with his free hand. "Naw, you couldn't pay me enough to take command of this pigsty. Uh, no offense."

     "None taken," Vale sighs. "It is a shitshow. Alright then, if you're not here to take over, what are you here for?" 

     "Commander's orders," Mayes gestures to the wagons, which are loaded down with what looks like building materials. "We're putting up watchtowers so you and the local farmers can get some warning before the bandits or demons or what-have-you come howling out of the hills."

     Vale stares at Sergeant Mayes for a long second. "And just where does the Commander think you lot are going to put those towers?" he asks incredulously. "In the middle of the burning fields, or up the arse of some crazy mage?"

     This draws a genuine guffaw of laughter from Mayes. "Naw, Seeker Pentagast's crew has been out surveying spots for 'em," he explains. "Apparently Master Dennet's people had some plans made up before everything went to shit, and we're just following up. Foundations are already laid and everything."

     "Huh," Vale says. He remembers having just about the same reaction to the arrival of meat and blankets, and wonders how many more times in the next few weeks he'll be reduced to saying "huh." Not that he minds. The help is more than welcome. 

     "Yeah, that's about what we thought," Mayes sympathizes. "Anyhow, we're just passing through. I was hoping we could leave the girls with you, though. Their cousin's with the Lady Seeker, and they came out to meet him. Big elf with one ear half missing, name of Rogelan. You seen him?"

     "Aye, he came through with the Seeker and that smart-mouthed dwarf about two weeks ago. As long as they behave themselves, your girls can stay. I'm not about to turn away help, especially if they're as good as you say."

     "Better, probably, when they're not rattling around in the back of a wagon playing catch the fireball," Mayes speculates somewhat alarmingly. He turns back towards his men and sticks a couple fingers in his mouth. Vale has time to clap his hands over his ears before the sergeant emits a loud, sharp whistle that has the whole wagon train moving again in short order. A couple hand signals tell the front teamster to head along the King's Road, and another has the two elven girls climbing the hill. It takes them longer than Mayes, as the blonde isn't terribly steady on her feet, so Vale guesses he has time for a couple more questions before they get in earshot.

     "I heard you were bringing the Herald with you," Vale says as-if-casually. "She one of those two?" 

     "Oh, yeah." Mayes waves a hand as if brushing the comment away. "The little one, Harea. She says she's not any such thing, and I ain't seen anything to prove otherwise. She's good at what she does, but I've seen circle mages do the same. Apparently she can do somethin' about those holes in the sky, but we didn't run into any on the way down here to test it."

     "Huh. Didn't she fall out of the fade at the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Handed out by Andraste herself or some such, is what I heard."

     "Yea-up. She and that cousin of hers lived through the blast somehow. Just got lucky, maybe, but she does seem a little touched. I dunno. It's all above my pay-grade."

     "Well. Mine too, probably."

     "Yea-up. Well, I'd better get going. Gotta catch that wagon. Good luck, Vale. Keep up the good work." 

     "You too, Mayes. Come back when you're done working. We'll feed you something hot."

     "That'd better be a promise, Corporal," Mayes grins. Then he heads off down the hill with a wave towards the girls, jogs after the last wagon, and hauls himself in. 

     Vale shakes his head and turns to face the newest additions to his perpetual headache. 

     As they top the rise, the two elf girls are mid-conversation. Whatever they're discussing goes right over Vale's head, something about energies and spirits and magical Andraste-knows-what. They stop when they reach the makeshift desk where he has his maps laid out, and the redhead smiles.

     "Hello. You must be Corporal Vale." Her accent is a cosmopolitan Free Marcher's—Ostwick or Wycome, if he doesn't miss his guess. 

     "I am."

     She puts out her hand to shake. "Isene Felivetanin, Second of Clan Lavellan. This is my cousin Harea Elgadira, our First."

     Vale hasn't the foggiest clue what any of that means, but he shakes her hand all the same. "Pleased to meet you both," he says politely. 

     "If you've any wounded," the blonde, Harea, interjects diffidently, "I'm a capable healer. If you think they'd accept my help, of course. Mother Giselle's note said there might be some who would prefer herbs and such? I can do that too, it just takes longer." 

     "Right, the tents you'll want are that way," Vale points. "None of the men in there now ought to give you any trouble, they've all gotten the good Mother's lecture on letting magic serve them. I'll have what medicines we do have sent down there for you to work with, and Recruit Fara will show you exactly where you can set up. Good enough?"

     "More than, thank you." She bobs her head and begins to make her way slowly in the direction of the infirmary, leaning on her staff. 

     "How about you?" Vale turns to Isene. "Are you looking for something to do, or would you rather just wait for your kinsman?"

     "I get antsy without a job, so I'd like to be useful if possible. I'm good with my hands and I'm good with people, but my magic is better for destroying than healing, I'm afraid." She offers an apologetic half-smile with this. 

     "Good to know," Vale mutters to himself, eyeing the Maker-forsaken pole arm of a staff she's carrying. "Well, we always need folk to clean and carry, but the refugees can handle most of the basic labor. If you can mend or weave, there's a group of ladies turning scrap fabric into clothes and blankets around the north end of camp, but if not, I think Recruit Ansel is trying to get an accounting of everyone in camp. He could use an extra pair of hands, for certain." 

     "I'm willing to do any of that, but I can read and do figures, so I'm probably most useful to your Recruit Ansel. Point me in the right direction?"

