#return to halamshiral

[hawkezone]

[[ RETURN TO HALAMSHIRAL - PART ONE ]]

A missing Queen Cousland, whispers of an elven rebellion, and one hell of a party: Hawke, Fenris, and Varric attend a lavish ball at the Winter Palace celebrating Empress Celene and Marquise Briala's alliance, where Hawke finds himself enlisted to help by a man with a strong Fereldan accent and a deep-seeded fear of swooping. A Trevelyan-Dorian & Fen(m!)hawke imagining of the events leading up to Dread Wolf, sequel to The Seat of Power.

CHAPTERS: ♕ [1]

♕

“I cannot believe you’ve talked me into this, Hawke.”

Fenris, frowning, fidgeting uncomfortably in his velveteen guardsman’s uniform. It was the closest thing either of them had for formalwear - Hawke, being a man of habit, had smuggled some amount of finery out of the Hawke Estate when they’d escaped Kirkwall that night so long ago, but, much like Hawke’s usual escapades, he neglected to pick up a few key items - such as britches that actually matched their doublets, and shoes. Any shoes. At all.

“I think you look handsome,” Hawke smiled, impishly, knowing that Fenris, while grumpy, had a little room left in him for some light teasing. Unlike Hawke’s usual methods of heavy teasing, which typically led to even heavier petting when the two were left alone.

Fenris didn’t take this well, but he merely sighed, tugging the uniform so its creases unfolded. “My least favorite part of going undercover,” he said, solidly and glumly, “is that the rest of us have to play-act while you always get to be yourself. Do you remember when we went to Chateau Haine? You had to accompany that awful Tallis, and Varric and I were assumed to be your manservants.”

“I remember,” Hawke chuckled. “You almost threw that guard in the moat outside the formal gardens.”

“I should have!” Fenris pouted. “Manservant. The gall.”

Hawke turned, and swept Fenris up by the waist. He smiled, from ear to ear, and Fenris - very briefly - forgot what he was mad about. Briefly.

“I promise. This ball will be better. And if anyone calls you a manservant, I’ll punch them in the face,” Hawke smiled.

Fenris, despite himself, let out a crooked smile, too. “That would blow your cover, I think.”

“Who’s to say the Champion of Kirkwall doesn’t go about punching random nobles in the face for calling his boyfriend a manservant?” Hawke said, defensively.

“You’re ridiculous,” Fenris said, but he didn’t let go of Hawke. Or stop smiling.

-

The gardens at Halamshiral were abuzz - it was a hot, breezy, summer night, and the fireflies were out in full force. The sun had set not but an hour ago, and the coolness of the evening had just begun to lay down on the stuffed shirts in attendance at the Winter Palace. The hum and splash of the magnificent fountain, forming the centerpiece of the front gardens, made for a soothing backdrop to the idle chatter and excited gossip of the guests. This was a much less fussy affair than the Winter Ball - but as an afterparty of sorts, to greet guests cordially as one of the first “informal” parties of the social year, and to introduce the Empress Celene and her recently reconciled lover, the elven Marquise Briala.

Hawke and company, however, had alternative goals in mind.

“Thanks for coming, Hawke,” Varric muttered, feeling rather out of place at the soiree.

“You still haven’t told me why we’re here,” Hawke replied, a little suspiciously. “You’re not one for parties. Well, not this kind of party, anyway.”

Varric sighed. “Just - trust me when I say I’m glad you’re here, all right?”

This time, unlike at Chateau Haine, Varric was wearing an unusually formal shortcoat, and he seemed ever so slightly nervous, shuffling from one foot to the next - which piqued Hawke’s interest, as his best friend almost never showed any signs of things getting to him. Especially social affairs.

Bethany was dressed in an Orlesian gown of periwinkle blue and white, in lush velvet, with a high collar in delicate gold filigree, embellished with designs of leaves and rings, reminiscent of the Circle. It had been a gift from Leliana, sent by courier when she had heard the Good Lady Bethany would be attending her first party at the Winter Palace. Hawke had interpreted this as a nice gesture, but Varric was quick to point out that the Nightingale had probably gifted her the dress as a sort of measure against the Inquisition’s acquaintances, however distant, being played as rubes in the dangerous machinations of the Game - especially when debuting.

Varric seized a beignet from the tray of a passing masked server, staining his gloves immediately with powdered sugar. The server either didn’t notice or pretended not to.

“Are those the ones with the chantilly cream?” Hawke asked, with interest. “Last time I was in Orlais, they had these tiny little beignets full of chantilly cream. And dusted with sugar, just like that. Only I think they had little swans made of gold foil on the top, too.”

Fenris rolled his eyes. “Nobles,” he said, scoffing. “Always trying to outdo one another.”

Varric bit into the beignet, and made a face. “Nope. No cream. It’s filled with something, though.”

“Hmm,” said Hawke, eyeing the server who’d gone off with the tray. “I could go for some something.”

Before he could pop off in search of the most ridiculous food the party had to offer, Varric grabbed him by the coat.

“Have you noticed,” Varric began, very slowly, “That this party is filled to the brim with people who have pissed off the Tevinter Imperium?”

Bethany, who had taken a beignet of her own and was nibbling with interest, nodded along. “Isn’t the majority of Orlais an enemy of the Tevinter Imperium? That’s like saying the Qunari and Tevinter are in a little spat.”

“No,” Varric continued, slowly, looking around again. “I mean, this party, specifically, is full of people who have made specific enemies of the ruling magisters of the Tevinter Imperium.”

Hawke, listening, subtly reached for one of his sheathed daggers, which he’d kept on his attire for an emergency. Most people saw it as a bit of a Hawke-esque flourish, just another quirk of the Champion of Kirkwall. But it comforted him - as both an accessory and an accessory to a quick escape.

Varric, who had finished his beignet, patted down his coat as well - just to make sure Bianca was in play. “We’ll keep an eye out. Could be the Empress just keeps really good company.”

“I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a who’s who of people I’d like to meet,” Hawke said. Was that even a hint of being impressed in his voice?

Fenris, in the meantime, had not let his guard down for one second since entering the gardens, and was stationed just to the back of Hawke, in a position, he subconsciously realized, to thwart any surprise attacks on his charge. What was he to call Hawke, now that they were together, but he still felt compelled to protect him? What did Donnic call Aveline, do you think?

“I don’t trust a thing anyone at this party has put forth,” Fenris said, muttering, darting poisonous glances at the nearest group of nobles, who huddled together and began to giggle, which only infuriated Fenris more.

“Keep it together,” Hawke advised, patting Fenris on the arm. “They’ll probably kick you out if you try to rip out their organs. Although it is rather salacious when you do.”

Fenris frowned, but Hawke winked, boyishly, and he found himself smiling, despite himself.

Towards the group came a meandering group of ladies, all dressed in triplicate; the Empress’s Ladies in Waiting each curtsied lightly, one after the other, like a set of ascending piano keys.

“Messere Hawke,” the first one said, curtseying lowly. Her golden mask glinted in the gaslights that dotted the garden’s walls.

The second one giggled at Varric, and bowed to Bethany, who began to wave, then began to proffer a hand, then, finally, attempted a sort of curtsey, which was rather hard to tell in the voluminous dress Leliana had lent her.

“Why didn’t Mother ever prepare us for this sort of thing?” Bethany hissed, turning ever so slightly to Hawke.

“Mother was trying to run away from this sort of thing when she met Father, I think,” Hawke said, with a smirk.

“It is most pleasurable to see you, Lord Tethras,” the second one continued, to which Varric immediately held up his hands, which were still powdered with beignets. 

“Please,” he said, shaking his head. “Just Varric. Thank you. This is hard enough.”

“We’ve read the Tale,” the third one said, nodding at Varric, who - Hawke could tell behind his mask - was already sheepishly shrugging in extreme apology for the fracas that he was about to invite.

“Yes, the Tale,” the second one went on, animatedly. “Is it true, then, that the Champion really defeated the Arishok in hand to hand combat?”

“Well. It was more knife to knife,” Hawke shrugged, with a lopsided grin.

“And is it true, too, that your fellow Isabela ran off with the sacred texts of the Qun?” the first one asked, leaning in, with genuine curiosity.

“Just one book of the Qun, but yes,” Varric admitted.

“And is it true,” the third one said, earnestly, leaning in even further, “That you fought a High Dragon on the outskirts of the Bone Pits?”

Hawke, shrugging again, gave them a bit of a grin. “Fenris was there for that one. Varric, too.”

Tittering, the Ladies all looked at each other, flapping their fans at premium speed. A quick rush of whispers went through them, before they turned again to Hawke.

“We shall have to return, then,” the first one said, smiling coquettishly under her mask.

“And hear more of you and Lord Tethras’s stories,” the second one went on, as Varric winced at the “Lord Tethras” comment once more.

“It was a pleasure, truly,” the third one said, and all three of them curtsied, deeply, again, as Hawke bowed as they took their retreat, into the throng of the gardens.

It was as if they’d narrowly had a brush with a storm - or a windfall.

“Ugh,” Varric groaned. “Remind me to never tell people who I am or what I do, next time.”

“...Did they ignore you?” Hawke asked, looking back at Fenris, who was still standing a small distance away, his heavy, two-handed sword almost dragging in the garden lawn.

Fenris, sighing, barely looked up at Hawke as he dusted off the sword’s hilt. “I believe they are accustomed to people of your stature bringing elven servants as part of your coterie. Perhaps it would have been impolite to acknowledge my existence.”

Frowning, Hawke crossed his arms, glaring after the trio of Ladies-in-Waiting. “Perhaps it’s impolite to ignore you, at all,” Hawke said, scoffing.

Sighing heavily, Varric dusted the last of the beignet sugar off his hands with a clap.

“Well, I’m going to get just drunk enough to forget what’s going on, while being sober enough to remember why I’m here,” he said, stalking off with the firm purpose of a man who’s on a mission for nothing but the worst Antivan wine.

“And I would like to meet some new people,” Bethany said, with enthusiasm. “Is that the Marquess du Pompadour? Do you know her? Can we be introduced?”

“No, but I’m sure she’d be enchanted to meet the great Lady Bethany of House Amell,” Hawke smiled, as Bethany squeezed his arm excitedly before bounding off to introduce herself to Orlais’ best and richest.

“Have fun,” Hawke beamed, wagging his fingers at Bethany as she bounced to the next group of nobles, who already began chatting with her excitedly about the gold filigree neckline and the status of the party’s hors d’oeuvres.

Looking back at Fenris, Hawke frowned - but not at him.

“I don’t mind. Truly,” Fenris said, but his anger betrayed him in the way he wore his face.

Hawke frowned even harder.

“Well, I do,” he said, crossing his arms again. “One of the reasons why I agreed to come to this silly thing was to make up for Chateau Haine in the first place.”

Now, it was Fenris’s turn to frown. “Chateau Haine? I had assumed we came here to pry information out of the Inquisition. To assure their allegiance against the magisters. Or whatever strange twisted plan Varric has fished up.”

Nodding, Hawke waved a hand in the air. “I’m as eager to fight some magisters as the next man,” he said, continuing, “But I really wanted to come and show you a good time. I don’t like how things worked out at Chateau Haine - and I know how you feel about Tallis. I just supposed - perhaps - I wanted to take you to a party, and have you by my side. Properly. For once.”

Hawke looked rather embarrassed at this, and shrugged a little, in his reclaimed part-Hawke Estate part-leftover-guardsman-formal-uniform combination of attire.

“Hawke…”

Fenris’s eyes glinted in the moonlight. He reached for Hawke’s arm, and squeezed it.

“If you wish to have me by your side, you need only ask.”

Hawke, smiling, sweetly against the honeyed air of the garden, squeezed his hand back.

“I always need you by my side, Fenris,” he said, softly.

-

Meanwhile, at the other end of the party, Dorian Pavus was getting drunk. Very, very drunk.

He had harangued Josephine for an invitation to the Inaugural Ball, and, despite her best efforts, he had finessed his way into blackmailing, cajoling, and, in one case, outright bribing assorted members of Skyhold staff into bugging the Ambassador straight into sending Dorian one of the Inquisition’s coveted invitations to Empress Celene and Marquise Briala’s first ball, formally thrown together. Not counting the last one, of course. He felt he deserved it, after all, since he was both the life of the party and present for when they got together. The second time, anyway.

Dorian was engaging in one of his favorite pastimes - flirting with the masked drinksman serving the flutes of violet cocktail - when he was jostled by another patron, elbowing his way in.

