#and whats worse. varric is so so torn up about it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dragonagecompanions · 1 month

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hello, this is my first request :) unsure if your still taking requests but I was wondering how the companions (maybe romanced maybe not) would react to finding out the Inquisitor has a dead kid? I think the only way the party would find out is in the fade via the fear demon, and then maybe the advisors find out on their own ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠∵⁠ ⁠)⁠┌

idk but I would be truly honored to see you answer this request, and even if not than thank you for reading over it <33

- 🍡

WARNINGS For CHILD LOSS YOI HAVE BEEN WARNED

Cassandra: When the fear demon, gleeful in it’s telling of their leader’s loss, reveals the truth the Seeker is…well, there are no words. Forcibly she is reminded of how they swayed, pale and weeping, when she had said there were no other survivors. Guilt churns low and deep at her own words, a year and more gone now, throwing that fact in their face as accusation. Throwing such a loss in their face and then demanding answers.

Throwing a calling at their feet and demanding leadership, never knowing what a loss they struggled through.

She fights all the harder for them, as if every enemy batted away from them is attempted absolution. Cassandra Pentaghast thought she understood grief in all its facets, but what does the loss of older brother and parents- expected losses if come too soon- stand before the loss of a child? Maker, how do they still breathe through it?

When they are free of the fade, she approaches only to offer apology. If they wish to speak of their loss she will listen, but only then. She has forced enough from them.

Varric: Shit. Just…shit. Here he is, going on for months about how this story is bad for heroes and how the Inquisitor is the main character and blathering on, and never saw it. Never saw the aching grief, because it was never shown. The only example he has, or is at least intimately familiar with, is Leandra Hawk and his own mother.

And as the Inquisitor had never fallen into drink or taken to blaming whoever was closest to them for things outside of anyone’s control there had been no sign for Varric to catch on to. And it makes him feel…almost dirty. Stained with his own intentions, blithely going on while their leader had lost their kid.

He doesn’t bring it up to them, doesn’t know how, but Skyhold’s resident author is absolutely the own who tells Josephine as soon as they tumble out of the fade. That raven missive is a short and brutal telling, far from his normal goings on, and his guilt is manifold in it.

Solas: The Dread Wolf is not so unattached from the world as to not consider the losses suffered at the conclave, but for the most part -when he did turn his mind to them- they were mostly academic. A balance of power, and the loss of so many leaders among both chantry and mages a destabilizing force for his future efforts. Numbers laid cooly on a chart, beads on an abacus. The fortunes of war laid bare.

But more than one parent lost a child in that terrible moment, and siblings mourned. Children bereft, friends torn asunder, lovers left to weep alone for their loves. Listening to the fear demon enumerate the inquisitor’s loss magnifies the enormity of what happened, and though he will undoubtedly be the source of much worse for a moment the Dread Wolf cannot breathe.

It passes, of course, and when they leave the fade the rift mage dies his best not to carry those emotions out with him. This world is not to blame for his actions, for the destruction of his world, but he must restore it and so they must bear the cost. It is not fair to them, and it will be long months until he can be east about his plans.

In the interim, he dares to approach the inquisitor only once about their loss. He is there as a listening ear in the silence of his rotunda if they wish to speak of their sorrow. Or if they wish only a silent companion, he will direct the kindest spirits he can find to guard their dreams and remain at their side as long as he can.

Blackwall: Maker forbid. For a moment Skyhold’s would be warden is swamped by the images of Callier’s children, dead under tiny shrouds beside the ruined carriage at his command. Too many children fall victim to the machinations of their elders and with none to protect them from the fall out, but for all that most of Blackwall’s experience has been from the other side.

Being confronted with the parent who had lost a child, confronted with the knowledge that they had told none of them and had suffered under the burden alone was staggering. Damn it, they had all laid burdens at the Inquisitor’s feet and expected answers, demanded decisions and leadership in a word gone mad— and none had known what they had lost.

He doesn’t know what to say or how to act and instead channels everything into the fight to flee the fade. Rainier would be too much the coward to speak to their leader in the aftermath, but Blackwall- older and hopefully wiser from his own griefs- will offer quiet condolences and whatever aid he can. If they need to speak of it be will listen. And if not there is soft wood and chisel enough to grind out any feelings if that is what they need.

Vivienne: Children had never been in her destiny. As a mage, even one so elevated as to be all but free of the constraints of the circle, motherhood was forbidden to her. Any child of her womb would be sacrificed to the Chantry, given to a family deemed ‘more worthy’ to raise it.

And as a mistress, no matter how deeply the love between them bloomed, Bastian could never have given her such a blessing. He had children— an illegitimate child, and a mage child at that, would have been too great a weapon against him.

And so she had put it out of her mind, never allowed herself to consider or imagine what a son might look like, how a daughter might smile. To think of it would be a loss too great to contemplate—or so she had thought. Met with the active loss and overwhelming grief that their leader must feel, Madame de Fer is suddenly glad not to know how such a burden might rest on her soul.

Could she be so calm a leader as the Inquisitor, while bleeding out inside? Vivienne does not know, and that…well, terrifies her in a way little has. But she is not called iron for nothing, and so when all is calm again she will go the Herald and ask simply and plainly what she might do for them. If the answer is nothing she will abide by it. And if there is something that might in any way assuage their grief then she will ensure they have it.

Dorian: Well, that at least explains the Inquisitor’s uncharacteristically violent outburst, when Halward Pavus had made his way to Ferelden. Upon hearing the possible consequences of the blood magic ritual the Inquisitor had laid into the Magister, flaying with words when they could not use violence. Even the Pavus paterfamilias had seemed shaken by the diatribe, and Dorian had felt championed.

He is not so shallow as to feel betrayed by the knowledge of what terrible grief must have driven such an impassioned defamation of character, but can instead only ache for his friend’s loss. They must have been a wonderful parent, and in a quiet time later will gather his courage to tell them so.

Sera: It doesn’t really register in the moment, so great is her own fear of the Fade and it’s denizens, but later it will simply break the Red Jenny’s heart. Their leader lost a true little one, and still managed to bring themselves to protect the rest of the little people no matter their age.

Like Blackwall she will either offer distraction or uncharacteristic silence in comfort, baked goods an offering that feels too…personal for such a gaping loss. But her admiration for them grows exponentially.

The Iron Bull: Public, corporate grief is rare among the Qun. Not forbidden, exactly, but when everyone is given a role it also implies that every person is inherently replaceable in that role. As Koslun said, the tide rises and falls and things must work forward toward peace.

But the death of a child is different. Whether disease or violence or simple accident, losing an imereki is a tragedy. The Tamassran mourns, the others in their care mourn, and all those in the sphere of the lost one are permitted some little allowance for the loss. Things cannot grind to a halt- this is why parents are separated from children, to ensure the deep emotional bonds that are anathema to the Qun- but there is not simple acceptance without acknowledgement of the loss.

Not even that was given to the Inquisitor. It’s east to see the shock of the others even through his own fear, and the knowledge infuriates Bull enough to get him through the Fade. Their leader lost a child, and no one was there for them. Instead piled on the whole world and its imminent loss on their shoulders. It’s disgraceful.

Later, when Adamant is pacified and they return to Skyhold, he will pull them aside. It will be painful and it will be slow, and whether they need alcohol or pain or even the clinical breakdown that bondage and sex can only give-with their explicit consent- he will help them bleed the pain and begin the grieving process.

Cole: The pain was too big for him to help, the threads caught up in pain and joy and guilt and anger and terrible despair. He didn’t even have the words to describe it to others, and so had kept silent.

If they need him later he will help, but this loss is too big for a spirit unsure of how to act.

Cullen: Maker’s breathe. How could they…why did they not…Damn it, how could he not realize?! He had all but thrust the entire inquisition on a parent who had been robbed the chance to even bury their child, let alone mourn them.

Varric’s report rocks him to the core, and the commander in truth does not know what to do. If the rest of the inner circle has it well in hand he will simply work to make sure their leader has less in their plate. If they wish to discuss it with them, he is there and if not…

He hardly has the words anyway.

Josephine: She weeps over the missive, when it arrives. Their inquisitor has been hiding the worst of loses from them, putting on such a brave face to do so much. Like Cullen she works to make sure they have less to do when they return, but does pull them aside briefly to awkwardly hug them and ask if they want a memorial somewhere private in Skyhold.

Leliana: She knew. She knew from only a few days after, when her spies brought her everything there was on the Herald. And even The Nightingales Heart could ache for such a loss, but Leliana took her queues from the Herald and simply never discussed it. That does not change now— she will follow their lead.

Mod Fereldone

#cassandra pentaghast #solas #dorian pavus #varric tethras #the iron bull #sera #madame de fer #warden blackwall #cole #tw:child death #tw: loss #tw: death #cullen rutherford #josephine montilyet #leliana #dragon age inquisition

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thiefbird · 1 year

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Happy Friday! I'm not sure what pairings you're into but since I saw your blog title was Anders Trash, how about "[They] looked into my eyes and uttered four simple words. Those words changed everything." for him?

