#talen lavellan

[sapphodera]

No one asked for it but here is my Inquisitor’s family tree! Details/explanation under the cut

Talen looks much younger than Hallana because he died at 30ish and Hallana is 50ish

Talen looks much younger than Hallana because he died at 30ish and Hallana is 50ish

The siblings are ordered from youngest (Ghilana) to oldest (Dirthera)

Elori was conceived the night before the final battle with Corypheus, making her about 1 and a half years old by Tresspasser

(Also depending on the events of DA4 I might retcon Elori)

Ghilana and Somniar are both married, but I didn’t include their spouses bc neither of them have children and then this whole thing would be too complicated

[peldragora]

I REALLY LOVE MY DRAGON AGE OCS OKAY??!

[veshialles]

So @rogue-lavellan pointed me in the direction of this awesome website that you can use to compare the heights of different characters. Which is awesome if you’re like me and are crap when it comes to visualizing height! Wow, I barely have any characters who pass the 6ft marker, and I am only just noticing this.

Here’s how some of my OCs compare, from Fallout, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, and Star Trek Online.

I’m curious to see how this’ll turn out for other people so I’ll tag @helenaamell @ariejul @thescaryreporter @southernstar-s @mojavia @life-is-no-sugarlicking @radbeetle @chibikinesis @ceilingcow @senpaishlong @cherry-pixels @charomiami @catastrotaffy @ryu-no-joou @nuka-nuke @vorchagirl and anybody else who sees this and also thinks it’s a neat idea. But like, you’re by no means obligated to do this if you don’t want to, it’s just for fun!!

[openthepocketwatch]

Here's to the day, and these beautiful kids.

rowed him softer home

A little early friendship piece for @openthepocketwatch, featuring the first of many glorious Heart’s Days and epic friendship letters that Evelyn and Talen share over the years. This is partially a Valentine’s thing, because I am all about the feelings, but also a birthday thing for Hayley and also a friendship-versary thing.

Hayley, this is a very small token of my affection and appreciation. I could write you a million novels and not even come close to expression my gratitude for your friendship: as I so often like to say, you’re an incredible human being with an incredible future (and an incredible present!). Thank you for continuing to be a beacon of generosity, of kindness and goodness, in my life. You deserve all of the best and brightest things this world has to offer, and I can’t wait to see where this next year takes you.

So happy birthday, you, and Happy Heart’s Day! <3 <3 <3

(Also wow Talen is a sadsack teenager with a lot of feelings he doens’t know how to process! Thankfully he has Evelyn to set him back on track, mostly by getting up to mischief. I mean – adventuring!)

rowed him softer home

And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home Than oars divide the ocean (A Bird Came Down the Walk, Emily Dickinson)

She catches him off guard.

That doesn’t usually happen. Evelyn, for all she itches against the same constraints that leave Talen withdrawn and silent, is bright: a furious comet streaking through the sky, flaring against the winds despite herself. Which means that, even within the few months of their friendship, he can see her coming miles away, whatever plan she’s hatching, whatever small rebellion she intends, whatever innocent conversation that nonetheless leaves Talen dropping secrets like coins through clumsy fingers.

She’d make an awful thief if she were actually stealing coins and not his secrets, he thinks the first time she drags him along on one of her madcap schemes. Her eyes glint with mischief; her fingers twitch; she keeps tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, biting at the edges of her lips to keep a smile from spilling out.

Keep reading

[yetanotherlesbianonthiswebsite]

DA-tober 4: Home

Amaris Lavellan is an OC by my amazing and brilliant partner @dalishious and I am grateful and honored to be allowed to write about the OC in this fandom I love the most.

-

Sometime in Summer of 9:34

The Circle had always insisted that there was no world outside the walls, that everything of meaning was contained within it’s tall, cold, grey stone halls. Imerati deeply loved learning that this was the opposite of true, every day anew. Listening to Amaris’ equally beautiful voice and thoughts was one of those instances where the horizon of the world Imerati could imagine broadened with every finished sentence.

Amaris spoke so lovingly and caringly about her brother, Talen. While the Elvish spoken by Clan Lavellan was devoid of a grammatical gender, there was not a single doubt in Amaris’ descriptions regarding Talen’s masculinity. Talen was as much hanalen-ma as Imerati was, and yet Amaris seemed to reject any notion that this limited his masculinity. Imerati wondered how different her life might have been, had she known earlier how normal hanalen-ma people were among the Dalish.

“But I do not wish to bore you with ranting on for so long. Tell me, do you have a home?”

“Amaris, you couldn’t bore me even if you tried, I treasure your thoughts and ways of interacting with the world so much. As for a home, no, never really.” Despite Amaris looking somewhere into the distance, Imerati knew she was listening. The Circle had taught her strictly to keep eye contact with those she was speaking to, yet to avoid eye contact when approaching an angry superior. Amaris seemed not to care about the arbitrary rules humans set out for interactions, and Imerati found that quite relaxing. Though she did not mind looking at and into Amaris’ magnificent yellow amber eyes, for that matter.

“What do you mean by ‘never really’?”

“I have places to sometimes stay at for a couple of weeks or maybe months, but none of them feel like a home. I am where I am needed, there are in many places many fires to put out and even more to set. I sleep in tents, carriages, boat cabins, palaces, shacks, whatever is available; and I do not carry more with me than what fits in a couple of boxes. I don’t have a place I can call home, not for long.”

“It seems you have misunderstood, I was referring to people-home, not building-home.”

Elvish had many meanings for the word the Trade Tongue primarily translated as ‘home’. People-home was the closest unit of a community. The Trade Tongue could translate people-home as ‘family’.

“Oh. No, I don’t have a family. My birth-father died when I was one, my birth-mother when I was two. A friend of the two, a human woman, took me in, as my birth-parents had designated her as my godmother in case of their death. But her cruel new husband treated her so unwell that she developed a paranoia and a desire to fit in. When my magic manifested at the age of four, she immediately called the templars, hoping that they would know of a way to ‘fix me’. For your parents and your Clan, your gift of magic is a blessing. For my designated mother, it was an illness to be treated.”

Imerati sighed before continuing. “I had wondered ever since I left the Circle why my family had abandoned me, why the hadn’t resisted the templars. I knew since Kinloch Hold fell and documents where recovered what had happened. I have not contacted my designated mother ever, in my life. For all I know, she could be dead. For all that I care about as well. So, no, I don’t have a family, neither by blood nor by designation.”

“Your family does not need to be defined by blood or by designation. You have a choice over your relations.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Family are the close, loving, mutual relations that hold the most influence over who you are. Those kinds of connections cannot be forced, they grow, and we have a choice over which ones we tend to and which ones we cut off.”

“Hmm.” Imerati thought back to the Circle. Irving had always been going on how all mages and templars in Kinloch Hold were the closest thing to family they would ever have, an ultimately benevolent family of circumstance. There were worlds of difference between that which had been called a family in her youth and what Amaris was describing and living.

“Then… I guess Leliana is my family, in the way her boldness and precision and ability to force circumstances out of sheer will informs my own boldness in dealing with the world. Briala is my family, as the visionary pictures her words paint are the outlines of our dream dreamed together. Well, something very similar goes for Merrill, too, and my interactions with the fade will forever mirror part of her movements of magic. And I don’t think the clarity and logic with which Neimena changes the pacing of history will also inevitably have imbedded itself in my soul.”

She looked at Amaris, thinking. Imerati’s gaze jumped between the lines of Amaris’ vallaslin, the soft outline of her face, her magnificent eyes so perfectly framed by her bushy eyebrows. Amaris, who collected and upkept the stories of her people with such care and focus. Amaris, who so deeply understood what power lies within stories and histories and who tells them. Amaris, whose translations and artworks had been the key that unlocked the cage around Imerati’s heart four years ago.

