#in other words its the worst possible cullen we could ever get

[sandraugiga]

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[welllpthisishappening]

Welllp These Are Books: the February 2021 Edition

Most of my last month was spent on deadline and waiting for people to respond to my emails, which meant I did not have the time (or energy) to write much of anything, but had plenty of time to read, quite frankly, an absurd number of books. Some of which were very good, some of which were very cheesy, and some of which I have now told multiple people was quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. As always, though, what are my opinions if I am not sharing them with the internet? Ridiculous headlines, links, and those aforementioned opinions under the cut. As always, part two, feel free to send me any and all recommendations. It cannot possibly be worse than this one book. Seriously, you’ll understand in a second.

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Quite Possibly the First Book I’ve Gone Out of My Way to Buy On Release Day Since Breaking Dawn, Which Says a lot About Me. As a Person.

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she's struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can't seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.

The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre's Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta's orbit. But her temper isn't the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.

Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.

Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other's arms.

I’m not kidding when I tell you that I was counting the days until this came out. I was kind of indifferent to Nesta after the original ACOTAR books, but intrigued enough that I was like, I need to read this, and then I did read this and now I care quite a lot about Nesta. And how in love with Cassian she is. And vice versa. Because, let’s be honest, dude is in l o v e. There were some parts of the story I was not super into — namely, Ferye having to die in childbirth. Like, you’re telling me Cassian could have his guts hanging out at one point and we don’t know how to do a c-section? Nah, that ain’t it. Also, pregnancy as a storyline is not always my favorite thing, but more on that in a second. Also, also, here’s a bunch more words about ACOSF.

A “Huh, So That Happened” Sort of Ending. Which Was Disappointing.

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

Emberfall is crumbling fast, torn between those who believe Rhen is the rightful prince and those who are eager to begin a new era under Grey, the true heir. Grey has agreed to wait two months before attacking Emberfall, and in that time, Rhen has turned away from everyone--even Harper, as she desperately tries to help him find a path to peace.

Fight the battle, save the kingdom. Meanwhile, Lia Mara struggles to rule Syhl Shallow with a gentler hand than her mother. But after enjoying decades of peace once magic was driven out of their lands, some of her subjects are angry Lia Mara has an enchanted prince and a magical scraver by her side. As Grey's deadline draws nearer, Lia Mara questions if she can be the queen her country needs.

As the two kingdoms come closer to conflict, loyalties are tested, love is threatened, and an old enemy resurfaces who could destroy them all, in this stunning conclusion to bestselling author Brigid Kemmerer's Cursebreaker series.

I loved the first book in this series. Absolutely adored it. So much so that I pretty quickly got the second one and read it. Enjoyed that on its own, but like I said in that one ask, I’m fairly certain A Curse So Dark and Lonely could have very easily been a standalone story. Should have been a standalone story? There was just SO MUCH going on here, and not nearly enough of it was resolved. Plot points just hung by the end of the trilogy, I was not ever entirely convinced Rhen and Harper were actually in love, let alone liked each other, and I thought Rhen got the very short end of an exceptionally cracked stick by the time the whole story wrapped up. Really, I think this  tried to do too much in not enough time and there should probably be another book. Also Lia Mara getting pregnant was dumb. There I said it.

Free Books On Amazon Unlimited That Were Better Than Expected, But Also Read Like Fic

The Bargainer Series by Laura Thalassa

Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want … at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.

But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.

For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.

If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one.

No one is going to be able to convince me this wasn’t ACOTAR fan fic. I don’t care about timing or dates, or whatever. The similarities just...did not stop. In all three books, even. There were three books in this series, by the way. Most of which I really enjoyed. I read them all in like four days of email waiting, so they must have been doing something right. Des was a good love interest and I really liked the flashbacks in the first book. Also Callie didn’t super annoy me. That being said, whoever edited this book. Oof. Some of the prose was so goddamn cringe, I literally lol’ed. Right out loud. Every now and then it was like we had to be reminded that Des was a BAD GUY ™ but it felt very Edward “I’m a killer, Bella” Cullen, and Callie’s internal monologue was occasionally hysterical. Not in a good way. Also Temper was the worst. She was so annoying. Every time she talked, I was like, oh, her again. The first book was the best one.

HITTING ALL MY ROM COM BOXES! BASEBALL! ROMANCE! PINING! ONLY VAGUELY UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN THEY HAD SEX IN THE PORT JEFF DUGOUT BECAUSE I’VE BEEN IN THE PORT JEFF DUGOUT.

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey

Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.

Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)

Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)

Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)

Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)

Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...

Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite.

Legit, I saw the description for this and I was like—did I write this? Kind of. (Shameless plug to read my own rom com, it also has baseball and pining) It didn’t matter, I loved it. Seriously, it hit all my rom com boxes: childhood friends, best friend’s sister, coming back home under duress, FAKE DATING and, let’s be honest, I am not immune to the use of “baby girl” as an endearment. Every time Travis called Georgie “baby girl” I was like, oh, ok, this is cool. It was cool! I only have two quips. One, that the fake dating didn’t last a little longer. The pacing of the story felt very quick, but that’s also this genre’s style. So I kind of get it. And two, that it happened in Port Jefferson, which is a town in Suffolk County that I have not only been to, but have spent significant time in. Meaning I could picture every single thing, knew exactly where they were and have used the exit on the Northern State Parkway that the final moments of the book took place at. The Port Jeff girls basketball team won a Long Island championship last weekend. In real life, not the book.

In Which Spinoffs Continue to be my Kryptonite. Especially Well-Written Ones

Mistletoe and Mr. Right by Sarah Morgenthaler

Lana Montgomery is everything the quirky small town of Moose Springs, Alaska can't stand: a rich socialite with dreams of changing things for the better. But Lana's determined to prove that she belongs...even if it means trading her stilettos for snow boots and tracking one of the town's hairiest Christmas mysteries: the Santa Moose, an antlered Grinch hell-bent on destroying every bit of holiday cheer (and tinsel) it can sink its teeth into.

And really...how hard could it be?

The last few years have been tough on Rick Harding, and it's not getting any easier now that his dream girl's back in town. When Lana accidentally tranquilizes him instead of the Santa Moose, it's clear she needs help, fast...and this could be his chance to finally catch her eye. It's an all-out Christmas war, but if they can nab that darn moose before it destroys the town, Rick and Lana might finally find a place where they both belong...together.

I mentioned The Tourist Attraction in my January list, and this is the second in the Moose Springs trio. And it’s so good! I wish people were all as nice to Lana as Rick was. It’s what she deserved! More small-town antics, more kissing, another moose. This one was just as cute as the original book, especially because it brought back original characters and Zoey and Graham were so goddamn adorable as a committed couple I genuinely feared for the state of my teeth.

Enjoy the View by Sarah Morgenthaler

Former Hollywood darling River Lane's acting career is tanking fast. Determined to start fresh behind the camera, she agrees to film a documentary about the picturesque small town of Moose Springs, Alaska. The assignment should have been easy, but the quirky locals want nothing to do with River. Well, too bad: River's going to make this film and prove herself, no matter what it takes.

Or what (literal) mountain she has to climb.

Easton Lockett may be a gentle giant, but he knows a thing or two about survival. If he can keep everyone in line, he should be able to get River and her crew up and down Mount Veil in one piece. Turns out that's a big if. The wildlife's wilder than usual, the camera crew's determined to wander off a cliff, and the gorgeous actress is fearless. Falling for River only makes Easton's job tougher, but there's only so long he can hold out against her brilliant smile. When bad weather strikes, putting everyone at risk, it'll take all of Easton's skill to get them back home safely...and convince River she should stay in his arms for good.

Wrapping up the Moose Springs trio, this one might have been my least favorite, but that’s not really saying much. Since I loved them all pretty equally. River and Easton’s banter was grade-A, top-notch, which is a one-way ticket to my reading-heart. Maybe part of the problem (I say problem like there really was one) was that most of the story took place on a mountain. I kind of wanted more small-town shenanigans, and updates on the condos and the state of the town and Graham being mayor. Still, this was very cute. I swooned multiple times. I’ll probably read anything Sarah Morgenthaler writes from here on out.

Seriously, What Is YA? Does Anyone Know?

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to   seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after   she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent in the middle of the carnival season,   Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city, from its music to its fancy soirées and even its danger. She becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of  the group's enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain.

When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in Sébastien's own lair--the second dead girl to turn up in recent weeks--Celine battles her attraction to Sébastien and suspicions about his guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.

After a third murder, New  Orleans becomes gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the  loose--one who has now set Celine in his sights. As the murderer stalks  her, Celine finally takes matters into her own hands, only to find  herself caught in the midst of an age-old feud between the darkest  creatures of the night, where the price of forbidden love is her life.

Like I said last month, I put a hold on pretty much everything Renee Ahdieh had written in my library. And this was just as good as the last series I read. Her world building is just—chef’s kiss, gorgeous. I dream of writing this airy, magical way, that makes you feel like you’re in New Orleans. That being said, I do not know what kid is reading this because apparently this is YA and I had to read every single word to figure out what was going on. Now, I know there are two more books in the series, but this one felt like a lot of set up and I spent most of it being like...will this make sense eventually? It did, but only during a very rushed climax of final few chapters. The sequel isn’t available on Kindle at the library, and I haven’t bought it yet. So, that’s probably kind of telling.

In Which You Cannot Always Depend On Old Favorites

No Judgments by Meg Cabot

When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake.

But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.

But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.

I love Meg Cabot. That should be stated upfront and at the very beginning because for a very long time I have claimed that being Meg Cabot was my dream job. I’ve read pretty much every book Meg Cabot has ever written and was fairly certain I’d be into these once I did read them. Only I was...not. Not really. Everything in this book happened so quickly, I felt like I was the one in the hurricane. People were kissing and then they were having sex and there was a storm and pets and then—it was over? The pacing was all over the place, I had no idea why Drew and Bree liked each other, some guy kicked a dog at one point?? It was weird. Which leads us to—

No Offense by Meg Cabot

A broken engagement only gave Molly Montgomery additional incentive to follow her dream job from the Colorado Rockies to the Florida Keys. Now, as Little Bridge Island Public Library’s head of children’s services, Molly hopes the messiest thing in her life will be her sticky-note covered desk. But fate—in the form of a newborn left in the restroom—has other ideas. So does the sheriff who comes to investigate the “abandonment”.  When John Hartwell folds all six-feet-three of himself into a tiny chair and insists that whoever left the baby is a criminal, Molly begs to differ and asks what he’s doing about the Island’s real crime wave (if thefts of items from homes that have been left unlocked could be called that). Not the best of starts, but the man’s arrogance is almost as distracting as his blue eyes. Almost…

John would be pretty irritated if one of his deputies had a desk as disorderly as Molly’s. Good thing she doesn’t work for him, considering how attracted he is to her. Molly’s lilting librarian voice makes even the saltiest remarks go down sweeter, which is bad as long as she’s a witness but might be good once the case is solved—provided he hasn’t gotten on her last nerve by then. Recently divorced, John has been having trouble adjusting to single life as well as single parenthood. But something in Molly’s beautiful smile gives John hope that his old life on Little Bridge might suddenly hold new promise—if only they can get over their differences.

This isn’t a sequel SEQUEL, but another one of those “exists in the same universe,” or same town, as it were, and it was better than No Judgments. Molly and John actually had a few legitimate conversations before they started kissing. The conflict was still weird and sort of forced, this was not Meg’s usual banter (I fell like I can call her Meg at this point, y’know?) and, again, the ending just felt like it...happened. I don’t know guys, maybe I should just reread The Boy Is Back. Or that quasi Persephone-Hades series. It’s been awhile. On that one, at least. I read The Boy Is Back like six months ago.

ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING ROM COM THAT I CANNOT BELIEVE I FINISHED, SOMEONE GIVE ME A PRIZE FOR FINISHING THIS

Fight or Flight by Samantha Young

The universe is conspiring against Ava Breevort. As if flying back to   Phoenix to bury a childhood friend wasn't hell enough, a cloud of   volcanic ash traveling from overseas delayed her flight back home to   Boston. Her last ditch attempt to salvage the trip was thwarted by an   arrogant Scotsman, Caleb Scott, who steals a first class seat out from   under her. Then over the course of their journey home, their antagonism somehow lands them in bed for the steamiest layover Ava's ever had. And  that's all it was--until Caleb shows up on her doorstep. 

When pure chance pulls Ava back into Caleb's orbit, he proposes they enjoy their physical connection while he's stranded in Boston. Ava agrees, knowing her heart's in no danger since a) she barely likes Caleb and b) his existence in her life is temporary. Not long thereafter Ava realizes she's made a terrible error because as it turns out Caleb Scott isn't quite so unlikeable after all. When his stay in Boston becomes permanent, Ava must decide whether to fight her feelings for him or give into them. But even if she does decide to risk her heart on Caleb, there is no guarantee her stubborn Scot will want to risk his heart on her...

When I tell you guys that this was the worst book I have read in recent memory, I am not kidding. Might actually be the worst book I have ever read. Bar none. And that’s saying something because one time I had to read Ender’s Game in college and that, like, physically pained me. This was awful. Awful people. Awful plot. Awful resolution. AWFUL. Where to start? Well, I’m not going to apologize for spoilers, because God help us all, do not read this book. Ava has been through so many horrible things in her life it was like someone was trying to set a record. Bad parents, cheating ex-boyfriend, dead former best friend who was former because of the cheating ex-boyfriend. Naturally, this made her a control freak because—of course, or something. And Caleb! Oh my God, fucking Caleb Scott. The dickwad. I’ve never rooted for anyone to not get the girl more. When Ava “broke up” with him (they were never really together) I might have cheered. Shitty things does not give you an excuse to be a dick, and Caleb was a dick. Seriously, he started crying about how his ex-fiance KILLED THEIR BABY and I was like—this cannot possibly be a real book. It was! With lots of abortion opinions out of FUCKING nowhere, and weird possessive behavior from, like, every dude in it. Both Ava AND her best friend (not the dead one, a different one) got assaulted at one point. I kept reading solely because I was desperate to see how they rationalized Ava and Caleb getting back together at the end and they didn’t. He showed up on her flight when her boss came up with a fake work trip so he could sit next to her on the plane. What? WHAT?? It was so dumb. So bad. I can’t believe I read it. 

[lavellane]

“I’ll keep you warm.” for any pairing?

“i’ll keep you warm”

“Cold, creeping, crippling. Can’t cast. Chill in the blood, dull ache in my bones. Dying. Creators, I am dying.”

Lost in the camp’s grim silence and his own melancholy, Solas almost jumps when the spirit makes its’ presence known once more. He is not the only one; in the corner of his periphery he sees Sera tense, and Seeker Pentaghast’s callused fingers twitch instinctively for her blade. Cullen, just faintly visible outside of the campfire’s immediate glow, stands up from his seat in an instant, blinking back sleep and locking eyes with the strange young man as only a Templar could. Vivienne, never far from the Commander’s side these days, eyes the spirit with a similar, albeit far more intimating glare.

Cole stands awkwardly by the fire, centered in the middle of their somber camp circle as if he has been there the whole time. And perhaps he has. If Solas wasn’t so preoccupied with his own chaotic thoughts, the enigma of the boy’s circumstances would be cause for excitement - for utter amazement, even.

And yet, he feels no such emotions. Half a day into Haven’s destruction, and its’ loss seems to have snuffed the light out from every living soul that remains.

“Will someone be a dear and remove the parasite from our camp?” Vivienne asks tensely. “Or shall I be forced to deal with matters myself?”

Solas bites his tongue for once. She is tired, he thinks. And posturing. And terrified. That, at the very least, is something we all share in common.

Varric, uncharacteristically gloomy beside her, shakes his head. “Go easy on the kid,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on his feet. “He hasn’t given us any reason to distrust him.”

“After all that’s come to pass, I’d wager we have cause to distrust everything.” Cullen sighs, though the suspicion in his stature has dulled slightly, revealing more exhaustion than any real malice.

Cole, still staring transfixed at the fire, seems oblivious to the discourse he’s incited. Devoid of expression, he raises a pale, freckled arm out towards the embers, as if reaching for the source of the warmth itself.

“Fire to fix the freezing,” he continues, despite his audience only half listening. “But the flame flickers out. Fails. Like I failed when I couldn’t save them all.”

Is he channeling Ashara? Solas wonders. He lifts his head, observing the young man as inconspicuously as he can manage in the poor lighting. He casts a quick secondary glance at the Herald’s makeshift tent, sealed tight to ward off the howling Frostback winds.

“Is she awake?” He asks finally. He pointedly ignores the few stares he receives as he breaks his long-held silence. In a mood like this, Cole is the only person he can bring himself to talk to right now.

Well. Cole, and her. But that is another problem, for another day.

“No. She’s still in the snow. Shivering. Scared.”

“Ah. A nightmare, then.”

“Yes. She doesn’t know. It’s real for her.”

Cullen shifts uncomfortably in response, his eyes flickering from Cole to the Elven woman’s tent. “I … I’ll check on her.”

The crack in his voice betrays him, and all but confirms a suspicion Solas has held for some time - although in this instance, being right fills him more with irritation than any real sense of satisfaction. He stands up just as the light-haired man begins to move from his post, clearing his throat to gain his attention. “That is quite unnecessary, Commander,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can without appearing impolite. “Allow me. The Herald needs rest, and to wake her in this state should be avoided, if possible. I will see to fixing the dream itself, specifically … in my fashion.”

Cullen bites his lip as he understands the implication of his words. After a nervous pause, he lets out another sigh and sits back down, nodding weakly. “See to it that she’s comfortable,” he says softly. “She’s the reason any of us are still here at all.”

Solas nods and turns on his heel towards the tent, before the nagging whisper of jealousy can creep any further into his thoughts. Jealousy, he thinks with ever increasing indignation. What an absurd, horrifying notion.

He steps through the threshold of her tent as quietly as the crunching snow under his feet will allow, and finds Ashara slumbering and still, just as Cole had said. As he closes the distance between them, the sight of her sleeping figure makes his stomach drop, and he falters. She is too still, and too pale – the only colour present in her complexion is the dark bruises around her eyes and jaw, and the disconcerting blue tint of her lips. Under the generous layer of fur blankets, Solas can’t see the rise and fall of her chest; it’s only her eyes, moving frantically behind her eyelids, that convey any proof of life at all.

He stifles a sigh as he sits down by the chair beside her cot, taking her hand in his own. Her hands are freezing, even with the aid of the fur blankets. Somehow feeling the chill for himself is the worst – her magic, her fire, has always been such a natural and physical part of her; to find it depleted so thoroughly after her contact with the Elder One leaves him with a feeling of dread significant enough to alarm him. Carefully, he concentrates his energy towards his fingers, warming her hand with his. With his other, he reaches to touch the side of her temple gently, tracing healing runes as light as he can without waking her.

The nightmare is strong. Nightmares based on memories always are. He falters and brushes his fingers away as Ashara shifts in her sleep, her brow creasing in a look of unfamiliar and unconcealed fear.

“Cold,” she mumbles, as quiet as the dead. If he hadn’t been watching her expression as she’d spoken, he wouldn’t have caught her sleep-talking at all.

“I know.” He whispers back, his voice barely more audible than hers. “You are going to be alright, my friend. Haven is behind you, and the danger has passed. You’re safe now.”

Slender fingers tighten around his own. “My magic … gone … it’s not working.”

“It will return.”

“It’s … so dark …”

It feels wrong to hear her like this, as if he were privy to a private, personal thing. In sleep, she lacks her usual command of presence; the intense, unyielding strength she has carried so diligently since the day he met her. He squares his jaw and reaches back up to her temple, casting more intensely this time, lending her his energy until she can find her own once more.

“Cold … it’s too cold …”

“I’ll keep you warm, lethallan.”

Whatever else she wants to say is trailed off in a whimper as finally, finally, his magic seems to be working. The chaos fluttering behind her eyelids slows, just as she begins to lessen her grip around his fingers. A part of him – instinctive and irrational – wants to squeeze her hand, trail his thumb across the bridge of her knuckles as if that might somehow help either one of them, but he holds back.

Even if she were awake, he would hold back. Lately it seems to him that even the lightest touch, the briefest eye contact, is a risk he can’t afford to take. Makes him feel as if he’s on the edge of something dangerous – as dangerous as Haven, only subtler, and prettier, and slow killing.

So he stills the itch of his fingers, and focuses the restless energy on projecting warmth; removing fear. He performs a role for the Herald; safe, necessary, and non-conflicting.

Minutes pass in a peaceful silence, with only soft rustle of the tent’s fabric to remind him of the outside tundra. Only when the nightmare is thoroughly removed does Solas feel the familiar, unique presence at his side, and he cranes his neck to his side to catch Cole’s figure, deceptively blended in with the shadows. Solas says nothing for a moment, and turns his gaze back to the hand in his own.

“I believe you may have been far more suited to this task than I, my friend,” he whispers with his back to the spirit. “I’m intrigued as to your reasoning.”

He senses rather than sees an ironically adolescent shrug from the boy, which makes him smile in spite of himself.

“You wanted to help, like me,” Cole says simply. “But you wanted it to be you.”

Solas’ smile fades, his bemusement replaced with a sudden, weighted fatigue.

“Thank you, Cole,” he says after a long moment of hesitation. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“It isn’t thoughtfulness. It’s me. I help the hurt.”

“So you do.”

A slight change in the energy around his immediate person indicates that Cole is gone, departed and migrating onward to help some other soul in his strange and remarkable manner. A quick glance behind his shoulder confirms it. Solas can’t help but sigh this time and, a moment later, he gently withdraws his hand from Ashara’s. She is warm enough now, and comfortable enough to appease the Commander.

He wills that truth to be enough to appease himself. If he were wiser, he would already be moving towards the entrance of the tent, putting this from his mind entirely and leaving her to her rest.

But he doesn’t move. Instead, he resigns to shift in his seat and close his eyes. I will stay, he thinks in exasperated defeated. As a courtesy, in case the nightmare comes back. In case she gets cold. It’s merely a courtesy.

Whether the courtesy is for her or for himself, he isn’t entirely sure. And whether it’s concern or relief he feels as he drifts off in the chair besides her, he truly cannot say.

[chiclet-go-boom]

point of impact 13

It is her accursed bad luck that she is passing through the Great Hall on her way to speak to Leliana when she overhears what she wishes immediately she had not. An unfortunate trick of the stone, a small lull in the conversations that swirl in this place constantly like leaves. She walks into it as she might a spiderweb. It’s just as heart stopping.

Bianca Davri introduces herself.

She would not be human if she didn’t look. The Inquisitor and Varric stand at the larger of the fireplaces, obviously in quiet conversation with a hooded figure who is certainly dwarven by stature alone. If not for that one overheard name, she would have thought nothing of it. There are many people that come and go through Skyhold and it is not as if she makes a point of knowing who they all are. She is, after all, the Right Hand, not the Left.

Her long stride hitches but none of them look at her, none of them seem to be aware of anything except whatever they are talking about. In the instant before she can tear her eyes away, it brands itself into memory. How closely Varric stands. That his face, always alive, is near expressionless. That his arms cross and then uncross as if unsure of themselves.

And that while the Inquisitor is the one talking, the figure… no, Bianca turns only to Varric.

Cassandra keeps walking even as unexpectedly sharp claws dig themselves into her chest. She does not hurry; she greets Solas as they pass, she checks in with Helisma on the second floor. She confers with Leliana quietly in the rookery and at the end of it, a pair of crows are dispatched, one to Lothering and the other to Redcliffe. She can do no more at the moment.

When she returns through the Hall with measured, ringing stride, the fireplace is abandoned.

All morning and into the afternoon, it plagues her. She cannot seem to stop herself no matter how she tries, even as she speaks to herself sternly. It is truly none of her business. Varric has many friends, many of them might be named Bianca.

She hates it when she lies to herself, particularly when she is so bad at it.

She tries reading in her room and it is a laughable failure. Her weapons are fine and while she takes the time to arrange them all precisely, including the dagger she uses to slice open letter seals, it is not a lengthy chore. Should any correspondence arrive however, she is well prepared. She straightens everything restlessly; her armor is in good repair, she has no pressing matters of any sort to attend to and she cannot think of any that she could manufacture that would be even thinly plausible. She makes tea to give her hands something else to do.

She tells herself over and over again that she cannot go out to the training yard to work off this agitation. It would too obvious that she is agitated and she is tired of being that transparent. Someone would, no doubt, pry. She would yell because she is unsettled, she knows she is unsettled and then what would happen? Everyone would then be aware that Cassandra is upset within the candlemark because Skyhold runs on orders, ale and the everpresent gossip. She will then need to spend the next three days stonewalling questions about it. She even considers going to the tavern, if only that there will be noise and distraction even if she is not sure that she cares for either at the moment. She could visit Josephine or Cullen but then she thinks on what small talk she could possibly make and the words dry up in her throat.

The mug that she cups in her hands is long cold. She continues to spin the rough pottery in her hands though, her fingertips tracing the familiar bumps and divots as if she can read the secret writing.

Cassandra finds herself staring helplessly again at Varric’s face. Had he been surprised? Had he expected her? Invited her perhaps? His face had been as closed as she’d ever seen, Varric who talked constantly with words and hands and body. What could that mean? Everything? Nothing?

She puts the tea down carefully before she throws it. She tells herself that she had only a glimpse, that she is inferring too much into it. He had been calm, as had the Inquisitor. She really cannot say more than that.

Cassandra crosses her arms and scowls at the oblivious wall of her quarters. Truly, why does she care? Certainly curiosity is to be expected, this mysterious Bianca not made of wood and gears. Not the weapon at all but the woman who built it, the promise he’d mentioned once and never again. Of course anyone would be intrigued. It is after all the one story that Varric doesn’t tell, the one that is becoming painfully obvious that she had not actually believed was real. Is that why she cannot stop worrying at it?

Her wall declines to answer.