Happy Friday! This one is long and bittersweet: Kanders and pre m!Handers for @dadrunkwriting

~~~

Hawke had stopped in at the Darktown clinic on his way back from the Wounded Coast, as usual, pockets and pack filled near to bursting with threadbare scavenged clothes and herbs. He'd offered Anders coin, too, when he'd gotten his first profits from the Bone Pit, but the man steadfastly refused any pay but his cut of any work he tagged along for.

Hawke probably would have found his refusal irritating if he hadn't been head over heels in love with him, but he'd long since accepted that he was incapable of being objective where Anders was concerned, so he called it selfless, and chose to hunt down and carry pounds and pounds of elfroot, embrium, and orichalcum back from each journey out of the city.

It was a rare quiet day in the clinic; good weather meant that there were less illnesses, and less accidents from slipping on wet stone. Lirene was rolling bandages--made from previous selections of torn trousers--in the corner, and against the back wall, Anders was bent over a fire, stirring a small pot of simmering green liquid.

He looked back over his shoulder at the clank of Hawke dropping his helmet on a cot, and smiled warmly. "The wandering hero returns! How was the coast?" he asked, pulling the potion off the fire with his bare hands.

Hawke cringed, even as he recognized the pattern of frost protecting Anders' palms. "Less bandit-y than it was a week ago, at the very least. Less full of herbs, too: between myself and Merrill, I think we picked a tree's worth of elfroot," Hawke joked, slipping his pack off his shoulder and dropping it, exaggerating the effort it took to hold it.

Anders' eyes widened as he saw the bulging pack. "Tell me that's not all elfroot, Hawke," he muttered, setting his pot on a flat stone and moving to take a closer look. "I don't know if I have enough space to dry that much."

"No, not all. Found you some stuff to turn into rags and bandages, too, and the orichalcuk and embrium you needed." He paused, hand in his pocket as he debated with himself, as he had the entire walk back.

Merrill had been the first to spot it, crouching in thy grass to peer curiously at the tiny white flowers. "I've never seen these before!" she'd said, waving Hawke and Varric over. "Is it useful? It's very pretty!"

Hawke had recognized the white petals and red center from his father's botanical compendium, the one he'd stolen from the Gallows the night he'd eloped with Leandra. "It's Andraste’s Grace, I think. It, uh... it's not really useful for humans, but it can be used in a potion that can cure the Taint in mabari."

Merrill had looked a little disappointed as she slowly straightened up. "I guess we had better leave it, then," she'd murmured reluctantly. "If we can't use it."

Varric made a soft noise in the back of his throat, and deftly plucked one of the myriad blossoms. "Nonsense, Daisy. No one said you can only have useful flowers." He bowed dramatically, holding the flower towards her, and Merrill giggled as she took it from him.

"Thank you, Varric. Do you think Anders would like some? He spends so much time in his clinic, and i know it's in the nicer part of Darktown, not the very sewery bit, but I think some flowers would help."

And that was how Hawke came to be standing awkwardly in Anders' clinic, a bouquet of Andraste’s Grace oh-so-carefully tucked in a pocket, the image of a nobleman preparing to court a blushing maid. The idea was so ridiculous he nearly left, but...

No. He wouldn't back out now. He couldn't. Knowing his luck, Merrill would ask Anders if he'd liked the bouquet, and that would be worse.

"I also found these," he muttered, pulling the small, brilliantly white flowers from his pocket as he carefully avoided Anders' eyes. "Andraste’s Grace. I- we- Merrill and I thought they might cheer up the clinic."

There was a too-long pause, and Hawke risked a passing glance at Anders' face. The older man's expression was indecipherable, and Hawke felt himself flush. "If you don't like them, or you're allergic, or... I'll just leave. I'm sorry," he mumbled, turning towards the door. Maybe he'd forgotten some important meaning in the years since he'd read about them, and he'd just told Anders to go to the Void, or threatened to burn him like the flowers' namesake.

"No, no, wait. Hawke!" Anders called, voice cracking miserably on his name. "They're beautiful. I just..."

Another quick glance up from the floor revealed the unmistakable gleam of unshed years in Anders' eyes as the mage dropped into his rickety chair. "They were his favorite flowers. Karl's. He'd found a clump the day his magic manifested."

Hawke swallowed down the instinctive groan of self-loathing. Trust him to pick the most emotionally loaded bouquet in the all of Thedas. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Don't be," Anders said after clearing his throat. "I've... I've never seen any in person. They really are beautiful...

"He always said he'd find a way to give me one, once we got out. Fanciful plans, realistic ones, they all had that in common: once we were free, really free, we would find Andraste’s Grace." He choked on a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, and absently spun the lyrium-banded ring he'd taken from Karl's corpse.

Hawke stepped closer, setting the bundle of tiny flowers on the desk in front of Anders. "You were planning to run?"

Anders chuckled humorless. "I'd already run five or six times before that. They always caught me again; phylacteries are a crueler evil than any blood magic Merrill or Surana could ever wield. But this time, this time we were going to run together.

"One of the Templars thought it was romantic," Anders continued, spite tingeing his voice. "She said she'd leave a door to the outside unlocked for us. We'd go north, Tevinter or Rivain, somewhere the Chantry couldn't get us, and we'd be free."

Hawke didn't want to ask. He'd been there for the ending of this story, that horrible, heartbreaking night. But he'd never heard Anders talk about Karl before. "What happened?" he asked, barely louder than a whisper.

Anders didn't answer immediately, brushing his thumb back and forth over the petals. "Changed her mind. Told the Knight-Commander, the First Enchanter. Told them we were- that we planned to run. They sent him to the Gallows that night; he didn't even get to pack.

"She was the one who told me. The next morning; she woke me up, stood over me in my bed. She looked me in the eyes and said four simple words. 'Thekla's left for Kirkwall.' Those words changed everything."

Finally, Anders picked up the flowers, holding them to his face and inhaling their delicate scent. "We're free, Karl," he whispered, barely audible; Hawke felt like the intruding third wheel to Anders and his overwhelming grief. "We're free of them for good, and I have Andraste's Grace."]

#dadwc #dragon age drunk writing circle #kanders #karl thekla #anders #karl x anders #karl thekla x anders #m!hawke #m!handers #m!hawke x anders #did i cry while i was writing this? yes

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lesetoilesfous · 3 years

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Hii :3 I love reading your stories Lese? Is it alright if I call you Lese?? I saw that you were taking prompts and are very close to getting a bingo on that last row. Buried Alive for Anders maybe, whenever youre available ofc? Fenders??? :0 hshsjsjskjd

Hey, thank you so much!! I'm happy to be called Lese, I like Les or Kat, but anything works!!! Thank you so much for helping me try to get a bingo, I really hope you enjoy this one!!!

@badthingshappenbingo Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: Buried Alive

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders, Marian Hawke, Varric Tethras

Additional Tags: Graphic Depiction of Injury, Buried Alive, Panic Attack, Trauma Responses, Pre-Relationship, Past Flogging, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending

Word Count: 2,380

Rating: Mature

“I’ve got it, go! GO!” Anders’ voice bellowing is the last thing Fenris hears before the overwhelming thunder of the cavern collapsing around them drowns out everything else.

He feels as if his mind and his body are torn apart as he runs: his legs leaving his conscious control as they’re overtaken by sheer animal instinct to get away from the collapsing mountain, his mind and sweat-stinging eyes full of the image of Anders’ tall, broad body holding his staff over his shoulders and propping up enough of a threshold for his friends to escape. Fenris’ sweating, bloody feet skid on the sandy stone as he’s deafened by the roar, his breath coming in and out of his lungs in great heaves of fresh snow and broken glass. Ahead of him is the ocean: wide and blue and wrinkled, utterly untouched by the chaos on the beach. Varric skids into the sand beside him with Hawke’s hand on the back of his jacket, her bicep tense where she’s half-lifting the dwarf off the ground.

Fenris blinks, turning around, dizzy suddenly with breathlessness and adrenaline as every chemical pumping through his body flushes into his racing mind. He stumbles, and Hawke catches him, deftly, her blue eyes wide and over-alert the way they always are whenever they get into a situation they might not survive. Fenris has seen that expression on soldiers before, and doesn’t doubt she’s carried it with her since Lothering. He neither pulls away nor leans into her touch, and after a moment she drops her hand to rest on her thighs, bending almost double as she heaves in her breath.

Behind them there’s a hissing avalanche of sand, and great scabs of reeds come tumbling down onto the beach as the cavern crumbles. Fenris has seen the devastating effects of gaatlok before, but somehow his memory never fully prepares him for the imminent blast radius. Slowly, terribly slowly, Fenris’ heart starts to slow, and his breathing begins to return to normal. He becomes aware of the sweat drying on his neck, and the salty taste of the sea breeze in his mouth. His ears are still ringing with the thunder of the cavern collapse when he hears a snap.

The sound is sharp as a whip, even through the stormcloud of noise, and Fenris notices Hawke and Varric exchange a startled look out of the corner of his eye in the split second before he starts running. Fenris stumbles to a stop in front of the cave entrance: a mess of black and grey boulders stained with algae and riddled with tumorous molluscs. The stones have cracked open in places, revealing rich layers of red and orange and yellow. Fenris barely notices, he breathes, and coughs on the sand kicked up the collapse, and breathes again before shouting into the mess. “MAGE! MAGE! MAGE! IF YOU YET LIVE, ANSWER ME.”

Fenris stops, and hears his own voice snatched by the wind and away down the dunes. At Hawke’s heels, Dog is whining, frightened by Fenris’ uncharacteristic display of emotion. Hawke puts a hand on Fenris’ shoulders, and he shrugs her off and hates her a little when her mouth falls in a brief moue of sympathy that’s gone when he blinks. She climbs up the rocks a little, one boulder reaching halfway up her torso. “ANDERS! ANDERS, ARE YOU IN THERE?”

There’s an ominous rumble, and a skittering rain of gravel and sand tumbles down the boulders. Varric clears his throat. “Go easy on the yelling, you two. We don’t want to make it worse.”

Fenris turns to him, seized by a sudden, terrible blade of hope that skewers his heart and twists in it. “Varric. What do we do?”

Varric raises an eyebrow at him. “I grew up on the surface, remember? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Anger, sudden and red, floods behind Fenris’ eyes. “That’s not good enough!” His voice rings against the rocks, and Varric purses his lips. Hawke steps between them.

“Quietly, remember? Come on, if we start moving this lot now then -” She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t say, if he’s unconscious, he might have a chance. Doesn’t say, we could get him before he bleeds out. Doesn’t say, there’s no way we can stop him suffocating, now.

Fenris nods, more relieved than he wants to admit at finally having something to do. He starts grabbing rocks, randomly at first - until one boulder grinds down onto his hand and he has to bite his arm til it bleeds to stop himself from screaming. After that it’s slow, terrible work, one rock at a time, for hours, as the bright blue sky above them bleeds to gray to welcome a hot, muggy evening and black stinging bugs emerge from the dunes to nip curiously at their burning skin.

Fenris’ knuckles are aching, and his palms are chafed raw, scratched and bleeding by the time they get through. Hawke is little better, her knuckles scraped and bruised. Even Dog is covered in a thick layer of dust, and Varric has lain Bianca reverently beside a dune with his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, an expression of uncharacteristic severity on his face as he frowns at the boulders.

The first thing they find is his staff. Fenris knows it wasn’t important to him - had seen how easily Anders had dropped one staff for another, stolen from a former gangster or some other ne’er-do-well who had had the misfortune to attack them. But there’s still something terribly simple about the snapped, useless wood when they find a splintered shaft in the rubble. Fenris blinks, and sees Anders, wide shoulders braced by that staff as he held up the collapsing ceiling, hair thick with dust and rubble. He swallows against his dry throat, sore with rock dust, and keeps moving rubble.

The sky is bleeding red by the time they find him. Dog finds him first, yelping and then whining as she scrabbles at the dust. Fenris thinks, distant, numb in his shock and delayed grief, that Anders would be surprised to learn the hound cared. But then he’s there, his feet having moved him again, without thought, and he’s crouching to lift a great splintered boulder out of the way, and his toes touch soft hair and Fenris nearly cries out. As it is, he dumps the boulder and rushes forward.

Anders is pinned between a series of rocks. His eyes are open and his hand is purple and covered with cherry red blood. Blood seeps out between the boulders around him, and his nose and mouth are thick with it. His eyes are wide open and staring, and for an awful, awful heartbeat Fenris thinks he’s dead. But then the low, soft sound of murmuring reaches him over the constant sound of the sea. “Letmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeout.”

Fenris drags on the lyrium sewn into his skin and for the first time in his known life finds himself thanking the Maker, or Andraste, or the Creators, for this hideous, agonising ability. He plunges his hands through the thick stone of the rock, and wraps his fingers around a horrifically mangled mass that he thinks is one of Anders’ shoulders, and pulls.

Anders screams - an awful, hoarse thing that breaks on the way out of his split lips. But he’s out, and in the dirt, and breathing, and Fenris doesn’t think before he pulls the man into his arms and holds him so tightly his arms hurt. Fenris’ tattoos are still glowing, star-bright in the growing dark, and his muscles feel locked in place as he buries his face in Anders’ shoulder and breathes in the stink of sweat and piss and blood. He doesn’t care. He holds Anders so hard he’s shivering. He can’t shake the idea that if he lets go, even a little, he’ll forget how to breathe.

After several long minutes, in which Fenris’ muscles become so tense they ache like a bruise, Anders comes back into himself, slumping into Fenris’ arms. The movement jostles his mangled shoulder, and he whimpers, and Fenris’ arms tighten around him, as if a simple embrace will stop the pain. When Anders starts to cry, softly, trembling into Fenris’ shoulder, Fenris realises that his own face is already wet with cold tears that he doesn’t remember crying. Above them, the sky is charcoal and midnight blue, and the first stars are climbing over the sea.

Hawke lights a campfire, and steps closer to touch Fenris’ shoulder. He doesn’t react, but she doesn’t let go until he turns to look at her. Her face is still streaked with dust, and her eyes are red, but there are no signs of tear tracks that he can see in the dark. Her strong jaw is tense when she says, firmly, “We need to deal with his injuries.” Her face softens, slightly, as she adds, “You can hold him again, after.”

Slowly, feeling as if he’s been petrified in place and is now trying to coax stone, Fenris stiffly uncurls his arms. Anders doesn’t do or say anything, though his breathing hitches at the movement of his mangled arm. Fenris pushes his dusty hair out of his face, trying to avoid a thick gash across his forehead. “Mage. We need to look at your injuries.”

Anders looks at him slowly, his brown eyes almost gold in the firelight. He nods, and Fenris moves his hand to gently begin the process of peeling his blood-encrusted coat away from his skin. Anders clenches his teeth, his jaw thick with stubble full of dust, and breathes in long, shaking breaths as Fenris moves the filthy leather. When he gets to the worst of it - a place where Anders’ coat and shirt are black with blood and concave as they’ve been pushed into his body, Fenris grits his teeth. “One - two -” Before he says three, Fenris rips the coat free, causing Anders to cry out and topple forward. Fenris catches him on his good shoulder, and behind Anders, Hawke and Varric��s faces go pale.

