#oc: vrenika hawke

[ephemeronidwrites]

More picrew shenanigans with the DA2 squad, aka "dysfunction junction".

Did a fair amount of image editing on these too, to get everything just the way I wanted it, but again, aside from Fenris's and Merrill's face markings, everything belongs to @elena-illustration.

I actually made more than ten, so the other ones will have to go in a second post.

[ephemeronidwrites]

How about 7 for Ligeia and 8 for Vrenika?

7: Someone describing a time your OC hurt them

A message painstakingly written on scraps of an old bedsheet, in an empty dungeon cell. It doesn't look like ink.

The air here is damp, and my skin always seems to feel slimy no matter how much I rub at it. Skin against skin, rag against skin, skin against scratchy woolen blankets on the cot at night, worn all but threadbare.

At least I've stopped shivering. I think my body has forgotten how.

I must make my confession to the Dear Lady, or the Maker, or anyone who’s willing to listen, and it’s this: I was already prepared to hate her.

He was always talking about how he wished he had the First Enchanter's ear the way she did, how he couldn't expect her to pay attention to nobodies like him anymore, how he was worried that they would skip over his Harrowing entirely and send her for hers first.

I got sick of hearing about it, so once I asked him whether he loved her better than me. He laughed and said that she was only a little kid sister to him. "And anyway, you're so much sweeter-tempered. The sweetest girl I know," he said, kissing my hand.

That made me feel worse, if anything. It felt like what he was really after all along was a "sweet-tempered" version of her, rather than me.

But it was first time he’d really pointed something out about me that made me special. It was the first time anyone had done that.

So I let it slide and giggled. Sweetly.

She didn’t know—or care—who I was, but I knew that as long as I kept up the act, I could stay special. Knowing that made it easier to be pleasant even when I came face to face with her in the chapel and in the hallways. Even when she never seemed to notice me.

Until one day she had no choice but to take notice, and we were introducing ourselves to one another, and I gritted my teeth under that still-sweet smile. After all, she was there to lend us a hand… or her spells, rather. We needed that, mana from a fully harrowed mage. It wouldn't have done to antagonize her.

Just for a few hours, I told myself, as I my cheeks ached trying to keep that smile from falling, that smile I always put on for the few lost magelets who come to the chapel to pray in their free time, and not just when they’re ushered in during compulsory prayer hours. She's Jowan's sister, she only need be mine for a few hours.

Then we can be on our way, start our new lives and we can both forget that any of this—his Tranquility, my vows, her—ever existed in the first place.

But when I met her gaze, it was like staring into the polished steel visor of a templar helmet and trying to divine what the man inside the armor might be feeling. Her greeting sounded polite enough, but her haughty grey eyes might as well have spoken for themselves. Demanding back at me, who are you? as they reflected back at me a blankness more searing than scorn.

I knew everything about her but she knew nothing of me.

The whole time we were winding our way through the Circle basements, headed towards the phylactery chambers, I expected her to betray us. No, I hoped she would turn on us at any moment, so that Jowan could see with his own eyes what I hadn't had the courage to tell him all along. That we—he—had never needed her in the first place except in the most literal and obvious of ways.

Maker forgive me my vanity... and for my judgment of her. He is already punishing me.

After all, what better punishment than what unfolded next? When the betrayal came, not from her but from the very one—fool I was—that I'd placed all my trust into? When after all of it, she was the one who stepped forward to take the blame?

And then at the last moment, she looked back at me again, and what I recognized in those eyes was no longer hatred for me, if it ever had been that. It was pity.

How could I allow that? How could I let her feel sorry for me? I turned myself in, and almost shoved her aside in my haste to step forward.

I told the Knight-Commander that I did it to answer for my sins. I told myself the same thing, all the way to the gates of Aeonar. But the longer I sit here in this dank, musty cell, the more it eats away at me. The crimes the world sees me pay for are no crimes at all, because I have never spoken the true sins that blacken my soul. How can I be held accountable to my sins if no one knows they exist?