“Ale, please. Not dwarven. Please tell me you have ale that isn’t dwarven. Everyone says it’s top notch but it just tastes like piss, and I know it does, so don’t tell me otherwise.”

Dorian’s ears perked up. That voice. It sounded weirdly familiar. Weirdly… Fereldan.

Looking over, the man next to him, wearing a simple silver mask with blue silk piping, slumped over, sighing, putting his head in his hands. His dirty blonde hair was just barely poking out of the back of the silks of the mask, and he had the stature of someone who had spent a long, long time training as a warrior - and an even longer time sitting around afterwards, getting all antsy as those muscles waited for their next workout. The man tapped his fingers on the table - and his heavy rings clanked against the delicate, white-lacquered wood. One demon head ring, as big as two knucklebones. One thick, silver sigil, like the symbols carved on the tunnels in the Deep Roads marking the location of Darkspawn. And, on his ring finger, a delicate, tiny silver band, with the smallest of silver roses, inlaid with flakes of mother-of-pearl and red ruby.

Dorian raised his eyebrows.

“You’re not very subtle, Your Highness,” he said, leaning against the bar, rolling his R’s. Loaded, like bait.

Startled, the man turned around, coughing and straightening up, making sure his mask was covering his face.

“We’ve met,” Dorian went on, somewhat relishing in the man’s uncomfortableness. “However briefly. I believe you know my paramour, Lord Angus Trevelyan? He has nothing but good things to say about you. King Alistair.”

The man, startled, whipped his head back around to the bar, to make sure nobody was listening, then, as best he could, made an extremely frustrated gesture at Dorian, hunching over, clearly annoyed.

“Have we met?” he said, irritably. “Because you are absolutely blowing my cover, here. …Which would make you, I suppose, a likely candidate for Angus’s new boyfriend. Which is who I suppose you are.”

Alistar sighed, and put his elbows back on the bartop. The server returned with a large flagon of ale, and Alistair placed several sovereigns on the bar. The server sniffed.

“We don’t take Fereldan currency, messere,” he sneered, pushing the coins back towards him. Alistair - even with a mask on - looked utterly defeated.

“Here,” Dorian said, hiding a smirk, pushing a handful of shiny Orlesian gold pieces towards the server, who nodded curtly, and disappeared back behind the bar.

“Thank you,” King Alistair groaned, putting his head between his arms. “You would not believe the amount of social faux pas I’ve racked up tonight. If I’d gone as myself, Orlais and Ferelden would be back at war by now.”

Dorian looked at him curiously. “Why are you here, if I may ask?”

Alistair shook his head. “Ale first. State secrets later.”

Dorian laughed. “You’re cute. I see why you’ve got the whole country wrapped around your little finger.”

“I do?” Alistair said, surprised.

“Not this one. They seem to think you’re a gauche little imp, here,” Dorian said, airily.

Alistair frowned.

“Ferelden,” Dorian clarified. “I hear you and your little wife are something out of a fairy tale, a Grey Warden King and Queen alike. Must be some sight to see. Does seem rather romantic, in a way.”

Alistair paused, then, slumping even further, let out a sigh that seemed to shake the very foundations of Halamshiral, let alone the bartop.

At that moment, Dorian remembered the other thing Angus had told him about Alistair - the important thing.

“Ooh. Ah. Sorry. I - I know it must be difficult, with your wife missing, and all. I’m sure - I’m sure she’s busy doing, ah. Grey Warden. Things.” Dorian thought about this for a moment. “Ah. Oh dear.”

Alistair looked hopeless, but downed his entire ale in a resolute gesture of bravery. “Lord Dorian of House Pavus, right?” he said, straining his last Kingly muscle to make the most out of the situation.

“Yes. Please don’t tell anyone I’ve so successfully put my foot in my mouth,” Dorian said - charmingly. As charmingly as possible, under the circumstances.

Alistair sighed. “You’re part of the Inquisition, then. You - were at Adamant.”

Dorian shook his head. “Not personally, no. …And don’t get me started on how I feel about that. Have you ever had your boyfriend go off into the Fade and have you think he was dead for almost twenty-four hours? No, I suppose not.”

Alistair gave him a withering look.

“...Right, missing wife, right,” Dorian said, hastily. “Here. I shall buy you another ale, and I’ll answer everything you wish to know about our visit to Adamant, as told by Lord Trevelyan himself. But no promises on me remembering everything correctly. I’ve had quite a lot of champagne.”

Alistair sighed, then nodded, solemnly. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

Finishing off his ale, Alistair motioned to the bartender for another, while Dorian slipped over another handful of silver coins.

“Then let’s begin,” Dorian said, with a raised eyebrow and a mischievous grin.

-

[invinciblerodent]

[A codex entry reading:

"Elsewhere, around an anatomical sketch:

Reclaimed. Though damaged beyond repair, the Anchor's condition-- used both to mend and destroy-- is fascinating. A detailed study will consume what remains. But it may also yield the final elements that have eluded me."]

Solas stole my fucking hand

[callahanisms]

inquisition companions react to the inquisitor missing half their arm

because bioware didn’t wanna give it to us, i decided i’d just do it myself. (insert thanos meme) even though i am like years late to the hype.

the game is like 9 years old at this point, but spoilers ahead.

do keep in mind this is my own personal interpretation of each character. it may not be accurate to your own interpretations. (also i know leliana is technically not a companion in inquisition but i included her anyways)

cassandra pentaghast

if cassandra could plunge a knife into the heart of solas, she would. she would not let him get away with betraying you and taking the anchor along with your arm. you had basically fallen into her arms when you emerged from the portal and she had to carry you back to halamshiral. for the days you were unconscious, cassandra was anxious and extra prickly. there were many times where cullen would have to talk her down from her anger. even varric did too.

dorian pavus

the first thing he did was crack a joke. the atmosphere was tense and it just slipped out. “i asked you to come back in one piece, not missing one.” safe to say, the other companions did not approve of his joke. dorian was set to return to tevinter after being notified of his new position as a magister, but he delayed the return to his homeland for you. he sat in your room as you lied unconscious, barely breathing, leg anxious bouncing up and down. when you awoke, you were immediately met with a large and tight hug from him. he knocked the air out of your lungs from that.

blackwall

blackwall admires you. in fact, everyone would go so far as to say he adores you. he thinks of you as strong, capable, almost infallible. you closed rifts, you closed the big green tear in the sky, and you defeated corypheus! what couldn’t you do? all your feats proved to him that you were the strongest leader he could ever know. and yet, you were still mortal. you left the eluvians mortally wounded and exhausted beyond belief, your eyelids so heavy and ready to close so you may drift off into the black void of sleep. blackwall would not let you, not until you were taken away to be cared for. you found him sitting besides you, awake and on guard. your mortality was his reminder that you and him were the same, even if your lives appeared to be completely different. and he understood that the world would need a leader like you and that is dangerous.

iron bull

the bull could feel a stronger kinship with you that day. it appears that the both of you lost something. he betrayed the qun for the inquisition, thus losing a part of himself, his people. you lost a literal part of yourself, something you had to come to terms with after having the anchor for two years. to say iron bull was shaken up would be an understatement. he was getting cassandra to hit him with sticks for days on end while you lied unconscious. he wondered what would’ve happened if he was with you, if maybe...he could’ve stopped solas. but reminiscing never did anyone any good.

cole

as much as he wanted to help you, cole couldn’t. he also understood that you wouldn’t accept his help, no matter how much he insisted. so instead, he did the best thing he could do: help tend to your injuries. what was curious was that he could feel very little of your pain. when he felt your pain two years ago after forming the inquisition, it was concentrated in your hand and forearm. with it gone, you felt at peace. the primary source of pain for you had been washed away. perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, he thought.

sera

sera’s immediate reaction is, like dorian, to crack a joke. everyone is used to her eccentricity. but it felt different this time around. while you laid unconscious, recovering from the long battle, she occupied herself. she had to busy her hands and her legs, keep moving, keep her mind busy. because if she sat too still for even a second, then her mind would think about the worst outcome. she would get images of you, dead, because solas had betrayed you, betrayed her, betrayed the inquisition. hell, he betrayed the world! that knob! thinking he knew what was best! sera’s all the more relieved when it’s revealed you survived. she bursts through the door to see you and hug you tightly, complaining about how much you scared her.

varric tethras

in all honesty, varric should’ve been more prepared to expect...well, the unexpected. he had expectations of you coming out unharmed, untouched. obviously, that was not what happened. and he wondered if he was responsible for this. he had been one of the many people to support you as the inquisitor two years ago, suggesting it. he wondered if he made the wrong decision. but also, part of varric was relieved. he lost someone close to him two years ago. he didn’t know if he could handle losing you too.

vivienne de fer

the court would devour tales of the eluvians and how you managed to survive. that was vivienne’s first thought. people would be talking about you for centuries to come, certainly. and yet, she knew in her soul that was not what you would want. she does her best to minimize what rumors spread when you first emerge from the eluvians and help give you privacy. behind closed doors, vivienne checks on your injuries. part of her is amazed that the anchor was removed so cleanly.

josephine montilyet

josephine has seen many things ranging from serious to just plain absurd. when she was alerted that you had returned with many serious injuries, including the loss of half your arm, she sent messages to get the best possible doctors in all of orlais to help attend to you. the woman was definitely stressed beyond belief. but when she wasn’t trying to get everyone from backing off from you or getting people to look at you, josephine was attending to you herself. you awoke to find her wiping some sweat off your face and when she noticed, she muttered about how great andraste was and embraced you tightly.

cullen rutherford

your knight-commander appeared to take the news very well, much to the disapproval of cassandra. but the moment cullen was alone, in private, he flipped a table, causing everything to crash. all he could feel running throughout his body was regret, guilt, and anger. regret and guilt for not having gone with you. he should’ve. because if he did, maybe you would have came back alright. anger directed towards solas because the apostate had betrayed you, the inquisition. and everything you and him had worked towards was going to crumble. all of his hard work, leliana’s, cassandra’s, josephine’s, it’d all be for naught. cullen ends up spending a lot of time alone while you’re unconscious. he prays to andraste and the maker to distract himself from any wandering thoughts going towards lyrium. certainly the new mabari hound he decided to adopt on a whim helps with distractions at least.

leliana

the woman has seen many things in her lifetime, having experienced the fifth blight itself and been part of that fight against the archdemon. still, things aren’t easy when you come back from the eluvians missing half of your arm. even if it goes against all her duties, leliana stays with you until you wake up to make sure you’re alright. you’re the inquisitor after all and it’s vital that you’re still alive.

solas

he’s the one who took it. you think he cares?

in all seriousness, it gave him no pleasure to remove your arm for the anchor. even if his plan was...well, shoddy we should say, the anchor was going to kill you. he had no choice. carrying your hand and forearm around felt heavy. he could carry it just fine but what made it heavy was the burden that came with his plan to tear down the veil and bring doom upon the world in a desperate attempt to bring it back to what it once was. and also, the burden of having harmed you.

[evanhereonearth]

VEILGUARD ENDGAME SPOILERS

He collapses the moment the rift closes behind us.

I fall with him to the floor, my own strength giving out after these long years, and I draw the Fade around us like a nest. In a heartbeat we are surrounded by soft grass, growing shamrocks, plush moss. A bower of branches cradles us, gentle and alive.

My arms pull him to me, into the embrace of my form and the forgiving earth where I can enfold him in every bit of love I have stored away for him. My hand smooths his face where Elgar’nan’s archdemon battered him. Traces the tear tracks in blood.

“Are you—truly here?”

His voice is hoarse with the ravages of what he has endured.

“Where else would I be, vhen’an’ara?”

The softness in my words seems to shatter him, and his eyes fill once more. “I did not want you to see—”

“I have seen all there is to see of you, my heart. My spirit recognised yours all those years ago. There is nothing you have done that makes you unworthy of my love, Solas. Nothing you have endured, nothing you have survived, that could make me love you less.”

“Vhenan…”

“You found my messages.” I watch his eyes, tinged with violet amid the grey-blue. He blinks, but no tears fall, only soak his lashes. He nods. “I found yours.”

He doesn’t speak, but his throat bobs as he swallows.

“I learned our first time at Halamshiral your other names,” I tell him. “I learned your true name not so very long after Halamshiral the second time. How much it must have tortured you to see yourself written on my face every time you looked at me, inked there in service of the one you loved who returned such abuse.”

