#here for the girls who love him both protecting him from orlesians

[animezinglife]

Headcanon

Once everything's said and done and the Inquisitor and Cullen finally have some time to settle, their friends get them late wedding/housewarming gifts.

One is particularly amusing: a box from Leliana labeled, "Kindling."

Cullen is not allowed to use it as such until his wife has read every single one of the ridiculous Orlesian marriage inquiries/proposals it contains. On occasion, she finds a particularly good or forward one and reads it aloud, leaving him flustered and grumbling.

[ziskandra]

Meredith Stannard Character Analysis

[originally posted on twitter last month!] A question I often get is, ‘hey, why do you love Meredith so much,’ and I’ve done my best to answer that question here! Basically, I see Meredith as the type of person who will protect her own at all cost. And that's a goal which is very understandable and human at its core. Who can’t relate to that? Unfortunately for Meredith (and, y’know, everyone in Kirkwall), the working definitions of 'her own' and 'at all cost' shift and expand over time. Slowly in some dimensions, and far more rapidly in others.

So, let’s recap! From Meredith’s childhood through to the events of DA2.

In the beginning, she's a young girl who blames herself for the death of her family, believing she failed them through her inaction, haunted by the question of if she’d turned her sister into the templars, would they all still be alive? For Meredith, becoming a templar is both penance and promise. She finds purpose in her devotion to duty and is given the tools she needs to help prevent further tragedies. Given her experiences, it's unsurprising she develops a firm belief that the Circle is the only place mages can be safe, e.g., even if an apprentice nonetheless turns into an abomination, at least they're not running amok among the general population.

Not like her sister had. During this time, she develops a close bond with Ser Wentworth, the templar who rescued her from the smouldering ruins of her family home. Heck, Ser Wentworth considers her the daughter he didn't deserve (curiously instead of the daughter he never had, but that's a thought for another meta).

And tragically he’s just yet another person she couldn't save: she still visits him all the time, caring for him, until he loses his mind completely to long-term effects of lyrium usage, until he can't even remember who she is. And she cares for him! Until the very end! He’s all the family she has left; she can’t abandon him. What can she do? She's already Knight-Captain by now, appointed by Ser Wentworth himself. She's already on lyrium. It's notoriously hard to quit. She also considers it integral to her identity as a protector, as a templar. Ever since she took her vows, ever since she saw her beloved mentor deteriorate from lyrium sickness, Mereidth has accepted that she’ll also likely die a miserable death one day. (And, oh well, that’s what she deserves. So long as she can keep everyone save in the meantime.) And then several years later in 9:21, all the shit with Viscount Threnhold reaches its boiling point. Meredith's commanding officer gets fucking hanged in the middle of the night. At least there's something she can DO about that, unlike with every other person she's failed. (And Threnhold even lives to tell the tale for a couple more years! Alas, my thoughts on whether Perrin Threnhold was a tyrant and the complexities of Kirkwall's relationship with Orlais is again a topic for another time.) And then not only is Meredith now the new Knight-Commander, the templars have just proven that they are for all intents and purposes, the city's true military strength. So now Meredith more or less accepts responsibility of everyone in Kirkwall. So it's understandable she'd want to install a figurehead viscount that's under her control, given that there's been whispers of an impending Orlesian invasion (and that the last viscount was provoking them)! Understandably, Meredith would very much like to avoid this, so goodbye tariffs, hello peace, for a little while. (but... Kirkwall.) During this time, Meredith's settling into her new role and responsibilities, learning what sort of leader she wants to be. And by the Maker, she wants to be a proactive one. Everything she's loved and lost has been due to inaction, one way or another. This whole time, she's still haunted by the thought that her sister might be alive if they'd just sent her to the Circle, instead of fearing discovery by templars. Comparatively speaking, compared to what happened to her family, the Circle's not actually that bad. The mages support each other. They don't have to live in fear. Freedom is a small sacrifice to make for safety, right? Meredith can stop others from making the same mistakes. Mercy is a sign of weakness, and weakness is how people end up dead. Most importantly, there's nobody around to seriously question her convictions. By the time Orsino becomes First Enchanter in 9:28, Meredith has virtually been operating unchecked for seven years.

There's no incentive for Grand Cleric Elthina to pay particular attention to the daily functioning of the Gallows, not if nobody's complaining, and especially not when there's no threat of war or civil unrest looming on the horizon.

Things in Kirkwall are... okay! Orsino's singing like a canary in a coalmine, but everyone's too busy trying to survive the shithole that is Kirkwall to pay attention to the plight of mages. Then the Blight happens. There's a sudden influx of refugees. At least one of them is VERY passionate about mage rights. The Qunari get stranded. Things rapidly spiral out of Meredith's control, and she's not known for her ability to reliably delegate to others in times of need.

She's having enough trouble just with the Gallows and the tensions there that she can't really spare time to worry about... everything else. (She can offload that to Cullen, right?) Of course, we know how this ends. Viscount Dumar loses his head, and the only reason he was even there in the first place was because Meredith PUT HIM THERE. She doesn't want the responsibility of appointing another Viscount, for it to change nothing, just to fail them, too. Hawke's the only real candidate, and not only does Meredith not want to ask that of them, Seneschal Bran rightly advises that it would be a political maelstrom. So the status quo ticks along. Meredith's in way over her fucking head, and she'll take whatever help she can get. Even if it's red, glowing, and extremely fucking suspicious. She's tired. She's done. She wants to rest. She's sick of fucking up, of questioning her decisions. All she wants is some certainty.

🗡️❗️ Addenda:

1) I think it's difficult to separate the mage-templar conflict from the wider geopolitical situation in Thedas (esp the tensions between the Southern Chantry, Tevinter, and the Qunari).

2) Hopefully needless disclaimer, but I do not personally believe mages (nor anyone else!) deserve to be subjugated. One of the main things I love about this series is all the moving parts and politics. No matter how reprehensible I might find a character, I can understand why they are the way they are, and how their beliefs have shaped who they are. RL is never as clear-cut, and IRL actual, real living people are being hurt by bigotry and systems of oppression. I think fiction and storytelling have an important role in examining the interplay of power, in a way that is now widely accessible. 3) On a less serious note, Seneschal Bran Cavin Post mage-ending when his city's lost its Grand Cleric, Knight-Commander, First Enchanter, and Champion in one evening:

[lesetoilesfous]

caning, forced to watch for kanders?

Fuuuuuuuuck this one killed me and was also very fun to write, thank you for the prompt!

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: Caning, Forced to Watch

Pairing: Kanders

Characters: Karl Thekla, Anders, Knight-Commander Greagoir

Warnings: Corporal Punishment, Child Abuse, Implied Sexual Abuse, Public Humiliation, Systematic Abuse, Graphic Depicition of Injury

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, there's some comfort here but I can never write a happy ending when they're still in the goddamn Circle, the Circles are awful.

Word Count: 3,759

It isn’t personal. Karl knows this isn’t about him. He knows, with a very specific kind of agony, that Greagoir has no idea that any of the apprentices currently gathering to sit on the shabby wooden seats assembled in a semi-circle in their dormitory would take this personally. He, like most of the templars in Kinloch, has long since fallen under the impression that no one in this blighted tower likes the young man tied with rough hemp rope to a wooden step ladder in the middle of the circle of chairs any more than they do. And Karl knows that isn’t true: not only because he loves the thin, bruised, frightened looking teenager trying to pull a brave face so much that he thinks he might risk tranquility just to get him out of here. He also knows it isn’t true because one of the six year olds looks like she’s about to burst into tears: the one Anders would climb into bed with and read stories to until she fell asleep without waking up to screaming nightmares. Karl knows it isn’t true because Angelique looks like she’s seriously considering giving up all the Orlesian courtesies she was governed in before she found her magic and setting Greagoir on fire. Karl knows it isn’t true, because little Surana looks like they’re contemplating blood magic.

But the templars have been good at understanding their wards.

A few of the apprentices, of course, giggle. There are red cheeks and flushed faces as elves and human children try to decide whether they’re supposed to avert their eyes. A wooden stepladder (borrowed from the tranquil’s storage closet, if Karl had to guess) is set up in the middle of about a hundred wooden chairs. One for every apprentice in this dormitory. Anders’ hands are tied to either side of the top of the ladder. The apprentices are giggling because his robes have been lifted and tucked into his belt, exposing his long, skinny legs (with a scattering of small round bruises in sets of five on his thighs that Karl doesn’t want to look at.) All of them are staring at the old grey smalls covering Anders’ arse, or trying to look away from them. So the teenagers are giggling, because they’ve never seen anything like this. The older kids and young adults look as if they’re about to attend a hanging. So do the younger apprentices. The pretty ones.

Anders’ jaw is tense, and he’s staring rigidly at the dull, grey, distant wall. Karl can tell how frightened he is because of how still he is. Anders is the kind of boy who never sits still: who’s always gesticulating when he speaks, or wriggling to sit in ever more improbable ways in his chair. Now, every part of him is motionless, his bound wrists frozen beneath fingers that are half curled over the old, paint-stained wood of the stepladder.

Knight-Commander Greagoir stands up, and the giggling stops like a head cut off by a meat cleaver. In the Knight-Commander’s hands is a long, thin wooden cane. Karl is having a hard time breathing.

He’d chosen not to sit at the front. He can’t decide if it was pragmatism or cowardice. He doesn’t want to watch this. He doesn’t want anyone to watch this. He doesn’t want it to be happening at all. But Karl knows that one of the few things worse than this is the templars finding out exactly how much he and Anders have begun to mean to each other: so much so that sometimes when they’re drawn together they flinch away on instinct, too frightened of what the scope of their feelings means for the remainder of their short lives in captivity. Karl can’t let any of the twenty or so templars in attendance, standing at regular intervals behind the gathered seats, know exactly how personally he’s about to take this. So he takes a seat in the middle of the crowd, and sits with his hands folded in his lap, and forces his gaze away from Anders and the purple bruise squashing his left eye shut.

“Apprentices.” Greagoir doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. It carries anyway, bouncing against the high stone walls and through the wide empty space. Karl hates him. He hates that he’s doing this here, where they sleep. He hates that when he goes to bed, when he dresses, when he needs a piss, he’s going to have to walk over this patch of floor and remember this. He hates that the smaller kids are going to have to walk over the stone that appears again and again in their dreams and nightmares. He hates that this will likely not be the worst thing he sees done, here.

“It has come to my attention that some of you believe there are no consequences for your actions.” Greagoir punctuates his sentence by slapping the cane in his hand lightly against his metal gauntlet. Several of the apprentices flinch. Karl feels his own shiver ripple through his shoulders and tenses so hard it hurts. Anders’ mouth pinches shut, so tightly his lips bleed white. “You think that you live in a land of extremes: that my men and I will either do nothing, or kill you. I would like to disabuse you of this notion.” Greagoir steps forward, towards the innermost ring of chairs around the ladder, and the apprentices who’d been unhappily forced into those seats when they found all the others filled lean back so fast their chairs creak. Greagoir’s expression doesn’t change.

“It is not our job to kill you. It is our job to protect you. From outside forces, yes. From demons, yes. But also from yourselves. You are not safe in the outside world, and the outside world can never be safe from you. We keep you here for your own good. We clothe you, feed you, educate you. We provide you with more luxury than most peasants could imagine in a lifetime.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Karl sees Samael frowning. The boy had been brought in from a family of twe in Amaranthine. He was, by all accounts, a boy from a life of deep poverty. But he rarely agrees with the templars when they weaponise it against him.

Greagoir gets closer to Anders, and Karl’s mind fills with a vivid, sudden vision of climbing onto his chair and running forward, through the crowd of apprentices, tackling the Knight-Commander to the ground and punching him until his face is bloody. But he doesn’t do that.

“In return, we ask only that you behave yourselves.” Greagoir points at Anders, so suddenly and so violently that several of the apprentices flinch again. Anders, for his part, noisily puffs a strand of hair out his face, and Karl nearly wants to cry. Greagoir’s mouth tightens in a thin, sour smile. “Anders thinks that misbehaving makes him interesting. He thinks it makes him brave, or heroic. He thinks that we are terrible villains, and he is a noble mage, and that he can make fools of myself and my men. But this is not the case. Anders, like all of you, is a child.” Greagoir gestures with the cane, and a Dalish girl who still hasn’t told them her name flinches back so fast her chair tips backward.

“He is a naughty, stupid, little boy. Not only is he a naughty, stupid, little boy - he’s a dangerous naughty, stupid, little boy. Like all of you, like all mages. He needs to be protected from himself. So I want all of you to watch this, and I want all of you to know that this is what happens to naughty children. It is not brave. It is not interesting. It is not heroic. It is foolish, and painful, and humiliating. And I will beat as many of you as I need to, to protect you and all of Fereldan from the far greater danger of mages, like Anders, who will do anything to be 'free'.”

Satisfied, Greagoir steps back and raises the cane. Karl is squeezing the wooden sides of his chair so hard he imagines he can feel it splintering. Tears prickle hotly at the backs of his eyes. Greagoir's hand falls in a swift slash of air and lands with a crack on Anders’ arse. Anders huffs a breath, but doesn’t make a sound. The cane rises again. No one is laughing now. Out of the corners of his eyes, Karl can see the way that every apprentice has become tense and still. His vision distorts like thick glass in a fishbowl. The children around him feel both very close and very far away. He feels as if he’s so close to Greagoir and Anders that he could breathe and touch them.

On the third strike, Anders makes a soft sound of pain, a bitten off grunt that they wouldn’t have heard if it wasn’t for the deathly silence that has fallen over every child in the eastern dormitory. On the fifth strike, Anders yelps - a sound so high and loud it’s almost like an animal. Karl forces himself to look at his face, then, and sees that it’s washed a furious, burning red, all the way to the tips of his ears. And Karl hates it and hates the Circle and hates Greagoir, for turning the gentle, intimate pinkness of Anders’ blush into something humiliating and awful. Karl can feel his magic roiling somewhere between his mind and the Fade like a building wave. Around him, he can feel the tension of the other apprentices' magic, too, as they try to control their fear and anger and embarrassment. It prickles over his skin like static electricity, pulling at the back of his neck.

When Greagoir strikes Anders a seventh time, Anders starts to cry. It’s a terrible, soft, huffing sound dragged from between his lips like a pulled tooth. Greagoir pants, his own cheeks beginning to flush red with exertion, and hits Anders three more times in quick succession. Anders writhes against the stepladder, and Karl notices for the first time that his ankles are tied to the base, too, with the same rough thick hemp rope, which has already begun to rub his skin red and raw. Karl drags his eyes up Anders’ bare, bruised legs and swallows hot, sour bile in the back of his throat when he notices the lines of red that are beginning to spot through the fabric of Anders’ smalls.

Greagoir hits Anders a tenth time, and Anders keens, tossing his head, his nose running, snot mixing with a mess of tears on his red cheeks. Anders' legs and arms are shaking, now, and every time Greagoir hits him he cries out, trying to flinch away from the blow. The stepladder shakes, creaking with the force of Anders’ struggling against the ropes. One of the younger children, Matthias, starts to wail. One row behind him, Karl can sees Angelique crying, silently, her face a mask of polite neutrality.

Greagoir gives Anders fifteen strikes, and by the time he’s done blood is running in droplets down his legs like a monthly bleed. Anders hangs his head, hair falling forward mercifully to cover his face, and shakes, sobbing against the ladder. Greagoir holds the cane between his hands, the wood red with Anders’ blood. “Let this be a lesson to you all.”

Then he turns, and leaves. All of the apprentices remain frozen in their chairs, unsure of whether they can move. But one of the templars - Drass, steps forward and unties Anders brusquely from the ladder. Anders slumps, crumpling to the ground and making a soft sound of pain when he lands on his arse. Drass looks up at the assembled crowd, looping the ropes neatly around his gauntlets. “I’ll need a volunteer to take this ladder back to Owain, and another to take him to the clinic.”

Angelique gets to her feet. “I’ll take the ladder. Karl, do you mind taking him to the clinic?”

Karl nearly passes out with relief. As it is, he makes a mental note to ask Anders to kiss Angelique for him, later, and stumbles forward on numb, clumsy feet to where the love of his life is curled up, bleeding on the floor. Because he couldn’t volunteer, couldn’t find the neutrality to say anything without giving himself away. But Angelique had done it for him. Karl crouches, and gently slips his hands under Anders’ arms, lifting him easily (too easily, it’s always too easy to lift him, a boy this tall shouldn’t be this light.) Anders blinks up at him, eyes red and puffy, lip bitten through, swelling and bloody for it, hair clinging haphazardly to his cheeks and chin.

“Thekla?”

Karl wants to hold him. He wants to hold him, and kiss him, and tell him nothing like this is ever going to happen again. But he can feel Drass’ eyes on him, so doesn’t do any of those things. He waits until Anders drags his feet under him, and slings his arm over his shoulders, and tugs his robes loose of his belt to cover his legs with a wave of relief so strong it nearly incapacitates him. Anders shudders as he’s fully clothed again, and Karl wants to stop, and apologise, but instead he gently tugs him towards the door. Anders limps with every step.

*

Wynne doesn’t heal him. She explains, curtly, that she’d been instructed by Greagoir not to erase a painful lesson with magical healing. Karl had explained, loudly, that Anders could hardly learn the lesson if he died of infection or blood loss. At that, Wynne had given him a pot of ointment and gauze and told him to leave. Karl had, face burning with the force of anger. Anders hadn’t said anything throughout, which was making Karl’s hurt do worried somersaults. Slowly, limping, they’d walked back downstairs towards one of the apprentice bathrooms. Hadley was on duty, at least, and gave them both an apologetic, embarrassed smile, averting his gaze to the side of the bathtub as Karl helped Anders undress and get inside. Anders had said nothing throughout, his brown eyes unfocused and his breathing shallow.

He’d only come back into himself when Karl had picked up a rag with one arm under Anders’ almost concave belly to support him, Anders’ ribs sticking sharply into his forearm. Karl had stared at the series of haphazard, angular weals and welts cut into Anders skin in deep, angry purple and red lines. His skin was more bruise than anything else, painted yellow and green, covered in dried lines of blood. Karl had suddenly found that he couldn’t move, kneeling beside the iron bathtub, rag in hand. That was when Anders had come back, hand squeezing his forearm. Karl had looked up, and realised that his chin and the stubble that kept growing there no matter how often he shaved, was damp with tears. Anders hadn’t touched his face - couldn’t, with Hadley watching, no matter how nice he was. His eyes were hollow and dark with anger and a terrible, wounded sort of fear. But his long fingers had dug deeply into Karl’s forearm, squeezing it hard.

“It’s alright.”

Karl nods. He doesn’t say, it’s not alright. He doesn’t say, it’s never going to be alright. Instead, he dips his hand in the bathwater, coaxing heat into it with his magic, and gently begins dabbing at the dried blood. Anders’ breath hitches every time he touches the cuts, and by the time Karl’s finished the water’s pink and Anders is crying almost silently in soft, coughing hiccoughs. Hadley’s mouth is turned down in an unhappy frown, but he stands ramrod straight against the wall in front of the bathtubs, watching them. Gently, Karl helps Anders get out of the bathtub, drying him off and helping him get dressed before walking him back towards his bunk bed.

Jowan is gone - probably off trailing after Surana like a lost puppy. Karl doesn’t really care, he’s just grateful there isn’t someone immediately above them to watch as helps Anders lie on his front. The apprentices in the beds nearby skitter away from them like frightened sparrows as soon as they get close, and Karl can’t find the energy to apologise to them for it. Anders’ bed smells like soap and old rags and ink, and his pillow is stained with decades of other apprentices. He lies down on the thin mattress, and Karl kneels on the stone beside the bed, gesturing to the robes over Anders’ legs.

“I need to put on the ointment.” He says, and wishes he was better with words.

Anders huffs, turning to look at him with one brown eye that’s almost yellow in the shadow of the bunk bed. “You don’t need to ask. It’s not as if everyone hasn’t seen it, anyway.”

Karl freezes, breath hitching in his throat. “Anders -”

Anders buries his head in his arms, and his voice is muffled when he speaks. “Just do it.”

Karl’s stomach flips. But he gently lifts the robe above Anders’ legs and pulls down his smalls, his mind loud with uncomfortable recollections of more precious moments - like the first time he’d undressed him, like this, and the way they’d both blushed, and the sound of Anders’ sighs when...Karl swallows, and his fingers touch the scattering of bruises dug into Anders’ thighs. He doesn’t say anything, though he looks up at the back of Anders’ head and the tangled hair there. Anders doesn’t move, and doesn’t say anything, so Karl grimaces and unscrews the lid of the ointment. The salve inside is thick and white and sticky. It smells bitter and astringent, and when Karl dips his fingers inside it tingles against his skin like peppermint. He pauses, pulling the blanket in a tent over Anders’ arse and legs in an awkward attempt at preserving his dignity.

“This might hurt a bit.”

Anders grunts, fingers crushing the thin pillow beneath his head, face still buried in his arms. “I’ll live.”

Karl nods, and gently begins to dab the ointment against the deeper cuts. Some of them are so deep that the skin around them is peeling back, pulling them wider open. The ointment fills the deep red wounds, shiny against the purple and blackening skin. Occasionally, Anders flinches, and every time he does Karl stops until Anders nods, quietly murmuring, “Ok”, with a hoarse voice. When he’s done, Karl feels like he’s run a marathon, wiping his fingers clean with a rag and pulling Anders’ smalls back up and his robes down over his legs before covering him with the blanket.

The mage lights in the dormitory are darkening, heralding curfew, and a queue of some twenty or so apprentices is waiting outside the western bathrooms. Everyone is paired up. You learned quickly not to bathe on your own, no matter how nice the templar in the bathing area was. Karl knew Anders, at least, had learned that the hard away. The dormitory is full of apprentices yawning and talking quietly - a few sitting up beside candles squinting at their parchment as they try to finish their homework. But the dormitory is also strangely hushed, utterly devoid of the occasional laughter that usually peppered the evenings as everyone came back from classes. No one has forgotten Greagoir’s lesson, yet, and Karl doubts they will for a while.

He knows he only has twenty minutes or so before the apprentices in the beds around Anders’ get back from bathing. He doesn’t care. He adjusts himself on the floor, and leans as close to Anders as he dares - watching the templars that line the distant walls like living statues, or gargoyles. “I want to kill him.”

Anders startles, sitting up with a wince and looking around at the templars himself before staring at Karl with wide, red-rimmed eyes. “You can’t say that!”

Karl meets Anders’ eyes, and lets him see all the anger he’s been trying to keep hidden. “I would. I’d do it in a second. I don’t care if they make me tranquil. Send me to Aeonar, even.” Karl lifts his chin, and tries to ignore the shivering fear in his chest as he says the words. “I’d do it.”

On the bed above him, Anders' pinched, narrow features soften. “I’d never forgive you.”

Karl blinks, and isn’t sure why that makes him want to cry, suddenly. “How d’you think I feel?”