Because deep down—Maker knows—my sin was never that I loved Jowan, even if he did betray my trust. Neither do I believe that Jowan was born sinful, any more than I was. This conviction I will carry to the Void. And yet… since I feel there is a strange justice in my being here, I must be paying for something.

So here in my cell I write down my failings for all to see, once anyone thinks to come back here and see how we are doing. It’s been many weeks since we’ve heard word from outside, and I hear whispers outside the bars at night that the world has finally forsaken us, but I haven't lost hope. Once, in another life, the Revered Mother told me the Maker abandoned this world too, but I don't think that's true anymore, because I think he comes back from time to time to laugh at our mistakes.

=======

8: Your OC’s doctor/healer talking about their injuries

(don't think I don't know what you're playing at here, Doc, I see you 😉)

A partially burnt scrap of parchment dug out of a massive pile of ashes in the fireplace of the library of the old Amell townhouse, shortly after the property was cordoned off by Kirkwall law enforcement.

24 Harvestmere, 9:36 Dragon

Head: three lacerations (healed), one large hematoma towards occiput where scalp avulsed from cranium (draining to commence once liquefaction complete). Maxilla near collapse, was able to save eye, though it took all remaining mana reserves [illegible] Not cocnussed as far as I can tell… yet.

Neck: sevral pulled muscles (healing), no other issues evident (a bleeding miracle)

Chest: multiple rib fractures, brusing on lungs (healing), crowded lungs (resolving)

Abdomen: massive internal hemorrage (healing), ruptured spleen (resolved), ruptured liver (healing), no other damage (thank the Maker)

Pelvis and Groin: internal hemorhage (healing)

Limbs, Upper and Lower: sprains, lacerations [illegible] much issue, provided patient obeys instructions to stay in bed for fucking once in her life

Written in a much unsteadier hand, the ink smudged in several places:

Maker help me. I spent the night sobbing into the foot of your bed when I should have been healing—the one thing I can do for you.

I should be proud of what you’ve done. But after [illegible] I could’nt make myself go on anymore

I cant help it, I cant help hating them all for making you the Champion. I should be happy that you are recognized for [illegible] all that mages can do for them.

But I also know this shithole city and I [illegible] they will all turn on you [illegible] and they were so thrilled to crown you for it yesterday.

And I hate it! I would rather have you whole and unhurt and completely forgotten by everyone else, as long as I get [illegible] as long as I knew you would be clear of it.

Remember when [illegible] in blood, to see you safe? It was stupid of me, but I guess I always thought I I never thought you would be the one doing the bleeding. I think Im losing my nerve and If I was a good partner to you it would be that part of me that I listen to and not the other, but [illegible]

The thing is I know you would’nt stop me and thats what scares me more than anything else.

I cant take any more, and even now you whimper in your sleep [illegible] worse. Against your requests I slipped extra elfroot into your drink tonight. Another sin against you to add to the list? Forgive me my selfishness.

Sleep through the night, love. At least one of us should.

[ephemeronidwrites]

if you're still doing the OC codex entries. "your OC talking about your favorite quest" for vrenika, please

Oh, those will be open forever, or until I go through them all for all the OC's I have (whichever comes first). Feel free to hit me up whenever / ifever you'd like to see another one.

That goes for every one of my (five) followers, btw, as well as anyone who happens to wander lost into my writeblr and is curious just what the f*** they've stumbled into.

14: Your OC talking about your favorite quest

(I shocked myself—and also made myself a liar—by somehow knocking out this one in, like, an afternoon. So treat the other one as a freebie that no one asked for?)

An unopened letter found in an abandoned, derelict property in Kirkwall’s Hightown, languishing out of sight behind a broken, dust-covered statue in the foyer.

Fenris,

I know you’re busy with your own issues these days, and I apologise for bothering you with something outside of your concerns, but you’re the only person I could think of who could give me advice about something like this.