It pains her somewhere to know now, without doubt, that Bianca is perfectly sized to Varric. Shorter. Slimmer. No doubt beautiful by dwarven standards although that is complete conjecture. All she had seen was the back of a hood and expressive hands moving. Hands that could easily loop around Varric’s neck without strain. A face he would not have to stand on a footstool to reach. And that is too much for Cassandra. She stands, snapping her body to its full height. She reaches for her gloves, pulls them on with short, sharp jerks as she strides for the door. She does not in the least want to be thinking about this, nor is she interested as to why her mind will not let it go. She has wasted nearly this entire day fretting on a question she cannot even frame, let alone answer. If Bianca Davri’s visit is Inquisition business, she will hear about it soon enough. If it is Varric’s business alone, well then it is his and most certainly and absolutely not hers. She will go ask Master Dennett for the loan of one of the more spirited mounts and ride outside the walls for awhile. She hates horses and they hate her but it will give her something to focus on, something to control. There is enough light still to work off the edge of this... this whatever it is.

----------

It helps. Dung monsters with hooves and tails and the one she had been given had proven true to the breed. A most tiring ride on both sides and the horse had been just as pleased to be rid of her as she of it. But it had taken all of her concentration and she had thought of little else for the last few hours.

She is grateful for that, and grateful also that Skyhold is large enough now that when she rides up through the stableyard, a young elvhen hand meets her and silently leads her mount away. No doubt to console it with bran and mash and a rub down and likely whispered words about being a good girl for coming back with her rider. The image in her head makes her smile and her step lightens a little. Cassandra takes off her gloves to tuck them into her belt, flexing her creaky fingers. It is getting late but a bath might be achievable still. She slides through one of the lesser used side doors, thinking to wind her way through the side passages that will lead by connecting cross paths to the rotunda and thence the Great Hall and further yet, the kitchens. A little food to take with her is certainly in order. She hears the voices before she truly registers them but it is only when she identifies Varric that she stops, for no reason that she can justify afterwards. Her head turns as she hesitates. She is near the library, it seems, the conversation muffled so that she has to strain to make out the odd word as it filters down a small stairway. Without thinking of it, she turns quietly to ascend. The stone steps are worn in the center from long centuries of use; they must lead to one of the far corners of the next floor. The voices clarify suddenly and she freezes, one foot upon the next step. She must be standing just below them. The conversation rolls over the half wall above her head and the words spill down.

“I know I’m not exactly the one that should be dispensing this kind of wisdom since I so seldom take it, but drinking isn’t going to help. Go to bed, Varric. ” Dorian’s voice holds no disapproval, his Tevinter accent soft.

“I can’t. It still smells like her.”

“Oh, my friend.” She hears the sound of glass on wood. A chair creaks.

“Yeah.” It’s rare for Dorian to hesitate but the silence drags on too long. “Look, I don’t tell this story for a reason, Sparkler, and I’m not about to do it now. But between you, me and this fine sipping... whatever the hell this is, love breaks way more than it fixes.” “Do you really believe that?” Varric snorts. “You telling me you don’t?”

She should leave. She should turn around and leave before she overhears any more things that will haunt her for no good reason. But she doesn’t; can’t, really, even with guilty breath caught in her throat. The chance to hear Varric talk freely? And of love? Cassandra presses her back to the dusty wall and tilts her head against it. There is a creak of leather and a shuffle of something silk. “My experiences with love have been, shall we say, from a distance. A blessedly far distance, I might add. The few I suspected of it kept it very much to themselves. A real emotion of actual depth towards another person not involving attempted poisonings and slanderous rumor? How gauche.” She can almost picture Dorian’s hand waving in the air, a casual dismissal. “But my dear dwarf, that is me, not you. You write romance novels! Surely you believe in the fairest of virtues.” “You write one romance novel and everybody holds it over your head for some reason. And it didn’t sell.” She cannot tell if he is amused or annoyed. “I’m much better at tragedies. Lots of experience with those.” “One, then.” Dorian’s voice turns sly. “With, I understand, another chapter for our ever so stoic Seeker?” “The Inquisitor talked me into that one.” The worst of it is that she cannot tell anything from his voice, flat and uninterested. “And come on, I couldn’t resist. The Seeker? Reading my trashy fiction? Couldn’t let that go by, I’d never have forgiven myself.”

She would give anything to be able to see his face. Is that truly how he feels? Uninspired and… and put upon? Her hand clenches, flexing against her stomach.

“I decline to believe you, Varric. But be that as it may, we both know that Cassandra would welcome another and whatever fictions you two tell to each other, I suppose it’s none of my business.” The drawling emphasis is unmistakeable but Cassandra is not sure what to make of it. She licks her lips, brows drawing together. “But I do suggest that if you’re entertaining one unsuitable woman in your quarters, you air it out before entertaining the next.” Varric growls, that is the only way to put it. The rumbling sound shivers in the air. “Now you’re being an asshole, Dorian.” “Of course. Along with everything else I’m good at, I have an excellent one of those to match. Really, it’s a point of pride. I’ll have you know that in some circles, the poetry abounds about its excellence. So round. So firm. So fully... packed.” The dwarfs snorts. “That’s the worst joke ever.” “Made you smile though, didn’t it?” A chair creaks again.  The longer she stands here, the worse she feels for listening in to what is obviously an intensely private conversation. Cassandra straightens, thinking to retreat. “I believe in love,” Varric says abruptly. “I hate it, I don’t want it, I want absolutely nothing to do with it but yeah, I believe in it.”

Cassandra stills, her body half turned to leave. Varric’s voice had been low but raw. It nails her back in place somehow, a complicit shadow. “There you go. That hardly hurt at all, did it?” “Yeah. Nothing a few potions can’t cure.” She hears him pick up the bottle again and she imagines that he probably waves it to make his point. “I’m still right though. Love breaks things, Sparkler. You don’t see it coming, hits you in your blind spot. Best part? You don’t even care. The Maker Himself couldn’t get you to care. And there you are, fifteen shitty years later, dead center of the wreckage and wondering what the hell you ever did to deserve being cursed with it.” The room is quiet for a long moment. Cassandra puts a hand to her breastbone and kneads with the palm of her hand to relieve the hurt that’s lodged there. “She must be remarkable.” Dorian voice is quiet enough to be sympathetic. “Yeah, she is. You have no idea how brilliant she is.” Varric laughs, a short sharp noise. “In every single way. You know, I’ve got a standing contract with some people that nobody decent should even know how to reach that when I go to the Maker’s side, they come find my crossbow? Because she made it. Because I can’t risk it falling into anybody’s hands, even a friend’s. It needs to be destroyed if I can’t do it myself. You don’t want to know what else she’s come up with. I don’t even want to know what she could come up with.” “Surely you exaggerate.” “Wish I was, Sparkler. She’d be Paragon a dozen times over if Orzammar could get its collective head out of its parochial ass. Statues of honor and crap.” “So. She’s the Maker’s gift to dwarven kind, you love her, she loves you, you take her to bed and voila, wine and roses for everyone. Except that doesn’t look much like wine and I don’t think roses are going to go with your complexion in the morning.” “It wasn’t my idea. That’s the other best thing about her. It’s never my idea or on my schedule or any other damn thing. She shows up out of nowhere, drops a problem in my lap while I start looking over my shoulder for the assassins she could care less about because she’s not the one that has to deal with 'em and me, I fix things like I always do. As a reward she turns up in my rooms afterwards. I hate that she picks locks better than I can.” “Assassins? That’s kinky, Varric, even as foreplay.” “Yeah, well. Her family doesn’t like me much.” “How very civilized, and us in the middle of backwater Ferelden. See, that’s how you’re supposed to deal with things. At a nice safe distance, preferably with the blade untraceably wielded by somebody hired through at least three intermediaries.” “That's how you deal with things, O Great And Mighty Not Exactly A Magister. I prefer my answer to this problem, which is a little more sharp and immediate. I’ve had a drink with a couple, sent ‘em back home to return the money with apologies. Others, well.”  She can almost picture the shrug. “I’m still here and have no intention of that changing anytime soon.” “And your Bianca does… what about this?” “Fuck you, Dorian, not my Bianca.” The air sizzles from the fire behind the words. “Fuck this whole conversation while I’m at it. She can’t do anything without admitting what she can’t admit. Not that I’d ever ask her to.” “Seems a little one sided.” “You only just figuring that out?” “Now, now. Just making conversation.” “No, you’re not. I’m not. I’m drinking and talking because a woman I have wanted all my life turns up in my bed thinking she doesn’t need an invitation, because she doesn’t. And she’s there before I’ve fixed anything which worries the fuck out of me because that’s not how this goes, that’s not how this goes at all. But I’m too Maker blasted... fuck, I don’t know. Weak. Stupid. Desperate, take your pick. It's like every time I get some piece of my life together, she shows up to blow it apart. Every. Single. Time.”

“Well, far be it from me to state the obvious. Again. Since you’re not listening. Are you listening, Varric?”

“Best part? Absolutely the best part of this is that I can’t let go. I know I can’t let go and while that makes me an ass, it’s nothing new. But I opened my door and there was a woman in my bed and for a second, Sparkler? For a heartbeat it was someone else. Doesn’t that just take the cake. I’ve loved Bianca all my life it seems like and she’s not the one I was hoping to see.”

“And now my whole damn room smells like sex and her perfume and I can’t stand it.” She hears the bottle hit the table again and something scrapes along the floor. “I hate you, I hate me and I’m going for a walk. See if I can’t trip off a battlement by mistake. Tonight could not get any worse.” She has no time to move. She barely has time to take a single, startled breath before Varric appears at the top of the stairs. He stares down even as she looks up. She has no idea what’s on her face but his whirls through a hundred emotions. Horror, hurt, fury. It settles on something unnameable. Varric barks out a short, strangled laugh. “I take it back, Sparkler,” he calls over his shoulder. “The Maker is definitely fucking with me in particular. Hello, Seeker. Shouldn’t you be in your little Seeker bed, dreaming little Seeker dreams?”

“Cassandra?” Dorian’s voice is astonished, pitching upwards. She can hear the mage scrambling out of his chair. “Varric, I…”

The dwarf holds up his hand, already continuing down the stairs. “Save it, Seeker. Just.. save it. When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you, remember?” He brushes past where she’s pressed herself against the wall. The curling fingers of a strong spirit reach out to caress her face and then he’s gone. She takes a deep, unsteady breath. Dorian’s face appears over the half wall above and Cassandra stares up miserably. She has transgressed. She has transgressed badly and she knows it. She should not have stayed past the first moment she recognized his voice, certainly not once she’d realized what they were talking about. The mortification feels like it stains her very bones. “My dear Seeker. You have the most remarkable timing.”

She shoves herself off the wall. She’d braced herself but against what, she’s not sure. Varric had not offered violence. Past the first moment he hadn’t even looked at her. “And how is that, Dorian?” she asks flatly. “You just missed Varric. How you two manage to never connect with each other fuels an entire betting pool, you know. Do come up and tell me your secret.”

She buries her face in her hands and laughs because she can do nothing else.

[johaerys-writes]

Dorian Pavus/Trevelyan

A World With You, Chapter 21: Driftwood

Cassandra killing Varric with her bare hards is probably the last thing Tristan needs on a day like this. Or any day, for that matter. Dorian, on the other hand, is sorely tempted to do some killing of his own. A certain elf with a dreadful haircut and a penchant for sticking people with arrows is particularly high on his list.

Read here or on AO3!

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The howling wind and their horses’ hooves on the soft snow were the only sounds for a long while as Tristan and Varric made their way back to Skyhold. Tristan rode a little way ahead, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, never looking back. He could feel Varric’s eyes on him, and could hear him shifting on his saddle, but none of them spoke a word to each other.

Tristan patted his coat pocket, cursing himself silently for having forgotten to bring his flask with him. Even if he had, though, brandy wouldn’t be enough to wash the bitter taste from his mouth.

It had stung to think that Varric had joked and drunk ale with him, played Wicked Grace and fought by his side for months, all while hiding something like this. Tristan himself had never even doubted him, never felt suspicious of him, not for a single moment. He should have known better. He should have been more careful, more observant, more astute. Varric had only been trying to protect his friend -or so he had claimed-, and had come clean in the end, no harm done, yet more questions nagged at him. What if he and Hawke hadn’t told him the full truth? What if they were luring him into a trap? What if more of the people around him, people he had thought could be trusted, hid information from him? What if plots and schemes were being arranged behind his back, and all he could see were smiling faces and courteous bows? What if even his guards had been stationed there to spy on him, by Leliana or Cullen or whoever wanted to keep tabs on him? What if….

Tristan let out an exasperated huff as he kicked his horse forward. The thought of a cup of warmed buttered brandy seemed incredibly tempting to him right at that moment.

He almost - almost - let out a sigh of relief when he saw Skyhold’s tall towers and its thick stone walls in the far distance. It stood high and proud amongst the jagged rocks, the emblem of the Inquisition as much as it was entirely distinct from it. A mystery in its own right, and the home that would never feel like home to him.

The high, stout gates opened wide as soon as Tristan tossed the hood of his cloak back. The guards at the gates stood at attention, knuckling their foreheads as he passed them by, but Tristan didn’t even glance at them. He unhurriedly rode towards the stables, where Master Dennet came out to greet him.

The horse master of the Inquisition had a dark, leathery face, deeply lined from age and hard work. His eyes, dark as buttons, glided over Almond, his brows furrowing when he saw her snow covered hooves. He stooped down, picking up one of her legs to inspect the shoes underneath.

“She needs new shoes,” he said tartly, taking her reins as Tristan dismounted. “Free Marcher coursers are not meant for riding through the snow.”

“Then see it done,” Tristan said, just as tartly, and his voice twice as clipped. “There’s nothing but snow around here, old man.”

Dennet gave him a hard look under his bushy brows, and let out a grunt as he led Almond to the stables. Tristan clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned around. As if a Fereldan could ever give a Free Marcher pointers about Free Marcher steeds. It seemed everyone was bent on testing his patience that day.

He barely acknowledged Nhudem and Maighdin that fell in behind him, appearing as if from thin air. The hold was now bustling with activity, agents and servants going about their daily business, recruits training by the straw dummies. Tristan noted with mild curiosity the peddlers that had set up their stalls at the lower yard and were showing off their wares to the passers-by.

There were certainly a lot more of them than there had been only months before. Tristan was pondering on how much had changed since they had first arrived there, when he spotted Cassandra in the yard. She had been showing two recruits how to properly bash an enemy with their shield when their eyes locked. She dropped her training shield on the ground and stomped up to him, her mailed bootsteps ringing across the stone walls.

“It was the Champion of Kirkwall, wasn’t it?” she asked him, her voice lowered to a hiss.

Tristan blinked at her, then frowned. “This does not concern you, Cassandra.”

“Where is he?” she growled, as if Tristan hadn’t spoken.

“Pardon?”

“The dwarf ,” she said, her voice thick with contempt. “Where is he?”

Tristan opened his mouth to ask her what on earth she wanted of him, when Cassandra’s gaze left him to fix on something right behind him. A scowl twisted her features and she stalked off, leaving Tristan to stare after her.

Varric was just a few paces behind them, and his eyes widened when he saw her approaching. He made as if to turn around and disappear through the crowd, when the Seeker caught him by his coat collar.

“What the-“ he started, but only managed to let out a sharp huff as Cassandra half lifted him off the ground and dragged him towards the armory building that lay beyond the training yard. The people around the yard had stopped whatever it was they were doing to stare at them, and a susurrus of whispers was slowly beginning to spread amongst the crowd.

With a sharp huff, Tristan hurried after them. Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful. Cassandra killing Varric was possibly the very last thing he needed that day.

He hadn’t taken two steps before a small girl emerged from the crowd and ran towards him.

“Papa!” she shouted, a wide smile crossing her face.

Tristan froze where he was, blinking at her. He almost edged back she approached him, getting out of her way, but she ran straight past him to throw herself on Nhudem instead.

“Meena,” Nhudem grunted as she hugged his middle tightly, “Papa’s busy now.”

He gently pushed her away, his nervousness plain on his features when he eyed Tristan. The girl had dark curly hair like Nhudem, but that was where the similarities ended. Nhudem had a long, straight nose and a wide mouth, whereas his daughter’s nose was short and somewhat hooked, and her mouth plump and pouty like a rosebud. She couldn’t have been older than eight or nine.

“I…” Tristan started, taking his eyes off the girl to look at Nhudem. “I didn’t know you had a family.”

Nhudem straightened, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I do, Your Worship,” he said simply. “There used to be more of us. My wife died when giving birth to Meena, and my brother in law was lost at Haven. May the Maker rest their souls.”

“May the Maker rest their souls,” Maighdin echoed solemnly.

“It’s just me and Meena now.” He gave the girl a warm smile and patted her on the head. “But we manage, don’t we?”

The girl frowned slightly, but gave him a nod. She was watching Tristan carefully with her big, honey brown eyes, and his heart tightened. He didn’t remember ever seeing so much sadness in a child’s eyes.

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Nhudem,” Tristan said, and he truly meant it. “Had I known…”

Had I known, what? What would I possibly have done? He felt a sting of shame at realizing how little he knew about the people around him. Nhudem and Maighdin had only been a nuisance to him so far, a necessary evil that he had had to put up with. He never once stopped to think about who they were, what their lives were like, what they have gone through, why they were even there. Blight, he hadn’t even bothered to ask Cullen about them. He had simply accepted it as fact that they were there to serve him and obediently follow him, without question.

As he was wont to do with everyone these days, it seemed. Even Varric, who he had been so angry with but a moment before, had been through more than Tristan could ever have imagined, although he never really spoke about it. Could Tristan really fault him for trying to protect his friend, perhaps the only true friend he had left?

For the umpteenth time that day, he cursed himself. The world needed him, yes, but he was not at its center. Nor should he be.

“Your Worship?” Nhudem asked when he failed to finish his sentence.

Tristan shook his head slightly and gazed at the armory building where Cassandra and Varric were. “You should take the rest of the day off,” he told him. “Spend some time with your daughter. Maighdin will guard me just fine by herself.”

He wasn’t sure whether that would even be enough to make a difference. But it was all he could do at that moment. He turned around and walked away before Nhudem could bring up an objection.  

With a sigh, and bracing himself for the worst, he pushed the door to the armory open. Even before fully stepping in, he could hear Cassandra’s and Varric’s voices tangled in a heated argument. The smiths that usually worked on the level floor had all gone out, terrified of the Seeker’s wrath. Tristan hopped up the steps to the upper level, where Cassandra had dragged Varric, and was greeted by the unparalleled sight of Varric running around a table while the Seeker chased him about, her face red with fury.

“You knew where Hawke was all along!” she growled at him. “You knew where he was, and said nothing!”

“You’re damned right I said nothing!” Varric ducked just as Cassandra swung at him with her sword arm, in a desperate attempt to catch him. He hopped several paces back, safely away from her reach, and looked at her defiantly, shaking his finger at her. “You kidnapped me. You interrogated me! What did you expect? That I would just give him up to you lunatics? The Templars wanted to kill him!”

Cassandra stopped running around, her eyes wide with disbelief. Her brow was gleaming with sweat and her chest was heaving, but she seemed to pay no attention to that as she glared at the dwarf. “You think I wanted to harm him? We needed him to lead the Inquisition! He was the Champion of Kirkwall. The mages respected him. If anyone could have talked to them and get them to stop that madness, it was him. And you kept him from us!”

“As if all your intentions are that pure,” Varric spat at her. “You just wanted to use him, with no regard for his own safety! That’s what your Chantry always does, isn’t it? Raise messiahs and then cut them down as soon as they stop serving their purpose?”

Cassandra’s mouth widened in a snarl. “You insolent, conniving little-“

“That’s enough,” Tristan interjected, taking a small step forward.

They both turned to him, surprise written on their features. Varric shot him a guarded look and said nothing before he turned away. Cassandra took a step towards him, her anger plain on her features. “Inquisitor, Varric lied to us. To all of us. He withheld important information at a time when we, no, the whole of Thedas needed it the most. He should be brought to justice. I will personally-“

“I said that’s enough,” Tristan repeated, more forcefully this time. He fixed Cassandra with a hard stare, until she grunted in annoyance and stalked away.

Both Varric and Cassandra had their backs to him, neither daring a glance at each other. Tristan looked from one to the other, and let out a soft sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. His head now was aching terribly, and he needed nothing more than a hard drink.

“Hawke could have been at the Conclave,” Cassandra said slowly, her back still turned. “If anyone could have saved most holy… If anyone could have led the Inquisition…”

Varric spun around to face her. “The Inquisition has a leader, in case you haven’t noticed! And a damned good one at that. Even if Hawke had been there, he couldn’t have saved Justinia. Nobody could have!”

Cassandra’s eyes were blazing with anger when she looked at him. “You don’t know that!”

“Cassandra,” Tristan said firmly, “Varric is not responsible for what happened at the Conclave.”

“Thank you!” Varric exclaimed, raising his hands in exasperation.

“That does not mean,” Tristan continued, giving Varric a hard look, “that I’ve forgotten that you hid your knowledge about Corypheus from us. You’d better not be hiding anything else, Varric.”

Varric prepared to retort, when he let out a defeated sigh. “You’re right, Blondie. Perhaps… I should have been more forthcoming. But Hawke is with us now. We’re on the same side. I want to beat that damned Elder One just as much as you do.”

“We all know whose side you’re on, Varric,” Cassandra hissed. “It will never be the Inquisition’s.”

Varric’s eyes narrowed in contempt, his lips tightening in a line. He turned away, stalking towards the stairs. “You know what I think?” he said, stopping short. “If Hawke had been at the Temple, he would have been dead, too. You people have done enough to him.”

Cassandra’s face twisted in a snarl, but she said nothing as she watched him walk away. She let out an exasperated huff as she brushed her palm over her face and plopped down on a chair.

Tristan glanced around the empty room. Maighdin had carefully stayed away from the entire affair, and was no doubt waiting for him downstairs. He couldn’t remember ever being alone with Cassandra before, save for that day where he had woken up inside Haven’s cold and damp jail, with her snarling and growling at him. She had seemed so terrifying to him then. It all felt like a lifetime ago.

He forced himself to take a step towards her. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her shoulders heavy, as if she were carrying an impossible weight.

“Are you… alright?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, almost automatically. Then, her chest heaved with the depth of her sigh. “No. I… I don’t know.”

It was the first time he had seen her look so defeated. He searched for something to say, but could find nothing.

She rubbed the back of her head, threading her fingers through her short brown hair. “I never explained to Varric why we need Hawke. If I had told him… If I had made him understand…”

Tristan twisted his ring thoughtfully as he watched her. He had heard how desperately she and Leliana had been looking for someone to lead the Inquisition before he had appeared. He knew, better than anyone, that no one had wanted him there, at least at first. And he didn’t know if he could blame them. He was never the leader they had had in mind. He wasn’t strong, and he wasn’t inspiring, and he wasn’t gallant, and he could never hope to have the influence that Hawke seemed to have on people. He had been a mistake, a mishap, a snag in everyone’s plans from the very start.

Still, this conversation made him uneasy. He wasn’t an ideal leader, it was true. He had never wanted to be one either, yet he was. Because no one else was able to, or willing.

He looked at Cassandra, who had fallen silent again.

“What then?” he asked her, somewhat sharply. “If you had explained all that to Varric, what would that have achieved?”

Cassandra opened her mouth, then closed it. “Honestly, I do not know,” she whispered finally. “Hawke would never have agreed to it anyway. It’s not… it’s not even about him.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I should have been more careful. I should have been smarter. I should… I should have tried harder. I do not deserve to be here.”

The pain in her voice made Tristan’s heart tighten, sympathy flooding his chest before he could stop it. She didn’t even raise her eyes to his when he took a seat next to her, close but still carefully away.

“You don’t truly believe that, do you?”

“What if I do?”

Tristan sighed. “I think you’re too hard on yourself. Varric is right. Nobody could have prevented Divine Justinia’s death. I’m sorry.”

Cassandra’s lips pursed defiantly, but then she shook her head in defeat. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke. “So, I must accept... what? That the Maker wanted this to happen? That he… That he...”

Her voice broke, cutting her sentence short. Her chest heaved with the depth of her sigh, and her shoulders trembled.

“I doubt the Maker had anything to do with it,” Tristan said quietly when Cassandra stayed silent. “There is no divine plan, no grand scheme that we’re all a part of. Sometimes you just have to accept that no matter what you do, things won’t change.”

“Is that what you believe? About yourself?” She raised her eyes to his. “You think you play no part in the grand scheme of things?”

Tristan gave her a small, pained smile. “I’m no chosen one. At least I don’t feel like one. In truth, I believe I’m just as lost and blind as anyone else. We’re all floundering in stormy seas, trying to keep our heads above water. Sometimes someone manages to hang on to a piece of driftwood for a short while, before that is swept away, too. Now, as to whether I’m the man drowning or the piece of driftwood everyone is clinging to, that’s a discussion for another day.”

Cassandra scoffed softly. “That’s a grim way of looking at things.”

“Yes, well,” Tristan sighed, stretching his arms over his head and cracking his neck, “people do say that about me, don’t they?”

“They do,” Cassandra replied. A small smile crossed her lips. “And other things, besides.”

“Oh? Like what, pray tell? I do hope it’s rumours of me sleeping with abominations and apostates again. I haven’t heard those in a while”

Her brows were slightly furrowed when she looked at him, but then her frown melted away when she saw his teasing smile. She laughed, and Tristan joined her. A brief silence passed between them before she spoke again.

“I want you to know,” she said, holding his gaze levelly. “I have no regrets.”

Tristan shot her a questioning look. “About what?”

“About you,” she replied, and she almost sounded gentle. “About everything. Maybe if we had found Hawke, the Maker woudn’t have sent you. But He did. You might not believe in a divine plan, but I do. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I believe you’re exactly what the world needed, when it needed it.”

Tristan blinked at her. Was that fondness he detected in her voice, or were his ears deceiving him?

She took a deep breath and continued. “I may not agree with every decision you make, but I do know this: few would be able to do what you have done. You were a prisoner, accused and reviled, yet you have emerged from every trial victorious. The Maker doesn’t rule you. You live or die by your own hand. That is worthy of admiration.”

Tristan swallowed thickly, wondering what to say. “I just do what needs to be done,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on his chair. “I don’t have all the answers. I’m not sure the ones I do have are even remotely right. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least try.”