Solas flinches from the word, but he is past dissembling. I remember Cole, in a panic, begging Solas to bind him. “It’s not abuse if I ask!” And I remember Solas’s rebuke.

I touch the scar above his brow where he burned Mythal off his face.

“Ar lasa mala revas,” I say to him, the phrase he once said to me when he removed Mythal’s vallaslin from my face, the phrase she was too cowardly to use herself. Too proud to say she was sorry even as she set him free.

Something in him unfurls, unclenches.

“I told you once why I chose her vallaslin,” I say.

He dips his chin to say he remembers. “A reminder of what we do not know, you said. That we can learn.”

“Yes. But I did not tell you all of it.” I pause, sliding closer so my face is level with his—I do not wish to be looking down on him. “In that temple, everywhere I looked, your wolf statues sat adjacent Mythal. Anuon told me I was blaspheming to say perhaps we did not fully understand you; I chose that vallaslin because of you, in a way. Because even before we met, you challenged what I believed to be true about my world, about my history, about myself.”

He reaches out and places his hand over my heart, like I once did for him in our bed high above Skyhold. I mirror him with my own. His face relaxes in increments, whatever remnants of the mask of Fen’Harel that linger melting into an aching tenderness so wholly for me that my own eyes prickle.

“I never left your side,” I say, my soft words barely above a whisper.

“Nor I yours.”

For the first time since Dragon’s Breath, Solas reaches for me. The gentle firmness of his touch brings with it warm tears spilling over my eyes to cool upon my cheeks. Without a word, he tilts his head upwards to kiss them away.

“The spirits have named you,” he tells me after a moment, almost bashful as he searches my face, still looking for any hint of regret. “That was the single hope I have clung to, the only one I allowed my heart when I thought of you, vhenan. It is why—it is why I left you the letter. So you would know that…so you would be certain my heart was still yours, regardless of your choice.”

I know what they have named me, but I want to hear him say it.

“You have always been Sileal,” I tell him. Wisdom. “What is it they have called me?”

He touches my face like I touched his, tracing my freckles, my dimple, my scar.

“They call you Enaste, da’lath’in,” he says. “The spirits of the Fade call you Grace.”

[dalishious]

Reclaiming Independence of the Dales

Before anything else, I’d just like to clarify that that vast majority of this is made of my own ideas, based on interpretation from the little canonical information provided, and a little inspired by my own people’s history and governing structure. Additionally, what I am presenting here is an ideal situation, not necessarily what I think is an immediately realistic outcome in the world-state established. So, please keep that in mind.

The Dales were established as a homeland for elves—a small piece of a continent that was once called their home in its entirety, before the humans colonized it—by Maferath in -165 Ancient. This was in reward for the eleven people’s participation in the fight against Ancient Tevinter. But in 2:10 Glory, Divine Renata I broke this treaty and declared an Exalted March against the Dales, ending in its annexation by Orlais.

[Related Post: All You Need to Know about the Exalted March of the Dales]

If Solas has very low approval with Inquisitor Lavellan, and Lavellan accuses him of not doing enough to help their people, he will say the following: “You could order Halamshiral returned to the Dalish, if you wished. But ultimately, you know that would fail. That even you cannot solve this.” I hate this with a burning passion. The reason I can’t do that, Solas, is because it’s not an option in the game! Why are you as a character angry at me, the player, for not doing something that is not an option for me to do? Why was this written? Just to push the point that it’s not worth it to try and fight back against oppression? Because if I refuse to accept hopelessness in real life, why would I in accept it in a video game where the story is made-up, and therefore anything is possible if the developers so wish it.

Regardless, according to Solas, the Inquisition has enough power to support the reclamation of an independent Dales. I imagine this would require a lot of political maneuvering within the Orlesian governance, and therefore I think the best opportunity to do this would be with Briala ruling through Gaspard. This would then later open the door for Briala to be the leader of the newly independent Dales, too. I would like to see Briala as ruler of the Dales not just because she is a favourite of mine, but because I genuinely believe she is the best established character fit for the job. She was trained in everything Celene was trained in, has first-hand experience in court, has extensive connections, and has demonstrated her ability and desire to utilize these skills and assets for the benefit of elven kind.

Briala’s blackmail on Gaspard may help prevent Orlais from invading again while under his rule, but to last longer, the Dales would need to establish itself as a strong, independent Nation with allies. This is why I believe it would also be important to have Leliana as Divine Victoria in such a world-state where this could happen. Leliana re-canonizes the Canticle of Shartan, and in making it available for the common person to understand, would ideally help sway the minds of the average Andrastian into supporting the Dales’s independence. The nobility would of course be much trickier, because they and the Chantry are the ones who actually benefitted from its annexation—but there is little they would be able to actually accomplish if they did not have the power of the people behind them.

As far as allies go, Ferelden could only gain from Orlais losing control of the Dales, because it would mean cutting Orlais off from a lot of Ferelden’s border, therefore reducing the threat of another invasion. Additionally, a leader with just plain good morals like say, Alistair, would easily accept the elven kingdom’s return. But even Anora is willing to grant part of the Korcari Wilds to the Dalish if Mahariel requests it, and while this sadly doesn’t last, it does show a positive sign into her potentially being open to the idea of an independent Dales as well.

I sincerely doubt that all Dalish clans would return to the Dales and re-settle down. After all, they have developed differentiating cultures over the years of wandering in separated groups, with different ideals and different ways of life that they might not want to give up. But many would return, and that would likely create conflict between the elves coming from the Dalish clans and the elves coming from the cities. We know that some prejudice exists against “flat-ears” as some Dalish call those from the city, and we know that city elves have adopted a lot of misinformation from humans into their views of the Dalish. It would take time and positive leadership to reconnect the people, without risking falling into some sort of hierarchy based on origin. This is why I do not believe one group or the other should single-handedly rule alone. Rather, I think there should be a Grand Council of High Keepers made up of those voted into the position each to represent a single district of the Dales. (I like the idea of there being seven High Keepers, not just because there are seven traditional districts of Mi’kma’ki, but because it works out that there seven of the Creators. So it makes sense that there would be seven High Keepers.) The Grand Council would meet and make decisions together, with one appointed leader at the head to act as the Council’s chair.

In terms of protection and order, the Emerald Knights should be reformed. This would include the Fade Hunters, to protect the people against demons and maleficarum, with there being no Circles or Templars.

Restoring the independence of the Dales would lead to a revival of elven culture in ways that could never happen before, because they would actually be free to pursue re-learning the language, re-discovering the history and culture, and sharing it all amongst each other. They would not have to fear arrest the crime of simply being an elf.  

But what of the other races presently living in the Dales? I see no reason why they would have to leave, so long as they would be willing to follow the Grand Council’s leadership. I imagine many nobility would flee to Orlais, simply because they would not stand for it. But for the average human or surface dwarf, their life wouldn’t really even change much; they’d still be managing their farms the same as always. Hell, it might even improve things for them, assuming the Grand Council gives fairer treatment than the nobility previously.

[lafaiette]

The level of disappointment I feel for the new dragon age game is just so consuming. Like I'll admit that after so many years, I didn't think it would hold true to what the previous game set up. But I hate that I was right, and I hate that a game series I loved so much sas turned into what it is now. I didn't buy it at launch because I wanted to wait for a sale, but with all that I'm hearing I'm wondering if it's even worth it. I'm just so sad for how this all went and I wish it hadn't happened. It even makes replaying the old games feel like scorched earth because nothing I do will have an effect on anything. It never mattered. The game that said my choices matter has now said "actually you never mattered" and I'm so heartbroken about it.

It even makes replaying the old games feel like scorched earth because nothing I do will have an effect on anything. It never mattered. The game that said my choices matter has now said "actually you never mattered" and I'm so heartbroken about it.

This is also one of the most painful parts for me, together with the way they handled - or ignored - a majority of the established lore.

In Veilguard, we learn that the majority of the South is basically gone: Denerim is lost, Redcliffe is under siege, getting help from the dwarves of Orzammar, who are already stretched thin. The ruler of Ferelden is never addressed - what happened to them? Are they still alive? Are they defending Redcliffe? We'll never know.

Orlais is also lost. Val Royeaux and Halamshiral are barely holding on, and a noble faction decided (for some stupid reason) to join the Venatori and spread even more chaos. The ruler of Orlais is never addressed - are they dead? Did the rebel nobility kill them? What happened to Briala's elves? We'll never know.

Kirkwall has fallen, and Aveline has been forced to evacuate the city and move the few survivors to Starkhaven. We know that Varric is dead, so Aveline or someone else will have to take his place, if Kirkwall can even be recovered (doubtful at this point).

The Blight is back in Ostagar and the Korcari Wilds, too, with only some Avvar and Alamarri clans keeping things under control while in a temporary truce with Ferelden.

Everything we ever accomplished in DA:O, DA2, and DA:I is gone. They turned the South into a blank state so they can leave it there, ignoring it, now that the focus will be on Those Across the Sea, as the secret ending slide shows. This blank state will also allow them to return to the South, should they ever wish to, but without the need to take into account the players' past choices, because everything we knew, everything we built and fought for, is gone.

"Oh, Ferelden changed so much in the last twenty years or so, ever since that terrible Blight caused by the elven gods!"

"Orlais isn't the same anymore, there is another civil war because we lost our previous ruler. Who was it? Oh, I don't know, I wasn't born yet, I couldn't care less."

"Pity about Kirkwall. I heard it was a shithole, but the beer at the Hanged Man was apparently pretty good."

^ This is what we will get in the future.

[luzial]

WIP Wednesday

Yet untitled Halamshiral business:

Solas paces, clipped footsteps on tile floors, around the periphery of the ballroom. He intends to walk slowly, to make it less obvious that he is circling the room with a gravity that should cut a trench into the marble beneath his feet. But each time he slows himself, his feet involuntarily rush to return to the tempo of the waltz a few paces later. He breathes through his nose, holds it for as long as he can, releases it. He does this again and again though it provides no ease from the pounding of his heart against his ribs. His eyes are on his boots. His eyes are on shadowed alcoves. His eyes are anywhere but on the ballroom below. Hunt well, he told her. And she has. She may as well wear their pelts like trophies across her shoulders.

[theharellan]

Holly's post reminded me that I do think at some point Solas buries Felasasan. I thought it might be after Halamshiral (where in my head Solas and Briala connect and he aids her in some way to try to alleviate his guilt), but post-Veilguard's release I think he waits until after the events of the game. When he can actually start accepting, rather than fermenting in his own grief and regret.

Felassan and his murder is, in my opinion, one of the hardest things for him to move past. While his death was in part motivated by the sense of betrayal he felt (betrayal of him, betrayal of those who remain, of those who sleep), Felassan's acceptance of the modern elves as worthy played an undeniable role. For years, Solas justified it with the former while denying the latter. And now, over a decade after his death, he is returning to him with one of the people Felassan died advocating for (Ian, if that weren't obvious).

And I think Felassan is so hard for him to accept because accepting feels like forgetting. So long as he is twisting the knife of what he did into himself he is being punished. It's hard because he can never know what Felassan would feel to see where he is now, if he would resent him or be proud of him or feel nothing at all. To even meditate on how he would feel feels wrong, like he is puppeting Felassan's corpse to alleviate his own guilt.

I do think that, when all is said and done, one way he tries to honour Felassan is by telling "human" stories about him (similar to how in this fic I wrote he helps Varric process his grief about Hawke). To try to make the person who, in myth, was nothing more than an arrow fired by the Dread Wolf into someone other people in Solas's life can remember. Even in that, though, he can never be sure if it would be something Felassan would want, and he just has to accept that.

[riddleredcoats]

Was looking for something I once said on another hellsite, unrelated to this lmao, and came across someone saying how Briala and Celene's relationship is toxic (sure, I can see that) and how Celene has so much control over Briala and that's the issue of their relationship when.... no. No.

That ain't it.

Celene and Briala, for all their issues and there are many, in the way Weekes writes their relationship is far more balanced than people give it credit for.

To the point that when it isn't balanced, it jars.

(More under the cut if you're interested.)

To get this out of the way; yes, Celene has more power than Briala. That is a fact we can't deny and even if you reunite them, while the power disparity does lessen, it doesn't go away. Celene is, by virtue of her position, always going to be more (politically) powerful than pretty almost everyone else in universe.

However, the way Weekes turns this on its head is by having Briala have more agency.

