#i guess this makes her fans darkspawn

[felondese]

rook stash

mulling over my rooks. i've got a couple of ideas to fit the classes/factions I'm most interested in and some guesses for their romances. I'll figure out most of the appearance details when we can play with the cc.

shit is out of control, y'all. i'm making one of every flavor, fuck it. i know who i am and how often i restart games. bg3 and my twenty-some save files are a recent memory. also nvm i did some mockups in a picrew thingie and now I'm fucking attached omg. and then i made kissy ones too. and another face one. fuck, yet another.

just stashing their deets here to fiddle with as i work out more particulars

hazel "rook" (like chess) ingellvar (mourn watch)

elf, city (crypt baby found by undead)

mage, death caller, staff

29, she/they nb, tall and thin, gothy/witchy makeup, curly blonde bob hairstyle

"British" rook voice, high pitch

blue diplomatic hawke with occasional spikes of red (how embarrassing)

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - Let's talk this out.

idle animation: standing completely straight, arms linked behind back, poised. after a while, gives in and runs fingers through their hair to corral any stray curls, rubs their lips together to assess if lipstick needs to be reapplied, but tries to be subtle about it. eventually gives in and conjures a small mirror to check their reflection. on selection from party screen: stands even straighter, chest out shoulders back, and does a small curtsy, nodding like 'of course'

trained as a necromancer from a young age, joining mourn watch much younger than most. was one of their own, after all, and belonged without having to work for or prove it

a bit vain, takes pride in their appearance, fan of jewelry/accessories in the nevarran fashion/or maybe just emmrich fashion idk

bookish but curious about the world outside the necropolis

diplomatic by training but has a temper and low tolerance for inaction/impatient with bureaucracy, otherwise generally upbeat/positive

great enjoyer of puzzles and games, a real chess nerd

talented calligrapher and hobby artist, mostly sketches tombs they find inspiring, portraits of the undead detailing their decomposition (thinks it's neat)

full of fun fungi facts and a bit of an expert on the poisonous ones

fascinated by darkspawn and wants to study the blight, likes to collect samples of defeated enemies for later analysis

romances bellara (bonds over shared love of reading books and doodling in notebooks), emmrich is their mentor (headcanon)

previous relationships: as a little kid had a crush on manfred; heartbroken that he could not return their feelings, they never pursued love again. still, loves romance novels

team nerdy mages (bellara & emmrich) / mage-mage-mage party / necrotic-necrotic-electricity damage

ghil'ean "rook" (like the bird) aldwir (veil jumper)

elf, dalish, ghilan'nain's vallaslin (of course)

rogue, veil ranger, bow

33, she/her, average height, muscular for an elf (big arms/shoulders mmmm)

"British" rook voice, medium pitch

blue hawke, so good, so compassionate and kind

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - Let's talk this out.

idle animation: a fidgeter, checks her nails, plays with a piece of hair, scratches an itch on the bottom of her foot, adjusts her arm wraps, picks lint off her cape. on selection from party screen, beams with enthusiasm and dances in place a bit

the veiliest of veil folk: veilguard, veil ranger, veil jumper

elfy elf, former scout for her clan where she learned to use a bow.

feels responsible for dread wolf/escaped gods situation

backstory: saved teammates during an expedition in arlathan forest, at the expense of a valuable artifact. loves her people <3

wary of humans/city elves at first, but warms up. fond of dwarves and intrigued by qunari. reluctant to leave the veil jumpers, strong attachments to them and to the dalish

rook = social, arboreal bird

can and will sleep anywhere, strong believer in the power of naps

nature lover, avid tree climber, explorer of elven ruins

rescues and rehabilitates wild animals (mother is the clan's halla-keeper, father is a hunter and trained hounds, family adopted many baby foxes/squirrels/crows and kept them as pets more or less)

previous relationships: a few but casual, including irelin, but who hasn't banged her? at least she has that in common with bellara ;)

romances davrin (bonds over assan, helps him with training) but may end up having a friends-to-lovers thing with harding (shared sense of duty, adventurous spirits, love of scout-stuff and archery stuff). good friends with bellara from veil jumpers work

team dalish elves saving the world yet again (davrin & bellara) / rogue-warrior-mage party (balance!) / electricity-fire-electricity damage

or team girl power (neve & harding) / mage-warrior-rogue / cold-electricity-physical

thea "rook" (like rookie) thorne (grey warden)

elf, city, anderfels native, orphaned young (tragic backstory with darkspawn-murdered family)

warrior, champion, sword & shield

22-23 (born just after fifth blight), she/her, small but strong/thick, kinda butch

"American" rook voice, low pitch

idle animation: working her jaw and glaring suspiciously, hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched. when selected on party screen, scowls at you and gives a reluctant shrug (being cool, not wanting to seem too eager to please)

red dialogue responses, aggressive/harsh, very black and white thinker, but mostly concerning the blight, everything else is less important, and having to point that out all the time irritates her

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - Beat down the entire room to get the information.

trained with local militia as a teenager, eager to run off and join the wardens, despite warnings that she was basically signing up for slow suicide, if a noble suicide, and she was so young.

my favorite trope: little elf with a big ass sword and a bigger attitude

backstory: disobeyed orders to seal a tunnel to the deep roads, saving a village from a large darkspawn incursion (lost her family that way and Not. Again.). stepped away while tempers cooled.

mouthy, prone to boasting and exaggeration, hard opinions about right and wrong, so very young and sure of everything

new to wardenship but committed to protecting people from the blight

hobbies: prefers to stay active, be outdoors, spending free time training or exercising, hiking, hunting

previous relationships: if by relationships you mean fuckbuddies, oh yea. thank the maker the grey wardens are resistant to illness including venereal diseases or the order would never have made it this long

romances neve (i'm sure they'll bond over something that isn't just neve's beautiful brown eyes), besties with davrin

team hard hitters (davrin & neve) / warrior-warrior-mage party / fire-fire-ice damage

ursula philomena "rook" (like 'to cheat') mercar (shadow dragons)

qunari, vashoth (foundling adopted into and raised by human military family)

rogue, saboteur, bow (and bombs!)

37, she/her, small for qunari, wiry and quick

"British" rook voice, medium pitch

idle animation: checking her weapons, turning side to side to keep an eye on her surroundings, looking over her shoulder. when selected on a party screen, does a little chin gesture like 'sup?

mercenary turned criminal turned vigilante, comfortable with shady/criminal activity

gambler and drinker, enjoys loud taverns and live music. likes card games and relies on her winnings to get by sometimes between jobs

reddish purple dialogue responses. sassy but also a touch aggressive if she needs to be

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - I'll do more than demand.

risk taker, down to earth, practical

has complicated feelings about tevinter (patriotic upbringing, a lot of resentment, happy to burn it down to end slavery)

adoptive family tried to raise a tanky warrior but got a skinny rogue. is as disappointed with them as they are with her. estranged

has had a few serious relationships, a few less serious flings, but she's been busy the last couple of years and out of the dating scene

romances taash (bonds over shared heritage, love of cash and things that go boom), tight with varric and harding

team not elves or humans (taash & harding) (we're workshopping the name) / rogue-warrior-rogue party / physical-fire-physical damage

or for reasons we'll explore in game together, strangely fond of lucanis, so takes him along in the party (with taash). team idk i got no cute theme for this yet / rogue-warrior-rogue / physical-fire-necrotic (more balanced)

feels like i'm neglecting lucanis and avoiding balanced parties. hmm might need a fifth rook concept. lords of fortune dwarf? something to ponder

beren "rook" (like the bird) laidir (lords of fortune)

dwarf, surfacer

rogue, duelist, daggers

30s, ftm he/him perhaps? show off those sexy top surgery scars

"American" rook voice, medium pitch

purplest of purple dialogue responses, can't take anything seriously, fond of taking the violent options for funsies e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - Beat down the entire bar to get information.

cool beard, eyeliner and facial piercings, tattoo'd face

idle animation: bounces in place and dances a little if left long enough, and also tends to hop every few steps out of boredom while walking (this is def for rp reasons and not because i use the space bar like a stimtoy while playing). does a little cheer when selected from a party screen

ran away from home as a teen and joined up with a ship's crew instead of continuing with the carta/family business

learned duelist specialization from isabela (headcanon)

can't make him wear a shirt

oh so many scars (including top surgery, which he shows off proudly). fights with daggers and is an accident waiting to happen, but scars add character and the ladies/lads love 'em!

collector of antiquities and shiny things, scavenger (rook = corvid, considered a pest or bad omen), but also random junk with no value. as eager to dumpster dive as to go treasure hunting in ruins

Trouble (note the capital T for emphasis). notoriously bad luck, always getting into wild and unlikely situations - blood-linked to the dread wolf is par for the course, really

mischievous, too curious for his own good (or others'), a snooper, a thief (in more of a 'oo shiny, i wants it' way with an afterthought of ''oo bet i can sell that too'), cursed to put his little grubby hands on everything

sees locks as a personal challenge, a taunt he cannot ignore, an affront to his nosiness, and it is his duty to unlock them. it's just askin' for it, really. he'll find a way in, one way or another, and is very smol and fits in many unlikely places. this dwarf can *climb*

has a genuinely good and caring heart, no real ill will towards anyone, even his enemies. hard to get on his bad side which is infuriating for some people, and he knows it. kill em with kindness and annoy them by being nice and helpful.

generous to a fault and yet somehow avoids being conned/taken advantage of, mostly by confusing would-be swindlers or annoying them into figuring it's not worth it

a "yes and" kind of guy, happy to go along with others' plans for interests' sake, does things purely to see what happens and because he's never done it before

will eat absolutely anything, good or bad, safe or suspiciously moldy. has a stomach of iron and food is fuel. anything with sugar is in danger, though, because he will gobble that shit up first

coffee? yes please. booze? yes! smoke? of course! illicit substances familiar or unfamiliar? why not!

absolutely zero instinct for self-preservation. danger? not a concern if there's adventure or loot on the line. not one to stay home picking lint off the sofa if there is (dangerous) fun to be had

personal hygiene is er, lacking. he is that peanuts' kid pigpen, just a cloud of dust around him at all times, a trail of debris in his wake. what's that in his hair? could be anything, really. fingernails? perpetually grubby. prefers to do his bathing in the sea

previous relationships: he's a treasure-hunting pirate and thus culturally a ho. for a dwarf, quite the ladies' and gents' man, charming in his strange way, hypnotizing his victims lovers with his adorable oddball 'rizz'. some say he's the blowjob king of llomerryn, mostly himself but other people too, for sure, have said that, or anyway you can't prove they didn't :P

romances davrin (for reasons including not limited to because his va is a sucky transphobe)? really who doesn't deserve a smol ginger dwarf pirate boyfriend? they'd all be so lucky

pre-veilguard team dwarf (varric & harding), buds with them

veilguard team spooky guys (emmrich & lucanis) / rogue-rogue-mage / necrotic-necrotic-necrotic, baby. specialists!

veilguard team ?? (davrin & neve) / fire-necrotic-ice

griselda "rook" (like a crow, of course) de riva (antivan crows)

city elf, mage, spellblade

zevran-coded appearance (long golden blonde hair, tanned complexion, tattoos?), delicate features, full lips, high cheekbones. big, catlike eyes

small stature, lithe and thin

American rook voice, higher pitch

she/her, early-to-mid twenties (just a baby), but an experienced killer

trained abroad in the in the [rivain? free marcher city?] crow enclave/franchise location, hence only knows lucanis by reputation. also why she has an American accent

only recently came to antiva when she earned her place as a full member of the crows. arrived in treviso just as the antaam did

idle animation: picking her nails with a dagger, swaying a bit in place, playing with a little wisp of magic and flipping it over her knuckles like a coin, fluttering her eyelashes at the camera and biting her lip/practicing her sexy pout. on party selection: a sly smirk and nod, unsheathing her dagger and letting magic crackle in her hand for effect (show-off)

dialogue responses vary depending on who she's talking to. can be very sweet/diplomatic even if it's hollow, more aggressive with anyone she doesn't like and isn't trying to fool

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - I'll do more than demand.

demeanor is charming and playful, flirtatious. can appear innocent and childlike, surprisingly nonthreatening, to lure in her victims. all completely bullshit hiding cold brutality

romances lucanis (crow shit)

team ??? (lucanis & davrin) / mage-rogue-warrior / electricity-necrotic-fire

tobias "rook" (like a castle) ingellvar (mourn watch)

city elf, warrior, reaper

small and wiry but stronger than he looks

british rook voice, medium pitch

he/him, late twenties

idle animation: shifting from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable

red/harsh dialogue responses mostly, some blue/diplomatic, never purple (he does not joke)

e.g., "You think you can come into my bar and make demands?" - I'll do more than demad.

the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one, goth ed.

trained as a guardian of the necropolis, raised by mourn watch after being found in crypt as baby

does not startle easily, cannot sneak up on him

very dry sense of humor, revealed sparingly

rather cynical, pessimistic, distrustful of the living

romances emmrich (mourn watch love story)

team spooky (emmrich & lucanis) / warrior-mage-rogue / necrotic-necrotic-necrotic

bonus rook (lords of fortune qunari slayer)

i dont know who he is yet exactly, but he's a looker

theoretical team-ups:

bellara & emmrich + hazel (team nerdy mages) neve & harding + ghil'ean (team starter pack) bellara & davrin + ghil'ean (team dalish elves saving the world) neve & davrin + thea (team hard hitters) taash & davrin + thea (team gymbros) taash & harding + ursula (team lineage minorities) emmrich & davrin + beren (team spooky shield) taash & davrin + beren (team burning blade) taash & lucanis + griselda (team burning crows) lucanis & emmrich + griselda (team spooky crows) lucanis & emmrich + tobias (team spooky)

bellara || emmrich ||| davrin ||||| harding || neve || taash |||| lucanis ||

okay look i just want to bring davrin everywhere >.>

[illusivesoul]

A Ser Cauthrien/Anora fic for my Femslash February collection, using the prompt "Warmth" from @meganmoonlight Dragon Age Femslash February Prompts

.

Ratings: Teen and Up

Words: 710

Summary: Having lost the throne, Anora and Ser Cauthrien rest by a fire on the road.

Read it on AO3

.

Anora had never been a big fan of the countryside.

She hated the thought that years of living in a palace getting all her needs tended to had made her soft -she was the daughter of the man who preferred to sleep in a tent when a whole palace was available to him, after all- but she couldn’t deny that she was not getting used to the wilds after so many days on the road. The bugs seemed to creep everywhere, the mud clogged her boots and socks, and then there was the cold. She was Fereldan, Maker’s sake. She was no stranger to the bone freezing snow and wind that crept up from the ice lands beyond the Korcari Wilds every year. Yet, it was different to endure winter while having the finest royal furs at your disposal than having to endure it while only having a cheap coat purchased with the few coins she had at her disposal. At least she had managed to start a small fire that gave her some warmth. She congratulated herself on having been able to put the tent up, even if it had been over a decade since she had done so and had ended with more than a few cuts in her hand. She smiled longingly as she watched the firm structure. Loghain would be proud. She couldn’t help but wonder where has now, and into which underground pit the Wardens must have sent him to to fight darkspawn.

“Maker, keep him safe”

She cracked more dried sticks and threw them in front, her hands shivering as she did, watching the fires rise from the small pile of dried leaves and sticks in front of her.

By the time the sound of steps reached her ears, the former queen was already on her feet, a sharp dagger in front of her ready to slice anyone and anything that approached.

"Put the toothpicks down, your Majesty. It's me"

Anora sighed in relief as she saw Cauthrien stepping out from the shadow of the treeline.

Cauthrien had a large sack she carried on her back, and a small cut near her forehead that she didn’t have before.

“Were you trying to catch rabbits that were too fast?” Anora asked sarcastically.

“Funny”

"Where’s your armour?"

"Sold it in town. Didn't precisely help us to go unnoticed, and it would help us even less when crossing the border. I got you this with the coins I got"

“No one asked why you were selling such good armour?”

“Dead soldiers aren’t precisely rare these days, Anora. Lots of weapons and armour hit the markets everyday from all the battlefields across the country”

And with that phrase, the thoughts that had been haunting her since that fateful day in Denerim returned once more. “I could have done more. I could have tried harder. I… I failed my people”

Cauthrien opened the sack beside her, and pulled out a large, brown fur rub from it. The former queen felt warmer already just by looking at it, and the thoughts that haunted her vanished for a moment.

"A dwarf was selling these. Dwarves make good fur coats too, apparently. Then again, everything they make is good, so I don't know why I didn't expect their coats to be of equal quality. You don’t think about dwarves getting cold, I guess”

Anora smiled as Cauthriend placed the coat over her, the fur settling nicely against her.

“Where are you going?”

“To keep watch”

“You can keep watch besides me. It’s freezing and the coat is large enough for us both”

“I don’t mind the cold. And you need all the warmth you can get”

"Maker’s breath, no wonder my father spoke so highly of you. Stop being so bloody stubborn and get here"

Cauthrien smiled "Is that an order, my queen?"

"If you want it to be, then it is. And according to you I need all the warmth I can get"

Cauthrien chuckled as she snuck under the coat, wasting no time in wrapping her arm around Anora. The queen smiled, enjoying the feeling of the strong arms wrapping around her. The two watched the crackling fire, holding each other tightly as the cold winds passed by them, no longer a bother to them.

[unreadpoppy]

DAO Final Thoughts/Review (I guess)

So overall, this game was fucking good. Choosing your origin which will determine the small prologue you play that sets you up for the whole thing was a really good concept and it made me immediatly hooked with the plot (and it made me want to replay the game with the other origins to see how things are). Also, I like that the other stories in those origins happen even if you didn't pick them (like the whole wedding situation of the city elf origin still taking place and you seeing bits and pieces of it when you get in Denerim as another origin).

I went with Cousland warrior mainly because I knew nothing of this world so I went with the one thing that felt familiar: human warrior (cause I didn't want to mess with spellcasting without having a grip on how things worked at first). And let me say, I usually don't play with warrior type characters but this game made it very enjoyable to do so.

(under the cut cause it's long)

I loved all of the companions. Each one was so unique from the other and I did get a sense of like cammandery (idk how to spell this word) from them, especially with their banter (which, btw, fucking top tier banter). Wynne, in particular, was probably my favorite companion solely because of her wisdom. Like, almost every interaction I had with her, I got tears in my eyes because of her words of encouragemnt and advice and i just i love this "old" woman so much.

I romance Alistair, and let me say, this dude got me hooked ok. He's just so fucking sweet and his rose speech was so fucking special and I just AAAAAAAA. Since I was playing with a Cousland warden, I did marry him in the end. I just, I love him so much your honor it's hard to explain.

Quests wise, I focused more on the four main ones and did a few side quests. My favorite was probably Nature of the Beast solely because of the ending, with the spirit and the elf dude whose name I can't remember making peace and dying together, it made me emotional. My least favorite was probably A Paragon of Her Kind because I cannot begin to explain how much I H A T E D the Deep Roads. I hated it so much, I ended up enjoying the Fade, and I did the Fade first. It was just...such a slog to get through, and I felt like I was walking around aimlessly. At least in the Fade, I had a sense of progressing and it gave some insight into Zevran's background with the Crows.

Another quest that made me emotional was during the Urn of Sacred Ashes, when Bryce (Cousland's dad) shows up again....aaah the flashbacks to a dnd game of mine were huge.

I also liked the sense that the choices you made were actually affecting the world around you. It gave everything a sense of importance, and I really enjoyed that, especially with the aftermath of the Landsmeet.

Speaking of which, I'm sorry to everyone who likes Loghain, if I see this dude on the streets I'm fighting him. But good on Bioware for creating an interesting antagonist, as I wanted to murder him every step of the way.

