#warden murder-slaughter

[theintrovertedwolfe]

Elliot once again makes the news. It goes more smoothly than last time, thankfully.

[invincibletwosbiggestsimp]

Alright this has been on my mind for a few days but I've held this headcanon/theory since I watched AHWM

What if Mr. Murder-Slaughter (the Warden at Happy Trails Penitentiary)...

Is just Abe, undercover and looking for Wilford?

Like this sounds crazy but we know that Abe had gone through a lot of trouble to find Wilford and I honestly couldn't put it past him to disguise himself to keep an eye out for our favorite pink haired mustache.

Also it's extremely Abe to come up with a name like "Murder-Slaughter" cuz he was put on the spot when applying to be the warden (or just cuz he couldn't come up with a more creative name lmao)

[endawn]

i can’t. get it into the proper words but pax’s ritualistic sacrifice is always playing out in my head like a movie scene. he was murdered on a defiled alter of aka..tosh in the name of molag. he was symbolic of the dragon god, in a way, being one of His heroes of fate. the soldiers he brought with them were likewise sacrificed in place of the other divines. of course, he brought more men with him than eight. the rest were feasted upon. it was a deliberate offense to the nine divines . blood of the slaughtered was conjugated with the ichor of molag himself, before they used a gavage method on pax to enact the plans they had for him. he died screaming and in fear as his body reacted to the concoction

[n1ghtwarden]

" I got a little carried away. Didn't you? "

FROM THE DESK OF THE NIGHT WARDEN: SAINT MAUD. no longer accepting.

there is blood in the air. metallic, thick - a scent that the night warden knows intimately; one that astarion knows, too. there is blood on her hands ( and were she one for poetry, minthara might have remarked that her hands were always bloodied. ) all signs of a battle well fought and well won - as if they would ever lose with her blade fighting with them. her movements are fluid, graceful when she wipes her dagger against the leather of her trousers; the blade gleaming cruelly in the silvery light of the stars - slick with blood - and though the night air is cold; the night warden burns hotter than flame - cheeks flushed, her breathing slow. even.

" perhaps i did. " it's not an admission, not a denial either; and a soft chuckle reverberates low in her throat; deep and throaty when she straightens. her smile is all teeth - gleaming cruelly in the pale light of the moon. it's more of a gash, more of a wound than an expression - those red eyes alight with some strange glow. " it is easy to enjoy seeing the life leave the eyes of one's enemy. it is easier yet to enjoy their fear; and perhaps sweeter to do so. "

briefly, her gaze drops to the still warm body at her feet. a now former flaming fist; a thrall bound in service to the absolute. a necessary death - the others, too; the night warden knows there is nothing she would not do in their pursuit of the absolute. nothing she would not do to seize it. minthara baenre is no stranger to violence; she had, after all, been raised to be a soldier from the moment she first drew breath. she knew weaponry as well as she knew the limits of her own body - though the night warden no longer knows who she is, she knows how to kill. something she suspects @palecharm knows, too.

and the night warden remembers. remembers every blade pressed to another's throat; be it in the name of lolth or the absolute - lolth, at least, she believes had been necessary. games for a god to play, but necessary for her own survival. but the absolute had been senseless - a waste of life and resources. perhaps it all had been a waste - perhaps, this, too was one. and where minthara had once taken such joy in battle, she finds her mood soured - her blood cooling as she straightens, swallowing. the doubt gnaws at her. she, at least, can pretend - her bravado is not so obvious, in her eyes, as his - and she can see it on him all the same. it is not lost on her, then, that had fate been different - she would have been in the same position as the soldier at her feet. a necessary death; not even a footnote in the history books.

" you have excellent instincts in battle, astarion. " a compliment from the night warden is a hard won thing, but she means it - and never gives them unless they are due. her expression shifts, then; a smirk on her lips, a hand raising, fingers splayed near her face; eager to leave her thoughts behind. " with enough practice, we might finally make you consistently useful on the battlefield. "

[iamonlyperson]

really was trying to think who voice it was because it definitely wasn't Mark's but turns out it was Mick Lauer (if you don't know, he played Gunther in Space, Warden Murder Slaughter in Heist, and The Detective in WKM and WLW). I'm glad he was able to work with Mark again (even only for trailer).

[amee-racle-ofmyown]

Hey, Amee!! I hope you’re doing well <3

If by any chance you’re up to it, could you please write a fic about Heist Mark being super jealous of Yancy because he and Y/N clearly seem to be into each other?? I LOVE your art and writings and I couldn’t get this idea out of my head <3 (Obviously no pressure, though!)

I'm so happy to hear you enjoy my work, thank you🥺💖 and thank you for your request! it got me out of a terrible writer's block. on that note, sorry this took quite some time, I've been in a bit of a funk of on and off general creative block, and unable to finish any writing at all for even longer. this was a pretty fun challenge! I myself view Yancy platonically so I wasn't quite sure where to go with this initially, and I had to fight every urge to just make this heist mark x y/n dfsjsjsv. that said, it did end up being more heist mark-centric than maybe you intended? in which case, I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself😔 yancy is there but very briefly haha

Don't you tell me that you never even thought, 'maybe we could run'

2,603 words | Read on AO3

‘We're all gonna be rehearsing tomorrow so youse best get some sleep.’

You nod as you close the gate to yours and Mark's shared cell, stifling a yawn.

‘Goodnight, Yancy.’

You hold each other's gaze for a moment, before he turns and heads off, a tattooed hand over the back of his neck and a sweet smile still on his face. You watch as he disappears into the outer hallway and a guard appears to lock up your cell for the evening.

Your long-time accomplice and friend stands at the edge of your vision, arms folded.

‘Having fun with your new boyfriend, buddy?’ he asks, sounding unimpressed and slightly strained.

‘Oh, shush, Mark,’ you chide, but your stomach flips at the notion.

‘Yeah… Well, while you were busy playing Broadway,’ he glances to either side of the cell outside and continues in a lowered voice, ‘I've been hard at work hatching our escape. And I'm telling you, it's foolproof.’

‘Uh huh. As foolproof as your other three failed plans? I really don't wanna get thrown in solitary again.’

‘Please, that was one time! — and I don't see you bothering to come up with any ideas. Even though you pretty much got us into this mess.’

That accusation ticks you off, but you're quick to retaliate.

‘Are you seriously still hung up on that? How is this my fault? You couldn't fly a helicopter, why would you assume I can? You shouldn't have even presented it as an option!’

Your exclamation earns you a couple looks from other inmates slowly filing into their cells for the night.

‘Nevermind that now,’ Mark says, infuriatingly placatingly, ‘do you wanna hear the plan or not?’

The thread of uncertainty that you've been avoiding coils tight in your chest and you pause, wondering how to bring up what's been nagging at you for days.

‘Um, so, I've been thinking. What if… what if we don't try to escape?’

‘Ha ha. Funny joke, pal.’

‘I'm serious, Mark. We could just… stay here and wait out our sentence, if we play it safe we might even get our time reduced on good behaviour. We could be gone in like a decade. Or a few years! Maybe. Probably. Maybe.’ Wishful thinking, perhaps.

He scoffs, as if the idea isn't even worth considering.

‘There is no way you're genuinely telling me to just wait it out. Maybe you haven't noticed since you've been in la-la land lately, but we're not on vacation, we're in prison,’ Mark spouts, voice growing thick with agitation. ‘What was supposed to be the heist of a lifetime, would've set us up for decades to come, is still on the line! And we're on a bit of a time crunch here — I don't trust that warden guy one bit with the Box, or in general,’ he sneers. ‘I mean what kind of name is Murder-Slaughter? Ugh, do we even know for sure if he still has it?’

‘Yancy mentioned seeing it in his office the last time he was there, which was earlier today, so yeah, probably.’

‘Ugh, there you go again about Yancy. It's always Yancy this, Yancy that, blah blah blah, Yancy!’

‘Wh– I was just answering your question!’

‘Y'know what? I'm sick and tired of being the only one taking this seriously while you act like it's all a big party.’

He places a hand on his hip, the other poking a finger towards you as he speaks. It would be comical, if he wasn't acting like a jerk.

‘What's up with you?’

‘What's up with me? What's up with you? You seriously wanna stay in this— this shithole, ‘cause of what? Some pretty face you've known for all of like, less than two weeks??’

‘Oh my God, Mark, it's not that terrible, and Yancy is actually my friend, he's been nothing but welcoming and kind since we got here, and—’

‘Oh, did you forget that he tried to beat you up when you first met? Real interesting, how you let that little detail slip.’

‘We just got off on the wrong foot, he's really—’

It's then that you see it — something in the slight hunch in his gait, the furrow of his brow, his pursed lips and tense jaw — and you wonder why you hadn't noticed before. It's not just anger and frustration, it's something bitter and personal.

‘Mark… are you jealous?’

Bingo. His eyes only widen a sliver, for a fraction of a second, but you're so used to reading him that even the most imperceptible of reactions on his usually very expressive face have become familiar to you.

‘Psh. I'm not jealous.’

‘You so are jealous! Oh my god, you're super duper jealous,’ you say with a grin, revelling in this new information.

‘Shut up, why would I be jealous?’ he protests, trying to sound nonchalant. But it's too late. You've already seen through it.

‘Is that what this is about?’ you say with a laugh. ‘You just want my attention back or something?’

He stares blankly for a moment.

‘Are you serious right now? You actually think the only reason I'm mad is because some random dude just waltzes in and starts acting all buddy buddy with you and you fall head-over-heels,’ he jeers with his hands either side of his face, fluttering his eyelashes mockingly. ‘Hook, line and sinker.’

‘Mark—’

‘I mean, never mind your partner, right? You know, your best friend who you've known and worked with for years? Who cares what he thinks?!’