     Vale does. "He's down the slope that-a-way, heavyset dwarven fella with dark hair and one of those square casteless brands on his left side. Oughta have a big ol' scroll with him. Tell him I sent you to help, and maybe leave that," he nods to the staff, "in your quarters. You'll make people nervous."

     "Quarters?" she inquires brightly.

     "See that hut by the waterfall? For you and your kinsmen. Wouldn't do to have the troops see the Herald of Andraste out under a tarp next time it starts snowing. Bad for morale, whether she is or isn't what they say."

     This last comment draws a keen look from Isene. "Whether she is or isn't?"

     Vale shrugs. "I don't know one way or another, and it's not my job to care. What is my job is keeping these poor folks alive, and if that means making some decisions about housing based more on opinions than facts, then that's what it means."

     "Good to know," she echoes his earlier sentiment. "I appreciate your candor, Corporal Vale. I'll drop my staff off and go find Ansel, then." 

     With a salute that's only a little too casual to be military, she heads off down the hill. Vale watches her go with mixed feelings. Two mages powerful and comfortable enough to have been "playing catch the fireball," as Mayes said, are in his camp. They seem pretty tame now, but he saw Isene snap at that soldier for offering a hand. He resolves to have them watched. Better safe than sorry, and if they get bent out of shape over it, that'll also be important information to have. 

     Still, though he's loath to say it and invite disaster, things in the Hinterlands seem to be looking up. 

[inverswayart]

i won't be able to play veilguard for who knows how long (my pc simply can't run it) so it seems like i'll be diving into earlier games instead

also i somehow amassed a shitton of ocs and so i might as well just post stuff about them. so here's all other guys who might become Inquisitors!

from left to right - Oda and Renata Trevelyan (Lambert's older and eldest sisters), Hissera and Merit Adaar (aunt and niece with some other extended family), Siona Varlas (not part of clan Lavellan but still went to Conclave as their representative), Ellas and Harea Telmarona Lavellan (the twin babies of the bunch at literal 19 y.o. each), Flint "Cadash" (got adopted into family from the Dusttown and never became a part of it proper) and Almaz Cadash (enforcer and problem solver oh her way to get rid of Flint)

fun fact - i had so much fun coming up with all of them that in Lambert's worldstate i decided to keep them all alive so they can hang out in the background while Lambert has to be the protagonist (except for Oda who tries to kill him in the interim between Corypheus' death and Tresspasser because she is a terrible little fanatic <3)

[rozzwil]

I tried to show this off in my last ask but didn’t realize how compressed it would be so here’s the full lineup at the moment of @diirthara-ma and I’s OCs! I beg of you to open this in a larger window ToT

[diirthara-ma]

OC Questions:

Does your OC have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

How quick is your OC to trust someone else?

What do you consider the biggest themes in your OCs, if any?

Thanks anon!! :)

Does your OC have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

Adasha is an only child, although Tamlen was like a brother to her. 

Toni obviously has two siblings, and she was probably slightly closer to Bethany, but she wasn’t super close to either of the twins growing up as their age gap often meant that she was more of an unenthusiastic babysitter than a playmate.

Enaste has three younger siblings:

Ellas, 27, is a hunter for Clan Lavellan (class-wise he would be an archer), although his true passion is making music. He’s married to a former city elf, Effe, and they have two daughters with a third on the way when Enaste leaves for the Conclave. Ellas is a romantic and is less bookish and practical than his older sister. He has been best friends with @rozzwil’s Ishavun since they were 7 and 8 respectively.

Harea, 25, is a hunter just like her older brother. She is trained as a warrior (sword and shield) and so is also on the front line if the clan is ever attacked. She has the most serious demeanor of all Enaste’s siblings and because of this her and Ellas clashed often as kids.

Asvhalla, 21, is the baby of her siblings, and she definitely acts like it. She is the only other one of Enaste’s siblings who is a mage. She has spent the last five years training as a healer (a job she both enjoys and excels at) and also helps grow/gather/trade for the clan’s food (a job she enjoys far less and is not particularly good at).

How quick is your OC to trust someone else?

Adasha is quick to trust; she’s very young and optimistic and sees the best in everyone. She also believes that she’s strong enough to protect herself (physically and emotionally) if her trust is misplaced.

Toni just...doesn’t trust people. She probably doesn’t even truly, wholly trust Merrill, despite how much she loves her.

Enaste is quick to be kind, but slow to trust.

What do you consider the biggest themes in your OCs, if any?

I’m not sure if they have an overarching theme between them all, I purposely set out to make them all quite different people with different strengths and struggles.

[pathfinderyderss]

Both the Lavellans for the headcanons?

Thank you so much for the ask, and I love these two so freaking much.

Harea Lavellan

1: sexuality headcanon

demisexual/demiromantic

2: otp

solavellan.

3: brotp

harea/harding

4: notp

cullen/harea

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Harea is left handed, which makes the mark being on her right hand ridiculously wonky, and almost forces her to become ambidextrous by the end of Inquisition.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

She’s very... self-sacrificing, often forgoing what is best for her for instead the good of the people around her.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

Hm. I mean. The Solas romance, even though it’s my favorite, there’s a burning ache of... something when he breaks up with you.

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

cinnamon roll.

Sah’rel Lavellan

1: sexuality headcanon

pansexual/panromantic.