Anders slumps, pursing his lips as his brows draw up, glancing furtively to either side before moving his hand under his blankets to squeeze Karl’s fingers at the edge of the mattress. Karl shifts closer, moving so his body is hiding their joined hands. “M’sorry. Must have been shit, to watch that.”

Karl chokes. “It must have been shit to experience.”

Anders’ fingers tighten reflexively around his, and he’s quiet for a moment. “I can’t imagine, watching them do that to you. I think I’d have set this whole blighted place on fire.”

“I wanted to.” Karl admits, leaning heavily against the thin wooden frame of Anders’ bed. There’s all sorts of graffiti on it - mostly templars and mages in ever more crude positions. And initials. Something in Tevene, Nolite te bastardes carbonodorum. Karl swipes his thumb over the back of Anders’ hand, stroking it softly. “I can stay here, tonight, if you want me to.”

Anders’ mouth trembles. “No, you can’t.”

Karl swallows against the thick lump in his throat, watching the queue of apprentices dwindle by the bathing area. One of the templars at the other end of the dormitory has already begun bedtime checks - lifting open apprentice’s clothing crates for perfunctory searches and ushering students still working to bed. “I want to.”

Anders’ expression softens, and his fingers flex in Karl’s hand. “I know.” He glances at the templars - still forty feet away - and leans forward to press a quick, clumsy kiss to Karl’s temple, before letting go of his hand like he’s been burned. “Go to bed, Thekla. I’ll be fine.”

For several seconds, Karl sits there, skin burning where Anders had kissed him, hand numb with the ghost of him. Anders gives him a small, shy smile and Karl returns it despite the way his heart is trying to tear itself into pieces. He gets up, and stretches his cramped legs, and starts walking the long way back to his bed in the middle of the dormitory. He doesn’t say anything.

The words sit heavily on his tongue, anyway, unspoken. No, you won’t.

[emerald-amidst-gold]

For the OTP ask: 8, 9, 16, 53, and 91 (for this one, it could just be a song you have for them, too) :D

*rubs palms together and giggles* Oooo, I'm loving these questions! I get to show how much of a nerd am I for these two nerds! >:3

8. Who tends to worry the most?

I was going to answer this with 'both equally', but the more I think, the more I realize that Solas is the one who worries the most. XD

I mean, come on. We all know Solas is a natural worry wart. It's in the man's blood, and Fane has a tendency to make his dear wolf's blood pressure rise to fatal heights with the shit he does. PFFT!

Fane is a literal battering ram when it comes to battles (this is based on how I've specced him in-game), and he just charges in without caring if he'll get sliced, diced, or scorched. Fane's illness with magic makes it incredibly difficult for Solas to erect barriers on him, so he has to devise other ways to keep Fane in one piece (nitpicking about his armor, constantly asking, 'Are you certain you are ready?', and begging, 'Please control yourself this time, ma'isenatha.') All of that worry comes from the fact that Solas has seen Fane die, has had to guide him to it, even. Fane doesn't mean to brush off that concern and worry, but when he's embroiled in battle he...loses his senses a bit. Dragons aren't meant to fight, and fighting is what Fane does best in his new life, so he has a hard time balancing bloodlust with merciful restraint.

If Fane gets injured (which he does, but only grazes and the occasional gash), Solas won't let anyone else attend to him, fear gripping his mind, memories of blood soaked crystal and decaying scales cracking his mask and rendering him tortured. When Fane sees that, instead of just seeing the nagging, he'll go docile, go remorseful and will say, 'I'm sorry, my sky. I never meant to-- I only--hn.' Once they talk and wind down though, things get right back on track, but Solas is constantly worrying over his dragon--constantly.

Solas worries about everything with Fane--his scars, his nightmares, his battle with his identity--but battle is where he's the least reserved in it. He doesn't want Fane to have to fight, but he knows they both don't have a choice in the matter.

9. Who is more inclined to be jealous or possessive?

Dragons--naturally possessive, i.e. hoards.

Wolves--naturally protective of those within their pack, i.e. touch member of pack, you get snapped at or even bitten.

Fane and Solas are both highly protective of one another. They just go about it in different ways. Fane's more likely to snap and glower at an infringing form, making it known where they can take their 'affections'. Solas is more reserved, but most can attest that his gaze leaves them shivering and near stone with how cold it is if Fane is randomly touched by an unwanted suitor or harassed by a fawning noble. Obviously, Fane and Solas try to keep the respective beasts at bay, worried the other will think less of them for such childish behavior, but sometimes--sometimes--it's extremely hard to keep a polite mask in place due to memories of harshness and filth.

For example!

---

"You're...jealous?", Fane asked, blinking and attempting to piece together what he was feeling now. And he couldn’t. “Of who?”

Solas' eyes fell shut with a rueful chuckle. "Most here. Is that hard to believe? It is petty, I know, but eyes have been upon you since your entrance; each pair a set of daggers. You carried yourself with confidence, with pride, and every single noble within the ballroom responded to your very presence. They whispered, they sought, they undressed." The final word a mixture between a hiss and a growl that was accompanied by a small sneer of disdain before it all relaxed. "My heart knows where your own lies, my dragon, but my mind, too, is being a thorn in my side."

Fane stared down at Solas, shocked and...mesmerized. His sky had been jealous of the looks of fops and prisses? Those who had no chance of ever reaching through to his heart? To his emotions? Those who played with lives as a puppeteer did with strings?

This was...oddly amusing, but only because they were both fools.

Here they were, in the lion’s den, hunting an assassin that threatened to topple an empire, seeking answers to questions they didn’t even know yet, playing a game of macabre chess and deciding who would rise and who would fall, and they were both jealous from nattering nobles who killed for sport or an inconsequential servant girl that would be forgotten in the morn. The ridiculousness nearly made Fane cackle. Was this what court intrigue encompassed? He didn’t see the appeal.

Fane huffed out amusedly. "I love you.", he said, point blank with no room to be denied. “Ar lath ma, ma tarasyl.”, he repeated in Elvhen, lifting a hand to rub at his face and shook his head in disbelief at himself.

Solas’ eyes snapped open at his declaration, a blush stretching across his face and was apparent even in the shadows that embraced them. That swath of delicate pink nearly had Fane cracking, breathing out a steadying sigh through his nose instead. Damn anything that was holy, if poison didn’t kill him, this endearing, foolish elf would. How could he be so blind when responses like that reaffirmed where his sky’s heart lay?

“Sorry, it’s just..”, Fane started before letting out a tiny laugh, massaging his cheekbones in slow circles. “You looked so ashamed by how you felt, even though I just said I felt the same way. If anything, I should feel ashamed because I’m jealous of someone far more innocent than these Orlesian pricks.”

Solas tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. “May I know who you were jealous of?”, he inquired.

Fane let out an airy laugh, kneading his brow with two fingers. “The servant girl that just left not even five minutes ago.”, he admitted, face growing hot with shame and embarrassment. He was such a fool. A pathetic, blind fool.

“The servant--?”, Solas began before letting out a quiet, breathless laugh of his own. “Ma’isenatha, you are aware that we are at court, at the heart of Orlais, yes? Appearing gentile and cordial is but a step in a very specific dance. My reactions to her were equal parts genuine and fluid, and I felt nothing beyond that.”

Fane huffed, letting his hand fall to his side. “I know, but it’s like you said, just the sight of another making reaches for someone you fought for, someone you adore and respect is infuriating. I just got you back and to have it taken away again is--”, he tried to explain, lifting his hand back up to rub at his face again. “Fenhedis lasa. A fucking smile sent my mind spiraling. Ridiculous..”

---

Halamshiral was fun! :D

16. Do they enjoy dancing?

Fane is the guy who stands in a dark corner at parties, and glares at everyone who tries to get too close, soooo...no. PFFFT!

However, if it were just he and Solas in their quarters, a light of levity possessing them, then he might be willing to let the other teach him steps that weren't able to be done by massive claws. The Winter Palace is the one time Fane takes the initiative and actively offers Solas his hand for a dance--all grace and poise unlike that of a dragon.

...The finery didn't fall fast enough that night for Solas. *is SLAPPED*

And I like to think Solas secretly yearns for such simple pleasures as a waltz or ginger circle, swaying to the music, time seeming endless once more. He misses what was before, and maybe just a tiny step can make him feel a little less lost. :3

53. Who is the better dancer?

Solas. 100%.

Fane is graceful in battle, able to shift his weight and glide with the flow of blood and chaos. But the more delicate arts--that of dancing? Yeah, no. My boy's prone to step on someone's toes and curse for them because 'A dragon? Dancing at court? Void take me..' Vivienne and Josephine had to let Solas teach Fane how to dance because he was so against the idea that he would lock himself in their quarters and refuse to entertain the two women. Solas has a hard time, but with Leliana's help, they manage to get Fane to see he does have a certain knack for the finer things. *winks*

Honestly, Solas is shocked at the Winter Palace when he sees Fane dancing with the Duchess because...he moved as if from memory, and not the one's of stumbling, cursing, and heavy sighing as legs tripped up and toes were stomped on.

Fane moved like an Evanuris--those attuned to the ancient courts with a charming smile in place to match. *sips my tea* Exquisite~

91. What is their song?

So, if I do like the implications that 'Once We Were' gives, and Solas and Fane like more gentle songs like that.

But me, personally? I adore 'Red Like Roses' from RWBY for these two. It just hits a lot of key points for me about them, but I seriously have to get a playlist together since so many songs make me thing of these two. 'Bad Habits' by Ed Sheeran is one that makes me think of them, too. Mainly Fane, but some parts fit for them together. *urge to compose a playlist intensifies*

Thank you so much for the ask, my friend! These were a lot of fun ones! But then again, all of them are! X3

[dragonswithjetpacks]

Beautiful War

-dragonswithjetpacks

Chapter Six: Appealing to Val Reous

Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Read here on Ao3

The sun was just setting behind the city of Val Royeaux when they caught its glory at the top of a small hill. Agreeing that approaching the gate at dawn would be a better idea, the group made a small camp while enjoying the view. Orlais was particularly green this time of year. The ladies in the city would be wearing pastels and flowers. Not to mention, showing as much of their breasts as they possibly could get away with. It made Claira smile. She was never found of fashion. But the springtime cakes they made were always so delightful. Though their smell was more satisfying than the taste.

"You've been quiet," Varric implied as they rest.

"I'm always quiet," Claira disagreed.

"It's been an unsettling type of quiet."

"I didn't realize there were different types of quiet," she shaved off a piece of meat roasting over their fire.

"You keep looking at the city. And heaving that big sigh of yours."

"I'm finding it odd that you watch me enough to notice I have a particular sigh," she chuckled to herself before she took a bite of her meal.

"People who are easy to read are always fun to watch."

"I'm not that fun to watch," she said between bites.

"Normally you aren't," he propped his elbow atop his knee. "But you got this particular look growing on your face the closer we get to the city."

"Because I never thought I'd be going back to Orlais," she shrugged. "Let alone Val Royeaux."

"You've been to Val Royeaux before?" Cassandra was suddenly interested.

"My mother is Orlesian, so we visited on a few occasions. But I've lived in Val Royeaux. Twice in what I might consider my adulthood."

"Ah, yes, Lady Helena was from a smaller lesser known nobility," the Seeker recalled.

Claira had not spoken of her mother in so long that it was almost off-putting to hear her name. They had not made contact in some time. And the most recent letter she received was about Jordan's missing persons. There were never any pleasantries with Helena; it was always demanding and berating. The woman needed complete control.

"She hates coming here," Claira added. "I'd like to think it is because it reminds her of how fake she truly is."

"Then it must bring you bad memories," Cassandra empathized.

"Quite the opposite," Claira smiled, looking out longingly to the city. "Orlais was the beginning of my freedom."

"Do go on," Solas joined the fire at last. "I'm sure we've all been waiting for a glimpse of your youth."

"You've been locked up pretty tight, Herald," Varric agreed. "I think it's your turn for storytime."

Claira turned back to her party, all of them watching and waiting with bright eyes. It was the first time she was able to share any sort of personal information regarding herself. On the other hand, she had gotten to know them quite well, even considered them friends. Indeed, being back in Orlais brought up memories, both good and bad. As a child, she never had a chance to speak without being shut down. And as an adult, she realized that she had shut herself down as a defense. But here, in a place that had sparked her new beginning with the people she had learned to trust, she felt safe.

"I was sent to a girl's school when I was young. Around the age of fifteen."

"That late?" Cassandra seemed surprised. "And so far away?"

"I was not a compliant child," Claira laughed. "I had many house mistresses that found me unreasonable. Eventually, I was sent to Starkhaven. But the headmistress stated she couldn't help, either. Even as my wild side was gradually tamed, I was still clumsy, homely, and awkward. It didn't matter how polite or intelligent I was... I was considered a lost cause."

"How absurd," Solas appeared disgusted.

"I was sent to Orlais in hopes I would return a lady. But because of my age, the teachers were harder on me. It was almost torture. Most of them were cruel. But they allowed me to study in peace if it meant not having to deal with me. And the books in Orlais were incredible. I could have been a scholar with all the time I spent in that library."

"Why didn't they just transfer you?" Cassandra inquired.

"My mother was spending a good amount of my father's fortune making sure I didn't come back home until I was guaranteed a husband. I think eventually their goal was to find a nobleman not necessarily suitable for me, but willing to settle. I was never interested in marriage, though. I was set on becoming a warrior at a young age. So I left the school."

"By left, you mean snuck out?" Varric questioned.

"Snuck out would be putting it lightly," Claira laughed. "I planned for weeks to get out of that place. And when I did, I ran until I couldn't see the city anymore. I found a place to lay low. And that's when I met my mentor."

The party was quiet, listening to the campfire crack as she paused.

"Most have just assumed I was a typical Trevelyan Free Marcher. But I was never part of that life or the Chantry. I was never even given the option to become a Sister. Looking back, that's probably what I should have done when I left the school. Instead, I left with a strange man who told me I could achieve my dreams of becoming a warrior. It was stupid of me to trust him. But I'm glad I did. I trained under him for many years while traveling. He brought me back to Val Royeaux to the Academie in hopes I could be knighted, allowing me to live a life I had truly wanted."

"I should have known," Cassandra shook her head. "I imagined with the reputation of the Trevelyans that you were just a natural fighter. But there's no mistaking your stance is Orlesian. I always meant to ask."

"So that means all those nobles from Orlais that come by speaking their language and talking with that snooty tone... you can understand them?" Varric asked.

"Oui," Claira smirked. "Chaque mot. Every single word."

Varric let out a loud burst of laughter.

"This would have been useful information," Cassandra was still in shock.

"I didn't want to ruin the surprise," she shook her head. "Besides, if Josephine knew, she'd have me speak to the nobles more often."

"Isn't she giving you lessons?" Cassandra pressed.

Again, Varric rolled over in a fit of laughter as Claira half shrugged, half nodded. Solas remained silent, although very much enjoying the conversation in itself. And no one stopped Claria from speaking about her adventures in Orlais from that point. They only interrupted her to ask questions, much to her liking. It was the first time she had spoken about it to anyone, not that it was a secret. The more she told of her rebellious childhood and the harsh ways of her mother, the more she realized how much mental abuse she had been through. She couldn't imagine being that cruel to anyone.

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

The gates into Val Royeaux were surprisingly empty. Claira remembered merchants and travelers flooded the archway into the city. Peddlers and pickpockets loved the area, as many people stopped to linger there to admire the stone masonry. Now, only a few people were scattered through the walkway. Claira was not the only one who noticed the lack of others.

"The city still mourns," Cassandra observed.

A couple who had been speaking quietly amongst each other passed by them innocently. However, once they caught sight of Claira, their jaws dropped and their eyes widened behind their mask. They took off in a slight run toward the open gate without daring to glance back.

"Just a guess, Seeker, but I think they all know who we are," Varric jested.

"Your skills of observation never fail to impress me Varric," she retorted.

"My Lady Herald!" a scout greeted them from the city.

"You’re one of Leliana’s people. What have you found?" Cassandra questioned without hesitation.

"The Chantry mothers await you, but… so do a great many templars."

"There are templars here?"

Claira felt her chest grow tight. The intention was to meet with the Chantry, not the templars. They would have eventually attempted an audience with them, but this was too soon. She was unprepared. They continued walking through the entrance as they were informed of the current situation.

"People seem to think the templars will protect them from…" he faltered."...from the Inquisition. They’re gathering on the other side of the market. I think that’s where the templars intend to meet you," the scout continued.

"They wish to protect the people? From us?" the Seeker was still confused.

"We expected this," Claira stated.

"From the Chantry, yes. But I didn't expect the templars to make an appearance."

"The people may just be assuming what the tempalrs will do. I've heard of no concrete plans," the scout confirmed.

"Do you think the Order’s returned to the fold, maybe? To deal with us upstarts?" Varric added his sense to things.

"I know Lord Seeker Lucius," Cassandra explained. "I can’t imagine him coming to the Chantry’s defense, not after all that’s occurred."

"We’re doing all this to get help with the breach. Maybe this is our chance to get the templars on our side," Claira attempted to remain optimistic.

"Perhaps..." Cassandra wasn't convinced. "Return to Haven. Someone will need to inform them if we are… delayed."

"As you say, my lady," he placed a fist over his chest and trotted off to exit the gates.

As they progressed through the walkway, a group of guards began to observe them. They were not quiet about their conversation and there were hints of the Inquisition harboring murderers. It appeared the city was relying on the templars to protect them from their heresy the Chantry was spreading any misinformation they could. It was horrible timing, she had to admit. And it was going to be difficult to proposition both sides while they were standing next to each other. It wouldn't be as simple as uniting under one cause. This was going to be a political battle.

"Good people of Val Royeaux, hear me!"

Mother Hevara, one of the Chantry members who was supposed to be greeting the Inquisition shouted on a stage in the center of the market as they approached. Standing next to her were two other sisters. And in front, a wall of templar guards. Many of the citizens had gathered before her. Claira recognized a trap when she saw one. Even if it had no teeth.

"Together, we mourn our Divine. Her naive and beautiful heart silenced by treachery! You wonder what will become of her murderer. Well, wonder no more! Behold, the so-called Herald of Andraste! Claiming to rise where our beloved fell. We say this is a false prophet! No servant of anything beyond her selfish greed," the sister preached.

The crowd of people parted as they passed. The plan was to antagonize The Herald to the point of attack. With as many people surrounded her to witness the savagery, the trial would be quick. But Claira was smarter than that. It was almost insulting how stupid they assumed she would be. If they wanted to cause a scene, she would most certainly give them one. Claira was aware of how Orlais truly operated.

"We came to you in peace, only to talk," she spoke loudly, but calmly. "But this is what you choose instead? I implore you: Let us sit down together, to deal with the real threat!"

She turned to the common people who were too intimidated to move, looking many of them in the eyes. They gazed upon her as if she were a mythical being of wonder. It was a mixture of both awe and fear. Claira seized that moment and bolstered her voice.

"Do you know everything the Maker commands? Look up in the sky! I alone survived the Breach ... and I can end it!"

"And this is how you gain favor with Orlesians... with who can put on a bigger show..." Varric muttered under his breath.

"It appears to be working," Solas whispered back.

"It’s true! The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late!" the Seeker added, looking to the templars for a reaction.

"It is already too late!" Mother Hevara pointed to the templars who were now taking the stage. "The templars have returned to the Chantry! They will face this Inquisition and the people will be safe once more!"

Claira was not prepared for her next act. However, the scene was ended abruptly when a templar approached Mother Hevara. It appeared as though he was going to escort her off stage. Though, she was quite wrong. Instead, he struck the Chantry Mother across the face, sending her to the hard stage floor. She cried out, but no one moved to help her. A templar hesitated, only to be held back as Lord Seeker Lucius entered the stage.

"Still yourself. She is beneath us."

The templar looked unsure but still did nothing. Claira moved forward, but Cassandra quickly grabbed her by the arm. Something seemed very wrong, but there was not enough time to act upon it. There was not enough information to pick a side.

"What's the meaning of this?" she questioned instead.

"Her claim to authority is an insult. Much like your own," he looked down on her.

"So you're here to deal with the Inquisition?"

"As if there were any reason to."

His ambiguity made Claira's skin boil. Cassandra tightened her grip.

"Lord Seeker Lucius, it's imperative that we speak with-"

"You will not address me," he interrupted his fellow Seeker.

He motioned to the templars and they began to shift as he walked away. Cassandra was taken aback. Her grip loosened on Claira's arm. They exchanged glances at one another, both suddenly very concerned. It was a far reach, but Claira began to hope this was some sort of play they stumbled into.

"Lord Seeker?" Cassandra was still confused.

Lucius stopped, clearly agitated. Looking into his dull eyes made his presence even more heavy and dark. This was not the man her cousins had described, nor the reasonable person Cassandra claimed him to be. Months ago, when Claira was traveling to the Temple with her cousins, she remembered hearing them discuss the discontinuing of the Nevarran Accords. Lucius inherited the role and ideas of his predecessor, but it was commonly accepted that he was more than willing to compromise.

"Creating a heretical movement, raising a puppet as Andraste’s prophet," he finally confronted them. "You should be ashamed. You should all be ashamed! The templars failed no one when they left the Chantry to purge the mages! You are the ones who failed! You who’d leash our righteous swords with doubt and fear! If you came to appeal to the Chantry, you are too late. The only destiny here that demands respect is mine."

The words were far more dangerous than any threat he could have given. Lucius was now a tyrannical man with a lust for power. He wanted recognition, for whatever reason. Which was fine on its own. However, he wanted to destroy his adversaries so that he may rise from their downfall. The Chantry, the mages, the Inquisition; they were all beneath him.

"If you’re not here to help the Chantry, then you just came to make speeches?" Claira retaliated.

"I came to see what frightens old women so, and to laugh," his voice lowered, making it all the more unsettling.

"You openly refuse the Herald?"

"You have nothing. No influence, no power, and certainly no holy purpose."

His assumptions burned at her like a hot iron. It left marks that made her clench her fists in rage. There was nothing she could do. She could say no more. She could not lash out. She could not even move without risking her good nature. This was not how she intended their meeting to be. She felt like a child once again being beaten by her mother. She felt helpless.

"But Lord Seeker…" the hesitant templar spoke ."What if she was truly sent by the Maker? What if—?"

A higher-ranked office stepped between the templar and the Lord Seeker. "You are called to a higher purpose! Do not question!"

"I will make the Templar Order a power that stands alone against the void," Lucius drew attention from the crowd. "We deserve recognition. Independence! You have shown me nothing, and the Inquisition… less than nothing."

The Lord Seeker made a point to look fiercely at Claira as if it would weaken her soul. Something was reaching for her behind that stare. But it was not enough to break her. It only added more fuel to her flame. She prayed there would be a time they would cross paths again without any spectators.

"Templars! Val Royeaux is unworthy of our protection! We march!"