Imerati shrugged to herself. Close, loving, mutual relations that held the most influence over who she was. She looked at Amaris again. “If we define family that way… I guess I hope that mine may grow sooner than later.”

My short fic for the Factions prompt

My short fic for the Hope prompt

My short fic for the Rebellion prompt

Let it be known by all that I love Lydia so much.

[dalishious]

are any of your inquisitors/wardens/hawkes trans? i love seeing trans player characters so i was just wondering!

I didn’t originally envision her as such, but I’ve come to see Dalia as non-binary (she/they)

Talen Lavellan, (who primarily exists as my canon Lavellan’s brother), is a trans man (he)

Niamh Cousland is demigender (she)

In the Origin Story novelization I’m currently slowly working on, the Surana I’m using is non-binary (they) and the Mahariel I’m using is a trans man (he)

And while they’re not Inquisitors, Wardens or Hawkes, my Journey’s End fic (which I really need to get back to) does have a few trans/NB OCs... Aurélie is a trans woman (she) and main character. Hanin, who is genderfluid (he/they/she) is a major supporting character. Minor supporting characters are Jeannine,  who is a trans woman (she), Noam, who is agender (they), and Elgar’athim, who is non-binary (ze)

[kagetsukai]

Compare Yourself to Your OC

I got tagged by @shannaraisles :D Thanks, boo! :D And I’m not doing Hannah, since that would be cheating :P

Ellana Lavellan

BASIC

Age: Older | Younger | Same

Race: Same | Different (well, we’re both white, but she’s an elf?)

Sexuality: Same | Different

PHYSICAL

Hair color: Same | Different

Hair Length: Shorter | Longer | Same

Hair Style: Same | Different

Eye color: Same | Different

Height: Taller | Shorter | Same

Weight: Less | More | Same

PERSONALITY

Introversion Levels: Higher | Lower | Same

Extroversion Levels: Higher | Lower | Same

Hogwarts House: Same | Different

Opinion of Self: Higher | Lower | Same

Other’s Perception: Same | Different

Talkativeness: More | Less | Same

BONUS! BOLD EVERYTHING THAT’S TRUE

My muse and I like the same music. | We share a talent. | We have the same hobbies. | We like the same books. | We watch the same shows. | We’re both big fans of the same thing. | We have the same favorite color. | We have the same favorite food. | We have the same job. | We have the same goals in life. | We live in the same country. | We live in the same state/province/etc.| We both live in a city/suburb/etc. | We have the same fashion sense. | Our friends are similar. | We both look for the same qualities in a love interest.

[iimmcrtalis-archive]

Biography:

     A life begins when you first take a breath, they say. You take a breath, and scream life into the world. You mark the world with your voice and then,  you slowly quiet.

  Sometimes, however, you do not make your mark till later. You didn't cry when you were born, and you aren't crying now. But the world can feel you crawling back. Clawing, etching, your name into the spine of everyone regardless if they know you are not. It is not because of who you are. But what you've done; Survived death for six months.

   This is how she came to be. No memory of who she was. That was the deal. No memories of who she had been. Only of what made her. Dying. Death. Life a new. Death would follow her, threaded through her bones. Threaded through the scar on her throat, knitting together her organs and the wound that let them spill. She would never truly be alive again.

  The snow melted. Hands bloodied. Clothes stained and torn to shreds. She was a corpse walking. Wandering. Lost. But a woman, Eludysia, found her. She spoke with confidence, like a woman that knew everything. Took her away, to the other side of the country. A Grandmother she never knew, apparently. A mentor that would help her truly deal with her magic. But first, they would have to work through how death stuck to her. Work through the questions that rose as she fell into memories of what happened reached her. But that would be years. Years of self destruction. Years that she struggled to think beyond what she had become. A heavy thing to process, until she had a heartbeat. And then she breathed. And the world shifted.

  Nearly dying again had struck fear into her chest. A flash of bleeding, bloodied, lost. A memory replaying in her head shook her to her core. Near death experiences tend to do that, of course. Make you crave life. It turned her around, guided her back to living to live instead of exist.

  She sought after knowledge, and power. Made a web of people she knew, connected over things she had interest in. Plays the role her grandmother hoped her to. Not a pawn, not truly. But as her right hand. The Heir to being a Watcher. Meant the world was her playground and she'd have to explore it at the behest of Eludysia.

So she does.

  She travels, place to place. Under the guise of it being a teaching job, or studying plants and what not. Good thing, her doctorate, covers for a lot

.Stats:

Name: Revas Ramsey Nicknames: Vas, Little Witch, Witchy Bitch. Titles: Death Seer Age: 27 Birthday:March 19th Gender: DMAB. Trans-Woman. She/Her pronouns only. Sexuality: Pansexual │ demiromantic Birthplace: Unknown. Residence: California Relatives:                 Eludysia Ramsey [ Grandmother ] (alive)                 Jacob Feldt [ Father ] ( Alive )                 Rani Feldt  [ mother ] ( Alive )                 Miriam Feldt [ sister ] ( alive )                 Jacob Feldt Jr [ brother ] ( alive )

Height: 5'2" Weight: 140lbs Character’s body build: Curved, muscular. Eye Color: Emerald green. Hair Color: Dark red. Type of hair: Very thick. Hairstyle: Usually in a long braid or high tight ponytail. Hair down will go past her calves.  Complexion and skin tone: Freckled & light brown Scars: Multiple facial scars. Deep scar across her throat. Mannerisms: Revas used to stumble a bit while she was nervous. Now she speaks very cooly, and tends to have her arms crossed; a sign of being closed off. Usual Body Posture: Warm. Usually bouncing or inviting to others. Or cold and shut off. Tattoos:

Black work wings on her back

Hebrew for Freedom on her wrist.

Galaxy sleeves.

Class/race: Witch. Half-fae.

Powers & Abilities:

MAGIC:

Offensive Magic:

Magic Attacks

Magic Combat

Power Absorption

Defensive Magic:

Force-Field Generation

Healing Magical

Energy Absorption

Miscellaneous Abilities

Elemental Manipulation

Flight

Magic Aura

Magic Detection

Magic Generation

Magical Constructs

Magical Energy Manipulation

Magically Enhanced Physiology

Personal Domain

Potion Creation - for various purposes (i.e. explosive, healing)

Shapeshifting

Spell Casting        • Spell Amplification        • Spell Creation        • Spell Destabilization        • Spell Mixture        • Spell Negation

Summoning/Banishment

Enchanting

Telekinesis

Telepathy

Teleportation

Transmutation

SEER:

Precognition:  perceive future events before they happen

Retrocognition: to discern events of the past

Death Sense: To detect who was going to die and when their death will occur, but may not be able to prevent it.

Divination: Gain insight of future events by the use of occult ritual.

Clairvoyance:  gain a direct visual information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the user's physical sight and allows them to act when they are unable to use their eyes and allows them to hear things at distances.    can sense/see/hear spiritual/psychic beings and other person's presence and perceive emotions, thoughts and memories of others. Some users can project themselves onto the spiritual world.

Empathic: To receive precognitive flashes of the future when exposed to extreme emotion.

Flash: To see things seconds or minutes before they happen.

Dreaming: To perceive future in dreams, whether symbolic, direct or from the perspective of another being.           • Can also alter and manipulate the dreams of others. Usually has       to be in close proximity to the other person ( same house will work best. ) 

Dream Scrying: to dream actual ongoing far-off events.

Psychic Navigation: to locate people/objects or create a mental map of an area.

Psychometry: to perceive the residual information of an object and/or person. This ability isn’t one of her major ones, thus it’s usually only when she focuses on an object/person. 

Shared Vision: to view another user of clairvoyance sight.

Visual Linking: to link one’s vision to others.

VERSES:

Teen: Tag    Takes place between the age of 14 to 18. Mostly your standard highschool au yo.