Cassandra studied him carefully for a heartbeat. “I understand that now. The day you ascended the dais and announced your plans for the mages, I did not. I was angry. I was afraid that your decision would bring on a new war, that I had been mistaken in asking you to lead us. But I know now that it was simply my faith being tested. I am aware that you are not much of a believer, but I am. Andraste would not have sent you to us if you were not meant for it.”

Tristan shook his head. “I’ve made a lot of errors in my life, and will continue to do so. Perhaps you were right to mistrust me. I never wanted this. I believe you know that.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” she said with a small smile. “But never doubt for a second that you are the right person for this. What you did in the Emerald Graves for the refugees, the way you dealt with those Freemen… Even that rogue Templar I asked your help with. You could have just said no, yet you didn’t.” She paused for a moment before she spoke again. “When I first met you I was blind with rage and grief. If anyone had told me when I first met you that I would one day be pleased to have you lead me, I would have throttled them. But I am. Truly.”

She fixed her dark brown eyes on his, her brows knit in determination, and Tristan returned her gaze levelly. He never expected Cassandra to say anything that would touch him so deeply. It was with a fair bit of surprise that he realised that… it felt good.

His smile was genuine and affectionate when it widened his lips. “Thank you, Cassandra. This… this means a lot.”

She returned his smile with a wide one of her own. Tristan was not used to seeing her smile, but he was surprised to see that it didn’t look out of place on her. Her features were still stern, but they somehow managed to look soft, too.

He cleared his throat and stood up before she could say anything else. “Well,” he said, “if that doesn’t call for a drink, then I don’t know what does.”

Cassandra gaped at him. “You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all,” he said. “We’ve known each other for months now, and this is the first time we’ve spoken without wanting to jump at each other’s throats. I believe that’s worthy of a toast, don’t you?”

She blinked, then laughed and shook her head as she stood up to follow him. They were almost halfway down the long stairs, when Cassandra touched his elbow lightly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something else, Inquisitor. I’ve noticed you smiling a lot more lately. Whatever it is that’s causing it, it’s good for you.”

Without quite thinking about it, Tristan beamed at her as he hopped down the steps.

*******

The tavern was filled with people at that time of day. Dorian chewed listlessly on his breakfast, which seemed to be some sort of bland, tasteless stew once again - bits of meat that Dorian couldn’t even identify floated about its surface, along with mushy vegetables and a generous amount of grease. He was sure he would have gagged if he weren’t so hungry. He let out a soft sigh as he broke a small piece of bread and popped it in his mouth. He wondered with some amusement what sort of disgusted faces Trevelyan would pull, and how his nose would wrinkle had he been presented with a dish like that. The Inquisitor might have had the luxury of having sweet tarts and scones baked for him and sent to his quarters for his breakfast, but that same courtesy was not extended to the members of his inner circle, it seemed.

His research notebook was by his side on the table, and he slowly flipped through its pages, careful not to get any grease stains on it. Since they had come back from the Emerald Graves, he had spent most of his time studying the notes he had taken from the Venatori ritual grounds. He had been poring endlessly over any book on bindings and blood rituals he could get his hands on in the library, which, admittedly, were precious few. Blood magic was taboo everywhere, even in Tevinter. Most books have probably been burned already, and those that were there were so outdated, Dorian dreaded even studying their archaic diagrams and equations for fear of forgetting what little he knew already.

The piece of parchment that Dorian had found in one of the Venatori’s robes was somewhat more enlightening, but not by much. He was sure he had seen those glyphs before somewhere, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember where. Now, if only he could have Maevaris send him a few books, straight from the Minrathous library…

“Hey, Vint,” Iron Bull said as he sat down across from him, the wooden planks underneath his chair quaking with his weight, “what’s that you reading over there?”

Bull’s mug was full, the ale leaving a thick white foam moustache on his upper lip as he brought it back down upon the table. Dorian let his notebook fall closed. “Would you understand it even if I told you?”

“Try me,” Bull said with a grin.

Dorian shot him a bored look. “Shall I? Do they teach advanced magic to everyone in the Qun? I thought your people just sewed mages’ mouths shut and called it a day.”

The Qunari laughed and winked at him. With his one eye, it looked like he was just blinking. “Always the smart-mouth, I see. Nice. I like my men talky.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and stuffed his notebook in his coat pocket. “Don’t you have anyone else to throw those dreadful pick-up lines at? I’m quite occupied at the moment.”

“Well,” Bull said, looking him over carefully. “Someone’s in a bad mood today.”

Dorian scoffed in contempt, but in truth, Bull was right. His mood that day hadn’t been particularly good from the start. Not when he had woken up to a cold, empty bed, without Trevelyan by his side for the first time in days. Never in a thousand years would he have thought that he would miss being on the road and sleeping in his soddy tent and on his lumpy bedroll, but he did. Trevelyan’s chest pressed up against his back, his arm slung heavily over him, his warm breath that tickled the back of his neck, could make even the lousiest cot seem like a feather mattress. He had gotten used to the smell of his skin and his grumpy, sleepy protests as soon as he opened his eyes every morning, to his clever, reserved smile when they had their breakfast together, to the brief touches they managed to share when Varric and Cassandra weren’t looking.  

When they were travelling, there were no Inquisitorial duties to pull Trevelyan away before the day had even dawned, no meetings and judgements and whatever else it was he was doing that kept them apart. Yet now…

Dorian shook his head in annoyance, more so at himself than anything else. He was getting far too used to Trevelyan’s presence, he realised. If his life had taught him anything, anything at all, was that getting too attached to comfort was never good.

He pushed his lukewarm, half eaten stew away and made as if to stand up, when Sera appeared out of nowhere and slung herself on the chair right next to him. She flung a pack of cards on the table along with a small bag of coins.

“Alright, lads,” she said in her heavy Denerim accent, “which one of you’s is up for a quick game?”

Before Dorian could politely decline, the tavern door swung open and Trevelyan, along with Cassandra and his new guard walked in. Bright sunlight flooded the tavern through the open door, and every head in the room turned towards them.

Dorian’s heart fluttered when their eyes met. Trevelyan’s lips widened in a smile before he could stop it, and his dark eyes shone with delight. For a brief moment, he had the oddest feeling that it was just them there, gazing at each other through the crowd, amidst the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oaths and crude jests, the people around them fading in the background.

Sera’s snort beside him made him tear his eyes away, albeit reluctantly. “What’s gotten into him?” she asked no one in particular, shaking her head. Then, her eyes fell on Dorian’s flushed cheeks, and she grinned. “Or, rather, who’s gotten into him.”

Dorian blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, you’ll be begging for his pardon very soon, I wager,” she sniggered, nodding towards Trevelyan, who had stopped to speak to some new mercenaries that had just arrived in Skyhold.

“Is there supposed to be some sort of meaning behind that nonsense you keep spouting? Because it just sounds like incoherent blabbering to me,” Dorian said reproachfully, but his voice was drowned out by Bull’s laughter.

“You and the Inquisitor, huh? Didn’t see that coming.”

“No, you didn’t, did ya? Told you our Inquisitor would be good at stabbing. I’ve seen him use those daggers,” Sera said, wiggling her eyebrows at Dorian. He rolled his eyes and huffed in exasperation, and she smiled wickedly before extending her open palm to Bull, fingers curling, beckoning. “Pay up, big man.”

Bull let out a groan as he fished a small coin pouch out of his loose breeches and plopped it upon Sera’s outstretched hand. She let out a screeching laugh and shoved it into her pocket. Dorian glowered at them both.

“You have been placing bets ?”

“‘Course we have,” the elf said cheerfully, breaking a piece of bread and dunking it into Dorian’s stew. She chewed loudly and with her mouth open as she spoke. “The whole keep has seen you doing puppy eyes at him whenever he passes by.”

Dorian felt all his blood surging to his cheeks. For all his time in the Imperium’s courts, he seemed to have forgotten how to keep his embarrassment from showing. “I most certainly am not!” he retorted, and instantly wanted to bite his own tongue.

To his dismay, Sera laughed again and Bull joined her. It seemed everyone knew about what had happened in the Emerald Graves. Everyone knew about them .

Kaffas . So it really was a “them” now, was it?

His smile was tight and a touch forced when Trevelyan sauntered over to their table, Cassandra in tow and his guard standing just a few steps away. It wasn’t long before a serving girl brought two cups of warmed and buttered brandy, and a piece of apple cake they probably kept at the back, just for him.

“Cheers, Boss,” Bull said, raising his cup. “Good to have you back.”

Trevelyan’s cup touched against Bull’s with a light clink. “It’s good to be back. Those damned Orlesians almost got the best me.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Bull replied with a chuckle. “I heard you dealt those Freemen there a fatal blow.”

“I dare say that we did,” Cassandra said, smiling humbly. “They won’t be pestering the refugees anymore, that’s certain. And Corypheus will have one less pawn on his board.”

“That’s crackin', innit?” Sera chimed in slapping her palm on the table. “A good kick, right in his dangly bits!”

They all laughed, and Trevelyan laughed too. A rich, bubbling sound, that made a wave of longing wash through Dorian. Trevelyan’s palm reached for the small of his back, almost as if by instinct, and Dorian half jolted out of his seat.

Under any other circumstances, he would have sworn it was by accident. That he had simply been startled by the unexpected touch. Yet, he knew well that it wasn’t. Being overly familiar with him while they were travelling, in the middle of nowhere, was all well and good. Even if someone did spot them, they would just see a pair of giddy lovers. Very few would have guessed that one of them was one of the most powerful men in Thedas, and the other his Tevinter paramour.

Paramour. The notion still felt odd and foreign to him. Yet, he had agreed to that, hadn’t he?

He swallowed thickly as he brought his gaze up to Trevelyan’s face. It suddenly felt like every pair of eyes was on them. Trevelyan’s wide smile quivered on his lips only for a moment before it melted away, to be replaced by his usual placid, unreadable expression. He cleared his throat discreetly and edged back, putting a safe distance between them.

Right at that moment, Bull -bless his soul- started telling a particularly lewd joke, and soon everyone joined in the merriment. The others didn’t seem to have noticed much, or were simply too good at pretending that they hadn’t seen Dorian’s blush and Trevelyan’s awkward frown. Something told him it was the latter.

“So,” Bull said after the laughter had quietened down, “the Chargers and I were thinking of throwing a small celebration later tonight, now that you’ve all returned. Will you be joining us, Boss?”

Trevelyan’s eyes flickered momentarily to Dorian, before looking away. He straightened his back, avoiding Bull’s gaze. “I, uh… We’ll see. I have some things I need to take care of first.”

Dorian almost yelped when Sera poked him in the ribs and wiggled her eyebrows at him. He scowled at her and swatted her hand away, hoping that Trevelyan hadn’t seen her, but when he turned to him, he seemed utterly oblivious to their commotion. One of Josephine’s agents had appeared, and Trevelyan was talking with him in hushed whispers.

He turned to Dorian, who gave him a questioning look. Without a word, he drained his cup in a couple long gulps and set it carefully back on the table. Any sign of cheerfulness that might have lingered on his features only moments before was entirely gone now.

“I have to leave,” he announced, standing up.  “Please, enjoy yourselves without me. You’ve all earned it.”

Trevelyan’s back was rigid as a plank as he walked away, his guard close behind him. Dorian hadn’t realised he had been staring after him when Sera whispered in his ear.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“This,” she said, gesturing vaguely at his face. “Puppy eyes.” She leaned back a bit, regarding him seriously, perhaps for the first time. “You’re innit deep, aren’t you?”

Dorian scoffed, but his annoyance was only half-hearted. He let out a soft sigh, turning again towards the tavern door, catching a glimpse of Trevelyan’s blonde hair through the interstice before it closed shut.

“I am,” he whispered under his breath. “Maker damn me, but I am.”

“I’ll say,” Sera sniggered, plopping her dirty feet on the table. “Up to yer breeches in shite creek deep, you are.”

“Now you’re just taking the piss.”

[quarantingz]

attempting to write again...

sunday, 7 june at 10 am

The truth is I haven’t posted in God knows how long because with every attempt I’ve made to write, it would just get cut short by this nagging need for every sentence to be grammatically perfect and equally profound. For it to be coherent and concise. But that’s not how my mind works at all. What initially was supposed to be a safe and healthy space (and way) for Alyssa and I to express ourselves had turned into something more regulated, for me at least. I had slept with my social editor (credits to Welby Ings for coining this term) which extended beyond a one night stand and now I need to break up with him. So please bear with me as I now proceed to do exactly that, by trying to write after many previous failed attempts. Only this time with less judgment and resistance.

I guess another truth worth mentioning as to why I haven’t returned from my writing hiatus, if we want to call it that, was because I was wrestling with a lot of thoughts and ideas. Both internal and external, ever since coming out of lockdown and back into society. Almost like an ex-convict freed from jail. Only I didn’t see iso as anything closely resembling imprisonment but rather a time for rest and retreat. It’s funny because the book I spent almost all of quarantine in the company of (I consider books as my friends at this point) was about house arrest too. I learned a lot from that book. I’ll quote a handful of lines that stood out to me throughout this blogpost.

Right now I’m sitting here reflecting again on what lockdown entailed for me. I know I’m not alone in saying that it was actually a really positive experience. Although difficult in the beginning, I allowed myself to relax for once. Yes I still felt on edge, anxious and frantic at times but most of my mornings were sacred and something to look back fondly on.

I’m going to be honest again and say that I’m finding it hard to continue writing right now. Before creating this Note entry, everything was coming so clearly and naturally to me but now that I’m trying to articulate my thoughts, I can’t seem to get past this huge boulder blocking my way. And it’s really fucking annoying, to say the least. But I’ll keep trying.

Let me use some of the stuff I’ve been writing in my journal as prompts… In it I wrote a few days ago that one of my biggest fears, if not my worst one, is to lose (connection with) myself. Now I’ve put those two words in brackets because at its core, I think I’m generally just scared of losing myself. Which has a lot of other things attached to it. I’m scared of losing for even a moment what I’ve recently perceived as this heightened self-awareness I’ve somehow gained during lockdown. I’m scared of the thought of not progressing in my personal, career and spiritual growth. Of plateauing in even one of these departments.  

When level 2 started and I was able to be in the presence of another being in close proximity again, I kind of felt weird. I missed solitude which I forget was always something I craved as an introvert wherever I can squeeze it in each day. Given that I had more moments of solitude than I’ve ever had in my whole life in the two months we were all forced to stay inside our homes, I got too comfortable with this new way of living. I woke up, checked my sleep quality, meditated, walked the dogs, made coffee, read Scriptures, did deep work for at least two hours (which was made possible by putting my phone on airplane mode), had proper sit-down lunches with my family, read for leisure and ran regularly. In retrospect, it was the best retreat I could’ve asked for. To top it all off, there was no real pressure coming from my manager on the project I was working on. All in all, it was a great time and I can’t express enough how grateful I am to have had that privilege. To actually experience work-life balance in its rawest form.

Hence why I think it was so fitting that I stumbled upon the novel A Gentleman in Moscow which centred around an excellent example of a man who lives an intentional and purposely unrushed life while under house arrest. Someone who genuinely enjoys life’s simple pleasures. “When all was said and done,” he argues, “the endeavours that most modern men saw as urgent . . . probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.”

But after a fulfilling day of experiencing the latter with Alyssa and Cullen, I got home and was suddenly hit by this familiar wave of guilt for not “working on something” at the moment. Although this growth mindset has served me well all my life, it has also impeded my ability to tune into the Now. In saying that, I feel like quarantine primed me for what's next. And I do feel like something new is coming. Not just for me but for all of us. Cullen felt and pointed it out too. While there have been a lot of challenging events that happened through the course of the year so far, the optimist in me can’t help but feel like something good can still come out of all of this. Of course there are also a lot of other layers to this feeling. Anxiety, dread, boldness, excitement, intimidation, glee, hope, determination, faith, fear, love, doubt. And it doesn’t just end there. It’s perpetual. Cyclical. Contradictory. Which is part of the human condition and brings me to this line in the aforementioned book:

“By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

There’s a lot to learn and more importantly relearn. About humanity and society at large. The past and how we want to move forward and change for the better. Which is going to take a hell of a lot of work that doesn’t occur overnight. In the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve been seeing a lot of inspiring statements about showing up however we can and how being an ally to the oppressed can manifest in various ways. And if we think about it there is no point in fighting when the very goal is to support, respect and love each other. So I guess what I’m trying to do is echo Alyssa’s words on checking within ourselves first before we take action or impose anything on anyone else. To withhold judgment aimed towards another being since at the end of the day we’re all just One Body aren’t we? (Thanks to Alyssa and Cullz for bringing up this term yesterday) 

I feel like I could say so much more but I’m no expert in social studies or anything for that matter so I’ve refrained from publicly speaking up. Alas, admitting ignorance is often the first and important step to gaining knowledge. Conversely, listening closely before speaking is integral to understanding. Two truths that I’m currently living by and trying to improve on. 

with tender love and respect,

- p

[twilightxcx]

Finding home

Part 11 - "So there is nothing that you wanna ask me?"

NOVAS POV

"So apparently, you seem to be the Cullens new shining toy? Correct?" Emily asks placing down a bag of apples in the cart as I push it walking towards the vegetables. In my left hand I also hold Claire's hand, since her daycare is closed today Emily insisted she could take her for the day instead. I sigh at Emily's question, looking down at Claire as she holds strongly onto my hand, half afraid, and half exited about the new area she is currently in.

"I guess you could call it that. The thing that freaked me out the most though was that Renesmee tried to follow me and Paul into Pack land, making everyone stop breathing for a moment. And that Alice saw mine and Paul's future. Call that the surprice of the year" I speak, stopping the cart as Emily walks away to grab atleast two big sacks of potatoes, some carrots, a few sallads, a cucumber and two peppers.

"Ah yes, the baby. Sam told me everything last night when you all had gone home. Must have been scary for you to hear a woman you don't even know talk about your future like that. Especially when it involves children. You don't believe her do you?" Emily's tone is calm but serious as she speaks. I shrug my shoulders, unsure of how to answer.

"I don't know Emily, what if she is right? I mean Edward seem to have seen it too, and why would she lie? But I don't know, I mean I and Paul just met and we aren't even married or anything like that." I speak, a little bit conflicted about how to feel about it all as Emily takes the cart moving further into the store, with me and Claire following closely behind. Claire starts to jump in excitement when we walk past the toys section, only to get even more eager to look at all the shiny toys when Emily stops right in front of it.

"I knew it! You are planning to get married! Is it soon? Omg please let me be a bridesmaid. Will your family be there? I'm-" Emily starts to say before I interrupt her. "No Emily no, no wedding. It may look like me and Paul are taking it very fast right now but we are NOT getting married this year! You hear me? No Mrs Lahote this year and definetly no mini Lahote this year.." I speak with a determined tone as she stands there with a smile on her face and a glimt in her eyes giving me the you-are-lying look. As I feel Claire draging me towards the cars in the toy section, Emily quietly follows us pushing the cart infront of her. Claire points at a purple car with red air horns on top of it whilst jumping excitedly up and down, making me sigh.

"Please please Emily, Nova pleaseeee I need it. It looks so cool!" Claire almost screams out as I take it in my hand giving Emily a look that says we are done talking about mine and Paul's relationship as I put the plastic car in the cart, letting Claire get the shiny new toy. Claire tightly puts her arms around my middle in a thank you hug as Emily just gives me a teasing look back saying nothing but that she will get it out of me eventually. I roll my eyes at that.

-

"And that will be 257 dollar and 39 cents. Thank you, do you want a recipt?" Emily stands by the counter paying as I stuff all the heavy bags into the cart ones again. Damn these boys can eat, why isnt it them that are buying all this instead of us?

Looking down at Claire I find her already running around with her new toy on the floor, making me smile a little at the little girl's excitement. While holding my last bag of food my phone all suddenly starts to vibrate, and just a second later Emily's does too. Placing down the heavy bag on the floor again I take up my phone from my pocket only to realise half a second later that it is Paul calling me. I answer.

"Hey Paul, had a goo-" I only have time to say before he interrupts. "Where are you? Are you okay? Sam said you were supposed to look after Claire all afternoon with Emily but none of you is here." Paul implies with a worried, almost panicked tone, making me feel bad about not notifying them about our trip to Port Angeles. Especially when all of the imprints constantly are under a high treath its good to maybe have mentioned it to them before we left.

Just a few feet a way I can now hear Emily have the exact same conversation with Sam as she in slow steps walks over to me and Claire.

"We just went shopping some food baby, I'm sorry, we should have told you. We are actually on our way home now, we'll be there in 20 minutes." I speak as I hear Paul speaking with Sam and another one of the boys before I hear his voice in the speaker once again.

"Me and Sam are on our way, stay where you are. I love you." He says with a stressed tone before he adruptly ends the call, which surprices me a little. When I look up Emily is already done speaking with Sam and is on her way to push the cart out to the parkinglot. Claire stands right infront of me with a worried look on her face, the purple car in her hand.

"Has something bad happened?" She asks quietly, with a sad look on her face, putting me at unease that she is so young but already so aware of how a big part of the people she knows and cares about are in some sort of danger. I shake my head with a sympathetic smile, crouching down to the little girl's face level.

"Hey, nothing has happened and nothing will happen. Sam and Paul just missed us so much they wanted to come see us" I lie.

"And if something ever were to happen we will always protect you, whatever that something may be. Okay?" I speak with a soft voice. Looking into the little girl's brown eyes they now don't look as dull as second ago, she smiles at me.

"Okay. Do you think Paul and Sam would like to see my new car?" She asks, back to her normal happy self. I smile at hear, nodding. "Absolutely, now how about we go out to Emily and see if she need any help packing in the groceries into the car?" I speak as Claire nods in excitement. "Good, let's go" Whilst taking Claire's hand in my bigger one we walk out to the parkinglot and over to where Emily is already on her way putting in groceries into the grey car.

-

"Wow you really came here fast." Emily states as she leans in to hug Sam quickly whilst Paul almost runs over to me and have in milliseconds put his arms around me. Just a few minutes after me and Emily finished packing in the groceries into the car, Sam and Paul arrived in Paul's car and parked just a few meters away, Paul almost running out of his seat to be able to run over to me.

"Hi Nova" Paul speaks a little bit calmer now in comparison to when we spoke on the phone.

"Hi to you." I smile as Paul presses a kiss to my cheek and mouth. I put my arms around his neck pulling him further down to my face to be able to give him another, longer kiss this time. As we let go Paul pulls me - if even possible- more to his chest as he places his face in the crook of my neck, breathing in my scent. I shiver at the feeling, placing one of my hands by the back of his head.

"I was so worried something happened. We found two leaches just a fucking mile from the house. I just got so worried. I mean what if they would have got you? " He mumbles out, telling me what probably set his mind at unease during our call on the phone. His face is next to my ear while speaking and i hug him tighter when he says the last sentence, knowing that a vampire getting to me is one of his worst fears.

"Don't worry Paul, I am right here. Here with you, in your arms" I say, letting him hold me for as long as he needs. Based on the silence from Sam and Emily I can imagine they reason the same way. Paul is easiest the most emotional of the wolves, and that isn't something you should ignore neither joke about. We stay like that for a few moments, just hugging, him ocationally leaning down to kiss different parts of my face and neck.

After I don't know how long, Paul feels stable enough to let go of his strong hold on me, giving me a apologizing look while doing so. I shake my head, giving him a understanding smile as I caress his cheek. He leans into my embrance.

"Look Sam, I have a new car! Its soooo fast, look!" I hear from behind Paul as our eyes stays locked, making me laugh a little at the little girl's words. Paul smiles too, just before he places a open kiss to the palm of my hand, then taking my hand in his.

"Let's go, don't want Claire to wait far to long until she gets to show the rest of the guys her cool car. You riding back with me, right?" He asks, holding my hands in his. I smile, looking down at our connected hands, before I look up once again.

"Ofcourse. Are they taking Claire?" I ask, looking over at the couple who still seems to be looking at Claire showing of her new car. Paul calls to Sam, getting the attention from his packleader only a second later.

"Who takes Claire?" He asks and gets directly an answer from Sam. "We do, see you at home." Sam speaks as me and Paul nod at his words. In hand in hand we walk over to Paul's car to soon be siting inside of it.

"I'm sorry for my reaction earlier, I just got a little worried." Paul explains with a quiet tone driving out of the parkinglot behind Sam and Emily's car. He's eyes stayes locked at the car infront of us almost as if I were to yell at him about earlier.

"Don't worry Paul, really. If a long hug is what you need after some tough hours in patrol then I am all up for it. It is much better than taking it out on your bothers or yourself. Plus, I've missed you today so nothing bad with getting a extra long hug, right?" I assure him with a smile as Paul quickly glances at me before focusing back at the road.

"Thank you, the other guys would have just teased me about it, but you didn't." He says with a sad tone in his voice. Even though I know the pack members would always be there for each other, I can visualize them teasing Paul about exact situations like this, and unlike Sam, he needed more then just a hug and a kiss to be assured that I was actually here with him, and that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. In a soothing matter I place my hand on his warm bicep, making him look up at me once again.

"Joking about it doesn't make it better or easier for you. And If they ever joke about you like that when I am there you know I am gonna make their lives hard, don't forget I got your back." My tone is serious while speaking making Paul do nothing but smile, and laugh a little at the mentally picture of me punishing the guys probably displaying in his mind.

"Thank you babe, that's so sweet, but I doubt you could fysically fight any of the pack members. Not even if you so used a bat." He laughes, making my stomach go wild with butterflies over how wonderful his laugh is. I roll my eyes at his statemet, even though he absolutely is right.

"Who said I was gonna use a bat? I have something more powerful than that. I would deny them food." I smile teasingly, making Paul laugh even more. He takes my hand in his, it's a little bit bigger than mine, almost rougher, but I like it in some kind of way.

"Okay, you are right, you would win." He smiles before he continues. "Thank you babe, really, I needed that." He tells me, meeting my gaze one last time before focusing back on the road entirely. I shrug my shoulders.

