#lemonsharks fanfiction

[lemonsharks]

A fic i am actively writing right now, please hold me accountable xxoo

working title, change my name for you, futurefic, cot3 established relationship (with flashbacks), multi(?) pov

One day in the somewhat distant future (or forever away if you're a teen), when the agency has grown by a team or two and Lockwood, George, and Lucy are staring down the barrel of their Talents' obsolescence,

Lockwood is going to take on a job ("a job that no one else can, or will do") that is too big and too dangerous, layers on layers of quarantined ghosts across the building's history as half a dozen terrible places with terrible purposes where people died terrible deaths;

The kind of job that the younger and newer agents have been itching to get dirty in, have heard stories of and want to experience for themselves. It's not hard to rile them up when so many of them only really understand the danger of their jobs in the theoretical ...

... Turns out almost dying, almost losing people, again and again over time, makes you cocky

And Would Lockwood put kids' in the kind of disposable child soldier in the ghost war danger the other agencies do? No,

Not on purpose

Not without his Agents' enthusiastic consent and foreknowledge of the situation inside

Not without leading them into that danger himself

He's not going to sit outside under the ghost lamp while other people fight, for fuck's sake

(Kipps leaves, because he for one won't be party this kind of abandon, not again

Lockwood doesn't quite understand why)

Because they've got it, right? They're Lockwood & Co, the best, the boldest, with the lowest agent death rate in the country and this is the way to see the agency through the next handful of generations of figuring out how to end the Problem and then dismantling it at its source, piece by piece,

(it ends in disaster)

And it's going to to be a fucking miracle that everyone makes it out alive

Sometimes the infestation is so bad that only workable solution is bulldozing the site under light of day and setting the ruins on fire and

It is only by virtue of everyone making it out alive, if not unscathed (they don't Lose Agents but they lose agents), that keeps Lockwood & Co from flat out losing their accreditation, which is not something that has been a meaningful possibility in some years

But Lockwood?

Is still young and stubborn and he's the first of the three of them losing his Talent and he has not told anyone (obfuscation and selective dispensation of the truth aren't lies, they're barely even secrets, and it's still his name on the door)

(lucy: "and our lives on the line. All of us. And no one is setting so much as the toecap of a boot on any kind of job until you get your head on straight--and we--"

george: "--consider us on strike."

lockwood: "you can't--”

george: "can we not? or do you want me to start on collective bargaining precedent? because I will paraphrase right now")

And that is how Lockwood & Co gets a new set of rules and six months (minimum) of spirited (ha) debate about rebranding.

After boyo gets his head on straight.

Y'know. And then they kiss.

[lockwood-fic-recs]

March Masterlist

All the fics we shared in the third month of 2024!! Thank you again for all the support :)) We'll keep sharing as long as you keep reading! <3

04/03 | The boy out of time by The_Biscuit_Agreement

07/03 | lavender, sunshine, and salt by hazelnut_chai

08/03 | [EXPLICIT] Through The Open Flames by ScienceFantasy93

11/03 | Stone Walls and Light Cracks (This will be us) by Mirroringdust

14/03 | the sum of our shadows by RainShadow07

18/03 | i’ve never seen someone lit from within (blurring out my periphery) by youareiron_andyouarestrong

19/03 | Ask: Good Boyfriend Lockwood Fluff

21/03 | Buttered Toast (And Other Essentials) by ConYamArtist

22/03 | [EXPLICIT] caught up in orbit by Anonymous

25/03 | Second Choices by MissPennington

28/03 | First Question, Alive or Dead? by lemonsharks

[lockwood-ot3]

Lockwood & Co Fic Recs: cot3

Lucy/Lockwood/George fanfic recs! By no means comprehensive.

Last updated 7/8/23

I Found A Fox, Caught By Dogs by @twelfthbite Some of the best tension in a scene between L/L/G I have read. My goodness. light kink & D/s tone Literally Everything by TheMalapert but especially her L&Co Bodega Series which includes "Ghosts made them do it" Literally Everything by chahakyn / @shizuoi see my Author Spotlight for extended summaries!

Better than Before Series by @lemonsharks Stunning tension between cot3, then progresses further into the relationship. features the amazing line: "George, I," Lockwood said, then hesitated. "I like the way you look at me, too." Sweet Somethings Series by justice_for_skull (hyper_fix) Insanely hot series including free use & cockwarming. So hot, and soft at the same time.

Sink or Swim by @waiting-for-my-hogwarts-letter Mermaid AU! Freedivers Lockwood and George; local mermaid Lucy

Someone Throw A Lifeline (I Don't Wanna Drown) by @waiting-for-my-hogwarts-letter pre-cot3. Anthony Lockwood hates storms.

Interpolation (A Line We Drew In the Array) by @iantalks Great pacing, and ballet.

Honey honey honey (series) by @fromjannah Pre/developing Lucy/Lockwood/George

aftershocks by @aberfaeth Fantastic magic system theory concept, well-executed

Chivalry Fell on Its Sword by alphabetsoup4u cute get together fic

Kiss It Better by @wolfjawswriter Cute, with fun banter.

whiskers on kittens by 11pmbed great pacing, Locklye --> ot3 progression with fantastic confession from Lockwood

at last, peter rabbit made his way home by 11pmbed drunk!Lockwood & spot-on dynamics between the three of them

Tea for Three by IceAngels sweet ot3 w/ plenty of tea & an observant Portland Row neighbor

Could Never Want For More When I'm Here by @dont-offend-the-bees like a warm hug. fantastic ot3 dynamics!