The market was still, all but the sound of clanking armor as the templars left Val Royeaux. It wasn't just the Inquisition left stunned, it was quite literally everyone who had witnessed the horrifying affair. As the sound of their marching fainted, whispers began to rise from the people.

"Charming fellow, isn’t he," Varric was the first to break their silence.

"Has Lord Seeker Lucius gone mad?" Cassandra almost shouted in frustration.

"I thought you knew the Lord Seeker?" Claira turned to her, almost angry at the information she had been fed.

"He took over the Seekers of Truth nearly a year ago, after Lord Seeker Lambert’s death. He was always a decent man, never given to grandstanding. This is very bizarre."

"It doesn't look like he can be reasoned with."

"There must be those in the Order who see what he’s become."

"We can investigate once we return to Haven," Claira assured. "We still have the matter of the Chantry."

Mother Hevara was nearly forgotten. After the templars openly denounced the Chantry in front of everyone, no one bothered to help her off the stage. They only stared, whispering to one another and spreading the rumors even further. But now that Claira was able to get to her without being barred, she was at her side. The Sisters stepped back, still feeling threatened by the Inquisition. Despite the vile glare the Mother gave her, Claira assisted her onto her feet with gentle hands.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Hardly," the Mother replied roughly. "This victory must please you greatly, Seeker Cassandra."

"We came here seeking only to speak with The Mothers. This is not our doing, but yours," Cassandra replied.

"And you had no part in forcing our hand? Do not delude yourself," the Mother's fight had returned. "Now, we have been shown up by our own templars in front of everyone. And my fellow clerics have scattered into the wind, along with their convictions."

"I understand the hardships the Chantry has faced," Claira spoke. "But you'll find no pity here."

"Just..." the Mother sighed. "Tell me one thing: Do you truly believe you are the Maker's Chosen?"

"Whether by the Maker himself or by fate, yes, I believe I was chosen."

"I suppose it is out of our hands, now. We shall see what the Maker plans in the days to come."

"Take care, Mother Hevara," Claira gave a slight nod.

The Mother nodded back, only out of common courtesy. Claira could feel her death stare watching her back as she left the stage. She made her way through the market, Cassandra and others following close behind.

"Well, at least we've been able to calm one side of the three-headed beast," Claira sighed.

"For now," Cassandra replied. "The other clerics are another matter. Either way, we should return to Haven and inform the others."

Claira opened her mouth in response, but the familiar sound of a blade cutting through the air caught her attention. he held her hand out just in time as a whistling sound brushed by her ear. An arrow from a balcony above shot straight into a small spot where the dirt was showing through the stone. There was a letter tied to it with a single red ribbon. It looked like one of the ribbons used for the Inquisition's missives. The party looked upward but saw no one.

"Not just yet," Claira grinned. "It looks like there are others to appeal to in Val Reouyx."

[pinayelf]

Cullen’s Revised Redemption - my take

This was previously an undetectable read more but decided to update it and also make it (more) public since people have asked for it. This is very wordy, so grab a bag of chips or something lmao.

Disclaimer and Request (PLEASE READ)

I am putting this above the read more because I need people to see it before they do anything with this post. The reason I had the first version of this basically invisible is I’m genuinely not here for people yelling and fighting in the notes so that being said:

I wrote out the first one so I had something to link to people in the case someone asks me why I’m romancing him with an elven mage

This is a hot button issue and I know people have feelings varying from either extreme sides or in the middle so

If you vehemently hate Cullen and find him irredeemable that is fine and valid, but please do not come onto this post and reply why. To be frank, you won’t make me dislike him considering I hated him initially

If you think his redemption is perfect that is fine and valid, but please do not come yelling at me for this post.

Let us agree to disagree NOW.

I love Cullen. If the URL wasn’t obvious I’m saying it now. But I am also allowed to feel that his redemption wasn’t fully realized and lackluster and wish it didn’t happen off-screen. 

I believe Cullen does want to change. Failing and slipping at first is realistic. What didn’t work is that it wasn’t fully realized. If you disagree that is fine.

Cullen’s PTSD is a reason for the things he did. It is a reason NOT an excuse. Mental illness is not an excuse to do bad things. You can say that while acknowledging his trauma. Said by a person who also suffers from mental illness

“Ellie why do you care so much about a white dude, he doesn’t deserve your time and energy!!!” - because he is a comfort character of mine, he is fictional so I have the ability to make him safer for me and for my OCs and I think that’s more than fair

This is NOT the only right way to write a fix-it for him you can 100% write your own, this is just mine and an example of one

Now...let’s go!

This is meant to have been a longfic, but I can never finish anything I write so you’ll get a condensed version. This is for my worldstate where Imryll (my main Cullenmance) is the Inquisitor, but I also use this same redemption in all my timelines, just tweaked a bit for whoever the characters are.

DAI starts and Cullen has just stopped taking lyrium. He wants to change, , he is full of regret and ready for it but is obviously harder than he anticipated. Especially since the Herald, Imryll, wants to ally with the mages. He and Imryll do not get along, Imryll doesn’t trust him and they have had a couple of public fights. 

Imryll allies with the mages. Cullen is worried abominations might occur. The ones from Kirkwall see Cullen and refuse to interact with him. Some hate him and look at him with disdain. He’s made an announcement saying he no longer operates under the Templar Order and denounces what Meredith did. But they still don’t trust him.

He is frustrated by this and Leliana calls out the fact that he still doesn’t trust them because he believes they’ll turn into abominations, so why should they trust him? Cullen says he’s seen it happen, like in Kinloch, especially if they’re exposed to power. Leliana points out how the same thing happened to Meredith. Cullen snaps out of his frustration, admitting he knows he’s wrong but it’s hard to accept it. Leliana tells him he must accept he is wrong if he wants to really change.

(Note: In my canon Leliana becomes his support for this rather than Cass. I love Cass but she is too static in her beliefs and will just enable or stunt Cullen from growth. They are still close friends but it’s Leliana who he confides in with about this - they both have the same faith but Leliana is more open-minded and will help him grow)

The Templars and the Mages clash at Haven and Imryll demands Cullen to do something about it. Cullen is hesitant and doesn’t do much, he doesn’t want to believe his comrades are acting this way. This sours his relationship with Imryll and the mages.

(This idea is taken from a text post that I can no longer find :c) One of the mages give birth and the others are overjoyed and crying. They need supplies and Cullen offers to help but they all refuse to speak to him until he arrives back with Josephine. Cullen wonders why they are celebrating and crying and Leliana says that most mages never stay with their family because they are separated. Another realization hits Cullen.

Cullen joins Cassandra in looking for rogue Templars and when they encounter the group, Cullen attempts to reason with them but they don’t relent. He sees his old self in the leader and realizes what he sounded like. After dealing with the Templars he and Cassandra see a group of young refugee mages starving and hiding in a small cave. They quiver in fear when they notice his Templar gauntlets and refuse to come to Haven despite them being in near-death from starvation. Luckily, Varric is there and convinces them to come. 

The encounter dawns on Cullen what the Templar Order truly looks like to mages. This haunts him. It is the same fear he had for years after Kinloch - the difference is, the order protected him but no one truly protected the mages. He finally accepts that the order he once romanticized so much is corrupt.

The next time he sees that his Templars are the ones who start the altercations. He does something about it - but at the same time angering his lieutenant. 

During the fall of Haven, the Red Templars show Cullen anyone is apt for corruption, seeing the people he once trusted become the army for a magister breaks his heart. He witnesses the mage recruits give their lives for the Inquisition. He watches Imryll sacrifice herself for the sake of the Inquisition. When have the Templars ever done this? He’s never witnessed this. He must make amends. He must. 

Upon arriving at Skyhold he requests to be judged by the mages and Fiona - the ones from Kirkwall especially. He tells them it’s time he answered for his inaction and the things he enabled. Surprised, Imryll calls Fiona to form a council of mages to judge him. 

Cullen prepares for whatever sentence they are to give him. All the while after owning up to what happened in Kirkwall, the Inquisition loses some support, including soldiers who leave due to their disillusionment in him. The day of trial comes and to Cullen’s surprise they sentence him with reparations. He is to do the Inquisition mages’ bidding and to work with Fiona along with his Inquisition duties.

Besides the loss of support, many begin to look at Cullen differently and turn cold towards him, like some staff and people who have joined the Inquisition. He helps build a mage tower and joins Fiona in doing small missions  to help the refugee mages. While some mages warm up to him, some don’t and while hard he accepts they never will.

One day a missive arrives at Skyhold stating that mages from Starkhaven are taken hostage by Red Templars for a hefty ransom. Josephine insists they pay the ransom and plans to take a loan out from an Antivan bank - however Cullen sees the situation as time sensitive. He is afraid that if they wait too long, the Red Templars will kill the mages. Josephine, and Leliana surprisingly argue against this, seeing it too risky. But Cullen has a terrible gut feeling, and after finding the location of the abandoned keep they are located in, he takes some of his troops who are willing, and mages who are looking to save their brethren.

The raid goes all right, and the troops manage to retrieve the hostages without any casualties, however at the last minute, one of the templars set off hidden explosives that begin to set the the keep ablaze. As it falls into ruin, Cullen makes sure everyone makes it to safety. But then he sees a young mage girl trapped under rubble, and in spite of his lieutenant demanding he leave her, he doesn’t. He runs to her rescue and seemingly dies as the castle crushes both of them.

The troops return to Skyhold with the news that Commander Cullen has died in the rescue. Shocked, the remaining advisors and Imryll set off to find a new Commander.

Surprisingly, Cullen and the young mage girl, who introduces herself as Lyra, survives. Lyra mustered up her remaining strength to put a barrier around them as the castle fell. Cullen and Lyra then set to Skyhold in order to get her to safety. Cullen does everything in his power to make sure she is safe, and shocks everyone at their return. 

After this event, Imryll begins to warm up to Cullen. They form a friendship as Imryll often spends late nights at the mage tower doing research. Cullen initially stayed there to make sure nothing happened to Imryll (as she was not very popular with his troops or certain Orlesians). Despite them being from separate worlds they find they have a lot in common. 

When asked how he feels about the Dalish, Cullen tells her that in the Circle, elves were not treated differently and it does not matter who you are. Imryll tells him it’s a very blind way to view discrimination, as despite her existence not revolving on her being a Dalish elf, her being a Dalish elf is how people will always view her. Cullen finally understands when he accompanies her to Val Royeaux to deal with Josephine’s assassination contract and he sees how Orlesians treated Imryll in spite of her title. He speaks to her about it, and apologizes, saying he will never understand how it feels, but he will make sure she and the other elven members of the Inquisition feels safe. 

And all the while, Cullen begins to see what protecting those who need it is truly like. 

Cullen opens up to Imryll about his withdrawals. She tells him she supports him not taking lyrium again and encourages him not to. While suffering from a terrible spell, Imryll uses a healing spell to alleviate his headache and it triggers a memory from Kinloch. He freaks out at Imryll, who he scares off. He and Imryll don’t speak for a few days until he goes up to her and explains what happened. Imryll then says that if they are to be good friends they must always remain transparent with each other and learn boundaries and communicate well. Cullen agrees.

Cullen quitting lyrium inspires some of his troops to leave the order and quit lyrium. To be able to cope and deal with it, Cullen asks if they can have a rehab clinic in Skyhold. Imryll agrees.

As Cullen’s friendship with Imryll deepens he realizes he’s falling in love with her. Unsure what to do and already assuming she will never feel the same way he tries to shove the feelings aside despite Imryll showing signs of reciprocating. 

As time goes, Imryll’s relationship with Cullen’s lieutenant worsens because of the decisions she makes as the Inquisitor. The Lieutenant and Imryll get into a fight when Imryll allows the mages to make their own separate army group, as the lieutenant feels it will make them corrupt with power. He calls Imryll slurs and tells her that she has no right being a leader because of who she is. Cullen publicly calls him out, to which the lieutenant responds he is only doing because he wants something from Imryll. Cullen tells him he is doing it because it’s the right thing to do, and that the lieutenant should not speak or Imryll or any elf or mage in the way again. When he refuses to apologize, Cullen kicks him out of the Inquisition. 

Meanwhile, Imryll struggles with learning how to be a Knight-Enchanter. She questions her self worth and her bravery. Cullen comforts her, telling her she is the best person he knows. He tells her she is brave because of how she still continues to fight and to lead the Inquisition, not in spite of who she is, but because of who she is. He offers his support.

During the Shrine of Dumat, Cullen is hurt badly after attempting to keep a Red Templar Shade from Dorian. He refuses care, saying the others need it more. Imryll insists he does and asks if she can use a healing spell to alleviate the pain of his bruised chest. He lets her. Amidst this, they share a kiss and cements their romantic relationship.

Cullen and Imryll’s romantic relationship flourish and for the first time in his life, Cullen feels he’s found someone he can have a healthy love with. He also finds he has friends - real friends, which he hasn’t had in a long time.

During Samson’s capture - memories flash back and threatens Cullen to slip. This makes him realize that his say on the matter is biased and lets Imryll and the others choose what to do with him. (Imryll conscripts him but doesn’t have Cullen handle him, she has another recovering ex-Templar work with him and spend time in the rehab they’ve built in Skyhold).

When Imryll chooses Leliana as the Divine, Cullen shocks his former colleagues when he says he approves of the choice.

After Corypheus’ defeat the idea of the rehab clinics begin to spread and open up in other places - which begins to open conversation about how the Chantry exploits their own Templars.

Following the events of Trespasser, Imryll disbands the Inquisition. With land Cullen inherited from his parents he and Imryll build another rehab clinic as well as a place for former Circle mages to find a home in, and learn how to live lives outside the Circle (this post is Cullen-centric so I’m not gonna write a long thing about it but in my canon Divine Leliana and Vivienne find a middle ground and build centers/schools where abandoned and former Circle Mages can find a home in and learn, without them being prisons)

And scene! If you reached this end thank you for reading all that. A lot of the later stuff is mainly skipped over because this focused more on how Cullen changes - the repercussions from his actions and how he actively shows the changes.

[senseandaccountability]

Fic: I have outlived the night

The prompt from @heyitsharding was “Somewhere in that library of the past”, a quote from Borges. And preferably Loghain. Title borrowed from another poem by Borges. Angst and characters and a couple of quotes from The Stolen Throne borrowed from Bioware. Ages are… estimations, I guess. Don’t come at me with numbers. And I think we’ve established by now that I emphatically do not write drabbles. If you can’t stand to read fic on tumblr, it’s also here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23971537

History is a broken circle:

1.

He’s a child, then a young man, and they hide from the usurpers on the throne.

Safely tucked in between the lush trees, Loghain’s father teaches him to fight and parry, to ride and hunt. They’re outlaws but they’re not outlaws; he explains the distinction thoroughly, tirelessly.

“You do right by the people who depend on you,” he says. “There is no excuse for a man who doesn’t.” —

He’s sixty-five and hides in a deserted hovel in a town marked by the Blight and even more so by a ruler’s mistakes and betrayal of his own people.

The irony is not lost on him.

2.

He’s nineteen, twenty, twenty-one and love burns in his chest; Rowan doesn’t want it and he has no use for it so he doesn’t understand why it doesn’t go away. It seems entirely unreasonable for his body to betray him in this fashion.

And then, suddenly, she’s in his arms and he _melts _into her in a way that is anything but dignified but he cannot find it in himself to care. Her hair is a fire around them and his hands gentler than he has ever willed them to be before; when she kisses him, finally, it tastes of salt and iron. It’s broken, whatever it is that they have; it’s more than enough.

Between the desperate charges and daring strategies he feels in every duel, every narrowly won victory, that one of them will die young.

He always assumes it will be him. —

“She asked for you.” Maric’s voice is ice inside the summer warm castle. It cuts through the room that separates them. “On her deathbed. I told her you were right beside her. She… lost her eyesight towards the end.”

His voice breaks something beneath Loghain’s breastbone. He curls his hands into fists where he stands by the window in this castle of ghosts. Rowan, bold and commanding, forever a breach between them and he knew it would be this way, knew it would never cease to be this way despite Gwaren and Celia and the endless string of days and duties that has followed. Rowan, lionhearted and daring, moves around them and he wonders how many times he must lose her.

“I’m-” he says but this grief that does not belong to him is beyond words.

There’s a faint sound of Cailan and Anora playing in the garden, their child-hearts sturdier, lighter. Or perhaps they simply scar in more subtle ways.

“Come,” Maric says eventually. “I’ll show you where she rests.” —

Celia dies slowly, a pain stretched out so thin over months and months that it hollows her out.

He’s not there for all of it, useless in the face of a battle that is not his to fight.

He’s not there for most of it, cannot bear the thought of her capable body and ferocious will being tempered by sickness, her loved features marked by fate; for as long as he lives he will never forgive himself for this particular weakness. He even tells her as much.

“Oh Loghain,” Celia murmurs when he sits by her side. “You never forgive anyone for anything. But you will have to forgive me for taking my leave now, I’m afraid.”

He’s there in the end and then there’s another grave that he never visits. —

He’s fifty-one and the funeral feast they hold for Maric cuts a hole in him, bleeds him dry.

It’s the last straw, he thinks, mercifully unaware of the endless losses that will soon follow.

3.

He’s nineteen and there are thirty men answering to him where he prances around in full disguise in order to be mistaken for a prince. To be mistaken for a commander though he’s still just a commoner and though he knows the only reason anyone listens to him in the first place is because he’s tall and broad-shouldered, stern like his father before him. Erratic and stupid as far as qualifications go, but it’s what he has.

He charges the tiny army up towards a patch of land they stand a chance of defending and they win, they do. After the next attempt, however, he carries two dead knights back to their camp and the blood never really comes away from the ridiculous shirt Maric has let him borrow.

“We’ll burn it,” he states, despising his own voice and how it shakes.

— He’s fifty-five and there are thousands upon thousands of soldiers in his ranks.

Staring at the attacking horde, keeping his mind clear and his hands steady, he sacrifices a few hundred of them as he walks away from the Blight. He knows their names, their villages; he liberated their nation so they could be born free and flock around the Hero of River Dane.

He rides back to Denerim in silence, denying everyone the right to even look at him.

“You heard the teyrn,” Ser Cauthrien snaps, a horse’s length behind him, an ugly echo. “Do as he commands.”

4.

He’s five and sees his father’s face through the gaps between the narrow planks in the barn where the Orlesian soldiers have stormed in, shouting at each other in a language Loghain does not understand. But he understands terror and he understands _hide, darling, hide and keep really quiet _and even if he does not see his mother’s face he can hear her breathing. Quick, pained, muffled - then nothing.

Nothing as he crawls up to her later, when the joyless laughter and strange grunting has subsided.

Nothing as he sees the blood between her legs, the strange angle of her neck. He’s almost a grown man before he fully grasps what they had done, truly done  to her and it makes him throw up in a bush, makes his first fumbling attempts with a girl clouded by fear of accidentally doing the same, fear of invisible lines being crossed and a bright, giggling voice in his ear I won’t break, big fellow, do you want me to beg? —

He’s fifty-five, has lived so many wars that he’s lost count and Arl Howe stands in the middle of Loghain’s office, folding his hands over his stomach.

“Highever is taken care of, my lord.”

Loghain looks into the goblet of spiced wine, pressing back the flurry of regrets and doubts.

“My men were thorough, my lord. They are dead. All but the oldest son - Fergus - though the Blight will certainly take him and we killed his heir, at any rate.” A quick, sly smile. “And made the wife spread her legs.”

The goblet trashes against the stone wall once Howe is gone, leaving a terrible noise in its wake.

5.

He’s twenty-two and it rains in the little village north of the Wilds where he encounters Mother Ailis again. The war is over, has moved from the battlefields into the ones who were there, conducting it. He breathes war, dreams it. When he turns, he expects to see attacking forces; around every corner there’s a corpse.

Despite the rain she takes him by the hand and leads him to the place where she put all the bodies to rest, the garden of outlaws that she had known that no one would acknowledge once the fighting had subsided, the souls she has guarded ever since.

“Here is your father’s grave,” she says, softly, pressing his hand between her own. “He was so brave.”

And Loghain cries.

“Forgive me,” he says, mumbles the awkward confessions against the soaked chantry robes as Mother Ailis takes him in her arms and holds him like the small child he feels like he never could be. “Maker, forgive me.”

For all that he has done, for all that he has yet to do.

“There is nothing to forgive, Loghain,” she says but they both know that isn’t true. —

“I yield,” he tells Bryce Cousland’s daughter, kneeling before her with his sword flat on the floor, his neck bared in defeat.

He’s fifty-six and it’s not forgiveness he’s asking but close enough, the closest he will ever be to it now.

6.

He’s eighteen and his father sends him away to protect the rebel prince who has put them all in danger but seems to have won the loyalty of Gareth of Oswin within seconds all the same.

“Don’t ask me to just leave you,” he protests, a dread so thick he cannot breathe through it is filling his entire body. He sees his father’s face through the narrow planks of the barn again, sees him return home that afternoon, drenched in Orlesian blood, telling Loghain they need to run. “I won’t do it.”

“That’s exactly what you will do,” his father replies and in that dreadful, shivering moment Loghain can feel his entire future unravel.

“Do your best,” his father says because that’s what his father always says, the only oath he will hold his son to. —

He’s fifty-seven with darkspawn blood in his veins and on his way to Orlais.

“Do your best,” Elissa tells him in Amaranthine.

Loghain nods, like he once nodded to his father. “Of course.”

7.

He’s eighteen and defiant, his fist in Maric’s face, the loss of his father raw and painful in his throat, twisting his voice into thorns.

“You can’t knight me to make me throw my life away for you,” he spits.

He’s wrong about that; he’s wrong about so many things. —

He’s older than he thought he’d ever be and the wars are still raging inside his bones. Other people’s wars for other people’s reasons though he has stopped to think of them as such, borders so easily dissolved in the face of old gods and holes in the fabric of the sky. Humbled at long last, perhaps. It’s about time.

In a recovered Keep in the middle of the desert, he sits wedged in between the odd agents of an Inquisition he has little reason to question, though even less reason to fully grasp the scope of.

The Fereldan Commander looks at him with the gravitas of someone with a purpose to his glances and Loghain searches his memory. He remembers most lieutenants, would like to think the same goes for the soldiers though time hasn’t sharpened every sense and the details of his years of command have indeed begun to blur. He wasn’t at Ostagar, at least, that particular event has bone-hard contours at the back of his mind.

“You helped Uldric overthrow the Circle at Kinloch Hold,” the man says, finally, when they’re alone under the stars. “I served there.”

“I see,” Loghain says, because suddenly he does. “Yes, that was - unfortunate. Though it was never my intention to cause a…”

“Bloodbath?” The commander sounds grim, but there’s a softer edge to his tone, a grim sort of humour pushing through. “I wondered why you did it, back then. Now - now I have an army allied with rebel mages.”

In the distance Loghain spots the Inquisitor, a battle-scarred noble carrying an exquisite longbow and a bravery that is laced with doubt. He feels the same kind of certainty around her as he once did at the Landsmeet, though he has no desire to delve deeper into that tonight.

