#tevinter doesn’t exist anymore

[doriansbutt]

Maybe you found the spot on the map

But lost the kid on the way to the mark

Tell me now were you digging for gold

Or digging yourself in a hole?

Now tell me “now, where’s the head in the clouds?”

Now tell me “now, where’s the bright eyed lad?”

Now tell me “now, where’s the kid tellin’ tall tales?”

Siren, Colm R. McGuinness

I can’t explain the emotion this song gives me about my dragon age ttrpg character Saeed but it’s making me cry

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Raw Fade - Part 1

Main Quest: Here Lies the Abyss

The Raw Fade is a section of the Fade which its "raw" characteristic doesn't seem to be related to physically enter it. In DAO, The Raw Fade was a section of the Fade that belonged to a demon of Sloth, and we entered it via dreams. In Inquisition, this section of the Fade is the domain of a Fear demon of phenomenal size and power called the Nightmare. The Inquisitor also discovers this is where the Nightmare sealed their memories of what occurred during the Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

This post contains the following sections

Falling into the Fade

Statues and Artefacts

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Falling into the Fade

When we enter this place, I think there are only two characters who should be payed attention to understand this space with the highest degree of certainty that the game allows us: Solas and Cole. Both are the only ones who truly understand the majority of what the Fade entitles.

Solas recognises this place as the Fade, and sighs in what seems to be a frustration or sad gesture. Probably he is seeing something too broken and infected from what it used to be.

What surprises me here is Cole: he does not recognises this place as Fade. He understands that his new, current nature makes him feel it a bit different, but clearly “it should not feel like this”.  This comment was what made me develop the idea that this Raw Fade is not exactly the Fade, but a pocket world, imitating the Fade, created by the Tevinters in an accident or in a rehearsal to the true entrance to the Black City [after all, this space is rather close to the Black City, according to Solas]. I’m not so sure about that theory anymore [I kept it in my list of Old Explorations]. It seems too over-complicated, and if I want to follow this game under the principle of the Occam’s Razor, it does not seem to be adequate. 

So for now, we will stick to what these chars say. If Solas recognises it as Fade, it must be the Fade, and I should not question it. Solas is, after all, the most adequate and knowledgeable char on this matter, and like he says in Trespasser, he only lies by omission. That Cole does not recognise it as Fade could be due to the infected nature of this piece of Fade. In general, this Fade reflects a lot of Kirkwall elements, and as we analysed in Kirkwall history and design, it’s well hinted that the city was the place where the Sidereal Magisters accessed to the Fade physically. This Fade is contaminated with red lyrium and fears, and may distort it or make it feel different for Cole. 

The other chars with some ability to speak about the Fade will not recognise this place as the Fade either, since they always accessed to it via dreams, already reflecting their desires. The truth is, this is a similar space the Inquisitor walked across in the beginning of the game. The landscape is the same one, as well as the ill-green coloration that everything has with the exception of the red lyrium. In the horizon we can see the Breach. We are “on the other side of it”.

Statues and Artefacts

Now, this place is filled of dozens of statues with or without meaning. Without describing exactly where I found them, I will proceed to numerate them. Some of them are more or less easy to interpret. Others are beyond my ability. 

We know the Fade has the property of reflecting what exists in the real world, so most of these objects are (historical) reflections in some degree, so some of them allow us to understand the meaning of the statues in the real world. This is not a mere interpretation, our expert in the Fade told us so:

Blackwall: You've seen many things in the Fade, how do you know they're true? Solas: I don't. Everything in the Fade is a memory and memories are all too easily muddied. Just like your history books, they contain truths, but reason and sense are required to extract it.

Cassandra: You say you've witnessed past events in the Fade, Solas--or the memories of them. But the Fade distorts reality. Surely it cannot offer a true reflection of what occurred. Solas: Are your own memories any different? The truth is never precise, regardless of where you are.

Cassandra: I had not considered how fighting in our world might affect the Fade. Is it always thus, Solas? Solas: It is worse this time, with the Breach pulling spirits through against their will... But, yes. Every war, no matter how just, leads to hunger and rage... and so come the demons. Cassandra: It is said that generals should avoid fighting in the same battlefield too many times... Solas: The deaths, the rage - all of it weakens the Veil. But nothing is ever said of the effect war has upon the world of spirits, what we might be doing to them. Every war has unintended victims. All too many go unnoticed.

In the moment we start the exploration of this place, we see a Tevinter Sacrificial altar, over a variation of a Keeper of Fear. This could be a symbol reflecting a piece of history: Tevinter invading the South, killing alamarri and other tribes, and potentially using them as sacrifices. This is the beginning of the history of Tevinter expansion before the breach to the Golden City. 

Close to it, we find the Beheaded ram-man statue which has been a mystery so far in the few opportunities we saw it in the Waking World. Due to the letter that accompany it, I have the impression that the meaning of this statue is “mere slaved sacrifice”. It’s a head of a ram, offered in sacrifice. The body is filled with scars and lashes. The base of the statue is a capstan, usually used with slaves in what the trope calls "wheel of pain". Bellow the capstan we see images that resemble a lot the white slave drawings of Kirkwall's walls, but unlike those, these are smiling and being "cute". They are stained with dripping blood. The whole statue lays over a  Keepers of Fear. The whole composition tells me about a content slave being a sacrifice, or being the fodder cannon [ram for sieges] that gives room for the “important people” to do their job.  It’s on the base of a keeper of fear, because of course, people in this role fear their own obvious destiny.

The codex triggered here is A Letter by a Burning Candle, which gives us an idea of what this statue may represent: the stubbornness of the faith, of the lamb-behaviour, and confirms a bit the idea of “sacrifice” and “fodder cannon”. The person who wrote this letter has faced all the worst events in Thedas in the last decade and fought for the Maker in all those situations, even if they were scared. This person has been sent to Adamant Fortress almost as a sacrifice, as a fodder cannon. This person has been facing everything with fear [hence the  Keepers of Fear on its base] and accepted themselves to be a sacrifice to give “the important people a chance”. Sacrifice and usage represented as a ram, Faith as a headless body that doesn’t question, that only follows a Maker, as a bunch of slaves with little other choice.

In the starting area we also find this table with six plates. The table seems to have the symbol of the Qun on it.  The plates display a pig head, a horned animal, a fish, skulls, and a pie. It’s almost as if people gathered in a meeting to speak about the Qun. Or maybe the Qunari. By the end of the game DAI, we have been heavily hinted that Qunari are a crafted race, so maybe the Qun is the way to control them, and a group of powerful people decided the fate and creation of them. This historical fact could be reflected here in this table where a lot of dishes were mixed to have a final product. I’m not sure if this has some subtle interpretation as “the Qun has been served” or similar. This same table appears in Flemeth’s Fade too.

Close to the table, we find what I called Eroded dragon  skull, clipped in a “pseudo-fractal” way with others to make a new different statue.

Here we find this pair of statues that we saw in the game several times and I called them Female Kossith/ Desire demon /Tevinter Warrior. A detailed study of these two statues can be found in Venatori main camp.

Walking a bit into this place, we find out the first red lyrium vein, standing out violently in this green-based landscape. We also find many heads of Keepers of Fears from which alamarri mabari statues come out from their mouths. This may have some sense if we remember the codex The Keepers of Fear, where the alamarri screamed their fear into these statues, thinking it would prevent darkspawn from reaching their houses, or even just as a way to get rid of the fear before battle.

In a comfortable chair, we find the reflection of a book: Walking the Fade: Frozen Moments. This is a codex that gives us CONTEXT to understand all what we are seeing [It also makes sense from a mechanical point of view: we can read this book very early in the exploration]. This codex appears quite immediately in the zone before exploring it in depth. The codex is written by a Magister who, due to the description of his exploration of the Fade, was a somniari. He tried to make a map of the Fade, failing due to its constant changing nature. When he accepted this fact, the spirits themselves guided him along. He says something very curious:  “I was shown vast oceans, containing not water, but memories, drawn from the minds of dreamers.” which brings the idea of something similar to the Well of Sorrows and therefore, the image of A Flowering Imago from Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara comes to my mind. The description of these memories in this book looks like the recording images we find all over the Shattered Library. This Magister reached to a Library of ancient time.

To continue the exploration, we have to go up using a stair flanked with Free Marches eagles. This seems to be a poor reflection of Kirkwall’s Viscount’s Keep.  If we remember, Viscount’s Keep as well as the Chantry were located at the highest points in Kirkwall.

We find the "avvar” mabari with meat inside her neck, urns that contain fishes, and skulls trapped in a cage, with cookies. It seems to be elements that show how bizarre the Fade is.

At some point, we reach another stair with two Free Marches eagles. Beside one of them, there is a metallic desk/metal art with the drawing of a “pointy tower” that I’m not sure how to understand. Due to its pointy design I tend to associate it with a Tevinter building, however, the whole tower design, with the shape of the door and the windows, may suggest elvhen [even though the pointy/thorny design seems a bit alien for an elvhen tower]. The material is metallic, so one is inclined to think in Tevinter or Free Marches style. This element is very confusing.

At the feet of one of the eagles, we find: A Letter Written in A Shaking Hand. Written by Sorra, it’s a letter to their son. It seems to be a fighter from Starkhaven, who fought to borrow time to the Grey Warden during the Second Blight. It speaks about the disease left by the Blight on the battlefield, that even after its ending, it keeps poisoning the land and all what walks over it. This parent begs to their son not to search for trinkets in the battlefield until the crows, birds that escape the Blight, land on the ground, pointing out that it’s safe and free of poison. The topic of the fear is repeated here too, in the sense that fear helps to survive [“They watch patiently, and they let their fear keep them alive.”]

Immediately after going up, we find an old friend:

Several Claws of Dumat with Free Marches eagles.

As we step into the entrance of this region, we see several Claws of Dumat, and  Free Marches eagles. There is also a Thrummer combined with a Tevinter urn and a diapason-like artefact that we had assumed it may be related to writing or reading veilfire runes [see Frostback Basin: Frozen Gate for this connection]. Maybe this is a mere clipping to make it look more dramatic without much meaning in it. However, we know that the Thrummers are fuelled with red lyrium, as we saw it in Emprise du Lion: Suledin keep, and they seem to be used as energy generators, as we saw them in configurations with “injectors” in places such as Western Approach: the open or Western Approach: The Still Ruins, Main Chamber and Hall of Silence.

In this Fade scene, we can see how the eagles are flanking a figure of Andraste that raises in the background, and all this is framed, at the same time, by the claws of Dumat. This may reinforce the idea we explored in DA2 in Kirkwall history and design and in particular with Enigma of Kirkwall : It was in Kirkwall where the breach to the Fade was done centuries ago, through blood sacrifice by Tevinters, in search for gods. Close to this Thrummer we find another bit for the codex Fears of the Dreamers [this codex is analysed in another post].

In this place we find the wonderful codex The Claws of Dumat on one of these claws, which is the justification to call this object as such. The codex is written by Corpyheus’ slave who was sacrificed later. What we learn here is:

It implies that Corypheus has been developing different altars to “bring Tevinter to Glory”.

Once more, now from a slave’s point of view, we are informed that the Old Gods have been silent for a while and that has caused the loss of followers. This has caused fear on Corypheus. [This info is now confirmed by Corypheus as well as his slave]

This slave knows that Corypheus has been meeting with other “priests” to try to find a solution to the decline of the cult to the Old Gods. 

Corypheus took his name after or around the time the Tevinter Magisters entered the Golden City. So we can assume this is a narration very close to the time in which the Sidereal Magisters went to the Fade.

Corypheus knew that the old elves were tied to the Fade, and the mortal elves have something of that power in their blood, hence he wants to use their blood for the ritual of entering the Fade.

The Claw of Dumat supports the victim on its top, with shackles, and seems to drip blood along the statue to a pool with runes.

Apparently, Corypheus was not cruel [Of course, this is from the point of view of a slave, we have seen this mentality in action with Orana, in DA2]. The weakening of the religion and the silence of the Old Gods in his dreams changed Corypheus. Fear changed him.

It is implied that Corypheus used little blood magic before the silence of the Old Gods. The loss of gods made him fall in despair.

Corypheus had a wife.

I cannot be sure if this is a moment before the great breach of the Sideral Mages or it’s a test. In any case, this sacrifice where the narrator of this note dies was done in the “western hall” of Corypheus’s house. I’m not sure how well this ties to any part of Kirkwall architecture.

These words were written and reflected/preserved in the Fade at the base of one of these claws of Dumat we find just after the  Free Marches eagles.

As we continue past this zone, we see more eagles, emphasising the idea that all these situations happened in the Free Marches. We can see the statue of Andraste in the background along these corridors that lead us into a “Tevinter region”.

When we approach the “Tevinter Region” we can see this subtle detail: the ground has two layers, one soaked in blood and the second one covering it up.

In this part we can see the typical dragon gargoyles, and the spikes that are typical in Tevinter infrastructure. One of the dragons triggers the Templar side of Excerpt from a Journal. This is a codex about a mage complaining about the Templar Order and how things work for mages outside Tevinter. The other piece belongs to a Templar who went to Tevinter and saw these dragons as representation of the mages: he sees mages as creatures that only want power to rule over normal men. Both narrators, mage and templar, seem to have gone to the conclave, but in this combined codex we can easily see how there is no compromise in their vision. The power that one group has over the other keeps things tense and they are determined not to solve the conflict, but keep fuelling it. 

Immediately after these dragon gargoyles, we see this place: three Claws of Dumat aligned in a triangle, a person in front of them, with their head in Veilfire and a book at their feet.  Behind one of the claws, there is red lyrium, as if it were hidden from the vision of this body.

At the feet of the burning body, we find the mage side of the previous codex [Excerpt from a Journal]. The figure here  seems to represent a mage, whose head burns with Veilfire. Once we investigate it, the figure explodes into a rage demon. This situation maybe is useful to tell us that these bodies with burning heads represent, in this Fade, mages. Maybe they are the reflection of Mages reaching the Fade. It’s hard to understand unequivocally. 

Close by, we find another eluvian, surrounded by six bodies with burning heads. It seems that a burst of magic came out from the eluvian and killed these people [potentially mages, according to what I’ve just said before] that were doing something with this eluvian and the Tevinter artefacts around it. Or they were trying to escape via the Eluvian and something burnt them. 

It’s a scene that has strong similarities with the landscape we saw in the Temple of Sacred Ashes after the explosion. There are some bits of red lyrium behind too. Since in DAI we saw that any eluvian can give access to the Fade physically, only if the mage is powerful enough [Kieran], this scene may suggest something similar to the Temple of Sacred Ashes happened here: a burst of power, coming from the eluvian, killed these people. I speculate that they may have been empowering the eluvian with these Tevinter artefacts to force the mirror to give them access to the Fade and something went wrong. 

We continue the exploration through corridors decorated with more Keepers of Fear, reaching to a place where the Inquisitor sees the enemies as spiders. Solas tells us that these creatures are shaped in what we fear. Here we trigger The Birth of Fear when we click spider eggs. This note talks about the fears of a child of a warden: the fear of the blight, the darkspawn, and how the blight advanced in their father’s body. It’s very curious the situation: a Grey Warden with a child. After the Joining, having children are difficult, and if he had this child before the joining, it’s strange for a Warden to be part of his previous family. Duty comes first.

In the next zone, we find Justinia, and over her, the Humanoid Mythal statue. Depending on the angle, we can see Mythal facing the colossal statue of Andraste [last picture in the row].

Below the statue of Mythal we find A Note Left by a Burning Candle. This seems to be the letter written by one of the people that helped the Inquisition before the attack of Haven. It’s a sad letter because it was written by a parent to their  daughter who died at the Conclave.

Close to a door with a statue of a mabari, we find Letter in a Child's Simple Writing, which is about the fear of the darkspawn in a child whose town was attacked and he returns to check if he can find his mother.

In this section of the Fade we recover the second part of the Inquisitor’s memories. Hawke and whoever is the Grey Warden accompanying them, will discuss about the warden and their responsibility, to which Solas and Cole will add details about the Order being something more harmful than beneficial.

We find again this pair of statues I called Female Kossith/ Desire demon /Tevinter Warrior which were speculated about in detail in Venatori main camp.

A curious detail of the ground of the Fade: at some parts we see a lot of sea-bottom rests, trilobites, shells, and even fossils. I didn’t make a detailed following of this, but it seems to reinforce the idea of the Fade as a “place of preservation of history” or where you can find “fossils” from the past, preserved, maintained, and reflected. Exactly what Solas always says.