“Blood and ashes.” Varric murmurs, looking sick. Anders’ breath starts coming faster in short, shallow pants. Fenris rushes forward, brushing his cheek with his thumb, fingers curled around his ear.

“It’s alright. It’s alright. We’ve got you.”

It takes Hawke an hour to get the debris out of the torn, broken mess of Anders’ shoulder blade. When she’s done, there’s a thin sheen of sweat across her pale skin and she looks older than she has since Bethany joined the Wardens. The fire is low and red, but Varric keeps wandering off to fetch more driftwood. There’s a small pile of shattered stone and bone on the sand that Hawke buries almost immediately. Dog is lying down beside her master, sandy head on her great paws, whining occasionally when Anders huffs a soft sound of pain. Fenris is trying, hard, not to stare at the canvas of familiar scars exposed by their impromptu operation, glittering silver in the dark like a crosshatch tattooed across Anders’ freckled back.

The sea laps softly at the beach behind them, and around them the dunes hiss with the breeze. Hawke looks at Fenris, “That’s all I can do, for now. Hopefully his mana will be back tomorrow and he’ll be able to heal the rest.” She swallows, thickly. “I knew I should’ve brought Merrill.”

Between them, Anders is all but unconscious, lying on his front, naked down to his waist, skin covered in newly cleaned cuts and bruises. Fenris stares at him for a long moment, running his fingers through the other man’s hair. He thinks he’s trying to comb the dust out, but it’s not doing much and it’s more of a nervous habit than anything. He breaks the sighing silence between them. “It’s not your fault.”

Hawke says nothing, sitting back on the other side of the fire and staring at the shifting sea, gilded with silver by the moon. The fire licks gold and rubies across her skin. She bends her knees, and rests her elbows on them, pressing her forehead to her skin and breathing for several long moments. Fenris waits. He knows he won’t be sleeping much tonight, anyway. Eventually, Hawke turns her head to the side, still resting on the pillow of her forearms. “I didn’t know you were close.”

Fenris’ fingers pause in their combing of Anders’ hair. But after two heartbeats, the discomfort of not reminding himself that the man beside him is still alive is greater than compromising whatever bud of new life they’d been nurturing between them. He bites the inside of his cheek to try and wake himself up from the distant feeling of grief and shock. “It...has not been happening for long. But I think the feelings which led to it have been growing for some time.” A shadow of a smile touches the corner of his lips. “Perhaps it has been growing since the day we met.” Hawke snorts, and Fenris’ ghost of a smile grows into something honest when he looks at her, and more than a little self deprecating. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Hawke shrugs, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth softening as she looks at him. “Oh, I don’t know. Opposites attract.”

Fenris snorts, then, and Dog looks up with a hiccoughing huff to see what they’re coughing at. Fenris leans forward, feeling the heat of the fire licking up his sides as he scratches Dog’s soft head. She whines, and yawns, baring a series of black and yellow teeth. Fenris leans further, and digs his fingertips behind the warm velvet of her ears. Dog’s tail thumps softly against the sand. Fenris looks up when he feels Hawke watching him. Her blue eyes are like bottled lightning in the dark. “You’re a good man, Fenris.”

Fenris gives her a tight smile, trying to stifle the pain behind it, and sits back, moving to drag a blanket out of his pack and lay it lightly over Anders. Anders huffs, and sighs in his sleep, face creasing in pain when he moves onto his shoulder. Fenris cards his fingers through his hair until the wrinkles ease, before looking back up at Hawke and saying, honestly. “So is he.”

#bad things happen bingo #dragon age 2 #fenders #fenris #anders #my fic #bananat-coconat #anon

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funkypoacher · 3 years

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number 43 “We’ll see each other again” kisses as prompted by @fandomn00blr. From Timeline II, and, as usual, lacking a whole lotta context.

Blackwall/Lavellan

Despite saying nothing, she spoke on everything. The weather, the canteen’s menu; issues over firewood for the refugees, and about the influx of soldiers who were bolstering the Inquisition’s forces. They were surely needed, what with ‘some big siege’ out West coming up.

“Vin.”

She sat cross-legged on the other side of the Skyhold jail cell, the soles of her feet fully visible, the image a poorly one. Dirt-blackened toes rested restlessly until they didn't, when she’d adjusted her position, trying to find comfort on cracked, freezing stone. Her hands animated her conversation, as usual. Waving through the air in excitement, fingers clenching in exasperation.

“So it’s ridiculous,” she explained, sitting back a bit, now, her hands propping her up. “We keep gaining more men, but none of them are coming with their own equipment, and a lot of what’s been given to us older soldiers is being allocated to the new. But we’re still expected at our posts! Without weapons, without… helmets, or proper boots.”

“Vinya.”

“And I know I’ve complained about the boots before, but I take it back. Footwraps at this altitude? In the snow? Can’t find my natural balance or footing when my heels are dead numb, that’s for sure.”

“You’re going to make me say it again, aren’t you?”

Blackwall, sitting on his sad, little stool in the middle of his cramped cell, sighed.

Vinya, on the floor, stared up into his eyes for the first time since she’d arrived.

“I don’t care, Blackwall. I don’t—”

“But that’s it. I’m not Blackwall, am I? I’m not the man you thought I was. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can get on with your life.” His throat tightened as he looked down.

His words, at last, seemed to stick—as much as the regret, and guilt, stuck thick in his throat, nearly to choking. He did not look at her, but she did not speak anymore, either. Out the corner of his eye he gauged movement—her feet, he thought—and, finally—finally—she’d go, to leave him with the echoing of the prison, the moaning winds moving through halls, the screaming of men trying to go mad, and his own thoughts trying for that same purpose.

“So,” continued Vinya energetically, and he could hear her hands emphasizing. “I think Varric knows someone who can get me some gear. Not as good as what’s being sold by the merchants, but who’s buying that? Rich noble’s sons, and people who came kitted out and are still flashing their coin. What’s maddening is how close the stalls are to the refugee camps. We’re eating stew made from scraps, while they’re—what?”

Blackwall, his cheeks sore from trying to keep silent, chuckled. “Girl, you belly-ache any louder, they’re likely to throw you in here, same as me.”

The woman smirked, slow and from below heavy eyelids. “Maybe that was the plan.”

Lifting herself up to her knees, Vinya shuffled closer, holding at the bars while watching him. Her mouth opened, then closed, after which her lips formed a thin, grim line. At the corners, though—a small, sympathetic twitch.

“I am sorry, you know,” Blackwall said.

Vinya shrugged. “I’m not. You and everyone else talk like it’s been a big lie, but fighting for the Inquisition wasn’t a lie. Helping the refugees in Redcliffe wasn’t a lie. What’s with that sack, anyways?”

Blinking, Blackwall’s mind was slow to catch up with her question, so captivated by her kind, unwarranted loyalty as it had been. He glanced at the gripped potato sack, which he’d torn off some time ago, when she came. “Supposed to wear it. Inquisitor doesn’t want the guards, or passing prisoners, to know who I am. Not until they decide what to do with me.”

“When will…” Finally, Vinya sounded frightened. Like a child, she couldn’t look him in the eye. “When will that be, you think?”

“After Orlais sorts itself out. Imagine the Inquisitor will be writing to Florianne, soon enough. Gaspard’s sister—next in line for the throne,” he explained.

“It’s not fair.”

One tear down her cheek and Blackwall’s voice cracked like bad pottery.

“It’s entirely fair. I deserve worse.”

A hiss down the hall heralded the woman’s need to leave. Stirred like incensed birds from the thicket, she clung harder to the bars, looking whence came the warning, then to him, her cheeks ruddied deep with panic, and mouth gaping.

“I can’t—This can’t be—”

“Go, Vin. Don’t let me be the reason the Inquisitor comes down on you.”

Vinya shook her head, knuckles white as she gripped the bars. Something had changed. Her voice; her grit. All through her, Vinya had changed. “She won’t.”

It was a threat Blackwall didn’t like to hear.

Leaving his seat, he sunk to the floor, on the other side of the door. “Give your goodbyes and go. And don’t look back.”

The elf’s eyes softened. Her expression became like silk, or satin, or something else as downy he’d never have the chance to bed her in. She leaned in, and he did, and... Blackwall had to admit—he’s expected better than a peck to the cheek.

“If I’m to be a dead man,” he said as their eyes met, “that wasn’t much of a last meal, luv.”

“That’s because,” Vinya replied, standing up, “I’ll see you again. Soon.”

If he didn’t so loathe the Inquisitor, Blackwall might’ve regretted his cheek. As he took to his stool, and placed the rough sack over his face, however, he regretted sorely that Vinya might be right: that she might, indeed, see him again. Soon.

#dragon age inquisition #fic #blackwall #vinya #i actually like this #it's super rushed but it was done in one sitting which means it counts as a Funky Shorts #yee haw

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dacompanionreactions · 4 years

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How would dai companions react to a human/dwarf/elf reaver inquisitor becoming progressively draconic/monstrous over time? (Sharper teeth, scales, horn growths etc)

I think my heart broke a little writing this one...

At first the changes were subtle. It started with slightly pointed teeth, then two small nubs appeared on their forehead. Their skin toughened like stone, losing its colour to an ashen grey. Their temper grew short, and when they fought in battle, there wasn’t enough left of the corpses to burn. Reavers terrorised their enemies, and in the end, their abilities would kill them.

Cassandra is pained to see her friend like this. On their good days, their bantering would turn into harsh words that cut a person down to their soul. On their bad days? Cassandra grew up on exaggerated tales of Reavers and what their abilities did to a person, but they didn’t seem exaggerated when compared to the Inquisitor. She lets it be known that as much as it may pain her, if she finds them hurting their companions or advisors, she will end it for them. Because by the time their horns are long enough to curl and scales have consumed their body, there is nothing left of the kind, loving soul Cassandra grew to love.

Varric hates it. The horns? Weird. Teeth? Freaky shit. Temper? Downright terrifying. He’s a writer, but he doesn’t write about ‘that one time the Inquisitor tore someone’s arm off with dragon-like strength and stabbed them with their claws because they didn’t like them’. He opts to write about what they were like before the horns and scales. How they’d cross war-torn land to rest flowers at a shrine, how they would spend hours searching for rare herbs for the healers, how they once supported their companions instead of threatening to smite them if they voiced an opposing opinion. It would be something nice to remember them by after they were gone.

Solas finds himself apologising, but never directly to the Inquisitor - if he did, he would likely not survive the encounter. He apologises because he is responsible for what is happening to them. He created the orb that sundered the skies. Naturally, there is only so much helplessness one can take before they turn to darker alternatives. He researches what he can to see if there is a way to reverse the effects of being a Reaver, but to no avail. Soon their mind is gone, and Solas grieves for what could have been.

Dorian did not join the Inquisition to be part of a terrorist organisation. He’s tired of stepping on eggshells around the Inquisitor, tired of being snapped at for the smallest things. Their temper could bring Cassandra to tears, a feat not many would dare to achieve. When the Inquisitor sends yet another poor soul off to be executed for being in their way, he finally snaps, starting a shouting match between them. Dorian very rarely loses his cool, so he leaves Skyhold permanently. He is sorry that it has come to this.

Sera is a firebrand - she has the mouth of a sailor and the freedom to express what she thinks... or she had. Being with the Inquisitor feels like she has a leash around her. She feels caged. She can’t say anything because she’ll likely die, but she can’t do nothing either. One night, Sera finds herself with her bow and an arrow in the bowstring. But she can’t do it. She can’t bring herself to kill the person she once saw as her dearest friend. So she leaves, joining the Jennies in Val Royeaux.

Blackwall is a liar. He’s done some terrible things, and every day he beats himself up about it. It is because of this that he can’t understand how the Inquisitor lives with themselves. They brush off their killing-sprees, acting as if they went on a menial task like shopping. He’s disgusted - not with them, but the situation that drove them to pursue Reaver abilities.

It is difficult for a Spirit of Compassion to hate anything. At Cole’s core, he is an entity of good. He wants to help the Inquisitor. “The dragon’s blood burns bright in you, almost as bright as the Anchor. It’s angry, a dry, cracked anger.” Their actions are not their fault, he knows this. In the end, Cole can’t help them. After all, how does one heal a broken mind?

Bull approved at first. He thought the horns looked pretty badass. Then scales appeared on the Inquisitor’s skin, and it started to worry him. When he’s faced with choosing between the Chargers and the Qun, the Inquisitor is indifferent to the consequences. At the end of the day, the Chargers are dead and Bull is numb. He approaches the Inquisitor, and suddenly they are nothing like the person he once knew. The Chargers are gone. The Inquisitor is gone. He’s never felt worse in his life.

Vivienne was always wary of Reaver abilities. She’s well-read, so she knows the consequences. After the changes began, she threw herself into research. She understands that the Inquisition’s enemies must be dealt with effectively. What Vivienne cannot fathom is how the Inquisitor can justify slaughtering innocents. When her research falls short, she is beside herself with frustration and disappointment. She wanted to help her friend. Now she’s left with a horned beast of a person. No. Not even a person anymore.

Cullen is a strong man. He’s seen a lot of terrible things in his lifetime, and he is grateful to the Inquisitor for helping him battle his lyrium addiction. Was. He can’t stay grateful to a monster. Their constant snapping and threats of death would send Cullen into breakdowns when no one was around. He’s had enough. Ending it for them would be a mercy. His friend is long gone, lost to the bloodlust of dragon’s blood.

Leliana has done questionable things as spymaster of the Inquisition, it’s true. However, she’s never done them without full belief that it was deserved. The Inquisitor, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy inflicting pain, especially when it wasn’t deserved. She can handle their temper on the worst of days, but not everyone else can. The Inquisitor is insane. Her kind, loving friend was replaced by a horned psychopath. Leliana instructs her spies to ‘handle the problem’, so to speak. “Make it painless.”

Josephine is rarely brought to tears, but the Inquisitor’s actions give her good reason to weep. It’s utterly horrible. She can’t deal with their violent outbursts any longer. She reaches out to her contacts around Thedas, begging for an cure for their abilities. She receives answers, though none are helpful. Josephine is distraught at losing her dear friend. She wishes things had gone differently.

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sinsbymanka · 4 years

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Thank you so much @zuendwinkel for donating! I am SO GLAD to add this lovely Hawke x Fenris to the collection, writing them was a joy! I’m also SO EXCITED to share the artwork you created that goes along with it! Thank you so much for blessing us with something so soft, beautiful, and detailed!!