I actually enjoyed the path to Fort Drakon before facing the archdemon. I like that halfway through, you cut back to the 4 companions you left at the gate and get to put them to work too. Idk how to explain, but fighting those darkspawn really gave a sense of like damn this is the end, we're getting to the final boss battle. Also, having all your armies there really came in to help, and first enchanter irving, bless you for being there to kill the Archdemon.

Killing the Archdemon also felt realllly satisfying and seeing the big light while the darkspawn retreat was *chef's kiss*. The epilogue was quite nice, thought it did make me a bit sad that it was like 'all your friends are leaving' but I understand why it was that way. Also, Fergus showing up was nice. I liked the ending cards showing what happened after and althought I'm not the biggest fan of DLCs, at least they had the sense of saying like 'that's a sotry ofr another time, this is the end.'

My biggest issues with this game were all on the more technical side - I struggled HEAVILY with crashes and bugs after leaving Lothering, which made me have to spend days without playing so that the issue could fix itself. I hope this game gets remastered one day just so that it runs smoothily on nowadays computers. My other struggle was the map, but that's a more personal issue than anything.

I loved this game, loved the world and its characters and it's definetly one I'll want to go back again in the future.

[maintitle]

4, 13, and 18 for the dragon age ask game?

Thank you so much for indulging my need to talk Dragon Age! But oh I'm definitely gonna put number 4 under a read more because I don't know how to answer it without it getting long-winded and story-like. I'll cover that one last.

13. What's one of the things you've seen confirmed so far that you're a fan of?

Oh, a lot actually! The only gripes I have with the game at the moment are some gameplay details, and if I'm being fully honest I care very little for gameplay if the story is good, I'm a bad gamer like that I guess.

I guess the number one thing was the reveal in the Q&A that the Inquisition dialogue wheel is coming back. I prefer a silent protagonist, but considering it would be unreasonable to expect that, I think the Inquisition wheel is the closest to it we can get. I know folks like the DA2 wheel, and while the sarcasm option was fun, I always feel a bit pigeonholed with the good/nuetral or sarcastic/bad wheel, it limits my options to me. I think the Inquisition wheel adding so many tone and emotional responses really allowed me to make a more complete character that's mine, and really that's what I'm looking for. Roleplay, good characters, good writing and a scope where decisions impact the world. So I'm sold!

18. Which aspect of fandom are you most looking forward to? (e.g. reading/writing fic, the bounty of gorgeous art, getting to know new people, etc.)

Honestly I'm just excited to not see it dead. This has been a very quiet fan base for a really long time, and while that's sometimes nice (there's a lot of folks flooding into the space that are really toxic atm), having excitement and new perspectives available is always both healthy and engaging for a setting.

4. What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

Origins: A dalish male rogue Grey Warden named Vehra Mahariel, tired and blighted and so very young, becomes a pragmatic man who is willing to be morally grey to fund and run the cause, but will not move morally on the big issues. He managed to save the Dalish and cure the Werewolves, he saved the mages at the Circle Tower, and he put Harrowmont on the throne because at the end of the day he was both the most trustworthy to stick to his word and most willing to aid the effort. Conner was saved by the Circle thanks to waiting for Redcliffe until the last move and the Urn was found and he was cured.

The decision was ultimately made to marry Alistair to Anora, and put them on the throne. Peace had to be brokered, and this was the best chance the nation had. Alistair was not hardened however, and Anora was there to make up for his softer side. Vehra was in love with Morrigan, and had no qualms about the decision to have a baby with her, and was ultimately only hurt that he couldn't go with her.

During his time as the Commander Of The Grey, he was ultimately successful in re-establishing the Wardens, and ruled with a careful pragmatism that did not abandon the people. He was, however, shady when threatened, and thus proved he could not rule. He saved Amaranthine and his keep with no issues, but ultimately did not kill the Architect because of the implications of Darkspawn possibly being made sentient. After leaving Amaranthine over disputes with the Wardens, he managed to track down Morrigan and follow her to raise their child until such a time as he had to find a cure for the Calling. Vehra was ultimately a child robbed of his innocence, a sickly man who was forced to give up his world for a group that ultimately denied him despite every tough decision and difficult choice that was hefted upon him. In the end, he found his family, but ultimately always looks to the horizon for what was lost, and what little of his future he can save.

You can read his journeys here.

DA2: Champion Lyla Hawke was a female mage who was largely sarcastic, but that sarcasm largely hid how raw and idealistic she was, a coping mechanism largely causes by years of her family not really taking to her trying to protect them, her brother's aggressiveness and her sister's death. When she arrived in Kirkwall she did a lot of smuggling to save her family from the debts they accrued getting in. She protected mages wherever she could even in her early years her early years, and ultimately used the money she got from the Deep Roads expedition to gain back her family crest and protect herself from the Templars. It was the least the expedition could do after it nearly killed her brother and took him away from his Mother. He survived because of this guy Anders, who was a bit weird when she turned her down but like whatever his goals seemed cool.

Suddenly thrust into a deeply complicated political chess game between the city of Kirkwall, it's Qunari guests and some terrible woman at the Chantry. She worked her ass off to keep the peace, but ultimately was doomed from the start. After the loss of her Mother the city went to hell, and ultimately had to choose between the Qunari leaving peacefully and losing a friend, and she chose the friend. It was a whole situation.

Still stuck in the throes of politics, she found herself the only person protecting the mages from the Templars and Meredith, who now essentially ruled the city. Since she got Feynriel out of the city she'd been trying to save who she could, but it was ultimately a doomed effort. She would've been open to extreme action in order to allow mage freedom, but that guy Anders who was her friend decided that community action and union was NOT a fundamental cornerstone of rebellion, and blew up the chantry, essentially dooming many mages from being saved in the opening of a vast Right Of Annulment. She was angry enough that he trusted nobody and acted on his own, but when Sebastien threatened to start an exalted march on Kirkwall if Anders didn't die, the choice was made. Her friend had to die. The mages were saved, or as saved as they could be.

She went into hiding with Merrill, her lover. They were madly in love with each other, but love wasn't always enough. A mirror stood between the two, and always would. Hawke tried to make it work, and to Merrill's credit, she did too, but ultimately the past would beckon her back. Corypheas, a spectre of her past whom she thought was dead, threatened the world. She ultimately had to choose between continuing the fight against him and saving both the Wardens and the one person who could truly stop him, and thus chose to sacrifice herself. Her story is tragedy, someone who wanted to help but ultimately always was thwarted.

You can read her stories here.

Inquisition: Inquisitor Hissera Adaar was a female Tal-Vashoth Warrior who stumbled into the role of the Herald Of Andraste role through the nearly a decade of Mercenary Work she did. An exhausted optimist, she was incredibly empathetic, but also a seasoned enough tactician to be able to make tough decisions. While she was never comfortable with being called the Herald and was very open about denying it, the spread of the Inquisition and her skill at both politics and commanding armies did little to downplay the legend. Avoiding the hangman's noose nearly entirely also added to the image of divine mercy, much to her chagrine.

Adaar's first priority was ending the mage/templar war, and that started with the liberation of the mages in southern Thedas. It was the Inquisitor that gave them the first true taste of freedom. The experience, however, was a harrowing one, as she was forced to face a future she had to prevent. Politics became more complicated, but with the careful aid of Josephine's guiding hand, she brokered a peace between the lovers Briala and Empress Celene. It was the best option for all the citizens of Orlais, she though... and ultimately she was a hopeless romantic. Knowing the importance of the Wardens, she empowered Stroud to lead the Orlesian Wardens. During the attack of Corypheaus forces, she was respectul of the temple but ultimately trusted in Morrigan's judgement to drink from the well, despite the consequences.

After the defeat of Corypheaus, the Inquisitor empowered a newly softened Leliana to bring a kinder, if more firm, future to the Chantry as the Divine. Resources were put forth to follow the tracks of Solas, leading ultimately to a meeting between the two where she swore to change his mind. When the world called for the Inquisition to put down their swords, she fulfilled a promise from long ago and did so, leaving just a small group of allies to chase Solas. In the intervening years, she moved to her lover Josephine's home and remained a public figure only just enough to help her family, but largely retired from public view. In the shadows, however, she spent what time she wasn't needed to track Solas running with the Red Jennies, as her blood ultimately could not allow her to sit still.

You can read more about her story here.

thank you so much for your patience if you actually read all of this, and I'm so sorry.

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan: Paint

Chapter 26 of The Love That Grows From Violence (post-Trespasser Felassan x Tamaris Lavellan) is up!

In which Felassan reveals yet another hobby. 😂 Featuring gorgeous art this week by @elbenherzart​!!

~8100 words; read on AO3 instead.

The following days were a buzz of activity for Tamaris and Felassan. Gone was the lazy flow of leisurely-executed activities that had previously characterized their time; now, it almost felt to Tamaris like there weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything they wanted to do. 

Their morning sparring sessions were becoming longer and more strenuous as Felassan’s grasp of his magic grew. He switching between types of magic now in his attacks, transitioning from fire to lighting to ice to raw Fade strikes while using barriers to repel Tamaris’s blows, and by the time they finished their sparring these days, they were often too fatigued to fuck right afterwards like they’d been doing when his magical control was more modest.

Outside of their sparring sessions, Felassan kept working on his magic by himself. He tinkered with Dorian’s crystals and pored through the few tomes on magic that he’d found in the mansion’s library, as well as a few tomes that Varric had given him from the stock that was salvaged from the Gallows during the Kirkwall Uprising. Dorian was sending a selection of more complex books from Tevinter, and until they arrived, Felassan cheerfully made fun of the Chantry-based books he did have access to, even as he read them. 

While Felassan was working on his magic, Tamaris worked on getting herself back up to speed about current events happening in Thedas and what the other branches of the wolf hunt were doing. They sat together in the study, Felassan working at the desk while Tamaris spread her papers and reports across the couch and floor, and they frequently made snarky comments to each other about what they were reading. Although it wasn’t pleasant to be so busy again, Tamaris had to admit that it was nice to have a constant companion who was working just as hard as she. 

One day, Tamaris looked up from one of Leliana’s coded letters to find Felassan leaning back against the desk with his arms folded and a pensive frown on his face.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He met her eye. “That piece of ironwood I gave you. Can I have it?”

Her eyes widened. He’d given her his piece of ironwood so long ago now that she’d been half-wondering if he’d forgotten about it. “Of course,” she said, and she stood from the couch. “What are you — are you going to make a staff with it?”

“I’m going to try,” he said.

“That’s great!” she exclaimed. “That’s – I’ll go get it right now.” She ran upstairs to her bedroom and pulled the short length of ironwood out of her dresser. 

It was wrapped in a fine silk scarf Josephine had given her. She carefully unwrapped it, then ran back downstairs and held it out to Felassan.

He smiled faintly as he took it. “Why do I get the impression that you’re more excited about this than I am?”

“It is exciting,” she insisted. “You’re going to… I mean, I don’t really know what you’re going to do, but you’re going to try and make this into a staff! That means you feel pretty confident that you can do it, right?”

“I’m reasonably confident that I won’t blow up the house while trying,” he said wryly.

She frowned. “Come on, Felassan, don’t be so down on yourself. You’ve got so much more control than you did a month ago.” Just this morning, they’d been discussing the possibility that he shouldn’t spar with her anymore out of concern that he might harm her, since his attacks were surpassing the bounds of her barriers to repel him.

“True,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I am close to what I used to be.” He twirled the ironwood in his fingers and gave her a knowing look. “Using magic in this time truly is a matter of control and skill, you know. The feeling of magic being like a second seamless heartbeat really was an artifact of my time. Waking up in this time was like… like having to learn to speak again. Conscious manipulation of a skill I once took for granted.” He gestured at himself. “This relearning is like doing that all over again, but even more difficult since I can’t do what I intend to do.”

“You couldn’t before,” she said emphatically. “Now you can.”

He shrugged. “I can sometimes.”

She frowned more deeply. “Most of the time. You do what you mean to do three-quarters of the time now.”

He smirked. “Have you been keeping a ledger of my progress that I don’t know about?”

“I’m proud of you, okay?” she blurted.

He raised his eyebrows, and she hunched her shoulders defensively. “I’m just… You thought you might not recover anything when you first got here. You’ve come a long way.”

His expression softened with fondness. “I haven’t tried to do anything particularly complex. Certainly nothing as complex as making a staff.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “Just try, and if you can’t do it right away, keep trying. You’ll get it.”

His smile widened. “Look at you, being all optimistic. If not for your scowl, I’d think you were trying to seduce me.”

She scoffed and gently shoved his chest. “Go make your staff, you brat. I’ve got reports to read.” She started back toward the couch, but Felassan grabbed her hand before she could get very far.

He pulled her close and stroked the metal joint of her left wrist. “Ise inor vhenan. Do you know what this means?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “‘Heart of fire’?” she said hesitantly.

“‘Fire in the heart,’ yes,” he said. “It’s an Elvhen term for someone who refuses to give up, even when the odds are stacked against them.” He smiled faintly. “Determination to the point of stubbornness.”

“Uh-huh,” she said flatly. “You’re calling me the stubborn one here, I guess?”

His smile widened. “I’m saying you are the fire in my heart, Tamaris. And I appreciate your stubborn reminders that I am, in fact, getting better.”

Her belly burst into giddy butterflies. The fire in my heart... 

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop a stupid grin from spreading across her face. She gave him a chiding look instead. “Now who’s trying to seduce whom?”

His smile curled with mischief, and he tipped her chin up with a gentle finger. “Not when you have so many fascinating reports to read,” he murmured. He placed a sweet kiss on her lips, and for a blissful moment, she melted helplessly into his kiss.

He leaned away from her with a smile, and Tamaris grinned goofily at him before tottering back to her spot on the couch. Felassan chuckled and returned to his desk, and it was with a light and happy heart that Tamaris returned to her pile of reports.

Their evenings were spent with Varric and Dorian discussing the ways they could use Felassan’s information to benefit the wolf hunt. Tamaris felt that getting in touch with the Grey Wardens’s commanders should be a top priority. “We should be telling them not to kill the last two archdemons, right?” she said one night as they gathered at the dining table with Dorian’s crystal. “They should know the archdemons might be guarding against the Blight, so if anything, the Wardens should be protecting the archdemons from being found by the darkspawn.” Based on the information that Felassan had outlined, they had come to the conclusion that events like the Fifth Blight happened when the darkspawn infected the archdemons, and not that the archdemons were galvanizing the darkspawn into action like everyone seemed to think.

Felassan shrugged. “It probably would be ideal for them to stop attacking the archdemons, yes.”

“But you don’t think they’ll stop,” Varric said.

Felassan smiled faintly. “I think they have several centuries’ worth of evidence that killing archdemons coincides with the end of a Blight event, and no reason to accept the hypothesis of a random elf.”

“Well, we still have to try,” Tamaris retorted.

“I am not saying not to try,” Felassan said. “But I also think it might be worth launching our own independent ventures to find the archdemons.”

Varric grimaced. “That’s a pretty ambitious undertaking, Jester.”

“True,” Felassan said casually. “You could also speak to individual lower-ranking Wardens rather than approaching their commanders.”

Dorian’s voice floated up from the crystal. “Why shouldn’t we try and approach the Warden-Commanders?”

“People in charge are usually disinclined to listen to strange ideas,” Felassan said. “They’re considerably more skeptical than the average person. The more experience they have, the more convinced in their rightness — and the more closed-off — they tend to be.”

Varric chuckled. “Not a fan of authority figures, are you?”

Felassan widened his eyes. “I respect authority figures deeply. That doesn’t mean I listen to them or follow what they say.”

Tamaris snorted with amusement. Felassan smiled at her, then casually waved his hand. “Anyway, we should start looking for stray lower-ranking Wardens. Not only might they be more open-minded, but they could lead us to Weisshaupt, if that’s still where you think the Wardens are gathering.”

Varric scribbled a memo in his notebook. “All right. More efforts to find the Wardens. Any other thoughts?”

 Dorian spoke up. “I was thinking about the fact that Solas has so much knowledge at his disposal now, with those two other souls piggybacking on his body. It certainly puts us at a disadvantage, but he’s not the only person we know whose head is stuffed with ancient knowledge.”

Tamaris nodded ruefully; she’d been thinking the same thing. “You mean Morrigan.”

 “Yes,” Dorian said. “We should try and get her assistance. There must be information from the Well of Sorrows that can benefit us.”

She ran her hand slowly through her hair. When Dorian spoke again, his voice was gentle, as though he could see her reluctance. “I know you wanted to let her raise Kieran in peace, but if Solas drops the Veil, there will be nowhere safe left for them to live. Or any of us, for that matter.”

“No, I know. You’re right.” Tamaris sighed and lowered her hand. “How should we even go about trying to find her? She doesn’t care about keeping in touch with anyone.”

Varric tapped his quill idly on his notebook. “The Hero of Ferelden would be a good bet. Nightingale said she and Morrigan were close back in the day.”

Tamaris frowned. “That was over ten years ago. And isn’t Mahariel already going off to spy on the qunari?”

“She’d have time to send a letter,” Varric said reasonably. 

“I guess,” Tamaris said, somewhat reluctantly. She still felt guilty about the Hero of Ferelden doing so many tasks for the wolf hunt after everything she’d already done for Ferelden, but no one seemed to have any choice about getting pulled into all of this. 

“Okay,” Varric said as he took another note. “Get the hero to write to the swamp witch.” He looked up at Felassan and Tamaris. “Any other ideas?”

“There’s something I’ve been thinking about, actually,” Tamaris said. She gave Felassan a critical look. “The Well of Sorrows. The fact that it even existed and that Mythal had warriors who were bound to her will. Don’t you think that’s fucked up?”

He pulled a little face. “It’s not a fate I would ever choose, that’s for certain.”

“So why did she make anyone choose it?” Tamaris demanded. “Why make anyone be bound to her will?”

“Remember that the Sentinel order arose around the time that the Evanuris were all starting to war with each other,” Felassan said. “In retrospect, I wonder if the rising of the Sentinels might have been the first sign that Mythal was worried she would be betrayed. An order of warriors who are bound to your will means they can’t betray you, not even if you die. Allegedly die, that is,” he added.

Tamaris folded her arms. In her opinion, that was no excuse. “What did Solas think of the Sentinels when Mythal started recruiting them?” she asked.

Felassan grimaced again. “He was… conflicted,” he said slowly. “On the one hand, Abelas and the others were willingly giving themselves into Mythal’s will, so technically they were submitting to her by choice. But by submitting to her, they were effectively making themselves her slaves.” Felassan twisted his lips ruefully. “It certainly kept him up at night, even if he didn’t speak against her outright.”

Tamaris relaxed slightly at this. “It didn’t seem to sit right with him when we were there, either.” 

Felassan nodded and gave her an appraising look. “You never considered drinking from the Well, did you?”

“I mean, sure, I considered it for a second,” she said. “Until Solas refused point-blank to drink from it. If he was saying no, then I sure as fuck wasn’t going to do it.”

Felassan snorted a laugh. “Wise of you to follow his example. It would be a very different Tamaris sitting before us now if you had drunk from the Vir’Abelasan.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t be sitting here at all, if Solas really is hosting Mythal.”

Tamaris frowned, but Dorian filled in his unspoken thoughts. “Fasta vass. You think he would have taken control of Tamaris via Mythal?”

Tamaris’s guts went cold at the thought, and Felassan’s answer only discomfited her more. “It’s possible,” he said.

“So that means Morrigan could be in trouble now, then,” Tamaris said tensely. “And Kieran too.”

“Also possible,” Felassan said.

“Shit. Fuck.” She ran her hands through her hair, then gestured at Varric’s notebook. “Write that down. Trying to find her should be a priority.”

“Fen’Harel won’t kill them, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” Felassan said. 