It is Briala that comes back to Celene out of her own volition every single time. She comes back to Celene after Celene sends her away when they were young. She comes and goes to Celene's bedroom at her own pleasure. She spies for Celene because she wants to - and enjoys it. Briala is the one that rekindles their reconciliations in the novel; after Halamshiral Celene doesn't even try to talk to Briala about what happened, respecting Briala's imposed distance, and only when Briala opens the door does Celene enter the conversation. It's even Briala who comes back to Court - after having rejected The Game and Orlais - with the intent of, at least, returning to Celene's side during the war: they- Well, Briala really, was already planning to work with Celene.

It is always, always Briala.

This isn't because Celene loves Briala less - it isn't, because we can see she's much more emotionally compromised than Briala due to her reliance on Briala to function like a normal human being. It is merely because Briala has the space to act towards Celene as she wishes, more or less.

The one time in the novel Celene does try to use her power to control Briala - having her arrested, so she could spend a few lavish years in prison... which yes, it is fucked, but even that panic-driven decision-making is shown to be a testament to Celene's emotional vulnerability, not necessarily her desire to dominate - it goes horribly wrong.

It - they - don't work when the relationship is THAT unbalanced and they have been working together for 15 years. That moment showed how their relationship falters when it becomes too unbalanced.

Celene and Briala aren't unconscious of the power difference. They work around it.

Especially, Celene.

She constantly says she does understand if Briala wants to leave her, she reassures Briala over and over that leaving her won't have repercussions to Briala's most dear cause. Celene's brain is always so aware of it that she always tries to give Briala the space she needs if she wants to leave. I will take joy in my love finding her people, even as my breast aches with every heartbeat I live without you. Those aren't just words, that is how the relationship works. Which is why Celene's most consistent and ardent belief - when she's being a rational human being and not the Empress of Orlais terrified for the fate of her country - is that Briala needs to be free to act as however she wills.

It's why those are the last words they say to each other.

It's why them getting back together - or the possibility of it - was almost a forgone conclusion.

Ultimately, Briala’s autonomy within the relationship is one of it's defining characteristics. She may not have the political power of an Empress, but she holds the agency to act - which is why always needed to get those Eluvians; she's the only one who CAN use them, but that's another conversation. While Celene, for all her power, respects Briala’s independence and choices, and is often hamstrung by her lack of freedom in choosing what she can do - something she pointed out in the novel as well, even though its often misinterpreted.

TLDR: This relationship is not defined by Celene’s control over Briala, but rather one shaped by Briala’s autonomy, Celene's understanding, and their shared emotional connection.

[daitranscripts]

Vivienne: Deleted Dialogue

Miscellaneous

Vivienne Masterpost

—

After IYHSB

Vivienne: There. Much better.

—

Favors the First Enchanter

Vivienne: I’ve heard rumors of lost Circle tomes being found. Care to investigate?

Vivienne: Our information suggests the tomes are in the Ferelden Hinterlands.

Vivienne: We believe they’ve been taken to the Dales.

Vivienne: We suspect they’ve been taken to the Western Approach.

Vivienne: Rumor has it they’re in the Nahashin Marshes. The conditions will be dreadful for delicate old books.

Vivienne: I’ll send my information to the war room.

Vivienne: We’ve located a templar vault containing the phylacteries of Circle mages. Vivienne: My sources have found another stockpile of phylacteries.

Vivienne: It’s in the Ferelden Hinterlands, in the arling of Redcliffe.

Vivienne: We believe it’s in the Dales near Halamshiral.

Vivienne: It’s suspected to be hidden in the Western Approach.

Vivienne: It’s somewhere in the Nahashin Marshes.

Vivienne: I’ll send the location to the war room.

Vivienne: If the Inquisition is willing to help us retrieve these phylacteries, the Circle of Magi would be most grateful. Vivienne: If you’re willing to assist us again, my dear, the Circle would be most grateful.

Dialogue options:

Investigate: What’s a phylactery?

Investigate: What will you do with them?

General: I’ll do it.

General: Not this time.

Investigate: What’s a phylactery? PC: What are phylacteries?

Vivienne (human mage PC): Did no one tell you? Some of your blood was taken when you first came to the Circle. When you passed your Harrowing, the templars took it from your tower to a secret location of their own. If you had ever fled the Circle, they would have used it to track you.

Vivienne: They are amulets containing the blood of Circle mages. Everyone who belonged to a Circle has one. The templars use them to track mages who flee or go missing. Now, with so many of the templars working for Corypheus or hunting mages for sport, the phylacteries are a risk to us all.

Investigate: What will you do with them? PC: What do you intend to do with the phylacteries?

Vivienne: If nothing else, they must be kept out of the red templars’ hands… or many innocent mages will die.

Vivienne: I thought I might put them all in a big pile and jump into it. PC: Really? Vivienne: No.

Vivienne: They are the best chance we have of finding Circle mages alive. And I prefer to find them quickly to make sure they remain that way.

Dialogue options:

General: I’ll do it. PC: Leave it to me. Vivienne: Thank you my dear. I’ll leave this matter in your capable hands. ㅤㅤ ㅤ

General: Not this time. PC: I don’t think so. Vivienne: As you wish. ㅤㅤ ㅤ After returning:

General: It’s done. PC: Your phylacteries have been recovered. PC: Your little problem has been taken care of.

[anti-eluvians]

Lavellan changes after drinking from the Well.

She had mirrored her surroundings, trying to be as bland and Chantry-like (as human-like) as possible. If she acts too inhuman this unpredictable Seeker might throw her back in the dungeon to be forgotten. Certainly no one in Haven would protest. She reaches out to other elves but is swiftly rejected. She doesn’t hear from the clan and assumes she must handle this alone. So Lavellan smiles and tells no lies. She moves softly. She doesn't know what happened in the Fade, she makes no claims of divinity, she tells jokes only when she knows they will land. She asks Cassandra if an elf should really lead this religious Inquisition, then declares the Inquisition for order, for safety, for all of Thedas. Only when asked directly does she say “I believe in the Elven gods.” And when Cassandra asks "Is there no room in your pantheon for one more god?” Lavellan bites her tongue and smiles.

After the mages, the Wardens, Halamshiral, she reflects less and dares more. She tells jokes that makes her audience groan. She charms the most prickly Orlesian visitors, teaches Harding dances and trades songs with Maryden. She helps Cole help people, she adopts Sutherland And Company, she attends drinking parties with the Chargers, she tends the wounded at Skyhold, she visits the soldiers down in that icy pass at Skyhold’s feet. She is everywhere doing good works, carefully building a reputation for the Inquisition and the Dalish and, despite herself, the Maker. She smiles at “rabbit” and tells Solas later that she just barely resisted the urge to hop around the ballroom. Leliana only gets reports of muffled screaming (as if into a pillow) after particularly nasty nobles visit. Lavellan is friends with everyone in the fortress, she is interested in everyone and all they have to say. She interviews scholars and priests, taking copious notes, until they flee the castle. She joins or starts chess tournaments open to all. She pulls in Dalish mages to show the kitchen staff (and any human mage who will listen) how to make ice cream. 

But after the Arbor Wilds, everyone tumbling to the floor in a tangle days before the Inquisition leaders can return, she stays down longer than the others. Morrigan and Solas leave immediately, and only Cole remains when she can finally stand. Over the next month the inner circle finds her staring into space more and more often. They find her in the eluvian room where Morrigan no longer goes, sitting beside the mirror with eyes closed and face lifted to the sunlight. Iron Bull and Varric hear whispers that she’s praying. Sera joins her one day but can’t stand being so close to ancient elfy magic and flees after an hour. Blackwall quietly carves her a chair in the Dalish style and asks Dorian to distract her while he sneaks it into place.

Lavellan is less prone to bad jokes. She trains alone and starts fewer games with the denizens of Skyhold. For a week she skips her nightly study session with Dorian and Josephine, driving them both frantic with worry. But after seven days she appears like clockwork, bringing a small journal crammed with notes on ancient elven culture to discuss with Dorian. She begins to wander the soldiers’ camps near the lake, or stare into the wind on Leliana’s balcony, or, more and more often, sit silent in the eluvian room. The normal folk assume she is praying to one god or another. Those closer to her hope she is meditating on the mirror and what Corypheus might do, until one day Vivienne sees a flash of light and watches her step down from an unannounced stroll in the Crossroads.

“You are the Inquisitor,” Josephine begs over dinner that night. “Please do not go to such dangerous places alone. I cannot think what we would do without you!” Lavellan blinks, her halla-horn mug paused just above the table. Most of the circle holds their breath. “I wasn’t alone,” she assures them all with the smile that Josie now dreads. “I had an excellent tour guide. The spirits of the Well are very familiar with the Crossroads.” Solas stands, drawing everyone’s attention. Impishly Lavellan adds, “And they're full of stories.” The elven apostate leaves without a word.

Morrigan and Solas rarely speak to her anymore. Lavellan pretends not to notice but her hurt is made obvious by Cole’s sudden, constant presence at her side. Varric knows she looks up to Morrigan as a hero of the Blight. Solas’ sudden withdrawal had left her spinning, untethered and angry. At first Varric (and the rest of the castle) attribute her odd behavior to the breakup, but her resilience and stubbornly hopeful outlook make that hard to believe. But many more things go missing around the fortress, and when asked Cole apologizes for leaving so many people bemused. But he also says the tree's roots have not regrown so he will not stop. Whatever he's doing helps; Lavellan begins to spend less time with the mirror and more among her people again. The chess tournaments resume though she refuses to play herself. 

But months pass and during state dinners, or out in the field on night watch, or in the war room, she closes her eyes mid-sentence to listen to something only she hears. She might nod, or frown, or smile gently, then look at the faces around her and change the subject. When Morrigan sees this she always leaves the room in a huff. When Solas sees this, The Iron Bull tells Krem over a pint, he flees like his clothes were afire.

Lavellan replaces her human-made armor with Dalish styles one piece at a time. Cassandra frets at the lack of steel until Lavellan points out that the chainmaille on her arms is safer than the hide she had been using. Only the Inquisition chestplate remains, strapped on over tabard and belts. She polishes it herself to such a shine the eye flashes when she turns, blinding enemies but calling allies. She is always fully present during a fight but the inner circle votes not to send her to the front lines; keeping her safe is more important than keeping her present.

One day while bringing books to the Inquisitor’s tower Dorian sees the Templar flag is down, neatly folded and draped across a banister. In the room upstairs, he tells the others, are the red sheets presumed lost to Cole’s helpfulness weeks ago. They gently drape from ceiling to the floor over her bed, a long warm arc like a ship’s sails. The image reminds Cassandra of something she can’t quite place until their next visit to the Exalted Plains, Dalish aravels rumbling past them on the road. Cassandra watches the Inquisitor wave to the clan with a smile on her face and something dark in her eyes. That night Lavellan goes missing again and returns at daybreak, arms full of dusty relics from a lost elven fortress nearby. The group seeks out yesterday’s clan and spends hours being thanked, fed, blessed, and promised favors for the return of such treasures. Cassandra watches the Inquisitor laugh and smile and ask if she can visit them at the next Arlathvhen. 

After months of avoiding the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves, suddenly the inner circle is in semi-permanent residence. Lavellan vanishes for hours at a time and comes back with torn clothes or twigs in her hair. Dorian, Varric, and Vivienne work out shifts to escort her on what turn out to be simple walks. They move with her through mists and down paths, taking her gently by the arm when she’s so deep in thought she doesn’t see the trees ahead and the giants in the distance.

Then at last, after two encounters with Mythal they are ready. Everyone agrees Corypheus has been too quiet. The Inquisition has the power and people to stop him if they just knew where to look. During a late night (or early morning) war briefing Lavellan takes too long to respond to Josephine's "Does the Well have any suggestions?". The advisers trade nervous looks as her eyes sink closed then snap open. Cullen softly ventures “What um... did they say?” Her glance cuts through him, through the walls, through the stone and wood between the War Room and the library rotunda.

She walks out. 

[hawkezone]

[[ RETURN TO HALAMSHIRAL - PART TWO ]]

A missing Queen Cousland, whispers of an elven rebellion, and one hell of a party: Hawke, Fenris, and Varric attend a lavish ball at the Winter Palace celebrating Empress Celene and Marquise Briala's alliance, where Hawke finds himself enlisted to help by a man with a strong Fereldan accent and a deep-seeded fear of swooping. A Trevelyan-Dorian & Fen(m!)hawke imagining of the events leading up to Dread Wolf, sequel to The Seat of Power.

