#guys i think kirkwall might be haunted :

[dagna]

there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.

#dragon age #daedits #daedit #gamingedit #hawke #* #guys i think kirkwall might be haunted :/

[felassanis]

WHY FENHAWKE IS IMPORTANT. FENRIS ANALYSIS.

(I’m not saying you have to romance fenris, if you do not like fenris you do you boo boo romance a fucking candelstick. I just have to put this ‘disclaimer’ even tho it’s obvious, cuz we have easily offended geezers up in this fandom who have accused me before of having ‘acted superior with my romance choice’ and all that bollocks.)

Kinda long, kinda detailed, but I had a lot of fun thinking about this. Also, I am not analysing Rivalmance, I am analysing scenes and dialogue from Fenris’s ‘nicemance’’ mentions of mental illness but nothing triggering.

Fenris’s story in Dragon Age II has a outer layer and an inner layer. The outer layer is of course fighting for his freedom. Becoming a free man is his conscious desire. In order to get this Fenris will do anything from never staying in one place for too long to killing anyone that comes after him. This ‘becoming a free man’ is the obvious story regarding Fenris. It’s the first thing we learn about his arc: The slave who wants to be free. And it’s up to our Hawke to help him achieve that.

But, we also have what I call the ‘true story’. His inner layer or ‘subconscious’ desire surrounds the element of revenge, overcoming trauma and learning to move on. It’s the story of Fenris we will eventually learn about and slowly uncover as the game progresses. 

Fenris deep down wants to move on. It’s not just about being free, Fenris knows he wants to be free. He is fully aware of that. What he doesn’t acknowledge however, is that in order to be truly free he’s got to learn to accept what has happened to him, accept it was out of his control and accept that it is in the past. But....he won’t. 

I will admit, Fenris’s speech can be hella emo and overdramatic, the way he talks is extremely gothic novella and the writers could have done a better job at showing not telling. But, the reason he talks the way he does about ‘plagues in his heart’ and whatnot, is to exemplify the complete and utter turmoil this elf possesses. You can tell he’s thought about it a lot, because he talks so poetically that you can’t help but think ‘no one naturally talks likes this’ it shows he has overthought the emotions his past has caused at great lengths. I guess, you could analyse it as ‘no one talks that way, unless they’ve rehearsed it’ which yes, I think he has rehearsed it to some degree. Not to sound purposefully broody and meloncholic just for the aestheitc; he just knows with full clarity how it makes him feel and he’s able to describe it naturally in that articulated manner. 

I highly doubt he even knows he’s doing it honestly, his speech is very different from the other characters. Anders for example also suffers from trauma and mental health, but he doesn’t speak like this. For Fenris it just comes naturally...

Every time we talk to Fenris before spending the night with him is about slavery. We find him running from slavers, we kick down the doors to hunt down his slave master and he talks to Hawke about what has happened to him regarding his days of being a slave. The topic of slavery is heavily ingrained into his character but the game isn’t doing that because Bioware wants you to think ‘OOH he’s so angsty and broody! He’s such a tormented soul don’t you just love him?!’ Nah, Bioware is merely saying that this character’s past was so horrifying that he simply cannot get over it. He talks about it so much because it has engulfed him; he’s not free of the chains as Flemeth said. 

The ‘chains’ she’s referring to is that ‘slavery’ has very much swallowed his whole identity. He’s not yet willing to claw his way out of the jaw of his past. He’s both unwilling and likely unaware he talks about it so much with Hawke.

The only other conversation where it’s not heavily discussed is when him and Hawke discuss the theme of home in his first one on one. It becomes very clear that Fenris has not had a home in a long time due to being on the run, he asks Hawke why they haven’t returned to Ferelden and nearly every option Hawke has is pretty much ‘Kirkwall isn’t so bad, I’ve built a life here’ or ‘my family is here, I have roots’ to which Fenris will sound...longing. Exhibiting a clear desire to have his own place to call home, yet he won’t come out and say it. Hawke says “It sounds like you want to settle down,” and Fenris will respond “I could see myself staying, for the right reasons,” and I just...look, he is deliberately giving himself an out when he says that. ‘The right reasons’ is a clever way of Fenris setting up an escape plan for when his paranoia inevitably settles in and it’s time to pack up and move on. ‘The right reasons,’ yeah, we both know Fenris, that when you decide it’s time to go you can then just be like ‘I haven’t found the right reason to stay’ and run. But the reason you haven’t found the right reason to stay, is because you are not MAKING a reason to stay! 

