#his actions. it's just a pattern i noticed. if anything its a 'stop sanitizing the rest of the crows' post.

[bitchthefuck1]

It's always so funny to me when people call Kaz a serial killer or a murderer bc like. boy do I have news for you about the other crows.

[apprenticebard]

This is part of a longer piece, but I think it works as a standalone scene, too, so here. Warnings for implied/discussed rape + depictions of violence. (It’s all stuff from the canonical city elf origin, and it’s less explicit than the game itself.) I’ll put it on Ao3 when I finish the rest of it.

---

The events of the morning fade almost too quickly. As soon as she gets over the initial shock of being conscripted, Aria Tabris is all questions, wanting to know everything she can about the Wardens. She exhausts Duncan's store of standard information by mid-afternoon, and then moves on to other questions—are there other elves in the wardens? Women? Dwarves? Mages? Are they paid for serving? Do they have professions outside being wardens? Not that it matters, but are any of them married? What do darkspawn look like? Are they really corrupted magisters, like the chantry says? Can they all use magic? Are the magic ones connected to the fade? Can they strategize, or is it all just rushing towards the nearest person? What about lower-level tactics, like parrying blows? If some of them can use crossbows, doesn't that indicate a level of intelligent thought beyond that of, say, cats, or are things like that more innate than learned when it comes to monsters? Has he ever stopped to consider the relative intelligence of cats, and how difficult it is to measure something like that? (He has not.)

It isn't until nightfall that the shadows press in around her and seep into her dreams. She wakes up sickened and disoriented, her mind clawing at images of Vaughan's face and Nola's corpse. She remembers the stench of death. The sick, slippery feeling of blood on the floor. The sense that her emotions were too large to fit in her body, as she became a shell devoid of anything but movement—beyond anger, beyond fear, beyond uncertainty. The way her ill-fitting, stolen armor glinted in the sunlight when she raised her hand, calm as a statue of a saint, and said it was my doing. She had not been afraid. She was not capable of fear, by that point. She'd been staring her death in the face, and she wasn't going to give death the satisfaction of seeing her cower.

Only she isn't dead, not yet. She clings to life like a sick person who, despite having no chance of recovery, has not yet actually vacated the premises. Sometimes death is lazy; sometimes the valkyries deliberate. Sometimes one is left between states, too weak to live and too strong to die (or, perhaps, the opposite).

Somehow she staggers off her bedroll and manages to lean against the nearest tree. She hasn't eaten enough in the past day to vomit up much more than acid, but her whole frame shakes for minutes afterward. She makes very little noise while she cries. Eventually, she becomes aware that Duncan is watching her.

"I wasn't running," she bites out, when she can speak. "Just had to take a minute."

"Peace, Tabris," he answers. He offers her a canteen. She nods her thanks before drinking, though it takes another minute for her to finish centering herself. He waits.

"I don't get it," she says, at last.

"The world is a violent place."

"I know that," she snaps. "I meant you. Looking for recruits to fight the blight and save the world, I understand that. But why the alienage? Elves aren't even allowed to carry weapons. You can conscript anyone at all, and you pick the people who can't recognize the sharp end of a sword."

He is silent for a long moment. She senses that there is something he isn't telling her, but he takes the question seriously, offering her what he has, wisdom passed from the dead to the dying. "No man controls the circumstances of his birth. Whether he is elven or human, rich or poor, mage or not. The same cannot be said of heroism and nobility of spirit. They are often found in unlikely places."

"Maybe," she answers, but says no more.

The days that follow are calmer, as Aria settles into the rhythm of waiting for the last piece of death to set in. She does not complain, either about their pace or their less-than-appetizing travel rations. They pass through various small towns without stopping for the night, but they do buy more supplies, and Aria is allowed to spend some of her meager savings on a few balls of yarn. It's cold in the south, and she doesn't have much in the way of warm clothing. Besides, it keeps her hands occupied. As nervous habits go, at least knitting is a useful one. Duncan worries that it leaves her distracted and open to attack, but he gives her the choice up front, rather than issue a blanket ultimatum: either continue knitting and be on guard, or put the project away and focus on the road. She decides to continue, and later dodges his attack without trouble. The next day, he offers to pay her to knit a new pair of socks for him. When she protests that the offered price is too much, he laughs at her.

