#something something lavellan and solas foil each other

[telanadasvhenan]

hey there cole whats goin on buddy

[errata98]

Fanfiction I Read in 2020 

I didn’t realize how long this post was going to be until I was about halfway through. And it still is not even close to exhaustive. 

Soo, while 2020 has been such a tumultuous year one great thing about this time in my life is that I’ve had more time than ever to read. I am always so blown away by how much talent there is in fanfiction, so big, big thank you to all the writers that share their work and for whisking me away from real life into something far more pleasurable. It definitely makes my whole day when a fic I love has been updated, and I enjoy catching glimpses of rough drafts and the writing process via tumblr (I’m still trying to understand how their galaxy brains even work lolol). 

It’s long, but I am not putting it under a cut! They’re too good!

Long Fics (>= 50k words)

Roses From Where Thorns Grow by @bdafic​ [incomplete]- I started this a while ago, must have lost track of it, and then found it again this summer. Feels weird to type because this is not really me irl lol but accidental pregnancy fics are one of my favorites kinds of fics. Papa Solas is amazing. Somewhere, I once tagged something with ‘solas dad best dad’ and I think that probably sums up my feelings on the matter. The last chapter I read has left me anxious for more, so I’m eagerly awaiting what will likely be the first chapter posted in 2021. 

Ruins by @luzial [incomplete] - A real story of a couple who broke up, fought each other for twenty years, got sent back in time, and are now trying to make things work again ;) Lavellan here is older and wiser in all the ways that matter, and Solas is... well Solas in many ways is everything we wish he would (and could) be now. Had the most wonderful realization that I somehow missed the last chapter that apparently came out on my birthday, so I know what I’ll be doing later.

Fen’Harel’s Teeth by @5lazarus​  [incomplete] - the conversations in this fic are one of my favorite parts. They’re in character, but they’re also just interesting to read. The words just fly across the page -- it’s smooth, seamless, pithy. I love politics and I love a main character who has her wits about her -- both are in this fic. Also features fatherly!Solas, which I just adore.

By the Still Waters by [orphan account]. This is older, but I knew it was popular so I gave it a shot and... yes, I understand now. I loved reading something from Fenris’ perspective. I loved how he’s a foil for Solas. I love seeing Lavellan as this near mythical person because we see everything through Fenris’ eyes. I love Hawke and Fenris together. Merrill also featured more heavily than I anticipated and she had some of the best lines I’ve ever read.

Pressure Point by 17734 [incomplete] - this fic leaves me constantly unsettled (in the best, most addictive, under-your-skin kind of way). I’ve read the first 18 or so chapters twice, and it’s one of those stories that’s slightly different the second time you read it. I really like the author’s take on immortal beings, some of it is very reminiscent of some of the Greek mythology I read in school - characters are at turns both magnificent and terrifying. The language is also very beautiful, and I’m a sucker for anything close to prosaic. 

Out of Time by destinies - so, I don’t know how I found this beyond just “Twitter.” This isn’t Dragon Age related -- it’s from The Greisha Trilogy, which I had never heard of before -- something just told me I would really like this story. Forced/political marriages’, memory loss, enemies to lovers, the dichotomy between light and dark embodied by a single couple... yes, thank you. I had to kind of piece the world together as I read, which was admittedly a lot of fun, and um... wow, I really loved this! Another one of my ‘binged in a single night’ fics.  

Message Sent by @aicosu [incomplete]- this is coincidentally how I got my former partner into Dragon Age lol. I had originally read it the first time as it was coming out. The second time I read it aloud to them over the course of a few days, feeling very much like Cassandra trying to do certain character’s voices. It reminded me of how much I loved it, and so I feel like it deserves a mention here. Definitely an unorthodox but memorable way of cursing someone with being emotionally invested in the Solavellan romance 

Short Fics (< 50k words)

nothing on my tongue by @ellstersmash - the chapters here are short, and I loved seeing the fic updated put of order. This was my first time experiencing that, and I loved guessing where we were in the in-game timeline, and also, as more chapters were posted, which chapter numbers were still missing and therefore what the missing chapters might be about. I associate this fic with feeling kind of melancholy a lot. I think the word constraints really lent itself well to the Solavallen romance -- beautiful and poignant, but always leaving me wanting more.

In and Out of Time Again by @luzial - hoo boy did I have a fun time reading this one. I actually rarely go for AU’s this “AU”, but I trusted this author, and it paid off. In fact, I think I subconsciously had more doubts than I thought because what started a curious perusal ended in one of those “up until 3 am reading” kind of nights. It was such a fast-paced, interesting read, I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Ink is one of my favorite Lavellans; she’s just too cool.

The Fourth Day by sass_bot (@knightava) [incomplete] - this was just such a perfect example of how to build tension and dread for the reader, that I still think about it frequently. Also, who wouldn’t love a Skyhold murder mystery?

Beyond the Veil by Pyreite [incomplete] - A 200 years post-Veil fic. Abelas is in it, which is how I knew it was gonna be good hehe. I really like the world-building, and I like explorations of the romance with a more hardened Lavellan. 

I Come to You With Nothing by CommonEvilMasterMind. I’ll preface this by writing that this made me cry with a mixture of sorrow and happiness. The premise is an undercover mission in an alienage which involves Solas and Ellana masquerading as a married couple. It’s beautifully written, and just honestly kind of bittersweet. The writing is itself very touching but I also think it’s almost difficult to read because the Solavellan romance has an arc that looks like it’s just exponentially deviating from anything remotely happy lolol 

That Girl Is Like A Sunburn by @yourstrulycommandershepard - I just discovered this person’s writing this year and I’m kind of obsessed? I went on a whole binge this past summer and *fans self*. I picked this one for my list because I haven’t read that many Solas/Trevelyan fics, and hers are by far some of my favorites. I also love that the titles of some of her fics are Taylor Swift lyrics. I get Solavellan vibes from so many of Taylor’s songs - glad it’s not just me!

Aravel by @playwithdinos - More Papa Solas. I can’t say anything more than it hit me right in the vhenan. 

Wake Up by queenofkadara (@pikapeppa) - One of those fics I thought about for days afterward. The characterization was incredible, and it hurt me to read about Varric brining up Lavellan and seeing Solas’ reaction, and it hurt even more to be left wanting for more, just like Solas. 

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Fandom 5K Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Dragon Age | Fullmetal Alchemist | The Locked Tomb | Motherland: Fort Salem | Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; infidelity; unrequested polyamory; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.

—

Fandom: Dragon Age

Character(s):

Group: Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Lavellan

Female Lavellan

Group: Charter & Rector

Genre(s):

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Action/Adventure

Worldbuilding

Established Relationship

Mystery/Procedural

I'm playing this game for the first time and loving Cassandra and Lavellan together so much. (I'm playing with a mod where I can romance her with a female PC!) Lavellan starts off as this confused and small and non-Andrastian prisoner who disagrees with Cassandra on so many things, but Cassandra puts so much trust and faith in her and so much on the line for her - even with Lavellans who are adamant that they're not chosen, they're just doing their best and they happen to be the ones in the position to make this choice. Cassandra is so proud to know her, and backs her up even when she disagrees with Lavellan's choices! The romance scene is really cute between two characters who are adults and have a day-to-day working relationship that isn't going to change, but are still just having fun with how charming it is in a way that builds on their friendship. Not to mention their battling together, of course - the ways they can protect each other and fight for each other's goals (and give Cassandra all the elven swords and shields), how worried they sound if the other one gets hurt...whoops, I found myself another loyalty kink ship.

I also just like playing as Lavellan generally, with how much of an outsider she feels (the "Dawn Will Come" scene is so alienating! it really works!) and how much of the game is about visiting the sites of past elven trauma and/or glory days.

My Lavellan uses the (default lol) name of Ellana, is a rift mage, sports a lovely buzzcut and vallaslin, has a lot of feelings about elf history (and visiting the Plains/Graves especially), believes in elven gods and doesn't care to pretend she's Andrastian, and besides Cass is closest friends with Solas, but don't feel that you have to write my specific PC - I'm excited to read about yours too!

But! I also love all the little hints about the work that Leliana's agents are doing, and their friendship (walking in on their card game at Caer Bronach is kind of delightful), and the letter from Rector's mother asking why he uses a code name for work (why are you ashamed of your name, Wilbur??) is one of my favorite in-universe documents. Slice-of-life or slice-of-mission with Charter and Rector would also make me really happy. Here again, just the closeness and trust and faith that these people have in one another is my jam.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Canon-typical levels of Cassandra's association with the Chantry and belief in the Maker/Andraste/the Herald shouldn't be taken to contravene my DNW of Christian themes, but I wouldn't want Satinalia fic or something focused on the Andrastian faith. Please don't put F!Lavellan in a different romance, even if we didn't match on the Cassandra ship.

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Character(s):

Group: Olivier Mira Armstrong/Maria Ross

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Getting Together

I'll admit: I am a shallow, shallow person who loves the heartwarming and id-satisfying Briggs loyalty-kink complex (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting! Olivier’s explanation of why she wants Miles around and her lack of patience for anyone’s shit) but would like an f/f manifestation of it for actual shipping. Post-canon or AU where Maria is assigned to Briggs, or works for Olivier in Central? Does Maria foil a plot against Olivier, or Olivier save Maria's life in battle? Does Olivier order Maria into a firefight? Hit me.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Olivier/men, even mentioned.

—

Fandom: The Locked Tomb

Character(s):

Matthias Nonius

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Fantasy

Nonius was one of my favorite new characters in Harrow the Ninth. His whole impossible arrival via evocation-by-poetry, battle with the Sleeper, and epic departure to fight the Beast made me very, very happy on levels I have trouble explaining. It was so heartwarming?! Because it was impossible, and because poetry won, and because they went off to do the best they could...I don't know, exactly. (Iiiii also just love that he's named for the Redwall mouse.) I'd love to read more about his life - being unprepossessing and very human but also paladin-like and really fucking good at being a swordsman, representing the Ninth House in slightly less decrepit times, his mysterious past with Gideon the First (and Pyrrha, sort of), however it happened that he died far from home in an unknown place and couldn't be recovered for burial, "chickenshits don't get beer"? Or, er, his afterlife - going to fight with Marta, Ortus, and Pro, re-encountering G1deon as allies...

