#the last human thing that Anders holds on to ? is this anything ?

[nohr-selphias]

Love da2 like it’s my son but Anders rivalmance too romantic imo. Varric what u got against hate sex

[redlyriumidol]

alright, i'll answer. personally I find him a tragic figure and a compelling one. post awakening he was young and naive and wanted to do good for a change and save his friend. this did not go as planned obviously, and neither he nor justice knew what they were in for. the anders we meet in da2 is not just anders, it's a fusion of him and justice and i think that's often forgotten when people think about his character. da2 anders is struggling not to lose himself, not to lose control, and despite it all he works tirelessly and thanklessly to help others in his clinic- because he has to.

years of fruitless labour, of trying desperately to create change, to help as many as possible. and it was never enough. it could never be enough, and things in kirkwall were rapidly sliding into chaos, the rite of annulment hanging ever more sharply over the heads of the kirkwall mages, meredith losing her marbles, templar abuses growing ever more severe. all anders's work, and things were just getting worse instead of better. this would be maddening for anyone imo, but he's got a spirit of justice in his head. In DAI Solas says that a demon is a spirit whose purpose has been perverted, and that's what was happening to justice- seeing, living in the most real sense the acute, endless injustice of the world, powerless to stop it, unable to fulfill his purpose. it's honestly not surprising that he did what he did but imo it was the anders part of the equation that meant it didn't happen sooner. his humanity was the last thing holding them back.

personally i'm not super interested in debating the morality of the chantry explosion; I don't have to only like characters who have never done bad things so I find it irrelevant anyway. what i will say is I think the chantry explosion was necessary and it was inevitable. as solas says in a banter with vivienne, the mage situation was "a pot with a boiling lid". it's easy to blame anders for the mage-templar war but if it hadn't happened in kirkwall, it would have happened somewhere else, because it had to happen. it was just a matter of time.

I think it's also easy to blame Anders because as I said I think people routinely forget Justice as an element of his character in da2. I think it's important to understand that Anders HAD to do what he did. Justice HAD to do what he did, because his nature demanded it. it's obviously a horrifying tragedy but the reason it happened is because mages were oppressed by the chantry in the first place. the embodiment of justice saw that-- not only saw it, but actually began to live it as a human and experience, firsthand, all the emotion and trauma that lived within anders-- and his very nature as a spirit demanded that he fix it however he could. if there had been no injustice, he wouldn't have done anything.

idk isn't that extremely interesting? from a character perspective? so that's the true answer to why I like Anders. I find him interesting. And sad. also i love justice my fave always forgotten. but not by me

Since people seem to think I was putting out a debate I’ll reframe the question.

Why do you like Anders?

And when I say like I mean personality traits and actions he takes in game. I don’t mean that you think he’s hot or anything like that. I’m curious why you like him as a person, not even necessarily as a plot or writing device.

Why do you like Anders as a person?

I do genuinely want to know.

[crossdressingdeath]

you probably already know just from reading online but in case you don't: wrt your answer about never having done the templar carver route, he seems to have some pride in the order (which is pretty easily explained as being from just Belonging somewhere and not being overshadowed anymore) but no matter how much you make carver hate you it is impossible for him to side against you in the final battle. he will always refuse to fight you so the claim of it being out of spite or being a betrayal towards hawke holds zero water by the end. like i know cullen rebels against meredith at the same time but carver's thing was pretty explicitly "i'm not fighting my sibling". plus there's the fact that he never turns in nor tips the templars off about not only hawke, but a possessed apostate (anders) nor a literal blood mage (merrill). he's fairly clearly in the templars less as a True Blue Templar and more as an infiltrator people just don't trust anything he does because he's a bitch (affectionate) (from me not from them)

Yeah, the difference between Carver switching sides and Cullen switching sides is that Carver switches sides because he categorically refuses to fight against his older sibling (and assuming he rejoins the group at the same point as a Templar as he does as a Warden there's no immediate "you can fight Meredith or you can fight Hawke" choice to contend with that might be making it more of a "which of these powerhouses would you rather go up against" thing). Cullen switches sides because Hawke is rich and powerful and their party is frankly scarier than Meredith when they really get into a fight. Cullen swaps sides at the very last second supposedly because Meredith's "gone too far", but given he cheerily sticks with her through most of the attempted Annulment and only turns on her when she comes up against Hawke directly... yeah, it's pretty clear that either he was more scared of Hawke than he was of Meredith or he decided that murdering a human noble would get him in trouble.

And yeah, you can prove that Carver didn't join the Templars to betray Hawke just because... he never shows signs of even considering turning Hawke or any of the mage companions in. He could have! It would not have been hard! Hell, given how Meredith was he could've turned in the whole damn party plus Leandra and Gamlen just for knowing about all those apostates running around. Given how at least by act 3 Meredith clearly knows about Hawke's little gang and just doesn't have a good enough excuse to go after such a prominent group, it would likely make Carver's life easier; I don't doubt for a second that Meredith would lean on the Champion's brother hard to get him to "out" them as a dangerous apostate so she could make a move. But there isn't a scrap of evidence that the thought of doing that ever even entered his mind. Also like... Carver pretty consistently shows his disdain for the Templars through act one? It would be odd of him to join an organization he clearly doesn't agree with out of spite. Templar Carver could make Hawke's life hell, but doesn't do anything to hurt them because when the chips are down he loves his sibling. That's what makes Carver so good! He and Hawke argue constantly, but the last thing he wants to do is seriously hurt them! It's a pretty dysfunctional sibling relationship, but it is a very realistic one and Carver and Hawke clearly love each other so much despite all their differences.

[barbex]

14 Days of DA Lovers, Day 12

Oh you guys! I have good smut for you today.  For the lovely @14daysdalovers​​​ event, the prompt for today is Silk.

lemon, Fenris x Anders, tw for prostitution.

---

The door to the Blooming Rose falls closed behind him. Anders looks around in the gentle light. At this time of the day, few patrons are around, just a handful of men and women, who mostly seem to listen to the piano player. 

Once a month, Madame Lusine pays him to check her employees over. It's good money and usually a pleasant job. Anders prepares the room and then Madame Lusine comes in first, chatting with him as he examines her.

The afternoon passes quickly as, one by one, her employees come into the room. Soon, Anders hands out the last jar of ointment to Lilly, a young girl who had an unfortunate encounter with a rude sailor. He won't be coming back. Madame Lusine runs a good house.

As Anders packs up his things, Madame Lusine enters the room again. 

"Madame, anything the matter?" Anders asks.

"I wonder if you were willing to do some more involved work, just once," she says with a saucy smile.

The smile tells Anders that she doesn't mean as a healer. "That's not really..."

"I know," Madame Lusine interrupts, "and I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't a very special request."

He can't deny that he's curious. "How do you mean?"

"The customer specifically asked for a human mage."

Anders narrows his eyes at her. "Someone wants to have sex with a mage? That's not something you'd want to put on blast."

"Certainly not," Lusine says. "It's not a templar, I can assure you, and this occasion will be treated with all the necessary security and secrecy." 

"I'm not into some abusive roleplay," Anders says. "Not for all the money in the world."

"I understand and it will not be like that." Madame Lusine sits down and crosses her legs. "You'll be paid two Sovereigns. The customer demands that you'll be blindfolded and prepared to take him anally. There will be no conversation, but he is not against you being vocal."

Two Sovereigns. Anders does a quick calculation and his mind reels at how many supplies he could buy with that much money. While he never had the intention of seeking work at the brothel, he is not against it on principle. Blindfolded, getting thoroughly fucked by a stranger — he could think of worse things to spend his evening at.

"No abuse." Anders holds up his hand and counts his limits down on his fingers. "No pain-play, no choking, no humiliation. I'm okay with some gentle spanking and biting, but nothing that requires serious healing afterwards. And I get to come too. I'm not just a spunk receptacle in this scenario."

"That's acceptable." Madame Lusine stands up and shakes his hand. "I will state your limits to the customer. If he agrees to these conditions, I'll send Lilly to the clinic to let you know."

Four days later, Anders had almost forgotten about the conversation, Lilly enters the clinic with a basket full of bread and sausages. "Compliments from Madame Lusine," she says, smiling widely. "She would like to see you tonight after sundown at the side entrance, if possible." 

Anders nods, already handing out bread and sausages to his patients. "I'll be there."

A few hours later, Anders makes his way to the brothel. His hair is still wet, he took advantage of Hawke's bathtub to really clean himself. Loud music and singing spills through the door and Anders steps into the alley to knock on the unassuming side door.

Madame Lusine herself opens for him and quickly ushers him onto the second floor through a hallway that isn't frequented by customers.

"Jethan will be with you shortly and prepare you," she says as she leads him into a room. "Put your clothes in the wardrobe there." She closes the door behind her and Anders undresses, putting his clothes into the wardrobe as advised. He sits down on the bed and waits.

The room is pleasantly warm, a fire crackles in an iron oven. There's a steaming bowl with water on top of it and a mug that smells of tea. Anders carefully picks it up at the handle, pleasantly surprised at the taste of the tea. 

"Ah, very good," Jethan says as he comes in. "You've found the tea. I hope it's to your liking?"

Anders takes another sip, feeling it warm him from inside. "It's very good."

"I've added an ambrosia leaf to make you feel good."

"Thank you." He finishes the tea and Jethan takes the cup from him and sits down next to him.

He strokes over Anders' hair, sliding the hair-tie out. "How do you feel, darling?"

"I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous. It's not every day that I get fucked by a stranger. It's actually been a while that I got fucked at all."

"Darling, I'm gonna make you feel good and I'll make sure the customer does as well." He strokes over Anders' naked back, his hand lingering on his lower back. "I promise I'll keep watch outside, he won't hurt you."

"Thank you, Jethan." Some of the tension falls from his shoulders. 

"Why don't you lie down, darling?" Jethan lets him settle on his back and then straddles him. He leans over Anders' chest and kisses his neck, and over his chest until he reaches the other side. All the while his hips move, steadily grinding against Anders' crotch. It doesn't take long for Anders to harden.

"There you are, darling," Jethan coos and slides down, to kiss Anders' growing erection. "What a beautiful cock you have, darling. You must visit me some other time, I need way more time with you." 

Anders laughs and then moans as Jethan sucks the head of his cock into his mouth. "Maker's arse, I really should."

"Turn around now, darling." Jethan waits for him to turn. "Pull your knees under. There you go." Jethan shoves a thick pillow under Anders' stomach and makes sure that his head lies comfortably on another pillow. "Put your hands on the handles at the headboard so that you can comfortably grab them later, should the need arise. I'm gonna put the blindfold on you now and then I'll oil your beautiful ass and prepare your entrance, alright?" 

Anders lets out a long breath. "Yes, go ahead." A bit of the tension is back, but then he feels the gentle coolness of silk settle over his eyes and he relaxes. Jethan's hands keep touching him, stroking over his back, dry at first, and then applying oil to his skin. He moans as Jethan massages his back. He opens his mouth to say something, but somehow he feels like the time for speaking is over.

Oil drips down his back and then a well-oiled finger enters his hole, expertly pleasuring him. He presses against it, moaning encouragingly as another finger enters him.

When Jethan adds a third finger, stretching his rim and curling his fingers, he almost comes on the spot, pleasure shuddering through him. 

Instantly, the fingers are removed and the bed shifts as Jethan stands up. He leans over Anders, his breath blowing against his neck. "I'll be right outside."

Anders hears the door open and close. He blinks against the soft silk over his eyes. Then the door opens again. Someone steps in on near silent feet and closes the door again. The person sucks in a breath. Anders strains his ears, but the man makes no other noise. 

Steps approach the bed and he can't help but flinch when a hand touches his shoulder. The man sucks in another breath and Anders feels his warmth hovering over his skin, not touching him. 

"You can touch me," Anders says. The other man moves, he can feel the displacement of warmth and some kind of energy that his magic reacts to. Maybe the man is a mage himself.

Anders hears clothes rustle. The stranger moves to the other side of the bed; the mattress dipping under his weight and then a hand strokes slowly down his back. Fingers draw along the net of scars on Anders' back. Another hand comes into play, carding through his hair and brushing over the silk over his eyes. Anders feels his warmth as the man leans over him, his magic humming under his skin. Lips press against his neck and Anders gasps.

He feels the other man moving, settling himself between Anders' legs. He leans over Anders' back, kissing his neck once more, brushing his lips against his jaw. His weight settles over Anders' back and he feels his hard cock press against his ass. 

Anders stretches his back, setting his knees further apart. The man's cock presses against Anders' rim, but he doesn't push in. He breathes hard, his fingers digging into Anders' sides. Anders waits, but it feels as if the man doesn't know what to do. 

He grabs the one hand on his waist and squeezes it. "Please, fuck me," he says. 

The stranger sucks in a breath, curling his fingers around Anders' hand and pushes in. His cock is oiled, but it's still a burning stretch that has Anders cry out. The man stills and Anders breathes out as he adjusts. 

"More," he whispers, and the man moves. Slowly at first, with careful, small thrusts, but quickly the initial pain turns into pleasure and Anders can't get enough. He moans loudly, stretching his ass against the man fucking him. The stranger understands and his hands tighten as he thrusts forward. 

Soon, the stranger fucks him in earnest and Anders can only hold on to the handles Jethan so thoughtfully pointed out to him and breathless pleasure floods his body. He could not stay silent if he tried, every thrust punching a moan from his chest. The man pulls closer, his cock filling Anders so perfectly, his energy singing in his veins like pure lust. Anders arches his back to take more, more, more!

Oh, how he wishes he could see the man. How perfect must he be?

The pleasure builds and builds, his body a wave of pure sensations crashing against the fullness of his body. He grabs blindly backwards, searching for the stranger's hand, grabbing it, holding onto it like a lifeline. The pleasure peaks so suddenly that he can't even shout, his cock spurting as he falls and falls. His magic flies out of him, he knows he's making the room glow with his light. The man shudders, his movements turning erratic and then warmth floods Anders' hole as he finally makes a sound, a deep, raw groan.

The man's weight falls on his back, he's panting against Anders' shoulder blades. As they both catch their breath, the man sets his lips against Anders' skin, kissing him, and Anders holds his breath. This feels different. Intimate. 

Anders turns his head, blinking against the silk. "Can I see you?"

The stranger moves forward, slowly pulling his cock out and he presses the side of his head against Anders' face, so that he can feel how he shakes his head.

"Alright," Anders says, closing his eyes under the blindfold. "Then you should leave now because I won't be able to hold my curiosity at bay for much longer." 

The man chuckles and presses a kiss against Anders' cheek. He moves away, his clothes rustle as he picks them up and the door opens and closes. A short time later, the door opens again. 

"Darling," Jethan calls out as he sits down on the bed, "are you alright?" He unties the blindfold and brushes Anders' hair away from his face. "How do you feel? Did he hurt you?"

"No, he was wonderful. I don't remember the last time I had such amazing sex." Anders stretches his back. "Who is he? Do you know him?"

Jethan grimaces and gently brushes over Anders' hair. "You know I cannot tell you this."

Anders sighs, surprised at the warmth spreading in his chest. "I know you can't tell me. Maybe the secrecy is part of what makes it so special."

Jethan smiles and wets a washcloth in the bowl of warm water. "Let's get you cleaned up. Madame already waits for you downstairs."

Anders rolls to his side and sighs again. "I still wish I could have seen him."

[transfenris-truther]

Thanks for the tag @merrybandofmurderers and @blarrghe. I didn't get to it on actual Wednesday, unfortunately. Tagging @tea42 @rakshadow if either of you would like to do one! No pressure. Here's a little of Merrill and Fenris from No Town More Barren Than Our Town.

Julian was most beautiful in the light of the setting sun. Gold light illuminated the gold in his eyes, the gold tint in his skin. In the low light, his black hair was even darker, a beautiful contrast to practically glowing skin. Sweat shone on his brow when he worked to light the fire, he laughed at some joke of Isabela’s and his eyes crinkled, his smile so bright that Fenris had to look away. 

He felt prying eyes on him, turning in irritation he found Merrill, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?" 

