#kirkwall coffee

[andiee-bedroom]

Kirkwall Coffee

does anyone remember Kirkwall Coffee? i watched it three years ago and remembered being so in love with it

[mel-hath-no-fury]

Does anyone remember Kirkwall Coffee? What’s going on in that universe rn? Like is Solas trying to destroy all coffee or

[itsaseamonster]

I want to kiss the people who made Kirkwall Coffee on the lips (with their consent)

[kirkwallguy]

I remember there’s a random line from hawke in da2 where they go “Fenris says the wine in Tevinter is made with the blood and tears of slaves. I don’t know if he’s being literal or not”. and I think competition from sweatshop ruined Krem’s dad and resulted in him selling himself into slavery. just further thoughts on the economics of Tevinter

oh i completely forgot about that line, that's an interesting one. i think it really does highlight just how much of tevinter society is built off of slave labour and just how unready vg was to reckon with that. we go to bars in minrathous! people around us are drinking this wine! it's unavoidable that everything you touch in this city is stained with the blood of slaves and other exploited people, no matter who you are. and this isnt saying i need everyone to shake their heads to show they disapprove every time they take a sip of wine, but pretending that this isn't a factor at all is just like... we shouldn't have gone to tevinter if they couldn't handle it lol.

but umm we get to save a few people in cages and we see the venatori using slaves as human chairs in one mission so maybe i just have bad media literacy

[hellafluff]

David is the world's most tired Hawke

[hyperions-light]

woAH I heard people are hating on Neve which is super cringe! Neve positivity time!!

I am in love with her because

1. She has an impeccable sense of fashion, she never misses, could make a paper bag look good

2. Docktown sucks so bad, like major Kirkwall vibes, and she loves it SO MUCH

3. If you give money to the people asking for it on the streets in Docktown, sometimes Neve will check in with them and make sure they have a place to stay it’s so sweet !!!

4. She cannot cook at all. Only eats fried fish. Boils her coffee. Zero domestic skills, completely perfect

5. She loves Bellara so much, she’s such a good friend ;-; She finds all her serials and helps her try to work out the mysteries! She gets her goat cheese! She comes to Cyrian’s funeral ;-;

6. If you wander around Docktown with her in your party you can stop and talk to her regular contacts and she will check in with them <3

7. She works alone because she’s scared that the people who try to help her will get hurt =(

8. She’s not afraid of Spite and she refuses to see Lucanis as a monster or treat him differently, even after he almost kills Illario.

9. She helps Taash figure out their gender stuff and she is so supportive and helpful <3

10. The WAY she talks to people who are hurting… like even though she’s so cynical, personally, she never tells people to give up on others, she’s never sarcastic or scathing when people are in pain. I took her on Taash’s final mission last time, and her voice ;-; She wanted to help so badly, but she couldn’t do anything. She reminded them that everyone was there for them. She loves SO much, so intensely.

11. She does not expect anyone to help her, and especially if you don’t save Minrathous she’s skeptical, but she’s so thankful for Rook’s help when they give it. She’s so fucking lonely, man! She thinks she has to do it all herself, because everyone else in the world and especially in Minrathous has shown her over and over that they don’t care about the people she loves, the people like HER. She’s not rich, she’s not famous or powerful or well-connected, she’s just using what she has to try and help people!

12. Manfred canonically doesn’t like nicknames, but he lets Neve call him ‘Fred

Neve Gallus, the woman you are <3

Edit: When I posted this someone immediately made some rude comment so here’s some more stuff to love about Neve Gallus!

13. She investigated the mystery of the candlehops and she was so serious about it! Just like the wisps in the Lighthouse!

14. When she was a kid she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up and she HATED it lol

15. She got her best coat as a gift from a grateful client!

16. She keeps her tiny little apartment because they gave her a good deal on the rent and she doesn’t want to lose it

17. Halos keeps trying to give her fish for free but she insists on paying him <3

18. That joke she made to Lucanis about having an extra leg if he needed one lol

19. She misses the sound of the ocean, and sometimes when she wakes up in the Lighthouse she hears it for a moment

20. The way she explains everything so patiently to Taash about Tevinter and Docktown and the way status symbols work; the way she is always trying to use her skills to help the other members of the team!!

21. How she makes sure to check up on that kid whose father was doing demon summoning stuff and make sure that he’s alright ;-;

[gallusneve]

I want to put Neve Gallus in DA2 or DA Inquisition sometimes like:

poisoning Solas with her boiled coffee after realizing he hates tea (she means well)

feeling at home in Kirkwall since it's very similar to Dock Town

Cole with the wisps around Neve

Inquisition Dorian and her would probably have spats because Dorian was low-key "status quo" about Tevinter before (further elaborated on his codex in DATV)

Vivienne would let her know right away if she's being tricked or about to be sold out during her jobs

would ask Josephine with her connections to help solve her cases plus fashion talk

Neve and Sera having the same artistic level of doodling

her going bonkers with how the Southern Thedas Templars handles their mages, her mind flashes back between Rana and Cullen's experiences

would SOMEWHAT agree with Divine Cassandra’s ideas with revamping of the Circle and making it actually "educational"

actually pulling big sister moves on Merrill by telling her to not mess with blood magic

her understanding Calpernia first and foremost, the verbal standoff between them (after all, Neve was suppose to be Calpernia)

would give Bethany pointers with her magic

Anders 🤝 Neve CEOs of Cat Parents Society, plus Justice would be somewhat pleased with her moral compass and intentions