—

Fandom: Motherland: Fort Salem

Character(s):

Group: Abigail Bellweather/Raelle Collar

Original Historical Witch Character(s)

Group: Sarah Alder & First Bellweather Ancestor

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Mystery/Procedural

Worldbuilding

I fell hard for this show and Abigail/Raelle is the ship I’m most excited about - they get off to a bad start for all kinds of personal history reasons and have problems with each other, but when it gets down to the wire Abigail would do anything for Raelle and is very gung-ho about having Raelle’s unconventional but extremely powerful magic under her leadership, regardless of Raelle being a loose cannon. She told her she loved her!! <3 And by the end, Raelle also clearly knows what Abigail's going through (like when she talks her down in "Citydrop"), respects her leadership, and cares deeply about her and wants to protect her in return. I love that loyalty dynamic, and their competence as fighters/witches.

Physical combat, strength in general, magical strength, ability to work magic together, knowledge of the magical canon vs. out-of-the-box techniques...what parts of their skills and their bond could be challenged in the weird dimension that the end of season 1 leaves them in? Or when they get back home and new challenges await? (In my head, the decision not to send them to War College is not revoked; the unit becomes some kind of special-forces secret strike team rather than cannon fodder.) Maybe something where Raelle goes/has gone into a fight as a berserker-type for Abigail and then comes back to her, or where Abigail protects/has protected her soldier (her girl!! I love her protectiveness of Raelle towards the other cadets, imagine it in a battle!)? Or an arranged marriage AU where it's usual for witch soldiers to marry to combine their magic power or something...If including smut in the story, I'd especially be up for something d/s-y where the loyalty-kinky dynamic of Raelle being Abigail's weapon, at her command, is echoed in sex!

OR. The alternate history that the show has created is so interesting and I'm craving expansion of that through fic! Tell me about the Bellweather ancestor who was a slave and ended up powerful and influential enough to begin a dynasty, and how she met and was recruited by Alder. Or other enslaved witches, witches in the American Revolution or the Civil War, or the founding of Fort Salem and standardization of American military magic with its various influences, or Chinese or Jewish or Mexican immigrant witches who maybe came from different magic traditions and might have had to make the choice of whether or not to reveal that they had magic (if the system knows you because of your descent in the country?), serving their country but also binding their daughters and granddaughters forever.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Abigail/Adil (at all; if he's mentioned, please make them just friends), focus on Raelle/Scylla (dwelling on Raelle still having feelings for Scylla or on her getting over Scylla for Abigail; you don't need to retcon their having been together), Scylla bashing.

—

Fandom: Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

Character(s):

Chaye Roznatovsky

Demon

Genre(s):

Fantasy

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Worldbuilding

Anything expanding on this story would make me really happy. Chaye’s years with the partisans, the comrades-in-arms she had and loved then and who else’s memory she holds or makes into a weapon, her journey to America, going by the surname of “no one.” The demon’s mirror world, its loss of that world (what exactly happened on the other side?) and its need to be where Jews are, demon Judaism? Or the future of both of them now that they’ve found each other!

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: DNW Chaye/demon. The premise of the story being what it is, I'm explicitly okay with antisemitism being a prominent feature of the story if you write something that covers either or both characters' backstory, but would prefer post-war antisemitism not to be a focus.

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan: Enansal’in

Chap 3 of The Love That Grows From Violence (Felassan x Tamaris Lavellan) has been up on AO3 for a few days but I slacked off and didn’t cross-post here, OHP.

As per FenxShiral on AO3,  ‘Enansal'in’ means ‘comfort or healing, specifically after great pain or loss’. I imagine that this is analogous to saying ‘santé’ in French.

~4700 words; read here on AO3. 

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

Felassan lifted a slice of cheese from his plate and sniffed it delicately before taking a bite. He chewed slowly, and his expression shifted from pensive to approving as he swallowed the cheese.

Then he took another leisurely bite.

Tamaris stared flatly at him. “Well?” she said. “Are you going to tell me where your name came from or not?”

He blinked at her. “Eager for stories now, are we?”

She lifted one eyebrow, and he smirked and popped the rest of the cheese in his mouth. “All right,” he said. “The story is this: there once was a village who pled with Fen’Harel to come and aid them by killing a great beast. When Fen’Harel arrived and laid eyes on the beast, he knew that he could not slay it. So instead of fighting the beast, he shot a single arrow into the sky. The village elders asked how the arrow would save them, to which Fen’Harel replied: ‘When did I say that I would save you?’” Felassan took a bite of bread and chewed for a moment before continuing his tale. “Fen’Harel left the village, and that very night, the great beast came and killed the elders and the warriors and the women. It stalked toward the children with its slavering jaws wide… and that is when Fen’Harel’s arrow fell from the sky into the great beast’s open maw, killing it outright.” He leaned his elbows on the table and selected another piece of cheese. “The children wept for their elders, and yet they still offered thanks to Fen’Harel, for he had done as they had asked: he had slain the great beast with his cunning, and with a slow arrow that the beast never saw coming.”

Tamaris studied him silently as she considered his tale. There was a shit ton of information there to unpack. There was the story itself, of course; how much of it was based in the truth, and how much of it had been twisted and plumped up into a parable? More personally, though, the story was interesting for the context of the slow arrow within it. If Felassan had named himself after this parable, then he was calling himself Fen’Harel’s hidden weapon, so to speak. 

Was this how Felassan and Solas knew each other, then? Did Felassan used to be one of Solas’s agents?

She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “All right. That’s the children’s story version. Now tell me what really happened.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

“Tell me why you really chose that name,” Tamaris said. “Who were you to him?”

A slow smile lit his face. “That depends on when you mean. Even those of you who live shorter lives see your roles change over time. I might ask you the same question, after all.” He lifted his chin appraisingly. “Who were you to him?”

Vhenan. My heart. Solas’s tender voice intruded in her mind, and she scowled. “We aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you,” she said, and she took a sip of cider.

He chuckled. “You’re quite the interrogator. Living up to your title, I suppose.”

“That’s not my title anymore,” she said. “And you’re being evasive. Why bother?”

He tilted his head quizzically, and she waved impatiently at him. “Why bother trying to talk circles around me? I know the truth now. I know who he is. I know you’re from his time. Why are you bothering to hide anything?”

He studied her for a long moment, then smirked and leaned back casually in his chair. “Call it force of habit.”

Tamaris raised her eyebrows expectantly, and Felassan shrugged. “I was a spy. A gatherer of secrets and information.” He elegantly waved one hand. “Subterfuge and sneaking, mostly, but charm as well when it was called for. Which was… often, at some points.”

Tamaris nodded slowly. It sounded like he was a bard, or whatever the Elvhen equivalent of that would have been. “A trusted spy, I assume,” she said.

He shrugged again and toyed idly with another piece of cheese. “As trusted a spy as any.”

“Come on, don’t be coy,” Tamaris said. “You must have been a real threat to him if he deemed it necessary to neutralize you.”

Felassan laughed softly. “Not quite. I had already foiled him by the time he made me Tranquil.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What? Wait. You – you actually fucked up some of his plans?”

“I did indeed,” he said. “And it was completely unplanned to boot!” He let out a happy little sigh. “Last-minute betrayals are the most piquant kind, don’t you think?” 

His smile was cheeky, but Tamaris didn’t laugh. Something about the levity of his tone made her realize the weight of what he was about to tell her. 

“What happened?” she asked quietly. 

Felassan tapped the plate for a moment, then picked up a piece of bread and took a bite. Tamaris waited patiently while he chewed, but when he finally spoke, it was to change the subject. “Why did you raise Briala to power?” he asked.

Tamaris raised an eyebrow at the non-sequitur, but she decided to go with it. It was clearly the only way she was going to get him talking. 

She shrugged and folded her arms. “She was the only one who was trying to help people,” she said. “Celene and Gaspard…” She tsked in disdain. “To them, the civil war was a pissing contest. They had soldiers dying in the Exalted Plains while they squabbled over the throne. Briala actually wanted to make things better for our people.”

“‘Our’ people, you say,” Felassan said thoughtfully. “You consider Briala to be ‘your’ people?”

Tamaris rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you subscribe to Solas’s ‘I don’t identify with elves’ bullshit.”

He grinned. “I ask because I’m surprised you don’t subscribe to it. You’re Dalish, aren’t you?”

“All Dalish are not the same,” she said in a hard voice. “I don’t know what fucking Dalish clans you and Solas talked to, but my clan would happily take in refugees from the city whenever they came across us.”

“And that’s why you supported Briala?” Felassan said. “Because she was helping the elves?”

“I supported her because she wasn’t full of shit,” Tamaris said in annoyance. “She actually showed up to help us kill the assassins who were attacking her people. It’s more than either Celene or Gaspard could say.”

“And what about Celene, since you mentioned her?” he said. “She was once known as quite the diplomat.”

“‘Diplomat’,” Tamaris sneered. “That’s such a two-sided term. A good diplomat acts as a bridge between people. A corrupt one uses their silver tongue to maintain the status quo, and I know which kind Celene was.” She leaned toward Felassan. “I might be Dalish, but I don’t have fucking dirt in my ears. I know about the purge of the Halamshiral alienage. There’s no justifying that.” She took another gulp of cider, then offered him the bottle.

He took the cider, but instead of drinking it, he just sat there studying her with that infuriating little curl of a smile. 

She gave him a chiding look. “Make a painting. It’ll last longer.”

He laughed, and Tamaris folded her arms. “Are you going to tell me what happened now? How you spoiled Solas’s plans?”

“I believe I will, yes,” he said pleasantly. He took a drink from the bottle of cider, then placed it back on the table. “I’ll start by telling you I have been awake in this world for… nearly as long as you have been alive, I would say.” He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “How old are you? Twenty-six, perhaps?”

She scoffed. “I’m thirty-two, if you must know.”

“Ah,” Felassan said. “Sorry about that; I’m abysmal at guessing ages. In any case, I’ve been wandering these lands for about twenty-five years. Learning the lay of the land, figuring out the ways of the various people who live here and so on. When I was here for… oh, about five years, I met a scared elven girl running away from Halamshiral. I persuaded her to fight against the status quo instead of running from it, and she became my…” He snapped his fingers as though to jog his memory. “What is that Orlesian word? Ah yes. My protégée, so to speak. We met sporadically as the years went on, but in that time, she…” He trailed off and shook his head, and when he raised his eyes to Tamaris’s face again, his expression was serious. “She was a rabbit when we met. And I know how much your people – modern elves, I should say – I know how much you hate that term. But when we met, that is what she was.” He crossed one ankle over his knee and trailed his fingers idly over the bottle of cider. “As the years wore on, though, she became a wolf. A wolf in her own right.” He smiled slowly, and Tamaris’s heart skipped a beat; there was something rather wolfish in Felassan’s face now.

“She became a wolf in rabbit’s clothing,” Felassan said, “working in the heart of Halamshiral.”