‘Mark, I—’

‘In fact, he can get punched through a wall for all you care! You won't even bat an eye, as long as there's a random spontaneous musical number immediately afterwards, it's all in good fun!’

‘Ok, that's not fair,’ you push back. ‘Of course I was worried! But I was also surrounded by violent criminals at the time, we've been over this!’

‘Oh, so they're “violent criminals” now? But they're simply “hurt, misunderstood souls” when it suits you?!’ he shoots back, making air quotes to emphasise his point.

‘They're people, Mark! They're allowed to be… multi-faceted!’

‘Lights out, everybody,’ comes a guard's voice, ringing through the hallway as it suddenly becomes dark, save for the glow of dim lamplight emanating from one or two of the other cells.

‘Whatever, let's just get some sleep,’ Mark grumbles under his breath.

‘You always do this!’ you whisper harshly, but inadvertently let the volume slip back into your voice as you feel your blood boil. ‘You try to cut things off and act like the “bigger person” just to get out of an argument that, newsflash, YOU'RE LOSING.’

‘Oh, whatever, what-f*cking-ever!’

‘You're being so damn overdramatic, Mark! It's not like I'm trying to break up our team.’

‘Yeah, well– well maybe we should!’

You don't know why it jolts you like a gunshot when he says it, but it does. His words, the force and resentment behind them, pierce you to your core. It stops any quick-fire response you had at the ready in its tracks.

Regret immediately flashes across his face, but he quickly attempts to cover it with a steely, hardened gaze. ‘Clearly, we want different things. So maybe it's for the best.’

‘Hey!’ one of the guards calls out from across the hall. ‘Lights out means quiet, you two. Don't make us separate you into different cells.’

With a frustrated huff, you reluctantly traipse off to bed, yours being the lower half of the bunk while Mark settles above you.

It really is a rather decent bed. The mattress is nothing special, but comfortable, and the soft blanket is accompanied by an oddly luxurious, fluffy pillow. Definitely above what you'd expect is probably average prison standards. Frankly, you don't know what Mark's problem is with this place. It's honestly not half bad. As far as you expect jails go, it surely could be a lot worse.

You lay back and let your breathing even out, trying your best to allow some of the bubbling anger to die down. Eventually, you hear the guards leave.

Time passes, it could be minutes or hours; it's not like the passage of time has felt right at all to you since that last heist.

It's silent, save for the sound of your breaths and Mark's above you. You're still upset with him, but the sound of him breathing nearby has always been oddly comforting. The two of you have had plenty of close calls as a pair — even times when you had to patch each other up after jobs that went particularly badly. If you got injured on a heist, you couldn't simply call an ambulance or show up at a hospital in an emergency and risk having your whole operation blown. That was simply the nature of your line of work.

At the worst of times, as long as you could hear those steady, even breaths, you could tell yourself he would pull through, and things would be fine.

You idly watch the mattress above you, letting the rhythm of your friend's breathing become a gentle white noise, and think.

You think about that heist and the Box. Ancient, coveted, mysterious. Sitting atop its perch in the museum vault, in all its glory and allure, practically asking to be stolen. The gleam of the gem encrusted in its surface. You wonder if the prize held within would be worth all of this, if you managed to get it back.

You think about Yancy, a little rough and a little troubled and not seeing much point in trying to kick old habits; but fun and soft and sensitive and full of remorse. You think about the feeling of your hand in his when you practise a routine with him, how his whole face lights up when he's excited or falls when he's sad or pensive. You think about how he has made this penitentiary into a home, and these inmates into a family.

You think about Mark. Silly, stupid, steadfast Mark, snarky and thoughtful and loyal. Who isn't actually as dumb as he lets on. Who is resourceful and quick-thinking when a plan needs to be formed. Who makes bad puns and trusts you whole-heartedly, and who always lets you decide which course of action to take, no matter how much he disagrees, simply due to his unwavering faith in you. Mark, your co-worker, your friend, your partner in crime. Who is maybe a little enamoured with you, despite you trying to ignore it. Who you half-heartedly agreed to go on a date with, not having it in you to turn him down, nor prepared for the guilt that would be eating away at you now.

You think about one of the first things he told you when you landed yourselves at Happy Trails: About how he doesn't belong here, but maybe you do. What if he were to leave and you were to stay? The thought breaks your heart a little.

Then, a whisper from above into the quiet, gently interrupting your thoughts.

‘Hey, you still awake?’

‘...Yeah.’

You hear his voice, soft-spoken, but clear enough that you can hear the sincerity laced into it.

‘I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so worked up.’

‘Yeah, I'm sorry too,’ you reply, matching his volume.

‘And I didn't mean it,’ he says, and you think you hear the slightest tremble in the statement, almost as if he's fighting tears, and for a second you wish you could see his face, ‘what I said before, about uh, splitting up. I know I joke about that kind of thing all the time, and not coming back for you… But you know I don't really mean it, right?’

You've certainly had your doubts in the past, but those moments seem so far away now; footnotes in a slowly unfolding tale, stepping stones on the journey the pair of you have taken together as you worked your way from theft to theft to get to this point. As much as you'd butt heads over the years, you could always count on each other and you always stuck together.

‘Right?’

‘Yeah, I know…’

‘...And, alright, your lack of interest in breaking out aside, maybe I am kinda jealous.’

‘Ha! I knew it.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He sighs. ‘It's just… it took us a while to be like we are now and yet, you're suddenly so close to him when it hasn't even been that long, it just doesn't feel fair. I dunno, it's stupid.’

‘Nah, I get it. I'm sorry if I made you feel left behind.

‘And I'm sorry if I ever made you feel pressured into something you're actually just not all that into.’

You feel a bit of tension leave your chest as a small smile appears on your face. ‘I appreciate that.’

In some ways you're grateful for the small bed separating you and preventing you from being face to face. You think it makes this easier for both of you.

‘I don't want to lose you, y'know? I mean, we're supposed to be partners. Ride or die, remember?’

‘Oh, Mark… You know I still trust you with my life…’ You pause, considering your words. ‘For the first time in ages, things feel a little more complicated than just being about us.’

A beat, then you hear him inhale, and he says your name, foregoing any of his usual nicknames.

‘...Are you… happy here? Does he make you happy?’

‘There's things I miss about freedom, sure, but it's not so bad here. And let's face it, our crimes were probably gonna catch up to us eventually, one way or another, right? And Yancy…’ You let out the smallest huff of laughter, smiling to yourself once again. ‘You're right, it hasn't been very long… There's just something about him, I guess. I know he might be a little much at times but I enjoy being around him, and he honestly seems like he wants to make up for things he's done in the past by being here. Maybe nothing will come of this but even so, in a weird way, he kind of makes me want to do better?’

Mark breathes a good-natured huff of laughter as well, and the two of you take a moment to muse on the irony of that sentiment.

‘I just– I can't handle being stuck here,’ he finally says. ‘But you're right, nothing I've tried so far has worked, anyway.’

‘Y'know… Yancy knows all the ins and outs of this place. He could probably help us if we wanted it.’

‘Do you want it?’

Do you want to leave or stay? The real question beneath it all.

You're quiet again, and it feels as if every possibility is laid out before you, only obscured.

‘I don't know,’ you say eventually. ‘I need more time to think. I just don't want you to think I'm making a choice between you or him, there's so many other things I need to consider. That we need to consider.’

‘That's fair… Just don't take too long, ok? Not like we can pause or rewind time, haha.’

‘Right… In the meantime, could you at least try to get along with Yancy and the others? You might like them if you give them a chance.’

‘... Fine, I'll try,’ he acquiesces.

You raise a hand to your mouth to cover a yawn. A far more comfortable silence falls over the room, and you start to feel sleep overtake you.

‘... Hey, Mark?’

‘Yeah?’

‘We're still partners.’

If nothing else, you hope this will reassure him.

‘...Ok. Sweet dreams, partner.’

[squirrelwithatophat]

Wynne defending children from the Templars

It’s interesting to reflect on Wynne’s Establishing Character Moment in Dragon Age: Origins, especially in light of the strange whitewashing of the Templar Order in Inquisition as well as her apparently conservative politics.  When we encounter her in Broken Circle (our first interaction with her since the brief chat at Ostagar), we see her fighting to protect a group of young children not only from demons but from the Templars -- the very military force that claims to protect them.  If she is recruited into the party, in fact, we discover that she had already sacrificed her life for them.  She is technically dead/undead and only kept standing due to possession by a spirit of Faith.

As soon as the party enters the door, she’s fearful that the Warden has come to kill them all on behalf of Knight-Commander Greagoir, and depending on player choices/intentions, she may in fact be correct.  

Wynne: It’s you!  No... come no further.  Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand!

Warden: Wynne - what are you doing here?

Wynne: I am a mage of the Circle.  More importantly, why are you here?  The templars would not let just anyone by.

Warden: You have children with you.

Wynne: The tower is a place of learning.  Young apprentices are always here.  Why is that surprising?

Wynne: But this is no time to discuss that.  Why are you here?  Why did the templars let you in?

Warden: I am helping Greagoir resolve the Circle’s difficulties.

Wynne: Then you do serve the templars as I feared.  Do they have the Right of Annulment?

Warden: The Right of Annulment?

Wynne: The order from the grand cleric allowing the templars to completely annul a Circle.  Do they have it?

Warden: No, but Greagoir expects it to arrive soon.

Wynne: So Greagoir thinks the Circle is beyond hope.  He probably assumes we are all dead.  

Wynne: They abandoned us to our fate, but even trapped as we are, we have survived.  If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them.

Warden: It’s nothing less than this Circle deserves.

Wynne:  Do these children deserve death too?  Will they die by your hand?

Warden: Mages are a danger.  If I had a say, you would all be culled.

Wynne: Killing us solves nothing, but with training and education, mages learn to control their powers.