She doesn't think much about the fact that she won't be allowed to see her family until after the blight (if it is a blight), mostly because she doesn't expect to be here that long. She doesn't think about anything much, except the wardens and her yarn and the wedding that did not occur. Occasionally she finds herself holding Nelaros's ring in her hand, examining it. It's beautiful—not high-quality gold, even she can tell that, but it's covered in delicate designs that resemble wings, almost reminiscent of the patterns on her face. She supposes Nelaros must have been told about the markings before he agreed to marry her; perhaps he meant for the ring to reflect the same meaning as the markings, though he could not possibly have known what that meaning was. She closes her eyes and tries to remember his face. She thinks she sees it properly, handsome features blushing as he's introduced to his bride. Better this than the other image, the image of his dead body lying on the floor.

Aria opens her eyes. Soon, she knows, she'll forget what he looked like. Not much later, she herself will pass away. The ring and its markings will remain.

"There are rings in this world that contain great power," says Duncan, at one point. Her eyes snap up. His face is impassive. "However, I doubt that this is one of them."

"He's dead," she says, responding not to the words but to what she supposes is the question behind them. "He died for me. He knew he might, but he came anyway."

"And that was brave of him, certainly. But tell me, is it truly Nelaros you mourn?"

She hesitates. She thinks they would have been happy together, but she didn't know him, not really. Maybe she can't mourn him properly. "Second chances, maybe. He's not going to get one."

Duncan nods seriously. "Few people do, and yet here you are."

"Here I am," agrees Aria.

By the time they can see the broken stone walls, she's knitted one sweater, a pair of gloves, a hat, two pairs of socks, and most of a third. Her thoughts change again as they make their final approach toward Ostagar. She remembers Nessa's concerns about being surrounded by human men who haven't seen a woman in months. It is not a pleasant thought, certainly, but things could be worse. At least Nessa herself won't have to deal with Ostagar. At least Soris and Shianni and Valora and Cyrion are all momentarily safe. She supposes the human soldiers must have similar groups waiting for them back home. Human wives, human children, aging human parents. People who matter to them more than their lives. She tries to remember this similarity as she and Duncan draw closer to the high stone walls.

The fortress is massive, and visible from a long way off. Duncan's pace does not increase, but he walks with even more purpose now. When they do reach the fortress, a man in gold-colored armor greets them. Aria's never seen the king, despite living in his city for her entire life. She has no time to prepare herself—one moment Duncan is saying your majesty, and before she's had a chance to adjust to this, her king has fixed his eyes on her.

Some tiny sliver of her is excited, but most of her is convinced that this is a terrible thing to have happen. Ordinarily, when a nobleman deigns to notice one, this is a sign of pressing danger, and the best course of action is to be an unremarkable part of the scenery until he loses interest and moves on. What's the least-interesting personality for a female elven soldier to have? Too deferential and she could be marked as an easy target, too abrasive and someone could decide she needs to be taken down a peg. Cheerful nonchalance? They're all here to fight the same enemy, so maybe if she can make it obvious that she's here to do the same—

"Ho there, friend! Might I know your name?"

"Aria," she says, then blinks. "Uh, your majesty."

He smiles, but doesn't laugh at her. "I see you're an elf, friend." She swallows, unsure whether the friend part is meant to be taken seriously. "From where do you hail?"

"Denerim," says Aria, clenching one hand into a fist at her side. Calm. Stay calm, Tabris.

"As do I!" exclaims Cailan, delighted at this supposed similarity. "Are you from one of the alienages? Tell me, how is it there? My guards all but forbid me from going there."

"Uh." Her mind goes blank. There are a thousand good things about the alienage, and a thousand serious problems the king should rightly be informed about, but she can't remember any of them. She sees Vaughan, her sword in his stomach, staring at her, unable to comprehend the fact of his own death. Shianni, crying weakly, no longer begging for him to stop. Nola, slain and discarded like so much refuse. Nelaros's blood seeping into the rug.