College: Tag    19 to 26. Standard college au dude. College buds. Hell ye. Watch my girl earn her doctorate.

Future: Tag   45 to whatever age. She's pretty much immortal y'all. Ngl here. So your muse future shit? Older revas time.

Inquisition Related:

    •  Companion: Post │ Tag     Left clan Lavellan at 12. Became a first for another clan. Murdered two people. Left that clan. Became a traveling Keeper. Hung out in Kirkwall for awhile. Went back to being a keeper for a while. Then ya know. Sky explodes. 

  • Advisor: Tag        Instead of a companion the Inquisitor can make her an advisor. She acts more as an ambassador for the dalish and often consults with the mages so their voices have a say in how shit goes. Shit stays relatively the same. just more stress :))

  •    Inquisitor: Post │ Tag   Sort of the same deal. But instead of just leaving for another clan bc too many mages, she used blood magic to try and keep her parents alive post a darkspawn attack. Then all the other shit happened. In Trespasser she's no longer a devotee to Mythal but to Falon'din. 

  • Grey Warden:  Post │ Page │ Codex       Tag ( awakening ) │ Tag ( da2 & dai ) │ Suledin Tag │ Rosal’nan tag   After killing two clan members, she travels Fereldan for three years. After the Blight she joins the wardens. Variants are based on the Wardens choices made by her. Or default if no choices are made.

  •   Specific Talen ( svcraficed ) Warden AU: Tag │ Shora Tag  Plucked outta the woods, half dead and injured, the Warden took her under his wing. Finding him a part of her new family, she takes the name Shora. 

  • Commander  of The Inquisition Forces AU: Tag          Based on a dire need with @desiderrium‘s Cullen to have him actually fucking not be in charge so Revas takes his place. Why is she qualified, you might ask. Well, for the same reason people say that Merrill is. She’s lead people and is trained to lead people, to command and protect her people. Also she’s like. strong as heck so. why not. 

DC: Post │ Tag     What do you do after you've been murdered but aren't dead dead? Ya get the fuck outta dodge. Except it leaves an impact. So you become a goddamn vigilante.             • Side AU: Blue Lantern verse where Revas is chosen to be a blue Lantern.

Fallout: Post │ Tag    Primarily between Fallout 3, NV & 4.       • Standard: Revas is a former Courser turned Gunner, turned Mercenary. Her age is unknown. Her Identity as a Synth even more so. She travels with Faron, a sniper.        • Other one: Instead of being a synth, she's a Psyker with seer abilities & telepathy.

Overwatch: Post │ Tag    All I know is that she died. Got really fucked up. I'm thinking Nanobots to control plants & shit ya know. We'll see I think. Just know shes dead. Dead ish. Like genji “””dead” but also Reaper dead. Cybernetic nanobot cloud of fuck you. Tho she's melee af yo.

Mass Effect Trilogy:  Post │ Tag    Still debating if Revas is gonna be a Quarian or just a Jewish woman from Earth. Who knows. Probably human bc its easier lbh. Powerful af Biotic human who's a badass merc w/ her pal Faron. Y'all catching a pattern?

Mass Effect: Andromeda: Post │ Tag   Human Biotic. Came to Andromeda because she wanted to get away from bad shit. She studied botany and agriculture so ya know early release to help with food but. She sided against the Initiative and fucked off to Kadara.

Elder Scrolls: Post │ Tag   Wood elf magic user who is sort of a cannibal and eats general kills. Because religious reasons. Stumbles into Skyrim w/ Faron bc she wants to travel and help her people everywhere.

The Raven Cycle:  Post │ Tag      Crossover with her normal verse. Revas works at Aglionby Academy as a history teacher. Her involvement in the series is up to You. 

Murder Mom:  Post  │ Tag        The verse post is Graphic. Tw for abuse ( childhood sexual abuse ), rape implied, murder, violence, death, & murder.      A Modern Conversion of her Inquisitor verse. Revas’s parents are murdered when she’s twelve. She gets taken in by an abusive family that sort of planned it all. Ends up murdered. Comes back and fucks their shit up. She’s an extremely powerful witch in this AU, as well as a CEO of her grandmothers company. She’s not afraid to kill. 

No Death: Tag     Based on this drabble. Not extremely explicit but does have mentions & implications of abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempted, cancer, & family death.        In this AU, it’s a case of if Revas didn’t die at all. Instead of dying, her magic lashed out and killed her attackers. & she forced herself to stay alive because of hope and wanting to. Her magic sort of hit an awoken state that gave her high abilities in healing magic, usually on herself. Thus keeping her alive even when the guilt from murder got too much. In her early 20′s and late teen years, her parents passed away and she was left with her younger siblings, twin toddlers. Took a deal with a shady grandmother for money & immortality, mainly the money. & now still lives in a brownstone in New York, studying history working two jobs & trying to be a good mom for her siblings. 

TAGS

general • about • isms • face • aesthetics • abilities • ic 

[suledxn-blog]

Details

Names.

For Revas, names are simply words that she associates with. They aren’t names. Just. Words. It’s understandable that she has many names. Whether its because of a verse, or simply events that happen. Some can know her by one name, and others another. But, understandably, it can probably get confusing! Because there are a lot of names she goes by. So, this is a good list of all her names, who should know them, and when to use them!

FENRIAN - A name that she does not remember in her main verse. The only people who should know this are old Lavellan clanmates & anyone who interacts with any of her warden verses. This is pretty much a deadname. It’s not great to call her, but there are people who probably use it without knowing she has a new name now, or that she won’t respond to it. 

DA’FEN - Title more than a name. Little wolf. It’s usually used in a more gentle loving way than what its been used with regards to Revas. For her, it was something that angered people. Then it became a name that some feared. Tied to Fen’harel in its own basic nature, Dalish should be the only ones who have heard of it. Not that they would know it is her. But she does call herself by this occasionally. 

REVAS - Her name. A name she chose for herself, because a man once asked her for her name with kindness in his voice. A feat that not many had so much as tried. She calls herself Freedom. Not for her people. For herself. Free of her past, her clans. Her life is free, no matter who she chooses to serve. Later, it would be for her people. Keeper Revas. Keeper of Freedom. She who fights to free her people from not only themselves but the constraints humans have put on them. It is a name most should know, if nothing else they’ll know Revas. 

 SULEDIN - Both used in her Grey Warden verse & Post - Trespasser. Of course, in post-trespasser it’s more of a term she associates with, and will still respond to Revas. However, as a Grey Warden, it is her NAME. It is what she chooses to be referred to if you save the city & not the keep. Because, for her, overcoming death? Overcoming the blight? It’s her enduring death. It’s her enduring the pain of the blight, to carry on and have a purpose bigger than herself. It’s a statement that she will continue to endure all life throws at her.         Anyone who knows her through this ending of the Grey Warden verse would know her by this name. Only the wardens of Awakening would know her name previously. 

ROSAL’NAN - Another name in her Grey Warden verse. Of course this name is for the other outcome of Awakening. Should you choose to save the Keep, she chooses this name. Not for herself. For the elves that died in the city. For the elves the blight has taken. She calls herself an enduring vengeance, against the darkspawn that killed her people.            Anyone who knows her through this ending of the Grey Warden verse would know her by this name. Only the wardens of Awakening would know her name previously.

SHORA - Not a name that (for now) pertains to anyone outside @svcrificed tbh. But, still one that will show up on my blog a bunch! After the Blight’s dealt with, Fereldan saved, and she officially joins the Grey Wardens, Fenrian chooses a new name; Shora;  she who is happiest on the journey. While the world may be a hell pit, and being a Grey Warden can be its own unrewarding hell, she’s come a long way from some First in a shitty clan. Her new found brother, Talen, makes the journey one of happiness. And while she may be tempted to trade it for a vast amount of gold, she probably wouldn’t unless Talen came too.