Cole calling her out on being emotionally stunted, having her walls up, and not taking care of herself (while being curious/helpful about her cases)

would've likely clocked Solas or Blackwall from a mile away

her and Fenris interacting with how they view Minrathous and definitely helping him kill Danarius, also both being scared of emotions

Isabela flirting with Neve but sharing love for fried/grilled fish since it's closest to pirate cuisine, also makes Neve not work so much and have fun

[therookandthecrow]

Ena'vuna "Rook" de Riva / Sansa Stark

Lucanis romance

2. Starkhaven born

3. Tantervale raised

4. Kirkwall orphaned

5. Treviso adopted

6. Antivan Crow faction by necessity and circumstance / not choice (she'd be living a cottagecore life if she got to choose)

7. 27 years old in 9:52 Dragon

8. Andrastian, ironically

9. She thought Ghilan'nain's Vallaslin was pretty.

10. Loves coffee (Lucanis approves)

[glowing-blue-feathermage]

happy DADWC Friday :) sending you “You were always on my mind.” for Fenhawke

Ty for the prompt!! I've been thinking about Fenhawke post DAV, and I think I'll put a little series of snippets from my thoughts into some Fenhawke prompts on Tumblr for @dadrunkwriting! This will be #1, and I'll link the rest (so feel free to send more Fenhawke prompts, folks!) Under a cut, because Veilguard spoilers. Vague, but still there.

Night had given way to the sharp edge of a winter dawn while Fenris sat in the chair beside the frost-painted window. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, but he hadn’t slept even a moment of the long, dark night. He could feel the circles under his eyes, the skin heavy, his vision blurry with exhaustion. Even as he blinked and scrubbed his face with a hand trembling from the abundance of coffee he’d consumed, the reason for his vigil stirred in the bed several feet away. Something unknotted in Fenris’s chest as Hawke stretched his arms over his head, curled one around the pillow that should have been Fenris’s, and pulled it closer. He buried his face in it, shoulders shifting with the inhalation of breath. Just as quickly, he saw those same muscles tense, stiffen, and then the pillow was shoved aside. Hawke shot up in bed, the blankets pooling at his waist, exposing so many scars across his torso. Some Fenris remembered. Others he thought were new, but he wasn’t ready to ask. Their eyes met and it was like Hawke had taken a punch to the gut; the air rushed out of his lungs and his shoulders slumped. A look of chagrin replaced the naked fear on his handsome face and he tried to fit a smile onto his lips. “You’re still here,” he said, taking another deep breath. He’d said the same thing the morning before, and the one prior to that. “Still here,” Fenris promised again, finally rising from his chair, stiff muscles protesting. He crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge, and they looked at one another. It still felt like a dream. It had been ten years since Fenris had received that letter in Kirkwall, since he’d burned Varric’s story into his mind. Hawke, the man he loved, left in the Fade. Left behind in the one place Fenris could not reach him. And then the Blight had come, and the world had been poisoned, and the Veil ripped asunder. He’d read another tale in a letter from the Inquisitor, about another death, and another prison in the Fade, and the woman who'd freed herself from it. The Inquisitor had borne a bone-deep regret for Hawke’s loss that may not have rivaled Fenris’s, but it drove them both to the same end; into the Fade, into Nightmare’s prison. Hawke reached out for him with one hand and Fenris took it, sighing with relief when he felt the mortal warmth enclose his fingers. The tightness in Hawke’s features smoothed as well at the contact. “Ten years,” Hawke murmured, blue-gray eyes searching his face. “It seemed like…days. Weeks maybe. In there. And yet after all this time, you remembered me.” Fenris squeezed his fingers. “You were always on my mind,” he promised, feeling an answering weight in his chest. “Every day.” Hawke nodded, eyes flicking to the window. The look on his face reminded Fenris of how he’d felt just after escaping Danarius—free but unsure what to do with it, unsure if it would last. It was why panic flooded Hawke when he woke, until they touched, and why Fenris couldn’t sleep. A need to make sure it was all still real.

[supacutiepie]

Emmrich,, Lucanis, Taash, and Rook (my Malc Rook) all gathered together for coffee and cake and bundled up in throw blankets, "Hello, welcome to the dead parents club." Requirements, Dead Parents. Free coffee and supportive pats on he back for life. Emmrich actually get's emotional, because as a boy he felt so alone with his loss. His parents, murdered in the return of Dragons (according to a fantastic theory about the return of dragons reeking havoc on Nevarra first). Lucanis, who struggles with the idea of legacy and grief. Because Crows don't grieve, they can't. It's too easy to be broken with their line of work. Besides, Caterina never let him grieve his parents.... so this club means he can finally reminisce about a much kinder childhood. Taash who is still so angry. Never knew their father, can only wonder if they've crossed paths now, if Taash themself killed their father, there's such a slim but there chance. A man who wasn't enough for Shathan to stay in the Qun with, or good enough to follow Shathan out of it. And then there's Shathan, and it's such a tangled pain to be so unresolved, it's good to have two older club members to gently but firmly help Taash grieve and forgive their mom at the same time. And Rook...Rook who for this particular AU? He's maybe 19 years old. He lost his Papa when he was maybe five, maybe six. Didn't even get to know until his Dad came home to tell him, "Papa won't be coming back to Kirkwall sweetheart.." And his Dad. He didn't even know his Dad was dead. He didn't know, until said Dad told him that he'll make both of them so proud, like he already does, but he has to go and can't stay in the fade with both of his dad's -- he almost does. He tells the club such. He almost gave up coming back to the team, because he got to hold his papa and daddy and it feel so fucking unfair. He feels guilty to, and apologizes to their others. "I'm the only one who got to say goodbye, but here I am whining about it...sorry." "Oh...dear," Emmrich holding his hand, "It's so lovely that you did get to say goodbye...how lovely it is to know they're together in the end." Taash is just impressed about who Rook's parents are, and agrees to go with Rook to visit the Lord's and give Isabela the news. To help plan a little memorial, since Taash didn't get to bury their parents either. Lucanis says its sweet that Rook's dad's got to be together and see Rook off. that he knows what it's like exactly to carry such a heavy legacy as a family name when orphaned so young... They all share the one thing in common, but in such different ways. It means they can understand each other, but also help each other to grieve, process, and eventually, to heal