2: otp

sah’rel/bull

3: brotp

cassandra/sah’rel

4: notp

sah’rel/sera

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Sah’rel is very thematic, when she chose Falon’Din as her patron for her tattoos, she’s taken to making the rest of her match, as he purchases new weapons and armor, they’re always named after Falon’Din, reminding her of where she came from.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

Big nerd. She’s a history nerd and ridiculously crafty, and like, it’s one of things I definitely chose for her to make her relatable for me.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

I dunno? Sah’rel is like the reasonable one of my Inquisitors, her and Imani. I’m certain she’d be more embarrassed of me than the other way around.

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

cinnamon roll.

[saphylee]

1) Sylathi giggles at her own toes when she smokes too much elfroot. / 2) Thelrand is prone to staring at his own reflection in shiny objects. / 3) Modern!Tamralan keeps pictures of his kids in his wallet / 4) Runale keeps something of Velriel's with her at all times. / 5) The biggest sign of trust Ematu can give is letting you touch his ears. / 6) Leon gives excellent bear hugs. / 7) Modern!Harea is a Gender Studies major. / 8) Aranehn hates complete silence.

Character Headcanon 

You have an unfair advantage! Haha! You already know so much about my babes, some more than others, but enough to be accurate as fuck as always, my dear.

Sylathi’s favorite pastime is smoking, especially while painting, and I can see her totally geeking out over her toes and end up drawing her toes instead. 

Thelrand is very meticulous about his appearance so in a world where there aren’t many mirrors, someone’s gonna catch him staring at armor just to have a chance to look at himself.

Modern!Tamralan is such a DadTM so he would probably have baby pictures as well as pictures he stole off of Facebook. Don’t tell his children.

I really like this one because I never gave it much thought before, but it’s so adorable, I’m going to accept it. Runale would probably either keep a small trinket - something he whittled, maybe - or wear one of his jackets or a scarf, either around her neck or tied around her waist or something. She loves that boy so much

YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES

Yes, my big bear of a man, Leon, gives the best hugs. The ones that make you feel completely safe and secure.

Harea never featured once in our modern!AU, but I can totally see this. She’s such a tough and determined woman and won’t let any man tell her otherwise.

Yeah, I can see this. But she doesn’t like so much noise either. Background noise is good. Someone breathing. Humming a tune. Listening to the clash of swords as recruits train and spar. Complete silence invites nightmares and doubt.

I really enjoyed reading them! Ah, if you think of anything more, please let me know.

[himb0i]

my fav drawings i’ve done of my inquisitor, harea lavellan, over the last... idk? yearish? i don’t draw her enough and apparently i draw her whole face even less. she’s a solas-smooching rogue baby

[exordiumnoctis]

So I got DAI for the computer finally and now I have my kids (most of them) with proper aesthetics and such and I have never been happier. 

L to R: Theros Lavellan, Athras Harea, and Callixtus Terentius. 

[spindleweedss]

"Wow, your hair looks just like starlight" from howl's moving castle but make it harea × josephine ✨

[shift-shaping]

let's go save wycome

clan lavellan receives a letter from lady volant regarding the danger she and solas have found themselves in.

rating: t

pairing: solavellan (discussed)

warnings: pregnancy

previous fics | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

My Blessed Lady,

    It has been my pleasure to meet Duke Antoine of Wycome and pay my respects on behalf of the Inquisition. The duke is a most friendly man. Indeed, I dare say he thinks the best of everyone, and has advisors from as far away as Tevinter! His city is a wonder, and he was quite keen to display some of the improvements he has made recently. Of particular note are the wells, which use a red crystal to purify the water from which all humans in the city drink. Duke Antoine has not yet made these improvements to the wells from which the elves in the alienage drink.

    The duke assures me that concerns about some sort of disease affecting his city are wholly overblown, and has quite convinced me that his plans to rid the city of "the rats causing the problem" should be underway quite soon.

    Any concerns I have raised, he says, can wait until then. The duke's Tevinter advisor has indicated an eagerness to make my acquaintance, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to resist such a tempting offer. This advisor has also expressed great interest in my serving man, though for what reason I cannot say. Perhaps they share some hobby or background that this advisor wishes to contend with him over.

    I continue to enjoy my visit to Wycome, and I confess that I hope I do not hear the noisy clatter of the Inquisition's armored troops ruining my quiet afternoons. The elves of Clan Lavellan, by contrast, are quiet, like their poor cousins here in Wycome's alienage, and it might be a welcome change to my daily regime to see them in the future.

    Yours in haste,

    Lady Guinevere Volant

Enaste sat against a tree in a clearing within her clan's camp, frowning at the letter. She had just finished an early dinner with Hallin and Harea, and had almost managed to convince herself the Inquisition was some sort of awful nightmare.

As her brother predicted, the meal was everything Enaste could have wanted: buttery, fleshy lobster tails rich with garlic and seasoning, accompanied by clams, corn, and a pile of fresh herbs and mushrooms. They didn't always have such extravagant meals, so this was something of a celebration. Enaste had eaten so much it was hard to walk, and she had to read the letter multiple times to understand it through her fog of fullness.

"I'm impressed she knows enough elven to know what your name means," Hallin offered after Enaste read the letter aloud. He sat beside Enaste with Harea's head in his lap. His hand rested on her pregnant belly.

"You've received word from your ambassador?" All three looked up to see their Keeper enter the clearing. She gestured to the letter in Enaste's hand. "May I see it?"

Enaste handed Deshanna the letter, and she was quiet for a while as she read it over. Then she looked past it, down at Enaste. "We must act quickly."