ILVIN - Again, for now, only used w/ Talen. After the final battle, amongst her friends and allies, she finds her brother has given his life to end the blight. The kiss on her forehead the night before, kind words his last to her. It crushes her. And, from that moment she calls herself, Ilvin; A worthy sacrifice. With his warden’s oath around her neck, she joins the grey wardens to honor his memory. Even if he would have yelled at her for it. 

Eventually I’ll make a post about her other names, various titles and the like. Mainly because the lengths to which Revas has gone through to actually get to where she is deserves its own damn post. I’ll also make one for other fandom Au’s bc that’ll be important one day.

[openthepocketwatch]

3 or 15 for Evelyn!!

15. a letter to your OC from a companion they haven’t seen in a while

A piece of parchment in a Lavellan aravel. It was once tied with twine and tightly furled but now is almost flat. There is charcoal and soot on the edges of the paper, seemingly from the hands of the reader.

Evelyn,            Think of my surprise when I arrive in Starkhaven and the first name I hear from off a noble’s lips is yours. It seems you now have a reputation. After you and Virion’s last campaign, the smithy social circles seem to have talked quite a bit about your work. And from what I know about smithy social circles, it seems good. I don’t want you being too smug, but there was an offer from one of the nobles Virion visited. Virion is sure it means good things for the clan. I’ll be keeping an eye out, like usual. Clan Lavellan doesn’t need too much attention on it. But if we had to get attention for something, I’m glad it was your skills at making beautiful and entirely too deadly weapons.                 I’m sure you’ve already gotten it out of the Keeper, that I’m headed off to Sundermount. Istimaethoriel wants to take advantage of our relation with Sabrae, and…. I know, I know. You hate when I’ve been gone this long. I’ll try my best to get back before Harvestmere. I can hear you now, you’re protesting that I always say that, but this time it’s true. I haven’t seen you in far too long, lethallin.                I’m doing well. Virion sends his love. I can only image how mad you are to be cooped up at camp while we’re away. I’ll make up for it when we’re back. You know I’ll only hiking with you now under the most dire of circumstances, but getting you away from the forge is one of them.               I know Virion’s only supposed to pass on ‘official correspondence,’ but frankly, I don’t give a damn. I hope you like my gift. I found it in one of the smithys, one who spoke highly of you. A bit of adamantum, he said. All I knew is that it would be perfect for you.             Stay safe, lethallin, and hang on. Talen

[sapphodera]

Full Name: Somniar Revas Lavellan

Nickname(s): Som (only her family calls her this), Willow (via Varric)

Status: Alive, living in ???

Age: 25 (as of 9:41 dragon)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

Class: Rogue

Specialization: Assassin

Birthday: 25th Haring

Height: 5’8

Species: Elf

Appearance: Somniar is tall and skinny, hence Varric’s nickname. She obviously has Andruil’s vallaslin on her face, but it is also on some parts of her body as well. She has long, dark brown hair that is usually in a ponytail with a braid on the sides. Her eyes are hazel colored.

Background: Somniar grew up in clan Sabre along with Mahariel and Merrill. Her father was killed when she was 5, her sister Dirthera 10, and her sister Ghilana only a few weeks old. Other than that, her childhood was mostly happy. When the clan came to Sundermount and Merrill joined up with Hawke, Somniar spoke to them when they visited. Because of this she became aquatinted with Hawke and Varric. When Marethari died, the clan blamed Merrill for it. Somniar and her mother and sisters were the only ones that refused to fight Merrill. Because of this they survived the attack and Hawke helped them leave Sundermount. Eventually they found the Lavellan clan and they joined them.

Likes/Dislikes: Growing up in a Dalish clan, Somniar did not have much luxury. So when she has access to basically anything she wants as Inquisitor she goes all out. She likes hot baths, tea, Orlesian pastries, books, silk, and expensive bedding. She enjoys nature and peace and quiet. She dislikes Orlesians, politics, humans, Templars, and the Chantry.

Fears: Somniar’s loved ones are very important to her. After losing her father and Wyn she doesn’t want to lose anyone else. She also fears failing as Inquisitor and disappointing her people.

Love Interest(s): Wyn (a girl from her clan, deceased), Briala (they get married during Tresspasser)

Family: Talen (father, deceased), Hallana (mother), Dirthera (older sister), Ghilana (younger sister)

Decisions made: Allied with the mages, left Stroud in the fade, Wardens given a second chance, Briala rules Orlais, and technically she drank from the well but in my canon it was her sister.

Personality: Somniar is a quiet, introverted person. She prefers to listen and observe. Generally, she is kind and polite. Most people think nothing of her, but those that know her well think she is clever, independent, and hardworking.

Beliefs: Somniar obviously respects the Dalish and trusts them. She helps them in any way she can. She does the same with city elves but is less familiar with them. She also believes that the mages should be free but is very naive to how bad the circles actually are. The Qun scares her a bit, as she saw what they did in Kirkwall, but the Qunari species is fine. She is very wary of humans and it takes a while for her to become friends with one.

Religion: Dalish

Friends: Somniar’s sisters are her closest confidants. Her friends in the Inquisition include Josephine, Leliana, Blackwall, and Varric, and eventually Sera, Dorian, Vivienne and Cassandra.

Rivals: So in my personal canon, Samson is the advisor and not Cullen, so she hates Samson at first but eventually they come around to being friendly with each other. She also hates Solas at first but when he starts dating Dirthera she comes around, and then he breaks up with and turns out he’s an evil god so she goes right back to hating him. Also she doesn’t dislike Cole but he freaks her out so she doesn’t spend much time with him.

What happened to them after the game ended: After Inquisition Somniar continued to stay in Skyhold but she frequently visited her clan. She mostly went around doing the same Inquisitor-ly as before. She also continued her relationship with Briala and during Trespasser they got married in secret. Only after her arm was cut off and she was sure she wasn’t going to die they had a real wedding with her clan. She also gets a fancy prosthetic from Dagna.

[mstigergun]

OC Kiss Week, “cardsharp”

OC Kiss Week, Day Two (I just went off-script and wrote this, so let’s reclassify as a “haha take that shems!” kiss)

Featuring Talen Lavellan and Basten Adaar, because @enviouspride​ thought that it would be neat and also possibly really awkward for us to do a little switcheroo of our, like, canon OC ships (OC OTP and OTP: fix you). Set in 9:39 Dragon, early on. Thanks to @neurotrophicfactors​ for giving me the idea that became this! 

Pertinent information: when Talen was a young hooligan in Ansburg, he was real good with cards and remains, to this day, real good with cards and tricks and winning coin and pulling plays.

[~2700 words, because who am I even kidding with trying to write properly short fiction]

cardsharp

He wouldn’t notice, except that the dealer’s face is familiar. As jolting as seeing a face out of a dream or a forgotten past: a collision between then and now, a missing step on a staircase or a new gnarled root where there once was a smooth path.

Except he hasn’t dreamed this man’s face and then woken to find him in the grubby little tavern in Wycome, one that stinks of sailors fresh off the water and still reeking of pitch and salt. No, he remembers the dealer – greasy hair, creased forehead, sweat-damp collar, and grimy, tricky fingers – from South Bank. The man had tried his tricks once or twice in North Bank, but say what folks might about Ansburg being a backwater city, the denizens of the town’s darker and grittier shore knew precisely what he was up to.

And if he hadn’t recognized the man’s face, his hunched shoulders, the way his tongue flicks always to the corner of his mouth, as if he’s lost a crumb there and is ever searching for it, he’d certainly recall the play.

“I might find someone to count the coin for you, messere.” An unctuous sneer as the man leans forward, the cards sliding between his palms and nearly dripping from his fingers. Yielding and obedient, well used to the particular routes between knuckle and fingertip, one palm and the next. “If numbers are beyond your ken. I’ve heard it said, have I, that your folk can count only so high as you’ve fingers, and our buy-in is slightly steeper.”