Gunshots Are More Powerful Than Sheer Stubbornness by @between-two-fandoms such great Lockwood POV, showcasing how & why it's hard for him to be vulnerable. so sweet thunderbolt through my body by @sa-heelies amazing view of George thru Lockwood's perspective and it feels good to be known, so well by @paladinbaby Lucy & George, then George & Lockwood. it takes Lucy & lockwood a minute but they get it together pieces of you and me (and us) by @grasslandgirl bright and dark and beautiful

you should never know how easy you are to need by @grasslandgirl Lockwood develops Hanahaki. Death by heartbreak, and all. Dreadfully boring.

Dressed in Black (head to toe) by cherriepixie27 the Lockwood Dress Fic

Domino Effect by cherriepixie27 insanely hot Maysturbation fic - chain reaction of overhearing each other

chase the echoes from the rafters by @sanvitheartificer Three scenes of Lucy, Lockwood, and George loving each other on purpose.

Turning Saints into the Sea (Series) by @alphacrone “Georgie.” Lucy tilted her head up to look at him. “Do you love him?”

i'd blind myself to see it by @hazelnutchai Includes kissing (for science!) and then kissing (not for science)

Sundress Season by Lindzm1318 getting together Pride!fic with Lucy doing face paints, queer Kipps & Kat, (well, queer everyone) and Lucy irresistible in a sundress, of course. The Night Started Like Any Other by @siapom pre/developing cot3 featuring George in a too-small towel

Blinding Lights by @kennysbirthday Lockwood gets a migraine, and George knows how to help. Lucy follows his lead. featuring great banter

you only live forever in the lights you make by @thethinkingcloth two years after she was ghost-locked, Norrie wakes up. book spoilers! found family goodness, and not just for our cot3 The Care & Keeping of AJ Lockwood by FionaDunn featuring Dom!George with some smokin' hot dirty talk!

hug all your friends and let them know by @beautifulmakkaris Contrary to popular opinion, Lucy realises she’s in love with both boys on the same day.

Please also check out my cot3 fanfiction on Ao3 (Rainshadow07)

Updated 7.8.23

[chibiosaka]

9 people you'd like to get to know better

tagged by @yarrowseed <3

3 ships: Locklyle, Cot3, and Reylo (I know, I know)

1st ever ship: I wanna say RobinXStarfire cause that was when I first started writing fanfiction but I think from like, my earliest memories my way of understanding media was that female characters existed to be romantic interests for the male characters so I honestly don't know. Probably Robin Hood and Maid Marian?

last song: Tokyo Calling by Atarashii Gakko, I just discovered them on YouTube and I love them already

last film: Godzilla Minus One, went to see it with my partner and cried, it was so good

currently reading: After School Lessons For Unripe Apples-Webtoon by Soonki, but it just went on hiatus :C Planning to do a read-together of Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language with my mom and sister next month.

currently watching: On my...third? Re-watch of Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, and catching up on What We Do in the Shadows with my partner. We also watch Pretty Cure together, the current season is Soaring Sky Pretty Cure. It's cute but it drives me bananas that the magical sidekick for this season is a literal baby, I hate it so much.

currently consuming: Panang Curry I made for dinner. I put too much fish sauce, but it's not bad.

currently craving: Chocolate. As always.

tagging!

@frostingzamboni @ohmyoverland @hailqiqi @starwritingbri @luckylolabug @cats-and-metersticks @lemonsharks @itripandfallalot @shizuoi

obviously optional etc and you can still do this if i didn't tag you and you still want to do this go ahead!

[mihrsuri]

7, 36, 43 for fic writer ask game

7. Do you prefer to read short fics or longfics?

I believe I lean towards long fics - which is possibly due to being a LOTR person ;). I love being able to just get lost in a fic/fic series

36. Are there any fics or fandoms you’re embarrassed to have written or been part of?

So I try not to say embarrassed because if I do I will end up deleting everything I have ever written and I think in every fandom I have learned something, met some lovely friends and such. There are definitely things I wish I’d written better in terms of knowing what I know now but I think what I’ve had to do is resolve to do better and know that I’ve evolved.

(A lot of it is - realising it’s okay to write the kind of characters I want to write. It’s okay to write biracial and Jewish characters because ME. It’s okay to write about trauma and write self indulgent stuff. I think I’m still working on that one but I’m better about it).

43. Talk about a positive experience with fanfiction or the fanfiction community that you will always remember

I just I have so many. Meeting my best friend in the comments of a fic community and starting a journey of brainstorming and fic plotting and so many multiverse AUs we are super great @armyofthedaegiloth <3. Hanging out with @notabuddhist eating pancakes and talking about Star Trek. Talking on the phone with @star-anise and @lemonsharks and @shes-a-voodoo-child about fandom and life and me being like MY SAATIS. All my friends/sisters/sibling friends who have been there, who love me and like me.

It’s a really lovely thing. I have found my faith, my heritage and the fact that maybe, just maybe I am not tainted so yep, a lot of good.

[lockwood-fic-recs]

First Question, Alive or Dead?

by lemonsharks on ao3

Rating: T | Category: Multi | Relationship: Lockwood/Lucy/George

Lockwood appeared in the kitchen doorway a little later, his face bloodless as he cleared his throat for their attention.

"So," he said, glancing back and forth between Lucy and George with glassy eyes and eerie calm. "I cannot move my arm."