CHAPTERS: ♕ [1] [2]

♕

“Dorian?”

Angus, leaning over himself in the library under the rookery at Skyhold, muttered into the flipped-open sending crystal his boyfriend had given him. He should’ve attended the party. Why did he let Josephine talk him into staying behind? And Leliana had been rather keen on him staying at Skyhold, too. Angus had long ago begun to put two and two together about “the safety of the Inquisitor”, but he was starting to get lonely in Skyhold, all alone, this evening. Even Cullen had gone off to the party, or, possibly, given up in defeat and was drinking alone in his carriage waiting for everyone to go home.

Angus waited, hoping Dorian would be in a quiet enough place in the party to hear him through the crystal. He knew Dorian wore it around his neck everywhere they went without each other - if only so Dorian could update him on the assorted social and/or fashion disasters he encountered on his many trips back to Minrathous.

“Dorian? Doriannnn. Come onnnn.” Angus, uncharacteristically, whined into the crystal. Next to him were several empty miniature novelty bottles of Seheron dry, which he insisted he hadn’t drank all by himself, and half a glass of whiskey. The whiskey, of course, counted as dessert.

Meanwhile, back at Halamshiral, Dorian could hear a faint buzzing coming from the locket he wore around his neck, as he continued to prime Alistair for more information - and pump him full of more ale. Unfortunately, the ale was indeed dwarven and watered-down, which meant he’d have to feed him much more of the stuff to get to the juicy bits.

Holding a finger up to Alistair, who was mid-woeful-rant, Dorian flipped open the locket, and strained to hear Angus’s soft, Marcher accent over the loud hustle of the party.

“Yes, my dear amatus?” he greeted, over the crystal, holding the rest of it towards his ear, frowning at the background noise.

“....come home soon so I can tell you I miss you… …bet you look good in your formal coat.. ….osephine left so many of these bottles here for the guests, can you believe….”

Dorian sighed. He could barely hear a thing, although it seemed like Angus, at least, was keeping occupied.

“Amatus,” he repeated, holding the crystal closer to his lips. “I can see you’ve had a lot of fun without me, and I can’t wait to get back to Skyhold to see how my Inquisitor wants to handle his lack of handling, but - you’re never going to believe who I’m talking to right now.”

Alistair watched, as Dorian continued his conversation, one-sidedly.

“Yes. No, not you. I know I’m also talking to you, but - yes. Mm-hmm. You know, next time I’ll just ask Josephine to put some mixers in with the wine for you to slow it down. No, you’re rotten. You are. …. Keep that up and I’ll really have to leave the party early.”

Alistair narrowed his eyes and sighed again, in defeat, taking another swig from his ale as Dorian’s conversation took another turn.

“You know just how to push my buttons. All right. But no necromancy this time. We both thought it would be funny but it just ended up being unsavory.”

Alistair raised his eyebrows. Dorian, it seemed, finally remembered why he’d interrupted Angus in the first place.

“But you haven’t guessed who! Right, right. Remember the meeting you had back at Haven? Yes! I know! That’s what I asked him!”

Dorian clapped a hand over the crystal, and turned to Alistair. “Angus wants to know if you’ve found your missing wife yet.”

Alistair gave him the most despairing look yet. Dorian perked up.

“Right! Right. That’s what you were telling me.” He turned back to the crystal. “No, he hasn’t. And he’s asking us if we know where she’s gone. I know. I told him about Hawke going to Weisshaupt. He is? He has? He - is - are they all here? …I’m going to murder Varric.”

With that, Dorian clapped the crystal locket shut, and carefully slipped it back under his shirt.

Giving Alistair the slyest of smiles, he leaned coyly over the bartop.

“Today, I think, is your lucky day,” Dorian smiled.

Alistair felt himself involuntarily skip a beat. Whatever was coming was sure to be something big.

-

The lowly music of the single harp played through the open courtyard, the golden light of the strung-up candles glinting off the gold and augments of the gathered Orlesian nobles, craning their necks to get a good look at the plucky minstrel who was chiming classic folk tunes, her belting lighting up the entire garden.

Away from the huddled crowds, in a secluded cloister, were Hawke and Fenris - and only one of them seemed to be having any sort of a good time.

Clutching one of his many beignets he’d tucked away, Hawke smirked. “You think the words are the same in Orlesian?”

“What?”

“They could be saying anything, you know. I don’t speak Orlesian. I wager you don’t, either. They could be singing about how all Marchers are freeloading anarchist backwater pigs, for all I know.”

Fenris glanced sideways at Hawke, who was grinning. He rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile back. “I doubt that.”

“That’s what I’d do,” Hawke said, breezily, waving a hand at the bard. “If I was supposed to be entertaining a bunch of jackasses all night, I’d definitely try to take the piss.”

“That’s why we don’t let you entertain,” Fenris smirked.

Inside, the orchestra was starting to begin its triumphant wailing, the music coursing through the echoing halls and out into the gardens, just faint enough to mix with the bard’s singing.

“They’ve begun the formalities,” Fenris muttered, barely able to contain his scowl. “If they’re not entertained at every turn, they’ll start to turn on each other.”

“I can understand that,” Hawke said, thoughtfully, face full of beignet. “If I were a noble, I’d want my attention grabbed at every second. No point being bored, I bet.”

“Hawke, you are a noble,” Fenris replied, a bit despairingly. “I must admit, I wonder if your enchantment over snacks and lute-playing won’t betray a more deep-seeded sense of entitlement in the future, judging by how all these Orlesian courtiers act.”

“Me? Entitled? Over a title? Don’t be silly, goose,” Hawke grinned, elbowing Fenris playfully in the side. Fenris didn’t quite scowl, but he didn’t quite grin back, either.

Looking to either side of him, Hawke’s grin widened. Fenris could see the gears clicking together in his head, in ways that made him slightly suspicious - and even more trepidatious.

“Fenris?” Hawke ventured, with a sideways grin. “Can I make up for the Chateau in another way?”

Fenris looked wary, but his expression betrayed his true sense of curiosity. After all, he wouldn’t have followed this idiotic lug of a man all the way here if it weren’t for his morbid sense of passion.

“Make up for it how, Hawke?”

Hawke grinned even wider, and bowed, deeply and theatrically, like a footman. He extended a half-gloved hand to Fenris, without stooping back up, and smiled.

“Would you accompany me to the ballroom floor, milord?” he grinned.

For a brief second, everything froze. Fenris felt his face crack a little, as time came to a whopping halt, and Hawke immediately sensed he had done Something. Not necessarily something wrong, mind you, but the world didn’t come screeching to a standstill with the worries of a thousand centuries plastered across your beloved’s face for nothing.

“Hawke,” Fenris ventured, his voice cracking, like the first jolt of dry lightning in a canyon wracked with drought.

Hawke looked up at him, perplexed, then, immediately, read the expression on his face, backtracking as fast as possible.

“Sorry - I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I didn’t -”

Fenris, as if coming out of a daze, shook his head, rather firmly. “No, no. It’s just - not with - there’s all these people, Hawke-”

“Wait. Wait. I have an idea.”

Hawke got that mischievous glint in his eye - the one that meant he was about to get them both into massive trouble.

“Hawke - what - ”

Pulling Fenris by the hand, Hawke led him down the hallway into the vestibule, through the halls of the public appartements and out into the garden, where even more various nobles had gathered, listening to the dulcet tones of one of Orlais’ most talented bards. For a moment, Hawke could have sworn it was Maryden Halliwell’s voice, singing in the Orlesian tongue, but he chalked it up to his time spent at Skyhold having taken quite a toll on him.

Tucking into a cloister to the side of the garden, just out of sight - and just in the shadows - for naught but the nosiest of nobles to be seen, Hawke let Fenris go, and placed his hands on his hips, looking rather pleased with himself.

Fenris, bemused, placed his own hands behind his back.

“Plans, Hawke?”

Hawke, with a flourish, took a great, theatrical bow. “Indeed, my dear,” he said, putting one arm behind his own back, and extending the other in a deep, dramatic gesture, offering his open palm to Fenris like a noble on the ballroom floor. Which, for all intents and purposes, he was.

Suppressing a laugh, Fenris cocked a smile at Hawke, who looked up at him - still stooped - through his brow.

“Well?” said Hawke, raising his eyebrows, and tottering a little. “I’m starting to get a little sore, here.”

Letting out an actual chuckle - or, to Fenris’s denial, an actual giggle - he placed his hand in Hawke’s, and Hawke raised himself back up to full height, romantically sweeping Fenris in towards him by the small of his back.

“Your hand goes on my shoulder, I think,” Hawke smiled, teasing, a little primly, but full of warmth. “Unless you don’t want me to lead. Which I always offer, but we know how things usually go,” Hawke winked.

Fenris, glancing away for a moment, braced himself. For a second, he flicked his eyes towards the gathered nobles, through the shadowed cloisters into the well-lit gardens, entranced by the lute-playing of the bard and the thick, scented air of the evening. They were so occupied with their own, brightly-lit world, that they scarcely - if at all - noticed Fenris and Hawke, hidden in the depths of the marbled shadows.

He looked back at Hawke, his eyes expectant.

“I’ve - I’ve never actually danced. With anyone. Before,” Fenris ended, somewhat lamely. He looked away again, but his hand was still firmly placed in Hawke’s.

Despite himself, Hawke burst out in a brief spurt of laughter. Fenris, annoyed, looked back at him, but Hawke was clearly gazing at him with the look he only reserved for the man he loved.

“What, never? Not even at a party? Not even as a joke?” Hawke went on, tucking Fenris in closer by the waist.

Fenris, getting more annoyed by the minute, sighed. “No. It’s not something I had time to do in Tevinter. At all.”

“And in Kirkwall?” asked Hawke, holding Fenris’s hand aloft.

“Kirkwall is not exactly the place that makes one want to dance,” Fenris said, bitterly. “Despite any claims.”

“No one ever asked you?”

“There’s never been such an occasion. And I doubt I’d want to dance with anyone. At all.”

Hawke pouted, a little comically. “Not even me?”

Fenris, finally looking back up, saw that Hawke was trying his damndest to cheer him up. And he couldn’t help but smile.

“...Perhaps you’re the exception.” Fenris flicked his eyes downward, then back up at Hawke, their verdance as clear as ever.  “….You’re always the exception.”

Smiling, Hawke finished pulling Fenris in, and, laying a hand on his arm, gently guided it towards his shoulder.

“I’m not a very good dancer, I’m afraid,” Hawke said, as Fenris lay his hand against Hawke’s shoulder. Hawke’s stubble - which he was very bad at shaving consistently - poked through the thin Orlesian cotton of his upcollared formal shirt.

“Would I have been able to tell?” Fenris replied, smirking, flirtatiously.

“No, probably not. I should just keep my mouth shut,” Hawke said, laughing.

“Don’t,” said Fenris, softly.

Slowly, smiling, Hawke, holding Fenris by the hand, stepped in a graceful circle - as gracefully as he could - as the bard continued her enchanting rhyme. In the shadows of the cloister, nobody could see the two, slowly revolving, like planets gathered around a burning star.

Fenris, trepidatiously, laid his head against Hawke’s chest, as they turned; Hawke immediately clutched him closer, lowering his own head so it tucked gently into his.

As the song wound to a close, Fenris found his head still resting on Hawke’s chest, and he could hear Hawke’s heart beating at a breakneck speed. His fingers wrapped around Hawke’s collar, as he could feel his breath, hot as the night air was cold, burning down Fenris’s own neck.

Hawke, still holding Fenris in one muscular arm, the other hand wandering its way back down towards Fenris’s waist, felt the elf press closely against him, the clink of his armored shoulders and arms rubbing up against the thick fabric of Hawke’s formal coat. Fenris pushed against him, pulling him closer, and as Hawke felt Fenris’s cold, gauntleted fingers close around his neck, he grabbed him even more firmly, crushing him against his chest and hips, feeling the elf open up underneath him as Fenris intensely pushed his body against his, pressing every inch of himself against Hawke’s, as Hawke nudged his knee between Fenris’ legs - both of the men like pendulums in an imminent swing - if either of them moved, even one inch further, the whole thing would come crashing down. 

Hawke, breathing heavily, scarcely dared to move Fenris from his position, lest he lose control completely and pin him to the ground, disgracing this entire social affair - and probably causing the fine bard singing in the garden to completely lose her footing.