Moreover, his second one on one? Where if you flirted with him he’s like ‘You’re amazing, but I’m a slave...why would you want me?’ here, Hawke is beginning to represent that ‘right reason’...a reason he could stay, and that gives him some food for thought, as well as some potential fear...This is repeated when the flirting gets a bit more heated durng the second conversation. Where’s he drunk (I think?) and him and Hawke dance around ‘getting to know each other’ only for Fenris to suddenly back out.

A good quote, ‘if you feel as though you have no place in the world, you must make one,’ is something I think resonates with this elf. He doesn’t have a purpose in the world, he is on the run constantly with his past eating away at him. But he does want purpose, he’s just unable to grasp it. His story is about carving himself a new purpose, a new future.

Now, obviously...Fenris can’t really settle down. Not until he’s stopped being hunted which will only occur when Danarius is dead. I’m obviously not glossing over that and saying ‘Fenris is a bitch who won’t move on’ that’s not what I’m saying AT ALL. He has good reason to not stay in one place and he has good reason to paranoid. But, Danarius and the slavers? that’s not the inner conflict that I’m trying to analyse. Danarius and the slavers are an obstacle, they are the physical hurdles he has to jump over. So, yeah I know Fenris cannot do any of what I have said because of those hurdles, but he also can’t do any of that until he’s dealt with his inner conflict; which as I said before is him learning to move on and accepting the past.

The inner conflict NOT BEING ADDRESSED is exactly why after he kills Hadriana he feels EMPTY. In the moment that he is face to face with someone that caused him so much pain; she bullied him to no end and like any person Fenris loses it. All those years of abuse...he has the chance to exact his revenge and he does it. However, after being consumed with hatred for so long and at such an intensity...what is left? Now she’s dead...he feels nothing.

I want to point out that Fenris says ‘I couldn’t let her go, I wanted to...but I couldn’t’ at first I when I heard this line I was a bit confused. But thinking about it, Hadriana isn’t just a character in Dragon Age. In Fenris’s story she represents a chapter in his lifethat Fenris THOUGHT HE HAD CLOSED. He says ‘This hate...I thought I had gotten rid of it’ Hadriana represents Fenris’s rage...Hadriana while a complete fucking bitch, isn’t Danarius. Danarius is the one that haunts Fenris. While I have no doubt that she deserved to die, and I shudder to think what she might have done, she isn’t as bad as Danarius. Fenris...could have let her go, and if he had done then it would have represented some ounce of moving on...but he kills her, he gives into his rage and kills her. 

Fenris had convinced himself that he was over it to some degree, but he isn’t. So once her blood laments his hands, it is a revelation to him. A scary one...and that is why he feels ‘disquiet’. Or alternatively, you could see it as Fenris perhaps ALWAYS knowing he was not over his hate deep down, but Hadriana finally brought it to light. His hate has always been quelling inside of him, but it’s only really after Hadriana, does Fenris finally fucking realise it. So when it’s revealed to him, it becomes too much for him to handle hence why he stomps off leaving the party. Thus, beginning Act 2 of Fenris’s story...

Sorry for all of that, but now I’M GOING TO TALK ABOUT HAWKE.

After he leaves the party, you will find Fenris at Hawke’s estate waiting for them. Now that hot, emotional fury has lifted from his senses he’s ready to be nice again and say sorry. 