“Do you think she’s the Herald of Andraste then?” he asks the commander instead.

“I don’t know,” comes the reply, then a hesitant, poignant: “I don’t care. She’s the heart of this order nonetheless.”

The commander clears his throat.

”I see,” Loghain says again.

8.

He’s five, he’s eighteen, nineteen, twenty, forty-six and fifty-five, he’s fifty-six, fifty-seven and ready to die.

Instead, he lives. —

He’s sixty-five, he’s ancient, and the nightmares of the Fade taunts him, without much success.

You destroy everything you touch, it says, as though his greatest fear would be the truths spelled out in plain sight.

“Welcome to the club,” Hawke laughs harshly beside him. “We hold meetings in Kirkwall every fortnight.”

“_I _should be invited after this,” the Inquisitor grunts, firing a burning arrow into the partly corporeal body of a rage demon.

They fight their own despair, they fight the Fade itself until the inevitable end.

“Fight well,” he says, glancing sideways into the monstrous being that blocks their only escape and he’s a young man again, looking into his father’s grim determination. “You won’t die while I draw breath.”

And raising his sword one last time he thinks of Anora, thinks of Ferelden, thinks of the oath his father made him swear. Do your best.

Perhaps he has, at long last.

History is a broken circle but the Fade snaps shut around him with a soft, liberated gasp.

[allisondraste]

Temperance 32/42

Pairing: Nathaniel Howe/ Female, Non-HoF Cousland

Story Summary: Nathaniel and Elissa were childhood friends, but time and distance tore them apart. In the aftermath of the Fifth Blight, and Ferelden’s Civil War, both Elissa and Nathaniel must attempt reconstruct their tattered lives. As a series of events lead them to be reunited, both are reminded of so many years ago when things were much simpler.

Chapter Summary:    Liss makes an important decision. 

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

[AO3 LINK]

Highever, 9:27 Dragon

Dear Nate,

Every year I tell myself that this will be the last year I write to you, but here I am writing another hopeless letter, wondering if you’ll even read it, wondering if you even care.  I’ve started to question whether you ever cared. This is not how friends treat one another... unless they’re imaginary, of course.

Andraste’s arse.  Nate, are you imaginary?  No, no. My imaginary friends still write to me.

Kidding.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be utterly shocked to know that I miss you.  I thought I would stop eventually, but no such luck. The pain dulls each year, but I don’t think it will ever go away completely.  I pray that you are well, and far happier than I am, out on your glorious adventure. I’m envious of you, and I’m envious of those who get to be near you.  

I know I shouldn’t feel that way, that I should be angry and resentful that you’re ignoring me, but that’s not me.  The day I stop caring about you is the day I die. I just wish that weren’t such a lonely thing to feel.

Have a good year, Nate.

Love,

Liss

Liss dropped her quill, and lifted the parchment from her desk, biting her bottom lip as she reread the letter.  More and more tears welled in her eyes with each word, grasp on the page tightening, fingers crumpling the edges.  She debated wadding in up entirely and tossing it into the fireplace. Why not? It would save Nate the trouble of doing it himself. Then again, she was stubbornly devoted to not giving up on him.

Taking a deep breath, she sat the parchment down and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and scrubbing the tears from her cheeks.  Suddenly a chill rushed up her spine as a presence appeared behind her, hot breath on her neck, hands on her arms, a trail of soft kisses from her shoulder to her ear.  

“It’s too early,” whispered a low voice, “Come back to bed.”

She couldn’t remember his name, some second son of some minor lord from some small town in the bannorn,  but he nipped at her ear again, and she bit back the urge to slap him. She’d been a little drunk—and more than a little sad— the night before, and he happened to be visiting Highever, willing and eager to distract and entertain the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Ferelden. Liss had learned that most people were, a fact of which she had taken complete, unapologetic advantage.

“Give me a moment,” she said, painting on a smile and turning around to look at the frustratingly nameless man.  Why couldn’t she have had the decency to remember it? Even without the lens of intoxication that so often made people attractive, he was beautiful.  So much so, that he should have been carved in marble and used as decoration in the home of some posh Orlesian widow. He was tall and fair, with dusty brown curls and green eyes that were perfectly symmetrical, and should definitely be painted on the cover of some risqué book like those Mother kept hidden around the castle, pretending she was discreet.  Liss should have been thrilled at his tender attention, and yet in the dim rays of sunlight peeking through the curtains, he wasn’t who she wanted him to be.

The marble statue man lingered behind her, very obviously attempting to read what she was writing. “A letter?”

“No,” Liss teased, “It’s a shopping list.”

“A shopping list that says ‘Dear Nate’ at the top?” He tilted his head and smiled at her good-naturedly.  Thank the Maker this one actually seemed nice.

Pulling the parchment in toward her chest to protect it from the nosey man Liss asked, “Do you make a habit of reading people’s postage?”

“Just when it is keeping a beautiful woman from lying beside me.” He ran his hand along the side of her face, wiping away a stray tear she’d been unable to dry herself. “And causing her to cry so early in the morning.”

“You noticed.”

“I am an observant man, my lady.”

Relaxing, Liss eased the letter down from her chest and sat it on the desk. “Don’t ever fall in love, uh—“

“Dareios.”

“How could I forget a name like that?”

“We didn’t exactly talk about it.”  Dareios smirked.

“Right,” Liss said, clearing her throat as the heat rushed to her face.  She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“You’re not the first person I’ve slept with to make myself feel better,” she explained, rising from her chair and turning to face him, “But you’re the first person who’s been kind enough that I feel guilty about it.  So, I apologize. If you wish to leave, and spread horrible rumors about me, I wouldn’t blame you.

“Did it work,” Dareios asked, reaching forward and taking her hands in his.

“What?” She eyed him with confusion and he only smiled, revealing the dimples in his cheeks.

“Did it make you feel better, my lady?”

Liss met his eyes and returned his smile.  “Not really.”

“Then it seems I have not done a proper job.”  He brought her hands up to his lips and pressed a kiss to each of them. “I still have a few hours until I leave, if you’ll have me.”

She knew she should decline, send him on his way, but loneliness echoed in her chest, one name, one person over and over again.  Her heart would hear nothing else. Still, perhaps a kind stranger with a warm embrace and gentle touch could drown it all out for a few more hours, just long enough so that she might feel like herself again. She nodded and closed her eyes, allowing him to move in more closely and kiss her and lead her back to bed.

Then, there was a knock at the door, several haphazard raps followed by a, “Sis?”

Liss shot up, eyes widening and turned to Dareios.  “You have to hide,” she whispered and began to look around the room.

“Why?”

“My family will not be pleased that I slept with another of our guests.” She stood up and pointed at the floor beneath the bed. “Here, you should be able to crawl under here.”

“Are you serio—“

Liss shushed him and pressed a finger to his lips.  “Please?”

He laughed and crawled out of bed, and she realized he was wearing nothing but his smalls—even more incriminating were Fergus to find him.  He got down on the floor and slid under the bed. It was a tight squeeze, but it would only be a moment. At least, she hoped.

“Liss, I know you’re in there,” Fergus called through the door, “Open up.”

“Coming,” she shouted as she grabbed a robe, tied it around her, and rushed to answer the door.  She swung it open forcefully and glared at her brother, unable to hide her annoyance. “Can’t a girl take a bath in peace?”

Fergus grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, is that what we’re calling it these days?”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she huffed indignantly.

“The visiting Bann is looking for his son,” he said, words pointed directly at her.

“Are you suggesting that I would know where he is?”  It was a flimsy defense, and she knew it.

“ Liss. ”

“ Fergus.”

“I am only suggesting that if you happen to see him— oh, I don’t know— when he crawls out from under your bed, it might be a good idea to tell him to find his father before his father finds him,” Fergus raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice, “And before our parents find him.”

Liss nodded slowly, looking her brother directly in the eyes, and he offered her a reassuring smile as a promise her secrets were safe with him.  They always had been. “If I see him, I will certainly let him know.”

“I will do my best to make sure your future baths are not interrupted.”

“Thank you, brother.”

“Don’t mention it.”

With that, Fergus turned and walked back down the corridor leaving Liss to close the door.  Behind her she could hear Dareios crawling from under the bed and shuffling about, most likely in search of his clothes.  

“I suppose you heard that,” Liss asked giggling as she turned to face the now half-dressed man.

“I did,” he replied with a sheepish smile,  as he laced up his breeches, “My father seems to have forgotten that I am no longer a little boy.”

Liss sighed. “I know how that feels more than you know.”

Dareios pulled on his shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his stockings and boots. “Your brother seems to be a good man.”

“He’s always had my back, even when I’m completely wrong, totally reckless, and having my back is the worst idea,” she admitted, “He’s the best.  But don’t tell him I said so.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said earnestly as he finished lacing up his last boot.  He stood and walked over to Liss, placing his hands first on her shoulders before bringing them up to cradle her face. “You are a beautiful person, Lady Elissa, inside and out. The only thing I regret about our night together is that there won’t be another.”

Liss’ breath hitched in her throat, and she fought back the tears that welled in her eyes.  He was perfect, in every single way. She should have been begging him to stay, she should have promised him another night, many other nights. Yet, she couldn’t.  She was neither worthy nor wanting of perfect. Instead, she smiled and brought one of her hands up to cover his. “Thank you for spending time with me Lord Dareios.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said, kissing her forehead before taking his hands from her face and moving to exit the room. He stopped in the doorway and turned back to face her.  “I hope that ‘Nate’ of yours wakes up and realizes what a treasure he has.”

“I am no treasure, but I appreciate your words all the same,” Liss said weakly, “Thank you.”  

She waved as he left, and closed the door quietly behind him, pressing her back to it and sliding down until she sat on the ground.  She let her face fall to her hands, tears dripping from her eyes. It would be so much easier for her if she could just love someone else, but she did not know where to start, or how. Her first and only experience with love had happened so organically and subtly, it had woven itself into every part of her life that it was impossible to tell where it began or when it ended.  She could not even be bothered to consider another person, even a person as wonderful as Dareios was.

This was Nate’s fault, she thought, looking up and catching a glimpse of the bow her family had crafted for him propped up in the corner of the room.  If he could just write her back, and tell her once and for all that he didn’t love her. If he could just confirm that he found her letters annoying and unwelcome.  If he could just be blunt and honest for once in his life, then maybe, just maybe she could let him go. As it was, she knew him too well to be so certain that his silence meant rejection.  She’d seen his face light up too many times when she’d forced herself into his presence after he’d told her to go away to think that the same couldn't happen still. Sacrifice of her dignity though it may be, she knew she wouldn’t let go or move on truly until he released her.  Thus, her current agony was his doing alone, and the realization allowed for anger where before there’d been only sadness. Damn him.

Liss stood abruptly and rushed to the desk, pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, and penned an entirely new letter to Nate.

Dear Nate,

Every year I tell myself that it will be the last year I write a hopeless letter to you as if  you will read it. Every year, I tell myself that even if I don’t hear from you, it still matters.  It’s something I should do as your friend, and as someone who cares about you. I am writing to you this time, to tell you that I won’t be doing that anymore.  I am tired of writing letters into the void and wondering if you still care about me like I still care about you.  

This is not how friends treat one another, Nate.  You know that. I can’t even begin to understand how someone I grew up with, someone who I’ve known my whole life could ignore me.  Unless it was all a lie. Unless you were just some figment of my imagination. Andraste’s arse.  Are you imaginary?

Kidding.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be utterly shocked to know that I miss you.  I thought I would stop eventually, but no such luck. The pain dulls each year, but I don’t think it will ever go away completely.  I pray that you are well, and far happier than I am, out on your glorious adventure. I’m envious of you, and I’m envious of those who get to be near you.

If you ever decide that you care about me after all, you know how to reach me.  

I wish you all the best.

Love,

Liss

With one quick read of the letter, feeling confident in her words, Liss folded it  and placed it in an envelope for Papa to send out later. She threw on a shirt and breeches that hung so loosely she knew they must have been old clothes that Fergus had grown out of.  Good enough, since she was in no mood to be uncomfortable in some dress. Then, she trudged over to the corner of the room, picked up his bow, and headed out into the corridor.  

It took no time for her to reach Nate’s room, or at least the one that used to be his.  For so long, it had been a place of refuge and comfort for her, yet it had been so long since she’d even visited it. She couldn’t bring herself to go inside and only see ghosts of him, shadows of his smell, the dusty untouched books, the chest that still had a few of his things in it. She’d feared it would overwhelm her if she opened the door, as if a wave of sadness would burst forth from behind the wood and drown her.  She would not be scared anymore. She’d leave his bow there, with all the other disparate pieces of him and close it away, out of sight unless she wanted to see it again.

Gripping the bow so tightly her knuckles turned white, Liss entered the room.  It looked exactly as it had the last time she’d been in it. Tidy. Empty. Cobwebs collected in corners and the sconces were all flameless. She sat the bow down on the bed and grabbed a torch from the hall to light those in the room.  She walked about the space, taking everything in, remembering the times she’d spent sitting on the floor with him, talking, laughing, crying. She remembered the night they first met. She remembered all the times she’d come there to hide from the world, to just be herself.  

Plopping down on the edge of the bed, she took the bow in her hands once  more, running her fingers along the engravings in the wood, the letter “N.” Anger swelled in her chest and she tightened her grasp around the bow.  She’d done nothing but care for him, and she knew it wasn’t his choice to leave, but he couldn’t even have the decency to write her back. He left her hanging out on a limb for him and her arms were getting so tired.  She still loved him and yet she was so angry with him and it felt so much better than empty. She held the bow up and out in front of her before slamming it down against her knee. It snapped in half, and she tossed it across the floor.

Almost immediately, she regretted it, as she stared at the jagged pieces of wood, once whole, now connected only by the string attached to each piece. It could be repaired, of course.  All of the parts were still there, but it was no longer what it was, and it would never be the same again. It was oddly poetic.

This was the kind of situation where Liss would have typically cried, dropping her head and letting the sobs shake her body, but she couldn’t.  She felt numb, as if by breaking that bow, she had broken herself completely. She sat staring blankly at the stone of the floor for sometime, until there was a polite knock at the door before it swung open.  It was Fergus, again, Oren in his arms and Bear at his side.  

Bear immediately pushed past the door and sat near the bed, tilting his head and looking up at Liss.  Oren shouted “Auntie,” and Fergus let him down so that he could run to her. Smiling vacantly, she picked him up and sat him on her lap.  

“I think Bear saw you come in here.  Wouldn’t let me have any peace ‘til I let him in. Oren wanted to tag along,” Fergus said with a laugh, and then he noticed the broken bow on the ground, eyes widening before he looked back up at her. “You okay, Liss?”

“No,” she answered flatly, wrapping one arm around Oren tightly, cuddling him up close to her until he giggled.  With her free hand she reached down to pet Bear. “But I will be.”

It was not only an acknowledgement of the one-way trajectory that led from rock bottom, but also a promise to herself, to her family, that the past would be exactly what it was meant to be: the past.

[lyrium-lavellan]

OC Introduction - Velahris Lavellan

I saw the meme by @slothssassin and I just had to make one for each of my Inquisitors!

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition

Role: Inquisitor

Class: Mage

Specialization: Knight-Enchanter

Basics

Full Name: Velahris Lavellan

Nickname(s): Vel, Clover, Vela, ‘Ris

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Occupation and Titles: Inquisitor

Birthday: 12 Bloomingtide, 9:19 Dragon(21 years old at the Conclave)

Physical Description: 5’2” tall, slender and angular frame, wavy auburn hair(kept long), vibrant blue eyes, light-colored heavily freckled skin with cool tones. Blue vallaslin(Ghilan’nain design in canon). Slightly curved ears.

Clothing Style: Loose tunics and blouses with wide sleeves, Dalish leathers, no shoes. Occasionally, a fur-trimmed cloak or vibrant colored shirt. She dresses in mostly blue, green, brown and white tones.

Background

The middle child of two skilled hunters of the Lavellan Clan, Velahris had a rather uneventful life - except for the fact that her parents went missing during the Blight and were assumed to be dead. While still very young, she found herself an orphan, responsible for caring for her siblings(older brother Silvhen, and younger brother Ethelan), however that didn’t last for long. Both of her siblings left the Clan, either by choice or by force, and she was left alone and afraid. Her life with her Clan mainly consisted of tending to the Halla, which she happened to be extremely good at, and fending off the occasional wolf. Since she was arguably the most intelligent member of her Clan and had the best relations with humans, she was sent to spy on the conclave by her Keeper, whom she thought of as a mother to her. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out too well.

Vel’s life changed very quickly. Suddenly, she was the Herald of Andraste, and then the Inquisitor. She was scared, and lonely - but she found solace in a few dear friends, namely Varric, Dorian and Josephine. They helped her accept her role, and come to appreciate it and to love her people. But at the heart of her being, she was still the same timid little elf girl from the Free Marches.

After Adamant, she was never the same. Emotionally broken, she couldn’t live with herself after deciding who lived and who died in the Fade. Additionally, she was forced to grapple with her newfound magic, brought out by her experience in the Fade. Finally, when meeting Solas in Trespasser, her sense of self is completely shattered. She reinvents herself - She doesn’t believe in the elven gods. She is no longer Dalish. She doesn’t want to be. She asks Solas to remove her vallaslin, as a favor to a friend. He obliges. Though she must protect the world as it is for many reasons(two in particular), she will not hurt Solas. She won’t lose another friend.

However, she finds unconditional friendship in Varric. He cares for her, cheers her up when she’s upset, and comforts her when she has night terrors. It was only a matter of time until she fell for him. She cursed herself for it - she knew she could never have him. But she couldn’t help herself. The Heroine and The Storyteller were perfectly matched, but neither knew it. Cole helped them understand, pulled the hurt away and pushed them closer. And they did end up together after all was said and done. Varric stopped dwelling on the past and wrote his own story, with the Lady Inquisitor his beloved Clover at his side. 

She runs the Inquisition by proxy(and many, many letters) while she enjoys a comfortable life in Kirkwall, with a new face and a new name, writing a new chapter of her story(with three new, tiny characters).

Combat & Skills

Preferred Fighting Style: Picking off enemies from a distance, then coming in behind a beefier ally and shooting/casting spells from a close range while still being protected.

Favorite Weapon: Earlier - her bow. Later - Her staff/spirit blades.

Magical Abilities: Lucid dreaming early on, as well as her magical talents after she comes out of the Fade at Adamant. She’s very powerful and surprisingly capable of wielding her magic, with a little instruction from her mage allies and brother, of course.

Special Skills: She’s a deadeye shot. Her hunts never fail. Also, she has the ability to summon lightning at will. She especially likes shocking Varric when he annoys her(gently, of course).

Relationships

Family: Clan Lavellan. Her mother, Ashara, and father, Myathilen, were missing for many years before she reconnected with them(and her older brother Silvhen) at Adamant. As it turns out, the three had become Wardens. Her little brother Ethelan ended up in Kirkwall after the Starkhaven Circle burned down, and after the Chantry blew up he went into hiding in Orlais. Upon hearing about the Inquisition, and its leader, he made his way to Skyhold.

She also has three children(with Varric). Their daughter, Nadia, and their twin boys Gaten and Garrett. More about them here

Love Interest: N/A in the canon universe. But in a personal headcanon, Varric.

Best Friends: Varric, Dorian, Cole, Josephine, Blackwall, Iron Bull, Solas.

Personality

Positive Traits: Trustworthy, Compassionate, Witty

Negative Traits: Indecisive, Emotional, A Worrywart

Likes: Quiet moments in the courtyard, books, spiced and well-honeyed Tevinter teas, babies/small children.

Dislikes: Dishonesty, Ignorance, Arrogance, Shoes.

Fears: Failure, Rejection, Being Enslaved, Templars

Guilty Pleasure: Orlesian balls, walking barefoot along Skyhold’s walls, intricately designed gowns.

Hobbies: Reading, embroidery, talking about boys(and girls) with Josephine and Leliana, Varric.

[cvusland]

Doomed

an alternate to a cousland/cullen fic I am currently writing called A Softer World (here on my ao3), in which Alistair is very much alive, and his warden left him to protect him.  At least thats what she told herself.

“But you don’t know me anymore, you know nothing of the monster that took over the girl I used to be” She snapped back, all teeth, and malice.

“I’ll always know you” He hissed right in her face “Because you are broken, and tired, and angry all the same as me, and that makes you mine.  War built two monsters, not just one.”

Seeing her across the room on the arm of another man hurt.   Even after all these years of being separated, it hurt.

It hurt when he saw her dancing with Nathaniel Howe (of all the Maker Damned people she could be with it had to be the son of the man who murdered her family).

It hurt when he saw her with Garrett Hawke, but of course he was the Champion of Kirkwall, and a Fereldan.  It only made sense it seemed.  The Hero, and The Champion.

It hurt now seeing her on the arm of the Commander of the Inquisition.

But this was the first time of all those time that they locked eye from across the room.

She turned away immediately leaving the Commander behind, and disappeared into the crowds of Halamshiral.

Of course the Inquisition would be here tonight.

Of course she would be here tonight.  She was as responsible for as many of their victories as the Inquisitor, and Rutherford were.

Damned war hero’s all of them.

He found her again later that evening.  Sipping a drink, and leaning against a wall looking all for all the world irritated, and bored all at once.

This time when he came near her, she did not run.

“Falin.”

“Alistair.”

“You look beautiful tonight” He looked at her, and hoped that she would make eye contact.

She did.

“And you look dashing.  A proper King, yeah?”

She was drunk.  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes squinted, and that fucking smirk on her face.

“How… are you?” He asked, not quite sure where to go.  He couldn’t just go straight into ‘Why did you fucking leave me, and not speak to me for almost ten years?’

“Rubbing elbows with fucking Orlesians, and telling Hawke to fuck off every five minutes cause he can’t take no for an answer.”

Alistair laughed at that.  He couldn’t help it.

“What about you?”

“Oh you know.  Rubbing elbows with fucking Orlesians.”

Falin snorted.

“There’s worse things I suppose” She shrugged finishing what was in her glass, and signaling the server for another.  A young elven girl came by, and Falin placed her empty glass on the tray, and took another full one.

“Yeah? How so?”

“You could be not here.  That wouldn’t be fun I suppose” She smiled at him.

He wanted to smile back, to act like there wasn’t this chasm between them.  Maker he wanted nothing more than to take the love of his life in his arms, and just hold her.

“Falin…”

“Look Al, I’m drunk right now alright? I saw Morrigan earlier, and so I got drunk cause I don’t want to deal with that either.  I’m saying, and thinking, and feeling shit that I’ve been covering up for years.”

“I just want to know why you left me.  You engaged yourself to me, and left me.” Alistairs voice was hard with hurt, and pain.  He just wanted his answer.  Falin turned to look at him fully, and Maker he thought he fell in love with her right then, and there again.  She was gorgeous in her dress, and her drunkenness, and radiant in her anger.

There was nothing about this woman that he didn’t love.  And that was dangerous.