[the-northern-continent]

Now we know what would have happened in Kirkwall if everyone involved was pounding coffee instead of wine.

(periodic reminder to check around the back of the Arishok’s throne in DA2. No one goes there because it seems kind of rude, but it’s one of my favorite subtle bits of environmental storytelling)

[counterfeit-layla]

I don’t think they won themselves any good will today. If I am being honest, they probably hurt themselves more.

The biggest issue being:

IF YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN YOUR WRITING THEN YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T DO YOUR JOB WELL.

Prime example: Lucanis. He isn’t “complex”. His personality is: possessed by a toddler, coffee, and occasionally hitting the target.

Clearly there was meant to be more here and clearly the devs have their own head canon for these characters. BUT none of this is actually translated into the game so of fucking course people are going to ask why he’s too busy for you, but still finds time to try to get in Neve’s pants.

Now! I’m not saying outright tell people his complexities, but they did need to be developed and here they were not… at all.

It doesn’t help they replaced Neve with Rook in “romance” scenes which culminated to the most awkward end scenes I’ve ever seen and I play SKR mmo’s. Just saying.

It’s just a recurring theme with this game.

-no we don’t retcon, you just misunderstood.

-Isabella’s I learned about family in Kirkwall!

-of course there are content disparities in factions. Why wouldn’t there be? Ignoring the fact the dwarfs were the original other faction due to the inclusion of: valuables which are clearly meant to be sold to them, a light house theme and decorations. So, why not just admit the Lords were not part of the plan and placed in because you needed to assign Taash to someone and you already had Isabella’s assets created?

Because that is exactly what happened. -sigh-

At the end of the day Veilguard is a product of mismanagement and bad decision making. It’s the half complete bits of 3 games super glued together, which is why its narrative is flimsy and inconsistent and why the characters have zero personality.

The pieces of the puzzle are just not there and I think they forget that they delivered a very different game from the one that exists in their heads.

[curioushappenstance]

fic title: do you like my dress? it's got pockets [chapter 1]

[next chapter]

[ao3 link]

Summary: 9:19 Dragon – Varric Tethras loses his virginity to a pretty dwarf girl at the bar. 9:41 Dragon - The consequence walks through the gates of Skyhold. - In my childish fantasies, I used to dream of being the Champion; going places, meeting people, loving them and being loved in return, never discarded nor kicked nor beaten; love, in perpetuity, the likes of which a girl under the heavy and forceful hand of a mother could not begin to dream of, because she could not dream at all. - aka, the fic where varric has a daughter that he didn't know about until five minutes ago.

My father was not what I expected him to be.

What had I expected? I knew his name first from the books in the local library, then later from whispers in back alleys or drunken merchants.

So––a sleazy businessman? A corrupt merchant prince who’d sold his soul for sovereigns? He was a dwarf. He was a womaniser. He wrote books, and I wasn’t allowed to read them, but I would stare at his author’s portrait with an intense vigour in the middle of the night when mother was asleep.

Seeing my face in that man––the hooked nose that was flat against my face, the underbite that made my teeth ache, the red hair that mother made me cover––him, all him. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like looking like the man that mother sneered at when she heard his name, a name I was forbidden from uttering aloud.

Varric Tethras. A merchant prince, a famous author, a rogue with a crossbow that could take down the carta.

My father.

Skyhold was much too grand for a man like that. I sneered passing through the gates, accidentally offending the human woman who took our names. Was I staying long, she asked? I told her I was here to deliver a message, nothing more, and it was the truth, but really, I didn’t know how long I would be staying. There was nothing for me in Kirkwall. Mother was dead, and the dwarves who killed her were after me, too. If Tethras was safe here, why couldn’t I be?

Something kept him here. It wasn’t the goodness of his heart. Security, coin, business, an opportunity to cosy up to important people like the Inquisitor or the Lady Ambassador.

But that vision––that imagined man, sneering in the back of my mind, shaking a bag of coin in his palm––wasn’t what I saw when I climbed the stairs to the main hall.

He was older. Wrinkly around the eyes, rosacea flaring on his cheeks. Pay an artist enough and you could have them paint you however you liked, such as surrounded by scantily clad dwarven women, but this was… I didn’t know.

He hunched over a desk next to a roaring fireplace, scribbling fiercely on hastily torn parchment; his hands were stained in ink, and there was dirt under his nails, on his clothes, and in his hair. A muddy coat, which probably used to be hanging over the back of the chair, was splayed out on the stone tile.

He didn’t notice my shadowing presence. I was inclined to keep watching, in silence, until the sun set and he retired to bed.

What was that? Fear? My heart clenched at the sight of him, and I didn’t know why. What was so fearful about passing on a letter? I was a messenger, and he didn’t raise me; there was no reason for my throat to tighten, but it did.

