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shivunin · 6 months

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Two of Hearts

I meant to post this with the full piece by @ndostairlyrium but sadly I didn't finish it in time to post them together--regardless, here it is now! (the larger version is here. Cannot recommend commissioning her enough; she is a delight of a human being!)

(Fenris/Maria Hawke | 1,541 Words | CW: alcohol)

“Belt off, Hawke,” Varric said the moment she and Fenris stepped into the dwarf’s room in the Hanged Man. “Cloak, too.”

Hawke paused mid-step, one foot through the door and the other on the threshold. Fenris caught himself just before he would have run into her.

“Andraste’s eyebrows, Varric—if you wanted me naked, you ought to’ve asked years ago. I’m afraid my heart belongs to another now,” she sighed. “What a terrible shame for you.”

The room was better-lit than the larger dining room downstairs. It was often so on the nights they came for cards, as if Varric was trying to beat back the Kirkwall night outside. The firelight caught in the curls of Hawke’s hair, left loose today for they’d hardly left her manor before they’d come here. When she tilted her head, Fenris saw the faint curl of a dimple in her cheek. Trying not to smile and failing; a night with Hawke when she was feeling capricious could be dangerous, but he could not find it in himself to feel concerned. He knew very well what had put her in such a good mood, after all.

“Yeah, yeah,” Varric rolled his eyes. “Off, Hawke. If you want to sneak in that extra deck of yours, it’ll have to be some other night.”

“I am outraged,” Hawke said, unclasping her cloak and tossing it in the general direction of a cabinet. It slid to the ground with a soft thud. “Outraged, I say!”

“Oh, stow it,” Isabela said. She sat at the end of the table nearest Varric, her face dissatisfied. “He already took both of my boots, if you can imagine. If I’ve got to suffer, then so do you, Hawke. This floor is like ice.”

“There’s a carpet, Bela,” Varric said, shuffling his own deck. “Boots, too, Hawke.”

“And?” Isabela shot back. “The least you could do is lend a pair of socks.”

Hawke’s belt and boots were set aside, too, and she flounced to the table with visible indignation. Fenris, still standing in the doorway, watched her until she sat, shaking his head slightly. Hawke looked back at him and held out a hand.

Dangerous. Fenris lifted a brow at her and crossed the room, setting the bottle of wine they’d taken from her cellar on the table. His fingers brushed against her outstretched palm while he climbed over the bench. In turn, she touched the small of his back lightly before turning to the cluster of glasses in the center of the table.

“Added more rules, have we?” she asked, sliding one glass to Fenris and taking another for herself. He lifted the corkscrew from the table and passed it to her in turn.

“Just enforcing the usual ones,” Varric tilted the cards up until they shuffled downward again, then cut the deck. He waved half of it at Isabela and Hawke in turn. “I saw the two of you last time. If you can’t play nice, maybe someone has to make you.”

Hawke gasped, still busily twisting the corkscrew. Fenris steadied the other end of the bottle.

“Cheating at Wicked Grace is the point of playing Wicked Grace, as you well know,” she said, and the cork popped loose. “I cannot believe you are interfering with a time-honored tradition when you never even returned my second deck—”

“The one you intended to cheat with,” Varric said, tapping the cards back together again with a snap.

“—oh, allegedly—I never did any such thing—”

“Can’t we just start playing?” Aveline asked from the other end of the table, looking between Hawke and Varric. Hawke poured Fenris’s glass of wine first, then her own.

“—and why don’t Aveline and Fenris and Sebastian have to give up their belts or turn out their pockets, hm?” Hawke went on, glancing between the three of them. Aveline sighed heavily and took a long draught from her goblet.

“Aveline never wins,” Varric told her. “If she’s cheating, she needs the practice.”

“I’ve no need to cheat,” Sebastian added calmly, accepting his cards when Varric slid them to him. “I can win well enough without it.”

Fenris snorted and took his own cards. Under the table, Hawke looped her stockinged ankle around his.

“Why would I cheat?” he asked, wrapping his fingers around the stem of his glass. “Watching you try is more entertaining.”

“I am positively surrounded by spoilsports,” Hawke announced with an air of great tragedy. She accepted her own pile of cards with a sigh. “Where’s Merrill tonight?”

“Some holiday in the alienage,” Isabela said, shifting until her legs were crossed before her. “I told her I’d bring her regrets, but she said she’d be along eventually.”

While Isabela spoke, Hawke shifted on the bench beside Fenris, sitting back and bouncing her leg, then leaning forward again. He took a careful sip of his wine and glanced sidelong at her. Hawke ignored him and drank deeply from her own cup.

“Well, go on, then,” she told Varric. “If we’re to be proper about this.”

“One silver,” he replied, tossing a coin onto the table. “Hawke?”

She set a coin of her own on the table (nobody seemed inclined to ask where she might have produced this from; Fenris, who’d felt the tug on his own belt pouch, said nothing).

The round progressed. To the outside observer, Hawke might have seemed entirely engrossed in the round. Fenris knew better—but then, he could feel how close she sat on the bench, could feel the occasional brush of her fingers against his back or arm. She never demanded any show of affection from him before the others, for which he was grateful. What they had was for them, not for everybody else’s entertainment or speculation.

Even so, she was still herself; he did not begrudge the small gestures she offered instead. She held his hand beneath the table sometimes, or sat so close to him that their legs pressed together. And sometimes, like tonight—

Fenris straightened and turned to look at her, narrowing his eyes. Hawke smiled winningly and rested her stack of cards face-down on the table—a stack of cards slightly thicker than it ought to have been. He reached for his glass of wine, shaking his head at her, and the dimple at her cheek deepened.

“Whatever are you looking at me like that for, messere?” she asked in an undertone.

“You know quite well.”

“Truly, I’ve no idea.”

This time, he felt it when she tucked the card into his belt. Hawke tilted her head and rested her hand on his back for a moment.

Ridiculous. Of late, he spent more than half his nights in her company and yet something in his chest still caught when she looked at him like that.

“Hmm,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything to say except her name. Hawke leaned closer and turned her face away from the others.

“You did promise,” she whispered, “but if you’re having second thoughts…”

“No,” he said, because he had promised, “go on.”

“Thank you, dearest,” she said, and leaned away again.

“Now, what are the two of you whispering about?” Isabela asked, peering at them over the lantern that rested between them on the table. Fenris lifted his wineglass and took a long drink, studying his cards.

This was…most of a winning hand. He was certain he hadn’t been holding these cards before. He’d intended to fold when the round returned to him, in fact.

“Something terribly boring,” Hawke told Isabela, still smiling. “You couldn’t possibly be interested.”

“Try me,” Isabela said.

“Hawke?” Varric asked.

Hawke lay her cards on the table face-up, not bothering to glance at them again. Fenris studied them briefly, though he’d already known what he would see. They were his cards, with an extra tucked beneath. She had traded her hand for his

“If you must know,” Hawke began, lifting her glass and gesturing broadly with it. It was fortunate that she’d drunk most of it or the two of them would certainly have been doused. “I was reminding him that we need to stop by the market tomorrow. I have been wanting to buy a new pair of boots, you see; the ones I have now pinch awfully and it is rather pleasant to be playing without them on. It is so hard to find a good pair of shoes these days, don’t you think? What I wouldn’t give for one of those fine sets from Antiva with all of the tooled leather and that embroidery that looks—”

“Alright, alright,” Isabela said, taking a bun from the table and rolling her eyes. “Go on then, Fenris.”

“Raise,” he said, and set two coins on the table.

Aveline groaned.

Beside him, Hawke set her glass down. She’d finished the last sip of it and she was smiling to herself, gathering her cards into a neat stack.

When Fenris rested his hand on the table again, his elbow nudged hers as if by accident. Beneath the table, she pressed her knee against his thigh. A thanks, offered and accepted.

After the round ended (Fenris’s belt somewhat heavier for it), he did not turn again when he felt her hand at his back. He knew very well what she was doing—and he had promised, after all.

#fenhawke #fenris #fenris dragon age #maria hawke #femhawke #da2 #dragon age fic #shoutout to one of my favorite pieces of dragon age art ever though i am admittedly biased (thanks again ali! <3)#and a shoutout to my husband who has tolerated me loudly saying 'they're in love!' and pointing at this painting #every time he walks into the room

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delicatefade · 2 months

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Reunited in a downpour

OC Kiss Week Day 2: rain 🌧

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition Context for readers outside fandom: The portal referenced in the snippet sent Lex straight to a nightmare realm! It's not good! Word Count: 732 Bonus Track:

To leave this place was to concede that he was lost to her forever. Six days ago Eilan’s lover fell into a rift in the sky and never came back. She was told it had happened fast. A battle at a fort. A dragon. A collapsed wall. He, along with five others, fell into a portal to the fade. And that was it. That was all they knew. At first his advisers had kept the faith with her. He lived, they told each other, he must live. His advisers, leaders of this upstart Andrastian army, believed the Inquisitor must live because of divine providence. He was the Herald of Andraste, an avatar of their prophet’s will incarnate, and thus he could not die. To Eilan, he was Lex, her fate. If he died, what did that mean for her? There was no life without him, and yet she lived and so must he. The advisers’ faith waned with each passing day. Eilan told herself that hers did not. Though it had become brittle, that much she could admit.