“Why did I leave?” She asked staring at him hard “You really want to know?”

“Yes” He asked, the desperation in his voice clear “Its all I’ve ever wanted to know.”

Falin looked away for a moment, shaking her head, and tossed back her drink. She looked at him again, brilliant red hair askew from running her hands through it in frustration all night.

“I left because I can’t give you what you deserve.”

“What?” Alistair demanded.

“That’s why I left.  I can’t give you an heir, I can’t give you a soft, and easy to deal with wife, I can’t give you a Queen Fereldan would be proud of.  I can’t give you love that doesn’t hurt because this love between us… it has always had that cloud looming over it.  Our love was born from anguish, and tragedy, and war –”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Alistair snapped grabbing her wrist, and pulling her in closer.

“Because what if you didn’t love me after the war.  What if I stayed the same woman that war made? What if I couldn’t go back to being a teryns daughter, perfect, and soft, and fit to be a Queen?”

“Why would that matter? I fell in love with you, as you were, Maker Damn you woman I still fucking love you!”

“But you don’t know me anymore, you know nothing of the monster that took over the girl I used to be” She snapped back, all teeth, and malice.

“I’ll always know you” He hissed right in her face “Because you are broken, and tired, and angry all the same as me, and that makes you mine.  War built two monsters, not just one.”

“Falin?”

They broke apart, watching as Cullen slowly approached them.  He eyed Alistair wearily, having seen how Alistair had been holding the small woman so close, how anger had burned in both their eyes.

“Excuse me” Alistair took a step back as he, and Falin eyed each other “I must go find Teagan.  Have a good night Commanders.”

Cullen waited until the King was out of eyesight before he looked to Falin.

“Are you alright?”

“Just fine” She said, but her voice was tense.

“You don’t sound fine.”

She turned a truly scathing look at him.

“I said, that I am fine.”

“The Inquisitor is looking for you.  He has information on Morrigan he said that you would like to hear.”

“Wonderful” She huffed, shaking her head.  “If I’m not black out drunk by the time we leave this damned place I better be dead.”

Cullen chuckled, and placed a hand on the small of Falins back as he led her towards the main ball room.

“What was that about, between you, and the King?”

He wanted it to seem like a simple question, but Falin knew better.

“Don’t go getting jealous Cullen.  There’s nothing to worry about with Alistair… even if I wanted him back it could never happen at this point.  That life, and that me is too far gone.”

Cullen nodded.

“You aren’t a monster you know” He said.

Falin stopped dead, and looked at Cullen betraying no emotion.

“How much of mine, and Alistairs conversation did you hear?”

“Enough to be worried of where your heart lays.”

“There is no heart to worry about Cullen, get that straight right now.  What you, and I have is a physical relationship, and nothing more.  If you want that to continue, by all means it can.  But if you think I have anything more to offer than that; then I’m sorry because I must not have made myself clear enough from the start.”

“Falin –”

“There is no heart left here Commander.  It has been gone, and unfeeling for a very long time.”

“I don’t think that’s true” He said “Otherwise your argument with the King would not have been quite so passionate.”

“And what do you know of passion? What do you know of love?” Falin snapped narrowing her eyes at Cullen.

“I know enough of you to know that you aren’t as cold, and unfeeling as you would like to be.  I know you hide behind the anger, and the alcohol like a child holding their mothers skirts.”

“If you think I have anything more to offer you Cullen, then you’re going to be very disappointed” She said.  She stormed away from him, the train of her dress trailing behind her as she went.

Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose, and rubbed in frustration.

That damned woman, and this damned place were getting to him.

[thenugking]

Would you ever be interested in talking about your Marquises of Serault?

Of course, I love my de Seraults!! I am sorry it took me so long to get round to posting this, I suck at the writing thing. Technically only Arnauld, my scholar is Marquis, and my huntress, Roselle, is his sister but I’ve done a playthrough of Last Court with her as Marquis too.

Arnauld and Roselle are twins and both developed magic when they were ten, within a week of each other. Their mother looked at her options, sighed, and hired an apostate to teach them magic secretly because welp, at least Serault is full of apostates. The tutor is the Plainspoken Seneschal, because of course Arnauld wants to keep the person who advised him most as a child on as his adviser. Other than their parents and the tutor, the only person who knows is the Cheery Baron, because their mother told him almost immediately. He dislikes magic a lot and would never acknowledge to either of them that he knows, but he’s never going to betray his best friend’s children over this. I just really like the idea that Serault is full of mages though, since we already know it’s full of magic.

Anyway, Arnauld, being the Scholar, is a nerd. He grows up spending his time inside as much as he can and searches out his great grandfather’s books on magic and studies them excitedly. He’s the Responsible Sibling, and it’s clear growing up that he’s the one their mother will choose to be Marquis after her. Which doesn’t stop him being a sarcastic little shit a lot of the time. Roselle meanwhile, spends her childhood begging their mother and the Cheery Baron to let her go hunting with them, and when not watched closely, regularly attempts to run off to play in the Applewoods. They both enjoy learning magic. Roselle will wait until Arnauld has found and perfected a new spell and then copy what he’s doing, finding it easier and a lot less time consuming than reading about herself. Arnauld is incredibly bitter that she can become as good as he is really quickly, when it’s him who put all the work in. They squabble constantly, but they’re best friends who forever have each other’s backs.

Their mother dies when they’re 20, leaving Arnauld as her heir. She arranges for Roselle to be married to His Dour Lordship, the Marquis of Alyons, so her son has a new alliance to start him off. Roselle, who is very much the Rebellious Princess trope at this point is Not Thrilled. But she goes through with her arranged marriage and she grudgingly helps her husband to govern, and she discovers that in a marquisate that isn’t ignored and avoided by the rest of Orlais, there’s a lot more playing of the Game. And the Game is fun. Hunting remains her real passion, but the Game isn’t too different. You hunt your prey carefully and subtly, and if you’re doing it well they won’t notice until it’s too late, and then you strike and destroy them. Roselle becomes an expert and ruthless player and settles in happily to ruling Alyons with His Dour Lordship, sometimes helping him in the Game and sometimes working against him for her own benefit.

Arnauld, meanwhile, has Serault to rule, and he loves his marquisate but it is kind of the most disastrous place in all Thedas, and ruling Serault, you can never get a fucking break. He becomes more and more of a snarky little shit as time goes on and gives up on acting like a Proper orlesian noble. It’s not like that’ll get him anywhere anyway when Serault’s as despised as it is, and he’d rather help his people. In game, he tends to have high freedom and low dignity. Which he’s happy with, because his people are happy. Even if he’d like them to stop being such ungrateful bastards most of the time.

Roselle visits Serault with His Dour Lordship mid-game, by which point Arnauld and Roselle don’t see each other often, and have almost given up writing to each other. Roselle’s changed a lot since she lived in Serault, and Arnauld feels like he doesn’t know her anymore. He would never have expected his rebellious sister to be lecturing him on how to better play the Game. She helps him take down the wyvern to cure the Acerbic Dowager, and mocks him for his failure at hunting and it’s almost like the old days again, but the rest of the time, their relationship is a little strained. After locking His Dour Lordship in his dungeons, Arnauld asks Roselle how much she knew about her husband’s plot. She just smiles at him and tells him she’s glad at how he’s improving at the Game.

In the game, Arnauld has the Smiling Guildmistress as his adviser, the Wayward Bard as his lover, the Dashing Outlaw as his accomplice and the Silent Hunter as his bodyguard. Storywise, I’m not sure about the Silent Hunter, I just can’t find anything to do with him, and Arnauld doesn’t seem to connect with him at all? Possibly the Dashing Outlaw does some bodyguarding stuff too, and then I guess the Wayward Bard likes jumping in front of knives for Arnauld. Like I really enjoy the “someone tries to assassinate you and the Bard jumps in front of you, and then complains that he doesn’t want to be healed because scars make him look rakish” card. And it comes up so often that I feel like the Bard just employs people to pretend to stab Arnauld, so he can save him and look dashing and heroic. And then Arnauld patrons like five scholars who got thrown out of the University of Orlais to make him jealous. They flirt in fun ways.

The Dashing Outlaw is a close friend of both Arnauld and Roselle. Her outlaw-ing sometimes takes her all the way to Alyons, and during the start of Roselle’s time there, when she often runs away to the woods, she confides in the Outlaw a lot. Neither of the twins are entirely sure how the Outlaw first discovered they’re apostates, but she knows and she’s cool with it, and that means she’s one of the very few people they can actually talk to about it. Arnauld also tells the Bard, after they start dating, which looking back when not slightly tipsy he realises was not the Best idea, but the Bard thinks it’s sexy, so it all worked out.

The Outlaw was Arnauld’s accomplice a while before the start of the game and he started sleeping with the Bard either shortly before or after the start. Until finding out about the Divine though, Arnauld was happy with the Plainspoken Seneschal as his adviser. He only went looking for a “better” one during the stress of trying to get Serault sorted out ready for the Divine’s visit, but never wanted to actually get rid of his Seneschal. It does create a rift between the two of them for a while though. (When I played Roselle as Marquis, she took the Acerbic Dowager as her adviser, the Elegant Abbess as her lover, the Purveyor of Teas as her accomplice and the Dashing Outlaw as her bodyguard.)

Anyway, apart from replacing his seneschal as his adviser, Arnauld starts becoming more willing to play the Game. When the Divine arrives, he happily puts on the ridiculously impractical and uncomfortable glass mask that he wants to roll his eyes at, and he overlooks his morals about blackmail being unacceptable to play every secret he’s gathered for everything it’s worth. After the ceremony is over and Serault’s reputation is restored again, Arnauld sits by himself and takes off his mask and cries because he hates what he’s become. And it doesn’t help that he’s incredibly lonely after dumping and exiling his boyfriend.

Arnauld was Not Happy about the Wayward Bard cheating on him with the serving girl. Their relationship was Definitely Just Casual, Haha, No Feelings Here, but as time went on, it started getting more serious and it got harder for them both to ignore the feelings that Totally weren’t there. I see the Bard’s cheating as him getting scared, and not feeling good enough, and wanting to show that he wasn’t good enough. Which Arnauld kind of got, but he was mad and hurt. He dropped everything to go riding into the forest to rescue the Bard and cut his way through the maze to him, injuries be damned, but afterwards he yelled that he never cared anyway, it was just a bit of fun, but he’s angry at the Bard for risking his reputation like this, and the Bard yells back asking when Arnauld’s ever cared about his reputation and things escalate, and Arnauld ends up exiling the Bard from Serault. Later, the Dashing Outlaw turns up to see if Arnauld’s okay and he insists, with his make up ruined by tears and half way through his sixth glass of wine that he’s fine. She doesn’t exactly buy it.

I have a continuing plot after the end of the game, which I don’t want to get too into detail with because with, but might maybe one day write a fic about. Maybe. Anyway, the main plot points of it are:

Arnauld spends a bunch of time angsting about What Has He Become, and missing the Bard a lot, and getting close to giving up everything he’s got for Serault.

The Anchoress, who Arnauld of course invited back to live with him, gets caught doing magic, and Arnauld magics to protect her, in front of a massive audience, so, welp, there’s everything lost, but a part of him feels free now.

The Dashing Outlaw helps him escape the wrath of a whole bunch of nobles and disguises him as just an Ordinary Citizen who no one will notice.

While no one’s really ruling Serault and everything is a disaster, His Dour Lordship is freed from the dungeons. He is later killed by an apostate. Roselle, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with it, and is totally cut up about inheriting her husband’s marquisate and getting to rule it.

Meanwhile, the Chantry is in a shambles after the Breach opened up and the templar order really aren’t sure what to do with their lives. When they hear about the massive amount of apostacy and bullshit going on in Serault, a group of templars upset about not being able to slaughter mages as often anymore perk up and declare an exalted march on serault. (It’s not a Proper exalted march, since there’s no divine and their authorisation is “well this one grand cleric Somewhere said it was okay”, but they’re able to stir up a lot of people against Serault so it’s definitely a big Threat.)

The Bard spies on their plans and then comes back to Serault to warn Arnauld about what’s happening

Arnauld convinces his people to let him lead a fight against the exalted march and makes a speech about magic being good and serault being perfect however much the world is always against them and all that good shit

The Horned Knight and his people turn up to help fight because he and Arnauld can put all differences aside for the good of Serault

Except they’re still really outnumbered and even if they win, so many people will die oh no

Arnauld and the Bard talk stuff out and kiss since welp, they’re facing almost certain death now.

And then Alyons’ army turns up to help because fuck the Game, as if Roselle is going to let her home be destroyed or her brother be murdered.

Arnauld and Roselle talk, and Roselle apologises for how distant she’s been in the past few years. She’s glad of how she changed, but her heart will always lie here. And then the twins do magic. Half of Serault does magic. A very small number of the Alyons army do magic too. They win.

Arnauld announces that the rest of the world can fuck off, Serault is staying here, and it’s staying full of apostates, and if you’re going to ignore and hate us all again, so what? Serault’s not selling out to you.

(There’s a maybe-plot where Arnauld gives up being Marquis, because the Elusive Iconoclast wasn’t wrong, there is no reason being noble-born means he should get to rule, and Arnauld’s desperation to hang onto being In Charge because he Knows Best is a definite character flaw, but idk quite where to go with that, so we will See.)

Also, I have a Thing where Roselle and Arnauld always take off their masks when doing magic. They spend their whole lives pretending to be people they’re not, and they’re only their real selves when maskless.

[mutantenfisch]

1 & 7

1. What is your Inquisitor’s name and race? (and small characterisation/backstory because I won’t shut up about my OCs)

Duuuude, I have like 17 Inquisitors by now… XDBut anyway, here they are, as ordered as possible.

The Dwarves:

Meret, Craeg, Arno and Eguzkia Cadash. Zelma Aeducan.

Related only by name, Eguzkia bears the maiden name of her mother, who originally was a baker in Orzammar and ran away to the surface with a member of House Helmi who loves his wife and daughter deeply, despite them being lower caste. She and her mother were hired to provide their culinary arts to some nobles at the Conclave and it was only due to a chain of coincidence, that the young dwarf ends up being Herald of Andraste.

Meret’s mother, on the other hand, was indeed a branded casteless who worked for the Carta. Her surface-born son followed her path due to having to provide her medicine for her chronic cough. One of his heist targets, a Tevinter mage and scholar in exile, sees the young dwarf’s intellectual potential and hires him and his mother as apprentice/bodyguard and housekeeper. A decade later, the trio’s interest in the Conclave is only marginal; the Tevinter, Lydus Maro, had planned to make the pilgrimage to the Temple of Sacred Ashes for religious reasons only and by chance, all three of them survive the Conclave, mostly thanks to the distance Lydus and Ama have kept to the temple. Of course, the following scandal with a dwarf of all people being the Herald of Andraste, and with him having a Tevinter “magister” advanced in years as a friend and lover does not help the fledgling Inquisition gaining approval or attention in its first days.

Azelma was the second child of King Endrin Aeducan but after being framed for the murder of Trian, she was exiled to the deep roads. Unfortunately, she never managed to reach the Grey Wardens in time and instead joined the Legion of the Dead, to give her exile and death-in-name a meaningful purpose. A darkspawn emissary’s fire bolt nearly killed her and left one half of her face disfigured and the corresponding eye blinded and ear tingling. She follows some suspicious darkspawn activities to Haven and tries to warn the Divine. Her amnesia is worse than with any other Inquisitor in their respective time-line, for she can remember almost nothing about what happened in the two weeks before the Conclave. 

Craeg is a surfacer who’s never been to Orzammar in his entire life, but as the resident bouncer at his favourite tavern, he had to deal with so many Carta dwarves who were, in fact, real casteless dwarves from the streets of Dust-Town which left for a better (if criminal) life, he decides one day to get one of those infamous face tattoos on his cheek as well. He was probably drunk when that happened. His reason to be at the Conclave was, as with most of my characters, purely business-related but since he has a talent for stumbling right into trouble, it was almost no coincidence that he picked up the orb. 

Arno left his family the moment they declared he’d be married to a member of the Smith Caste and used the anonymity of the Surface to embrace his real identity and change his name from Nora to Arno. He picked the last name Cadash for he knew it was a quite common name among Carta-members and he was sure this would sound believable enough. He loves hitting stuff and wearing armour that conceals some parts of his physique. Smuggling Lyrium as a quick, if dangerous, source of income was good enough for him and especially after the downfall of the Circles, Templars were way too eager to keep their line of supply working, so he did’t ask many questions.

The Elves:

Ilargian, Meretari and Udane Ibaiguren.

They were taken in by clan Lavellan when the Ibaiguren were destroyed during events of the “Three-Queens” era in 9:17 Dragon. Only few clan members survived. 

Ilargian is the oldest of the trio. In the worldstate where he becomes Inquisitor, he and his Starkhaven-born wife Maeve Ameslari, n elf-blooded healer and secretly self-taught hedge-mage, are on the run from the Mage-Templar War. They met a few years earlier when she was in temporary, contract-bound slavery for a Tevinter slave hunter company and escaped together. Now, he tries to get first-hand information about the outcome of the Conclave and decides to go there as a spy for his small, growing family. Being separated from his loved ones really tears on his nerves and sanity and sometimes only the companionship of the mysterious spirit boy can ease his pain and calm his fears, so he can sleep soundly at least during some nights.

Meretari and Udane are half-sisters with a ten-year age-gap and while the older, Meretari, has a few childhood memories of her mother, two dads and twin-brother, the younger is named after Meretari’s mother who, in this worldstate, did not survive the flight to clan Lavellan but is kept in dear and loving memory by her husbands. Udane the Elder was also a cousin of Merrill’s mother and for Varric, the resemblance between Meretari and Hawke’s Dalish companion in Kirkwall is almost too uncanny to bear.

Ondras and Oroilora Lavellan

Again, these two are only related by their clan’s name, but are neither siblings nor cousins. Instead, O was sent to Clan Lavellan after her magic manifested, for Clan Sabrae already had Merrill as Marethari’s first.

Ondras could be the epitome of a bratty teenager who is more interested in partying and flirting, if he didn’t also show a deep care towards others and their daily struggles. For most people, he makes the first impression of a very flamboyant youth who neither hides his good looks nor sexuality and some smell a scandal just waiting to happen. Despite his young age - he barely got his vallaslin before he volunteered to spy on the Conclave - he is an excellent marksman and caring and patient companion to those he grows friends with. 

Oroilora is the keeper’s First and takes her elven pride and distrust towards humans a bit too seriously, but then again, she can’t be blamed for this. A few months before she got her vallaslin, the young mage encountered a troupe of noble-born hunters, who decided to declare the elf their “special” prey. She barely survived this encounter and chose Elgar’nan as her vallaslin and swore to hunt down and kill the humans who hurt and humiliated her. This hunt lead her to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  

Manon Vallon

Manon is one of the few survivors of Celene’s purge of Halamshiral’s Alienage. She was hired as a guard by an Orlesian hedge-knight who bears little love for the Empress’s actions during that night but also needs cheap muscle to protect his estate in the Dales from the brooding civil war. He watched her slaughter some of Celene’s soldiers in the streets outside the Alienage and that settled the deal for him.Manon was his bodyguard at the Conclave, even though she rather wanted to stay behind at her new home to protect her fellow servants, but had little say in the matter, which made her furious at first, but upon her return to the estate, she was glad her fortune turned out like this. She immediately put the whole remaining household under the Inquisition’s protection and retaliated upon the marauders for what they’ve done there.

The Humans:

Maxim, Irene, Roxana, Sebastien, Henry and Jean-Luc Trevelyan.

While Roxana and Jean-Luc both have only little memories of their family and spent most of their lives in the Circle, both have different approaches towards magic and the ongoing war.

Jean-Luc, who was certain he would die of old age in his Senior Enchanter bed, is afraid of the open and of rain and enjoys staying by the fireplace, neck deep in his studies, now wields a green glowing thing on his hand, has to venture through mud and snow and what not and the only light at the end of the day is having conversation with his fellow researcher Minaeve or the heart-warmingly charming Ambassador Montilyet. 

Roxana on the other hand thinks the war has been inevitable and considers it her duty to fight in it, to make mages’ lives safer. She holds no grudge against Templars in general, but then again, not every Circle was like Ostwick’s and not all Templars are nice people. 

Irene served as a Templar for most of her life and while she takes her duties very seriously, and disagreed with Meredith’s leadership when she was stationed in Kirkwall, she can’t bring herself to fully trust mages, after having seen them being possessed or killing her friends with blood magic. She and Cullen know each other since their days in the Kinloch Hold Circle and even though she is a woman beyond her forties and at least for a while was above him in rank, she highly respects him and often speaks back with him when things have to be decided. 

Sebastien is the illegitimate child of an Orlesian servant girl and one of the Trevelyans when this branch of the family resided in Ferelden around 9:15-9:20 Dragon. As a child, he was bullied by his peers for his parents, his accent, his protruding ears and his weight. That he searched solace in comfort-food, such as cookies, did not really help. Especially not, when the Hero of Ferelden and their entourage stopped at their village and the intimidating Qunari companion of the Grey Warden took the little boy’s cookies and told him he didn’t need more. What did help, was seeing the Hero and their friends in action and learning about Alistair becoming king of Ferelden. After this, the boy decided to become like his new idol and after a decade of fiercely practising the way of the sword, he has become a buff, towering young lad, who still loves cookies and has a thing for those pagan giants from the north. 

Maxim, Max for short, is the youngest of four children, and while his mother was incredibly happy that at least her youngest was a girl, the following years showed that this was indeed not the case with young Max. While his father tolerates his personality and his interest in learning how to ride and fight and his older brothers accept him, his relationship to his mother is rather cold and strained by this circumstance. 

Henry is the least person he himself would have thought becoming a hero of some sorts. The calm, quiet man might be a noble and might be quite proficient with a bow or his dual blades, but never had any ambition to actually do noble or heroic deeds. And after all, isn’t the Grey Warden or the Champion of Kirkwall what a real hero has to look or act like? No, for this orange haired man, this whole Herald business is just one big misunderstanding.

The Qunari

Zdravkos, Shura, Artemia and Ireth (though I’m not sure whether I will actually play the latter, due to her being already part of an Elder Scrolls crossover, where she is Dragonborn)

Zdravkos is the son of Vashoth mercenaries who serve as regular guards for a quite unimportant Orlesian nobleman and his family. The boy, even though he always knew he was treated a little different than the other servants’ children, grew up to be a kind and gentle, soft-spoken young lad who would, in his teen years, often impress guests of the house with his skill as both a painter and a dancer, despite his height and “savage” origin. When his magic manifested, at the rather high age of nineteen,  his family’s patron arranged for him being taken to the Circle of Montsimmard, where Kos showed quite some talent for both frost and healing magic and successfully completed his Harrowing only a few years after coming to the Circle and months before the Civil War started. While he is no eager player of the Game, he has a talent for it and uses this to his own benefit after becoming Inquisitor.