"You deserve the best, and I think you should be treated like so"

-

PAUL'S POV

Arriving at Sam's house, Sam have already parked the car and are on his way together with Emily about to empty the car of groceries. Together with them I see Jared, Jake and Embry helping to unpack the car.

Turning to my right, I find Nova answering a text on her phone. She smiles a little at the screen, completely forgotten about the rest of the world around her. She might not even know we the car isn't moving anymore. I unbuckle my seatbelt.

"Who are you texting?" I ask, trying not too seem all to obvious about that I am jealous of the whole situation. She looks up at me, her beautiful grey eyes meeting mine, carrying that beautiful spark of hers.

"My mom, she asks if you are as handsome in real life as on the pictures." Nova laughes, making me feel both guilty about even thinking of her cheating on me, but also releved since she only talked to her mom and they talked about me. Gosh I am so stupid.

"Aha, okay, then what did you answer?" I ask shyly, feeling a blush creeping up on my face already. I'm not even embaressed anymore to say that Nova has the biggest influence on me, just by calling me handsome she gets my body all warm and a little electric.

"I told her you are even more gorgeous in real life. And that I miss her." Her voice is as always so kind, gentle, but this time also a little bit sad. I take her hand in mine, stroking it calmingly with my thumb across the back of her hand.

"Do you wanna visit Sweden soon?" I ask with a sympathetic tone very noticeable in my voice, taking in her red full lips and cute nose several times during the time she keeps her gaze locked at our intertwined hands, thinking. She soon looks back up at me.

"Only if you come with me." She offers with honesty and vulnerability, sighing just as she finishes the last word. "You dont, forget it, it's stupid." She tells me, adruptly changing her mind, waving it of as nothing.

"I would like to go with you, to Sweden. We could even move there if you'd prefer it that way." I respond, probably feeling just as vulnerable as she does right now. She raises her eyebrows at my statement.

"You mean that?" She inquires, I nod. "Ill go wherever you go. Always." I answer, making a very big smile take place on her beautiful face.

"You are such a sweetheart do you know that?" She asks, pulling me into a hug I am not late to answer, not late to shrug my shoulders at the question.

"For the right person, yes." I flirt, winking at her making her roll her eyes, taking my hand in hers again.

"You are also such an idiot." She beames.

-

Walking into Sam and Emily's house Claire is as expected on her way to show of her very cool, purple and red car.

"Hey you two lovebirds, are you always gonna make out in the car when we carry the food into the house?" Jared jokes, coming into give me a hug as Nova takes of her jacket. He then does the same with Nova.

"Ha ha, very funny. No. We were actually talking about my home country and about how much I miss my mom, nothing else. " Nova implies taking my hand in hers, sending shivers up my arm in an instant. Jared nods at her words.

"Alright, fine. Anyways, did you come to any reasoning in who you are gonna ask to come with you to the hospital?" Jared questions, looking at our both with a excited gaze. Nova nods.

"Sure did" She answers. "So there is nothing that you wanna ask me?"Jared implies with a cocky smirk as Nova simply shakes her head, looking up at me. "Nope, Paul and I came to the agreeing that we should take the one I first of all feel the most comfortable with, but also the one we know for sure can handle being around a few vampires without freaking out"

"That must be a joke since no one of the pack can handle the Cullen's without sooner or later having to freak out on them" Jared argues, probably disappointed because of mine and Nova's choices, placing his arms over his chest in a defensive manner.

"You are right Jared, but I stand my case and you will not be the one to join us in the car when I get my medication this Wednesday" Nova says as Jared just rolls his eyes, clearly giving up on winning this fight.

"Anyway, I suppose Emily needs help preparing the food, I'll be in the kitchen if you need me" Nova continues with a smile, placing a small kiss on my jaw before she leaves the hall and enters the kitchen.

-

NOVAS POV

When the food is almost done and I'm on my way to make the table together with Paul, Quil, Leah and Seth enters the house. Both Leah and Quil gets called over by Claire siting on the sofa with her toys, telling them to sit down with her whilst Seth takes a seat at the dinner table in the kitchen. Paul offers me to take a seat while he finishes up the last parts of making the table.

"Hi" Seth breathes. With a tired look on his face he looks at me, but the smile he puts up is nothing but fake. The bruises covering his forearms and legs I know he resently fought a vampire, or atleast chased one, but that still doesn't tell me why he seems so sad. "Hi Seth" I answer siting down next to him. "Long day?" I ask.

"Yeah" He nods, looking down at his hands with freshly cut open wounds before he looks back up at me with a small smile, a real smile this time. "But now La push stays safe for a little while longer and that's all I'm here for" He continues as I scan him tip to toe, realising he must have been the one to come face to face with the vampire the most, if he weren't the only one to fight the vampire.

"Do you need stitches? Or something else, I'm sure we could work something out?" I ask, friendly taking his both hands in mine. He shakes his head. "No I'm fine I promise, I'll heal soon, we always heal" He says hurriedly, his mouth then continuing to say something I can't interpret, mumbling. Paul sits down next to me, placing his hand calmingly on my thigh, feeling my worry towards one of our closest friends.

"What happens Seth?" Paul asks, Seth imedietly meeting his gaze, mouthing words I once again can't understand, but Paul seems to understand.

"What did he say? Before you killed him?" Paul demands, making Seth close his eyes for a short second before looking back at me.

"It could just be a loose treath, I don't know" He starts, looking back and forth between me and Paul. "Tell us" I speak. Seth sighs.

"He said there are more of them coming, for revenge." Seth explains, I turn to give a quick glance at Paul but his expression seems as clueless as my thoughts.

"Revenge for what?" Emily asks, seeming to have been listening to our dialogue all along as she is making dinner. Seth looks down at our connected hands, mine kinda small grasping at his definitely bigger ones. Their roughness that still provides such gentle gestures reminds me alot of Paul.

"It seemed to have to do with the Cullen's. But since he crossed packland on his way there, I finished him before he got to them." Seth responds.

"Does Sam know about this?" Emily asks as Seth nods his head. "Yeah, we were about to finish our patrol when I caught it's scent. Sam was the one closest away from me, and after I killed it he came and ordered me to come here, taking help from Jake to get rid of the body." Seth explains as Emily places this big pot in the middle of the dinner table, telling Paul to go get the others whilst the food is still hot. He leaves my side after placing a quick kiss onto my cheek.

"I recommend you to let him take care of it, since you both were on patrol at the same time he must have heard the dialog between the two of you and if I were you I would let him decide what to do next." Emily tells Seth in a soothing voice as he nods agreeingly at her words. Emily sits down at the table just seconds before the whole pack enters the kitchen.

"It smells good in here" Sam says, hugging his wife from behind as she tries to hug back as good as possible siting on a chair.

"Yeah it definitely does. I'm starving!" Jake exclaims siting down next to Seth, giving him a gentle pat on the back whilst doing so. "Sam and I talked and we will stand by for now, so don't worry." He tells Seth in a calming manner. Seth sends him a thankful glanse as we start digging in on the food.

-

"She is coming this Friday, and not to exaggerate but she is really excited to meet you Nova, like really excited." Jared beames whilst talking about his girlfriend and Imprint Kim, you can really tell how much he cares about her just the way his eyes lit up talking about her. I nod with a smile, saying that I also can't wait to meet her, knowing that it probably would mean alot for not only Jared but also Paul if his imprint and his best friends imprint actually liked eachother.

"What happens this Friday?' Claire asks confused siting in my lap, looking up at me with her back towards me so that she almost hits my chin with the back of her head. From the corner of my eye, siting beside me on the sofa, I can see Paul jump a little at that, but he lets it go since no one were damaged.

"It's the weekly bonfire Claire, you know the one with all the hot dogs and hamburgers, where we tell all these cool stories about wolves, and you eat alot of marshmallows." Quil says standing up from the sofa opposite of us, walking over and crouching down in front of me and Claire, poking her in her little belly. Claire laughs at the ticklish feeling his finger made on her belly, smiling up at him as she spreads out her arms for a hug, and the second she's in his arms he runs off, with her and her toy off to the backyard as I hear both his and her laugh echoing through the house. She may only be five, but he may probably be the love of her life.

"So, have you asked the person you wanted to come join you to the hospital yet?" Jared questions with a raised brow and a smirk, impatiently waiting for an answer. Imedietly I turn to Seth across the room, watching him play a videogame with Jake, Brady and Collin. His back is facing my direction, and so I cannot tell if he is secretly listening to our dialogue or not. Paul rolls his eyes.

"I thought we cleared that you are not gonna be the one joining, Jared." Paul empathizes, putting an arm around my shoulders as I lean into his embrace, thinking this might be the best chance I'll get to ask him all day.

"Seth?"I ask, as not only Seth but the rest of the guys siting by the TV turns to me, obviously irritated that I disturbed them in their game. During the same second I can hear Jared whisper 'No way' under his breath, probably since I am about to ask one of the smaller wolves with not the biggest experience in vampires to come join me in a situation where being able to defend not only himself but me is the highest priority.

"Would you like to come join me and Paul in the car when I visit the hospital next time?"I ask genuinely, as Seth suprisingly stands up from his spot at the floor, walking over to where Paul and I sit before he sits down next to me.

"I would never have expected you to ask me, but yes, I'd love to." He smiles, pulling me into a hug.

-------

Yooo so apparently I DISAPPEARED for like 6 months. I'm so sorry, I had a personal crisis(like every year) and I also finished another semester of high school! Yay me!

Anyhow, hope whoever is reading this are having an amazing day and that your tomorrow is even better!

See you again when I have inspiration and I'm hopefully feeling less tired.

[bhaalble]

Alistair: A Defense, a Critique

I PROMISED AN ESSAY

I DELIVER AN ESSAY.

So here we go. What’s up Ferelden, its him, ya boi

So, let’s start off by clearly delineating some things that Alistair is, and more importantly, what he is not.

I think there’s a tendency with Alistair critical posts to treat the worst possible version of Alistair as the “real him”, which is more than a little unfair. Unhardened, kinda bitchy Alistair is a part of him, yes, but its a part of him that only arises when your Warden is continually a dick to him, and I think it’s fair to say that none of us are the best versions of ourselves when we’re constantly being treated like shit or ignored. Furthermore, this isn’t really something we do when we talk about the other characters. Zevran straight up tries to murder you if you don’t have his approval ratings high enough and somehow most people don’t see Zevran as inherently a backstabbing little shit.

So, let’s run down the list of common accusations and overturn them

Alistair is not stupid. He’s just…not. Morrigan jokes, yes, but Morrigan tends to see everyone as an idiot for not sharing her worldview, including your Warden. The one who jokes about Alistair being stupid more often than anyone is Alistair, but as we see time and time again, he’s rarely the most trustworthy source for his real complications.

Alistair may not be a scholar and can make some pretty boneheaded statements, yes, but he’s hardly alone in that department for the DA:O crew. His retorts show some real wit behind them at points. He can demonstrate great social awareness (e.g. catching on to the fact that the Grand Cleric sending him, an ex-templar, to interact with the Circle Mages was definitely an intentional slight). Furthermore, I’d like to point out that he managed to catch on to the Chantry’s bullshit all on his own, before he racked up dozens of counts of mage abuse (*cough* CULLEN *cough*). He still shows some effects of the templar’s training, (especially in his treatment of Jowan and Morrigan) but I’d argue that this is hardly a surprise. He’s been subjected to it 24/7 since he was a child. But he’s aware, and based on the other templars we meet throughout the game that on its own shows some serious introspection and critical thinking.

Alistair is not selfish. While he has his moments, I don’t think that’s really who he is, deep down. Take, for instance, his forgiveness of Arl Eamon. He hasn’t seen Eamon for years. The expected arc would be that he waits for Eamon to wake up, gets an apology, and then forgives him. But based on how he talks about him when you enter Redcliffe, its clear that he’s already forgiven Eamon, and is honestly more than a little ashamed of his behavior. Frankly, this is more selfless than even I would be: imagine being twelve, having lived your life as a street urchin because your adoptive father simply won’t treat you any different than he treats his paid employees, only to be sent away from the only home you’ve ever known because your presence embarrasses his wife. Frankly, I think Alistair would be justified in resenting Eamon for it, but it’s clear that he doesn’t. He calls him a good man from beginning to end.

Furthermore, I think what the Guardian says to Alistair is telling. He doesn’t just feel sad that Duncan is gone. He feels guilty. He, deep down, genuinely believes it should have been him. He wishes he could throw himself on the sword to save his mentor. Then there’s the ritual to consider. It takes some convincing (because of course it does) but with little fuss, Alistair will sleep with a woman he genuinely dislikes (which hoo boy does this make a consent conversation more than a little shaky) to conceive a child that he will never get to see. He, a bastard child cast away from his father, is essentially doing the same thing. All to ensure that he won’t risk his friends dying. Even an unhardened King Alistair casting off a non-human non-noble Warden, while it of course hurts, to me shows a sense of latent responsibility. He genuinely loves and cares about your HoF, but he has the sense that this matters more. That even though he never wanted this burden, he has to carry it as best he can.

What Alistair is is immature.

I want to draw a fine distinction here because I think we tend to use immature interchangeably with “selfish” and “stupid”, so it can sound like I’m contradicting myself. So, to explain myself: I use “immature” in the sense of a symptom, rather than a personality.

For an example of “immature as a personality”, look no further than Tony Stark in like, the first half hour of Iron Man (arguably Tony in the rest of the movies too but ashfagdkh follow me here)

Early Tony Stark is very much someone who is irrepressibly immature. He is capable of being an adult, but he chooses not to be, valuing his own desires above pretty much everyone else’s. He acts out simply because he knows no one will stop him, chases the shiniest, biggest toys he can get, and throws a fit when he doesn’t get his way. He treats other people’s time and needs with a flippant attitude, generally behaving like they are literally side characters who only matter so long as they help him get what he wants.

This isn’t to say there isn’t a reason Tony is the way he is (his relationship with his father being a big contributor), but what is important is that Tony is fully capable of being otherwise, knows it, and chooses not to. He revels in his shamelessness, believing that his immaturity is a sign of his intelligence. Everyone else acts like an adult because they have to, but Tony acts like a child because he is smart enough and rich enough to get away with it. Call it a sort of Capitalist Peter Pan syndrome.

By contrast, Alistair strikes me as immature as a symptom. First off, his age is important to factor in here. Alistair is 20 (my age, which is trippy as fuck). He is barely done being a teenager by the time you meet him.

There are further factors that have stunted Alistair’s emotional maturity, even for the average 20-year-old. He jokes about having been raised by Mabari, but its very clear there weren’t a lot of adult influences in his life at a young age. He mentions Isolde ensured that the castle wasn’t home to him long before he was sent to the Chantry. Imagine being under ten and feeling like you were unwanted by a person who has the power to make your life miserable in every imaginable way.

Then, once he was moved to the Chantry….well, if the Circle is any indication, the Chantry doesn’t exactly know how to accommodate children. Alistair made life a merry hell for the priests but it’s clear he wasn’t treated very well by them. Then straight into templar training. All of this while barely interacting with the outside world and shunned by his peers for his status as a bastard. Kids need to engage with other people in order to grow up effectively. With that in mind, it’s frankly stunning that Alistair has as much care for other people as he does.

The observation of Alistair’s immaturity is exactly groundbreaking either. Think about his dream in the Fade. We see Alistair at his most honest and vulnerable, fully convinced of the illusion. And it seems his greatest dream is to have the family he never got as a child, via his sister. Alistair behaves childlike to the point of parody in this dream. He pleads like a child and tries to entice the Warden to stay by begging his mom sister to make a special meal, his favorite. Hell, the whole “hardening” subplot is basically about the Warden forcing Alistair to let go of the childhood he never got to have and moving forward into adulthood.

His immaturity doesn’t just express itself in the obvious childlike behavior, however. Even though we tend to forget that Alistair is a junior member of the Wardens and is barely more experienced than the HoF in terms of actually fighting darkspawn, I think we can all agree that tossing the decisions on someone who’s barely past their Joining probably isn’t great behavior. Pretty much every comment he makes, about mages, blood magic, elves, even women, also read as the words of a man who simply does not have the world experience yet to really know how to engage with people who aren’t like him. It doesn’t mean these comments don’t….yanno, suck, but there is rarely any real malice behind them. Despite the hardships in Alistair’s life (of which there have been many, I grant), he has still been on the receiving end of certain privileges by virtue of being a man and being human non-mage, and it is clear he is still unlearning the prejudice inherent in that. His youth doesn’t excuse how hurtful or ignorant his comments can be, but its the unfortunate truth that, especially for those of us who grow up relatively privileged, being mindful of the Other is a learning process.

However, the main reason I view this immaturity as a symptom more than a personality is that I think Alistair has a genuine desire to grow past this. He acknowledges that he complains a lot, with an additional note that “and you haven’t been having an easy time of it either”. If you push back on his comments (or at least when the game gives you the chance to), he’ll usually apologize for it. And as I said, the hardening storyline to me indicates that Alistair is more than ready to grow up. He’s just still learning how to do it.

None of this, by the way, means that you have to love Alistair. Its more than easy to be annoyed by him, especially for a non-human and/or non-noble character. In the interest of full disclosure, it took me romancing Alistair to move past simply tolerating him. But I think its time for all of us to stop pretending Alistair is something he isn’t. He isn’t really a side character as much as he is a deuteragonist. More than any other companion (except, arguably, Morrigan), Alistair has a character arc that acts in response to your own characters. He grows and changes over the course of the narrative in a way that parallels how the story treats him, and if you create an Alistair that behaves like an asshole, well, you might want to take a look at how you’ve been treating him

to

[butsomeofusarelookingatthestars]

Hey could you do something were the reader and Luke have feelings for each other but the other doesn't know. And then Luke takes the reader home from the doctors and she is on some rather heavy painmeds (maybe like she got her wisdom teeth removed or sth) and she tells him about her feelings cause she is on the painmeds but the next day she can't remember and then maybe Luke finally makes a move? Just something cute 😍

Hidden Feelings

Fandom: Criminal MindsPairing: Luke Alvez x ReaderPrompt: RequestDescription: What would it take for you and Luke to finally confess your hidden feelings? Apparently, an angry unsub, a bad injury and some very heavy pain medication…

“Watch your…” Luke’s considerate warning fell on deaf ears as you proceeded to bang your head against the car roof. You groaned loudly, wincing as Luke’s fingers gently examined the reddening bump.

“Could you please not try to injure yourself further…at least for today?” Luke quipped, chuckling in amusement at your responding scowl. He might have been concerned about your safety, but that didn’t mean that he was willing to let an opportunity to tease you pass by.

“Mean unsub…wasn’t my fault.” You grumbled quietly, your words slurring together as you struggled to fight against the haze of the heavy medication the doctors had so kindly provided.

It wasn’t how you had intended on ending the day…in hospital. But, following an unfortunate incident with a furious unsub, leaving you with cracked ribs and a bruised head, you had no choice but to listen to the pleas of your colleagues and allow Luke to accompany you to the A&E room for a check-up.

Two hours later, here you were… drugged up and completely incoherent.

Luke smirked as he leant forward to buckle your seatbelt, ignoring your mumbling protestations and gently pushing away your hands as you attempted to insist on doing it yourself.

“Y/N, just let me help you okay?” He said, his voice soft as he leant across you, closing the distance between your bodies. His brow furrowed in confusion as your lips slowly tugged upwards into a small smile, your fingers curling around his wrist.

The pounding in his chest only seemed to quicken as your warm breath tickled his neck. A slight blush crept across his cheeks, uncharacteristic of his usually calm and composed manner.

Not now…

Suddenly, he pulled back, shaking his head in realisation. “Let’s just get you home.”

Luke’s heavy sigh echoed around the car as he tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel, desperately trying to ignore the excited fluttering that had refused to leave his chest since your earlier encounter.  

A soft moan broke him from his thoughts. He bit back a smile as he glanced over to see you fast asleep, curled up inside the oversized FBI jacket he had forced you to accept. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken long for you to succumb to the drowsiness induced by the drugs, granting him a slight reprieve as he drove you home.

His eyes swept over your form, darkening as they landed on the dark bruises framing your face.

A close call…and it could have been so much worse.

He anxiously twisted his hands, trying his best to prevent the terrifying possibilities of what could have happened from plaguing his mind. What would he have done if… He shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the reassuring sound of your soft breathing.

You were fine.

He silently cursed himself for even worrying about it. You were meant to be teammates, part of the FBI elite. Yet, he knew that the feelings he felt went well beyond those of friendship.

Perhaps it was due to his military past and the strict code of conduct that he had spent his life trying to abide by. Or, maybe it was because he was terrified of losing another person he loved to the dangers of the job.

Seeing Phil almost destroyed at the hands of Daniel Cullen had broken him and the thought of anything happening to you stirred feelings inside him that he had tried to suppress for so long…ever since the moment you had met.  

It hadn’t taken long at all for Luke to notice that there was something special between the two of you. All the late nights working on profiles, all the long plane journeys as you jetted off to solve another case…it all led to him realising that, for the first time in his life, he was in exactly the right place.

But, did it really matter? It wasn’t as if anything could ever happen. You didn’t even feel the same…

Before he could continue with his silent torment, a loud groan beside him sharply pulled him from his turmoil.

“Car…hospital…ouch.” You slurred loudly, wincing as you struggled to sit up. Your expression was utterly dazed as Luke leapt out of the car to help you, chuckling softly as you gripped onto his hand tightly.

“Let’s get you to bed, sleepy head.”

Luke sighed in relief as he finally reached your bedroom, attempting to ignore your pleading pout and the sensation of your fingers curled tightly in his hair. At any other time, he would have been delighted by any excuse to be close to you but having to carry you up the stairs half-conscious and babbling incoherently wasn’t as fun.

“There we go.” He murmured softly, gently placing you down on the mattress. “No. Y/N please don’t…” His plea was cut short as you dragged him down to sit beside you, giggling loudly as you eagerly crawled beneath the comfy duvet.

The breath hitched in his throat as you looked up at him curiously, slowly outstretching your hand to trace delicate patterns down his arm. It took everything inside him not to give into the fire your touch ignited.

“You’re cute.”

Luke bit back a bark of laughter at your random declaration. “Oh really?” He teased, shaking his head as you snuggled gratefully into the fluffy pillows.

“I like you Luke.”

Your bright smile made his heart flutter excitedly. An awkward cough escaped his throat as he pulled the blankets up higher, attempting to tuck you in comfortably.

“I like you too Y/N.” He replied dismissively, trying his best to avoid your gaze as he made a move to stand up. “I’ll be downstairs if you need…”

You shook your head quickly, your hand darting out to grip his as you pulled him back down on the mattress. You looked slightly crazed as your vision blurred, the exhaustion threating to take over as you attempted to make Luke understand.

“No, I like you Luke…”

You didn’t even think about it. It just happened…in your drug-induced craziness. Your head dipped forward to capture his lips in a tender kiss.

His rough stubble tickled as it scratched against your cheek, the warmth of his mouth a delightful pressure as your hands entangled in his shirt.

Luke moaned quietly in surprise, totally stunned at the sudden ambush. In fact, he was so out of it that it wasn’t until he felt your head rest on his shoulder that he realised you had finally fallen asleep…at the worst possible moment. 

A sigh of frustration escaped his lips as he heard your soft breathing. Envy stirred inside him at your blissful ignorance of the implications of your actions. Would you even remember the kiss?

However, as he glanced down at your peaceful expression, his eyes softened. He raised his hand slowly to tenderly brush a stray stand of hair out of your face.

It could wait until morning.

Your head pounded sickeningly as the bright morning sun beamed through the window. The grogginess caused by the drugs seemed to be in full effect as your vision blurred, the room struggling to come into focus as you reluctantly woke up.

Nothing seemed to make sense.

“Morning, sleepy head.” You frowned in confusion at the gruff voice, yawning widely as you turned around to see its owner.

A small smile crept across your face as you caught sight of Luke, his hair ruffled and messy as he shifted uncomfortably in the chair beside your bed. Clearly, he had been there all night…just in case you needed him.

The fact he had always been there for you was endearingly sweet.

“Morning…” You yawned, the heavy tiredness still weighing you down as you fell back into the comfort of your fluffy pillows.

Luke inched closer, an unrecognisable expression on his face as his curious eyes swept over your form.

“What?” You questioned in embarrassment. “Do I really look that terrible?”

Luke shook his head, apparently baffled by your own confusion. “You don’t remember anything from last night, do you?”

You frowned in response, struggling to recall anything beyond the clinical stench of the hospital room and the throbbing pain in your ribs. “Should I?”

The breath hitched in your throat as Luke inched even closer, his warm breath tickling as he gazed at you intently. He had never looked at you like this… and before you even had the chance to respond, he suddenly dipped his head, his mouth eagerly capturing your lips in a hungry kiss.

“Definitely.”

[loversandantiheroes]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford Characters: Cullen Rutherford, Female Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Lyrium Withdrawal, Lyrium Addiction, Mild Gore, Hurt/Comfort, first comes the hurt, then comes the comfort, I swear there will be comfort

The threat of Adamant looms, and the cracks begin to show.

Perpetual love and thanks to @songofproserpine for the beta reading <3

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“And people say I’m stubborn!” Cassandra shouted after Cullen as the door shut.

Aadhlei stood staring at the door, thunderstruck.  “Maferath’s balls, Cassandra, what was that about?”

The Seeker folded her arms with a sigh, arranging her face into a rough semblance of her usual irascibility.  But there was an unusual, uneasy edge to it, the expression ill-suited to her face. Cassandra was worried.

“Cullen told you of his decision to stop taking lyrium?”

“He did.  I can’t say it’s a decision that hasn’t worried me, but it was clearly important to him.”

The image of him came to her, bent over his lyrium kit.  Some go mad, others die.  A cold little knot landed heavily in her stomach.

Maker don’t you dare, she thought, and swallowed hard.  “Am I to take it the attempt is going poorly?”

“Most attempts do,” Cassandra said with a sad shake of her head.  “He is ill, yes. He pushes himself too hard. He always has, but more so now.  The man has not stood still since we received word of Adamant. He has seen two Circles fall, and more than his share of demons because of that, even before Veil was breached.  He is afraid that he cannot protect our people, or you, from what we will face. He is a stubborn man, driven, but that same stubbornness has twisted in on him.”