"Wait, why?" Hallin asked, frowning at her. "It sounds like everything is fine."

"The Tevinter advisor," Harea said, lying comfortably on her back, eyes closed in relaxation. "Anything Tevinter is bad news."

"I guess." Hallin looked down at his bonded, uncertain.

"I forgot --you weren't there last night," Harea said. "The evil magister trying to kill Noodle has a cult of Tevinters called the Venatori." She opened her eyes and nodded to Enaste. "They're good at weaseling their way into things. This advisor is probably one of them."

"I think that's a reasonable assumption, yes," Keeper Deshanna replied. "Your ambassador is specifically asking us to intervene, Enaste." She stared at the letter, her expression hard to read. "And this mention of the rats... the Duke intends to purge the alienage." She paused, then turned her gaze to Enaste. "Our hunters could kill the Duke and this advisor to keep the alienage safe."

Hallin balked. "Intervene in a shemlin dispute? Why would we do that? They'll just blame us and kill their flat-ears anyway."

"I think those flat-ears are the reason it's not just a shemlin dispute," Harea looked up at Deshanna from Hallin's lap. "We already know from Enaste's captives that the shems are blaming the elves in the alienage for this plague." At the mention of the plague Deshanna looked at the letter again. "If nothing is done, they will be slaughtered."

Hallin ran his hand over his thick black braid. "But if we intervene, they'll just turn their blades on us instead."

"Not if we're careful," Enaste said, shaking her head. She looked at her brother seriously. "Not if we're quick."

Harea reached up and flicked her lover's nose. "And that's what our hunters are best at, vhenan."

Hallin sighed and took her hand. "I don't think we should do anything to draw excess attention." He looked at Enaste, concern scrunching his features. "Maybe we can help the flat-ears evacuate instead of --whatever this ambassador wants us to do."

Enaste bit her lip. She'd studied maps of the city before her arrival and knew how trapped the alienage was. "We don't have enough boats. It would take days, at minimum, for me to get the vessels needed to extract everyone from the alienage."

"Enaste," Deshanna said, her voice soft but tight. "This letter mentions a red crystal."

"Fenhedis," Enaste hissed and took the letter back. She scanned it again, more awake now, and saw now what she'd failed to realize before. "The Duke is poisoning the nobles' wells with red lyrium."

"Red lyrium?" Hallin asked.

"A type of lyrium that's red instead of blue," Enaste said without looking at him.

"I gathered that much, thanks."

"It's a known tool of Corypheus.” She frowned at her brother. “Red lyrium drives people insane, but it also makes them much, much stronger. He's using it to make his templars into unstoppable monsters.”

"He wants to know if it will work on civilians," Deshanna said. She looked at Enaste. "He wants it enough to risk the safety of an entire city. The life of your ambassador is hardly an obstacle."

"And of Solas," Enaste added. "We have to do something. I, at least, have to do something." She remembered how Solas protected her in the future at Redcliffe, how his voice rasped and his skin gave off a sickly red glow. She remembered seeing his dead body lying limp on the cold stone floor. Whatever it took to prevent that future from coming to pass, she would take it. Her throat was suddenly tight with nerves. "I can't let them hurt him."

"Enaste," Harea said, her voice suddenly more serious, and Enaste turned to her. Harea tilted her head and narrowed her dark eyes. "Are you sleeping with him?"

"What?!" Enaste and Hallin said in unison. Deshanna sighed. "Why would you ask that?" Enaste blurted, and Harea rolled her eyes.

Hallin looked between them, shocked. "Sleeping with who?!"

Harea raised her eyebrows and pointed at Enaste. "Her arcane advisor. The one she sent to help the ambassador. She smiles at him like a little girl with a crush." Enaste struggled for the words to defend herself. She wished the ground would swallow her whole. Was it that obvious?

"Da'len, this is not the time," Deshanna chided gently, and Harea pursed her lips for a moment before exhaling and giving up.

"Fine--" she said, but Hallin didn't stop.

"You're sleeping with someone?" His wide green eyes made him look like a frightened halla. "A shemlin?"

"He's not a shem," Enaste said defensively. Then, realizing that was arguably the lesser accusation: "and I'm not sleeping with him!" Her face burned, and her stomach twisted into knots. "I don't know why you'd even think that," she huffed, glaring at Harea, who wore a wicked smirk at the chaos she'd caused.

"Enough," Deshanna said, and the three of them finally obeyed. "You can discuss this later, if you must."

"He's too old for you," Harea added quickly, then raised her hands in front of her before anyone could reply. "But whatever. Let's go save Wycome."

"You're not going anywhere," Hallin said. He looked at Enaste. "And I'm not either. I --I understand the importance of this, but I can't just--"

"No, I know." Enaste sighed and tried to take Deshanna's advice to worry about Harea's accusations later. "At least some of you have to stay here in case something goes wrong. I'll take Jester, and Blackwall, and a handful of our hunters." She closed her eyes and nodded slowly. "We will still need to arrive by sea, though."

"That can be arranged," Deshanna said. Her features were tight with thought. "You will have all the supplies you need."

"Thank you," Enaste breathed, looking up at her. "And we should leave soon. I don't think they have much time."

"Of course." Deshanna looked at her, head tilted. She was quiet for a moment, and Enaste wondered if they were missing something. "I agree with Harea, though." The Keeper's expression turned disapproving, but there was a glint of mischief in her eyes. "He's too old for you."