I cleared my throat.

He looked up.

My hands shook as I held mother’s letter, but I held it nonetheless.

“Varric Tethras?” I asked, finding my voice weak.

“Yeah?”

If my voice was raspy, his was worse. It broke, and he winced, and licked his dry, cracked lips.

“I’m to deliver this message to you.” No. Too formal. Too distant. He was my father, whatever that meant, and he––he––

He had bloodshot eyes.

Ancestors, I had the worst timing.

I tried again.

“My mother,” I said, deciding that if I was going to do this, I would do it properly, “wrote you a letter before she died.”

It was actually many years ago. The parchment was old and torn by now, wrinkled then flattened again, stained with coffee and dried tears. Mother held onto it, and now here I was, her messenger after death. Her will forbade me from reading it. It felt wrong to give it to a stranger.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He took it, and put it on his desk, unopened. “Thanks.”

I stifled a sudden flash of anger. “I think you should read it. Messere.”

The honorific was an afterthought. Perhaps it would endear him to me, I thought, if I pretended to respect him… but he flinched instead.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s very important,” I said, feeling quite sorry after all. He looked down at what he was writing, then at the unbroken wax seal of mother’s letter, and picked it up with a sigh.

The crack of the wax snapping in two was like the dam that floods the river.

It didn’t belong to him––it belonged to mother! I should’ve buried it with her, the secret dying when she did, and with her gone, I’d pretend to live a normal, happy dwarf life with a caste boy husband and a dozen dwarf children.

How many bastards did Tethras have running around Kirkwall? How many were unwanted daughters? My mother could not have been the only whore he fucked. She was not special, I was not unqiue, and she made sure I knew it in my heart, body, and soul.

And yet; a letter.

A letter that he could read, but I could not.

How was that fair?

The wax seal broke. He thumbed open the letter. My head was heavy and my arms weak, or I’d have snatched it from him, because if there was anyone in this world who deserved my mother, it would not be him––

“Varric…”

Both of our heads snapped up. A human woman in Inquisition armour hovered over the desk, her expression taut and her hands linked together.

I watched many emotions sequentially pass through Tethras’s eyes, until a mask fell over them, and he grinned. “Seeker?”

Seeker. Seeker?

He dropped the letter, folding it again and using it as a cover what what he’d been writing. That was all it was to him.

“Varric,” she said again. She was blushing, but not in the romance way; I knew delicate, flushed glances, and this was something else. She shifted her feet. “I have come to… express my condolences.”

Tethras’s grin turned into more of a grimace. “Ah. Well. That’s…”

“And to apologise, for how I have treated you.”

“Uh.” He gave a stinted thumbs up. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“I should not have blamed you. You have been a good friend, Varric, and…” She paused. I didn’t realise why until I caught her eye––staring me down, like the templars in the streets at night. “You have company. I will come back later.”

He looked at me, surprised––had he already forgotten I was here?

Of course he had.

What a fool I was.

A Maker-damned fool, clinging to the end of a rope that severed when mother’s blood ran rivers through the grout between the stones. She was gone, and this man, just as much a stranger to me as he was to any bastard child, was not my family, and could never become one.

Knowing this, accepting it, feeling it in my heart and allowing it to sink into my bones, did not stop the bitter tears when I lifted my hood and turned away.

-

What had I expected?

He didn’t know me. What I knew of him was imagined from long nights of rumination, roaming the back alleys in the aftermath of one of mother’s rages.

I met the Champion that way, once. He was not the Champion then, only Hawke, if you knew his name at all. I didn’t, as a child of yet twelve, but I remembered his face, the glint in his eye and the kind smile as he draped a blanket over my shoulders and ushered me into the warmth of the tavern.

I remembered red hair like mine, catching the light of the candles, and being struck with a fear so deep that I fled back into the streets, the blanket cocooning me from the wind.

This was not unlike that night. Though the magicks of its walls kept the snow at bay, Skyhold was imbued in a bitter cold, a chill that ran deep. And here I was again, fleeing from the warmth and the light, back into the fog to freeze, fearing what might await me when I stopped to breathe.

I still had that blanket.

It had smelled of alcohol, and smoke, and sex, but a child knew nothing of these things, and it was softer than mother’s hand.

Most things were softer than mother’s hand.

Skyhold’s tavern bustled, and that was where my stout legs carried me, with my mind wandering. I stared at the plaque on the door as it came into focus, feeling again like that child of twelve, gazing at The Hanged Man and wondering what it meant.

“Hey, Varric!”

My breath snagged against my ribs. The woman laughed when I turned my head.

“You’re not Varric. Sorry!”

Another dwarf. Red-haired, like me, but a darker shade. She had a kind smile, a pretty voice, and freckles like constellations amidst the stars. Did she know him? Were they friends? Were they…

“Hey, you okay?”

I had been staring, and though her smile still lingered, she stepped close with concern. Her eyes crinkled in the corners, and I didn’t realise how near she was until her hand grazed my elbow and her breath tickled my jaw.

“You’re freezing! Here,” she guided me to the door, shoving it open with her boot, “let’s get you warm. Not really dressed for the mountains, are you?”

“I couldn’t afford much better,” I admitted quietly. It was a half-truth. Kirkwall’s weather was mild, if you excused hurricane season, and merchants didn’t sell clothes built for the snow. I had spent most of the journey on the back of a cart, huddled between a dozen elven refugees who took it upon themselves to keep the ‘shivering dwarf girl’ warm.