Wynne: You’re mad if you think I’ll let you lay a finger on these children.  If will fight you if you won’t listen to reason.

Wynne: I am not afraid of you.

Warden: This Circle must be destroyed, for all our sakes.

Wynne: If you insist on making war on the Circle, we have nothing more to discuss.  It comes to blows, then.  I will stop you or die trying.

BONUS - terrified child fleeing from being murdered:

Commentary

While Wynne can be condescending and sometimes preachy in her support for the Circle, her dialogue both here and elsewhere indicates that she has no illusions about the Templars keeping them locked inside.  

After all, they imprisoned her in Kinloch Hold since she was a young child, took her own child away from her forever, and threatened to slaughter both her and the other children she was mentoring in her son’s stead.  If recruited into the party, she opens up about the despair she felt as a girl when she realized she would be trapped there forever, and it was only by turning to the religious faith that was being forced on all mages in the tower that she began to make peace with her fate.  She knows that if the Libertarian Fraternity successfully leads a vote for independence from the Chantry, the Templars will simply kill them all.  She even uses the term “genocide” to describe what will happen.  She explicitly cites this as the reason why she opposes the independence vote. 

The mages will never be free! The Chantry would never allow it. Our only hope for survival is to show them we can be trusted! Don’t you remember what happened to the Circle in Ferelden? Do you want to give the templars another excuse to call for the culling of all mages?

She doesn’t reject freedom for her fellow mages for any personal advantage, throwing others like her under the bus to reap the rewards of brown-nosing.  If she wanted any semblance of power or status, after all, she would have accepted the post of First Enchanter (or second-in-line to it) a long time ago.  As of Dragon Age Origins, she has consistently rejected the opportunity to become Irving’s successor.  As of the end of Broken Circle, if she joins the party and defeats Uldred’s rebels, she still needs to ask for permission just to temporarily leave the tower, despite having proven her loyalty and competence beyond any reasonable doubt both here and over the past thirty or so years of incarceration.  It takes helping the Hero of Ferelden save the entire country by defeating the Archdemon to convince the Templars to allow her to come and go freely - an opportunity that, as her own son later points out, no one else has had or probably ever would have in their lifetime (and one, as the only the player knows, that is entirely conditional on player choices).

The only context in which she ever even considers fighting the Templars is when she has no other way of preventing the Templars from killing them all anyways - both during Broken Circle and in the climax of Asunder.

Her politics are, in the end, based on fear.

Not the usual fear of the Other or fear of social change that hamper normal politics, but the completely rational fear, as someone at/near the bottom of the social hierarchy, about what the authorities will do to her and everyone like her if they step out of line.  As it turns out, she’s not wrong about what the powers that be are and how they will react - she’s only wrong about the potential for a better future and the rewards of fighting for it.

[utilitycaster]

update #4 on Thedas and Fade-as:

have learned that Neve approves of you most when you just fucking slaughter Venatori with her. I did get her gift btw. this is because I'm going to let her city get ruined. I am getting everyone's gifts because I am THOUGHTFUL and CONSIDERATE.

I still hate Minrathous. Too many ladders.

No one seems to like Tarquin. This is very funny.

Dorian shows up and I'm like "this is a big moment for everyone except me" except actually he's fucking great, I am a big fan of him. He and the First Warden, who sucks extremely, had a battle of questionable facial hair which he won.

it is COMPANION QUEST TIME. Bellara's was really sweet, possibly because I'm romancing her, but even if I weren't the conversation about her brother was really good. Harding's was fun and she appreciates that I'm very direct with her. Harding's also gave me disproportionate amounts of trouble bc I am so bad at figuring out what I can climb and what I can't climb. I gotta do something about a Dalish ghost but I have d&d tonight.

Also for just traipsing about Arlathan to do all these low-stakes companion quests, I brought Lucanis, so in between quests I just have this absolute murderer in fine leathers talking about how elven magic smells like coffee. this is the best thing of all time.

Neve drily telling a fangirling Bellara that the cool article about her was a hit piece was so funny. realized that Neve might dislike me because I keep being super positive and encouraging and honest because everyone else likes that. is this what I'm like in real life except way less cool? much to think about.

I Lived It: I'm wearing less protective armor because it shows my sick chest tattoos.

[crossdressingdeath]

Wynne: Before we go any further, I would like to bring something up, if I may. Asterius: Go ahead. Wynne: I must thank you for what you have done, but I have watched you, and I've seen some things that cause me concern. The spells you use are unfamiliar and not taught by the Circle. They are powerful, and disturbing. Where did you learn to do this magic? Asterius: (Persuade) From the Grey Wardens, of course. Wynne: But there is only ever one mage Warden at any one time, and you are that mage. Who taught you? Irving: The Wardens have many books reserved for themselves alone. They contain the wisdom of all Grey Wardens past and present, mages included. Asterius: Duncan showed me an old spell book like that. Greagoir: The Grey Wardens' methods may be questionable, but I must believe that their intentions are, ultimately, good. Wynne: Then I apologize for bringing the matter up at all. I believe you had something else to discuss?

Thanks to this mod I have accessed the cut dialogue where Wynne tries to get you in trouble with the Templars right after you save the Circle because she's horribly ungrateful like that. It's a little funny, honestly. Wynne, you do know Ferelden is fucked if the Templars get uppity and kill me for using blood magic? Which they can actually try to do, I believe; Aster's a convincing liar but if you fail to convince everyone that it's fine they will attack you because Templars struggle with things like "the bigger picture" and "not murdering the only person who can save Ferelden" and "recognizing that someone who just slaughtered a whole tower's worth of abominations and blood mages is probably beyond them". It's so incredibly shortsighted and it would be infuriating if not for the fact that... yeah, these people are really not a match for a blood mage Warden. Wynne saw Aster using blood magic because he was spamming Blood Wound every chance he got, these people with all their blood are no threat Aster definitely didn't go down for the first time this run to that one room that's just full of Templars and one demon because they kept smiting him shut up.

But also the fact that you can actually say "Uh... it's ancient Warden magic" and that works is hilarious to me. "Yeah, Duncan showed me an old spell book full of Grey Warden magic and I memorized them! That's what happened! Please don't ask when Duncan found the time to show it to me between the Circle and Ostagar!" Like there was not time for that actually. I do wonder how much of this is them actually buying it and how much is everyone involved having a moment to think while you explain yourself (with lies) and realizing that picking a fight with one of the only people who can stop the Blight over a little bit of forbidden magic is a stupid idea, because it's such a ridiculous claim. "Duncan gave me an ancient book of Warden magic which I mastered in less than a year, please don't ask where I'm keeping it or how I figured the spells out so fast, this is fine and not suspicious at all, it's not blood magic."

[queenaryastark]

Jumping off an AU idea from my last post, I do kind of want to explore what would have happened if Sansa had not betrayed Ned’s plans to Cersei or had been prevented from doing so. 

The obvious differences in the story would be:

Arya, Sansa, and the Stark household would have sailed away from King’s Landing before the Lannisters stopped them.

Knowing his girls had escaped, Ned wouldn’t have confessed to a crime he didn’t commit and therefore, even if Cersei moved against him, he would have been alive to be traded for Jaime rather being murdered on the steps of Baelor.

Jeyne wouldn’t have been prostituted and abused by Littlefinger.

Arya wouldn’t have had to struggle to survive on the streets of KL, trying to find food and safety while fleeing from predators.

Syrio, Septa Mordane, Poole, and the rest of the Stark household wouldn’t have been slaughtered.

Sansa wouldn’t have become a prison of the Lannisters.

Not so obvious differences:

Since LF wanted Ned dead and wanted to prevent any quick resolution to the conflict, what would he do to prevent the exchange of Ned for Jaime?

Would Joff agree to the exchange of Ned for Jaime since Ned is worth a thousand times more since he’s a warden while Jaime’s just a knight who can hold no lands and father no legitimate children? I especially question this given his response to the news that Jaime was captured, which was pretty contemptuous. Stannis’ claim about his parentage might also make him less willing to get him back at such high a cost.

Would the Wind Witch make it back to White Harbor? Or would it be waylaid by Stannis to hold the Stark girls to ensure Robb’s cooperation?

If she did become a highborn prisoner of Stannis, how quickly would Arya and Shireen bond?

How would the power balance work with Ned still alive, meaning Robb couldn’t officially succeed him meaning Catelyn would technically hold more power, but also not want to embarrass him in front of his future bannermen (as she notes in AGOT)?

Now that I think on it, it would be an interesting premise to explore because it’s one of those what ifs that would lead to a different story that’s just as interesting and complex as the canon story.

[writtengalaxies]

Reader visiting yancy, showing him the cell block tango. Look me in the eyes and tell me that he does not try it with his buddies-

I had to do a double-take for a bit with this, because my brain processed tango in the spicy way for a moment, before I went "OH! CHICAGO!" at the top of my lungs. But oh my good gods yes.

"Yance, I really think you'd like this!"

You held up your phone to the plexiglass, watching his eyes alight as he watched the whole routine play. By the last parts of the song, Yancy was already humming the tune, eager to memorize it.

This had been the trend for you both, for your last couple of visitations. You'd watch a musical, figure out which song he would like, and play it for him. It always helped spark a new burst of creativity, and gave him an outlet he could focus on that would help as he worked hard on being able to apply for parole. It also let you make a list of movies for when he did get parole, that you could watch together.

Chicago was one you weren't sure of first, especially playing one of the most recognizable numbers from it in the penitentiary, but you had passed the idea by the warden first, and somehow he gave the okay. You weren't going to look a gift in the mouth, and told Yancy the loose plot. He was uncertain until he saw the Cell Block Tango. Sure, the outfits made his cheeks flush, but you knew he was hooked when you saw that particular little crease between his eyebrows, the way his eyes seemed to track the movements even as you watched his fingers tap to the beat.