She sat at the edge of a wide, high-pitched tent. Her attention flitted between the portal that had taken Lex, still visible in the distance near the fort, and the soldiers who packed up the Inquisition’s military outpost. They had begun at dawn despite the deluge of rain. It had been raining for days, a portent the army’s mages misinterpreted as a sign of calamity. Eilan knew better. The rain was fat and heavy, like the rain of spring. To her it symbolized hope. The army’s mages had dismissed her interpretation as either the grief-desperate yearnings of a girl, or Dalish hogwash. The soldiers slipped in the mud. Crates slid out of reach. Horses were stubborn. The men and women of the Inquisition had won the battle that swallowed their Inquisitor — her Lex, gods, he was so beautiful, so bright. Is, she reminded herself, he still is. But yes, the army had won at a cost too high. One in three soldiers had died. Those who survived would live forever with haunting wounds. But two in three survived. The odds were good, perhaps even applicable to those who fell in portals. She stared at it, unblinking, willing Lex’s return. “Eilan.” Commander Cullen spoke her name with compassion as he stepped into her field of view. She looked past his shoulder. Yesterday he had told her to pack up the contents of the Inquisitor’s tent. She had not. “The Inquisition must move on. We are all heart-broken by the loss of the Inquisitor, though I do not pretend any of us can begin to understand your grief.” His eyes were red and inflamed, evidence that he spoke true about his feelings on the matter. He was also correct that none could understand hers. Something dark fell from the mouth of the portal. Then four more dark things. Eilan got up and pushed past Cullen, darting out into the cold rain. The mud was slick beneath her feet. She scrambled towards the fort. “Eilan!” Cullen called after her. “He’s here,” she cried back. Saying it aloud made her heart thump in her ears. She felt light-headed, reality slipped. Near the rift, lights flashed, a battle. Was it him and the others fighting through the demons that lurked near every rift? It had to be. As she reached the entrance to the fort, Lex. He stepped out into the muddy field, already soaked through. A flash of recognition, then blubbering, sobbing cries, his and hers. They ran to each other. Her cheek slid against his. His hand gripped her back, his fingers dug in. She trembled, so did he. He smelled of sulfur and something astringent. She whimpered as she touched his face, saw him in blurry glimpses. A smear of blood on his forehead. Patches of soot on his skin. His armor broken at the shoulder. One arm held against his ribs in pain. They kissed desperately between sobs, lips blue and teeth chattering. The water on her face was cold and hot in peels, a mix of rain and tears. She sobbed his name. Oh gods. He said he’s here, he’s here, it’s okay. His hand cradled her head against him. It shook and shook. They kissed again and again, could not stop crying, mewling and fumbling for each other, those poor and keening souls.

---- This is a moment I've not yet reached in my Lex/Eilan story. It was a treat to write it early! Eilan is my OC and Lex belongs to @bluewren Want to follow their story? Start here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52434187/chapters/132646609

#ockiss24 #oc kiss week #oc x oc ship #oc elf #eilan lavellan #lexlan #dragon age inquistion #dragon age fanfiction #dragon age fic #fantasy romance #elf romance #kiss in the rain #angsty kiss #angst #angst with a happy ending #dalish elves #lex lavellan #Spotify

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adurna0-art · 11 months

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Had the pleasure of working with youworeblue / @dreadfutures for this year’s @dragonagebigbang! I got to illustrate a scene from their wonderful Felassan fic, titled “it ends or it doesn’t”, which you can check out on AO3. More info under the cut!

Rating: T | Genre: Mystery | Length: 7/7 chapters, 45k words

Invited by the former Inquisitor to a gathering of Dalish Clans, Felassan struggles to reconcile who he was with who he is now. No longer Fen’Harel’s Slow Arrow, he has been both Hope and Despair embodied—but maybe he’s still a snoop.

Felassan finds himself investigating a murder with a ragtag group of three outcast Dalish, uncovering an ancient ruin hidden in plain sight, and the ugly secret trapped at its heart. As he, Merrill, a precocious Dalish First, and an exiled Keeper investigate the fractured history of Elvhenan after the Veil, he must grapple with his own fractured identity and decide what pieces to reject and what to keep.

#dragon age #dragon age fic #dragon age art #felassan #merrill #merrill dragon age

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fadedsweater · 22 days

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Zero Context WIP Tag Game

If you’re tagged, make a new post and share 1-2 (a few) sentences from your most recent unposted WIP(s) with zero context – Let your followers guess!

Thank you @crackinglamb for tagging me!

I'll tag @kiastirling, @inquisimer, @broodwolf221, @mel-0n-earth, and @darethshirl. No pressure to participate as always! 💛

I have a LOT of wips I recently picked back up, but I'll go with this one:

She remembered how the mountains smelled of flowers and mud and clean—of trickling streams and pine needles and swaths of green where the halla would graze. By then they had already begun to lose their winter coats, shedding fine white gossamer strands into the wind.

When she was a child, her father had shown her the way he and the other halla keepers harvested wool with a comb and a gentle, patient hand.

#dragon age fic #my writing #my fic #wips #wip games #tag games #the exchange and the daff tevinter nights reading events have me suddenly energized again for fic writing 😤#i wrote so much yesterday!

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ambiguousrubbish · 5 days

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Happy Jowan Monday

Here, have some Ex-Tranquil Jowan and Company™️ goodness. Oh, and they’re recruiting Zevran too😍 Jowan was the one to knock Zev out, without any magic.

“Ah…and here I thought you were a caged bird, with broken wings.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Speak plainly or don’t speak at all.” Jowan’s frown reached his tone and the others nodded in agreement. Even Alistair.

“Come now, you know what I meant…blood mage.”

“You call him that again and you won’t live to regret it.” Maeve gripped her staff even as it was pointed at the elf.

“He works for Loghain, Maeve.” Jowan flinched a little when he said the regent’s name.

“Oh, great.” Alistair grumbled.

“You remember me, then?” The elf asked. “I remember you as well. You were different then. Younger, but more…forlorn.”

“I was fighting a losing battle-for my freedom. Now that I’ve earned it, and found a reason to live, I’m not going down without a fight.” Jowan replied with newfound courage. There was a sparkle in the formerly Tranquil mage’s eye. The Chantry truly hadn’t destroyed him, no matter how hard they’d tried.

“Ah, as it seems your life has been spared despite the odds, mine is now forfeit. I have failed my mission so it seems. If you do not kill me the Crows will.”

Maeve’s eyes narrowed. “Not to state the obvious but you just tried to kill all of us. Do you really expect any mercy?” Flames flickered to life at the end of her staff, at the ready should she chose to cast. The bound elf flinched away and something inside Jowan snapped.

“Wait, don’t do it!” He pushed her staff away, singeing his own hand in the process.

“Jowan, what the absolute fuck?” Fen’Asha blurted out. Everyone who grew up in Kinloch Hold collective flinched as she swore. Wynne shot her a pointed look.

“No more bloodshed, please!”

“Cheap talk coming from a literal blood mage.” Their prisoner said, looking Maeve directly in the eyes.

“Wait, wait, wait. You want us to kill you, don’t you?”Fen’Asha asked. She stepped forward towards them, Maeve had lowered her staff and was now fumbling with a healing salve from her pack, presumably for Jowan’s hand.

“What makes you think that, Ash? He just tried to-“

“We know, Alistair. We know. But if he really is a Crow they’ll probably torture him. It’s what they probably do if one of their people fails a contract, if they aren’t caught and subsequently executed. So we aren’t killing him. It’s not really what he wants. It’s a lesser of two evils. Isn’t it? What say you, fellow elf?”

“You know of the Crows. I see.” The asssasin considered the new information and then sighed.

“How?” Leliana asked. “I’ve heard similar stories of the Antivan assassins but I thought they were just tales to frighten children.”

“If it’s true then we have to protect him!” Jowan trembled a bit and then Maeve steadied him by rubbing his shoulders gently.

“The elven mage speaks the truth. I do not think the Crows would take kindly to a report that I failed a contract and survived to spread news of it.”

“Ash, we can’t exactly just forget he just tried to murder us all.” Kyle stepped over the body of another assassin and Jowan began to shake again.

“Right but if we kill him now, we become as bad as he is.”

“Forgive me, amigo, but you and your friends are already covered in blood. And this is not the first time-“

“Please don’t remind me.” Jowan snarled.

“So what do we do, comrades?” Maeve asked as she got the healing salve onto Jowan’s burnt hand.

“I don’t want to kill this guy either but we can’t just let him off-“

“Why not? You more or less turned a blind eye to Jowan’s crimes, my dear Amell.” Wynne said as she chuckled sarcastically.

“Listen-“ Jowan went pale.

Maeve stopped rubbing his shoulders and wrapped her arms around him, and Jowan returned the embrace. It didn’t last long and once he was reassured she was not going to let him deal with this dilemma alone, they both let go.

“Wynne, I understand where you’re coming from but Jowan was not exactly a stranger, now, was he? I grew up with him. You practically raised him. We don’t know what this assassin will do. Aside from attempt to finish the job.”

“I think I know when I’ve been bested, my good lady. But I could be of aid to you and your company if you would have me?” The elf asked. When he called her a lady everyone collectively held their breath, and as if on cue, Maeve responded.

“Please don’t call me that. I’m not a lady, I’m a mage.”

“My apologies. My offer still stands. I failed to kill you so my mission is forfeit along with my life. Should the Crows track me down it will not end well for me, as your friend said, I have seen it happen. Very messy.”

Maeve looked to Alistair and then Fen’Asha whose expression was softer than she’d ever seen it.

Alistair didn’t look pleased or swayed.

Morrigan looked distrustful but not angry. Jowan squeezed Maeve’s hand gently. “He deserves a chance I suppose. I can’t advocate for killing someone who’s tied up at my feet. Even someone I don’t trust.”

