#i need to either replay the fight w loghain or find a decent video reference for it so i can finish this piece lol

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday Thursday

Tagged by @daggerbean @ndostairlyrium @inquisimer @greypetrel and @plisuu - Thank you for tagging me! I fear many of you have already done your thing for the week, but for whenever @dreadfutures @pinayelf @zenstrike @dungeons-and-dragon-age @vakarians-babe and you!

Not fandom things, but I am still working on my yarn project (shawl? lap blanket? idk, I'm having fun).I had to pull a bunch of lines to fix something, but I'm making progress again and loving how this is coming out.

Writing-wise, I just finished a first draft of an Exchange piece (hard-won) and I've been looking over a Zevwen thing I started a few months ago. The research bit is the reason I set this aside instead of finishing it a few months ago, but the heart of it is steady.

This is part of one of my favorite scenes so far (700ish words):

Water sloshed in the tub behind her. Zevran’s fingertips brushed her elbow when he stepped past, and she adored the comfort of it even as she silently willed him not to ask. 

“Do you know,” he said. “I know that we were convinced to leave the alienage, but—what do you think of find a way into that clinic in the morning?” 

Wen turned to look at him, running the cloth through her wet hair, and he smiled at her. 

“I do think we can take them, should we bring the correct people,” he added. “These words about some sort of illness are clearly all lies, whatever they say.”

Oh—the realization had hit her more than once, swift and unerring as an arrow to the chest, but she had it again now: she loved him. Perhaps she would explain the feeling away later, perhaps she would shove it off for some other day. It didn’t matter. But right now—right now his hair clung to his face in a distinctly unattractive way, he was making an odd face while he dried his neck, and the skin on his hands was wrinkled with water. 

He was the most beautiful thing in the whole of Thedas and she loved him unequivocally. 

“Alright,” she said, and turned away again. “Yes. We should.”

Her hand ached when she pressed her thumb to the wound, but at least it had stopped bleeding. Wen bound it before she climbed into bed. She’d hesitated to ask Zevran to stay—after all that, she’d no idea what she might say or do next—but he’d followed her to the massive bed anyway and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him to leave her. Instead, she twined her bare legs with his and wrapped her arm around his waist. If she laid her head on his chest, she couldn’t see him looking at her. 

They’d doused the lights. Only the warm light of the fire remained, dancing over the fine golden hairs over his chest. Wen watched them, listening to the steady beat of Zevran’s heart. His hand lifted and stroked through her hair after they’d been lying still for several moments. It felt nice, soothing, relieving some of the ache at the base of her neck. Just as she’d begun to doze, he spoke again. 

“I will not ask,” he said, and she tensed. “I said that I will not, mi vida, unless you tell me otherwise. But—why did you not tell me?” 

One of Nelaros’s eyes had been open. She remembered that. One open, one missing. You could see all the way through it to the stone floor beneath. When she’d taken the ring from his hand, she’d wondered if it would fit perfectly inside, as if it had always been meant to frame a wound rather than adorn a hand. 

“I didn’t know how,” she said, and it was the truth. She still didn’t know how and she’d already done it. But—it wasn’t the whole truth. She’d gone this far without outright lying to Zevran; there was no sense in stopping now. 

“I—didn’t want you to see me any differently.” 

“Truly? After everything I have told you?” 

There was a rumble of a chuckle in his chest. Wen steeled herself and lifted her head to look at him. His eyes glinted in the firelight, flashing gold, and as hard as she searched she could find no recriminations in them. 

“Alright,” she said at last. “It was stupid.” 

“I did not say so,” he pronounced, pressing a hand to his chest. 

Wen bared her teeth at him and he laughed at her, tipping his head back against the pillows. She loved his laugh, even when he was laughing at her; she loved the long line of his throat and the way he smiled at her when he didn’t think she was watching and she loved his grace, loved the way he wove through a battlefield like he anticipated every move of his opponent. She loved his hand in hers and the way he smelled and she loved him. 

She loved him. 

“I hate you,” she said, and tucked her face against his neck so she could nuzzle the soft skin there.