Tamaris’s belly jolted in recognition. “You mean Briala,” she said dumbly. “That’s why you were asking about her. Briala was your protégée? You turned her into a spymaster?”

“I would claim no such thing,” Felassan said. “I simply gave her the tools to unleash who she really is and what she’s capable of.” He gave her an arch look. “You met her. Would you deny that she’s a force to be reckoned with?”

“No,” Tamaris said. “But…” She trailed off and stared hard at him. “Did she know who you really were? That you were an agent of the Dread Wolf?”

Felassan slowly shook his head. “She had her suspicions that I was not what I seemed. She confronted me about it, in fact,” he added with a smile. “But… no. I never told her outright that I was an agent of the Dread Wolf.”

“But you taught her about him,” Tamaris said.

“I did indeed,” Felassan said. He chuckled. “I taught her about him, helped shape her into someone he would be proud of… and I betrayed him for her sake.”

“In what way?” Tamaris asked.

He took another sip of cider before speaking. “About two years before your Inquisition was formed, Fen’Harel gifted me with a special job: to obtain a keystone that would allow him to take full control of the eluvians.”

Control over the eluvians? Her jaw dropped, and Felassan smiled. “I see that you know something of this already,” he said dryly.

“You’re… he mentioned you,” she said. “When I saw him last. He said that he had an agent who was supposed to take control of the eluvians from Briala…” She shook her head. A weird sense of vertigo was stealing over her at the coincidence of this. 

“It was you,” she said blankly. “You’re the agent who didn’t succeed.”

Felassan laughed. “‘Didn’t succeed’. Are those the words he used? How very neutral of him.”

Tamaris held up a hand. “So you’re telling me you purposely went against his orders? You didn’t want him to have control of the eluvians?”

“I wanted Briala to have them,” he said. “I wanted…” He sighed and ran his palm over his neatly bound hair. “She deserved a chance. A chance at a rebellion of her own. I simply gave that to her – or rather, I didn’t take it away from her.”

Tamaris’s mind was churning. “So Briala had control over the eluvians,” she said slowly. “Or some of them, at least. You were supposed to take control from her, but you didn’t. And that’s why Solas made you Tranquil?”

“In fairness, I’m sure that making me Tranquil was a mistake on his part,” Felassan said. “He certainly intended to kill me. Fen’Harel can’t tolerate betrayal, you see.” He huffed in amusement. “When I woke up, I would have been surprised about being alive if I’d been capable of it.” 

Tamaris frowned. Despite the macabre topic of conversation, his smile was only growing wider.

He let out a sudden snort of laughter. “If I’d been capable of it,” he said drolly. “It’s – it’s humorous, you see, because I was…” He snorted again. “I was Tranquil. I couldn’t feel surprise. I felt nothing. I–” He broke off with another burst of laughter, and all of a sudden he was laughing in earnest – a rolling belly laugh that was making his cheeks turn pink with mirth.

Tamaris watched him warily. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Solas had taken possession of the eluvians from Briala, but her words were overshadowed by concern as Felassan continued to laugh in an oddly uncontrolled way. 

He was laughing so hard now that there were tears in his eyes. He sobbed suddenly, then burst out laughing again and slapped his palm on the table. “He meant to kill me,” he gasped. “He t-tried to kill me, but he was too late. I was the–” He hiccuped, and a rivulet of tears ran down his face. Then another storm of laughter burst from his lips. 

Tamaris’s heart rate kicked up. This was the volatility that he and Evangeline had been talking about – the emotional lability that accompanied the curing of Tranquility. 

Felassan clutched his stomach and gasped in a breath. “I was the slow arrow,” he rasped. “He didn’t – he didn’t see me coming.” He grinned at Tamaris, and a fresh wave of tears ran down his cheeks. “I was the slow arrow, and he didn’t see me coming. But he b-broke me in the end.” He pounded his fist on the table and burst out laughing again, and Tamaris noted with alarm that his fist was smoking slightly. 

She shuffled her chair closer to him. “Felassan,” she said.

Another burst of mirth left his lips, but it sounded painful and breathless now, like it was being dragged form his belly by force. “That is my name, yes,” he wheezed. “That’s the n-name I chose…” He hiccuped again, and this time it sounded distinctly like a sob. 

“Felassan, look at me,” she said. 

“I am looking,” he said. “I’m always looking. I spy with my little eye… because I am a spy, you see. It’s very f-fitting–” He choked out another sob. His fists were both starting to glow like the embers of a fire, and face was twisted with a terrible mixture of mirth and distress. 

She shifted even closer until their knees were nearly touching. “Look at me,” she said, quietly but firmly. “Look at me, okay? Focus on me.” 

His reddened eyes rose to meet her green ones, and Tamaris nodded slowly without breaking his gaze. “Now breathe,” she said. “Just look at me and breathe. Focus on your breathing. In and out.” 

He drew a shaky, rasping breath, and Tamaris inhaled with him and nodded. “Now out,” she said.

He burst out another sobbing laugh, but Tamaris didn’t look away. “It’s okay,” she said gently. “It’s okay. Breathe in, now.”

Felassan gulped in another erratic breath, and she nodded. “See?” she said quietly. “You’re fine. Keep going.” She held out her hands. 

He clenched his jaw, then grabbed her hands roughly and let out a sharp breath, and Tamaris squeezed his hands and ignored the uncomfortable warmth of his magic-heated palm through her intact right hand. “Focus,” she said. “Focus right here, on my hands and on your breath.” 

He gripped her hands, and Tamaris gazed steadily at him while he breathed. His hands were so hot, like she was holding her own palms too close to a fire, and his eyes were still wet with tears. But the longer Tamaris gazed at him, the more his palms began to cool.  

They stayed like this for a few long minutes, Felassan breathing slowly and deeply while he stared into Tamaris’s unflinching eyes. When his palms had returned to a normal temperature, he took another deep breath and smiled at her. “Well, there you have it,” he said. “That’s the tale of the slow arrow. The beast didn’t see it coming, but he still broke it in the end.” He laughed again, but his laugh sounded less hysterical now and more like his usual self. “A fitting punishment, I suppose. It all ties up nicely, just the way a good story should.”

Tamaris frowned. “A fitting punishment? How do you figure?”

Felassan shrugged casually. “I betrayed the Dread Wolf. Of course he tried to kill me.”

She narrowed her eyes. Why was Felassan blaming himself for what Solas had done to him? “He’s hardly innocent,” she said. “He’s a traitor too. He betrayed the Inquisition.” He betrayed me, she thought bitterly. 

“So I’ve heard,” Felassan said quietly. 

His expression was sympathetic now. Tamaris pursed her lips and dropped her gaze to their joined hands, and they were both silent for a few moments. 

Then she realized that she was still holding his hands. 

She released him and awkwardly tapped her fingers on her knees. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Better?”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you. Truly.” 

Tamaris waved him off. “It’s nothing. No thanks needed,” she said. 

He nodded slowly, then picked up a half-eaten piece of bread and bit into it with more gusto than before, but as he ate, his violet eyes were tracing carefully over her face.

She could practically see the questions behind his eyes. She stood up abruptly. “You’re probably tired,” she said. “You should rest when you’re finished eating. You can have the second bedroom.” She headed for the stairs and made a beeline for the second bedroom, ostensibly to check that it was ready for guests, but in truth, she wanted a moment on her own.

She stepped into the bedroom — also decorated in a simple Free Marcher style, thank fuck — then gazed down at her palms. The metal left one was unmarred, the lyrium lines glowing faintly as they usually did, but her right palm was shiny and red like a sunburn thanks to Felassan’s uncontrolled magic. 

Doesn’t matter, she thought. What mattered was that Felassan was feeling calm and stable. 

Marin’s grinning face suddenly appeared in her mind’s eye. The unbidden thought of her brother sent a dull pang of timeworn pain through her chest, and she wearily ignored it. She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and focused on the feeble hum of magic in her blood. 

A minute later, her palm was healed. She let out a slow breath, then stepped out of the bedroom and made her way down the stairs. 

Felassan was standing by the fireplace, and there was a copper kettle hanging over the crackling fire. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I’m partial to a little tea before bed.” 

She grunted an acknowledgement and returned to her chair. “Suit yourself. This place is as much your home now as mine.”

He tilted his head quizzically, and she shrugged. “I only just moved in. I just arrived in Kirkwall this morning.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You must be exhausted too, then. You should have some of this.” He lifted the kettle from the fire and brought it over to the table where a porcelain teapot sat beside two teacups — all of them rimmed with fine gold plating, Tamaris noted with disgust.

She watched as he began pouring water into the teapot. “Not if I want to sleep. Tea and coffee keep me wired all night.”

“This tea certainly won’t,” he said.

His tone was oddly wry, and Tamaris shot him a little frown. “Why? What kind of tea is this?”

“It will stop you from dreaming,” Felassan replied.

Tamaris went still. For a split second, a flash of a memory crossed her mind: a memory of a dream that she had a few times a month — a dream about a large white wolf watching her from across an endless distance. 

A dream that she was able to avoid if she drank enough rum before falling asleep.

She swallowed hard. “I’ll have some. Thanks.”

He smirked at her as he sat down. “Something tells me we’re sharing a common motivation on this matter.”

“Probably,” she mumbled.

He continued to gaze at her, apparently waiting for her to elaborate, but when she said nothing further, he shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen for the Dread Wolf to catch my scent, as you Dalish like to say. This helps with that.” He tapped the teapot. “It stops you from accessing the Fade when you fall asleep.”

She raised her eyebrows appreciatively, both at the powerful-sounding tea and at his forethought. “That’s smart,” she said. “If he can’t find you in the Fade, he won’t know you’re still alive, and you can work against him in secret.”

“That is an idea,” Felassan said. He began pouring the tea, and Tamaris frowned at him. Was he not planning on helping to stop Solas’s horrendous plans, then? If he wasn’t looking to help in the efforts against Solas, then why was he here?

The answer came to her almost immediately. He had no real choice about coming here, she thought. He’d just been brought back to himself after spending, what, five years as a Tranquil?  Of course he didn’t have any plans yet. Frankly, she was surprised he wasn’t more of a mess. Relearning how to handle emotions and desires and his own magic after five years of living a totally placid existence…  

A shiver raced down her spine. Then Felassan pushed a cup toward her. “Enansal’in,” he said.

A bittersweet feeling of familiarity squeezed her heart at the Elvhen word. When she looked up to meet his eye, his gaze was steady and calm. 

The look on his face, and the Elvhen wish for good health and peace… To her surprise, it gave her a warm feeling in her belly.