“Hawke,” Fenris breathed, roughly, in Hawke’s ear.

Hawke felt his heart skip a beat.

Intensely, softly, without breaking eye contact, Fenris pushed one thumb against Hawke’s Adam’s apple, biting his lower lip. Hawke gulped, feeling Fenris’s fingers press against him, barely choking him, the pointed backs of his gauntlet scratching the back of Hawke’s neck as his hairs stood on end, and he stood at attention. He knew that, at any moment, he could break Fenris’s hold, sweep him up by the legs and pull them both against him, pull his head back and take control, let Fenris drive him to the wilderness of extinction. He hoped that Fenris wouldn’t think he was too uncouth for already planning lines about needing a lot of help with handling his oversized, two-handed warhammer, since that was Fenris’s specialty, after all.

Hawke locked eyes with him, and Fenris’s eyes glowed with an intensity that sent the usually confident Hawke into a venusian, cloudy-headed rabbit hole.

“Perhaps it is my turn to surprise you,” Fenris growled, with an insistent half smile.

Hawke, losing control entirely, pressed his face against Fenris’s, biting on Fenris’s lip before sending himself into a spiral, flicking the inside of Fenris’s mouth with his tongue, holding him in place with one arm while running the other up and down his back, then his side, then down the front of his hips.

“Wait,” Fenris breathed, his voice still guttural, putting a single finger to Hawke’s lips. “Not here.”

He held Hawke by the hand, this time, and pulled him towards the end of the cloister, where a latticed wall covered in nightblooms anchored the corner between the palace and the gardens proper.

Indicating the wall with his head, Fenris withdrew his finger from Hawke’s lips, smiling with an intense, mischievous grin. Letting Hawke go, he backed up into the lattice, where Hawke, cottoning on, began grinning himself, helping Fenris up and over the garden wall with a light foothold, making a step with his cupped hands.

Following him over the wall, Hawke paused for a moment, at the top of the wall; one foot in the party, the other imminently in the outer gardens - and examined the scene.

The whole of Halamshiral spread out before him, the excitement, the romance, the buzz of the party, the ham that tasted of despair, the tittering gossip of the nobles, the rampant fireflies and the clink-clink-splash of caprice coins being thrown in the fountain - all accented by the intoxicating scent of jasmines and Andraste’s Grace - and he sighed, with great contentment.

Truly, really, it did not get any better than this.

He looked back down, at Fenris, who was already playing with the top buttons of his guardsman’s jacket, giving Hawke the most smoldering look he could manage.

Hawke grinned. Perhaps the night had great potential, indeed, for getting even better.

[dreadknightcassandra]

My headcanon for the events of the 6th blight [DA:V Spoilers]

So this is based on my favorite version of each game's playthrough and what bits of info we get during veilguard

-Elgar’nan and Ghilan'nain are freed. 

-Increased darkspawn activity are reported by the Legion of the Dead in Orzammar and Orlesian Scouts out of Griffon Wing Keep

-Messenger birds are dispatched from Arlathan to Val Royeaux, Denerim, Kirkwall, Amaranthine, and Honnleath.

-The city of Kirkwall approves a memorial for Deshyr Tethas, to be erected next to the memorial for Champion Hawke

-Warden Commander Stroud heeds the order to recall to Weisshaupt, but remains behind himself with a small handful of defenders. Warden Rainier is dispatched to the Western Approach to provide an updated report and assistance if necessary

-Former Inquisitor Rutherford makes the call to relocate her family to Wycome, intending to then travel to Val Royeaux to speak with Divine Victoria. On arrival at Wycome, Morrigan is already waiting to speak to her.

-Darkspawn activity continues to increase. Divine Victoria continues to try to send messages to former Warden Commander Tabris with no response. 

-Empress Celene’s court begins to deal with unusual amounts of dissidence and rumor mongering. Celene attempts to keep the court placated while Marquis Briala tries to find the sources of these rumors.

-The Inquisitor travels to Stone-Bear Hold, while Cullen travels to Therinfal Redoubt to speak to Knight-Commander Barris

-Orlais is struck with a series of seditious actions as an overture of open rebellion. Empress Celene attempts to rally the court and her forces, but the Chevaliers defect once again. 

-Grand Enchanter Vivienne seizes on the political chaos, gains control of the College of Enchanters and incorporates into the Circle.

-King Therin and Queen Anora openly support the Empress. King Therin is dissuaded by the Queen from just sending troops into Orlais. -Divine Victoria immediately opens the chantries to refugees while openly advocating for peace.

-News of the sacking of Minrathous and Treviso reaches the south, increasing unrest. 

-Weisshaupt falls

-The Free Marcher cities are beset by Antaam corsairs

-Venatori spies are reported being seen in Halamshiral and Val Royeaux. Marquis Briala attempts to regain access to the eluvian network

-Morrigan takes the Inquisitor to Minrathous to meet Rook, Cullen returns to Wycome.

-Ostagar reports darkspawn coming from the Kokiri Wilds. Alistair has a brief bout of PTSD.

-Warden Rainier sends back reports confirming a “surge of the blighters”, with no sign of an arch demon yet. He remains at Griffon Wing Keep

-Rebel forces begin to engage Ferelden border outposts

-Avvar scouts bearing the symbol of Inquisitor First Thaw are seen reporting to various outposts

-King Bhelen reaffirms Orzammar’s alliance with Ferelden, institutes a levy to increase golem production despite the protests of the Orzammar chantry

-King Alistar orders cities to begin fortifying

-The Inquisitor begins to call in favors and call former inquisition members out of retirement

-Ostagar is overrun.

-Griffin Wing Keep is besieged by the darkspawn

-Suledin Keep is taken by rebel forces

-Morrigan begins unlocking the southern eluvians with the help of Rook and Briala.Briala reestablishes her network

-Val Royeaux is in open revolt. Empress Celene relocates to Halamshiral, while the streets become a warzone. Several nobility are found dead with proof of their ties to ventori pinned to their walls with arrows

-Orzammar mobilizes its forces to start forming chokepoints

-Stone Bear hold mobilizes to assist the defense

-Skyhold is reopened again by the Sutherland Company against the wishes of Divine Victora, becomes a refugee camp.

-Briala is contacted by Fenris, requesting passage to Val Royeaux. Venatori presence in the city soon drops significantly.

-Denerin comes under siege

-Griffin Wing Keep is almost overrun until an evacuation corridor is carved out by a group of darkspawn in Amaranthine armor, seemingly led by Wardens Tabris and Sigrun. The keep is evacuated. Survivors travel to Amaranthine Keep.

-Lord Seeker Pentaghast and Knight Commander Barris send their forces to Orlais and Ferelden to aid the defences and prepare evacuations

-Prince Sebastian Vael declares martial law as part of preparations, calls on the leaders of the other Free Marcher cities to do the same.

-The Hinterlands are evacuated, the village of Crestwood retreats to Caer Bronach

-The Emerald Graves are abandoned to the rebels, who are soon overrun by Darkspawn

-Redcliffe comes under siege

-Denerim is temporarily relieved by golems from Orzammar

-The Wardens and Awakened arrive at Amaranthine keep. Warden Stroud is outraged but the majority of the defenders claim to have experience with the Awakened. 

-Val Royeaux falls to rebels. Sera, Dagna, Fenris, Briala, and the majority of the civilian population evacuate into the Crossroads.

-Redcliffe receives additional defenders from Orzammar, the Avvar, and Chasind forces having negotiated with the Inquisitor.

-The Veilguard kill the blighted dragons in the Hossberg Wetlands

-Denerim is overrun and forced to evacuate. King Therin stays behind with his honor guard and the Orzammar golems to buy time for the evacuation. No survivors are reported.

-Amaranthine Keep comes under siege. 

-Halamshiral, Kirkwall, Ostwick, and Wycome come under siege from both Darkspawn and Venatori agitators.

-Empress Celene falls ill, declares First Enchanter Vivienne marshal until the crisis passes and the council can declare a new emperor before passing.

-The Inquisitor and Cullen travel to Halamshiral to try to negotiate with Vivenne to coordinate a joint reclaiming of Val Royeaux, but are unsuccessful.

-Kirkwall begins evacuations to Starkhaven, Ostwick evacuates to Wycome. Marill refuses to evacuate with the rest of the elves, claiming she has a plan already in place.

-The Felicisima Armada starts harassing Antaam Corsairs.

-Bull’s Chargers seen traveling to Tevinter for reasons undisclosed

-Orzammar is forced to seal off Dust Town due to increasing Darkspawn raids getting past the Legion.

-The Veilguard assaults Elgar’nan’s temple, causing a reduction in darkspawn activity across Thedas

-The Orlesian Army, bolstered by the united Circle, begin to siege Val Royeaux

-Divine Victoria travels to Amaranthine keep to speak with Warden Tabris in private

-The Avvar of Stone-Bear hold launch a raid to Denerim, recovering King Therin’s body at the request of Queen Anora

-Fenris and Sera start using the eluvian network to conduct assassinations against Venatori agitators in Val Royeaux, Halamshiral, Redcliffe, and the Free Marches

-The Antaam Fleets withdraw, the Montilyet trading fleet start shipping supplies to the coastal cities

-Remaining wardens in Amaranthine begin sabotaging local pathways and rivers to try to force any darkspawn in the area to be routed to the keep

-Divine Victoria returns to Halamshiral

-Elgar’nan creates a permanent eclipse

-Redcliffe, Kirkwall, Ostwick, Stone-Bear hold, and Amaranthine are overrun with darkspawn.

-The rebels of Val Royeaux are kept at a stand still, Halamshiral repels the darkspawn siege.

-Guard-Captain Aveline attempts to hold the corridor until the evacuation is complete. Her forces are saved by a sudden surge of demons pouring out of the abandoned Hawke estate, causing enough chaos for Aveline’s forces to retreat. Merill’s body is never recovered.

-Orzammar goes dark. Scouts to the city report that doors are barricaded shut from the outside

-The Wardens of Amaranthine keep and the Awakened manage to route the vast majority of darkspawn away from Redcliffe, but it’s still not enough to save the city.

-Redcliffe evacuates to Skyhold

-Venatori presence in the Free Marches is fully eliminated. The remaining Free Marcher forces unite under Prince Vael to begin pushing south again towards Amaranthine Keep.

-Warden Tabris is mortally wounded in battle and dies. She is then seen the next day fighting alongside the defenders on the wall.

-Marshal Vivienne is assassinated. The remaining council members declare the Inquisitor marshal until the crisis passes.

-Therinfal Redoubt is overrun

-Ghilan'nain dies

-The Darkspawn attacks increase in ferocity. Amaranthine keep is overrun

-The Free Marcher army is stalled at the border of Ferelden

-Halamshiral remains under siege

-Skyhold avoids the darkspawn horde’s attention, but becomes isolated from any support

-The rebels of Val Royeaux surrender. Lord Seeker Pentaghast is dispatched to assume command of the city

-Amaranthine keeps falls. No wardens are reported to survive. Divine Victoria is seen holding regular services in mourning gear, and in the company of a young man that witnesses fail to describe

-Caer Bronach is overrun. Lake Callenhad is permanently blighted

-Suledin Keep is overrun.

-The Inquisitor is taken my Morrigan to Minrathous

-Elgar’nan dies, Solas is tied to the veil

-The darkspawn begin to retreat

-The Free Marcher forces start clearing into Ferelden, finding small pockets of resistance and clearing overrun cities

-Val Royeaux and Halamshiral quickly empty to retake Orlais and relieve the remaining bastion cities

-A heavily marred and blighted Warden Tabris arrives at Val Royeaux, requesting to speak with Divine Victoria. She refuses all requests to explain her condition

-The Inquisitor steps down as marshal, returns to Wycome with Cullen

-Skyhold begins getting supplies from Orlais. Queen Anora declares Skyhold her temporary capitol until a suitable city in Ferelden can be reclaimed and cleansed

[fenharelsfang]

The Wolf's Heart (2/5)

Previously: The Wolf's Heart (1/5)

Ellana wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The world rushed past her in a blur of red and black, though it wasn’t the world … not really. It was the Fade, or some nightmarish version of it. Blighted boils plagued the landscape, beating like a heart, ready to burst and cover the land with their taint. The pustules infested every tree, depleting them of their vibrancy, stripping the color from their bark and the leaves from their branches. Every surface was covered with them, even the water in the lakes had thickened into a black sludge. There was a horrible, ceaseless roar like the winds of a hurricane, but she could tell – no, she could feel the anguished, feral screaming. The Titans’ severed dreams. Their agony ignited the blood in her veins. She screamed in harmony with them, though it was muted in comparison. The binds around her mouth were still there.