“You’re in love,” Merrill sighed. 

Old habits died hard. “I am not,” he snapped.

“You keep looking at Hawke with sad puppy eyes everytime his back is turned.”

He sighed. He was not sure if anyone was supposed to know that he and Hawke were back together. Anders knew, of course, but he was more and more a ghost as of late. Bela and Varric at least suspected, considering their prodding. Yet, Hawke had never said that he wanted others to know. And Fenris was hesitant to say anything about it. He doubted Hawke would be ashamed of him… and yet… the last thing Hawke’s reputation needed was the knowledge that he was sharing his bed with a fugitive elf from Tevinter. 

“There are no puppy eyes,” he grumbled, walking off into the sparse trees to find more sticks. 

Merrill, as was her character, followed him unperturbed, “It’s all right, you know. Even you can be happy once and a while. It won’t kill you. But your face might crack if you smile, so be careful.”

He couldn’t help himself, he chuckled, handing her a bundle of sticks he’d collected, “I am as happy as I have ever been. Now, if you’re going to follow me around making comments, at least hold some of the firewood.” 

She giggled, assisting him, “I see the appeal, he is very handsome in that big, hairy human way.”

[breadedsinner]

-About An//ders

👀

WIP Meme

Hahaha yeah...this isn't overly negative but I wouldn't call it positive either. The Inquisitor asks the Champion about the last days of Kirkwall.

Honestly this could use some work. Need to trim some fat.

*

“Do you think me heartless, Inquisitor?” Hawke sighed, planted the tip of her sword to the ground. “Before Kirkwall, before all of that, I was the daughter of an apostate, and sister to one, too. I would have done anything to keep them safe. I could not change the way things were, but I could protect those two as best I could. Early years in Kirkwall, I did not go out of my way to free mages, for fear of exposing myself, and losing Bethany. To Anders’s chagrin.”

Cadash loosed her crossed arms, shoulders slumped. “You were looking out for your family. I understand, for what it’s worth.”

“Anders… was trying to be something like the Village Mage to Kirkwall, in a way. Bethany said he was so much like Father. I never saw it, but I wanted to see it. Kirkwall is very different from Ferelden. He had a clinic in Darktown, the lowest and darkest part of the city, where the poorest and most vulnerable lived. Templars and guards seldom ever went down there. And he provided a service, people were willing to protect him. As uncooperative as I was, I was not about to take that from them. At least, not until I could be in a position where I could help.”

“But…. He was already with ‘Justice’ at this time.”

“Yes. I never learned the exact circumstance, but while he was with the Wardens, he came across a spirit of Justice, and they became a single entity. A spirit that enters a living human body is an Abomination, Inquisitor, no matter how long they might hold it together. I knew this, and yet…”

“He was still helping people, and you didn’t want to take it away.”

“I thought… I would watch over him. I did not aid in his cause, Varric helped more there, but I gave him work, I kept him fed, and some solace in the knowledge that if he ever lost control, I would be there to deliver a swift and merciful end.”

  “So how does that lead to him blowing up a building?”

“He came to me, asking for help. To collect ingredients for a potion that would separate Justice from himself. That is what he claimed. I believed it.”

[jewishzevran]

Companion Guide: Ori Lavellan

Original template from @dextronoms​, art by @tzedekart​

Inquisitor’s Name: Ori Lavellan

Alternate Name?: None

Race, Class, & Specialization: Elf, Mage, Spirit Healer/Fire

Varric’s Nickname for them: Firecracker

Default Tarot Card: Strength (bravery, compassion, protection)

How they are recruited: Ori is part of a group of Dalish elves from the Free Marches that have come to assist the rebel mages. She can be found in the Hinterlands, tending to the wounded in a refugee camp. She will initially be standoffish with non-mage or non-elf Inquisitors, but through conversation will reveal that a nearby group of bandits have stolen most of her medical supplies and she fears those she is treating will die without them. If the party locate the bandits and retrieve her supplies, the Inquisitor can ask her to join the Inquisition as they need talented medics such as herself. 

Where they are in Haven: Ori can be found near the pier, past the soldiers, where she has set up a small fire and healer’s tent. She will be tending to the injury of a soldier resting on her cot, and she will be singing under her breath quietly. There is a cutscene with Cullen where the Inquisitor happens upon the end of an argument between the two, and observes Ori take a swing at the commander before storming off. The Inquisitor will comment on her aim, and Cullen will nurse a split lip. If the Inquisitor asks what the argument was about, Cullen will say that Ori grew up in Kirkwall and there are apparently wounds that are still raw. 

Where they are in Skyhold: Ori will be outside the infirmary, watching the courtyard, though sometimes she may be either tending to injured soldiers, or observing the sparring ring. Most of her cutscenes take place in the courtyard area. With a high enough approval, the Inquisitor can inquire about her past, and she will divulge that she was born in the Kirkwall, that her parents were killed by Templars raiding the alienage looking for elven apostate children to take to the Gallows, and that she left to seek out her mother’s clan in around 9:34 Dragon. Her opening dialogue at Skyhold begins with her covering the body of a dead soldier, but thanking the Inquisitor for saving so many lives. 

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

Things they Generally Approve of: 

Greatly Approve -

Making the mages allies

Saving all the civilians in Haven

Putting Briala in Power

Drinking from the Well of Sorrows (Elf Inquisitor)

Gaining approval from the Dalish (if in party)

Approve -

Compassionate choices in judgements

Completing side quests that help civilians, mages or elves

Allowing the Grey Wardens to join the Inquisition

Picking the infirmary upgrade for Skyhold

Slightly Approve -

Killing Red Templars

Exploring Elven Ruins

Dialogue options that are chantry and templar critical

Things they Generally Disapprove of: 

Greatly Disapprove -

Making the mages prisoners

Recruiting the Templars (without disbanding)

Reuniting Celene and Briala

Keeping Celene in power

Selling the Dalish history to the chantry

Clan Lavellan killed

Disapprove -

Supporting Cassandra as Divine

Allowing Morrigan to drink from the Well of Sorrows (Elf Inquisitor)

Claiming to be the Herald of Andraste

Letting Cullen interrogate Samson

Telling Cullen to continue taking Lyrium

Slightly Disapprove -

Killing Dragons

Lying to Dorian about his father’s letter

Making Cole human

Dialogue that is critical or derogatory towards elves 

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

Mages, Templars, Other?: Ori is resolutely pro-mage. If recruited before In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just, and the mages are made prisoners or templars not disbanded, she will leave the Inquisition unless the Inquisitor is an elf or a mage, in which case she may be persuaded to stay, but she will still greatly disapprove. Several of her further dialogue options are locked off, and it will be impossible to complete her personal quest. If she is not sought out until after the quest and either of these choices were picked, she will be permanently unrecruitable. 

Friends in the Inquisition: Varric, Iron Bull, Cole, Krem, Sera, Vivienne (if questioned about their differing positions regarding the Circles, Ori will remark that she and Vivienne disagree but she has a great deal of respect for her, and values her opinion highly). 

Rivals in the Inquisition: Cullen, Cassandra, Morrigan Neutral towards: Dorian, Solas, Blackwall, Josephine, Leliana

Romanceable?: Ori is not romanceable by the Inquisitor, though flirt dialogues are available for all races and genders. If the Inquisitor is persistent enough, it will trigger a cutscene where the two are alone, and the Inquisitor leans in to kiss Ori. She will pull away and apologise, saying that she hadn’t meant to lead the Inquisitor on, but that she is in love with someone else. If Anders was romanced in DA2, Ori will remark that her affections are unrequited. 

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

Small Side Quest: A Night of Revelry Ori will mention to the inquisitor that the elves that are part of the inquisition are feeling quite homesick, particularly the Dalish that have been separated from their clans, and she would like to hold a party for a night to allow the elves to celebrate their culture, with traditional Dalish songs and dances. If the Inquisitor agrees, Ori asks them to acquire some ingredients so she can help the kitchen make food in preparation. Once this is complete and the items delivered to the kitchen, a cutscene will trigger with Ori inside the Herald’s Rest who is stood on a table singing whilst a very large gathering of elves joins in, interjected with cheering and whistling. A space has been cleared for a dance floor and there is a band of elvish musicians playing where Maryden usually is. Ori will notice the Inquisitor as her song finishes, and she comes to talk to them and thank them for allowing them to have such a special evening. 

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

Companion quest: Sanctum Santorum Note: This quest is only available when approval with Ori is very high. A cutscene will trigger where Ori is poring over a map, and will jump when the Inquisitor appears. She will look visibly nervous and flustered, and asks very seriously if she can trust the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor replies with yes, and Ori will then say she has managed to track an old friend to somewhere in the Emerald Graves and asks the Inquisitor to go with her and help find him. The next time Ori is in the party in the Emerald Graves, a small cutscene will trigger where she notices a mark on a tree and remarks that “he must be close”. The search function is then used to find three more signs (blood from an animal carcass, flattened grass from someone sitting or lying down, and the remnants of a fire,  the last being outside a well-hidden cave. A magical trap is triggered and the party must fight off several angry spirits. When combat ends, a cutscene is triggered of the Inquisitor and Ori creeping inside the cave at night. A spell comes flying out the dark and both characters dodge, then a voice shouts from further in “don’t come any closer!” The Inquisitor goes for their weapon and Ori places a hand on their arm and shakes her head. She then lights a flame, illuminating herself, the Inquisitor and most of the cave, shedding light on a small, dirty campsite situated right at the back, and a cloaked figure with a staff raised to attack. She then says quietly, “Anders? It’s me. It’s Ori.” The figure slowly drops their staff, then steps into the light and pulls their hood down revealing themselves to indeed be Anders. He squints at the pair for a moment, and upon recognising Ori, breaks into a smile and hugs her tightly. Dialogue then follows where Ori reveals her long-standing friendship with Anders and the Inquisitor can ask about their history. If questioned, Ori will say she supports Anders’ actions at the end of DA2, and will remark that it pained her to see a place of worship destroyed and lives lost as a result but after all the evil she’s seen, she knows it was necessary. After dialogue is finished, Ori will thank the Inquisitor for coming with her, and beg them not to say anything. 

Option 1: Let Anders go. Ori will greatly approve of this choice. If this option is selected, the Inquisitor will promise to keep Anders’ location a secret, and hopes they can meet one day in better circumstances. Ori and Anders will say their goodbyes, and Ori and the Inquisitor will depart. Back at Skyhold a cutscene will trigger where Ori is sat by a window reading a letter and smiling, and when prompted, will say it is from Anders. She will thank the Inquisitor again, and say that she lost contact with him when she left Kirkwall to join her mother’s clan, so she’s glad he’s safe and that she can keep an eye on him again. If the kiss scene has been played, the Inquisitor can comment on Ori’s feelings for Anders, asking if he is the person she  had previously referred to. She will agree, and either comment sadly on Hawke being who makes him happy, (if he was romanced in DA2), or blush and say she hopes one day she will pluck up the courage to confess to him. There is a dialogue option for the Inquisitor to encourage this.

Option 2: Bring Anders back to Skyhold for judgement (unlocks the quest The Judgement of Anders).

Ori will greatly disapprove of this choice, and will be visibly upset, telling the Inquisitor she trusted them and feels betrayed, and will not listen to any justifications for this decision. It will be impossible to engage in dialogue with her until The Judgement of Anders is complete; the first attempt to do so will trigger a cutscene in the infirmary where Ori shouts at the Inquisitor, for all subsequent attempts she will simply reply “leave me, I have patients to care for”.

Follow-up Quest: The Judgement of Anders

Ori will be present in the main hall during this judgement. 

If the Inquisitor pardons Anders, Ori will greatly approve. After the quest is finished, the next time she is interacted with, it will trigger a cutscene where the Inquisitor walks in on Anders and Ori holding each other, both crying and laughing. They break apart when they hear the Inquisitor, and Anders will smile at the Inquisitor, squeeze Ori’s hand and leave the room. Ori will then give the Inquisitor a tight hug, and thank them profusely. There will be dialogue about what Anders plans to do forthwith, and the Inquisitor has the option to invite him to stay on as healer at Skyhold, which Ori will greatly approve of. The Inquisitor will now also have the same dialogue options regarding her romantic sentiments from option 1. If Anders stays on as healer, then, Ori will then sometimes be found talking with him inside the infirmary. If not romanced in DA2, idle dialogue later in the game will imply that he and Ori have started a relationship. 

If the Inquisitor conscripts Anders, Ori will have no approval change, but if the Inquisitor executes Anders, Ori will greatly disapprove and permanently leave the Inquisition. 

Tarot card change:

Option 1 - If Anders let go: VI of Cups (reunion, healing, joy)

Option 2  - If Anders brought to Skyhold: X of Swords (betrayal, defeat, loss) 

Option 3 - If Anders pardoned: The Star (hope, faith, renewal)

Option 4 - If Anders executed: III of Swords (heartbreak, suffering, grief)

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

Cole’s reflection on their thoughts:

“Panic. Screaming. Armor silver and sharp and unforgiving. Helplessness. Grief. So much anger. Family taken without warning. “In their blood the maker’s will is written”. A hole in your chest. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. It’s my fault. I should have stopped it.”

“White lines where skin has healed but you still feel its bite. Dreams darkened by wretched smiles and pleas for mercy gone unanswered. Tears darken the dirt and water the roots of the tree that cries out in anguish for salvation that will never come.”

“So full of righteous fury. So determined to seek justice. A clenched fist, gritted teeth, a battle cry. An apron worn like armor. A voice for the voiceless. A flame inside that never dies. Always strong. Always caring. I will protect them. There is so much love inside you.”

“You love him. He sees you when no one else does. Words spoken through silence. Hazel eyes and healer’s hands. Soft smiles and gentle touches that feel almost holy. (If Anders was romanced in DA2) You whisper his name in the dark. It hurts that he doesn’t hear it, but you want him to be happy more than anything else.”

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

Comment(s) on Mages: (referring to the Circle) “No one deserves to be locked away for a circumstance of birth.” / “We’ve been fighting for so long. We just want freedom and peace.” / “Magic is a gift.” / “Our light will outlast this hatred.”

Comment(s) on Templars: “They claim to be peacekeepers, but they wield fear like a weapon.” / “I’ve never met a Templar I can trust. They’re all the same.” 

When looking for something: “Keep your eyes sharp.” / “We should investigate.”

When finding a campsite: “We should rest.” / “This will be good for a camp.”

When the Inquisitor Falls: “Be more careful!” / “Not on my watch, Inquisitor!”

When they are low on Health: “It’s not wise to let your healer die!” / “Fenhedis!”

When they see a Dragon: “So beautiful, and so misunderstood. It is a privilege to behold such a creature.”

Default saying: "How can I help you?" / (high approval, teasing) “What needs healing this time?”

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

Travel Banter with Canon Companions:

Varric: It’s been a while, Firecracker. Ori: Indeed it has. It’s good to be adventuring with you again Varric. Varric: Just like old times! Though I suppose if we’re picking our favourite old times, I’d rather be drinking the liquor you and Daisy used to make than out here shooting demons. Ori: (laughs) I think the demons are easier to handle. 

Cassandra: You are Dalish, Lavellan, but you were raised in Kirkwall? Ori: (curtly) Yes. Cassandra: Why did you leave? Ori: Templars murdered my parents. Cassandra: I’m sorry. Ori: I will not speak of them again. Not to you. Cassandra: What have I done to make you dislike me so? Ori: You stand for an order that has enslaved and murdered my people for generations, justify the imprisonment and oppression of mages, refuse to acknowledge the corruption in your own ranks and then choose to remain wilfully ignorant of why I have cause to distrust you. Cassandra: I… Ori: I would wish that you could spend a day in my shoes during my time in the alienage, Seeker, but I do not think you would survive it.