Now that they’ve gotten some of the cleanup out of the way, it seems they’ve decided to have the funeral for Saemus next week. They’re giving him full Andrastian rites.

You don’t know him, not beyond his name and face. I’m aware of this. To be quite frank, I’m not even sure how well I knew him.

What little I do know about Saemus tells me this: he would not want his body turned into public theatre like this.

I’ve already been to Elth the Grand Cleric about this and she assured me that the Chantry will treat his memory with “the utmost respect” and “all the dignity due his station”, but the thing is… I know that was the very station he absolutely loathed.

And she refused to talk about Petrice. I can’t shake the idea that if it wasn’t for what that Petrice did oh, what’s the use of writing about it here?

I don’t know if you even want to help, given the way you feel about If you don’t, I’ll understand. But I am at my wit’s end about this and I’m grasping at straws here.

If it was just a matter of me taking matters into my own hands, I’m used to that sort of thing. I took over things after my father died. After Mother died. I mean, sure, I fucked it all up in both those cases, but those were my mistakes to own. My family, my people. I can take responsibility for my own mistakes. Or try, anyway.

I can’t take that risk with Saemus because he’s not mine. But I also can’t give up on him because he has no one else. No one knew him better than I did, except his qunari friends. And they’re all dead at my hands. So now it’s fallen to me to remember Saemus as he really was as I think he would have wanted to be remembered and… I don’t know what that all would mean, and I don’t know how to even start going about knowing.

Again, you have no reason to be dragged into any of this. But you’ve spent time among people who are… sort of like the Qunari? I’m not sure what exactly all that involved for you, but I do know you know a whole lot more about their tongue and any rules they might have around this sort of situation than I do.

Please, help if you can.

I would have come to ask you in person but the last… oh, I don’t know, six times I came by the townhouse you weren’t there. If you’re not going to be there, or show up to Wicked Grace, at least smear some slaver blood on my door within the week. Or whatever else is convenient for you. Just some kind of sign to let all of us know you’re still kicking.

(Yes, even Anders, I promise you. He’ll draw fuel from his seething hatred of you. It’s healthy for him. You know how he is.)

Hoping you’re safe, wherever you are,

Vrenika

P.S. I just realized after writing out this whole thing that you might not be able to read it all. But I gave myself hand cramps writing it, and the ink’s just finished drying, and if you come over to tell me (correctly) what a massive idiot I am that’s exactly what I wanted from you anyway, so here goes nothing.

[ephemeronidwrites]

WIP Wednesday

I was tagged (two whole weeks ago, or was it three 😅) by @my-dumb-obsessions. Thank you for the tag!

So without further ado, the snippet. From a soon upcoming, purely self-indulgent smut piece (set in the Darktown clinic):

“You’ve been working long enough,” Anders could hear Hawke say, and he heard silk and velvet whisper as she drew nearer. “You’ve been on your feet all night. All evening and afternoon too, if I know you half as well as I think I do. You can sit down for ten minutes while you eat this.” He was losing this struggle, because just as usual, Hawke was the one out of the two of them who was making any damn sense. Because really, there was no reason he couldn’t have simply left the cutting and cleaning of these herbs to the beginning of the next day, after he’d had some proper rest. Except of course, that would delay the opening of the next clinic shift. And who knew who would show up to be healed then? What poor blighter might be bleeding out on death’s doorstep, while Anders was frantically and incompetently trying to catch up with busywork? Hawke has her parties and estates and elegant interests to preoccupy her, he thought, gritting his teeth. Why couldn’t she just stay in her lane and leave Anders to what little he could still claim? What he was still good at? Anders racked his brains for a kinder way to fend her off. He’d eat whenever he damn well pleased, there were things he had to do that were more important than filling his belly… …when what forced its way to the tip of his tongue was not an angry tirade, but a bit of puff pastry. “—nnffph!” He snarled in protest, and whipped his head around to glare at her, even as the aroma of mushrooms and garlic burst and bloomed in his mouth. And despite himself Anders chewed and swallowed. “That’s a good boy,” Hawke crooned, her eyes twinkling wickedly. He narrowed his eyes. She’s doing this on purpose, he realized. “Since you seemed to like that, big guy,” she said, the slight smile on her face deepening into a smirk. “I think you can take another one?” Anders wanted to say that he hadn’t liked that at all, but he knew it would be a bald-faced lie.