“He thinks he can’t do it without the lyrium,” Aadhlei said.  For all his anger at the Order, Cullen still held - and, she suspected, always would - an unflagging loyalty to the people that served in it.  The Templars were instruments crafted with a purpose, and even as he shed the chains the Order imposed he still sought that purpose, still sought to prove they could do the good he’d been raised to believe in.  But now the Order was all but shattered, and so few Templars still stood that had not been cut down in the war or stained with red lyrium.

A familiar wave of regret twisted through her.  Thoughts of Therinfal Redoubt and the things they had found in its deserted halls clutched at her with a thousand tiny hooks, each one a bright and burning red.  For the thousandth time, she wondered if there was more she could have done, if there had ever been a chance….

Too late for that, she told herself.  It’s done, let it lie.  She dropped her head, letting the straggled mess of her hair hide her face.  All the wear and worry of the past two weeks seemed to be landing in her at once.  And above it all sat a new weight, a heavy, pressing concern that what was wrong with Cullen was beyond her ability to help.

Pulling her focus back, she realized Cassandra was still speaking, either unaware of the her distress or electing not to acknowledge it.  “Cullen has the chance to break that leash to prove that it is possible, to himself and to anyone else who would follow,” she said, more than a little pride in the words.

“What can we do?” Aadhlei asked, trying to brush away her tears as discreetly as she could.

“Not we, Inquisitor.  I have done what I can.  He wants me to recommend a replacement for him.  I will not. It is unnecessary, and quite frankly it would destroy him.  He has come so far, and weathered so much already, I will not take this chance away from him simply because he is afraid.”  

Cassandra took a step back, spreading her hands.  “I cannot claim to know what he needs, but I know that he is capable.  He can do this, he just needs reminding.  And he needs care that he is too stubborn to seek out on his own.  In that I must defer to you. You are the healer. And your bedside manner is certainly preferable to mine.”

Aadhlei sighed, long and tired.  “We were to gather at the war table in an hour.  Please inform Josephine and Leliana the meeting is postponed until we may all attend.”

“As you say, Inquisitor,” Cassandra said.  The Seeker regarded her a moment longer, mouth pursed.  “May I ask you something?”

Aadhlei nodded, barely listening.  Already she was running down remedies in her head, trying to think of things to say, things to do.  Anything that might help.

“There have been rumors around Skyhold for some time.  About you and the Commander. I knew that he had long held you in high regard, but tell me, is it true?  Are the two of you-”

“Would it be a problem if it was?” she asked, words worn to a needle-sharp point.

Cassandra gave a slight shake of her head, a strangely satisfied look on her face.  “No. He needs someone. As do you, I suspect.” She cast a quick glance over Aadhlei, as if finally taking in the state of her.  “I don’t suppose telling you to get some rest before you see him will do any good.”

A short, barking laugh escaped her.  “Maker, as if I could sleep after - no, Cassandra.  No it would not.”

“Then go.  I will see to the council for the time being.”

The sight of him stayed with her as she rushed up to her quarters.  Ashen-faced and shining with sweat, making for the door on legs that bore him up through strength of will only. The worst of it had been that jagged catch in his voice as he’d passed her, muttering for forgiveness.  The shame in his voice, the defeat, had been overwhelming.

Her traveling clothes hit the floor in showers of dirt and sand.  Every inch of her ached. Exhaustion left a tingling thrum in her limbs that made it feel as if she was still on horseback, rattling around in the saddle.  All she’d held onto on the long, punishing ride back to Skyhold had been the promise of a hot bath and the thought of Cullen’s arms around her again. She hadn’t written.  Not once since they rode out of the Western Approach. There had been no time. All the world for her had been fitful sleep and hoofbeats. Maker, she regretted that now.

What if I can’t fix it?  Wounds she could heal.  Breaks she could mend. Maker’s sake, she could even stitch up holes in the sky these days.  But what could she do for wounds she couldn’t see?  When the break was not a bone but something deeper and far more essential.  When his body was tearing itself apart for want of a thing that poisoned his mind.  What then?

Her mind kept returning to his words the day he’d told her about the lyrium - some go mad, others die - worrying over them again and again like a tongue on a loose tooth.

“Maker, don’t you dare,” she said aloud.  Pointing a shaking finger skyward, she called up in a stern but breaking voice, “You hear me?  Go kick over someone else’s ant hill. Or better yet, get off your omnipotent arse and do some fucking good for a change!”

Steady, child.  Kenna’s voice, cracked and kind.   You’re no good to anyone all twisted up.

Aadhlei braced herself against her desk, a strangled sob caught in her throat.  Kenna, her foster mother, had taken ill one winter, not long before the war broke out.  A cough came creeping in with the sharp winds and settled deep in her lungs. No remedies would touch it, no matter how hard Aadhlei tried.  As the weeks wore on and her condition worsened, Aadhlei grew desperate. In the end she had given Kenna a sleeping draught to keep her settled and, in one last frantic attempt to save her, she had tried to heal her by magic.  A powerful spell, not dangerous, but strong .  The sort of thing she had always been discouraged from using, lest she risk drawing the attention of the Templars that roamed the village from the Chantry.  

And it did nothing.  But she was stubborn, a bull-headedness fuelled by love as much as fear, and she had refused to see the truth of the matter: Kenna was old, and Kenna was dying.  And so she had kept on trying again and again, pouring magic into the old woman’s flagging body until she had run herself dry, collapsing out of sheer exhaustion.

When at last she woke, Kenna was dead.  Her first failure. The first taste of real loss.

Hardly your fault, poppet.  There are some hurts in this world that aren’t yours to heal.  But that doesn’t mean you give up, and that doesn’t mean you sit about and do nothing.  So you steady up, now. You’ve work to do.

“Aye, mum, so I do,” she muttered.

She threw open her wardrobe, breath shuddering through the tears that flowed steadily down her cheeks, grasping half-blindly for something clean and uncomplicated to pull on.  A small pile formed beside her - things that were an ungodly mess of buttons, laces, and buckles - before she pulled free something ivory-colored and lace-trimmed. Either some form of fancy night dress or a long chemise meant for more formal wear.  “Fuck it, that’ll do,” she mumbled, pulling it over her head. If it stained, Maker knew she could afford to have it replaced. Her apron hung near her potion cabinet and she tied it on rapidly, stepping into a pair of soft leather slippers and thumbing the catch on the cabinet.  

Inside was an odd mish-mash of prepared potions.  There were still a few bottles of the basic tinctures she’d mixed up for Cullen, and she scooped them up.  Three squat bottles of a purplish-red liquid sat lined up on the far right side. Midnight Oil, she usually called it, something she’d put together to keep herself going when sleep wasn’t an option.  A bad thing to make a habit of, but a help when necessary, and right now it was deeply necessary.  

Aadhlei grabbed two of them, considered, then took the third as well.  She cast a long, hard glance at the small wooden box on the bottom shelf, the one she kept a few lyrium potions in.  If worse came to worst and she had to heal him with magic, if he’d even allow it, taking one now might not be a bad idea.  Yet she had found herself almost unwilling to take them after Cullen had confessed he had given it up. It felt wrong somehow, offensive, almost, knowing what the substance had cost him.

In the end she decided against it, closing the door a little reluctantly.  A faded green shrug lay across the back of her desk chair, and she slipped it on, too hurried to drag on a proper cloak.  She pulling her big leather satchel off its peg, stowing the tinctures and two of the potions inside, and slung it over her shoulder.  

Popping the cork from the third potion, she knocked it back swiftly and set off down the stairs for the Commander’s office.

The path felt like a gauntlet, deflecting staff and redirecting messengers with short barks of “Later,” “Fine,” and “On my desk.”  Solas, looking worn enough himself after the journey back, regarded her perplexedly from his desk as she passed him, making with more than a little haste for the door to the catwalk.  The coldness of the air hit her like a physical blow. The nervous buzz in her limbs subsided bit by bit as the potion began to take effect, but it did little for the tight coils of tension that wound up her back and around her ribs, squeezing tighter as the cold sank into her.  Maker, why hadn’t she thought to take a damned cloak?

Unthinking, she pushed open the door to Cullen’s office without knocking.  A mistake, to be sure, and hardly courteous to boot, but she was still too unnerved for the sake of courtesy, and now too cold to want to linger on the doorstep.  As the door swung open she heard Cullen’s cry of frustrated anger and a flash of movement and brought the large, heavy bag up like a shield, ducking her head behind it.  Something collided with it hard, ricocheting off to splinter against the door frame. The remnants of his lyrium kit lay scattered at her feet, a small shattered phial of crystalline blue glinting prettily in the weak torchlight.

“Maker’s breath!”  Cullen lay half splayed against his desk, breath short and eyes wild, the momentum of his throw and the shock of her appearance knocking him off what little balance he still had.  “I’m sorry! I didn’t hear you enter, I didn’t, I would never, are you -” He let out one long, shaking breath as she lowered the satchel and he saw she was unharmed. A fraction of the shock drained from his face, but what replaced it was a look of such utter misery it hurt her to look at.  “Forgive me,” he said again.

Kicking the broken box away, Aadhlei closed the door, considered, then bolted it and crossed to do the same to the others.  The last thing he needed was another interruption. “Talk to me, Cullen,” she said, willing her soothing voice to service, the one she kept in reserve for the sick or gravely injured.  “What’s wrong?”

The creases in his brow deepened, shoulders slumping.  “No, you’ve been riding for days. You don’t have to-” he began, and then his legs finally gave out and he collapsed against the corner of the desk with a groan.  Aadhlei rushed to him, taking his weight, waiting for his breathing to slow and whatever spell had gripped him to pass.

“Aye, I do,” she said.  “Come on, you need to sit.”

“I never meant for this to interfere,” he said as she eased him into his chair, sounding so small it was as if he was a child in armor, waiting to be punished for his failure.

“It’s alright, Cullen.  But I need you to talk to me, and I need you trust me, alright?”  She swiped a hand across his brow, felt the heat of fever under a slick of sweat.  It gave off a sour smell, but beneath that Aadhlei realized she could smell the faintest scent of burning, like a lightning strike.  “Are you in pain?”

He hesitated.  Then, again, so very small, “Yes.”

“Where?”  

“Everywhere.  All over. My joints are on fire.  And my head.”

“Dizzy?  Sick to your stomach?”

A nod.  “Both.”

She began unbuckling his vambraces and pulled off his gloves.  His hands were like ice, and covered in that same thin, slimy sheen of sweat.  “Squeeze my hand, hard as you can.” He began to mutter a protestation and she put a finger to his lips.  “Meant what I said. Hard as you can. Tougher than I look, remember?”

He nodded against her finger.  The hand closed, squeezed just barely as firm as a handshake, then shook violently.

“You feel hot or cold?”

“Freezing,” he said.  As she moved her hand from his mouth he caught it, pressed it desperately to the side of his face, and closed his eyes.  “Forgive me,” he said again. Not just an apology now, but an appeal.

Aadhlei bent double, pressing her forehead to his, feeling the fever baking off him in waves and not shrinking.  “There is nothing to forgive, Cullen.”

She did not expect him to laugh, or the for that laugh to sound so hard and bitter.  He pulled away sharply, letting her hand fall.

“You should not sound so sure.”  There was a horrible, manic sparkling in his eyes, feverish and wild.  “You have no idea the things….you asked me once what happened in Ferelden’s Circle.  Shall I tell you? It was taken over by abominations. One of the senior mages, Uldred, decided a Blight was a fine time to push for an independent circle.  When the Grand Enchanter refused, Uldred and his ilk resorted to blood magic to get their way. We shut the Circle down so the maleficars could not escape, but that only trapped us in there with them.  The Templars were slaughtered or corrupted. Most of the mages who would not bend the knee to Uldred’s coup were bent with blood magic or killed outright. Demons took care of much of the rest. My friends were cut down in front of me.”  

A haze fell over his eyes, not dimming their fire but making it distant, and Aadhlei shivered.  She had treated enough soldiers now to recognize that look, to know where he had gone, and that all she could do was hold on and wait for him to come back.

Cullen took a long, measured breath.  Then another. A third breath, sharper and shallower, and Aadhlei thought briefly of a man preparing for a deep, sudden dive.  “I was tortured,” he said in peculiar, toneless voice.

The word hung in the air, pendulously, like a body on the gallows.  It seemed to hold such a foreign weight on his tongue that she wondered truthfully if he had ever said it aloud, ever allowed the admission of such a deep and private injury to be spoken.

“I don’t even know how long.  Days, I think, but it felt like years.  No food, no water, no lyrium. Demons scrabbling at my head.  Or maybe it was the maleficars, I can’t be sure. I cannot be sure of much.  It’s all…I...they tried to break my mind and I - how can you be the same person after that?”

He carried on, barely blinking, seeming to breathe only to keep the words moving.  “For years I was nothing but fear and anger rattling in a suit of armor. Still, I wanted to serve.  What else was there for me to do? And they sent me to Kirkwall.  Maker help me, I thought I knew then.  I thought I knew what needed doing, who needed protecting.  I thought I knew who the enemy was. Meredith used that against me .  Told me what she wanted me to hear and hid what she knew even I would oppose.  I was her bloody lapdog for years while she abused the Mages - abused our people for standing up against her - and she used us to do it.  And the Chantry did nothing.  Not for anyone.  Andraste preserve me, neither did I.  I trusted my Knight-Commander,” he said, his face contorted in revulsion.  “I aided her, for god’s sake!   I defended her!  By the time I saw through her, when the lies were finally too large to swallow and I saw the fear in the eyes of our charges for what it was, it was too late.  It all happened again. Kirkwall’s circle fell. Innocent people died in the streets.”

At last his eyes focused again and locked onto her with a desperate ferocity.  “Can’t you see why I want nothing to do with that life?”

“Of course I can,” she said, striving for a soothing patience, but her voice shook with tears she could barely keep in check.  She wanted to help, she always wanted to help, but what cure could she offer for this?  What remedy for wounds of conscience and memory? She sucked in a breath, trying for reassurance, for understanding.  “Cullen, you don’t have to-”

“Don’t!”  He turned his head away, throat working.  

He wants the blame, she realized with an awful sinking in her chest.   Wants disgust and anger, not sympathy.  It’s all he thinks he deserves, especially from a mage.

The urge to reach for him, to give some kind of comfort was overwhelming, but she kept her hands locked on the edges of his desk, the knuckles slowly turning white.  Not yet.

“I’m not going to blame you, Cullen,” she said softly.  He winced, too raw for softness, but she kept on. “If that’s what you want of me, then I’m sorry, because I can’t do that.  I won’t. When they sent you to Kirkwall, they didn’t send a Templar, they sent a man who was scared and wounded and looking for someone to blame.  And that made it very very easy for the wrong kind of people to hook their fingers into you and get you to follow. That you’re trying to do better now, that you’re trying to change and make up for that - and bloody well succeeding at it - takes more strength than I think you give yourself credit for.  And that it hurts you so deep says you have far more goodness left in you than you think.  In my experience, bad men have little time for remorse.”

She reached out a tentative hand and laid it on his arm.  He flinched, hard, and she drew back immediately.  “Whatever happened before, you’re not that man now,” she told him.  “You told me once that you joined the Order because you wanted to help people.  And that is all I’ve ever seen you do. You’re a good man, Cullen Rutherford. If you want my forgiveness, for whatever it’s worth, you have it.  But you’ve come far enough that maybe you should try to forgive yourself, too.”

A strangled sob escaped him and he twisted away.  As if finally unable to bear her kindness any longer, he launched himself to his feet and set to pacing, unsteady but frantic.  

Aadhlei’s heart sank.  Wrong, wrong, Maker help me I got it wrong.

“How can you - why aren’t you angry?” he cried thickly.  “How can you say such things - how can you even stand to look at me?  Can you not see the blood on my hands? You should be questioning what I’ve done, the decisions I’ve made!  Blessed Andraste, how can I atone for something when I can still feel it happening? I thought it would be better without the lyrium, that I would gain some control over my life, but these thoughts won’t leave me,” he said, harsh and strangled, a scream made quiet.    

He fell to an anguished babbling, words falling from him faster and faster.  His hands tugged at his hair, raking it into wild, ragged furls. Tears cut fresh tracks down his cheeks.  It was a terrifying contrast to the controlled demeanor he had always upheld, but the small part of her, the part that spoke patient truths in Kenna’s voice, was almost relieved at his frenzy.  A bone that had set poorly would need to be re-broken again before it could be set true.   Break clean, Cullen, she thought, hopeful now in spite of her fear.

"Blessed are those that stand before the wicked and do not falter.  I cannot falter.  I cannot.  How many lives depend on our success?  Adamant waits for us, a demon army in its walls, and I am meant to lead our people into that!  I must send you into that!  And I do it hobbled for the sake of my own selfish pride!  I swore myself to this cause - I will not give less to the Inquisition than I gave to the Chantry!  I should be taking it!”

With that last he lashed out finally, fist driving into the bookcase with enough force to crack the shelf and send books scattering to the floor.  For a moment he simply stood there, teeth bared and hand bleeding, and then he slowly folded, the fight and fire extinguished all at once. “I should be taking it,” he said again in a voice heavy with defeat.

There it is.

She crossed to him slowly, and this time when she touched him - feather-light, a question of permission made with fingertips - he did not recoil.  “Cullen. Listen to me. Forget the Inquisition, forget the war. Is that what you want?”

A look of horror settled on his face.  “No. Maker, no. I want to be free of it.  I need to.”  Desperation and exhaustion shook his voice ragged, but his eyes seemed clearer and more focused.  

“Then do not put your neck back in that leash for our sake.  Please, Cullen. You can do this. I know you can.”

Cullen pulled his hand away from the broken shelf.  A ragged gouge cut across his knuckles. He stared down at the trembling mess of his hand with a furrowed brow, listening to the gentle patter of his blood against the stone floor.  “The sickness I can take,” he said slowly, “but these memories have always haunted me. Even with the lyrium. If they become worse, if I am not strong enough to endure it-”

“You are,” she said, and carefully cradled his bleeding hand.  “I have never seen a match for the strength in you, Cullen. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

He hitched in a watery breath.  “I’m sorry. I did not want to - I was afraid let you down.”

“You never could.  I’m proud of you.  But I will not stand by and watch you suffer and do nothing.  You don’t have to do this alone. Let me help you, Cullen. Please.”

Something settled in his face then, something like gratitude, and he seemed all at once steadier with it.

“You’re still here,” he muttered in a wondering voice.

“Aye, so I am.”

He leaned into her with a shuddering sigh, and Aadhlei thought she had never heard such a singularly relieved sound in her life.  He nodded, forehead rocking against hers. “Alright,” he muttered.

Aadhlei shouldered her bag again and pulled Cullen tight to her hip.  “Come on, lean on me. Let’s get you to bed.”

[commanderatherfuck]

Have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?

*sips hard liquor from a “World’s Best Fandom” coffee mug*

Yes, you got it right, this is happening. Get comfortable there, in today’s episode we’re going to bust one of the most popular myths among cullenmancers of all time:

“Cullen can't be a virgin in DAI because he's hot, confident and 30”.

First of all, I’d like to point out that I’m very reluctant to the notorious image of DAI Cullen as a "chantry boy", which basically means the face of DAI Cullen slapped on the DAO Alistair character. As ironic as it may seem the main accomplishment of forcing this image was a creation of strong belief within the fandom that the virgin!cullen headcanon is something utterly AU-ish, existing only in the minds of those who’re into virginity kink. I’m going to give you another perspective on this popular viewpoint.

The most common argument in defense of nonvirgin!cullen position sounds like:

“Cullen doesn’t act like a virgin in DAI”

I have two problems with this statement. First one is that this argument traditionally comes along with a comparison between DAI Cullen and DAO Alistair. The logical structure looks like: “Alistair was an awkward virgin in DAO. Cullen’s behavior in DAI is nothing alike. Therefore Cullen is not a virgin in DAI”. The mistake here is that Alistair’s behavior in DAO doesn’t define the behavior of every virgin in the world, not mentioning the fact that comparison between DAO Alistair and DAI Cullen is completely inappropriate. Don’t you think that it’s a little bit strange to expect the exact same behavior from a young and innocent boy and adult worn and torn guy just because both of them don’t have sexual experience?

The second problem I have is getting the “doesn’t act like a virgin” part. It sounds almost like there's some unified pattern of virgins' behavior when obviously there's none. The stereotype of a shy awkward virgin, incapable of saying two words without stuttering, is a powerful one but it is still a stereotype. Very blunt too, so it’s really surprising for me to see how many people are eager to fall for it. And just like any other stereotype, this one cannot be applied to everyone and certainly not to Cullen as a matter of fact. Cullen does act confident in DAI and the main reason for it is that he is mature first and foremost.

The lack of experience in sex alone doesn't nullify the general maturity.

I really don't know how to stress this enough. This is arguably the most bugging thing about the whole (non)virgin!cullen drama for me and the very reason why I decided to create this post. Cullen is confident because he's a mature, grown-ass man who's gone through ugly shit more than once and survived. He won't act like Alistair even if he is a virgin. It just doesn't work like this, okay? He's a mature adult, Alistair is a young innocent boy. And it has nothing to do with sexual experience. The concept of maturity is a little more complex than just the fact of having or not having sex in life. It's possible to be an irresponsible child with rich sexual life and a fully responsible adult without any sexual experience at all.

Lack of sexual experience is not equal innocence and Cullen is by no means innocent.

He's seen some shit, he's done some shit. Cullen has stable, fully developed personality, he mastered himself and earned his maturity hard way and that's exactly where his confidence comes from. Lack or existence of sex in his life is completely irrelevant for it.

Just to be perfectly clear: Cullen's confidence comes from his maturity, but his maturity doesn't come from lack or existence of sexual experience in his life.

________________________________________________________________

Now when we cleared this up let’s figure out why virgin!cullen headcanon is at least equal to nonvirgin!cullen and why you don’t have to be an adept of “virginity cult” to embrace it.

The main reason why Cullen can be a virgin in DAI lies in his tremendously traumatized background.

@aurianavaloria has a wonderful lore-friendly character research on the matter, so I strongly recommend to read it to be able to get the whole picture.

I have a serious problem with how lightly fandom treats serious topics such as PTSD and mental trauma in Cullen's biography. I've seen way too many people among both fans and haters who either ignore the Kinloch incident completely or perceive it like some small unfortunate event while it was actually a milestone in Cullen's personality formation. Just think about it - young innocent pup who'd never seen abominations or even death before had gone through horrific shit: loads of gruesome deaths of friends and people he was supposed to protect, severe mental and physical tortures and possibly even rape. And right after that instead of long and proper treatment, he got straight into hands of charismatic zealot who gave him some sort of crooked sympathy, nurturing his fears and hatred.

This kind of trauma is not something that can be overcome fast and easily and it certainly had a major impact on Cullen's personality development.

I’ve seen more than once the argument that:

“10 years is a long period of time, long enough to get over with PTSD. I can’t believe he didn’t have any action during that time, not necessarily something serious, but you know, just regular banging”.

Well, let me tell you one thing – one of the worst aspects of having PTSD is that side effects linger for a ridiculously long time, some never go away even if the person recovering in peace, surrounded by family and loved ones. Cullen didn’t have the luxury of recovering, he was forced to face his fears on the regular basis. The only thing that kept him sane was faith, in Maker and in the Order, represented by ‘”supportive” Knight-Commander. To think, his relationship with Meredith was a true deal with the devil. She showed him some kind of sympathy as she had the similar experience in her lifetime, and, what’s more important, showed him that there’s another path to prevent any further pain. The proper treatment he truly needed after events of the Broken Circle was replaced by the false purpose, based on fear and fanatical devotion to the duty and the Order. It did work but in a rather distorted way. Cullen’s recovery was like an improperly healed leg bone – painful, unstable, with lingering side effects, but at least he still could have been able to stand. And that’s exactly why I find it difficult to blame him for the notorious “magesarenotpeople” drama. It’s way too easy to brand him a villain in DAII, however, all I see there is a young broken person, clinging for the shards of sanity and trying to find the strength to go on after the severe trauma wherever he can, even in the blind zealotry. Was it a wrong way to go? Absolutely. Do I have a moral right to blame him for it? Not even close.  

So, long story short, 10 years totally may be not long enough to overcome PTSD, especially under the circumstances of constant stress and fear. The things are even more complicated if there was a sexual assault of any form during the Broken Circle. Sex and PTSD is a whole different topic for another day, let’s just say that impacts of a mental trauma can make sexual life really tricky. That makes the “regular banging” part quite dubious, not mentioning that casual sex is not for everyone to begin with. Some people do it lightly, some people don’t do it at all, either way is absolutely normal for any gender. Whether Cullen is the “regular banging” type or not and how badly PTSD affected his post-Fereldan sexual life is up to one’s headcanons. Personally, I’ve seen no evidence during the series that allow to affirm that Cullen divides concepts “sex” and “sex in the relationship”. The main problem for me is that one needs to treat casual sex lightly to perform it, and Cullen’s attitude towards pretty much everything is anything but light. Almost everyone who ever speaks of him during the game mentions at some point that he’s very serious, if not uptight. Hell, even Quis herself can tell him during the wedding cutscene “Always so serious”. This image doesn’t really get along well with the concept of casual fucking in my mind. But this is just my take on the character anyway.

Of course, all of this above doesn't prove that Cullen is necessarily a virgin in the Inquisition but it does prove that he has every reason to be one. According to WOT Cullen's attitude during Kirkwall period was cold towards both mages and templars, he didn't want to let anyone in and had a damn good reason for it.

There's a very high possibility that Cullen could have chosen to close himself from any kind of close social interactions (sexual ones like casual banging included) to prevent any further pain after traumatic events of the past and there's nothing strange or wrong about that.