(If Anders was not romanced in DA2, and was invited to stay with the Inquisition after his trial) Iron Bull: So… Ori: So? Iron Bull: You and Blondie, huh? Ori: What about us? Iron Bull: Have you told him how you feel yet? Ori: I don’t know what you’re talking about.  Iron Bull: Sure. And I’m the Queen of Antiva.  Ori: Is it really that obvious? Iron Bull: Kid, you’re about as subtle as my horns. He’s about the only person in all of Skyhold that hasn’t noticed.  Ori: Oh sweet creators…

Vivienne: You are a very talented mage, my dear. Ori: As are you, ma’am. It is a privilege to watch you fight. I have learnt much. Blackwall: But you use different styles of magic? Ori: Frost and Fire are opposites yes, but Madame de Fer’s use of offensive ice magic informs my defensive fire, and vice versa. I learn how to better protect myself and exploit my enemy’s weakness. Vivienne: (smiling) Very astute my dear. We shall have to meet up to practice some time. Ori: I should like that very much, ma’am. 

(if Blackwall was pardoned after his revelation) Blackwall: There have been many that have turned their backs on me, Miss Ori, but you have not wavered in your kindness. I am very grateful for that. Ori: I may disapprove of your original actions, Blackwall, but we have all done things we are not proud of. What matters is how we move forward. 

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

Leaving the Inquisition: (what do they say or do if the approval is low enough for them to leave?)

Ori will leave the Inquisition if her approval becomes low enough, or after choices she disapproves of after In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just or The Judgement of Anders. 

Ori will be found packing her bags in the infirmary. If this takes place after Anders’ execution, she will be seen holding his mage robes to her chest and weeping. She will not acknowledge the Inquisitor until her name is spoken, and then she will turn around, visibly shaken and upset. 

“I trusted you. I thought you might actually make a difference, that you cared. But you are just like the rest of them. You stand here claiming to be holy and expect me to believe that your God - any God - would condone this? You are drunk on power and your heart is bitter and cruel. I will not assist your crusade or become complicit as you remain blinded to the corruption running through the heart of your ideals. May your name and memory be erased. I pray we never meet again, Herald.”

[sinsbymanka]

Female Hawke/Varric Tethras + kiss prompt 'on a scar' and it's one of Hawke's scars? :3

Thank you for the prompt @serphena!! For @dadrunkwriting and in honor of my Varricmance March Madness...

The Crossbow Goes or I Do

Words: 2,104 Rating: Teen Chapter 1/1 Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, They did their pining, ten years of it apparently, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Mutually Unrequited, Friends to Lovers, Past Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Hawke is a menace, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Flirting, Banter, POV Varric Tethras, Varric Tethras' Chest Hair, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Elodie Hawke is a menace that fits just right into Varric's life and keeps him on his toes. After The Incident with misfiring Bianca, Varric knows he'll let her get away with anything....

...except it's hard to let her get away with leaving.

Read on AO3

Varric doesn’t know how The Incident happened.

Well, that’s not strictly accurate. He knows Hawke the way he knows the best ways to sneak around the Guild Hall, where to purchase the good ink, and how much it’ll cost to bribe Corf when Rivaini gets carried away. He’s well aware of what she gets up to when she’s unsupervised.

Hell, usually when she’s supervised too. The woman is a force of nature and they’re just along for the ride.

What does surprise him about The Incident, as it’s known forever after, is how quickly it happened. He swears up and down every time it comes up in conversation afterward he only looks away from Hawke for a moment. One second, he’s peering down at the short story that eventually became his bestselling Hard in Hightown series, the next…

The sound of a bolt rattling into Bianca’s chamber, the whoosh of another flying through the air, followed quickly by his large, ornate, absolutely atrocious dressing mirror shattering into a million pieces.

He’s better off without it. Honestly, the most upsetting part of the whole sequence of events is that he isn’t holding Bianca.

Varric doesn’t look up from his papers. The room is completely quiet.

“Hawke.”

“Varric.”

He appreciates the deadpan delivery of his name. He really does. Odd how quickly Hawke wormed her way into that special, stupid part of his heart that forgives almost anything. She’s barely off the boat at this moment, fresh faced and lively if a bit too hungry looking.

He’s known her for a few months. And, bizarrely, he feels like he’s known her all his life.

“That sounded like Bianca,” he observes, as if he wouldn’t know the way Bianca sounds anywhere.

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” Hawke chirps. “Somebody told me that Bianca is a delicate, complicated lady who can only be fired by one specific dwarf who was trained in her secrets by an Antivan Crow whose life the dwarf saved.”

He finally looks up to take in the damage. Mirror shattered, bolt in the wall behind it, and Hawke standing shamelessly in the middle of the room cradling his crossbow.

“Somebody also told you not to touch her,” he adds pointedly.

Hawke grins from ear to ear. “We’ve already established somebody is full of shit.”

He discards his journal and glides back across the room, arms out and a carefully maintained disgruntled look on his features. “Come here, beautiful. What’d she do to you?”

Hawke takes a step back, eyes widening in clear afront. “What did I do to her? Varric, she’s drawn blood!”

“I told you she’s a sensitive lady. Difficult to handle. Little rough around the edges.”

“She’s a menace Varric.” Hawke relinquishes the crossbow and examines her fingers with a wrinkled nose. On her left ring finger is a nice cut, blood welling and dripping down her palm. “Look what she did!”

There’s a smear of crimson on the trigger. He wipes it away with his shirt sleeve. “You got your fingers stuck in the gears. She taught you a lesson about respecting other people’s property.”

“It’s going to scar!”

“Let me send an urgent note down to Darktown for Blondie. He’ll be thrilled to come stitch together your papercut.”

She laughs and puts one palm on the curve of her hip, leaning into his space. “I’m telling you Varric, the crossbow goes or I do.”

Something lurches in his stomach, a hint of fear he doesn’t quite have a name for, a bit of knee jerk panic at the thought of losing the last bit of her he truly has. But Hawke’s joking, Hawke is always joking, he can see the sparkle in her blue eyes and the twitch at the corner of her lips.

He lets his own tip up in the same playfulness. “You better clean up this mess before you go.”

She sighs in defeat and plops her finger between her pink lips, sucking on it thoughtfully while she looks at the chaos she’s caused. Varric spends a second too long examining the way her cheeks hollow around her finger.

He’s only a man, after all, no matter how taken he is.

“How much bad luck is it to break a mirror again?” she asks.

Varric doesn’t believe in human superstitions, or much of anything beyond the worth of his coin or the power of a well-loved lie, but he answers her. “Seven years at least. And just in time for our expedition too.”

Another moment of silence. Then one single, elegant curse. “Bollocks.”

xx

Somehow, Varric gets stuck with the job of keeping Hawke in bed.

Privately, he thinks Blondie must be out to get him for humiliating the mage in more than one card game. Otherwise Varric wouldn’t get saddled with the most impossible job in Kirkwall. Their newly crowned Champion, and what a laugh that is, sits in her opulent bed wearing nothing but the rattiest shirt he’s ever seen. It’s so large it hangs off one freckled shoulder.

Varric wonders if it isn’t one of Carver’s old hand-me-downs. It’s better than thinking Hawke was plucking her nightclothes out of some moldy trunk in Lowtown, anyway.

Her icy eyes glare daggers into him from where she’s propped against the headboard. “Varric, if you don’t help me out of this bed I will chop Bianca into firewood.”

“Remember what happened the last time you got into a tussle with Bianca?” Varric asks, raising his eyebrows.

“I still have the scar!” she protests, trying weakly to push herself up off the bed. The covers slip, revealing the bandages wrapped around Hawke’s waist. Before Anders got his hands on her, bandages like those were the only thing holding Hawke’s guts inside her.

Varric knows. He put them on.

“You’re gonna have a better one now. Comes with a heroic story and everything.” A story where Varric stands, clutching his crossbow, helpless and afraid as a sword pierces Hawke’s body and hoists her off her feet. A story where she summons a fistful of fire to smother the Arishok as she’s impaled on his blade.

Varric’s still covered in a cold sweat and it’s been four days. Andraste’s ass, what would he have done if…?

But it’s not worth thinking about. He can’t face it in this bright bedroom, with Hawke and the mutinous gleam in her eyes. She swings them from his face to the window, her expression wistful.

It tugs at his heartstrings, it really does. Hawke has barely spent a night in this mansion in Hightown since they dragged Leandra’s body from the monster’s pit and held a quiet, solemn funeral at the Chantry. She bunks at a spare cot in Anders’ clinic, crashes on the moldy old chaise in Fenris’ mansion, falls asleep in Merrill’s bed while Daisy sits in front of her damned mirror all night.

But, more often than not, she’s in Varric’s bed and he’s in his armchair. Or she falls asleep in the armchair and refuses to be moved. Varric should complain, it’s ridiculous that he’s sharing one suite of rooms while she’s got a whole damn house, but he doesn’t. He can’t.

He knows what it’s like to live in a mausoleum to the dead.

In truth, Hawke has not come home to stay since it stopped being a home, and now she’s trapped there with her guts shoved back in and a title she could care less for.

“Play a game of Diamondback with me,” he cajoles. “You win, I’ll risk my chest hair and get you into the garden against the doctor’s orders.”

Hawke bites her lip and considers his offer, narrowing her eyes. “You cheat.”

“And if you pay attention, you may learn something to improve your own lackluster technique.” He pulls the cards from his pocket and hops up, in a painfully undignified fashion, onto her ridiculously high bed. The action brings a spark of humor to her gaze.

“I won’t be distracted by your ridiculous cleavage today, serah,” she teases, watching him shuffle the cards. In the brief moment of silence, Varric catches the way she runs her thumb over her finger, tracing the small silver scar Bianca left all those years ago. It’s a habit he’s noticed with fondness when she’s plotting, and it should worry him to see her scheming…

But honestly, he’d rather have her scarred and scheming than not have her at all.

xx

They stand on the docks with the world on fire around them when Varric finally runs out of things to say.

There’s a joke here... somewhere. He struggles to find it while Hawke stares over his head at the ruined landscape of Kirkwall. He could say something about how she sure knows how to make an exit, but the thought of her exit sticks in his throat, deep in his chest.

Kirkwall without Hawke makes no sense. Varric without Hawke makes no sense, and when did that happen?

She’s leaving and he’s staying. It’s what they need to do. She’ll be free as a bird to ignite the revolution she’s become the figurehead of, thanks to Blondie, and he’ll be here to confuse and confound the authorities while he tries to put his home back together.

But, somehow, it feels like his home is about to get on Isabela’s ship.

“Look on the bright side, Varric.” He looks up into Hawke’s face. She’s got her best Champion smile plastered on, the one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “We’ve almost burned through those seven years of bad luck, right?”

The mirror. Her face without the wrinkles of worry at the corner of her eyes, on her forehead, Bianca in her arms and a smile on her face. Varric’s chest constricts painfully.

The Hanged Man is gone. Hawke is leaving. All he’s got is Bianca on his back and a pile of trouble again.

“You’ll always have the scar though,” he jokes weakly.

She looks down at her hands. Varric wonders if she can see blood on them, even though she’s done everything she could have. The scar from her run in from Bianca is merely a thin white line across her finger, but his eyes go there immediately.

He doesn’t know what possesses him, but it feels right to snatch that hand out of the air. Long fingers curl immediately over his leather gloves and her blue eyes flick to his face.

It’s a bad idea, but he’s too committed to stop now. He brings her knuckles to his lips like she’s a fairytale princess instead of the biggest menace he’s ever known, like he’s a knight instead of a cheating scoundrel. His lips brush over that thin scar softly before he pulls away, looking up into Hawke’s eyes.

She swallows, hard, and Varric swears he sees tears in her eyes behind a watery smile. Varric’s words are still missing, lost somewhere in the rubble around them, but he has to try. “Hawke-”

She pulls her hand from his and drops it to the side. “Well Varric,” she begins behind her brittle smile. “I’ve been telling you for years. That crossbow goes or I do.”

For a brief, insane moment Varric considers slinging his beloved Bianca over his shoulder and into the harbor. It passes just as Hawke stoops to envelop him in her too long arms. He just catches her whisper. “I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah,” Varric swallows his own bitter emotion. “Me too, Elodie.”

That makes her laugh and lightly punch his shoulder as she withdraws. He barely gets a look at her tearstained face before she flees up the gangplank and onto the boat, leaving him bereft.

“If you were waiting for an opportune moment, you have missed it,” Fenris remarks acidicly behind him.

Varric ignores the remark and the ridiculous insinuation behind it as Fenris appears in his line of sight. His love life is complicated enough, after all. “I can afford to let her go, she doesn’t owe me five sovereigns.”

The familiar, immediate refrain is almost comforting. “I’m good for it.”

Varric huffs a small, broken laugh. “No you’re not.”

“You are not incorrect,” Fenris finally admits. The elf casts a look behind him for a moment before adjusting the pack over his shoulder. “I wish you well, my friend.”

The bastard has enough decency not to add Varric will need it. “Watch her back, Broody.”

“I will attempt to do so,” Fenris murmurs, shoving past him. “Although nobody does it as well as you.”

Varric watches him go with a heavy weight in his stomach.

That is exactly what he’s afraid of.

[queen-scribbles]

Things Best Unsaid

I didn’t intentionally write this for DA2′s birthday, but the timing did work out pretty well. :D Thus, ~3k of Fenris POV from Sigi dueling the Arishok + the aftermath.

---

“I accept.” 

Fenris’ heart squeezed in his chest as Hawke’s voice rang out, unflinchingly confident. She flung the words back at the Arishok as if she were the one issuing a challenge.

From the Arishok’s satisfied smile, it was clear how he expected this to go. A lone human woman, no matter how respected, no matter her reputation, seemed no match for the towering qunari leader.

Fenris could count the beats of his pulse hammering in his ears as he and the others herded the surviving nobility up to the balconies, out of harm’s way. He ached to draw his sword and demand to fight instead, but he knew he could not.

The Arishok would not allow it-- Hawke alone was basalit-an.

Hawke would not allow it--she hated when others tried to fight her battles for her.

So he stood with arms crossed and shoulders hunched between Sebastian and Isabela, tried to ignore Merrill’s quiet fretting, and kept his gaze fixed on Hawke.

If she was at all worried about the duel, it didn’t show in her stance. She stood with the same casual wariness that marked the outset of any fight; ready for whatever came but content to let her opponent make the first move.

And the Arishok obliged. He barreled toward Hawke with a roar, large blades sweeping in tandem arcs.

Hawke waited until the last possible second to dance out of the way, her own hooked axes now in hand. She pivoted as the Arishok’s charge carried him past her and dug one deep in his back below the shoulder.

The Arishok spun with a snarl and swung at her again, the way one might bat at a stinging fly. She dodged the first strike, but the second caught just at the edge of her shoulder.

Fenris sucked in a sharp breath watching her stumble and scramble back out of range, crimson spreading down her arm. Isabela nudged him reassuringly--or, he assumed that was the intention--but he didn’t even glance her way.

Hawke was retreating, eyes on her opponent as she darted backwards. She’d never seen shame in running away, especially when she could use it to make her surroundings work in her favor.

Even as the Arishok pursued her, she dodged around a pillar to gain some distance putting her superior agility to use.

“Ebost issala!” he spat, nostrils flaring and one blade rising as he charged again.

Fenris’ jaw clenched, heart lodged in his throat, despite his familiarity with Hawke’s skill in battle.

She dodged under the swinging blade and slashed open the inside of the Arishok’s elbow, then let their momentum carry them away from each other. She wove between the pillars again, clearly anticipating another bullrush from the qunari leader.

It came only a few seconds later, and the throne room seemed to shake when he missed and slammed into a wall. “Ashkost kata!” the Arishok snarled as he wheeled to charge her again. His battleaxe was extended in front of him, prepared to skewer this human who had the temerity to defy him and survive so long.

Again, he bore down on her. Again, she waited to dodge. Again, fear clawed the breath from Fenris’ lungs.

And this time she was just a little too slow. 

While Hawke managed to spin away from the main thrust and avoid being impaled, the blade did gouge through armor and flesh both. A collective gasp rose from all the onlookers--save one. Fenris’ teeth were clenched so tightly it made his ears ring, fingers digging into his arms as he struggled to hold himself back from joining the fight.

She can be as furious at me as she likes, if it means she survives.