"Uh," she says again, no longer remembering the question. Cheerful nonchalance. "I killed an arl's son for raping my cousin."

She senses rather than sees the men around her planning to smooth this offense over. What she sees, though, is Cailan's expression—not anger, not disgust, but shock. Now she feels guilty, like it's her fault for destroying whatever sanitized ideas he had about how his city holds itself together. Also, there are probably ways of saying that sort of thing that don't make her sound like she intentionally set out to commit revenge-murder, that make it clear that she killed him because he was still threatening to rape her. And now she can't say them, because everyone will tell the rest of the camp that the newest gray warden is some kind of psychopathic vigilante spree killer.

Duncan says something that sounds reasonable and diplomatic. Aria can't hear anything specific over her obnoxiously loud heartbeat and desire to sink into the ground, at least until Cailan addresses her again.

"Well, allow me to be the first to welcome you to Ostagar," says Cailan, somehow smiling again. The expression looks weirdly genuine. Are all human nobles that good at faking smiles? "The Wardens will benefit greatly with you in their service."

"I—thank you, your majesty," she says, too startled to react any other way.

There is more discussion after that, primarily about darkspawn and Loghain—wait, the Loghain? She doesn't get the chance to ask. The king is busy, as she supposes he would be, and in a few more seconds, he and his men have returned to continue their duties. She and Duncan are left standing alone at the edge of the ruin.

"I didn't mean to say that," she says, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Such things happen," says Duncan, serenely. "As for the darkspawn—"

Her head snaps up again, eager to talk about this and not the other things. "Do you think he's right about it not being a real blight? Can the darkspawn do that, just come to the surface in large numbers without an archdemon to lead them?"

"There is an archdemon behind this," says Duncan, before she can ask anything else. "But I cannot ask the king to act solely on my feeling." He goes on for a while, explaining that Ferelden will not wait for the Wardens in Orlais. Aria is sure she's missing something there, with regard to the political situation—she's vaguely aware of Orlais as the nation that once occupied Ferelden, the nation that Loghain (if it is that Loghain) fought to free them from, but she doesn't know how the Wadrens fit into all that, or how much they're meant to represent their respective nations. "We must look to Teryn Loghain to make up the difference."

"It is the Loghian, right?" she says, prompting Duncan to frown at her. "You know, the Hero of River Dane? He's here? What does he think of Wardens? Is he prepared for the darkspawn, or for an archdemon, if one appears? Is he—"

"Perhaps you can ask him yourself, in due time, but we have our own concerns to attend to. We should proceed with the joining ritual without delay."

There are, of course, more questions after that. She makes mental note of the answers: Secret, secret, confidential, secret, yes, all gray wardens have to undergo it, secret, she'll be told what to do in due time, no, she isn't the only recruit, secret, yes, it is dangerous, confidential, trust me, not something you need to know right now—

"Perhaps you'd like to explore the camp," says Duncan, motioning towards the rest of the ruin. It somehow looks even larger than it did from the outside, and all of it is constructed from stone. Say what you will of the ancient Tevinters, but they knew how to build. The Ferelden army seems to be occupying most of the space, but there are also tradespeople, animal pens, shopkeepers, at least one tent that seems to have mages around it, and probably a thousand other fascinating things that aren't immediately leaping out to her. "All I ask is that you do not leave it, for now."

"That won't be hard," she says, following him as he walks over the massive stone bridge and towards the main camp. It's so big, and so old. She feels like an ant in comparison. "Uh. Do you need me to do anything specific?"

"Eat. Get your bearings. Speak to the other recruits, if you wish. When you are ready to proceed with the joining, you should look for Alistair, another of the Gray Wardens here."

"Cool," says Aria, pressing her hands together for another few moments. "You don't, uh, have any advice, do you?"

"Prepare yourself. These are dangerous times," says Duncan, as the two of them return to solid ground. It is with this thought that he leaves her, surrounded by human strangers and the workings of a nation preparing itself for war.