Then, mere moments after entering that hellscape, she emerged back into the real world. It was quieter here, though not much else differed. The Blight still ran rampant amongst the city. The tendrils held her suspended next to the Archon’s throne. A hideous, twisted elven aberration sat on that throne with blood like tar dripping from every orifice. Blighted vines curled around him like a nest of snakes. Glowing red eyes sat in sunken sockets. The elven armor he wore, once a brilliant gold, was tarnished beyond recognition. The crown on his head looked like the horns of a demon, which is exactly what he had transformed into. Every ounce of her being reviled him. Her body, like a wild animal, instinctively jerked away from the danger radiating off of his corrupted form. He smiled down at her with black, rotted teeth.

“Welcome, little one,” he greeted. With every word he spoke, more blood dribbled down his chin. He was drowning in the Blight. “You are of the People, are you not? You should feel honored! You sit by my side, witness to the rebirth of our empire.”

Cold sweat dripped down Ellana’s temple. The tendril around her mouth slid away to reveal her face, but she said nothing. She could only stare at him in abject horror.

“Ah, stunned into silence by my glory.” He chuckled and reached out to take her chin in between his fingers.

Ellana spat into his face, startling him. “Fenedhis lasa!” she hissed.

Her body trembled violently with rage. This was Elgar’nan? The All-Father? The Eldest of the Sun? This was the god, her god, who created the elven empire, Elvhenan, that the Dalish so coveted? She remembered the stories her hahren used to tell her about the glory of the ancients. Like all Dalish, it was her dream to see Arlathan restored, to see her gods return to the world and be wrapped in their love and warmth. The Dalish carved the gods’ symbols into their skin to honor them.

But it was a lie.

Ellana didn’t want to believe Solas. She hoped and prayed that his truth was wrong, but the evidence was plain as day in front of her. It was one thing to hear about your gods being nothing more than powerful mage slavers, it was another to see it in person. The last shreds of her faith crumbled before her. Tears of betrayal fell down her face in thick rivulets. She snarled at him.

“Ma banal las halamshir var vhen!”

CRACK!

He smacked her so hard he fractured her jaw. The world swayed and stars danced in her vision, oblivion threatening to overtake her. The taste of metal filled her mouth before she spat out a glob of blood through swelling lips onto the floor.

“Know. Your. Place,” Elgar’nan seethed. He wiped the spit from his face as he stood from his throne and stepped down to be at eye-level with her. “You are a victim of Fen’harel’s lies, so I’ll permit your insult to slide, just this once.” He tilted his head, inspecting her battered face. “What vallaslin did you wear before the Dread Wolf stole it from you, hm?” When she didn’t answer, he sneered at her. “No matter. You will now wear mine.”

He pulled his red lyrium dagger from the sheathe at his side and pressed it against her flesh. It seared her skin like a white-hot iron brand and she screamed in agony.

Not far away, having been playing a treacherous game of cat and mouse, Solas and Elgar’nan’s archdemon weaved in and out of the palace. Solas, in his massive demonic wolf form, crunched the vulnerable tissue of the archdemon’s neck, below the hardened scales. The dragon was nearly three times the size of him, though, and moved with a swiftness that defied physics. He used his fangs and claws to puncture anywhere he could. Already he had left a long slit along the archdemon’s right wing, preventing it from being able to fly. That’s not to say that he hadn’t also taken a beating. One of his six eyes had been gouged out and deep gashes peppered his body. Sustaining this form was starting to take its toll.

He and the archdemon were squaring off against each other, both panting and taking a moment to lick their wounds, when he heard the scream. His ear flicked to the side, towards where Elgar’nan waited. What was that tyrannical bastard up to? As if being called, the archdemon sank back below the tower and crawled along its edge towards the throne room. Solas growled and followed after it, nipping at its heels. It kicked a leg back at him that he narrowly avoided.

The archdemon breached through a section of the building to lay eyes on its master and Solas climbed through on the other side, skidding to a halt. His eyes widened in shock and disbelief. No, that wasn’t — it couldn’t be — How? Elgar’nan had her face clenched in his grip, his back turned to Solas. Even with just a sliver of a look, Solas could never forget that face: blonde hair, shorter since the last time he saw her, eyes a color that would put the Emerald Graves to shame, a light dust of freckles that matched his own, and —

Elgar’nan shifted slightly in his assessment of her – That sack of shit was desecrating her face!

“ELGAR’NAN!”

The magic around Solas dissipated as he returned to his normal form. Scores of bruises and cuts covered his face and head. Blood oozed out of a deep wound in his side. One ear was bleeding profusely, a good bit of it ravaged by the archdemon's talons. Ellana's heart ached to see him in such a state, but he was still the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld in her life. His eyes had changed. They were now a lavender color and glowing with the magic of the Fade.

Ellana was given a reprieve from the pain as Elgar’nan turned to face his great adversary. The malice in his eyes was palpable as was the sheer glee radiating from the grin on his face.

“Ah, I was wondering when you would join us,” Elgar’nan said as if they were having afternoon tea.

“GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF HER!” Solas roared as he started forward. The archdemon’s foot came crashing down in front of him, knocking him off balance.

“Vh–” Ellana’s words were once again cut off as a tendril muzzled her. Her eyes met Solas’s and he looked baffled, as if seeing a ghost. He never expected her to be here.

So, she could still surprise him.

The archdemon went for Solas again, but Elgar’nan held up a hand to stop it. “Now, now,” he said as he sheathed the dagger, leaving Ellana’s face partially finished, and folded his hands behind his back. “He’s a guest, my pet.” The tyrant began circling Ellana, admiring his handiwork. “Eh, it’s not my best work, but we can’t all be artists like you, Fen’harel.”

“When I’m done with you, your face will be unrecognizable,” Solas spat with barely contained rage. His eyes began to glow a pale green and magic gathered around him, preparing to unleash his fury.

In one swift motion, Elgar’nan unsheathed his dagger and held it to Ellana’s throat. “Don’t be reckless,” he warned. “That’s gotten you into trouble in the past, Wolf.”

The magic faded and Solas clenched his fists. “What do you want? This fight is between us, not her. Let. Her. Go.”

“I want what I’ve always wanted,” Elgar’nan said simply. “Our empire to flourish.”

“Our empire was built on the backs of our people that you enslaved!”

“My will brought them into existence. I gave them physical forms and a world free of the Titans.”

“Your greed started the war with the Titans!”

“And it was your weapon that turned the tide of the war.”

Solas’s jaw flexed. It was the truth and a regret that haunted his every waking hour. His gaze flicked briefly to Ellana and then away in shame. She wondered if he thought this was a shocking revelation for her. He didn't know Harding had told her everything of his memories. Beyond the shame was a determination to save her regardless.

“I cannot allow you to blight the world,” he said, his ire returning.

“Not even for your vhenan?” Elgar’nan asked, feigning shock.

“She would never forgive me if I did.”

Elgar’nan frowned. “Then, perhaps, the Dread Wolf’s pelt would suffice?”

Solas’s eyes widened briefly before he furrowed his brow. Ellana could see the gears turning in his head. He was formulating a plan. Knowing him, it would be both clever and incredibly reckless. She tried to guess what it could be. Surely he wouldn’t turn himself over to Elgar’nan? The god needed to be destroyed and only Solas could kill that archdemon. It was in pretty bad shape, though. Enough that Rook’s forces could finish it off? Rook still had the lyrium dagger. That was the only thing that could kill Elgar’nan, as it had Ghilan’nain. Then the Veil would come down. Solas wouldn’t need to be around for that, even if he originally planned to limit the damage his ritual would cause. No, he was too prideful to let Elgar’nan have his way. No doubt he would pretend to give himself up to get her to safety and then cleverly escape with some kind of trick. What, she didn’t know. She had only seen a fraction of what he was capable of.

But maybe she could try a trick of her own. These Blight tendrils prevented her from moving, but the Veil was as thin as paper up here. As Elgar’nan and Solas bargained for her life, she opened herself to the Fade. The magic flooded into her like the waters of a bursting dam. With it came the chorus of demons tempting her with the power they could offer.

“I can free you from this trap.”

“I can give you the power you need to end Elgar’nan’s life.”

“Don’t you want to reunite with your long lost love? I could remove all the obstacles in your way and give you the happy ending you’ve always wanted.”

She closed her eyes tightly and blocked out the voices yet again, focusing instead on her own power. The air was already charged with magical energy, she just needed to mold it to her will. Storm clouds gathered, invisible against the darkness the eclipse had conjured. Ellana’s eyes snapped open, glowing a soft lilac color, as static electricity lifted her hair and an errant strike of lightning crashed into Elgar’nan’s chest. The force was enough to send him flying back into the throne, snapping it in half, and propelling him clear across the room. Solas, too, was sent careening backwards, but he caught himself before completely toppling over. The flash of lightning was so bright it momentarily blinded the archdemon, causing it to back into the hole in the wall it came from and nearly fall off the palace.

The blighted tendrils, sensing no command from their master, loosened and flopped to the floor. Ellana landed on her feet, panting as she struggled to close the floodgates of magic coursing through her. Her gaze met Solas’s across the room.

“Vhenan,” he whispered, eyes filled with such pride and adoration it nearly burst from his chest. He began hastily limping towards her.

Ellana grinned back at him, happy, relieved tears shimmering in her own eyes before jumping off of the dais and sliding down a pile of rubble. As she landed, she shifted into the start of a jog.

THUNK.

She suddenly faltered as something hit her in the back. Her legs weren’t cooperating anymore for some reason. She tipped forward and then stumbled backwards, trying to move her legs through will alone. What was wrong? Why would she choose now to lose her courage when she was so close to reaching Solas? She looked his way and he was staring at her, face stricken, grief settling into his features. There was a new splash of blood on his face. Where did that come from?

Warmth trickled down the front of her shirt and she furrowed her brows in confusion at the sensation. When her gaze finally drifted down to investigate, she understood. The tip of a spear protruded out of her sternum, coated with her blood. She touched it with a trembling hand, as if not believing it was really there.

“No!” Solas shouted. He sounded farther away than he was. Despite his injuries, he was now sprinting towards her, his hand outstretched, the soft glow of healing magic wrapped around his palm. Ellana reached out to him, opening her mouth to say the words she longed to tell him, but only blood came out. Panic seized her and she choked out a sob, desperately gasping for air. Solas was nearly within reach, his fingertips mere inches from hers….

Until she was yanked backwards.

Solas’s momentum kept him barreling forward, tripping on his own feet when he caught air instead of her weight. He crashed to the ground, busting his chin open on the stone.

Elgar’nan stood above him on the dais, a smoking crater in his chest that was already sealing itself back up. His eyes burned with murderous rage and he dangled Ellana like a ragdoll out of reach of Solas.

“You can’t seem to keep a hold on your women,” he spat.

The tendril tossed Ellana off of the side of the palace like a bag of garbage. She caught Solas’s gaze for the last time and watched with horror the exact moment the light of hope died in his eyes.

I was …. so … close.

[evanhereonearth]

Ilaana thinks she knows, but she doesn’t.

She will.

From Halamshiral to Halamshiral, she traces the lines between the map of hints, learning, always learning. A stray word from Cole, her intuition strong enough to work out the impossible secret her love was hiding and instincts loud enough to scream that if his secret were simply names, he would have told her here.

From Halamshiral to Halamshiral.

“I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events,” from the mouth of Fen’Harel the night she lets an empress die for the genocide committed against an alienage.

Through the Temple of Mythal, through the whispers of the well, through Morrigan explaining the ancient elves to the ancient elves themselves, her love among them, through Crestwood when he walks away, through the second Breach and broken orbs, through her naked face where Mythal’s vallaslin once lay like spring green upon her skin, through Wisdom to Pride and back again, into the depths of the titan’s truth, through his silence in the blue glow of lyrium, through Ameridan and Telana dreaming, dreaming, searching, grieving.

From Halamshiral to Halamshiral, quiet whispers in the Inquisition as spies from outside trip over one another, no sign of Solas except what she senses in waking and in dreams, that there has to be more, and everything she has pieced together points to the veil.

“What would you have me do?”

“I would have had you trust me!”