But Hawke kept her feet, though staggering, and grinned fiercely at the Arishok even as his eyes blazed with fury. “Come on, then,” She goaded, circling like a panther even as the bloodstains on her armor grew.

Part of Fenris wanted to call encouragement, show his faith in her. Part longed for her to be more cautious. Part knew better than to distract her, and all of him was too tense to get the words out if he had settled on a course of action.

The Arishok was too enraged to do anything but succumb to Hawke’s prodding. He bellowed as he charged toward her once more, swinging one of his blades in a brutal arc meant to end this--and anyone in its path.

Hawke ducked, and the fearsome blade lodged in the pillar behind her instead. She swiped at the Arishok with one of her axes and opened a shallow gash across his chest.

The Arishok gave another bellow and yanked on the trapped weapon, swinging his other battleaxe at Hawke as he worked to free it. The point rattled and rasped as it scraped over the front of her armor, but she’d backpedaled far enough it did no real damage.

She leapt up, stepped on the trapped blade, pushed off that and then the Arishok’s pauldron to propel herself away. She faltered slightly on the landing, one hand flinching toward her wounded side as she grimaced.

Despite the way his heart pounded, Fenris couldn’t help a small smile when he saw her mouth a silent curse before zeroing back in on her opponent.

The Arishok finally yanked his battleaxe free, leaving a large divot in the pillar, and whipped around to face Hawke. He launched himself toward her with a roar.

Hawke gave her axes a flourishing twist and darted aside. She didn’t entirely avoid the attack--one blade grazed her thigh and Fenris bit his lip when the wound blossomed scarlet--but it did far less damage than intended. And before the Arishok recovered his balance, she was behind him, hooked axes plunging into the hollows of his collarbone. He snarled and tried to jerk free. She dug the blades deeper with a savage yell.

The Arishok swayed, then wrenched around and grabbed her by the hair. He growled as he flung her into a tumble across the room, her axes clattering to the floor. 

Fenris bit his lip harder to keep her name from spilling out.

The Arishok’s shoulder heaved in great, angry breaths as he glared after her, his back to the balconies. And then his weapons clattered to the floor as Hawke pushed up to a crouching stance. A murmur rippled through the air, uncertainty shifting to hope.

Snarls of red-brown hair hung in Hawke’s face now, blood trickled from her lip, but she still looked every inch the predator. Her hand darted to the small knife at the back of her belt.

The was a rasp growing in the Arishok’s breath, a wet snarl escaping as he stumbled to one knee. “We... we shall return-”

Hawke’s hand flashed forward, the deftly-thrown knife snapping the Arishok’s head back when it slammed into his eye socket.

“Excellent shot,” Sebastian murmured approvingly, and Fenris smirked as the knot in his chest started to loosen.

Hawke staggered to her feet as the qunari leader  fell splayed over the steps.  “You won’t,” she panted, raking hair out of her eyes to stare down the remaining qunari.

They did not look happy with the outcome, but after a protracted moment glaring back, the ashaad nearest Hawke jerked his head toward the door and his few brethren followed the wordless command.

Fenris took what felt like--and may have been--his first full breath since the Arishok issued his challenge watching them go. His arms were stiff with lingering tension when he dropped them.

The movement caught Hawke’s eye and she flashed him a smirk. Despite her bravado, her posture was tense, hands balled into loose fists,weight balanced subtly on her uninjured leg. He moved like a wraith through the crowd of milling nobles, skirting the banister and rushing down the stairs with Merrill and Sebastian in his wake. His gaze remained on the departing qunari, wary even though he knew they would honor the Arishok’s terms.

Jangling armor broke the breathless silence, Meredith and Orsino slowing as they entered the room. Meredith’s sword came up at the sight of qunari, and they reached for weapons in response--

“Don’t.” Hawke’s voice rapped through the air. “It’s over.”

“Over?!” Meredith demanded glaring at the qunari though she addressed Hawke.

“Over,” Hawke repeated. “We had an agreement.” She jerked her chin toward the slain Arishok. “They’re leaving. Without further bloodshed.”

Now Meredith wheeled to aim her glare at Hawke, her gaze rife with arguments.

“For the good of the city,” Hawke said firmly, glaring right back as the nobles clustered and spilled down the stairs. Fenris shifted closer to her.

The women held each others’ gaze a long, tense moment as the qunari filed out. Meredith didn’t relent until the last one had gone.

“Very well,” she ground out, and sheathed her sword. She took in the scene; the Arishok’s corpse, Hawke’s injuries, the near-rapturous way the nobles were eyeing the battered woman before her and nodded with grudging respect. “It would appear Kirkwall has a new champion.”

The tension finally, fully drained from the room as the nobles erupted into cheers.

Hawke indulged their relief for a few minutes, her hand resting on Fenris’ arm when he stood next to her, but the set of her jaw made it clear pride and determination were just about all that kept her on her feet. In short order, she gave a final wave of acknowledgement to their accolades and headed for the door with a just noticeable limp.

Fenris followed close on her heels, was there to catch her arm when she swayed just outside the keep. “Hawke-”

“That went well,” she cut him off, inhaling a sharp breath as she leaned against the wall. “Considering.”

“I’ll get Anders,” Merrill volunteered, starting for the steps.

“No,” Hawke ground out, even as she clutched her wounded side. “People will need him with... with all this.” She gestured at the rising smoke and what destruction was visible from the courtyard.

“You need him,” Fenris growled. Damn her stubbornness, anyway.

She shook her head, brown eyes flashing. “No. None of these are deep enough to need magic for healing,” she said through gritted teeth. “Stitches will do.”

“Then allow me to assist.” The words escaped before he could stop them(not that he could swear he would have).

The beat of hesitation, vulnerability flickering through her eyes, cut deeper than any physical blade. Even if he understood. Especially because he understood.

But then she nodded, once, a brittly sharp motion. “Long as you know what you’re doing?” 

He heard the layers, knew what he risked tearing open, for both of them, beyond the confirmation of ability. “I do.”

I should have stayed. But it was too late for that now. The most he could do was help.

“...Alright.” Hawke pushed away from the wall, froze, and one hand jerked to her belt. “Shit. My axes-”

“I have them, Hawke,” Sebastian assured her, holding out the weapons.

Hawke took them with a grunt of thanks, her movements stiff. “I’ll be fine.” She nodded toward the burning city again. “See what you can do to help.”

“Aye,” Sebastian nodded, in the same moment Merrill piped up, “We will, Hawke.”

“Good thing my house isn’t far,” Hawke commented as she watched them depart. “You won’t have to help me long.”

“It would be no trouble,” Fenris said softly.

Hawke sighed and flashed him an inscrutable look as she leaned on him.

They made their way to her estate in silence, exhaustion giving an excuse to mask any awkwardness. Hawke refused to accept much help besides the stairs, and Fenris struggled with the urge to just carry her every time she bit her lip or her fingers dug into his arm.

Grizzly greeted them with enthusiasm as soon as they opened the door, which Hawke returned with head scratches and cooed praise for protecting her house and its occupants.

Orana peeked out of the library and gasped. “Oh, mistress, you’re hurt!”

“Orana, I’ve told you-” Hawke cut herself off with a sigh and shake of her head. “Could you- Are Bodahn and Sandal with you in there?”

Orana nodded, eyes still wide as she stared at the blood. “Bodahn’s trying to get his boy to sleep, mist-- Hawke.”

“Damn,” Hawke sucked her teeth a moment, swaying into Fenris’ shoulder.  “Could you please bring supplies for patching up to my room?”

Another nod, steadier, as Orana clasped her hands in front of her. “Of course. Will you need my help, mistress?”

One side of Hawke’s mouth curved in the faintest of smiles. “No.” She glanced at him. “I have all the help I need.”

For some reason, the words made his gut clench even more than watching her fight the Arishok had, and Fenris didn’t really want to dwell on why. He nudged her toward the steps. “Hawke...”

“No need to coddle,” she muttered.

Irritation spiked, but he bit his tongue as she started up the steps. Her fingers were white-knuckle on the banister a third of the way up. By halfway, he could hear her breath hissing between her teeth.

“Enough of this,” he growled, and scooped her off her feet.

“Fenris!” She glared at him, hand balled into a fist as it pressed against his armor. “Put me down! I’m injured, not an invalid, I am capable of walking!”

“If you do not let people help you, injured may turn into being an invalid,” he shot back. 

Hawke glared at him a moment longer, jaw clenched, before relenting. “Fine.”

It didn’t take long to reach her room, and he gingerly set her on the bed.

“I’m not made of glass, Fenris,” she grumbled as she tugged off her gauntlets.

“But you are injured, as you yourself pointed out,” he said, a knot snarling in his chest at how cautiously she moved. He shucked his own gauntlets and set them on the bedside table next to hers. “And I’d not cause you any unnecessary pain.”

Beyond what I already have.

Hawke was quiet a long moment, jaw working as she swallowed at least one sharp comment. “Then... could you help with my boots? Please?”

“Of course.” Fenris bent and helped slide off her boots, then wordlessly moved to the buckles of her armor.

She stiffened, staring at the wall, but didn’t fight him. A sharp breath escaped her when she raised her injured arm out of his way, and Fenris hurried so she could lower it again.

By the time her leathers were removed and piled in a chair, Grizzly was curled on the rug to keep watch and Orana had brought the requested supplies; warm water, rags, salve, bandages, catgut thread and a needle. 

Fenris glanced at the supplies, then Hawke’s injuries. “Which one first?”

“Shoulder,” she said without hesitation. “Hurts like the bloody Void.” With only some difficulty she worked off her shirt, tugging the fabric away from injuries with ginger fingers. Her head snapped up to meet his gaze when he started to protest. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He shut his mouth with a click under the challenge of her tired, whiskey-brown eyes. “As you wish,” he finally murmured, and set about cleaning away the blood. Up close, this one was surprisingly nasty and it did seem wise to tend it first.

Silence filled the room as he worked, broken only by the crackling fire and occasional huff from Grizzly as he shifted position. Exhaustion, uncertainty, and a myriad of other things made the prospect off conversation a daunting one, and neither was eager to open that jar of worms right now.

So Fenris focused on the stitches, keeping them secure and even, pretending he didn’t see her grip tightening on the edge of the bed with each stitch. Hawke didn’t emit as much as a whimper as he worked. Her gaze never left the wall until he’d tugged the last stitch into place and reached for the salve and bandages.

“You do know what you’re doing,” she commented, upon peeking at his handiwork.

His lips twitched toward a smile as he gently spread a layer of salve over the stitched wound. “I would not have offered otherwise.” He nudged her arm up with the back of his hand, heard her breath catch in the same moment his heart skipped a beat, pushed through to begin winding bandages around her shoulder.

Hawke bit her lip as she watched him. “When did you learn?”

“After I... ran.” The Fog Warriors had imparted a few things, and he’d gotten practice in a variety of places. “It is something you pick up quickly when you are... unsure who to trust.”

“I imagine so,” she said softly. “Leg next. This one’s not as deep.” Her fingers flexed against the rag she held to her midriff. “You can just cut or tear the trousers, they’re beyond repair anyway.”

From the amount of blood that had soaked the fabric around this wound, he had to agree. “Very well.”

She leaned back against the pillows, swinging her leg up on the bed as he cut away the pant material. After a moment’s internal debate, Fenris surrendered to the inevitable and knelt next to the bed for the best angle stitching this one. Again they were silent while he worked, though Hawke did suck in a few harsh breaths as he progress up toward her hip.

He didn’t dare wonder if it was pain or something else to blame.

Finally all that remained was the gash on her stomach. It was, as she’d claimed, not as deep as the other two, and had largely ceased bleeding. It was still the most difficult to tend, for reasons quite aside from skill.

They both caught a sharp breath when his fingers brushed her side. Fenris swallowed hard, saw her do the same.

It’s fine. I am simply helping a friend. Never had his thoughts seemed such blatant lies. He hesitated, and Hawke shifted.

“I can have Orana-” she began, but he shook his head.

“No.” He raised his head to meet her gaze, saw the walls barely holding... everything at bay in her eyes, and returned to the freckled skin around this last wound. “I said I would help, and I shall.”

“If you’re sure.” Hawke voice was rough and her posture still tense.

“I am.” He took needle and thread in hand, loosely rested his other hand on her hip to steady them both.

These stitches were less even, though no less secure, and his hands trembled  as he carefully wound the bandages. Tight enough to protect, loose enough they wouldn’t cause further harm.

“Thank you,” Hawke whispered as he stood. “I appreciate you... your help.”

He stood there a moment, many things he wanted to say warring for release, but none succeeded. “...You are most welcome,” he said instead, unable to resist tucking her hair behind her ear. A bruise was blossoming on her cheek. Hawke’s eyes fluttered closed and he withdrew his hand swiftly. “Is there anything else you need?”

She flashed a smile that was plainly forced, even with its brevity. “Just fresh clothes and sleep. Orana can help for those, though.” Her jaw tightened and she stared into the fire. “You don’t have to stay.”

I want to. The words made it to the tip of his tongue before they stuck, caught on pride or remorse or something else. He’d given up that right. It wasn’t his place, by his own choice. A choice he was no longer certain had been the right one. But it was the one he’d made, the one he’d needed to make, and he would accept what that meant. For both their sakes.

So he nodded, heart squeezing when her shoulders slumped just perceptibly. (Or did he imagine that?) “Sleep well, then, Hawke. I...” This much he could say. “I am glad you are alright. Relatively speaking.”

She laughed softly at his deadpan addendum and finally met his eyes. “As am I.”

With too much and no more to say, Fenris gave another nod and collected his gauntlets, pulling them back on as he headed out into the street. At least the chaos there he could do something to fix.

[fandomn00blr]

Day 92

of @the-wip-project​‘s 100 Days of Writing

Just wanna shout out @the-wip-project​, because the prompts this week, about the Heroine’s Journey, have been really great, and I’m shoving them all in a place ‘for later consideration’ (like when/if Spawn ever actually starts going to school again instead of all these puzzled together socially-distanced pre-school things that are eating up all my spare brain cells at the moment with orientation meetings and home visits and zoom meetings). 

I WILL say that Centaurworld (which I cannot say enough good things about as a great musical cartoon show, watchable by both children and adults) is like, the perfect example of both the Heroine’s Journey and the tension between it and the classic Hero’s Journey (without spoilering, the main protagonist, who is a horse, believes herself to be on a Hero’s Journey, but comes to the realization over and over again that she cannot, in fact, achieve her aims on her own...it’s a recurring theme for several of the characters, in fact!).

But for now, here’s another random snippet from that Samson and Anders BFFs thing I seem to be writing now. Both of them may also believe they are on their own Hero’s Journeys...but ya gotta have friends! (contains references to Samson’s lyrium addiction):

Anders reaches into his robes toward his potions belt. “I have some with me if you think it’ll help?”

“No.” Samson’s eyes dart frantically to the mage’s robes and he licks his lips. “Should probably just...get through it...I think...”

“I could try something else to treat your symptoms, then? If you’d like.” Anders’ fingertips begin to glow again, with a different sort of magic than before. Green creation magic. Regular healing magic. Without the help of his demon passenger.

“I’ve already tried elfroot and even paid some old hag in Lowtown to mumble some spell and wriggle her old wrinkled fingers over me. Doesn’t do anything for me.”

Anders laughs and the glow from his fingers gets brighter and spreads into his hands. “Stronger stuff, then…”

They’re still standing out in front of the Rose. And a mage wielding this kind of magic out in the open like this is sure to get some attention. Samson grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the closest alley while the magic begins to wash over him, like a panacea, already relieving some of his discomfort.

“You reckless idiot,” he snarls, pulling his hand away like it burns him instead.

There’s no denying it feels good, but what then? He’s gonna just hold the mage’s hand forever? Hardly a permanent nor practical solution, shackling one’s self to a mage who clearly enjoys showing off more than protecting his own hide.

“I’m not scared,” Anders balks. “Not anymore. Not since Justice showed me something bigger than myself.”

“Then you’ll be locked up or dead soon. And then what of your precious ‘Cause of Mages?’”