“Jowan, do you see yourself in him?”Maeve asked him, looking into his eyes kindly but firmly.

“I do, a little.” The ex-tranquil sounded a bit embarrassed but he did not falter.

“Then he will live. We can protect him and in turn he can help us end the Blight. We don’t act out of vengeance.”

“You have my gratitude and my respect, Grey Warden. I will not disappoint.” The elf didn’t break eye contact with Maeve.

“Ah, yes. Well we should probably inspect our meals more closely from now on.” Morrigan said softly.

Alistair nodded. “We can finally agree on something!”

“Someone tell the Chantry, they need to put it on the calendar!” Jowan rolled his eyes and Maeve grinned at him softly.

“I hate to be rude but it would be difficult to fight darkspawn with my hands tied as they are-“ the assassin’s request was met with a scoff from Morrigan and a slight chuckle from Leliana.

“I can take care of that for you. But mind yourself. Not everyone trusts you. What is your name?” Ash asked.

“Zevran Arainai. Zev to my friends.” He replied as she got to work undoing the crude knots that bound the elf’s wrists. He sounded dazed and she knew better than to assume he was just tired.

“Need a hand?” Ash asked once he was free.

“I think Jowan knocked him on his arse a little.”

Kyle said with amusement in his tone.

“I’m sorry I hurt you. But I’ll do it again if you give me a reason.” Jowan said softly.

“Fair enough, mi amigo. Please help me be rid of this headache.”Zevran sounded more dazed.

“Okay, definitely has a concussion.” Ash placed a hand on the other elf’s forehead and pressed a thumb over the temple Jowan had struck and began to cast.

#jowan #dragon age origins #dragon age #jowan dragon age #maeve amell #dragon age fic #jowan monday #justice for jowan #ambiguousrubbish #Caro writes

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vampire-exgirlfriend · 5 months

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lay with wolves (alone it seems)

pairing: solas x nyneve lavellan (levellan oc)

rating: e

status: in progress

warnings: smut, spoilers for inquisition

a/n: apparently i write dragon age inquisition fic now. who would have thought?

“There’s an elf in your room.”

Nyneve shoveled the rest of the sweetbread that she had been eating into her mouth, tearing her gaze from the map before her to look at the dwarf who leaned against the door jamb to the war room.

“There’s always an elf in my room,” she teased, pointing to the curve of her own ears before giving him her brightest smile.

He rolled his eyes, though she did not miss the tug at the corner of his mouth. “You’re worse than Bull.”

“No one is worse than Bull.” In truth, she adored the Qunari, but that wasn’t relevant when the opportunity to poke fun at him arose.

Varric shrugged. “Fair enough,” he agreed. He held out a hand when she made to pass him, though he did not touch her, never touched her; he simply let it hang in the air between them. “Be careful.”

The words were uncharacteristically caring, a side of Varric that rarely came out, and when she looked down at him, she could not say for certain what she saw there. If any had become her closest friend in the time she had been here, both in Haven and Skyhold, it was him. He had had her back since Cassandra loosened her chains, and she had done her best to have his in return.

Her smile faltered. “I’m always careful.”

“Now that’s a laugh.” Time stretched out between them, time and the kernel of care that had grown there, but finally, he stepped out of the door. She sidestepped him and disappeared down the hall, nodding at those who called out greetings of “Your Worship” or “Inquisitor” as she cut through the main hall to head back to her rooms.

Her room, which was empty.

The door to one of the balconies was open, however, so she made her way outside and found that the sun still hovered above the mountain peaks, setting the snowy world below ablaze in shades of red and gold, as if it yearned to chase away the chill that crept through Skyhold.

Nyneve leaned against the bannister, hoping for a few peaceful moments surrounded by such beauty - moments that had become fleetingly rare since the destruction of Haven.

“Why did Keeper Hawen call you Embla?” Solas asked, stepping from where he leaned against the wall beside the door, his eyes hard as they met hers, as if he resented the secret she kept for herself.

read the rest here on ao3

#dragon age inquisition #solas #dragon age fic #solas x female lavellan #solas x oc #dragon age inquisition fic #solasmance

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bardspeak · 3 months

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And if you lost it all, and you lost it | ao3 link

(Some of) Hawke's letters to Fenris during dragon age inquisition. Hawke was left in the fade here.

Fenris -

I’m sorry for leaving, and I’m sorrier for getting angry that you didn’t want me to. I know you want to be with me, to protect me from what’s to come. I also know that what you could most protect me from is also what could most hurt you. I can’t have that. We protect each other, right?

I’d have you with me if it wouldn’t kill me to see you hurt.

The Inquisition has been looking for me, and Varric has held them off long enough. I guess I’ll find out why it was so important for them soon, but I know for me it’s Corypheus. We were both there – and I’ll never feel safer than when you have my back – but this is a burden of my own. It was my father’s blood that locked him away and mine that set him free. I feel I should be able to know him, understand at least the little my father must have, but I’m just as clueless as anybody else. I just know I can’t sit by and watch him happen to someone else. I hope you can forgive me.

You haven’t said, but I know I’ve been hurting you. I’m not sure why I don’t know how to live without something like this to turn to, to throw myself at. But I won’t drag you into it with me. It doesn’t mean I love you any less, and it doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t ache to be away from you. I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it some of the time. When you’re just gone for the day I’ll turn to tell you when you’re not there. I love your humor, even when you’re laughing at me. I love your anger, even if you’re angry with me now. I love your happiness, and I can’t be sorry enough that it’s not what I’m leaving you with.

You’re with me, even if I didn’t let you be. I’ll be thinking about you all the time. I’ll be dumb enough to forget I left you behind. But I’m leaving my heart there with you.

Make sure nothing happens to it, if it’s not too much trouble.

- Hawke

Fenris -

Varric hasn’t gotten anything from you, but I hope you’re reading this anyhow. I know you hate letters going through him (the nosy rat), so maybe you’re waiting to say whatever it is when I get home. I hope I’m not too long to hear it.

Everything here reminds me of you, even the Inquisitor! She’s not much like you, but I suppose I see an elf glow and I get misty in the eyes. In all seriousness, she’s kind of lovely once you get past the weight of the world on her shoulders. She even got me talking – I told her a couple stories from when it was all of us, and even about that hawk I brought home once. I still have the scar from where he bit me and you didn’t even appreciate the likeness. Still sore about it!

She got me to talk about you, too. But that’s not particularly difficult. What’s the opposite of a sore subject?

Varric’s the same as always, but he seems to feel the weight of Corypheus too. I know I shouldn’t tell him to back off, but come on. That’s my burden! The blood of my father trumps being the guy who came along, in my most expert of books. He’s also in trouble with a seeker here for hiding me for so long. Well. I suppose I’ll take a punch for him, if it comes down to it. Even though he didn’t tell me that CULLEN is a COMMANDER in the INQUISITION!

I couldn’t believe it either! They let him within an egg’s throw of command again? But alas. It’s just like old times, only instead of staring in judgment across the gallows it’s across fields of burly men, or a particularly robust table.

There hasn’t been much action yet, though we’ve gone to see our warden friend. I suppose there’s more than corruption in the ranks, if Corypheus has anything to say about it. I can only be glad Carver’s still in Highever.

Blood magic’s abound, there’s a Tevinter altus (as he so insists) trouncing about the library, and I can’t step three times in any direction without knocking into a templar. But as much as I’m glad you aren’t having to deal with this, I do wish you were here. I miss you more than I can say. Maybe that’s selfish of me. Sorry. You can be cross with me about it when I get back.

I love you! I hope you’re doing well. I always hope you’re doing well.

Don’t forget to walk the dog! I wouldn’t mind if you killed a couple of snakes in my honor, if you’re already at it.

All my love

-Hawke

Fenris,

I’d have given anything to not have to send you this letter. I’d have given anything to send him back home to you. But there was no fighting this. Fighting him.

Hawke is gone.

We were fighting something impossible. The fight had dragged us into the Fade, and that’s where we left him. We couldn’t go back. You know I would have if I could. I’d have been lost right along with him if the rift hadn’t closed behind us.

He slipped from my grasp, gone before I could do anything. The Inquisitor says he stayed behind to save her, shoved her through so she couldn’t even look back, and stayed to fight on his own. He liked her well enough. They got on like a house on fire. Maybe he thought it was something we would have been proud of him for. I’d just have wanted him alive. I know you do too.

He was staying in one of the rooms and I found a note on top of the mess he’d made of his desk. It doesn’t say it, but I know it’s for you. He was wearing his token, though, so I can’t send it with you.

I’m sorry.

Varric.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to throw this away, or it might be some sort of something I bring with me when I come back home. A reminder, maybe, of how much I wish I was there with you. Something to knock me over the head with if I ever decide to leave again. I still hope you never have to read it.

I’ll do anything I can to make it back, I’m not giving up. It just seems like this gets bigger and bigger in my head every day I’m here. You know I’ll throw my lot in with anything I believe in even if it gets me nowhere good. It got me you, though, so it can’t all turn out bad.

This might be the most important thing I’ve ever done, but right now all I can think of is you. I’m still sorry for leaving you, for hurting you and not letting you be with me. I’m also sorry for being glad you’re not here. That feels like the worst thing I’ve ever done, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye to you to your face. And you deserve that, if you can’t have a promise kept.