Shura is again a vashoth and also a true mercenary. She convinces with her intimidating height - and strange beauty - as much as with her broadaxe. Then again, her abilities as a leader, or at least second-in-command, weren’t just valued by her former company, but also by her fellow Inquisition members. 

Artemia, Temi for her friends, grew up near the Antivan border and as a child, always hoped her horns would curve in a way that’d make it possible for her to use them to swing on them.In the end, she grew faster than her horns and the early death of her Tal-Vashoth parents made it necessary for her to take on any kind of work that would make it possible for her and her younger siblings to survive on their own. She joins the Valo-Kas mercenaries when her siblings are old enough to look after themselves and loses both her horns to enemies’ axes. She’s furious on the battlefield and a whirlwind with her long knives. But as soon as children are in danger she turns into something the Qun would have called a Tamassran, like her mother once was, and fights like a dragon to defend them.

2. Who is your Inquisitor’s best friend?This is indeed not easy to ask. In means of approval, most of my Inquisitors get along well with Varric - Eguzkia Cadash and Henry Trevelyan are declared fans of his work as well. Then again, depending on the character and background, my Inquis have different views and values and since some of them have accompanying NPC OCs, those count, too.For Meret, his lover Lydus is also his best friend - much to the delight of his mum, who is happy her boy is happy. He also becomes friends with Minaeve and both Bram Kenric and Frederic of Serault, the latter eventually engaging in a polyamory relationship with Meret and Lydus.Ilargian would probably be lost without Cole’s presence. The boy knows when to say the right things to the elf and he is the first person he can share his burden of worrying about his family with, while not having to give away too much verbal information about them. He also gets along very well with Blackwall and, to his own surprise, with Dorian.Meretari often sticks to herself, but becomes good friends with Scout Harding, while Udane befriends the Chargers, as does Max.Zdravkos, now that he has the chance, bonds with Vivienne over their similar views towards magic and mages, Jean-Luc and Oroilora become friends with Solas.Irene sticks somewhat to her habits and hangs around with the (ex-)Templars a lot but also becomes friends with Blackwall and Cassandra.For Shura, no-one, not even herself can tell whether she was first friends, then lovers with Sera or if it was the other way around. Fact is, when they can, they plunder the kitchen larder together or prank those who understand fun. Eguzkia gets along with Sera very good, too, but without the romance part. And she sometimes slows Sera down, when a prank seems harmful to her.Pfhhhew, that was a lot. Thank you very much for asking!

[shift-shaping]

THE LIONESS AND THE WOLF - VI - HON HON

This work is also available on Ao3. If you enjoy my work, please reblog, leave a comment, or donate to my Ko-Fi. Thank you!

Rating: Mature

Genre: General, Okay I Guess It’s a Slow Burn Now

Pairing: Solas x Surana

Warning: Bad singing, mild gore, More OCs

Part six of The Lioness and the Wolf.

previous <> next

This wasn’t right. Usually when Eirwen awoke in an unfamiliar place, the hangover that hit her seconds later would tell her what happened. She felt dehydrated and worn, but as a true hangover connoisseur she knew when she wasn’t experiencing one. 

She shifted, her body sore as she moved for the first time in hours. Across the room she heard the floor creak, and the sudden noise wrested her from her drowsiness so fast she felt her hip crack as she turned. Flickering candlelight met her eyes, dancing against the pale face of a middle-aged woman with a crooked smile. “Ah. So you are awake.”

The woman had an Orlesian accent, but not one so thick Eirwen had trouble understanding. Forcing herself to ignore the bitter taste of sleep in her mouth, Eirwen cleared her throat and spoke. “Where am I?”

Again the floor creaked, and with a sigh the woman stood and strode into the light. She was tall and square-faced, her short hair emphasizing the sharp angles of her cheeks and jaw. “Fort Revasan. You are in no danger, Warden.”

Eirwen’s gaze fell to the bright, blood-red symbol on the woman’s chest, peeking out from beneath her cloak. “Why does Gaspard need Templars?”

“There are apostates everywhere. One never knows when a specific skill set may be required.”

“He must have several,” Eirwen said, thinking out loud. “I am no apostate.”

“I did not mean to suggest that you were.” The Templar shrugged. “But after seeing what you are capable of, is it so strange that we would have you guarded?”

Eirwen said nothing, having heard this line of thinking more than enough times to know where it led. “How did you know I was a Warden?”

The crooked smile on the Templar’s face tilted even more, a true smirk now. “A question of mathematics. A Rivaini elf with shapeshifting abilities of the expected age and dimensions? You are not so hard to figure out.”

“For the educated, I suppose.”

“There is a painting of you in Kinloch Hold. Do you know this?”

Eirwen snorted and shook her head. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.” She sat up and grimaced at her sore muscles. “When did you go to Kinloch?”

“I have been many places.” The Templar held out her gauntlet-bound hand, and after a moment of hesitation, Eirwen reached out and shook it. “Knight-Captain Lezare.”

“Eirwen.” She sat up, frowning. “You didn’t capture me alone.”

“We did not capture you at all, Warden.” Lazare gestured to the door. “You may leave if you wish.”

“That explains your presence...” She wasn’t stupid. They wouldn’t put a Templar so close if they actually meant her to leave on her whim.

“As I said.” Lezare smiled slightly again. “There is no harm in being careful.”

“You found me with someone else. Where is he?”

“We could not catch him. He left you as bait to protect himself.”

Eirwen rolled her eyes. “Unlikely.” She drew her legs toward her, sitting cross-legged now on her bed. “I want to see him.”

“I will not stop you from leaving, Warden. But... perhaps you would meet with our leader, before you go?”

“Gaspard? Oh, yes, as an elven mage that sounds fantastic.”

“You degrade yourself.” Lezare’s voice took on a note of offense, and Eirwen watched her quietly. “You are much more than a mere elf or mage. Duke Gaspard recognizes your accomplishments. He believes a conversation would be... fruitful.”

“I’m not interested.” Eirwen had nothing to gain from such a meeting. She had no interest in following politics, much less being part of them; she’d had plenty of that during the Blight. Her purpose here needed to be leaving, preferably as soon as possible. The longer she spent wallowing in her own exhaustion and having worthless conversations, the worse off her men would be. 

Her fingers toyed with the blanket and she tried not to think of them, locked up somewhere, suffering at the hands of the Freemen because no one knew where they were. Perhaps Adaar had learned of the mishap, perhaps not. 

She looked up at Lezare again, her brows furrowed. “How long have I been asleep?”

“I would say... twenty-six hours or so, by my count?”

Eirwen’s eyes widened. “Liar.”

Lezare shrugged noncommittally. “It may not be exact, but about as much. After your spell, you slept heavy. We could not rouse you, even as we fixed your wounds.”

That’s right. Eirwen touched her side and felt thin, clean bandages under her fingers. There was nothing wrapped around her head either, and the only pain she felt was from dehydration. “A mage did this.”

“That would be absurd.” But the glint in Lezare’s eyes told Eirwen she was right. Clearly Gaspard had no problem keeping both rogue Templars and runaway mages in his employ. 

She shook her head and looked away, frustrated with herself and afraid of what the consequences for this were. Solas, her men, they were all in danger because she couldn’t handle the recovery of her own spell. If Solas was still alive, if they were ever stuck together again, she’d make him promise to keep her from turning into a dragon while intoxicated. 

There was, however, a way out. She looked at Lezare again and nodded to the pile of clothing in the corner that looked like her things. “Give me my clothes and my flask. I’ll speak with the Duke.”

...

“And my girl she wore such lovely things, such lovely pearls and flowers. She’d have you in her palm all night, so long as you pay for the hour, ooh!”

Solas cringed and pressed his fingers harder into his ears, trying desperately to block out the ear-splitting sound of his cellmate’s singing. The dwarf danced about and yelled every line, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the fort’s prison. Every once in a while something heavy would smack into the cell bars, causing the dwarf to yelp and sing louder over the men cursing him to shut up. 

So far Solas had gathered the dwarf, and many of the other prisoners, were part of a lyrium-smuggling ring that Gaspard’s troops broke as they tried to find a way to the fighting in the west. They were selling to anyone that would buy, but the Venatori were naturally their biggest customers. Yet despite their ambiguous morality, the smugglers’ coin still held sway and they’d managed to get the guard to largely leave them alone --and to make their most irritating comrade bunk with the “weird egg-headed knife-ear.”

The dwarf’s name was Sam, allegedly, but that seemed very fake. One of the other smugglers had called him “Belherav,” which seemed a bit far from Sam to Solas’s admittedly un-Dwarven ears. 

When Sam wasn’t singing, he was coming up with remarkably stupid escape plans. One particular highlight involved training a rat to summon his rat friends, attack the guard, and bring him the key. He also seemed convinced that Solas could turn him into a frog and was holding out on him. 

“I know what you magic-y people can do --you can do anything! See, if you just turn me into a frog then I can hop right out, open the door, and we could both go free!”

“I was not aware frogs had the dexterity necessary for lock-picking. Or even using a key.”

“Well you’d turn me back once I got of the cell, obviously.”

“...would I?”

And so on. For hours Sam sang or talked or farted and worked every other smuggler into a frothing rage. At first Solas had assumed Eirwen’s absence was due to her being a woman, that she was being held elsewhere, but he’d heard plenty of female smugglers screaming at Sam since he arrived. She must have been put somewhere else because of her celebrity, an irony which did not go unnoticed. 

Solas tried to ignore his cellmate as best he could, but the incessant noise wore his patience thin. Eirwen had probably slept through all of his suffering somewhere much more comfortable, though he knew it wasn’t her choice. Had it been up to her, he knew she’d have wanted them both in relative comfort.

He considered escaping by using his magic, but one of the Templars Gaspard employed wandered through the cells at inopportune times. The mere existence of Templars upset Solas’s stomach, but that they were here, in the Dirth, was case for even greater concern. He knew of no fighting between mages and Templars here, but the Dalish came through frequently and many of them were fairly relaxed about their mages. That some of them disposed of excess mages was even worse: there were apostate elves wandering the fens and prairies, easy pickings for cruel Templars. 

A loud, sudden crash tore Solas from his thoughts and he looked up to see the guard leaning against the iron bars of his cell. Sam stood directly opposite the guard, holding all four feet of himself tall and proud. The guard spoke in rapid, angry Orlesian to the dwarf, but Sam obviously had no idea what he was saying. 

“Er, hon hon I am, how you say, so Orleeeziian, I cannot speak that, erm, detestable common tongue, as you call it,” Sam said, affecting a very bad Orlesian accent. The guard slammed his fist into the bars, making Sam jump. 

“Shut up! I will beat you!”

“I’d like to see you try! I’m two-thirds your height and still have about a hundred pounds on you!” That was blatantly untrue, but Sam was a rather rotund man. He leaned into the bars, getting uncomfortably close to the guard. “But if you’d like a singing contest, I’d be happy to oblige.”

The guard jabbed his finger through the bars, poking Sam hard enough in the eye that the dwarf reeled backward. “That is what you get, dwarf--” 

Sam cut him off. He reached through the bars, grasped the guard by the collar, and brought him hard into the cold, solid iron again and again. The guard screamed and tried to fight back, but Sam’s grip was too strong as he pounded the guard’s face into a bloody pulp. 

With the ease of a man who had just finished an excellent musical performance, Sam bent down and fished the guard’s keys from his belt loop. He unlocked the cell door and it swung open with a loud creak.

Solas watched him, astonished and silent. Sam met his gaze, paused for a moment, then shrugged. “He didn’t need that. His face, that is. Wasn’t doing anything important with it.”

“I...”

“Well, come on then.” Sam gestured to the door. “You want out of here, then help me. Could use a mage to back me up.” He blinked a few times and rubbed at his eye. “Fuckin’ cheese-eating bastard.”

Solas stood and frowned as he followed Sam into the hallway. The other smugglers yelled and cursed and threw what little they had. “You aren’t going to release them?”

Sam shook his head and raised his voice above the din. “Nah, fuck these guys. Never liked my singing!”

They found the closet where Solas’s staff and Sam’s giant metal fist was stored. Solas eyed it wearily for a moment, then looked at Sam’s face. He had a scraggy, greasy beard with unkempt black wires for hair and pale skin poking out beneath. In the right light, Solas thought he could see dark freckles along Sam’s cheeks and nose. “How did you discover that I am a mage? I never mentioned it.”

Sam fixed his weapon to his arm and shrugged. “You aren’t Dalish, and city elves aren’t that pompous unless they have magic, a giant cock, or both.” Solas raised his brows, and Sam just winked. “Anyway.” The dwarf grinned as he finished strapping his gauntlet on. He let out a slow, relieved breath. “Good to get my hand back. Now let’s get the fuck out of here, I’m itching for a good fight.”

[faejilly]

Still Waters

so, as previously mentioned I was doing some fic/archive maintenance today, and pulled a bunch of things, and re-worked a few, and turned them into something different than what they used to be, by lining them all up together. So it’s kind of new, and kind of not, but I wanted to share this collection of ficlets that unexpectedly turned into a rather decent character study of Bethany Hawke. (on AO3)

don’t leave me

She remembered when it had been safe to laugh, to jump and play and shout and snarl.

Remembered her mother yelling "WALK!" every time she and Carver thumped through the house and out the door.

Mother never had to yell now. It was easy to walk, to keep her voice a whisper, her movements slow, her hair dark and heavy before her eyes, between her and anyone who might look too closely.

She was afraid.

After her magic came, Bethany was always afraid. But she could not bear to tell her father of her fears, sure he would worry, would turn away; convinced he could not love her if she stumbled. Could not risk it, could not risk the rest of the family, Mother and Garrett and Carver.

Not for her. She couldn't bear it if they risked anything, just for her.

But still she was afraid. She could not stand to sleep alone at night, to risk the voices in her nightmares being more than dreams. Could not tell a soul what she feared, as if that would make it real.

But Carver knew. Carver always knew, just as she could read every awkward shift of his shoulders, every roll of his eyes. He knew, and he carried the weight of her fears, breathed them with her in the dark, and put himself between her and the whispers, every night.

green

Bethany loved the sound of the Chant. She wasn't sure what she thought of the words, most of the time, unsure if she owed penance or forgiveness or mortification for being born a mage, but it seemed to be promising peace, someday, and that sounded nice.

It was one of the few places her brothers stopped hovering right behind her shoulder all the time. She loved them dearly, but it was nice to have a moment to herself, wandering the gardens in the Chantry's courtyard. Most of them were practical, herbs for flavor and healing and teas and incense, but not all, oh no. There was one wall of roses, pink and red and blushing peach, surrounding a twisty thorny bush that she'd never seen bloom, not in their past few years here in Lothering.

Not that even the regular roses were blooming yet, too early in the year, too cool, the green of the grass almost damp beneath her feet.

"And aren't you a beautiful bud. Won't you be stunning when you blossom."

Bethany froze, a shot of instant terror, someone's here, someone I didn't see, thought I was alone, musn't get caught, before her brain kicked back in and remembered she wasn't doing anything suspicious, nothing wrong with wandering the gardens. It took just an instant more to recognize the soft Orlesian accent of one of the lay sisters, to find the smooth lines of her robes just past the lone apple tree beside her.

"Good morning!" The redhead smiled, her accent soft and sweet. "Miss Hawke, yes?"

"Yes, thank you." Bethany hated the whisper of her own voice when confronted with people who knew her name. Too familiar means they've seen too much. "I just came, to, that is." She couldn't remember why she'd come, hopes of Chant and redemption and freedom too fragile to put into words, especially to a stranger. She gave up and nodded at the brown rose bushes, too early to have more than a flush of green along their branches.

"Ah, they're lovely flowers, aren't they? I keep hoping for that last one to finally show what she's been growing in her thorns, don't you?"

Bethany blinked, startled to hear the monstrous bush in the middle spoken of so fondly. "I ... suppose. But, I have to," she gestured vaguely back towards the Chantry proper. "My family will be expecting me."

"Of course, my dear." The woman leaned forward, a sudden soft brush of lips against Bethany's cheek almost enough to make her tremble. Though not with fear, no, it was warmer, sweet and smooth and kind and hopeful, somehow. Bethany managed a smile, couldn't quite form the words for good-bye or thank you, and walked back the way she'd come.

what should have been 

The ogre hadn’t killed him.

Quite.

They had to carry him out of the Wilds though, awkwardly balanced between his brother and sister. Carver always had been the tallest.

Bethany couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but wait by his side. Carver was supposed to be the hands to her heart, the heart to her head, the spine behind her smile.

He wasn’t supposed to be half broken and pale, each breath a whistle she could hear in her sleep, as he desperately fought for each heartbeat in the hold of the ship from Gwaren.

Mother nursed him, kept him clean and fed despite Lowtown’s slime and Gamlen’s dirt. Bethany wanted to, but she had a debt to pay, servitude to Meeran for the privilege of their new life of back-breaking drudgery.

He yelled at her, every morning after she’d staggered back home, for wasting her magic on him.

It was such a relief to hear him grumble though, she always laughed, the familiar tug of magic swirling around her hands to settle in his chest a comfort and a delight, no matter how sore her shoulders and feet from a night spent fighting.

It meant they were both still here, still strong.

Still together.

It only took a few months to get him back on his feet. Garrett took them both out to the Wounded Coast every other day, gave Carver enough room to swing a sword, to start getting himself back in shape again.

At the rate he was going, he’d be free to join them when they went freelance, after their year of service was up. There were rumours already building about the Tethras expedition. If they were lucky, (and the eldest Hawke was very good at making luck), they might be able to get in on it.

“Maker preserve the Deep Roads then,” Carver joked, a rasp still hiding behind his laugh, though it got fainter every day. “They won’t know what hit them, not with three Hawkes on the rampage.”

what is instead 

Some days she hates Garrett.

Too short.  Eyes too dark.  Laugh too loud.

He’s not the one she looks for, every time she turns around, and yet he is the one who is always, always, always there.

For that she loves him, even as her breath catches and her stomach curdles and everything hurts more than she can stand and part of her wants to make him bleed so he’ll know her pain and just. stop. smiling.

Sometimes, in the brightest light of noon, when no hand reaches out to tug her hair, no foot slides ‘accidentally’ too close so as to trip her, no shoulder bumps against her, no tongue sticks out at her, no thoughts mirror her own so closely as to finish her every sentence, she wishes Garrett had died instead, and she had her twin back.

Those are the days she gets very quiet, and listens to every word he says, and is desperately thankful he’s not as close to her as Carver was, or he’d know what she was thinking.

He doesn’t deserve that.

Those are the nights she wishes she had a proper house again, so she could cry to herself in her room and no one else would hear.

No one besides Carver has seen her cry in years.  She cannot bear to change that now.  Instead she turns her head into her pillow, and counts her breaths, and pretends her heart still beats a steady rhythm on its own.

elegance 

Some days she loved Hawke.

Hawke.

A title now, more than anything else. Because for all Bethany was a Hawke, and Mother was still a Hawke, even as she looked back at her old home, and Carver…

Bethany swallowed.

Hawke, like that, larger than life, not just a name, but a job, a duty … there was only one Hawke.

Who worried so much. Too much.

Especially, Bethany knew, about the sister that always needed to be protected.

It ought to have been easy to walk across the warehouse, to talk to the herbalist, to agree to stay behind working on potions and tinctures and maybe even sneak in a conversation or two with Tomwise about poisons. She’d be safer, here, than out fighting, and it wasn’t as if she wanted to fight anyways?

But there was something intimidating about the beautiful blonde woman, so poised, so, well, elegant.

Bethany felt every inch the country bumpkin, every time Elegant said hello, and could never quite seem to manage much in the way of words in response.

Just to emphasize how well she fit her name, Elegant kept saying good morning, or good evening, every single time they met, no matter how likely it was that Bethany would fail to be gracious back, and would mumble something incoherent in the general direction of her toes.

She’d started to hate her boots, from staring at the scuffs on them so often.

Today will be different.

For Hawke, even if she couldn’t do it for herself.

She would talk to Elegant, and they could crush elfroot together, and she would be helpful, and, for Hawke’s sake, and Mother’s, and Carver’s, she would be safe.

Though she almost lost her nerve when Elegant lifted her head, her eyes as warm and steady as always.

Found it again, when instead of her usual practiced smile, Elegant lifted one slim eyebrow in challenge.

Perhaps Bethany didn't have to settle for safe, at all.

Sunshine 

(Isabela Wonders)

Varric called her Sunshine.  

The first time Isabela met Hawke’s younger sister, she wasn’t quite sure why; the girl was quiet and shy, and if Isabela was just a touch less observant of the people around her, she might have missed seeing Bethany at all before the mage slid gracefully behind her elder brother.

But Isabela did see her move, noticed the grace, and the swing of dark hair, and made sure to catch the girl’s eyes.

And then Bethany smiled.

Oh.

Sunshine indeed.  And definitely not a girl.  A woman’s curves, a woman’s skin, a woman’s interest warming soft brown eyes.

Isabela smiled back.

(Bethany Resolves)

She was tired.

Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of finding shadows and never standing tall in the sun.

Tired of everyone always being so damned careful.

She wasn’t made of glass.

She wasn’t going to break.

She was a grown woman, not an infant in need of protection.

"Sunshine, just give Hawke a moment to," Varric’s voice was low and rumbling, and he patted her hand, like she was some kind of idiot, and she couldn’t bloody take it a moment longer.  She slapped his hand away, and seriously considered flame to emphasize her point, even as his eyes widened and he spread his arms in some half-arsed wordless apology.

"Now, Kitten," Isabela started, and Bethany spun around on her toes, something in her face finally getting through to someone, because Isabela’s voice trailed off, even before Bethany threw her hands up into the air and snarled at the both of them.  

"I am not a child, or a pet, and I do not need either of you to coddle me."

"Hawke asked," Isabela tried again, soothing and slow, as if Hawke solved everything.

Bethany stepped in close and grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss her, a hard press of lips and a low growl in her chest.  "Doesn’t it matter more what I can do, rather than what Hawke thinks?"

Isabela smiled, slow and warm and pleased.  "Yes, yes it does."

nightmare: taint 

It didn’t hurt as much as she had thought it would.  Not like normal pain, anyways, not like a bruise or a cut or a broken bone.

The inside of her mouth tasted bad, her throat alternately burned and tightened and eased just to start over again.  Her skin didn’t feel like hers anymore, didn’t feel, really, not in the same way, everything oddly distant and too sharp, both at once, and she was hungry and yet never wanted to eat again, she was thirsty and slow dribbles of too warm water from their stores didn’t help.

She was cold, despite the heavy thick air and the glow of lava through the vents in the floors and the walls of the dwarven Roads.

Her knuckles ached, when she flexed her hands, and her toes curled too tightly in her boots, but all in all, she didn’t hurt.

Dying should hurt, shouldn’t it?

But all she could manage was a heavy sort of ache low in her back when she stood or sat or stretched, and the occasional twist in her chest when she took too quick a breath, or she tried to figure out what to say …

She had a chance, unlike Father, unlike Carver, just now, an opportunity to say goodbye before she was gone, and she couldn’t seem to find the words.