Close to the entrance where the path bifurcates, we find these Tevinter or Andrastian statues. Once the barrier is gone, there are two path, one I call the Tevinter Path, and the other, the Beach Path.

Close to this place, we find a vein of red lyrium and the important codex of Whispers Written in Red Lyrium. 

We are here We have waited We have slept We are sundered We are crippled We are polluted We endure We wait We have found the dreams again We will awaken

It’s a bit complicated to analyse this codex without going too conspiracy board guy.  What I think we are allowed to think after the last mural of Solas given in the trailer of DA:D is that the Black City has red lyrium veins. 

Maybe whatever has been trapped there is what whispers into the lyrium. They slept and awaited, they are incomplete, sundered, crippled. These entities use the word “we endure”, which is very associated with Elvhenan culture in all DA games: it has been said several times in cinematics [Solas in the Temple of Mythal or Solas in his personal quest] as well as in codices by Abelas and by Solas.  And I think the key word here is “we found the dreams again”, implying they had been removed from the world of the dream for a long time. Now, this may apply to Evanuris as well as Old Gods [or even Forgotten Ones, these last ones have almost no information in the Shattered Library, so we don’t really know what happened with them if we don’t trust the unreliable Dalish Tales]. 

As a personal speculation, I still keep seeing the lyrium as an element that gathers the “will” of many, so if the lyrium is associated with rituals like Uthenera that preserve memories and “wills” and allows the creation of artefacts like the Well of Sorrows [as it’s hinted in A Flowering Imago], the Red Lyrium doesn’t look to work differently on that aspect. So the Red Lyrium may gather the contaminated/corrupted will of many entities in it.

[aarongoldenwrites]

I have some thoughts and additions. 

Adaar washes when they can. When they meet the Bull and especially Vivienne, they begin to wash more frequently. If Adaar romances Sera, Sera joins them whenever possible. 

Alistair likes to wash, he just forgets. If you remind him, he stammers and gets embarrassed. Although she will never admit it to anyone, Morrigan starts using magic to wash him without him knowing, especially if he is part of the dark ritual.  

Amell and Surana (Warden) likes bathing because it’s the only time they can be reasonably sure that the Templars will leave them alone. 

Anders is a successful medic working out of the dirtiest places in the world while also having been locked away in solitary confinement for a good chunk of time. Dude is probably *obsessively* clean, like all the time. 

The Architect is fascinated by bathing practices but does not, himself, partake. 

Bethany likely does her best to wash the magic off her, and is always a little disappointed when it doesn’t work. 

Blackwall begins bathing regularly once his secret is out. He punished himself with his stench. Punishing everyone around him was an unintended consequence. 

Carver’s got a typo that I kind of love: I really like the idea that he’ll just keep washing his hands until you tell him to stop. He stares at people when he washes his hands, too. He does it specifically to annoy Bethany. 

Cousland washes every chance they get, and will demand the same of their lover if they take one.     

Dorian is a big user of essential oils because they smell nice and make him feel pretty. Vivienne is initially put off by his Tevinter scents, but the two of them end up talking about (a) where to get or buy the most subtle perfumes and (b) how to use them on Solas without him noticing. For his part, Solas likes bathing when he has the chance to relax (he uses magic to keep himself clean), but none of the scents he was used to exist anymore and he doesn’t know how to tell anyone that. The first time Josie finds something really old and he recognizes it, he cries. No one ever knows why. None of the Inquisition mages believe the oils do anything other than smell nice. 

Hawke likes to wash to get the blood off. Even Aveline can only do so much to keep them from being arrested when they walk everywhere covered in other people’s entrails. Sandal has an enchantment created specifically to unclog Hawke’s drains. Hawke does not know this, but, if Anders is romanced, Anders does and quietly pays to have a similar enchantment added to his clinic.   

Isabella loves to bathe in streams and rivers, and does so whenever possible. She eventually gets Fenris to come along, and he learns to love it.   

Leliana is obsessively clean. 

Lavallen, Merrill, Mahariel, and Velanna are all clean people. One thing about the Dalish camps we see: they are all neat and organized, and tribal peoples tend to be pretty big on cleanliness and hygiene. They probably know more about keeping clean than any of the city folk. 

Meredith is fastidiously clean. She needs to wipe the disease of magic off her in the morning and the evening. She’s more of a shower person than a bath person, and while she uses deodorant she never uses perfume.

Morrigan smells nice because she knows exactly what herbs to combine to give her unique and subtle scents and uses magic to wash the dirt from her body (it’s a trick Flemeth taught her). It drives Vivienne insane because she does not have the skill. Dorian trades her candy for small samples that he utterly fails to reverse engineer. Josie and Leliana get their hands on Dorian’s stash and manage to make reasonable copies. 

The Mother does not bathe. 

Nathaniel Howe is used to washing every day and feels dirty when he doesn’t. The first thing he does if you let him out of prison is have a bath. 

Oghren doesn’t really bathe, but that’s not representative of the dwarves as a people: they need to be cautious of darkspawn taint and lyrium poisoning, so they’re probably pretty clean as a people. It’s the one thing Varric actually likes about Orzammar, is the common use of soap and plumbing. This applies to Cadash, Brosca, Aeducan, Sigrun, Harding... pretty much everyone but Oghren.   

Samson was probably as clean as any of the Templars but stopped being clean when he became homeless and stopped caring when he became a red templar. None of the red templars wash; the Inquisition’s forces can smell them from a mile off, which makes tracking them easier.

Tabris would love to wash more often.  

Zevren loves to bathe, but hates to bathe alone. Perhaps you will keep him company...? 

[shadowglens]

wip wednesday (even though it’s almost friday)

tagged by @arklay​ & @denerims​, thank you both so much! 

i don’t have any recent wips because ... well, you’ve all seen me bitching i’m sure, but i found this old thing deep in my wip folder so here! it’s my attempt at a ‘hawke got left behind in the fade and fenris will be damned if he lets her rot there’ fic. the inquisitor in this isn’t even my main inquisitor anymore - that’s how old this wip is. rip to hugo, but nuala has your spot now.

also, since i’m never gonna finish it, i’m just posting like ... all of it. enjoy lol!

“Broody.”

The wet shaking sound of the man’s breath hits Fenris in the cheeks from where he’s pinned below him, arms loosely clutching at Fenris’ wrist on – in – his chest. His skin has paled to a sheen of glass, veins bulging purple against his throat and jaw. Fenris tightens his fist, feels the slippery organ fluttering manically against the cage of his fingers.

“Fenris.” Varric tries again, the dwarf’s shadow appearing in his periphery. “Fenris.”

“Give me one reason, dwarf,” he snaps, spit landing on the face below him and pooling in the crevice below his eye.

A hand on his shoulder then, tugging, urging. When Fenris turns Varric looks on the verge of collapse. “He’s our only chance. Please.” A beat. “Let him go.”

He takes a moment, feels the heart pulsing out of time in his fist. Sees the tear slipping from the corner of the man’s grey blue eyes. Senses the pressure of the growing crowd around them, the promise of a sword through his spine or a bolt of fire down his throat should his fingers clench any further. Fenris leans close enough that not even Varric, beside him, could hear, his mouth centimetres from the man’s ear.

“You will take me to the Fade,” he growls. Feels the man’s body begin trembling. “You will take me there and you will help me bring her back, or I won’t hesitate to tear it out for good.”

Hugo Trevelyan gasps as Fenris pulls back his hand, the Inquisitor’s whole body all but convulsing for a moment as his heart stutter-starts back into his ribcage. Fenris stands from his crouch, flexes his hand, and storms out of the Skyhold foyer before anyone has even made it to the Inquisitor’s side where he lays sprawled on his back beside his throne.

*

“It’s not his fault, Fenris.”

The metal of the railing is near frozen where he grips it with his bare hands. The tavern is raucous with laughter and shouting a level below, ale spilt and shared. A headache blooms in the crease of Fenris’ brow.

“We’re leaving at dawn.” A sigh, and the creaking of floorboards as Varric wanders off. “I’ll … meet you at the gate. Try and get some rest.”

Fenris turns just as the dwarf is about to disappear down the stairs. “Thank you, Varric.”

The smile he offers Fenris slips away far too quickly. Fenris doesn’t try to reciprocate.

*

She lingers, in his dreams. Fair haired and bare skinned, face turned away from him. His fingers graze her elbow, and she fades into white smoke at the contact, as if she’d never existed at all.

*

The fade is amorphous and vast, ever changing, different between one blink and the other, but the best suggestion anyone poses is to return to Adamant. Fenris would rather not set foot on the sand-caked place ever again, would rather wipe it and the past few months from his memory and play at being in Kirkwall again, stench and blood and all, and yet.

And yet.

The blackened walls of the keep shimmer into existence on the horizon, the burning red of the sand obscuring his vision enough that Fenris doesn’t let himself look anywhere but forward. Varric lingers at his left, a buffer between him and the still-hesitant form of the Inquisitor. He lets the dwarf be.

“We should head for the centre,” Trevelyan says, flexing his hand where the veins glow green. “If I can open a rift near where the last one was, our chances will be better.”

“Am I the only one who remembers the demon that tried to eat us last time?” the Tevinter mage mumbles, as if everyone cannot hear him in the deafening silence of the desert.

A cleared throat, and then, “The likelihood of us entering in the same location is very low. I doubt the demon has lingered.”

“No one likes a pessimist, Chuckles,” Varric pipes up, glaring not so subtly at the elven mage. So many Maker damned mages.

“It’s not pessimism, Varric, merely practicality. We should be prepared for a fight regardless. It is still the fade.”

[elvhenfaer]

@tessa1972 First off, thank you SO much 😭😅☺️

Second, yeah, I guess you guys see Amheotil a lot but I haven’t talked about him much, I guess I just didn’t think anyone would be interested.

He’s a complicated man. He overthinks everything and takes things a little too seriously. Definitely affected by the ideas of toxic masculinity instilled in him as a ‘Warrior’ so he’s not exactly comfortable talking about how he feels but he cares way too much about way too many things. This often comes out in moments of overwhelming anxiety when he just can’t keep it in anymore and then he ends up ranting.

That’s why Dorian is really good for him. At first the constant sarcasm drives him nuts but eventually it loosens him up and he grows to appreciate it.

He volunteered for the mission to the Conclave because both of his parents are gone, he has no siblings, and no lover in Clan Lavellan, so he sorta figured that if he died it wouldn’t affect much. His little family unit back home is his two very best friends, one of whom has a daughter he considers his niece, her husband and her sister in law (mostly he loves them because he’s so loyal to her, but he does actually like them). He got picked on as a kid for being friends with the only girl in warrior training and the elf-blooded child in the clan, who everyone else called a Half Breed, but Amheotil’s got a very strong sense of fairness and justice so he just didn’t see a problem with those two because they were still perfectly good people even if they were a bit different.

It’s part of the reason he’s got anger issues, because he’s just mad at the world for it’s inequality. He hates knowing about slavery and alienages existing outside of Clan Lavellan and is very touchy about how the Dalish live in what really amounts to banishment, even if he does think it’s better than living in poverty in human cities.

Because of that, he’s really got a thing for topping Human men. There’s just something about a human on their knees for him that gives him a petty sense of satisfaction. He knows it’s petty, but he still loves it.

That was the initial reason he was infatuated with Dorian. He despises Tevinter but Dorian is just so pretty and the attraction couldn’t be helped. And topping a Tevinter? Yeah, yeah he could be really into that. But Dorian made him wait, which he was not used to, and he developed a soft spot for the mage.

He’s not afraid of magic because the Dalish don’t restrict it like the Chantry does, but he can’t do magic and so he never took an interest in learning about it. He doesn’t understand how it all works, he’s more the type to shrug and just be like ‘eh, magic’ and that’s an entirely acceptable explanation for him. He’s not like Dorian who wants to know everything or be the smartest, which allows Dorian to nerd out and explain everything and he’ll just be like “huh, interesting, never knew that” while Dorian goes on and on. He WILL ask questions or insert things he DOES know when he has something to add. Dorian enjoys the simplicity of that compared to other mages in Tevinter who will turn things into an argument trying to sound smarter than they are. Amheotil is more humble than that, he never tries to make himself out to be something he’s not.

The ‘Herald of Andraste’ thing really bothered him for that reason. He’s no holy savior. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, but he’s pretty sure it’s not that.

I’m gonna stop typing now, before I talk your ear off. I’ve been writing about this character for about a year now, so there’s a lot I could say. Hope this was all worth reading lol

[lairofsentinel]

Mystra

I'm so new in the Forgotten Realms lore that everything I read needs always further research. So far, what got me between disbelief and mistrust was Mystra stuff meddling with humans to such deep level. Because, really... what the fuck these Gods? I always have problems with Gods in fantasy worlds. I don't like them when they are like Greek mythology entities. I prefer them when they are a mere illusion of mortals.

However, here, in the Forgotten Realms, we got them as entities like Zeus... so they can have mortal fun. UPDATE April 2021: What it’s said in this post about shadow weave and shadow weave magic and shadow magic are incorrect. In 5e, shadow weave is not mentioned, apparently a non used concept anymore. In 4e it was collapsed with the destruction of the Weave, and Shar attempted to recreated it, failing at it because she never “was” the Shadow Weave. Shar always rejected that level of commitment. However, according to bg3 [Ethel’s words] shadow magic currently is the same as netherese magic, described by Gale/Narator also as “Primal weave” or “blackest weave”. No book from 5e says a word about shadow weave anymore. 

According to what I've read, Mystra was, in fact, a young peasant girl with non-trained skills in magic, but somehow, she became the Goddess of Magic when Netheril fell. [I need to read a lot of Netheril because apparently everything bad comes from there. It's the Tevinter of the Forgotten Realms. I honestly don't understand how you just become a goddess out of the blue. One day a mediocre mage, the next one, Goddess of the Magic itself. What a gap there.]

As a Goddess, she has a system to determine who is her “Chosen One” (hence why Gale explicitly said that word, it was not by chance). The Chosen Ones have unique access to the Weave and therefore they cast powerful magic. Among their responsibilities, they need to research new magic, wander the Realms fighting the evil (and/or doing research), and to stop the abuses of magic and the imbalances of the Weave. This makes Shar followers an easy target for them to strike so far I understand, since Shar crafted an alternative Weave (Shadow Weave) from where she drags the power that infuse into her followers. However, it's a mirror Weave, extremely dependable of the normal Weave. Like Gale explained, when Mystryl died, the Weave stopped existing, and with it, the Shadow Weave fell apart too. It seems that Shadow Weave is an aberration, an imbalance of the Weave itself. [So, Shadowheart and Gale may have strong discussions on the matter.]

The man who was Mystra’s first Chosen One was a lesser god called Azuth (we found some books of this guy in BG3). The man was his devotee (despite being a low rank deity as well), his servant, his chosen one, and later, his lover (when Mystra was still Mystryl). It seems he shifted his role to a more fatherly one when Mystra was reborn [Oook]. He also was in love with another Mystra's chosen, so... divinity polyamory we have here.

Then she proceeded to accomplish a strange plan [details of this atrocity here]: to have seven immortal Chosen. So she possessed a sorceress who conceived seven immortal women with her husband [thanks god it was with her husband and not with a random man that Mystra fancied]. These women are known as the Seven Sisters, all of them are “chosen ones” of Mystra, and in a sense, they are also her daughters. [oh, boy. Greek Gods-like stuff.]

She also named Chosen One a necromancer called Sammaster who was doing research related to metamagic and dragons. The story says that Mystra appeared before him and they “spent 10 days together”, turning him into his Chosen One for a while. She apparently had a whim to choose him because soon a previous chosen one was going to die in battle, so she wanted to sort this out sooner than later. The story also says that this encounter made the necromancer feel as though they were in love. [I see the pattern now....] What it's worth highlighting: this man went into deep undead research all his life showing that Mystra has a weird moral sense of what is good from evil, which makes sense, since (magical) knowledge by itself has no alignment. Magical knowledge is never good or evil, it depends on the use you give to it (It’s also worth noting that the previous Mystra was True Neutral while the one reborn in Midnight was Neutral Good. There are two different Mystras in history.). But returning to the necromancer, the guy, in the end, manipulated by a priest of Bane, abused of his powers of Chosen and Mystra removed them. He concluded that most of his problems have been caused by accepting Mystra's role as Chosen One. Soon after that Sammaster became evil and succumbed to madness.