It was more than humans had ever done for me. It was no surprise, then, that a dwarf such as her, saw a dwarf such as me, and thought; I want to protect her.

“I’m alright.” I stopped walking. The bar was warm, rowdy, smoky with the stench of alcohol, and at any moment I felt like Tethras might burst through the door still ajar behind me. “I lost my way. Do you know who I talk to about boarding?”

“You weren’t assigned quarters?”

I knew should’ve stuck around at the gate.

“Harding!”

A booming voice echoed above the noise and the music. I couldn’t imagine the type of man who could make that noise––until I looked up, and my legs went numb.

Horns like a dragon’s, peering over the crowds and the tables; attached to them, a grinning grey head, teeth glinting. In Kirkwall, the roar of the oxmen, mother’s hand clutched over my mouth, the closet’s spider crawling up my leg.

“Save my seat!” Harding called, so close yet far and muffled, and guided me to a far table closest to the bar, where the crowd was thin. Her warm smile as she tapped the bar shielded the qunari from my sight.

A Tal-Vashoth. Nothing more.

Nothing more.

“Cabot,” she signalled the bartender, who barely looked at me, but when he did, it was with a passing concern, “something warm?”

I failed to stifle my temor. “Is there something special about me in particular, or do you buy drinks for every passing dwarf girl?”

She smiled. “Just the half-dead ones. No offense, you know, if that’s what you’re going for.”

“Not typically.” But I wasn’t surprised. “I’m fine, I was just… delivering a message.”

“Oh yeah? Long-lost lover?”

“No! No.”

I knew flirting when I saw it, and Harding––flushed in the cheeks and smelling faintly of alcohol––was batting her eyelashes. It was not the first time a stranger had dragged me from one end of a bar to another in search of a tryst or a public rut, it’s just––usually they were men. And human. And old.

Harding was none of these, and she wasn’t grinding against me yet, either. I took small victories where I could find them.

Cabot thunked down an appropriately-sized dwarven mug that sloshed with the force of it. It was steaming and smelled like chocolate.

It was rude to reject gifts. I used it to warm my hands.

“Your accent’s familiar,” Harding said. “Reminds me of–hmmm. Free Marches?”

“Kirkwall,” I affirmed.

“How funny!”

“Is it?”

“Mm, you remind me of a friend, that’s all.”

My throat tightened again. I sipped the hot drink to burn the knot away. “The one who you mistook me for?”

“Mmm-hm. Sorry.” She looked sheepish. “Just from the side, you know––”

I did know. There was a bitter reminder of it hidden in the bottom of my pack, sketch after sketch that I would compare to myself in the mirror. I could never get my face right, but I always knew his.

“Who is he?” I asked, against my better judgement. Harding leaned forward, and I regretted it immediately, but it was too late to take it back just as it was always too late for anything else.

But she laughed. “Varric? He writes books––I didn’t have much time for reading, as a farm girl in Ferelden, but––when we first met, he said… what was it?” She paused, then with a deep breath and her best gruff, grumbly voice, “ ‘You ever been to Kirkwall’s Hightown?’   I said; no, why? And he said, ‘Because you’d be Harding in Hightown!’ I didn’t get it, though.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“The Seeker thought so too.” Harding shrugged. “We struck a good rapport though. You look a lot like him!”

I sipped my drink. “How funny.”

“It is.”

And to her it was. To me––a roiling, boiling sensation in the pit of my stomach. The burn of my drink, the pain as it grazed my already scarred throat, not even that could distract me from it.

I felt sick.

“So––” She leaned back again, elbow against the bar, lightly tipsy. “You boated all the way from Kirkwall just for a message?”

“I suppose I did.”

“And you’re gonna go back to Kirkwall?”

I hesitated. “I suppose I will.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.” After that––I didn’t know. It wouldn’t be safe there, but I didn’t want to stay here either. Either way, I wouldn’t miss mother’s funeral; I needed to be there when she was returned to the Stone.

Harding nodded, kohl smudged just below her eye where she’d rubbed at it. “I’ve never been to Kirkwall. I’ve heard it’s… well, in the words of Dorian Pavus, ‘a bit of a shithole’.”

I chuckled. “The understatement of the century. I grew up in Lowtown, which was…” No. Wait, what was I doing? About to spill my guts to this stranger, by virtue of our shared race? She was pretty, but nothing suggested trustworthy, and I knew enough about my kind to know you couldn’t trust a dwarf as far as you could throw one, which was not as far as most humans tend to think.

Harding looked lithe, though. I could probably pick her up.

I shook my head. “You know. Muddy.”

“Just like Ferelden, then,” she smiled. Then, before she could open her mouth again––

“Harding!” That booming voice. A deep growl that vibrated inside my skull, like a bug crawling into my ear. If I didn’t look, if I didn’t see, I could pretend it wasn’t–– “You joining us, or what?!”

“Just a minute!” She faced my again, sheepishly flustered. “I should go, or he’ll have me by the ear. Unless you wanna––”

One of the human men from the qunari’s table landed a heavy hand on her shoulder. The qunari’s horns shadowed him from far behind.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked. Harding grinned up at him. “She joining us?”

“No,” I said, too quickly.

“Shame. Lace and Rocky could use the competition.”

“Is Rocky…” I squinted, “a dwarf?” What kind of backwards, offensive to the point of non-offensive, ridiculous sort of nickname was that? The human chuckled.

“It’s not what you think. We all get nicknames. Part of the job. Lace, come on, Chief’s cracking open a new cask!”

“Didn’t you already burn through the last one?” She paused. “Literally?”