The aftermath of Kensel Green. It takes them a while to get from the ambulance to breakfast table.

[lockwood-fic-recs]

Fic Discussion #52

Our second fic from last week was First Question, Alive or Dead?, and it's time to start a discussion! Kicking off straight after the end of the final episode, we get a little taste of the trio's relationship while navigating Lockwood's injury. What did you think? Reply or reblog using the tag #lockwoods book club and let us know!

[lemonsharks]

sometimes I think about cho chang

I need to be working at work, not writing an entire essay (too late) about How To Introduce Cho Chang (for starters, not with that name) And Not Have Her Entire Character Arc Be A Massive Fail

And, well, it would build out into a large not!fic that I am not starting because: I am also working on a queer/ish regency romance series set in magical england (still figuring out what bits of 'worldbuilding' to keep/toss, as "adding magic" means keeping sexism etc is now a deliberate choice)

1) introduce important characters for later as soon as you can

2) portray them through a lens other than the pov character's thirst, ie, people go for "friends to lovers" way more than they go for "she's hot to lovers"

3) portray characters through their actions, not their stated traits

4) if you're pulling a late- or mid-game love interest switcheroo, and you want audience sympathy, you really need to do it with a character for whom you've already built some sympathy.

Anyway. if I WERE writing the Cho Character Redemption Fic (because I'm already writing the not!fic apparently...)

fix Cho's backstory:

She'd be chinese-korean, for one: two muggle-born parents, bonded over being asian at the most anglo school in the universe. ("My English name is X. My Chinese name is Y. My Korean name is Z. I answer to all 3 of them so pick the one you can pronounce without extra coaching and do not call me [Offensive mispronunciation Q].)

Cho's grandparents are the expected amount of disapproving that their kids (1) did not follow their plans for their educations and (2) married outside of their nationalities but (3) ADORE their granddaughter enough to (begrudgingly?) follow their kids rules about grandparenting (most of the time).

Cho herself appears periodically throughout books 1-3 as a peripheral friend of Harry and Hermione who is sometimes called upon when they new eyes on a problem

She still sorts into Ravenclaw, but it's as much for her common sense as her book smarts. She's seen around campus as a friend to Luna in books 2-3.

Introduce Cho earlier, via not cancelling quidditch in book 3.

an overheard/witnessed conversation in ... book 1 or 2: Some Tool: "Where are you from" Cho: "Glasgow" S.T.: "No I mean where are you REALLY--" Cho: "Whin ah say a'm fae glescae ah mean a'm fae (*&^%!) glescae "

at which point Harry realizes that that wow, 1) wizards have some of the same prejudices muggles have, and 2) he'd like to get to know this girl better, because she has a firecracker personality. ie, make her More Scottish.

Book 2 or 3 sees Cho become Harry's Quidditch Friend.

Book 3 sees Cho become Hermione's Study Friend/

Cho catches the snitch but Gryffindor wins the match; Harry is gracious about it and Cho responds, cheerfully, in defense of both her teammates and the Gryffindor team's skills. They have some time so they get into an interesting conversation about snitch-catch "end with points" vs "simple end" rules (does catching the snitch end the match and earn 150 points or does it simply end the match? this is a matter of DEEP IMPORTANCE and MANY impassioned letters to the editor.) At some point we find out that Cho reads The Quibbler, which gives her some unexpected depth. "Only under the covers with alohamora ;) "

Re-arrange the trio, Hermione's backstory, GOF dynamic:

Ron and Harry are already fighting, but this time Hermione firmly takes Ron's side.

Because Hermione's parents are dentists, but they're also dentists in the 80s and living anywhere from just to oh shit above their means. Plus, the GBP to Wizard exchange rate skews heavily in favor of Wizard, and Hogwarts tuition, which richer than god Harry doesn't have to worry about, is expensive. Books and tools are expensive. Even cat food (you think Crookshanks tolerates anything but the bougiest of magical cat food?) is expensive.

Hermione Understands Poverty, and while it's not like Ron understands poverty, it is in her own way. She has talked her parents into telling her more about their finances than she has any right to know. ("Nothing that's actually happening could possibly be worse than what I've come up with in my own head.")

Hermione was a scholarship kid at her primary school but she's not one at Hogwarts (something about )

She has significantly less patience for Harry's empty-headed "it's just money, it's not important"ing

Because this Hermione? has come home to find the lights turned off because Dad paid the credit cards and not the electricity, then forgot to call the electric company and arrange a payment plan), but she's never woken up hungry the week before payday because Mum magicked extra food into the family dinner.

She's not Rich like Harry and her parents would NEVER self-identify as working class and probably don't vote labour, despite it being against their best interests and she's absolutely listened to her parents argue about whether paying their own mortgage or their employees' salaries is more pressing, because one too many patients wrote them a hot check this past fortnight.

(the answer is your employees. you pay your employees before you pay yourself. then the business bills. then your own household bills.)

So you get a secondary trio for GOF:

Harry, Cedric, and Cho

Harry approaches Cedric early on and goes: I swear I didn't put my name in the cup. You're the real champion and I'm going to stay out of your way so you can *be* champion.

Harry deliberately loses all of the Triwizard events, because he didn't sign up and he's not supposed to be there and they can force him to participate but they can't force him to try.

Cedric and Cho are not dating, but they are very dear friends (Cedric having been Cho's Dad Friend during books 1-3, as she also had a lot of Hufflepuff friends.)