In short, Mystra is a goddess who loves to play favourites, and encourages research in a competitive way using a certain degree of seduction for that. So that, the Arts and the arcane knowledge will be always expanding via competition [she has such a neoliberal-magic ideas]. So, being her Chosen One seems to bring a lot of responsibility and troubles. However, it also grants you fancy benefits:

Casting more spells with less effort. 

Natural detection of magic (maybe some residual effect of this ability is what makes Gale able to sense shadow magic in Shadowheart or in the Main Character if they are a user of magic. Hence his “that gust of weave”. Gale also presents sensitivity to detect magic via smell (mirror) and taste)

Development of magical immunities, and sometimes even poison and disease immunities.

The chosen ones become harder to kill, kind of tank-wizards. [Which feels like an oxymoron, lol.]

And the most important blessing: silver-fire [this is the fire Gale speaks about when his spell failed] Which is an overpowered ability in the Forgotten Realms. It can destroy any barrier and does massive damage. It can be cast once each hour, which is... wow. It can destroy “dead magic zones”, which are zones disconnected from the Weave and therefore, places where no common magic can be cast. With Silver-fire, such zones are reconnected to the Weave and become part of Mystra's influence once more. And finally, it allows precise teleportation once a day.

What we can infer now from this info and Gale, is that... when he got Mystra’s attention, it was not just because he was a prodigy alone. It had to be whether he was doing some research that interested her (probably not) or his fate was going to lead him to unknown knowledge in a future. Considering what he did with the netheril orb, one would say that maybe Mystra saw that event in a future, and considered it interesting enough to choose Gale as the one dealing with that bit of hidden and dangerous knowledge. Because so far I read, it’s clear she can see future or potential in a certain degree, and determine who replace her chosen ones. We also saw she favours those who explore the unknown without moral issues, and she has no reserves to exploit that by seductive ways. 

Now, unlike Sammaster, why did Gale stop being his Chosen one if his fate was to retrieve that netheril orb? I believe she removed his title of chosen one when Gale got that orb stuck in his chest, not because his action was an aberration before her eyes (we remember she is quite flexible in her morals) but because the artefact was dangerous to herself. That orb looks to me like something that imbalances the Weave in great escale; it’s basically a necrotic black hole which feeds on Weave. Maybe she removed her favour on Gale because now the man had a power that could consume her. Remember the Chosen Ones are constantly in “touch with her body/weave” [lol, horny gods these gods], and considering that thing sucks all Weave... it seems obvious that could eat her up. So, maybe, all this stuff of Gale being Chosen One was just another of her plans to access to the knowledge of that tiny bit of primal Weave, completely hidden from her, and she is expecting for Gale to resolve it in order to recover his benefits as Chosen one. 

She certainly is a super smart goddess, basically a mastermind, who doesn’t care to whom she uses and discards in order to obtain knowledge. So, using Gale this way, without explanations.... it could be one of her plans. Turn into her lover a young man that would be desperate enough to risk reaching dangerous spaces to offer her precious unknown knowledge. The plan became too dangerous to Mystra, so she severed the deep link between them out of preservation, and now she is waiting for him to solve it, offering her the knowledge obtained from the process. Absolutely possible.  

But we’ll see. So far, I know a little bit more of Mystra.

Update of several days after writing this: The more I think about all this info, the more I wonder if Mystra’s Chosen One system splits her champions into two different groups: The “valuable” Chosen Ones, where Elminster and her seven daughter fall; they are the embodiment of the good use of magic in favour of neutral or good uses. And then, you have the “disposable” Chosen Ones, who seem to be more like victims of a certain degree of manipulation of the Goddess. In this category falls the necromancer Sammaster (and potentially Gale?). They can have more grey morals, but as long as they provide new knowledge and advance in the Arts, she favours them anyways. I mean… so far I read, Elminster was never “in love” with Mystra, and all that crappy dynamics between Goddess and mortal was never part of his relationship with her. His lover, though, was one of the Seven Sisters, so maybe that’s why Mystra controlled herself. I don’t know xD [These horny gods]. But when it comes to the necromancer’s story… it feels as though she encourages this seduction so the wizard will take all the necessary risks to go beyond the limits of knowledge to get her attention and favour. There is something manipulative there. 

More content of bg3 in general [here]

[prime-pulse]

1, 4, 12, 19, 20, 21, 24

Thank you for the ask!!! 7 in one... I’m gonna have a VERY fun time

1- What’s your oc’s most irrational fear? Is there a specific reason this fear came about?

Edric’s most irrational, but most valid fear, is being left alone. He joined the Inquisition by pure chance— he was the only one to survive the Conclave, he was the “lucky” person to receive the Anchor on their hand, he had barely anything before the inquisition and has nothing promised after it ends. The thought of the Inquisition ending, or even disbanding, makes Edric afraid— he can’t go to Tevinter with Dorian for both of their own safeties, he personally feels he doesn’t have what it takes to join Sera with the Red Jenny’s, he can’t take Varric’s offer to return to Kirkwall with him because he knows the parts of the Carta are lurking there. Worst case and best case scenario are the same in Edric’s head. Either way, he is left alone if the Inquisition were to disband. He doesn’t like to think about it. With the defeat of Corephyus nearing— He can’t avoid thinking about it anymore.

4- Is your oc good at keeping secrets?

Harmless personal secrets? Absolutely. If you tell something to Edric in confidence, that won’t harm anyone he cares about if kept secret, his lips will be sealed and he won’t tell a soul no matter how much they pry. Now, tell him to keep a secret that may hurt those he cares about? He’s suddenly the mouthiest dwarf in all of Thedas— running off to tell who you specifically told him not to tell, writing notes about it and spreading them around— barely able to contain himself! He’s a good secret keeper when it comes to secrets that should stay secrets. Ones that are just meant to hurt someone else? Not so much.

12- How does your oc handle talking to somebody they can’t stand? What if it’s a situation where they’re forced to work with this person?

Edric is polite and charismatic when need be, not in any sort of charming way mind you, but enough to get by. Most people Edric can’t stand have no idea he can’t stand them; he’s too good at putting on a smile and acting like he’s comfortable when in reality he’s waiting for the perfect opportunity to slip away and be done with the conversation. Edric will work with people he can’t stand all the time for the sake of the Inquisition, but when he’s forced to work with someone he can’t stand to be around outside of political affairs and pleasantries, Edric becomes less than a kind person.

Though Edric works hard to be a kind and respectful person, sometimes he can’t help but be snarky or outright rude to people he just cannot be bothered to get along with. He’ll throw petty but lowkey insults their way, give more sarcasm than he usually would— especially if he’s been working with them for more than a few hours nonstop. He won’t ever yell or attack a person unless they do so first, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to on occasion.

But luckily, there’s not a lot of people in the world Edric can’t stand.

19- How would an enemy describe this oc?

“Whether tactical or stupid is hard to answer; The Inquisitor either brilliantly plans out everything he does, or he guesses and hopes for the best— there is no way to determine what for sure. Always making the right friends, always making the right moves against us, always striking blows where they hurt the worst— either this dwarf has the most luck a person has ever had since the beginning of time, or he has the mind of a strategist whose been working in the field for decades.” Is probably what any common enemy would say.

Corephyus in particular though, would probably describe him as a lucky mistake.

20- What’s a superpower or magical ability that this oc would hate having?

The Anchor.

Don’t misunderstand; Edric is glad the Anchor exists— he is glad it can help people, he is glad it can close these fade rifts and he is glad it’s keeping the world from tearing apart— but most days, deep down, he silently wishes to himself it hadn’t been him to survive the explosion at the Conclave, that someone else had gotten the mark, that he weren’t at the center of it all. Sometimes he wishes to himself he’d left the Carta on his own accord, maybe joined the Inquisition as a soldier and not the one leading— but he was chosen to spy on the Conclave, with many of his cousins, all of which perished in the explosion, were it not him, he’d be dead, and that fantasy would’ve never happened.

Had he not gotten the anchor, he wouldn’t have met all his companions— Cassandra, The Iron Bull, Sera, Cole, Varric— Dorian, all of them. He wouldn’t have ever known them, and it hurts his heart to imagine a life without them. He only wishes he didn’t have the anchor silently, deep down, because surrounding it in his heart is all the love and care he has for all of the people he has met and saved by being the one with the anchor. He wouldn’t change how it turned out for the world. But that doesn’t mean he likes having the anchor.

21- What’s a fact you haven’t shared about this oc?

Edric is allergic to dogs, which is unfortunate, because he wants one VERY bad. He’s also allergic to most types of wooly animals (sheep, yak, specific goats, etc)— makes for a fun time when he has to visit colder climates and can’t wear anything with wool, and has to deal with the abundance of canines. (/s)

24- What is one thing that, no matter who it’s coming from, would anger your oc?

I had to sit back and think about this one for awhile, because Edric generally doesn’t get mad easily. He was brought up to be calm, observant, and stoic— don’t show much emotion because it can show those against you weakness, sort of thing. Because of this, he’s hard to anger, but even more so if you’re close to him. He admittedly offers a lot of slack to those he’s close to he wouldn’t offer to people otherwise— not with anything big, he just wouldn’t let a stranger or acquaintance get away with pranking him the way Sera does, he wouldn’t let just anyone talk to him the way Dorian or Bull normally would, things like that.

But one thing that’ll get him riled up no matter who you are is telling him you don’t care about something big. He understands not caring what you wear to a formal event, he doesn’t either, he understands not caring about what other people do, because he doesn’t either, it’s not your business— What he cares about is saying you don’t care when it’s affecting thousands of other people negatively, when it’s causing people to struggle, and you’re exempt. He doesn’t think you shouldn’t care because you have the privilege to be able not to care, he thinks you should care and help as much as you can from your position and lift up those who /can’t/ afford to not care until said problem affecting those people is corrected. You could be his closest friend, lover, or even family— but you say that to him, and it’s a sure fire way to get him to yell at you.

[tartcherryscones]

"If you ever truly existed!"

TLDR; @Bioware's Dragon Age writers: If you even truly exist, maybe give Omnism a look, because the way most religions are treated in Dragon Age is kind of depressing.

My fellow fans, you ever think about Corypheus' death scene and psychically shoot a frosty glare at the Bioware team that does Dragon Age? I do. "What was that sudden chill?" one writer asks, shivering. "It's April in Edmonton: the high today is 40," another says. "No, it was that lesbian in Texas! She's at it again!" a third replies, banging a fist on their desk. And then they send me a polite email asking me to stop, because they're Canadian, but I don't because they deserve it.

Seriously, that line where he's like, "Oh noes! I'm having a crisis of faith! Was Dumat ever real? Like, really real???" just makes me cringe. Look, this isn't a hidden god kind of situation. Dumat is real, okay? Like 100% real. I mean, he's dead, but he's still real. You can have faith in Dumat like you can have faith in butter.

No one ever questions the reality of butter; it's so real it has manifested on your plate. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints isn't going to bother checking if butter really happened, because they know it did. Butter leaves no room for doubt. You can have absolute faith in it. You can spread it on toast, you can sauté vegetables with it, you can put a little on a tiny plate to spoil your cat. Now, you don't have to like butter. Arguments about butter are common as milk. You might think that butter is bad for your cholesterol, or that cows deserve better than to be kept in miserable conditions to make butter, or that Bill Gates has put microchips in your butter, but your faith in the reality of butter is more solid even than butter. Maybe as solid as frozen butter even. No one is questioning butter... Until apparently Corypheus does for some unknowable reason. Get this man some coffee and toast, for pity's sake! He must have had a really rough night.

See, the Old Gods were worshiped not because people believed in something their priests said, but because of something the Old Gods said. Namely, "Sup, peasants! We're gods!" Truth of the matter asserted aside, there were definitely dream dragons chatting to people in the Fade! Furthermore, they were out there rewarding followers, punishing backsliders, and doing loop-de-loops in the Fade-sky. They might even have massacred Barindur! And Corypheus knows that because he has talked to Dumat before!

Before he decided to go full-time b-movie horror villain, his day job was as the freaking High Priest of Dumat. He presumably had the privilege of talking to Dumat more than anyone else did. He was the primary conduit of influence for the worshipers of Dumat to their god.

"No, not like this! I have walked the halls of the Golden City! I have crossed the ages!"

Now, Corypheus might have been upset at not being able to find his gods in the Golden City when he rolled up like an unholy Ms. Frizzle in his elf-blood-powered Magic School Bus, but he has surely since figured out where they really were. Somebody must have told him about the fucking Blights, okay? He knows that the Old Gods were actually underground by the final confrontation with the Inquisitor.

So what is up with this line?

"Dumat, ancient ones, I beseech you! If you exist, if you ever truly existed, aid me now!"

Why are you talking like this, Cory baby? Are you okay? Sweetie, he's gone. Dumat is dead, sweetie. He died a long time ago. Literally everyone else in the whole world knows that. Dumat was the first Old God tainted and killed. The Grey Wardens killed him. You know, those guys you mind-controlled? Yeah, those guys. They could tell you all about it. Their order was actually created to kill Dumat. Dumat's tainting actually touched off the First Blight, which was a somewhat important historical event. Maybe look it up in any history book, or in the Chant of Light, or, better yet, just ask anybody; it's kind of a big deal.

To me, Corypheus' line just smacks of the writers trying to pit one religion against another for the benefit of the Christiany one. I don't like it. Firstly because this is badly done, narratively speaking. Corypheus doesn't even worship the Old Gods anymore and having Corypheus react as if his faith in them is being tested here strikes me as OOC.

Let's not forget that Corypheus had started a new religion with himself as a living god. This is not that uncommon in the real world and people who do this (i.e. cult leaders) don't tend to renounce that stance. By appealing to Dumat, Corypheus is admitting his own weakness and admitting the superiority of Dumat over himself. Corypheus' whole schtick was that he was better than everybody else!

And of course it's anti-non-monotheist because that is Bioware's pattern. Elvhen gods? Aristocrats who hunt people for sport. Modern elven gods? Misremembered historical figures. Avvar gods? Swole spirits. Ancient Tevinter gods? Singing dragons who lied about what part of town they live in. The dwarves' Titans/Stone? Singing crystals that give you a really bad trip, bind you to the hivemind, and make you wander away into the darkness, never to be seen again.

But the Maker? He is a hidden god, so nobody knows, except you should infer that He does exist because He can bring Leliana back from the dead, make and fulfil prophecies concerning what no-good demon-worshipers will say in their final moments (see:Corypheus and Andraste 7:19 "They shall cry out to their false gods and find silence."), and give the Herald just enough luck to survive anything. To do otherwise would seem to be taking a particularly un-meta stance.

Look, Bioware, I get it, you're Christians not polytheists. But seriously, you don't have to shit on everyone else's religions to prove that your favorite one is worthy. You set up all these lovey mythologies! Let some of them be true! Also, it makes things feel kind of bleak and disappointing when you focus so much on proving all the polytheists (and only the polytheists) wrong. For me, it strips some of the wonder away.

Religion is the most magical part of our world. It literally involves willing something (inner strength/gods/spirits of nature/souls of the dead/etc.) to change something about the world. That's magic! It might involve a third party (generally), but it's still magic! It might involve sacrifices of candles, burning incense sticks, donating money, giving up meat, saying special words, reading a special book, drawing sacred circles, or burning entrails in a sort of trade for service, but it's still magic, just like in Thedas! A prayer is not different from a spell. In Thedas, prayers to purify one's soul and prayers to set one's enemies on fire both work. At least, the latter demonstrably does.

Ultimately, you take a little bit more of the magic out of Thedas every time you prove another religion wrong there. You are reducing the fantastical in your fantasy. Please stop it.

[dacompanionreactions]

Hi! Good to see another reactions blog. Just to start you off... DAI companions reacting to a somniari Inquisitor whose powers are greatly amplified by the Anchor?

Cassandra is unsure of what to think. Everyone has unique abilities, her own being able to set the lyrium in one’s blood aflame. She finds it unsettling at first. The idea that someone could enter the Fade while she sleeps and warp it worries her. According to Solas, a somniari himself, the Anchor amplifies this ability. Mainly she worries for the Inquisitor since they are much more vulnerable to demonic possession and the very presence of demons is painful. However, she finds there is no need to worry - the first (and last) demon that attempted possession was wiped out of existence. Cassandra has heard of how the somniari can use the Fade to drive their enemies mad, and in extreme cases, kill them. Cassandra considers the Inquisitor a dear friend and knows they will never hurt her on purpose. Truthfully, she pities the Inquisition’s enemies.