To either side, the other players chortle, dropping their own coin in the little glinting pile resting at the center of the table. Waiting to see how the mark responds. They’ll be in on it, of course. This trick runs best with friends.

Talen shouldn’t be bothered. It’s really none of his business, not when he’s got his own dice game to keep an eye on, lest the woman three drinks ahead of him tries something slippery. But still his attention drifts sideways as he nurses his ale, waiting to see if the Qunari rises to the bait.

The chair creaks beneath the Qunari as he leans forward, broad-shouldered and tall enough that he casts a shadow over the sticky table separating him from the dealer. His eyebrows tilt downward, lips caught in a barely-contained scowl. “I can count,” he grinds out. “Deal me in.”

It’s a mistake, but one carefully calculated by the dealer, who smiles and acquiesces. “Ah, if you’re quite certain.” The cards arc between his grimy palms, shuffling and shifting and then settling on the wood before them, nimbly avoiding the pile of glinting coins in the middle of the table. Then, with an oily smile that peels back to reveal blackening teeth, “Thought you ox-men knew when to quit, given Kirkwall and all.”

And like that, the hand is dealt, and the play made painfully obvious.

Of course, it wouldn’t have started there with the insult as precise as a surgeon’s blade. No, first, there would have been a round of drinks, a string of wins and then slow losses – fair and even, with the other players winning and losing alongside the Qunari. And my, messere, you are clever with cards. And might I buy you another round? We can wager the cost.  And then Say, why don’t we try a new game? If we keep up with Diamondback, I’ll have to give you the shirt off my very own back. It’s simple enough, this one, something you can take back to your fellows. Good for passing the time between jobs, it is. Why, my very own mum taught me when I was only a whelp… All while the cards rifled obediently in the dealer’s palms, like whipped dogs. A simple round or two of the unfamiliar game, the mark coming ahead by an inch and then a mile. And once he’d been well-plied with drink and made to feel comfortable, confident, clever –

Then the jibes, barbs aimed to give the mark something to prove, to make it impossible for him to walk away without giving credence to the worn insults, the familiar prejudice. Can’t give ground to that when it’s already him against the world.

Talen downs his ale and cashes out of his dice game, wandering instead over to the taps to buy another drink. He can’t watch.

But –

“Old Tom’ll have him fleeced before the night’s through, I’ll wager you. Nary enough coin to put a roof over his blighted horns.” The woman two stools over, her own hair tied up in a sloppy knot at the nape of her neck. She picks idly at her own tattered deck of cards. “Maker knows I love it when the mercs come in. Always got some fresh faces without two scraps of common sense to rub together.”

Her compatriot scratches at his beard. “You don’t think he’ll start goring folk? I told Tom, best you choose a knife-ear. At least they know their place. Those ox-men, though –”

Talen sets his mug down, a hard clatter against the bar. The man’s eyes flick up, and Talen can see him registering what he’s just said, the stillness of Talen’s body, the flashing danger in his eyes.

Good. Decision made, then.

Talen sidles by the woman between them, and he slips past the bearded man, whose fingernails are dirty, whose hair rests in a lank line against his neck. “Say it again,” Talen murmurs as he moves by, “and I’ll cut you heart to navel.” His hands flick at the edge of his coat, reveal the glint of his daggers, and then Talen turns away, toward the table where the Qunari is once again counting out more coin to add to the pile.

Talen pulls a chair up next to him, offering a barely formed smile. A familiar song – the throb of fury barely held in check – roars to life within his chest, his own hands itching for cards, for coin, for the chance to show this greasy-haired and foul-mouthed dealer his place in the world.

We don’t run plays here on those who can’t spare coin, Shira had said when the man first dared show in face in North Bank. He’s going to wake up with a blade to his throat. You wait and see, little shadow. Only go after rich fucks. We play by rules, and those don’t include calling people knife-ears.

“I’ll play,” says Talen mildly, although his hands curl restlessly against his thighs.

If the dealer weren’t greedy, if he weren’t small-minded, he would decline: any cardsharp worth his fingers knows that controlling cards requires controlling who’s playing. He’d already got his mark – a young Qunari mercenary with too much coin and not enough street-sense – and his two accomplices, who cackle and gamble and shift the dynamic as necessary. The dealer shouldn’t want an unknown elf joining the fray.

But –

The man’s eyes narrow, glittering. His tongue flicks to the corner of his mouth, greedy. “You’ll think me rude, messere,” the familiar, sneering drawl. “But you’ll need to pony up now. I’ve known many an elf who likes to buy in but doesn’t have coin to pay. Sneaky lot, your folks. And it’s got to be coin, not twigs and leaves.”

Next to him, the Qunari shifts, his frown deepening. “Come on,” he says, forehead creasing. “That’s not fair.”

Talen shoots him a sideways glance, shrugging. “It hardly matters what’s fair, does it?” He plunks his coinpurse onto the table, its weight making his point evident. “Talen Lavellan.”

“Basten Adaar.” His eyes are the blue of the open ocean, long white hair a soft cascade down toward his broad shoulders. Then, leaning slightly closer, “You don’t have a drink. Did you want one?”

He shakes his head, keeping the small smile he can feel building firmly in check. “Afterwards,” he offers. “If you’re still keen.”

“I’ve got time,” says Basten. And then, with a half-laugh, deep and rich and easy, “But it’s hard to say if I’ll still have coin.”

“If you’ve finished,” the dealer says, voice thin.

Talen adds his buy-in to the pile, watching as the dealer spreads his cards across the table. Old Tom’s fingers flick at the corners of the cards, each of which he knows more intimately than a lover. If, Talen thinks distantly, the man could ever manage to convince someone to head to bed with him. Most likely, it’s the dealer and his cards.

The game progresses much as Talen suspects it would: in fits and starts, through the next three rounds, the dealer’s compatriots come ahead, while Basten and Talen fall behind. But this close, Talen can watch the man’s hands, can see precisely how he’s working the cards, how he’s dealing in careful order to insure that his friends come ahead, that he comes ahead.

“You’re a mercenary?” Talen asks in the middle of one hand. A minor distraction. Again, the dealer’s forehead creases – his gambit will be no good if his two marks decide they’d rather go chat by the bar. Or head down the road to wherever they’re roomed.

It would, Talen can concede, be the easier way out, but there will be a particular, familiar satisfaction in this as well.

“Yeah,” says Basten, shifting the cards in his hand thoughtfully. “With Kata-Meraad. Been at it for awhile.”

“Awhile?” Talen lets his attention drift from his own cards and the dealer’s infernal shuffling as he doles out another card to each of them. “Really.”

That wins him a huffed laugh. “I’ve been away from home for awhile, and I’ve been training for almost that long. But it took me some time to officially sign on. Kubrasan wanted me to be ready.”

“Well, you’ve certainly grown into yourself,” Talen says, pleased when one of the other players makes a sharp, irritated sound and the mercenary in question grins, broad and easy. Then, with a look back to Old Tom, whose expression is so sour that Talen’s surprised it doesn’t curdle all the milk in the vicinity, “I didn’t get a card that time. Another, if you don’t mind.”

By the fifth round, Talen’s managed to lean in close enough to Basten that he can make out his cards. By the sixth, he’s laughing and chatting amicably and casually reaching to brush his fingers against the back of the Qunari’s hands, all while lifting and replacing cards between rounds.

By the seventh round, Talen has built himself a perfect hand – just as Basten’s coin is running out and one of the other players raises the stakes. The dealer’s play is well-timed. Talen’s is better.

He settles back into his seat, leaning against the hard wooden rungs. He feigns confusion, blinking at his cards as the dealer merrily deals another round. “I’m sorry,” he says blandly, “could you remind me – what does a winning hand look like?”