It'd be another to add to your list, then.

---

Third Sunday was here again, but for the first time in months, you'd missed your chance to watch a musical to tell him about it. You knew he would understand, what with work piling more on your plate, but it still nagged softly at you.

Yancy picked up his side with a sheepish little grin, ducking his head.

"So, I gots somethin' to tells ya."

"Hmm? What is it?"

"I know we was gonna watch it together, but I asked the warden, and uh. Me and the gang got permission to actually watch it, and...I know youse is makin' that list, but..."

"Wait, Murder-Slaughter let you actually watch Chicago?"

"Yeah! I think he realized we tend to behave better when we gots somethin' to focus on that ain't, you know. Stabbin' or fightin' or whatever. And the gang and I've been workin' on learnin' the choreography for that song. I wanted to see if I could surprise ya with that, but some of the gang's got their own visitors today. We almost got it figured out! So...maybe...maybe youse can give him the list, and...and it'll still be special. Cuz it came from youse."

"I'm going to have to come up with a whole new watch list for us, then."

Yancy's smile widened, leaning forward to rest his hand on the plexiglass, watching as you pressed your hand to the other side. "Watchin' anythin' you recommend is special. I'm lookin' forward to that date."

[petrow1tch]

Yeah so what are your thoughts on the dark ritual in DAO?

LOL ok so i'll try to give two (relatively short) answers, one is a gameplay one, and the other is how i justified in from the lore perspective with my HoF

(GAMEPLAY) The intro of the game where you gather the blood of darkspawn, yeah, the ritual of joining is shrouded in mystery, like "why we don't tell you what is the ritual? dont worry about it wink wink", so you think "hmm is there something wrong with it, what's up?"

So then you start the ritual and BAM you can die during it. One way or another. It feels like "damn ok i'm in it now, but i guess i can see why they kept it a secret, ok, now to play the game and be a hero". Suprises are seemingly over.

then BAM at the end of the game is another reveal that to kill the Archdemon you need to die with it, and, like, ok, it is a bit sudden to give that info to the player who already went through with the Landsmeet and had some plot expectations from it. It feels like a rug being swept from under your feet; and then BAM again here comes Morrigan and says "oh btw you can just not die, just let me have the baby", and, this whole part seems very rushed? Like, ok, there were supposed to be any stakes with choosing who's going to die to end the blight, and suddenly there isn't? (Thats if you're playing a male warden ofc, who can do so himself no matter who's he is in romance with, or you can try and force Alistair to sleep with Morrigan, which i'm not just a fan of. He's already eager to sacrifice himself if you say "i don't wanna die" to Riordan when he says you gotta die to kill AD so why would he agree to a ritual (that he doesn't benefit from) from an apostate (that he dislikes)? If you romance Alistair, then forcing him to sleep with Morrigan is the only choice you have to save your loved one and yourself, but again, would you force someone you love to cheat on you with a person he hates? For a ritual? That he would oppose?)

So, yeah, that whole "die to win" and dark ritual reveal was kinda badly executed IMO

now, to LORE part of why i actually don't mind using the dark ritual

People say that even from in-universe perspective it would be weird to agree to the ritual since the old god would technically still be alive and Morrigan is shady, but you know what? My HoF dgaf.

Now, let's take a look. My HoF is a male Cousland rogue, who was opposed to joining the Grey Wardens when Duncan arrived at the Highever, so that's the angle from which i'm basing my dark ritual choice. It'd be different for different origins methinks.

During Howe's massacre of the castle, Duncan presented the HoF with a "choice":

"Die here or i'll save you to conscript you into GW"

Now. I'm replaying DA2 currently, and this Duncan's offer very much reminds me of Arishok's "we give choice. they can choose to not accept qun and die or to accept the qun and live. #democracy"

So my HoF, who previously stated that he has no interest in joining Grey Wardens, feels very cheated by Duncan using HoF's life as a bargaining chip. It shouldn't have happened! First, Howe slaughtered his entire family, and now Duncan is using the moment to claim HoF's life for his own goal to add numbers to his "glorious murder-suicide" cult? That's fucked up. But HoF doesn't have much choice if he wants to live, so he accepts the offer, with main goal being survival to avenge his family and to live in spite of it all.

So, now we get to the joining, HoF meets Alistair, they gather the blood, meet Morrigan, and go back to the joining ritual. Suddenly HoF sees that you can die from the joining ritual, and from the Duncan also if you reject the joining ritual. what the fuck. Again, there's is no other choice than to accept the outcome that guarantees the bigger chance of survival. HoF goes through with the joining ritual, feeling even more disdain towards GWs.

Joining, Ostagar, saving by Flemeth. HoF and Alistair are the only GW survivors. This is where HoF was about to say "fuck it" and disappear, until Flemeth gathered his ass, after which he decided to wait with rush decisions.

While traveling with Morrigan and Alistair to Lothering, HoF had time to gather his thoughts. He learned that Alistair considered GWs to be his family, and HoF could relate to losing it all at one night, so his disdain towards GWs melted away a bit just for this one guy, who basically lived through the same experience as he did. HoF also found Morrigan interesting and could see reason in some of her actions and decisions, thus they started to form some sort of friendship.

While traveling with these two, HoF found to like Alistair not for just being someone with the same lived experience, but also for a person that he is. You could say it was love, but HoF knew that that couldn't happen, so the best he could do was to be a very good friend.

The longer they traveled, the more HoF understood Alistair's point of view on Wardens as a family, since the adventuring party themselves became some sort of found family to each other. Some of them may not like one another, but they still care for each other's well-being because at the very least, you need them to reach your own goals (committing the dark ritual; avenging the Cousland family; ending the Blight), and at best, they're the ones who you consider friend or even more.

So all this said, HoF found more and more reasons to stay alive, not anymore blinded by anger and revenge, but also for helping those he holds close to his heart. Ending the Blight transformed from being something that he was forced, almost ensalved to do, into something more of a favor for someone he loves.

After gathering all armies, HoF traveled to Denerim where he finally had the chance to kill Howe. He decided to kill everyone who ever associated themselves with Howe, anyone who ever helped him to kill Cousland's family. Be it conspirators, merchants, or even his kids. (Keeping true to his promise, HoF later killed Nathaniel immediately upon learning who he was)

At the Landsmeet, HoF was determined to help Alistair in avoiding the throne, as he wasn't as concerned with grand political scheme as he was with the Alistair's feelings. Thus Anora was made queen, Loghain was executed and Alistair happily gave up any and all rights he had to the royalty. Seemingly a happy end, now to just go to Redcliffe and slay a big evil dragon and the friend's errand is done? WRONG

HEY

GREY WARDEN

WE WANT YOU TO DIE SO FUCKING BAD

HoF and Alistair learn from Riordan that to kill an Archdemon, a warden must sacrifice himself, dying in the process.

He survived the slaughter of his family, he survived the joining, he survived the Fade, Deep Roads, ancient curses and armies of undead, just to die anyways? No. Not gonna happen. HoF will not die killing an Archdemon.

...

"I'll do it"

Facecrack of the fucking century. The man who was the only one HoF could relate to, the man who he considered his closest friend, the man he loved and went all this way for. Alistair says he will kill himself to slay the archdemon.

Without even a chance to say his word, HoF gets shut out by Riordan telling them to get ready for march to Denerim tomorrow. Coming out of the room, he is on the point of breaking apart between his will to live in spite of it all and his desire to save Alistair. There seems no other choice than to forfeit his life and sacrifice himself, that is until he happens on Morrigan in the middle of his room.

And now, now we have this picture of Morrigan suggesting HoF a dark ritual, which would save the chosen warden from untimely death and help Morrigan herself with her goal.

Of course HoF would agree to the ritual.

Of course HoF would help his friend who he had no reason to disagree with prior, fully knowing she has her secrets, but still considering her family

Of course HoF would do anything to save Alistair, whom he loves. Had he known about what it takes to kill an Archdemon, he'd force him to become a king, but alas, the "glorious murder-suicide" cult wouldn't tell all it's secrets neither to him, nor Alistair.

So HoF goes through with the ritual, and when the time comes, he leaves Alistair to defend the gates of the city, much to his surprise. HoF has one chance to do it right, and he cant afford to fuck it up even in the slightest. Doesn't matter what Alistair thinks of him, "how could the man who only yesterday refused to die to archdemon, suddnly leave me here to fight lesser battle, and go to face the dragon himself, without me". It is not important. What is important, is that HoF gonna save Alistair, and that HoF is gonna live in spite of it all.

so yeah lorewise i think dark ritual is pretty neat

[bracketsoffear]

I actually have a bunch of ideas for fake crossover statements I've been collecting. Here's my favorites:

“Make A Lot Of Noise”: statement of Sid Phillips regarding his childhood toys. (Toy Story, Stranger); "Make a Lot of Noise" is the song from the Toy Story Musical (yes, that's an official thing) about the toys getting revenge on Sid.

“The Serpent in the Garden”: statement of Warlock Dowling regarding his atypical upbringing. (Good Omens, Stranger/Spiral?); the title here refers to Crowley's origins as the Snake in the Garden of Eden and how he (serpent) and Aziraphale (gardener) raised Warlock, but I'm not sure what Entity "I was raised by two uncanny not-humans who turned out to have thought I was the Antichrist" falls under.

“Ill Met By Moonlight”: statement of Alissa Denton regarding the last performance of Misty Moore. (Dimension 20: The Unsleeping City, Stranger); this would be about "Broadway Brawl," where Misty kills the real Titania while playing her during her rejuvenation ritual and then uses the glamour from the performance to be reborn as Rowan Berry.

“Skulk”: Statement of Steve Bergensten regarding the creature he encountered during a caving expedition. (Minecraft, Dark); Bergensten is Jeb's surname, and skulk is the stuff that summons The Warden.