Varric gave him a skeptical look. “If he’s willing to bring the Veil down on us, he’s probably not too concerned about killing one woman and her kid.”

“It’s not like that,” Tamaris said. “Solas doesn’t want to kill more people than he has to.” 

Varric looked at her in surprise, and Dorian sounded surprised as well when he replied. “That almost sounded like you’re defending him.”

“She’s not defending him,” Felassan said. “She’s just explaining him.”

She looked up to find Felassan smiling at her. But instead of smiling back, she frowned. “Can you explain something to me? Why did he trust her?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Who, Morrigan?”

She gave him a chiding look. “No. Mythal. She was so fucking shady. The dwarf stuff, the Well of Sorrows stuff, hiding her dragon without telling him so he thought she was dead, not to mention how smug and bitchy she was when I met her, and all the shitty things Morrigan said about being raised by her. How could Solas have trusted her?”

His smile began to melt into that look of anachronistic melancholy that made Tamaris’s heart twist. “I don’t know if it is possible to explain the strength of the ties that exist between them,” he said quietly. “Can any of us even imagine the depth of love that could develop between two beings who have known each other for several thousand years? Solas knew Mythal since he was barely more than a wisp. She was one of the main sources of pride that fed and fostered him before he became an elf. She shaped him in ways that none of us can fully understand. Even if he later realized that some of her proudest achievements were terrible mistakes, the depth of his devotion to her would have made him incapable of seeing her as truly flawed.”

Dorian hummed an acknowledgement. “Love is blind, hm?”

Varric grunted. “It’s a literary cliché for a reason.”

“It really is,” Felassan said. His tone was jocular, but his smile was wry and sad.

Tamaris reached over and squeezed his thigh. Then Varric snapped his fingers. “Hey, that reminds me. I was thinking about the whole Mythal-hiding-her-dragon thing the other day, and I thought, uh… well, what if Mythal’s dragon really is dead?”

Felassan straightened in his chair. “Interesting. Then how do you propose that she survived?”

Varric put his quill down. “Well, Hawke had this amulet that Flemeth told her to take to the Dalish. She took it to our friend Merrill’s clan, and Merrill did some kind of ritual, and Flemeth popped out of the amulet like… like, uh…”

“Like magic?” Dorian suggested wryly.

Varric laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Obviously.”

Dorian chuckled, but to Tamaris’s surprise, Felassan just stared at Varric without laughing.

“Felassan, what’s wrong?” she asked.

He continued to stare at Varric. “Why didn’t you mention this the other day when I was talking about the dragons?”

Varric shrugged. “I didn’t think of it then.”

“I wish you had,” Felassan said. “That changes everything. If Mythal’s dragon truly was killed, but she had another piece of her life essence stored in an amulet…” He trailed off, then snorted a sudden little laugh. “Amulets are far easier to hide than dragons, you know.”

Varric shrugged and picked up his quill. “I mean, I could be wrong. You can read The Tale of the Champion yourself and see what you think.”

“You should read it, actually,” Tamaris piped in. “There’s more detail in there about Merrill and her eluvian, too.” She turned to Varric. “It’s the same eluvian that gave the Hero of Ferelden the blight, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what Daisy said,” Varric replied.

Felassan looked at him sharply. “What do you mean, an eluvian gave the Hero of Ferelden the blight?” he said sharply.

Varric tilted his head in an equivocal gesture. “Well, maybe it didn’t directly give Mahariel the blight, especially if only living stuff can have the blight. But it was definitely involved, from what Daisy told us.” He narrowed his eyes. “Hey, eluvians aren’t alive, are they?”

“No, they’re… they’re not alive,” Felassan said numbly. He kept staring at Varric in a stunned sort of way that made Tamaris nervous.

She tapped his thigh. “Felassan, are you–?”

He suddenly burst out laughing — a distinctly hysterical-sounding laugh. Tamaris shifted closer to him and held out her hand, and he grabbed it as he dragged in a breath. 

She squeezed his fingers. “Just breathe,” she said soothingly.

He nodded, then burst out another uncontrolled laugh. “Just when I think I have a grasp on this time, I realize something enormously significant that I missed,” he wheezed.

“What do you think you missed?” Dorian asked.

Felassan giggled before dragging in another calming breath. “An eluvian that’s steeped somehow in the blight makes me think there is a specific place that it was keyed to access. A place that was so catastrophically affected by the blight that the eluvians connected to it might be growing red lyrium.”

Tamaris’s eyes widened. “Arlathan?” she breathed.

Felassan nodded and chuckled, and Tamaris sighed. “Fuck. So we should try and get Merrill somewhere safe too, then.”

Varric sighed. “I hate to tell you this, but I haven’t heard from Daisy in a while.”

Tamaris’s stomach went cold once more. “You think she’s working with Solas?”

Varric twisted his lips sadly. “She’d have good reason to, if he sweet-talked her with stories about the ancient elves.”

Felassan sighed. “That’s good.”

Tamaris frowned at him, affronted. “It’s good? What do you mean, it’s good? One more ally for Solas means one less for us!”

Felassan gave her a chiding look. “It would also mean that an eluvian leading straight to the Black City is under Solas’s control and not, for example, Tevinter’s. Neither is… ideal, but having that eluvian in Tevinter hands is probably worse.” He cocked his head. “Probably.”

“That hurts my feelings slightly,” Dorian said.

Felassan chuckled, then sighed and rubbed his forehead, and Tamaris studied him with a pang of sympathy. He looked so tired. 

She squeezed his hand once more. He gave her a little smile, then squeezed her hand in turn before kicking his feet up on the table. “In any case, I know what’s next on my reading list.” He shot Varric a smirk. “Maybe you should just give me an annotated bibliography of your work so I can catch up on everything I need to know about the last twenty years.”

Varric huffed in amusement. “I guess I could get you a copy of all my works. I am just a humble servant to my loyal readers, after all.”

Felassan smiled at him. “A sweet sentiment. That reminds me, how is your most loyal reader?”

Varric rolled his eyes. “Cassandra’s fine. Yes, I wrote her a smut scene. And no, you can’t read it.”

Dorian burst out laughing while Felassan complained playfully about not being allowed to read Varric’s smut, and Tamaris listened to the three of them faux-bickering with a bittersweet feeling in her chest. 

Later that evening, long after Dorian ended the call and Varric had gone home, Tamaris trudged gloomily back to the study to read some more reports. A minute later, Felassan sidled into the study as well.

He pushed some of her papers aside to sit down beside her, and Tamaris poked him in the arm. “Hey, don’t touch my mess. I have a system.”

He draped his arm over the back of the couch. “You’re not really going to continue working now, are you?”

She scratched her ear. “Well, I — there was one last report I was in the middle of reading, so I just want to finish it.”

“Finish it tomorrow,” he said. 

She gave him a chiding look. “You’re being a brat.”

“And you’re working far too hard for someone who doesn’t actually have anything to do.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Do you have to rub it in? I feel guilty enough already.”

He tilted his head. “You feel guilty staying in this house with me while my magic is too uncontrolled to travel?”

Her eyes widened in dismay. “Wha– no, that’s not what I mean at all!”

“Then why bother feeling guilty?” he asked.

She gazed at him in exasperation. “It’s — I can’t just turn it off, okay? Everyone else is working hard, including you. I need to do something.”

He shrugged. “You can help me with making my staff.”

Her irritation melted into surprise. “Really?”

“Yes,” he said. “You have full control of your magic. It will form a stabilizing influence to help me channel mine into the ironwood.”

She smiled at the thought of helping Felassan with something magical, then wilted slightly. “Are you sure you don’t want Dorian’s help instead? His mana reserves are way stronger than mine.”

Felassan smirked. “Jealous, are you?”

“No, for once,” she said snarkily. “Just being practical.”

His smile widened. “So you admit that you are jealous of my friendship with Dorian.”

She rolled her eyes and picked up her half-read report. “Fuck off and let me read my report, will you?”

He chuckled and plucked the papers from her hand. “To answer your question, no. I don’t want his help. Even if he could help via the sending crystal, which he can’t, I would still be asking for your help instead.”

“And why’s that?” she grumbled.

“Because I’ll enjoy feeling the hum of your magic in my fingers when I use the staff,” he replied.

She looked at him with fresh curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll leave a magical signature in the wood if you help me make my staff,” he explained. “It will be an enjoyable feeling when I’m blowing apart our enemies.” 

“Oh,” she said dumbly. His tone was casual, but she couldn’t help but feel oddly flattered that he would want to feel her magical signature during a fight. 

She shyly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, um. Sure, I’d be happy to help.”

“Excellent,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll let you know when I need your hands.”

She blinked in confusion. “Oh, you – you don’t want to do this now?”

“Oh, no,” he said casually. “My experimentation today proved that I need more time to practice the spells for imbuing our signatures into the wood, not to mention tailoring it to the size-modulating spell I’ll be putting on the staff.” He lifted one eyebrow. “Besides, we’re not working anymore tonight.” 

“We’re not, huh?” she said wryly.

“No,” Felassan said. “We’re going to do something fun.”

His tone and the curl of his lips were mischievous, and Tamaris smirked. “Like what?” she said drolly.

His answer surprised her, though. “Like painting the walls.” 

She wilted. “You want to start painting the walls? Now?” She eyed the plain washed walls of the study with some resignation.

“Not those walls, and not that kind of paint,” he said. “Come.” He stood up and held out his hand.

Tamaris sighed and allowed him to pull her up from the couch. He led her to the foyer and jerked his thumb at the east-facing wall of the foyer, which they’d painted a deep peacock blue. “This bores me,” he said. “I think we should paint a mural.”

She balked slightly. “A mural?” Her mind instantly went to the murals Solas had painted on the walls of the rotunda: those huge, floor-to-ceiling works that he’d painted during the year he’d spent by her side — beautiful masterpieces that she’d once considered as tributes to his love for her, but which had later been too painful for her to look at, leading her to avoid the rotunda altogether. 

Felassan, as usual, picked up on her thoughts. He gave her a knowing look. “Not a mural like Fen’Harel’s. Something much simpler and much less planned.” 

Tamaris gave him a cautious look. “What did you have in mind?”

“Nothing in particular, really,” he said. He looked at the wall and thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “I usually just start painting and see where my hands take me.”

She gazed at him with growing confusion. “W-wait. You… do you know how to paint?”

He shrugged. “I have been known to paint sometimes.”

She gaped at him. “Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe I didn’t want to be made fun of for having yet another hobby.”

She gently punched his arm. “Don’t be stupid! I would never make fun of you for being an artist! Would I have seen anything you painted? In the Vir Dirthara or any ancient temples or anything?” Her eyes widened. “Or — or even at Skyhold?”

He gave her a mischievous grin. “You flatter me by suggesting anything I paint would be worthy of such illustrious locations.”

She eyed him shrewdly. “That's not an answer.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. And you might have seen some of my work, though it would be hard to tell it apart from the work of others.”

“What do you mean?”

He let out a little huff of laughter and rubbed his mouth, as though he was thinking of a private joke. “Did you ever see quick, messy paintings of elven warriors going to battle on halla?”

“Yes, in many places,” she said. She paused, then double-taked at him. “Wait, those were by you?”

“Not just me,” Felassan said. “Fen’Harel’s rebels had a tendency to leave our mark in the places where we foiled our foes.”

Tamaris stared at him, then smiled. “You vandalized the Evanuris’s property while you were freeing their slaves?”

Felassan grinned. “I like to think we improved their decor, much like you and I are doing in this house. Now let’s see how we can improve this wall, why don’t we?” He started opening the pails of paint, then glanced up at Tamaris. “Can you bring some bowls so we can mix the colours?”

“Sure,” she said. She hurried to the kitchen and came back a minute later to find that Felassan had already laid some dropcloths on the floor along the base of the wall.

He gestured to the floor. “Set them here. You don’t mind ruining those bowls with paint, do you?”

“I don’t give a single fuck about these bowls,” she said.

He snickered. “I figured as much.” He poured together some red and yellow paint to make a deep orange shade, then looked up at her as he stirred the paint. “What colours are you in the mood for?”

She blinked in surprise. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” he said drolly. “What colours do you want to start with?”

She recoiled. “What? No. I’m not — I’ll just watch.”

He paused in his stirring. “That won’t do. You have to paint.”

She laughed at his bossy tone. “No I don’t. I’ll just watch.” She sat on the carpet and wrapped her arms around her knees, perfectly willing to watch Felassan the way she used to watch Solas during the long nights when he painted his murals.

Felassan gave her a chiding look, then gestured for her to come closer. “Come, avise. Paint with me. You’ll like it.”

She stubbornly shook her head. “I don’t know how to paint.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think I knew how to paint before I started vandalizing the Evanuris’s walls?”

“I thought you were ‘improving their decor’, not vandalizing,” Tamaris retorted.

He grinned. “Silly me. Of course that’s what we were doing. Now come, I need your help to improve this wall. What colours do you want to add?”

She gave him a knowing look. “If I touch that wall, I’m going to fuck it up.”

“Anything you do will be an improvement over the wallpaper that was here before,” he said.

She snorted a laugh. “You know what, that’s true.”

He raised his eyebrows hopefully, and Tamaris finally gave in with a sigh. “Fine. How about…” She paused and gazed idly into his expectant violet eyes.

“Purple,” she said. “Mix me up some purple paint.” 

“Purple it is,” he said. He mixed together some red and blue paint and added some white to lighten the shade, then held out the bowl.

She stood up and took the bowl. “I need a brush.”

“Use your fingers,” he said.

She recoiled slightly. This would make an enormous mess if she painted with her hands. “Are you serious?”

“I never joke about vandalism,” he said. “I take it very seriously.”

He was grinning. His eyes were dancing with mischief and he looked so carefree and young, and Tamaris couldn’t help but smile in response to his joy. 

She blew out a breath. “All right, but if it looks really bad, we’re painting over it.” She dipped her fingers in the thick paint, then smeared some of it on the wall. 

She immediately regretted what she’d done. The paint began to run in slow drips, and Tamaris was forced to catch it with her fingers and smear it even more. Exasperated, she started rubbing the paint haphazardly onto the wall until it was a blobby patch of purple.

She threw Felassan an I-told-you-so��look. “See? It looks like shit.”

He shook his head. “Keep going,” he said. He was still smiling, and Tamaris gazed at him with rising annoyance.

“Keep going with what?” she demanded. “It’s an ugly smudge.”

“You had something in mind when you started painting,” he said. “Keep going with it.” He picked up the bowl of orange paint, then padded over to the other end of the wall and began dashing the paint onto the wall in quick practiced strokes that clearly told her he’d done this a thousand times.

She sighed, then dipped her fingers in the paint again and kept slapping it haphazardly onto the wall in a series of vaguely rounded irregularly-sized blobs. A few minutes later, she set the bowl down and wiped her hand on the dropcloth before looking over at what Felassan was doing. 

Her eyebrows jumped up. Felassan was painting a series of what looked like stylized orange teardrops that varied in size and shape, but the shifting shades of orange and red and yellow were clearly meant to signify fire. 

She narrowed her eyes. The shifting colours in his painted flamedrops represented such a subtle blend. How was he managing to make the colours meld so seamlessly? He was holding the bowl of orange paint, but the buckets of yellow and red were sitting on the floor a good two metres away from him. 

She stepped away from the wall, and Felassan looked over at her. His gaze darted to the wall, and he smiled. “Clouds,” he said.

She grunted and rolled her eyes. “Really original, I know.”

He gave her a chiding look. “A wise woman once said you shouldn’t be so down on yourself.” He approached her end of the wall and examined her purple smudgy clouds for a second, then dipped his fingers into his bowl of orange paint and added a dash of orange to the underside of each cloud.

Tamaris raised her eyebrows. The orange underline gave the impression that each blobby cloud was lit from below by the setting sun. It was exactly what she’d been thinking of when she started to paint: sitting on the roof with Felassan while the fading light of day lit the clouds aglow from beneath.

She looked at him, and he raised his eyebrows. “Better? Worse?” He smiled faintly. “Did I ruin your artistic vision?” 

She swallowed hard, feeling oddly emotional by his addition. She shook her head. “You un-ruined it,” she said gruffly. 

His smile widened. “Oh good. I’d always dearly hoped to un-ruin something during the course of my life.” 

She scoffed, then nodded her chin at his drops of flame. “What are you doing over there?”

“Sketching,” he said. “Working out an idea.” He nodded at her clouds. “Keep going. Or paint something else.”

She nodded, but as Felassan returned to his side of the wall with his bowl of orange paint, she couldn’t help but watch him instead. He continued painting drops of flame on the wall, then eventually put the orange paint aside and picked up the bucket of green paint instead. He set the bucket on the floor by his feet and started scrawling green shapes on the wall that looked like stylized leaves, and Tamaris was once again awed — and bemused — by how seamlessly he seemed to be blending the orange of the flames into the green of the leaves. 

She watched him with unabashed interest, her own painting endeavours forgotten in favour of watching Felassan instead. He eventually paused and smiled at her. “If you’re going to stare, this really is your chance to paint a picture. The paints are open and everything.” 

She smiled at his cheeky remark. “I’d honestly rather watch,” she said. “I want to see what you come up with.”

He gave her a reproving look, and she waved dismissively. “I mean it. I’ll have more fun watching you than I will with actually painting.”

He frowned at her for a moment longer, then finally shrugged. “All right, but you’re going to start off the next mural. I insist on it.”

She wilted slightly. “The next one?”

He nodded. “We need to cover every wall of this house with filthy knife-ear art.”

Tamaris burst out a laugh. “That would be pretty good revenge for how aggressively Orlesian this house was before we got here.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” he said complacently. “I have always enjoyed exacting petty revenge through the use of paint.”

She beamed at him. “You really are a vandal, you know that?”

He bowed politely to her. “Thank you, Tamaris. That warms my heart.”

She chuckled and settled on the carpet once more. She hadn’t been self-deprecating when she’d told Felassan she wanted to watch him instead of doing the painting. She’d always enjoyed watching artists working on their craft — and one of the artists she’d most enjoyed watching, unfortunately, was Solas.

She’d never seen an artist who worked the way Solas did. Watching him transform the rotunda walls from raw rock to smooth plaster to charcoal sketches and finally to fully-rendered murals had been, in her eyes, its own form of magic. Solas’s careful stepwise method had also been something to marvel at; he always started with a lovingly-crafted small-scale sketch of each design before translating the sketch to the walls in perfect proportion, and the actual painting of the mural was an all-night process that exemplified his focus and methodical devotion to the art. During those all-night painting sessions, Solas was intent and focused and almost completely silent, and Tamaris couldn’t remember a single time when he’d faltered or made a mistake in the execution of his spectacular works.

Watching Felassan paint, on the other hand... truly, it was nothing like watching Solas. Felassan hadn’t planned a thing, opting instead to experiment directly on the walls with his fingers instead of the sorts of fine brushes that Solas used to use. His movements were loose and relaxed and lacking in precision, and he kept jumping between the different elements of the scene he was creating: adding a bunch of those green leaf shapes, then adding some more flames, then swiping a streak of gold in a bold vertical arch through the cluster of flames before starting to add some violet clouds to his end of the mural. He hummed to himself as he worked and made little playful comments to her over his shoulder, and when the occasional drop of paint rolled slowly down the wall from his quick and messy application, he simply blended it back into the wall or painted over it with a new leaf or flame. 

She stared shamelessly at Felassan’s emerging work. His application method appeared slapdash and careless, but the effect was anything but; his work was striking and bold, and to Tamaris’s eye, very appealing. The lines varied from dark saturated lines to graceful faded streaks, giving his mural a dynamic and energetic feel that was more emotion than story, and Tamaris felt energized in turn as she watched him moving from one end of the wall to the other and back. 