Aria rocks on the balls of her feet and tries to absorb the entire area in a single moment. A fitting place for a dead woman, at least one whose body hasn't yet caught onto that detail. They're of a kind, she and the ruins, though the evidence of her life will pass away much more quickly.

But not today. Today there is work to be done.

[spencers-renaissance]

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag some of your favorite authors!

tagged by @scandinavian-punk (ty lovely! 💖)

1. Emily’s heart hurts.

She’d made the decision a little over a week ago and given her notice to Hotch before she could rethink it. This is the right thing to do, as painful as it is. Poison ivy has been wrapping itself around her heart for the last six years, slowly constricting as it squeezes all the life out of her, her old self bleeding out as she falls deeper and deeper in love with Jennifer Jareau. (via my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand)

2. As soon as Rossi brings up the prospect of a fully-catered family dinner at his ‘mansion’ this weekend, Derek’s heart sinks. They’re on their way home from a pretty gruelling case and it’s well-deserved of course, but he knows what comes next, knows what question will be asked of him, and he’s dreading it. There’s only so long he can go on avoiding answering. (via dry me off and hold me close)

3. Spencer doesn’t think anything of it when he leaves work at his usual time, the clock pushing midnight and the offices deserted. He packs his few personal belongings up and turns off his lamp before nodding to the janitor, the only other person to be seen, and taking the elevator down to the ground floor where there’s a little more sign of human life at least. (via the colour of waiting is purple)

4. Spencer had initially been wary of Penelope’s invitation to picnic in Meridian Hill Park one beautiful summer afternoon — he burned way too easily and didn’t like exposing himself to insects more than absolutely necessary — but as soon as she’d mentioned Derek was going, he’d given in. He wasn’t about to turn down an afternoon spent in the sun with his best friends and boyfriend. It was a rare day off for the team: one not even spent hanging by their phone expecting to be called in any minute, so they were all insistent on making the most of it. (via honeysuckle)

5. Spencer unfolds the creased piece of paper he’s holding for the eleventh time as he stares up at the house in front of him. He remembers the address scrawled on the sheet Derek Morgan had ripped from the back of his notebook earlier that day perfectly, the spiky peaks of his handwriting and the surprisingly loopy ‘y’s and ‘g’s are burned into his brain, but nerves have overtaken his helpless body. He’s not exactly in control of his actions. (via the noiseless crash of crumbling walls)

6. It’s the middle of the night when Emily wakes up to Penelope’s side of the bed empty. The mattress is cold, the duvet thrown haphazardly aside, and their apartment is quiet. She knows logically what’s probably going on, but she can’t help that her mind immediately jumps to the worst-case scenario and she goes from fast asleep to wide awake in record time as she throws her covers aside to look for her girlfriend. (via tangerine kiss)

7. Spencer takes a deep breath in, composing himself, before opening his front door and stepping out onto the road. It’s become a sort of tradition now: every Sunday he buys himself a cinnamon swirl at his local bakery before walking all the way to the graveyard on the other side of town to have breakfast with his mom.

Unfortunately, said tradition has made him a thief. (via I'll bloom for you)

8. In the haze of his fever, confusion worms its way into Spencer’s mind. He should really be getting better by now, right? It had only been the flu: a surprisingly cruel DC winter had sparked a much more severe flu season than usual and Spencer, with his terrible luck, had managed to contract it. Not surprising, really, when he considers the poor ventilation on the Metro. Flu season had probably turned the handrails into a petri dish, and there was that day two weeks ago when he’d been in such a rush he hadn’t time to use his hand sanitizer. (via love drunk, waiting on a miracle)

9. Derek tries to focus on his essay, he really does. He plugs his headphones in, blasts ambient piano pieces, puts his phone on aeroplane mode, cuts out all distractions, but he can’t exactly turn his brain off. No matter how insistently the essay that’s due far too soon demands his attention, his thoughts simply won’t leave Spencer alone. (via the insistent burn of a falling heart)