“Sacrifices had to be made.”

I stared incredulously between them. “You set your alcohol on fire?”

“Not me. Dalish did. With her––khm––bow.”

“...And I suppose Dalish is Dalish?”

“Well, yeah, she’s got the––tattoos, right?”

“That’s not a very creative nickname.” I was understanding ‘Rocky’ more now.

“Yeah, well, makes it easier for the Chief. Not like Varric’s. Half of his doesn’t even make sense.”

I couldn’t escape him. Varric this, Varric that. I turned away, suddenly bitter. The human dragged Harding away, and under his breath murmured to her, who’s she?

Damn, I forgot to ask, she said.

Most people did.

“Harding! Harding, hey have you seen––”

In my childish fantasies, I used to dream of being the Champion; going places, meeting people, loving them and being loved in return, never discarded nor kicked nor beaten; love, in perpetuity, the likes of which a girl under the heavy and forceful hand of a mother could not begin to dream of, because she could not dream at all.

“––red corset? Yeah, I was just––”

I downed the last of my drink.

“––thanks, I’ll catch up with––”

Some dreams were unattainable. I would never be the champion of anything; that was fine. But to beg and plead, my knees in the mud, for someone to want me for some reason other than pity…

“Isana?”

Why was that too much to ask?

A finger grazed my shoulder. I yelped like I was burned, and with my empty mug, snapped around and smashed it over their head.

One arm flung out to the bar, the other flew to catch a chair––I didn’t realise who it was until him, the chair, and several peoples’ drinks were askew on the tile floor, and a steady stream of blood began to soak his red hair.

I slammed my hands over my mouth.

No, no! I hadn’t meant to! Alive?! Yes, he was groaning and grasping at his skull, his gloves coming away red, the stone below him slowly stained––dying?! No, but breathing too fast, yes, and surrounding patrons rushed to him, closed in, panicked shouts that turned into whispers, whatever I’d done, it was bad.

Ancestors, I had truly done it now. Even if I hadn’t killed him––Maker fucking forbid––I had still lost him forever.

“Argh!” The qunari, high above the crowd, cut through it like butter, lumbering like one of the horned beasts I’d seen when coming up the mountainside, “Give the guy some air or you’ll trample him, fucks sake!”

I reached him when Harding did, and she helped him stand. With glazed eyes, blood caking his hair and streaming down the side of his face, Varric––he grinned at me.

“You… you hit hard, kid!”

[greypetrel]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @shivunin and @gods-fave-chewtoy / @layalu, thank you so much to both! <3

There's not much art this week: I'm trying to doodle something when I can for the Kiss Art February challenge, which is particularly dear to me, and I'm imposing not to overdo myself and to be quick about it. So, this week it's a writing wip! Going on with the DadWolf chapter and we have peak misery.

And also: Varric being the biggest Breakfast at Tiffany fan. In modern Thedas it's clearly set in Kirkwall. Cat may be the possessed Kitty in this version.

edit: I'm air-headed and I forgot to tag. @salsedinepicta @ndostairlyrium @heniareth @idolsgf @rowanisawriter @inquisimer @dreadfutures if you have something!

“My supervisor would kill me if he knew I let you read my notes, that’s why I didn’t ask.” She shrugged.

“And since when you do what others tell you?” Bethany asked, frowning.

It was a legit question, and it stung so much because it was. On the other hand, Aisling frowned up at the other.

“Since I grew up. I’m part of an important project, and it requires me to abide to some strict rules. It shouldn’t be such a new concept for you, since you returned in the Circle.” Aisling snapped right back.

The silence felt deafening, even if the other people sitting at the tables around them kept chatting. Something harshened in Bethany’s expression, a small contraction of her jaw and a furrow on her brow that made her look even more like Leandra. Or like Carver, which was even worse, and sent a pang of guilt to strike at Aisling’s conscience.

“I’m sor-”

“Spare me.” Bethany interrupted her. “You’re doing something important and gracing us with your presence, we get it, we’re all so grateful you’re gifting us with this genius water cleaning system, wow, we’re so lucky.”

“Beth, I didn’t mean to-”

“You’ve been here two months and you’ve barely talked with anyone. You haven’t asked anyone for assistance nor help. You have barely spoken with me down here. Or at home, before Raina and Garrett left. Be miserable all you want, Aisling, I defended you against people who blamed you for not fighting for their rights when you were 5, and I’ll continue to do it, that’s bullshit. Don’t blame it on us and the place if you’re struggling, when you keep yourself ten feet apart and have only pity to offer.”

“I don’t-”

“It’s a nice project. I would have some suggestions, but I’m sure they can’t hold a candle to your superior knowledge. Good luck with Cullen.”

The project got tossed on the table, between them, and it hit Aisling’s glass. The glass wobbled dangerously, threatening the papers and books she got spread on the surface. As the elf leant forward to close both hands on the glass, and limit the damage to just some droplets that spilled on the title, Bethany rose and walked away, not even bothering to take the coffee mug she brought when she sat.

“Bethany, please-”

Aisling rose, tried to call her back, but all she got was a middle finger.

She turned, and everyone was staring at her, the chatter had stopped. A girl snickered behind her hand, and Aisling felt hot tears burning behind her eyes, her lower lip twitched ominously.

She sat back to work, used a hand to hold her head up and cover her face at the same time, and pretended to keep reading, even if tears she couldn’t stop were blurring her visions.