After apologising; Hawke as concerned as always, asks him if he’s okay...and Fenris, without being drunk, will be completely honest with Hawke. He will confess the conflict he is feeling, he’ll describe what Hadriana made him feel and he will confess how her death left an emptiness inside of him...I don’t doubt that Fenris is a reserved person. He’s not one to voice his problems and past. While the entire cast of DAII know Fenris was a slave, I feel like only Hawke truly knows the details. However gory. The Fog Warriors story truly shows how much trust he has for Hawke, that isn’t a story that paints him as the good guy...yes, to some degree he was a victim but he did murder people who only wanted to help, who were willing to fight for his freedom. The Fog Warriors are parallel to Hawke, they were people he respected and looked up to just as he does with Hawke yet he killed them. Him telling that story...my god, imagine how hard that must be. Hawke is doing the same thing for him that the Fog Warriors did, but he trusts Hawke so much that he feels like they should know. 

Back to the romance scene, he is completely vulnerable in that moment. After his rant he has a moment of clarity and realises he’s distanced himself from the original goal of meeting up with Hawke. They’re so easy to talk to he forgot himself. So, he’s about to leave. Until Hawke reaches out for him.

THE KISS SCENE, wow...ok. The armour design defintely had a hand in it, we know his arms are showed off in that armour because he’s not keen on hiding them, he won’t hide from the slavers who know exactly what those markings mean. 

Hawke grabs HIS SKIN. As they try to stop him from leaving they touch his skin...

Back with Hadriana when Hawke can reach out for him, they grab his shoulder, the part of him that’s cladded in thick leather (or whatever the heck it’s made out of)...nothing happens. HERE THEY TOUCH HIS SKIN. All that SPIKY armour! And Hawke is close enough to Fenris that they can reach out and touch his bare arm. 

He glows, and while it can be speculated, the lyrium seems to briefly cloud his mind and instinctively he seems to think he’s being hurt, on reflex he slams Hawke against the wall. He appears angry, hostile...could be the lyrium defending him...but it’s probably more to do with physical abuse....

I love seeing that blue cloud fade from his eyes, as he slowly slips back to reality and processes what has just happened. His animation shows him stepping back, slowly because he must be thinking ‘I have just made this worse, I came here to apologise, and these damn markings just made me attack Hawke’ in this moment Hawke sees Fenris in a state. The Lyrium, the ‘magic that has spoiled him’ took over...he probably thinks they ought to be mortified. But instead? Hawke kisses him.

Hawke has seen him in the state he probably feels disgusted by. There’s no way this hasn’t happened before, where he’s lost control. And he probably feels akin to a mage succumbing to a demon. But Hawke...Hawke just loves him, and wants to make him feel loved. They saw that flicker of horror in his eye as he pinned them against the wall, and they just would want to blow it out. 

Of course Fenris is going to reciprocate. There’s no one he respects more, no one he trusts more (nor fancies more :) ) and after he did what he did they still kiss him. Finally, it is here that Hawke represents a future, and for that night he’s willing to have a taste of that future. To feel happy and loved, to forget about his past and focus on Hawke...

Then, the past comes to bite him in the arse.

He remembers his life before the the lyrium. Suddenly, without warning it is then stolen from him. He lost his life TWICE.

He lost it twice because of the Lyrium, the lyrium inflicted upon him by Danarius, the Magister who fucking...well, you know. The Magister who enslaved him and others and who has been sending out slavers to hunt him down, the very same slavers Hawke and Fenris fought that very day...the slavers that ambushed him and Hawke.

See where I’m going with this? Fenris recollecting his memories only to lose them is a double edged sword. One side, it’s clearly devastating and anyone would be disturbed if their whole life just vanished so suddenly. And if being with Hawke is just going to repeat that then you can’t blame him for wanting to end it. But also, Hawke? This human that represents a potential future? Being with them made him remember the past, the past he is still haunted by and clings to. How can he have a future with someone when being with them is tainted by the past?

I had a whole rant about this in another post so I won’t ramble too long since this post is already a thicc bitch but...Fenris cannot delve into a relationship with Hawke. He isn’t ready for the committment when he’s still being haunted by the past, both physically and mentally. Before he can have a future, he needs to work on himself in order to be ready for that future. He needs to kill Danarius. Now we circle back to him overcoming his obstacles and finally achieving his subconscious desires. 