If romanced, she will be less wary around her lover and more concerned. When she’s having a particularly stressful day, the Inquisitor can shape her dreams to be pleasant. By her lover’s side, Cassandra never fails to sleep peacefully. For all the bad that comes with being a somniari, it can also be used for good. When the nights are particularly painful, she will embrace him, whispering sweet nothings and praying for some way for his pain to end.

Varric has seen a lot of weird shit in his lifetime. At this point, he’s hardly surprised, if not cautious. He makes a mental note to put this in his new book. It goes with the title. He’s become good friends with the Inquisitor, so he asks them questions. He doesn’t really understand all this Anchor stuff or the Fade, but he makes sure to regularly check in on the Inquisitor. Being a somniari isn’t the easiest of things, and when Varric learns the very presence of demons cause great pain. He finds the whole ‘enter the Fade and drive people mad’ weird to say the least, but he doesn’t let it change his view of the Inquisitor. They are his friend, abilities or no.

Solas is delighted to say the least. Somniari are extremely rare, believed to have been extinct for two ages. He is a somniari himself. Solas asks the Inquisitor question after question if they are comfortable. After studying the Anchor, he offers to teach them techniques on how to refine their abilities and lessen the pain associated with a demon’s presence. Often they will discuss the day’s events in the Fade rather than outside of it. Solas is almost rendered giddy with excitement, a difficult feat for the usually composed elf, when he realises they can offer him stories of their journeys into the Fade.

If romanced, Solas’s reaction does not change much. He is excited, anxious for knowledge and eager to teach his vhenan what he knows. However, this does leaves room for ‘Fade dates’. Two somniari in the Fade? Anything is possible. The pain is more manageable now, especially since Solas has someone who understands, but he would not wish it on his worst enemy, let alone the woman he loves. This revelation will make it so much harder for him to leave.

Dorian is beside himself. “If my family knew I were friends with a somniari, my father would positively shit himself,” he says between sips of wine. He is almost jealous of the Inquisitor. Tevinter culture widely romanticises the Dreamers, giving them their own name of ‘somniari’. However, his jealousy melts to sympathy when he learns of the great pains that come with it. Dorian researches ways on alleviating their pain, even going to Solas and Vivienne for help. The fact that they can enter the Fade and use it to kill doesn’t really bother Dorian, he’s a necromancer for the Maker’s sake.

If romanced, his initial reaction isn’t jealousy, it’s concern for his amatus. Dorian knows the dangers of being a somniari as well as the dangers that come with angering one. Dorian does not fear the Inquisitor’s abilities, rather he fears what it is doing to him. He is especially grateful when his nightmares ebb away into serene dreams, no doubt the work of his amatus.

Sera shudders. She hates the magey shite, the Fade, all of it. She can’t help her fear of the Inquisitor at first, even if they are friends. There is a whisper at the back of her mind, over and over, ‘what if?’ What if they attack her in her dreams, make her go mad? Then she realises who she’s actually talking about. The Inquisitor, helper of the little people and above all, her friend. Then she discovers the pain that comes with being a somni-what’s-it and all doubts wash away. In a way, seeing the Inquisitor like this makes them more human. It makes them little too.

If romanced, Sera will focus less on the scary magic stuff and more on how her Honey Tongue is feeling. She may consult Dorian in pain management because she doesn’t know jack about magic or the Fade, and frankly he’s the only mage apart from her Inky that she can tolerate. She worries for her Inky, and anyone who throws a shitty comment their way gets arrows.

Blackwall doesn’t really know what to make of it at first. He admits that he doesn’t quite like the idea of someone slinking into his dreams and driving him mad, though inwardly he believes it’s no less than what he deserves. He does acknowledge how the abilities can be useful and offers what comfort he can when he learns of the pain associated with it. Blackwall doesn’t necessarily understand all of the Fade stuff, but he knows how to be there for a friend.

If romanced, he will always check on his lover. If the pain is too much he will turn to Solas, Vivienne and Dorian for help. If he could, he’d enter the Fade and slay all the demons there if it meant the Inquisitor could be in peace, but things are rarely that simple. He makes sure his love knows that he has her back in this.

Cole is conflicted. On one hand, he is worried that their abilities could be used to hurt people. On the other hand, Cole worries for their safety, more so when he realises the only person hurt from this is the Inquisitor. He doesn’t understand ‘somniari’, to him it’s just a word. For the Inquisitor it’s another pressure, another expectation. People are either afraid of me or want to use this to their advantage. Don’t they see me as a person anymore? He appears by the Inquisitor’s side as soon as he hears these thoughts. “You are a person. Somniari is just a word. You are more than that.”

Iron Bull figures he’ll need a stick bashing soon. It’s not common knowledge, but his greatest fear is madness. To know that someone whom he respects greatly has the power to achieve this effortlessly? It’s not the best feeling in the world. However, his outlook changes quickly when he finds out about the pain. The Inquisitor didn’t even need to tell him verbally, his Ben-Hassrath training did that for them. Bull doesn’t get the Anchor or Fade stuff, but he tips off the Chargers about providing a fun distraction whenever the pain gets too much for the Inquisitor.

If romanced, he will pull his kadan close to him. He knows about their abilities but never once does he fear for his own sanity. Bull will consult their mage companions for a way to manage the pain. If anyone voices displeasure towards his kadan, they’ll be met with an angry qunari.

Vivienne is curious. For the last two ages, somniari were believed to have gone extinct. “My dear, that is absolutely fascinating! Do tell me more.” She wants to know everything there is to know about about their abilities, and chides them for not saying anything earlier. Her line of questioning ends abruptly when she’s informed of their pain. Vivienne has an affinity for potions, so she throws herself into research and even goes so far as to asking the apostate hobo, ahem, Solas for a second opinion. Within days she has a whole batch of elixirs ready for the Inquisitor.

Cullen doesn’t like it. His fears of magic almost override his friendship with the Inquisitor until he realises how it affects them. He empathises with them - lyrium withdrawal had him in so much pain on some days that he thought he would die. The Inquisitor informs him that it’s the same with them, and he hesitantly hugs them, unsure of whether the mage would appreciate comfort from a former templar. To his unexpected delight the Inquisitor does, and Cullen often finds himself confiding in the Inquisitor, and vice versa.

If romanced, Cullen will worry greatly for his lover, especially when she’s outside of Skyhold. Before each trip, he’ll nag the mage companion accompanying her to make sure they’re looking out for her. Cullen wishes the pain will end, but he takes solace in knowing that his presence helps her, and hers him.

Leliana has a mixed reaction. She admires the stealth that comes with entering someone’s dreams and shaping the Fade around them. She dryly mentions how it would solve many problems with the Inquisition’s enemies. Leliana also acknowledges how this could curry favour with Tevinter, but will only do so if the Inquisitor allows. She pities them, and no one knows how, but the Inquisitor suddenly finds themselves with an abundance of pain relieving elixirs. The Spymaster works in mysterious ways. Any negative comments towards the Inquisitor are met with silent but very deadly threats.

Josephine is unsure of what to think. She doesn’t like violence at all, preferring to take diplomatic approaches. She sympathises with the Inquisitor when finding out about their pain. Josephine writes to her mage contacts for information on how to lessen the pain and receives urgent replies within a week. She also asks the Inquisitor for permission to share this information publicly, for she knows a few nobles houses that would favour this knowledge.

If romanced, she will hold her lover close to her. She wants them to be in peace. As soon as she receives replies from her contacts, she passes the information on to their mage companions. Josie does not fear the abilities of her love for she knows that she will never come to harm with them.

[5lazarus]

Dregs

Anders baits Varric, or Varric baits Anders, both drunk at the Hanged Man. There's no resolution to an argument when they're both just angry, thinking about dead mages.

Read on AO3 here.

They were drinking and it wasn’t going well. Hawke had already left, pissed off at Fenris’ rant about the Viscount’s complicity with the Tevinter slave trade, as if any of them could do anything about it, and Fenris was sulking in the corner by himself. Donnic was slumped in his chair, hand loosely wrapped around a dirty glass of whiskey. All glasses Norah gave him were dirty. She didn’t like guards much. Varric kept talking hopelessly, trying to improve the mood of the party, but even retelling the story about Bartrand’s aborted wedding failed to provoke hilarity. Anders continued to glare, eyes glinting slightly, and kept drinking. He was blatantly ignoring him. At least Donnic tried to grunt at the appropriate parts, and Varric had long since given up at getting Fenris to rejoin their table. Varric stopped himself and decided a new tactic was in order. Baiting Anders was always worth a laugh, so he pointed his chin at him and snapped his fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention. “Blondie, what’s up? What’s with all the sighing and the glaring and the doom and gloom? Templar step on your tail?”

Anders drew himself up in his chair. “I wish you wouldn’t joke about that.” He took Donnic’s glass from him. Donnic blinked at him and blearily protested, but Anders drank it regardless. Varric was amused. He was pretty sure Norah spat in that. “Right. The sighing? The templar? Or the tail? You’ll have to be specific.” Varric wasn’t in the mood to be easygoing anymore--he’d been trying to cheer them up all night, and they could at least return with a story. “Evelina,” he says. “Huon. I knew them, you know. And they were better than what became of them. They weren’t-- blood mages . They were desperate! They were scared. They missed their families. They deserved help , not Tranquility. Not death. Not the templars. They deserved more . So, I guess you’re right.” He stares at his empty drink bitterly. “‘Templar step on your tail’--what haven’t they stepped on?” Varric is only temporarily speechless. Anders never has anything good to say, he shouldn’t have asked, at least not without Isabela gone, she could normally get him to laugh.  Varric personally thinks the ending is a little too depressing, he gets tired of the constant misery of the mages--and the templars made her Tranquil because she was going to turn into an abomination, she was already using blood magic. He’ll have to write it cleaner than it happened, because yet another Tranquil blood magic lacked the tragic punch. Varric says, “Well, shit. That’s crazy. That’s how it goes sometimes.” “ All the time,” Anders hisses, and reaches for Varric’s drink. Varric stops his hand warily. “Buy your own,” Varric said. “This round’s on you.” Anders, unimpressed, gets up and goes to the bar. Donnic raises his head, tired. “Careful,” he says. “Don’t bait him too much.” Varric snorts. “Or else? I get a fireball to the face?” Donnic says, “No. You can only push someone so far before they break.” He drops a couple coins on the table. “Get your last round on me.” He leaves, stumbling only slightly, and Varric marvels at his perspicacity. Donnic does like his one-liners--the man’s so anodyne, he has to spice him up when he finishes Hard in Hightown . Aveline already forbade him from writing about anything interesting, since her investigations into the corruption of the guard were still ongoing. He shakes his head at the exit. Donnic, what would they all do without Donnic? Live exactly the same as they did without him--and for that blessed quality of irrelevance, he has to write a story about him. Anders returns to the table and sets down his whiskey. Varric squints at him. “You sure you should be drinking that?” he says. “Don’t want Justice taking control.” “You were laughing,” Anders says. “What were you laughing about?” Varric sighs. He gets that watching what happened to those Circle mages bothered him, it bothered him too, but Varric knows all too well that sometimes you just have to breathe and let it pass, because there’s no use obsessing over the past. He glances at his crossbow, which he had given its own chair: perhaps he’s a hypocrite. He’s a lot of things--but he’s not paranoid, and he doesn’t want to deal with this. Varric says, “Oh, you know, everything. Donnic. You. The same old stories shaking out the same. You and me bristling over a drink. What to talk about between disasters. The usual shtick.” Anders drops into his chair suddenly, so fast Varric reaches for Bianca. “Oh,” he says. “So glad you can find the humor in it. I guess it’s easy to laugh when you’re not in it.” Varric scowls. “Not in it? Blondie, I live here.” He gestures grandly, to try and take the sting out of his tone. “Don’t be obtuse,” Anders says. “You know what I mean.” “I know I’ve lived here longer than you,” Varric says testily. “Not getting nativist. But I know this city’s problems. Been stuck in the muck of it longer than you have, Blondie. By a good thirty years.” Anders’ eyes flash, Justice peeking through. He snaps,“That is not what I mean and you are deliberately misunderstanding me.” Varric raises a hand wearily, glancing to see who has taken notice. A few apostates in the corner are watching, but they’re friendly with the Mage Underground, so that’s fine. Fenris looks up, eyes narrow, but Varric shakes his head at him. Anders isn’t going to blow up in public, at least not tonight. He’s prone to picking fights, but Varric’s not going to fall for it. “Sure,” Varric says. “Tell me what I’m deliberately misunderstanding.” Anders flashes, “Don’t patronize me.” “Okay,” he says. “I’m not. Sorry.” He reaches for Anders’ drink. He really doesn’t need more liquor in him, and Varric’s got money and the influence that comes with money, but not even the Merchants’ Guild can bribe Meredith to look the other way if Anders goes on a Justice-rampage in the middle of the Hanged Man. Donnic is at least gone--they’ve put him and Aveline in enough difficult spots, lately. Sometimes Varric wonders if Hawke realizes how stressful it is, being their friend. Varric grimaces and sips at the whiskey. It’s alright for what it is. He’s fine with it. Anders says, “You don’t know what it’s like, to be hunted. For people to want to-- lobotomize you, just for existing. That people think there’s something fundamentally evil about you, just because you--see things and feel things!” His voice breaks, and he says raggedly, “The Maker made me this way, Varric. He made us like this. Don’t tell me you know what it’s like. To be made to be punished.” Varric says, “Well, shit. You are drunk. Let’s get you out of here.” “Fuck you,” Anders says. “Really, from the bottom of my heart. Fuck you.” Varric scowls. “Cool it, mage. I get you’re upset about your friends being Tranquil, and yeah, it sucks, but what did you think was going to happen? They ran away from Meredith , they were dealing with demons, and that Huon guy put the whole alienage in danger, coming back to his wife. It was fucked up. You gotta admit that.” “That his family loved him and wanted him safe?” Anders says. “What’s so fucked up about that? You think Nyssa wasn’t elated when he came back? She’d been smuggling--” He stops himself, and Varric realizes that there is a story there, there is something he’s not saying, there is something he probably shouldn’t know. “But sure, think what you like. Write it whatever way that makes you happy. Crazed blood mage beating his wife. Clinging Ferelden refugee selfishly taking care of two orphans. Compassion’s just a despair demon, after all. Hope is really just pride. And Justice? That’s just vengeance. As we don’t deserve any recompense. No, forgive and forget, that’s what you want. Reconciliation. Compromise by surrendering all of our rights.” Varric says, “What the fuck is your problem? I haven’t said any of that shit. I have been nothing but a friend to you. Sure, I think you’re crazy. Bit of an asshole too, and I don’t even pretend to get that Fade shit you got going on with Justice. But you do good work in Darktown and you don’t get in the way of my business, and that’s fine for Kirkwall. I want what’s good for Kirkwall. I don’t get what you mean by ‘compromise,’ forgiving and forgetting. I just want the job fucking done. And your job--you take care of the refugees. No one else does that. You take care of Hawke and keep the rest of us patched up. That’s nice too. But get out of my face with this pity-me bullshit.” He says that, and realizes that perhaps he is drunk too: well, shit. He tries to roll it back. “Let’s get you back to the clinic, you’re drunk.” Anders says, “And you’re not?” Varric says, “Your point?” Anders settles back in his chair and crosses his arms. Justice has left his eyes now, and he smiles grimly at him. “No fucking need. You made it for me.” Varric stares at him and considers violence, considers stomping all the way to Hightown and shaking Hawke for sticking him with this mule disguised as a man. He throws his hands. “Right! So glad to help.” He shakes his head. “You’re impossible, do you know that? Fucking impossible sometimes.” “Yeah,” Anders says. “So I’ve been told.”

[yandere-sins]

Can’t be forgiven, we’re both going to videogame hell, anon :’D Hope you’re ready to go down with me lol! Hope you are doing well too! Stay safe!

»»————-———— ♡ ————————-««

Corypheus is the last person that needs anyone but himself. However, what he wants is something completely different. He wants power, he wants to reign and return the old Tevinter Imperium, and he wants to have everyone shiver before him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have put so much effort into mobilizing that many types of different people to serve his ideas. His arrogance and feeling of being superior to any and all would certainly have been his downfall without the power he accumulated. But, immortality is a gift and poison at the same time. Corypheus rarely can remember what his life was like before he set out to gain godhood, but he did have a family and connections with other people before that. So with even the smallest bit of humanity remaining in him, there is a chance that there could be someone he wants too, even after all these years.