“The White Whale”: Statement of “The Mariner” regarding how he murdered his stepfather. (The Mariner’s Revenge Song, Hunt/Buried); title is a Moby Dick reference, of course.

“The Entire Circus”: Statement of Gog-Agog regarding why you should be Gog-Agog too! (KSBD, Corruption); title is a reference to the meme "You are not a clown, you are the entire circus," because Gog-Agog is clown-themed.

“Treasure Hunt”: Statement of Stanley Yelnats regarding his imprisonment in a correctionary boot camp. (Holes, Buried)

“Shadow Puppet”: Statement of Lena Sabrewing regarding her troubled relationship with her aunt. (Ducktales 2017, Web); title refers to Lena being a living shadow who was emotionally, then later physically puppeted by her aunt in shadow form, and ultimately possessed.

“Fly Me To The Moon”: Statement of Donald Duck regarding his sister’s disappearance in space. (Ducktales 2017, Vast); title references Della's ill-fated joyride that ended with her being stranded on the moon, and Vast seemed appropriate given how her need for adventure led her to go higher and higher until she vanished into the huge void of space.

“Worldbreaker”: Statement of Gyro Gearloose regarding a recurring problem with his creations. (Ducktales 2017, Extinction); Worldbreaker is the name of the program Akita used to force BOYD to be evil, and one could theorize that Gyro's persistent belief that all of his creations turned evil (because of what happened with BOYD) is what caused him to keep making evil robots in a self-fulfilling prophecy spiral.

“To Have And To Hold”: Statement of Twilight Sparkle regarding her brother’s marriage. (MLP:FIM, Stranger/Corruption); title is from the traditional marriage vow, with this specific line summing up Chrysalis' intentions for Shining Armor.

“Urban Legend”: Statement of Emma-May Dixon regarding the local tourist trap in Gravity Falls. (Gravity Falls, Stranger); title is a play on the cryptids and folklore Stanley uses in the Mystery Shack, and Emma-May Dixon is McGucket's ex-wife.

“See No Evil”: Statement of Tate McGucket regarding his fear of memory loss. (Gravity Falls, Spiral); title refers to the Society of the Blind Eye's goals, and I figured someone who saw his dad progressively lose his memories and sanity without knowing why would develop some hangups about that, especially with an amnesia-inducing cult (that his dad created) running around.

“War Games”: Statement of Jack Merridew, regarding his time stranded on an island as a child. (Lord of the Flies, Slaughter)

“Dollhouse”: Statement of Coraline Jones regarding what was behind a door in her new apartment. (Coraline, Stranger/Web)

“God Save The Queen”: Statement of Julie Jenkins, regarding the murders at her high school prom. (The Ballad of Sara Berry, Slaughter); Julie Jenkins is the girl who was beating Sara out for Prom Queen because people were pity voting for her, and the only target of Sara's rampage to survive.

“Silent Assassin”: Statement of Pam Kingsley, regarding a string of inexplicable assassinations she reported on. (Hitman, Hunt); Silent Assassin is a recurring challenge in Hitman and the subtitle of the second game, and Pam Kingsley is a recurring news anchor character.

“God, That’s Good”: Statement of Tobias Ragg regarding his employment in a meat pie shop. (Sweeney Todd, Flesh); "God, That's Good" is the song Toby sings advertising Ms. Lovett's cannibal pies.

“Future Imperfect”: Statement of Arven Violet regarding the results of his father’s research. (Pokemon Violet, Extinction)

“This Be The Verse”: Statement of Beatrice Baudelaire Jr. regarding her a series of unfortunate events her guardians experienced. (ASOUE, Desolation); "This be the verse" is the poem Count Olaf recites as he dies: "Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf. / Get out as early as you can / and don't have any kids yourself.

“Mayhem”: Statement of Marla Singer regarding her boyfriend’s involvement in terrorism. (Fight Club, Desolation); title refers to "Project Mayhem."

all of these sound like absolute banger fics!

[soapjelliezz]

why do you guys block people for «proshipping» when you also draw this kind of content? why do you bully people for the stingray/warden, but you draw warden/jared when warden is all about abusing and humiliating jared? why do you talk about morality when it comes tO SUPERJAIL, WHERE THERE'S NON-STOP SLAUGHTER, GURO, BLOOD, SEX, IMMORAL STUFF, SWASTIKAS ON THE FACES OF THE INMATES, AND JOKES ABOUT PRISON RAPE?!?!

it's an animated series about murderers, rapists and maniacs, and warden is a SADIST AND A PSYCHOPATH who violates banal human rights. let's cancel superjail if you see everything as «problematic»

[laurelsofhighever]

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins   Characters/pairings: Alistair x Cousland   Chapter: 6/?   Chapter Rating: M Chapter Warnings: Canon-typical violence, gore Fic Summary: The story of the Fifth Blight, in a world where Alistair was raised to royalty instead of joining the Grey Wardens.

Read it on AO3

--

They stood by the bonfire, only the three now. The Warden ranks had long departed camp for the front lines, their faces drawn but resolute, their hands on their weapons or clasped around tokens of faith; few had passed glances to the recruits, but those that did had held pity in their eyes, and now, with the other two both dead at her feet, Rosslyn understood why.

“There is no turning back,” Duncan said to her again, solemn, proffering the silver cup to her as if the stain of Jory’s blood on his hands were merely paint. Daveth had gone first, joking about the taste of darkspawn blood before he lifted it to his lips, and then, choking, eyes rolled to whites, he had fallen in a fit and then gone still. She wondered if anyone would take the body away, or leave it crumpled like a dropped scarf, and turned away before bile could rise in her throat.

“Ser Jory was a good man,” she growled, with only the barest hint of deference to sweeten it. “You could have talked him down or let him run instead of murdering him in cold blood.”

“The Wardens make sacrifices,” Duncan replied. Rhodri stood behind him, fixed gaze to the floor, biting on his tongue. “It is the price to defend against the darkspawn.”

“It’s how you keep your secrets,” she spat. “You leveraged my father’s dying breaths to lead me to the slaughter.” She could see him behind her eyelids, the blood pooling on the floor and at the corner of his mouth. I won’t survive the standing, I think.

The warden-commander’s eyes tightened, his nostrils flared, a fractional sign of remorse and one that would have been easy to miss. “Will you drink?” he asked.

She took the cup. Revulsion coiled in her stomach like a living thing at the harsh, metal scent of the blood, made noxious by whatever potions had been added to it to turn it into an elixir as well as a poison, but her fingers tightened on the rim, quelling the urge to throw the concoction in his face. It was her mother’s spine in her, the back that had stood straight against the Orlesian Navy and sent their ships burning to the bottom of the Waking Sea.

“I know my duty,” she ground out, and her grey eyes pierced Duncan’s as she raised the cup.

--

“What troubles you, brother?”

Alistair looked up from the maps as the king placed a hand on his shoulder, his mouth dry. What could he say? Despite the tasks he had to oversee, the flurry of last-moment preparations in the wake of reports that the darkspawn were massing faster than anticipated, he had found excuses to linger near the gates and watch for Rosslyn’s return, and when she had finally limped in with thick winter night chasing on her heels, only the greatest self-restraint had kept him from damning propriety to go to her. Splattered with black ichor and grime, jaw tight and shoulders hunched, she had slipped away from her fellow Warden recruits towards the kennels, and he had lost sight of her. He had wanted to chase after her, to command her release from the Rite of Conscription, because what other use could he have for his title if not the rescue of a noble maiden from an unworthy end?

But it was too late. By now she would likely have already been sent to the lines down below, right on the lip of the funnel they had created in the valley floor to channel the darkspawn into a killing field. The Grey Wardens would act as the bulwark to cut off the beasts’ escape, allowing the royal forces to close in a pincer and wear them down from all sides.

A rumble of thunder punctuated his thoughts, distant but deep enough to be felt in the bones. The leather straps of his armour creaked as he straightened, the metal plate a leach for what little warmth was afforded by the braziers dotted through the hall. Winter night descended like a candle snuffer so far south, intractable and absolute even without the moons clouded by a gathering storm, perfect cover for a horde of darkspawn that shrank from the glare of the sun. Rain would slow them, but still they would come.

He cleared his throat. “My part in the plan…”

“Don’t underestimate your importance,” Cailan chuckled, misreading the source of his worry. “The Tower of Ishal has the best view over the entire valley, and I will need someone up there I can trust to know when to light the signal beacon.” The usual bright smile was clouded by a frown, the sky-blue eyes as serious as Alistair had ever seen them. “It’ll be up to you.”

He swallowed. “What do you –”

“Cailan! The field awaits.”

Loghain, unmistakeable in the clanking, outdated armour he had taken as a trophy from the Orlesian commander at River Dane, made an impressive silhouette outlined in the doorway. His elven squire scurried after him with his sword and helmet held ready, ignored as a familiar piece of furniture. The vaulted ceiling of the old Tevinter hall made his voice echo strangely, and the braziers threw deep, ageing shadows across his face. Like Cailan, he had braided his dark hair back from his temples to stop it getting in his eyes, but his dour expression held none of the younger man’s hopeful energy.

“Ho – Your Lordship!” the king called back, ignoring the lack of formality. “We’re just adding the final flourishes to the plan.”

Loghain scowled. “What flourishes? I have already outlined the attack, and the lookouts have spotted movement in the trees – there is no time to make changes that will weaken our forces’ resolve.”

“Alistair will be taking charge of the contingent in the Tower of Ishal,” Cailan said, as if Loghain had not spoken. “Along with – ah! Here comes Duncan now.”

Alistair turned in the direction his brother was pointing, his heart bucking like an unbroken colt when he spotted Rosslyn following silently in the warden-commander’s footsteps with a dog at her heels. If anything, she looked worse than when he had seen her returning from the Wilds, the clench of her jaw and the faint line between her brows telling of pain she was trying to hide.