Something sharp and irritated flashes across Old Tom’s face. “Face cards, one suit across the lot, pairs and trios.”

Of course, his compatriots have been cashing in one small hands: two pairs, straights, nothing that would draw undue attention or incite any outrage.

“Oh,” says Talen. “Well.”

He splays his hand across the table, smiling mildly at the dealer.

The man nearly bites his tongue through. “You –” he starts.

“Not bad,” says Basten to his side, smiling broadly. “I guess it you’ll be buying that drink. If you’re still keen, that is.”

Talen reaches out and scoops the pile of coins from the middle of the table, dumping them gracelessly into a square of fabric. “I’m still keen,” he says, tying the corners tight. “And thank you, Tom, for the game. You know, it’s one I haven’t played in ages. Not since Ansburg. When I was there trading twigs and leaves.”

“Wait –” tries one of the other players. “Another hand? You’ve coin enough to spare, and –”

But Talen stands, and Basten rises beside him, a towering and broad-shouldered figure in the cramped tavern. His horns nearly catch on the low candelabra above the table, smoky and sputtering. “And I’ve a drink to buy,” he says. “If one of us can manage to count the coin.”

They leave the dealer there, blinking in confusion and his features caught in a curious meeting place between bewilderment and outrage. Outside, the air is warm, sweet with the first suggestions of spring. The sky above is dark, the stars blotted out by the clouds that have rolled in from the ocean.

“So, about that drink,” says Basten.

Talen glances at him sideways. Takes in his easy smile, his pale hair, the curl of his horns. Like standing at the base of a mountain and looking ever upwards, except this mountain is more handsome than sublime, and those eyes sparkle very brightly beneath the lanterns overhead.

But fair’s fair.

“This is yours,” he says, shoving the makeshift coinpurse toward the mercenary.

“No, it’s not,” says Basten, blinking. “You won, fair and square.”

Talen might laugh, except that Basten looks so very earnest. “I didn’t. But you weren’t going to lose fair and square either. And so this,” he stops, there in the middle of the dimly-lit street that smells faintly of salt water, of tallow and smoke, and again pushes the heavy fabric pouch toward Basten’s broad chest, “is yours.”

A shadow flickers across Basten’s fine features as he looks down at Talen. His head tilts to one side. “You cheated,” he says.

“I did.”

“And – you were flirting so that you could win? You distracted the dealer, and me, and took the cards you needed.”

Again, he nods. And although the air is warm, a little shiver inches up his spine.

It’s a familiar feeling, this one. He knows all too well what it means to disappoint.

“Oh,” says Basten, his mouth caught in a frown. “Right.” His hands reach out and take the coinpurse, uncertain.

In the distance, Talen can make out laughter. Slurred speech. The sound of unsteady footsteps against cobblestones.

He’s done more than he should have. It would have been easier to ignore the whole situation, to simply leave the tavern and head out into the evening beyond its grimy walls. But –

“They think we’re easy marks, all of them. As if we don’t have enough to contend with.” Talen shifts his weight, arms crossing. He ignores the discomfort squirming in his stomach, pretends not to notice that Basten still holds the coinpurse – heavy – between them. “I thought I should even the odds.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Basten shrugs, smiles, though the expression is a little off-kilter. “Well, thanks.” He lifts the fabric in his hands, a brief gesture. A breath later, and he’s turned to head off toward wherever it is he’s staying, but –

Talen’s hand flashes out, catches Basten’s broad wrist. His skin is hot and smooth.

Basten looks back at him with those impossibly blue eyes.

“Maybe I would like to buy you a drink,” Talen offers. His thumb rests against Basten’s pulse point, thrumming. “That and showing a shem his place weren’t… mutually exclusive.”

A smile, as bright as firelight, flashes across the mercenary’s face. “Alright,” he says. And then, slyly, his head ducking down as he leans closer, there on the dirty Wycome street, empty except for the two of them and the shadows of revellers in the distance, “But I’ve got all your coin, so I think it’ll be the other way around. Which means you’ll owe me.”

Talen huffs out a laugh, dry and short. “Oh,” he says, “I’ll find a way to repay my debts.” And, like that, he reaches and catches one of Basten’s horns in his hands, pulling him down into an embrace – hot and slick and certain, Basten’s hands finding the line of Talen’s waist, Talen’s dropping to trace the shape of his shoulders, his chest, his arms.

And though the coinpurse drops to the gutter, Talen can’t be bothered to pay it any mind. After all, he’s got tricky fingers and a pliant mark and the rest of the night before them.

[dalishious]

Other than your player characters, do you have any other OCs in your personal Dragon Age canon? Just curious.

Not sure if this counts because he was a PC my brother actually made then I kind of stole LOL–but Talen Lavellan is my canon Lavellan’s adopted little bro.

And while the fic doesn’t take place in my ‘canon worldstate’ but rather my ‘secondary canon worldstate,’ there are the made up characters in my Journey’s End fic, namely Ethena and Aurélie. (And though while only a side character, I am also very fond of Hanin and Mina.)

[voisinua]

Look at my child...he literally wants to just go home

[mstigergun]

OC Kiss Week, “the valley of dreams, a vision”

OC Kiss Week, Day One (”Good Morning Kiss”)

Featuring Talen Lavellan and Virion Lavellan (eternal thanks to @enviouspride​ for creating such a lovely character; and more on those two nerds here). Set in Letters-verse, in which Virion is Inquisitor and Talen frets a lot.

the valley of dreams, a vision 

What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in your hand Ah, what then?

(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

The wind is soft and sweet, and the flowers around him – some as dark as ink, others glinting gold and silver and a thousand impossible colours – sway, an undulating sea of endless complexity. The sun hangs near the distant outline of mountains, a white pearl on blue silk. Virion sighs, fingers reaching to trace the folds and curves of the blossoms below. They’re caught instead by a familiar dark hand.

Virion turns, smiling, as all the brightness of the world coalesces into a warmth beneath his ribs. “Vhenan,” he murmurs.

Talen’s eyes flash bright, brighter than the colours in the meadow, brighter than the sun resting against the mountains. He smiles, and says, low and quiet and intimate, “I think you have a meeting with Josephine.”

Virion blinks. The field behind Talen blurs, like paint with too much water. “A meeting?”

“Ar lath ma,” murmurs Talen, raising Virion’s hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss against each of his knuckles. And then a bell sounds, an echo rolling across the mountains. The flowers quiver beneath the booming notes, silver and clear.

Like that, Virion blinks awake.

“Oh,” he sighs, hand reaching to rub his bleary eyes in the dark and chill room. The Chantry bells sound in the distance, a familiar melody of six chimes. If he could have them move the service later in the day without stepping on too many toes –

But no. His meetings.

Virion pushes himself up on one elbow, blinking into the darkness. This deep in the winter, and this early in the day, the sky beyond the mullioned windows is dark as ink. His nose is cold, the fire long since burned itself to ember, but –

A shadow moves. The fire licks against a new log.

“Vhenan,” says Virion, sitting up a little straighter in bed, although his whole body protests at the change in position when the bed beneath him is soft as a cloud, shaped, it feels, to every inch of his frame. “Just because I’m made to awake at unreasonable hours doesn’t mean that you need to suffer as well.”

Talen moves, silent and steady, around the room, lighting candles. The flames paint everything in gold, lining the edges of the furniture, the shapes of the windows, the familiar outline of Talen’s shoulders, his hands, the dark shadow of his hair.

Which is when Virion realizes –

He squints, looking at the familiar clothes. Clothes that bear no sign of sleep. “Did you come to bed?”

Talen looks up from the candle he’s repositioning on Virion’s desk. “I tried.”

“What does you tried mean?” asks Virion, kicking his legs out from beneath the blanket and standing.  He stretches, shoulders still tight, even after that rather lovely dream. “Did you actually close your eyes and attempt to sleep? Or does it mean that you waited for me to fall asleep and then paced endlessly while fretting about – What was it this time?”