Anders glares at him, and his healing magic flares even brighter. A defiant one, then...unbroken by his undoubtedly difficult time in whatever Circle he’s spent time in. If he’d been brought up in the Gallows, Meredith would’ve made him Tranquil long before he had a chance to find confidence in a demon, but Samson somehow doubts his rebelliousness comes from his being an Abomination. It’s far too human. Too easy to poke holes in. Demons or spirits or whatever aren’t nearly so complicated.

“You already look a lot better...” the mage tells him with an air of smugness Samson can’t help but want to wipe from his face.

“Won’t last, though, will it?” Samson smirks. “Your magic tricks aren’t exactly a cure...”

Anders frowns, and he feels Justice stirring restlessly inside him again. “I...I’m trying to start a clinic!” he blurts out.

Samson raises an eyebrow at him. “A clinic, eh?”

“Yeah! For some of the refugees and other people here who can’t afford to go to the Chantry for healing. Or don’t want to...for...whatever reason. Mages, too, of course!” Anders’ hands, still glowing with his magic, begin waving excitedly in front of him as he keeps talking, creating a mesmerizing effect as the green trails move back and forth in front of him. “I could teach them. They could volunteer or just take what they learn and help people. It’ll be free, or funded by donation...whatever people want to contribute!”

He finally stops to take a breath, and his hands fall to his sides. Samson breathes a small sigh of disappointment when the glow begins to fade and Anders looks up sheepishly at him.

“I’m, uh...still trying to figure out some of the details,” he says.

“That’s awfully noble of you. But how exactly are you planning on avoiding Meredith’s goons? Your magic isn’t exactly subtle.”

“I…”

“Hmmm…” Samson scratches his stubbled chin. “You might be able to set up in one of the filthy hovels in Darktown,” he says ponderously. “Templars don’t really like messing around in the undercity unless they have to.”

“You...you think that’d work?”

Samson nods. “Gotta be ready to pack up and move fast if someone squawks, though.”

[ks0urced]

book meme :// the city in the middle of the night by charlie jane anders ( lightly edited to fit structure; change pronouns as necessary. )

i used to imagine that in the darkness, i could change shape.

that’s what history is -- the process for turning idiots into revolutionaries.

i don’t think of myself as special. i think of myself as invisible.

i want to keep surprising them all, until they die of surprise.

every time i think i know what’s wrong with me, i find something else.

tell me all about it when you’re yourself again.

you only fantasize about princes when you’ve never seen one.

i’ve lost a lot of people, and i’m very familiar with that thing where the past becomes an optical illusion.

dreams intrude into reality all the time, and you can’t waste your energy getting mad at them.

most people die for stupid reasons. the most anyone can hope for is to make some noise before that happens.

my life feels wrong, but good. maybe that’s the best i can do.

you’re in control. you’re stronger than those monsters.

have you ever had something happen to you that scared you so much you felt like you were going to keep reliving it forever?

i think this town thrives on hate.

i would have broken everything. i would have killed anybody to have you back here with me.

the part that worries me is where you care more about ghosts than the people right in front of you.

whatever comes next, we’re going to demolish it together.

a lot of what people call civilization is just neglect.

time passes, even when you can’t see it, and people keep grudges too long and die too soon.

i don’t know why i deserved to survive.

it’s already decided.

wasn’t like i chose to become a pacifist or anything, just that my body chose that on its own.

of course somebody was bound to try and weaponize you.

people always have brand-new reasons for doing the same thing over and over. i need to see something new.

i can’t stop screaming, after holding it in for so long.

i am so tired of this clumsy human voice. i never even liked talking.

i can finally understand, and be understood.

i wasn’t ready for how much i miss people, after always wishing i could escape from them.

dread lasted longer and went deeper than awe or joy.

i can't stand to think of myself as having a human body, or a voice that could expel sounds human ears could catch and ingest. 

i thought i'd made peace with these memories.

you’re my jinx. i guess i have to find a way to live with you.

to join with others to shape the future is the holiest act.

you were going to make everything better.

i’m still me. i haven’t changed.

[blarrghe]

Fic writer meme!

Was tagged by @hawkeish @inquisitoracorn @hollyand-writes @musetta3 and @noire-pandora so it’s probably time I do this thing. Will tag @midnightprelude @oftachancer @silversynthesis and @fandomn00blr who have probably all already done this or at least been tagged but I lose track (let me know if you did this already) Name: I’m blarrghe on here and blarghe with only one r on AO3, keepin’ it simple. Fandoms: Just Dragon Age really Most popular oneshot: Anders, Attraction, Other Things That Start With A Most popular multichapter: The Merrill Sessions, by like, a lot. Which is a tad distressing because I’m not 100% on where it’s going yet... Actual worst part of writing: research probably. The other day I went “Halward Pavus is a venture capitalist!” and then I had to go learn what venture capitalists even do and on god it’s so boring. How you choose your titles: Depends. A few have shakespeare-inspired titles (regardless of any actually related shakespeare inspiration in the plot, but y’know, it’s shakespeare, so it’s in there somewhere.) My wips usually have silly titles so I just try to grab on to something from the story. Do you outline: Yes, to varying degrees. I usually write out a sort of point-form plan of events, and in places it might be elaborated on to the point of having full blocks of dialogue or basically perfect scenes. And it changes as the story shapes up. Every now and then a one-shot just pops out fully formed all by itself though. Usually between 2-4am or while I’m on a bus.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?

- prequel fic to my longfic Shall We Not Revenge? that follows my OC Leila through the Fifth Blight when she was a child fleeing Kinloch Hold to the point where she joins the Inquisition, which would feature my Warden Surana and my Hawke both as background characters since she passes through both of their stories unseen. It would be very OC heavy, feature a lot of bardic intrigue in Orlais, and probably no one would read it but it would be a really fun and cool way to connect all my stories.

- Prequel fic for Taren Lavellan because wow I really did not have to go so hard on fleshing out his backstory but it’s all there. Would feature sexy sailors, a ton of Dalish lore that I just fully make up, and the Found Family trope. Would love to do it as a handful of comics one day or smth.

- post tresspasser “Veronica Mars style” canon-compliant college mystery fic where Taren goes to the University of Orlais to be a giant nerd/guest professor. It would feature Dorian being framed for murder and silly college roommate drama.

- Um, finishing Shall We Not Revenge. I’ll get back to it eventually. And then probably rewrite half of it because it’s a goddamn mess.

- A bunch of heavy metal power ballads about gay elves.

Callouts @ Me: I’ve never kept a regular schedule in my life. Best writing traits: People have said I am good at capturing character voices and I’d tend to agree. I think my dialogue is pretty good and I’ve definitely gotten better at descriptive metaphor of late. Also my OCs are very fleshed out & you should care about them.

Spicy Tangential Opinion: I’ve read so many good takes in response to this question over the last few days that it’s hard to think of something new to say! @inquisitoracorn in particular said something really good about recognition being more luck than skill which was true and also comforting.

Ok this has probably been said in a lot of ways but yesterday I went on a little rant because in this house we read a lot of comics and a lot of mythology. So recently it’s been the Poetic Edda and I found myself thinking about art and stories and human nature and Thor, who in Marvel comics is so wholly divorced from his Eddic origins. He’s walkin’ around in blue jeans and kissing scientists in a modern setting while having plotlines that are vaguely Norse-mythology-inspired and also other things. Meanwhile the mythology itself is just an accumulation of years of oral traditions that changed over time, and so on and so on. And so if a writer were to take the Thor of the MCU and stick him in a story based on like, a Jane Austen novel, the only difference there between that person and a Marvel writer is whether or not they’re getting paid.

Anyway the point is one part “fanfic is real writing” and one part “Information Wants To Be Free”. We talk about fanfic being great practice as if it’s practice for real writing, and while it is great practice, it’s also not actually any different to tell stories for free with characters and tropes and themes you took from other places because that’s all art ever is, anyway. And people do incredible things with themes and new riffs on existing thoughts and references to classics and on and on in fanfic! For the most part I think people in fandoms tend to understand and appreciate this, but because Anyone Can Put Anything On the Internet (even if it’s bad!) there’s a bit of stigma over the “realness” of the art. But making stories is what humans do and they should get to do it in whatever capacity they want. Art should be weird and personal and stolen from everywhere; there’s no such thing as a wholly original idea because that’s not how skills are learned. You gotta learn ‘em from somewhere -- from other people’s art. As long as you are not actively harming others or inciting harm then just like, make shit.

Oh also, that all said, you should definitely read real books to get better at writing.

[tearsofwinter]

Piercing

Another day at the Bone Pit with Hawke, another day being drenched in spider guts. At least after years of adventuring at the godforsaken place, they knew to set up camp near a lake where they could freshen up.

Waist deep in the water, Anders took his time scrubbing himself clean. He was halfway done with bathing when he felt eyes on him. He turned, unalarmed, and raised a questioning brow at Fenris. If they were still who they were in the past, the gang wouldn't dare leave the two of them alone to bathe, for fear they'd kill each other if an argument got too heated. But now? A different kind of heat filled the air between them.

"What?" Anders asked with a knowing half-smile. "Mesmerized by my handsome charm?"

"Yes," Fenris bluntly replied without batting an eyelash.

Under the determined gaze, Anders flushed a pleased pink. He was used to throwing flirtatious lines- it was his second nature- and more often than not, it earned him exasperation or scorn. He forgot, however,  Fenris liked getting to the point.

"Don't move." The elf sidled up behind him, an arm wrapped securely around his waist. Anders hummed in content, the warmth of Fenris skin seeping into his back.

"Not that I'm against a quick round, are you sure this is the place to do it? It's almost Hawke and Varric's turn to bathe. I suppose we could give them a good show. I'm sure Varric would love to use it for his novel."

Fenris snorted and nipped the other's collarbone for his quip. "Does your mouth ever stop moving?"

"Only if it's full of something. Particularly if it's full of you."

Perhaps taking it as an invitation to touch wherever he pleased, Fenris brushed Anders' hair aside. The blond shivered as his nape was exposed. He felt Fenris' hot breath against his neck, inches away from his skin. "Maybe the next place we pierce, it should be your tongue," the elf whispered. Anders gasped, arching into Fenris as a tongue lapped at the piercing on his nape. The arm around his waist tightened, holding him still. "How should I take you when I push a needle through that filthy tongue of yours? Should you sit in my lap with your tongue out and my cock in your ass?" Teeth bit into the metal bars. They pulled at the piercing, but the teasing sting was easily soothed by a teasing kiss.

"Every time I catch a glimpse of gold flashing on your neck, when you play with your hair, when you let your hair loose or tie it up, I'm reminded of you were on all four, letting me fuck you as I gave you the nape piercing." Fenris' free hand trailed down Anders' chest before it caught hold of the ring on the mage's pert nipple. He tugged and Anders moaned, letting the back of his head fall back against Fenris' shoulder.

Fenris chuckled. He played with the mage's chest- sometimes pulling at the golden piercing, sometimes thumbing the reddening tip. "These were the first. But certainly not the last. Where should the next one go?" His hand trailed lower, water from his hand dripping down Anders' torso.

"Here?" Fenris asked, just above the human's abdomen. Anders reached back, grabbing the back of Fenris thigh for support, for sanity, but he did nothing to stop the elf from whispering dirty, obscene things into his ear. Maker he wished Fenris never stopped...

"How about here?" Fenris hand dipped lower, beneath the water's edge. Anders bit his lip, stifling a groan as fingers wrapped around his cock and gave an experimental stroke.

"Just like the others, no one will see it. Only you and I will know." Fenris went back to lap at the piercings on Anders' neck. "Only you and I will know, you belong to me."

"LAST ONE IN IS A STINKY DWARF!!" Fenris had a moment to whip his head around, catching sight of a blurred, furry creature before he sprang apart from Anders. At the lake's shore, he saw Varric shaking his head, slowly making his way into the water, unlike Hawke.

"Since I'm already a dwarf who is dirty because someone decided to bring me to the Bone Pit, I think you owe me Hawke."

The blurry, furry creature Fenris saw was Hawke diving into the lake. He broke through the lake's surface, squirting water from his mouth.  "Hey guys!" the human swam around the other two, leisurely doing backstrokes. "Hope you don't mind us dropping in. The guts were starting to cake in places that weren't supposed to be caked. Did we interrupt anything?"  

[lesetoilesfous]

For DADW, #24 or #39 for the dialogue prompt list for Kanders?

Ok you correctly hit my Specific Angst Buttons so thank you for that, anon, this prompt was basically irresistible

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Anders/Karl Thekla

Characters: Anders, Karl Thekla

Tags: pre-canon, the Circle is a nightmare, reference to ongoing abuse, frank discussion of sexual abuse, coercive power dynamics, basically templars bad

Rating: Mature

“We need to talk about what happened last night.” Karl is trying, hard, to keep his voice level. He’s not really sure he’s succeeding. In the dark, Anders’ eyes are bright and gold as a cat’s, blinking at him from the shadows of the bookshelf. This particular section of the library has been their preferred meeting point for the past month - a place where the shelves are built in such a way as to create a nook - with only one opening through which they might be seen. Slices of moonlight skate through the narrow, high openings above the bricked up windows, barely breathing light across the dusty wood and old books. The shivering blanket of magic that permeates the Circle prickles over their skin like electricity. 

Anders huffs, and puffs a strand of hair out of his face as he does so. His skin is white as bone in the dark. All of them are paler than they should be, but where Karl’s skin has faded to a lighter brown, Anders is almost ghostly. Karl misses the freckles that used to skate up his arms and across his cheeks, when they were still allowed to go outside. He can barely see them now, and certainly not in the dark.

“What’s there to talk about? I fixed it, didn’t I?” Anders’ voice is deliberately irreverent, in a way Karl has long since learned means that he has no intention of being anything other than stubbornly defensive. 

The sound of metal footsteps on stone echoes through the library as Rufus takes his patrol. Both of them tense, careful to maintain a distance between them even as they wait for the echoing scrape of steel on stone to fade away. 

Karl looks at Anders, preparing to argue with him, when a movement catches his eye. He doesn’t think when he lifts a hand to Anders’ warm cheek, testing his hypothesis. “You’re trembling.” Karl says the words as softly as he can, and Anders’ jaw tightens as he pulls away from him.

“It’s cold. Look, are we doing this or what? I’ve got a Creation exam in the morning and you know Wynne’ll bite my head off if I fail it again.”

Karl doesn’t mention the fact that the library is the same dull, tepid temperature at which the entirety of the Circle is always kept - enchanted into a lukewarm stasis. He also doesn’t point out that Anders’ body, pressed so close to his, is as warm as it ever is: all but blazing heat and signalling to any mage with an ounce of sense what his natural school was, despite his remarkable aptitude for spirit healing.

Instead, Karl steps back when Anders steps forward, back bumping into the bookshelf as he does so. Very gently, Karl catches Anders’ hands. “Anders, I’m not...I don’t want to use you.”

In the grey shadows of the library, Karl barely sees the way Anders’ eyes tighten, even as he jerks his hands back and tucks his hair behind his ear with a quick, impatient movement. “Why not? Everyone else does.”

Karl recoils, trying to ignore the sudden ache of hurt that cuts open in his chest at that. He takes a moment to breathe, and taste the musty smell of old paper and the closer salt and sweat and seemingly perpetual elfroot taste of Anders. When he speaks, he does so calmly. “I told you before. I don’t want to be like them.”

Anders falters, then, and moves forward, lifting one long hand to Karl’s cheek. His eyes are serious when he meets his gaze. “You’re not.”

The sound of a door breaking open in a crash of wood and metal makes both of them jump, stiffening as it’s followed by a bellowing roar that starts human and ends...less so. Both Anders and Karl flinch at the weird, inverted tug on the Fade of templar magic, and the ringing crash of metal. For what feels like forever, Karl stands with Anders’ hand on his cheek and wonders which of the enchanters the templars are killing this week. He wonders if it’s Uldred. 

Finally, the noise stops. From outside the library, Karl can feel the prickling, weak pull on the Fade of frightened apprentices, tugging like the claws of kittens caught in loose fabric. Slowly, systematically, both he and Anders relax. 