I’m not sure I’ve ever told you how proud I am of you. You’ve been the strongest person I've known since I met you, and you knew my mother. It’s a pretty high bar. But you don’t have to be strong all the time. You can hate me, never want to think of me again, and I’ll still love you. My heart is still there with you whether you choose to bury it or not. I’m not sure I’ll ever live up to how I wish I could love you, but I love you all the same. I still turn to tell you when you’re not here.

-Hawke

#fenhawke #da2 #dragon age #dragon age fic #fenris #hawke #dragon age 2 #writing #i love them a lot. unfortunately me and my friend are planning on leaving hawke in the fade in our thing GNSDLFHD #and my hawke really is so.. he knows he should stay for fenris. that they basically only have each other right now #but he cant help fall on that sword. learned instinct

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esta-elavaris · 6 months

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Flufftober Day 25: Nook ~ Cullen Rutherford/F!Inquisitor [2,285]

My Flufftober '23 masterpost can be found here 💜✨

It began like most things in his relationship with Evelyn did – with a fantasy. A pipe dream, or so Cullen always deemed them back then. First because he believed she would never, could never return his feelings, and then even after…because making plans for the future, for after the Inquisition, felt a lot like tempting fate.

But, despite all of his fears, and despite all of the odds, the future came. And it was a good one. Evelyn recovered from the loss of her arm, from the injury that almost took her life in Orlais, and on the other side of it they found what they’d spent so long wishing for. A quiet life of their own. Together. A home that they built themselves, to their exact tastes, laughing in the face of all of the little foibles that reared their heads in the process – because they were nothing compared to what they’d already faced. It was when the building was more or less complete, however, that Cullen was reminded of a conversation they’d had back in Skyhold, when their relationship was still a somewhat new, tentative thing.

“Where is it you go, when none can find you?”

They’d managed to steal enough time for lunch together – in his office, so he could return swiftly to his mountain of work immediately thereafter. There was little chance of them making room on his desk for it, but he’d produced a small folding table that he may or may not have stashed to the side for this very purpose, and it worked a treat. At Evelyn’s insistence, he took the chair and she perched atop his desk on the small space that did allow for it…and in a manner that played into more than one of the other sort of fantasies he’d had regarding her. The less-than-gentlemanly ones.

At his question, the smile slipped from her face, replaced by a guilty frown and he regretted asking in the first place.

“I don’t do it when I know I’ll be needed urgently. Or even semi-urgently,” she explained quietly. “Just…when I really, really need it.”

“I never thought for a moment that you were neglecting your duties,” he rushed to reassure her, “I cannot even imagine what it is you face…”

“Considering your standing by my side, staring at it with me, I suspect you can,” she replied.

Cullen liked the notion of that. Not at what they faced, of course, but that she viewed him as being right beside her in it. But why had he brought it up? Even if it didn’t have the sound of an accusation, it brought the world back in here with them. But Evelyn weighed him up for a moment, eyes filled with great consideration. Then, finally, she smiled a little and plucked up a lemon cake from the offerings on the table.

“Come – I’ll show you.”

He was powerless but to follow – wherever she was concerned. Were she any other, that might worry him…but were she any other, he would not have been falling so hard and so quickly. Andraste only knew how his luck was so great that it appeared to be very reciprocal.

Trying to give the impression that he was simply the Commander following the Inquisitor on matters of official business, he followed her across the battlements until she came to the derelict tower across the way – although he did a poor job at hiding his surprise when it became clear she wasn’t just passing through it to lead him elsewhere. How could she be here, of all places, when it was so commonly passed through?

Then, however, she climbed up onto the window ledge and used it as a jumping point to vault up to the small perch above. It had once been a floor for a second story within the tower, but it had decayed and crumbled so that now a perch was all it was. A precarious one, at that.

“Are you coming up?” she called down.

If she moved back far enough, it was easy to see how she would not be sighted there. Particularly since few would be mad enough to go climbing up there to begin with.

“I’m not sure it’ll hold my weight.”

“That muscle-bound, are you? Be careful, Cullen, or you’ll send me swooning.”

He chuckled. “I’d be amazed if it could support a mouse, Evelyn.”

“You’ll be fine. I give you my word.”

Who was he to argue against the solemn vow of Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan? He climbed up, albeit with less grace than she’d done, and blinked in surprise when he did so. Having expected it to be entirely empty, he found instead that there were a few meagre signs of the time she spent here – namely a worn old blanket, a couple of books, and a jar of assorted dried fruits. Neither boredom, nor chill, nor hunger would have to send her from her refuge.

“Welcome to my kingdom,” she teased. “What’s wrong? You don’t look impressed by all of my riches.”

He didn’t feel impressed, but rather…sad. Desperately sad. That this was the best escape she could hope for when everything out there got to be too much. Considering all she did for everybody, all she gave, she deserved more than this.

“How do you read in this gloom?” he asked.

“Ah – you see the gap in the wall there where it’s crumbled away? In the afternoon, the light is better than any candle. It’s quite cosy, I swear. You should’ve seen the hiding places I used to wedge myself into back in the Circle.”

“And in the morning, when the sun is at the other side of the castle?”

“I’m never here in the morning. I only come when I’ve done everything else that might possibly need done, by which point my duties fall back to hearing Josephine tell me about the latest marriage proposals sent my way.”

Well. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t glad she sought to avoid that.

Since then, although he never let on to the woman who eventually became his wife, he’d had it in the back of his mind that if they were ever as lucky to have what they did now, he would make sure it housed a nook of the kind that she deserved. And when she left to visit family not long after they were finally done building their home, it allowed him to turn it into a surprise.

When he insisted on adding more space onto their would-be study than was strictly necessary, Evelyn hadn’t questioned it much – but now that she was gone, he could see about the things that she definitely would have questioned. Such as his designs for the large, ornate circular window that would act as one “wall” of the nook. For while he was fairly good with his own two hands, glass-work was beyond his realm of experience, as were the wrought-iron designs that would line it. He wanted this to be fantastic – he needed this to be fantastic. For her.

Even if that meant driving the local craftsmen towards murderous urges with his stubbornness. But those coincidentally faded the moment they realised what they put together would be going to the Inquisitor. Cullen had long since concluded that they’d faced enough, done enough, and sacrificed enough, that they were entitled to the perks that did come along. Which was why he finagled the best, plushest cushions for the nook – with covers made from the finest, softest forest green fabric available – for half the price. They even threw in a matching set of drapes to cover the nook and conceal it from view once it was done. Josephine would have been very proud. It was so spatious and comfortable that, given her small stature, Evelyn could sleep there, if she liked – although he hoped she would not – and wake up without so much as a stiff neck.

The cushion would rest atop the shelf he’d built, nestled between two curved bookshelves (also built by him) that provided ample room to house every book she owned…and hopefully at least some of the many she would no doubt acquire going forth. There was always room to store more – in a drawer, beneath the seat. He could build that-

No. He was getting too carried away with himself. She hadn’t even seen it yet. Cullen did, however, allow himself to add in an extra little ledge to allow room for a lantern, along with snacks or a tankard. Open candleflames by books seemed like a bad idea. As did wine, for that matter.

By the time the day of her return came one glorious golden morning, Cullen’s arms and shoulders were sorer than they’d been since he was regularly running drills with the Inquisition soldiers, and he found himself eagerly awaiting the sound of her horse on the road. Almost as much as he had when she used to be gone from Skyhold for sometimes months at a time, seeing through gruelling Inquisition business.

When her Amaranthine Charger came bounding up the road towards their home, Evelyn grinning atop it, Cullen was powerless but to return the smile – catching her when she all but launched herself off of the horse at him before the stallion even came to a proper stop. She kissed him, grinning through it all the while, and he cared not about the dust from the road that caked her – not only because he never cared about such things, but because this sort of greeting was something they’d been denied so many times in the past, having to prioritise professionalism.

“Come – I’ve something to show you,” he set her down and took her hand, self-control the only thing that stopped him from dragging her to the house.

He also chose to ignore her mutter behind him of I’ve heard worse lines, I suppose.

The curtains to the nook were drawn as they walked into the study, and her ride in would not have afforded her even a glimpse of what lay on the other side – so she had no reason to think there was anything but the window that had previously been there. But even that gave her pause, and she paused, one dark eyebrow raising in bemusement.

“You bought curtains, Cullen?”

The confusion was fair – Josephine would have had to draw blood if she wanted to get him discussing the décor of his tower, back in the day. She often threatened to do just that. A day where he begged Sera for a lunch date would come sooner than one where he took it upon himself to spontaneously pick up a pair of floor length velvet curtains for their study.

“I think you’ll find what lies beyond the curtains to be of greater interest.”

“Did you clean the window?” she teased.

“See for yourself,” he nodded in the direction of the curtains.

A perplexed furrow in her brow, her hand slid from his as she moved forth. Cullen watched with bated breath as she dipped one hand between the curtains and parted them – and then her jaw slackened and she went very still, staring ahead in disbelief. After a moment, the hand raised again, pushing the right side of the curtain fully aside, and then it moved to cover her mouth, trembling as it did so.

When she turned her head to look at him, her eyes were filled with tears.

“Oh, Cullen,” she breathed in disbelief.

“That was not what I intended,” he said softly, moving to stand behind her, wrapping his arms about her middle and taking in his handiwork once again.

With no small amount of satisfaction. He was worried that, once she’d seen it, he would belatedly notice streams of deficiencies in the finished product. But there were none.

“I thought about waiting until you returned and putting it together with you – with your input…but I couldn’t help but risk it. I thought it might be a nice surprise.”

