The above image, a reproduction of a study for a much larger painting, serves as a primary example of the flourishing of the Highever parochial style following the coronation of Queen Consort Talvinder Kaur Theirin, originally of House Cousland. Itself one of many offshoots of the post-occupation renaissance style, Highever parochial, like most regional styles, eschews Orlesian academic sensibilities while appropriating various elements of composition and finishing unique to the court painters of Val Royeaux. More specifically, Highever parochial is an example of the combination of the freer brushstrokes and domestic moments associated with post-occupation renaissance styles and the bright colors and decorative embellishments known to all connoisseurs of Hasmali art. This admixture is a unique result of the enthusiastic patronage of the Cousland Teyrnir, and the popularity of the workshop of Jaspreet Singh in Highever City.
An excerpt from Ottilie Marchand’s Study of Contemporary Fereldan Art, used as a textbook throughout the various academies of the Free Marches, as well as some of the more avant-garde Orlesian institutions.
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The Rose
He was thumbing the flower again.
Not his intention, but his thoughts had been drifting while at camp, and before he’d even really thought about it, he’d found his fingers gliding over the delicate petals. Of course, there were no prizes for guessing what – or rather, who - his thoughts had drifted to in that moment.
(In most moments, really.)
He probably shouldn’t be thinking about her. Certainly not as much as he did. He should be thinking about the blight, or how they were going to beat Loghain, or Eamon. Yet, somehow, in those quiet evenings at camp, he found himself idly thumbing a rose that he’d picked on an impulse that he still didn’t fully understand, and thinking about her.
She perplexed him.
He had been so worried about telling her who he really was. Dreading each step that had brought them closer to Redcliffe. Knowing that once they arrived, he would have to tell her, and that the longer he waited, the worse it would be. Yet, he’d been utterly unable to tell her before he’d absolutely had to.
It was strange. Not once had he hesitated to share anything else with her. But that… that had sat in his heart like a lead weight, growing heavier with every step.
He just… hadn’t wanted anything to change. Hadn’t wanted her to treat him differently because of it.
People had always treated him differently because of it, and she was a noble. Granted, she was a noble unlike any other he had met, but she was still a noble. He didn’t think that he could stand it if she suddenly started deferring to him just because that’s what she’d been raised to do. The thought alone was far too horrible to contemplate.
But – when he finally had told her – she hadn’t done that at all. In fact, she’d joked with him. The way they always did. And while, yes, there had been something in her eyes that might have been hurt, and, yes, she had, quietly and factually, pointed out that with Cailan dead, he was technically the last of the royal line – a fact that he hadn’t even considered before that moment – but… she hadn’t changed how she treated him one bit. Not then and not now.
Neither had she pushed him.
She could have. It would have been easy for her to use their friendship to push him towards the throne, and then use him to exact revenge on the bastard who had murdered her entire family. He wasn’t even sure that he’d blame her for it if she did. But she hadn’t, and he knew she wouldn’t.
She wasn’t like that.
Read the Rest on AO3
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