Harea laughed and Enaste groaned in frustration. Hallin was visibly disturbed by the conversation, almost as much as Enaste herself, and said nothing. "I'm leaving," Enaste announced as she started to stand.

"Wait." Harea grunted as she rolled over, first to her hands, then kneeling, with Hallin's support. Enaste paused, looking at her. "I know I kid but... Be careful, okay?"

"I will be, Rea."

"No, really." Harea's dark brows knit together. "Promise me you'll be careful. I can't..." Hallin put his hand on her back, but she kept her eyes on Enaste. "I can't lose you.” Her voice fell. It was unsettling to see her like this, soft and vulnerable instead of bright and strong. “You have no idea how terrifying it was when we heard what happened at the Conclave." Enaste heard the sounds of evening chores all around them, but their little clearing was quiet. Harea’s words were gentle, and so much quieter than she usually was. "We --I..." She trailed off, closing her eyes, and shook her head.

Enaste stepped closer to her, and knelt in the grass in front of her and Hallin.

"We thought you died, Noodle," Hallin said quietly. "We thought we'd never get to see you again."

"I'm sorry... I should have reached out sooner." Guilt settled in her then, weighed down with the realization that she could have done more, could have tried harder. Somehow, in all the turmoil of the Inquisition, she’d forgotten how much her absence would hurt the people who loved her most.

"Maybe, but... Just don't do it again, alright?" Harea said gently. "You can always come home."

Enaste tried to speak, but the words disappeared in her mouth. Harea reached out and squeezed Enaste's hand --the one that bore the anchor. Instead of saying anything, Enaste pulled her friend into a warm embrace, wrapping her arms around her back. Harea let go of Enaste's hand and hugged her tightly, leaning her forehead against Enaste's collarbone.

Something moved in-between them, a tiny kick from inside Harea's body. Harea snorted, the sound tickling Enaste's ear. "It knows," she drew the word out and Enaste laughed.

"Don't call your baby an 'it,'" she teased, and Harea shrugged.

"What should I call it instead? Harea the Second?"

"That's better than 'it,'" Enaste pulled back and looked down at Harea's belly. "But you're right." She met her friend's eyes again. "I'll be careful."

"Good. Because Harea the Second isn't coming until you can deliver it."

"Don't say that, vhenan," Hallin groaned. "Esa taught our healers everything they know. Bri or Virin would do just as well."

"No," Harea said firmly. She put one arm around Enaste's shoulder and pulled her close, frowning at her bonded. "The only person I trust to deliver Harea the Second is Noodle the First."

Hallin sighed. "Just focus on coming home safe, okay, Esa?"

Enaste nodded, leaning into Harea, and for a few heartbeats focused on the warmth of her friend's body against her, the softness of her robes, the rise and fall of her shoulders.

"You promise?" Harea asked, giving her a squeeze.

"I do. I promise."

<- prev fic | next fic ->

follow on ao3 here!

[gaychocolatehomicide]

I love how different Lavellan players who get super into the roleplay aspect of Inquisition explain the conflicts between the limited options for things you can say and the limitless possibilities of headcanons. Like I've seen people go "my Lavellan trusts nobody and is lying out their ass the entire time" and I've seen "I guess I'll use canon dialogue as guidelines" and I've seen "I'm rewriting the entire goddamn game, see if I don't."

My Lavellans' strategies are as follows:

- Miriani - canon is guidelines, I'll fill in the gaps with my own conjectures and justify how she always seems to be talking about other people's problems as a chronic resistance to asking for help.

- Samahl - has never told the truth once in his life, and is probably the most flippant person in any room, which is saying something because he's dating Dorian.

- Rogelan - generally a closed-mouthed guy, complicated backstory hidden behind his tendency to deflect, and occasionally he just tells people that something is none of their business.

- Isene - I'm rewriting most of her dialogue NGL, the offered answers aren't unhinged enough and besides, Ise is a distrustful bitch who is more likely to light you on fire than to confide in you.

- Harea - I'm rewriting entire fucking scenes and plot points in order to make the stuff I decided about her be true, literally I have a document full of scenes I'm going to rework so that she can be in them the way I want her to.

These are also chronological in order of when I made them, so I'm sure nobody can draw conclusions about how I feel about the plot of the game based on the increasing divergence and obvious frustration as time goes on lmao

[gayhawkelatehomicide]

Meet Harea Lavellan, my sweet girl who is maybe a little bit possessed by the fade ghost of Andraste.

I don't have a working title for any of it, but I've got a ton of little drabbles about her. Here's one that happens at the beginning of the Deep Roads DLC, which is the closest to finished of anything I have about her.

Lieutenant Renn has spent his entire life underground. Who he was before the Legion doesn't matter anymore, but since his funeral, he's been fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads. The fifth blight was a mess, and some of the Legion even went up to the surface to fight it on the Hero of Ferelden's say-so (although she wasn't the Hero at that point, just some surfacer who managed to make the Assembly sit up and take notice). Renn, however, stayed below. His unit had been involved in a strike against a broodmother nest just a few days before the first battalions headed for the surface, and they'd been in no shape to fight. 

In the intervening ten years or so, he's seen his fair share of stupid casteless, shaft-rats, surface dwarves, humans, elves, and even a couple of Qunari running around in the Deep Roads. Most of them trying to make money, all of them in over their heads. He's walked over enough of their fool corpses to know that when you start finding evidence of a topsider caravan, you should be on the lookout for the 'spawn that killed them. 