“Enansal’in,” she said softly, and she took a sip from her cup of tea. 

The tea was bitter but smooth at the same time, a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar flavours. She rolled it around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. “What’s in this?” she asked.

He smirked and lifted the cup to his lips. “It’s an ancient elvhen secret,” he said slyly.

His strange violet eyes were dancing with humour, and he was so clearly taking the piss that Tamaris couldn’t help it: she chuckled. 

His smile softened, and he lowered his cup. “It’s quite simple, really. Embrium, dragonthorn, and the crucial ingredient: felandaris.”

“Felandaris?” she said in surprise. Felandaris was poisonous. “You’re not serious.”

“I am, in fact,” Felassan said cheerfully. “And… well, I was partly serious when I said it’s an ancient elvhen secret. This is a formula of my own making.” 

She looked at him in surprise. “Were you a potion-maker back in the olden days, too?”

He let out a little laugh. “Hardly,” he said. “This tea could never exist in the ‘olden days’, as you so charmingly put it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because felandaris didn’t exist,” he said.

“It — really?” she said blankly.

He nodded. “It grows where the Veil is thin. It is a byproduct of the interaction between this world and the Fade.”

Tamaris suddenly understood. “And there was no division between the real world and the Fade back in your time,” she finished.

“That’s right,” he said with a smile. He took a sip of tea, then swirled his cup idly. “It’s an admirable little weed, really. I’ve always loved the idea of life that can only grow from violence.”

She frowned at this statement. He said it so casually, but she wasn’t sure of the last time she’d heard anyone say anything so loaded.

Life that could only grow from violence… There was something more to that, but she was too tired right now to give it the thought it deserved. 

She sipped her tea quietly. Then a sudden thought occurred to her. “If you didn’t know about felandaris before, how did you know it could block dreams?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” he said. “It was an interesting few months of experimentation, I can tell you. The hallucinations I had were deeply entertaining.”

She smirked and sipped her tea again. When her cup was almost empty, she realized that Felassan was watching her again.

“I’m not going to do a trick just because you’re watching, you know,” she said snarkily.

He smiled, but his expression remained serious somehow. “Laughter doesn’t come naturally to you, does it?”

She gave him a deeply skeptical look. “Are you living in the same world as I am? What the fuck is there to laugh about?”

He shrugged. “I suppose that depends on where you find humour.”

She tsked. “If you’re looking for someone to laugh with, you’ve come to the wrong house.”

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I don’t think I have.”

He was still watching her in a way that made her feel oddly itchy. “I guess we’ll see,” she said. She drained her cup and stood up. “Goodnight, then.”

He nodded politely in farewell, but even as Tamaris turned away, she caught a glimpse of that ever-present smirk still on his lips. 

She huffed, then went upstairs to the bedroom on the left and closed the door behind her. Once she was alone, she heaved a heavy sigh and went over to the en-suite washroom. She splashed some water on her face and brushed her teeth, then carelessly stripped down to her undershirt and smallclothes.

She plopped down on the bed and unstrapped her mechanical arm, then set it carefully on the bedside table beside the half-empty bottle of rum she’d placed here earlier today. She slid under the covers — so strange being in a bed again, she thought idly — and just as she’d been doing most nights for the past couple of months, she reached for the bottle of rum.

Then she paused. If Felassan’s tea was meant to block out dreams… 

For a long, agonizing moment, she hesitated with her fingers hovering tensely over the mouth of the bottle. She probably shouldn’t have any rum; she had no idea how it would interact with the tea she’d drunk. Felandaris was a poison, after all, and just because Felassan had made it safe to imbibe as a tea didn’t mean it was okay to mix with hard alcohol. Besides, there was no reason to drink the rum if the tea was going to stop her from dreaming about… him.

She blew out a sharp breath. I’ll go without it, she thought. She reached over and extinguished the alchemical lamp on her bedside table, then lay down in bed and arranged the blanket up to her chin with her right hand, and when she was sufficiently cozy, she closed her eyes. 

She breathed quietly in the dark for a while. Then she sat up and reached for the bottle. 

Just a sip, she thought. Just in case the tea doesn’t work. She held the bottle between her knees and pulled out the cork with her right hand, then took a generous swallow of rum.

The sugary liquor burned its way down her throat. She chased it with a sip of water, then replaced the cork and placed the bottle on the table, and with a sigh, she slid back under the covers and closed her eyes. 

Tomorrow, Tamaris thought. Tomorrow, she would try Felassan’s tea without the rum to back it up. 

For tonight, she just wanted a guarantee of a dark and dreamless sleep. 

[blarfkey]

director’s cut, director’s choice of ⭐️Dear Fen’Harel⭐️? (Though generally speaking, I’m intensely curious as to how you develop characters because everyone you write is so brilliantly layered)

So um, this exploded. And I apologize. I am very much a character-driven writer versus a plot-driver writer. Also, how I develop characters is not a process I think about, it just happens, so this is also me finding out for myself how my own brain works, haha. If you want the full fucking three page essay this turned into, there’s more under the cut.

If not, and I don’t blame you, TLDR: I break a canon character down to their parts based on what I see in-game, I look at how their personal quest affects them, and I try to find a modern day equivalent to that. Each character has an issue they need to get past and I create situations to challenge those issues. And Ellana was created to be a foil for Solas and I dumped all my negative traits into her because neither she nor I can afford therapy so this is our best bet.

First of all, developing characters in fanfic is different than OC characters because I have a pre-set personality to work with rather than making someone from scratch. So for this, Ellana’s development is different from the rest of the cast.

For fanfic characters, obviously I look at the source material and see how they’ve reacted to certain situations and what they have canonically expressed about themselves in both deed and word. Honestly, I pay more attention to what they have DONE versus what they have SAID because a lot of characters tend to fool themselves into thinking they’re one way when they’re not (here’s looking at you, Solas).

Because DF is a modern AU, I take what I have seen in Canon (which is a lot because Bioware is very good at giving so much material to work with having all those different dialogue trees) and I apply it to the Modern Day. Some characters fit very easily – Dorian was made for Academia. Krem seems a more modern character anyway with how he constantly roasts Iron Bull. Josephine’s prowess in DA:I translates very easily to political science. Varric kind of has a modern writer’s career anyway.

Some are not easy – Solas is actually super hard for me to write in DF than he is in Thick as Thieves because so much of his characterization, his world views, his prejudices, are rooted in the fact that he is an ancient being out of time – which is impossible to have in this AU. I have crafted a sort of back story for him that might explain some things later, but it’s flimsy at best, haha.

So I’ve had to really look at what Solas is like in Inquisition when he’s pretending to be a “normal” hedge mage hermit from nowhere and how he behaves in his romance and extract from that. Solas is a nerd, he’s socially awkward from self-imposed isolation, he constantly struggles with what he wants and what is the morally correct thing to do and the temptation to be loved usually wins out over his convictions until the last second when he gets his common sense back and ruins everything.

It helps that in both DA and DF Solas is keeping a massive, massive secret from the Inquisitor about his identity that will shift the power balance between the two, so I’ve used that to guide me when I’m unsure. He still feels off to me, but it’s whatever at this point, lol. I did my best.

Once I’ve boiled a character down to their usual traits, I figure out how I’m going to have them grow throughout the fic and use their growth to help Ellana’s growth. I try to pull from their personal quests as much as I can, when I can get it to fit.

Some people, like Iron Bull, are static because they’ve already gone through their journey and have reached acceptance. I didn’t really know how to work his Leaving the Qun story line in the modern day, since it is tied so closely with war and potentially killing the Chargers, so by the time Ellana meets him, he has already left the Qun and made his peace with it. I use his static nature to help guide Ellana when she’s conflicted about her identity.

Some people, like Josephine, have personal quests that don’t fit with a modern era but I want to show them grow anyway, so I create something else for them. Right now, Josephine is mired in family drama and trying to figure out how to balance shouldering the weight of her responsibilities to her family with being her own person. That I drew from my own personal experience with being the only sane person in my family with their shit together, haha.

Or Cassandra, who is definitely NOT going to be Divine here, lol. So instead she gets to struggle with her art and how she can express herself in a way that leaves her vulnerable to scrutiny and yet can be so freeing.

Some people, like Krem, get a character arc that I think should have been explored but never was. Krem being trans is something that’s mentioned and talked about a little and never explored. I mean, he’s not a main character, so I get it. And I liked that Being Trans wasn’t his entire character. But there was no way to put him in the modern AU without his trans identity impacting some of his story and growth, even if he had already made his peace with it.

Now, I will say this upfront: I am not trans, and I haven’t had the opportunity to be close friends with a trans person, but I have done a lot of research on what trans people have said about their own experiences, and combined this with other research I’ve done over the years with other minorities and tried to put together what could be lingering insecurities for him and how he could overcome them.

I’m  definitely not saying that I’ve done this perfectly and I’m always open to any trans reader who would give me correction, but being trans was not an aspect of Krem’s character that I wanted to ignore just because I wasn’t familiar with it.

I will say that his romance with Josephine was Not Planned. It just kinda happened and I happily ran with it, haha.

Varric’s arc with Bianca is just wishful thinking because I hate her so so much and Bioware just dropped that bomb in Varric’s lap and then just lets him keep holding on to it and it’s bullshit.

The other character journeys are just ways to explore vulnerability in them that I didn’t think got enough attention in the game or I think they could realistically have even if it wasn’t in canon. Like Dorian dealing with his father. Now, in the game, Halward doesn’t have a disease and he dies unexpectedly. But I wanted Dorian to have a realistic reason why he would reach other to his estranged father in this AU and a ticking countdown to an inevitable death seemed right.

Now we get to see Dorian really struggle with this new-found connection with his father that he always wanted to have and now it’s temporary and heartbreak is inevitable and is it still worth it to him? I think Dorian has similar feelings in Trespasser when he found out his father was murdered because he still invested himself to rebuild a lost connection, only to lose it so soon after.

Zevran’s past with the Crows is also something that I really wanted to explore because in the game he is sad for a hot second and then moves on with the Warden and his newfound goal of destroying the entire Crow organization. So I wanted to see Zevran struggle with his inner worth, the fact that he can’t hide forever and his past puts his loved ones in danger, the fact that he can even HAVE loved ones and how it scares the shit out of him.  I wanted to have a character who puts on such a good front about not giving a shit about anything to hide how very deeply afraid he is. We are going to see more of this also before the story is over, lol.

Now, Ellana. Like all original characters, Ellana has a lot my personal experiences tied in her. But I originally created Ellana to fill a need for a type of character that I wanted to see with Solas and don’t really get to. I mean, I have not scourged the corners of the internet to find it so I’m sure there are other characters like her, but I haven’t found very many.