“It is,” she replied quickly. “The nicest surprise. It’s perfect – it’s…I could never even imagine such a thing, much less piece it all together. I can’t believe…you did this for me?!”

“Who else?” he chuckled, squeezing her. “I’ve wanted to for years. I almost did in Skyhold, but we were looking to the future…I didn’t want to make something like this for you and then have to leave it behind. But here…”

“For years? Why for years? I don’t…”

“Since you showed me your perch in that tower.”

Afterwards, at the time, he’d offered to let her make use of his bedroom – and then quickly flushed and clarified that up in his loft, she might be more comfortable, and none would go seeking her there, for he could run interference. But she’d refused, admitting that if she heard him having to run such interference – while working, no less – she’d only feel guilty and give herself up swiftly thereafter. Still, the mental image of her huddled up on some miserable little slab of rotting wood in a threadbare blanket and calling it an escape always bothered him.

“You…Andraste, Cullen, since then? Because of that?” it sounded like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sob, lifting one of the hands that were wrapped around her to her lips, and keeping it there.

Cullen smiled softly behind her. Even after all this time, she still had no idea the things he’d do just to make her happy. It wasn’t personal – that much he knew. When they first met, she loathed the idea of one so much as helping her carry something. If anything, he blamed the Circle. It only meant that he’d have to continue driving the message home.

Links: AO3 -- FF.net -- flufftober masterpost -- dividers by cafekitsune

#esta's flufftober '23 fills #flufftober2023 #flufftober 2023 #flufftober #cullen rutherford/f!inquisitor #cullen rutherford/f!trevelyan #cullen rutherford fic #cullen rutherford x f!inquisitor #cullen rutherford x f!trevelyan #dragon age fic #dragon age fanfic #DAI fanfic

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nimthirielrinon · 2 months

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Dania’s Tale

Chapter 20: The Mage in the Dungeon

Chapter 20 is up!!! The long-awaited continuation of Dania’s Tale, where they reach Redcliffe Castle, meet an imprisoned mage, and learn a bit more about what is happening with the whole undead rising thing.

And Dania just keeps finding more reasons to hate Lady Isolde.

#Dania’s Tale #dragon age #dragon age fic #dragon age origins #dragon age oc #jowan dragon age #alistair theirin #Redcliffe castle #ao3 fanfic #dragon age fanfiction #my art

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littleraeofsunshineda · 3 months

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So in a move I feel is more than a little appropriate for my mythos I have decided to take up bookbinding

Because there's too many pictures on tumblr and I am weak

But also because I fucking love this fic I wrote. I'm so proud of it. I've never finished anything before and I wrote this with such joy and abandon and did so many rewrites and it was for ME.

And I want to be able to read it when ao3 is down or I cba to use a screen, or just to look at it on my shelf and think I DID THAT.

So here is the text block of Make Me to Rest in the Warmest Places, a 100k novel-length fic about insecurity and miscommunication and loneliness and substance reliance and panic attacks and recovering from trauma

And also like cute bathtub scenes and sparring and dancing

Also it's very very gay

Available here on ao3 and coming soon (if I don't fuck it up again....) to a bookshelf near me...

#cullrian #dragon age inquisition #cullen rutherford #dorian pavus #dragon age #rae rambles #cullen x dorian #bookbinding #fanbinding #renegade bindery #ao3 author #ao3fic #dragon age fic

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rosieofcorona · 2 months

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In the Blue Morning

BELOVEDS, a soft little Solavellan fic for you. Mostly fluff this time around to soothe the eternal, unyielding hurt. Also on AO3, if you prefer. As always, thank you for reading. 💕

She cajoles him, some mornings, away from his office, from his maps and his books and his paintings and out among the newly-planted gardens, all their tight, unfurling blooms.

It’s always empty at this hour, when most of Skyhold is still asleep save for the guards in their high towers, the recruits in the practice yard. The only sound is the clang of their swords ringing through the mist like distant bells, the only light the pink and gold of the nascent sun.

They have been careful, desperately careful not to draw undue attention, not to generate rumors that could harm the Inquisition in the future. It is easier on the road to find a quiet moment alone– to steal a kiss or hold a hand or put words to their love– but the castle, however safe, is full of eyes, forever watching.

It is only in the narrow, muted hours before dawn that Solas weaves his fingers with hers as they orbit the courtyard, side by side.

He names the blossoms as they pass, first in the trade tongue and then in Elvish, the softened syllables like music on his tongue. She repeats them half as gracefully, but he smiles at every attempt, correcting her gently now and again, praising her efforts.

“Gail’lealis,” he says, pointing out an elegant bellflower, its blue-white petals bundled tightly in green sepals.

It sounds off, even to her ear, when she says, “Ga’lealis,” back.

They pause for a moment, and Solas turns and bends and plucks an early bloom from the same plant, rotating it slowly between his fingers, holding it up for examination.

“Ga-il,” he repeats softly, separating the sounds. “Meaning ‘bell,’ in the common parlance.”

“Ga-il,” she says again, correctly this time.

“Followed by lealis, meaning ‘glass.’”

“Gail’lealis.”

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, tucking the flower behind her ear, the meaning vague yet all-encompassing. It is all beautiful– the morning, the garden, how she catches the light, his ancient language in her mouth, her mouth–

Solas kisses her in the empty courtyard, parts her lips with a linguist’s tongue, and she kisses him back again and again as if each time might be the last. He wants to stay like this forever, wants the sun to forget to rise, wants the castle to sleep and sleep in an endless dream.

But the light keeps coming, every moment. The castle will wake, and they will see.

And this will cost them, in the end.

She is pink as the sky when they finally come apart, and continue their long walk around.

“I hear you were out here yesterday,” she says, breaking the silence as they turn a corner. “Cullen says you beat him soundly at chess.”

“It was a closer game than he thinks,” Solas says, but she has learned when he’s just being modest.

“Must not have been that close, because Bull says the same. As do Blackwall, and Varric, and Dorian, though he swears that you cheated.” “I did no such thing!”

When they turn again, the chessboard in question comes into full view, set and waiting on its table beneath an awning.

“He seemed very certain,” she shrugs. “Though I suppose I could find out for myself.”

They stop again before the table, and Solas looks at her intently. “Is that a challenge, dear Inquisitor?”

“That depends on your level of skill.”

She’s teasing him now, enticing him, a dynamic he’s come to enjoy. There are so few who impress him with thoughtfulness, who make him work at being clever.

“Very well, but you should know that I am merciless,” he warns, a contradiction to the chivalry of pulling out her chair. “Even to one I love.”

He takes the seat opposite her, the board and the pieces adorned in glittering dew.

“I believe the Lady Inquisitor moves first.”

**********

He sets a dozen little traps for her, a dozen clever gambits, and she evades them every time, to his astonishment. Where he moves to attack, she counters; where he baits her, she defends or retreats. By the end, with the sun fully risen overhead, they reach a deadlock, both depleted, neither victorious.

“Again?” She asks cheerfully, when they’ve finished. Already she is freeing her captives from his end of the table. “Don’t look so stunned, my love. Unless you’re trying to offend me.”

“Forgive me, vhenan,” he says, shaking his head. “You surprise me as always. It is rare to find an opponent so…discerning.”

His beloved laughs with the morning breeze, a sound like air that surrounds and envelops him.

“Rare to find one you can’t beat, you mean.”

She’s right, of course– it is rare that he loses, even rarer that he plays against someone so evenly matched. He still can’t quite puzzle through it, where he went wrong, where she figured him out.

He had gotten a lead on her early on, or so he thought– he had taken a tower, a mage, and two pawns– and left his queen open for the taking, which she had entirely ignored. She caught onto him quickly, though too late to win, and when she realized she couldn’t beat him, she had blocked him instead.

Solas leans thoughtfully back in his chair, replaying their game in his mind. No matter how he tries to beat her, he finds no way through. She sees his scheming, sees him coming, cuts him off.

“Why did you not take my queen, given the chance?”

“Because you gave me the chance,” she reasons. “You wouldn’t do that except to win.”

“It could have been a tactical error.” “It wasn’t,” she says assuredly, resetting the pieces along their battle lines. “If I had taken her, it would have left my king undefended from your mages.” “You could have moved him.” “For a turn or two. Then your knight would have circled back. Isn’t that right?” She looks up at Solas, her eyes smiling and sharp, affirmed in her answer already. “Or shall we call that a ‘tactical error?’”

“Mm,” Solas nods his approval. “You’ve become quite the strategist. Have you been spending time with our Commander?”

“I’ve been spending time with you,” she counters. “Learning all your little tricks.”

Not all, it occurs to him, but Solas smothers the thought with a laugh. “It seems to me you have a few of your own.”

“Our Keeper used to call me harellan,” she tells him. “Trickster. Though I needn’t explain that to you.”

He fights to keep the easy expression on his face, feeling suddenly caught in the snare of her gaze, as if she sees directly through him, sees him fully, all he is.

Harellan, his mind echoes. How could she know?

The wait for her judgment feels infinite, inevitable– but it does not come, and does not come, and does not come. She only moves a white pawn toward the board’s center, the leaves rustling softly around them.

No, he decides. She does not know. She only means he knows the word.

Solas mirrors her opening move, their pawns face to face on the battlefield. “And still, your Keeper named you her First.”

“I was more troublesome as a child,” she says, with a grin that implies that the mischief has never left her. “I’ve settled down a great deal since. Can’t you tell?”

This time, when Solas laughs, there is nothing else hiding beneath it. No uneasy feeling, no great fear that she will discover him, cast him out. There is only happiness for a moment, the war reduced to a board between them, as if sorrow and death are nowhere, and the end of the world is far away.