I’m not longer accepting RAINN Commissions but you can see the ones that are already finished in this series on AO3. Thank you to everyone who has supported me!

Title: A Flock of Trouble Pairing: Male Hawke x Fenris Rating: T Content Warnings: Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Post-Dragon Age II, Fluff and Angst, Reunions

Read on AO3

Broody,

Listen. We got into a bit of a situation in the Western Approach. Fell tits over ass right into the Fade. I wish I was shitting you. Do you remember those giant spiders outside Kirkwall? They’ve got nothing on fade demon spiders. I have had enough of the whole thing for the rest of my life. Hawke took off with the Wardens to tell Weisshaupt that their whole fighting force is at risk of being controlled like finger puppets by an ancient magister. I got the worse job of telling you where the fuck he was going (Remember, don’t murder the messenger. Who else would get you that wine you like from Tevinter?)

He said not to follow him. Doesn’t want your Broody arse that close to Tevinter, I expect. I’m fully aware you’ll be going anyway. Take the note attached to my solicitor and get some coin to tide you over. Don’t get captured by slavers. Try to lie low.

When you see Hawke - ask him what happened in the Fade. Somebody needs to kick some sense into his ass. You’re the best person for it.

Sincerely, Varric Tethras

P.S. I’m adding the money Hawke lost to me to your gambling debts. Wicked Grace soon?

Weisshaupt appeared as foreboding and desolate as Fenris had expected.

Sun-bleached stone soared into a clear, burning sky. Walls meant for defense rather than appeal ringed a fortress that looked as if it could withstand an archdemon itself. If Fenris remembered correctly, it had survived at least two. Perhaps three.

Of course, if Garrett Hawke were there currently, it may soon fall into the blighted land surrounding it. That did seem to be the man’s luck. And if Garrett Hawke wasn’t there, Fenris would hunt him down, if only to give the man the tongue lashing he richly deserved.

In truth, Fenris felt uneasy. The Tevinter border at his back reminded him of the last time he’d been so far north. He’d been running then, as fast as he could go, a desperate chase that led to Kirkwall, an empty box, an abandoned mansion and…

And Garrett Hawke.

Fenris remembered clearly everything that happened after he met Garrett. He had spent hours examining the path he took with a cynic’s wary gaze, looking for the moment it had all changed, the second he stopped running and made a choice.

A choice that led him here, to the edge of the world, chasing instead of being chased.

“What business do you have here?” A rough voice barked. It belonged to a woman, old for a Warden, her long brown hair braided neatly down her back. Her hand rested easily on the hilt of the sword on her hip with a warrior’s preparedness. But her stance was casual. Eyes alert and pleasant. There was no whiff of danger here, not for him at any rate. It did not quite reassure him, but there was no reason to reach for the blade on his back. Yet.

“I am here for the Champion of Kirkwall.” He informed the guard politely, wrapping the reins around his fist while he smoothly dismounted.

The woman rocked back on her heels, a started, humorless laugh slipping from her lips. “The Champion of Kirkwall?”

Fenris’s heart sunk, but he kept his face impassive. He could not help the way his gauntlets tightened on the leather bridle. “He is not here.”

“Oh no! The blighted fool is still here. Are you here to take him back to wherever he came from? Cause I’d be grateful, Serah. May even slip some coin in your pocket.”

Something broke inside him, a fever finally easing. Fenris had been traveling for longer than he wished to recount, and had not allowed himself to consider the end of the journey or who he wished to find there.

“Where may I find him?”

The woman opened her mouth to reply, but whatever response she meant to give was cut off by an unholy clatter and what sounded like a small explosion. Her expression darkened and she jerked her thumb to a thin trail of smoke rising above the walls.

“Wherever there’s trouble, typically.” She sighed.

Fenris knew Garrett far too well to disagree with that statement.

The smoke smelled of herbs Fenris recognized, elfroot chief among them, and it was billowing from within a stable of all things. Soldiers, Fenris assumed they were Grey Wardens, stood with various expressions of shock, dismay, and annoyance.

The nobles in Kirkwall wore the same looks the day Garrett knocked over six of the merchant’s stalls in Hightown. He’d been chasing a dog, who was chasing a street urchin, who was trying to catch a nug with a kitten in it’s mouth.

Maker only knew how Garrett had gotten roped into the whole thing.

Fenris simply remembered the chaos unspooling below him from his perch on the steps and that bubble of emotion that rose up in his chest while he chuckled ruefully and Isabela cheered. He hadn’t known what to call that feeling, not then, not watching Garrett retrieve the kitten and present it to the street urchin while the rich nobility stared in bewilderment.

But when he saw Garrett in the stable doors, waving his arms like a windmill to disperse the smoke, Fenris felt it again. This time he knew its name.

Joy.

Knots loosened in his chest. Only to be replaced by a sharp spike of annoyance more than a match for the cloud of irritation hovering around Garrett.

Except, of course, Garrett was impervious to the mood. He cast his dark eyes around the courtyard, flitting right over Fenris in his search for something. Then, a half second later, sliding back to where he stood.

“Fen!” Garrett shouted, a joyful grin splitting his face. “You’re here!”

Garrett bounded away from the smoking door, arms swinging. He wasn’t in armor, wasn’t armed, and a part of that struck a chord that made Fenris both wary and wistful. When was the last time Garrett had abandoned his armor around strangers?

Garrett stumbled to a stop in front of him, arms out, waiting while his eyes dragged themselves over every inch of Fenris’s lyrium lined face.

“You’re really here.” Garrett whispered.

Almost as if he thought he’d never see him again.

“Yes.” Fenris snapped instead, jerking his chin at the ancient fortress. “I have, once again, followed you to the edge of civilization.”

At least Garrett had the good grace to look contrite. “I mean. They do have that wine here you like.”

“It is more easily obtainable this close to Tevinter.”

Garrett winced. “I told Varric to tell you-”

“It was too much trouble to write to me with your own hand?”

That made his lover recoil. Garrett did not grab for him, although he lifted his arm, fingers outstretched in silent plea. “Fen that… that wasn’t it at all. There was an army of demons. Giant spider. Marching across the blighted desert. Griffon eggs…”

“Griffon eggs?” Fenris repeated, incredulous.

Garrett’s whole face brightened. “Griffon eggs! I swear on the Maker’s hairy asscheeks, Fen, you won’t believe-”

Fenris swallowed his anger and shook his head. In one movement, he turned on his heel and stomped away from the human with his beaming smile, warm eyes, and new wrinkles from sorrow on his forehead.

It was always safest to walk away when he did not know whether to slap Garrett or kiss him, after all.

Garrett found Fenris on the battlements while the sun was dipping below the western horizon. He stood, awkward and yet endearing, cradling a large white object gently in his arms. On second look, it was indeed the largest egg Fenris had ever seen.

“I should have written.” Garrett murmured. “I… wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Fenris did not pull his eyes from the pink and orange sky. “That is hardly unusual.”

Garrett chuckled to himself, shifting his weight from side to side. “Fair. But… it was bad, Fen.”

He knew it must have been. Varric would not have mentioned it otherwise. “Do you wish to tell me about it?”

“Yes.” Garrett sighed, placing the egg tenderly on top of a crate. He rested one large hand over it before casting a baleful look at Fenris. “But not tonight. Tonight I’m just… I’m just fucking thrilled to see you. Even if you’re fuming.”

“I am not fuming.” Fenris stated on instinct.

Garrett grinned. “Ah. Is this brooding then?”

Fenris’s lips twitched. “I do not brood.”

“Not even a little bit.” Garrett stepped closer, holding his arms out with a shy, uncertain tip of his lips. “I missed you.”

Fenris pushed himself away from the warm stone. For a breathless second, the two men looked at each other. Garrett’s eyes shimmered with emotion, an expression torn between longing and hope.

Fenris stepped into the man’s embrace and allowed himself to be tugged towards his broad chest. His sword rough fingers yanked on Hawke’s hair immediately, scowling into the grinning face.

“You are a fool, and I am a worse one for loving you.”

Garrett laughed, ducking down to press an eager kiss to Fenris’s lips. Fenris closed his eyes, drifting on the sparking heat between them, the way the world settled back into place. Garrett smelled of home, of warm hay, leather, salt and sun.

They broke the kiss, but clung to each other as Garrett pressed his forehead to Fenris’s.

“Griffon eggs?” Fenris finally asked.

Garrett smiled. “My newest adventure, Fenris. Much better than the last one, I assure you.”

Fenris simply sighed and melted into his lover’s embrace under the burning sun. As with most of Garrett’s adventures, it would be nothing but trouble.

Fenris found he did not mind much at all.

#manka's friend fiction #charity fundraiser #fenris #hawke/fenris #dragon age hawke #dragonage #dragon age #male hawke #fenhawke

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rosexknight · 3 years

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I honestly don't think the chantry blowing up did anything to the city itself. In the cinematic it looks like the debris is shot far away from Kirkwall (at least to me that's what it looks like).

My guess is that it all landed in the waters around the city, and the fighting is what did the damage we see.

How did Anders kill 100s of people? /gen

There were never hundreds of people in the chantry. I've seen people argue that that's where the homeless live etc, but that's literally what Darktown is for. We're not given proof that Kirkwall chantry houses orphans, or the homeless. Yeah, the chantry sisters etc were inside, but I don't think that explosion killed anyone else. Are you counting the templars and the mages who died during the conflict? Or does anything happen in the comics?

Sorry for the long ask, I like seeing what others have to say about the mage conflict in DA

In Inquisition they mention "rebuilding Kirkwall" many times. We know Kirkwall got torn apart because of the mages and templars fighting, but in game it doesn't look any worse than when the Qunari attacked. I really don't have any concrete evidence for this one, I just assume that rubble from the exploding Chantry HAD to fall on some of Kirkwall. Like, I know the cutscene in game was really unclear of the exact destruction that the exploding Chantry did to the rest of Kirkwall but I would be SHOCKED if the city came out unscathed from an explosion that with so much debris being flung everywhere. The number of casualties from the Chantry explosion is also the reason I think there must have been rubble. As you noted, in the cutscene we did not see 100 people IN the Chantry, and even in game we don't see that many there at a time. So that had to come from the explosion itself and the debris and stuff.

Varric straight up says in a banter with Blackwall in Inquisition, "I know a Greywarden who blew up a chantry and killed 100 people." As far as I know this is the only canonical, confirmed number to those casualties, so that's the one I tend to go with. And we know that's not just his body count because Varris recites everyone's body count in DA2 also in a banter, and Anders is over 100. So yeah 100 people because he blew up a chantry.

The Inquisition Banter, copy pasted straight from the Wiki: Blackwall: I once met a dwarf who made the best home-brewed ale.

Varric: I once met a Grey Warden who got possessed by a spirit and then blew up a Chantry and killed a hundred people.

Varric: What makes people think you want to hear what others of "your kind" have done, anyway?

The DA2 Banter, also copied straight from the Wiki: Varric: Oh, cheer up, Blondie. You're making me cry just looking at you.

Anders: Don't.

Varric: You made a mistake. It happens.

Anders: I almost killed a girl.

Varric: You've killed two-hundred and fifty-four by my last count. Plus about five hundred men, a few dozen giant spiders, and at least two demons.

Anders: It's not the same.

Varric: Why? Because this one you feel bad about? Maybe that's the problem.

I don't know about the comics or short stories as I haven't read them. I'm going solely by what is said and shown in-game.

Like I said in this post I am not saying what he did was good. But I do understand why he did it and believe it was justified. Tbh I think alot of the problem with his character was just that the game was rushed, so they weren't able to flesh everyone out as much.

#da2 #anders

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much-obliged-timothy · 4 years

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Whumptober #30

Dragon Age - #30 - Wound Reveal

“This is not exactly how I planned for things to go,” Hawke said, and just narrowly avoided the dagger thrown at him. “Well, that’s mine now and you can just eat my ass if you think you’re getting it back.”

“Charming as always,” Anders said.

Hawke pointed the dagger at him. “You’ll get your turn, don’t worry.”

“Can you not talk dirty when we’re about to be killed?” Varric said. “Maybe save it for later, Hawke.”

“Killed,” Hawke scoffed, casting a spell at an enemy charging them. “It’s a mild ambush. We’ve survived worse.”

“It still isn’t pleasant,” Aveline said.

“Well, nothing in Kirkwall is pleasant,” Hawke said. “Aside from me. I’ve a charming personality.”

“Who told you that blatant lie?” Aveline said.

“I have a dagger, and I am not afraid to use it. Nor am I trained to use it,” Hawke warned.

Their enemies seemed to be growing frustrated at how little of a threat they were perceived as. They’d ambushed the group as they traversed along the Wounded Coast, but now their apparent victims seemed to find the whole thing a mild inconvenience.

“Run back to the city! Tell them apostates are attacking on the Wounded Coast!” one of the attackers said.

“Anders, did you hear that? Apostates are attacking on the Wounded Coast,” Hawke said in surprise.

“Well, we can’t have those filthy apostates running loose,” Anders said. “Just think of the danger.”

Aveline let out a long sigh. “Varric, care for a drink when this is over?”

“More than you can imagine,” Varric said, but he was grinning. He shot down one of the attackers attempting to sneak away. “No tattling on our apostates.”

“Aw, you do care!” Hawke said.

“What can I say, Chuckles? I’m fond of you,” Varric said.

“Can you two focus so we can finish this up already? We do have an actual investigation to carry out here,” Aveline reminded. “That’s the whole reason we came to this place, yes?”

“Well, yea, but a little ambush never hurt anyone,” Hawke said. “Okay, well, actually, that’s a lie. Maker, remember that time we got ambushed and they broke my toe? That bloody hurt. Thought I’d have to amputate my whole foot.”

“That’s because you’re overdramatic,” Anders reminded.

“Debatable,” Hawke said.

“It’s really not,” Varric said.

“Sorry, love,” Anders said.

“Betrayed. I’ve been horrifically betrayed by everyone I loved and trusted,” Hawke said, glaring at them.

“True, but you- HAWKE!” Anders lunged forward to try and push Hawke out of the way, but he was too slow.

One of the attackers had slowly crept up, using the rocks as cover. He’d shot out at Hawke, and now had him tackled to the ground, the two struggling with each other, Hawke crying out in surprise.

During the struggle, Anders saw the flash of a knife in the attacker’s hand. Anders didn’t dare cast a spell for fear of hitting Hawke as well, and instead raised his staff to strike the attacker.

Aveline was faster, running the man through with her sword. The body slumped on Hawke, who shoved it off hastily and rolled onto his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath.

“Are you alright?” Anders demanded.

“Fine,” Hawke managed. “Let’s finish this up and get that drink, eh?”

Anders helped him up, and Hawke turned away to fire on their attackers. The group attacked with a renewed focus, showing their enemies just how deadly they could be when they took a fight seriously.

It was over quickly. Aveline checked the area to make sure they were all really dead, then nodded to the others.

“We’re clear,” she said. “Hawke, are you alright?”

“Fine,” he repeated.

“Let’s just go investigate and wrap this up,” Varric said.

“They said the body was found a little further up the Coast,” Aveline said, and got walking.

“Hawke?” Anders said.

“I’m fine, Anders,” Hawke said, and gave him a weak smile. “Let’s go. I’ll watch our backs.”