I see a lot of very beautiful, very delicate and feminine, very kind and gentle Disney Princess kind of Lavellans. I see a LOT of them. And I don’t hate that necessarily. I mean, Josephine is all of those things and more and I adore her and I sort of crack ship her with Solas anyway, in the secret recesses of my heart. And I love seeing a female character who is the epitome of a “weak” female use those “weak” traits to succeed.

But I am also not very beautiful, I am NOT delicate at all, I’m not gentle. I am not anywhere close to a Disney Princess or a Josephine. And it was disheartening to see Solas romance all these Ocs that were nothing like me after a while because it kind of gave me the message that someone like Solas, a character that I admire and def have a fictional crush on, would never want someone who looks like me or acts like me. That even with unlimited freedom in creating a romantic counterpart for him, I saw so much of what society already reinforces as an ideal that I will never match up to. It doesn’t help that Bioware’s body diversity for elves ranges is nonexistent.

So I made Ellana for me. Not because I want to hate on other Ocs or prove that mine is superior, but so that I would have something that I connected to. And I wanted to explore a dynamic with Solas that I didn’t get to see very often.

So when I first imagined Ellana, I wanted her to be strong and tall and muscular and powerful in a way that makes a lot of unenlightened men uncomfortable. I wanted somebody used to manual labor and dirt and the outdoors and solving problems with their fists and just totally unrefined because I wanted her to be the complete opposite of Solas. (So like Cassandra but in elf form, haha).

I did not want her to be soft or conventionally attractive at all. Ellana doesn’t shun femininity, because I don’t think femininity is inherently wrong, but she is uncomfortable with it and she doesn’t indulge in it.

(Just FYI I am NOT built like Ellana at all either, haha. This is the wish fulfillment part of the OC. I greatly resemble the dwarves, which is why I love them so much.)

But I also needed her to have a reason to leave home, and to have some points of commonality with Solas, so I made her a nerd. A jocky nerd who is insatiably curious and stubbornly independent. And then because I wanted Ellana to feel like a real person instead just a wish fulfillment fantasy, I needed her to grow. So I gave her all my complicated anger issues, my bluntness, my struggles with homesickness, the way I compartmentalize negative events in my life so I don’t have to deal with them just so they can bite me in the ass later, my experiences of going from a lifestyle where all my needs were met and I was oblivious to how great I had it to living with serious poverty for the first time.

And then I devised situations with her life and the other characters where Ellana has to confront these issues and learn to accept them and either move past them or learn to control them. Sometime she gains wisdom and imparts it to people like Sera or Dorian when their struggles come up. And her biggest challenge has yet to arrive, so she’s still cooking, so to speak. Ellana still has a long way to go before she really reaches maturity.

As far as her relationship with Solas goes, I wanted her to challenge him and give him a total upheaval everything he thought he knew about his own culture and his own self. And I wanted him to do the same for her. And then when all the pieces are done falling, they have grown into two people who can handle being together.

So that’s basically it. If there is any character in particular you want to know more about or why I made certain decisions, always feel free to ask!

[plotholetsi]

Some DA4 Ideas

Me and @thealmightym got off on a HUUUUGE tangent this morning, upon the suggestion that the Inquisitor + love interest might show up in DA4 based on how the romance loads into game (assuming the Dragon Age Keep continues to function as well as it has so far:

Lavellan/Solas romance:

I can totally imagine a storyline where, if you import Solas-romance inquisitor, as the new DA4 hero, you have inquisitor tag along on occasion. If you fuck up at the missions with them, inquisitor joins Solas in trying to wreck the world. If you complete all the missions with them, they take your side in the end fight with solas.

Inquisitor+Cullen:

You can join them on their farm for a side mission or two. One of the side-plots is Inquisitor helping hide Cullen's younger sibling from the newly formed circle/templar/whatever as young sib is starting to have little magic bursts. It's equally fretful and adorable.

Inquisitor + Iron Bull

Inky and Bull have formed a new Bull's Chargers. If Inky wa Qunari, there's some of his/her old Tal Vashoth band joined up now as well. They show up as a random helpful encounter aiding you in world events. If you run into them enough times, they come to you asking for help on a diplomatic mission, Halamshiral style side event. It ends in the whole crew being chased out of the party for wrecking EVERYTHING and if you play your cards with, a menage’a’tois with your old Inquisitor+bull plus new MC.

Inquisitor + Sera

This one’s easy. Inquisitor and Sera are married GAY AF ladies who show up as random encounter in urban settings. Only instead of helping YOU, they drop you arrows with notes on them of missions that need your specific flavor of diplomatic aid. Missions like: having you seduce a noble lady/gent while they steal said noble’s unearned goods. Stabbing a few really shitty nobles in the junk in a painful but non-lethal way. Immediately lose missions if guards or innocents harmed in process. Poisoning the food at the banquet of a robber-baron so everyone in the party gets diarrea BAD. Oh, and their skin turns purple for a week. And bees follow them.

Inquisitor + Blackwall

You meet them at missions in Weisshapt if Blackwall was told to join. Inq has joined them there indefinitely, and the two of them are the only two allows to Orlais & Fereldan as diplomats after that whole Wardens-turning-kinda-evil SHITE. They send you on a variety of one-off 'kill this monster' type missions, culminating in another encounter with the Architect, who can either help you by giving you something to defeat Solas, or you can fight, or they paralyse you and walk away without giving you ANYTHING depending on your game choices.

If inquisitor pardoned Blackwall, you run across the two of them in a cabin in the woods somewhere, trying their best to keep under the radar as they raise a couple of boys as out-of-the-limelight as possible.

Inquisitor + Josephine

Her ending goes one of three separate ways. Either she's got the bandit fleet under her wing, or her family has kinda lost status by the end. Or she's kinda bloodthirsty and killed some peeps.

I'm seeing their ending influenced by Leliana. If Leliana NOT Divine: Leliana is stealthily traveling alongside Inky & Josie to continue acting as a spy/ pulling strings of various nobility. While the peasants don’t suspect anything, most of the nobles are bloody terrified anytime Inky+Josie (and the unseen Leliana) roll into town because it means a few shitty nobles are gonna just be snatched away without a word. Inky+Josie show up as a set of espionage missions on war-tabley thing, and you can also interact with the trio at parties/ open-world spots where nobles show up, etc. Inky will very dramatically foil an assassination attempt on MC in DA4, starting a mission that culminates in an odd scavenger-hunt/goose chase of missions, culminating in Leliana identifying a spy within (DA4 organization here) who is trying to corrupt MC with magic. This traitor is not found in any other storyline, but is present in all other storylines (finger waggling here).

Josie+Inky IF Leliana IS Divine: series of wartable missions where Josie is convincing (DA4 group) to aid the Divine on various missions. Culminates in Inky foiling assassination attempt on YOU, and then enlisting your help to foil an assassination attempt on the Divine. Meanwhile, Josephine has been kidnapped, the Divine attack a diversion.

You go on a goose-chase of missions to figure out where they're keeping her, and when you finally get there, Josephine has things well in hand, and has a group of thugs tied up, and is regaling them with stories so entertaining that they're fallen over laughing despite being tied up. She looks over at Inky, who looks back at her lovingly, and says, "What took you both so long?"

NO ONE DAMSELS JOSIE

Inquisitor + Cassandra:

Inky + Cassandra have put away (most of) their adventuring, and have opened a bookshop.

Cassandra very convincingly makes a good bookshop owner. She recommends a different book each time you come in, based on what events you've finished/ things you've decided in game. "I see you came back from Hamalshiral. Can I recommend 'My Lady's Coattails'? It's a VERY saucy period piece with a side of court intrigue."

At a later date, you find her in the midst of dealing with several unconscious people in the shop, half her battle gear on. Turns out she's been doing some do-goodery on the side, and doesn't want Inky to know. She enlists you to help deal with a local thug who has been threatening the shop and people in town.

You go and deal with the thug, and turns out it's WAY more than a local thug. It's a REGIONAL thug, and it turns into a whole long mission, halfway through, you run into Inky who was sent along by someone else in (DA4 group) because people heard DA4-MC and Cass got in over their heard. There's a whole scene of Cass being mortified that Inky found out, Inky being like, "Don't be. I'm missing and ARM and you're a bad-ass, why would I keep my wife from helping people?" And they kiss and it's equal parts adorable and awkward in front of you. They cough and you proceed to PUMMEL the lead bandit-dude.

When you return to the shop, you still get nod-to-game book recs for the rest of the game.

If you die more than a certain number of times on any one mission, Cass will sarcastically recommend, "Gennevive's Sword Primer". Inky interupts to ask why the non-fiction book. Cass sneeringly jokes, "Because our MC needs to work on fundaments."

Inquisitor + Dorian

I feel like his is the hardest, because he has such a FIXED position in the DAI wrap-up. And given that everyone assumes the new game will center on Tevinter, he'll probably be a central or pivotal role the story nods to or revolves around.... Hell, maybe it's just this...

MC has several encounters with the Magisterium. Dorian is actually one of the most consistent council members. Despite his distaste for the High magisters of Tevinter, once he was shoved into the role of leadership, he used red tape like a weapon, pissing off a LOT of other politicians who were perfectly happy with things being as easy for them to rule as possible. If Dorian was romanced by DAI Inky, there are several events where you can see him being uncharacteristically called away from a meeting, and if you follow, can see an event where he meets with his foreign lover for a small chat and a furtive kiss.

At this point an event occurs where another council member offers to aid (DA4group) financially or politically if they can get dirt on Dorian. You're lead down a series of espionage missions where you copy the communication crystal, and can either aid Dorian by re-tuning it to crush the other council member, netting you a series of side-quests lead by DAI Inky to disrupt more blood mages outside Tevinter, or you can hand over the communication crystal to Dorian's rival, and have an instant massive boost in faction points towards Tevinter Imperium/ who-the-fuck ever, cause let's face it it's the edgelord choice you gotta put in the game for people who insist on wanting to play shitty-evil person, ‘because reasons’.

[ellstersmash]

Three: Eight

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan (Modern!AU) / Minor Cullen x f!Lavellan

Rating: T for Teen

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They drive out to Dragon’s Peak on Friday morning. Early, and she sleeps the whole way, waking up when the car slows to find the mountains filling the windows and Cullen’s hand resting on her knee. Gravel crunches under the tires as they weave through the campsites. Most are unoccupied, but it’s nice not to have neighbors when there are no walls. After a while, Sera’s car comes into view, a round yellow rusted thing surrounded by more empty campsites and the color green. They park at the next site over, get out, and stretch their legs.