I said that mental illness is reallt well portrayed in Fenhawke because Fenris and Hawke are seperated for YEARS. Yet, the beauty of it is that Hawke waits for Fenris. They stay by him, they support him and protect him and they remain at his side until the day they finally get to witness him pull out Danarius’s heart. It utterly evokes the beauty of good relationships such as patience, compromise and adoration of all flaws. Yes, they seperate and yes I know people got a bit mad. However, Fenris leaving Hawke strengthens their bond.

Fenris is the one who closes the chapter on Danarius, because as I have said if you are struggling with mental illness only you can help yourself and take the steps to recovery. There are the lucky few who have others surrounding them that will be of support and of course that helps...but it is down the one person to realise they are drowing, and it’s up to them if they grab the lifeguard.

With Danarius dead, once again that feeling of numbing emptiness prevails and instead of getting angry Fenris owns up to the fact that...he needs to move on. That if he’s ever going to be happy he needs to accept what happened to him. Whether or not you let verania live, it was important for Fenris to think he could have reclaimed the past. Because this time when he is once again proven wrong it finally clicks that the past has nothing for him anymore. I do wish he could have had a family, but...it is kinda fitting that Verania is a mage, that she isn’t interested in reuniting with Fenris. The ties have been cut, the past isn’t the answer.

He feels alone. Obviously, that’s not tue, because guess who’s been by his side all this time? And who is standing there right now, looking upon him with much love in their eyes reminding him ‘I’m here Fenris,’

That smile, *swoons* that smile. :’) As though Hawke has said something so bloody obvious. Making him smile because ‘yeah, he should have known that’ And that MY FRIENDS, Is probably when Fenris is already concieving the possibility of spending the rest of his life with Hawke...RIGHT THEN AND THERE.

Fenris has a long way to go to move on, but the important thing is is that he’s now finally willing and able. He doesn’t know where it will lead, but whatever or wherever it leads he’s going to walk it with Hawke. He talks about wishing he had stayed with Hawke when he finally confronts them with what happened between them all those years ago. He says that because now his head is clearer and he sees what he should have done. But Fenris sweetie, you had to go through what you did in order to be the man you are today, it’s ok that you made mistakes. You’re here now and so is Hawke.

A platonic bond with Fenris is important, but Fenris and Hawke probably never see each other again if that’s the case. If you romanced him, Fenris flees Kirkwall with Hawke. He ain’t leaving their side, because they are his future.

Fenris has a fucking amazing arc, bioware did really well with him and his romance was so well done and I love analysing his behaviour. Hawke really helps him get through his trauma and they are there to take his hands and lead him down the road to recovery. This was a romance DONE RIGHT

thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

#Fenris #Dragon age #dragon age 2 #daii #da2 #dragon age ii #hawke #fehawke #fenris x hawke #fenris analysis #plz reblog this took me fucking hours lol

[awesomenightfall]

[the wicked & the divine]

part of the "dragon age protags are terrible adults" modern!AU [Cassandra/Varric (eventual), humor, modern!AU, no tw, mild language, super unfinished] -- Seekers/Templars are pretty much police in this world and someone has it out for Cassandra (surprise, surprise). Varric gets a very unwelcome visit from Leliana (who wants to cash in a favor, natch) and an injured Cassandra.

---

In retrospect, the whole premise was so cliche that, as a writer who had built an entire career on delivering the unexpected, Varric almost laughed himself sick at the irony.

Cliche #1: It was, of course, a dark and stormy night. The place was Kirkwall-- The Hanged Man, to be more exact. The pub was one of Varric’s more profitable business ventures. For a crime ridden, dirty, rundown town, there had been a surprisingly lack of places for local degenerates to get wasted before Varric stepped in.

He was a very hands off owner that preferred to let management run the show. Still, Varric liked to frequent the bar to see his friends, play cards, but mostly to make sure Hawke wasn’t pissing away all of the profit by doling out free drinks to men and women she wanted to sleep with.

He trusted Hawke with his life, but with his wallet? Not so much.

The bar had closed for the night and Varric was reconciling the books. It was terribly monotonous but it was a nice break from his usually hectic life filled with a ridiculous amount of dramatic extraverts that demanded pretty much all of his attention. He also tended to get his best ideas at The Hanged Man late at night when he was decompressing from the day.