In turn, I tag @the-cryptographer. No pressure, but I'd love to see anything you have in the works!

[ephemeronidwrites]

I was tagged by @my-dumb-obsessions to recreate an OC in the toon me! picrew. I chose to do Vrenika Hawke, because she’s the one I’m spending the most time with these days.

As with the other picrew stuff I've done, I did a little photoshopping of my own to get some things tweaked closer to my preferences, but everything is based on assets by the generous @hellosunnycore. Thank you very much for sharing your lovely work!

And thank you so much for the tag! This was very fun.

Tagging @the-cryptographer, @little--abyss, @ladyotakukiut, and anyone else who follows me who wants to do this. (And don't feel obligated to do this because I tagged you! Or to rush anything, take as long as you need, provided you're interested. This is strictly optional and for fun only.)

[ephemeronidwrites]

Shout out to @the-cryptographer, because they asked for one of the prompts in my OC tag game, and while I find the prompt they chose to be extremely tasty and I am going to spend at least the next week alternately going feral with excitement and getting insufferably nitpicky about getting some irrelevant detail absolutely perfect... I also don't want to leave them completely hanging for as long as I am going to take to write what they actually asked for.

So in the meantime, here's one of the prompts I've already been working on from that list... completely unprompted.

Does that defeat the purpose of a prompt exercise? Mmmm probably. Do I care?

4: A letter from your OC to their love interest

A letter intercepted from an anonymous courier met during the second week of Haring, 9:40 Dragon, in a border town between Orlais and Nevarra.

Darling,

I thought I was going to pass the time on this journey writing down every filthy thing I wanted to do to you. And then touching myself about it. Then writing down everything I did to myself, then thinking about you doing the same things to me and touching myself about it all over again. Then sending you everything I wrote down in a big fat bundle.

If I work at it hard enough, I might even manage to get the pages so sticky I won’t need wax to seal them up.

Especially since the “Inquisition” is everywhere these days, so I put the chance of one of their agents intercepting this letter at about 4 to 6? Don’t get me wrong, this letter is meant strictly for your lovely eyes only, but I admit I do also get a kick at the thought of this letter making its way into the hands of some “innocent” Chantry Sister. Maybe I can scorch out her eyes with the sinful acts depicted therein. Or even better, spice up her dreams so hard that she’ll have to pray until her knees are skinned raw to make up for it.

But now I must do a bit of confessing of my own, and say that since we’ve been apart, I simply haven’t been interested in any of that. Both my daydreams and night fantasies of you have been scandalously chaste, things like snuggling in the same bedroll at night, or waking to your sleeping face, maybe getting to poke your nose before you wake up.

Are you surprised? I am, but somehow I think you wouldn't be.

Our old friend would surely be offended by this sort of… “base sentimentality”, I think she used to call it? She’d probably keelhaul us first, before moving onto the penance. I imagine ropes being involved. Or hot wax. I don’t know. When it came to the finer points of what counts for proper debauchery, I was never really the authority in our little group anyway.

But since she isn’t here… I’ll indulge this sappy nonsense all I like. After all, less time spent on fingernail grooming is more time left to fantasize, right?

Besides, something tells me it’s this sort of thing that the Chantry would take greater offense to. The idea that mages might actually be people, with feelings. People-feelings, the sorts of feelings that don’t involve cackling and people going off the rails and firestorms raging everywhere.