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shivunin · 6 months

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To Build an End

(Cullen/Emmaera Lavellan | 1,524 Words | No warnings)

It was finally over.

When they left behind the ruins of the temple, they were not precisely where they’d been when they’d left the others behind. Varric had climbed from the dust and broken rock with her, both of them leaning unsteadily on each other until they could find Dorian and Cassandra. She ached to her bones, from the tips of her pointed ears to the blistered toes tucked into her boots. Her hair had come loose at a critical moment in that last push toward Corypheus, she’d lost a glove somewhere in the sky, and she had watched her friend vanish into the mountains.

All was not well—all would not be well for quite some time. Regardless, it was over.

“Send a raven,” she told Lace when they found her missing scouts at last, limping close enough that the croak of her voice could be heard. There was a half-collapsed wall to her left and she leaned hard enough against it that she worried she would send the second half of it toppling into the abyss.

“Already sent, Inquisitor,” Lace said. She cleared her throat and saluted, her eyes shining with the last of the Rift’s magic. “He’s really dead, huh?”

“Dead as I could make him,” Lavellan said. She thought of Hawke, of her assurances that Corypheus had been killed before.

Would they see their enemy again? Would he find some other doorway, some other crack to slip through into their world? She could not know. She did not know what happened to a body when it was scattered through reality and unreality at once. Perhaps she had merely fragmented him into several wholes and he would return to them as a legion of Coryphei. Perhaps he was simply and entirely dead.

Lavellan didn’t know that, either. She knew only that she wanted badly to be held, to be clean, and to sleep, not necessarily in that order.

But first: the mountain.

“Is everyone well enough to ride?” she called, her voice cracking in the middle of “enough.”

Cassandra, who had carried the unconscious witch from the ruins, made a displeased sound somewhere behind them.

“Except for Morrigan,” Emmaera amended, and squeezed her eyes shut when another pang gripped her leg. She would drink a potion in the saddle and that would fix it enough, but—they could not wait. Their people needed to see them well, and soon. She did not want another search party scouring the mountains for her body. The memory of the snow, of the cold after Haven’s fall echoed in her thoughts now.

No. No, they needed to go now.

“I suppose we’ll make it if we’re in some sort of hurry,” Dorian puffed, pressing both palms to his knees. “I suppose I rather agree that I wouldn’t prefer to hang around here at this particular moment.”

“Good,” Lavellan said, tucking her errant hair back behind her ear. She thought of the path up the mountain, of the ones waiting for her there.

She thought of Cullen, who would surely be beside himself while they waited. When she came to him, his hair would gleam gold in the torchlight and he would smile at her and—and she needed to see him now.

“Quickly then,” she went on, whistling for her hart. “Up the mountain to Skyhold—to home.”

It was finally over.

Over a year of pain and devastation, personal losses and private triumphs, and it was over at last. Corypheus was dead. The Breach—Cullen had checked it so many times he’d lost count—was gone, too. The rest would be a logistical nightmare; they might have united disparate groups for the sake of this battle, but the unrest that had been seeded in these past months would not be quelled when the sky was sealed shut again. There were still rifts out there, still people who needed the Inquisition’s help, but—

It was done.

Even now, as the crowd of the Inquisition’s allies and soldiers waited with eyes on the gate, there was an air of celebration below. Someone had rolled a barrel of mead into the courtyard from the Herald’s Rest and tapped it. Mugs had passed from hand to hand, but the advisors had all abstained out of duty and decorum. Cullen thought Josephine might have benefited from a stiff drink; it was surely not visible from below, but she’d worried her quill to bits with nervous fingers. He could relate. It all felt too easy to be safe. They had thought themselves victorious before, hadn’t they? Haven yet lay half-buried under snow for his follies.

If he had a choice, he would be pacing the gates below and waiting for her—for their return. Leliana’s messengers had been clear: the ruins had fallen, but the Inquisitor had climbed safely from the wreckage. She lived, she walked under her own power, and now he had only to wait.

Cullen knew patience very well; he had learned it at the end of a blade and without countless repetitions. If necessary, he could call upon a dozen verses of the Chant to still his itchy fingers, his anxious feet. Maker willing, he would not need them. Maker willing, she would climb the hill and step through the gate any moment now. Any moment—

“Peace, Commander,” Leliana murmured. Cullen, who’d been tapping the hilt of his sword with increasing vigor, stilled his fingers.

“She is near,” Leliana went on. She looked so impassive, only the faintest hint of a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. “Only a few moments more.”

“Truly?”Josephine asked, scribbling furiously. “Maker have mercy; I do not know if the catering will be ready. And the decor—”

“It will be fine, Josie,” Leliana murmured, stepping closer to her friend and resting a hand on the ambassador’s shoulder. “You’ll see.”

“Are you certain that—” Cullen began in an undertone, but Leliana was already shaking her head.

“Have you come to doubt me after so long, Commander?” she said, but she was still smiling. That was a good sign. He knew better than to anger their spymaster.

Cullen gestured sharply, shaking his head.

“Of course not! I only—”

The sound of horns cut off the end of the sentence, which was fortunate. Leliana knew precisely what he and Lavellan were to each other, but they had not acknowledged it publicly yet. It was a sign, perhaps, of how unsteady he felt that he hadn’t even considered less telling words. I only wish to see her again, to hold her safe—a sentiment that he felt keenly, but need not explain to Leliana. Neither Leliana nor anyone else here needed to hear such things. The only one who really needed to know was—

The Inquisitor strode into the courtyard below and their people erupted into cheers. Her armor was badly singed, but the burns showed worst in her hair. Her neat braids were gone. Instead, her hair fell in thick waves to her waist on the left. On the right, where her armor was most badly singed, it ended abruptly just above her elbow. Soot smudged her face and her gait was uneven. Her friends followed in her wake, each acknowledging the crowd in their way, but he did not look at them. His attention was entirely for her, assessing what little he could see from atop the stairs.

It was useless. Cullen was too far to discern much more. He had to hold still instead, had to present the correct face for their people, but—was she hurt? Was she hiding some injury beneath the burn marks and the armor? What had killing Corypheus cost her beyond what he could see? Cullen knew all too well the cost of a fight, the toll it took on one’s mind. It was not something he wished her to understand as he did.

This war had already cost her so much; what more had she lost this evening?

When she rounded the stairs at last, Emmaera’s eyes found him first. Cullen needed little more assurance than that: she met his eyes, green to gold, and smiled.

Well. Well, then.

Cullen held his composure long enough to bow for her as the other advisors did, but then he had little choice but to let go. What did it matter if everyone here knew that he loved her? What did it matter if they saw how she opened her arms to him, how she tucked her face into his neck, how he returned the gesture without question or hesitation?

“I am well,” she told him, half-laughing. The crowd roared even louder beneath them, but he could hear her clearly nevertheless. “All is well, Cullen. Creators, but I am glad to see you.”

“And I you,” he told her, careful not to hold too tightly even though he was loath to let go. When he’d embraced her, he’d tucked his nose just beneath her ear. Hidden under the smell of metal and blood and char, he caught the faintest hint of the oil she used in her hair.

Lavender—sweet lavender and his love, safe and returned to him despite all the odds.

And—it was finally, finally over.

#cullavellan #emmaera lavellan #cullen rutherford #dai #dragon age fic #yes hello i still adore them #shivunin scrivening

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greypetrel · 3 months

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Hello! ✨ Hand-holding n.3? For the character(s) you think it would fit best 👀

Hello! 💜

Thank you for the prompt, maybe it's not what you expected but well... Some Anders for you, I hope I treated him well enough!

Tis the prompt list

No One Else Left Behind.

Hand-holding 3. - Cold hands in warm hands [ Female Mahariel & Anders | During DA2 Act II | 4533 words | AO3 link ]

The audacity of the man, really.

As if he could really disappear into the blue and avoid her discovering where he ran to, in which hole he slipped.

And indeed, he slipped into such a literal shithole that it had taken her some time, to his credit. Something pointless, nonetheless: Alyra found him anyway.

To say it shortly: she was pissed off when she returned to Vigil’s Keep, heart in pieces because Morrigan had gone through the eluvian and she couldn’t bring herself to follow, and the first thing that she was welcomed with was that.

Anders had disappeared.

In a fit of rage, because it had really been a hell of a week and the next would have been worse, since she was expected in Denerim for an important Council, she swore he could die in a ditch for all she cared, and went on with her life.

It was a low hit, but he was a free man, she guessed. He was free to go.

She searched what had been his room far and wide, that evening, when she was still angry about it. Any hint, any note would do, just a goodbye to calm her down, help her find a peace she was missing: there was nothing. He had collected his few things and left. Nathaniel knew nothing about it, Velanna neither. They woke up and he was not there, after being weird for days. He hadn’t speak to anyone, just looked pensive and distracted, less prone to joke around. It felt weird, but he’d been quieter ever since he took Justice in.

She wasn’t so cruel as to send soldiers after him. Not after the Circle. She didn’t peg herself as being a good person, in any way: she killed too many people to be one, and set on the throne the least person that wanted the position. Maybe it was fooling herself, but she at least considered herself better than that, anyway.

She told her spies to be on the lookout for him, and resigned herself to peg Anders in her long list of shortcomings.

Four years later, her spies found him.

She dyed her hair dark, dressed in casual clothes and jumped on the first ship to Kirkwall, sending word to Alistair that she would be gone for a couple of weeks at worst, and congratulating Nathaniel for finally being in charge of the Bannorn. Temporarily.