________________________________________________________________

For the record, I do recognize the power of headcanons and totally respect them. I have zero problems with the fact that some people don’t see Cullen as a virgin in DAI. That’s how headcanons work and I’m more than cool with it. What gives me cringe however is the fact that some people claim that Cullen can’t be a virgin in DAI just because it’s not “normal” for a 30 yo handsome man to be one. This is arguably the most toxic argument in defense of nonvirgin!cullen position ever. I won’t torment you with off-topic *virginity is a social concept* rant, instead of that I’ll just say that the modern world's concept of a 'normal guy' may not work in Thedas. I strongly doubt that the social pattern of a "normal man" who should lose his virginity in between his early teens and mid-20s is fully acceptable for Thedas. The society with the ultimate power of the religious organization is very likely to be less reluctant to the idea of adult virginity than the modern one. Chantry is presumed to have its members, templars included, virtuous. It's not required, yes, templars can marry and sex is not totally tabooed for people who serve the Chantry but apparently, physical temperance is a thing for andrastian religion (remember Alistair's memories of his Templar days or Sebastian's celibacy) and not considered as a deviation. My general point here is that meeting an adult virgin man in Thedas is more frequent occurrence and more acceptable social concept than it is in the modern world.

Speaking of Cullen in particular, the man can be a virgin in DAI because of his traumatized background, PTSD, and following lifestyle choices. Considering all that, you can see that the virgin!cullen headcanon has a bit more solid backup than just “cult of virginity” or “first-time-big-deal kink” and that’s exactly what makes the whole thing totally plausible. And yes, it is plausible.

The writer deliberately left the virgin/nonvirgin thing ambiguous and did a pretty good job with that I dare say. Every romance related scene with Cullen can be read either way. There’s not a single scene in the game that can categorically prove that Cullen is/isn’t a virgin.

O RLY? :

“Cullen laughed at Bull's dick joke - HALF-LIFE 3 NONVIRGINITY CONFIRMED”

Um, no? The only thing confirmed in this scene is that Cullen finds the joke amusing and that he actually has a sense of humor hidden deep underneath his usual polite cold attitude. Let's just assume he is a virgin in this scene. So why wouldn't he laugh? Because he's not able to get sexual context without actual experience? I don't think it works that way, getting jokes is about intelligence and sense of humor, you don't need to have the exact same experience mentioned in the joke to find it funny. Besides, look at Cullen's attitude in this scene again, it's not all that confident "good one, bro". He definitely feels uncomfortable, even more uncomfortable than Josie a.k.a. Ultimate Disney Princess, so this scene definitely doesn't seem like a solid proof of Cullen's sexual experience existence.

Yeah, that’s all good, BUT :

“He said that there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun – it proves that he is experienced!”

Once again, Cullen is an adult in Inquisition. He is aware of sexual intercourse existence and won’t faint or something just because he witnessed its aftermath. If he is still a virgin it’s not because he’s a prude or reluctant to the very idea of sex, but because of deep personal problems, caused by traumatic past. “Nothing wrong with having a bit of fun” can be a simple display of “live and let live” principle. For example, an asexual person can tell you “doing hardcore sex is totally ok if you’re happy with it”. Same idea here.

Bitch, please:

"Two words: Desk. Sex. Alistair is inexperienced. Cullen’s got moves. Fight me" “It’s not something a virgin would do” ”This is not the action of a virgin” “DESK SCENE”

Ok, we finally made it to the juiciest part of this episode. What could I possibly say against the almighty Desk Scene, the bastion of Commander’s Sexual Experience? Well, wonder no more – the answer is “conversation before it”. The paradox is – if Cullen’s pre-sex conversation would have been identical to Alistair’s I’d agree with y’all – the man is by no means a virgin. The guy tells the woman he loves how much he cares and asks her to spend a night with him here and now. After she says “yes” the guy fucks her mindlessly on the table. Very hot and yep, there’s definitely some experience right there. But it’s not what happened at all. Just rewatch the scene once again.

*video captured by Geek Remix

You do see the difference, right? He’s not asking to spend a night with him, he’s asking to spend a life with him.

He’s really tensed and frustrated all along, hesitating to ask the woman he loves to share a future with him because it seems «too much to ask». It’s a real commitment for him – to open up to someone first time in a very long time. He feels extremely vulnerable at this point and probably makes one of the hardest personal choices ever. He’s not even sure how to formulate his question because he’s afraid that he’s asking too much of her. And then she simply turns him towards her with the gentle “Cullen, do you need to ask?” as if she’s already made the decision he found difficult even to express.

Do you see how important for him this scene is? It’s not just “I totally want you here and now” moment, it’s “I totally love you and want you here and now” moment. The scene is hands down hot, but there’s so much more in it than just a simple steamy moment between two lovers. In fact, the sex itself is secondary in this scene, it’s more about feelings, acceptance and trust. What’s happening here is the guy who doesn’t consider himself as a good person asking the woman he deeply cares about to accept him with all his shit he’s constantly kicking himself for and become the part of his life. And she does. Unconditionally. The significance of this conversation for Cullen is so much greater than just “we’ll bang, ok?”, it means the end of the whole phase of his life, it means that he actually managed to get over with bitterness and chosen solitude after Kinloch, it means that he finally got a chance to live for himself with the person he loves by his side.

Mention that he didn’t start to rip her clothes off right after this realization, he’s still somewhat hesitant, the fists are clenched,“I suppose not. I want­­­­-”. Notice this little concerned pause after Quis knocks the bottle off his desk and then this one big “Fuck it” moment happens. Like all the pieces are suddenly fit - he trusts her, he loves her, he wants her, so no more doubts. The following *sweeping shit off the desk and expressing overwhelming feelings on top of the closest available surface* episode is an act of pure passion, fueled by strong feelings, that kind of passion when nothing except the person you truly want at this very moment matters, neither place nor past sexual experiences. And that’s why it’s completely irrelevant whether Cullen was a virgin prior to this scene or not.

[sleepy-sunlight]

"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

Oooo that sounds like tons of fun to write!! thank you so much for the request and have a fantastic day!!  

Dialogue Prompts

———————————————————————————————————–

Cullen hadn’t thought of it much when you’d break into small bits of coughing, especially in the autumn months, when the air became thick and stagnant. He’d still sit you down and run a gentle palm over your back, a light brushing of his fingertips along your spine, soothing the aches from your weak, tired limbs.  

But he never expected it’d be as bad as it was.  

He hadn’t planned on the nights where you’d scramble from his arms in the middle of the night, sweat dribbling down your bare skin as you crumple up at the foot of the bed. Your heavy, ragged breaths and shivering body leaving only concern in its wake.  

“Love… what… what’s going on?” He had questioned, sitting up to hold your grasp in his, a shock bursting up along his limbs at your stiff, frigid fingertips.  

“Y-You’re so warm…” Your face scrunched up confusedly, dark circles engraved beneath your wide, saucered eyes. “A-Andraste’s grace…” “

“You’re freezing,” He muttered, whatever drowsiness thrown from him the moment he had met your cold touch. “You would think you’ve just come back from Emprise Du Lion.”  

“You know I don’t like that p-place much.” You attempted to joke, your words becoming brittle and soft before you broke into another fit of coughs. “I don’t think either of us can deal with much of Orlais.”  

He smiled faintly, a messy sort of laughter slipping from him as he curled back the bed sheets and blankets, wrapping them around you instead.  

“We should take you someplace warm, maybe I could get the fire going in the main hall-”  

“I’m sure every noble drunk out of their mind w-would love to see the Inquisitor wearing t-their commander’s enormous shirt, shivering like a child. I-Imagine the rumors that would f-fly.”  

“That is far from my largest concern.” He huffed. “They can think whatever they’d like when you’re okay.”  

“I’m f-fine,” You insisted. “Just a bad dream. It… it frightened me is all.”  

He took a cloth that was strewn against one of the bookshelves, drawing it along your damp face, his hold lacing around your cheek. “It’s like you’ve run nonstop across Thedas a dozen times.”  

“M-Maybe I have, you don’t know.”  

“Right, and I’m the King of Fereldan.”

“You and Cailan do share the same golden hair… another s-secret brother perhaps…?”  

He scoffed, shaking his head in his amusement, failing to mask his own growing distress.  

“I…” You hesitated, staring up at him briefly. “could you just stay here, with me? I-I’ll feel better in the morning I-I’m sure.”  

“If you don’t, I’m taking you to Mother Giselle. I’m not willing to negotiate on that.”  

“You aren’t exactly a n-negotiator in general. Unless y-you and Josephine would l-like to swap positions?”  

“Maker no,” He answered in an instant, shifting to sit down beside you, feeling as you tipped back, your head finding its place in the crook of his neck. “Just try to sleep before you get any more crazy ideas dear.”  

It hadn’t taken too long for you to oblige, the gentle rise and fall of your chest easing him soon after.

But that had been perhaps one of the only times the worries were soothed.

Because from then on, it only worsened.

It only grew.  

You had stopped eating or drinking like you used to. Even turning down so much as a glass of ale from Varric during the occasional games of Wicked Grace or the cookies Sera would surprise you with on occasion.  

You became tired and weary, the moment you’d set down your weapon your arms weighing down like cinderblocks, legs threatening to buckle were it not for Dorian or the wall that’d catch you. Whichever happened to ‘notice’ first.  

But the worst had been the coughing.  

For what came with it.  

It had first occurred during a meeting at the war table, your gaze glossy and looking out onto the map of Thedas. Your features tight and mouth sewn into a frown as it always did when you were in deep thought.  

“I’d like if we could send some of our lower ranking soldiers to the Exalted Plains and the Hinterlands to help rebuild some of the broken structures. If we can do that then we can begin providing homes for refugees and if the chevaliers there are willing to-”  

You erupted into those horrid coughs, clamping an old handkerchief you carried with you over your lips as you ducked your head down embarrassedly.  

“Inquisitor?” Josephine furrowed her brow confusedly, beginning to round about the table to meet you in her fretting. “What’s the-”  

“I-I’m fine…!” You mustered, swallowing down the dryness of your voice. “J-Just got something caught i-in me is all…”  

And when you lowered your rag he saw it.  

Blood.  

It doused the material as you tried to hide it in your fist, his heart nearly stopping dead in its tracks as he erupted back.  

“What is that?” He questioned, his tone raising far more than he had meant to.

“W-What’s what?” “

He glanced from side to side uneasily, sighing as he attempted to collect himself, grappling tight onto your shoulder before he pulled you off to the side.  

“You’re bleeding.” He whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”  

“I-”  

“I gave you the benefit of the doubt when you woke up in those sweats frozen to the bone but I can’t here,” He softened, letting the concern that knotted in his stomach finally reveal onto his face, his shoulders dropping. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.”  

“I… I don’t know.” You muttered, unable to meet his gaze or even focus on anything, staring to and fro as if something were constantly moving before you. “I… I just…”  

Your eyes rolled back, feet shuffling before they gave out on you, a faint gasp echoing from you before you fell onto him, limp and feeble.  

“Andraste’s blood!” Josephine yelped, Leilana struck speechless, her jaw-dropping before the two of them rushed after you. “I-I’ll get Mother Giselle right away! Commander, take them to their quarters!”  

“I’ll keep the Orlesians busy,” Leilana offered, both she and the ambassador racing out of the door in a flurry of or papers and orders.  

In the brief time, all that Cullen could hear were your broken, worn pants and his own thumping heartbeat, pounding against his ears as he held you, afraid and confused. 

Even as he scooped you up and brought you to your room, you were clammy and pale, your chest heaving as if every breath were heavier than cinderblocks. Crumbling as you were set upon the bed beneath the thinnest sheet possible, Cullen’s hand entwining with yours even as Mother Giselle burst in. 

He answered for you as best as he could, his sight constantly shifting between the Chantry woman and you, as though afraid you may disappear from his sight once he looked away.

But you could hardly even move.

He couldn’t begin to describe how much that terrified him. 

Giselle had worked endlessly from that morning to the evening, muttering apologies to Cullen here and then, even wrapping a blanket about his shoulders as he grew tired and weary even despite his refusals of such a thing. 

He couldn’t rest. 

Not until he knew you’d be okay.

“I can’t understand why they’d avoid treatment for so,” Giselle had contemplated aloud to herself as she backed away, evening hues and light pouring in through the grand windows. “You can’t let them overwork themselves like this in the future. Herald of Andraste or not, there’s only so much we can manage before our bodies give out.” 

“I… I had no idea,” he confessed, wiping away annoyedly at his vision as it blurred. “I-It wasn’t until I-I saw that blood…” 

“Bless their heart,” She cooed, patting your shoulder lightly. “there’s not much else I can do…” 

Everything came to a sudden halt, his head jerking up to meet the older woman.

“What… what do you mean…?”

“They’ll make it through this time,” She soothed him, his entire body softening almost immediately with a relief he hadn’t known to be possible until then. “but I can hardly promise anything if this were to happen again. You need to keep an eye on them, I’ve seen how they look at you. They’ll listen to you.” 

He didn’t respond, quiet as she left the room with a curt dip of her head.

The way you looked at him. 

He hadn’t ever noticed. 

He saw all of the other things. How you’d smile the second you’d spot him or how you’d wrap your arms around his neck when you embraced him, the tips of your fingertips always finding a way to wind their way into his hair. 

But he hadn’t figured how you looked at him.

Not until that night when you finally woke. 

He swore he nearly leaped from his seat when you began to stir, yawning as you stretched out drowsily. 

“M-Maker’s breath…!” He bit back a yell, clasping your palms in his own, a fond thumb brushing against your knuckles “Y-You’re awake love!” 

Your eyes flickered confusedly, giving him that same familiar grin as you focused on him. 

And that was when he noticed it. 

The affection and adoration that slipped into your gaze the moment you saw him left his stomach fluttering with butterflies in his stomach, his heart melting into your hands for you to hold.  

“I um… I suppose I am…” You droned. “What… what happened?” 

“You passed out this morning,” He explained. “You were sick, and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell anyone. Why would you do that?” 

“I… I don’t know,” You huffed, guilt washing over you. “I just… I don’t like others worrying about me. I need to focus on Corypheus if I don’t everything could fall apart. How… how I feel isn’t important.” 

He furrowed his brow, frowning at your words. “How you feel is incredibly important. You cannot forget that you are still a person, harbinger or not. If something were to happen to you then we’d be doomed.” 

He weakened, his shoulders dropping with a deep, exhausted breath. 

“I… I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself if something were to happen to you.” 

You sat up slightly, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his nose, laughing lightly as his features scrunched up embarrassedly. 

“I’m not going anywhere, Cullen… you know that.” 

“You need to take care of yourself if you’re going to uphold that.” He remarked, rising to his feet. “I recall a certain Inquisitor telling me the same thing once before.” 

You nodded, pulling him onto the bed beside you, feeling his arms ivy around your waist, pulling you into his lap. 

“You have been with me every step of the way,” He purred, your body that had been frigid hours before, warmed by his touch. “I will do everything I’m able to do the same for you dear.” 

“… You mean that?” 

It didn’t even take long to know with utter and absolute certainty. 

“More than anything.” 

[shannaraisles]

This started as an exercise for getting into Erin’s head, and ballooned a little. The title is absolute pants, but I was drawing a blank. Hope you like it!

A Gift

"If that is all," Doshiel said, straightening from his lean over the map, "I believe I need to have a word with my daughter before she scandalizes our good ambassador with her approach to Orlesian noblewomen again."

"Oh, no, not another one?" Josephine asked in dismay, moving toward the door at the Inquisitor's side.

Erin glanced up from the little table set up in the corner where she took notes on every advisors' meeting, a soft sense of anxiety at being needed elsewhere assuaged by the ambassador's gentle smile and wave for her to take her time. She nodded, settling back into her seat to tidy the notes she had just taken, scanning over them to be certain she knew who had said what and what decisions had been made. Habit had her listening with half-an-ear to the remaining advisors' conversation, which seemed more cryptic than usual.

"Did you find one?" Cullen was asking, the familiar creak of his leather and plate betraying his own posture straightening.

Leliana's voice sounded amused. "Several, in fact," she agreed, the Orlesian lilt in her voice always more pronounced when she was in a merrier mood. "Blackwall is keeping a close eye, but I believe it is a good time to make the right impression."

"I see. Thank you."

Footsteps passed over the flagstones; the door groaned open and shut. Silence fell, broken only by the sound of two pairs of lungs breathing sedately and the scratch of Erin's quill over her parchment. Whatever that had been about, clearly it wasn't for her to know. Anyway, the silence was welcome. Of course it was welcome. She wasn't concerned about being left alone with the commander. It wasn't as though she'd caught herself dreaming about him or anything. Besides, dreams didn't count. She'd had plenty of dreams about attractive men in her lifetime, and nothing had ever come of it. Even here, where the Fade seemed to rule everyone but herself and Cedric, dreams couldn't possibly be prophetic. Hell, she didn't even know if her dreams were in any way accurate. Could a man really be that simultaneously erotic and tender at the same time?

A secretive smile lit up her face for a split second. If any man could do it, she was willing to bet Commander Cullen could.

"Erin?"

She glanced up guiltily at the sound of her name on her fantasy man's lips. No, not her fantasy man - the real thing, standing next to her little work station with a curious look on his handsome face. He looked ... almost nervous. What did he have to be nervous about? She was the weirdo from another world who still didn't know how everything worked around here. And was having inappropriate thoughts about someone who had never been anything but kind to her.

"Yes, sir? Ah, commander?" She winced internally - when was she going to start using the right titles for people here?

Cullen's lips pulled into the briefest suggestion of a smile at her stumble over how to address him. "Are you done here? I, uh ... there is something I would like your opinion on."

Trying to ignore the sudden twang of something hot and prickly connected directly to her lady-parts, Erin almost knocked the chair over jolting onto her feet. "Of course, s- ... commander, I ..." She glanced down at her work, torn between following the whim of doing whatever he wanted of her and finishing the work that needed to be done. "It-it won't take all day, will it?"

A quiet chuckle escaped him as he followed her gaze to the notes on her desk. "No," he promised, his tone unexpectedly warm. "You will have plenty of time to complete your duties. Come, a walk will do you well. You have been inside for too long as it is."

"Oh, you ... you notice things like that," she mumbled in embarrassment, dipping her head as she turned to follow him out into the drafty corridor.

He was noticing things about her? Why? What could he possibly see in her that would invite him to look closer? She was just an outsider they had to keep close in case nasty magicians tried to make her go back to that Fade nightmare again, that was all. Not that she was complaining - all things considered, she would much rather be here with the Inquisition than left to her own devices out there in a world that didn't even know what a flush toilet was. Besides, out there, she wouldn't have any friends, any colleagues ... any handsome commanders to admire as discreetly as she was able. She was beginning to think she wasn't that discreet now. She was going to have to reel it in, before anyone else noticed she was noticing the commander. Bad enough that he'd noticed. Maybe if she could manage to hold it in for long enough, he'd forget it ever happened.

Decision made, Erin raised her head as they passed through the ambassador's office, mercifully empty of Josephine for the time being, aware that a very small part of herself was protesting the decision at all. Protesting the fact that she felt the need to hide every part of herself that might possibly invite rejection or humiliation, the way she held the world at more than arms' length. Better to be lonely than hurt was not the way she wanted to live, but it was a lifelong habit now. Breaking it would take more than a moment of staring where others could see her preferences show. Breaking that habit now, in the middle of a war, was just a bad idea, period.

"You are settling into Skyhold, I hope?"

She blinked, belatedly realizing that the commander was actually holding the door into the main hall open for her as he spoke. A dull flush darkened her cheeks as she skipped hurriedly through, pausing to wait for him before falling into step just behind his stride.

"I have somewhere warm to sleep and work to keep me busy," she agreed, carefully not mentioning that she wasn't sleeping in the room she had been assigned to. That was not something she wanted to broadcast. The last thing she wanted was to gain a reputation for being difficult.

"But you still miss your home," Cullen pointed out in a quiet tone, ignoring the nobles who simpered at his passage in favor of glancing down at her, it seemed.

Erin's gaze flickered to meet his for less than a heartbeat before she turned her eyes forward once again. "This is my home now," she told him carefully. "There's no way to send me back, we did prove that. So -"

"That isn't what I was asking, Erin."

Her brow knitted uncomfortably as she looked down at her feet. She didn't want to be having this conversation. Thinking about Earth - about home - opened up the gaping maw of loneliness in her chest, that black hole she didn't think was ever going to close. It might not have been perfect, she might not have been happy, but she had at least fitted there, in her own anxious way. Here in Thedas ... she didn't think she was ever going to fit. She had no father, no siblings, no anchor to reality to ground her and keep her from flying to pieces at the worst moment. Perhaps most painfully, she had no Dare, with his tuxedo fur and warm paws, to give her the illusion of being loved. Her throat tightened into a thick lump just at the memory of her pet.

A warm hand touched her shoulder, drawing her feet to a stumbling halt as she jerked her head up, swallowing down that lump and the tears that wanted to fall to brave the kind expectation of the commander's gaze.

"Forgive me. I should not press for such answers." Cullen's expression gentled as he studied her carefully blank expression. "But you should know that you have a place here, for as long as you wish it. You have friends, people who care for you. Though your place of birth may be far out of your reach, you are not alone here, Erin."

A lifetime of hiding what her mother had deemed "negative" emotions didn't let her react to his kindness with the honesty it deserved. Instead, she drew in a deep breath, forcing that need for tears behind walls that buckled with the weight of everything hidden away, and offered up a wry sort of smile in its place.

"I'm always alone, commander," she said quietly. "But thank you."

For a moment, she could have sworn he wanted to argue with her. His brow, so often lined with a frown from the headaches he endured, knitted deeper; his mouth opened ... but he, too, seemed able to suppress what his instincts wanted him to express aloud. He simply sighed, offering her a faint quirk of his lips to match her own fraudulent smile.

"I understand." He nodded, straightening up to his full height once again. "Come."

With a gesture, he beckoned to her to walk with him once again, and together they emerged into the blistering midday sun. It never ceased to amaze Erin that it could get so hot in Skyhold, when the mountain peaks all around them never shed their snowy cloak. Inside the stone walls, it was always just a little chilly, and yet out here, they were baking beneath the summer sun. By the time they reached the lower courtyard, she was sweating, embarrassed to be so obviously overheated in just her shirt and vest when the commander was carrying plate armor, leather, and that furred mantle of his, and seemed only slightly warm. She tugged her scarf loose from her throat, glad she'd held onto her practice of winding her braid about her head, even in the face of Cedric's teasing about princesses and nerf-herders.

But why were they in the lower courtyard, she wondered. This wasn't the way to his office - they'd passed both sets of steps that would lead up to the battlements. Was she going to be dismissed? Had they already packed what little she owned onto a horse she couldn't ride, was that why they were walking to the stables? She felt the beginning of familiar panic starting to rise, her expression quite suddenly absolutely blank once again as she focused in on herself.

Rationalize, don't catastrophize. The worst that could possibly happen is that they're going to execute you or throw you back into a rift, and you know they won't do that. Cullen just told you that you're not alone, that you have a place here. He doesn't lie. Either he's lying to you or you're lying to yourself, and let's be honest, you don't have the best track record of being truthful with yourself, do you? So calm the fuck down and think about this.

Her mind ticked back to what she had overheard in the War Room. Cullen had made an inquiry, Leliana had said something about Blackwall, and Blackwall frequented the stables. So Cullen was taking her to look at whatever it was Blackwall was keeping a close eye on for Leliana. Erin felt her panic recede. Thank god for therapists who give tools and not solutions.

"Master Dennet." Cullen nodded to the horsemaster as he lead the way into the stable, twisting a little to be certain she was still following him.

"Commander." The horsemaster barely glanced up, answering as one professional to another. "Last stall, behind the Warden's little workshop."

"Thank you."

To Erin's surprise, Cullen seemed to grow lighter with that cryptic comment, a smoother glide to his step as he paused to lay a gloved hand gently against the curve of her spine. She almost managed not to flinch away from the touch, quickly relaxing. It had taken a while, but she was finally learning that such touches were considered common courtesy here, not a prelude to some horror she'd only ever heard about in awful stories on the internet anyway. Cullen was guiding her, not forcing her to go where he chose; she could escape that touch at any time she decided to. Maybe one day, she'd be able to accept it without upsetting him with her immediate reaction.

"Commander ... why are we here?" she ventured after a moment's internal battle, trying not to breathe too deeply. The whole ... fresh county air mixed with fresh manure thing wasn't really her favorite scent in the world. It seemed as though whenever people mentioned fresh air around here, they meant poop.

"You will see in a moment," he promised, gently laying just a little pressure on her back to urge her forward ahead of him, toward the stall that was tucked behind Blackwall's little woodworking table.

The Grey Warden himself was still working on his oddly feathered rocking horse, laying down his tools at their approach. Erin hesitated as he turned to look at them, something knowing in his stoic gaze just a little unnerving. What was going on here?

"Are they there?" Cullen asked Blackwall, an almost eager tone in his voice.

"Aye, they are," the man answered, his accent always putting her in mind of Sean Bean from any number of movies where the man's characters died. She hoped that wasn't the case for this man. "First pick goes to you, Inquisitor's orders."

If anything, this just confused Erin further. What did Doshiel Lavellan have to do with all this? And again, why was she being involved in whatever this was? She glanced to Cullen in bemusement, startled to find that sometimes gentle look of his aimed directly at her.

"First pick of what?" she found herself asking, shy of making it a demand. "What's going on?"

"Don't fret yourself," Blackwall told her, gesturing toward the stall. "Take a look."

Deeply-held suspicions clanging in the back of her mind - is this a trick? Will they laugh at me? What if I hate this? - Erin gathered her courage to step past the Warden and peer over the slatted door into the stall, aware of a vaguely familiar chorus of small sounds from inside amid the rustle of hay. What she found there almost brought tears to her eyes all over again.

"Oh ..."

Tumbling awkwardly over the hay that covered the packed earth floor and each other were five kittens, not more than three months old at her best guess. The mother, a beautiful tabby, was sitting imperiously on a barrel above them, keeping a watchful eye on their antics and on anyone who dared to look in on them. She met Erin's gaze, accepting the slow blink that was offered her way, and answered it with a slow blink of her own, jumping down to cross the stall and leap up onto the narrow door's edge to greet the visitor properly.