The tears didn’t stop, quiet but ever-present. So much so that the guard at the exit just let her pass without checking her documents, a pang of compassion in his eyes. He promised he would have let her sign the exit the next day, not to worry, he knew who she was.

When she got home and Varric peeked in the foyer, face tired but still a smile to welcome her home, she burst. Her backpack fell loudly on the floor, and she fell too, curling into a ball and crying in her knees.

The hug she got was a much, much needed one.

She asked him if he still loved her even if she was a horrible person, he asked her who she was and what had she done to his daughter, his daughter was into a doctorate and clearly she couldn’t be her, since they didn’t accept stupid people into doctorates. He loved his Pikachu very, very much, tho, whenever she was coming back home.

She kept hugging her dad all evening, curled beside him on the couch, as Breakfast at Tiffany played on tv,  and Varric calmly kept on telling her anecdotes on the movies, where it had been filmed in Kirkwall, anecdotes, holding her close and caressing her hair.

He got everyone to watch that movie at least once a year on his birthday, never stopped talking about it, quoting always the same anecdotes and trivia. Everyone was fed up with Breakfast at Tiffany and Truman Capote, Aisling could recite every line by heart since she was twelve.

That evening, tho, Breakfast at Tiffany and always the same anecdotes never felt better.

[lottiesnotebook]

Hi!!! It's so nice to see you over here, happy Friday!!! 💕 For Rhiannon (my beloved), maybe The Star tarot card prompts?

@miladydewintcr, as my favourite commenter, you get the first fic of my 30th birthday! if anyone ever deserved a break, it's Ms Rhiannon Hawke, so here's a little canon snippet of respite for her:

@dadrunkwriting

the star: renewal, hope, rest; “I feel at peace.” possible AUs/settings/ideas: star-gazing, lazy days, cuddling, spirit au

Justice/Hawke/(Anders but he's asleep), fluff

don't you dream impossible dreams?

Their consciousnesses do not follow a regular cycle of sleeping and waking, but Justice finds himself floating to the surface of their body most often when Anders is in repose. This is less frequent than his body requires, and more frequent than either of them would prefer - Kirkwall is not a place where justice is frequently served, and too often, it feels like the very walls scream his name, demand his presence, his action. It is hard to permit their body to sleep, even knowing its necessity, even knowing the harm it will cause Anders in the long run, when they both know that there are people out there who do not rest as they do, in a soft featherbed, with a beautiful woman twined around them. It is paradoxical that they both feel less guilt sleeping on the thin, narrow cot at the clinic, where the clattering at night might be rats or thieves, than they feel in Rhiannon Hawke's bed, and yet, it is so - it seems unjust that such comfort, such luxury, should be reserved for them alone, but neither of them are quite willing to share the one selfish choice they've made in seven years with anyone but each other.

Tonight, though, when Justice wakes, she is not where she ought to be, a shadow curled into their arms, or wrapped around them like some kind of diminuitive dragon around her hoard of lovers. Her pillow is warm, still imprinted with the dent of her head, and there is no sign of violence in the room, but she is not present, though her scent lingers within the closed curtains of the bed. He knows he should ignore her absence, close his eyes and try to allow their exhausted body some much-needed respite, but her bed is not near so soft or so warm without her as it becomes in her presence, and besides… Justice shares a body, a mind, a purpose with Anders, but he and Rhiannon are joined only by thin, fragile threads of impossible, remarkable affection, and he so rarely gets the chance to remember this when the body is his to command.

He does not have to go far to find her - she's out on the balcony, up against the sky, the stars crowning her dark hair, and she is so lovely that nothing in this world or the Fade could compare to her in this moment. She is also, he notes, underdressed for the chill of the evening - a thin robe over the gauzy nothing she calls a nightgown.

"I must inform you that Anders will be most displeased if I allow you to catch your death," he says, coming up from behind to wrap his arms around her. She is compact and solid and deliciously warm against the chill of the air, the perfect, intoxicating drug to all the senses he will never quite grow accustomed to.

She tilts her head up, brushes her lips to his jaw. "Lucky I have you to keep me warm, then, isn't it?"

His hands tighten instinctively on her waist, but her attempt at distraction does not fully sate his curiosity. "You are always the first to inform me that sleep is vital to your kind," he reminds her, "and yet I find you out here. Not sleeping."

She sighs, feigns a pout. "Must I always be held to my own advice? Isn't a girl allowed a little hypocracy?"

"You know that is inimical to my nature."

"I know," she agrees, and he can hear her smile in her voice before he can feel it against his lips: the sweet, mischievous upturn of her lips, the taste of her - burnt coffee and the roisin she smooths onto the bow of her lute. "I just couldn't sleep, forgive me?"

"If you tell me why." He smooths a curl of dark hair back from her face. If he could, he would smooth every woe, every trouble she has ever felt away with it- but he cannot. That is not his purpose, it is merely his desire. "Are you distressed? Unhappy?"

Perhaps the thought of sleeping next to an abomination scares her more than the thought of bedding one. He would not blame her if that were the case. They have seldom proven safe to love, even to each other.

She laughs, though, and shakes her head. "No, the opposite." Her smile fades, though, and she turns suddenly, uncharacteristically solemn. "I know this city's a shithole, and that a thousand terrible things happen every day, and that we don't stop nearly enough of them, but- would you think less of me, if I said I never thought I would feel like this?"

"Like-?" He does not know what he wants her to say. In love? Happy?

She tilts her head up to the stars, their soft, distant light falling across her face. "At peace," she says, softly. "After losing- everyone I thought I could lose, I still have you two. You're still here, watching over me, watching over all of us, and- the world can't be that terrible, when it still has this, right?"