Not every surfacer he meets is utterly incompetent, though. Occasionally, you'll get a group armed well enough to run through an old thaig, grab whatever they can carry, and haul ass back out without being overwhelmed. A few Carta clans have managed to hack out and defend some strongholds here and there. There has even been a decent number of Grey Wardens who checked in with the Legion on their way past, headed up or down on some inscrutable business of their own. Still, more often than not, those who go into the Deep Roads don't come back. Smart people don't go into the Deep Roads at all.

All this to say, Renn doesn't see topsiders often, and he can count the ones wise enough to bring a mage with them on one hand. A warden healer who mostly hid near the back of his unit, a lyrium-addled elf who threw some sparks at Renn then disappeared into the shadows, and a leashed Qunari Saarebas trotting behind its handler in the northernmost part of the Roads he's ever visited. Beyond that, and the (thankfully rare) darkspawn emissary, Renn's life doesn't have much magic in it. He likes it that way. It's simpler. 

The earthquakes in the lyrium mines make everything… complicated. Shaper Valta gets drafted to meet a group of surfacers who are supposed to come help, and Renn's ready to roll his eyes and prepare some funeral pyres until he hears who it is. Even in the Deep Roads, everyone has heard about the Inquisition going on up top. Their Inquisitor is supposed to be some kind of religious leader, but she's also apparently indestructible. The stories that trickle down to the Legion have passed through enough hands that nobody should take them as pure truth, but if even a fraction of what people say is accurate, the Inquisitor is a force to be reckoned with. 

Renn hears that she doesn't sit back like most surface commanders; that she and her crew fight like shock troops, out ahead of the main force of her army. The stories say she goes into places where her men might struggle and takes out enemies that ordinary soldiers shouldn't be asked to handle. She and her unit have killed everything from hurlocks to high dragons. High dragons plural. As in, more than one. There's a story about a trio of dragons set up in some place with a fancy Orlesian name Renn can't be arsed to remember, and the Inquisitor taking her little group down the line and killing all three one after the other. He's too old and far too experienced to get giddy over someone else's battles—especially not in front of his men—but he can't help thinking, What a fight that must've been!

When he hears that the Inquisitor is the topside help they're getting, Renn reconsiders his position. He can feel Valta watching him with that little smug expression she gets when she wants to say "I told you so," so he responds to the messenger with a grunt of acknowledgement and little else. The runner scurries off back to whoever sent her, trailing her pair of Legion escorts. Once they're relatively alone, Renn offers Valta his most forbidding frown. 

"Don't start," he says futilely.

"The Shaperate promised that they would send someone-" she begins anyway. Her face is straight, but that smile lingers in her voice and her big pretty eyes. 

Renn interrupts with a growl. "I know, I know. When are they getting here?" Another minor tremor rattles through the outpost they've claimed near the open rift in the Stone, sending dust and small pebbles into the air but thankfully not knocking loose any large boulders. "We need to get to the bottom of this soon."

"Within a week." Much of the glee goes out of Valta's tone, which is a shame. As much as it drives Renn nuts, it's good to see her smile. She hasn't been herself since the rhythm in the quakes started up. "Their forward scouts and the engineers from Orzammar should arrive in a few days to construct a mechanism for them to reach us safely. Or rather, as safely as is currently possible."

"Hm. Well. We'll hold out against the 'spawn pretty easily, as long as that seal doesn't get damaged." He picks up his axe. "Speaking of which, I should go check on the patrol we sent that way. They haven't reported back."

Valta's eyes widen. "Should you take another unit with you?"

Renn shakes his head. "No need. They're only a couple of minutes late. I'll probably run into them in the hall. Just a precaution."

"As you say, Lieutenant," she acquiesces. But Renn knows that look. Valta doesn't use his title unless she's up to something. She's going to send more men after him. 

Well, it's pointless arguing. She won't be convinced, and if he starts now, they'll still be standing here bickering when the patrol comes in. He shoulders his axe and offers her a mocking half-salute, turns on his heel and heads off down the hall. He only goes about twenty yards before he starts to notice things that put him on alert. It's the smell first, then the distant sound of steel on stone. Renn breaks into a jog. Then a run. By the time he's close enough to hear the distinctive shrieks, he's moving at a dead sprint. 

He skids around a corner to find his missing patrol, down to about a third of its original strength, making a fighting retreat up the corridor, chased by darkspawn. At the other end, where once there had been an old dwarven seal—an incredible feat of engineering which had held against the 'spawn since the time of the first blight—there is now a cracked ruin, broken in half by one of the recent earthquakes. Renn spits a few of the nastiest curses he knows and wades in to rescue as many of his men as possible. He prays to the ancestors that Valta's insubordinate little head tilt means there's an entire patrol on his heels, but he won't bet on it.

It's going to be a long week.

***

Five days later, the Legion have finally fought their way back to the room with the seal. It's been a painful slog, expensive in lives and resources, but the dwarves of old picked their choke-points well. It's going to be worth it to clog the tunnel here, instead of a few chambers farther along. They bring up lyrium explosives; If the seal can't hold the 'spawn back anymore, its rubble will have to do. Renn is starting to feel a little more positive about the situation, which is, of course, a mistake. 

Just as they're about to lay the charges, the biggest wave of darkspawn yet hits their position. An ogre bursts through the crack in the seal, slams through their defensive line, and runs off down the tunnel. Renn can't spare the men to send someone after it. His legionaries are falling left and right as a third hurlock alpha raises its blade to rally its fellows. He takes the beast's head off its shoulders. It's not enough. They're overwhelmed. 