They activate the room of requirement without realizing they've activated the room of requirement, because Gryffindor is being shitty to Harry about not trying to win and Hufflepuff is being "???????" to Cedric for befriending Harry.

Cho asks Harry to the yule ball, because all the boys are too intimidated by her to ask for themselves. Harry accepts. It's weird but not bad-weird but still weird-weird. They decide to keep being just friends for now.

They (Cedric and Cho particularly) have suspicions about "Mad-Eye" that none of them can substantiate, which is DEEPLY FRUSTRATING.

"Mad-Eye" keeps creeping on Harry, which causes Yet More Conflict with Ron and Hermione ("special treatment, ugh") but which Cedric and Cho find fucking creepy because it's fucking creepy

Harry comes to rely on Cedric and Cho for reality checks--and more importantly, learns how to ask for a reality check when he needs one.

At some point Harry gives up his conviction that Something Is Up With Snape, to be turned upside-down and sideways in book 5-6-7.

Someone, probably Cedric, spells it out in small words money makes people weird. It's a pride thing, and it's stupid, but when you don't have any money you have to cling to what you do have, and so very often that's pride, therefore setting up his reconciliation with Ron and Hermione at the beginning of book 5.

Harry actually puts in some effort in the maze, but only once he realizes that Cedric and Cho are in danger.

Ending is roughly the same as canon book 5.

[lemonsharks]

Have some light meta fandom wank set in @mihrsuri’s tudors OT3 universe

_____

yeet-lizabeth

You know what my very favorite thing is?

Two THOUSAND words of hot take about Mirimah-as-converso on my dash in the morning, and not a readmore in sight.

And by favorite thing I mean don’t make me scroll through that dumpster fire

triptychxx

@ / dinners-in-the-hand-of-a-hangry-god again? 🙄

yeet-lizabeth

Who else?

tudorprotectorate

I've literally never seen this person before now, who even DOES THAT

tudorprotectorate

I just scrolled through her tumblr (instant block) and WTF WTF WTF

I mean did you sleep through the entire 90s? I could understand it if she was a continental or something, education is all over the place over there, but she’s from freaking SWANSEA.

And I know that most of the “DID U KNO Thomas I welcomed his wife’s imam into their household some years into their marriage” is usually like ... A Levels stuff but

But

yeet-lizabeth

that’s a big ‘yep’ on the slept through the papers thing; she’s a restorationist

tudorprotectorate

so much becomes clear

It’s not like we don’t have children’s picture books about the triad and how different families are different

It’s not like the papers haven’t gone through forensic analysis or anything

Where do these people COME from?

triptychxx

I can answer that!

Dinners is big time wanker from New Netherlands fandom who jumped over to Triad because fave actor crossover

Thinks reading one (1) reactionary pop history book makes her an expert in all history that ever happened, never even mind fandom and canon, yknow what I mean?

Possibly a tradwife. Can’t tell. Her description keeps changing.

[lemonsharks]

@mihrsuri somebody’s going to end up shipping the fandom OCs eventually. I’d put money on it. In fact, it’s going on my 2021 bingo card.

(Pending lil approval I hereby declare that the Starbucks analog for not particularly good yet consistent coffee and coffee like beverages is called Argonauts’ in this universe)

hrhlottie1official:

PhD shenaniganry of the now:

we’re not racist, we just like deifying the man (movement) that deposed the first english king to marry a Black African princess

I knew diving back into this subculture had a 30% chance of breaking me but they could at least TRY for something original

[secret sideblog, dm me for followback]

tudorprotectorate:

I will personally mail you a £5 note if you make the working title the final title

hrhlottie1official:

Thou shalt not antagonize my committee, meg. 11th commandment. We’ve been over this

tudorprotectorate:

Yeah but it’s such a great title, though, how are you going to beat ‘in limp defense of the roundhead king: an anthropological discussion of one woman’s ##-year reimmersion into the modern restorationist community or; when the material reality of one’s day to day existence was better in 1650 SOMETHING HAS GONE HORRIBLY WRONG’

hrhlottie1official:

sometimes you just have to sit back and have yourself a little primordial scream. As a goodie

At least I haven’t run into my freaking dad yet, right? Right?

tudorprotectorate:

IDK, pater throwing you into the quasi-arranged marriage of his networking dreams might lend your work a certain je nais se qua, an authority to speak on the topic, a set of roots within the community you’ve chosen to study

Oh wait that’s ‘gone native’ bullshit n/m

(I JOKE. I JOKE. @ everyone I’ve already volunteered my amateur womens’ rugby team for an extraction if lotz over there needs it 😘)

hrhlottie1official:

*primordial scream* AAAAAAAAAAHHHhh

You owe me £50 and a bottle of scotch old enough to vote for emotional distress

tudorprotectorate:

done

only if you use the working title though

sailingintosunstars:

I realize this is showing up half an hour late with an argonauts’ but I NEED to read this thesis when it’s done @ hrhlottie1official

tudorprotectorate:

That’s what I said! Then she impressed me into service alpha-reading her applications and THEN she was like oh yes I’m going back into the cult, don’t worry about me BITCH I’M ALREADY INVESTED IN YOUR WELL-BEING OK

[lemonsharks]

Signs of affection meme. 20. Anora/Isabela

20 - a confession

The sea lapped faintly at the hull. The sails were still, the crew languid as they ever got to be. Some whittled. Some whistled, or sang off-key tunes better suited to work in rough weather, and Anora leaned over the railing above the prow with sweat in her plaited hair and salt on her skin. 