He could tell her how wrong she is. He could tell her that even now, Orana sobs silently into her sheets from a nightmare she will never dare to speak of, that in the Gallows, an apprentice turns her face to the wall when she is told that she will never be Harrowed, that in Darktown, there are children who's lungs will never recover from chokedamp.

But in this moment, he does not say these things. He looks at her, in her too-thin robe and her crown of stars, and thinks: Were it in my power, I would bend the very fabric of the world to allow you all the peace it has taken from you. He cannot provide her with that. He cannot even add to it - peace and respite are not in his nature. But he can fold her into his arms, let it radiate from her through his bones, and say:

"The world cannot be so terrible, as long as you are in it."

[bharv]

I saw a tentative request for Dragon Age, so I am here requesting The Sun + Samson? If this doesn't tickle the muse, though, I'd love to send another. 🖤

the sun: joy, friendship, prosperity; “I’m so happy.” possible AUs/settings/ideas: friends to lovers, love realization, coffee shop

He was given shining plate and a fine sword and shield, and two silver a month with an extra silver for valour, if he earned it. He was sworn in on All Soul's Day with a procession through Kirkwall; some of the other recruits had family watching, and he remembered feeling sad to not have anyone weep for him, but perhaps it was for the best.

By All Soul's Day the following year he had pawned his fine sword for one made of a poor metal; a trader in Lowtown made them special for Templars. "I know you need it," she said with a strange sort of kindness, one that he thought of for many years after. "Just make sure you keep it well oiled, it rusts faster than the finery."

The money he got for it was gone within the month. When he pawned his shield and came back to barracks without it, he was docked twice coin than he got for it.

At first he thought he was cursed. That it was something wrong inside him. He thought maybe it was a hex from a mage he'd wronged, but he had always tried to treat them kindly. He thought maybe he'd been born wrong, wasn't keeping his thoughts pure enough. Why did he need more, when the other recruits seemed fine with their allotment? What was it in him that was so greedy, so full of need and want? He checked for signs of a demon daily, for it was surely the only explaination. It was only when Knight-Lieutenant Lledas, a hardy, well tempered man not quite forty, passed in his sleep from the sweating that he started to think that maybe, maybe, it wasn't him at all.

Rutherford arrived on the anniversary of his death, a whimpering, scared boy with rumours that chased him like shades. When he had looked on him, that first day at the docks, what pity he had in him hardened, and he was sorry for it. He thought of how kind Lledas had been, how he had shown him the best way to polish his armour, and how he had slipped him some of his Lyrium two days before he had passed when he heard him wail in the night from the pain of the absence of it.

He wished he could be as good a man.

*

He has been given a cot to sleep in, a bed away from the biting cold of the prison cell. His shirt sticks to his skin now, the red is weeping through his sorry pale hide, but one of the mages from the gardens snuck him a nosegay that takes the worst of the stench from his breath.

In the days he works on the outer walls. This castle, though formidable, still has broken stone to mend, and what life he has left is best used to serve. That's what he was made for, wasn't it? Serve one master, serve another.

Cullen -- Commander of the Inquisition -- looks down upon him with a firm brow. He watches all of them, granted, but he knows why his gaze is set to him before all the others. It is not out of suspicion, or out of some kind of unfortunate nostalgia. No, he can smell the Lyrium on him, in him, and now he does not partake it sings to him.

A woman brings them lunch when they break, and he can see her speak to Cullen from a distance before she approaches. When she stops before him, he tries his best to smile.

"Just don't touch me and you'll be fine."

She blinks. "Pardon?"

"The Lyrium. It won't get you if you keep a bit of distance. Just put it down and I'll get it."

"Right."

She does not move, her thumbs gripping the edges of the parcel in her hands, stroking the muslin as her brow knots.

"Is there a problem?" he asks, and she shakes her head.

"Not a problem I. I just don't know what to say."

"Don't have to say nothing. Just drop the food. I know what I am to folks here."

"Do you?"

She drops to her knees as she pushes the parcel to him. He looks to Cullen, whose lips are pursed in a tight anger that he knows from experience will not be tempered.

"Do you remember a girl," she says, unwrapping the cloth with a haste that tells him that she, too, knows the limit of the Commander's patience. "In Kirkwall. A mage. Long black hair, curly. Green eyes. A scar on her lip from her Harrowing. She was called-"

"Lina," he says without even thinking. Lina, of course he remembers. He was there when she split that lip; he held her as she convulsed and spread the poultice with his gloved hand.

"Lina. And you remember."

"I failed her."

Lina did not make it out of Kirkwall. She was caught trying to escape with her lover who left her behind to save herself, she was told she would be made tranquil, and she made the choice many made, in her position.

"You tried. You tried. She wrote to us. She told us that you..."

He had forgotten that part, but it comes to him now. Him thrusting the note in her robe, pretending with the other men that he was taking her away for other things that made them laugh and leave them to privacy. He had told her she should have come to him in the first place, but that she could find a way to appeal, to seek clemency, and she had shaken her head, already defeated.

"Thank you for trying," the woman tells him, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. She wipes it hard, sniffs, and stands.

"Thank you," he says, surprised at how choked his voice sounds. He is not sad, he realises. He is not guilty. She is right. He tried. He tried, and he made mistakes, so many mistakes, but at least he tried. For just a moment his body does not feel heavy, the sweat does not make him shiver. For a moment he feels like he felt the first day that he held his sword.

"Thank you for. For the food."