The longer he worked, the less he spoke and the more focused he seemed to become, even as his movements remained loose and flowing. He looked incredibly graceful as he moved across the wall, and he was using both hands now to paint, and–

Wait. Both hands? she thought. And with a jolt, she realized that Felassan was no longer holding a bowl of paint in his hand. Even so, the colours continued to flow from his fingers as though he had dipped his fingers into the paint. But how…? 

She narrowed her eyes and watched him more carefully. And eventually, with a rising of wonder, she realized what he was doing. He kept gesturing in the direction of the paints and twisting his wrists as though he was dipping his hands into the paints, and the amount of paint in the buckets and the bowls was actually decreasing in accordance with the movements of his hands. 

It’s magic, she thought in amazement. He’s using magic to pull the paint to his hands and to blend the colours. Her heart was pounding now with excitement at his exquisitely controlled magical feat, but she continued to watch him in silence, unwilling to disturb his flow by commenting on what he was doing. 

He flicked his wrist at the bucket of gold paint, then dragged his fingers in a long horizontal line from the center of the vertical arch and back toward Tamaris’s end of the wall, and Tamaris finally recognized the shape that dominated most of the mural: a stylized bow and arrow, with a background of flames toward the front of the bow that blended into leaves toward the end. Enthralled by his design and by the magical way he was executing it, she wrapped her arms loosely around her knees and continued to watch as he added a silvery-white bowstring, then a purple-silvery arrowhead and purple-and-red fletching to the arrow. 

He stood back briefly to study the design before going over the golden bow and arrow again with a smattering of brown, making the bow and arrow look like a combination of wood and gold. 

He paused again and idly scratched the back of his neck, and Tamaris watched with a swelling of affection as he smeared some paint on his neck. 

He turned to face her then. “Look at me?” he said.

She lifted her eyes to his face, and her breath stalled in her chest; his beautiful amethyst eyes were bright with focus. He studied her face intently for a long second, then nodded and turned back to the wall. He flicked his wrist at the paints, then started painting over the leaves again with a slightly lighter shade of green that blended into a darker green at the edges. 

When he finished re-painting the leaves, he stood back once more and folded his arms as he surveyed his work, and Tamaris stared shamelessly at his handsome profile as he studied the wall. He carelessly flicked his wrist at the paint buckets, then flicked his fingers at the wall, and Tamaris watched as a fine blend of white and bright blue droplets appeared in misty-looking streaks near the upper edge of the bow — a fine blend that would have required painstaking care to paint by hand, but which Felassan’s magic had rendered quick and doable. His magic, which he was clearly gaining better control over with every passing day… 

Her heart throbbed again with an undeniable surge of pride. Felassan continued to flick streaks and curls of fine blue-and-white droplets across the mural, and Tamaris eventually realized that the streaks and curls looked like smoke, which made sense given the omnipresent stylized fire that dominated much of the right-hand side of the mural. 

He stepped away from the wall one more time to examine his work, then finally nodded in satisfaction. He turned to face her with a smile. “So? What do you think?”

“I love it. It’s beautiful,” she said. Then she immediately regretted her inane compliment. It sounded so paltry compared to the way her heart was pounding in her chest, as though it wanted to escape the confines of her ribcage and leap into his open hands.

He sat beside her with a satisfied sigh. “I’m glad you like it. It’s us, after all.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

He gestured at the wall. “It’s us. A slow arrow dancing with flames. And a little bit of deep mushroom smoke, of course.” He smirked, then gently lifted her chin and studied her face. “I’m not convinced that I captured the shade of your eyes right, though.”

“My eyes?” she said stupidly.

“Yes, your eyes,” he said vaguely. He was still carefully examining her face. “Those green shapes on the left half of the wall.”

Those are my eyes? she thought. The green shapes he’d painted, then painstakingly repainted a second time to adjust their shade: those were meant to represent her eyes? 

He chuckled and lowered his hand. “Tell me the truth. You thought they were leaves, didn’t you?”

She stared wordlessly at him, overwhelmed by the perfection of this moment — the perfection of him. Her body was still buzzing with energy from watching him paint, and her heart was humming besottedly from the careful way he’d inspected the verdancy of her eyes. The memory of his loose and joyful movements danced across her mind as surely as his paint-slathered hands had danced across the wall, and gods, the laughter in his voice and in his smile… 

Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was shocked he couldn’t hear it. She swallowed hard and gazed at the mural once more — this mural that was them, that was her and Felassan together: a slow arrow dancing in flames, splashed boldly across the wall of this house for everyone to see. As Tamaris studied the bold jewel tones of the freshly-painted wall, it dawned on her that she had never seen any mural more beautiful than the one Felassan had just rendered with his magic and his own two hands. 

Tamaris tore her gaze away from the mural and met his bright violet eyes. “I love you,” she said.

A slow and brilliant smile lit his entire face, like a bursting of joy that rendered him even more painfully handsome than he already was. Tamaris stared gormlessly at him, her throat thickening with emotion as she took in the tenderness in his face. 

He cradled her neck in his palm. “I know, Tamaris,” he murmured.

Her heart squeezed with nerves. She swallowed hard, then smacked his chest. “You know? What do you mean, you know?”

His smile grew wider and softer at once. “I know you love me. I don’t need to hear you say it.”

Feeling slightly stung, she scoffed and tried to push him away. “You’re so fucking smug.”

He pulled her easily into his lap. “I don’t need to hear you say it, but I have been waiting for you to say it first.”

“Why?” she complained. “Why did I have to say it first?”

“I didn’t want you to feel obligated to say it back if I said it first,” he replied.

She darted him a cautious look. If he said it first? So that meant — did that mean…?

She cleared her throat and rubbed at the dent on her metal arm. “So… say it back, meaning…?”

He chuckled and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It means that I love you too, felasil’ain. But I think you already knew that.” 

Her heart leapt into her throat, and she gazed silently into his glittering amethyst eyes. As usual, Felassan was right. He’d been right when he said that empty words couldn’t wipe her bitterness away. And now, in this moment, he was right when he said that mere words of love weren’t necessary. Just because he’d never said he loved her didn’t mean she didn’t know — and if she dug beneath the surface of her own stubborn insecurity, she could openly admit that she’d known all along.

She knew Felassan loved her; of course she knew, because it was infused into his every act. He made foods that he knew she would like and concocted herbal remedies for her withdrawal and her pain. He offered her massages and pulled her out of her terrible moods with his terrible jokes. He kissed her like there was nothing else he would rather do, and he fucked her like he was trying to wring every last shiver of pleasure from her body, and he was patient — almost unfathomably patient. He listened while she talked about Solas, and he’d tolerated the torture of their heated trysts until she was ready to have sex again, and he’d waited quietly while she held back the words of love that seemed to consume her more with every passing day.

No longer would she be consumed by those words. No longer would she be held hostage by them — especially not when his feelings for her were so patently obvious. 

She straddled him and cradled his paint-stained neck in her palms. “I love you,” she said huskily. “I — you’re right, okay? I wanted to say it for weeks but I felt — I don’t know, shy or something. I was being stupid.”

He squeezed her waist soothingly. “You were not being stupid. And there’s no need to explain. I told you, I don’t need you to say it.”

“Well, I need to say it,” she retorted. “And you deserve to hear it, okay? I fucking love you.”

He grinned at her, then broke into laughter. “How is it possible for someone to be affectionate and rude at once?”

She tsked and smacked his chest. “Shut the fuck up,” she said, and she kissed him. 

He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her tongue with his, and Tamaris happily capitulated to the heat of his kiss. When he broke away from her lips to laugh, she was helpless to do anything but laugh in turn.

They sat twined together on the floor, kissing and laughing and making fun of each other in husky murmured voices, and Tamaris basked shamelessly in the ample evidence of Felassan’s love. His lips pulled gently at hers and his hands moved carefully over her body, and there on the wall, looming benevolently over them in bright and brilliant strokes of colour, was the most visible sign of his love: a mural rendered by Felassan’s bare hands — a mural showing his slow arrow dancing fearlessly and boldly through the fire of her heart.

[katedoesfics]

All This Shit is Weird | Chapter 1

“I know dwarves don’t exactly frequent Haven, but this is just humiliating.” Varric swung his legs back and forth under him, then turned his attention back to his drink. “We like to drink just as much as the next guy, yanno.”

Cullen glanced at him at the corner of his eye. “Should I get you a box?”

“Go fuck yourself, Curly.” But he grinned, then picked up his beer.

“Remind me again why you’re here.”

“Cassandra will die before she admits it, but you guys need me more than you realize.”

Cullen took a moment to drink. He wasn’t exactly what one would call a barfly. Truth be told, he never had the time for it. He felt anxious in the dimly lit bar; he should have been doing something. But Varric had a point; there was nothing for him to do. Not until after tomorrow. After the Conclave. “We don’t even know what will happen tomorrow.”

Varric pointed his glass at him. “Exactly.” He paused, drank. “When shit hits the fan - and you know it will - you will need my expertise.”

“And what exactly is that? You’re no soldier.”

“Sure, not by your standards. But I’ve seen a war or two. And I know people.”

“What kind of people?”

“Don’t you worry that pretty blond head of yours.”

Cullen grunted, annoyed with the dwarf, and they had only just met a few hours ago. “I don’t know how you talked me into coming here.” 

“Because clearly you need a fucking drink,” Varric said. “Tightass templar.”

“Not a templar.”

“Once a templar, always a templar.”

Cullen turned and sneered at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, why are you getting all defensive? I thought templars were all proud and shit.”

Cullen turned to stare into his glass. “It’s complicated.”

Varric sighed. “Tragic. How do I always attract tragic people? Everyone’s got a fucking story.” He drank, then brightened. “Hey. Maybe yours will be worth writing.”

“What? No. Write what?”

Varric laughed. “I may be known to thread a tale or two.” He frowned. “I guess you haven’t read my books.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Cullen muttered.

“So, what’s yours?”

“My what?” he snapped.

“Your story. Sister killed by darkspawn? Lover killed in the blight?”

“What’s yours?”

Varric smiled. He straightened and pulled his shoulders back. “Me? Well, I always just seem to be in the right place at the right time.” He drank. “And that’s how I know that this may be a story worth writing about one day.”

The door to the bar opened, bringing with it a rush of cold, winter air that sent a chill up his spine. Cullen looked up at the two women who stepped into the bar, and his gaze met a pair of warm, golden eyes, bright and stark in the dim lighting, contrasted by the dark hair that fell in waves over her shoulders. Pointed ears that marked her as Elven jutted out from her hair, studded with various piercings. Her jeans hugged the natural curves of her body, while her blouse was looser, hanging off her shoulders delicately and exposing a bit of torso. Tattoos marked her arms and shoulders, vivid and bold, but were fainter on her neck and face, in fewer, softer tones, outlining her eyes in elegant swirls. She smiled before turning to the short haired blonde woman at her side, and they disappeared into the crowd.

“That was the first time he ever saw her,” Varric narrated. “The woman that would change his life forever.”

“Shut up,” Cullen hissed at him.

“She’s hot,” Varric said. “Even for an elf.” He laughed. “Now that would be a story.”

“You’re going back to Kirkwall after tomorrow, right?”

“Aw, come on, Curly. Loosen up. That’s why I dragged you down here. Hell, go talk to her. Take her in the back alleyway. Enjoy yourself, and never see her again.”

“No, thank you,” Cullen muttered.

“Aw, are you the romantic type?”

Cullen stood abruptly.

“Alright! Alright! I’m kidding! Sit your tight ass down and drink with me. I won’t say another word.”

Cullen grunted, but sat.

“I’m starting to think Giggles would have been more fun. I thought elves liked to drink? But then again, he is an apostate. Trying to keep a low profile and all. Ha. You must be dying over that, huh? Joining forces with a mage?”

“I’m not thrilled about it.”

“They’re not all so bad, you know.”

“I am aware.”

“One of these days, though, I am getting Cassandra drunk. We’ll see who’s all tough and scary, then! She seems like someone that has a soft interior, though. Like you.”

“Rum and Coke.”

Varric turned to the voice that came from his other side. His gaze met the dark haired woman’s, and he offered her his most flattering smile. “Well, hey there.”

She leaned against the bar as she waited, but turned so her body faced him. “Is that your phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

Varric laughed. “I’m supposed to be the one throwing out terrible pick-up lines.”

She smirked and shrugged. “Figured I’d save you the embarrassment.”

“Actually,” Varric started. “My friend here is happy to see you.”

“Varric,” Cullen hissed. 

The woman’s gaze moved past Varric and met Cullen’s. “Your friend doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Maybe I can help him with that.”

Varric frowned. “Is that gonna cost me money?”

She laughed. “Maker, no!”

“Maybe it should,” the blonde woman said, pushing herself through the crowd and sliding up beside her friend. “If you’re gonna keep looking to get laid, you could at least make some money off of it.”

The dark haired woman grinned, then held her hand out. “Calliope.” She gestured to her friend. “This is Jenny.”

Varric shook her hand. “Varric,” he said. “Cullen.”

Calliope met Cullen’s gaze once more and smiled. “A pleasure, gentlemen.” She took a moment to look him up and down, then winked. “I do have a thing for templars.”

“Don’t waste your time,” Varric said. “He wouldn’t know what to do with a beautiful woman.”

The bartender returned briefly with her drink before hurrying off to tend to other patrons. 

“You flatter me, Varric.”

“I only speak the truth, my lady.”

“Ugh,” Jenny said. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” She turned away from them.

Calliope took her drink, then moved to follow her friend, glancing at Varric and Cullen one last time and offering a smile in parting.

Varric turned to Cullen and frowned. “What the hell? I set you up! Where the fuck were you? She was ready! She practically threw herself at you! You had her!”

“I - what?”

“You could be fucking her right now!”

“You’re impossible,” Cullen muttered.

“You need to get laid,” Varric said. “It’s painfully obvious. What’s the harm in a little stress relief?”

“I don’t -”

“I don’t care, you giant baby! You’ll never see her again! Get out of your damn head for one night, will ya?”

Cullen moved his gaze around the bar, but in the dim lighting, he could not pick her out. “I don’t… I wouldn’t… what do I even say?”

Varric shook his head. “Curly, you poor, deprived boy. You work too much. You’re too serious. It’s bad for your health. You need to have fun once in a while.”

“Bad for my health?”

“Just go out there and flirt with her. You can do that, right?”

Cullen hesitated, and Varric sighed.

“She is way out of your league. She’s smart, witty, beautiful. One word out of your mouth and she’ll be running for the door, no matter how much she might want it.”

“Thank you for that confidence boost,” Cullen muttered.

Varric grinned. “You’re considering it?”

Cullen sighed, then quickly finished his drink. He tapped on the counter, signaling for another.

“Alright! Let’s get you laid!”

A second drink was brought over, and Cullen quickly finished it off.

“Don’t over do it,” Varric warned. “We don’t need you sloppy and embarrassing.” He scanned the room for a moment until he finally picked Calliope out. “There. With her friend. Tell ya what. I’ll distract the friend so you can get her alone. Buy her a drink. Talk to her like she’s just another person. You got this.” He turned to the bartender. “Four of those rum and Coke things.”

When the bartender brought the drinks, Varric slid two to Cullen, then took the other two. “Let’s go!”

Cullen begrudgingly took the drinks, then followed Varric into the crowd as he approached the two women. Calliope smiled when she met Varric’s gaze.

“Ladies,” he said in greeting. 

“Couldn’t stay away, I see,” Calliope said.

“We brought drinks.” He offered his to Jenny, and she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t do dwarves,” she said.

“I think I could make you change your mind,” Varric said with a wink.

Jenny laughed sharply. “You’re just trying to get them alone together.”

Varric raised a hand defensively. “You got me.”

Jenny shrugged. She took his drink, then flashed a grin at Calliope. “Bye!”

Calliope frowned, then turned and met Cullen’s gaze. “Is that for me?”

“I guess so.”

Calliope smiled and took it, allowing her fingers to brush against his. They lingered for a moment before she pulled away. “You’re really bad at this, huh?”

“Ignore him,” Cullen said. “Ignore everything he has said tonight.”

Calliope gave him a flirtatious smile. “So you do know what to do with a beautiful woman?”

“I - uh - no. Yes. I mean. You’re not - you are, but -”

Calliope laughed. “Man, and I thought you templars were smart.”

“I’m far smarter than I must appear right now,” he muttered.

Calliope smiled over her glass as she drank, meeting his gaze. “I think it’s cute.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“You two are funny,” Calliope said. “How long have you known each other?”

“Oh, about ten hours.”

Calliope’s eyes widened. “What? Really? That’s hilarious.” She paused to drink. “Let me guess; he dragged you out here tonight?”

“Yes.”

“How did you meet?”

Cullen hesitated. “A mutual friend introduced us.”

She nodded. 

“Uh. What about you and Jenny?”

“We’ve known each other forever,” she said. “Practically grew up together. Now we’re just out here traveling. Seeing the world. Living life. Are you from around here?”

“Ferelden.”

“Ah. Sure.”

“What about you?”

Calliope smiled devilishly. “Around.” She finished her drink, then grabbed Cullen’s wrist, pulling him to the bar. “Buy me another?”

“That depends,” he said. “Are you going to keep using me for free drinks?”

She smiled. “Alright, fair enough. This one’s on me. It’s the least I can do since you finally made… some kind of a move.”

“Are you expecting me to make a move?”

She met his gaze. “Do you want to make a move?”

“I did not come here looking for a hookup.”

She smiled. “That wasn’t what I asked.” She leaned closer, putting a hand on his chest and whispered in his ear. “If you want to make a move, then make a move.”

A chill ran up Cullen’s spine and his pulse pounded in his ears. 

Calliope leaned away slightly. “Or, I can go rescue my friend and continue on our way. I’m down either way.”

“I guess I’d have to be an idiot to pass up that offer,” Cullen said. 

Calliope shrugged. “Not at all. But for what it’s worth, we’ll never see each other again after this.”

“Alright. To never seeing each other again.” He held his glass up, and she tapped hers against it. She smiled, then grabbed his wrist once more, guiding him through the bar and out a back door. 

*****

Calliope strode down the alleyway, stepping around the corner and down the sidewalk. Jenny was leaning against the far end of the building, a cigarette between two fingers as she moved it to her lips. She glanced at Calliope, then straightened as she approached.

“Anything?”

Calliope shook her head.

“Fuckin’ piss,” Jenny muttered. She flicked the cigarette to the ground and put it out with the toe of her boot. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Calliope said. “We’ll find out everything we need to know at the Conclave tomorrow.”

“I dunno how you do it,” Jenny said. “I wanted to kill myself hanging around that dwarf. How you can flirt around and shit? Where’d ya go, anyway? Don’t tell me you fucked that templar.”

Calliope smiled. “Let’s go,” she said simply, and she strode across the street to the parking lot. She clicked the button on her keys, and the black car beeped twice, unlocking. She slid in behind the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving Haven behind them for good. 

[warwaged-archive]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. tagged by: @theharellan ty so much! tagging: if you read this entire post I’m tagging you

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated 

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. Velanna is minor enough there isn’t a lot of talk about her either way (and I get it, given she’s a dlc character from Origins it’s understandable not as many people even know her), but I definitely see more dislike towards her than appreciation.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. Honestly do not know! I have seen Debates about her personality and actions, but I don’t recall seeing people comment on her looks.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. Not particularly as far as I’ve seen, though I haven’t seen people say she’s weak either. Tbf given her introduction has you investigating murders that no one seems to think were caused by a single person and she literally turns a forest against those who pass through it, I think it’s hard to deny she is strong, though.