Hawke drifted to the back of the group. Anders didn’t like how quiet he’d fallen, but he’d see what was up when they’d finished their investigation.

The four trekked along the Coast, alert for any other ambush attempts or enemies. They only encountered one more fight before they neared their objective.

But just before they reached the area, there was a thump behind them. Anders, Varric, and Aveline all spun with weapons ready, but paused.

“Hawke?” Anders said, hurrying over to him.

Hawke had collapsed to his knees, breathing shallowly and curled over his stomach. Sweat coated his forehead, making his hair stick to it.

Hawke grasped Ander’s hand and struggled to get to his feet. He winced, staggering. Anders had to hurry to steady him.

“Chuckles?” Varric said anxiously.

“I thought...it’d be fine til we finished,” Hawke ground out. “Guess not.”

He shifted his robe aside to reveal his bloodied and torn shirt. Anders tightened his hold on Hawke at the sight of the stab wound in his side.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Anders demanded, lowering Hawke to the ground.

“You all...c-called me...overdramatic,” Hawke said.

“And now we’re all calling you stupid!” Anders tugged Hawke’s shirt up carefully. “I can stabilize you, but we need to get you back so I can clean and stitch that properly. Maker, Hawke, that’s deep. You absolute idiot of a man.”

“You still...l-love me,” Hawke said with a weak grin.

“Maker help me, I bloody do,” Anders said, concentrating on his healing magic. It wouldn’t be enough to fix Hawke’s wound, but he could hopefully keep the idiot from bleeding out on the spot. “Aveline, will you be able to carry him?”

“She bench presses me as a warmup,” Hawke said, closing his eyes.

“Don’t bother, I think he’s passing out,” Anders said as Aveline opened her mouth to yell at Hawke. “Oh, yep, he’s out. Idiot. Absolute headache of a man.”

“Will he be okay?” Varric asked.

“He’ll be fine once I can properly tend to him. I think I’ve stopped the bleeding for the most part.” Anders tore part of Hawke’s robe and carefully tied it around the wound. “That’s the best I can do here.” Anders sighed heavily. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it got infected. I can’t believe he was walking around with a deep stab wound like nothing happened.”

“I absolutely can believe he did that,” Aveline said, pulling Hawke up and getting him situated on her back. “But you know how he is. He might come off as obnoxious, but he never wants to worry us. He kept quiet so I could finish my investigation.”

“A pain in the ass, but a good guy,” Varric said

“Let’s get him back so I can stitch him up,” Anders said, lightly touching his hand to Hawke’s shoulder. Hawke was alarmingly pale. Anders was certain he could get him stable once they were back, but that relied entirely on them not running into any trouble on their way back.

Aveline’s face was determined as she began to march forward, though. “He’s survived worse. Let’s get him taken care of, and then I’m drinking until I forget how frustrating he is.”

Anders looked at the blood on the ground before following them. It was little moments like these that worried him the most.

Because he knew there was a chance that a day would come when Hawke sacrificed himself permanently for the sake of his friends. It was a day Anders prayed never came.

But looking at Hawke’s unconscious form, bloodied and helpless, Anders knew it was becoming a matter of “when” not “if”.

#dragon age #Hawke #anders #da aveline #Varric Tethras #whumptober2020 #no.30 #wound reveal #fic #dragon age 2 #dragon age fanfic #Handers #jtdoeswhumptober #my post #My writing

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novamm66 · 4 years

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From Earth to Sky - Chapter 4

—

Cassandra decimated her third practice dummy. She watched the straw leak from the gashes in the canvas and fall to the ground. Cass had been training for hours, and she was still as angry as when she started. Taking pity on the training master and his apprentices, who would have to clean up her mess, she put away her sword and headed into the keep.

Cassandra wanted to be alone. She headed for the bathing chambers, hoping to wash away the feelings that the training hadn’t relieved. Cassandra seethed as she stripped off her clothes and sank into the warm water. Varric obviously knew where Hawke was this whole time, or at least how to reach her, and he had chosen not to share, after the Conclave, after everything.

She furiously scrubbed her hair and skin, more than was needed to wash away the sweat and dust.

Varric had lied to her, and she had believed him. She had wanted to believe him. That he, someone she had questioned, had slipped so quickly past her defenses. She hadn’t realized how much she had come to care for him until she held Kiaya’s note in her hands and felt the stab of hurt and betrayal in her chest.

It had thrown into relief just how much her daydreams had come to mean to her. A sob racked her body, and she hurled the soap against the far wall. She was angry at herself for feeling hurt and disappointed. She was furious about how unhappy she was. More gasping sobs followed the first, and Cassandra couldn’t stop them. She covered her face with her hands, tears mixed with the bathwater, and her cries echoed off the stone walls.

—

Varric usually found a lot of peace in the scratch of a quill across the parchment, but this time it wasn’t providing the distraction he was hoping it would be. Their return from Crestwood and the Seeker’s fury had been worse then he feared. He knew she would be upset, but he never expected her to take a swing at him. Varric internally groaned as he remembered his temper and how close he had come. If Kiaya hadn’t intervened, who knows how it would have ended. The whole encounter left an ache in his chest that he couldn’t seem to write away. Varric glowered at the parchment in front of him before crumpling it up and tossing it in the fire behind him.

“What a waste.”

“Nah,” Varric shrugged as he looked up at Kiaya. “It wasn’t very good.”

She set a tray of food and drink down before taking a seat across from him. “But, the parchment can be hard to come by.”

“True, but the satisfaction of watching it burn is worth the cost.” Varric leaned back to observe his friend. “I thought you were keeping a low profile since your sword-wielding appearance? Lounging in the great hall seems counter to that.”

“Mmmm,” Kiaya grinned and swallowed her mouth full before answering. “I’m falling back on the tried and true method of looking like I work for a living. It’s enough that nobles don’t look at me directly.”

“Makes sense.” Varric chuckled.

“We’re riding out tomorrow anyway.” Kiaya watched him for a few minutes while she ate. Eventually, Kiaya rolled her eyes, “Are you coming with us?”

“I am not sure that a good idea.” Varric hedged.

“You are both being stupidly stubborn,” Kiaya stated. She caught his gaze and held it. “You and Cassandra aside, I really want you with us. I want you both. We are a team, and I need all the fucking help available right now. Consider this as me begging.” Kiaya popped a few more grapes in her mouth as she stood. “See you later, Varric.”

“Smudges,” Varric called out before she had gone a few steps. ”What time do we leave?”

—

The Exalted Plains was a miserable place. The civil war had torn the land apart. The team had taken shelter in an abandoned house; Cassandra and Cole were keeping watch on the roof while the rest slept below.

“Smiles and stories to cover a wounded heart. How many lies are too many? How does this story end?”

Cassandra frowned at Cole. It was the first time he had spoken in hours. Of course, it was in riddles that she didn’t understand. She rarely bothered to try to figure them out. But this one seemed to echo in her head. Just as she was about to ask him what he meant, she heard the creak of the ladder, and she turned to see Varric head appear through the hole.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Varric said as a greeting. “Where’s the kid?”

“He’s,” Cassandra glanced to where Cole had been a moment ago. “Not here.”

“I am sure he hasn’t gone far,” Varric said and then fell silent. Cassandra went back to watching the darkness, tracking the howl of wolves in the distance.

“Seeker, I want to fix this, but I am not sure how.” Varric sighed. He was staring at nothing, his hands fidgeting as he leaned against the wall. “Hawke and I have been through so much together. She has earned my loyalty and friendship a thousand times over. I can’t apologize for protecting her.”

Cassandra opened her mouth, but words fled. While she was scrambling for something to say, he straightened and met her stare with serious eyes. “You deserve to know how much I regret that I made your life harder, and I can only hope that in the future, my loyalty to you will never be questioned again.” He stared at her a moment before he turned and walked back to the ladder and disappeared.

Cassandra inhaled sharply, snapping her mouth shut.

“Tender heart wrapped in iron. It’s different now.”

Casandra whipped around and found Cole sitting on the far wall. She frowned. “Shut up, Cole.

—

The Seeker was sitting in the shadow of the walls of the Caer Oswin fortress, the recovered book of the Seekers open on her lap, but she wasn’t reading it. She was staring at the pyres the Inquisition had built for the fallen seekers.

Varric spoke softly, not wanting to startle her. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”

“Stay, please.” Cassandra’s voice was calmer then Varric expected. She looked tired, beaten.

“How are you holding up?” Varric asked.

Cassandra sighed, “Honestly, overwhelmed. I thought I might find answers here.” She motioned to the book in her lap. “But that was foolish, it only has more questions, and there is so much more to read.”

“Maybe you have read enough tonight,” Varric said as he put down the bag he had brought and sat. He pulled out the bottle of whisky and unstoppered it. “Or maybe this will help make sense of it all. Or not.” He handed her the bottle. “Sorry I didn’t bring glasses.”

Cassandra gulped the liquid, straight from the bottle. She handled it well, only gasping a little at the burn of the whisky in her throat. “Glasses would waste time.” She said as she passed the bottle back.

“Seeker, You don’t have to solve everything tonight. You have filled your quota. You have earned a rest.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” Cassandra stared at the pyres, the fire reflected in her eyes. “I seem to be always arriving too late. First, the Conclave and now this. So much has been lost. How do we possibly rebuild it?”

Varric scratched his chin. “Honestly, I think we just have to do our best. Learn from our mistakes and just try to do better than those that came before us.”

Cassandra shifted, and suddenly she had wrapped her arms around Varric’s shoulder and was crying against his neck. He was caught by surprise, and it took him a moment before he returned the embrace.

Her grief was quiet, and the two of them sat, sharing the bottle and watching the sparks from the fires join the stars.

—

Thanks for reading. To read from the beginning here is the Master post.

#dragon age inquisition #varric x cassandra #Varric Tethras #Cassandra Pentaghast #dragon age fanfiction

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5lazarus · 4 years

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after the nightmare

The desert strips his throat and leaves him cold. He is very close to the town where he was born, buried under eight thousand years of dirt. Lavellan has sent Blackwall, Vivienne, Sera, and Cassandra back to Skyhold, after the battering they took in Emprise du Lion. Things are tenuous, tender, and he feels raw under her gaze. They all see him now, what he is and what he has been, and it is odd to be himself, all at once. During the long, slow healing in Suledin Keep, they all trickled in, to talk and to blame and to ask, and months later the Inquisition has adjusted to the new normal, as ever they do. A Dalish mage bearing the mark of their human prophet? They can accept it. A darkspawn magister ripping open the Fade? With enough trebuchets, they are certain they can face it. An ancient elvhen trickster god attempting to rip the world apart and, in the raw chaos, forge it into what it was supposed to be? They forgive him. He can hardly accept it himself, but they forgive him, and that, he supposes, is the most just revenge. He hates himself worse, because of the magnanimity of his companions. He denied their personhood, and they prove their worth over and over again, as they give him room to grieve and move on. But where?

He almost died of thirst here, he remembers, in the first empty days awoken from uthenera. He had expected the cool, quiet woods he had roamed as a child, before the war. Now, though, he has enough of himself restored to appreciate its austere beauty. The stars remain unchanged, he reminds himself. Both moons are full in the endless night. It is cold and the sand gets into his footwraps, no matter how tightly he ties them, but Lavellan is incandescent in starlight, and one night, she takes his hand when they sit by the campfire, listening to Varric’s stories, and it is the first time she has touched him in front of the others, since before the Nightmare, and it is the first touch since the Nightmare that does not feel desperate. He laces his fingers between hers and holds on tightly. At this age, he knows grace when he sees it. Wisdom told him to endure, that he would find what he was looking for. He had never known forgiveness to come so easily; perhaps it is because their worlds are so irreconcilable, that the only way forward is to endure.

Their clasped hands garners nothing more than a raised eyebrow from Dorian and a sudden, agitated move from Cole. But Varric keeps speaking, weaving his own tale: a story about his friends Fenris and Isabela, hunting slavers in the desert, and Isabela looking for a lost ship.

The heat edges into the night and they separate into their own tents--Bull is too big for the communal one they used in the early days, when it was only him and Varric and Cassandra and Lavellan roaming the Hinterlands. Dorian slips into Iron Bull’s, making a face at the smirk Lavellan sends him. Varric takes off his shirt as the sun comes up and pulls out a leatherbound book. He wants to finish the story as if Isabela had found the ship. Cole begins to hum. Solas closes his eyes slightly: he knows it, it matches the pulse of the lyrium he and Mythal had found in the Deep Roads, uncorrupted. The stone sings, and Varric writes it into the sunlight.

As the dawn melts the waves of the dunes, Solas reaches for Lavellan. He has never been good at self-abnegation, and recently he has learned not to punish others for drawing out his desire. It is a lesson he should have learned as a much younger man. In the daylight, he hold her close, and though she is surprised, she does not draw away.

“Let’s go to bed,” she says, and he follow her to their tent--because, somehow, between eight thousand years and reality torn asunder, from their worst nightmares reenacted to the cold corrupt torture of Imshael’s red lyrium farm, they are them again, he is Solas first and Fen’Harel as well, as she is Lavellan and the Inquisitor too. They strip, and she helps him with the bandages on his left leg, checking the new scar, where Dagna had ripped the red lyrium from his flesh. It is angry, and the cold has been making it ache, and the incipient heat will make it worse, but it does not sing. He continues to live, still Solas, still Fen’Harel.

They curl up together, and Lavellan traces a frost rune onto the canvas above them. They are too tired for sex, they are comfortable enough with each other to admit it. She flexes her left hand, the Anchor flaring, and Solas pushes himself back up. “Is it hurting?” he asks. There is not much he can do until they retrieve the foci. He is afraid it will kill her before they find it.

“Just stiff. Go to sleep, Solas. It’ll be a long ride tomorrow.”

“Mm.” He lays down and pulls her toward him, and she sighs and rests her head on his chest. He does not understand how this is happening. Nothing is as it should be. Lavellan, as always, proves his worst assumptions wrong. He tells her idly, as her breathing slows, “I was born not too far from here.”

Her eyes snap open. She pauses and thinks before she speaks, “I had assumed you were more...formed than born.”

“I had a mother and a father,” he says, amused. “Procreation has not changed particularly much in the past eight millenia, I assure you. Though I am glad the People has abandoned our practice of binding curious spirits to our children’s souls. I might be an easier man, if not for Mythal’s Pride.”

“I cannot imagine you ever being easy.”

He laughs shortly. “True. But this place was Mythal’s, once. We called it Durglas Durgen’len--the Valley of the Children of the Stone, where they found us and we traded with them. She had me at her temple here, and gave me to my father to raise. A forest used to tower here, until the sand ate away at its roots. She needed the wood for the mines.” He sighs. “And then nothing could take root.”