The sun hung high overhead, but her skin had long ago crisped to a faint, freckled brown--she wouldn't burn today, or tomorrow, or at all without several months indoors rubbing lemon on her nose to bleach the dark marks out. She tapped her foot behind her, cracked her neck and listened to the rumbling voices of crewmen at a game of cards. 

When had the ship become so small? The anchor was up, not that it mattered in a sea calm as glass. Anora thought she might shatter if she fell, though she adopted a set of sea legs long ago and never quite got re-accustomed to land. 

They could give her the crown of Ferelden now and she wouldn't take it, no, she would bow her head with the coronet in her hands and rise, hand it back to the Revered Mother and apologize, because she had not let politeness go, and the strictures of the court held no appeal for her any longer. 

Humming, behind her, a few bars of what-do-you-do-with-a-drunken-sailor, and she knew Isabela's tone as well as she knew her own reflection. Though her captain had only the one small, cloudy mirror in her cabin. Anora didn't turn, but she did hum another bar and lifted her voice in a chorus that drew out Isabela's throaty laugh. 

"If the damned wind would just pick up," Isabela said, matching Anora's pose over the railing. 

The woman on the prow, carved of hardwood and long ago washed clean by the sea, said nothing. 

"We would hardly be here, wasting time," Anora replied.

"Hmm. There is that. And yet, here we are, becalmed."

"I would ask you to dance if it wouldn't make both of us a laughingstock." 

"You're in luck then," Isabela said, "I'm quite a terrible dancer. Especially when I'm not properly drunk--and I'm not. Properly drunk."

It was Anora's turn to laugh, to press the coil in her stomach down once again, the call to a life bigger than this one, her lover's first mate on a ship small enough to go unnoticed in most ports. Big enough for hidey-holes and hidden, smuggled cargo in the hold, the sun on her back and the clatter of dice down the deck. 

She had made no promises--none to Isabela, nor to herself--and she knew she could leave the next time they made berth with no complaint and no need for word, but that wasn't her--that wasn't the person she had been, nor the one she had become in the years since the Blight and the king drove her from her throne. 

There had been no itch, no half-frantic drive to put herself elsewhere, see shores far beyond the ones that had come beneath her gaze so far. And she could. She had learned so much, since she took a place among Isabela's crew, since she had first boarded another ship with a scimitar between her teeth and stolen away the best of its cargo. 

"Something's weighing on you," Isabela said. 

She could have shot back irritation at their sad, still state, but that would only give way to probing questions. Isabela knew her too well, and she stretched like one of the ship's cats and let her arm fall around Anora's waist and ease her close. 

Anora sighed, though lightning ran down her spine. Best to say it quickly so she could bandage the cut left behind. 

"The next ship we take," she began. She turned in Isabela's arms so she rested against the rail with her hands on Isabela's hips and Isabela herself wrapped around her. Gold eyes met green, and Anora licked her lips. She said, "I want the next ship we take."

She was close--so close she could taste Isabela's skin beneath her tongue if she just leaned forward, and her breath caught between her lungs in the moments after she spoke. 

I want to leave you, I'm done with this life we've built, I'm ready to start my own elsewhere...

But Isabela smiled and bent down for a searing kiss that Anora could not help but return. When they were done, she said, "It's about time, sweet thing."

[lemonsharks]

marigold/yarrow for Ellendra/Mattrin :D

There is a Templar called Mattrin in Haven, found arguing with Lysette. Possibly/probably the same one from the side-quest My Lover’s Phylactery. From which we acquire Enchanter Ellendra as an agent.  

Ellendra is no spirit healer.

She turns her phylactery over in her hand until it shines, the blood within bubbling from agitation, the crystal glinting in the thin autumn light. Mattrin, she thinks, you should be here. But Mattrin was foolhardy in life, always at the edge of a conflict. Mattrin who could never say no to a chance to prove himself best.

She sighed, and put the phylactery away among her things. I should destroy it, she thinks, I should break the seal over the fire and finish it with a spell of erasing, of ending things. I know the spells, I've done them before.

With sanction. Always with sanction. And the Inquisition needs more hands now, at Haven, needs her hands and her bandages and her spells. She has the First Enchanter's word, and that is the best word she will get in the chaos left over from the world.

She makes the trek through the mountains with the irregular soldiers recruited from refugee stock. Pop in to Haven for a bit of training for them, pop back out into the world when they've a little more polish on their armor. A little more armor on their thin flesh and bony shoulders.

Ellendra wonders: will she be allowed back out into the world? Would she go if they gave her that chance? She had been a Loyalist in the Circle, well-respected and tidy in her every move. The safest way. Mattrin loved to tease her, though there was never any acid in it. Never the smallest trace of Templar superiority in his voice or step. For all the bravado, when he stood beside her at the evening meal he would whisper questions or quips and she would have to shush him. You're supposed to be silent watchers, remember?

"What was it like, growing up here?"

"The same as growing up anywhere else. The children are supposed to obey the adults but often don't, and often regret it later."

"What does magic feel like?"

"Exactly what it is. Quiet, you."

Meals are served to the whole of the Inquisition, a jumble of Templars and mages and ordinary folk caught up in the mess after the conclave.

Ellendra has never felt quite so alone.

The Archdemon comes as a surprise. They had known the force they faced was great, had known their chances were quite slim all told, had known very little about the enemy they would one day have to fight. And that the Breach closed with such little effort on their part, a few hundred mages and the Herald of Andraste at their fore, seemed quite the joke.