Instantly, Erin was reminded of Dare, her own cat from home, who was fearless in the face of strangers and an instant flirt with anyone who showed even the slightest interest in him. This queen was just as fearless, sniffing curiously at the hand she offered before rubbing her cheek along her knuckles, inviting the head rub Erin gave her in answer.

"Aren't you beautiful?" she murmured to the purring feline, delighted with the friendly response. The cat looked down at the kittens briefly. "Yes, they're beautiful, but you are the most beautiful because you made them. And you're such a good mum, too."

Strange, how speaking aloud to animals never made her feel even half as exposed as speaking to other people did, even when other people were there to witness it. She knew Cullen and Blackwall were close enough to hear every word, but the anxious upset she usually felt in her chest and stomach when speaking was absent when her conversational companion was an animal. Especially when it was a cat.

The feline glanced down at the kittens once again, and this time, Erin thought she recognized the behavior as an invitation.

"May I?"

"Of course," Blackwall answered from behind her. "Climb in."

"Well, I was talking to the cat, but thank you," Erin told him over her shoulder with a cheeky smile, inwardly thrilled to hear Cullen choke on a laugh as she climbed over the stall door to step down carefully onto the hay.

The kittens scattered, as she had expected them to, glad to find that even in a different world some things remained constant and predictable. The mother had jumped down with her, so she sat herself on the uncomfortable floor of the stall, raising her eyes to the door as Cullen leaned into view.

"Are you not going to choose one?" he asked her, curiosity brightening his eyes as he watched her fingers trail lightly over the adult feline's back with absent affection.

Erin felt her heart constrict for just a moment. "I-is that what this is about?"

Cullen hesitated, an awkward grimace of a smile touching his face as he raised his hand to rub at his neck - something he did when he was uncomfortable or nervous, she'd noticed. "Ah, well, I ... you were rather heartbroken to leave your nug behind in Haven," he pointed out. "And I have heard you speak of a cat you once owned. I thought - that is, we thought - that perhaps you might like another."

"Ignore the we in that sentence," Blackwall's voice floated to them, sounding as though he was not even trying to hide his bearded grin. "The commander was very clear."

Erin's eyes tracked back to Cullen, disbelieving amazement painting her face as inside her an unfamiliar battle was taking place. She was so used to suppressing everything, to faking the appropriate response, that just feeling real happiness rising in her chest was a shock to the system. Having to fight the urge to push it aside was even harder on the senses. But ... she was happy, she realized. Happy that he'd noticed her, happy that he paid such close attention that he somehow knew she needed something small and furry to cuddle when she was feeling lonely. Happy that he had apparently all but given orders to make sure that this litter was left unmolested until the kittens were old enough to be separated, just so that she could have the first pick of them. She wasn't sure anyone had ever gone so far out of their way to anything like this for her, without even knowing for certain how she would react. It was ... a fragile sort of feeling, but rather wonderful, in its own way. She just didn't have the words to express it.

A small furry head bumped her relaxed fingers, drawing her attention down to the kitten that that decided to be brave. It was a black fluffball, smaller by far than the others who were watching warily. As she lowered her eyes to it, the tiny kitten bumped her fingers with its cheek once again, raising one wobbly paw to bat at her without much coordination. Pinprick claws scratched over her skin, sharp and certainly painful, but she'd grown used to accidental mauling with Dare. She didn't even flinch, instead letting herself laugh a little as she rubbed a fingertip over the little black head.

"Hello yourself," she responded to the insistent push, lifting her hand to let the little thing clamber unsteadily onto her knee. "You're a brave one, aren't you? Are all those others just big bullies who don't let you eat enough?"

The little head rose to emit a plaintive meow, big blue eyes blinking hopefully up at her. And just like that, she forgot she was being watched. Her hand gently scooped beneath the small creature that wanted her attention, lifting it up to her face to offer another slow, reassuring blink. It was only just big enough to fill her palm and fingers, easily the runt of the litter - not skinny, but not flourishing as its siblings were. The pale blue eyes blinked back at her, and then winked, the little mouth releasing another meow as she laughed softly at the rather sweet gesture. With a practiced hand, she tilted the little creature up to check on one rather vital statistic.

"Oh, you're a girl," she declared softly, turning the kitten the right way up again to kiss the soft head. This got a purr of approval and a rather hard face bunt in return, but Erin was already charmed. She was a firm believer that you didn't choose a cat, they chose you, and by the look of things, this little darling had already chosen her.

"Do you like her?"

Her gaze snapped up at the sound of Cullen's voice, so tentatively hopeful. He was watching her with a strange softness in his own eyes, something she might almost have called protective admiration if he'd been looking at anyone else. As the kitten clambered from her hand to her shoulder, investigating the braided crown of her hair, Erin felt herself smile - a real, honest smile, for possibly the first time.

"She's beautiful," she told him, only wincing a little as small claws tugged at her hair. "Is ... may I really have her?"

"She's yours."

Two words that set something in stone, made all the more precious for coming from him. Erin felt herself blush as her expression turned to gratitude, lifting her new friend from her shoulder to rub her cheek into the warm fur. She wasn't Dare, but this little one would go a long way to healing that particular hurt. So maybe Cullen was right. Maybe she truly wasn't alone here, after all.

[agentkatie]

A Study in Blue

The lovely @laelior brought my attention to this ridiculously beautiful art of Cullen in Alliance dress uniform, and… well, I got a little bit carried away, so this is for you! Full disclosure, I don’t know what the Hell this is. Maybe it’s another AU where Cullen ends up in Shepard’s universe? Maybe it’s to come later on in my current AU? Who cares; I just like writing these nerds. Happy holidays my dear!

1992 words, established relationship fluff that turns NSFW-ish, because the only correct response to seeing Cullen in dress blues is to try and jump him.

Cullen straightened his jacket one final time as he observed himself in the mirror, brushing an almost-imperceptible fleck of dust from his epaulette. It was strange, but the Alliance dress uniform sat far more comfortably on his shoulders than his Templar armour ever did. Even ceremonial Templar armour was designed for strength and protection, with little consideration for how its rivets and joints might bite into the skin; Alliance dress blues, on the other hand, were all about comfort, its soft fabric carefully tailored for relief on prolonged parades. The first time he’d worn it he’d felt exposed and vulnerable, its ornate decoration providing no security in this strange world of guns and biotics - but now, whilst they were at peace and happy, it felt right.

Besides; there was no greater protection than having Shepard next to him.

“Looking sharp, Commander.” A drawling voice interrupted his thoughts; he turned to find Shepard, in her own uniform, leaning against the bathroom doorway and regarding him with an appreciative grin. “I’m sorry - Admiral.”

He smirked at the teasing lilt of her voice on his new title, surprised that she didn’t accompany it with a mocking salute. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy, Commander?”

“Maybe a little,” she acknowledged as she closed the distance between them. “But you deserve it.”

“It is an honorary title,” he reminded her. “It means nothing; technically I’m not even in the Alliance. It should be yours.”

“Yes, it should,” she agreed, her lips quirking upwards into a playful smile as her arms circled his neck; his own hands came to settle on her hips, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of her trousers. “They made you an Admiral just for hanging out with me for a bit; I saved the universe and I’m still stuck at Lieutenant-Commander.”

“I provided invaluable support to the Alliance’s relief efforts,” he pointed out. “You bequeathed their best ship to a Krogan.”

“Grunt is our son. Be nicer to him.”

He chuckled, leaning down to capture her lips in a kiss; he felt her smile into his mouth as she kissed him back, one hand leaving his neck to cup his face. “I am very proud of you,” she murmured against his lips, her thumb brushing back and forth over one stubbled cheek. “Even if it means I have to make small-talk with pointless dignitaries all night.”

“The evening is as much for you as it is for me. They’re presenting you with the Star of Terra.”

Shepard made a disgruntled in the back of her throat, as if the Alliance’s commendations’ were miles beneath her. “I’ll put it next to my Silver Dagger and Nova Cluster; I’ll have so many shiny things to polish after they’ve removed me from active duty.”

“Shepard—”

“Hackett confirmed it today,” she cut him off with a hand against his chest. “I’m getting promoted to a nice desk job here on the Citadel.”

Cullen sighed, one hand leaving her hip to rub the back of his neck. It wasn’t a surprise for either of them; Shepard - or rather, the Shepard the universe knew - was a woman of war, her singular strength of both body and character forged in blood and pain. But now the war was over; now those very characteristics, which had led the Alliance to burden her alone with saving them, had become… inconvenient. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “But… maybe being removed from active duty is not the worst thing in the world. We could fill our time with other things.”

“Such as?”

He hesitated, breaking from her embrace as he lost his nerve; he turned instead to face the mirror once more, giving himself a final scolding look as he forced from himself the words that had been on his tongue for far too long. “This apartment is rather large for two people.”

“Yeah, but Anderson gave it to me; I’d rather not downgrade if it’s not necessary.” He shook his head as she failed to grasp his meaning, watching her expression closely in the mirror as she slowly transitioned to understanding. “Oh. You want…”

“Only if you do.”

He turned back to her once more, observing her as her mind visibly scouted his suggestion, her face contorted into a look of extreme concentration. “Actual, non-Grunt children,” she said eventually, looking up at him with a furrowed brow. “I don’t know. Doesn’t it worry you?”

“Of course it does,” he admitted. “But we could do it. Together.”

For many years, children had been the very last thing on his mind; between the Templars and the Inquisition and his own personal demons his life had always seemed far too chaotic to bring a child into it. But the idea had crept up on him, laying roots in the back of his mind which had grown into a yearning as he’d watched Shepard interact with their friends’ children; as she’d wrestled with Wrex’s tiny Krogan horde, and told stories of the Normandy to Garrus and Tali’s daughter. And maybe he didn’t deserve to want it; maybe he was too broken to be a father, too damaged by his past to provide the foundations for a child’s future. But with Shepard as his partner, anything seemed possible.

“Being a parent…” she began, then trailed off, her eyes falling to the floor. “I’m just not sure. Is it that important to you?”

“It… would be nice. But all I need is you.”

She smiled at that, her fingers hesitantly reaching for him once more; he took her hands in his, placing a brief kiss to them as they lay encased in his grasp. “It’s not a definite no. Maybe… maybe we could travel for a bit first. Get our own ship. I’ve still not been to Palaven, and I want to show you Terra Nova. But one day… I don’t know.”

“Commanding our own ship does sound appealing,” he said, his fingers reaching for her waist once more - and then, because he couldn’t resist goading her even now, added, “naturally, as an Admiral I would be in charge.”

“Wha— go fuck yourself, Rutherford,” she flared up - completely predictably - at his attempt to pull rank. “I’ll just take Garrus if—”

He cut off her argument by pressing his lips against hers, and she made a weak noise of protest before yielding to him. He’d only intended it to be a brief kiss, but she clearly had other ideas; with a swipe of her tongue across his bottom lip she deepened the kiss, one hand winding into his hair and tugging gently in a way which never failed to send shivers down his spine. Yes, she knew him far too well, and each little action - the scrape of her nails on his scalp, the press of her body against his, the delightful little noises she made into his mouth - was a tactical ploy with only one purpose in mind. And, Void take her, they worked every time.

He had just enough sense left in him to break the kiss, though it did little to deter her; she moved instead to pepper little kisses along the line of his jaw, and he bit back a groan as she playfully nipped at his neck with her teeth. “Shepard…” he warned.

“What?”

“You know what,” he growled, meeting her expression of feigned innocence with a glare he hoped would dissuade her.

“I can’t help it,” she shrugged, absent-mindedly fiddling with the buttons of his jacket. “You’re very handsome in dress blues - especially with that brooding scowl of yours.” A huff of laughter involuntarily escaped his lips, and she grinned, both of them knowing in that instant that she’d won. As if there had ever been any hope for him. “Of course, anything’s better than that faux-fur monstrosity you insist on keeping.”

“You know full well it’s bearskin.”

“Yeah, well - it looks better on the floor of my cabin.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Do you really think that line will work on me?”

She smiled, playfully swatting his shoulder with the back of her hand. “I meant as a bearskin rug. But now you mention it, we really should compare it with this,” she said, plucking at his buttons once more and pushing the fabric from his shoulders; he shook his head as his jacket fell to the floor, making one final half-hearted protest even as his grip on her tightened.

“Shepard, we’ll be late—”

“Not if we’re quick.”

“And the others are downstairs—”

“Then we’ll just have to be quiet too.”

“Maker preserve me. You are absolutely terrible.”

And with that he kissed her again, revelling in her surprised squeal as his hands moved to grasp her buttocks and hoist her from the ground. Her legs locked around his waist as he backed her into the wall, crushing the hard and perfect lines of her strong body against his, and this time it was his turn to toy with her; he planted open-mouthed kisses along her neck, the sweet smell of her perfume permeating his senses and leaving him love-drunk and heady, and when he reached her ear he took the lobe between his teeth and tugged. She hummed appreciatively, rocking her hips up against his, and it took every ounce of his remaining reserve not to rip down the fabric between them and thrust into her; instead he ground against her, with enough pressure only to stoke the aching need building in them both, and she let out a growl of frustration, her calves tightening around him in an effort to press their bodies closer together.

“Rutherford,” she murmured, a barely-controlled waver in her voice. “Stop teasing and fuck me already.”

“Is that an order, Commander? If I recall correctly, I outrank you now.”

“You are just—”

“Are you two al—spirits!” The unmistakable flanging of Garrus’s voice interrupted them, so unexpectedly that Cullen almost dropped Shepard; he caught her just in time, lowering her awkwardly to the ground before rubbing the back of his neck, and though he still found Turians difficult to read he was almost positive Garrus was smirking. “What’s that human expression? Keep it in your pants?”

“The human expression is fuck off, Garrus,” Shepard grumbled, straightening her jacket as Cullen picked up his own.

“Seems awfully specific. Our taxis are here - but we can go on ahead if you two aren’t finished.”

Cullen felt himself go red at the suggestive emphasis the Turian placed on his final word - which in a way was a blessing, for at least it diverted blood away from other areas. “No, we’ll come— uh, join - you,” he mumbled, quickly buttoning up his jacket and brushing it free of any fluff it might have accrued during its time on the floor.

“Suit yourself; you’ve got forty-five seconds,” Garrus shrugged before leaving them alone once more. “Vega - you were right!” they heard him yell as he stepped out onto the landing, and Cullen winced at the raucous laughter from downstairs at the exclamation. Shepard bit her lip, her eyes twinkling with laughter, and he turned away from her to inspect himself in the mirror once more; thankfully he wasn’t as dishevelled as he’d expected, his uniform largely free of creases and stray flecks.

“You’re fine,” Shepard reassured him, stepping forward to dust off the back of his jacket as he hastily smoothed down the few curls she’d teased out of place. “Very Admiral-y. Let’s get going.”

He nodded at his reflection one final time before turning to her. “After you,” he said, one hand extended towards the open door, but she shook her head and extended her own hand with an exaggerated bow.

“Oh, no - you first, Admiral. You’re in charge now, after all.”

He smirked, taking her hand in his as they left the room together. “My love; we both know I’ll never be in charge with you.”

(You can read more of Shepard and Cullen kicking ass and taking names over at AO3. Comments and reblogs sustain my life force!)

[johaerys-writes]

Dorian Pavus/Trevelyan

A World With You, Chapter 15: The Inquisitor’s Paramour

Sometimes all people seem to do is talk. Anything that happens in Skyhold doesn’t stay a secret for long- and perhaps that isn’t always a bad thing.

Also known as the one where the Inquisitor is hopelessly in love with a certain dark-haired mage :3

Read here or on AO3!

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

The days grew long. Longer than he had imagined possible. Reports that would normally be finished in a few minutes now took hours. The war council meetings became unbearably dull, almost to the point of torture. His mind was fleeting. Cullen would huff in frustration when he entered the war room late, and Leliana was getting more and more impatient with his day dreaming.

“Focus is needed to settle these matters, Inquisitor,” she would say in an icy voice that she reserved only to reprimand him, it seemed.

He blamed lack of sleep.

In truth, Dorian occupied most of his thoughts. His velvet lips. The half-smile when he pulled away. The mark under his right eye. The smell of his cologne that lingered on Tristan’s clothes for hours after they had parted. Oakmoss, sandalwood, and something else, something…

Those moments that they managed to steal away for a hurried kiss, a lingering touch, a smile and a hushed whisper in the shadows of the stair room or late at night in the library after everyone had left, had become his only respite in the fast moving blur that was now his life. Most of the time he felt as if drowning under the pressure of having to be what everyone needed him to be. He was the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste, people looked up to him, he had to focus on his work, he had to make decisions that would alter people’s lives every day, he had to…. Yet none of that seemed to matter when he was with him.

Silently, he cursed the mountain of duties that kept him away. The report on the desk in front of him had been forgotten long before. It had something to do with the Civil War in the Dales or other. Apparently, it had spread to the Emerald Graves, and the situation there was becoming more dire by the minute.

Normally, he would be interested in learning about the matter -it always helped to know as much about the state of the war as possible- but today was different. Dorian was in his mind, and his promise to meet him after the clock had struck noon. He gazed at the sun outside his window; it was early, and it hadn’t even reached its peak in the sky yet.

With an impatient sigh he placed his pen next to the ink fountain. He swiftly walked over to his dresser, where a small package wrapped in dark velvet was left. Lady Josephine had very discreetly given it to him during their last meeting, not quite able to hide a small, knowing smile. He had specifically requested something that he barely had use for, after all, and never informed her who exactly it was for.

Carefully, he picked it up and placed it in his coat pocket. A quick peak in the mirror to make sure his hair was in place -he had noticed he had been doing that more as of late-, and he flew down the stairs. He was supposed to meet with Cullen in his office to go over the training of the new recruits, but not before a quick stop by the library.

The throne room was filled with gossiping nobles and chantrics as always, though it seemed to him the talks were much more animated ever since his speech. He normally tried his best to avoid them all, shut his ears so he wouldn't listen in to their conversations, but he couldn't help but notice their stares as he passed, or the abrupt stop to their hushed whispers as soon as they saw him. Their wary looks as they bowed left no doubt that they had all been talking about him. It drove him a little mad to think that his name and everything he did were on everyone’s lips, but he told himself that it was nothing new. It was part and parcel of that job of his. If it could ever be called that.

Suppressing the scowl that threatened to slither to the surface -he had become more aware of that, too- he crossed the floor towards the rotunda. Varric was by his desk, scratching away at a piece of paper. He gave him a warm smile, and Tristan nodded in greeting. It was always pleasant to stop and have a chat with Varric, but now he had other business to attend to.

Very important business.

Dorian was leaning against the railing of the circular rotunda, peering down at the floor beneath him. Solas was working on one of his murals, and Dorian was watching him as he painted.

Tristan stood by the door, concealed in the shadows cast by the eerie light from the tall windows overhead. The dark red coat he was wearing was made of soft velvet, but it looked simple and clean cut, almost austere compared to the other outfits Tristan had seen him in. His hair was combed to perfection as always, though, his raven black curls glinting in the light as he moved, and the rings on his fingers shone as he brushed his thumb over them idly.

He looked serene, his shoulders relaxed, the look on his face dreamy and distracted. It seemed as if he wasn’t watching Solas at all, as if his mind was somewhere else altogether. Perhaps he was thinking of his research, of which Tristan understood so little. Perhaps he was thinking of his home, where it was almost always summer. Perhaps, and that thought felt the oddest to him, perhaps he was thinking of him.

For a long moment, Tristan just watched him, enthralled, as if there was nowhere else he had to be, and nothing else for his gaze to drift to. For a heartbeat, it was as if there was no one else in the world but him. No voices, no troublesome thoughts, no gossiping nobles or reports that needed his attention. Just him.

The calm didn't last very long. The door leading to the battlements swung open with a thud, and heavy bootsteps rang across the rotunda.

Dorian straightened up, blinking as if he had just been awakened, his eyes following the swiftly walking Commander. Tristan snapped out of his reverie too, taking a step into the light. Dorian's eyes flashed and a small smile threatened to widen his lips as soon as he caught sight of him, but a quick glance at Cullen stopped him. Solas's paintbrush froze on the wall as he turned to look at him under furrowed brows. At that moment, Cullen looked like a wild beast that had accidentally stumbled upon a flock of unsuspecting birds.

"Inquisitor," Cullen exclaimed as soon as he saw him. "I was just on my way to find you."

"And I was also on my way to your office, as it happens."

"Good, good,” the Commander said, stopping in front of him. “I thought we could discuss on our way to the training grounds. It will be good for our new recruits to see you taking an interest in our forces." Without missing a beat, he walked on, beckoning him to follow.

Tristan bristled at Cullen’s brusqueness. With a last look over his shoulder at Dorian, he followed swiftly, exciting towards the courtyard.

"I do take interest in our forces," Tristan said quietly to him as soon as they were out of earshot. Even in his own ears he sounded petulant, and he winced at his tone.

Cullen looked at him blankly. Then as if he had understood, he cleared his throat and shot him a sidelong frown. "Of course you are. It's just that... well, you've never come to see them, and I think it could help. It might even solidify their faith in us."

Tristan’s lips tightened in a line as he walked next to Cullen. The man's presence was commanding, and he towered over him. He straightened his back as much as he could, to get just a few more inches out of his height. “I wasn’t aware that their faith was in need of solidification,” he said flatly.

Cullen’s expression became stony, and he didn’t even look at Tristan as he walked down the stairs. “The soldiers’ morale is always at its best when they see their leader caring about them. Besides,” he said, lowering his voice, “after your declarations, there have been reports of deserters from our ranks. Many are afraid that mages will soon be running rampant. There are some amidst our numbers who lost their homes, families and livelihood during the Mage-Templar war. You can’t blame them for fearing the worst.”

“No, but I can blame them for disregarding their duties so easily,” Tristan retorted. “The Inquisition doesn’t have need of people whose allegiance is so flimsy anyway. It’s best if they leave now and save us the trouble later.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Cullen said, nodding thoughtfully. They walked for a while in silence, responding to the greetings and bows around them.

“On the other hand, there have been lots of new recruits too,” Cullen continued, as soon as they were out of earshot. “Mages as well as non-mages. It appears there are many that are sympathetic to your cause. Our cause,” he corrected himself swiftly, clearing his throat.

Tristan scowled ever so slightly at Cullen’s slip of the tongue, but forced himself to let it pass. This was no place or time to pick at words. He couldn’t help himself from delivering a pointed remark, though. “You could have started with that, you know. It always helps to know that there are more people willing to pledge themselves to us.”

“That’s true. It also helps to know that there are many that would much rather slit their own throat than stay with a force that is so supportive of magic. Or yours, if possible.”

Tristan’s eyes widened as he turned to look at Cullen. He had never heard him speak so bluntly, and the Commander of the Inquisition’s Army was known to be very blunt at times. Cullen stopped short and returned his look levelly.

“What is that supposed to mean, Cullen?” Tristan said, eyes narrowing.

“It means,” Cullen replied calmly, quickly scanning the area around them, “that I am concerned for your safety. You should be too. There is no shortage of fanatics in the world. Many will grab at a chance to attack you, simply for going against the Chantry so openly.”

Cullen resumed his brisk walk, avoiding Tristan’s gaze. Tristan followed him, mulling over his words. He didn’t realise they had reached the training grounds until Cullen suddenly stopped short. The yard was full of recruits, men and women, young and old, wooden practice swords and shields in their hands. Some of them looked quite adept with a blade, while others could hardly hold it straight. Regardless of their skills, Cassandra was glaring at all of them, barking commands just as she showcased the correct moves. She really looked as if she was in her element for once.

Cullen glanced around him, surveying the courtyard. He seemed to be weighing everyone, and what threat they could possibly pose. A ball of apprehension settled itself in Tristan’s stomach. Cullen’s words had disturbed him deeply. It was true that when he had made his declarations, he had expected the worst. Allies severing ties with the Inquisition, the Chantry denouncing them completely and spreading their usual propaganda… But a direct attack on him had never crossed his mind.

He felt his scowl deepening as he twisted the ring on his finger, picturing clerics and peasants chasing him with pitchforks and torches. He had become somewhat accustomed to the idea of death, perhaps even a horrible one at some point down the line, but perishing under a horde of the righteous would a very bleak end indeed.

And it wasn’t just the dying part that worried him. He knew to always be on his guard when he was out in the field, but in Skyhold… It had become something of a safe haven for him. It wasn’t perfect or quiet at all times, but he knew he could have some moments of peace there. To think that he should have to guard himself there too made his stomach clench uncomfortably.

He let out a soft sigh. The Inquisitor’s work was never, ever done, it seemed. He glanced at Cullen, who was watching the recruits performing exercises with keen interest. “What do you suggest we do, Cullen?” he said quietly.

Cullen’s expression grew sombre as he cleared his throat again and lowered his voice. “I have some suggestions, although I doubt you’re going to like them.” He paused to look around him before he spoke again. “It would be my advice to have a personal guard, at least when you’re in Skyhold. They will be stationed outside your quarters at all times and will accompany you wherever it is you need to go when you’re here.”

Tristan blinked. “A personal guard? Don’t you think that’s taking it a little too far?”

“Not at all. It is unheard of for the leader of a force, any force, let alone one as large as the Inquisition’s, to move around without a personal guard. If you ask me, we should have done it when you were first appointed Inquisitor. But there didn’t seem to be need of it at the time. Whereas now…”

“Our followers think I’m the chosen of Andraste. That no ill can befall me until I do what Andraste sent me to do. That’s the source of their conviction. If I start walking around with armed guards as if I’m about to get attacked, what message do you think that would send?” Tristan shook his head. “No. That won’t do.”

Cullen let out a sharp exhale. “People having faith in the Inquisition and its leader is one thing. Some may very well think you’re invincible, but we both know you’re not. And there’s many others that know it, too.”

Tristan opened his mouth to interject, but he closed it again as Cassandra announced a brief break for the recruits to catch their breath. They were all panting and sweating, and some looked as if ready to pass out. Tristan almost felt bad for them for a heartbeat. Training under the Seeker was surely one version of hell he wasn’t eager to experience.

A face stood out to him amongst the crowd. A dark haired young man with a bushy black beard and a pale scar along the side of his face smiled brightly at him. His grin didn’t diminish half an inch when he ran to him, and bowed deeply before him.