Then again, he had written his tawdry, bodice ripper Swords & Shields at this very barstool, so he had to concede that maybe not all of his ideas were very good.

Cliche # 2: The quiet was interrupted by a sharp, somewhat mysterious knock at the door. There were only two types of people who came by this late at night -- robbers or booty calls. Robbers didn’t usually knock and Varric had indulged in all of zero booty in Maker knows how long, so he was intrigued. And maybe a little afraid.

Please don’t be demons or bill collectors or ex-girlfriends, for the love of all that is good and holy, please don’t be a possessed ex-girlfriend looking to cash in on a debt...

It felt very dramatic, very film noir-esque, and Varric could almost hear the saxophone music queuing up in the background as his internal monologue began.

“‘Okay Tethras,’” Varric narrated, “‘I said to myself, ‘“You’re a tough guy. You’ve been shot at, possessed, faced down the Carta, forced to go to Bertrand’s social gatherings.” Now let’s see you do something really tough—like answering the door.’”

With a deep sigh and ignoring that niggling little thing called self preservation that was screeching at him not to do it, Varric walked over to the door. His hand hovered over the knob. “Any chance you’re selling cookies for charity and not here to mug me and/or rope me into some hairbrained scheme?”

“Varric,” a familiar, accented voice replied. “It’s Leliana. Open up.”

Crap. “So no cookies, I’m guessing,” Varric said as he unlocked the door against his better judgment. “Nightingale, if you wanted to have a private tête-à-tête, did you really need to wait until the asscrack of --?”

In Leliana’s arms was one Cassandra Pentaghast, currently white as a ghost, hunched over, and bleeding out from her skull.

Plot twist.

“What the hell happened?” Varric ushered them inside, wincing at the amount of blood dripping on the dingy bar floor. He had very little lover for the Seeker (and the feeling was undeniably mutual, for so many reasons, but mostly because he prided himself on being a fabulous liar and her job was to literally seek out the truth), but that didn’t mean he wanted her to die inside of his bar.

Then again, it might do something to add to the intrigue of The Hanged Man…

No, Varric decided, he didn’t need any more death on his hands. He might have had a little bit of a hate-on (“It’s like a hard on,” Isabela had said wisely, “but for someone you want to hate-bang right through the floor”) for Cassandra since the time she took him in for a grueling six hour interrogation concerning Hawke’s whereabouts, but he wasn’t a monster.

Besides, Cassandra would just haunt him from beyond the grave and did he really want to risk having to spend eternity listening to her make that little disgusted noise she always made when he spoke?

“Ugh,” Cassandra grunted when her eyes focused on Varric. “It’s you.”

And there it was. Cassandra was nothing if not dependable and predictable.

Leliana hefted Cassandra up on the chair; no easy task, considering how tall (unnecessarily so, in Varric’s completely unbiased opinion-- what does a woman need with that much leg?) and well muscled the Seeker was. Cassandra groaned, hazily blinking blood out of her eyes. She looked… well, she looked like complete and utter shit, Varric thought, and that was being charitable.

“Assassins,” Leliana confirmed. “We’re looking into it.”

“And no doubt you’ll find them.”

“By hook or by crook,” Leliana said simply and Varric shuddered. Leliana was sweet and pretty and it was easy to forget that she was a powerful spymaster with a whole network of followers at her disposal. But when she got that look, well… Varric didn’t envy the person who had been stupid enough to go after one of Leliana’s people.

Varric grabbed his first aid kit -- always fully stocked, thanks to Hawke’s penchant for getting into fights -- and set it down on a wooden table. “So. What’d the Seeker do to get the attention of assassins?”

“I imagine it’s some kind of personal grudge.” Leliana pulled on some latex gloves and got to work on the gash on Cassandra’s forehead.

“Wow,” Varric said, voice chalk full of exaggerated surprise, “imagine that. Someone doesn’t like the Seeker? Nightingale, call the presses. The world needs to know.”

Cassandra glared at him and hissed as Leliana pressed on the wound above her eyebrow. “Such a comedian, dwarf,” she drawled, voice slightly slurred from what Varric imagined was excruciating pain. He winced in sympathy and grabbed some ice from behind the bar, wrapping it in a towel and leaving it as a peace offering. Cassandra looked surprised and suspicious, not making a move for it just yet.