She thinks she knows, but she doesn’t. She still doesn’t know. There is a difference between knowing and knowing, and she is still years off knowing.

“Let me help you, Solas.”

“I cannot do that to you, vhenan.”

“But you would do it to yourself? I cannot bear to think of you alone.”

“I walk the din’an shiral. There is only death on this journey. I would not have you see what I become.”

She thinks she knows. She will learn what she does not know.

But he also thinks he knows. He will learn too.

Banal nadas. Ar lath, ar lath, ar lath.

He takes her arm; he frees her from the Well’s compulsion, what remained after he broke the unwitting bondage of her vallaslin. She feels something different but does not understand what, not yet.

From Halamshiral to Halamshiral and then beyond. Into the depths of the Fade, seeking as he taught her to seek. Into the depths of the earth, seeking as he feared she would seek. Into the depths of her heart, seeking a truth he dared not seek himself.

Echoes of a dead empire.

Spirits who know his names.

Memories. Remnants.

Those she does not trust fall away. Varric she lets return to Kirkwall, where she visits, pushing at the edges of his stubbornness where she can, fruitless against what he feels to be true about the world. Vivienne she keeps as close as an enemy should be, Vivienne who front-loads her barriers and calls Cole a demon because she understands so little in her expertise. Sera she helps flit away, never challenging, never letting closer than a prank or two.

Cullen, she treats with gentleness. She helps him with his templars, teaches them a softer side of magic, how to breathe through their fear, why their blood sings out for connection to something they don’t understand, how they can find that connection in transcending the terror. Tiny challenges, chips in the bulwark of the Chantry’s prison of lyrium, slow healing with the hand of a friend between their shoulder blades.

The Seekers sow new seeds with Cassandra, and she helps them, too. Helps them understand that their existence is intrinsically touched by the Fade, that their discipline and their training circumvents the fears of the templars to remake them, shows them that their incorruptibility is built upon the foundation of spirits who are and always have been here to help.

She sends Thom on with grace, receives a griffon feather in a letter, closes her eyes against the knowledge of the Wardens’ weaknesses and prays that little feather is a symbol of rebirth.

She seeks from Amaranthine to the Anderfels, from the Avvar to Antiva, and she finds out, crumb by crumb and step by step, what she didn’t know in Crestwood. What she didn’t know the day the Anchor almost killed her.

Cole comes to her to say goodbye, lets her see him back to the Fade. “I need to go where I’m needed the most,” he says, and she knows who he means and sends him with a message in the form of Compassion.

She shares this only with Merrill and Leliana and Dorian, and that only reluctantly. Trust grows with their sharing of knowledge. A circle within the inner circle, and when the Iron Bull can no longer tolerate Dorian’s growing trials in Tevinter, Dorian lets him go with the Chargers, to a simpler life without the Qun but without fear of what may be coming next. She holds Dorian while he weeps, as he has held her so many times.

They walk this path together.

Josephine connects her to places her remaining hand could not otherwise reach, annals and archives locked behind luxury and privilege. Josie knows there is much she herself does not know, but the Inquisitor is an arrow fired from a bowstring stretched between two points in time at Halamshiral, and while Josie may not understand, something in her whispers that she must trust.

The Dalish feel so distant to Ilaana now, but she goes to them. She goes to Keeper Hawen in the Exalted Plains, to Keeper Deshanna and Clan Lavellan, to the Arlathvhen and gathered clans, to the Dalish who have faded into forests. She shares what she can, knowledge gleaned from walking the Fade just as he did in the Inquisition. Some chase her away as she tells them the truth of their gods, sometimes with words, sometimes with arrows.

But some listen.

Whispers reach her over the years of some few vanishing, of ventures into Arlathan Forest, of villages.

And that is where Morrigan finds her.

Like Ilaana, Morrigan has been humbled by learning she did not know what she was sure she knew.

“You were justified in making me the fool,” Morrigan says to her one night as they observe the fledgling Veil Jumpers, unseen by the elves. “And you were justified in demanding the Well.”

Morrigan is…more now. A fragment of Mythal. She tries once to compel Ilaana, at Ilaana’s bidding, and fails. Ilaana’s triumph feels hollow, regardless of the relief.

“Fen’Harel was adept at breaking every bond but his own,” Morrigan murmurs. “But to be certain your will is your own, allow me to release you from my service.”

There is nothing left to release, but in that moment, Ilaana finds another ally.

“I would not see him fall,” Morrigan tells her softly. “’Tis monstrous to mould Wisdom into a weapon. I have her memories, tempered by lives lived through a human lens. I would make what amends I can.”

She is beginning to know.

The moment of epiphany comes on the back of betrayal, as it so often does.

Precious possibilities stolen from her soul, Solas all but lost in an instant, and oh, what follows is knowledge.

She walks the trail of the Evanuris, released rabid from their prison, watches the monsters they leave in their wake. She watches as an unrelenting nightmare blooms in blight from Arlathan to Antiva and beyond, and she cannot stay her hand.

Ten years of searching, seeking, learning. Ten years of quiet coded messages, of desperate trust, of Dorian and Leliana and Morrigan and Merrill and Hawke. Ten years of rebuilding Ferelden, Orlais, the Free Marches. Ten years of midwifing the birth of elven rights and free mages. Ten years of defending those left defenceless while powers parade about in privilege and audacity. Ten years of learning, living, bleeding.

Ten years of messages left in the Fade for one who will find them, in hope he would hear them. Ten years of trying. Ten years of deciding. Ten years of indomitable focus.

And now…ruin.

Rivers roiling with blight, Antaam and Venatori making a mockery of the red lyrium fever dream Corypheus brought to Redcliffe: a real nightmare is born when the blight takes Denerim. Hard-won recover bashed to bits against boils of poison and death. The healing herbs of the Hinterlands she once gathered for refugees wither where nowt will grow again.

Ten years of fighting for the people of this world turned to ash in a matter of weeks.

Ten minutes of fidgeting, waiting for the person who loosed it on the world to wade into a truth she’s waited ten years to tell. Dorian held her again, held her together, preparing to let her go even now but holding her close just a little longer. He has been beside her, always. He knows.

So she sits down with Rook to talk, to sow seeds of hope. Not to shame, not to blame—those impulses, Ilaana keeps locked away. She dances around the topic as if tiptoeing, watching Rook’s amusement turn to genuine surprise at Ilaana’s words.

“Or maybe I’m the prideful one, imagining his broken heart so that I never have to face my folly: that I loved someone who made such grave mistakes. That I may love him still.”

Twisting her words like he does, the truth twining between hedging phrases that bury the ache of her bone-deep exhaustion. She will save this world first, clean up someone else’s mess yet again, but now…only now does she finally know.

Why he walked away. Why following had to be her will and hers alone. Why he would not do such a thing to his heart, to allow her to follow when she did not know what she does now.

So she fights. And she waits. For a little while longer.

To show him she is not alone. To show him he is not alone. Ten years for her to hear the truth in what he told her once.

“If you are cracking, vhenan, it is does not mean you are about to shatter, but that you are about to be reborn.”

[captainderyn]

!!! Don't mind if I do!! 💕 a kiss somewhere other than the lips & ship of your choice? :3

I may have um...accidentally used this as an ingredient in Angst Soup for an idea I've had kicking around *sweats* hope that's okay.

Baraneth/Alistair -- Set during Trespasser (9:44 Dragon). Spoiler(ish) for a codex entry regarding Denerim.

💕 a kiss somewhere other than the lips 

--

Leaving years of crisis behind would have been too easy. 

The Breach in the sky closing, the Inquisition stepping back from both Ferelden and Orlais borders, the calming of the mage-templar conflict; all were things that made it seem as though Baraneth and Alistair could finally step back for a moment and breath. 

Through years of work they had finally stabilized the Bannorn enough to partially step away, enough trust and rapport built that Arl Teagan could make the journey to speak on Ferelden’s behalf at the Exalted Council in Halamshiral  instead of one of them making the journey. 

That was before the barrels of gaatlok were found packed in the cellars of Denerim’s castle, primed to go off at any time. 

That was before Baraneth and their almost two year old daughter spent a fretful night in one of their staff’s homes on the outskirts of Denerim under heavy guard, while Alistair rode about like a madman, evacuating the castle and all surrounding residences. 

By dawn a raven, dated just over a week prior, arrived with news of a qunari plot, being handled by the Inquisition. Within the hour, Alistair sent a return raven with two scrolls--one for Leliana and one for addressed to an agent of theirs with an offer for the Inquisitor alternative to what Teagan was pushing for. 

Midmorning came and went, and with it a packed carriage in front of the lady in waiting’s residence that Baraneth and Eleanor had overnighted in. 

Baraneth hurried from the doorway as quickly as her heavily pregnant self would allow her to maneuver. Her lady in waiting, Mara, followed close behind with Eleanor, wrapped tightly in a blanket against the chill in the air. 

“Alistair!” Baraneth threw her arms around him, and it took all of his remaining energy to not not collapse into her touch. His heart hadn’t left his throat since the previous evening, when dinner had been interrupted by their staff finding the gaatlok, “You didn’t return last night, I was worried sick.” 

He pressed a long kiss to her forehead, hands resting on either side of her neck so he could run his thumbs along her jaw. 

“Everything was, and is, quite a mess. Someone had to keep the people and Bannorn from stampeding." He tried to joke, but his own voice fell flat. Maybe once he could have spun this sort of situation into a web of humor, but it became harder and harder with each new trouble that appeared. 

Baraneth let out a tired sigh, “I’m surprised people even react anymore. What’s to be done? Mara already said she'd be willing to keep Eleanor here for a while.”

He was silent for a moment, caressing her jaw as he moved to rest his chin atop Baraneth’s head. He fixed his eyes on Eleanor, hardly more than a thick head of dark hair as she burrowed into her blanket, still asleep. Mornings had never been her favorite time, not even in the months most people claimed their infants had woken them at dawn. Two years in and some things didn’t change. His heart twisted. 

At a slight nod from him, Mara disappeared back inside with Eleanor, letting the door click softly behind her. 

“Alistair?” Baraneth’s hands splayed across his chest as she pushed back from him, brows knitting. “What are you thinking?” 

He brushed Baraneth’s hair back from her forehead from where she’d pressed against his shoulder, running his hand down the length of her braid and flicking it over her shoulder. Stalling. The horses behind him snorted, jangling their harness. 

“I think while this is being handled is a good time to take Fergus up on his offer to stay with him and Elysande in Highever.” he nodded back towards the carriage. “I got it all packed and ready to go in the overnight hours.” 

Her eyes flicked to the carriage, then back to him. 

“Yes…” she began slowly, hands beginning to twist in the fabric of his jacket. “We had spoken about spending time in Highever, hadn’t we?” 

Alistair let his hands settle on Baraneth’s hips, settling just below the swell of her belly. She brought one hand down to rest upon it, in the spot their daughter had taken to kicking with all the intensity of a training Antivan Crow. Her eyes searched his, her lower lip beginning to tremble. 

“We’re all going.” she said, very deliberately. “All of us.” 

“I will meet you there.” Alistair soothed. “As soon as I get things stabilized here.” 

A few tears slid down Baraneth’s cheeks and she ripped one hand up to flick them away. 

“We’re staying.” She insisted, chest heaving as she sucked in a breath. “We’re all staying together.” 

The last thing he wanted was to be separate from her, after the two years she’d been gone searching for the Cure he had done everything in his power to keep them that way. But he would not lose his wife, his daughter, their baby, to a scheme they didn’t know the depths of. 

“It’s a ten day carriage ride, by the time you get there I’ll already be on my way.” he tried to keep his own voice from betraying how badly he wished to hop in the carriage with her. “Bara, I need to keep you all safe.” 

Her tears fell harder, the hand twisted in his jacket pressing where they both knew a scar rested at the junction of his chest and shoulder from the last time fanatics had thought about stripping Ferelden of its rulers. 

“The baby is due any time now.” Baraneth gasped out the words. “I need you there.” 

“Elysande will be there if anything goes wrong. I'll only be a few days behind you, I promise." Alistair brushed her tears away, meeting her agonized look. "It's going to be alright, Bara."

She stared at him, pressing her lips together.

"Please." He murmured. "I need to know you are safe."

She squeezed her eyes closed, but nodded.

"You come home to us as fast as you can." She opened her eyes, which still brimmed. But her tears halted, for the moment. "Promise me. Alistair."

He held her tight to his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"As fast as a horse can carry me, I promise."