After all, you know better than anyone else how afraid I was that I was that your our little stunt at the Kirkwall chantry building might have made that particular misconception worse. So you might feel vindicated to know that, after all these last few years, all I’ve learned from being reluctantly dragged all over Thedas is that… I might have been giving you far, far much too much credit on that count.

And it’s not as if people need encouragement or teaching to know how to fear, or hate, or blindly follow. Funny how most people would sooner part with a literal arm or a leg—or march off to war, which is functionally pretty much the same thing—than they’d let go of an idea that’s outlived its usefulness. It’s mildly depressing, but what can a mage do, other than go on fighting the good fight?

Or I guess it’s pretty presumptuous to call any part of it “good”. There’s been nothing “good” or “pretty” about… a lot of the stuff we’ve lived through, hasn’t there Shit there I go again I can’t sleep or eat without you there when I stretch out my hand or when I turn my head to look at you, and I’m terrified I’ll never NO NO that’s no good F why am I like this

Maybe I’ll write instead that I want to hold you close and sniff your hair! It’s not a lie, and I’m sure someone out there can find a way to twist that into something perverse and immoral? I believe in them! I believe that creativity isn’t dead in Thedas!

Either way, since I’m not there to do it for you, kiss yourself for me, with or without any filthy thoughts in your head. (And make sure to eat something at least twice a day, be nice to Justice, Justice go easy on him… basically pretend I’m actually there to nag you so you won’t forget to do all these things. Promise me you will do that.)

Sealed with a kiss of my own (since I know you won’t listen to me, darling, you never do),

Your little mistake.

In addition to the letter, the envelope contained three gold coins and also had attached a missive—written in the same hand—ostensibly meant for the courier's eyes:

Your life and freedom are more important than this letter. If you fall into a sticky spot, do not hesitate to put your own security first. The letter is important, but disposable. I repeat, do not allow yourself to be captured.

Reconnaissance efforts to identify the courier or find any other information about their objective or destination proved fruitless. The money was added to the appropriations funds for Inquisition soldier requisitions.

[ephemeronidwrites]

The DA2 picrew images that wouldn't fit into the other post.

They are, respectively: Vrenika after she moves uptown in Act 2, Bethany in my favored outcome for her as a Circle Mage (in a hypothetical alternate worldstate), Carver as a Warden (also my favored outcome for him), Aveline as Guard Captain in Acts 2 and 3, Anders during The Last Straw, and a different (severely photoshopped) version of Anders as Justice.

[ephemeronidwrites]

Ooh, I might actually try this. Short drabbles, under 1k?

30 days OC challenge.

I could not find a 30 day challenge I liked, so I made one. You can just use the bolded word, or get inspiration from the following ideas. Descriptions, drabbles, dialogue, drawings. No rules, do what feels most comfortable for you. I haven't numbered these, you can do that yourself, in the order you want to.

First meeting. A new friend, sibling, business partner? First impression of someone? Or perhaps someone else's first impression of your OC?

Memories. Good or bad, one or many. One almost forgotten or maybe one they want to make?

Inventory. Special items, a random collection, only the necessities? Or maybe an item they lost?

Fighting. Skills or magic? A general description or perhaps a favourite spell? A special style or move? A situation where it was used?

Anger. What makes your OC angry? Do they fight or is it silent anger?

Formal wear or event. Anything from acquiring formal wear to wearing it to the event itself.

Romance. Is it something they want? What is romance? Small moments or a full blown fairy tale?

Friendship. An old friend or one you just met? What does friendship mean to your OC?

Sickness. A small flu or a chronic illness? How does your OC deal with being sick? Or when someone else is?

Hurt. Emotional or physical.

Travel. A journey they will always remember? One they want to take? Or perhaps somewhere in the middle?

Shoes. Yes, shoes. Anything to do with shoes. Or the lack of.

Sleeping. How do they sleep? Dreams they remember? Have they slept somewhere unusual?