Are they underrated?  YES! / NO / IDK. Like I said, there’s very little talk about her at all, and very little appreciation. Velanna deserves more love c’:

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. She isn’t relevant for the story of any of the main games, given she isn’t even in any of them askdjfnskndf She is relevant to Awakening’s story, given she causes some trouble on the road to Amaranthine, and that’s how you meet her. You can kill her on that encounter, though, so for the rest of it she’s not essential (but killing her is boring guys why would you)

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. In a way, since she’s causing some of the problems the Warden-Commander has to solve. Other than that, it truly depends on how you play it.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. Nope. Just a Dalish gal who became a Grey Warden.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. I lean towards neutral because Velanna isn’t a widely discussed character either way, but I would say it leans towards bad. Many people dislike her actions, and many more dislike her for her harsh ways towards the PC in the beginning (a non-dalish PC, that is). Velanna is very opinionated and angry and a lot of people seem to think that makes her annoying. A bad take imo but I think that’s pretty obvious dkfasndkfjanskdfjn

How strictly do you follow canon?  — For the most part I follow it, only expanding it for what we haven’t seen and filling the blanks. 

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  I don’t know how to sell her to others so I will just talk a bit about what made her interesting to me. When you meet her, she’s so angry she’s been terrorizing the road and nearby villages so much people don’t even know what (what, not who) is responsible for the bloodshed. If you don’t bother to get to know her, it’s easy to think she’s just the anger, but if you do, eventually you learn a lot that might not justify her actions but makes them understandable, and that she’s so much more than Angry™. Velanna cares so much! For the Dalish, and preserving their magic and culture; for her clan, in spite of the fact her sister was the only friend she ever had; for her Keeper, even though they parted on bad terms; for Seranni, even after she chooses to leave with the Darkspawn instead of leaving with her. She’s outspoken and a great defender of her people, but not in a blind or arrogant way, and not in a way that causes her to inherently resent humans (it’s not history that causes that, but her own experience with having humans act violent against her clan and prefer to destroy the land to drive them away than attempt peaceful coexistence). She’s not driven by personal retribution, but by a relentless pursuit of justice that indeed is twisted into something more akin to vengeance. She acts on anger but she learns to be better. She’s been an outcast all her life, well before becoming the only Dalish in her group of Wardens, and she learned to be harsh to defend herself. She’s not easy to love, but she’s capable of loving deeply, and her loyalty to those dear to her is unwavering. She can be harsh because she’s so used to keeping people away in self defense, even if she’s lonely, even if it’s clear all it takes to get past that is treating her with kindness and respect. Velanna has a good heart, but that doesn’t mean she’s only capable of good.

In game, her growth depends on the PC of course, but the way I see it (and write her) there is no reason why her connections to other characters, such as Sigrun and Nathaniel, wouldn’t be just as important for it. They allow her to see beyond her anger, to move past her resent, and to stop judging people as if they were all equally bad. She goes from someone terrorizing humans in a forest and nearby road to someone who selflessly stands to defend them, even should it cost her own life. She goes from joining the Wardens as a means to finding her sister to actually taking on the role and its duties, not just as in fighting the darkspawn, but in being a protector.

And the way she values history, but not just the actual facts, the tales and legends and culture, how she understands their place as something of great importance definitely helped a lot in endearing her to me. According to Velanna, "Stories connect us to our past. They shape a people in profound ways. Without them, we are lost.” and I think about that a lot you know? It really gets to me c’:

Also she’s an awesome powerful mage who could and has killed a man (uh many men actually) but who blushes and stutters if you call her pretty because what are compliments she is not prepared to deal with those

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  — Velanna killed people so she’s evil and deserves no forgiveness ever (which isn’t always similarly applied to other characters BUT ANYWAYS). She’s angry and mean towards the protagonist and because of that she’s not cool. She’s whining about the Dalish all the time too so she’s just annoying. Also I never tried to talk to her and often don’t even leave her alive after the Wending Wood. aidsnfkajsdnfkjn seriously though, I can see why people might not like her, as she isn’t made to be likable initially and you gotta get past that to get to the more interesting bits. Velanna is indeed very much tied to her Dalish background, as it is not only her culture and origin, but also a great motivator for her actions, and often even the means through which you get to know her, so if you’re not interested in the Dalish I guess she wouldn’t be an interesting character (but imo, it’s only natural her culture is so important to who she is, given her background and her own feelings about her people. she’s so proud of her heritage, even if being part of that people makes her a target for no other reason than prejudice. even then, she’s so proud of it and so ready to fight for and defend her people and speak and stand for them! I just love her a lot but ok I realize I should be talking about why people might not like her so let’s get back to that). She’s not funny, she’s not friendly, and she’s actually rather angry and outspoken, and I feel like that ends up pushing her to the more ‘controversial’ side instead of being part of the popular or likable characters.  

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  Literally just played Awakening and ended up like OH I WANNA WRITE ONE OF THEM and I wasn’t sure about who. It wasn’t clear to me, at least, so I ended up thinking about them and at first I was like hm maybe Nathaniel, but it didn’t feel right even though he was the first one I thought I wanted to write. So I thought about Velanna, and the more I thought about her the more invested I became so I was like yeah that’s the one and added her here aksjdnfkjasndf

The first thing that got me really invested in her while playing was the conversation you have with her when you gift her the diary. I just really love her talking about the Dalish and preserving what they have and how important and meaningful stories are. That said, the moment I met her in the Wending Wood I immediately wanted to get to know her. 

I’m just a big fan of elves in case you guys haven’t noticed yet asksjnfsjkdnfkdjfn

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  replaying DA, but specially Awakening, Dragon Age content in general, discussing her with others (talking about my muses is always very helpful to me in that sense), and honestly, others being interested on her too. Discussions about the Dalish or headcanons or other people discussing Dragon Age and their respective characters also help my motivation too tbh! I’m always the slowest to answer to anything, but that’s just how I always am. Those are all things that keep my love for her alive, and thus great part of my inspiration for her.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I TRY!

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? when the inspiration hits I literally cannot shut up

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO. I’m usually more about them 5 page headcanons and threads and ask answers than drabbles 

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. she lives in my head rent free (as do most if not all of my muses tbh askdfnaksdf)

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / SORT OF?

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. Depends but not usually askndfkajs

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO / SORTA.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  Depends on what that criticism is and if I asked for it? aksjdfnkjfn I do ask about my portrayals sometimes, and in that case I’m open to constructive criticism --- if there’s something you think I could do better and you can explain why in a nice way, I’ll definitely listen (though I may disagree, so there’s that). But if it comes down to rudeness or ‘you’re not writing her like I think she is’ then well that’s not my problem, I write her how I understand and interpret her. 

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  I LOVE THEM! Send me questions about my muses literally any time I absolutely love them!! 

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Depends, again. I’m not against discussing it, hearing what other people have to say and why they disagree (and if they say they disagree, I’d probably want to know why), but ultimately, again, it’s my portrayal so it might just be a case of seeing things differently. Like I said, I don’t mind discussing it, though. 

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  As to this, I just honestly expect people to act the same way I act when I disagree with someone’s portrayal, which is just moving on with my life and not interacting kasjafksdnfjk

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  Depends. They don’t have to like the character, but if it influences IC interactions or if it’s just people who hate a character getting off of bashing them through IC interactions even if it doesn’t make sense that’s a no for me. I don’t like seeing people hating on characters I love, but people are free to do post what they will. If there’s a tag and I can block it that’s fine by me, if it isn’t tagged I’m likely to unfollow.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  If it’s done politely I don’t mind. English is not my first language and learning about errors is a way to improve, to me.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  I think? For the most part? I do tend to get defensive over characters I love and asks that aren’t clear in tone and come across not so nicely (OOC asks, I mean), but other than that I think I’m pretty chill? Idk though you guys tell me aksnkajdsfnkjan

[mint-corset]

Nebby is playing DA: Inquisition and has some complaints

Alright first let me explain that I am DEEP into Dragon Age and it’s lore. That said, so far I am actually enjoying Inquisition, despite the flaws. My current complaint is for the quest line, Here Lies the Abyss. Yes, I will be nerding out while I ramble about this.

For starters, if they ported my Hawke’s personality from 2 why didn’t they also do other things to actually make her resemble my Hawke. And I mean her stances on blood mages I guess. I was best friends with merrill, and I thought it was clear that hawke could separate good mages from bad regardless of what magic they did strictly because of my friendship with Merrill. I mean, Anders is literally the worst mage despite never doing blood magic, while Merrill is the sweetest and has the best intent in mind.

This is where my fan theory appears, I’ll be honest. I do not think blood magic is inherently wrong, I just think it is a method of magic that tends to attract evil, and something having a tendency to attract evil is not the fault of the magic itself. Of course, this doesn’t really matter in this mission because the blood magic being used is absolutely evil but idk. Hawke became... One dimensional, it seems. She hates all wardens now because of what some did, despite many fighting against it. Meanwhile that same hawke wanted to save innocent mages because she knew it wasn’t all of them and innocent people don’t deserve to be punished. I hope my stance makes sense here. it’s jarring to me because I was once that hawke, I even took time to make her look like the one I played in the second game so it truly feels like it was “me.”

Another thing is I’m noticing the rest of my party is going towards a “we don’t need grey wardens” mindset from all that’s happened. And yes, what happened is terrible and I know Wardens are secretive about their practices but, we literally cannot afford to just say “fuck all Wardens.” When a blight comes back what the hell are we going to do? Wardens aren’t just great warriors they’re literally the only people that can truly kill an Archdemon, whereas a regular soldier can only kill it, but have it’s soul just transfer to another darkspawn, and this cycle will be endless.

I’m already rambling and upset because I know with my next choices I’ll have people upset with me for not exiling the Wardens, and I already know I cannot bring this nuance to the table. And this greatly upsets me. No, I don’t want my followers to blindly agree with me, but I also hate that I cannot truly tell my followers my why, and I understand that requires more writing and developing but it will always be something that bothers me in games like this.

Also Cullen is cute please marry me.

[musingmycelium]

god okay i info dumped on discord bc thats just who i am as a person so i’m cross posting it here in case anyone else is curious about my canon world state. under a read more bc its, uh, maybe a bit of a monster.

i've got a dummy complex worldstate for no reason other than i like to make things difficult for the sake of a good story i guess. for origins my canon warden is an apostate, ellanis tabris who in an 'accident' had his leg crushed and it never recovered, causing it to have stunted growth. he uses a cane to get around and his disability helped hide him in the denerim alienage since apostacy is probably one of if not the most dangerous crime for an elf.

he's only one of three, though. his best friends growing up are noure surana and attie nehrios. noure gets taken to the circle when they're 17 (and ellanis and attie are 15) and comes into play a bit later, while attie is a seamstress and budding red jenny.

as far as origins itself goes ellanis' canon route is deep roads - dalish - haven - redcliff - circle - redcliff. fairly standard stuff up until haven/broken circle tbh. in haven during the guardian's first trial instead of shianni ellanis sees noure (whom the alienage presumed dead when arrested bc it wasn't, ah, a clean arrest) as the ghosty thing and during broken circle ellanis finds noure again and 'conscripts' them into the wardens. really he just takes them with him and destroys their phylactery so they won't be followed. (noure's phylactery is stored in kinloch instead of the spire after their fourth escape attempt since it gave them too much of a head start to make the templars wait to get it) theres a lot of Feelings surrounding connor but other than that ellanis doesn't super change things there either. he does, however, not have any idea about the dr. which is the biggest break i have from canon in dao with the exception of my inclusion of More City Elves. instead of morrigan going to ellanis she, as his best friend, knows he'll refuse to do it and instead goes straight to alistair. morrigan actually never tells ellanis anything about the ritual, ever.

during unrest in the alienage ellanis meets up with attie again, who is already working to clear the slavers out herself, and she falls head over heels for morrigan pretty quickly. fast enough that when morrigan sets out on her 'nobody follow me' thing attie does anyways bc thats just who attie is as a person. and besides she can't stay in denerim now that she's maybe or not killed a nobleman for what happened during the wedding.

and now its awakening time 

ellanis meets up with anders for the first time and through him learns a bit more about noure's time in the circle. (noure and anders and karl were lovers for roughly three years before shit hit the fan hard) and fuck canon here because ellanis doesn't have time for this. plus the architect is interesting and yah maybe insane but he's in the place for a little madness. ellanis lets him live and strikes a bargain with him, they share research and any ferelden wardens who prefer to answer their calling not by fighting darkspawn but by potentially furthering the cure are welcomed by the architect. but after awakening ellanis leaves vigils keep in nate's hands and goes on 'offical leave' to work on his own cure..... and to live in antiva with zevran...... lkjkjlkjkjkj

noure, after broken circle and during awakening, goes to nevarra via orlais. it takes them a couple of months to settle but noure finds viuus (yes that viuus) who takes them on as an apprentice of sorts bc he's also in a bit of a jam. it works, sorta, noure learns more spirit based magic and reconnects with a part of themselves the circle tried to beat out of them. it only lasts for about two years, though, because templars find them, one a recent transfer from kinloch and noure isn't exactly a forgettable face. so!

well, its around the same time that anders leaves the wardens for good. and ellanis puts anders in touch with noure. they decide to meet in kirkwall, because rumor has it that's where karl is and thats gonna be the place they need to go first.

attie though, she's just hanging out with morrigan and stirring the pot in orlais as a jenny. she also works with the mage underground and defo either knows or works with briala as a kind of agent. her story is more foggy tho bc i haven't read Super much of TME or played some of witch hunt

da2 comes in and i've Recently, like as of last week i think, decided to swap my canon hawkes. william is now my canon hawke instead of the twins. he's an apostate who's magic is mostly clairvoyancy and a shepherd.. or he was until the blight. bethany dies during the escape and its only the Beginning of the sad times for william.

with his pretty suble magic william makes for a Superb smuggler, and lands the gig with bartrand quickly. he Also, gets a bit of a crush on varric while they're still going around raising money. he takes carver, varric, and isabela with him to the deep roads thinking that keeping his brother close will be safer. and, well, it isn't.

act ii is a bunch of horse shit anyways but william tries to keep out of things until isabela is directly threatened by it and only then steps in seriously. for the most part all of the things which go down with petrice are done with noure and anders. they don't like the qunari being in town either but they, at least, can use the situation to weaken the chantry and by extension the circle. even if its only a bit. during act iii the two of them build up the mage underground and start preparing to take direct action against the circle. william is, still uncertain but he doesn't stop them. his magic has never been a large danger to himself, it's suble enough and under control enough that he's never really had to fear templars. he feared them for his fathers sake, for bethany's sake, but not his own. not really. and well, we know how da2 ends but i hate the retcon of 'hundres of casualties' bithc! where! so no, only the grand cleric and a handful of upper level chantry people where inside when it went up and they deserved it.

ellanis is working on the blight cure during this time and makes it far enough that he and zev are surprised by twins (two girls named adaia and killian) but otherwise ellanis is mostly chillin in antiva

while attie is now definitely working closely with briala both as a jenny and as an agent

and we’re up to dai with my canon quizzy - da'ean lavellan, the clan storykeeper (next in line after his father) who only attends the conclave because idrilla was going to first and they didn't want to loose the clan first. i've got... way more canon deviance in dai than anywhere else bc dai Suxxs but its way too long but basically! 

da'ean romances both dorian and the iron bull bc im poly and i said so, idrilla comes to skyhold as magical advisor and she works where morrigan does in the game (tho morrigan still shows up she's not an offical position as much, which suits her and attie just fine). linayel, da'ean's nas'falon (qp) arrives with her and he slots in as an archery trainer. 

plus, ellanis is the warden contact instead of the many (some really wild??) canon contacts. leliana tries to contact him to be quizzy but he's travelling and misses it, and when noure contacts him on william's behalf and mentions corypheus (ellanis knows about legacy bc william brought noure and anders along) ellanis puts some pieces together and comes to skyhold. he'd already been working to figure out the weird calling (it is and yet isn't the same as the blight he remembered) so he's already a bit aware of the situation. william doesn't stick around for long, basically just long enough to get confirmation ellanis is on his way. even tho he misses varric this isn't his place

adamant goes down wicked different bc ellanis is the fucking HOF. by this time he's developed his magic enough he can pretty much take down all of the wardens within a good 300 foot range just nearly instantly. (a combination of his blight cure research and his natural entropic aligned magic hohohoho) so he makes it to clarel Fast. instead of falling into the fade ellanis (anyone else remember just fucking punching rifts closed in awakening? lol) works with da'ean to open up the rift in the main courtyard and suck the nightmare into the real world. and then he fuckin annhilates it bc he can

WEWH is also different but this time its bc of attie (and morrigan's different now too bc she's been dragged into things by her wife) briala's at the palace yeah, but now she's also got attie waiting in the wings. instead of getting stuck in place by the quizzy attie is able to manuever things to implicate gaspard and celene alone (mostly bc i hate the blackmail on briala it just doesn't vibe well with her character to me). so instead of the shitty options of 'gaspard rules with briala shadowing him' or 'celene and briala end up back together' its 'celene gets put in place by briala and now briala calls the shots'

idrilla romances solas, and as a dreamer she's sure something is fishy but can't figure out what exactly. (until trespasser that is, when she figures it out at the murals) but she provides a good foil to his asshatry and as offical magical advisor steers the inquisition with morrigan's info about the arbor wilds. she knows the rituals and the magic bc she's first and they make it through far faster than in canon, making a quick alliance with the sentinals and beating samson well before the canon battle area. 

(linayel romances cass but their story is still quiet and vague as of yet but linayel mostly remains in skyhold to help train and strategize)

then da'ean kicks corypshits ass soundly becase that fight Sucks Ass.

[black-emporium-exchange]

Congratulations Toshi-Nama!

,      

Few have burst into the Black Emporium with as much verve and vitality as Toshi_Nama. Though this is Toshi_Name's first trip to the Black Emporium, they've had a most impressive debut: not only were they a vivid ray of sunshine in the official discord chat, not only did they get two bingos - one Creation Bingo and one Commenting bingo - but they also produced an amazing TWELVE treats in the archive. Toshi works hard, plays hard, and def bingos hard - and we're so happy to see Toshi join the Black Emporium community! If you're a new Toshi fan - and we're guessing an awful lot of people are - you can find their works on Ao3, where they specialize in works with deep emotional resonance and heartbreaking realism (seeThe Making of a Champion, [Anders/F!Hawke,M]; warnings for severe depression and emotional abuse], or dwelling in some niche and unusual, but rewarding, corners of the fandom (see Song and Taint, [Alistair/Female Amell, T], which deals with darkspawn in a way few works in fandom do!)

Works Toshi-Nama produced this year for BE are:

Meant to Be Broken [Anders/Karl Thekla, T]: Not all things are made to last...whether that be relationships or rules. Which will give first, in a Circle where only one believes he can belong?

Duty's End [Cassandra Pentaghast/Cullen Rutherford, G]: Just this once, I think we can cast the rules aside...

Unshed Tears [Female Cadash/Vivienne, T]: What do you do, when your one last window to the innocent, passionate girl you were passes beyond reach? Sometimes, it takes another to remember to try again.

The Price of Redemption [Fenris/Merrill, M] Kirkwall is on a precipice - but so are some of those who live there. When Merrill and Fenris abandon Hawke to take care of something more important...they both find far more than the chaos they try to stop.

Nothing Lasts Forever [Male Brosca/Duncan, T]: A Duster knows everything is temporary. On the other hand...well, who better than a Duster to appreciate something good when it falls in his lap?

A Heart By Any Name [Abelas/Female Lavellan, G]: The world is not what it was when Abelas last stepped out of Mythal's Temple, but when his choice is to do so or die, he follows Hellenia Lavellan through the Eluvian along with the last of the Sentinels. What will he choose, when he is forced to recognize the world as it is - and a woman of this world who hears from Mythal?

Roses to Orchids [Iron Bull/Cassandra Pentaghast,M]: Romance can come in the strangest of places...and from the most unexpected sources.