Too easy.

She steps high through the blowing snow, raising her knees in the march of a soldier on parade, just to get past the snow. She'd been from Cumberland, before her magic erupted. Been from the Cumberland Circle afterward, and had never seen a flake of snow before she came to Ferelden. It stuck to her clothes and sank with tiny biting teeth into her flesh and made her shiver beneath the too-light cloak.

Made her wish for Mattrin at her side, made her hate the phylactery she wore around her neck, glowing dimly and warm in the unlit night.

He had always run hot. Like a furnace even on the coldest nights, so that she cast off blankets and rucked her nightdress up around her thighs so that she could stay near him just a little longer. Before he kissed her neck and made a terrible joke and slipped back to his duties, his absence unnoticed and his absence sorely felt.

They camp at last on the sheltered side of a ridge, on Commander Cullen's orders. She would rest, but there are injured to tend, and she is good at least with hot water and bandages. Good at soothing hurts, good at talking laughter into the dying and might-be-dying.

She hefts a woman down from a wagon and lays her out beside one of their fires, lays a warming spell upon the ground and bedroll, and the tight line of her mouth eases a little. One of the proper healers sets and splints her broken arm while Ellendra holds her other hand, lets her squeeze down tight and leave fingernail crescents pressed into Ellendra's own flesh.

She is the first of many that night. Cleaning wounds and warming the cold with her mana and holding attention and shoulders all through a line of stitches.

"Mage! Come! He'll freeze to death!" and so she leaves her patient with clean cloth wrapped around his head and goes, the nearest mage to the healer calling out.

She has precious little energy left, and the pale pink glow behind the clouds to the east suggests it might be morning, though through the snow and thick clouds you would never know it. Ellendra breathes in and snatches at the sparks within herself, coaxes them up into the crackle of a fire, and lays her hands upon the chest of this man who might die without her help.

He goes from stillness to shivers to a ragged cough, and after a time he says a handful of words Ellendra cannot make out above the wind. Instead she turns and retrieves a cup of hot water--the bubbling pots of food are elsewhere, the flask at her hip long-since emptied of whiskey--and holds it to his lips while he drinks. She watches his fingertips around the vessel change from white to red.

"Never thought you'd be the one warming me up," he says, when he's finished with his drink, and Ellendra starts.

She has not yet looked at his face. She does, now.

Mattrin has three days of beard upon his cheeks and chin, but the same brightness in his eyes, and she can't think of anything to say at all. Instead she lays her forehead upon his shoulder and sobs. He clutches at the back of her neck with cold fingers, and this time he shushes her.

"You were dead!" she says between the hiccoughs that have bubbled up inside her throat, because he had been dead, she was sure of it.

"That's rather a long story," he tells her, then says, "Help me sit and I'll start from the beginning."

[lemonsharks]

Yarrow or Ulmus for Josephine/Cassandra, please?

Josephine and Cassandra in the dark future - Ulmus (strength)

Josephine unsheathes her daggers.

They’re weighty and well-balanced in her palms. The coiled wire wrapping around the hilt smells of tarnish, of disuse, but the blades themselves are still sharp. Sharp enough. Her voice is tarnished, too, but no one cares about the quality of performance anymore, and no one sees her as she slips through darkness like silk outside of Haven, just off the road to Val Royeaux.

It’s been too long. And that means something has failed.

The demons sighted on every road between Redcliffe and Denerim, between Orzammar and Haven, mean they’ve failed.

Cassandra marches behind her with easy, high steps in the snow. Her leathers don’t make as much noise as plate armor or mail would, but the sound of her carries out into the valley. Night birds stir, and she stops cold. Josephine continues a few steps further before she, too, stops and turns.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“We cannot run away.”

“We’ve discussed this–your word holds the most weight of anyone’s with Empress Celene. We’ve lost the Herald. We cannot lose the Hero of Orlais.”

Cassandra scoffs, but starts again, her footfalls lighter and her breath making clouds in the cold night air.

They walk for days in a land that dies around them. Not just from winter but–the Breach cracks open again. Smaller rifts form around the hole in the sky, tears that let demons and spirits both slink through, and they are ill-equipped to fight them, to seal them.

Josephine buries her daggers in the neck of a shade and it dissolves around her, the dust of it sticking to her clothing and hair. It smells ammoniac and ashen, and she holds back a cough before turning on another demon, this one green and gangling. Cassandra has her hands full a few yards over, with three creatures surrounding her and a fourth hanging off her shield.

She thinks they might die here, today, on the road to Val Royeaux. In a still moment she takes a bottle from her sleeve and douses her blades in a paralyzing oil, moves on lightest feet to take one of Cassandra’s foes, to give her the opening she needs to skewer two more, and then the rift sucks the spirit-stuff back away into the Fade, as if they’d never been a fight at all.

Blood and sweat drip from Cassandra’s forehead, and she stares upward at the rift that needs to be sealed and will, instead, remain cracked open for more monsters to come through at their leisure.

Taking Cassandra’s wrist in her hand, Josephine says, “There is nothing else we can do here. We must get to Val Royeaux.”

Cassandra makes a noise in her throat, then says, “Are you injured, Ambassador?”

“No, but you are.”

“It is nothing.”

Celene sees them, and Cassandra speaks plainly. Of the rifts that will not close without the Herald, of the need to send forces into Ferelden to keep worse yet from happening. As the Right Hand of the Divine she had donned a sunburst mask to court functions–Josephine had seen her in her regalia a time or two. She had always found herself in awe–the clean lines of her armor, the rigidity in her back, but her voice trembles now.