“Surprised you let them get a hit in,” Varric said, leaning back in his chair dangerously. “I thought you slept with your sword under your pillow.”

He might have imagined it, but for a moment it looked like Cassandra actually blushed. Must have been a trick of the light. “I-- I was indisposed.”

“Indisposed,” Varric echoed.

“Shut up. It was nothing.”

His thoughts raced. Indisposed? The Seeker? What did that even mean? Varric imagined -- not that he thought about her that often, because that would be weird -- that she spent 24/7 in her stiff, buttoned up uniform, sword at her side, vigilant and composed as she chased down criminals and ne'er-do-wells.

She was horribly embarrassed about it, whatever it was, and that only further fueled Varric’s curiosity.

“Well now I have to know. ‘Indisposed.’ How indisposed are we talking about here? Where does it rank on a scale from 1 to Hawke, Zevran, and a team of double jointed Antivan contortionists?”

Varric was rewarded with Cassandra’s patented disgusted noise and it was music to his ears. And that’s one win for the dwarf.

Leliana tried to hide a grin and failed miserably. “She was in the shower,” she loudly whispered.

Varric nearly tipped back in his chair but caught himself before he fell. “They attacked you in the shower?”

He had so many questions like:

Did she fight naked?

Did she bring the sword into the shower?

Wait, if she was in the shower then that meant that she wasn’t wearing --

For fuck’s sake, don’t. Don’t even go there.

“Ugh,” Cassandra groaned. “Be quiet, Leliana. And don’t you even think about telling anyone about this.” She shoved a finger into Varric’s chest, each word punctuated with a strong poke. “Not. One. Word.”

“Perish the thought, Seeker,” Varric said, moving out of reach before she gouged his heart out. “Would I ever tell anyone about you fighting assassins au naturel?”

“Yes,” Cassanda and Leliana said in unison.

He waved his hand. “Your secret’s safe with me.” Cassandra snorted again. “So, you were in the shower and assassins attacked. What happened next? Did you defend yourself with a loofah? Rubber ducky? Leave no detail out. Hard in Hightown has been missing bathroom shenanigans and honestly, this is just the inspiration I need.”

“Varric.”

“What? I said I wouldn’t tell anyone, I never said I wouldn’t write about it.”

“Varric!”

Andraste’s blessed ass, was it fun to mess with her.

Leliana cleared her throat politely. “Varric, you may be wondering why we’re here.”

“I, too, would like to know why we are here, Leliana.” Cassandra’s voice was as cold as the ice starting to melt on the table.

And here it comes, Varric thought. Should he just resign himself to whatever favor Leliana was going to cash in? Beg for mercy? Skip town for a bit so he could finally get some writing done? “You want me to find the attackers?”

“Well, since Cassandra’s apartment is currently being searched and it’s not quite safe for her to return, I thought, since you have a few extra rooms upstairs, you could let her stay here.”

“What.” Cassandra’s fury was palpable and it sent a shiver down Varric’s spine. He wondered who would win in a fight between Cassandra and Leliana. He wondered if the staff would be able to get all the blood out of the carpet. Mostly, he wondered why he always got caught up in all of this shit.

Leliana looked at Cassandra evenly. “There is a hole in your roof, Cassandra. How are you supposed to stay there?”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself--”

“You have a concussion and possibly a broken arm, along with a few ribs,” Leliana said. “Not to mention there is a group of people who want you dead. Until we isolate the threat, you shouldn’t be there, Cassandra. You know that.”

“Ugh. Do not baby me, Leliana, I am a grown woman who--”

The bickering continued in the background as Varric thought deeply on the newest crisis foisted upon him.

Varric wasn’t angry, per se, but he wasn’t jazzed at the thought of having Cassandra as a temporary roommate, either. This bar was his oasis, his anchor in the sea of chaos known as his life. Now he was supposed to let Cassandra “I’m going to tie you up and not in the fun way” Pentaghast stay there?