And he could have anyone. Anyone, and yet, he chooses the one, fragile being that pursued his call. They aren’t any more special than the others, probably a human warden and/or mage who foolishly got too close to him, entranced by his call, but the two of them happened to have a rare one-on-one, and Corypheus was never someone to miss an opportunity. He unloads his knowledge and believes on them, and they quite literally become tainted with his ideology, swearing to follow him wherever he went. They make for an adorable underling, so eager, so willing. All the others that follow him might be as interested in his doings as his darling is, but they also harbor their own plans, except for this one who is just interested in all that concerns him. Call it a stroke of his ego, but he decides he likes them, even though when they leave, they have forgotten some of their interactions, only the taint remains, and they return to him whenever he calls

There’s no way he can actually let himself be too infatuated with a lowly being. Having such a weakness would be irresponsible. But when he’s freed, he calls them back to his side, making sure they never leave it. Like a shadow to him, they are always with him as he goes through the metamorphize to his true self, enduring all his moods while thanking him for letting them be by his side. How can he not, at least a little bit, be in love with them when they return no matter what he does to them? He sends them out as a messenger, as a fighter for him, and as both bait and glorified punchbag and shield. Yet, they fall to their knees before him, looking at him with the dazed eyes of someone who lost their mind long ago, having it replaced with admiration and the will to do anything for him. They could mean nothing to him, a puppet to replace, but he has better use for them he decides eventually

*Lemon ahead

Suddenly, after having proved so much to him already, and surprisingly surviving it, they’ve become more for him. They finally managed to crawl their way into his heart, earning just a little bit of his ‘love’. They can never become as great as him. Never reach him like the superior being he is. But they will be allowed to serve him now. Not tolerated, not forced. Allowed. His darling won’t know left and right anymore when he’s done with forcing all kinds of Lyrium down their throat. They might die from it, but he isn’t a Tevinter mage for nothing. As long as he doesn’t allow it, they won’t die either. But they’ll turn into the closest being to him, just as utterly destroyed as he is, with their conscience unable to stay in only one dimension anymore, further strengthening his hold on them as he whispers his ideas into their ear. Their blood will boil from simply being touched by his claws, their heart unable to stop beating for him literally. His hold on them is unbreakable, and they’d do anything, even endure the pain and hardship that it brings

Touching his face is nothing but pure, agonizing pain, their skin bursting under the Lyrium. If not for his precautions, they couldn’t even get closer to him, just like they were before with his darling merely a shadow to him. But now that they can, there’s no holding him back either. They can’t be sure what brings them the pleasure that they feel when they are with him, but whatever it might be - claws, teeth, the call of the taint - they feel it in every fiber of their being, convulsing under him. Corypheus takes pleasure from watching them squirm for him, a slave to his will, yet, the only one he could ever want in that way. Whatever makes him feel good, they will oblige to do, licking him spotless if he so much desires. It might take months of them destroying their body in an attempt to satisfy the sexual needs he didn’t know still existed, but with someone like his darling, they’ll push through any pain. In return, they are rewarded with only the most delicious kind of pleasure, something only someone can reach when so corrupted as the former magister himself. And for as long as he lives, they will not go a day without his ‘love’ for them anymore, having to endure his every fantasy, no matter the humiliation and degradation he will put them through. But they couldn’t be happier to be finally united with their ‘god’ in every aspect there is, and Corypheus too, blooms under their attention

[altuspavus]

a horrendously late holiday gift super short “drabble” but barely even that because writing doesn’t come easily to me anymore for @apogeaned

     Cold. Ugh. One of the worst things in the entire world, if you were to ask Dorian, was the cold. Specifically, the cold in the morning. How dreadful, how it led to him awakening with nose already reddish and inclined to sniffles. Tevinter never provided those issues to him upon waking, not even in the depths of winter. It provided many, many other issues, of course, but at least the weather was good. It was warm and not overly humid. It was good. Alas, there were important things to deal with leading to Dorian being trapped for the time being in a freezing, snowy mountain.

     A sniffle and sigh at the concept of getting up immediately or even soon escaped from the mage as he rolled to his side and buried his face against the inescapable cold that seemed to even penetrate and take over any heat provided by the strongest fires.

     Ah, yes, that was precisely one of the greatest positives to being in Ferelden. Being able to nuzzle against the Iron Bull, hide his face against the warmth provided by his lover… yes. That was worth all of the snow in Thedas (though Bull in the warmer North would be much more ideal. Once the world was saved, perhaps).

     He sighed softly again, though this one was one of contentment, not of annoyance. Arms and legs alike snaked their way across and around Dorian’s partner, pulling him ever closer. “ Mmm, you’re better than fire. ” His mumbling sounded as mushy and sleepy as he still felt, and thank all things in existence that Dorian, as far as he was aware, did not have to urgently get up. The same for Bull, he was sure. They could stay in bed long as they (or rather, Dorian) wanted. A soft day for no one but the two of them, something secret and sacred between the two men.  

     Yes, no one could take such things away from Dorian, not anymore. While they might be able to push them back, put them on hold, should more important things arise, more urgent things... nothing could end such things. They would always return, Bull and Dorian could always return to them. Quiet moments in the mornings, or evenings, or even midnight, just the two of them with no one to interrupt, no one to ruin the sacrosanctity of the emotions between the two of them, feelings Dorian was sure he would never be able to describe both coherently and succinctly. 

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan: Imshael

Chapter 14 of The Love That Grows From Violence (Felassan x Tamaris Lavellan) is posted!

In which a lot of lore is discussed, including the story from Tevinter Nights that’s narrated by a character named Hollix. A note before we start: Hollix is a master of disguises whose gender identity is non-binary or fluid, but in this fic, I have Dorian calling Hollix ‘she/her’ because that’s what Dorian calls Hollix in the Tevinter Nights story — he gets the impression that Hollix is a ‘she/her’ based on Hollix’s disguises, an impression that Hollix doesn’t correct because they easily and cheerfully slip into either gender identity/role as part of their position as a Lord of Fortune.

~6000 words; read here on AO3 instead.

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

“Listen closely now,” Dorian said jauntily. “My story begins with a series of unsolved and rather gruesome murders that had been going on in Minrathous for some time. Rumours had started to circulate that the perpetrator was a creature that came to be called the Cekorax.”

“Cekorax?” Varric asked. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a butchering of the old Tevene word for ‘headsman’,” Dorian said. “The creature earned this charming name because its victims were all found without their heads.”

Tamaris grimaced, and Felassan laughed. “This story is exciting already.”

“Not quite so exciting for those who lost their heads, but I digress,” Dorian said delicately. “No one was doing anything about it, unfortunately, especially since the beast hadn’t attacked any of the altus class yet. So I put out a bounty for the perpetrator’s head, and the person who came to my aid was a wily little thing whom I’ll affectionately call Hollix.”

Tamaris raised an eyebrow. “That you’ll call Hollix? What was their actual name?”

“I haven’t a clue,” he said cheerfully. “I called her Hollix on a whim. She decided to keep the name while she was in Minrathous, and who am I to argue with the adoption of a silly nickname?”

“Fair enough,” Varric said.

“Of course you’d agree,” Dorian said drolly. “In any case, Hollix did some unsavoury investigating for me — for a fair price, of course — and discovered that the creature doing all the killing was…” He sighed. “Frankly, it was a creature of unearthly and uncanny horror. And you know I don’t say this lightly, considering all that we’ve seen together.”

“No kidding,” Tamaris said flatly.

Felassan sat forward and rested his elbows on the table. “What did it look like? This uncanny creature of horror?”

“I can only tell you so much firsthand, as I was high above the action when the creature presented itself,” Dorian said. “But Hollix described it more fully. It was…” He hesitated for a moment before going on. “It was an enormous fleshy mass as large as a house that was able to peel parts of itself away to produce… tentacles. Unbelievably long tentacles bearing human eyes that it had stolen from its victims’ heads.”

Tamaris exchanged a horrified look with Varric. “So it just took the victims’ eyes?” she asked Dorian. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Dorian said. He sounded very serious now. “In the deepest part of this fleshy mass, it was harbouring the heads of all of its victims. Over two dozen heads, Hollix said — all perfectly preserved as though they were still alive. And the monster was… animating the heads. Speaking through their mouths.”

A cold ripple of revulsion ran down the back of Tamaris’s neck. “Oh fuck,” she breathed.

“Shit,” Varric muttered.

Felassan narrowed his eyes. “It was speaking through the heads? Using their mouths to express its own thoughts?”

“Apparently,” Dorian said. “Hollix said it was trying to lure her into joining it. To ‘keep her safe’, it said.”

Felassan leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the table. “So it seemed to have motivations of its own. That’s fascinating.”

Tamaris tilted her head. “Do you know something about this?” 

He grinned. “Are you asking if I’m responsible? That hurts. I’m clever, but I’m hardly diabolical.”

She tsked. “Of course I don’t think you’re responsible. But is it an ancient monster or something like that?”

His smile faded slightly. “I… honestly can’t say.” To Dorian he said, “How did you defeat this creature in the end?”

“An ingenious plan that I regret to admit was not mine,” Dorian said. “The creature had entwined itself in one of the city’s finest public gardens, which happens to be just below my apartment. Hollix cleared the gardens and exploded the fountain with gaatlok so the creature was drenched, and Maevaris and I electrocuted it from the upper balcony of my apartment.”

Tamaris raised her eyebrows. “So wait, you weren’t even in the garden during all this? I thought you said you were involved in the disgustingness.”

“I was involved,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I was in it. Can you imagine?”

Tamaris snorted in amusement. “You’re such a spoiled noble.”

“I do miss your loving insults,” he said. “In actual fact, though, Mae and I had to keep distant so the monster wouldn’t suspect anyone else but Hollix was involved. I do feel sorry for Hollix though, poor thing. The creature popped like an enormous filthy balloon when we zapped it, and she got rather, er, moist in the process. When all was said and done, only the creature’s skin was left behind.”

Varric grimaced. “Like a sausage casing?”

“Ugh,” Dorian said. “That’s what Hollix said. Believe me, you wouldn’t be thinking about food if you’d seen what I had.”

Tamaris looked at Felassan. “So? Does it sound familiar to you?”

He twisted his lips. “Yes and no, actually. It almost sounds like one of Ghilan’nain’s delights, but not completely.”

Tamaris blinked in surprise. What did Ghilan’nain have to do with a horrific murderous monster in Minrathous?

“Ghilan’nain?” Dorian said. “Isn’t that one of the Dalish gods? Er, so to speak.”

“Yes indeed,” Felassan said. He raised his eyebrows at Tamaris. “Would you care to start us off?”

She groaned. “Do I have to?”

He chuckled. “No, you don’t. But it would be informative for everyone.”

“Uh-huh,” she said skeptically. Then she addressed Varric and Dorian’s crystal. “The Dalish say that Ghilan’nain was the mother of halla, and the goddess of navigation and wayfaring. She was actually a mortal who was raised to the status of a goddess thanks to Andruil, who’s the goddess of hunting.” Then she frowned at Felassan. “But in the Temple of Mythal, we found an old inscription that Solas translated. It said that Ghilan’nain created all kinds of creatures, but the creatures ran rampant through the elves’ lands until the Evanuris offered her godhood in exchange for destroying them.” 

Felassan grinned. “Fen’Harel translated that for you?”

“Yes, he did.”

Felassan chuckled. “I can just imagine him screaming on the inside while he read that to you.”

She offered him a slightly bitter smirk, and he folded his arms. “Well, that inscription had the right of it. Like all the Evanuris, Ghilan’nain was a powerful mage, and her favourite hobby was creating new forms of life.” He held up a finger. “Wait, I should be specific: she created new forms of life from ones that already existed, blending and forming them into new creatures that were increasingly spectacular and powerful.”

Tamaris harrumphed. “Until the Evanuris got sick of her shit, it seems.”

Felassan smiled at her. “Blunt as always, avise, but yes. This was before my time, but my understanding is that Andruil became enamoured with Ghilan’nain, who created increasingly insane creatures for Andruil to hunt. Andruil praised her efforts, which spurred Ghilan’nain’s experiments on.” He smirked. “They encouraged each other’s insanity, just as any good couple should.”

Dorian chuckled, and Varric ruefully shook his head. “Very romantic, Jester.”

“I am, aren’t I?” he said. “In any case, Andruil and Ghilan’nain’s… activities eventually drew concern from the other Evanuris, who offered to raise Ghilan’nain to the status of a goddess if she destroyed her more disturbing creatures. By that time, she had already gained a measure of infamy among the people, so it took little propaganda for them to believe she was a goddess like the others.”

“Let me guess,” Dorian said. “Her experimenting didn’t stop just because she became a goddess.”

Felassan widened his eyes in mocking surprise. “How did you know?”

Tamaris folded her arms. “But you don’t really think that this Cekorax could actually be one of Ghilan’nain’s creatures. That would mean it was thousands of years old.”

Varric shrugged. “It’s not impossible, Cuddles. Think about some of the old shit we’ve encountered. Corypheus, the Titan…”

“A certain person in this room,” Felassan said blandly.

Tamaris snorted a laugh, and he winked at her. Then Dorian spoke through the crystal. “Whether this creature is new or old, what was it doing roaming around beneath Minrathous?”

“That is an excellent question,” Felassan said thoughtfully.

“Can you answer it?” Tamaris asked.

He shrugged. “I can try.” To Tamaris and Varric he said, “Recall that I told you about Mythal’s Sentinels, and how the other Evanuris sought warriors who were equally dedicated and fierce?”

“Yeah,” Varric said.

Felassan nodded. “Ghilan’nain’s efforts involved attempts to make hybrid… species that would be good fighters and soldiers. And her experiments didn’t just use non-sentient animals anymore.”

A cold stone of horror dropped into Tamaris’s gut. “She started experimenting on slaves?”

“Yes,” Felassan said. His manner was completely serious now, without a hint of levity. “From what we gathered at the time, she wanted her… creations to have some level of sentience, but not so much that they would try to rebel. Which is why I wonder if this Cekorax wasn’t just a simple monster, but a monster possessed by a spirit, since it sounds like it had more… motivation than Ghilan’nain’s surviving creatures had.”

Varric sighed and rubbed his chin. “A possessed monster? As if a regular monster wasn’t bad enough.”

Felassan didn’t reply, and Tamaris looked at him; he had an oddly absent-looking half-smile on his face.

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He met her eye, then let out a little laugh and shook his head. “Oh, nothing. Just an idle thought, really.”

She narrowed her eyes, but Dorian spoke before she could press Felassan further. “This still doesn't explain why one of Ghilan’nain’s creatures might be roaming around beneath Minrathous now.”

Felassan sobered once more. “Ghilan’nain had multiple hidden… laboratories, for lack of a better word, where she was creating her so-called soldiers. I don’t know where they were located as her activities weren’t my particular area of focus, but if one of Ghilan’nain’s laboratories was recently… activated, or disturbed, then it’s possible that this Cekorax broke free.”

Dorian sighed. “The murders started shortly after some surviving Venatori opened an underground cavern of some kind.” 

Felassan grimaced. “That could explain it. You should probably look into where that cavern was, in case you start getting more lovely visitors from the deepest pits of Ghilan’nain’s twisted imagination.”

Dorian tsked. “Fasta vass. Of course. We’ll look into that.”

“Felassan,” Tamaris said. 

“Yes, avise?” he said pleasantly.

She frowned slightly. “You mentioned that you thought the Cekorax was possessed by a powerful spirit.”

“I did, yes.”

“Do you know the spirit that might have been possessing it?”

A slow smile lifted the corners of his lips. “Why do you say that?”

“Why are you dodging?” she said quietly. 

His smile faded. “Force of habit,” he said ruefully. “I apologize. I did wonder if the spirit might be one that I was acquainted with in the past.” He smirked and rubbed his chin. “Possessing a many-headed and many-eyed monster that can shape itself at will would be in keeping with this particular spirit.”

“What spirit?” Tamaris asked.

“It called itself the Formless One,” he said. “As you can probably guess, it didn’t have any particular shape that it preferred, nor a name to go by.”

“A name?” Dorian said in surprise. “Spirits have names?”

“If they want one, certainly,” Felassan said. “Though many of them are boring and keep the name of the virtues they embody.” His tone was bland once more, and Tamaris shot him a chiding smirk; he was clearly taking a jab at Solas.

Dorian’s voice was keen with curiosity through the sending crystal. “What are some of the spirit names you’ve known?” 