Guilty Pleasures [Isabela/Leliana, T] Everyone needs something to feel guilty for. Even the Left Hand of the Divine.

Sun and Shadows [Female Cousland/Anora Mac Tir, T] Sometimes you lose what you love. Sometimes you lose yourself. The finding...the finding can make the darkness brighten.

It Can Wait [Nathaniel Howe/Cassandra Pentaghast, T]: What is important? It's not always what people think.

Everything's Always Backwards [Alistair/Anora Mac Tir, T]: With what might as well have been a shotgun marriage, Alistair and Anora have nothing in common. What would it take to turn this relationship into a marriage in truth?

Gold and Whiskey [Carver Hawke/Isabela, T]: Not all sex has to involve feelings, but they tend to slip in. Tricksy things.

Fit for a Crown [Bhelen Aeducan/Rica Brosca,G]: Bhelen is King of Orzammar, thanks to the Warden who, in Orzammar, had been less than nothing. His son was the Warden's niece - and his love, the Warden's sister. King Bhelen decides to spend precious power and influence for something for someone else - much to her surprise.

[laurelsofhighever]

Kiss prompt: ‘when they lean forward a fraction as if to kiss the other person, then realize they shouldn’t and pull back to stop themselves’ Indulge my need for fluff! XD

C’mon, that prompt is flangst at best!

Introducing my non-Warden Rosslyn AU. She survived the sack of Highever and spent the Blight leading the rebellion against Loghain, before coming to court as King Alistair’s chancellor (for various reasons). Hope you enjoy!

Alistairbarely recognised the great hall under the swathes of Wintersend decorations. From his vantage pointon the throne, greeting his guests as they were presented to him, he could seejust about every noble in Ferelden. Every one showed themselves in their finery, richsamite and velvet in family colours, and his newly trained observationalskills picked out rhythms to the melee, groups forming and flowing as oldallegiances were reaffirmed. There was an alarming number of young, unattached women among them. 

I wonderwhat they’re here for. 

He kept his sarcasm tohimself, however, if only so Eamon wouldn’t fuss. His sort-of uncle stood onthe right side of the throne, immaculate as ever in his usual dour shades, with hishand resting on the gilded back in a way that wouldn’t have been permitted ifnot for his age. The nobles might see an advisor concerned tosupport the king, but Alistair knew it was just more of the same scrutiny hehad faced all those years ago when Maric visited Redcliffe. 

“Bann Ferrenly and Lady Raina ofLakehead!” 

At least Rosslyn, onhis other side, would appreciate his trepidation. Making her his chancellor had been hisbest decision so far, a feeling that always reasserted itself whenever hefelt out of his depth. Observant as she was, no doubt she had noticed theslowly circling horde of parents with their even bigger horde of eligibledaughters, and he could imagine the amusement curling atthe corner of her mouth with every new flutter of eyelashes. He had toimagine it, because if he actually looked at her, he doubted he’d be ableto look away. There were plenty of others in the room whoseemed to be having the same issue. It irked him. 

 “HisLordship Teyrn Cousland of Highever!” the herald announced. 

“Fergus!”

With a sweep ofmidnight silk, Rosslyn broke from the decorum of the king’s dais and caught her brother in a crushing hug before he had even a chance to makehis bow. He smiled ashe returned the gesture, eyes squeezed shut to hold her closer, and the rest ofthe room faded out of importance. Alistair, drawn in by the show of affection, rosefrom the throne and followed at a distance, unable to hide his own grin, andunwilling to hear Eamon’s hissed entreaty to sit back down. 

“What’s this,Scrub?” Fergus asked when they finallypulled apart. “No riding leathers?” 

Sheshrugged. “They needed laundering.” 

“Well, it’s not acomplete loss,” he teased as he looked at her. “You’re theenvy of everyone in the room.” 

“someone’sbeen practicing their flattery.” 

“Ha! Andwhat about you? Has she been behaving herself, Your Majesty?” he asked of Alistair. 

The heavymantle of State Brantis had forced him into seemed totighten under the combined scrutiny of both Couslands at once. 

“She’s been invaluable,”he answered truthfully, his gaze softening as he glanced to Rosslyn. “But I canspare her for a few moments. You two should catch up. Uh – maybeon one condition…”  

Rosslyn paused. “Your Majesty?” 

His mouth went dry.The crowd of nobles, which had seemed so distant a momentbefore, turnedits gaze on his silence, eager to watch the dramaunfolding before him. He straightened, hung a smirk on his rapidlyheating cheeks, and winked with a confidence he hoped was lessbrittle than it felt. 

“When thedancing starts,” he declared, “I get to dance with you first.” 

“I –” Her turn toblush, though she’d had years longer to practice composure,and recovered quickly. She dipped him a graceful curtsey. “Of course.As Your Majesty wishes.” 

The thoughtof dancing with Rosslyn buoyed Alistair through meeting therest of his guests, and the social mingling that followed - not even Eamon’sdisapproval for his breach of protocol had its usual effect. He toldhimself it was relief at not being made to dance with someone he didn’tknow and whose feet he might tread on, but even though he wascareful to wander and pay attention to everyone who spoke tohim, his eye kept flicking back to track her movement among the throng. That, hetold himself, was coincidence. She just happened to keepstanding where he looked.

When theherald finally smashed his staff against the stone andannounced that the centre of the hall should clear, he smiledand bowed over the hand of a young woman who might have been charming if heweren’t so distracted, and tried not to seem too eager to leave. Hiseyes searched for Rosslyn across the room and found her on her brother’s arm,cutting a regal path through the crush of lesser gentry. 

“Here sheis,” Fergus announced. “I thought it best in case she tried to run away.” 

“I wouldnever do such a thing,” she replied loftily, then ruined the effect by elbowing her brother inthe ribs. 

“Friends,honoured guests, please take your places for the remigold!” 

“Shall We,my lady?” Alistair asked, holding out his hand. 

“We shall,Your Majesty.”  

Placing herpalm over his knuckles, she let herself be led towards where other coupleswere assembling in place. He was glad of that, at least, because his palms weresweating. 

“You couldhave asked anyone to dance, you know,” she told him in an undertone asthey made it to the head of the room.  

“True,” hereplied. “You’re just the only one I trust to tell me if I canactually dance.” 

Shesmirked. “I’m sure Eamon would oblige you with an honest opinion.”  

“I’m notdancing with Eamon.” 

“Then Isuppose I’ll have to try extra hard to be cross with you.” 

They stoodface to face. Rosslyn raised her right palm and he mirrored her as the firstchord of music hummed through the room. Her hand was warm, slender, smaller than his, but with thesame rough calluses from years of swordwork. Everyone notdancing had formed a ring around those who were, quiet for the most part, butin the focussed way that revealed more than just idle scrutiny.  

“Just lookat me,” she murmured. “They don’t matter.” 

Heswallowed. The steps had been drilled into his memory by the dance master andhis muscles moved on their own – the bow, the turn, the circling steps like the first meeting in conversation with astranger. But his mind wandered, seeking escape. 

“What’sfunny?” she asked, when a giggle escaped him. 

Theyturned, met with the other palm as the tempo increased. 

“I was justthinking – remembering, actually. I once told Duncan I wouldn’t dance the remigold in a dress.” 

“What –?” 

“It was in Ostagar, before the battle, and...” Othermemories crowded in, what happened after, and he faltered. “You had to havebeen there, I guess.” 

She flicked hereyes down to his feet and back. “You might look good in a dress.” 

“You lookbeautiful in that one.” 

She froze.Only for an instant, but he caught how her eyes widened as shestepped into the reach of his arms for the spin, how her cheeks stained pink as his handbrushed across her waist. Her hair, worn loose just for tonight, featheredover his shoulder as she whirled away again and followed the steps intothe cariole with the other fourdancers in the line. All too briefly, he caught her scent, sweetgrass andsomething floral and the hint of sweat beneath. 

I neverwant to dance with anyone else. I want... 

The remigold carried them both along theline, swirling together then away, and Alistair remembered none of it. Theworld narrowed to the regard of bright grey eyes and his mounting panic that when the dancewas over she would expect him to say something, to behave like nothing was wrong.  

“Are youflagging already?” she teased when they came back together for the last time,and he found himself wishing for darkspawn. 

“Uh, no. Iwanted to say...” 

“Yes?” 

They turnedagain, palm to palm, the final steps. Rosslyn’sbreath fanned across his cheek, heavy with exertion, her skintinged pink and sweat gleaming at her hairline, and hisstomach dropped. 

“I...” 

She glancedat his mouth. Her own lips were parted slightly, bowed in a slight smile that fadedas he leaned forward, drawn closer like a flower turning towards the sun. But hecouldn’t do that to her – not here, surrounded by so manypeople who would try to turn the action to their own advantage. And he stillremembered that first proper meeting, all those months ago, when she had toldhim She wasn’t interested in him. 

He droppedher hand. “I hope I didn’t step on your feet too much.” 

“YourMajesty did very well,” she said graciously, though hervoice wobbled. “You can be let loose on the restof your guests with impunity. May I be excused? I – it’srather warm in here.” 

He alwaysruined everything. “Of course. I – you are released from any obligation tonight.” 

“Thank you,Your Majesty.” 

He didn’treach for her as she turned and disappeared into thecrowd, didn’t follow her progress towards the terrace door. He was theking, with guests waiting on his word, and he had to play his part. 

[ageofdragon]

Dragon Age: The Dread Wolf Rises, Bioware Teaser by Nick Thornborrow

Breakdown

Time for me to take an indepth look at this image, now that I have a little free time. First of all, I’m super excited to finally have some DA news from the DA team. And I’m even happier that the fandom is showing them so much love, making it known how much we love this game and appreciate the devs.

Also shoutout to John Epler, father of the Iron Bull romance scenes, who is now the Narrative Director at DA Bioware.

Now to the image by Nick Thornborrow, Concept and Storyboard artist at Bioware.

The Background

In the very, very back of the image you see the peaks of craggy mountains. A setting that we haven’t seen a whole lot of in the vast, forested world of Thedas. Thedas only has 4 major mountain ranges. The Sundermount, the Vimmark Mountains, the Hunterhorn Mountains, and the Frostback Mountains. 

Two of those mountain ranges, the Vimmark Mountains and Sundermount, were important to Hawke and DA2. Which for obvious reasons, I’ll touch on later, might be important to the new setting. While DAO and DAI spent a lot of type in the Frostbacks. Now as far as the mountains go: the Vimmark Mountains are very arid and mostly rock fields, which makes it unlikely to be the craggy mountains (plus we already had Corypheus from there). While the Frostbacks and Sundermount have the craggy, rocky look of the mountains in the background; and I’d venture a guess that it is the Sundermont given other information. Though we don’t know much about Hunterhorn’s mountain range, so we can’t rule it out.

I don’t know much about the tree, there is probably some great symbolism there. For the most part, I don’t know what it is. There is a tale of Andruil tying Fen’Harel to a tree, but I’m not sure that pertains to this picture in that way.

Also in the background (and some of the foreground) is a blazing fire, which could be many things. Fire is very symbolic in Thedas itself, being a cleansing force. Most of Thedas’ humans and city elves perform pyre rituals for their dead, derived from when Andraste was placed on a pyre. It also has been an indicator of destruction, such as: the fires set in DAO during the Darkspawn attack on Denerim, the fires said to burn in Kirkwall after the Chantry Explosion, and even the fire raging around the Inquisitor as they first faced off against Corypheus. So the fire here could be cleansing, destructive/confrontational, or both.

The Figure

The figure is clearly an ancient elf, faced towards the large shadow on the opposite side of the frame. The most obvious answer would be that it is Solas, given the end of DAI and the context of the teaser. I can’t say for certain that it is, however. For starters, the body of the figure is nothing like we’ve seen on Solas in an artwork. The figure being very cone shaped and thick-bodied. They are wearing some kind of robe or dress/frock, which is covered in small white stars/sparkles. Almost as if it is shining or glittering.

Though at the same time, it’s furred coat is similar to what Fen’Harel has been known to wear, with ribbed sleeves. Even a design, not quite but almost, like the sparkles show up on Fen’Harel’s old wolven outfit. 

The staff the figure carries is also similar to the one pictured in Solas’ The Hermit Tarot Card. 

The most interesting part about the figure though, is the red. The figure’s top half is contained within a red orb, it’s hand outreached so it looks like it is pressed or pushing against the orb to some degree. Though also as if to tell the Shadow to heel. And if you look close enough, the figures eyes are glowing a red too.

There is a lot of argument and evidence that lean towards the figure, in fact being Fen’Harel and it appears he is in a struggle against either himself or the other entities in this image. Though if the image is not Fen’Harel, it is probably safe to assume it is instead Mythal or even a combination of them both.

The Shadow

The shadow creature is actually the most easy to identify, as it is a symbol we’ve seen before. It represents the Dread Wolf, a symbol Solas and others have used for Fen’Harel. As seen in the image of Fen’Harel above, wearing his wolf head with three eyes. The Dread Wolf is seen here with it’s mouth open and tongue hanging out. Though it seems aggressive at first glance, looking at it closely in this position makes it seem more at ease and obedient even.

The pose of the Dread Wolf is almost the same to the one in Solas’ Post-Game Tarot Card.

However, unlike in the Post-Game Card, the figure is stand opposite and opposing the Dread Wolf. While the original card has the figure consumed and walking away from the Dread Wolf. And while it might not be important, the Dread Wolf in the new image takes up quite a bit of space in the image. It is almost as if it is consuming or overtaking the landscape, but being pushed back by the figure. Though I might be looking into the story in the image too much.

The Dread Wolf still sport the three red eyes and mangled facial features, which is reminiscent of a Pride Demon.

The Idol

The most compelling part of the whole picture happens to be the idol, as we’ve seen this idol before. However, some Dragon Age 2 fans will know that the idol we ran into, the one used by Meredith in the final battle, shattered and transformed Meredith into a red lyrium statue that sits in the Black Emporium. So either, the idol will appear in another way or there was/is more than one.

This idol is made of red lyrium and caused all the symptoms of red lyrium, as further explored in Inquisition. It causing Bartrand and Meredith to become paranoid, destructive, violent, and obsessive. We know now, from Inquisition, that this is because it (and the Titan it comes from) is infected with the Blight. 

We also see that this idol (both in the teaser and in DA2), has a depiction of a figure quite similar to Andraste and to a lesser extent Flemeth (host of Mythal). Though it is a gaunt, sickly depiction.

Perhaps of Andraste on the pyre? If you take a really close look at the DA2 idol, the exact pose of it: A gaunt woman is backed against what seems to be the Circle symbol (think the back of the Mage Throne in Inquisition) with a man wrapped around her side and her arm wrapped around his head, they appear to rise out of kind of strange, spike opening.

In the image this idol sits in a cracking, white orb; which is surrounded by a thick, lined gold ring followed by two more gold rings. Lines like this have been used to represent the Veil before and portals/rifts into it. So it seems there is something happening between the red lyrium idol and the Fade.

The last thing I want to touch on are the seven scallop pieces surround the thick gold ring. There are seven of them, as there are seven Old Gods/Archdemons. Five of these Seven have gone dark, while the other two are still golden. Which it should be mentioned, five blights with five archdemons have taken place and two still remain. What’s curious though, is the order of the scallop pieces. The first three from the top are dark, then the fourth one is lit. The next two are dark, followed by the last lit one. It could simply be a stylistic choice, but it is a strange grouping.

I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the Conductor and Architect though. Both having been part of the Tevinter Magisters (supposedly, the Architect never hard confirmed as such) made the first darkspawn. Corypheus having been one the Priest of Dumat (the first blight), and the Architect having been a Priest of Urthemiel (fifth blight). This is a very long reach though, and I’m not sure that was taken into any consideration at all.

I’m so ready for this game otherwise! And constantly thinking over what The Dread Wolf Rises maybe, here’s hoping for a worthwhile wait as Bioware finished out Anthem and begins on the next step of the Dragon Age series.

[greetingsfromrivain]

All Things That Are Left To Do

There was still smoke in the air two days after the archdemon was slain.  

Alistair could see it, sitting at the sill of a palace window, as the smoke turned already grey Ferelden skies shades of greyish-brown.

Somewhere below, his companions were spread around the city still in crisis.  Leliana had gone to the chantry, no doubt, likely offering kind words to go with rations of food and blankets.  The Queen’s army had requested Sten, Oghren, and Shale for help to round up and kill remaining darkspawn near the city, an offer they took with enthusiasm.  

Alistair had been requested as well, but he was needed elsewhere.

He took a deep breath, the smell of ash and death still in the air, intermingling with the slow but valiant attempt of the sea to bring the taste of salt and life back to Denerim.  And yet he prefered it to the smell of the room, a guest room repurposed for healing, the stale smell of balms and medicines, and the lingering static of healing magic.  

He turned around and looked back at the bed where Luna lay, still unconscious as the moment after the final blow.  It played in his head whenever he shut his eyes: she deals the final blow, there is an explosion, she’s bleeding, it’s so much blood, if Wynne hadn’t been there....

He shook his head.  Wynne wasn’t there now, which was only a good sign.  “She just needs rest,” she said just that morning, “But there are more wounded to be tended to.  Watch over her, Alistair.”

Alistair made his way back to her bedside, sitting in the too-small chair at her left.  “Wynne said I’m supposed to talk to you,” he started, “But I don’t know, I think you deserve a little peace from me talking after saving the world, don’t you?  Least I could do.”

Luna laid there still, the gentle rise and fall of her chest the only sign of her still living.  The thick braids that normally framed her face had been taken out, as well as the ones keeping half her hair up, leaving her dark, fluffy auburn curls fanned around her head.  Her skin, bearing many small scrapes and scars, no longer had the greyish tint it did on the battlefield, with reddish color slowly returning to her reddish-brown skin.  Her neck had a large bandage over it, the biggest parting gift from the killing blow. 

 He took another deep breath of the stale, medicinal air and continued.  “You’d chide me for saying that if you were awake.  You like when I talk.  And you think I should like when I talk.  And I do, when I’m with you.  That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

The room is too still, it’s why he had gotten up to look out the window in the first place.  

“I think it’s why Wynne wanted me to stay.  Play to my strengths, and everything.  I think she knew that I wouldn’t want to leave you anyway.  It’s always ‘save the world, Alistair!’ but you-”

He laughed a little at himself.

“You know, I was just about to say something very sentimental, and I bet you would have woken up right when I said it.  You’d never let me hear the end of it.  There’d be no winning an argument with you ever again.”

She laid there still, no expression to give any sign of waking.

“Ah, to the void with it.” He took her hand in his, limp though it was.  “It’s funny, we’ve only know each other for about a year.  And yet...I can’t imagine a world without you.  Is that strange?”

Only silence answered him.

“Ah, well.  I half hoped you’d wake to tease me.  That’s how it happens in stories, right?  I guess I’ll have to think of something else.”

He went on, anything that would come to his head.  He told her about their friends pacing and griping at each other while she was being healed, until Wynne came from the room, bloody with her silver hair escaping ponytail, but with only a look of relief on her face.  He told her about how Queen Anora somehow managed to look both relieved and disappointed at news of her health.  He told her about how Zevran kept watch outside of her room, how he was unsure if the man ever slept.  

He told her about how brown and grey skies seemed almost warm and welcoming when compared the the blood red of the sky during the battle, and how even the smalled scrap of blue seemed foreign and almost wrong, as if somehow there could be blue skies, even after all of this.  

The shadows of the room shifted, his throat become more dry, but he barely paid those details any attention.

“And then of course,” he went on, “I’ll have to figure out how to tell you about poor Stormbringer. I’m sure Wade will be happy to make you another one.  Herren, on the other hand...”

“Mmmm...”

“Yes, he can be a little touchy, if you ask me-” Alistair did a double take.