“My lord!” he exclaimed, his head still lowered reverently.

Tristan stopped short for a moment, rummaging through his brain for the man’s name. He was sure it was something foreign. Nhadem? Nhoden?

“…Nhudem?” he said reluctantly.

The man glanced up at him, surprise evident on his features, his bright smile almost splitting his face in two. “You remember my name!”

“Of course. How could I forget?” Tristan said, offering him a tremulous smile. He was becoming more and more comfortable lying as time went by, it seemed. “How is your training going?”

“Very well, my lord. Thank you, my lord. Seeker Pentaghast says I’ll soon be ready to take up arms.” He straightened up, standing tall before him. His smile faltered for a moment as he took on a serious and solemn expression. “It will be my honour to defend you and the Inquisition, Your Worship.”

Tristan glanced uneasily at Cullen, who just watched the man with a stony expression, as if appraising him. Returning to Nhudem, he cleared his throat and gave him a sharp nod. “That’s… good to hear.”

The man beamed at him and took his hand, lowering his head. “Your blessing, my lord.”

A wave of unease rushed over Tristan at the expectancy in the man’s stance. “I… you’ll be fine without my blessing, I’m sure,” he managed awkwardly before slithering his hand out of Nhudem’s grasp and patting him gingerly on the shoulder.

In his eternal relief, Cassandra shouted for the recruits to gather around her again, and Nhudem hurriedly bowed before him and ran back to his spot, picking up his shield and his sword. Tristan let out a short huff and crossed his arms in front of his chest, tucking his left hand under the folds of his cloak.

“It’s always encouraging to see one so eager,” Cullen said, the satisfaction in his voice in direct opposition to the bile threatening to rise up Tristan’s throat. “That man. He’s the son of Rivaini immigrants, but he’s grown up in Ferelden. He’s one of the most capable with sword and bow in his group, and Harrit said he was a decent enough apprentice. Even Cassandra tells me that he’s promising. He could prove very useful. He could even make it to lieutenant one day.”

Tristan watched Nhudem as he went through the forms perfectly, his stance as precise as if he had been doing it for years. “I’m surprised you know so much about him.”

“I would be a poor Commander if I didn’t know the men under me.”

“Even so, there’s knowing some things, and there’s knowing altogether too much. You’re starting to sound more like Leliana by the day.”

Cullen let out a slow, mirthful chuckle. It felt odd to hear such a sound coming from him. “Of all the things one could become, Sister Leliana is certainly one of the better options.”

Tristan nodded gingerly, but couldn’t help a quick glance over his shoulder at the tower where Leliana’s office was situated. He had the oddest feeling he was being watched.

With a barely suppressed sigh, he patted his coat pocket, the wrapped package small and rigid against his chest. The sun was almost in the middle of the sky now. Not long now, he reminded himself. His heart fluttered at the thought.

~~~

“Your calculations don’t make sense.”

Dorian lifted his head from the diagram he had been scribbling on a piece of parchment to glance at the source of the distraction. Helisma was standing before him, her face cold and expressionless as she held a pack of papers in her hands. A pack of papers that he had worked on laboriously for the past week and a half.

He leaned back in his chair, lightly placing his elbows on the arm rests. “Oh?” he said, his tone verging on the amused. “And what precisely is it that doesn’t make sense?”

“Your calculations on the spells needed to extinguish the rage demons. They are not making sense.”

Dorian’s temper flared only slightly, but he tried to suppress it. The issue with the demons pouring in from rifts and wreaking havoc all around Thedas had been the center of his research for months, and he had made it a point of pride to find the best way to defeat them with the smallest number of losses from their end. He had pored over those equations endlessly before giving them to her and the other researchers, and he had made absolutely sure every single one of them was correct.

“Didn’t they teach you Brother Gavinus’s theorem in the Circle you were in? Or Mafran’s and Augustus’s arcane models? They tend to be rather necessary in order to understand my equations. In fact, they are necessary to understand any sort of equation. In Tevinter, mages as young as seven are taught them before they even learn to cast.” He gave her a wide, sickly sweet smile. “Perhaps the enchanters here in the South simply forgot to instruct them?”

Helisma didn’t seem to pick up on his sarcasm. She extended the stack to him, her eyes void of any emotion. “I was taught those, yes. All mages in the Circles are taught the basics of magic. My knowledge of them doesn’t make your calculations any less wrong.”

Dorian could feel his annoyance rushing through him as she spoke. He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling roughly. His patience was running thin, but snapping at Helisma would be of little help. “Fine. Let me see.”

She placed the papers on his desk, flicking through them as she pointed at this and that equation that was wrong, and could not work with the type of magic he was suggesting. Not once or twice did he have to rein in his irritation in order to explain to her what his research actually meant. Still, she managed to antagonise him on every single thing.

As she drawled on, he silently cursed himself for ever bothering to do anything in that cursed place. The assortment of mages and researchers that had found themselves in Skyhold were hopeless. He marvelled, once again, at the sheer depth of cluelessness that reigned supreme amongst them. How they had managed to survive for so long and not burn themselves to cinders with a single light spell was beyond him.

“Rage demons have high tolerance to spirit magic,” Helisma said matter-of-factly. “How is a spirit spell going to defeat them?”

“If it is combined with frost magic, then it very well could.”

“Then why not attack them with frost magic from the start?”

“Because,” Dorian said, drawing out the syllables so he sounded as if speaking to a particularly dense child, “these demons are no common rage demons. They exhibit tolerance to frost magic, which they shouldn’t. They need something stronger, something more potent. That’s why a different sort of spell must be cast in order to lower their defences. A simple frost glyph with a thread of spirit magic weaved though it will confuse them and disrupt their barriers.”

“And how do you suggest this is done? No mage can cast both at the same time.”

He huffed, snatching the page that Helisma was holding in front of his nose, his carefully prepared diagrams marred by the hasty notes and squiggles she had made on them. “They can if they are trained for it. Maker, do they teach you nothing in those Circles?”

“If there’s something you want to say about the Circles, you’d better say it outright.”

Dorian spun around, feeling his blood rising to his head. The woman standing before him was tall and stately, her grey hair gathered in a bun atop her head. She had a hawk-like nose and her pale blue eyes managed to look hawk-like too, and her mouth seemed to always be pressed in a tight line. Former Second Enchanter Muriel liked him as much as he liked her, which was not at all. It wasn’t the first time he had disagreed on matters of magical research with her and others like her, and frankly, Dorian had had enough of them all sneering at his skills.

“Since you seem to be eavesdropping on every conversation, Enchanter Muriel, then perhaps you would know that I have no qualms about commenting on the Circles and the laughable job they do at teaching mages anything useful,” he said with no small amount of derision. He propped a hand on his waist, eyeing her contemptuously. “Or shall I stop calling you Enchanter? Those titles have become rather redundant now, as you well know.”

“Yes, they have,” the woman said slowly, and her eyes narrowed even more. It was no secret to anyone that she had been very displeased indeed with Trevelyan’s declarations about the mages. And she wasn’t the only one. Dorian noticed a few inquisitive eyes turning their way, but he tried to ignore them.

“Well?” Dorian said, waving impatiently. “Do you have any golden pieces of advice to offer regarding the matter at hand, or can I return to my, may I say, very important and pressing research?”

His sarcasm did have the desired effect on her as opposed to Helisma, he noted with some satisfaction. Her sunken cheeks seemed flushed, and she straightened up so that she was standing almost as tall as he was.

“Young man,” she said, sniffing audibly and staring him down over her beak of a nose, “whatever could I possibly say to help make sense of the blasphemous poppycock your people seem to call magic?”

Dorian feigned shock, the fingers of his left hand splayed onto his chest. “My people? Did this just become a matter of race? I have to say, I expected accusations such as these to be beneath you. Oh, wait!” he paused, tapping his finger on his chin as if in thought. “No. No, I didn’t. It seems you people never miss a chance to use my heritage as ammunition when you run out of all other arguments. Or am I wrong?” He gestured at the papers on the desk behind him. “Can you look at my research and tell me with absolute certainty that it wouldn’t work? Or is it just the fact that I’m from Tevinter the only reason for your dislike of me?”

The woman opened her mouth to respond, when her eyes opened wide, staring at something behind Dorian’s back. He turned around, curious to see what had made the tiresome old hag shut up for once, when he saw a very annoyed and scowling Trevelyan observing the scene.

“What is going on here?”

Muriel dropped a small curtsy, so small in fact that it could barely be mistaken for a curtsy, and straightened up again. “Your Worship.”

Trevelyan was watching her coolly, his very presence changing the air in the room. He wasn't tall, no taller than Dorian himself, but he was definitely imposing. His dark blue eyes fixed themselves on her, so intently they could bore holes through her. “This doesn’t answer my question.”

The woman glanced at Dorian, unable to completely hide the contempt that hid there. Then, she cleared her throat and looked at Trevelyan levelly. “Lord Pavus and I had a disagreement, Your Worship. It is of purely academic nature.”

“It didn’t sound very academic to me.” Trevelyan’s tone was icy and flat. It sent a chill right through Dorian, even though it wasn’t even directed at him.

An awkward silence spread throughout the rotunda. Even the apprentices and the servants had all stopped what they were doing to gawk at them. If a needle fell right then, Dorian was sure he would be able to hear it.

Muriel’s mouth twisted in a way that made her look as if she were about to be sick. “Apologies, Your Worship.” She dropped her eyes, but her tone did not sound particularly remorseful to Dorian.

“It is not me you should be apologising to.”

The satisfaction of seeing all colour completely drain from the woman’s face almost matched the horror that quickly gripped Dorian. Having Muriel apologise to him in front of everyone at Trevelyan’s behest, as if they were school children caught fighting, was probably the worst that could happen at this point. It would certainly not help his position at all.

He took a small step forward. “Really, Inquisitor, this isn’t necessary-“

Trevelyan held up a hand to silence him, not taking his eyes away from Muriel. Dorian snapped his mouth shut, but couldn’t help grinding his teeth. That infuriating, arrogant git. Who did he even think he was, holding up a hand to him?!

“A personal attack against another member of the Inquisition is a serious offence and will not be tolerated."

Muriel blinked at him. "It- it wasn't an attack, Your Worship. We were simply discussing..."

She let her words trail off as Trevelyan glared at her. He raised his voice ever so slightly, so that everyone in the rotunda could hear him. "Whoever cannot abide by the Inquisition's rules, then perhaps they should consider leaving it.”

Muriel’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open in an expression of wild affront. As shocked as Dorian was with Trevelyan’s words, he couldn’t help a tiny mirthful smile at the look on her face.

“I…I-“ she stammered, looking around her. Slowly, as if it was physically painful to her, she turned around and lowered her head towards Dorian. “Please accept my humble apologies.”

Dorian folded his arms before his chest and shot Trevelyan a sidelong frown. “Apology accepted,” he said through tight jaws. Trevelyan returned his look with a frown of his own. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to box his ears right at that moment!

Muriel curtsied, deeply this time, and turned to leave after Trevelyan’s curt nod. Her back was as straight and rigid as Dorian had ever seen it. Helisma simply stared at them all blankly, still holding his research.

“What shall I do with this?” she asked Dorian.

“Oh, just leave it where it is,” Dorian said, gesturing impatiently. “You’ll have little use of it anyway. I’ll show it to Dagna. She might be able to use it to craft some runes. She seems to understand much more of magic than anyone else here.”

“Do you have some time?” Trevelyan asked quietly, just as Helisma had left. The last thing Dorian wanted was for everyone to see him leaving with him after that display, but he couldn’t well refuse him. His eyes were impossibly dark, his brows knit in concern. Dorian bit his lip and gave him a reserved nod, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. He looked neither left nor right as he followed him down the stairs, studiously avoiding everyone’s gazes, even though he could feel them boring through his back. Really, did these people have nothing better to do than stand around and gawk like dimwits all day?

They crossed the crowded throne room, the stairs and the yard without so much as a word. Then, Trevelyan led him to the door of the Skyhold prisons. He pushed it open and gestured for him to enter first.

As annoyed as he had been with him at the library, Dorian couldn't resist an amused smile as he walked down the long flight of stairs. Trevelyan certainly had a selective memory when it came to his manners.

He looked around the old prison as it slowly came into view. He had never visited the place before -never had to, thank the Maker. The chill and damp permeated the wide room, and the doors of the old prison cells were dangling off their hinges with the centuries of disuse, but there was definitely something eerily charming about the place. The broken floor of the large balcony plunged straight into a waterfall, its roaring waters rushing to the abyss below.

Trevelyan walked ahead of him and sat at the very edge, his legs almost dangling off into the chasm. Dorian approached him and sat gingerly on the cold stone floor, careful not to wrinkle his coat.

“Of all the places I expected you to take me today, I have to say this was the very last.”

“It’s quiet here. No wandering eyes. We should be safe from anyone listening in to every word we say. And you have to admit, this waterfall is quite the sight,” Trevelyan said simply, taking his flask out of his coat pocket. He pulled the cork and gave it to him.

"Drinking in the middle of the day? Now, that's my idea of fun," Dorian said, accepting the flask and taking a long draught. It was brandy, naturally. Strong and aromatic, its sweetness lingering on his tongue after he had swallowed. He sneaked a glance at Trevelyan, who suddenly looked very thoughtful, his ring glimmering in the soft light as he twisted it on his finger.

“This sort of thing happens often, does it?” Trevelyan said quietly.

"What? The drinking?"

"No. The arguments."

Dorian carefully drank some more brandy before he spoke. “Every now and then. I’ve learned to anticipate it. What I didn’t anticipate,” he said, pausing to take a breath, “was you intervening the way you did.”

Trevelyan turned to look at him, his frown so deep he could see a tiny crease forming between his brows. “You couldn’t possibly expect me to sit back and let them treat you like that.”

“I can take care of myself. I have done so for a very long time. There is no need for you to defend me.”

His heart was racing, and he could feel his pulse in his throat. Trevelyan kept looking at him, straight into him, his lips pressed in a tight line. Curse him, but he could never tell what that man was thinking when he looked at him like that.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he added hastily, in an attempt to smooth the tension over. “It’s simply that… well, it wouldn’t do for people to think that you play favourites. There’s already a lot of talk about me. About… us.”

“What sort of talk?”

His abrupt tone took Dorian aback. When he spoke, he chose his words as carefully as he could. “There’s many who believe that my influence over you is... undue. In fact, some think that I was the one that influenced your decision about the Circles and the Chantry.”

“This is ridiculous,” Trevelyan spat. He looked away, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The decision was mine, and mine alone. Whatever the consequences, I should be the one to bear them. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I know.” Dorian let out a soft sigh and gave him the flask. “You can’t stop people from talking, though. What you can do is to let me fight my own battles. There’s no use for you to get tangled in them.”

“You get tangled in my battles. People drag you into them, whether you want it or not. How can I just sit by and let you take the blow?”

“I chose to take the blow. Whatever it is, I can live with it.”

Trevelyan raked a hand through his hair, huffing in irritation. “No. I can’t accept that.”

Dorian watched him take a large sip of brandy, wincing as he swallowed. Affection, warm and soothing, blossomed in his chest. Trevelyan was stubborn as a mule, and infuriatingly rash at times, but Dorian couldn’t help but feel all his earlier irritation dissolving, as if it never was. Trevelyan cared about him. He cared what people thought of him, how people treated him. Even if he had probably made his position among the mages worse, Dorian couldn’t deny that.

He extended a tentative hand towards him and gently cupped his cheek. Trevelyan looked at him wide eyed, his frown instantly melting away as Dorian brushed his thumb over his skin.

“Dorian,” he said, turning his body to face him, his expression suddenly very serious. “I’ll talk to the mages again. I'll make them listen. They should respect you. I’ll name you… First Mage. Or First Enchanter. Or whatever, as long as they stop talking-“

Dorian cut him off with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, just kiss me, you bloody idiot.”

Trevelyan gave him a wide smile as he leaned forward, snaking an arm around his waist. Dorian’s heart thumped in his chest as his lips parted readily under his, and he found himself lost in the impossibly sweet sensation of Trevelyan’s body, flush with his own, its warmth seeping through his clothes. Trevelyan was gentle, and his hands were soft, and he tasted of brandy and honey, and Dorian wanted more, and more, and more.

Trevelyan pulled back, his shaky breath turning into a sigh. “I’ve been thinking about this all day."

“It crossed my mind a few times today, too,” Dorian said, brushing his nose over his. “Only a few, mind you.”

Trevelyan laughed softly, their proximity making the sound reverberate through Dorian. “Liar.”

“Oh, so I’m a liar now, am I?” he replied playfully. “I wouldn’t throw accusations like that around if I were you.”

Trevelyan’s smile was warm and affectionate, that tiny dimple at the corner of his mouth more pronounced than ever as he pulled him into his lap and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. And as if he were made of some very pliable sort of clay, Dorian melted into his arms, letting himself be swept away.

It was an odd feeling, that. As if he was soaring, yet drawn to earth at the same time. The Tevinter in him was telling him that something like that could never last for long, that he could never, should never expect more. Yet a small, selfish, ravenous part of him wanted nothing more but to expect more, to chase every kiss, every touch, every sliver of bliss, everything - while he could.

He gazed at Trevelyan’s face, at his eyes with their ever shifting colours, and that small smile still curling his lips. Trevelyan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tiny bundle, wrapped in dark velvet cloth, and Dorian looked at him questioningly.

“What’s this, then?”

“Take it. It’s for you.”

Dorian accepted it gingerly, letting his arm fall from around Trevelyan’s neck to unwrap the bundle. His eyes widened when he pulled back the cloth to unveil a small comb, worked in gold and ivory, in a fine leather case.

His mouth felt impossibly dry as he dragged his finger over the comb’s fine teeth and the intricate carvings. It was beautiful, and expertly made, and it must have cost a fortune, and Dorian suddenly felt as if he were drowning.

Trevelyan watched him with increasing alarm as Dorian failed to produce the slightest sound. “Is there something wrong?” he breathed. “Do you not like it?”

Dorian swallowed thickly, trying to work some saliva into his mouth. “I…” he stammered, then stopped as he realised he had no idea what to say. In all his life, he had never received a gift like that, not from someone that he had only kissed a few times. He had often received expensive presents from friends and relatives in Tevinter, but Trevelyan giving him this, then, there, while he still had his arms around him and was so close that Dorian could smell the sweetness and musk of his skin, that was altogether a different affair.

It must be the customs, he thought quickly. Southerners did have some rather unusual customs. Yes, that must be it.

He gave Trevelyan one of his usual wide smiles, just as the knot in his throat made it exceedingly hard to breathe. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“Are you sure? You don’t seem very pleased with it.”

“Oh, I am. It just makes me think.” He eased himself out of Trevelyan’s grasp, who was watching him carefully, his frown deepening. “First, you sweep in to defend my honour. Then you give me this. Should I be on the lookout for any more romantic gestures? Am I officially the Inquisitor’s paramour?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he instantly regretted them. Trevelyan’s frown melted into a look of hurt and confusion. He glanced away momentarily, as if he was searching for the right words. “Is it so bad that I… that I care about you?”

Dorian opened his mouth, then closed it. Unease was spreading quickly through him, cold and invasive. Once again, he had ran his mouth and made a mess of everything. Just as he thought he had dug himself in a hole he could never get out of, Trevelyan spoke, his voice so low it was almost drowned by the noise of the waterfall.

“I know I haven’t always been forward with my affection. But I do care about you, Dorian. Very much.” He fixed his eyes on him, and Dorian suddenly felt his lungs being held in an iron grip. “I am aware that it might be selfish of me, asking that of you. But… would it bother you? Being seen with me? Being the Inquisitor’s… paramour, as you call it?”

Dorian blinked and ran his tongue over his lips. A flush was slowly creeping up his cheeks, but he tried to keep his expression as serious as he could. “It… will certainly send tongues wagging. Not that they aren’t already wagging.”

He paused to take a breath. There were a millions things he could say. A million objections, a million reasons why it was a bad idea. He knew it was all a hopeless fancy. That he was swimming in waters far too deep for safety, and that he would end up swept away by the currents, sooner or later. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

Yet with Trevelyan’s gaze on him, he could not bring himself to care about any of that.

“Will it give me more time with you?” he whispered, softly enough that he barely heard himself say it. His treacherous heart beating against his throat made his voice sound odd and strained.

Trevelyan smiled, a slow, reticent smile, made all the more unreadable by the shadows shifting over his features as he moved closer. “If I say yes?”

The rushing waters of the waterfall sounded as if coming from miles away. Dorian couldn’t even feel the cold anymore, not with Trevelyan’s body so close to his. Without thinking, he reached out and tucked a pale blonde strand behind Trevelyan’s ear, his fingers lingering on his skin just a moment longer than perhaps they should.

“Then I suppose being a paramour can’t be all that bad, can it?”

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [921]

“Look, it doesn’t count if you’re already planning your defeat. What happened to going in with a positive attitude?” Dorian’s actions betray his words, though. He’s worrying his lip and fiddling with the ends of his sleeves as his eyes rove across the maps and papers scattered across the table, like some kind of divine mystic searching for answers in the tossing of bones or the settling of tea leaves, but coming up empty.

“I’m being realistic,” Cullen says, looking very solemn as he rests his chin over his folded hands, eyes downcast as he surveys the battlefield. “I have to plan for our losses. If we lose here but manage a safe retreat we can regroup and possibly find another way to succeed.”

“There’s always a solution,” Sera protests. “Come on. There’s a brain underneath all that frizz. Use it. This is not the worst situation we’ve been in. We’ve gotten out of worse with less on our side. Ellana, what do you think?”

Ellana’s in a similar posture to Cullen, but she’s staring straight across the table at the Iron Bull, who is as unreadable as ever. He’s giving nothing away. He meets her gaze with a calm quirked eyebrow and otherwise impassive gaze.

“Bull wouldn’t make a level that we couldn’t get past. He’s sneaky and mean but he’s not that mean,” Ellana says. “There’s a solution to this. We just need to find it.”

“You guys are going real hard at this whole thing,” Mahanon says as he steals some food from one of their snack bowls. “It’s just a tabletop game.”

Everyone at the table shoots him affronted, if not outraged, looks.

“Nerds,” Mahanon mutters as he retreats. “I’ve got to go out and run some errands. I’m expecting something in the mail so I need one of you to sign for it. Not Malika. The person’s got to be of legal age.”

“What exactly did you get?”

“Alcohol.”

“They can mail alcohol now?”

“Only in some provinces,” Mahanon replies. “Don’t forget. If the doorbell rings or if someone knocks you go answer it and sign. I’m not having this be returned to sender, I’ve been waiting all week for this wine to arrive.”

“What’s wrong with the wine we have?”

“I’ve had it before.”

“Oh look at you, being all bougie,” Sera says. “You and Trevelyan gonna start a yacht club? Play some tennis on the weekends?  Get matching charm bracelets?”

Mahanon ignores the blonde elf and fixes his gaze on his sister before turning to her boyfriend. Judging them to be lost causes he turns to Dorian. “It’s going to be up to you.”

“I am also over twenty one,” Sera says.

“As am I?”

Mahanon points at Sera, “Spiteful brat.”

He points at Cullen, “The only brain cell among the players capable of understanding tactics. You aren’t leaving that table.”

He turns back to Dorian. “I’ll give you first pour if you sign for it. Deal?”

Dorian holds out his hand for Mahanon to shake, “Deal.”

“I’m going to start a timer if you guys take any longer,” Bull says, holding out his hand. Malika, eager to learn and eager to get the game moving forward by any measure, hands Bull an hour glass filled with black sand.

“When we asked you over to observe and see if you wanted to play it wasn’t so you could help the DM ruin us,” Sera complains.

“I think I’d really like being a DM,” Malika says, “I’m learning so much. I feel like I’m also picking up life skills for running group projects. This is great.”

“This is awful.” Cullen covers his eyes. “Damn. Alright. I can’t think of anything else. Everyone we need to retreat. Save and gather as many NPC allies as we can. Sera, do you still have your teleport spell? Um. The tree stride?”

Sera double checks her character sheet. “Yeah. But that’s my last spell. After that I’m toast. I’m just cantrips.”

“Dorian, how are you doing?”

“I’m alright. The rage is really helping me manage my hit points,” Dorian answers, “But with the enemies up in the air there isn’t anything I can do to actually help aside from hope they continue to target me instead of the rest of you.”

“Can you be the last of us, then? Bring up the rear and keep a guard up?”

“As long as they don’t pull out some heavy spells — which they probably will — then for now yes.”

“Ellana? How are you doing?”

“Not so hot on the ki points. Not going to lie. I kind of used most of them because I didn’t think there was a secret part two to this fight,” Ellana replies. “My health isn’t exactly at its best, either. That last round took a lot out of me. Like, a lot a lot. And I didn’t even get anything useful.” Ellana doesn’t break eye contact with the Iron Bull. “What secrets are in that beautiful head of yours? What are you planning?”

“Take your turns and find out,” Bull replies sedately as he slowly stands up to start moving pieces. “Alright. Times up. I hope you’ve got a plan.”

“We’ve got a plan. It’s not a good plan. It’s essentially run away very fast and find somewhere to hide,” Dorian says. “I somehow felt better prepared to fight the elder dragons from the last story arc than this. I felt better fighting the undead lich when we were level five.”

“If I question how well you balanced this game out loud will you penalize me?” Sera asks as Bull starts putting down new enemy figures onto the board. “Fuck off. That’s too many. That’s too many. Ellana, why the fuck did you let him buy that many?”

“He’s been hiding them. He must have been buying them in small installments so I wouldn’t notice,” Ellana replies. “This is a long game. You’ve been planning this encounter for months. What for? What’s your motivation? Talk to me, Bull.”

“The time for talking is over. We’re back in initiative order with the addition of some new NPCs.” Bull points at a cluster of figures arranged near Dorian with one hand and starts rolling dice behind the DM screen with the other. Malika takes up her pencil to take notes on damage and movement. “Start rolling some constitution saving throws, Pavus. You’re the only one this cluster can focus on right now and this kind of attention isn’t a good thing.”