Felassan casually laced his fingers behind his head. “There was an amusing group of spirits who were banished from Elvhenan long before I was born. Or were supposed to have been, at least,” he added with a smirk. “The Formless One was one of them, though it obviously didn’t have a name. Gaxkang was one, and Imshael was another—” 

Tamaris straightened in surprise, and Varric interrupted. “Imshael?” he said.

Felassan’s eyes widened, and he smiled. “Don’t tell me you met him.”

Varric and Tamaris stared incredulously at him, and Dorian answered. “We didn’t just meet him. We killed him.”

Felassan’s face slackened with surprise. Then he laughed. “You’re kidding. Well, now you have to tell me how that happened.”

They told Felassan how they’d met Ser Michel de Chevin during their travels to Emprise du Lion, and how Michel had asked for their help defeating Imshael at Suledin Keep. When they described how Imshael had been directing and guiding the growth of red lyrium in the Red Templars and peasants in the quarry, Felassan laughed and tugged his ear.

“Well, I suppose I did tell him to have fun,” he said dryly. “Not the sort of fun I would have chosen, but…”

Tamaris recoiled slightly at his flippant reaction. “Were you friends with Imshael?” she asked.

“More like long-time acquaintances who made deals sometimes,” he said. “He was supposed to have been banished from our lands along with the others I mentioned, but he, er, stuck around.”

His tone was curled with mischief. She eyed him shrewdly. “Did Solas know you made deals with a spirit who was supposed to be banished?”

“He knew, but... unofficially,” Felassan said.

“Why unofficially?”

“Because Mythal didn’t know,” Felassan said slyly. “She was one of the Evanuris who banished him, you see.”

He was grinning now. Tamaris frowned more deeply. “How is this funny?”

“It’s not, actually,” he said. “Not at all. Can I ask if Fen’Harel was present when you met Imshael?”

Varric nodded. “Yeah, Chuckles was there.”

“And he didn’t say anything?” Felassan said. “Any… recognition or anything?”

“Not a fucking word,” Tamaris said bitterly.

Felassan let out a snort of laughter. “I bet he was fuming on the inside. If I wasn’t already out of the picture, he probably would have skinned me.” He snorted again and rubbed his mouth, then suddenly burst into laughter.

Tamaris’s heart clenched; the quality of his laughter was wild and uncontrolled. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Just breathe.”

Another blast of laughter left his lungs. Tamaris stroked his arm with her metal fingers. “Look at me, brat,” she said softly. 

He wheezed as he met her eye, and Tamaris nodded encouragingly. A few breaths later, he was calm again.

She squeezed his hand before releasing it. “Why did you say Solas would skin you?” she asked.

“Because it’s my fault Imshael was free to run a red lyrium farm in Emprise du Lion,” Felassan said. “And whatever shortcomings the Dread Wolf has, he does not like red lyrium.”

“No one in their right mind does,” Varric said flatly.

Tamaris frowned. “What do you mean, it was your fault Imshael was free?”

He looked at her, and her belly jolted; for a split second, an odd flash of wistfulness had crossed his face before his usual pleasant half-smile returned. “Imshael had been summoned and bound by a Dalish clan,” he said. “My… lack of involvement, shall we say, led to him being set free.”

Her gut twisted with apprehension. A Dalish clan?

Dorian’s words echoed her thoughts. “You were with a Dalish clan?” he asked.

“For a very brief time, when I was travelling with Briala and the others,” Felassan said. His tone was light and pleasant, but he was still gazing steadily at Tamaris, and there was something about the neutrality of his expression that she didn’t like. 

Then Dorian spoke in a peevish tone. “I beg your pardon, but what in Andraste’s sacred underthings are you talking about? I’m feeling terribly left out.”

Felassan finally looked away from her to face the crystal. “I travelled for a time with Celene, Briala, and the illustrious Michel prior to the Orlesian civil war breaking out in earnest,” he said. “At one point during our travels, we were hosted by a Dalish clan.”

“Hosted?” Dorian said. “The Dalish hosted Celene and Michel?”

Varric spoke up. “I didn’t think Dalish hospitality extended to humans. No offense, Cuddles.”

She didn’t reply; she was too focused on Felassan, who was now wearing a little smile that somehow made his face look empty.

Felassan shrugged. “Well, they tied Michel up and beat him, and they kept Celene under guard. Does that count as hospitality?” 

Tamaris’s gut twisted. Something awful had just occurred to her. “Felassan, what happened to the Dalish clan after Imshael was freed?” she said quietly. 

His eyes returned to her face. “Imshael killed them all.”

A jolt of shock stabbed her in the gut. She stared at him for a second before finding her tongue. “Imshael killed them?” she said weakly. “The… the whole clan?”

“All but one, yes,” Felassan said. He was still wearing that empty little smile, and he sounded so casual, and it… it didn’t add up. 

“Wait,” she said. “He…” She trailed off; her heart was thrumming now, and it was making it hard for her to breathe. She forced herself to inhale. “Imshael went after the clan because you let him go free?”

“Yes,” Felassan said.

She dragged in another breath. “Did you know that Imshael would attack the clan?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said. 

He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked so serious now — no, not just serious. He looked…

Her heart twisted. He looked wolfish, somehow. Dangerous. This wasn’t the Felassan she knew. 

She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “So you… you purposely let a demon go free, knowing it would kill an entire Dalish clan.”

“Yes, Tamaris,” he said. “I did.”

She stared at him in shock. His face was so forbidding and his voice was uncharacteristically hard, and … and he’d purposely given a demon free reign to kill a Dalish clan. 

She hadn’t known. She hadn’t known about this. He hadn’t told her about this, for obvious reasons — he’d gotten a Dalish clan killed, for fuck’s sake, so of course he hadn’t told her. But if he hadn’t told her this, what else was he hiding from her? What other ugly secrets was he keeping? 

Nauseous with horror, she gazed into his violet eyes — his beautiful violet eyes that were usually full of warmth and humour, and that she’d been growing to trust more and more with every passing day. 

Beautiful violet eyes that were probably hiding all kinds of deeds that Tamaris knew nothing about. 

She rose from her chair, and his hard expression cracked. “Tamaris,” he said.

She shook her head and took a step back from the table. Felassan stood up and reached for her hand. “Tamaris, don’t—”

She whipped her hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled. She turned on her heel and ran up the stairs.

She went straight to her room and shoved open the window, then climbed up to the roof and started pacing. Her heart was pounding in her chest and behind her eyes, and her fingers shook as she dragged them through her hair.

Felassan had gotten a Dalish clan killed. He had purposely let a demon run rampant and kill an entire clan, and he hadn’t told her. They’d been living here for weeks and he hadn’t… she had no idea.

She was so stupid. She was so fucking stupid to have thought she could trust him. He was thousands of years old and she’d only known him for three weeks, and — she knew basically nothing about him. How could she have thought she could trust him at all? 

It’s Solas all over again, she thought. Once again, she’d been lulled into a false sense of safety with a compelling older man, and once again, he’d betrayed her trust. 

Her ribs felt like they were swelling with misery. She sat down abruptly and leaned back against the chimney, and for some uncounted time she just sat there ruminating on her own idiocy. 

Eventually, she heard the distinctive soft shuffle of bare feet joining her on the roof. She clenched her jaw and looked away, but Felassan sat beside her anyway.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

His voice was back to its usual warmth, but this only made her feel worse. She shot him a venomous look. “Don’t act like you know everything about me. You’ve only known me for a couple of weeks.”

He elegantly lifted an eyebrow. “Can I speak without you biting my head off?”

“Why should I let you?” she snapped. “So you can talk circles around me?”

His eyes narrowed. “I have never done that to you and you know it.”

A pang of remorse penetrated her anger, and it was enough to make her relent. She shrugged and looked away from him. “Fine. Talk.”

“As I said, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking that I’ve withheld this terrible tale from you, and that if I was hiding this, there must be an entire thaig’s worth of villainous secrets that I’m keeping from you. I am extremely old, after all. There must be hundreds of skeletons in my proverbial closet that you don’t know about, so how can you possibly trust me?”

His tone was annoyingly playful, but what really rankled her that he was right. “Look at you, using your spy skills to figure me out,” she said snidely. 

“I am only using the information that you told me yourself,” he said. “I know you’re on alert for reasons to cast me aside. I am not going to give you any.”

A sudden throb of pain in her chest took her by surprise. She swallowed hard and lifted her burning eyes to the sky as Felassan continued to speak. “I was not purposely hiding this from you. If the topic had come up before, I would have told you.” He lowered his voice. “And I think you know that.”

Fuck, her lips were trembling. She looked away from him and didn’t speak, and Felassan was silent as well. 

When Tamaris was able to control her face once more, she shot him a hard look. “Tell me why you let that clan get killed.”

His shoulders loosened slightly. “The practical reason is that Imshael had something I needed: a keystone to unlock the eluvians. Setting him free gave us access to the keystone, which ultimately ended up in Briala’s possession.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” she said coldly.

“I do know what you mean,” he said calmly. “The real truth is this: I could have gotten that keystone in other ways. I knew Imshael, and I knew how his mind worked. But I wanted that clan to suffer.”

“Why?” she demanded. “What the fuck did they ever do to you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “They did nothing to me, and there was nothing they could have done to harm me.” He paused and clenched his jaw, and her gut twisted; his expression was hardening again in a way that she didn’t like. 

“It was the way they treated Briala,” he said. “Briala had been supplying information to that clan for years through me. She’d pinned her hopes and dreams on them, and do you know what they said to her when they finally met her?”

“What?” Tamaris said faintly.

“They called her a flat-ear and said that she was not their people,” Felassan said.

For a moment, Tamaris stopped breathing. That was what Abelas had said to her at the Temple of Mythal, and she still remembered the way his disdain seemed to stab her straight in the heart.

Felassan went on. “Their Keeper, Thelhen…” He curled his lip in disgust. “It wasn’t that he was blind to the plight of the alienages. He knew what they suffered, and he didn’t care. He was no better than the human nobles that beat and killed city elves for looking at them the wrong way. He knew the problems that city elves faced, and he chose to do nothing, claiming that they were not his people.”

His voice was growing angrier by the second, and Tamaris held up a hand in surrender. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay, I… I hear what you’re saying.”

He took a deep breath and nodded, then leaned his head back against the chimney, and for a moment they were both silent. 

For once, Tamaris broke the silence. “Was that the only clan you ever had dealings with?” 

“No,” he said. “But I had dealings with Clan Virnehn for as many years as I have known Briala. No matter how many times I told them that a city elf was the one to thank for their knowledge of Orlais and how to avoid the shemlen troubles that plagued the country, they still refused to accept her as their own.”

“I hear you,” she said gently. “Honestly, I do. And that’s… it’s fucking awful, and I’m sorry Briala had such a shitty experience with the first Dalish clan she finally had a chance to meet. But do you really think that’s enough reason to let the entire clan get killed?”

He exhaled heavily. “Tamaris…”

She pushed on ruthlessly. “What about the kids in that clan? There had to be kids. Did they deserve to die because their Keeper was a piece of shit?”

“You don’t understand,” he burst out.

“What don’t I understand?” she asked. 

“The…” He dragged his hand over his hair and glared at her. “The frustration of living through the same short-sighted stupidity from thousands of years ago. The fact that our people are still so divisive and blind. You can’t understand how frustrating it is to wake up thousands of years later to realize that the worst attitudes of my time were one of the things that survived.”

“You can’t judge all of the Dalish based on that one clan’s attitudes,” she said firmly. “That’s you and Solas’s biggest problem. You’re judging all of us based on just a few.”

He let out a rather tired-sounding laugh. “This kind of sparkling optimism is a strange look on you.” 

She couldn’t tell if he was complimenting her or insulting her, but it didn’t matter right now. She shifted a little closer to him. “My clan isn’t like that, Felassan.”

“You’ve said that before,” he said. “You told me you take in city elves who run away from the alienages.”

“Yes, we do,” she said.

“And the elves who can’t run away?” he said. “Those who are stuck in the alienages with no means of escape? You told me you knew of the massacre of Halamshiral’s alienage. What did you do about it?”

His tone was calm but piercing somehow, like he was trying to dig beneath her skin with his pointed words, and Tamaris forced herself to reply just as calmly. “Me personally?” she said. “Nothing. By the time I heard about it, it had happened six months before and I was travelling to the Temple of Sacred Ashes to spy on the Conclave.”

“And once you became the Inquisitor?” he said. “Once you had power? What did you do then to help your brothers and sisters in the alienages?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I allowed the Empress of Orlais to be murdered in order to make a city elf the real power behind the throne,” she said quietly. “Or have you forgotten that already?”

His eyebrows rose. After a brief pause, he smiled and bowed his head to her. “Fair enough, avise.”

She relaxed slightly. “I can’t speak to that clan you ran into,” she said. “And… fine, all right, I’ve known some people from other clans who… who feel like we don’t owe anything to the city elves.” She scowled at him. “But Clan Lavellan is not like that, okay? I’m not bullshitting you. We don’t look down on city elves that way. My clan purposely went into Wycome to protect the city elves, for fuck’s sake.”

He looked at her in surprise. “They did?”

“Yes,” she said. “This was a couple years ago. The Duke of Wycome was involved with some Venatori, and they were trying to frame the elves for red lyrium getting into the water supply. The humans tried to burn the alienage down, and my clan interfered to help the city elves fight back. After the Duke was killed, my clan stayed in Wycome to support the city elves, and my Keeper and a city elf got sworn in on the city council along with some human merchants to run Wycome. A third of the clan is still there.”

He nodded slowly. “And the rest?”

“They didn’t want to stay in the city,” she said. “Most of us prefer the woods. But a number of city elves wanted to leave the city with them, and guess what? My clan adopted them.”

He gazed at her appraisingly and didn’t speak, and she gave him a pointed look. “What, nothing to say? That’s new for you.”

“It is, yes,” he said. “It’s an interesting change. It’s not often I’m struck speechless.”

“You do talk a hell of a lot,” she said.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” he retorted.

She scoffed, then realized she wasn’t feeling angry anymore. And then she felt weird about the fact that she wasn’t angry.

He tilted his head. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t… really know,” she said slowly. She was feeling oddly at a loss, and she couldn’t say why.

He gave her a slow smile. “You’re not used to winning arguments about the virtues of the Dalish, are you?”

She lifted her chin. “So you admit that I’ve won.”

He chuckled and flicked her knee. “Yes, avise, you’ve won. You can gloat if you like.”

She didn’t laugh. Instead, she studied him thoughtfully. “You really care, don’t you? About the elves of this time. The city elves especially.”

“Why wouldn’t I care about them?” he said.

She didn’t reply right away, but instead continued to study him. The more she thought about it, the more she understood where his attitude about present-day elves came from. Felassan might wear vallaslin and know things about the elvhen gods, but his origins as Andruil’s slave gave him far more in common with city elves than the Dalish. 

A little pang squeezed her heart. That was why he cared about the city elves and their suffering. He’d essentially been one of them, back in the times of ancient Elvhenan.

He lifted one eyebrow quizzically, so Tamaris replied. “Solas didn’t care about the city elves,” she said. “Not like you do.”

Felassan sighed. “I suspect the issue is more that he couldn’t care. He couldn’t afford to. With all that guilt hanging over his head? He couldn’t afford to carry any more by caring about anyone else that he couldn’t save. It would crush him.” He suddenly grinned at her. “I imagine he must have been furious with himself when he realized he was in love with you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You think that makes it okay that he… how he treated me?”

“No,” Felassan said. “Not by any means. A stronger man would have distanced himself from you.”

She huffed, then shrugged. “He tried to. Sort of.”

Felassan shot her a half-smile. “Meaning what exactly?”

“He warned me more than once that getting involved with him was a bad idea,” she admitted. “I guess I… I should have listened.” She scowled. “But he was saying one thing and acting a different way… fucking Solas.”

Felassan smiled to himself, and Tamaris shot him an exasperated look. “What’s so funny now?”

His smile widened. “If I tell you, you’ll say I’m full of shit.”

“Well, now you have to tell me,” she said.

He huffed a little laugh and shook his head, then looked her in the eye. “Fine. I say a stronger man would have distanced himself from you. But it would require the strength of Titans to resist your brassy charms.”

She stared at him. Then she started laughing. “You are completely full of shit.”

He placed one hand on his chest and bowed his head politely. “Acknowledged and accepted.”