Darkness. Dark night, mood, mind, location, fear. Take your pick.

First light. An early morning. Why are they awake? Lounging on a bed or already on the move?

Above-average. Does your OC excel in something? Do they have special features? How about in the opinion of others?

Water. Rain, river, lake, a bucket of water? Get soaked.

Air. Flying, high spaces, wind, breathing.

Symbols. Does your OC have symbolic features? Do they like symbols? Or maybe they are the symbol.

Fire. Stories around a campfire. Cozy fireplace. Accidents. Or maybe a fiery nature?

Earth. Getting your hands dirty. Life and death. Or maybe just lying on a grassy hill.

Jewelry. Do they have heirlooms? Buying jewelry as a gift? Wearing them?

Hobbies. Physical or mental? Creative, entertaining, useful?

Sensitive. Do they have subjects they avoid. Are they ticklish? Or maybe sensitive to the feelings of others?

Happiness. What makes your OC laugh? A situation they felt happy in?

Keepsakes. Items that have special meaning? A gift? Something they found?

Soft. Clothing, touch, mood, texture.

Embarrassment. Does your OC get embarrassed easily? Maybe they are the cause? Do they like to embarrass others?

Intimate. What things do they consider intimate? Are they willing to share those? With whom?

Imagination. Use it.

That's it. 30 things, 30 days. I will do it too, after I get back home from my trip. Feel free to use on any fandom~

[ephemeronidwrites]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @my-dumb-obsessions. Thank you, it's my first time participating in anything like this and I'm excited!

(So excited that apparently I'm posting even though it's not Wednesday anymore most places in the world, but hey.)

My current longfic project should have had its last update two whole months ago and I'm sorta just... stuck at the moment. Which is kind of a shame, as I do have bits written for the later chapters that I would love to get around to posting, but I have to write the part that comes before... before.

So maybe if I get the opportunity to share a WIP snippet here without having to feel too self-conscious about it, that can help me get back into the groove.

Without any further ado, the snippet in question:

And now Hawke was walking far ahead of the rest of the group. She was brisk and light on her feet, not limping that he could see, but he hadn’t heard her reply to his yelled-out question earlier, and there was something about the way she carried herself on her right side...

And come to think of it, had she always been left-handed?

Anders lengthened his stride and quickened his pace to catch up, falling into step alongside the Hawke girl.

“Are you all right after that last fight?” he asked her. “Those dogs were pretty savage.”

“I’m fine,” she said, eyes looking straight ahead... and pointedly not at him. “I just need to walk it off.”

Anders had to raise an eyebrow at that. Now that he was right beside her and keeping pace, he could see that she was definitely holding her right arm oddly, tucked into her side and bent loosely, but not doing anything with it or supporting any weight. Almost as if she were cradling it in an invisible sling… which in his experience was the first indicator that the arm in question should already be in one.

“Walk off an injured arm?” Anders said, no longer bothering to hide the concern—bordering on intrusive, he feared—that was creeping into his voice.

“There’s no blood, I can move it, it’s fine—” She brought herself up short, a look of chagrin clouding her face, realizing too late that anything less than a flat denial at this point gave her act away.

“The dogs got you, didn’t they?” Anders asked, finally moving to block her path outright. Hawke shot him a scowl from under knitted brows, behind the disheveled fringe of sooty black hair that fell into her eyes and half-obscured one of them.

“Just over the wristguards!” Hawke protested, as Anders reached for the offending arm, but she seemed to know the jig was up, as she didn’t pull away from his touch, even as she rolled her eyes. “It’s… I already looked at it. They didn’t break the skin.”

“The healer will be the judge of that,” Anders said brusquely, as he unbuckled her wristguard, not missing the way she winced at the lightest pressure of the rawhide and the leather straps as he pulled them off her wrist. “I’d say that your job is to tell me how it feels from your end, except apparently you don’t trust me enough to do that either.”