It’s beautiful. The trees here are limbless for the first twenty feet, all dark wood and wonder, reaching invariably for the bright blue that peeks down from between them. A tiny packed-dirt path between the sites leads through the edge of the woods, down to a wooden dock and a small sandy beach.

Athi pulls out a french press, sets up the camp stove, and helps Cullen with the tent until the water boils.

Sera finally shows, emerging from the woods with a roll of toilet paper and a bottle of sanitizer, and Athi pours her a cup. Then the three of them sit, quiet on the dock. Coffee in their hands and the wind in their hair and their toes in the water, soaking up too much sun.

Leliana, Josie, and Cassandra show up first. They come prepared with towels and suits and Leliana brings a raft made for lounging.

Bull, on the other hand, brings his new boyfriend, Dorian. One of those guys who are handsome enough to kick the wind right out of a perfectly healthy set of lungs. He’s funny and clever, with charisma coming out his ears.

And he insists that Cullen join them for a hike.

“So, frat-boy came after all,” Sera says once they’re gone. “That’s good, right?”

“He didn’t go to university.”

“Like that’s the point.” She kicks out her legs, inspecting their color as the water drips down, then grabs the sunscreen from behind her. “Blonde. Beefy. Boring. Frat-boy!”

“How would you know if he’s boring?”

“Is he?”

“He runs into burning buildings to save people for a living, how could that possibly be boring?”

Sera bumps her shoulder, cherry blossom streaked with white, into Athi’s. “That’s not a real answer.”

“Fine, he’s not boring!”

“If you say so. Ah, shite. Got too much of this mess. Take some?”

They swim and sit and float and play, jeans and sundresses stuffed into bags, abandoned on the beach, draped over the dock. Athi goads Cass into a race to the floating island, and then loses by more than a hair. The sun trades places, east to west, and suddenly the day is gone.

Athi pulls herself onto the dock and wriggles back into her jeans. Finds her tank top on Sera’s shoes, and twists her hair up to keep the lake water off her back. When she offers to go back to camp for drinks, the response is more than enthusiastic.

To be perfectly honest, it’d be nice if someone else would fetch the drinks for a change.

Back at the camp, Varric is crouched next to a rather pathetic excuse for a fire.

“Please tell me you’re not cooking,” she says.

“Oh, I’m not. Though I’d like to think I could rise to the occasion and warm up some hot dogs. You know, if the people needed me.”

A trunk slams shut, and she startles. “Thankfully, the people do not, or they would likely all starve.”

Solas walks toward her—no not her, just the campsite. But when she catches the flick of his eyes down her form, her heart still does an uncomfortable flip-flop inside of her ribs.

No, she tells it. No, keep it together.

But creators, she must be a mess. Rolled-up jeans, no makeup, no shoes, swim top soaking through her shirt, and a hasty bun. Probably fried and frizzy. Come to think of it, she’s not even sure she’s looked in a mirror yet today. Not that it matters, of course.

Then there’s Solas. Sharp features and ocean eyes. Somehow immaculate, despite the heat, in cuffed tan shorts and an easy olive v-neck. He’d worn it to that party, all those months ago. And it’s half tucked in over the bone of his hip, not that she dwells on it.

And he’s here.

Not that she cares.

He opens a cooler by a small blue tent. Comes back with three beers and a bottle opener, and he holds one out to her. It’s ice-cold and dripping. Off the bottle, into her hand, leaving cool wet tracks down her forearm.

“Hey,” she says softly. For such a small word, it comes out awfully shaky.

“Hello.” His smile, too, is an uncertain little thing, hanging crooked on his mouth like a—

Not that she’s looking at his—

Oh, fuck.

She tears her eyes away, resting them instead on Varric’s dying fire.

“Do you want some help with that?” she offers.

“You know, I thought you’d never ask.”

Setting her bottle beside her, she uses the end of a piece of firewood to push his blackened sticks to the center of the pit, extinguishing whatever flames actually managed to survive his efforts. Then she lays it in the ashes next to the pile. More logs, arranged crosswise, more kindling in the middle, and a burning match sets it freshly alight.

“Hey, Solas! Glad you made it, buddy!” Even coming from the edge of the campsite, Bull’s voice booms in her ears.

Cullen and Dorian trail a ways behind him, talking like old friends.

“You know each other?” she asks.

“Sort of, yeah!” Bull claps Solas on the back. “I was on the squad for some big deal museum thing a couple months back, and he was there, and we got to talking.”

Solas laughs softly. “As I recall, you asked if my companion was single.”

A log slips free of her grasp and clangs against the heavy metal fire guard, but no one seems to notice.

“Mmm. Yeah, I remember,” Bull says. “Redhead. Good times! Anyway, we’ve hung out a few times since then.”

Varric leans over. “I’ve tried to get in on it, but so far, no luck. Whatever they get up to, it’s gotta be good.”

“Oh, it’s good.” Bull waggles his eyebrows, but Solas only grins, tips his bottle up, and drinks.

“So, this is where you went!”

Cassandra, walking up the path from the lake with the others, has her you’re in trouble face on. Brows knit tight, eyes fierce, voice shrill, and Athi can’t help but wonder if this is what it feels like to be accused of murder.

But Varric cuts in before she can ask for a lawyer.

“Hey, Seeker!” he says. “Fancy meeting you here.”

The look Cassandra gives him is withering. “Oh, it’s you . I suppose I should have known.”

“Sorry, I was”—Athi gestures to the now-healthy fire—“waylaid.”

Varric laughs. “Taken captive by my charming vulnerability, she means.”

“Charming!” Cass rolls her eyes. “I have never heard anything so ridiculous.”

Dorian swoops in like the guest of honor, rather than somebody’s plus-one. “Well, this has been a delightful bit of repartee,” he says, “but might I suggest we consider our supper? I’m not sure about the rest of you lot, but the three of us did just climb a mountain.”

“Not the whole thing,” Cullen admits, and is quickly shushed by Dorian.

Athi lets the fire die a bit, and over the embers they cobble together a meal: Bull grills the veggie kebabs he’s had marinating, Sera roasts up some corn, Leliana tucks potatoes wrapped in tin foil into the warm ashes, and Cullen cooks the chicken they brought on hot-dog skewers.

They make a weird bunch, she thinks as they eat and talk and laugh and tease and argue. Humans and elves, a qunari, a dwarf. Different homelands, different jobs. With the exception of Leliana, who has known Josie since high school and Cass since college, all the connections between them are thin. Sera did a couple of Leliana’s tattoos. Varric was (briefly) a suspect in one of Cassandra’s investigations. Cullen and Dorian hadn’t even met before this afternoon. Yet those bonds were struck and somehow held fast in an instant.

It’s difficult to tell where she fits. What gap she fills, what role she plays, but then Bull tells the one about the time she took him shopping, and she decides it doesn’t matter. So long as she fits at all.

Seconds and thirds, then Bull stands and pulls a handful of cigars from his shirt pocket. “Anyone want to go down to the dock? Genuine Seherons, been looking forward to these babies. Dorian? Cass?”

“Thank you, but no.” Dorian grimaces. “I don’t smoke. Besides, I’d like to wear these clothes again someday, and ‘campfire’ is going to be difficult enough to get out.”

“I’ll join you,” says Cass.

Cullen goes as well, leaves her with a warm smile. She never expected him to be so interested in socializing. Not like he ever asked to meet her friends. She’d been worried about him, thought he’d feel out of place or something, but it was needless. He has charmed them all in a single afternoon just by being his polite, well-spoken, surprisingly funny self.

“Surprised you let her out of your sight,” Sera says to Varric, throwing a piece of onion across the fire at him.

He bats it away like he’s done this before. Knowing Sera, he probably has.

“I’m just giving her a chance to miss me, that’s all.”

Everyone seems finished, fed and content. Instinctively, Athi starts to clean up. Collects the trash and plastic plates, the empty bottles, then goes for water but Solas is already elbow-deep in suds. He tells her to sit with the others; instead, she picks up a towel and dries. Feels good to have her hands busy. Feels better to be near—

No.

Josephine gasps. “Oh, Leliana, we never set up our tent!”

“Now is as good a time as any, don’t you think, Josie?”

“Now it is dark! Do you know what you’re doing? I’ve never actually done this before.”

“Well,” Dorian says, “I shall volunteer my services, as I neither prepared dinner nor cleaned up after it.” He nods gratefully toward her and Solas. “Luckily for you, I’m a natural at pointing a flashlight.”

The three of them disappear into the darkness, chattering away.

After the dishes are done and the trash packed away, Athi adds another log to the fire. Another hour or so of Sera fixating on the marshmallows nobody brought, and Varric smacks his palms to his thighs.

“All right, I think it’s about time for me to head out,” he says. “That actual, sheltered, comfortable bed is calling my name.”

“Really?” Athi teases. “It’s barely nine! I’d have thought you had more life left in you than that.”

“Hey, not all of us want to have the same special loathe-hate relationship with mornings that you have, early bird.”

Solas chuckles. “You’ve noticed this as well?”

“Yeah, I made the mistake of calling for a favor at a perfectly reasonable time of day—”

“Reasonable for who, exactly?” she protests.

“—And she picked up, swore colorfully at me in, I believe, no less than three different languages, and disconnected.”

“Oh, please. That’s nothing,” Sera says with a scoff. “She shattered my guitar!”

“I apologized for that.”

“Can’t play an ‘I’m sorry,’ now can I?”

Athi groans. “Just go, Varric. Go to your mattress and mini-bar and room service and take your slander with you.”

“It’s only slander if it’s not true,” he says, and walks away with a casual wave of his wrist.

Sera yawns. “Think I’ll turn in, too.”

“Seriously?”

If Sera leaves, she’ll be alone with him. Really alone. And if they’re alone, he’ll almost certainly look at her at some point, and her heart will do that thing it always does and is not supposed to. Athi pleads with her eyes, begs her to stay, but Sera doesn't notice—or pretends not to. She walks behind the canvas chairs and plants a kiss atop Athi’s head with an exaggerated smacking sound.

“Be good!” And she slips into her tent.

Athi briefly considers following their lead, then remembers it’s been all of five minutes since she declared it too early to do so.

“I suppose you’re the next to fall,” she says to fill the silence, hoping he is.

Hoping he isn’t.

“I could not abandon you so easily.”