Luna’s brows were furrowed.  She began to turn her head towards him, and then winced in pain, her hand grasping his reflexively.  Relief welled up in him, a feeling of overwhelming warmth and gratitude to the Maker or to Andraste, but most of all to Luna.

“Hello, love.” he choked out, unable to care how he sounded.

Her eyes were only barely opened, but she smiled gently.  “Alistair,” she whispered, her voice raspy and light.  Her smile faded, and she closed her eyes again while taking her hand from his.  Before he could ask, she put her hands against the blankets and gripped them, taking a deep breath, then another, then a third.  She put her hands on her chest, as if to feel a heartbeat, and then to her bandage, where she winced in pain again despite the attempted ligthness of her touch.  He remembered then; he’d seen her and other mages do this before.

“I...” she took another deep breath, “It’s real.  I stabbed the archdemon, and it fell, and then I fell, but...” she opened one eye, it seemed it was all she had energy for, “but it’s real.”

“Yes, love.”

“Are the others...?” Luna closed her eyes again, as if steeling herself.

“They made it.  All of them.”

A sigh of relief.  “Thank the Maker.” she whispered, putting her hand back out for him to hold, which he gladly took.  “And...Morrigan?”

He shrugged.  “Gone, it seems.  Haven’t seen her since we left the gate.” 

Luna sighed, but said nothing else about her.  She took another deep breath, and squeezed his hand.  

“What...” She moved her head to face him again, more slowly this time, and only winced slightly, “What were you saying before?”

Oh, Maker. 

“Saying before?” he said airily, almost too innocently.

She opened both of her eyes to a squint.  “You were saying something when I was waking.  I...I think you mentioned Herren?”

He sighed.  “Well, best to get it over with.”  He gently placed her hand back on the bed and reached behind the bedside table for Stormbringer.  Or, at least, what was left of it.  Though the hilt was mostly unscathed, the blade itself had been broken, leaving less of a blade and more of a jagged edge.

Luna frowned, then closed her eyes while taking a deep breath.  She opened her eyes again, along with her mouth to speak, but before she could Alistair started to laugh.  

“What-” she frowned more, “Why are you laughing?”

“You’re pouting,” he said, his voice more sing-song then he intended.

“Excuse me, I do not pout.” Luna, said, her eyes narrowing, and her pout growing more pronounced.  When he laughed more, he looked over at her, where she was valiantly trying and failing to not laugh, her pout twitching almost into a smile.

“Either way,” she attempted to lift up her chin in the lofty way she did, but the pain of it seemed to stop her, “Much to be done.  I’ll need to talk to Wade.  We’ll also need to send some sort of missive to other grey Wardens, won’t we?  And then-”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Alistair shook his head, moving his arms widely in front of him “What you need to do is rest.  You can barely even move properly.”

“But-”

“No buts,” he countered, “I’m immune to your pouts, woman, and your Mabari eyes.”  

Luna snorted.  “You’re just lucky I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“You’re proving my point, dear.”

She turned to him slightly, eyes dreamy and gentle, smile filled with warmth.  He cleared his throat.  Maybe not so immune after all.  He rubbed his temple before running his hand through his hair, chuckling and shaking his head as he stood up.

“The others aren’t here, but Zevran’s outside.  I’ll go tell him you’re awake.”  

Halfway to the door he heard Luna’s voice. “Alistair?”

He turned around, and she was still smiling.  

“I love you.”

He could feel his ears turning red.  It wasn’t anywhere near the first time she said it, and yet...

“And I you.” he said, rolling his shoulders as he left, the tension in them all but gone.

On the other side of the double doors lay a long, drafty pallace hallway.  To the right of the door was Zevran, not-so-casually sharpening a blade.  To the left was Sunny, who sat still and at attention, making him look like one of the many mabari statues spread across Ferelden.  

Zevran looked at him, alert, but with telling bags under his eyes.  Sunny stayed still.

“She’s awake-” Alistair said, but before he could say anything else Sunny’s whole demeanor shifted.  He barked, wagging his tail, and ran past Alistair, nearly knocking him over.  

“Sunny!” he heard Luna exclaim, before the telling thump of a large dog that believes himself a lapdog, and an undignified groan from Luna.

“Good...boy...” he heard her murmur.

Alistair snorted, shaking his head.  “As I was saying, Luna’s awake, but she’ll probably need some more sleep soon.”  He watched Zevran yawn and stretch, blade still in hand. 

“And she might not be the only one.” Alistair added. “Not to sound ungrateful, but I don’t think she was in much danger.  At least, she wasn’t alone in there.”

“Two are better than one, yes?” Zevran said, putting his knife back in its sheath, “Besides, we have a saying in Antiva.  ‘The more the light shines on a man, the more shadow he makes for a blade to hide.’”

Alistair wrinkled his nose.  “Really?  That’s a thing you say regularly?”

“Well not regularly,” Zevran said with a shrug, “But it is known that many people benefit from the end of the world, even if only in the short run.” 

Alistair laughed bitterly.  “Well, if the blight has taught me anything, it’s that that’s true in Ferelden too.”  

“That’s the spirit.” Zevran patted Alistair on the shoulder.  He peaked into the room, watching Sunny lick Luna’s face.  Alistair watched the man, how much younger he looked now than when they had first met.  It seemed it took less than a year for Zevran’s world to shift entirely too.

Alistair put a hand on Zevran’s shoulder, “I’ll take your place on watch. Go ahead.”  

Zevran smiled, a small expelling of breath that was either faint laughter or a relieved sigh.  “Thank you, my friend.”  

The last thing he heard before the door closed was Zevran’s overly chipper voice, “And so our lovely warden wakes!”

With the doors shut, the pallace hallway became silent, leaving Alistair alone with his thoughts.  He thought of Luna, awake but barely, already making plans and to-do lists.  What had she mentioned, a missive to the nearest wardens?  Perhaps if I could get started on that, he thought, she might actually rest. 

He began to write it in his head.  How would Duncan have written it?  Letters Duncan wrote tended to be casual, perhaps because Alistair was his subordinate.  Besides, he didn’t know the name of the Warden-Commander of Orlais, anyway.

“’To whom it may concern...’ yes that will do,” he muttered to himself, “Equal parts respectful and passive-aggressive.  The true warden way.”  It was a start.

Much to be done, after all. 

DA100 #13: The End (?)

[cosmiciaria]

In defense of Dragon Age 2 (review - no spoilers - long post!)

It seems I'm only allowed to play games in disorder, because I played this one after Inquisition, and guess what I'm almost at the end of now (yes, you guessed it, Origins). But it's not a problem for me, because after I *checks notes* ejem, played, uhm, like nine playthroughs of Inquisition, cof, cof, I've learned all the tiny details and branches and possible endings of each installment. So this game's story wasn't a surprise in many aspects – although there were still things I didn't know or I didn't expect.

So DA2 is the black sheep of the family, and somehow I can see why. It differs greatly from the origin prologue you get to play in the first one, and the silent protagonist is gone, replaced by an already created and established character, Hawke. Hawke can be male or female, mage, rogue or warrior – but they are only human. We are ripped off of the option of choosing between races.

And that's not the only thing the game takes away from us – we are used to travel around Ferelden, searching for allies, to fight the Archdemon, because the End is Nigh and we Must Save the World united with friends and so on – here, it's just a city. We only get to know Kirkwall, a Free Marches city that used to be owned by the Imperium and now rejoices in its so-called freedom. Kirkwall consists in some neighborhoods and some notorious buildings, but that's it. It's just the city. And I daresay, it's another protagonist of the game.

Yes, you get to go outside a few times – you even go through the ( I don't know WHY) still mandatory Deep Roads quest and whatnot – but the main storyline will still happen inside the city walls.

And that's… not so bad. But I'll get there in a moment.

So you play as Hawke, the older sibling of the Hawke family. You're escaping from Lothering, which you may remember from Origins – yes, it's the same town you visit right after Ostagar. Lothering has been overrun by darkspawn and so you take your mother and your two younger twin siblings with you: Carver, a warrior, and Bethany, an apostate mage.

In your way to the port, you come across Aveline, a well seasoned captain, and her husband Wesley, a templar. Wesley isn't in a very good condition but you still allowed them both to join your escape.

It isn't so long before the darkspawn reach you, and you make your last stand here.

Now, in this part of the prologue, what matters the most is the class you chose for Hawke. If Hawke is a mage, Bethany, the other mage, will perish at the hands of the ogre that is leading this barricade of darkspawn. If Hawke is a warrior/rogue, it will be Carver the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice so his family would survive. As I have stated in my Inquisition review, I love mages, so of course I created a mage Hawke, and so I watched Bethany, so young and rebellious, die in front of my eyes (Wesley, Avelin's husband, dies as well but we don't care much for him sorry not sorry).

Choosing a class isn't a minor or just a gameplay thing here, because it leads to two very different stories. Carver is resentful with you, he blames you for the death of his twin, and he can't get over the idea that you (and him, as well) are being hunted by templars. He can even become a templar if you choose the required options – so ironic, you a mage and your own brother a templar! His inferiority complex makes it really hard to get on well with him. Bethany, on the other hand, seems to care more for her older sibling, and bears a great admiration for their father, who was a mage and the one who taught her everything. She's guilty over the fact her family is doing everything they can to protect her from the templars and the Circle, and her attitude towards Hawke always follow that line. Her destiny has more options than Carver, though, so it makes me think that maybe Bethany was the "canon" sibling who survived – Still, I always play as a mage so I'm used to Carver by now and it feels kind of contradictory to see Bethany alive and well.

Amidst the chaos, a dragon appears, stretching its wings – it destroys the rest of the darkspawn, and soon we see that it's not just a beast. It transfigures into a human, quite known for us DA's fans: Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds, Morrigan's mother. She's saved us, but of course she wants a little favor in return, nothing too problematic. For those who are wondering "but HEY I killed Flemeth in Origins", well this encounter happens before you do that. And if you know anything about Flemeth is that she always comes back.

Finally, you reach destination, the almighty Kirkwall, with its columns that seems to go on forever into the sky. Here, you'll start over. Here, you'll pave your way to your future. And the plot begins!

The story is divided into three well marked acts: the first Act you'll be saving money to go on an expedition to the Deep Roads to gain enough coin and reclaim the Hawke estate in Kirkwall; the second Act has you going around playing the diplomatic link between the Viscount and the Qunari who have made the city their headquarters; and the third Act, well, everything blows up. Literally, I might add.

Between the prologue and Act 1, one years passes. Between Act 1 and 2, three more years go by; and finally, Act 3 happens three years later as well. The whole story takes up like 8 years or more inside the same city. This… wasn't a good decision on the developers, in my opinion, but I'll say it after I talk a little about the characters.

First we have Hawke, our Champion. Their personality varies between diplomatic – sarcastic – upfront and direct. And this time is easier to know because gone are the days with the many responses available and now we have the wheel which shows you an icon displaying the "tone" of your reply. If there's something common across all the Hawkes you can create, is that they care for their family, they want to recover what's theirs, and there's no stopping them. They are loved by those around them and seen as a leader. Loyalty is a powerful word here, which will play a big part in the final act, because only those who are truly loyal to you will remain by your side. And it's endearing, really, to see the support of those characters that accompanied you the whole game. Oh, and they have voices. I say this because in Origins we have a silent protagonist (which took me aback considering I played Inquisition and 2 prior), and they are so well portrayed it makes them more human and approachable.

Now that we are on that topic, voice acting here is just FLAWLESS. I can't get over Gideon's voice for that stupid elf damn it.

Alright so, just like in the other games, you can recruit companions. I already spoke a little about Carver and Bethany, who are playable… for a time, at least. 

This is the first time we come across Varric, our favorite storyteller. Varric isn't only just your best bud for life here, but he's also the one telling Hawke's story: he'd been abducted by Cassandra Pentaghast (yes, the one from Inquisition) who wants to interrogate him about the Champion. Varric is like your north in the game, he's always there for you, he's always supporting you, he doesn't take sides, he's funny, he's welcoming and he cares so much that I want to hug him. Goodest best friend forever.

Aside from him, you'll be crossing paths with Aveline again, now a soldier in the guard. Aveline is the correct type of person: she takes pride in her job, she wants things to get done well, following the rules. She respects honor, dignity and justice, and she doesn't approve of taking advantage of "illegal" situations and underground activities. If she's on your good side, you'll get a great supporter and a great friend, who will got your back, always.

Fenris is an elf who comes from the Tevinter Imperium – if we know anything of Tevinter apart from its blood mages, it's that they are slavers. Fenris used to be a slave who managed, somehow, to escape from his master. He bears a burning hatred towards the Vints, mages and every slaver out there. He always remarks he's a free man and he will disapprove of your support for the mages or any kind of sympathy towards slavery. So much so, that I started my relationship with him in -10 because I was a mage.

Merril is a dalish elf whom you'll be recruiting after finishing Flemeth's little favor. Merril is a blood mage, and she doesn't see the demons as enemies, but rather friends. She intends to leave her clan and go live in the city, because she's sure she can help her kin from outside instead of remaining cloistered and secluded inside. This will grant her the dislike of all her clan's members, but that doesn't stop her. She's naïve, she doesn't seem to understand most of human customs, and she's quite direct because she can't see through sarcasm or white lies. She's the purest of the team, although her abilities may tell you otherwise.

Isabela isn't new for us, if you come from Origins. Here she'll be joining us again after losing her ship. Her intentions remain a mystery most of the game, but let's just say she's quite involved with the plot of the second act. She's a forced to be reckoned with: she doesn't mess around when things need to be done and she gets them done in her own way. I'm still a bit spiteful about her because she abandoned my team after the second act, although I thought I was doing everything right!

Sebastian is only available through the Exiled Prince DLC – he's a chantry brother whose family was brutally murdered and his estate back in Starkhaven lies headless. He's conflicted about whether to remain in the chantry or go back to reclaim his land. He's righteous, he doesn't accept any rule breaking and, to be honest, he's pretty dull – specially if you're trying to romance him only because of those shiny blue eyes. The fact that he only joins you after Act 1 supports this allegation, in the way that he's not available through the first part for party banter, which always adds a lot of more depth to the characters you're playing with.

And at last… we have Anders. For those of you who played Origins' expansion, Awakening, Anders isn't a new character either. This time, though, it's not just Anders: he's possessed by a spirit of Justice, the same Justice we meet in Awakening. Anders remains in control most of the time, but when he loses it or when he enters the Fade, it's Justice the one who takes over. Anders serves as a healer in Kirkwall, helping refugees for free. He wants to move on from his past as a Grey Warden and he fights for the rights of the mages who are being hunted by the templars. Oh, man, of course I would fall for the subversive mage! Boy was I deceived… He plays a large role in the final battle, which, depending on your choices and your principles, will change your view of him forever. Let's just say that he's a pretty hated character in the franchise.

In this game you'll have choices as well, and your comments and actions will bear points of friendship or rivalry with your companions. This doesn't mean that if you get 100 rivalry points with one of them they'll abandon you, no, it doesn't work like in Origins or in Inquisition. Here you have to see the bar in both directions: the closer it is to one of the extremes, the better. The danger zone is the central one: if you have little points of friendship or of rivalry, the companion is likely to abandon you. This is what happened to me with Isabela: I had a good chunk of friendship points with her, but it seems I needed to max them out, which I didn't, and thus she flew away, goodbye. You can even romance characters with high rivalry points, and their romance plays a little different because of it. As it says, it's "rivalry" and not "deep hatred with death wishes", so maybe it spices some things up in your relationship.

Each companion will have their own questline that stretches across all three acts, and if you want to have all your team available by the end of the game, I recommend you do them. Although… well, you won't have the whole team, but I won't spoil it for you.

So I mentioned before I would talk about why the eight year story decision wasn't a good take for me after speaking a little about the characters – well, it's simple. In those three year gaps, the story acts as if nothing happens. Yes, sometimes the characters say "hey, I haven't seen you in a while" or "that thing happened three years ago" or whatever, but it doesn't work well. For instance, if you romance Fenris, you'll sleep with him in the second act, and then he goes away, seemingly not wanting to continue with the relationship. Three year pass, and then you resume your romancing with him, and he's like "yes, idk why I left that night I so regret it lol" DUDE, you're like just two meters away from Hawke's house, are you truly telling me you didn't talk to them after what happened in these three years? 

The story plays as if there are no gaps in time. In fact, if you take away Varric's narration, which states that x amount of time happens between act and act, you won't even notice it! And that's the thing: I don't know why they chose to do this. I mean, I guess I understand the point, they wanted Hawke to make their own name, to be known and loved by the citizens as years went by, they wanted them to start in rags and rise to fortune, I get it. But something similar was accomplished with the Inquisitor in the third game: time passes, I believe almost a year, and you feel the love and respect you've earned from your companions. It didn't take my Inquisitor eight years for that. It didn't even take her half a month to get Cullen in love with her ok sorry. What I mean is, the eight years thing isn't well developed, and characters act as if no such time had passed, and the story is planned as well like that. It's almost as though they wanted to stray as far as possible from Origins in terms of design and choices, which is a great idea, but some things just don't add up.

For example, in Inquistion's expansion, Trespasser, two years have passed. And here you see, you feel that your characters have been away for long. They've all been following their own paths and when they finally reunite they catch up and speak about their futures and what they want for themselves. It truly feels like two years have passed. There's a huge impasse between the ending and the expansion, which marks a milestone, and you can understand why all these characters haven't seen each other for a while. Whereas between Act 1 and 2… it's like… yeah we went to the Deep Roads and yeah… hmm… Varric really three years and you still didn't hear of your brother or… wait is this letter by Carver just sent? I mean he's been away too long now but he could always send me letters why wait three years…. and so on. It breaks the continuity. In fact, it doesn't only do that, but it also makes your characters stupid. Are you telling me Anders has been in love with me for three years and he still hadn't done anything?? What are you, fifteen?

But apart from that, I believe this game is really good. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I enjoyed the mechanic regarding your siblings: their appearance changes depending of what preset for the face and skintone you choose for Hawke. I like the idea that only one of the twins is available throughout the game. I like that the gameplay has been improved from Origins, I love that as a mage you feel so destructive with all those spells, I love that it's fast paced and more colorful. I got also really involved with some of the companions, specially Anders, Fenris and Aveline. I love that, even though they may disagree with you on some topics, they still remain by your side if you were a good friend, because that's what friendship's about. Friendship/rivalry here feels like a human thing, something quite relatable, instead of just shoving gifts onto your companion so they'd like you better. I like that somehow all of your companions are entangled with what happens in the city, and this leads me to my final point about why DA2 is still a good game.

Kirkwall. Our vedette. Our goddess. Kirkwall is the scenario for 90% of the events of the game. We're not saving the world here. We just want the peace for the city. Who should rule? Whose forces should Hawke support? Is Hawke good enough to be Viscount? Are the templars doing a good job? Or is Knight-Captain Meredith going too far?

Political intrigue. And just one city. Not all of Ferelden. Just one bad person trying to control the strings in this small portion of land, not an army of zombies or a dragon ready to consume the world. I love that the plot is just restrained to this small thing, because it lets you go deeper into everyone's stories, and it doesn't mean that it gets less epic, on the contrary. I enjoyed the final boss here way more than I did with Corpypheus in Inquisition. Here Meredith has an actual goal and she's acting upon what she thinks it's right, and at some point and to some extent, she's right! But her methods are questionable, in the least. She's not just a bad guy for the sake of being a bad guy, like it happens with Corypheus. She's bad, but she has her reasons.

You don't get to know a lot of people, because you just know those who live in Kirkwall. The familiarity, the warmth of its streets, it's like you've been living there as well, sharing with these characters and learning about their pasts. Instead of allowing you to see a huge picture with hundreds of characters involved, you just focus on those you care about, explore them more in depth. Sometimes covering everything doesn't lead you anywhere, so it might be better with just a handful of well written plot points and characters.