---

Kirkwall was a shithole, and Alyra hated it.

The Gallows let her deeply suspicious. She took a look at the courtyard, since she was there, wondering why exactly the ships had to stop there before reaching the city. Austere and with the air of a prison. Templars and mages looked at each other sideways and- had she already met that Templar in the corner, the one with a pole up his ass? His face felt familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she had seen him. She would have remembered, if it was important, and the least time she spent in there, the happier she was.

When she landed in Kirkwall, she missed the Gallows.

The Gallows at least were fairly clean and didn’t smell so much of… she didn’t want to know what exactly the Docks smelled of.

“Fucking Anders…” Alyra muttered between her teeth, as she side stepped to avoid a suspiciously looking puddle.

Why there were suspiciously looking puddle on the street? Who was in charge of this city, and why the problem had not been addressed? She knew the Qunari presence was a threat, but judging from Sten, it wouldn’t have been a hindrance for some-

- she turned on herself quickly and snatched the wrist attached to the hand that was just slipping into her bag, pivoting so she could twist the attached arm around and press it to the back of the thief, and pin them in place.

“No.”

She just hissed… Him. Too young. 13 at best, a mousy face filled with dread and pimples, ragged clothes patched in more than one spot, a toe peeking out from a hole in his left shoe. Not the face of a convinced criminal. She huffed in annoyance, twisting his arm a little -not to hard to hurt him, but enough so the lesson was understood.

“Next time you want to pickpocket someone, choose your targets better. Elves are either used to be in slums, or trained to hunt. Not a good place to start. Choose a person in fine clothes, they usually don’t expect it and won’t notice if they’re missing few coins.”

The boy looked at her with wide eyes, blinking twice before shily nodding to signal he understood. Alyra huffed and pushed him forward, with little grace, but just enough to send him stumbling and not falling.

“I- Th-thank you. Sorry, ma’am.” The boy fumbled, turning back to look at her.

“Don’t get caught.” She reminded him, nodding and walking past.

She clutched her bag a little closer: one warned pickpocket was enough for the day, and she wasn’t there to start a class on how to rob people. Because Kirkwall wasn’t even good for that, apparently.

Recover the lost idiot, get back on the first ship. Easy.

---

Of course he had to choose the sewers to open a clinic.

Alyra didn’t want to even think about it, and about how many illnesses and infections the patients ended up with. The very idea sent shivers down her spine, and every step she took in this Creators-forsaken town made her think that really, the problem-waiting-to-explode that was the Gallows was not that bad, after all. If she only could remember where did she saw pole-up-his-ass and exert a favour to have a clean bed…

But she didn’t, and she needed to be there. She entered the clinic and scrunched her nose at the nasty mixture of smells, following a group of people that entered there.

It was busy, and for the state it was in and the location, it wasn’t as filthy as it threatened to be.

The linens were clean, the pavement as clean as it could be, every patient on their own cot.

She sat on one, grunting in assessment as a person asked her if she was severe. She observed the place, looking at the people there. Lower classes and refugees, judging by the poor state of their clothes. Humans and elves and dwarves, sporting all kind of wounds. She found peculiar that so many had what clearly were cuts from a sword or a dagger, but for her own mental sanity, decided not to dwell much about it.

A group in a corner stayed separated, looking around with suspicious eyes, clearly on alert. Mages, she could have bet: they were in no physical shape to be thugs, had too much meat on their bones to be beggars, and were a little too clean, their clothes a little too well sewn. Stupid mages, at that: isolating would only attract suspects on them, make them stand out. Another thing she didn’t dwell much on, but it didn’t take a genius to assume their presence there could mean the clinic was a cover for something else. In the state of the city and its Circle, they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a safe place. And if she knew Anders just a little, he would be dead before leading them back to the Gallows.

Speaking of which.

He stepped out of a backroom, drying his hands on an apron and looking around with tired eyes, hair unkempt and messily tied in a half ponytail, earring gleaming in a beam of sunlight that filtered from the high windows. A little older, a little more consumed, but definitely him.

He turned, and his eyes skipped her for a moment. Stopped. He paled and his mouth opened as he realized.

Her hair was a dark shade of brown, but the tattoos sold her off. She wanted for them to sell her off to people that knew her, and that did the trick. He recognized her, and stood still as a statue staring at her. So much that one of his collaborators had to shake him to bring him back to attention. He fumbled back and tended to other patients -with nerves that were all legit, since he had the audacity to make her wait.

Finally -finally- he came to sit on her cot, clearing his throat. At least he had the good sense of being nervous about it.

“What is it?”

Hostility? Fine.

“My blood is boiling, I think I am allergic to everything in this place and I have the great urge to beat someone back to their senses.”

He frowned at her, mouth bending in a harsh line.

“Lean your head back and open your mouth, please.”

She did just so, huffing, and let him turn her head this way and that, in a pretentious visit. He took her pulse with two cold fingers on her throat, checked if she had a fever. A little quicker than he was with the other patients, but not anything too noticeable. He never was that much for stealth anyway, but at least he got decent at it. In five minutes he was finished.

“You look stable. I’ll give you some herbs to take, the pressure seems a little high. And I’d like to check you back this evening.”

The great urge to beat him back to his senses became bigger. If there wasn’t a group of mages in clear need of a shelter or something else she didn’t want to attract attention to, she would have slapped him and dragged him out.

“Will you be here for real?”

She asked, frowning at him.

“I…” He hesitated. “Yes.”

She huffed from her nose, took the pouch he gave her two minutes later, and marched right out, giving half an eye to the tall woman that entered in stride, followed by a dwarf and- was that Isabela? No, she shouldn’t stay and check. She turned her face away as the pirates turned to look at her, but didn’t hasten her steps.

“Anders! Apple of my eyes, guess who has another way to bring back a smile on this… Wow, you do are surly, today.”

The tall woman said. The accent was Fereldan, but there were so many refugees from there that it was hardly something peculiar.

She pulled her hood up and didn’t stay to listen to whatever fumbling excuse Anders pulled.

---

The night had grown chilly, the clinic was closed for the evening, and of Anders there was no trace.

Alyra would have waited days just to strangle him without any further charade. The last ship of the day was gone and the tavern she found and left her baggage in was… She didn’t want to think about actually spending the night there. It was better than the street, after much consideration about it on her part. Not by much, but at least the flooring of her room had no suspicious puddle.

Alyra hated Kirkwall.

After hours since the sunset, finally Anders showed up, walking forlornly down the stairway and using his staff as a walking stick. He had blood on his clothes and was clearly out of a ruffle of some kind. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care to know.

He looked left and right, but she had sat in a dark corner, exactly not to be seen. She slipped out caring to be as silent as she could. One step, another, closer…

… She slapped her palm hard against the back of his neck, the slap echoing loudly in the space, as well as his instinctive “ouch”. She let him turn hastily towards her and pushed his shoulder.

“You really think I wouldn’t have found you, did you?”

She hissed, marching towards him. Anders instinctively stepped back, even if her daggers were still sheathed on her back.

“You weren’t there, you don’t know-” There was defiance in his tone, nonetheless, and he didn’t look down.

“I returned and you were gone. Not an explanation. Not a goodbye.”

“You left too!”

He stomped his staff to the ground, the air shifted to push her back with pressure. She rotated a foot behind the others, bent her knees, resisting the spell and giving it less surface to work on.

“You waltzed right out of the Keep, you were gone for weeks. There were rumours that you weren’t going to return.”

“So you believed in the first gossip you heard and gave up. Forgot oaths and responsabilities. Left Nathaniel and Velanna to do your work. For a rumour.”

Truth to be told, when she eventually found out that the track she was following was actually Morrigan, for a moment she had thought that she wouldn’t have come back. Responsibility got the better of her, anyway. As it always did. And well. Hearing that she wasn’t given that credit stung.

“You have no idea what the situation was when you left.”

“Please.” She snorted at the accusation. “Velanna is a mage as well. She did told me, I took measures.”

“Sure, she’s a Dalish, and she hasn’t spent-”

“-I’m a Dalish too, and if we’re playing what category of people the universe hates the most, I’m dragging you to Halamshiral by an ear.”

He wanted to answer, Alyra could read it in his eyes, burning bright in anger and shining with a little flesh of blue, for a moment. She rose one eyebrow at it, daring Justice to come forth, show up somehow. She would have beat some sense into his ectoplasm as well. On the house.

A full minute passed, before Anders turned his head and marched away from her, snorting aloud.

“You came here to bring me back?” He asked as he walked up the last stairwell before the clinic, without looking at her. Disgust clear in his voice.

“Do not treat me like a Templar.” She chided, cutting that off abruptly. “I came here to talk.”

“Talk.” He laughed, with no amusement. “Sure.”

She followed him up, waiting for him to fuss with the keys to the clinic – which he kept all six hanging from a string on his neck. He wasn’t all that wrong in doubting her words, but she wasn’t going to step back anyway.

“If I wanted you locked off, I would have snatched you on today, kicked you on the first ship and I would be out of this fucking sewer of a city.” It was enough to cut any answer from him. “Or I would have sent a letter to the Knight-Commander, tell her where you are and about your guest, and suggest her how to better approach you. It would have been so easy, and all from the comfort of my desk. And yet I’m here personally, and on my own.”

He stopped, hand on a key, and considered it. As much as he clearly didn’t trust her intention, he knew perfectly well she held no love for the Chantry, and didn’t hesitate half a second in killing the Templars sent to bring him back to Kinloch. Not half a second. She watched him sag down, the tension on his shoulders melting slightly as he exhaled loudly.