Karl speaks first. “Maybe...tonight isn’t -”

“No!” Anders speaks too quickly, and his voice echoes. For a moment both of them stand still, waiting for the sound to fade, and then waiting longer, to see if anyone had heard it. At the absence of the sound of metal on stone, Anders lowers his hand to clutch at the fabric of Karl’s sleeve. He lowers his eyes, too, staring down at their feet instead of meeting Karl’s gaze. “Please. I need...”

Anders stops and swallows. Karl moves closer to him, resting one hand on his shoulder. “What do you need?”

Anders shakes his head and closes the distance between them, bending to press his head against Karl’s chest. Carefully, Karl holds him, conscious as he always is of how easily his own farmer’s arms dwarf Anders’ body. They’d both been raised in the countryside, but where Anders had shot up like a beansprout and more than once suffered restricted meals, Karl had been the apparent image of good behaviour, and had broadened as he’d grown. When Anders speaks, his voice is muffled against Karl’s chest. “It feels different with you. Better. Good. I just...I want to feel good.”

Karl’s arms tighten around Anders’ back, and he forces himself to ask the question he’s been avoiding. “Did they -?”

Anders doesn’t let him finish, pulling back and shaking his head with a soft whisper of fabric. “They didn’t hurt me.” He smiles, and it’s bright and bitter in the dark. “I’m the tower whore, remember? I’ll fuck anyone.” The smile falls, and he looks away. “Even templars.” As quickly as the melancholy had descended, it’s gone,and Anders shrugs again, grinning. “The main thing is that we’ve still got those explosives.” His smile grows crooked. “Though the less you know about that, the better.”

Karl resists the urge to chastise him. It’s nights like these when he finds himself counting down the days until Anders’ next escape, and the brief blessed relief he could enjoy on the days he went uncaptured - imagining him outside of these walls, in the sunshine, away from the templars and their grasping hands. 

“So! Shall we get on with it?” Karl knows Anders well enough, by now, to hear the tremor in his voice. But even as he speaks he moves forward, and his hand falls between Karl’s legs, warm and deft as he ever is. Karl’s stomach flips, and he carefully catches Anders wrist, pushing him back and away. He tries not to panic at the sudden hurt in his eyes.

“I have a better idea.”

*

“This is stupid.” Anders says, but doesn’t move from where he’s sat curled against Karl’s chest, breathing gently, tucked beneath an old rough canvas cloth, usually used for the store rooms tucked behind the library bookshelves.

Karl hums, and runs his hand in slow, soothing circles over Anders’ back. Anders shifts, and looks up at him, and his hair tickles the base of Karl’s throat.

“I don’t get you, Thekla.” 

Karl grins a little at him, raising an eyebrow. “No?”

Anders turns a little more, tucking himself against Karl’s legs, folded awkwardly into his body on the stone floor. “No. You want to fuck me, right?”

Karl hesitates, and tries to ignore the way Anders’ eyes are burning into him, as if at any moment he’ll see what’s been puzzling him and finally tire of him, as Karl cannot help but fear he inevitably will. Carefully, he replies, “Sometimes.”

Anders frowns, and impatiently pushes his hair back behind his ear. It needs a cut, but he insists on wearing it long. Karl is glad of it, despite the impracticality. Anders has very lovely hair. “But you l-,” Anders catches himself, “you like me, don’t you?”

Karl sits up a little, trying to get a better look at Anders’ expression. “Of course.”

“So, why are we...cuddling on the floor instead of fucking like nugs the way the Maker intended?” Anders’ words come out in a rush, and Karl thinks he’d almost find them funny if the memory of how easily Anders had offered himself to the new recruits who’d caught them messing with force magic was not so fresh in his mind. If the memory of how easily the recruits had agreed, and let Karl go, wasn’t fresher. Instead, bile kicks into the back of his throat, and he carefully disentangles himself from Anders, putting some distance between them and trying to ignore the sudden chill. 

“Anders.”

“Karl.” Anders repeats, mocking, before he can continue. Karl feels a giddy, stupid rush of relief at that. An Anders who could tease him was not an Anders who trembled when he heard the templars coming. 

With an effort, Karl gathers his thoughts. “I do care about you. You’re,” Karl stops, and feels for a moment the deep and burning hatred that sits somewhere in his chest at how thoroughly the Circle has stolen even this from him as his tongue stumbles over the words, “You’re...very special to me.” I love you. You’re the love of my life. I would die for you and kill for you and instead I cannot even say I love you.

Karl’s fingers curl into a loose fist, and Anders sits forward, absently reaching out and taking his hand. Karl lets him, and feels himself begin to relax as Anders plays with his fingers, waiting for him to continue. After a moment, Karl does, staring at the rectangle of moonlight stamped by the distant window onto the stone between them like a bar of silver. 

“But that’s not dependent on sex. If we never had sex again, I wouldn’t...care for you any less. It’s not, necessary to me and honestly the idea that this is something you -” Karl stops, again, and wishes vehemently for even an ounce of Anders’ laughing eloquence as he tries to lift his leaden tongue. “I don’t want to use you. I don’t want you to feel...obligated to me, or like you owe me some kind of service. You don’t owe me your body, Anders. You don’t owe anyone that. “ 

Anders has stopped playing with his hand, and is staring down at their fingers with a fixed, still, glassy-eyed expression that Karl cannot read. He feels a sense of urgency building in him as he finishes, turning his hand to squeeze Anders’ tightly. “Lying with you is a gift and a privilege if and when you choose to share it, and you can always, always rescind that invitation. I don’t...it’s not appealing to me to do this unless you want it too. Not because you think I want it.” 

Karl stops, and pushes a hand up through his hair, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks and up the back of his neck as he finishes, a little awkwardly. “I only want this if you want me too.”

For a long, terrible moment Anders is quiet. When he speaks, his voice is rough and low. “I don’t know what I want.” He blinks, and his eyes glitter like gold in deep water in the shadows. “They...tell me - my body - I’m.” Anders stops, then, and clenches his teeth, pursing his lips and taking a quick, deep breath through his nose. His hand tightens around Karl’s, squeezing so hard it’s almost painful. Karl doesn’t pull away. “But it doesn’t feel good.”

Karl tries very hard to control the sudden thrum of his magic, stretching out across the air of the library like a hand on the skin of a drum. Anders tilts his head at him, feeling the familiar pull on the Fade, and Karl shakes his head, forcing himself to let the feeling go. Then he sits forward, and takes Anders’ other hand.

“That’s ok. We’ve not got much, but we do at least have time.” He tilts his head, and smiles, and Anders snorts. Karl thinks, for one childish, wistful moment, that he wouldn’t mind living a life without the sun if it meant he got to grow old with him.

“So...” Anders voice is low, but it still feels dangerously loud in the quiet. “Now what?”

Karl shrugs, and it pulls at their joined hands. “How did you feel about cuddling?��

Anders is quiet for a moment, his thumb running over the back of Karl’s hand. “It...I liked it, I think. They don’t normally -” He stops himself. “I’m not used to it.”

Karl tries, again, to push away his anger, and leans backward - not so much pulling Anders as inviting him to move if he wants to. After a moment, Anders comes, shy as a beaten cat. Karl tries not to think too much about the accuracy of the image. 

Slowly, carefully, they lie down on the stone floor, and Karl pulls the canvas back up over their bodies. They’ll have to move, soon. They certainly can’t be discovered here by morning. 

But, gingerly, Anders rests his head on Karl’s arm and presses his hand against his chest, over his heart. Slowly, his breathing evens, and the space between them grows warm with their shared breath. Karl watches as Anders hesitantly shuts his eyes and presses closer, fingers curling in the fabric of his robe, like a child. Karl supposes Wynne would say that they were, with him at eighteen summers and Anders at sixteen. They hadn’t even been Harrowed yet.

But that’s a nightmare for another day.

For now, Karl curls his other arm around Anders’ body and holds him close, and runs his hand gently through his hair.

[aion-rsa]

How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space

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A close-knit crew of wildly different people ride around on a spaceship having adventures. If you’re a sci-fi fan, there are very good odds that this synopsis describes one of your hooks into the genre. That crew might be a dysfunctional band of space criminals and revolutionaries, or a clean cut team of scientists, diplomats and soldiers serving a galactic Space UN, but there is a core appeal to this set up across the genre.

“Ensemble crews are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to forge a found family.  A foundational example for me was Blake’s 7,” says Paul Cornell, who has written stories for the Star Trek: Year Five comic series among his many speculative fiction credits. “They haven’t been recruited, they have relative degrees of distance from the cause, they’ve been flung together.  The most important thing is that they’re all very different people.”

These Are the Voyages…

It’s a formula that has been repeated over and over for about as long as there has been science fiction on television—starting with the likes of Star Trek and Blake’s 7, through the boom in “planet of the week” style TV in the 90s and 00s with Farscape and Firefly, to more recent stories like Dark Matter, The Expanse, Killjoys, and the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Most recently Sky’s Intergalactic, and the Korean movie Space Sweepers have been carrying the standard, while last month saw people diving back into the world of Mass Effect with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. While Commander Sheppard is ostensibly the protagonist of the video game trilogy, few would argue that it’s anything other than the ensemble of the Normandy crew that keeps people coming back.

As science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders points out, it’s not hard to see the appeal of a family of likeable characters, kept in close quarters by the confines of their ship, and sent into stories of adventure.

“I love how fun this particular strand of space opera is, and how much warmth and humour the characters tend to have,” Anders says. “These stories have in common a kind of swashbuckling adventure spirit and a love of problem-solving and resourcefulness. And I think the ‘found family’ element is a big part of it, since these characters are always cooped up on a tiny ship together and having to rely on each other.”

Over the years the Star Wars franchise has delivered a number of mismatched spaceship crews, from various ensembles to have crewed the Millennium Falcon, to the band of rebels in Rogue One, to the crew of the Ghost in Star Wars: Rebels.

That energy was one of the inspirations for Laura Lam and Elizabeth May, the writers behind Seven Devils and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies. In Seven Devils, a team of very different women come together aboard a starship stolen from an oppressive, galaxy-spanning empire, clashing with each other as much as the regime they are fighting. 

“So many of these stories are what we grew up with, and they were definitely influences. The scrappy people trying to make a living or rebel against a higher power, or the slick luxury communism of Star Trek,” says Lam. “What’s great and terrible about space is how you are often stuck on a ship with people, for better or worse. That isolation can breed really interesting character conflict and deep bonds. You have to have your crew’s back, otherwise space or alien plants are too large or dangerous [to survive].”

While the “Seven” duology is very much inspired by this genre of space adventure, it also brings these stories’ underlying political themes to the surface.

“What I enjoy most about space operas is taking contemporary socio-cultural and political issues and exploring them through a different lens,” says May. “I love to think of them in terms of exploration, analogous to ships navigating the vastness of a sea. And on journeys that long, with only the ocean and saltwater (space) around you, things become fraught. Yes, these are tales of survival, but they’re also tales of what it means to question the world around you. Aside from the cultural questions that [premise] raises, it opens possibilities for conflict, character bonding, and worldbuilding.”

In Yudhanjaya Wijeratne’s novel, The Salvage Crew, his ensemble don’t spend long on their ship. In the opening scene, they are plummeting through the atmosphere of an alien planet in a drop-pod piloted by an AI who is also the book’s narrator. But the book shares that sense of characters who need to stick close together in the face of a large and dangerous universe.

“What did I like about [space team stories]? Well, always the sense of wonder that the scale brought me: the feeling that Earth, and all our bickering, was just a tiny speck of dust – what Sagan called ‘the pale blue dot’ – and out there was an entire universe waiting to be explored,” Wijeratne says. “I treasured the darkness, as well: the darkness of the void, the tragedy of people in confined spaces, and a terror of the deep that only the deep sea brings me. It wasn’t the family attitude: it was more the constraints and the clever plays within terrifyingly close constraints. There’s a kind of grim, lunatic nihilism you need for those situations, and I loved seeing that.”

When asked for their favourite examples of the genre, one name kept coming up. Wijeratne, Anders, Lam, and May all recommended the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers. The first in the series, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, concerns the crew not of an elite space naval vessel, or a renegade crew of space criminals, but of a ship that lays hyperspace tunnels for other, more glamorous ships to travel through. This job of space road-laying is one that I can only recall seeing once before, much more catastrophically, in the Vogon Constructor Fleet of Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a very different tale, however.

May tells us, “It’s a quieter space tale, a novel that feels very much like a warm hug. I love it with all my heart.”

Chambers doesn’t hold back when describing the impact this genre had on her growing up.

“I can’t remember life without these stories,” she says. “TNG first aired when I was three years old, and I watched Trek every week with my family until Voyager wrapped when I was sixteen. I can recite most of the original Star Wars trilogy word for word while I’m watching the movies, and I binged Farscape like my life depended on it when I was in college. This storytelling tradition is so much a part of my fabric that I have a hard time articulating what it is I like about it so much. It’s just a part of me, at this point. These stories are fun, full stop. They’re exciting. They can break your heart and crack you up in equal measure. They’re about small little clusters of people doing extraordinary things within an impossibly vast and beautiful universe. Everything about my work is rooted here. I can’t imagine who I’d be without these stories.”

The Unchosen Ones

Perhaps a big part of the appeal of these stories is that they are about an ensemble of people, each with their own stories and goals and perspectives. It can be refreshing where science fiction and fantasy frequently centre stories of “the Chosen One”, be it a slayer, boy wizard, or Jedi who is the person the narrative happens to. While Chosen One stories will frequently have a wide supporting cast, the emphasis for those other characters is frequently on the “supporting”.

“I very intentionally wanted to do something other than a ‘chosen one’ story with Wayfarers. I’m not sure I can speak to any broader trend in this regard, but with my own work, I really wanted to make it clear that the universe belongs to everybody in equal measure,” Chambers says. “Space opera is so often the realm of heroes and royalty, and I love those stories, but there’s a parallel there to how we think about space in the real world. Astronauts are and have always been an exceptional few. I wanted to shift the narrative and make it clear that we all have a place out there, and that even the most everyday people have stories worth telling.”

It’s an increasingly popular perspective. Perhaps it’s telling that one of the most recent Star Trek spin-offs, Lower Decks, focuses not on the super-heroic bridge crew, but the underlings and red shirts that do their dirty work, and that in turn echoes the ultra-meta John Scalzi novel, Redshirts.

Charlie Jane Anders’ recently released young adult novel, Victories Greater Than Death is a story that starts off with an almost archetypical “Chosen One” premise. The story’s protagonist, Tina, is an ordinary teenage girl, but is also the hidden clone of the hero of a terrible alien war. But as the story progresses, it evolves into something much more like an ensemble space adventure.

“I was definitely thinking about that a lot in this book in particular,” Anders says. “Tina keeps thinking of the other earth kids as a distraction from her heroic destiny or as people she needs to protect. Her friend Rachael is the one who keeps pushing for them to become a family and finally gets through to Tina.”

Seven Devils (and its upcoming sequel, Seven Mercies) is also a story that tries to focus on the exact people who would never be considered “chosen” or who have wilfully turned away from their destiny.

“I do like that most of them [the characters] are those the Tholosians wrote off as unimportant–people to be used for their bodies, and not encouraged to use their minds,” Lam says. “And Eris’s journey turning away from the life chosen for her and choosing her own, but having to wrangle with what she still did for the Empire before she did, makes her a very interesting character to write. In many ways, she was complicit, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to atone.”

Wijeratne also argues that an ensemble story is in many ways more true to life.

“Rarely in life do you find this Randian John Galt type, this solo hero that changes the world by themselves; more often you find a group of people with similar interests, covering for each other, propping each other up,” he says. “It’s how we humans, as a species, have evolved. Our strength is not in our individual prowess, but in the fact that three people working together can take down a mammoth, and a thousand people working together can raise a monument to eternity.”

While there are certainly themes and kinds of story that are more suited to ensemble storytelling, May points out that there is plenty of room for both kinds of story.