“Your Majesty,” Duncan said, bowing low. “Your Highness, Your Lordship.”

Loghain didn’t even spare him a glance. “If Prince Alistair is going to be in the tower of Ishal, where will you be?” he demanded of the king.

“I will be leading the assault from our lines.”

“You risk too much,” he scoffed. “The darkspawn horde is too dangerous for you to play hero like you’re in a bedtime story!”

“My decision is final.” This time there was a bite to Cailan’s words. “If you think it too dangerous, perhaps we should wait for the Orlesian forces to join us after all.”

Wary of the old, familiar argument, Alistair left off trying to catch Rosslyn’s eye to glance between the pair, unsure if his intervention would be welcome. Though he disagreed with Loghain’s level of paranoia regarding the old enemy, Cailan’s blithe dismissal of everything the Orlesians had done during the Occupation of Ferelden – an age of suffering not even a generation removed from memory – rankled just as much. There was bad blood still on both sides, from old soldiers and young hotheads both, eager to reclaim a former glory.

Loghain waved a dismissive hand. “Again you parrot this fool notion that we need the Orlesians to defend ourselves. Your father –”

“Is no longer king,” Cailan reminded him coldly. “Our arguments with the Orlesians are a thing of the past – and you will remember your place.”

For a moment, the cavernous hall rang with no sound but the distant hum of the gathering storm, the wind worrying the sigil banners in the camp outside. Loghain’s mouth thinned into a sullen line, his eyes shadowed by knotted brows as the censure struck true.

“So be it,” he snapped. “How fortunate King Maric did not live to see his son ready to hand Ferelden over to those who enslaved us for a century.”

“Since that’s settled, let us hope our current forces are enough.” Cailan turned, dismissing his advisor. “Duncan, are your Wardens ready?”

“They are, Your Majesty.”

“And you’ve brought Lady Cousland with you – or Warden Cousland it is now, I suppose.” Gallant as ever, he stepped forwards and caught her fingers, his gaze tinged with strange regret as he placed a courtly kiss above her knuckles. “My lady, your bravery does credit to us all.”

“I only do my duty, Your Majesty,” she murmured, demure as a court rose. “Please, tell me… did my brother return to the camp?”

Cailan offered her a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid the only Cousland we may look to now is you. And we are grateful. Every Grey Warden is needed, now more than ever.”

“If indeed this is a true Blight,” Loghain groused from the other side of the war table, as if he had not heard the exchange. “You rely on these Grey Wardens too much.”

It was Duncan who interrupted, in a voice carefully blank of emotion. “Your Lordship, this is a true Blight, barely begun. It may be that the archdemon will appear tonight.”

“I will not start this argument again,” Cailan declared, before retort could be made. “Regardless of the archdemon’s presence, we cannot let the horde spill uncontested into Fereldan lands. My lady, I asked that you be brought here for a special purpose. Your father speaks – forgive me, spoke – highly of your skills as a warrior.”

He gestured to the maps, inviting a cover for the flash of anguish in her expression.

“The beacon at the top of the Tower of Ishal will be the signal for Gwaren’s forces to attack from cover and close the trap on the darkspawn, and you and Alistair must be ready for the moment to light it. He knows the plan – I am charging you with his protection, should it be needed.”

Wide with alarm, her gaze shot to Alistair, but before he could say anything she buried the look under the noble’s mask she had been taught to wear since childhood, and turned back to the king. “If that is your command, I’ll make sure it’s done.”

Again, Loghain interrupted. “I have a cohort stationed in the tower already who can manage lighting the beacon.”

“And I’m sure another two pairs of hands will do no harm.”

The two glared at each other, like stags counting the points on each other’s crowns, but in the end Loghain was still only a teyrn, bound by oath to follow his liege lord, and he heaved a long sigh as he swiped his helmet from his squire’s fingers and jammed it onto his head.

“Very well.” He offered a curt bow. “The field awaits us, then.”

The silence left in his wake as he stalked out hung heavy with foreboding, the stones above their heads rattled by another, closer boom of thunder.

“You should get going,” Cailan said after a moment, as he donned his own helmet. “Or all the glory and accolades will be won already.”

Alistair managed to roll his eyes. “Fine, fine. But just so you know, if you ever ask me to put on a dress and dance the remigold, I’m drawing the line.” He looked to Rosslyn, but saw no reaction, none of the fond exasperation lifted in a familiar, lopsided smirk. “I’ll, uh, see you on the other side, brother.”

“Of course.” Cailan smiled, eager. “Think of it, the sons of Maric battling side by side with the Grey Wardens to stem the tide of evil. Are you ready, Duncan?”

“The Grey Wardens wait for your order, Your Majesty.”

“Then let us put an end to these darkspawn, here and now!”

The warden-commander nodded, and turned to Rosslyn. “We will talk later – there is much for you to learn. For now, remember that you are a true Grey Warden.”

“I know exactly what I am,” she replied, in the same icy tone Alistair had seen her wield earlier against Daveth, her hand curling into the dog’s ruff. Defiance lived in the line of her jaw, the draw of her brows, and after an instant of contemplation, Duncan blinked first and looked away.

“One day you will understand the necessity of what was done.” He straightened. “Make sure the beacon is lit, and may the Maker watch over you.”

He retreated after the king, and the bubble of royal guard that had fallen into step behind him, and then only Alistair and Rosslyn were left in the crumbling hall. When he stepped up to her, the layers of their armour kept him from feeling her warmth.

“What was that about?” he asked.

She did not look at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m –” She gasped and staggered, one hand rising to cover her mouth as if to fend off the urge to vomit. “Don’t worry about me. I can fight.”

“What have they done to you?” It was more than fear or fatigue; her arm trembled beneath his where he had lunged to stop her from falling, and now he stood close enough to catch the feverish light in her eyes. He saw horror there, too, but no trace of its source.

“The darkspawn are coming.”

A shout from the direction of the southern lookouts cut across all the questions crowding on his tongue, followed by another and then another as the alarm was passed along the lines. Horns blew. Booted footsteps clattered over stone followed by the clink of metal gears as the ballistae were drawn taut and loaded. Already they had lingered too long; the Tower of Ishal lay across the old Tevinter bridge on the other side of the valley, the beacon five floors above its entrance. There would be time later to cross the gulf that lay between him and Rosslyn and demand answers of the Wardens, or so he hoped, and in the meantime an entire army waited on him to guide them. Bryce Cousland had always insisted on duty.

He unsheathed his sword, hefted his shield on his left arm. “Let’s go.”

Without the hum of waiting soldiers, the rows of empty tents seemed to hunch in on themselves, the canvas slouched against the support poles like drunkards by an emptied cask, reflecting the clank of armour as he jogged southward towards the bridge with Rosslyn at his heels. The air above them, stinging cold, pressed down with the threat of the storm.

“The mages aren’t on the lines?” she panted, as a flare of magic shot through the darkness of the infirmary ahead of them.

“Mother Berit wouldn’t allow it,” Alistair answered. “She’s more scared of the mages than she is of the darkspawn.”

“We all may end tonight regretting that.”

When they reached the bridge, they were saluted by the commander the ballista crews, who held herself steady despite the tightness of her jaw.

“How is everything up here, captain?” Alistair asked.

“All set, Your Highness. We’ve –”

“Look – there! In the trees!”

With a worried glance the captain followed them to the parapet. The king’s army stood arrayed below, impossibly far down in the gloom, the plan of attack revealed as clearly as if the soldiers had been little wooden blocks set upon a map, with Cailan just visible on a slight rise, his golden armour sparking in the torchlight. Beyond the ranks the wide, flat bottom of the valley had been bottlenecked using constructs of sharpened logs and stakes driven into the ground, well clear of the line of trees. Fog was gathering under the eaves. As Alistair peered closer, the shadows within it moved, forming shapes like men that resolved into the first, horrific lines of the darkspawn horde that snarled and slashed at the air before them with crude but vicious-looking blades.

“Why don’t they attack?”

Alistair glanced along the line to the young soldier – still older than him, perhaps – who had broken the silence.

“They’re waiting for something,” Rosslyn murmured. The intensity of her expression betrayed more disgust than fear, her head cocked at an angle as if she were straining to hear a conversation from another room.

“Waiting for what?” the captain scoffed. “They’re beasts.”

Rosslyn turned. “There’s a second force – they’re going to cut us off.” Her head snapped back like a sleeper jolted awake, teeth bared in a snarl as the sound of shouting grew at the far end of the bridge.

“Your Highness?” The captain, a grizzled woman at least twice his age with a scar running down the left side of her face, watch him uncertainly. Waiting for orders, he realised.

“Uh…” It was one thing to move through a camp checking logistics off a list, another entirely to give unexpected orders in the heat of battle.

“You are to hold the bridge,” Rosslyn answered for him. “Focus on the range of your weapons and thin the horde for the king’s forces to cut them down. If the darkspawn break through here, channel them as best you can so they can’t use their numbers as advantage. We’ll go ahead and do what we can.”

The captain saluted again. “Aye, Warden.”

But Rosslyn was already striding away.

Scrambling to follow her, Alistair nodded to the captain and barely noticed the growing roar from the ranks of darkspawn pressing against the backs of those in front in the valley below. A barked command came from the end of the line and the archers spaced between the ballista crews reached into their quivers. The shouts ahead grew into screams.

The skirmish was almost over by the time he caught up. The soldiers who hadn’t fallen in the surprise attack had bunched together in two lines, infantry in front with archers and bolters behind picking off the last few genlocks swarming from the ruins. Rosslyn stood in the centre with her dog at her flank, her sword a flash in the darkness and her form unmatchable as she cut down every enemy that came within her reach.