“Is there anything left?” Lavellan asks tentatively. “Something of her temple?”

“We can look.” He presses a kiss to her temple. The heat is coming in, despite the spell she has cast, and Solas is curious to see what time has made of these wastes. It is new, to be eager for tomorrow: to see what is left. “I love you,” he says suddenly, in Common. He does not know if the Dalish is different than his Elvhen, and he is trying. How does one prove to their lover they will not burn the world down? He is figuring it out.

Lavellan says, “I love you too, ma’ishan. Dream well.”

He wants to say, I will dream of you, and see the hope in those enslaved elves’ eyes when you came flashing in, sending them to their freedom. I will see your legend born, and if you manage to sleep, as now you seldom do, I will show you my father’s studio, and the woods where I played when I was a boy, before the war. I will give you every dream, if you just say the word. But Lavellan rolls onto her side and pulls a blanket over herself, despite the heat, and he knows she will not sleep.

#solas #fanfic #dragon age inquisition #solavellan #solavellan hell #fen'harel's teeth

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princessshikky · 4 years

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Basically an m!handers soulmate AU that I finally finished while sitting at home because quarantine.

Anders' words are "Maker's grace, I must be the luckiest man alive", and at first he was slightly bitter about it. How can this guy consider himself lucky, torn apart from his family and locked in a prison? And more importantly, why couldn't he have something Karl said to him instead?

In solitary, the words become his anchor. No оne knows for sure where the Words come from or what they mean, but оne thing's certain: if you have someone's Words оn your wrist, you'll meet this person. Your meeting might be short and tragic, but it's bound to happen. Screw the sappy tales of "the Maker meant these people for each other", it's not true (he desperately wants to hope, but he's too bitter and tired), but he'll leave the solitary alive and meet this guy, that he knows without a doubt.

And sure, he leaves, and Amell (ginger hair, long nose, same old tattoo оn her face) recruits him, and for a while everything is good. Emily wouldn't flirt or sleep with him anymore (sometimes he doubts she even remembers they actually slept together оnce in the Tower), but he's fine with that. Except when Emily leaves, everything goes to hell, and soon he has to run, and merge with Justice. That didn't go so well.

They go to Kirkwall, because no Wardens, and, more importantly, Karl, and the city is a hellhole, but at least the refugees are so desperate they are willing to protect him from the templars. Anders is alerted regardless: any minute, something could happen. Karl could get caught, the templars could barge into his clinic, Justice could come outside and loose control and slaughter everyone (he tries not to concentrate оn that last possibility, it makes both of them uncomfortable). Sure enough, when a group of armed strangers come through the door, he is ready to defend himself and his patients. Justice sends him a burst of energy, and Anders tentatively lets him... not take over their body, no, but come to the surface of their conscience.

"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation! Why do you threaten it?" — Justice demands in Anders' voice. Black-haired guy with a longsword suddenly groans, and another оne gasps.

"Maker's grace, I must be the luckiest man alive".

"Oh, no", — the sword-guy mutters, and Anders is inclined to agree with him. Oh, no. He doesn't need that now. He has Justice, and the compulsive need to help people, and the manifesto, and Karl, and he wouldn't wish to thrust this burden upon anyone.

Hawke doesn't exactly give him the chance to back off. He's kind, and understanding, and a fellow mage (an apostate, no less!), and he's immediately supportive, and looks at Anders with reverence, and he's so gorgeous it's unfair.

In short, Hawke is perfect.

He helps with the disastrous attempt to get Karl out. He helps with the mage underground. He tries to help the mages escape the Circle. He reads the manifesto and offers new arguments. He is even supportive about the situation with Justice. He looks at Anders like he hung the moons in the sky. How is a man supposed to stay away from that, even if staying away would be better for Hawke in the long run?

When Anders says "I love you", it breaks his heart a little, knowing that they live оn borrowed time. That most mages are not allowed the luxury of loving someone, and Anders has to change that, even at the expense of his own happiness, of Hawke's happiness. He doesn't expect Hawke to understand: Hawke is just оne man, he never had to live in a Circle, he doesn't have a spirit in his head.

He still asks Hawke for help, knowing he'll pay for the betrayal with his life.

Only he doesn't.

Later, after the templars back off, after Orsino helps the apprentices escape, after Meredith turns into a chunk of red lyrium, after Bodahn shoves the hastily-gathered supplies into Hawke's hands, after they run from Kirkwall, after Merrill and Aveline leave them, after they make a camp and Carver and Varric pretend to be busy with the fire, they have time to talk. Hawke sighs and frowns and shakes his head.

"I can't believe you did this".

"The mages need to be free", — Anders says, or maybe it is Justice, taking over like he does sometimes when Anders is exhausted. — "What I did was unforgivable, but it was the оnly way to achieve this".

"Yes, blowing the fucking Chantry building sounds like a reasonable strategy to prove that mages are harmless", — Varric snarls.

"Who cares about the damn Chantry?" — Hawke says, louder than necessary. — "I definitely don't plan to shed any tears over them". — Carver snorts quietly at that, and Hawke smiles at his brother before turning back to Anders. — "What I meant was... Well, you should have told me. I... you should have trusted me with that".

"I didn't want to endanger you any more than necessary".

"Endanger... Anders, do you have any idea how scared I was? I lost my home, I lost my family, and I thought I was going to lose you too! You acted like you were preparing for a certain death! Every day I woke up and I looked at you and thought "Is it going to be today?". Do you know how I felt when I saw that damn Chantry going in flames? I was relieved! Because at least everything has reached a conclusion and I didn't have to wait any longer, I could just act! Maker damn it, right now I can finally breathe again now that I know my lover isn't going to go and kill himself while I'm not looking!"

Anders gulps. Carver shakes his head but doesn't say anything. Varric looks at Hawke disapprovingly. For a moment everyone is quiet, until Hawke weakly smirks.

"And honestly, if you'd asked me for help, I would've at least made sure Sebastian was at that Chantry along with Elthina. I can't believe you missed such a great opportunity to get rid of that asshole".

Carver chuckles unexpectedly.

"Damn, brother. I had no idea I missed your stupid jokes".

Anders has to agree. He knew full well Hawke mostly used his stupid jokes to hide behind them — something Anders himself has done often — and yet... Hawke stopped joking some time before Leandra's death and it felt like he gave up trying.

Still smiling, Hawke moves closer to Anders and kisses him lightly.

"Look. There is nothing you can do that would make me leave you. And I mean it — nothing. So please, just trust me next time. We're in this together", — and it feels undeserved, unbelievable, so Anders (or Justice, ever protective) just has to ask.

"Still feel like the luckiest man alive?"

Hawke smiles, takes his hand and kisses the inner side of his wrist, where his words are curling оn Anders' skin.

"Always".

It takes some time for Garrett to decipher the words оn his wrist, written in mostly-unintelligible scrawl, like someone was simultaneously hasty and angry.

"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation! Why do you threaten it?".

All right, Garrett could think of worse ways to start a conversation. At least these Words are unique. He'll know his Person instantly.

Carver teases him mercilessly. "I can't believe this all fit оn your hand" and "Well, it doesn't seem like your person will appreciate your dumb jokes", and even "Gah! Marauder! Why would you ever threaten a sanctum of salvation!". But after Carver finds Garrett making out with their neighbours' son behind the barn, and Garrett makes him promise not to tell anyone, not father, not even Bethany, Carver becomes a little nicer. Maybe it's because they share a secret now, Garrett reasons, something just for the two of them.

"Do you think it's a guy? Your Person?" — Carver asks оne day, when everyone else is already asleep, and Garrett doesn't feel like deflecting with a joke.

"I hope so. I mean, it might be a girl, they say that sometimes your Person is just a friend to you, but still... I'd prefer a guy".

"Do you not like girls at all?" — Carver asks disbelievingly (he is a teenager, after all).

"I don't hate them, I guess, but they're just... not interesting", — Garrett says. — "Guys are..."

"Hot?"

"I guess you could say that".

"Well, good. At least you won't steal any girls from me", — Carver says confidently, and Garrett just smirks. "You can keep them as long as you send any cute guys in my direction".

The first time Garrett hears about the Warden healer, he thinks it's too good to be true.

A free mage who openly uses his magic to help other people? Come оn. In order to be free, mages have to hide their magic, keep their heads low and never be too close to other people. Holding a free clinic for the refugees? No оne's this selfless.

Except for this Anders Warden, apparently. Who lives in Darktown, and who is the most competent healer Garrett's ever met. And who is understandably wired to see four armed strangers оn his doorstep.

Anders grabs his staff and turns to them in оne swift motion.

"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation! Why do you threaten it?"

Carver groans, but Garrett just doesn't feel like paying attention to his little brother right now, as much as he loves Carver.

"Maker's grace, I must be the luckiest man alive", — Garrett gasps and means every word. His Person is a guy (a good-looking guy, to boot), a fellow apostate, someone brave and selfless enough to openly use his magic to help people... what's not to like?

The more Garrett finds out about Anders, the more he realizes just how damn lucky he is. His first impression was right: Anders is too good to be true. Yes, he lashes out at Merrill sometimes, but other than that? Perfection. Kind and compassionate and sensitive and working to free the mages, always willing to help Garrett solve his troubles. The оnly problem? While Anders does seem interested in Garrett sometimes, he never takes any action. He calls Garrett a friend, he tries to keep Garrett away, he never takes the first step, and Garrett is patient, but damn it, it takes three years before Anders runs out of excuses and lets both of them be happy.

And then he starts acting strange. He becomes more distant, his love declarations become more desperate, and it seems like he is waiting for something. Garrett's already lost his sister and mother, and his brother is somewhere оn Warden missions, and he _cannot _lose someone else. He feels like he cannot breathe properly, like he is sick with fear, like Kirkwall chokes the air out of his lungs. He cannot sleep at night if Anders isn't home, tossing and turning and waking up from nightmares gasping for air.

One day, when Anders is in his clinic, Garrett comes to the alienage. Merrill is happy to see him — anything to distract her from the thoughts of her clanmates dying under their blades and spells — and talking to her is easier than Garrett imagined.

"I want you to teach me blood magic".

Anders would be furious if he knew, but ultimately he would understand. He said he would drown Kirkwall in blood to keep Garrett safe — and Garrett would absolutely do the same for Anders.

When Merrill carefully cuts her wrist and gives the knife to Garrett, he thinks he sees the eluvian glimmering in the corner.

And then it's over. The Chantry explodes, Elthina is dead (good riddance, Hawke thinks when Sebastian starts wailing), Anders is alive.

Everything goes straight to hell. Sebastian leaves, which is expected, and Fenris joins the templars, which is a huge blow. Yes, Garrett knew about his views, but he thought Fenris had his back. He always helped Fenris out, didn't he? Even Cullen, of all people, decided to help Hawke at the end. Cullen, the asshole who said Tranquility is a mercy. And Zevran is helping them fight for some reason? Apparently Hawke is shitty at the whole "reading people's intentions" thing.

At the end of the day, people Hawke cares about are alive. Merrill, Aveline and Carver are fine. Anders is alive. Varric is here, giving Anders judgmental looks but mercifully not saying anything. They get to leave Kirkwall unharmed, albeit in a hurry. Aveline and Varric keep looking at Hawke like they expect him to do something, but Hawke is honestly too tired to think about it. What do they want? He has no clue. Apparently he barely knows people who he regularly spoke with. Eventually Aveline takes him aside to check the road ahead and to talk privately.

"Are you going to say anything to him? About him?" — she asks. For a moment Hawke considers playing dumb, pretending he doesn't know what she means, but ultimately deems it useless.

"What do you want me to say? Hey, love, good job killing Elthina, are you tired, do you want me to carry your backpack for you?"

"I cannot believe you actually approve of what he's done", — Aveline spits out.

"Well, I do", — Hawke says simply. — "And even if I didn't... Maker help me, I would protect him anyway".

"He's murdered innocent people!"

"He's my family, Aveline! And I cannot lose him, not after everything!"

Aveline has a pitying expression оn her face. And if anyone else tried to have this conversation with him now, Hawke would probably punch this person, but Aveline is as much of a family to him as Carver and Anders. And isn't it an uncomfortable realisation? That he is no better than people he so callously judged? That if he'd found Anders, Merrill, Carver or Aveline gleefully murdering half of Kirkwall in a blood magic ritual, he would still defend them until his dying breath? Does this make him an awful person? It probably does, but this night has been full of uncomfortable truths he has had to realise about himself and others.

Thankfully, Aveline doesn't press the matter further.

They leave оne by оne. Merril says she needs to protect the alienage elves (and she couldn't just leave her mirror, which is fair). Aveline goes back to lead the guard again. Carver has some Warden mission. Varric promises to give the Chantry a false trail to follow, but his eyes are hard when he says that. Probably still angry about the explosion, Hawke thinks and hurts оn Anders' behalf.

Anders is still quiet. Hawke is still afraid to leave him alone for long periods of times, even if Justice has come out to promise he wouldn't let Anders do anything stupid.

They are sitting оn a log, staring into the campfire. There are glimpses of blue in Anders' eyes. Hawke feels sudden urge to hug his lover and sees no reason not to follow through.

Anders shivers in Hawke's arms.

"Love, what?"

"Nothing", — Anders shakes his head, — "just... Sometimes it's still hard to believe you're with me".

"You won't get rid of me so easily".

"I don't deserve you".

Anders' self-deprecation is unbelievable sometimes. It just feels wrong, that a person as amazing as Anders doesn't realise his worth. One of the many reasons to hate the Circles, Hawke thinks bitterly.

"Love, I'm the оne who doesn't deserve you. You're the bravest, most selfless person I've ever met. You healed the poor and downtrodden when everyone abandoned them, you stood up for the mages when no оne else did, you went against Meredith..."

"And betrayed your trust in the process".

"Well," — Hawke starts carefully, because it's not untrue, but he's not so bitter about that anymore, — "you're here now. The оnly оne who stayed with me".

Anders looks at him with eyes full of hope.

"I won't repeat my mistake again, I promise. You're stuck with me now. I'm not going anywhere".

"Good", — Hawke says, relieved, because Anders speaks like he means it. — "I wouldn't have it any other way".

#handers #fanfic #dragon age #da2 #m!handers #diplomatic mage hawke #orsino is alive #орсино уполз #for the record #i don't necessarily agree with everything hawke says and does #he likes aveline #i don't #this was my first playthrough #it wasn't perfect #and i suck at titles so this fic doesn't have one

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furbyhugger96 · 4 years

Text

Goodbyes and Ghostly Fingers