“Having written books that explore both, I find that Chosen One narratives are often stories of duty, obligation, and self-discovery,” she says. “Ensemble narratives often involve themes of acceptance and friendship bonds. To me, these serve different narrative functions and ask separate questions.”

A Space of Their Own

The spaceship-crews-on-adventures subgenre is one of the major pillars of science fiction as a whole, with the trope codifier, Star Trek, being likely one of the first names that comes to mind when you think of the genre. This means that the writers working within the subgenre are not only heavily influenced by what came before, they are also in conversation, and sometimes argument with it.

Paul Cornell is a huge Star Trek fan, and has written for the characters before. His upcoming novella, Rosebud, features the quite Star Trek-ish scenario of a crew of AIs, some formerly humans, some not, investigating an anomaly. It’s a story that very much intersects with the ideals of Star Trek.

“Rosebud is about a crew who are meant to believe in something, but no longer really do,” Cornell says. “They’re a bunch of digital beings with varying origins, some of whom were once human, some of whom weren’t.  There’s a conflict under the surface that nobody’s talking about, and when they encounter, in a very Trek way, an anomalous object, it’s actually a catalyst for their lives changing enormously.  I’m a huge fan of the Trek ethos.  I like good law, good civilisation, civil structures that do actually allow everyone to live their best lives, and Rosebud is about how far we’ve got from that, and a passion for getting back to that path.”

Other stories more explicitly react against the more dated or normative conventions in the genre. Seven Devils, for instance, both calls out and subverts the very male demographics of a lot of these stories.

“For a lot of ensemble casts, you get the token woman (Guardians of the Galaxy, for example) and until recently, things were fairly heteronormative,” Lam says. “So we basically wanted to turn things around and have a gang of mostly queer women being the ones to save the universe. We also went hard on critiquing imperialism and monarchies with too much power.”

Indeed, the “space exploration” that is the cornerstone of much of the genre, is an idea deeply rooted in a colonialist, and often racist tradition.

I’ve written my own space ensemble story, an ongoing series of four “planet of the week” style novellas, Fermi’s Progress. One of my concerns with the genre is how often the hero spaceship will turn up at a “primitive” planet, then overthrow a dictator, or teach the women about this human concept called “love”, or otherwise solve the local’s century’s old, deeply rooted societal problems in half-an-hour and change in a way that felt extremely “white colonialists going out and fixing the universe”.

My solution was simple. In Fermi’s Progress, the crew’s prototype spaceship has an experimental FTL drive that unfortunately vaporises every planet they visit as they fly away. It’s a device that riffs off the “overturn a planet’s government then never mention them again” trope of planet-of-the-week stories, keeps the ship and crew moving, and leaves the reader in no doubt as to whether or not these “explorers” are beneficial to the places they visit.

Of course, not every effort to engage with these issues needs to be so dramatic.

“Since I tend to view space operas in terms of uncharted exploration, it’s crucial that the text addresses or confronts power issues in its various forms: who has it, who suffers from it, how is it wielded?” May says. “And sometimes those questions have extraordinarily messy and complicated answers in ways that do not fit neatly with ‘good team overthrows evil empire.’ One of the things I wanted to address was this idea of ‘rebels are the good guys.’ Who gets to be a good person? Who else pays the price for morality? In Seven Devils, the character of Eris ends up doing the dirty, violent work of the rebellion so the others can sleep at night–so that they can feel they’ve made moral and ethical choices. And for that same work, she’s also judged more harshly by those in the rebellion who get to have clear consciences because of her actions.”

“I had particular beef with the homogeneity,” says Wijeratne. “An entire planet where x race was of an identical sentiment? Pfft. At the same time, this naive optimism, that people can work together on a planetary scale to set up institutions and megastructures without enormous amounts of politics and clashes. I was most frustrated with this in Clarke’s work. [Rendezvous with] Rama in particular: it just didn’t compute with what I knew of people.”

As a consequence of the genre’s colonialist roots—not to mention the nature of most real spaceflight programmes—space in these stories can feel like an extremely militarised space. Even a gang of misfits, fugitives and renegades like the Farscape cast features at least a couple of trained soldiers at any one time.

“I didn’t want my characters to be just redshirts or ensigns, who get ordered around and seldom get to take much initiative,” Anders points out. “And I was interested in exploring the notion that a space force organized by non-humans might have very different ideas about hierarchy and might not have concepts like ‘chain of command’. I tried not to fall unthinkingly into the military tropes that Trek, in particular, is prone to.”

Chambers was also driven by a desire to show people who were working in space without wearing a uniform.

“I wanted to tell space stories that weren’t about war or military politics,” she explains. “These things exist in the Wayfarers universe, and I personally love watching a space battle as much as anybody, but I think it’s sad if the only stories we tell about the future are those that focus on new and inventive ways of killing each other.  Human experience is so much broader than that, and we are allowed to imagine more.”

Getting the Band Together

Writing a story built around an ensemble, rather than a single main character, brings its own challenges with it. In many ways, creating a central protagonist is easy. The story has to happen to somebody. Creating an ensemble can be tricker. Each character needs to feel like they’re the protagonist of their own story, but also the cast is in many ways a tool box for the writer to bring different perspectives and methods to bear on the issue at the centre of their story. Different writers take very different approaches to how they put that toolbox together.

“I had some types I wanted to play with, and I was consciously allowing myself to go a little wild, so they get to push against the walls of my own comfort zone,” Cornell says of the AI crew in Rosebud.  “I created a group of very different people, tried them against each other, and edited them toward the most interesting conflicts that suited my theme.”

Anders also went through various iterations in assembling her cast of characters for Victories Greater Than Death.

“I went through a huge process of trial and error, figuring out exactly how many Earth characters I wanted in the book and how to introduce them,” she says. “I wanted characters who had their own reason for being there and who would either challenge Tina or represent a different viewpoint somehow. I think that’s usually how you get an interesting ensemble, by trying to have different viewpoints in the mix.”

In writing Fermi’s Progress, I very much tried to cut the crew from whole cloth, thinking of them primarily as a flying argument. Thinking about the original Star Trek crew, most of the stories are driven by the ongoing debate between Spock’s pragmatism, McCoy’s emotions, and Kirk’s sense of duty, and so the Fermi’s crew was written to have a number of perspectives that would be able to argue interestingly about the different things they would encounter.

Others, however, focus strongly on the individual characters before looking at how they fit together.

“I gravitate much more toward writing multiple POVs than sticking with just one. Character dynamics are catnip to me, and I love to play with them from all angles. But building each character is a very individual sort of process,” Chambers says. “I want each of them to feel like a whole person, and I’m struggling to think of any I’ve created to complete another. I just spend some time with a character all on their own, then start making them talk to each other — first in pairs, then in larger groups. I shuffle those combinations around until everybody comes alive.”

In writing Seven Devils, May and Lam began with a core pair of characters, then built outwards.

“El [Lam] and I each started with a single character we wanted to explore,” May recalls. “For me, it was Eris, who also had the benefit of being an exploration of thorny issues of morality. Eris’ natural foil was Clo–conceived of by El–who believes in the goodness of the rebellion. From there, our cast expanded as different aspects of imperial oppression that we wanted to address: colonial expansion via the military, brainwashing, the use of artificial intelligence. Each character provides a unique perspective of how the Empire in Seven Devils functions and how it crushes autonomy and self-determination.”

“We started with Eris and Clo,” Lam agrees. “Eris is sort of like Princess Leia if she and Luke had been raised by Darth Vader but she realised the Empire was evil and faked her own death to join the rebellion. Clo has elements of Luke in that she grew up on a backwater planet where things go wrong, but it was overpopulated versus wide open desert with a few moons. She also just has a lot more fury and rage that doesn’t always go in the right direction. Then we created the other three women they meet later in the narrative, and did a combination of using archetypes as jumping off points (courtesan, mercenary, genius hacker) but taking great care crafting their backstories and motivations and how they all related to each other.”

Ensuring that every character has their own story to be the protagonist of is something you can trace right back through the genre- particularly with series like Farscape, Firefly, and the more recent Intergalactic, where the crews often feels thrown together by circumstance and the characters are very much pursuing their own goals.

Balancing all of these different perspectives and voices is the real trick, especially if you want to avoid slipping back into the set-up of a star protagonist and their backing singers.

“This was a bit of a struggle, especially in a book with a single pov,” Anders says. “In the end all I could do was give each character their own goals and ideals that aren’t just an extension of Tina’s. It really helps if people have agendas that aren’t just related to the main plot.”

“We have five point of view characters and seven in the sequel, and it was definitely a challenge,” Lam admits. “For the first book, we started with just Eris and Clo until the reader was situated, and then added in the other three. We gave each character their own arc and problem to solve, and essentially asked ourselves ‘if [X] was the protagonist, what would they journey be?’ Which is useful to ask of any character, especially the villains!”

Chambers has a surprisingly practical solution to the problem: colour-coded post-it notes.

“Some characters will naturally have more weight in the story than others, but I do try to balance it out,” Chambers says. “One of the practical tricks I find helpful is colour-coding post-it notes by POV character, then mapping out all the chapters in the book on the wall. That makes it very easy to see who the dominant voices are, and I can adjust from there as needed.”

A Ship with Character

One cast member these stories all have in common is the ship they travel in. Sometimes the ship is a literal character in itself, such as the organic ship Moya in Farscape, but even when not actually sentient, the ship will help set the tone for the entire story, whether it’s the sweeping lines and luxurious interiors of the Enterprise D, or the cosy, hand-painted communal kitchen of Serenity. When describing the Fermi in my own story, I made it a mix of real and hypothetical space technology, and pure nonsense, in a way that felt like the story’s mission statement.

Seven Devils’ stolen imperial ship, “Zelus”, likewise reflected the themes of the book.

“Our ship is called Zelus, and it begins as a symbol of Empire but gradually becomes a home,” Lam says. “They took it back for themselves, which I think mirrors a lot of what the characters are trying to do.” 

The same was true of the “Indomitable”, the ship Tina would inherit in Victories Greater Than Death.

“The main thing I needed from the Indomitable was to be a slightly run down ship on its own, far from any backup,” Anders says. “I did have a lot of fun coming up with all the ways the ship’s systems work. In the second book I introduce a starship that is a little more idiosyncratic, let’s say.”

For Cornell, the spaceship at the heart of Rosebud was an extension of the characters themselves, almost literally.

“It’s a kind of magical space, in that the interior is largely digital, and reflects the personalities of the crew,” he says. “There’s an interesting gap between the ship’s interior and the real world, and to go explore the artefact, our crew have to pick physical bodies to do it in.  Their choices of physical body again tell us something about who they are.”

“My background is in theater, so I am always thinking about what kind of ‘set’ I’m working with,” Chambers tells us. “Colour, lighting, props, and stage layout are very important to me. I want these to feel like real, lived-in environments, but they also communicate a lot to the reader about who the people within these spaces are. Kizzy’s workspace tells a completely different story than, say, Roveg’s shuttle, or Pepper’s house. I spend a lot of time mulling over what sorts of comforts each character likes to keep around them, what food they like to have on hand, and so on. These kinds of details are crucial for painting a full picture.”

Stellar Dynamics

When he was writing the cast of The Salvage Crew, Wijeratne fleshed out his characters by focusing on how they relate to one another.

“My cast tends to be more of ‘what’s the most interesting mix I can bring to this situation, where’s the tragedy, and where’s the comedy?’ I go through a bit of an iterative process –  I come up with one stand-out attribute for the character that makes sense given the world I’m about to throw them into,” he says. “Then the question is: what’s a secondary quirk, or part of their nature, that makes them work well with the others, or is somehow critical? What’s a tertiary facet to them that really rubs the others the wrong way?

“Then I take those quirks and go back to the other characters, and ask why do they respond to these things? What about their backstory makes them sympathize with one thing and want to pummel the other into dust? By the time this back-and-forth is complete, I’ve got enough that the characters feel like they really do have shit to get done in this world, and really do have some beef with each other.  They have backstory and things they react to really badly and situations they’re going to thrive in.”

In The Salvage Crew, this included Simon a geologist who crew up plugged into a PVP MMORPG and who hasn’t really adjusted to the real world, Anna, a wartime medic who has PTSD around blood, and Milo, who is a decent all-arounder, but has problems with authority, particular women in authority.

In the best-loved stories of this sub-genre, it’s not just the strong characters, but the relationships between those characters that people love. Spock and McCoy, Geordi and Data, Jayne and Book working out together in Firefly. Even in the protagonist-heavy Mass Effect, some of the best character moments don’t involve Shepard, but are the character interactions you eavesdrop or walk in on while wandering around the Normandy.

“I think we’ve all experienced being flung together with a group of workmates, and nobody asking us if we like everyone there,” Cornell says. “And how the smallest quirks of personality can come to mean everything over several centuries.”

Getting those relationships to feel organic and natural is the real trick, and it can take endless writing and rewriting to get there. 

“For me, it’s usually a lot of gold-farming,” Anders says. “I will write a dozen scenes of characters hanging out or dealing with stuff, and then pick two or three of them to include in the book. I can’t write relationships unless I’ve spent a lot of time with them.”

Often it’s a question of balancing conflict and camaraderie among the group.

“It’s easy to want to go straight to banter between characters, which is a massive benefit of ensemble casts. But I also think it’s essential that they have moments of conflict,” says May. “Not just drama for drama’s sake, but in any friendship group, boundaries often have to be established and re-established. Sometimes those boundaries come from past traumas, and taking moments to explore those not only adds dimensionality, but shows how the character unit itself functions.”

For May and Lam it helped that their ensemble cast was being written by an ensemble itself.

“Having both of us work on them really helped them come to life,” Lam says. “Their voices were easier to differentiate because we’d often take the lead on a certain character. So if I wrote a Clo chapter, I didn’t always know how exactly Eris might react in her next chapter, or Elizabeth might change Eris’s dialogue in that initial Clo scene to better fit what was coming up. As co-writers, we were in conversation with each other as much as the characters, and that’s quite fun. We tend to work at different times of the day, so I’d load up the manuscript in the morning and wonder what’s happened next to our crew during the night and read to find out. We also did a lot of work on everyone’s past, so we knew what they wanted, what they feared, what lies about themselves they believed, how they might change and grow through the story as a result of meeting each other, and therefore the characters tended to develop more organically on the page.”

For Wijeratne, the thing that really brings the characters’ relationships into focus is a crisis, and it’s true. Across these stories, more often than not you want your space team to be working together against a common challenge, not obsessed with in-fighting among themselves.

“The skeleton of what you saw was the output of an algorithm. A series of Markov chains generating events, playing on the fact that humans are extraordinarily good at seeing patterns in random noise,” Wijeratne says. “But the skeleton needs skin and muscle, and that’s more or less drawn from the kind of high-stress situations that I’ve been a part of: flood relief efforts, factchecking and investigating in the face of terrorism and bombings, even minor stuff like being in Interact projects with people I really didn’t want to be working with. I find that there are make-or-break moments in how people respond to adversity: either they draw together, and realize they can get over their minor differences, or they cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”

Found Family

Whether we’re talking about Starfleet officers, browncoats, rebel scum or galaxy guardians, these crews are rarely just colleagues or even teammates. They are family.

“I think it goes back to many space operas ultimately being survival tales: whether that’s surviving in the vastness of space or against an imperial oppressor,” May says. “These stories bring unrelated characters closer together in a way that goes beyond the bonds of blood. ‘Found family’ is a powerful bond predicated on acceptance and respect rather than duty.”

It’s a topic at the heart of Seven Devils, set in a galaxy where the regime in power has done all it can to eliminate the concept of “Family”, but Lam also believes the found family is something extremely important to marginalised groups.

“In ours, the Tholosians have done their best to erase the concept of family entirely–most people are grown in vats and assigned their jobs from birth. You might feel some sort of sibling bond with your soldier cohort, perhaps, but most people don’t have parents,” Lam says. “Rebellion is incredibly difficult, as your very mind has been coded to be obedient and obey. So those who have managed to overcome that did so with incredible difficulty, and found each other and bonded among what they had in common. You see it in our world as well of course–the marginalised tend to be drawn to each other for support they might not find elsewhere, and the bonds are just as deep or deeper than family you’re related to by blood (just look at drag families, where you have a drag mother or daughter, for example).”