I'm not saying that Origins is the worst because of this, because it seems like I'm hating on it. In fact, I can't still speak much of it because I haven't finished my route yet (although I know how it ends). I'm just saying that Origins is good, that Inquisition is good, and that DA2 is also good. It's different, but still a good game. Sometimes you're tired of playing as the chosen one hero who must save the world, and maybe saving one city is enough for your heroic career.

I loved the game. I loved that it pushed my beliefs of helping the mages to the limit, to the point of questioning myself. I loved that it played tricks on me like that with the romance option. I loved the sarcastic Hawke, such a well written script. Also, Cullen is here so of course I'd love it.

Just… don't hate it that much. And if you still haven't played it, give it a shot. You might be surprised.

[clarosowrites]

Velvet

    Denerim did not suit Morrigan. It was noisy, everyone shouting to be heard over the rest. The air was stale and unmoving. And the looks that she got from people. Traders and shopkeepers saw her and their mouths puckered up like they were sucking on a lemon. The nobles that came to see the Wardens glared at her, as if just her presence was an affront. Others, the ones they passed in the street, simply ignored her. At least until they got too close--close enough to see her Fade-touched eyes--then they jumped back, eyes wide, and scurried away. That was better than disgust, at least. She was used to fear.

    The tailor, a thin, pale woman with hunched shoulders, was watching her now, squinting at her from across the shop. Goosebumps rose on her arms.  Trying to ignore her, Morrigan turned towards the rest of her group.

     Zevran and Lelianna were arguing over the quality of a leather jacket, both gesturing wildly. Alistair stood behind Wynne with a vacant expression, arms were piled high with bundles of yarn, as she inspected knitting needles.

    The witch gravitated towards Amell. The Warden was running her fingers over bolts of fabric.

     "See anything you want?" She asked, brushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes.

     "No." Morrigan replied. The other mage hummed quietly and returned to inspecting fabric. Out of the entire group, she appreciated Clara Amell the most. She was reserved, a woman of action rather than words, and a competent leader. And despite being a Circle mage, she was quite powerful. It was...nice, to have someone to talk with about the intricacies of their craft, and not to be talked at or scolded like Flemeth did.

     Absently, she felt a bolt of pale blue material. She gasped softly; it was soft, much softer than she expected. She ran the tips of her fingers across it again. 

    "That's nice." Clara said.

    Morrigan jerked her hand back from the fabric and looked elsewhere. "I suppose."

    "It'd make a nice shirt." She picked up the bolt. "Warm, too."

     "It is unnecessary. I have plenty of clothing and I'm sure we have more useful things to spend money on."

     She snorted. "Most of your clothes are rags. If we have enough coin for Lelianna's makeup, we can afford to have you not freeze to death."

    Despite the fact that Clara was right, her pride stung. Her clothes were old and worn and patched thrice over, but they were suitable. "I am perfectly able to fend for myself." She snapped."I did not freeze in the WIlds and I will not freeze in this horrid city."

     She looked down at her, narrowing her eyes. "You know what?" She tucked the fabric under her arm. "I'm getting it for you."

    "What? No!" She tried to snatch it back, but Clara ducked out of the way and held it above her head. Morrigan jumped for the bolt of fabric and missed. Her friend giggled. She yanked on the taller woman's arm, and hissed, "Stop, you are being ridiculous!"

     "No, you are!" She laughed.

     Morrigan growled, reaching for the fabric.

     "A-hem!"

     They froze. The tailor was glaring at them, hands on her hips.

     She glared right back, untangling herself from her friend and crossing her arms. Clara muttered an apology. The tailor huffed and returned to glaring at the other patrons.

    "I'm still getting it for you."

     She rolled her eyes. "Do what you will, Warden. But that color is absolutely atrocious."

     Clara grinned. "Don't worry, they have others."

     "Here." That was all the warning Morrigan had before a pile ofblack fabric landed on top of her open grimoire.

     She looked up to see Clara standing over her. "I am busy."

    "Too bad." She plopped down on the bed, jostling her.

     Morrigan sighed and crossed her arms, resolutely not looking at the Warden.  But, like the pest she was, she leaned into her field of vision with her eyebrows raised and her eyes darting between her and the fabric.

     "Ugh!" She finally exclaimed, pushing her away. She grabbed the bundle. "Damnation, Clara, you--" It was the fabric from weeks ago, startling soft between her fingers. And sewn into shirts, most in black and a few in a deep blood red. And beneath those a long skirt in a stiffer fabric. "What?"

    She smiled. "I had to guess on some of the measurements, so they might not fit perfectly. But it's not like the darkspawn will care what we look like."

    Morrigan gaped at her. She had completely dismissed the exchange at the tailor's, thinking it no more than a way to tease or embarrass her. But Clara had not, evidently.

     She turned away and cleared her throat. "I did not know you could sew." She said as evenly as she could.

     "We all needed something to pass time in the Circle, and I wasn't a fan of reciting the Chant. Oh," Rummaging through a pocket, she pulled out a necklace and held it out to her. "before I forget."

    "Oh." She took it, cradling the gold in her palms. A large, jeweled pendant on a heavy chain, it twinkled in the candlelight.

     "I thought they'd match." Clara shrugged, standing. "Anyway, we're eating supper soon if you're hungry. Lelianna claimed she found something Orlesian at the market, so that should be fun."

    The door shut behind her and Morrigan sat for a while, trying to swallow past the heavy lump in her throat. When she could breath deeply again, she stood and pulled on the skirt and a very low cut shirt, relishing the brush of the fabric against her skin. She fastened the necklace around her neck and went to join the others. 

   The lively conversation paused when she approached. She felt taller somehow--was that normal when one wore new clothes--and she felt her companions' eyes on her. But, for the first time, it was not unwelcome.  

[tearsofwinter]

Behind Closed Doors

Rating: G Summary: Varric is a storyteller, and sometimes that mean making up lies to protect the ones you care about. So what did really happen between Fenris and Anders during their time in Kirkwall? A Fenders story told from Varric’s POV

Varric looked up when he heard a hard knock on his door. "Your Inquisitoralness! What a surprise. Did you need something, or are you here to admire the dwarf?" Smiling, he pulled up a chair for the Inquisitor to sit. "I'll say it now, if you're here for Cassandra, tell her the newest 'Swords and Shields' will be done when it's done. You can't rush masterpiece."

"If your revenge on Cassandra is making her wait for the next installment... it's working. Promise not to make her wait too long. The last I saw her, it looked like her head was about to explode." Trevelyan sat where Varric pointed. He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, closer to the dwarf. There was a gleam in his eyes, one that Varric recognized from rabid fans. "About 'The Tale of the Champion', I've got a few questions."

"Oh boy, here we go." Varric folded his arms and sighed. "Look, kid, the thing about Orsino, it was added for extra excitement. In hindsight, I would edit that part out. Now, if it's about Hawke, I hear she's out by the ramparts. You can ask any questions you have about the Champions yourself."

Trevelyan scoffed. He scooted his chair closer until their knees bumped. Varric leaned away- only a tad- for breathing room, but Trevelyan took it as a sign to invade the other's space even more.  "I just came back from talking to Hawke...and I can't believe you lied! You kept it a secret from me! How could you?” 

"Of course I lied. It's a occupational hazard." Varric placed a hand on the young man's chest, and gently pushed him back into his seat. In the middle of his spiel, Trevelyan stood up and inched closer and closer until their nose touched. "What I'd lie about this time?"

"ANDERS IS ALIVE!"

Varric slapped a hand over the boy's mouth. "Shhhhh!!! You want the entire Inquisition to know?!" Nervously, he glanced around to check if anyone heard, but the door was closed and the room was empty. Still, it paid to be careful. Varric removed his hand. "Where'd you hear that from?"

"Hawke! We were talking, and I asked about Anders, how could she do that to him when they've been friends for over a decade. He protested peacefully for years, but no one listened. He was pushed to a corner, and did what he had to do!" Cheeks red from a lack of air, words spilled out of Trevelyan's mouth as fast as his mind spun. Varric felt the lack of oxygen himself as he watched the Inquisitor try not to trip over his own tongue. Trevelyan sucked in a much needed breath, and continued. "And so Hawke asked me what was my opinion on the Chantry explosion, and I said, good riddance!"

Realizing his own outburst, Trevelyan clapped a hand over his own mouth. Sheepishly, he looked at Varric, ready to be ridiculed or scolded, but he saw no judgment in the dwarf's eyes. Instead, there was understanding. His shoulders slumped in relief, and he sighed.

"So Hawke told you the truth then?" Varric guessed. "She told you she didn't kill Anders?"

"Yes! So what's the truth? What really happened?" Trevelyan was trembling with excitement. "Please tell me!" 

"Alright, alright." Varric held his hands up in surrender. "But first, I need to know something. What's your opinion on Anders? Why the..." He gestured at the young man's jittery state, "interest?"

"He's an idol," Trevelyan said without hesitation. "At least he's my idol. I've heard stories about him, about how he escaped Kinloch hold seven times, how he joined the Grey Wardens and fought darkspawns. I know what they say about him, that he's a terrorist, a murderer, but I don't think so. He did what needed to be done, even if it branded him a villain. So I have a question for you, two questions actually, regarding Anders."

"You can ask, but I can't promise I'll answer," Varric said, crossing his arms. "Give me your best shot."

Finally, the chance to get the answers to his burning questions was here. Trevelyan's bluster attitude vanished in a snap, and what was left behind was a bundle of nerves. A blush formed on his cheeks as he fidgeted in his seat. "Well...my first question is where is Anders? And my second one is..." He looked away, unable to meet Varric's gaze. "...is he single? He's not seeing anyone is he?"

Varric burst out laughing, stunned by the unexpected question.   

"This...this isn't funny!" Trevelyan shouted, indignant and hurt by his friend's reaction. "I'm being serious!

Varric wiped away the tears at the corner of his eyes. "Sorry," he said, a few chuckles still escaping, "You caught me by surprise. I'm not laughing at you. But I have some bad news for you." He laid a consoling hand on Trevelyan's shoulder, and shook his head. "Anders is seeing someone, and the two of them are such lovebirds, it makes you want to puke."

"But...but it's only been a year since Kirkwall! He found someone in that short amount of time?"

"I might've omitted some things, fudged up some details in my book. Hazard of the trade and all that, you know how it is."

"You're saying Anders had a lover while he was in Kirkwall? Since before the explosion? Impossible." Trevelyan couldn't wrap his head around it. Ignoring Varric's novel, none of the reports or heresy about Anders mentioned a lover. If he had one, someone should've noticed. Everything he knew about Anders said he acted alone; his sole companion was the spirit in inside him. It wasn't any Trevelyan's business, but he was curious. "Who is it? Is it someone I know?"

Varric scratched his chin, contemplating how much he should tell the Inquisitor. "You...could say you know him."

"So it's a man!" Trevelyan paused, then took in a scandalized breath. "Maker, Varric is it you?"

"No! No, no, no. Shit, I like Blondie, but not like that."

"Aw, you called him Blondie. After I heard you talking with Vivienne about Kirkwall, I thought you hated him."

Varric sighed. "I did for a while. It took some thinking, but I realized I was more disappointed in myself. I failed him like I failed Batrand...But enough about me." Varric waved it aside. He was never good at dealing with feelings, and he wasn't going to start now. "You wanted to know who Anders' mysterious lover is? I can tell you, but you have to keep it a secret. It's a matter of life or death here."

"Cross my heart and hope to die. You know you can trust me, Varric. I'm the most trustworthy guy there is. I even pardoned Anders, except Josie said that could be bad publicity. Said we should wait until Celene's ball to make the announcement. I don't see what's all the fuss is about. I'm a mage. It's not like they're going to li-"

Varric slapped another hand on Trevelyan's mouth. He forgot that once Trevelyan got going about something he felt passionate about, he couldn't shut up. Just like another mage Varric knew. "Alright, alright. I got it, sheesh."

Removing his hand, Varric stepped away from the Inquisitor and began pacing. Where to begin, he wondered. The subject was harder for him to talk about than he thought. Sure, he wrote a novel about Hawke's life that included some of her sexual and romantic exploits, but Anders' relationship was different. It was much harder to grasp and put into words.

"Fenris," Varric blurted it out. Best to just get it out there. Grab the bull by its' horn and all that crap.

Trevelyan blinked, sure that he'd heard wrong. "Excuse me?"

"I said, Anders' lover is Fenris. They have been together for years now. Closing in on a decade now if I recall."

"..."

"..."

"...You're shitting me," Trevelyan finally whispered, then a little louder. "You have got to be shitting me. No. You're telling me Anders and Fenris are together? They're lovers? But in your 'Tale of the Champion', they hate each other! They could barely be in the same room!"

"That was done deliberately. It's easy for Anders to blend into a crowd. Grow a beard, dye his hair- anything. It's harder for Fenris to blend in. His marking makes him stand out. Since everyone assumes Fenris hates Anders, he's the last person they suspect. No one is going to think the tall blond next to Fenris is Anders."

In absolute awe, Trevelyan’s jaw dropped. “Maker, Varric, you’re a genius.” 

“I try my best.” Varric took the compliment and bowed.

"How'd they end up together? I thought Fenris hated mages? Did you lie about that too?"

"No, that part is true. I definitely didn't lie about that"

"So what happened? Out of everyone, why did Anders end up with Fenris, the mage hating elf?" 

Varric shrugged helplessly at the question

Compared to Hawke and Isabela, heck, even compared to Aveline with Donnic, Fenris and Anders were less outwardly affectionate. What they had was...quiet. Subtle. They didn't hold hands or kiss in public; at gatherings, it was rare for them to be seen sitting next to each other. For a long time, Varric doubted the validity of their relationship.

"To tell the truth, I don't know when they started. How they met, and how much they hated each others' guts, that part in the book was true. Day in and day out, they fought all the damn time. But then one day, it all stopped. Poof, no more fighting. When we noticed and asked what happened, why were they suddenly civil to each other, they told us they were in love. Ha, in love, can you believe it? Because we certainly didn't. We thought it was a joke they were trying to pull on us."

"Anders and Fenris didn't say anything. They didn't try to correct us or prove a point." Varric walked off and poured himself a drink. He realized he couldn't do this sober. Not that their story was difficult to tell, but if you ever read "Swords and Shield", you'd know love stories weren't his strong suit. He knocked back a shot of whiskey, shuddering as the alcohol burned a trail down his throat.

"I consider myself an observant man- have to be in my line of work- but when it came to Anders and Fenris, I was blind. I doubted them for a while. I made bets with Hawke and the others about if they were real or fake; how long they'll keep up the act. You know, those sort of asshole shit. It went on for months."

"But then one day, Hawke asked a few of us to go with her to Sundermount for some 'bandit looting' as she calls it. The group included Rivani, me... and the two angry glow sticks." Varric poured himself another glass of whisky. He thought about drinking it, but then decided against it. He pushed the glass aside, and turned back to face the Inquisitor. "See, the thing was, after seeing how much Fenris and Anders fought whenever they were together, Hawke made it a rule to separate the two. If Fenris was there, Anders wasn't, and vice versa. That worked out for the most part. Kept the peace in the group. So when Hawke changed it up, Isabela and I raised our eyebrows at the combination, but we guessed she had her reasons. Maybe it was a test, or maybe she forgot, but Fenris and Anders were brought along together this time."

"I thought they'd begin fighting as soon as we left Kirkwall. The jig was up. But to our surprise, Anders didn't bring up mage rights, and Fenris didn't say a word about blood magic. He could've too. We fought some maleficars at the bandit camp. It would've been easy for him to score some points against Anders, and if this was the old Fenris, he would've rub it in Anders' face, telling him this was the reason mages deserved to be imprisoned in Circles. None of that happened though. After the fight, and as Hawke was looting the bodies, I saw Fenris walk up to Anders. They didn't say a word. Instead, Fenris brushed the back of his hand against Anders', and in return Anders offered him back a reassuring smile."

"And that was when you knew they were serious about each other?" Trevelyan asked.

Varric sat back down next to the Inquisitor. He groaned as his knees creaked from old age. "I wish I could say that, kid. I only realized the importance of what they did in hindsight," he said, "It was on our way back to Kirkwall when it dawned on me, on all of us, that they were serious and wasn't faking their relationship at all."

"It was getting dark in Sundermount. No way we could get back to Kirkwall in time, so we decided to set up camp. The tents were up, the bed rolls were out, and Anders was knocked out like a bronto. He was drained of mana and needed to recuperate. The rest of us- Hawke, Isabela, Fenris, and I- sat by the fire, enjoying our meager meals and exchanging juicy gossip. Isabela was in the middle of telling us how she swindled a man out of his trousers when we heard a loud thundering noise. For a heartbeat, we thought it might've been a wyvern, or even a dragon. But no, it turned out to be just Anders. He snored while he slept. And boy was it loud. It's not an exaggeration to say the trees shook and the ground rumbled when he snored. Okay, okay, I might be exaggerating. I'm a storyteller, it's my job to exaggerate. " Varric lifted his hands up in surrender when Trevelyan gave him a skeptical look.

"My point is, Anders made a ruckus. Isabela suggested we stuff a cloth inside Anders' mouth, but Hawke decided to go with a more diplomatic route. She wanted to wake Anders. When she got up to shake Anders' awake, Fenris grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her. 'Don't wake him. He rarely falls into deep sleep because the nightmares. He needs the rest,' he said. Hawke asked what were they going to do then? The noise was bound to attract something nasty."

"To our surprise, Fenris tiptoed to where Anders slept, and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. Slowly, he turned Anders' head until his airway aligned, and immediately, the snoring stopped. We were stunned. The one act alone, showed us how close they were to one another." Remembering the way Fenris tenderly stared at Anders' sleeping face, Varric scratched his cheek out of awkwardness. "I was struck by the difference I saw in Fenris. He looked younger and happier than I'd ever seen him. Carefree, in fact, with a relaxed smile on his lips. When Anders stirred, disturbed by the sound of our voices, Fenris bent his head to soothe him with a soft murmur of his voice."

"I've seen some shit. Bartrand wasn't a saint, and I've walked in on Hawke and Isabela plenty of times. But for some reason seeing Fenris unguarded, his expression tender and vulnerable...it was unspeakably intimate. Hawke, Isabela, and I- we all blushed. We turned our gaze and gave them their privacy. I realized something that day..."

"What?" Trevelyan asked when Varric didn't continue. "What did you realize?"

"I realized, even though Anders' and Fenris' love was less demonstrative than those of Hawke's and Isabela's, a mysterious and passionate intensity existed between them. Once I knew where to look, it was obvious. So when I decided to write the 'The Tale of the Champion', I wanted to respect their privacy. It was the least I could do."

"Where are they now?" Trevelyan asked. "Are they still together? Are they happy?"

Varric shrugged. "The last I heard, they were together near the Tevinter border, hunting and killing slavers. The letter I last received was from Fenris by the way. His letter was short and succinct, but yes, they sounded happy."

Trevelyan smiled. He threw his arms around Varric and gave him a tight hug. "Thank you for telling me, Varric. I feel like I got a whole new perspective of my hero. Yeah, I'm sad he's taken, but at least it sounds like he's with a great guy that loves him."

Varric laughed, tapping at the Inquisitor's arms to let go. "Anytime kid. You want to hear more about Anders, I've got you covered."

"Actually...I do have another question."

"What is it?"

"So about Orsino, did he really turn into a 5 armed blob monster?" 

"Alright, that's it." Varric stood from his chair and shoved the laughing Trevelyan towards the door. "Enough questions for the day. Goodnight, Your Inquisitoralness."

A/n: This is based off a prompt I wrote back in Feb 2017. Finally got a chance to write it out. Like I said.......it takes me a long time to get to prompts/requests....