Renn shouts for someone to prime the charges, but before he can confirm anyone heard him, a genlock alpha's shield bash sends him sprawling. He fetches up against a wall with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Valta's voice echoes from the entrance to the chamber, and through the ringing in his ears Renn can only think that it's a damn shame Orzammar will be losing a shaper as talented as her because of his failure. 

Then, something extraordinary happens. Renn feels the temperature in the chamber drop by what must be ten degrees. All the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up, like there's an emissary in the room about to cast chain lightning. He wonders for a moment if the feeling is some strange side effect of death.

A glyph etches itself into the ground a few feet from where Renn has landed. Green and gold light creeps rapidly—like roots growing through stone, only much faster—in intricate patterns out from a center point until a five-foot diameter ice rune shimmers an inch above the floor. Before he can really wrap his aching head around that, a blur of something just beyond vision zips past him, and a sword no dwarf could wield unsheathes itself from the air. It is easily five feet long, a full hand's breadth wide, and seems to be made primarily of that same green-and-gold energy. Its edges, though, shine with a searing white radiance that's so bright it hurts to look at. With one long, powerful sweep, the blade cleaves through the shield and into the body of the genlock alpha that had been bearing down on Renn. 

A pair of hurlocks, rushing up to take advantage of the lieutenant's weakness, step on the rune and are immediately engulfed in a blast of frozen energy that encases both of them in jagged, frost-edged ice. From the other direction, a hurlock archer is lining up a shot. As it draws its wicked-looking short bow, it too is frozen solid. All this happens in the space between two heartbeats. In the next, a woman materializes out of thin air—but no, she must've been the invisible thing that rushed past. 

The first glimpse Renn gets of the Inquisitor is brief. She shimmers into existence, left hand raised in a grasping fist as her ice closes its grip on the archer, right hand still wrapped around the hilt of the sword made from light. The gold-trimmed white leather of her mage armor fans out around her as she pivots sharply from her charge into a solid stance from which she can lock the archer down. The rune behind her (and the enemies it's captured) seems almost beneath her notice. Her back is to Renn, so he cannot see her face, but there is only one person this can be. 

Renn hauls himself back upright. There will be time to deal with his own injuries later; he has to help get these 'spawn handled so his men can prime the charges. The Inquisitor banishes the light sword and uses both hands to raise a wall of ice across the hole where the darkspawn are pouring through, buying them vital time. She wraps herself and the legionaries closest to her in armor made of light which, as Renn watches, effortlessly turns aside a half-dozen heavy blows. Then, right before Renn's eyes, she vanishes into smoke again. 

He applies his axe to the nearest frozen darkspawn just before an enormous Qunari warrior wades in after the Inquisitor, ramming a genlock's shield most of the way through its body with a single blow of his gigantic hammer. A crossbow bolt comes shrieking over Renn's head to hit the frozen archer and explodes, sending icy chunks of hurlock in every direction. A man in Grey Warden blues runs to the rescue of a few struggling legionaries near the opposite wall, bashing his shield into another genlock before it can bite down on the leg of the recruit it's got pinned. The rest of the combat is a blur of shouted orders, darkspawn blood, and lyrium explosives. 

When the dust settles, Renn slumps against the barricade they hadn't been able to defend. He lets his eyes close, just for a moment, and takes a deep breath. A small, cool hand touches his brow. 

Renn tries to brush it away with a growl. "I'm fine, Valta. Don't fuss."

"You have a head wound," an unfamiliar voice informs him. Renn's eyes pop open. Leaning over him, there is an elven girl with violet eyes and blonde hair. Her face is marked by strange, intricate tattoos that Renn can't quite follow the pattern of. She looks concerned but professional, and she displays none of the histrionics one might expect after battle from a child her age—though it's hard to eyeball ages in non-dwarves. She could be an adult. Clearly, she's a healer, which seems more immediately relevant. Perhaps she came in with the Inquisitor's party? A leader that important is bound to have a personal surgeon. 

"It's just a scratch," Renn insists, mostly out of habit. He tries to get up, but a wave of dizziness lets him know that he'll be staying right where he is. The surgeon's hand on his shoulder guides him back to a sitting position.

Her tone is disapproving when she replies, "Then it will be the work of a moment to heal it. Sit still and let me help." 

She closes her eyes. The sensation that follows is like someone wrapping his head in a cold compress. The pain eases quickly under the soothing chill, and clarity returns to Renn's thoughts. Her face swims into focus. (He realizes that he's been seeing double since the genlock alpha hit him, and spares a moment to marvel at the miracle of what must be magical healing.) The improvement doesn't stop there, though. As he sits, he can feel his minor wounds—bruises, cuts, aches, and pains from the past five days of fighting to reclaim this position—righting themselves all at once. Renn has been living on hard tack and healing potions, and with a minute of this stranger's attention, he feels like he's just come off a month's R&R in Orzammar. 

"Thank you," he says gratefully when she's done.

"You're very welcome," she smiles a sweet little smile. She reminds him of a cousin he had, before the Legion. His mother's sister's daughter. A good kid; she'd been nearly fifteen when he left. He wonders how she's doing now. He quickly banishes the thought, pulling himself up to his feet and turning away from the girl. He needs to check on his men. 

"How many did we lose?" He calls to his second in command, a former Carta bruiser named Hemmi. 