She smiled at him, then chuckled and shook her head before taking a joint out of her breast pocket. She lit the joint and took a drag, then offered it to Felassan.

He accepted it with a nod and lifted it to his lips, and as she often did, Tamaris appreciatively watched his lips as he drew from the joint and released the smoke into the air. 

He took another drag and blew a perfect series of smoke rings before offering back the joint, and she carefully took it from his fingers. “You know,” she said, “for someone that he tried to kill, you sure spend a lot of time trying to make me forgive him.”

“That’s not my intention,” Felassan said. “I told you before: I’m not defending him, only explaining him. Know your enemy, blah blah and so on.” He shrugged casually. “Besides, there is only so far that sheer anger can take you. An adversary as unexpected and subtle as Fen’Harel can be requires an approach that’s equally unexpected and subtle.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What approach is that?”

He gave her a fond look that made her heart flip. “This is one thing I won’t tell you,” he said. “Think about it, avise. You’ll figure it out on your own.”

She harrumphed, but with no real ire. “Fine. Keep your secrets.” She took a drag from the joint.

He gently took the joint from her fingers. “I will say this: of everyone who is working against him, you stand in a unique position. You are someone who knows Fen’Harel, loved him, and still wants to defy him. You may be the single most dangerous person to him in all of Thedas.”

She shot him a sharp look. “Is that really what you think?”

“Of course,” he said. “I always tell the truth. To you, at least,” he added with a smirk.

“Then you’re just as dangerous,” she said firmly. “You know him and loved him, and you’re defying him too. You’re just as dangerous as me.”

He raised his eyebrows, then brought the joint to his lips. “How about that? What a team we make. The woman who dances with fire and the slow arrow.”

Her heart did a little squeeze. He’d called himself a slow arrow, not a broken one. 

She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her. Then she reached up and plucked the joint from his lips. “I still think you’re a fucking asshole for letting a demon loose to kill that clan.”

“I know you do,” he said. “And I’m not asking your forgiveness. But I will ask you to recognize that I did not lie about this to you.”

She eyed him appraisingly for a moment, then nodded. “I know. And… I do appreciate that.”

They smoked together quietly for a moment, and the silence between them stretched like warm taffy. From the corner of her eye, she watched as the joint met his lips and moved away to let the smoke bleed from his perfectly sculpted mouth.

She had no reason to trust Felassan. There were thousands of years’ worth of heinous things he could have done and hadn’t told her about. But he had been honest with her about his reasons for doing this one heinous thing. He hadn’t tried to sugarcoat anything, and he hadn’t tried to prevaricate. He’d even followed her to the roof in order to tell her the truth, knowing full well that she wouldn’t like it. 

He offered her the joint once more, and she took it. But instead of bringing it to her lips, she leaned into his side and rested her head on his shoulder. 

He shifted slightly so her head was tucked more snugly against his neck. When he turned his head to speak to her, his words wafted over her forehead in a soft murmur. “You walked away from me.” 

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “It gave me an excuse to watch you walking away.”

She snorted a laugh. “You’re such a fucking rogue.”

He chuckled and took the joint from her fingers, and for a time they simply sat pressed together on the roof with her head tucked against his neck. The longer she sat there savouring the steady warmth of Felassan’s neck against her temple, the more she realized how strange it was to feel this relaxed and at ease after a fight. How strange it was to feel so… resolved.

“Any particular thoughts on your mind?” he said.

His voice was low and warm, and it was just as comforting as the warmth of his neck. She shrugged and nibbled the inside of her cheek as she considered her reply. She was having plenty of thoughts, thoughts about Felassan’s mischievous smirk and his righteous anger and how patient he was with her, even though she’d walked away. 

She was having thoughts, all right. But nothing that she was ready to say out loud just yet. 

“Not really,” she said. “I’m just… content.”

“Ah, contentment: my favourite,” he said. “It really is an underrated feeling, you know.”

“You said that before,” she said drolly. But in the privacy of her heart, she knew what she was really feeling.

Athdhea’lath, she thought: the precursor to love. A feeling which Felassan had openly admitted to having, and which he was so carefully fostering in the closely guarded garden of Tamaris’s heart.

A little jolt of nerves plucked at her gut, but she took it in stride. She drew from the joint once more, then exhaled and closed her eyes. She breathed in the scents of herbal smoke and Felassan’s skin, and she enjoyed the feeling of being… content.

[modernagesomniari]

Fic ‘I am Changed’

Part of the Mala Suledin Nadas Series (Eli Lavellan).  You can read it on AO3 here.

The parallels between In Hushed Whispers and Solas' situation have always made me unneasy (which shows good writing tbh) but I wanted to explore how different Eli and Solas' attitudes are towards this sort of thing, how it's a natural part of who they are, which is why they'll oppose each other eventually.

PG-13, ~1750 words

I Am Changed

It was the new sparkly kid who told them what had happened, not their Eli.  This was the first thing that set off the warning bells in Varric’s head.  The second thing was that, within minutes of Dorian starting the story, she’d quietly warned him off exaggeration.  The third thing was that he then did what she asked.  In Varric’s opinion, men like this one didn’t tone down their exaggerations for anything.  He should know.

Not that wasn’t like Eli to be quiet - she’d spent a good deal of the first week or so barely saying a word unless you spoke to her first, but Varric could understand that.  She’d just been thrown into a situation so far from anything she’d experienced, anyone with any brains at all would take a few days to take the lay of the land before they started throwing their weight around.  She’d picked up about day eight, starting to initiate conversation and get to know her new surroundings.  Cheered right up, if he was honest, he couldn’t fault her strength.

This was different.  She was sat in the circle they’d made around the camp fire down the King’s Road from Redcliffe.  None of them had particularly wanted to stay in the town, so they’d kept walking and camped halfway between the town and the camp.  Once the sun had set and they’d eaten, inevitably they’d asked what had happened.  She was playing with a piece of leather in her hands, twisting it and tangling it only to thread her tiny fingers through it and smooth it out before starting all over again.  She watched the fire, something violent in the way it reflected in her huge green eyes, but there was nothing on her face.  This had moved her, deeply.

He kept his eyes on her as he listened, mostly horror struck, at what Dorian was telling them.  The red lyrium clenched his gut, but the new kid’s description of who they found and how was worse, far worse.  Poor Leliana.  It was a sobering thought, the idea that a world where he himself was dead had existed.  Not for long it seemed (only it had also lasted a year?  Only it hadn’t?  There was no way he was going to be able to put this into any book, was there?), but still the reality of it was a cold slap in the face.  No one liked imagining a world where they were dead.  Eli, apparently, had seen and experienced it.  Watched some of them die.

It was only when Dorian was finishing the story, trying to tell them that it was all ok, that they’d found the amulet, sent themselves back, none of it ever happened, it was all a bad dream etc etc that Eli looked up, something wrong and fierce in her eyes now.

“It wasn’t just a bad dream, Dorian.”

Her voice was low, but something about it quietened the whole damn camp.

“Well it might as well be.  Otherwise I’d have to live with the reality the whole rest of my life and nightmares do play havoc with age lines…”

“We can’t just pretend it all didn’t happen because it’s easier.”

Now her voice was raised and she’d sat up, leather clenched tightly in her fist.  “Dorian.  It happened.”

“Technically, no it…”

“Yes.  It did.  To us.  If it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here.  Alexius still sent us forward and then we came back, so if it hadn’t happened, we’d still be gone.  And then it would have happened.”

Varric considered himself a clever sort of bastard, but he was having trouble keeping up.  There was something frustrated but pained in Sparkler’s face.

“I see your point.  But that doesn’t change the fact that they don’t fit into this world any more.  For us to be here now means they never have to exist.”

“That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.  Just because they don’t fit anymore doesn’t mean they didn’t exist when we were there.”

Andraste’s ass but there were tears in her eyes now, not falling but glinting just enough in the firelight he knew they were there.  He could never stand it when people cried, damn it.

“Then where are they?  I know you think I’m being cowardly about this, but what do you want me to do?  Cassandra is sitting right here.  Solas has as impeccable a skin routine as when I first met him, not a red vein to be seen.”

“So they didn’t die?  Is that what you’re saying to me?”

Varric definitely preferred it when she’d raised her voice to this quiet fury she’d switched to now.

“I didn’t say…”

“But that’s what you want to believe.  What’s easier to believe.  They died, Dorian.  They died so that we could come back.  And they were real.”

She shook her head, her face crumpling slightly as she couldn’t keep the tears in anymore.  The brokenness of her voice did nothing to the ferocity in her eyes as she stood across the fire from Dorian, not flinching even as the tears ran down her face.  “I am changed, Dorian.  Their fight, their death, their sacrifice.  They have changed me.  And I am real.  So they are, too.  Think me foolish for mourning them if you must, but I will.  And I will not forget.”

She turned, refusing to wipe her eyes but clearly not wanting them to see any more.  They let her go.  Silence fell over the fire as they all watched her take herself to sit on a rock at the edge of camp, looking down the ravine at the hinterlands below.  No one said anything.  It made Varric respect the new Tevinter mage slightly, that he just nodded solemnly and poured himself another drink rather than try and continue to fight his corner now he had no opposition.  As for Varric, he took a sip of his own drink before casting a quick look around the fire.  Most people were staring into their cups, uncomfortable and pensive.  One of the few who wasn’t was Solas, who was looking after where Eli had gone like he couldn’t look away, something unreadable but deeply uneasy in the expression on his face.  Varric’s inner alarm bells started going off again.  This didn’t bode well.

“Was it so bad?” The Seeker asked after a while.  Clearly tired, Sparkler just shrugged and nodded.

“I know what you look like after being speared by a Terror demon, if that paints a picture.  And I’ve seen the difference between human and elven eyes when exposed to truly horrific amounts of red lyrium, which tops it all off nicely.”

“There’s a difference?” Varric asked, immediately wondering why he always asked questions he didn’t want the answer to.  Dorian’s gaze was slightly haunted to match his hollow laugh.

“Elves are apparently more susceptible, or perhaps it’s just the same thing that makes their eyes glow at night.  I don’t know.”

He took another swig of his hip flask before gesturing over to Solas.  “You were a bloody breath of fresh air.  Barely had to explain anything - caught on quick as a whip.  Have you known her long?”

Solas looked as confused by the last question as Varric felt, eyebrows drawn together as he shook his head.  “No.  Didn’t think so.  You get on though, don’t you?”

“If you are suggesting some sort of elf connection…”

“No.  No I’m not.  It’s just…”

Dorian paused, flicking his gaze over to the silhouette that was Eli, back at Solas and then back at the fire.  Finally he just shrugged.  “Oh, she’ll tell you if she wants to.  If I were either of you, though, I’d find a few moments on the journey back to Haven to remind her you are both, in fact, still alive.  She took your deaths pretty hard.”

No one said anything after that.  No one really moved either.  Varric wondered what it was - the horror, the reality of this Elder One, or just the realisation that their Herald wasn’t strong because she was all-powerful, but because she didn’t let her fragility shatter her.  She would mourn, she would let her heart break for this world that should never have been and then she would allow it to make her stronger.  Varric had seen it before, watched a person take more pain than he thought possible and turn it right back into fierce determination and unshakeable loyalty.  Maker’s balls, but he was going to get in way over his head again, wasn’t he?

Solas got up first, quiet and graceful, stepping around them all as he angled towards the tents.  Varric watched him go, wondering at what Dorian had said and hoping that what he suspected was going to happen wasn’t going to.  Because he’d been there before, too, and there was nothing there but hurt, he knew it.  So some part of him started silently willing Solas to keep heading towards the tents, even as he watched him slow down.  Knew that there was a suspicious squint to his eyes as he watched Solas draw to a halt, looking over at where Eli was sat at the other side of camp.  Felt something release as he turned away, back to the tents and clench right up again when he hesitated.  If a low ‘Don’t you dare, Chuckles’ left his mouth under his breath, he couldn’t be blamed.

His heart sank as Solas changed his mind again, something reluctant in his gait even as he turned once more towards Eli and started walking towards her like it was despite himself.  Honestly, Varric would almost say that the man was even more irritated at himself than Varric was for not being able to leave her.  He watched him hesitate one more time, just behind her, before he took one more step forward and sat close beside her.

Varric couldn’t hear what they were saying.  Knew damn well that he wouldn’t be wanted there even if he could.  He watched her body sway slightly before she let it lean gently against Solas’ arm and his heart was heavy enough he actually sighed into his ale as he watched that arm come up around her shoulders, pulling her in.  Damn that man for being an idiot, damn Eli for being, well, Eli and damn himself for seeing so much and caring even more.  He’d seen this play out in Kirkwall, seen it a thousand times in every tale of every hero in Thedas.

There was no way this was going to end well.

[lord-woolsley]

Stumbling Steps

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition (Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford) Chapters: 1/1 (3105 words) Rating: Teen And Up Summary: Surrounded by at least 12 nobles Cullen had felt quite uncomfortable since they had arrived at the Winter Palace but with the evening progressing and the alcohol flowing his “suitors“ had become bolder. Cullen is in distress, Dorian saves the day. Rant: If you like it, please leave some love on ao3. ♡ Ao3: Link

Stumbling Steps

“Smile, Commander, you’re so handsome when you smile.“ “He’s just as handsome when he doesn’t.“

Cullen asked himself if the Maker intended to punish him for something. Maybe for leaving the Order, standing against the Chantry‘s will by supporting the Inquisition or more likely for the disaster that had happened in Kirkwall. That must have been it. The Maker probably blamed him for not seeing through Meredith’s grand scheme earlier or maybe he had done something wrong during his time at the Circle Tower in Ferelden and couldn’t remember anymore. Most of it was a blur anyway.

He had been the Templar recruit who had fled from the Hero of Ferelden after all because she – he still blushed thinking about it - had flirted with him. This here is what happens to guys that run away instead of facing their problems, he thought to himself.

He sometimes should have shown more initiative, he was aware of that. Blindly following orders had been his weakness in the past, one he was happy he had overcome.

Cullen didn’t know for which of these shortcomings he was punished here exactly but he had obviously done something very very wrong to deserve this.

Surrounded by at least 12 nobles he had felt quite uncomfortable since they had arrived at the Winter Palace but with the evening progressing and the alcohol flowing his “suitors“ had become bolder. Cullen was pretty sure someone had squeezed his butt just now.

“Did you grab...my bottom?“, he asked, his face flushed red but his voice angry. “I couldn’t help myself.“, the lady exclaimed, she sounded like she thought she was entitled to do to him whatever she desired. Nobles. He wanted to retch.

The woman didn’t seem to notice it or she just didn’t care. Cullen frowned and feared it was the latter because she was already holding out a hand again, trying to touch the scar on his lip. Cullen used his Templar training and dodged. He was being attacked here after all, not with weapons but with something far worse.

“Are you married, Commander?“ “Not yet... but I‘m already taken.“ It was a blatant lie but he had hoped some of them would show at least some respect considering the prospect of him being in a relationship. "Still single, then.“ Or not.

Why would he even think these people cared about someone being taken, had they harassed him the whole evening without any consent from his side, the opposite even. He doubted even a ring on his finger could have stopped or avoided this.

Cullen wanted to escape the Ballroom, run away and leave Halamshiral for good, doing exactly what he had done to the Hero of Ferelden all those years ago. He wanted to be a coward again. Corypheus, the Breach and the assassination attempt on Celene’s life be damned.

“You must dance with me, Commander, you cannot stand about all evening.“ “I‘m afraid not, thank you.“

This was definitely the woman who had grabbed his butt a few second ago. He would rather dance with an archdemon in Haven’s ruins with Solas watching and commenting on his bad posture instead of staying here for one minute longer. But he had to be polite and couldn’t risk to snap, Josephine‘s disappointment would be unbearable if he endangered their plan just because some nobles couldn’t keep it in their pants. Their cause was greater than this and he was the Commander of the Inquisition after all, he wouldn’t bow to some royals behaving abysmal.

The worst disappointment of the evening so far had been that the Inquisitor had witnessed some of the harassing and didn’t do or say anything about it. She had seen mostly the flirting, Cullen supposed. He was pretty sure Herah would have stepped in if she had witnessed someone touching him without his consent. But she hadn’t seen the extent of their actions and probably thought he was the victim of some annoying courting and bickering. No harm in that.

She had given him an apologetic look - pitiful even - and suggested he should talk to Josephine about it or Leliana if he wanted one of them assassinated. Leliana‘s methods were unconventional at least but the thought of an arrow through that horrible woman’s face was lightening his mood. Or maybe Josie could spread a handful of filthy rumors and destroy some reputations.