By now Carver and Varric had caught up to the pair, but they both crept away once they saw what Anders was up to with the Hawke girl, seeming to think for some reason that whatever he was up to with her, the two of them required privacy.

Not unless she’s been hiding a lot more from me than I thought, Anders thought to himself, with a hint of sardonic amusement. But I really hope I won’t have to go there. For both our sakes.

“I…” she said as he turned his attentions back to her arm. “I do trust you,” she said finally, after a heavy pause.

“Your lying to me earlier says otherwise,” he said, as he got to work.

No sooner had he said that than he regretted his shortness. Even forgetting the massive favor she had done him—

—which, how could he ever? no matter how much she insisted on him acting like nothing had ever happened, no, he couldn’t, wouldn’t forget something like that—

—in this moment at least she genuinely was his charge and his patient. It was care she needed from him—at this moment, anyway—not a dressing-down.

“Not that I’d blame you for it, with what I told you a week ago,” he began to sigh by way of a half-hearted apology.

“If I didn’t trust you, do you think I’d be letting you do this to me right now?” Hawke asked.

Her answer brought his awareness crashing abruptly into the realization that it was much easier to see inside her than it should have been, under the conditions: in high relief he saw the crushed nerves and vessels underneath the superficially unbroken skin, inflammation beginning to set in, sprains in the muscles and the tendons. Damaged tendons and ligaments were the worst, they almost never healed properly without magical help or a lot of proper rest, the latter of which his patients almost never had the luxury.

He got the feeling the Hawke girl was no exception to that trend.

“Maker,” Anders cursed under his breath. “Those blighted mongrels pulled the muscles in your arm all the way up the shoulder.”

“Careful there,” Hawke grunted, as Anders unwittingly jostled her arm a bit harder than he’d meant to: he was starting to get antsy again as he finally saw the full extent of the damage the dogs had done.

Her reaction—or rather, the lack thereof—puzzled Anders: his slip, unintentional though it had been, should have been painful, and provoked a concomitant flare of resistance, a throwing up of mental barriers to push him out as he tried to reach inside with his mind to restore bruised flesh and knit breaches in the weave of bone and sinew and vessels.

And yet there was nothing of the sort, not even the tell-tale blip that would appear in the most worn-down, stupefied mind as an instinctive response to pain. Only a Tranquil would be this unresponsive naturally, and Hawke was decidedly not that.

It was as if she were keeping her own aura under strict control, like a chevalier’s prize charger trained to canter and rear and lash out with knife-like hooves on command, knowingly keeping herself open and exposed for his benefit. To make his job easier on him, as much as for her own sake.

“For someone who tried to ‘walk off’ a mauling, you seem to know a lot about how magical healing works,” he said, his voice now considerably softer than it had been when he started.

“My father was one,” she said. “A healer mage, I mean. Among other things.” She smiled, so briefly he might have missed it if he’d blinked just a second too late or early, flashing teeth white as bird eggs behind lips pulled nervously taut. “Though Mother always did say I got my stubbornness from him, so I guess the other meaning works too.”

A mage father. So that explained where she’d gotten it. Both her powers and her impressive command over them.

“Da healed my siblings and me,” she continued, as Anders briefly turned away to extract a roll of bandages and an emergency poultice from a utility pouch at his belt, “and he made sure we knew how best to receive a healer’s care. Said it was just as important for the patient to hold grace and acceptance for the care they got, as it was for the healer to be kind and skilled and trustworthy.”

“Sounds like a wise man,” and the very idea gave a fierce, sharp tug at his heart.