One or two managed to slip past through sheer force of numbers, however, and whether it was instinct or design that drove them, they pressed hardest on the right flank until it buckled. Soldiers staggered backwards – the darkspawn howled, raised their cudgels –

Alistair moved without thinking. He slammed bodily into the closest one, taking the impact on his shield as he sent it flying backwards, then used the momentum to sweep his blade up in a biting arc that sliced through the throat of a second. Black blood spattered against his mask, but he paid it no heed. There were more of them – many more – a mass of stinking bodies that shrieked and snapped in the gap his hesitation had made in Rosslyn’s wake, and he snarled as he cut through them to get to her side, finesse dissolved into brutal economy by desperation.

At last the wave receded, leaving the soldiers at the base of the path panting as they counted up the dead. The number of darkspawn corpses greatly outnumbered the human, the last few put to a swift end by the pikes and swords of the survivors. For a moment, Alistair could only stare at his own blade, at the slick of blood from his first kills, unpleasantly giddy, before he mustered the presence of mind to wipe it away on a spare corner of cloth. When he looked up, Rosslyn, barely recognisable under the gore coating her mismatched armour, was already talking to one of the soldiers.

“The tower was overrun before we knew anything, my lady,” the greybeard groaned over a broken arm. “We were set to mind the supplies instead of being down on the field. Guess it wasn’t such a waste of steel after all. Damned ‘spawn.”

“What happened to the soldiers stationed inside the tower?” she asked.

“Couldn’t say, my lady. It’s likely they’re all dead.”

In the pause that followed, Alistair glanced to the tower, its peak dark and its weathered walls too thick for artillery to breach. The dull roar of battle joined carried from the valley below as the first flakes of snow drifted down from the sky, twisting in his gut as it grew louder.

“Take the rest of the wounded with you and fall back to the bridge,” she ordered. “You’ll be of no further use here.”

“But my lady –”

“We’ll handle the rest of the darkspawn,” Alistair interrupted, and glanced to Rosslyn. “If there are any more?”

She blanched. “Yes. There are more.”

“Then we’ll need everyone here who can still fight. And someone will have to barricade the doors behind us once we’re inside. We have to get that beacon lit.”

The soldiers close enough to hear exchanged worried looks.

“Better we get moving,” she agreed. She turned to lead the way, but hissed as her weight fell on her right leg.

“You’re injured,” Alistair realised.

“It’s nothing.”

He waved her dismissal away. “You there – get a bandage! I thought it was all darkspawn blood.”

“Most of it is,” she insisted, but winced again as she tried to dodge around him. “We don’t have time for this – and you’re not carting me back behind the lines.”

He remembered the lift of her chin from the very first time he met her, the defiance in calling Isolde only an arlessa, and gulped back the truth that he wanted so desperately to send her away.

“If there are darkspawn in there, I need a Grey Warden, and you’re the only one I’ve got,” he said instead. “Which means I need to know you’re not going to bleed out in the middle of a fight.”

Her acceptance came in a huff of fogged breath and a muttered curse as she turned aside to take the bandage from the soldier who had been lurking out of the way with an injury kit. Protocol could not let him tend to the wound himself, but he held the torch and steadied her at the elbow while she loosened her cuiss plates and roughly wrapped the linen around her thigh.

“Someone can take a proper look at it in the morning,” she grumbled, low enough for only him to hear. “If any of us are still alive by then.”

The tower, when the company finally made it inside, rang heavy with silence after the rage of the storm and the battle outside, the cautious tramp of their boots muted under the vaulted stone ceiling. Boxes and racks of weapons lay in haphazard piles that hid the statues of the long-dead magisters standing on marble plinths along the walls, the scent of oiled metal thick in the darkness but overlaid with the rank, rotted-fur odour of the horde.

“Where are all the bodies?” Alistair asked in a whisper. “Loghain said he had people stationed in the tower.”

“My da used to tell stories about how darkspawn took people down into the dark,” someone murmured. “Never to be seen again.”

Rosslyn glanced over her shoulder. “Steady. The garrison may be –”

She stopped dead, cut off by a guttural, bubbling snarl from the next room. It was answered by a hiss, and then the clatter of something metal falling to the floor, and then more harsh cries joining a squabble like an unexpected bone tossed to a pack of street dogs. Their company drew back, weapons raised, passing fearful glances to their neighbours. The dog whined. Towards the rear, the three Circle mages who had been assigned as healers to the company drew closer together, hiding behind their staves.

“We can’t let them bottleneck the door,” she hissed after a moment.

He glanced around the edge of the arched doorway and blanched. “I think that’s an ogre in there. Maker’s breath, what are they doing ahead of the horde? There wasn’t supposed to be any resistance here.”

With a heaved breath, she adjusted her grip on her sword and raised her shield into a guard. “If you like, we could tell them they’re in the wrong place,” she said.

“Right, because clearly this is all a misunderstanding.” He couldn’t help a grin. “We’ll laugh about this later.”

Behind them the soldiers waited, counting on them to lead.

“We’re going to rush them,” Rosslyn instructed. “Archers will hang back against the wall and pick off outliers, infantry will form a shield wall and advance. On my mark – the king is relying on us.” She turned, nodded once to Alistair, rocked onto the balls of her feet.

“For Ferelden!”

The wall of noise as she charged in startled the darkspawn from their spoils. Some went down before they could even reach for their weapons, taken in the eye or throat by Fereldan arrows, but the rest leapt forward with enraged shrieks that battered the disciplined line of soldiers. The shield wall held under the first assault, but above the noise of hurlocks and genlocks the bellow of the ogre reverberated like a war drum. It moved like a landslide, slate grey in the gloom, limbs thick as pillars wrapped in spiked cuffs, its round head a gape of dagger teeth crowned with black horns. Eyes like obsidian glittered as it lowered its head.

“Mages! Bring it down!”

It charged. Alistair only just managed to dive out of the way. Fireballs lit the air overhead. He came up hacking at the limbs of the darkspawn that swarmed into the gap the beast had broken in the line, heard the roar of the ogre as it batted at the flames igniting across its shoulders, the screams of the soldiers left trampled in its wake. He tried to get to it – sliced open the throat of one looming hurlock and bashed another with the boss of his shield – but before he could take more than five steps another howl of pain shook the chamber and it fell to one knee. A giant hand swept out. Two men hit the wall and slumped unmoving, a third cried out as the brawny first closed around his torso and squeezed.

And then Rosslyn was there. Her sword arced through the monster’s wrist, severing tendons, and before it could react she dodged under its reach and came up, feet planted, and with a shout drove her sword to the hilt beneath its ribs.

He lowered his sword as it fell, his boots slipping a little in the blood starting to pool beneath the fallen. Outside, the night had been too dark to see her expression as she fought, but the mages’ fires had ignited the darkspawn’s spoil, and in its flickering light he caught the feral gleam in her eyes, clear even behind her face-guard, a manic energy eager for the next strike of her blade.

But most of the smaller darkspawn were dead already, and those that remained gibbered as they were cut down, out of her reach. The Fereldans left standing picked through the bodies, retrieved arrows and checked for survivors, shouting for one of the mages at every groan or twitch of a limb. With nothing else to do, she turned and despite the pain of her wound crouched beside the soldier the ogre had grabbed, but did no more. As Alistair crossed to join her, the man’s gaze pinned him in glassy, silent rebuke.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But we should get moving.”

“They know we’re here.”

He frowned. “The darkspawn?”

When she nodded, distant, the cold dread that had settled in his stomach turned over again, but he forced aside his concern. A sergeant broke away from the knot of survivors on the other side of the room and came to a salute, the action brittle beneath the spatters of gore.

“Orders, Your Highness?” she asked.

“We need to secure the tower,” he answered. “Pyres for the dead will have to wait.”

“Aye, ser.”

Necessity hurried their steps as they passed from the entrance chamber. One of the mages volunteered to stay behind with the injured, which left their company barely more than ten in number. It was enough in the narrow corridors to dispatch the small band of darkspawn lurking by the tunnel blasted into a corner of the outer wall, though the hole, littered about with cart-sized blocks of masonry, held the promise of more horrors to come. A damp, putrid odour, like meat left to rot in stale water, welled from the orifice, and it was easy to imagine movement from within the creeping darkness. And still there were no bodies, no signs of violence save the ones they themselves had caused.

“Right.” Alistair hefted his shield and tried to ignore the itch of so many faces looking in his direction. “How long would it take to collapse this tunnel?”

The senior of the two mages leaned on his staff, his eyes fixed on his feet. “It is not a question of time but of making sure the whole tower doesn’t collapse with it,” he warned. “Unless we went into it say… two hundred paces, and used an Earthquake.”

“We don’t know what we’ll find at two hundred paces,” the sergeant pointed out next to him.

“If there are darkspawn in the tunnel they’re not going to stay there,” Rosslyn snapped. “We can’t afford to let them through. Your Highness, I can clear the rest of the tower – it’ll be easier if I’m not having to watch behind me as well as in front.”

An involuntary breath sucked in through his teeth at the determination in her voice, the grim practicality with which she volunteered herself for danger. With the sergeant’s gaze keen on his expression, he lowered his voice, hand tight on the hilt of his sword to keep from reaching for what he could not have.

“You’re not going alone.”

“I’ll take the enchanter,” she answered with a shrug. “And maybe an archer. Cuno will be with me, too.”

At this, the dog whined and butted his head into her palm, a wide, lolling smile showing strong, white teeth.

“And me,” Alistair said.

“Your Highness –”

“The king charged me with ensuring the beacon is lit,” he interrupted. “Without it, the whole battle could be lost.”

For a hard moment she searched his face, as if daring herself to call out the flimsiness of his excuse, to pick an argument in lieu of any more darkspawn to throw herself at. In the end, however, the noble sense of propriety drilled into her over hours of childhood lessons with Aldous won out, and she turned to the sergeant instead.