10. Spencer offers Derek a weak smile as they sink into their seats on the jet. It’s all he can really manage, considering the emotional exhaustion the case had brought on, fatigue settling deep into his bones as he relaxes into the comfortable fabric of his chair. He keeps his eyes closed to avoid Derek’s anxious, imploring gaze for as long as possible, but he can’t help them opening on instinct as soon as the plane takes off the ground, and his stomach does its familiar vault at the increasing G forces. (via let him be soft, and let him be mine)

11. It’s nearing noon the day after Spencer’s attack when a detective appears at the door to their hospital room, escorted by a nurse. His doctor had been by a couple of hours earlier to talk to Spencer about his injuries, and had explained the prognosis to a man so defeated he simply stared at her as tears streamed down his face. When she’d asked if he’d had any questions he’d simply turned away and stared out the window as his tears kept falling. (via the colour of healing is yellow)

12. Spencer gasps as he splashes the ice cold water running from the tap against his face for a third time, still not rid of the terrible, burning feeling that forced itself under his skin the moment they were told Emily didn’t survive the surgery. (via how the cold numbs everything but grief)

13. Everyone is so nice, is the thing.

And that’s great. Really, it is. Spencer isn’t about to complain when JJ kindly walks him through the filing system all the while asking questions about him and his life, or when Derek ribs him gently about his ducktail hair or his nerdy brain. No-one cuts him off when he gets carried away — unless it’s time-sensitive, of course — or teases him about anything that cuts too close to home. Being the new guy in the most prestigious unit in the FBI could’ve been a nightmare, but this team made it easy. He’s so grateful for all of it. (via hunger)

14. It starts with the flu.

He calls into work sick and he makes himself comfortable in bed, preparing to ride it out. It is the middle of January after all, and their last case saw them in Ann Arbor, shivering their way through each crime scene and a police station with abysmal heating. (via storm-darkened or starry bright)

15. Maybe it’s embarrassment that stops him from telling the team. Spencer runs headfirst into dangerous situations every day, puts his life on the line repeatedly and escapes unscathed more often than not, but his nemesis this time is the single flight of stairs in his apartment building he descends each morning. (via tell me how to balance my coins)

16. Derek isn’t quite sure how he’s found himself in a vacant office after hours, crowded into an office chair with broken wheels as the two most intimidating FBI agents he knows stand over him.

“Either of you want to tell me what the hell’s going on?” Derek asks, bewildered by how quickly his evening had changed. One minute he’s sneaking looks at Spencer over his computer screen, and the next he’s hauled off to a private room like some sort of hostage. (via shovel talk)

17. Derek isn’t sure what to make of Spencer Reid at first. Gideon tours him around the bullpen, introducing him to each agent proudly, and Derek watches him; watches his shy waves as he forgoes handshakes, watches his stuttering introductions, sees his pale blush, and he sighs. Spencer Reid won’t last a week, he decides, Gideon’s protegee or not. (via the way he was watered)

18. Spencer knows it’s ridiculous. Derek will not hurt him: this much he knows for certain. Derek is safe, he is home, he is his person. Derek would die before laying a hand on him. (via this heavy humanness)

19. Spencer knows Derek isn’t that hurt. They’ve all had worse over the years; chewed up and spit out by the relentless and dangerous nature of their work -- an inflamed appendix removed by keyhole surgery is hardly anything to write home about. (via the one constant)

20. Spencer’s entire body feels heavy as he drags himself into work, and it’s not exactly a good sign when he can’t even find the energy to press the button for the right floor; he just stares pitifully at the array of numbers as if the elevator will read his mind and resolve the issue for him. Eventually, he brings himself to move his finger the short distance, cold metal colliding with cold flesh, and the doors shudder close, catapulting him up several storeys towards his fate. (via rain is a chance to be touched)

soooo I think it's safe to say I lay out the situation straight away and jump into the action. & throw some emotion in there bc it's me :))

tagging: @makaylajadewrites @tobias-hankel @lavender-lotion @spencerspecifics @oliverbrnch @garcias-bitch