Seven words, and she melts. It’s not fair, how quickly he breaks her down, leaves her bare. It's not right. His nearness is intoxicating, their solitude is terrifying, and she’s stuck somewhere between the fear and the falling. Safe, though, like he’s the solid ground. Searching, and he's an answer. Brimful, satiated. Like she’s been trying to breathe underwater, and he’s the air above its surface.

Like she's a foolish, stupid girl with a foolish, stupid heart.

He’s abandoned her once already, practically ghosted her after that stupid fucking morning. Not that she can blame him; she’d disappeared too. And Cullen—

As if summoned by her guilt, his laughter drifts up from the dock. If she blocks out some light from the fire, she can see him from here—just a shadow among shadows.

“He seems nice,” Solas says, and stares intently through the flames like he can see what she does.

“He is.”

“And you are happy?”

Yes , she tries to say. It sticks in her throat. Instead says, “He’s a good guy,” as if that’s enough.

But he accepts it, nods and leans forward to add another piece of wood to the fire. It shifts, and sparks fly. Some disappear into the dirt around her bare brown feet, some float into the air and mix with the stars.

This time, he is the one to break the silence. “Before the world was changed and much of history concealed, magic came to some as easily as breathing.”

His voice, much like a hearty red wine, goes straight to her head and its cadence leaves her giddy.

He continues. “A fire could be summoned or extinguished with a thought; without need for wood or matches to ignite it. Many feared such power, and locked mages away to prevent what they might someday do.”

A story, like the ones about the stars. He settles back into it so quickly, so unexpectedly. On the rooftop at Varric’s with the music thundering beneath them—that’s when they had started. She’d matched his rhythm, once, and the counts of the syllables. Trying to see if he noticed. Trying to provoke him. Trying to see what his ruffled feathers looked like. But he hadn’t missed a beat, only looked at her as though she was all that existed, and begun another story.

Athi tucks her feet underneath her and watches the smoke curl up into the ink-black sky. Carefully, she considers her story and patiently, he waits.

“The Dalish have some stories still, of spells that sunk into the earth and made the forest twist and grow around them. A secret gift from silent gods to keep the world from chaos, because nature has a way of running wild. So they kept it to themselves, passed down from every Keeper to their First.”

“Very good.” His voice wears a smile and a hint of pride. “I’d hoped you had not forgotten.”

“It’s your turn,” she says, still looking up.

“You are right. Give me a moment.”

Feeling indulgent, she lets her eyes rove his face. The glow of the fire on the rise of his cheeks, the focused calm, the cut of his jaw.

“At night, when people slept, they’d dream—but not the empty flailing of a restless mind devoid of stimulation. They visited the Fade, a realm of spirits who reflected expectations, memories, even desires. Waking and sleeping, each world shaped and reflected the other.”

She grows too content, watches him for a split second too long, and it bubbles up in her chest before she can stop it. “I’ve missed you,” and it feels good. Feels honest.

His eyes shift to meet hers, the calm replaced by something soft, surprised, sorrowful.

“And I have missed you.”

Her heart beats wildly against her rib cage. She doesn’t know where to go from here, but then sees a head of yellow curls and the kindest face she’s ever kissed, and Cullen walks up to stand behind her. His hands on her shoulders, he leans down to whisper in her ear.

“Come to bed?”

She wants to say no, wants to stay, but she shouldn’t. She’s lost enough ground already. So she nods, takes his hand, and fills her smile with an apology.

“Goodnight, Solas.”

He smiles back, sort of.

Back in their tent with a flashlight hanging overhead, she roots around the bottom of her bag.

“Hey Cullen?” she asks. “Is my toothbrush in with your stuff?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I’ll check when I get back.”

“Back? What happened to bed?”

“Yes, back. I need to go use—well, a tree.” He chuckles and kisses her on the forehead and rustles off into the darkness.

Athi changes out of her jeans and her tank top and sits there in the mostly-dark, watching the target-shaped circle of light sway slightly over the blankets. Then she grabs his backpack and starts looking.

It’s not in with his toiletries, or buried under his clothes. Last, she checks the side pockets, and her fingers brush something smooth and hard and suspiciously shaped. Her gut says leave it , but she pulls it out anyway. Just to look, so she won’t wonder.

It fits in her palm. A small square box with rounded edges, black and sleek and velvet, but there’s no way it is what she thinks it is. Still, she flips back the lid. Just to check, so she won’t worry.

Inside is a delicate silver-colored ring, engraved vines climbing toward a deep blue stone. Inside the band, a tiny engraving: everlasting.

The tent zips open again.

“Any luck? Maybe you . . .” He trails off when he sees what she holds in her hand.

“Cullen, what the fuck is this?”

[pikapeppa]

Abelas/Lavellan smut: Ma’av’in

An older piece that I never posted on Tumblr! 

Ma’av’in: an elvhen term, from @fenxshiral​, that literally means ‘my mouth’, but is also a very personal and slightly sexual endearment meaning “I love and desire you so much that my mouth tastes like yours,” but also “we understand each other on such a personal level that you could talk for me”.

In which Athera Lavellan and Abelas sneak into the kitchen for some cake and run into Solas, who is doing the same thing. Oh, elves with a sweet tooth.

Read on AO3 instead. 

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

Athera poked her head cautiously into Skyhold’s kitchen. “Hello?” she called softly.

When no one replied, she relaxed and turned to Abelas with a smile. “It’s clear. Everyone’s gone to bed.” She scurried into the kitchen and made a beeline for the large icebox that held the leftover sweets.

Abelas followed her at a more decorous pace. As Athera opened the icebox and poked around, he studied the icebox itself with clear disapproval. “This cooling spell is inefficient,” he said. “The magic is slowly dissipating. It will need to be recast in less than a year.” He frowned at her. “Who was the spellcaster here? Someone on your staff is in dire need of training.”

Athera shot him an exasperated look. “Who cares about the icebox? Look at what’s inside!” She enthusiastically pulled out a platter, then removed its metal lid with a flourish to reveal a selection of bite-sized desserts.

Abelas’s disapproval melted into a tiny smile, and Athera’s cheeks warmed with pleasure at having wiped away his frown. She happily set the platter on the table. “Those cakes I gave you were the first kind of Orlesian dessert I tried when I first started hanging out with humans,” she said eagerly. “They all have funny names.” She pointed to each of the desserts in turn. “This is a macaron. Chocolate-raspberry, it looks like, and this one is… a blackberry macaron, maybe? This cake is called ‘le coup de grâce’. It’s made with a lot of brandy - they’ll actually make you drunk if you eat enough of them. This one is ‘la langue fourchue’ - I think it contains dragonthorn, it’s weirdly spicy - and this one is ‘la belle rose’. It’s made with rosewater. That’s what Josie said, at least.”

Abelas listened carefully as she named the various cakes. Then he selected a small square cake with pink fondant icing and a tiny flower on top.

Athera wilted slightly in disappointment; the cake he’d picked was the same kind she’d given to him when he first arrived at Skyhold. “You don’t want to try something new?” she asked. “You’ve had that kind already.”

He settled his gilded gaze on her face. “I am fond of this kind. They remind me of you.”

The tips of Athera’s ears suddenly felt hot. She bit the inside of her cheek to hide her stupid grin, then selected a rosewater cake for herself. “Well, I guess that’s all right then.” She lifted her cake and gently touched it to his. “Cheers.”

“On’enansal,” he murmured, and Athera smiled and popped the whole cake into her mouth.

Abelas, on the other hand, took a small bite of his cake. Athera covered her full mouth self-consciously while she chewed, feeling boorish compared to her lover’s dignified munching.

He studied the cake as he chewed. “What is the name of this confection?”

Athera swallowed hastily. “It’s called ‘la petite bise’. Leliana said it means ‘the little kiss’.” She leaned back against the table as she watched Abelas enjoy his cake. “It’s named after this weird thing the Orlesians do. They kiss each other on the cheeks as a greeting. They even do it to people they’ve only just met.” She remembered the first time someone had greeted her this way; it was one of Josie’s contacts from Val Royeaux, Madame la Marquise of Something-Or-Other, and Athera was shocked when the woman leaned in to bump her cheekbones against Athera’s face. She was still grateful that her surprise had made her freeze like a rabbit instead of flinching away from the Marquise; she didn’t want to imagine the kind of unintentional offence a flinch would have caused.

Abelas’s gaze slid from the cake back to her face. “The little kiss, you say?”

His eyes dropped to her mouth, and Athera bit her lip coquettishly. “Yes,” she confirmed.

He swallowed his tiny bite of cake, then tilted his head thoughtfully. “I would like a demonstration of this strange custom.”

His face was serious, but his golden eyes were warm and playful, and Athera grinned. “All right,” she said. She took a step closer to him and placed her hands on his shoulders, then lifted herself onto her tiptoes and leaned in to graze his sharp right cheekbone with a kiss.

He turned his head at the last second and met her lips with his own.

Athera smiled against his mouth, then wrapped her arms around his neck as he deepened the kiss. His sculpted lips gently coaxed hers apart, and Athera released a shivery little sigh as he lightly nipped her lower lip with teeth.

His unoccupied hand curved around her waist, then up along her back to pull her flush to his body, and Athera happily pressed herself against his chest. He tasted sweet and fruity, a warm reflection of the cake in his hand, and she shamelessly savoured the smooth feel of his tongue caressing her own, the exciting feel of his hard and muscular thigh sliding between her legs-

“Oh,” a surprised voice said, and Athera sprang away from Abelas as the mild-mannered voice continued. “My apologies. I, er, I did not think anyone else would be here.”

“Solas!” Athera gasped. She covered her burning cheeks with her hands and stared at the apostate in complete mortification. The pinkness of his cheeks was evident even in the warm orange light of the hearthfire, and Athera couldn’t decide if she was more or less horrified to find him looking as embarrassed as she felt.

She glanced up at Abelas, and was further ashamed to see him looking as discomfited as Solas. Desperate to smooth over the awkward moment, she focused on Solas again. “What, er, what brings you to the kitchen?” she stammered.

Solas cleared his throat. “I believe the same thing that brought you here,” he said, then gestured at the platter of desserts on the table. “An insatiable taste for all things sweet.”  

At his words, the thought of Abelas’s sugar-laced tongue in her mouth flashed through her mind, and Athera cringed as her face became even hotter.

Fortunately, Abelas seemed to have recovered his aplomb. Unfortunately, his aplomb was far too polite for Athera’s liking. “Please, join us,” the Sentinel said, then gestured to the platter of sweets.

Solas shot her a quick glance, and Athera’s face and shoulders performed some kind of strange combination of grimace-and-shrug. Solas slowly made his way into the kitchen. “Thank you,” he said with a gracious nod to Abelas, then selected a small cylindrical cake enrobed in dark gray fondant and painted with intricate red curlicues.