“Collapse the tunnel, and then hold the line here. Nothing goes up.”

The sergeant passed one last nervous glance towards Alistair before saluting and turning on her heel to relay the order to the rest of the soldiers. After a moment, a bolter broke away from the huddle; he tried not to let the relief run too deep when the man came to attention in front of Rosslyn instead of him.

“His Highness and I will scout ahead,” she instructed. “You are to stay back to be effective at range.”

“Yes, Warden.”

No more words were spoken as they climbed through the tower. Above the grandeur of the main floor, the pillars lost their delicate scrollwork and the ceilings lowered into barrack rooms and storehouses, and yet other chambers that seemed to have no original purpose at all. The vacant gazes of statues watched them pass from beneath an ages-thick layer of dust, indifferent, and after a while the eerie silence lost its teeth, shrinking to the perfectly ordinary sound of four sets of footsteps.

“You should have stayed with the others.” Rosslyn’s gaze stayed focussed on the shadows ahead, her voice pitched too low for the rest of their party but still full of reproach.

“I didn’t want you to go alone,” he admitted, just as quietly, wishing they were anywhere else.

“After two years you can’t think I need you to coddle me,” she scoffed. “Even if…”

“What?”

The glance she shot him skittered away in an instant. “It doesn’t matter.”

Shortly after silence fell again, they came across a chamber full of corpses. Not only darkspawn, but war dogs and men in thick woollen smocks to keep out the cold, and in the very centre of the room another ogre keeled over on its back with a ballista bolt through the chest.

“Check for survivors,” Rosslyn barked. She moved to toe the bulk of the dead ogre’s arm, disgust plain on her face.

“These aren’t Loghain’s men, they’re not wearing the Drake,” the bolter said. “They’re just the handlers. Not trained to fight.”

“They must have heard them coming and retreated here, where they could make a stand.” Rosslyn paused. “I don’t think any ‘spawn got through.”

Alistair turned away from the dog at his feet, one of the injured the kennelmaster had asked to be moved to avoid stress to the others. “We need to keep moving.”

There were too many stairs left to climb, too many grains of sand slipping through the hourglass, every passing moment maybe one too late for Cailan and the Wardens, one more for the darkspawn to throw their overwhelming numbers at the Fereldan lines and crumple it like paper, and even if they were driven back, what then? A true Blight would mean an archdemon, an endless pouring of tainted creatures from the Deep Roads until it was slain, and perhaps another hundred years of disaster that would make the Orlesian Occupation seem trivial by comparison. Perhaps self-interest would inspire those same Orlesians to ally with their former, contested province, but mistrust whispered like a demon on both sides of the border.

The wind howling at the top of the corridor sped Alistair’s footsteps. The tower’s peak stood open to the elements, he knew, an unadorned platform encircled by high arches. When they had first arrived at Ostagar, Cailan had told him eagerly of the enchantments the ancient Tevinter magisters had laid into the stonework to protect it from the elements, how the signal fire that had burned in times of strife had been magical instead of mundane, fuelled by lyrium rather than pitch and timber. Even now, the worst of the storm seemed to part around the walls, the wind barely cooling the sweat from his forehead as he charged up into the chamber proper. Someone had stacked the signal fire ready for lighting, with thick ash trunks at the base to ensure the flames would last, and barrels of oil to make them burn hot.

“Douse it,” he ordered. “Then wait for my signal.”

Below, the battlefield lay obscured under a cloud of smoke, the flying snow catching like sparks in the pinprick lights of the fires Cailan had ordered lit to mark his battle lines. Within the haze, masses clumped and strove against each other, human on darkspawn, but any semblance of order had long since been scattered by the horde’s chaotic onslaught. Alistair heard grunts and curses behind him as he scanned for Cailan’s banner, but did not turn to help. The rise where the king had planned to wait with the Grey Wardens was swamped with orange light. Loghain’s forces, the black banners of Gwaren, were nowhere to be seen.

“Light it – light it now!”

A pause, and then a burst of scorching air as the kindling ignited, and then Rosslyn’s footsteps as she came to join him by the ledge.

“Can you see them?” he asked, desperate. “Loghain should be –”

“There!” She pointed. A faint glimmer of rushlights within the trees.

“What is he doing? Surely he can see the beacon?”

The lights were moving in the wrong direction. As the battle waged on, the screams of the dying faint on the wind, they bobbed northwards in silence like the drift of leaves carried by a current. He stared, disbelief and desperation trying to rationalise the sight into some sort of illusion. Loghain was a master tactician – Cailan’s oldest advisor – whatever his plan, it must –

“We are betrayed.”

There was a dead quality to Rosslyn’s voice that snapped him from his reverie. When he looked up, she was slumped against the pillar next to her as if wounded, with the visor of her helmet lifted to allow her to breathe, the shadows thrown deep across her face twisting into such lines of pain he knew it was the truth. For a moment he could only gaze at the downturn of her mouth, the wisps of dark hair that had escaped and caught on her lips. His breath rasped in his throat.

“There was never a garrison in the tower,” he realised, still transfixed. “What do we do?”

She seemed to have forgotten his presence. Startled, she turned grey eyes on him, trying to form words that refused to come, until a wash of white dread sent her features slack.

The bolt struck her before she could cry out. Alistair lunged, grabbed her arm before she could tumble out onto empty air. He heard the impacts of more crossbows, and the screams of the others fell silent behind him. Darkspawn poured like beetles from the stairwell.

And then the world exploded.

[chancellor-reno5]

⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦Vipera's Case⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧

An OC Short/One Shot story

Warnings: Murder, mentions of gouged out eyes, prison mentioned, decapitation

READ WITH CAUTION

Sometimes, the coldest killers are the happiest children...

That's what he'd heard and he knew it was true. He knew who he was and who he'd become. He was a happy, oblivious child who had no worries... At least, before everything happened.

⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧⋆༺𓆩⋆♱✮♱⋆𓆪༻⋆⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦

The last semester of the year ended, and Vipera was prepared to go home for a few weeks - home to his family who had adopted the young fae when he was only a baby. Everything seemed normal - the walk to the train, the train ride to his hometown, the trek to his house, greeting his neighbours. Everything was normal.

Until it wasn't.

Vipera entered his family's home with a bright smile on his face, and a call to say he was home. He was met with a thick and bloody silence. He stared at the doorway of the living room, locking eyes with someone he didn't know and catching eye of someone fleeing out the window. Stupidly, the fae looked down. A thud of Vipera's belongings falling to the floor sounded out. This man was holding the vibrant red hair of his adoptive father. His father's expression was lifeless, his eyes gouged out and his body... Well, not attached. Daring to look behind the man, Vipera saw red. His brothers and his sister, his mother, his aunt, one of his cousins, his father - all of them decapitated and eyeless.

Without even a second thought, Vipera lashed out, charging at this man with a violent snarl. His fist collided with this murderer's temple, sending the man backwards. In a rage, the fae flung blow after blow at the man, completely ignoring his eye getting ripped out of its socket. Vipera didn't stop, not even when the man was dead, obliterating his face until he was unrecognisable. When he did finally realise, he froze, his body numb as the dread and anguish washed over him. He stumbled backwards as he stood up, and made a call to the cops, before he ran for it, fleeing the scene.

⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧⋆༺𓆩⋆♱✮♱⋆𓆪༻⋆⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦

Several years down the line, the case of the Occidendum family had gone cold, Vipera pronounced dead after no trace of him was found. In the midst of his disappearance, he was taken under the wing of some alcoholic psychopath. Vipera would kill for him, his lack of care or emotion making him ideal for such dirty work. He worked for him in agreement that he would find whoever fled his house that day.

The psychopath kept his word.

Daylor. That was the bastard's name. The one who ran that day. Tracked down, he would pay. Pay for what the fuck he did. Issue? Well, this little Daylor happened to be the brother of Fëanor, the warden of the country's most inescapable prison.

And yet... Vipera didn't care at all.

⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧⋆༺𓆩⋆♱✮♱⋆𓆪༻⋆⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦

75 years of killing couldn't have been more of a help. 75 years of slaughter, 100s of lives taken without being caught.

"Daylor."

He had found the man. His stare was cold and Daylor's was scared. Terrified. He knew who Vipera was. He knew what the little fae had done 80 years ago to his beloved friend. Without missing a beat, Vipera swung and hence commenced the fight that would change Vipera's life for the worst.

A crack and a thud made Vipera pause, staring at the majority of his horn now on the floor. He snarled and used it to his advantage, snatching it up and holding it point-down towards Daylor's throat.

The stab was never made.

Struggling frantically, Vipera did everything in his power to try and free himself from the hands that held him tight. He screamed, begging whoever had a hold of him to let him finish the job, to let him complete his revenge.

"Vipera Occidendum, you have every right to remain silent. You will be seen in court for several accounts of murder and attempted murder. Whatever you do and say can and will be used against you."

Fëanor.

Vipera fell limp in the hold of the warden. He had no chance. The warden was at least 8 times his age, and hence made him far more capable than Vipera.

"Like how I'm the one serving a pissing sentence. HE HELPED KILL MY FUCKING FAMILY!" Vipera snarled, snapping at Fëanor all while staring down at Daylor with a murderous glare.

⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧⋆༺𓆩⋆♱✮♱⋆𓆪༻⋆⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦

Life.

A life sentence.

He'd die being known as the Remorseless Killer of Jejivan. Never as a man hunting and preparing for revenge. He'd die here. In this prison. At least... He assumed so... Who knew? Perhaps one day, he'd be let free.

Sometimes, the coldest killers are the happiest children... And Vipera was one of them.

⛦˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛧⋆༺𓆩⋆♱✮♱⋆𓆪༻⋆⛧˙♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱⋆☠︎︎⋆♱˙⛦