Across the room, Talen laughs, breathy. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Now that the candles have all come to life, and the fire is crackling merrily in the hearth, Virion can make out the shadows beneath his eyes. “The Wardens. I was thinking – Well. It doesn’t matter. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh, quite well,” says Virion, pulling on a robe and padding his way across the room. “I dreamt of a meadow filled with beautiful flowers. And you were there, and you held my hand and kissed each of my knuckles and reminded me of my meeting.”

“How diligent of me,” Talen says, stepping toward Virion as he draws close. He reaches, catches Virion’s hand, and presses his lips to his skin, just as in the dream. At once, Virion’s heart flares with a warm, familiar ache – sweet. “Did I also wish you a good morning?”

“I’m afraid you didn’t,” says Virion.

“Well, then. Good morning.”

Virion leans down and presses his lips to Talen’s, a soft embrace – as quiet as the dark morning beyond. Talen sighs, the barest sound, pressing himself against Virion. His hands reach and catch Virion’s hair as Virion strokes the warm skin of his neck.

A soft knock sounds on their door, and Talen sighs again, pulling away.

Virion takes a long, steadying breath. In the distance, the Chantry bells again chime, calling the many Andrastian followers of the Inquisition out of dreams and to their service. Already, Talen has moved toward the door, ready to usher Josephine in and find somewhere else to spend the early morning hours, but –

“You stay,” says Virion, catching Talen’s wrist and pressing a soft kiss to his temple. “I’ll meet with Josephine in her office this morning. You, Talen Lavellan, must promise me that you’ll stay in bed until I get back.”

The stare that greets him is gray as distant mountains. “I won’t be able to sleep, Virion,” he says, plain.

“Perhaps not, though you could surprise yourself. But Cassandra has reluctantly recommended several novels to me as a means to pass some idle afternoons between dignitary visits and crucial meetings, and I happen to suspect they’ll be precisely the sort of tome you enjoy.” Virion pulls on a more respectable robe, one in which he will look less as if he’s just reluctantly slid from bed. He glances in the mirror, straightens an errant curl, and then again turns to look at Talen.

Who stands there, still blinking.

“So you’ll stay in bed?”

Talen nods, a bare motion.

“And, if you can’t sleep, you’ll read?”

His chin dips down again, stare steady and unfathomable.

“Good!” says Virion, smiling. And then, because Talen still stands as quietly as a shadow, fixed in place, Virion moves in close again. He reaches and brushes his fingers against the skin of Talen’s jaw, thumb tracing the pointed end of his vallaslin. “And please,” Virion adds, words quiet in the golden light of their room, “Do your best to enjoy your morning. I love you rather desperately, and it does neither of us any good if you worry yourself to exhaustion. Even if it’s all for my sake. Especially if it’s all for my sake. I do enjoy having you in my dreams, but I would be happier still if you slept soundly by my side.”

“Of course,” says Talen, stare dropping downward. “You’re entirely right. Ar lath ma, and give Josephine my best.” He pushes himself up and kisses Virion, lingering there, his hands a gentle weight against Virion’s chest, and then, with a soft sound of contentment in his throat, Talen turns and begins to shrug out of his clothes.

It’s a sad sight to miss, Virion thinks, but he heads toward the door anyway. “Have sweet dreams,” he calls over his shoulder, before ducking out and greeting his ambassador.

And, Mythal willing, when Virion returns, they’ll be able to spend at least a little more time wishing each other a good morning as the sun rises over the mountains and paints the room in coloured light. If not –

Well. There are always those sweet dreams.

[mstigergun]

OC Kiss Week, “the hope which cannot part”

OC Kiss Week, Day Seven (a goodbye kiss). I’m going to keep my commentary minimal, save to say this is set in Letters-verse and is a variation on a 5 times/1 time structure. [~2300]

the hope which cannot part

Farewell to thee! but not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of thee: Within my heart they still shall dwell; And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Adieu, but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart.

(from Anne Bronte’s “Farewell”)

i

“Be careful,” Asharil says, her fingers digging indents into his arms. She presses a hard kiss to his cheek, drawing back to look him straight in the eye. Her stare is golden, molten, unflinching. A demand, one that permits with no room for half-measure. “Stay with the others. Don’t go wandering off. There are wolves in these woods, and too many shems keen on seeing us harmed.”

“I know,” Talen says, throat tight. He blinks up at his sister, whose skin is washed pale and whose lips are a tight line of worry.

He hadn’t been scared of going on this hunt, before. Not really. But now –

Darkness whispers at the edge of his thoughts. They’ve lost others. He’s heard a hundred tales, stories the children tell each other, or things the adults murmur when they think none of the young ones are listening.

He hears. He knows.

Talen swallows. He presses up on his toes, planting a kiss against his sister’s cheek – an echo of the one he can still feel against his own skin. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Ar lath ma, Asharil. When I come home, I’ll be a better help to the Clan.”

And when he does come back, blood grimy beneath his fingernails and his heart still hammering with that strange tangle of joy and horror, nothing is ever quite the same. But Asharil’s delighted exclamation – one he hears from across the camp the moment he steps past the ring of aravels – is enough to soothe any darkness hiding in his mind.

ii

He kisses her forehead, right there by the fire.

Asharil’s stare flashes up, her hands stilling, though still the threads are tangled around her fingers. “What’s that for?”

For saying goodbye without words, he thinks. For you waking up tomorrow to an empty aravel. For how your heart will hurt.

Instead, Talens shrugs. “You look tired,” he offers, dropping onto the ground next to her.

She snorts. “And since when have you cared about that?”

She is, of course, right. A less selfish boy wouldn’t have his bags packed already. A less selfish boy would think of his sister.

But instead he tilts his head against her shoulder, drinking in this small, final comfort. Trying to allow himself to feel this – the guilt – and not that bright, beckoning excitement at the road before him. He should not be giddy with anticipation. He should be sick with regret already. “Of course I care,” he murmurs.

Asharil’s fingers again begin working the threads. Her chin tilts, her mouth grazing his temple, the line of his hair. A brief and fleeting touch, barely a kiss. “If you care,” she intones, leaning away again, “then you can help me with this weaving, da’len.”

iii

“You’re not terribly clever, little shadow, are you?”

Talen’s hunched over, his body a broken line arcing downward, knuckles white from how hard he’s gripping the table beneath him. It’s a miracle he wriggled out of his shirt without passing out, when he can hardly draw breath for the flare of pain in his ribs. When tears prickle, sharp and hot, in his eyes whenever Shira prods his skin, indelicate.

“They jumped me,” Talen hisses, breath hitching. “I couldn’t – There’s nothing –”

The words close off, his throat a vise that cannot be opened.

“Any one of the kids could’ve told you to stay away from Black Boot territory. They’re nasty bastards, always thinking we’re edging in on their shit territory. As if,” with a firm tug as she pulls the bandage into place.

Talen sucks in a startled gasp, dark patches blossoming before his eyes. He squeezes his eyelids shut, clamps his mouth into a line he hopes will firmly in place. Nostrils flaring, fingers squeezing at the table so hard, he’s surprised it doesn’t splinter.

“As if,” Shira continues, standing and brushing dust from her knees, “we’d want their blighted streets. You ever seen a mark worth snaring in West Stave? Of course not.”

But he can’t respond, too dizzy with the furious pain, the memory of the interaction – fists to his ribs, cutting words sharp in the air – too present behind his eyelids.

The warm and steadying weight of Shira’s hand on his shoulder. Patting him, meant to be reassuring. “You’ll be fine,” Shira says. “Just… be sensible. No crawling up gutters or skittering across rooftops this week, alright? Anyway.” The weight disappears. “I’ve got a thief lord to have a word or two with. That fucker doesn’t beat up one of my kids and saunter away without at a least a broken nose.”