Couldn’t make herself say anything at all.

One last failure, before the end.

reality: mother

she died

she died

and then at last

she died again

her favorite laugh silenced, strong hands gone beyond the Fade,  never to hold be held

again

brown eyes empty body broken no pyre no farewell

abandoned to the monsters

never forgive

pain

proof of life this is not life

relief, release, respite

gratitude

and yet

someone else with that laugh

those eyes

left behind 

alone

the flip of a coin: Warden Alistair

(heads: unrequited)

He hadn’t thought he’d ever fall in love again.

Certainly not with another Warden, not again, not after watching Lenya and Zevran.  Especially not after watching her die, with no idea what to do with his own grief in the shadow of the stark loss in Zevran’s eyes.

And yet.

He’d tried to keep the unexpected feelings to himself.  He knew Bethany Hawke wasn’t one who was proud of being ‘chosen’, didn’t think she’d appreciate overtures from someone who, despite it all, still was.

Maybe because of it all.  The only thing I have left, Wardens and duty.

And love.

Because he was an idiot sometimes. Oh yes. Definitely an idiot.

Sometimes she spent a night with another Warden, or let herself be ‘seduced’ by an awestruck or grateful civilian when they stopped on their patrols, and every time, he had one more drink than usual, fingers tight around his mug, trying not to imagine the sounds she might make, skin to skin and lips to lips.

But it wasn’t so bad, because he knew it was casual, a way to warm her nights and distract herself from her fate.  And they’d managed to become friends, at least, conversations on watch, a good morning smile over tea.

That would just have to be enough.  He thought it was, too.  Until it wasn’t.

Nathaniel came back from Ansberg, and he was not afraid to sit too close, to murmur something more than just a morning greeting in the dawn light, to promise her being a Warden wasn’t all bad.

She started smiling more, slow and sweet and hot.  Refrained from her occasional dalliances.

And there he was, watching the woman he loved fall in love with someone else.  Second best.  Again.

(tails: without words)

Bethany Hawke had a tendency to stand with her hands behind her back.  Back straight, shoulders steady, her face always calm, no matter what news you gave her, what new horror she had to deal with, what attempt at sympathy she would disdain to accept.

And yet.  Alistair could never see her hands.

And he wondered.

She so very clearly didn’t want to talk, not to him, not to anyone, not about anything more important than passing the salt or repairing her armor.

She burnt the letters her family sent, and never wrote them back, not past that first note Stroud had made her sign, to tell them she had survived the Joining.

He wondered what she was really thinking, and how calm she really was, or how miserable, and if there was some sort of help he could offer.

Or that anyone could offer, really, his ego did not require that he be the only one who could ease her way, but there were good things about being a Warden, good times that could be had in this life, and he hated to see someone so strong, so young, so beautiful, alright, yes, I’m a horrible man and she’s gorgeous and this line of thought is not helping, have eyes so dark and lost.

Her eyes reminded him of The Warden.  

His warden, the best friend he’d ever had, a man of principle and compassion both. Though it might have done him a bit of good to have a bit more bend in his spine; he might still be alive, then.

Not that there was anything wrong with death by Archdemon; he had saved the world, and if anything was worth dying for, it was that. 

But it nagged, a bit, to wonder if he could have saved him.  His reasoning had been so logical, splitting up the three Grey Wardens, just in case, but Alistair would always regret that he hadn’t been there on Fort Drakon to help.  To say good-bye, even if he didn’t manage to take the blow himself.

Alistair didn’t want to regret the life of another Amell.  And that’s where she was going, it was clear, a little less care each and every day, the vicious edge to her spells growing darker each time she fought.  She was going to let herself die in the Deeps, if something didn’t change.

But he didn’t know what to say.

Well.

That was clearly the problem.  He didn’t need to figure out what to say, he needed to figure out what to do.

Not that he was any good at that either.

But he had to try.

So he dragged her to the infirmary, and put her in the way until she sighed and helped the medics.

He heard tell she started going back, all on her own, once a week or so.

He did the same in the kitchens, and smiled every time cinnamon wheat bread showed up at dinner, because he recognized it as her mother’s recipe.

He hunted down everything of Daylen’s he had, or Oghren had, sent messages to Wynne and Leliana and Zevran and Shale, considered Zevran, but thought he was unlikely to be willing to part with anything he’d managed to save, considering.

And yet it wasn’t all that surprising when Zevran brought a box for him personally, with a few letters and keepsakes from everyone, disappearing back out the window (the window, really, you couldn’t come in through a door and say hello and have some dinner?) with a small wink before Alistair could do more than gape at him.

Alistair passed it along to Bethany the next morning, as next of kin.  Her eyes lifted, for once, wide and startled, and he grinned in delight at his success.

She even almost smiled back before she retreated back to her room, her fingers gripped tightly around the corners of her present.

It got a little easier, after that.  

He invited her to be a guard for a rebuilding crew, so she could see the people who were around after the Wardens killed the darkspawn.  Her chin was up that night at dinner, rather than her face ducked down to avoid the rest of them.

He hunted down books whenever he was on a salvage crew and made sure to save them for her, once he realized how much she enjoyed trying to piece the tattered pages back together.

He caught her laughing in the library, having managed to combine several different volumes into one nonsensical bedtime story, which Sigrun read aloud, with plenty of sound effects and silly voices.

Her laugh was quite possibly the most gorgeous sound he’d ever heard.

They worked together a lot, now, and he stood behind her when others spoke, and watched her, always her, as the years passed, and what had once been a white-knuckled tangle of fingers at the small of her back eased into a loose clasp of hands.  

What had once been a face still as stone relaxed, just a little; quiet still, but attentive, and whenever the conversation was over she’d glance over her shoulder at him, and smile, and his heart would stop for just a breath before he could manage to smile back.

He knew he’d reached the point he needed to tell her … something.  A hint of how she made his heart lift and his skin flush and his thoughts come to a stuttering halt, but he’d spent so long not talking, he wasn’t sure how to start.

But he tried, her hand small and strong in his as he looked her in the eyes.  Before he managed more than her name, Bethany, she put a finger to his lips, and smiled, and he sighed, a warm shudder of air as her hand slid along his chin.  She leaned in close, and her eyes slowly closed, and kissing her was better than he’d ever imagined.

duende: King Alistair

He wasn’t technically a Warden anymore.

Wardens and politics didn’t mix well, not outside the Anderfels.

Most especially not in Ferelden.

But for all the official story, it wasn’t as if there was a way to stop the dreams, the tug in his chest each time they came across another remnant of the Taint that needed to be burned out of the soil. 

There was no way to clean his blood, to make him simply Alistair again.

A fact Arl Eamon refused to acknowledge, especially every time the question of a Theirin heir came up again.

Escaping to the Keep was his favorite refuge from everything he had to do, had to be, as King.

Even before Stroud sent them new recruits to train.

Even before he met Bethany.

Who hid her face behind the dark fall of her hair, and whose mouth turned, sharp and bitter, whenever she thought no one was looking. Who didn’t talk much, and smiled less, and yet.

And yet, sometimes she would lift her face, and the sun would catch in her eyes, and he would forget to breathe because there was something there, such strength and steel and beauty, and he found himself trying to remember some of the Chantry’s quieter prayers, at night, words to express how very much he hoped someday she would let that light in her eyes free.

And that he would be there, to witness it.

***

The first time she kisses him, he smells of steel and leather, and his lips part in surprise, and her heart twists, and she can feel the gasp of his breath in the space between them when she leans back.

The second time he kisses her, her eyes close and her shoulders ease beneath his hands, and the firelight warms his side, and when her fingertips brush against his cheeks he knows nothing will ever be the same.

The third time she kisses him there is blood and mud, and sweat, and the stench of dog and death around them, thick enough to cover even the chill of the stone, and she doesn’t care, because he is hot against her skin, scalding her lips and hands, and he is alive, and he is whole, and he is hers. 

***

It is a question she can only ask in the middle of the night, when the shadows hide the walls of the suite, his suite, never her room, not in Denerim, not at Vigil’s Keep, appearances to keep, even there, surrounded by a sea of blue and steel, when she can imagine they both lived a different sort of life.

Or, at least, when she can wonder what it might be like, if they could.

She only finds the words when she wakes during that in between moment, no longer night, not yet morning, the feel of his skin against hers, the sound of his breath against her hair the loudest thing in the room.

She only finds them because he’d asked her, in the same indistinct twilight during the last time they were together, what she thought of being a Warden now, years past that first bitter Joining, and there’d been a note of … something, not quite wistful, behind the words.

She’d been startled enough by the realization that she was content, at last, with her duties, with her life, even beyond the fleeting joy of their shared nights, that she’d forgotten to follow the trail his words had left her, and had laughed instead, and kissed him, and his hand had slid down her sides, between her legs, the tantalizing contradiction of smooth skin and rough callouses, and his breath hot against her skin as his fingers pushed just so, and her back had arched and she’d lost herself in the heat of him, as she loved to lose herself, every time she had the chance, accompanied by the rough sweet whisper of his voice saying her name into the hollow of her throat, a breath before his lips found her skin, before their bodies were pressed so close she could feel the rhythm of his heart beating against her skin.

She only finds them this time because she wants to know, needs to know that there is some joy in his life, as well, beyond what little she can grant him.  

What little he can share with her.

He deserves better than such a shadow life, she knows, especially now that she realizes she left her own shadow life behind, some-when between the day she started to die and now.

Everyone’s dying, after all.  At least she’s found a place to do some good in the meanwhile.

Love helps too, but she’s no longer young enough to imagine it’s enough all on its own.

Isn’t quite lost enough in appreciation of the broad expanse of his chest to imagine it’s quite enough for him all on its own, either.

So she makes herself ask, if he’s happy, if he regrets.

Places a fingertip against his lips, for just a breath, when he tries to make a joke instead of answering.

I was not a very good Warden, Bethany.  I did not want to do what had to be done.  I’m not sure I would have learned better, at Vigil’s Keep, or Weisshaupt.  I think I am, at last, a decent King. How could I regret that? 

He kisses her, and it is soft, and long, and she is breathless when he is done, and he shifts, and the long line of his body presses up against hers, and he whispers, again, so soft she can barely hear him.

And I do not know, if it was my duty, if I could be the one to send you back into the Deep when you needed to go.  If it was my word that could make it happen, I would keep you by my side always.

They both know that would have been good for neither of them, and yet, her heart aches at the thought; it is a sweet one, a dream to savor for a heartbeat or two, before she lets her fingers find the line of his jaw, and she lifts her chin to kiss him again, and again, for as long as the shadows keep them safe.

[valerie-royeaux]

Blood & Dust - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Maker-Given

Word count: 4,280 Read it on AO3, or continue below

Previous chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2

“You look impressive, ser Cousland!”

Junia chuckled as she looked at John coming out from behind some bushes. He looked positively more composed than the night before, when he was barely more than a ragdoll enveloped in rope. The spoils from the bandits in the chantry had allowed Junia - with a healthy dose of bartering in the local language - to buy most of the things John needed. While they did not compare to the equipment that now gathered moss deep beneath the Minanther river, it was enough for his survival: a sword complete with belt and scabbard, a round wooden shield with a steel boss in the centre, and a slightly rusty oversized chainmail. She even managed to include a dark brown travel cloak in the bargain! His pants and boots were the same ones that came out of the water with him.

And just like his situation, the bond between them had improved significantly overnight. Junia’s chuckles were growing into full hearted laughter as John moved in circles around himself letting his cloak flow free. “You still have to buy me some hands, Junia”, he shouted, letting the hems of his chainmail jiggle from the edge his hands, completely covering them. “This will be the new fashion in the Orlesian tournaments. Sleeves too long over hands with no gloves. You have never seen knight more comely, m’lady!” Junia only kept laughing, openly, her low pitched tone enchanting John with each giggle.

They walked the idle pace of heavily loaded donkeys. Junia’s plan had already been to follow to Kirkwall this morning with her band of dusters by accompanying a merchant caravan that travels regularly from Starkhaven to Kirkwall. While her company had changed, it was still the safer way to traverse the Free Marches countryside, without drawing any attention. Numerous mercenary bands guarded the travelers, and they enjoyed the protection of even warring lords. One of the very reasons commerce flourished so strongly in the Free Marches. No one messed with the caravans.

It didn’t take them the morning to bond, and by noon time John did not feel like a hostage, neither did Junia felt compelled to keep an eye on her expensive prize. Their throats actually ached from all the talking, and they had already refilled their water skins twice. By dinner time the caravan had stopped in the grounds of an enormous monastery, protected by bailey walls and the growing towers of a Cathedral. The magnificent building was almost ready, and those were the last of over sixty years of construction. But instead of finding rest in the grandeur of the cathedral’s halls, even though John’s theological views had enchanted Junia most of the morning, he asked them to eat at the fully enclosed monastery's hall.

“You can’t be serious, John. Bugs, really?”

“I hate them all, I’m telling you! If we eat outside, we’ll attract bees, and they will stick to our food, and they will sting us! And those other weird bugs. And don’t even get me started on the wasps they have up here in the north.”

Junia could not believe that was the reason they were not in a calmer or sainter place, but enjoying the not so private end of a crowded trestle table. The Fereldan language was what shielded them from most of the prying ears. “So, you regularly clad yourself in armor and risk your life in battles, but you are afraid of bees?”

“And wasps. And big beetles. And spiders. But not ladybirds and butterflies, though.” He made a pause to bring food to his mouth, but decided to continue in the face of Junia’s raised brow. “I mean, it’s not fear per se. It’s more a… safety notion that, should the veil fail, these critters will eat me. Have you ever seen a giant horse? No. And if there were? We would ride them, and love them. But giant spiders? Maker, I’d take on dragonlings every time!”

Junia simply raised an amused eyebrow: “So you wouldn’t fear a giant butterfly?”

“But of course not!” John laughed heartily and, even among marchers, he was gesturing wider and talking louder than anyone else on the table. “Which demon who respects itself would possess a butterfly? Behold, I’m the demon-flying-flowers!” They both kept laughing before John added: “But that applies only to butterflies, though. Moths are evil creatures who will blind you.”

The situation in Ferelden had been put to a comfortable bed on the back on John’s mind. Eventually he would worry about the time they were taking on their journey, he would think about the issues his sister would be facing back in Denerim, or Highever, or wherever. Wherever, he thought. The place where it always wheres. Like in Highever it always highs. This is how the easy state of mind of a high nobility second son would bring him out of worrying and back into enjoying the company of this beautiful woman - yes, beautiful, he would say to Fergus in his own mind.

At least Gwen wouldn’t judge him. She somehow corroborated him on these matters. She was able to feel the inner workings of John’s likings and never judge them, despite not quite agreeing with them. She knew how much he enjoyed the color match of chestnut hair and eyes, how he anticipated Junia’s large breasts to sag to the top of her belly when free of clothing; how he could not avert his gaze from lips and eyes that were too large to the dwarf’s roundish face, and therefore perfectly cute. How soft and firm she should feel to hold; short and broad, more than he could grasp; which marks her belly and hips would show; which would be the smell in her bushes after stripping to sleep at night. He could not wait to tell all about Junia to Gwen, and that is how his hyperactive mind would snap him back to his sister’s woes. And back again at how much he wanted her to meet this special pretty andrastian dwarf. Yes, Gwennie, pretty dwarf, and pretty andrastian. And pretty. And he needed more things to tell his twin sister: not only of Junia, but about Junia.

“But enough bugs, because I don’t want you to think you will have to save me when those weird flying ants they have in here come barging. I talked, and talked, and talked since last night, but all I know about you so far is that you are a mercenary, and that you come from Waking Sea, and that the Maker protects you from pretty much everything. Come on, Junia, I have only until Highever to get to know you, and I don’t think this will be time enough for me!”

Junia could not think these were empty flirting lines from a bored knight. First of all, because she had read all the classical authors - and that is not how knights would go about courting a lady. Not that she was a lady, of course. But that is not how men of war would go about wooing cheap women into their beds either. John’s sincerity was new and assailing, and Junia could not realize how vulnerable she was to it. John had been shielded enough from life to be able to ride under all of the dwarf’s shields, and straight into childish giggles and serene smiles. There were no defenses she could raise to a man who employed no attack. Which is a lie. He already longed for her. But his wanting seeped, rather than being directed. And it immersed them both.

“Alright, John”, she said, letting out a long sigh. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

She smiled a kind smile, and realized she never really talked about her life to anyone. Not in a organized chronology, not like she wished she could, not like she one day hoped chroniclers would want. She would sit and laugh with companions, share drinks and stories with friends. But this was not about the laughter it would bring to a booze-bright table of bandits. This about making herself known to this weird man. The ultimate goal was not to amuse, to scare, to make a point. The ultimate goal was herself. And she delighted on it.

“Well, very well. I guess we can start in Waking Sea. That is where I’m from.”

“I know, and that is so close to Highever!”

“I know, I know. But I didn’t stay there for long. You see, I was born to a very wealthy family. They were heavy supporters of the Surface Caste. They even kept the casteless brand”, Junia touched the mark on her right cheek briefly, “as a mark of surfacer pride. And this is pretty much it for my childhood. I know I had to wear dresses, and learn manners, and sew and do my hair, and all this shit rich girls are supposed to do. This goes on until I am about eight, or nine, or something around that time. That is when they tried to give the jester a shitting pot.”

This time Junia was not interrupted. John watched, listened and chewed attentively, his eyes widened and focused on hers. Eventually darting down to her moving full lips, that is true, but mostly they were on her eyes. “I don’t know the details. But my family did not belong to the Merchant Guild, and they crossed the Merchant Guild. The Guild killed my parents, and looted the house. I was part of the loot.”

John’s expression fell to absolute sorrow, but found no resonance in Junia’s. He noted how used to death she was - and how that diminished him. Embarrassed him of himself, even. This woman mentioned her parents death as if it was nothing, as if it had no sting on her. And Junia could not even notice how heartfelt John was with her family’s murder. It would only sting one not used to murdering. John remembered how easily she dispatched the sleeping men who held him captive. And it made more sense now. For a moment, their situation and how they came to be there briefly flashed in his mind. But just like he was baffled at the ruthlessness of the dwarf, she was entranced by the innocence with which John carried himself to that moment. So she just continued, and John, silent, soaked it all in.

“They were really good to me, actually. You see, better not to damage the merchandise. They shipped me across the sea to Kirkwall. I had not idea what was going on, but here’s the Maker guarding me again: they happened to sell me to the one brothel owner who would not employ children, John. I remember chatting with signora Benedetta later on, and she told me she would never employ anyone young enough to die and go straight to the Maker’s side. A pious woman, she was. And she was thinking that of a dwarf. Instead, she sent me to a convent. She payed to have me, and released me for free.”

Junia almost continued saying how she spends a lot of money in Benedetta’s brothel every time she is in Kirkwall. But for the first time in a very long time, she felt ashamed. She hesitated and made a pause, reeling from that awful sensation of shame before that man, probably a few years younger than her, who would not think so well of her if he knew she visited brothels. It wasn’t enough that she hid from him she was a bandit, rather saying she was a mercenary. Now, she was also hiding she was a regular at brothels, and she was hiding Benedetta’s brothel, of all of them. This is not how she would want to him to know her, Junia realized. She knew the Maker was with her, and that He had given her that. She earned every woman she spent her money on. Sister Lucia, who would very often disagree with her on most things, was very adamant in affirming the Maker did not judge love, given for free or purchased with coin and taken with kindness. This was one of the very few things Junia did not use to ask forgiveness for. But now, and suddenly, she wanted John’s good opinion too. She was sure he would never understand a woman who visits brothels, let alone keeps the company of other women. Thus her nights with Benedetta’s women never left the lips that pleased the human so much. She continued to the very Sister Lucia who would scold her for hiding it.

“I went to a convent, a big one, not unlike this monastery where we are.” A peaceful smile seeped through Junia’s face, and sweet nostalgia toned her voice. “I believe I was a decade old by the time I arrived there. They had me doing base chores - stuff not even the sisters following stricter versions of the Rule would do. The mothers and sisters there wasted no time letting me know I was a dwarf, and therefore I would not be educated like the other orphans. There were some in the cloisters. They would grow to be sisters and brothers. The ones with wealthy patrons would either become Mothers or Templars. But me? I was to be their servant, and that is it. I was so… numbed, around that time, John, that I can barely remember a thing. I didn’t even speak the language of Kirkwall. Or Chiesaforte, in their language. All I know if is that I hated being poor and destitute. With passion.”

“Hearing you say it, it seems to me you speak it as well as a native, Junia,” John remarked, not used to hearing about poverty, and not knowing how to deal with it. He felt is was wrong, but could not think of what to say, therefore the remark about language. As if it was the first time he, a high noble, was made aware of the existence of poverty and tragedy. Junia simply shrugged, still immersed in the sweet memories she was about to tell. She was not ashamed of these ones. Well, not completely.

“There was this one sister. Suora Lucia. Sister Lucia. Her name means light, and that is exactly what she was to me. It took me a while until I could understand her. But she had some… privileges, as always. Wealthy patrons. Well, in her case, more than that. Anyway, you will see the Maker reaching out to protect me again, John. The good shepherd knows its sheep, and calls them by name. Sister Lucia made sure I would serve only her. She was the head of the scriptorium, where the sisters copy manuscripts. So I would make sure the supplies were tidy, the room was clean, and the sisters writing had what they needed. I also helped her keep track of sisters who were slacking in their copying!” Junia giggled through her pause, and noticed how firm was her grisp in John’s attention. He was done eating his bread, and his wine sat still, cup half full.

“Sister Lucia ensured my service was light enough. And she would take some hours of her time, every night, in between the end of her chores and the nightly prayers, to teach me the language. It was when I was already speaking some of it that she told me she wanted to make sure I learned the Chant. That she wanted me to know that the Maker was the creator of everyone. Everyone, John. Even me. Andraste cared even for one as myself.”

Junia made no pause, but John could see how elated she was to speak those words. She savoured them, sound by sound. Drops of balm onto her soul. He already loved this Sister Lucia, and was actually hoping they could see her when they went through Kirkwall. That somewhere down her story, Junia would say that Sister Lucia spoke Fereldan. Regardless, he was charmed by the delight in the dwarf’s soul, translating clearly through the features he already loved to admire. He nodded rhythmically, at the slow beat of Junia’s speech, absolutely sure that Andraste herself validated every word. A sensation Junia shared.

“I also did not take long to meet Sister Lucia’s wealthy patron. A noblewoman named Mara. Even though, in theory, Sister Lucia lived in the cloister, signora Mara would visit her at least twice a week. They were both somehow old at that time. I think they were forty-five, maybe fifty? I digress. One of my main chores, and that only because I was not considered ‘cloistered’, was to travel Kirkwall back and forth with notes from Lady Mara to Sister Lucia, from Sister Lucia to Lady Mara. And Lady Mara loved me! She cherished to see me being raised into a good Andrastian, and after a while she started helping Sister Lucia with my lessons. I loved those days so much, John. So much.”