Solas took a delicate bite of cake, and Athera watched the two men with increasing discomfort as they ate their cakes in excruciating silence. She twisted her fingers together as she desperately cast around for something to say.

“How about the paint job on that, huh?” she finally said with a nod to the elaborate swirls on Solas’s little cake. “Must take a long time to paint each one. No wonder they’re so expensive.”

“Yes, it is its own form of artistry, is it not?” Solas replied eagerly, clearly relieved that she’d broken the silence. “I must admit that this particular kind is my favourite. Do you happen to recall what it is called?”

Athera narrowed her eyes. “That’s the one with the slightly bitter filling, right? I think it’s called ’le souffle du loup.’ It means ‘breath of the wolf’.”

Solas suddenly went still, and Abelas coughed loudly. Athera turned to him in alarm as he continued to cough into his hand. “Are you okay? You’re not choking, are you?”

“He is fine,” Solas said hastily, then patted the coughing Sentinel on the back in an oddly fraternal manner. “Perhaps I will leave you in peace. It was not my intention to interrupt. Not that you were doing anything that - I mean, that is -”

“No, you stay,” Abelas rasped. “Please. I insist. The Inquisitor and I will go elsewhere. It would not do for us to, er - that is, we will take ourselves to a more private, er…”

Solas’s cheeks reddened further, and Athera wondered wistfully if she could just melt into the floor right now. “Yes, perhaps that would be wise,” Solas replied weakly, and Abelas nodded brusquely before taking her hand and tugging her toward the door.

Athera glanced over her shoulder at her apostate friend. “Sorry,” she squeaked. Then Abelas pulled her out of the kitchen.

The Sentinel whispered a quiet word in Elvhen, and goosebumps ran down Athera’s arms as his fade-cloak spell settled over them both. “Come,” he muttered, and he laced his fingers with hers as he led her back up the stairs.

The further they got from the kitchen, the more her humiliation began to melt into humour. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing as they traversed the Great Hall. By the time she had unlocked the door that led up to her quarters, her shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth.

She opened the door and let Abelas in before her, then closed the door behind them both and slumped back against the wall, her hands clapped over her mouth to prevent an outburst of glee.

“Dread Wolf take me, that was horrible,” she wheezed. “It’s like being caught in the act by an older brother. Oh gods.” Then she finally broke into a storm of nervous laughter.

A reluctant little smile lifted Abelas’s cheeks as she continued to helplessly laugh. “I can see how it would feel that way,” he murmured. He slowly stepped close and brushed his thumb over her smiling lower lip. “We should be quiet now,” he whispered. “I do not think you want to wake the rest of the castle.”

Her laughter hitched in her throat as his knee brushed against her thighs, and her amusement slowly faded and deepened into the foiled desire that had begun to brew in the kitchen. “Maybe you need to find a way to keep me quiet,” she breathed.

She watched with interest as he inhaled deeply, then smiled more broadly at her. “Veraisa,” he whispered. Then he slanted his mouth over hers.

She parted her lips instantly, granting access to his delicious tongue. He still tasted of fondant, a hint of fruit and sugar, and Athera eagerly suckled his tongue as though to steal his sweetness for herself.

Abelas groaned against her lips and pressed his knee between her legs. She gasped and released his tongue as the hardness of his leg rode against the vee of her thighs, sending a shock of sensation from her groin up to her nipples and throat.

His hands were suddenly cradling her neck, his fingers cupping the back of her skull as he stole her breath with another kiss. Athera wrapped her arms around his lean body, pressing her chest against him and spreading her legs more widely to welcome the muscular bulk of his thigh. He delved his tongue into her mouth, and with every lap of his tongue and every gentle pull of his lips against her own, her desire surged like the eager rising of high tide.

Finally Abelas broke their kiss to gasp against her cheekbone, his fingers still tight in her hair. He breathed hard for a moment, the heat of his lustful breaths sending a delicious shiver down her spine. Abruptly he lifted her chin with his fingers and kissed her hard once more, then knelt at her feet.

A mewl of desperate want escaped her lips, and she slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle herself as Abelas slid his hands under her nightshift and peeled her smallclothes down to her ankles. “If this is your idea for keeping me quiet, I’ll have you know it’s a terrible idea,” she whimpered.

Abelas shot her a quick look, and the intensity of his expression stopped her breath again. “Solas was right,” he told her. “I hunger for something sweet. But it is not some mere shemlen confection that I want.” Without further ado, he gathered the fabric of her cotton shift in his fists and pinned her skirts to the wall, then slicked his tongue between her legs.

Heat and pleasure rippled through her blood at the sleek stroke of his tongue. Athera took a shuddering breath and fisted one hand in her hair, then bit the back of her other hand as Abelas diligently stroked her plump folds with his full lower lip before sliding his tongue over the swollen button of her clit.

Her hot breath ghosted across the back of her hand as Abelas continued to work his talented mouth at the apex of her thighs. The lapping of his tongue was voracious yet tender, very much as though he was savouring a favoured treat, and Athera’s thighs began to tremble with the strain of holding herself upright as he stroked his tongue along the length of her cleft, caressed her clit with his lower lip, drank in every drop of her heated arousal from her exquisitely sensitive folds-

She gasped in a faltering breath, then muffled her pleasure against the back of her hand as Abelas brought her to a scintillating peak. Her fingers were twisted painfully in her hair, her teeth pressing ruthlessly into the skin of her hand, but she was numb to it all, numb to anything but the blissful feel of her lover’s tongue between her legs.

Finally Abelas rose to his feet and wrapped her in a tight embrace, his body hard against her own as he kissed her. His lips held the perfume of her own arousal, tangible and earthy evidence of his carnal devotion, and the familiar musky scent drove her desire to a fever pitch.

Her fingers clutched his arms convulsively; she was internally at war, mired in the dual desires to have him right now and to have him as freely and loudly as she liked. Finally she pushed him away, only to tug him toward the stairs up to her bedroom. “I can’t keep up this quiet thing. Let’s hurry,” she urged.

He huffed with amusement as he followed her hasty steps up the stairs. “I admire your discipline,” he said.

She stopped on the first landing, then pulled her shift over her head and flung it to the floor. She shoved her long dark hair back, then faced him boldly. “Trust me, my discipline is hanging by a thread,” she said bluntly, then turned on her heel and ran up the stairs.

Abelas caught her on the second landing. She gasped as he penned her against the wall, his hands cradling her neck as he pressed his forehead to hers. “As is mine,” he breathed. “I want for you so strongly, and it… it is not enough.”

“What’s not enough?” she asked breathily, her fingers digging into his arms.

“Everything,” he replied instantly. “Every moment. Your skin, your taste, your voice. Every moment we spend together until… until the time comes. It will never be enough.”

Athera closed her eyes to block out the reminder of his eventual departure. She knew ecactly how he felt, and it was so incredibly bitter.

She shook her head, then gently pushed him away. She wrenched open the door to her bedroom, then she strode up the final set of stairs and waited impatiently until Abelas drew level with her. Then she flung herself at him in a storm of longing and lust.

He grabbed her naked body, lifting her and wrapping her legs around his waist. She gripped the back of his neck and stared desperately into his eyes as he walked them toward the bed. “Abelas,” she pleaded. “I… maybe I shouldn’t say this, I don’t want you to think poorly of me, but… You make me want to throw this all away. I can’t do that, I know I can’t, and I know you can’t either. But it’s my imagination, it’s a fantasy or an amazing dream or something, and I just…” She gulped in a breath and stroked his face. “I hope you don’t think less of me. I just-”

“No,” he interrupted. Then Athera’s breath left her in a rush as they tumbled onto the bed, his reassuring weight between her legs.

“I understand how you feel,” Abelas breathed. “I…” He pressed his lips together in a seeming struggle for words. “Ma’av’in,” he finally blurted. “This is the only term I can think of. I do not know the word in your language for this. Just know that I feel as you do.” He stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I see this dream, just as you do.”

A scalding tear wended its way down her cheek, and she gasped in a tiny sob as he wiped it away with his thumb. “No more talking,” she begged. “No more, please. Just…” She trailed off and tugged futilely at his strange ancient armour.

He swiftly responded to her wordless command, sliding off the bed and shedding his armour with practiced ease. When he settled himself between her legs again, Athera didn’t hesitate; hesitation left room for words and heartache, and she couldn’t have that right now.

She reached between his legs and grasped his cock, then slid his length against her cleft to spread her heat across him. Abelas hissed in a sharp breath, his fingers tightening in her hair as he rocked against her slick folds; then, with a quick shifting of his hips, he sheathed himself inside of her.

He moaned longingly against her neck, and Athera mewled in kind, a long and pleading keen of pleasure as she savoured the perfect pressure of his cock. He moved against her in a slow and sinuous thrust and she happily arched into him, her hips a perfect cradle to meet the confident curving of his hips.

Within seconds, she and Abelas were moving together in perfect harmony. His palms were hot against her own as he pressed her hands into the bed, her fingers laced and clenching against his own as she lifted her hips to meet his every careful thrust. Even their breathing was synced: they gasped with need as he withdrew, then burst out an exhale as he tenderly delved back into her heat. His cock was utter bliss, the perfect length of steel to fill her up and stroke the pleasure from her core.

When he began to increase his pace, his fingers tightening in her own and his face twisting with rapture, Athera eagerly met and matched him, the hardness of his thrusts wringing her nerves beautifully raw. “Kiss me when you come,” she begged. “Abelas, please-”

“Yes,” he gasped, his hips pistoning into her with passionate zeal until he finally groaned and captured her mouth in a ferocious kiss. He thrust his tongue into her mouth while thrusting his cock as deep as he could reach, and Athera wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging tightly to his lean muscled shoulders as he shuddered in completion in her arms.

He pressed his cheek to hers as he grew still, but his fingers remained clenched between her own, and an overwhelming burst of tenderness bloomed in her chest as he braised the pointed line of her ear with gentle kisses. This perfection couldn’t last, and she knew it; they were doomed to end, and that fate was far too close for her liking. But this ancient warrior filled her heart as readily as his cock filled her body, and she was suddenly desperate to tell him so.

I love you, she thought with a heartwrenching burst of longing. She wanted to say it, it was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t shake the sense that saying it would only hurt them more.

Then Abelas spoke against her ear. “Ma’av’in, ma vhenan,” he whispered. “I cannot explain it better than this, but I promise you, I feel as you do.”

Athera swallowed hard, then hugged him closer. He might as well have been reading her mind. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll take your word for it.”