But then again, if her life really was in danger… and while they weren’t best friends, they were still acquaintances that had worked together… and she wasn’t completely awful when she wasn’t preaching or yelling or shoving him into walls...

… shit, he hated having a conscience.

“It’s fine,” Varric conceded. “Stay. You’ll be safe here.”

Cassandra opened her mouth to retort, but Varric got there first. “Hope you’re not a light sleeper.” He tapped his broken nose. “Deviated septum. Possible sleep apnea. So much snoring.”

“Ugh.”

Two wins for the dwarf.

#dragon age #varric tethras #Cassandra Pentaghast #k writes trash

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

There was a painting of the Imperial Archon in one of the handful of sitting rooms in the mansion.

Fenris felt his blood curdle at the sight, gilt edges no less ornate for the dust. He had half a mind to toss the nearby lantern into the room and let the whole structure catch ablaze, taking the blighted Magister along with it in the cleansing flames.

He ripped it from the wall and tossed the painting into the hallway instead. The stone mansion wouldn’t catch fire the way he so wanted it to, not without help, and Fenris couldn’t afford the attention such a spectacle would inevitably bring. Throwing the blighted painting into one of the many hearths in the place would have to be enough.

Footsteps fell on the stairs behind him. Fenris flattened himself against a wall, hackles raised like a jungle cat of Seheron.

“See, I told you, Red—”

“That’s not my nickname, dwarf.”

“--no one’s here but the—” The steps drew closer. “Huh, that’s weird. Was this painting here when we were here last week?”

Fenris burst from his vantage point, his lyrium lighting with searing pain across his skin. He ghosted across the scant distance and hauled the interloper to the wall, pinning him in place with a gauntleted hand clenched at his shoulder, the other hovering over the dwarf’s broad, defenseless chest.  

“Who are you?” Fenris snarled. “Who sent you?”

“Back away from him,” the dwarf’s companion cautioned tightly, and Fenris didn’t have to turn to know she’d drawn her sword. “I won’t ask again.”

“It’s okay, Aveline,” the dwarf said. “I know this guy. If he wanted to kill me he’d have done it already--wouldn’t you, Fenris?”

Fenris bared his teeth. “Who sent you?” he asked again, no less aggressive for the second time.

“Acquaintance or not, Varric, he’d best drop those hands if he wants to keep them,” Aveline warned  lowly. In the corner of his eye Fenris saw her, sword pointed at his throat. Her lip curled in derision when he didn’t acknowledge the threat.

Fenris frowned and studied the man before him. Varric. The dwarf, the one who fought at Hawke’s side when they met.

“And he remembers.” Varric grinned. “You gonna let me go now, buddy, or are we hanging out like this all day?”

Fenris grunted and stepped back, the light of the lyrium brands fading. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said tightly.

Varric gave a relieved sigh when he stepped away from the wall. He rolled his shoulders and scowled when he found a rip in the fabric of his shirt. “I’ll have you know this is my favorite shirt. It’s rude to go around ripping people’s clothing. At least buy me dinner first,” Varric said pointedly.

“And you’re the one who shouldn’t be here.” Aveline didn’t sheathe her sword but did lower it slightly, from aiming at his throat to pointing its tip to his thigh. “You’re trespassing on private property.”

“Come on, Red, look at the place. It’s been abandoned for how long now? Surely it’s up for grabs.”

Aveline rolled her eyes. “Eleven months, but that’s not how the law works, Varric, not even in Kirkwall. There’s a process, a system. Even for things like this.”

“Nah,” Varric said with a dismissing wave of his hand. He smiled up at Fenris, who only watched their exchange with mixed puzzlement and wary caution. “Everyone knows this manse was just a front. Even you would be hard-pressed to find legitimate history on this place, if you looked hard enough. Besides,” he went on, “it’s not like he’s actually here, now is he?”

Fenris frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m right here.”

“No, you’re not.”

The scowl deepened. “I am.”

“Word of advice, Fenris, don’t admit to committing a crime in front of the watchdog of the City Guard,” Varric sighed.