"Not as many as we could've," comes the reply. "Four dead, no wounded."

Renn frowns. "What do you mean 'no wounded'? Did the darkspawn carry anyone off?"

"No sir! The-"

"Sorry to interrupt," the elven girl cuts in. "I hope I didn't do anything wrong, but I did what I could for your wounded already."

"Already?" Renn rounds on her. "How? Did I lose time to that head wound?" 

She offers a sheepish smile. She has one small hand wrapped around the other forearm, and she's taken a few steps back to stand by the Qunari, who is cleaning darkspawn blood off his oversized ram's-head hammer. Renn has a moment to register that the staff on her back is a strange shape: almost like the hilt of a sword, but without any blade to balance it. "No, but I'm a fair combat healer. I got most of them during the fight, while I was trying to keep this fool alive." She elbows the Qunari.

"Hey, not all of us can make crap from thin air, alright?" He protests in a tone somewhere between grumpy and joking. 

Valta steps in before Renn can demand clearer answers. "Allow me to introduce Lieutenant Renn of the Legion of the Dead, veteran of the Fifth Blight." 

The girl nods politely. "It's an honor to meet you. I understand the Legion was instrumental to the Hero of Ferelden's success." 

"I was just a recruit," Renn deflects. "Didn't do anything useful." To Hemmi, he says, "And what do you mean only four dead? I know I saw more than that fall." 

Hemmi opens his mouth to reply, but Valta beats him to it. "Renn, let me introduce the Inquisitor. She revived a number of your men, and helped the rest beat back the darkspawn." 

"I'm only sorry I couldn't save everyone," the girl smiles sadly. 

It takes Renn another few moments of confused frowning before he understands what he's just been told. This little elven girl, whose entire body is about the width of Renn's upper arm, is the force of nature who turned the tide of battle within moments of her arrival. And while she was doing that, she had enough energy and attention to spare on healing his wounded legionaries. Valta will never let him hear the end of this.

[redinkofshame]

Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day

Ink’s Fic Recs

I’ve always wanted to be more supportive of the other creators in the fandom but I’m a slow reader and I have a shit memory. I can’t remember who writes what, what OC belongs to who, or if I’ve read something already. I decided to start tracking the works I was reading as a draft, just for my own reference, so I can participate in ask memes and stuff. But apparently it’s Fic Writer’s Appreciation Day, so I thought I’d share it!

This is no where near a complete list of fic I’ve read or enjoyed, just what I’ve read since I started doing this. I will continue to update it as I read. If you’re a mutual and/or someone who reads my fics please reach out and tell me to read your stuff if you’re not on this list!!

Also I just FINALLY got my AO3 subscription emails to work correctly, so hopefully I can actually start keeping up.

The vast majority of these will be Solavellan.

@blarfkey AO3 Solas/Ellana Lavellan  Dear Fen’Harel is the cutest damn thing. It’s supposed to be inspired by Dear Daddy Long Legs? Which I can only assume is cuter than it sounds, based on this fic. It’s not quite done, but getting close. There’s a museum date chapter that’s to die for.

@broomclosetkink AO3 Solas/Ellana Lavellan and Solas/Harea Lavellan I think this was the first Solavellan fic I ever read, and I’ve gone back to it a dozen times. I was frustrated with the relationship in game and had to google where people did fanfiction these days. NSFT, because that’s definitely was I was looking for at the time x.x

@ellstersmash​ AO3 Solas/Athi Lavellan I’ve only read one of fics so far but it was lovely! Some big Solavellan angst simmered down to give you just as much pain in smaller word counts lol. Great characterization of Solas, and Athi is very fierce.

@elveny AO3 Solas/Lyssa Lavellan (born in an alienage) Her Spark of Hope timeline covers Lyssa’s life from early childhood up to and including Trespasser, and honestly of all the fics I’ve read I think this is the most I’ve ever felt connected with the author through the work. What she chooses to touch or focus on reminds me so much of my own experience in the fandom.

@bardinhightown AO3 Solas/Naia Lavellan A very cute Beauty and the Beast AU set in France, called La Belle et La Bête and set in France. Not quite complete, but almost there. I really like the interpretation of the curse. I think the Lavellans count as human in this one? Open to interpretation I suppose.

@keturagh AO3 Solas/Pangara Lavellan Ket (frequently blamed) is working on a big Lore Meta I’m majorly looking forward to. In the mean time, they have many small fics covering the course of Pangara and Solas’ relationship, from domestic to kinky AF, through the Inquisition timeline.

@luzial AO3  Solas/Ellana Lavellan I powered through Luzial’s (and Maerisk’s) Overgrown faster than I’ve read anything in a long time. Ellana is a reporter and Solas is her expert consultant. No where near complete if I had to guess, but you gotta love a fic with both Enemies to Lovers AND Fake Dating.

@roguelioness tumblr AO3 Solas/Samarra Bayart, Solas/Thalia  and Elise/Cullen A Whole New World is a longfic of a modern woman falling into Thedas, with dark!Solas. Very long, and more to come. For Goodness Bakes is absolutely adorable. She’s also got some Cullen/Trevelyan and some Krem/Maryden. 

@thevikingwoman tumblr AO3 Solas/Iwyn Lavellan One of my best friends in the fandom, Viking has dozens of drabbles, perfect bite size pieces of friendship or romance for when you just need a moment to unwind. She’s got a very gentle Solavellan fix it I recommend. Iwyn is a dom can be found in canon, modern AU, or the ice skating AU!