The Inquisitor’s last months and moments.

Peregrine looked behind her, panting. Varric was lowering his crossbow, Vivienne’s shining golden sword was dissipating into air, and there was Bull, standing tall and streaked with sweat. His great-axe was lodged heavily into the ground, covered in the blood of his people. The Saarebas lay at their feet. His chains were snapped and sizzling, and his fingernails still glowed a faint green from the fight.

Crack.

Peri’s hand writhed and she let out a blood-curdling scream. It felt like something was ripping her hand in half by the fingers, tearing as far up her arm as possible. The companions were on her in a second, Vivienne brushing her hair from her forehead; Bull clutching her elbow and wrapping a huge arm around her. Varric stood behind her, gripping Bianca a little too tightly until there were faint nail marks in her polished wood. Peregrine was weak: weaker than when she stepped out of the Fade, than after Haven, than after stepping out of the Fade that second time... It would be so easy to sleep, to let darkness take her, to just die.

She looked up at Bull from behind heavy eyelids and reached up to touch his face with her one working arm. He wasn’t crying, but he may as well have been. His jaw was taught and the arms that held her were shaking. It would be so easy... but there was something stopping her. And it wasn’t just Bull. The Inquisition. She had been no one before it; everyone had been no one. The masses had been forgotten until the Inquisition stepped in, closed the Breach, saved the Empress, gathered supplies, created refuge, quelled two wars, destroyed an ancient magister who sought to destroy the world and close the fucking Breach again. It had given her purpose, friends... power. It had given her Bull. She clenched her teeth. And he betrayed them. She didn’t know what Solas’s plan was, and she didn’t care. She was ready to fucking murder him.

Groaning, she tried raising herself. Bull gently lifted her instead and placed her on her feet. Panting, sweating and spattered in drying blood, she gripped her staff and stood. She took a slightly scratched ring off her finger and clenched it into Vivienne’s hand. “Keep it safe for me, alright?” she murmured. Vivienne’s eyes became wet for a brief moment before she smiled charmingly. “Of course, dear.”

She limped toward Varric, who sat Bianca on the ground and began to speak. He didn’t get any words out before Peregrine had him wrapped in a one armed hug so tight he couldn’t breathe. His thick arms circled her hips at a similar strength. “You’re the hero I always wanted to be,” she whispered into his hair. Large hands tightened into fists near the small of her back and she felt his breathing hitch. As she moved away she touched the side of his face, smiling as tears fell in rivers across her ruddy cheeks. She’d barely turned to Bull before he’d enveloped her.

“I’m coming with you, Peri,” he rumbled. “No you’re not. This is something I have to do without you,” she replied. He lifted her with an arm and kissed her deeply, her toes just touching the ground. She held his face feeling the familiar scars under his left eye, his jaw and his lips. “I love you, kadan,” he murmured against her neck.

“I love you too, peaches.” He moved away from her, limping as though it physically pained him. She wished he’d stopped her, torn her away from it all, took off through the miles of Eluvians with her in his arms to safety. But she knew she wouldn’t let him, no matter how much she wanted it. This... business with Solas ended now. She’d called him friend once. They’d grown incredibly close, and for the past few years she’d been studying his old papers endlessly trying to find any scrap of a clue as to where he had hidden. Her chamber bookshelves were pushed up against the unfinished mural panel filled with his work and ones on the Fade, known Dalish clans, the habits of nomads and hermits... anything. She’d sent out scout after scout, put out word as far as her voice could reach, asking about a lone, pale elf with a staff and a small scar on his forehead. Nothing. Not a damn word. And now this. She had to see it to believe it, but if it were true, she would kill him. Their friendship, their bond, made the betrayal immeasurably worse. This was a man she’d trusted, cared for, had helped and protected.

She walked toward the Eluvian, clutching her arm. Without looking behind her, she stepped through. Solas didn’t get to finish his first sentence before she lunged for him, claw and tooth with the express purpose of revenge.

She was told Bull had rushed in after about 20 minutes, having spent half of that time being physically restrained by the other two to stop him from interrupting. Her ‘conversation’ with Solas had only lasted about five anyway, so she was already unconscious from the pain when he arrived. Her left arm was a pile of dust, the mark gone. For the first time in three long years Peregrine wasn’t illuminated at all times by an unearthly green light. Bull tried to shatter the Eluvian Solas had left through in a rage but was knocked back, Varric told her later. “It would have been funny if you weren’t nearly dead,” he’d said by her bedside. He’d smiled and chuckled, but his eyes were tired. The next day Peregrine marched into the Exalted Council, her phantom fingers clenched. They would become an arm of the Divine, mind the pun, and defeat Fen’Harel by any means necessary. She’d been so close to telling them all to fuck off, but Solas needed to pay. She would, as a beneficial side effect, no longer be Inquisitor. She would be high ranking, sure, with lands and title in Kirkwall, a close friend in the Grand Enchanter, friend and ‘ex’ spymaster as the Divine, and a network of Red Jennies at her beck and call. But finally... finally she didn’t have everyone’s lives resting in her lap.

Bull helped her pack and bathe after that day. Even helped her dress. She was still so clumsy. His large hands draped the robes over her shoulders gently, always careful not to touch what was left of her arm for fear of causing her pain. They’d chosen one of the smaller dragons teeth for their necklace, and he fondled her half as they stood in the warm Orlesian bedroom. “I’m sorry for how this all ended, Peri.” She placed her hand over his, pale and small in comparison.

“I couldn’t have gotten this far without you, Bull,” she smiled. “Bullshit. You could have destroyed Corypheus with both hands tied behind your back. Defeating Solas with one free hand is basically unfair to the poor fuck,” he grinned, pointedly looking at her arm. She loathed her new limitation, but Bull

was making it a little easier. She pulled herself close and grabbed his ass in her one good hand, leaning up to kiss him roughly. “Maybe... just don’t make me have to.” ‘Don’t leave me,’ she wanted to scream. ‘Don’t leave me just yet. Don’t go off killing dragons and getting covered in blood while I struggle to pull on a pair of trousers.’ But that was the good thing about Bull – it didn’t matter if you screamed it or not, he understood. He always understood. His large grey hands cradled her face and he held his forehead pressed against hers.

“I’ll stay with you for as long as you need me, kadan.” She breathed in deeply, her lungs filling with his promise. “Thank you,” she whispered back.

She’d met Varric the day after that as the bustle of caravans and seagulls surrounded them. He was going to catch a boat back to Kirkwall, and she was heading back to Skyhold. They stood on an empty dock and stared out over the dark water; she could see the Breach’s scar reflected in it. “I never told you how much I cared about you, Varric,” she said softly.

“Yeah, that’s what’s strange about you – most declare their love two days in,” he replied. She cocked her head and ruffled his hair. “Hey!” he grumbled, swatting her away. “There is a list of women who are allowed to do that and you, Peekaboo, are not on it.” She raised a hand to her chest, faux-offended.

“No? Not even after all these years? I’m wounded, Tethras.” Varric smirked and returned his gaze to the ocean. They stood in silence for a few more minutes before he sighed heavily. “You did tell me. Back before Chuckles told you who he really was.” Peri looked down. Her right hand gently swung its way over until it bumped with Varric’s. He seemed hesitant, but took hers in a warm grip that tightened as they stood in silence, watching the waves.

“Once the Inquisition packs up, I might come make use of the estate. Bull says he’ll stay with me as long as I want, but I know he’ll dying to be out with the Chargers after a month cooped up helping me tie my laces.” The dwarf nodded, smiling slightly.

“Consider it a holiday. You’ve fucking earned it.” A horn blew, signaling the first call to board. Peregrine smiled as Varric let go and turned to face him. She planted a kiss on his forehead. “Safe journey, my friend.” “You too, Peekaboo.”

They returned to Skyhold, Vivienne in tow. She’d become rather clucky, fussing over whether Peri was getting enough care, who was in charge of her pain sedation, that carriage is far too rough for her to ride in, etc. Peregrine thought it was sweet... for the first few couple of days. Soon enough though, Vivienne was busying herself with something else. She wouldn’t tell them what it was, hushing any who tried to speak to her about it and almost constantly wandering around with blueprints hovering next to her. The Inquisition wouldn’t be disbanded for another month, officially. They were also allowed to use the fortress as a base indefinitely due to its central location. It was still home to her. Bull grinned as he carried her back up the stairs to the Main Hall. Cole was there, quietly waiting. He held a bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots and lavender, her favourite flowers.

“I’m sorry. I knew what he was. But I didn’t know what he wanted to do. He only let me see lies.” Peri studied the flowers in her hands before putting them aside and wrapping an arm around the boy, tears pricking her eyes.

“It’s not your fault, Cole... don’t ever think it’s your fault.” Cole wrapped his arms tightly around her in response, and they rocked from side to side. “He lied to all of us.”

Bull made love to her that night, in that huge bedroom that once belonged to an Inquisitor. She told him to leave all the windows open, even though she was already shivering. She wanted to feel the cold touch of the mountain air and cool linen beneath her as she was wrapped in her lover’s heat. As she cried out into the night, enveloped in his body, head dizzy with his scent – faintly like cool, sweet cream and lemon (he’d washed today) – she felt her ghostly fingers attempt to grip the sheets. Before she could remember she didn’t have a left hand anymore, her dismay was cut short. Their movements had tousled the fabric naturally, but the clump of linen where her hand would have been was sitting rather anomalously...

It looked as though someone had scrunched it up together.

#da #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #inquisitor #da inquisitor #human mage #perigrine #oc #oc fanfiction #da fanfiction #dragon age fanfiction #da inquisition fanfiction #my writing

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cruelangelstheses · 4 years

Text

in the salt and swell

fandom: dragon age rating: T characters: merrill/isabela words: 1.9k additional tags: historical au, mythology au, fluff, first meetings, flirting, mermaid au description: after she and her crew end up shipwrecked, isabela encounters a mermaid. a/n: hi!! this was written for day 2 of @merribelaweek (which was yesterday but it’s fine lmao) using the prompts “ocean” and “mythology”! title from “the ocean” by against me!

read it on ao3

—

Sailing into the storm was a gamble, she’d say about it later.

And what a gamble it was.

But they’d had little choice, being chased by three French ships hellbent on getting their goods back. They’re pirates, not Vikings, and rather than get their asses thoroughly handed to them in a naval battle, Captain Isabela had decided to sail directly into an oncoming storm, figuring that it would either scare the French away or do them in, too.

She was right about that part, and they got away with several famous paintings, all worth her weight in gold, that she’d promised a former acquaintance in exchange for freeing his slaves. The storm wasn’t finished with them, though, and while Isabela has sailed through her fair share of typhoons, none made their mark quite like this one did.

The tumultuous ocean, the uncontrollable winds, the horrifying crack of lightning that split her eardrums and sent the mast crashing down onto the deck—all of it is a blur of adrenaline in Isabela’s memory. She remembers clinging desperately to the wheel, at first to try to steer the ship, but eventually just to have something to hold on to. She remembers the way it popped off its hinges and took her with it.

She and her crew all survived, luckily, albeit quite a bit worse for wear and having lost a few barrels of cargo. The paintings survived, miraculously, having been stored in a large, watertight crate. Her ship, however, was not as fortunate.

The Siren’s Call. Her baby. She had smashed against an outcrop of large, jagged rocks, launching them all onto the rough, unforgiving shore. When Isabela first looked up and saw the damage, the splintered mast, the torn sails hanging limply, it felt as if she’d been gutted, like she’d lost a part of her. I don’t know if she can be fixed, Varric had said. Isabela almost slapped him.

As it turns out, she can be fixed—for a price. There’s a shipbuilder in the town closest to where they wrecked, a quaint port city just off the coast of Wales, who offered to repair it as long as they could pay the fee. With all the damage sustained, it cost almost as much as it would to just have a new ship built. After a heated debate with her crew in which more than one suggested just stealing a new ship, they decided to just pay up. It wasn’t like they were short on money, anyway, even after losing some of their cargo.

So now Captain Isabela and her pirate crew have to search for things to do to pass the time while they wait for the Siren’s Call to be repaired. They spend their first few nights gambling and cheating at cards, easily winning back some of the money they had to spend on the ship. During the day, though, they all go off on their own, taking strolls through town or day-drinking to ward off the pain from their injuries. Isabela, for her part, always finds herself drawn back to the sea.

It’s been less than a week since the shipwreck, but she already misses sailing more than she misses her own mother (which is not much at all, but the point still stands). She misses the sea spray on her face, the view of endless ocean on the horizon, the gentle rocking of the boat on open water. For now, though, she contents herself with walking along the shoreline, letting the waves lap at her toes and watching crabs skitter across the sand.

It’s during one of these excursions, while she’s standing up to her knees alone in the water and breathing in the salty air, that Isabela notices something out in the distance.

The first thing that catches her attention is a splash, and when she squints, she can see droplets of saltwater flying up into the sky and then falling back down again. It’s probably a fish, she thinks, but if so, it’s quite a large one. Then she sees it: a green, fan-like tail at least the size of a dolphin’s. Every few seconds, it pops back up above the water with a splash, each time closer to Isabela than the last. By now she can see a dark silhouette beneath the surface, and it’s headed straight for her.

Isabela takes a few steps backward and reaches into her coin purse, where she’s stored a small but effective dagger. If this were a shark, she’d probably just run, but she has no idea what this creature is. She’s never seen anything like it.

Before she can make a decision, a head pops up out of the water, and Isabela almost chokes in surprise.

It’s a girl.

Granted, she has strange markings, almost like tattoos, all over her face, and her ears are shaped like fins, but nonetheless, Isabela is undoubtedly staring at a person.

A person with a fish tail.

“Hello!” the girl says in a lilting Welsh accent. “Are you and your friends alright? I saw the shipwreck a few days ago. Nasty one, that was.”

For a few seconds, Isabela just stares, dumbfounded. Then, snapping back into reality, she shakes her head and replies, “I, uh—yes, we’re all fine. What is—who—what are you?” If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she was hallucinating, but she didn’t drink that much last night (the more sober she is, the better she is at cards), and she hasn’t drank at all today. Two equally distressing thoughts cross her mind: One, she shouldn’t be hallucinating; and two, she’s fairly certain that she isn’t.

“Oh! Sorry,” the girl says. “I take it you’ve never met a mermaid before? I suppose you wouldn’t have; we mostly keep to ourselves.”

Isabela blinks a few times, but the girl—the mermaid—doesn’t disappear. “No,” she says indignantly. “I’ve never even heard of you except for in stories. Fictional stories. You know, mythology and such.”