“Come in.”

He just told her, tiredly, and opened the door carefully. She walked in and waited until he had closed it again - the number of locks at least was adequate. Once that was done, Anders lead her to the backroom, gesturing silently towards the other end of the room not to wake up the patients that were there.

He spent the same care in opening the other door -no lock- and closing it behind her. With a snap of his fingers, he lit a torchlight and bathed the room in a dim golden light.

It was as clean as it was possible. Sub-par by her standards, but still fairly clean, if less well kept and messier than the clinic, things thrown around without care around a cot that has seen better days and a trunk whose griffon had been scraped off.

“What do you want to talk about?”

He sighed, not angry anymore but just exhausted. He didn’t care for her, and unlatched his bolero -feathered shoulders, bah-, turning her back at her.

“Start telling me why you left.”

She prodded, walking to the cot. She unlatched her cloak, folded it in two and spread it on the bed, sitting down on it. It wasn’t filthy, around this room, but it wasn’t not filthy as she would have liked. She unbuckled the harness on her chest and slid the daggers down her back, resting everything beside her, still on the bed.

“You know why I left.”

“I want to hear your version.”

He grunted, slipping out his shirt too, which he left on the ground with little order -it was bloody and needed a launder anyway- and marched to another corner, pouring water from a jug into a basin.

“Mistress Woolsey started to… Not like me.”

“Expand.”

“She started speaking of abominations and corruption and walking bombs. It was all mostly behind my back, but she didn’t care of hiding it. I caught her discussing with Varel that the right of conscription wasn’t an excuse to welcome… People like me and Justice.”

“Same problem she found with Kristoff’s corpse.”

“Yes but me being living… I could feel her watching me, constantly. She was always there, observing. Made questions that were too close for comfort. Asked me if you informed the First Warden, and when I told her I didn’t know and she should have asked you-”

“-which she did.”

“-she would have written herself and taken care of the problem. People started to whisper, the looks got more and more. Nathaniel did his best but…”

“… But Nathaniel isn’t me and he needs to learn to impose. Or were you about to say anything else?”

She corrected him before he could say anything about it. She was slow to trust, allegedly so, but Nathaniel had grown to be one of the few people she could swear her life upon. He turned towards her, ready to counter, took breath to do it…

… And release it when he noticed she was glaring at him, daring to voice that thought, without blinking. It always upset people, when she avoided blinking: it was a fortuitous surprise she had discovered once, when she actually had wanted to be sarcastic. And had put in use with great results and amusement. Well, on her part alone.

Anders grunted and turned back, cleaning a couple of wounds he sported with a wet cloth he dipped in the basin and squeezed water from.

“I wasn’t waiting for her to make you send me to Weisshaupt, and I heard the situation here was dire. I packed my things and left. Nathaniel could have found me if he wanted, I didn’t hide on the way to the ship.”

“You are the most ginormous, stupid, blank minded idiot I’ve ever set my eyes on. And I deal with Teagan Guerrin more than anyone would ever deserve to.”

In spite of that, she rose and went to kneel beside him, snatched the tin box from his hand and batted said hand away when he tried to protest. Inside she knew she would have found a set for stitching wounds: it was the same box he had back then.

“Do you really think I would have handed you to the First Warden so easily?”

She asked, holding the needle above the candle to sterilize it. She knew him and knew it already was, but she felt she had been enough in Kirkwall to not trust the cleanliness of anything, at this point.

“What could you have done? You were already in a corner with him, with the surviving the Archdemon without explanations thing. You would have had your hands tied.”

There was no blame in his voice. He really believed in what he was saying. She wondered how much Justice influenced him, because that was more Justice than Anders, to her ears. She didn’t ask that, but she exerted less delicateness in breaking his skin to begin stitching a nasty cut on his waist.

“Ouch.”

“What hurts me the most is that you know me better than that. You just didn’t think.”

She told him, matter-of-factly. Because in the end he didn’t, and it was nastily disappointing.

“For your knowledge, I kicked Woolsey out of Amaranthine the day after I got back, when she suggested I should look for you and strike you down.”

“So she’s back to Weisshaupt?” He frowned. “But that’s-”

She snorted in annoyance, fighting the urge to stab him properly with the needle. She tied another stitch, instead.

“Did I say I kicked her out of the door?”

Silence.

“But- Weisshaupt –“

Finally the fucking audacity of his attitude was starting to crack. She had to give him credit for it.

“Weisshaupt can go fuck itself. The First Warden has only to send one soldier my way, I’m ready.”

She had spies at every border, contacts with the Crows -useful for that scope, and with the side hustle that she could send informations about them to Zevran. Leliana was alerted. The Wardens had not the numbers for an invasion, and she- well, she had the crown of Ferelden in her bed most often then not, when she was in Denerim.

“And regarding Kirkwall – move your arm.” She continued, not minding that he was too stunned to speak and starting to stitch the other cut. “You only had to tell me.”

“There is nothing you can do. The situation is-“

“-what are you doing? Mh? The clinic in the sewers attracts noise, I am surprised Meredith hadn’t caught you yet. And you should really tell the Mages you’re smuggling out of town to be less conspicuous about it, they’ll get caught in three minutes if they keep being stupid about it. And today they have been very stupid about it. I caught on in two minutes, and just because I was looking for you first.”

She cut the last stitch and retreated, sitting on her hunches and cleaning the needle and her fingers in the basin. He said nothing at all, slouching forward and breathing deeply. Defeated.

“Are you here to bring me back?” He asked, the same defeat of his posture.

Actually, she was.

“You could do so much more than this.”

She noted, not answering him. He looked at her, frowning, knowing that it was a circomvoluted way to bring him to admit what she wanted. It was a strategy: corner the opponent with sheer logic, make them have no choice but to agree with her. He knew it, tho.

“Politics did no good to this city. I’d rather actually help people survive it.”

“The Viscount is a spineless idiot and I give the city a couple of months at best before exploding, if he keeps treating the Arishok as a problem, and not an ally.” She admitted. “It doesn’t change that you’re helping with both hands tied at your back.”

She opened his trunk, shuffling inside with a snort of disappointment -everything was haphazardly put, not folded. At least it was clean. She ignored the protests that came and the note that the locket was close –“Buy a better one.”- and tossed him a clean shirt, returning to sit on the cot where she was before. He scrambled the cloth down his face, frowned at her a little more and put it on.

“Mythal’s full bosom, Anders, you have contacts with so many people in power. Nathaniel grew up here, he’d know how to move. You could write to Wynne and she would actually listen to you, of all people. March to Denerim and ask for Alistair’s help, he would say yes. You could have asked me.” She pointed out, letting some emotion in her voice. “You really think we’re all there to wait for the first good chance to lock you back again or strike you down? After all we’ve been through?”

“You never liked Justice.”

“I risked Redcliffe to save a child from possession, I remind you. And it worked.”

“Connor wasn’t possessed by his own volition.”

“Irving doesn’t need to know that. Irving can and will be swayed. I could reach Orsino and force his hand.”

Orsino would be the very last option, for her, but she didn’t tell him. Her spies reported on him as well, and she was not sure whether he was a puppet for real, forced to obey the Knight-Commander and putting up a feeble opposition as he still could, or if he was hiding something and acting so demure and agreeable to protect a secret. She would have trusted Meredith over him: Meredith was a royal bitch, but a predictable one.

Anders, tho, had no words to answer. He looked tired, more tired than she ever saw him after long days exploring the Black Marsh, or climbing down Kal Shirol. He moved to lean on the wall, bent his legs and propped his elbows on the knees, long fingers coming to twine together.

“You can’t do anything. Justice… something went wrong. He’s… Different. I am angry and I corrupted him, and now…”

So, that was the real reason for his behaviour, she thought. And damn her soft heart, but he was still her friend. Still one of her recruits, a part of the family and thus her responsibility. She brought him into this, even if just to save him from getting back into a Circle, and she grew to like him. Trust him, even. She huffed from her nose and filled the distance between them, sitting right beside him and taking his hands in hers moving them not as strong as to hurt.

He always had his fingers cold.

“Now, if you can be a little bit less of an idiot, we can find a solution. You and me, Justice can go fuck himself if he doesn’t want to help.”

She rubbed his hands in hers, closed them between her palms and breathed over them to warm them up a little. He let her do.

“Aren’t you angry?”

“Oh, I’m furious and very disappointed and disgusted by this shithole of a city.” She admitted, shrugging. “I would love nothing more to slap your face, weren’t you looking like a miserable wet cat.”

He snorted half a laughter from his nose, lips curling up in a smile.

“But you’re part of my clan, and I swore long ago that I would have never left anyone else behind.”

She didn’t need to add anything more. She let go of his hands and crossed her arms, leaning fully on the wall too -do not think of the noise of water you’re hearing, do not think of it- and closed her eyes.

After a moment, he carefully and tentatively leant on her side. Sighed, when she didn’t move.

“I’m sorry.”

“Leave lies to the professionals.”

“I am, tho.”

“I know. I was referring to all the other bullshit you tried to sell me.”

She scoffed, and he chuckled.

“As the Warden-Commander orders.”

#dragon age #dragon age awakening #female mahariel #anders dragon age #dragon age fic #alyra mahariel #writing petrel #da fic #fanfiction #lo schiaffone sul coppino era doveroso #*hawke stops the arishok* Alyra: But why?#she's not angry she's *disappointed*

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