His eyes flash open. “You don’t have to –”

Shira snorts. Her narrow body is a blade in the dim space between them. Primed for violence, hungry for it.. “Of course I do,” she drawls. “Can’t seem soft now, can I? You just stay here and stay safe, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

His ribs ache with the next breath, and it has nothing, this time, to do with the bruises pressed hard into his skin. “Ma serannas,” Talen murmurs, and he edges off the table and – before she can squirm away, or glare at him, or be more cross than she already is – he pushes himself up and kisses her cheek. A bare touch.

“Don’t you start with that,” she says. But still Shira drops a firm kiss right to the top of his head, her nose wrinkling even as she leans away. “And go have a bath. You still smell like blood, and this place is bad enough already.”

He watches her go, slouching her way from their warehouse, her shoulders tense with a barely reigned-in anger that will see Talen’s injuries avenged in some way. And though his body is one long, vicious ache –

Well. He sleeps very easily that night indeed.

iv

“I have to go,” he says.

Shira’s arms are all elbows, folded that hard across her chest. Sharp as blades. Ready to cut. “Right,” she says, curt. “Sure.”

His fingers curl against his palms, cut crescents into his palm. Still, he tries to breathe as evenly as he might. As steady as she taught him, even though he can feel Asharil’s distant gaze on him, like coals against his skin. “Thank you,” Talen says, his voice distant to even his own ears. “For everything. I’ll come visit when I can.”

And, because he’s saying goodbye, he steps in to kiss her cheek. The moment his lips touch her dark skin, Shira jerks back, as if she’s been burned. Her eyes blaze with a furious light, like forest fires in the distance, like pyres on the water. “Is she making you go? We can protect you, little shadow. You don’t need to do a blighted thing you don’t want to. Fuck the Dalish – if you want to stay –”

“I want to go.”

They’re quiet words, but they find their mark. Shira falls to an unfamiliar silence. He can see her chewing on the inside of her cheek, teeth sawing it to blood. Then, “Alright, whatever.” She sniffs, shrugging, her stare as tightly shuttered as their warehouse in the winter months. “If it’s what you want. We’ll see you when we see you.”

She leans down, places a dry, papery kiss on his forehead, and then turns and disappears into the crowd beyond. It’s not until they’re well outside of Ansburg, and his sister has been asleep for hours, that he finally allows the carefully contained tears to fall, to strike soft notes against the blankets pooled around him.

v

“I’m going,” he says, ducking beneath the low tent where his friend is secreted away. Evelyn looks up from the book she’s got unfolded in her lap, something one of their traders picked up for her when last passing through a village. And while Talen and Evelyn had amused themselves for hours reading the most offensive passages aloud – about the savage ways of the Dalish, their obscure blood rites and wild, ritualistic bacchanals – its the later passages on lost temples and artefacts that have caught Evelyn’s unfaltering attention.

Talen doesn’t see much point to trying to uncover pieces of an empire long since fallen to dust. But if Evelyn’s enamoured, he’ll bite his tongue.

“Do you know for how long?” she asks, placing a dried leaf between the pages and closing her tome. She unfolds her legs, standing and stretching. He’s still not used to seeing her with her vallaslin, but its suits her, he thinks distantly. More than it’s ever suited him.

He shrugs, leaning over to press a thoughtless kiss to her forehead. “I can’t say. The Keeper wants me to make contact with an Antivan clan with some obscure connection to a few of our hunters. We haven’t heard from them in years, so it may take me some time.”

Evelyn tucks her arms around his ribs, squeezing him into a tight, quick embrace. “Well,” she says, her mouth brushing his cheek, “If you end up near Antiva City, could you visit a book merchant? There’s this one book – it keeps getting referenced –”

And her hands have plunged down and picked up her book again. Evelyn rifles through the pages, in pursuit of the title in question. Talen huffs out a little laugh and leans against a tentpole, waiting.

He’ll have many hours alone on the road between the Marches and Antiva. His friend’s company, her enthusiasm and warmth, are worth waiting for.

vi

Virion’s mouth falls against his forehead, and Talen is certain he’ll be sick. “No,” he says, jerking away, and he’s not even sure how he manages to breathe the word out – not when his throat is this tight, when his hands shake so very badly, when his stomach has become a black knot of nausea. “I’m coming with you.”

Virion is as pale as dawn on a gray winter day. His hands, Talen knows, are just as cold, fingers stiff. At his side, Virion’s palm pulses a nauseating green as he steps backward. “We can’t know what’s on the other side,” he says, firm. “I won’t see you put in harm’s way, vhenan.” Another step, building an empty, frigid space between them. One meant to keep Talen safe, but –

“I’m not saying goodbye,” Talen insists, and even he can hear the wild edge to his voice. He can barely breathe, heart beating itself bloody against his chest, into a ragged, pulpy mess. “I’m not letting you do this alone, not when –”

He goes to step forward, to move closer, but Virion’s hand flashes forward, a flag in the air between them. “Don’t,” he grinds out. “Just – I have to do this, and I can’t if I’m worried about you. You must stay, Talen.”

Stay, he thinks. Stay, when this might be the end. There are no words.

Talen’s hands curl uselessly at his sides. He can’t fix this, he knows that, hasn’t been able to do a thing beyond look over Virion’s shoulder for him, beyond loving him desperately and beyond any possible measure, even as they fight their way toward darker and darker conclusions. Even as the Anchor roars to furious life, ready to devour Virion. Ready to devour all of them, to glut itself on the destruction of the entire world, all that they know and love.

“I’m going,” Virion says, and though he’s pale, he straights – impossibly noble, impossibly composed, when all Talen can feel is a razor-edged panic. He draws back further, pulling his hand close to his chest, cradling it. “And either I will die or I will live, and if it’s to be the former, vhenan, I will not take you with me. I refuse.”

There are tears, Talen knows, gathering in his eyes: as hot and furious as a brand. Marking him. Again, he shakes his head. “Virion,” he pleads, once more stepping forward. It can’t end like this, and if it is to end –

Say what Virion will, Talen refuses to live in a world in which this is their reality. In which Virion doesn’t step back through that mirror, and if his vhenan even thinks for a moment that he’ll face down the wolf alone, then he has made a mistake. It will not happen. Talen will not allow it.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.” Virion’s stare is soft, pale. Another step backwards, his mouth tight with pain. “I must go now. Cassandra –”

And before Talen can leap forward as Virion turns and disappears into the mirror, hands – strong and familiar and traitorous – reach out and clasp him. He is all fury, all wild desperation, surging forward against the bounds that keep him here, his throat open in a savage scream as he throws himself after Virion despite Cassandra’s grip.

And then, then he is nothing at all – the cool hiss of magic, the sound of a potion being opened, the irresistible pull of unconsciousness. Darkness and emptiness, familiar friends.

I will not say goodbye, his last thought. Then nothing.

(vii)

You’re awake, he murmurs, shifting in bed. The pool of blankets, soft and sumptuous, rustle around them as he slides upwards, leaning nearer. Needing to be close.

Virion’s forehead creases, some distant echo of pain. So it would appear. Then, his eyes opening, his gray gaze stretching upwards, And alive! What a lovely surprise.

Talen huffs, brushing his hand against Virion’s soft hair. I told you I wouldn’t say goodbye, he says, words soft and fragile. Feathers in the air between them, against the dim light of dawn beyond. So hello, vhenan.

And the kiss that follows – tremulous and gentle and certain, all at once, Talen’s fingers tracing the lines of Virion’s face as he folds himself, delicate as a shadow, against his lover – makes all the world right again. As simple as that: as coming home, as breathing, as his heart beating.

Aneth ara, Virion breathes against him, reaching to thread his fingers through Talen’s hair.

Their place, together. A hello worth a thousand goodbyes.