Here, right at his fingertips, was proof, in the flesh, that something he’d thought impossible until now had existed all along. A mage, who’d had a family, children who he’d gotten to raise himself and who remembered him fondly. A healer mage who had gotten to use his gifts not just catering to the whims of any officious noble who flashed coin in his face—or rather, the face of the First Enchanter who held his leash—or drafted to play nursemaid to mistrustful country boors who’d gladly spit on him once they were done reaping the benefits of his long study and discipline, but on healing his own children, the people he loved. A child who’d not only inherited such a mage father’s powers, but got to grow up seeing them as the gift that they could be. Not as a curse, or a sin she had never even chosen to commit but had to spend her whole life atoning for regardless.

A mage who had gotten a choice.

[ephemeronidwrites]

Warden Leonor Amell - Purpose and Cruelty (Fear)

Warden Ligeia Surana - Perspective and Arrogance (Pride)

Vrenika Hawke - Temperance and Deceit (Sloth)

(obvs nonstandard) Inquisitor Carver Hawke - Humility and Loneliness (Hunger or Despair)

Inquisitor Fisara Lavellan - Curiosity and Arrogance (Pride)

The name of each demon is additionally followed in parentheses by the general "class" that it would most likely be categorized into according to the traditional Circle taxonomy, because everything you hear from elven mages coming from outside of that Chantry-based tradition (even Tevinter mages are not actually free of this kind of Chantry dogma!) suggests that the reality of demons is not as cut-and-dry as the gameplay / "mainstream" in-universe lore would have you believe.

Since this is a key part of how I develop my Dragon Age OC's reblog this with what Spirit and what Demon they would attract.

(Don't need to limit to the canon spirits/demons we've seen just what is their Virtue and their Vice they attract)

[ephemeronidwrites]

My first Warden was a Surana, who named the dog Champion, or Champ for short. It’s the sort of martial-sounding name most people would expect to see a mabari warhound answer to, but what they don’t know is that she chose the name as a stealth reference to Shartan, Andraste’s champion in-universe.

(My Surana is a committed Andraste-Shartan shipper. Sure, it’s heresy, but she figures she’s a mage already and so “in for a penny, in for a pound”.)

My Hawke’s name for her mabari is Artair, because I saw a town labeled on a map of Ferelden at some point called “Artair’s Reach”. Some part of me kinda figured that 1) Hawke’s family moved around a LOT before they settled down at Lothering, but also 2) Hawke likes the coastline, and that town’s name stuck in her mind because for some reason she has happy memories around that specific town.

I mean, the Hawkes were free, and happy enough, but everything they did in her childhood sort of had to be geared for survival, as an apostate family in a world that was hostile to that. There wasn’t much room for the kids to have choices or friends outside the family or nice things, and the dog was kind of the bright spot in a childhood like that.

in the tags tell me what your warden and hawke named their mabari and why 👀

[ephemeronidwrites]

#you know he has a lot of feelings about how mages weren't allowed to have families in the circle#anyhow i'm a sap so i hope anders has the opportunity and social support to adopt some day

Copying the tags because someone else basically said what I feel... when I think about Anders in a relationship with f!Hawke post-DA2, it's hard for me to imagine they don't end up with children in some capacity (adopted or otherwise... I feel like the whole Grey Warden sterility thing is more a question of chance than something absolute, especially if one of the parents is unTainted).

Also thinking about how friggin funny it is when Anders waxes on about his and f!Hawke’s future child in canon, with no prompting, as if he isn’t a sterile grey warden who’s completely financially dependent on Hawke for housing and any food that isn’t templar meat. And then Hawke isn’t allowed to comment on it AT ALL, as if she’s purposefully ignoring him and hoping that if she doesn’t acknowledge that Anders wants this, it will go away.

[ephemeronidwrites]

Copying the tags bc I think they deserve to be preserved for posterity.

thinking about disco and thinking about anders painstakingly explaining to f!hawke that she, as a woman, will never be as radical as him bc women have their own safety and security to think about ‘and that’s okay, love’ /condescending voice right before lirene comes up behind him and hits him over the head with a crowbar. (he’s an abomination. he’s fine.)

anders accusing lirene and f!hawke of being bourgeoisie bc they file and pay his taxes for him