“Found family is definitely a strong narrative thread,” Wijeratne agrees. “I think it stems from an incredibly persistent process in our lives – in human lives: we grow up, we outgrow the people we are born among, and we go out into the world to find our tribe, so to speak. And this is a critical part of maturity, of striking out on out own, of becoming comfortable with who we are and realizing who we’ll be happy to battle alongside and who we’d rather kick in the meat and potatoes.

“Space, of course, is such a perfect physical representation of this process. What greater ‘going out’ is there than in leaving aside the stale-but-certain comfort of the space station or planet and striking out for the depths? What better idea of finding a family than settling in with a crew? And what better embodiment of freedom than a void where only light can touch you, but even then after years?”

Of course, the “Found Family” isn’t exclusive to spaceship crews. It’s a theme that we see everywhere from superhero movies to sitcoms, reflecting some of the bigger social shifts happening in the real world. As Cornell points out, one of the very first spaceship ensembles shows, Lost in Space, was based around a far more traditional family.

“I think one of the big, central parameters of change in the modern world is the move from biological family being the most important thing to found family being the most important, the result of a series of generation gaps caused by technological, ecological and societal change happening so fast that generations now get left behind,” Cornell says. “So all our stories now have found family in them, and we can’t imagine taking old family into space.  The new Lost in Space, for example, had to consciously wrestle with that.  And even in the original, there’s a reason the found family of Billy and Dr. Smith is the most interesting relationship.  It’s the only one where we don’t immediately know what the rules are meant to be.” 

To make a huge generalisation, that sense of “not immediately knowing what the rules are meant to be” might be the key to the genre’s appeal. After all, if your space exploration is closer to the ideals of the Star Trek model than they are to Eddie Izzard’s “Flag” sketch, then it’s about entering an alien environment where you don’t know the rules. If there are aliens, your space heroes will be trying to reach out and understand them. But for the writer, whether those aliens are humanoids with funny foreheads or jellyfish that only talk in the third person, the aliens will still be, behind however many layers of disguise, human. We really struggle to imagine what it’s like to be anything else. Perhaps our spaceship crew’s efforts in communicating with and understanding those aliens is reflected in their efforts to understand each other.

Seven Devils, by Elizabeth May and Laura Lam, is out now, as is The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders, and A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Rosebud, by Paul Cornell, will be out in April 2022.

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The first two parts of Chris Farnell’s serial, Fermi’s Progress, Dyson’s Fear and Descartesmageddon, are also out now, or the season pass for all four novellas is for sale at Scarlet Ferret.

The post How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[5lazarus]

White Nights, Ch. 1: The Balcony

A year or so after Trespasser, Lavellan takes a brief vacation from mapping weaknesses in the Veil to Val Royeaux, and brings a new lover with her. She steps out to her balcony to enjoy the melancholy night, glances over curiously when a man steps out to the balcony attached to the room next to her, and freezes. It looks like the Dread Wolf had the same idea.

read on AO3 here

read Ch. 2: The Docks here, and Ch. 3: The Broadsheet here.

Sweat drying on her skin, she fishes a crumbled nightgown out of her pack and makes herself presentable. Anders snoozes on the bed, blissed into sleep. He surrenders himself so easily to passion. Lavellan watches him sleep, envious. She has always thought too much.

She finds the leather pouch of tobacco cut with elfroot a former lover made her, prepares her pipe, and opens the shutters to the balcony to enjoy it properly. She lights it, smiling to herself. She has never really gotten a vacation, but under Divine Victoria’s new law, mages enjoy an untold-of freedom of movement. And while she has left the infrastructure behind her, she still has the money and prestige. Enjoy the world while it still lasts, he said. Lavellan snorts and smokes her pipe. She has embraced it utterly, the cool night clean on her skin. Below her the streets of Val Royeaux babble, and she can smell the ocean. They took a room a few streets from the Alienage: that too is new. The Inquisitor, retired or not, is different from other elves, even when she has that apostate lover in tow. If anything, the addition of Anders endears her to the gossips of Val Royeaux. She has always given them something to talk about. She traces out the Pleiades and smiles. An adoring lover, a sea coast, and one more day off? What more can she ask? The shutters of the balcony next to her rustle and she glances over to see a bearded man step out, face cast in shadow. Lavellan notes the ears: another one of the People made good. He’s clutching a bottle of wine. She admires his silhouette--Anders is well-built but not particularly shapely--as he sits on the edge of the balcony and pours himself a glass. He lights himself a candle and raises the glass to his lips. He glances at her curiously and freezes. Lavellan takes the pipe from her lips, iced under his gaze. The rosy post-coital warmth disappears as if she’s just leapt into the ocean. Solas’ lips move soundlessly as he tries and fails to articulate their mutual horror. She thinks dimly, at least I still make him speechless. She should have put her prosthetic back on. She says, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Hand trembling, he raises his glass to his lips. He does not spill a drop. “I am leaving in the morning. I will leave earlier.” He drinks and sets the glass with a clink back onto the balcony’s edge. Still he stares at her. She supposes she looks just-fucked, because she is--hair ruffled, skin reddened, and nightgown thrown on carelessly. Anders likes to sleep nude. Lavellan laughs. “Wonderful. Hilarious. Three years Leliana has tried to track you,” and succeeded, but she will not tell him that, “and I find you on the opposite balcony, undressed. I suppose you thought the hair would be enough of a disguise.” Solas smiles. “It has worked before.” It hasn’t, but again she will not tell him that. “Certainly.” She puffs on her pipe and exhales smoke, watching it drift towards the street opposite. She can see light spilling behind the shutters of the floor opposite. Someone else like to fuck with the lights on. Lavellan smiles thinly. She remembers finding him in a tavern with Varric and Hawke, not too long about the Exalted Council. They had managed to find three of his eluvians in Ostwick and Kirkwall, thanks to his arrogance, and reclaim one of them. The beard does not disguise his face--or his swagger. She closes her eyes: unless this is all an elaborate double-bluff. What would Keeper Deshanna say? The wolf chews off his own leg to escape the trap. He has his back to the door, but both of his arms--and he can turn people to stone now, Morrigan confirmed. That would not be the worst thing he has done to her, though, would it? He is staring at her remaining hand, at the sylvanwood ring she now wears--a gift from Merrill, who said she needed it more. Lavellan laughs bitterly. “A Keeper’s ring,” she says. “I suppose you would not know the story. A relic of the People, to remind its leaders of the Dread Wolf’s betrayal. Though it was a lesson I never learned, and was read too late besides.” Solas flinches. “I had hoped it was a wedding ring.” He glances towards her room. From his perspective, she supposes, the unmade bed and the man in it are just visible, if he cranes his neck a bit, which he is doing. She is tired of looking at her life from his perspective. “Fuck you,” Lavellan says. She lays the pipe down carefully and half-closes the shutters. If Anders wakes up, he’ll see her--but Solas will not see him. But Justice will not allow him to attack an unarmed man, as if the Dread Wolf is ever without his weapons. “My apologies,” he says. “That was inappropriate. I...I have hoped you have been happy.” She looks at him incredulously. “Which is why you stalk my dreams at night, exactly like the nightmare of Dalish legends. To hope that I’m happy.” She gestures grandly. “Which is why you appear here, at my balcony, on my one vacation--” “An unfortunate coincidence,” Solas cuts in coldly. “And I will go. You know it has never been my intention to cause you pain.” He turns away and picks up his glass. “You took my arm off,” Lavellan says. Solas stops. “I didn’t realize that was an accident.” He turns around and to her amusement he is smiling wryly. He rubs his forehead. “It was eating at your bone marrow. But the next time an ancient artifact of untold power starts a cancer in your body, I will let it fester. Thank you for letting me know.” Lavellan watches him coolly and imagines rubbing the hot ashes of her tobacco into his face. Maybe it will leave a mark like the Anchor did, before it melted the skin from her muscle and disabled her permanently. It had stunk. None of the salves Vivienne had concocted had soothed it. The Anchor’s heat would melt through the leather of every glove she hid it in too, towards the end. She had known for a long time she would need to amputate it. She just had not thought it would take her whole forearm. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she says. She knows she should let him leave, but she wants to know. “If you knew it would--fester. Why did you leave without warning me?” Fear lances through Solas’ eyes, flickering in the candlelight. “I am not a cruel man,” he says instead. “That is not an answer.” She smiles unpleasantly, sitting down at the balcony’s edge, and crosses her legs. His eyes trace up her body. He looks afraid. She knows how he likes to use her, to defend himself and to flagellate himself against the fundamental truths of his being. The Dalish have pegged him right. He is a cruel man. He is a monster. He lost his humanity millennia ago, sacrificed on the grave of Mythal. Morrigan told her what the Well whispers. If the evanuris deserved untold punishment for killing the All-Mother, what is his due? The perpetual bleeding wound of what he did to her. Her stump itches, and she scratches at it pointedly: it has long since scabbed over, but he does like to pick at his wounds. “You have your life,” Solas says testily. “You have your freedom, and all the riches of the Inquisition. You have the time left to you. What else can I give to you?” Anger twists in her so viscerally she coughs at the bile rising in her throat. She steadies herself. “I am not your fucking petitioner, Solas. You’re no god of mine. You never were.” She stares back defiantly. After the Council, once Morrigan clarified the vallaslin did not bind her to the will of Mythal, she had Deshanna draw her brand brighter. She likes it. Mythal had watched her People suffer, killed by those who would sacrifice them. Her vallaslin is a promise: vengeance, for the world. All her gods have long been dead, and she is the last one standing. The agents of Fen’Harel have found little support amongst the Dalish and the elves of the Free Marches, Ferelden, and Orlais. Solas says, “I’m sorry.” A breeze drifts cold from the sea, and Lavellan shivers. This nightgown is meant to be taken off, not kept on. She glances inside. Anders is still asleep. He won’t be upset when she explains this to him, he’s had his fair share of bad exes--and been the bad ex. She has few illusions about him. He eases something in her, for now. He’s more attached to her than she is to him. She likes it that way, to hold someone loosely for once. He will not be the one who leaves. He idolizes her a little bit, but he doesn’t idealize her like Solas did. Solas follows her gaze and purses his lips. He says, “I am keeping you from your rest.” Neither of them move. He wears an ugly expression, made worse by the glowstones inlaid at the edge of the building, the candle still flickering on the balcony. She has always enjoyed the harsh angularity of his face and the starkness of his emotions. He seethes with discontent. Sometimes he channels it productively, passionately, but she can never forget that this is the man who stared at the Nightmare boredly, but raged at the useless Kirkwall mages. There is a foot between their balconies, and she is acutely conscious of the space. He could vaunt over it easily. So could she. Ugily he stares at her, burning her visage into him. She wonders: does he like what he sees? Does that matter? Of course it does. Uncomfortable, she taps her pipe against the balcony. She shakes her head, and smiling, says, “You still haven’t answered my question.” “What is there left to say?” Solas clenches his hands. “You have taken my measure. Why do you need me to stay what you already know?” “Because I don’t,” Lavellan says. “Because I want you to admit it. You left me to die in pain--” Solas steps closer, distressed, but she throws her arm up. “Don’t interrupt! You told me you loved me. You fucked me. You,” she starts laughing, thinking about Crestwood, “you brought me to a swamp to show me ‘how much I meant to you.’” She is grinning now, staring at him. Solas looks wretched: as if that means something. “You tried to reenact your savior fantasy with me--’ar lasa mala revas,’ my ass. And when I objected, you left me. While claiming I meant the world to you. And then you let my arm rot off.” “There were--considerations.” “Corypheus,” Lavellan says bitterly. “The Blight that is coming. The decay that is spreading in the Emprise, despite how deep we dig. The wakened Titan. And, at the root of this all, Mythal.” Solas freezes. His eyes widen in surprise and he beams at her--but as quickly as the smile flashes across his face, it is gone. He arranges himself neutrally again, pointedly tucking his arms behind his back. That little familiar gesture still amuses her, as much as it makes her sad. She had thought he did that to keep from touching her. Even the gulf between them is not enough. He still wants to reach for her--he won’t, of course, but it pings her vanity to know he wants to. He utters, “Well done.” Lavellan says, “You’re a patronizing prick, do you know that?” “You certainly aren’t the first who’ve told me that,” Solas replies, amused. Despite himself, he has crept to the very edge of the balcony. She reaches for him and he takes her hand, helping her to her feet. He puts his hand on her waist to steady her. The embrace is clumsy; there is a foot between them and three storeys below them. She does not let go of his hand, he does not let of her waist, and when she looks up Solas bites his lip. “Fenhedis,” he says, and kisses her. She grips his arm to keep from falling. Kissing him is so easy. She does not need to think, but sighs raggedly into the embrace. They break the kiss but do not pull away. He rests his forehead against hers, awkwardly bracing his knee against the opposite balcony. He looks like he is about to leap over to join her, or fall between them. She smiles ironically. A year ago she would have muttered, “Dread Wolf take me,” at a kiss as devastating as this: but so he has, again. Lavellan nuzzles at his face and murmurs, “I cannot go into your room.” She draws an arbitrary boundary, when she has already crossed the threshold. Anders still lays sleeping in the bed behind her. She thinks to herself, I can gather information. He wants to stay with me. He wants me to stay. He has always said it is easy to tell me too much, whatever that means. I can bind him to that. This is not an excuse. She looks up at him. Solas rests his hand on her shoulder, eyes tender. “Meet me outside.” “I owe you that,” Solas says vaguely, and Lavellan raises an eyebrow. That, too, is an excuse, more patronizing than hers. She can use that. She thinks she can use that. She has her anger to whip the lines she will not cross into her feet. They carefully pull away from each other. One false move, and the other falls between the balconies. Lavellan finds her pipe, still smoldering slightly, and Solas collects his wine and candle. Before she closes the shutters, she turns and sees him watching her. He says, “I love you. Though we both know you deserve better. I love you.” “Stop it,” Lavellan says, and he laughs. She closes the shutters, smiling as tears dot at her eyes. She places the pipe on her dresser and goes to her lover. Lavellan leans over Anders and whispers, “Wake up--don’t say anything.” Anders frowns in his sleep, and she shakes his shoulder gently. “Quietly.” He turns, alarmed, so Lavellan puts her hand over his mouth. She whispers, “The Dread Wolf rented the room next to us.” Anders rubs his eyes and sits up, careful not to let the bed creak. “What the fuck?” She shushes him. “I’m serious,” she whispers. “And we’re going on a walk. Use the crystal to call Leliana if I’m not back by dawn.” Anders says, “You’re serious.” Sleep falling from his eyes, he focuses on her face and reaches for her. Healer’s hands: she takes his hand and presses a kiss into the palm. He traces the outline of her lips with his thumb. Guilt grasps her, and she moves away from his touch. His face falls. “You’re going on a night walk with the Dread Wolf. Your ex. The Dread Wolf--who not only put the Veil up in the first place, but wants to tear it down and kill us all.” She tenses. “Keep your voice down. He doesn’t think I’d wake you. Have that much faith in me.” Quietly she slides off of him and pulls off her dress. She shoots him a look over her shoulder, hoping to distract him, but he is clearly displeased. Quickly she pulls on underclothes, a tunic, leggings--but she can feel him fretting silently. “I won’t stop you,” Anders says finally. “But you do realize what this looks like to me.” He is completely still, playing along for her. Lavellan straps on her prosthetic and fits a jar of bees into the compartment. She brandishes it at him, and Anders smiles slightly. She walks over to him and kisses him gently. “I’ll be back before dawn,” she says firmly. “And if I’m not--he’d kill me, not kidnap me.” She taps her sylvanwood ring with her prosthetic clumsily. “He does not think I would wake you. While we’re gone, check the guest registry. I want to know what name he used. And then call Leliana.” Pointedly she hands him the sending crystal. Anders sighs. “I’ll be back,” she repeats. And I’ll keep him walking and talking so I won’t fuck him, too, she adds silently. “And we’ll regroup in the morning.”