If he only knew where Lady Montilyet or Leliana were lingering tonight or if these suitors would let him go to search for one of them.

They had zeroed in on him and he couldn’t find the smallest gap to slip through, he was literally glued to the spot. He was being held captive by - it was embarrassing - a flock of noble ladies and their petticoats and even some gentlemen who were at least a bit more discreet, probably because they didn’t want to ruin their reputations.

He was their prey, a piece of meat, and they were hungry wolves that hadn‘t been fed for months, so it seemed.

Cullen was gazing at Herah who would soon leave him here to die - he wished for the sweet release of death at this point - Sera now seemingly glued to her side, chuckling and grinning like an idiot. Nothing unusual about that.

Inquisitor Adaar was red-faced and he was pretty sure Sera had just said something really dirty to her. About an empty broom closet and peaches and breeches. It even rhymed awfully. That must have been Seras attempt at seduction if he wasn’t mistaken completely. Not that he, by any means, was better at creating romantic phrases or paying compliments if they weren’t about the weather. She was definitely more forward than he would ever be.

His thoughts must have jinxed it because in that exact moment Sera started to make loud smooching noises. Cullen wasn’t sure if she intended to mock him or if she wanted to encourage Inquisitor Adaar for whatever awaited her in that broom closet.

Both women left his side eventually, fleeing from strangers approaching them, mostly nobles that thought it would be advantageous to be seen with the Herald of Andraste. He could understand it to an extent. Herah had it hard enough already, most nobles at Halamshiral didn’t treat a Qunari kindly. She deserved to get away from all this for a while.

Cullen could only guess what Sera and Herah were up to after Sera’s remark. The thought made him blush. At least the Inquisitor was having fun while he was suffering. He would rather have all the side effects of his Lyrium withdrawal all at once instead of being touched by strangers without manners.

He longingly stared after them, seeing Sera’s blonde hair disappear in the crowd. He was on his own now.

Cullen wished he could pay an empty broom closet a visit as well until the event was over. Sweet solitude.

"Commander, that woman you‘re in a relationship with, does she really exist?“, another lady asked and he knew he would start to blush and stutter any second in search for an excuse or an inscrutable lie.

But for the first time this evening he was lucky. When he saw Dorian stumbling to the buffet, alone, unoccupied and an empty wine glass in hand he saw his chance.

“Dorian, sweetheart, I‘m here.“ He waved at the mage and really hoped Dorian was either drunk enough not to notice his weird behavior or quick enough to catch up on the situation Cullen was currently trapped in.

The Tevinter shot him a confused look but came closer nevertheless.

“Here he is, my date, the person I told you about, the man I’m in a relationship with.“, Cullen stuttered, pointing at Dorian who was clearly trying to make sense of the situation.

“Ah, my Commander, I thought I had lost you.“ Thank the Maker Dorian was playing along. He was undoubtedly a smart man.

“Cullen, you can’t be serious?“, one of the ladies screeched in his ear, a painful noise leaving it ringing for multiple seconds. Leliana‘s ravens could learn a lot from this woman‘s high-pitched exclamation.

“Isn’t this the evil Tevinter Magister everyone was gossiping about the whole night? I know he’s with the Inquisition but we were warned about him, everyone said he should be avoided at all costs. He‘s no suitable company for someone as handsome and heroic as you.“

Hearing the word Magister Dorian rolled his eyes but he didn’t comment on it. Cullen could feel him correcting the term to „Altus“ in his head, followed by "Southerners, can’t recognize the difference between a dog and a cat.“

“That is for me to decide.“, Cullen said. "I‘m glad, Commander, otherwise this relationship would be rather one-sided, wouldn’t it be?“ Dorian was offering Cullen his arm to desperately cling to which to his own shame Cullen did.

“Amatus, you promised me a dance. I couldn’t find you until now but I‘m here to take you up on it.“ “Of course, love.“ Cullen was clearing his throat and was trying to shoot Dorian what he thought was an affectionate gaze.

One of the ladies actually had the indecency to grasp after Dorian‘s arm and was trying to shove him away from Cullen.

“I really wouldn’t do this if I were you.“, the mage said, voice sharp. "There‘s a clear lack of blood magic tonight for my taste. You wouldn’t want to witness some, would you? A real taste of a Tevinter party. I could arrange that.“

Cullen was always surprised how eloquent Dorian was and how he always found a way out of the most horrible situations. Using his status as the evil Tevinter mage everyone was making him out to be was risky but it definitely seemed to work in this case.

The woman - and many others of his suitors - looked shocked and were hiding their disapproval with throwing their hands to their faces to cover their eyes. Like this childish gesture could make Dorian vanish and disappear from the spot if they pressed their eyes shut hard enough.

“Scandalous.“, two were whispering to each other. “What a waste. A man like the Commander..., I didn’t know he shared certain quirks with the empress.“ “I wouldn’t let her hear you.“, Dorian said. "Or should I tell her myself?“ "She wouldn’t believe you, you‘re from Tevinter." "You really wanna try me? I can be pretty persuasive.", Dorian asked, his words a warning.

The lady was silent for a moment before she bowed her head, slowly shaking it.

“Of course not, I apologize.“, the woman said, clearly not meaning it. She was faking a smile which distorted her face into an ugly grimace behind her mask.

“As if these quirks are the only problem here, the evil Magister has clearly enchanted him.“, one of the gentleman said.

“With my charms and wits maybe. Or my handsome face.“, Dorian said smugly. “All assets you people are visibly lacking. And now if you would be so kind to excuse us, the Commander owes me a dance.“ “That I do.“ Cullen would grant Dorian all the dances in the world for saving him.

With their arms locked they left the Ballroom in search of a quiet spot for Cullen to recover. They were in luck, one of the balconies was empty and even had some free benches to rest on.

“What just happened?“, Dorian asked. „Apart from the obvious, of course.“ “I apologize for using you as my escape plan, Dorian, I am deeply sorry.“ “No, no, it‘s fine. Their behavior, horrible that. Reminds me of home. I wouldn’t even wish this on my father or the Venatori. Maybe on Corypheus though. He wouldn’t be able to destroy the world. Those ladies would never let him go. They would tear him to pieces with their prying gazes. Oh, Corypheus, you owe me a dance." Dorian was spinning his empty wine glass in his hand while speaking.

"Oh, I didn’t even let you get a new drink.“, Cullen said, trying to apologize. Again. ”That was obviously why you came inside, wasn’t it? And now you left empty-handed." "I wouldn’t exactly call this empty-handed. I‘ve got quite a handful." Dorian gestured to their linked arms, an amused grin spreading on his lips.

"Well, I had enough to drink for the evening anyway. I’m feeling a bit tipsy already.“, Dorian started "But let’s not change the subject over something so unimportant as an empty glass of wine - as good as the Orlesian stuff might be. I‘m just gonna get the whole bottle later." Dorian placed his empty glass on one of the benches.

"So, Commander, do tell. Why me? Wasn’t there someone else the Commander of the Inquisition could have faked an romantic involvement with? I‘m pretty sure the Lady Seeker was around somewhere." "... Nevermind, when I think about it now, she would have probably chopped your head off for the idea alone. I was the safer bet, no head chopping here. Even though: you’re aware this is enough for a scandal? You won’t be able to save yourself from the rumors. The evil Tevinter Magister", Dorian mentioned the wrong title with his typical annoyance "... and a man on top of that. We will be the talk of the evening, not even an assassination attempt can change that. In my experience Orlesians are that close-minded."

Cullen hadn’t thought of that, clearly. He had just wanted to get away from these people as far and as quick as possible, not taking the consequences into consideration. He needed to make this right at some point but this wasn’t the time for it neither could he do something about it while being trapped in the Winter Palace. This was Josephine’s strength, not his.

Cullen felt guilty for making Dorian an even bigger victim of Orlesian gossip even though he himself didn’t care too much about their insults if they only kept their physical distance. But maybe Dorian felt different about this.

“I‘m not ashamed of being seen with you, Dorian.“ Cullen said after a long moment of silence. He actually meant it.

“Oh, Commander, you do surprise me.“, Dorian said, faint smile spreading on his face. “It‘s nice having some company after all. You could think I smell of cabbages with everyone trying to stay as far away from me as possible. I was already at my seventh glass of wine when you saw me heading inside. I needed to keep myself entertained somehow. I was feeling rather lonely and a bit drunk now as well to be fair.“ “I‘m still glad you‘re here, Dorian. Can I make it up to you somehow? As a little thank you for saving me. Maybe even with the dance I promised to you earlier. I have to warn you though I‘m a terrible dancer. But one who keeps his word.“ “Are you sure? Dancing with the evil Magister, in full view of every noble in Orlais. How shocking.“ “They‘ll live.“, Cullen said.

He was surprised by his own confidence regarding the gossip. But that was the point, wasn’t it? It was nothing like idle hearsay after all and it wouldn’t bear any real problem for any of them. Especially not if they would manage to save the empress at the end of night. Orlais would be in debt to the Inquisition and only positive word of their members would spread.

“You say that now. If you can find me ten silk scarves, I‘ve got a dance that will really shock them.“ “I-", Cullen started “don’t know what to say to that. I just hope you‘re a better dancer than I am. In dances that don’t involve silk scarves that is.“

A red color was spreading from his cheeks to his throat while he was trying to get that picture of Dorian doing some erotic Tevinter dance out of his head. Without much success, he had to admit. Who would even say a thing like that? Dorian Pavus obviously.

"Oh, I am indeed.“, Dorian said, he didn’t seem to notice how flustered the Commander was at his words. Which was great, Cullen thought. It left him with the last pieces of his dignity still intact.

"Picture me a boy of 15, being forced by his mother to dance with every suitable lady in the room. You learn some things even if you don’t want to. But you see, it‘s of use now. Mother certainly wouldn’t approve of it now, as you can imagine. But enough talk. Let‘s dance.“

Dorian was bowing and offering his hand to Cullen. Every lady would have been envious of the perfection and grace with which Dorian executed that gesture. If it wouldn’t have been the evil Tevinter asking for a dance of course and some noble gentleman instead.

Cullen was certainly blushing because of Dorian’s performance but he took the mages hand in his own anyway and was instantly pulled into Dorian‘s grip whose fingers were placed on Cullen’s waist immediately.

“Is this okay for you, Commander? If this is too much physical contact after what you‘ve just been through, I understand. We can postpone our little dance or leave it be if that‘s more to your liking.“ “I’m good. You decide, Dorian.“

The mage shook his head and made some “Tsk, tsk.“ noises but started with slow and practiced steps even Cullen could follow.

“Thank Godness one of us has a little initiative.“, Dorian chuckled.

Cullen didn’t know if the nobility was actually watching them from inside the Ballroom but he didn’t lie, he couldn’t care less about it. He owed Dorian that dance and it was most definitely more pleasant than being trapped by harassing strangers, noble or not. He actually quite enjoyed himself after the horror of the last hours. A moment of peace with someone he liked.

“After our beautiful dance I’m actually quite sad you‘re not interested in men at all. A shame, that.“ “Yes, a shame.“, Cullen agreed without even thinking about it.

•

Suddenly one of the bushes next to the railing of the balcony Dorian and Cullen were dancing on started to chuckle and when both men followed the noise with their gazes to uncover its origin, they looked straight into the amused faces of Sera and the Inquisitor. Both women were trying to hide behind its leafs while failing miserably. Sera‘s laughter wasn’t exactly subtle either.

“So much for an empty broom closet.“, Cullen stated. Sera was grinning at him. “No, this is so much better." The Inquisitor nodded. “And here I was thinking our dear Commander would be the knight in shining armor tonight. How wrong I was."

[trustmevhenan]

Faces of Thedas

The accidental instigator of the Fifth Blight and, ironically, likely the world’s greatest hope for ending the Blights forever, the Architect once walked the Fade in the flesh only to be transformed into one of the first seven darkspawn. 

The Architect’s Personality The Architect is, above all else, inquisitive. He is interested in understanding the whys and wherefores of the world. Despite having an education the likes of which much of modern Thedas can scarcely conceive, he takes almost nothing for granted and questions even the assumptions that others believe to be concrete fact. It is precisely through this relentless search for comprehension that the ancient Magister stumbled across the precise formula (requiring the blood of Grey Wardens) that enabled him to release his fellow darkspawn from the song of the Old Gods. Because of his unique status among his kind, the Architect also pursues formal sorcerous knowledge in ways that darkspawn emissaries cannot, combining tremendous magical knowledge with the deductions of a keen and insightful mind. Eerily polite and rational, the Architect is nevertheless capable of monstrous brutality. Indeed, at times he turns to violence in a way that suggests he simply doesn’t understand that other options are open to him. If violence is the most efficient way of solving a problem, he has no moral compunctions against seeing things through in such a manner. With far more intellect than compunction, the Architect has a terribly skewed set of ethics (in the eyes of most sane Thedosians, anyway). Though the Architect speaks with an erudite tongue, his mind is most definitely not human, anymore, and those who try to anticipate the creature’s actions according to human standards will eventually discover that they have made a terrible mistake. As a Magister Sidereal—one of the seven mages to breach the Golden City—the Architect is capable of exerting some control over non-sentient darkspawn, though he much prefers to liberate them from the song and allow them to make their own choices.  When necessity forces him to influence the actions of “unliberated” darkspawn, the Architect typically does so only to shoo them away, so that they will not attack his Disciples and the Disciples will not be forced to destroy them. Indeed, such is the Architect’s aversion to controlling his own kind that he doesn’t even care for the frequent necessity of giving direct orders to his Disciples, for despite their self-aware state, most of them still lack personal initiative.

Playing the Architect Of the three Blight-tainted entities covered here, the Architect is the least likely to automatically provoke a fight to the death. Being a creature of reason with the potential for diplomacy, the Architect is certainly willing to negotiate with adventurers and even to share knowledge and resources, if he believes that doing so is best for him and his people. Recent inductees into the Grey Wardens, for example, may be sent to meet with the Architect as part of an uneasy secret alliance, and be shocked to learn that there are darkspawn also working to end the Blights once and for all. Those who haven’t undertaken the Joining might instead receive a commission for some work through a network of unsavory contacts, only to learn that the one at the heart of it all is an intelligent darkspawn whose goals don’t seem in any way harmful to the people of Thedas. In this sense, the Architect’s role is one of turning the common expectation about the darkspawn on its head, twisting a law of nature that seems as immutable to most people as water being wet and things falling downward when dropped. Because the Architect is no longer human and doesn’t want the same things that others typically desire, he can prove to be quite a beneficial ally for those willing to accept the (many and varied) risks of having the patronage of a darkspawn of singular power and intelligence. The Architect’s Disciples have covered a great deal of ground in the Deep Roads and have likely found all manner of treasures long since lost to dwarves, humans, and elves. He would happily trade many of these relics away to those willing to deal with him in exchange for items that other folk might find fairly trivial in comparison: scholarly texts on ancient Blights, maps of the surface world, or even just reading materials that give a better sense of how non-darkspawn think, feel, and act. While some might balk at the prospect of what a creature like the Architect would do with such information, others might just see the allure of vast sums of gold, silverite weapons, red steel armor, and the lost enchanted runes of ancient thaigs long forgotten even by the Shaperate of Orzammar.

What Does He Remember? On the one hand, it’s quite possible that the Architect sincerely has no memory of his time as a powerful mage-lord of the ancient Tevinter Imperium and high priest of the Old God of Beauty. His fall from the blackening halls of the Golden City may have obliterated his awareness of who and what he once was, leaving him with no recollection of having ever been anything other than a unique kind of darkspawn. Thus, his claim to have always been as he is now may not be a lie, as far as he knows. On the other hand, the Architect is brilliant and patient. It may well be that he does recall the man he used to be, whether in whole or in part, and that he chooses to deceive others regarding his origin. A lie of convenience would certainly not be the most heinous of his sins. After all, even those who are theoretically willing to work with a thinking darkspawn might balk at the notion of alliance with one of the Magisters Sidereal, a bogeyman from out of the remotest depths of known history . Then again, maybe he remembers only disjointed fragments of his own past—bits and pieces of seemingly random information without any sense of continuity to provide context to them. Over his centuries of immortal existence, perhaps his self-knowledge waxes and wanes according to some unknown and unknowable ebb and flow of the Blight and the song of the Old Gods. Only the Architect—and not even necessarily he—can possibly know for certain.

- Taken from the Faces of Thedas book