“All stories contain some element of truth in them,” the girl replies, matter-of-fact.

Isabela frowns and thinks back to when she and her crew first ended up on the beach. Captain, I know you’ll never believe me, Varric had said to her, but I think I saw a...a siren or a mermaid or something. When she called bullshit, he’d added, I was underwater, and then I felt these soft, small hands grabbing my wrists and pulling me to shore. When I opened my eyes, I swear I saw some half-human, half-fish thing diving back into the sea.

She hadn’t taken him seriously, of course, but why would she? Even if she’d believed in mermaids, Varric is always making up fanciful tales; in fact, that’s about all he does. How was she to know that he might have actually been telling the truth for once in his life?

“You...you saved one of my crewmates,” she says out loud.

The girl nods. “Right, the stout one with all that chest hair.”

Isabela lets out a short bark of a laugh. “You noticed that?”

The girl shrugs. “How could I not? He seemed to practically have it out on display. But I thought maybe the storm had just messed his clothes up.”

Isabela shakes her head. “No, he wears all his shirts like that.”

The girl puts her hands up to her mouth and giggles. Isabela can’t help the astonished smile that creeps onto her face. She’s having a conversation with a mermaid, and quite a beautiful one at that.

“Oh!” the girl says suddenly. “I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Merrill.”

It’s a lovely name, even lovelier when she says it with that pretty voice of hers. “You can call me Isabela,” Isabela says. “Well. Technically it’s Captain Isabela, but I don’t exactly have a ship to captain right now.”

Merrill grimaces. “Yeah, it was in pretty bad shape last I saw it. Is it getting fixed up? I noticed the shipbuilder investigating it the other day.”

“It is,” Isabela says, and then she laughs again as realization strikes her. “Do you know what I named it? I named it the Siren’s Call.”

Merrill snorts. “See, you were bound to meet one of us sooner or later.”

Isabela takes another few steps backward and sits down in the shallow tides, not even caring that she’s getting ocean water and wet sand on her clothes. Merrill swims up to her and lies down on her side a few paces ahead of her, letting the waves crash over her.

Up close, Isabela can see the way her torso gradually shifts from human to fish. The lower half of her body is one long, large fish tail that shimmers with bright green scales. Her top half is the same as a human’s, save for the ears. Isabela can’t help but notice that Merrill isn’t wearing any kind of covering, not that she really expected her to.

“Must be nice,” she says, eyeing her companion’s chest, “being able to just bare your whole self like that. We humans have societal norms that make it socially unacceptable for me to run around nude. Or even just in my smallclothes.”

Merrill giggles and makes no move to cover her breasts. “So I’ve heard.”

For a moment, they both just stare, each taking the other in. Then Isabela asks about the thing that’s been on her mind the moment Merrill stuck her head out of the water.

“So mermaids are real, huh?”

Merrill smiles. “Still in disbelief? That makes sense. Like I said, we’re quite reserved. We’ve been hiding for thousands of years, right under you humans’ noses. We’ve seen what your kind can do when you discover something strange or different. Besides, for a long time there was never really much reason for our paths to cross, us living in the ocean and you all living on land.”

Isabela narrows her eyes. “Then why did you save Varric? Why are you even talking to me?”

“We save sailors every once in a while,” Merrill explains. “They’re usually unconscious by that time anyway, or they think whatever they saw or felt was a trick of the mind, especially when they’re alone. As for why I’m talking to you…” She drums her fingers thoughtfully against the wet sand. “You seemed...different. I saw the way you’d sit out here for hours, just staring at the sea. I could tell you longed for it. You reminded me of...well, of a mermaid. You belong to the ocean, just like we do.”

Isabela’s mouth curls into a soft smile. “I suppose you’re right, Merrill,” she says, staring dreamily into the distance. “I suppose you’re right.”

After a short pause, Merrill adds, “Your looks didn’t hurt, either.”

That snaps her back immediately, and when she glances back over at the seemingly innocent sea maiden, Isabela notices a playful glint in her wide green eyes.

The smile on her face shifts into a delighted smirk. Two can play at that game. “Tell me, kitten,” she says, the nickname springing to her lips and sounding perfect as soon as it leaves her mouth, “how would one go about pleasuring a mermaid?”

#dragon age 2 #merrill #isabela #merribela #merribelaweek #da2 #my fics

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solasan · 4 years

Note

evens for your hawke/anders 🥰

2. big spoon / little spoon?

oh anders is little spoon for sure. delly’s a few inches taller than him and just. big. he likes her being all curled around him. feels safe

4. favourite non-sexual activity?

oh killing templars for sure. u kno how the saying goes; the couple who revolutions together stays together

6. what is their favorite feature of their partner’s?

i mean ok i could say something rly sappy abt Personalities and Emotions but anders is so fucking here for delly’s muscles. her arms distract him on the daily. he has injured himself during battles getting distracted by his gf’s sick biceps. on delly’s side it’s probs his nose. she thinks his nose is adorable. she kisses it all the time bcos shes dumb and soft

8. nicknames? & if so, how did they originate?

oh hell yeah. anders calls delly ‘heidi’ all the time, and the gang kinda try and tease them for it for all of abt two seconds before she pulls her red hawke angry face and they all mysteriously forget they ever heard it. but also he calls her ‘liebling’ sometimes, bcos it’s cute. he doesnt tell her what it means for ages, even when she pesters him. dell’s not rly the nickname type, but she’ll call him ‘dearest’ when no one else is around and hes always a little 🥺

10. who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?

delly for sure. this is partly bcos she insists on getting him a fuckload of food whenever they’re at the hanged man (and also when hes at home) bcos she doesn’t think he eats enough, and she’s a massive mother hen. but also she just pays attention a lot; she’s sorta like the mom watching fondly as her entire family eats whenever they all get together, making sure everyone’s taking care of themselves but trying not to be obv abt it

12. who initiates kisses?

in the beginning, usually anders. delly’s not inexperienced by any means but she’s just super hesitant abt affection. touch-starved and confused u kno. fun times. but once things have settled in a bit it massively skews to her; she’ll kiss him whenever and wherever, and doesn’t care who sees. he super does not mind

14. who kisses the hardest?

oo toughy. probably delly, but i mean, they’re both super passionate? it’d be a toss-up, im just going w delly bcos she’s clumsier w it

16. who wants to stay in bed just a little longer?

again probably delly. anders is more disciplined abt making sure hes awake, plus hes always super paranoid when he’s not at the clinic that someone needs him, so he’s up and out like a shot

18. who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (bonus: what does it usually say?)

tbh i think they’re both way too chaotic for this. neither of them have their life together that much. they both often forget to eat lunch anyway

20. what do their family/friends think of their relationship?

bethany is…. torn? on one hand her and anders are only civil rly like half the time. on the other, he makes delly so happy, and delly is bethany’s favourite person, so she’s overjoyed to see it. and before leandra died, she sort of….. hesitantly approved? she was a bit overwhelmed abt the parallels between her and malcolm and delly and anders (highborn — technically — lady & roguish apostate) tho

sebastian, aveline, and fenris think they rly just make each other worse, bcos neither of them rly get along w them (rip). merrill thinks it’s sweet; isabela jokes a lot abt them, but isn’t particularly of one mind either way. mostly she’s glad the pining is over. varric is v taken w them from a writer’s perspective; probably the only reasons he doesnt publish a serial abt them are 1) the whole chantry thing and 2) delly would murder him

22. who cooks more/who is better at cooking?

dont let anders cook. delly’s good at the basic stuff, but nothing fancy; anders is bad bad bad

24. who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times?

oh anders for sure. delly blushes w her whole body so everybody fucking knows whats happening anyway. she absolutely makes him pay for it later

26. what would be their theme song?

this is not a theme song (bcos the only theme song i can currently think of is scooby doo) but nfwmb by hozier is the ultimate handers song

28. what do they do when they’re away from each other?

i mean they’re adults capable of being apart so they dont pine or sob or go bella swan catatonic. but they’re not often apart, after da2, bcos they like. have a family together and live together. when they are tho they write each other letters, which always take an age to reach the other person, and somehow manage to straddle the line between ‘stupidly sappy’ and ‘concisely informational’ in a way that rly only delly could do

30. one headcanon about this OTP that mends your heart

nothing even breaks my heart they are my one happy ship. but uhhhh when delly gets pregnant w posy she temporarily becomes little spoon bcos both anders and justice rly love just going to sleep w their hand on her belly and feeling the little life in there, and it is The Softest Thing. when she kicks for the first time, anders notices almost before delly does

#thank u emily for my life #🥰🥰🥰🥰#am i capable of making these short? ever? no? ok #denerims #answered #ch: adelheid hawke

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dragonagecompanions · 5 years

Note

dai inner circle react to inquisitor!trevelyan recognizing a red templar as their sibling

Cassandra: They are kin, in that moment. No matter what else might exist between herself and the inquisitor she knows their agony as the red dotted monstrosity with the herald’s eyes and the Trevelyan emblem on their shield stands against them. Some part of herself- the part that never forgot how it felt to be twelve and bereft so suddenly of her beloved older brother- is screaming in that shared pain as she watches their leader tremble under the sudden and terrible truth.

There is no treatment for this slow and lethal creep of corrupted lyrium, and the only merciful cure is the sword. In her life she has been many things, and done things she would rather now think she had not, but taking that task away from a grieving sibling will never be one. She makes sure another companion is with them, doing her best to shield them from the truth, and when it is over and they have made camp she does what she can for them.

“I am sorry, for your loss. I...also lost a brother, when I was very young. If you need to speak of this....I am here.”

Solas: It is agony to watch your loved ones fall to that same enemy that you are fighting. He knows the feeling too well, and for all that his loss was on a far grander scale he feels their grief and despair. If they want him to dispatch the red templars -quickly and mercifully, he is not always a monster- he will do so. And if it is a task that they need to take on themselves he will only cast a barrier to guard them, and keep watch until it is over. And later, if they allow it, he will sit with them.

“There are no words on either side of the veil that I can think of to bring you comfort. I am sorry.”

Varric: Shit. Shit. Of all the companions Varric Tethras understands with a cruel clarity exactly what they are feeling. Even if he still lives Bartrand has been taken from him, likely forever, and while he was no templar isn’t red lyrium the same cause? He doesn’t hesitate before lifting Bianca, putting down the Inquisitor’s sibling and his own brother’s ghost with swift bolts before -as the battle allows- walking off to be sick. This is a side of him that rarely crops up outside of the Hanged Man and too much alcohol, and if he does finally talk to their leader it won’t be that day.

“I’m....sorry. About your sibling. It’s rough. If you need a drink, you know where to find me.”

Vivienne: This abomination is not a templar, and after her magic has removed them from the picture she leads the Inquisitor away. Loss is not a new concept for any mage -most begin their young lives being ripped from family and all they knew, and few go through their lives without losing friends- but that does not her unfeeling to their grief now, and she is gentle with them after they make camp.

“My dear, no one thinks less of you for your sorrow, but you must not remember them as what stood before you. They were taken from you long before that, and this was the last gift you could offer. Let them be with the Maker, and take comfort that they would thank you if they could.”

Blackwall: Wardens have no interest in the politics of templars and mages, and for all that he is not truly among their ranks Blackwall has the same mindset. Red templars are no different than the Venatori or darkspawn or the Maker damned bears-- just another enemy to fight, just another monster to put down. But when he hears the inquisitors shout of grief and denial that opinion changes. It’s not hard to see the resemblance, when he takes the time to look, and that tells the story in full.

When he walked away from Thom Rainer’s name he left any family behind as well, but if it were his own kin standing there he’d want someone else to swing the sword. Later, when it was done and they had given whatever rights the wilderness could offer, he does not approach them. Grief needs it own solitude, but if they need something to do with their hands later he lends them his carving knife and wood. Bleeds off the pain into something productive, and sometimes that’s enough.

Sera: For all her jokes and quips and pushing the line to see how far she can get, Skyhold’s Red Jenny has a heart for the wounded and the weary and the grieving. The last one might be their herald, but the first two apply also to their sibling-- and there is compassion in her quiver as she puts extra care into each shot. It’s fast, and she does not let them suffer, and later when all is quiet she filches what sweets are to be had on the road and leaves them with the Inquisitor.

“ ‘s not cookies, but...shite, words aren’t good for the big things but I’m sorry yeah? Bet they don’t blame you, up with the Maker and Andraste. Bet they’re pretty glad you were here.”

Iron Bull: The Qun would have outsiders believe that loss is part of the natural order, and that to accept that is to become peace. To rise and fall with the tide, to be order among the chaos, to accept. But there's more than one Tevinter mage who can -or can’t, as the case may be- attest that he’d fought harder and dirtier and more bitterly when a friend when down than before the loss. He understands loss, and grief, and needing someone else to take on a burden when those rear their ugly heads. Killing one templar, no matter how much they look like the Boss, is a small thing in the face of that.

And later, as the only consolidation he can offer, he gets them black out drunk and hopes it numbs the sharp edge of the memory. There’s not much else for grief.

Dorian: He spent years watching the closest thing he would ever have to a brother die of blight sickness, and every moment ached. Felix finally died alone, hundreds of miles from the two people who loved him most, and that ached more. But it all seems to fade in the penumbra of having to watch your own sibling- torn apart by red lyrium- die before you. Even worse to watch them suffer in fear or agony before it, and so in the moment when a sword is more useful than his gift Dorian stays by the Inquisitor’s side and either shields them from the fighting or shields them from the view.

It is, for the person who offered him a place despite his past and his pedigree, the least he can do.

Cole: “Screaming, whispering, never alone, get out of my head. So proud of them, making a difference, glad it was them-”

Someone eventually halts the final thoughts of the inquisitor’s sibling from echoing in Cole’s words, but by then the knot is tangled and he doesn’t know how to untangle it. If they want to forget, he helps them. Their pain and grief is omnipresent, and so for a time the spirit is hyper focused on them. But if they do not want to forget he tries to bring them those things that make him happy-- which is how the inquisitor ends up with three hats, a very confused nug, and a random trinket that somehow reminds the inquisitor of better times.

Mod Fereldone

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