Again, she did not tell it all. She didn’t need to. She told the important part about Sister Lucia and Lady Mara, and how kindly they kindled all good that Junia ever learned how to feel. She did not disclose the whole truth about them, but enough to share with the man she was growing ever close to. She was ready to move on to darker stances of her past, when John interrupted her.

“How nice, they were lovers!”

And he hadn’t only interrupted - he did it with a clear affirmation of love between two women, a full smile under his beard, and admiration in his eyes. Junia coughed the last sip of her wine, and stared at the human widely. “N-No…” She knew that nobles would more often than not allow themselves some… experimenting. Debauchery, was the word in Orlais. But something in the way he said it did not denote it. He was not talking about nobility excesses. And he clarified it in his next words.

“No need to hide it, Junia, it is fine. I don’t think it is bad, not all. Actually, I cherish it.” Upon Junia’s puzzled expression, he continued. “I was not supposed to tell you that, but what the hell, I want to tell you everything.” He took his moment for some laughter before he continued. “My twin sister is like this. Gwennie, the one who I told you about. She likes women the same way a man would - the same way I do. She actually loved this girl, Lucille. For a long time. To be honest with you, I think she was going to find a way for them to marry. Our father found out, we suspect, and out of the blue, the girl was married to a man.” John’s excitement vanished suddenly - but Junia’s was there, fiercely rekindled, as well as one of Thedas largest smiles, which did not match John’s next words. “Lucille killed herself not long after. Gwennie never truly recovered.”

It took John a while to see Junia’s beaming smile, and he replied with a weak and understanding one when he noticed it. “I take it you are just like her?” Junia mistook the disappointment in John’s voice by the drop in his mood due to talking about Lucille’s suicide.

“I am.” Junia answered, and John nodded, simply, in silence. But his gaze perked up when he heard Junia say “Well… Kind of.” And that perked gaze prompted her to go on with an explanation. “I have been attracted to men on certain occasions.” She paused. John waited for her to continue. And continue she did, after realizing that this was again the Maker’s hand steering His love towards her. She could not have, randomly, out of chance, saved a kindred soul in so many aspects, to the point of understanding the love between two women. Between the most important women in her life. So she would talk to this man about being with other people. She would openly discuss sex with a man who she really wanted to think highly of her, who she didn’t want to think her indecent. It took Junia another breath and an extra dose of heavenly encouragement.

“Men don’t know what to do with what the Maker has given them, John. They have mouths, and hands, and noses, and… They don’t even use, no, not really, what is between their legs. They just… Go in, and that’s it, sod over, it’s done. I have been attracted to some men when I was younger, and every time I tried them, I barely had time to regret it.” Junia closed her eyes shut, and faced away from John. She regretted talking about all the times she had been with men, like a slut, and that is not even mentioning that she implicitly made clear she had been with women many times over.

“I know, right? Gwennie told me all about it”.

Junia’s eyes snapped wide open at John again. “She what? You and your sister talk about it?!”

“We talk about everything, Junia. She knows how I think, because we are twins, I suppose.” It was John’s turn to feel ashamed and not be totally frank with the dwarf. “She has never… Came to full terms with a man, but she had her run-ins with them. And she hated these few times bitterly. After she started knowing more of women, she told me how women do it. How they take their time, and use all their Maker-given parts.”

He laughed out loud, and so did Junia. She was baffled and incredulous, actually slightly shaking her head at how the Maker reaffirmed time and again all she believed in. Specially the one point where she and Sister Lucia agreed. And she found really cute that John finally blushed. “I learned to use my Maker given parts myself. And this did not involve my sister!”

More laughter followed. Free, loud, tension-releasing laughter. To the point they both remembered their cups and toasted vividly.

“To Maker-given parts!”

Junia kept telling John about her past, and John probed more on the relationship between Lady Mara and Sister Lucia, as well as Junia’s own relationships. She was pleased to tell him how their families discovered their affair, and one was sent to the Chantry, and the other forcibly married right away. But she still would avoid telling about herself . Throughout most of her life, all her encounters had been casual, and mostly paid for, and that ashamed her. Instead, she probed him back for stories about himself, and Gwen as well.

And she did not tell him how, after staying in Kirkwall’s monastery for three years, she wanted to become affirmed. And how she was denied, despite Lucia and Mara’s influence. Apparently, Grand Cleric Elthina learned of Junia’s intention to become a sister, and denied it herself. And how, slowly, she started working with the Carta. First with small deliveries, then at small hits, and surely, to be one of the organization’s most effective agents around the Waking Sea’s shores. To John, as far as Junia could control it, she was a mercenary.

And John was happy to let Junia know how he had always been attracted to dwarven women, even though they were few and isolated. Dwarves were too insular, and even as a noble, he never got close enough to a dwarven woman like he was now close to Junia. And he made sure she knew how much he was loving it. He was also happy to share some of Gwen’s love stories, and the fact that they were indeed more numerous than his.

Slowly, the hall of the monastery started to empty, and they realized it was about time for the caravan to move. The stood to go to the caravan’s gathering place, and Junia welcomed the distraction. Her heart was pounding fast. She could not say she was having feelings for this male human, but she could feel roots fighting to take hold. She knew he was feeling it all, too, he made it really clear, while at the same time being incredibly respectful. He was giving Junia her space to decide whether she would be willing to pursue something with him.

Junia was pondering whether or not to give it a try - to go back on her decision of not wasting time on men. Clearly, she had never tried one such as John. At least, he seemed to be aware of how not to be a bossing jerk. She paused and looked down, reprimanding herself for thinking that. He was obviously well intentioned. And she had not met a well intentioned lover ever since she left Kirwall to do the Carta’s dirty work. Junia cherished the only pair of  well intentioned lovers she had ever met. And she was sure Lady Mara and Sister Lucia would love to know John. While he longed to introduce her to Gwen, she longed for her moms to know him.

When she raised her gaze decided to do something, she noticed the hall was too empty. People had simply vanished, and all doors were closed. John kept talking about something in Highever, oblivious to the change in the room.

“Shhhh!” she said, and started to gather their things in a lot of haste. John was puzzled at that, but in a second started to help her, despite not understanding what was going on.

“Be ready, John. Let’s get our things and run. Something is not right.”

Junia knew that monastery, and led them running through a door which into the cloister. At the same time, armed men poured into the hall from the opposite end.

[ladydracarysao3]

In Love, Serenity  

Chapter Twenty Eight: What Has Been Forgotten Has Not Yet Been Lost

Excerpt:

Aurora frowns. Her heart races. “I don’t–”

“Yes you do, Aurora. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Please, promise me you will help us.”

Aurora doesn’t know what to do. She trembles in his hands. If she does what he asks everyone will know, and she may never be safe again. If she doesn’t, and Corypheus wins, Thedas is over. Conflicted is an understatement for how she feels. She wishes Greagior and Irving were here. They taught her to hide and control her power… they would know what to do now. They would protect her. Her heart aches at the thought.

The only men she’s ever trusted with her secret are dead.

[Read Chapter 28 on AO3]  or  [Start from the Beginning]

-Aurora-

“Sand is so dumb,” Aurora sneers wiping herself of the grains that coat her riding gear and hide in every crevice.

“How very eloquent, my dear,” Dorian muses and she grins at him through the corner of her eye. “One could almost confuse you for Sera.”

“Ey! Yer tryin’a be smart, but she’s right. Sand is dumb,” Sera pouts and sticks her tongue out at the Tevinter Altus while she helps shake grains from Aurora’s hooded cloak.

They’ve finally made it to Griffon Wing Keep and Aurora hopes that the high walls will help protect her from sand whipping and blowing in her face all Maker-damned day.

She’s been uncomfortable ever since they hit the desert. Couple that with the fact that the veil has also been particularly strange, and has only grown more so the deeper they traveled, Aurora can definitively say that she is not a fan of the Western Approach. There is an evil presence hiding in this land, but she’s not sure if it’s only her power that can sense it. She’s kept quiet about it, watching the others to see if anyone complains of strange feelings or nightmares.

No one has, to her knowledge, but they may also be keeping their experiences to themselves.

Upon reaching the keep, everyone had steered their horses directly to waiting stable hands. Not long after, workers came rushing from the keep, diligently retrieving the caravan’s supplies and chest’s from the wagons. Aurora and her fellow travelers are all exhausted and relieved to have finally made it. As the last of them finish dismounting their horses, she follows Dorian and Sera amongst the group of slouching shoulders, sleepy eyes, and sore bottoms. They all blearily trudge up a steep, sandy incline to the keep’s front gates.

“Who we gotta see about findin’ our rooms?” Sera asks, standing on her tiptoes and searching through the bodies of people. “I wanna room with Rory this time. You got her in yer tent the whole trip, ‘s my turn,” she says to Dorian as she gives him a light smack on the arm.

Aurora smiles to herself, glad that if nothing else, she has two good friends with her in this blasted desert with its funky fade. Sera is always fun to have around, like a partner in crime, and Dorian… She’d been pretty angry that he took her away from Skyhold, but on the road, they’ve actually bonded. Aurora now has a fondness for the fellow mage. It surprises her, but she really enjoys his company and the in depth conversations they can have about magic, politics, theory, and well… anything, really.

It doesn’t take long for the Inquisitor to be pulled away. She barely steps foot in keep before she has to turn around and take a team with her to some ritual tower. She takes Dorian with her too, leaving Sera and Aurora to figure out how to settle in without him. Sera, determined to get a room with her, starts running around and bothering every person she can find, shrieking about where the rooms are, and getting distracted by more than one pretty face along the way.

“We actually planned on grouping the women together, aside from Madame Inquisitor, of course,” a young Orlesian requisition girl finally informs them. She then looks down, mumbling under her breath, “Like we did with the men, except for that Hawke… No one wanted him in their room…” Shaking her head she sighs and looks at Sera and Aurora with worry in her eyes. “But Madame De Fer also requested her own quarters… I’m not sure what we’re going to do, we only have so much space. She’s taken the room meant for all of you. There are a couple of bunks in the women’s bunk house, though…” she looks at them with hopeful eyes and Aurora can only imagine what Vivienne had put the poor girl through.

“That will be fine,” Aurora pipes up. “We don’t need anything fancy.” Sera shoots her a scrunchy face of disgust, but doesn't object.

“I guess, if Vivienne had to swipe our room for herself,” the blonde elf groans, then mutters, “ Bitch ,” under her breath.

The pair follow the lead of the relieved young woman to the lower depths of the keep where the soldiers and workers bunk rooms are kept. Gawking, Aurora stares at her surroundings the entire way. She’s never been this far from Ferelden before. This building is old like Skyhold but so, so different. Put together with sandstones and ancient ornate reliefs that she feared would crumble to dust from only looking at them for too long.

They arrive in the women’s bunk room and Aurora grins, it’s really not that different from what she’s used to in Skyhold. More women and more beds line the walls than her small mage quarters, but nothing she can’t adjust to. It actually takes her back to the days when she was a young apprentice in the circle. Sometimes it’s nice to be surrounded by other women. Perhaps comradery will build. Something to help keep Aurora’s mind off of… other things.

Sera, however, is used to having her own little room in the tavern and at first, looks around the space with disappointment in her eyes.

“Just think of it as the tavern. With beds instead of tables,” Aurora grins and pats her friend on the back. Following the requisition agent to empty bunk beds, Aurora squeezes Sera’s shoulder. “You want top or bottom?”

“Top!” Sera screeches and launches herself sky-high to climb onto her bed. Swinging her feet off the edge, she presses the mattress with her hands, testing the springiness. “Guess it’s better than a bedroll on the ground. This’ll do.”

Aurora crawls underneath her and onto her bed after thanking the young woman who brought them there. Sera’s kicking feet quickly disappear and are replaced with her head hanging upside down, a wide grin on her face as she looks around Aurora’s lower bunk. “At least we still get to be together.” She points at the bare wall behind the mage. “Find me some paper and I’ll draw you some pictures of things you like, to tack on yer wall.”

Aurora smiles, both Sera and Dorian have been doing such a great job with making her feel better while they have been on this trip. She’s been feeling a lot lighter lately, almost like she did back before this whole mess began. She tries not to think about Delrin, or the Templar attack, and she’s even almost forgotten how scared she is to be here.

At that time, Lace Harding comes into view, walking up to their bunk from the back of the room. Aurora doesn’t know her well, but every encounter they've had has been pleasant. The pretty dwarf smiles softly as she comes up behind Sera and Aurora returns a warm grin.

“Aurora… hi,” she says. Sera cranks her head to see the freckle-faced redhead. “Hi, Sera.”

“Hey Lace, wanna have a bow competition later? I’m itchin’ to stomp someone’s arse and Varric always cheats,” Sera asks in a taunting but friendly way and spins into a backflip to hop off her bunk, landing beside the dwarf.

“You could try to beat me, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure you’re the one who’s going to be stomped, Sera,” she replies, grinning. Sera sticks out her tongue and thumbs her nose. Lace winks back while returning her attention to Aurora. “I have these for you,” she says, producing a bundle of letters from behind her back. “They started coming in not long after you all left Skyhold. I’ve kept them safe in my bunk for you, until now.”

Aurora stares at the bundle baffled, but takes the neatly wrapped and tied collection of parchment from Lace’s hand and sets it in her lap. “Thank you,” she says, staring at the bundle, heart racing as she thumbs the edges.

“They’re… all from the same person. Each one has--”

“The Knight-Commander’s seal,” Aurora finishes Lace’s sentence in a soft, hushed voice. She feels emotion well in her chest and behind her eyes, wondering - no, dreading - what words lie beyond the folded parchment.

“I intercepted all of them,” Lace continues, “No one else knows he’s been writing to you. I had a feeling you would prefer it that way.”

“Thank you, Lace,” Aurora whispers, still staring at the letters in silent fear. Lace Harding was right, Aurora wasn't sure what was going on between her and Delrin anymore, but she knew for certain that she wants it kept private. The less of a chance of a repeat attack, because of their connection, the better. But maybe these letters have nothing to do with that. Maybe this is him ending things, officially. Perhaps he wants to put her on trial… maybe that Templar made up stories to cover his ass.

Whatever is in these letters, she can't allow herself to be hopeful.

After setting up a time for a friendly bow competition later with Sera, the dwarf leaves their bunks and Sera sits beside Aurora - still staring at the bundle.

Sera brings her knees in, sitting cross-legged and facing her friend while softly rubbing her back. “You gonna open ‘em?” she asks.

“I’m… I’m afraid of what they might say.”

“You got yerself a lil’ pile there, I’d guess that the odds are in yer favor.”

Aurora just sighs, placing the palm of her hand over the top letter. She can almost feel him.

“You won’t know until you read. You’ll drive yerself nuts worrying about what they say. Just start with the first one and go from there. I’m here for you.”

“Will you read them? I don’t know if I can.”

“Rory…”

“Please?” Aurora pulls the top letter from pile and hands it to Sera while looking the opposite direction. “I can’t… Please, Sera.”

The elf takes the letter with a sigh and Aurora hears her break the wax seal. The Templar seal. The Templar Knight-Commander seal…

Sera clears her throat and takes a deep breath. “Andraste, what I step in?” she mutters under her breath, “Oh, seriously?” Aurora turns to see Sera glaring at the parchment.

“Aloud, Sera. Read it aloud.”

“Right, sorry,” she clears her throat again. “My Dearest Aurora,” she rolls her eyes and makes gagging sounds. “I have failed you. You were attacked by one of my men, a man right under my nose, a man known for his harsh views on mages, yet I let him roam Skyhold unchecked. Now that he has hurt you, I’m not sure that I can forgive myself for allowing it to happen.

Not only that, but I let your story cloud me. I allowed myself to get caught up in details that have no bearing on how I feel about you.

I hadn’t realized that you had a history with the Knight-Commander of the Ferelden Circle. I let my own doubt sway me and I regret it. I wish I had come to you after I left the cells that night. I wish I had seen you off before you left Skyhold. I told you I would be there for you, and I failed you.

I shouldn’t have let your past affect the trust I have for you today. I know better than that. I hope you will forgive me and that we can talk about this when you return. Please be safe, Delrin.” Sera finishes and looks up at Aurora. “That’s it.” She pauses for a moment then mutters, “Asshole.”

Aurora takes the parchment from her hands and stares at the words, stares at the the letters written in ink by Delrin’s hand. “You think?” Aurora asks, a fingertip lightly tracing the ink, wanting to it to be him, wishing she could touch him.

“He lets that tit run ‘round Skyhold all puffed up n’ pissed! Yeah, I think he’s an asshole. You could have died, Rory.”

No, she couldn’t have, the Templar would have died, Aurora knows that. The tit was no match for her.

“And then he was holdin’ your relationship with the other one against you? Pfffft ,” Sera crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.

“He probably was worried I set out to use him like I did Greagior.” Sera groans at that. “But I did Sera, the first time I met Delrin, I had every intention of doing that.”

“But that’s not what it’s about now .”

“But he didn’t know that… or well, he questioned that. I think he had every right to question that.” It was true. It is the very thing she’s worried about. Delrin discovering who she is and doubting her. Now it’s happened, and while he sounds like he wants to continue whatever it is that they are doing, she wonders if it's best to let him go. It will hurt, she knows that, but if learning about Greagior made him pause… what will his reaction be when he finds out the rest? She’s so uncertain. If only she was still in Skyhold and not in this blasted sandy basement.

“Sounds like you want to forgive ‘im.”

“I think I’m the one who needs forgiving,” Aurora says through hushed breath. Delrin only did what she’d expect any man in his position would do.

“Oh, piss on that. If I can trust you, then Ser Stick-Up-His-Arse should be able to wrap his big, dumb head ‘round it.”

“He doesn’t have a stick up his ass.”

“Whatever.”

“They’re back from the tower!” Aurora hears a soldier call into the bunk house before they quickly run back toward the stairs up to the main level of the keep.

Aurora refolds the letter carefully. “We should go see what happened,” she says. She turns to tuck her bundle under her blanket and between the wall and her bed. Sera follows when she rises and they find their way up to the courtyard. When they emerge, the sun almost blinds them after having been adjusted to a much dimmer basement of the keep.

Dorian sees the pair squinting in the sunlight and rushes toward them, panic plastered on his face.

“What happened, why do you look so worried?” Aurora asks.

“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he responds and grabs her elbow, steering her and Sera to a private corner of a look-out tower, away from listening ears. “The Grey Wardens are enslaving their mages to Corypheus, and sacrificing the rest to make it happen.”

Aurora gasps, covering her mouth in abject horror. “How could they do that?”

“It appears that they have been tricked by a…” he sighs and rolls his eyes, “Now don’t go pointing and wagging your fingers at me when I tell you this, we are not all like him. They have been tricked by a Tevinter Magister.”

“Fucking tits, the lot of ‘em.” Sera scowls and crosses her arms. “How are they gettin’ enslaved, anyway? What does Coryphishit want with warden mages?”

“They are using blood magic to bind them with demons. Corypheus is building an army.” Dorian answers, shaking his head and dipping it low with disbelief. He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Izzy is sending out Ravens right now to Skyhold, and sending scouts toward a gigantic fortress to the east where we think the wardens are wholed up.” He groans and peers out a window in the look out tower, watching sand blow by and staring at the horizon. “I think we are going to war.”

“Shit,” Aurora and Sera sigh in unison.

“How is Alistair taking the news?” Aurora asks, she’d bonded with the man. He has such a kind a good spirit, and he loves the wardens. This revelation must be killing him.

“Hmph,” Dorian grunts, turning back to her and bobbing his head with crossed arms. “He and Hawke are almost ready to kill each other. I swear, there sniping has given me a headache. We have enough on our plates, but they continue to take it out on each other.” He looks at Sera and smiles in a soft hopeful way. “Sera? Would you be a so kind as to fish out some kind of remedy for my aching head? I can barely even think straight. A bottle of wine should do the trick… maybe two.”

Sera grunts at the mage, but when he bats his eyes and asks her nicely with a “ Please? ” she rolls her eyes and walks off to retrieve some wine. Once she is out of earshot Dorian pulls Aurora closer and deeper into the corner. “Finally,” he sighs. “Listen, Rory. I know you aren’t going to like this, but we need you.”

Aurora hesitates, “Need me?”

“You have fought against an onslaught of demons before, do you have any insight?”

Aurora relaxes a little. Knowledge. He wants knowledge. Knowledge she can do. “The Hero of Ferelden saved the tower, but she had to fight through the fade to do so. There was a powerful demon there that she had to defeat before she could get to the mages.” She dips her head a little and whispers, “Does the veil feel funny here, to you?”

Dorian nods with a shrug, “Maybe a little.”

“Oh, to me it feels crazy. I sense something really strong on the other side. Maybe it’s what’s causing the fake calling for the wardens.”

“Erimond did mention a demon working with Corypheus…”

Aurora nods, “That must be it. Dorian... It’s massive . Powerful. And the veil is so thin. You can’t feel that?”

“I guess not. Not in the way you can, at least. But I thought you held more power than me. This proves me right.”

Aurora stiffens, color leaving her face. She’s said too much. She should have kept her stupid mouth shut.

He squeezes her arms in his hands and levels his eyes with hers. The seriousness of his gaze is unsettling. “Even if the power I sense within you is only a fraction of what you truly yield, Aurora, we need you. I know you don’t like to kill. I’m aware you want to hide who you are, but darling, this is going to be bloody. And we have to win. Corypheus cannot succeed with creating a demon army. You are going to have to fight with us. Really fight, too. None of this just flitting your staff around like you don’t know what you’re doing, as you did on our trip.”

Aurora frowns. Her heart races. “I don’t--”

“Yes you do, Aurora. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Please, promise me you will help us.”

Aurora doesn't know what to do. She trembles in his hands. If she does what he asks everyone will know, and she may never be safe again. If she doesn’t, and Corypheus wins, Thedas is over. Conflicted is an understatement for how she feels. She wishes Greagior and Irving were here. They taught her to hide and control her power… they would know what to do now. They would protect her. Her heart aches at the thought.

The only men she’s ever trusted with her secret are dead.

“Aurora, please,” Dorian pleads again, she’s been staring at him in fear for too long.

“I… I… I... will try,” she laments. That is at least close to what he wants to hear, and he pulls her into his arms. Whether or not she means her words matters not at this moment. She can't allow Thedas to fall to Corypheus, but she needs to keep herself in check, too.

“I suppose that’s all I can ask.” He leans back, looking into her eyes but still holding her. His curled mustache twitches and his eye sparkle with a smile. “You know, for all you have against Tevinter, they would at least celebrate you rather than making you feel like you had to hide who you actually are.” Aurora tips her head and sighs. “I know, I know. Ewww, Vints .” He releases her and guides her out of the look-out tower. “Come. Let’s go see if that elf has found anything decent to drink. I really do have a headache, you know.”