Josephine’s would, as well.

They are asking that Celene make peace with Gaspard, that she broker with him to stabilize a Ferelden awash with horrors. She is not surprised when the Empress declines them.

She is not surprised when an assassin’s blade finds its way between Celene’s ribs, hail the Elder One upon their lips.

Northern Ferelden has long, cold, wet winters, and Josephine wakes to the pounding of rain upon the roof and dripping of water into the small cabin they’ve occupied with its single locked door and foreboding air. Orlais will not help, but perhaps the Wardens will–if they can find them–and so they’ve set off to complete the work the Herald left unfinished.

Things come from Redcliffe.

Venatori and mages twisted into grotesque shadows of themselves, horrors and abominations.

The sky darkens green and crackles gold around the edges of the tears between the world and the fade. Josephine wonders, sometimes, what has happened to the Herald in the last six months. Whether Leliana took it upon herself to storm the castle and win their champion back in a single hot-headed feat of valor.

Most times she tries not to wonder, not to think. It leads to a world she does not want to live in anymore.

She hates the wet, and shakes in it, but they cannot see their fingertips at the ends of their arms for the fog and the rain. That and the cliffs mean they stay inside.

“We should sleep while we can,” Cassandra says, and Josephine only shivers.

Cassandra pats her bedroll and says to come here, they’ll be warmer together.

Josephine gathers her blankets and eases in beside Cassandra, then makes a fine mess of piling her blankets on top of them both. Cassandra laughs, the first time she’s heard the sound in months, and Josephine’s stomach flips in a delightful way.

The air cracks around them; there are more rifts now than sky. They’ve come to Crestwood on a hunch, a torn letter that should not have reached the remains of the Inquisition, should not have reached them.

Templars more lyrium than man infest the hills, now, alongside the demons from the sky.

If you’re reading this, I’m rather unfortunately dead. Sorry about that.

Varric had handed the missive to Cassandra hidden in a stand of trees by the side of the imperial highway and apologized. Because perhaps if he had acted sooner, Hawke would be alive. But there is a warden in Crestwood, and perhaps more to bolster their decimated forces.

Josephine walks close to Cassandra, quiet, just ahead of her companion. Now they hope to attract no attention rather than to fight and win. They’ve spilled too much of their own blood on the way.

They find the cave empty but for a worn pile of maps and a dessicated corpse and Cassandra makes a choked sound in her throat. This last promise, broken, and Josephine sheaths her daggers. The hilts glint in the light of the deep mushrooms lining the cave walls.

Josephine goes to her, embraces her in arms gone thin from poor travel and poor rations, and finds her head fits perfectly beneath Cassandra’s chin. She isn’t sure which of them sobs, but they both shake.

“I am sorry,” Cassandra says. She draws her sword and settles her shield on her arm and leads the way back out into the world.

They camp in the cold shade of a formation of rock, a lone cliff standing apart from neighboring crags. It isn’t overly sheltered, and they do not risk a fire.

The air crackles with a nearby pride demon’s steps, seeming blessedly oblivious to their presence.

“I should not have brought you here,” Cassandra says, low, into Josephine’s ear.

Her breath tickles, and Josephine gives a rare smile.

“I chose to come,” she replies. “Could you have stopped me?”

In the quiet Cassandra thinks, and then says, “I rather doubt it.”

“Good,” Josephine says, and, “Do you want the first watch, or shall I?”

“You sleep first.”

She nods her assent, and curls into Cassandra’s side with their backs against a crevice in the stone. Josephine is well past prayer, but she hopes tomorrow will be a better day.

[lemonsharks]

Chapters: 2/4 Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan Characters: Female Trevelyan, Female Warrior Trevelyan, Cullen Rutherford, Iron Bull, Sera (Dragon Age), Blackwall, Giselle (Dragon Age), Josephine Montilyet Additional Tags: Unresolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Falling In Love, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Touching, Sparring, Protective Cullen Summary:

Bastard girls don't get to fall in love with fetching Commanders.

Evelyn Trevelyan had wanted to become a Templar for most of her life. When she's sent to the Conclave as the most expendable of her siblings, she does not expect to find something--someone--greater than that yearning.

[lemonsharks]

amell/surana - a stolen kiss - 600w

Circle-era Cottage AU for @hornkerling, who is hopefully so asleep right now she has no idea this has even been posted. 

There are places where an apprentice mage might steal a bit of privacy. The mages who designed the libraries hundreds of years past put them there. Three stacks filled with treatises on the summoning of rain, of wind, of ice upon one’s enemies form a nook hidden from view on all sides. Another lies in the histories and biographies of notable individuals within the Chantry--good, wholesome reading for good, wholesome young mages.

Cecily has read them all. Has climbed on piled chairs to get the ones she can’t reach.

“Do not form attachments,” Enchanter Bales and Chanter Marda tell them, attachments leave you vulnerable to demons. They prey on you, on the weakness a lover leaves in you. Chanter Marda cheerfully ignores the dalliances of the Templars under Greagoir’s command, how the Knight-Captain himself stands too near and moves too familiarly with Enchanter Wynne.

Attachments leave you vulnerable to demons but Cecily has half a dozen friends she would die for in a second, and no one ever says a word about them.

There are places a an apprentice mage might go unnoticed for a few moments, for an hour if she pressed.

She asks Dolours to meet her near the Mare Malorum; an old Tevinter sailor’s text, charting seas none of them will ever see and laying down predictions of weather and incantations for calming troublesome waters. They have a press and plates in the basement. Some of the Tranquil spend their days carving books into pewter so that they might be bound and sold in facsimile.

She is there when Cecily arrives, sitting cross-legged on a high-backed chair, and she smiles when Cecily meets her eye.

“I hadn’t found this one yet,” Dolours says, closing the book in her lap. One of the rare works of fiction passed from hand to hand and hidden in footlockers and between mattresses lest they be found and confiscated as a corrupting influence. “I’m glad you asked me here. I keep thinking about the garden.”

“Not just me, then? That’s good.”

Dolours stands, and raises a hand, fingers curled to beckon. Cecily cannot help but go, as the world closes in on the two of them.

A steady drizzle and a light wind outside makes the rain pat against the windowpanes and stone walls of the tower. The air is thick with water and the scent of old paper and the oil of embrium clinging to Dolours’ skin from her morning work in the garden, before the storm hit.

Warm lips, wet tongue, taste of flesh and the sour candied gooseberries Irving sometimes slips them with the quiet reassurance that sometimes they need small indulgences. Dolours lets her hand fall to Cecily’s hip, and Cecily makes a small sound that means, continue.

They’re so near. Not tangled, not yet, but it would take a moment to break away and all her senses have focused pinpoint sharp on her friend--her lover? A flush creeps up her neck--her love. She rests both her hands on Dolours shoulders, gripping slightly with her fingertips so she doesn’t fall, and when she finally pulls away it’s to breathe like when she summons fire, in through her mouth and out through her nose.

“I’ve wanted to do that far longer than you know,” Dolours says, resting her forehead on Cecily’s shoulder.

Cecily lays another dry kiss on the corner of her jaw and holds her, swaying slightly, their warmth mingling through their robes. They will leave this refuge, one at a time, alone. But for now they have a few moments left together, and she won’t waste them.

[lemonsharks]

Merrill/Isabela - midnight visits - ~600w

Oh look I made a thing. 

Merrill grows flowers and Hawke talks about putting down roots, but it’s Isabela who makes her feel like she could go anywhere.

She visits in the dark-after-midnights, slips in like water over stone, and Merrill has a door that locks, she does, but her friend is very good with her hands. With coaxing stubborn things to open. Isabela visits and lingers in the doorway as Merrill stares up into the Eluvian, shattered stubborn thing it is, not unlike her, and she sighs to let Isabela know she knows she’s there.

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Merrill says. Then, “I didn’t think it would be impossible. I’m chasing after butterflies, aren’t I?”

Isabela steps forward through the gathering dark as the oil lamp gutters and threatens to go out. She needs a new wick. She hasn’t left the Alienage, has scarcely left her bedroom, since Hawke placed the arulin'holm in her hands with a scowl.

“Hmm,” Isabela says, kneeling and placing a hand on either side of Merrill’s neck. She works the knots there with clever, strong fingers, and Merrill makes a sound. Guttural, thick in her throat. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been sitting.

“You can get single-minded, you know that, sweet thing?”

She digs her thumb into a knot in a way Merrill is fairly sure could make someone pass out, if she intended. Merrill’s arm goes limp and tingly, in the best way.

“I can’t leave it unfinished,” Merrill says. She leans back into Isabela’s hands, warm and solid.

“You’d come back.”

“I would. A bit down, if you don’t mi--oh.”

“You’re like me that way. You don’t forget.”

“I forget a great deal I--”

“Not the important things.”

Warm hands move down Merrill’s spine, and she leans into them, into thumbs beneath her shoulderblades and Isabela’s breath warm on her neck. A flush creeps over her skin. She closes her eyes.

After a while, Isabela rests her forehead on Merrill’s shoulder where it joins her neck. She could shiver with it but the room’s gone hot and the lamp threatens to go out at any moment--Merrill readies a spell for light beneath her tongue, for when it does fail.

“You should come with me,” Isabela says. She presses a dry kiss to Merrill’s shoulder through her shirt, so chaste she can’t be anything but serious.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“We’ll take your mirror and disappear into the night. No one will see us. Hawke will miss us, but--”

“Do you have a ship?”

“I could.”

“I’ve never been on a sea-ship before.”

“It’s a wonderful thing. You can go anywhere you like, with none to stop you. Well, the crew might object if you’re stupid, but there’s an easy solution to that.”

“There is?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Isabela says, voice dry.

Merrill laughs a little and shifts, turning so she can face her friend. She’s lovely, really, with jewelry glinting and reflecting a thousand times in the eluvian with its spiderweb cracks. The light from her and the lamp paints the walls in dots and dabs.

“Is that all?” Merrill says.

A Keeper might take the clan anywhere she pleased, and the clan would follow with trust for her judgment, knowing they’d be safe, that better hunting and trading and grazing awaited them. I Keeper might lose the clan’s trust, and Merrill bristles that Marethari hasn’t yet been stripped of her authority.

A fool leading fools, she supposed.

Isabela shifts, presses her forehead to Merrill’s now. They breathe the same air. She strokes the outer edge of Merrill’s ears with her thumbs, and Merrill shivers despite the warmth of the night. She thinks she could go anywhere.

“I’d love to have you with me when I’m at sea again.”

“All right,” she says, as the lamp finally dies. “Find a ship, and I’ll be there.”