“Hey!” Aveline sniped. “Just because I’m a Fereldan doesn’t mean—”

“I meant that you’re especially good at your job, Red! Take a compliment now and again. Anyway,” he said, turning back to Fenris. “You’re not really trespassing, you’re… cleaning up a mess.” Varric shot Aveline a pointed look. “A mess of an abandoned building that the Guard hasn’t gotten around to securing. Someone has to think of the children, Aveline--the children!--and Fenris seems to be performing a civic duty. Wouldn’t you say, Fenris?”

He only glowered in response, eyes narrowing.

“Well then,” Varric went on, undeterred, “I think we’d best be on our way. Tell the Captain that the area’s been secured and shouldn’t give you any further trouble. Right, Fenris?”

Fenris hesitated, unsure. “...right,” he finally said.

Varric smiled. Aveline groaned, shoving her sword back into its sheath. “I can’t believe you,” she muttered. “Oh, no, I can, and it’s stupid, every time.”

“Part of my charm,” Varric said knowingly. “You’ll come to love me, everyone always does. Well, unless you’re the Merchants Guild. Or the Carta. Or my publisher. Or my editor. Or—”

“Fasta vass, dwarf, do you ever shut up?”

“No.” Aveline replied before Varric could. “He does not. Believe me.”

“Anyway,” Varric exclaimed, ignoring their protests, “looks like the case of the haunted mansion is solved. Not haunted, just squatted in. No better or worse than any Lowtown warehouse, just has a nicer view.”

Both Fenris and Aveline snorted at his proclamation. She shook her head. “I better not regret this. I’m sticking my neck out for you.”

“Hawke will personally thank you with a plate of cookies if you let this one go.”

Fenris perked up at the mention of the woman. She had come to sweep the slavers and their demons out alongside Fenris, though they knew nothing of each other. Hawke had every reason to say no, to refuse, and yet she didn’t. The one good thing about this cesspool of a city, and they had met purely by chance.

“Not for all the gold in the world. I’ve had her cooking,” Aveline grumbled, though her severe frown has lessened. She snorted. “Fine. Let’s get out of here.” She pinned Fenris with a stern glare. “Not one peep from you. I can’t have the guard coming down to investigate just to find a problem where I said there was none. Do you understand?”

Fenris nodded, scrunching his nose. He had no interest in drawing the eye of the guard for any reason. “Fine.”

“Yeah, all’s fine. We’re fine. Now let’s get out of here, maybe grab a pint.”

“Varric, it’s hardly midday.”

“....fine. A pint and some lunch.”

Aveline sighed and led the way down the staircase. Varric reached the first step before turning back to Fenris, a thoughtful look spreading over his face. “Why don’t you join us, Broody? You look like you could use a drink or three, maybe a game of cards. It could be the start of a delightful friendship. What do you say?”

He held his ground for a breath before sighing, shaking his head. “If I agree, will you leave me alone?”

“Probably not, but it might hold me off for a bit.”

Ugh. “Fine.” He followed after strapping his sword to his back, leaving the lantern by the door. “You’re buying.”

--

for @dadrunkwriting

#Fenris #Varric Tethras #Aveline Vallen #DA2 #Dragon Age 2 #fanfic #SoulRebel Writes #reblogs welcome and appreciated! #DA Drunk Writing Circle

[awesomenightfall]

The first part of the “DA Protags are Bad Adults Modern!AU”.

---

Work at the university had been brutal and Solona Amell wanted nothing more than to go home, rip her bra off, and sit in a bubble bath for a few hours while reading a nonsensical smutty romance novel and drinking an entire bottle of wine.

She loved academia, she really did, and the study of magic and the arcane was an important one, but if she had to listen to one more old, crusty mage-cum-lecturer with too many degrees and not enough brain cells tell her that her research on the Blight was archaic and irrelevant one more damn time she was going to flip a table and --

Her thoughts of slaughter and revenge halted as soon as she managed to open the old, rickety, door to her apartment. It was a far cry from the lavish estate she had been raised in, but it was her oasis in the chaos of Kirkwall, a small bit of independence that she was proud of, despite the leaks and the chipped paint, and the noisy neighbors who had ceiling-thumping-sex at very inconvenient hours.

As soon as Solona opened the apartment door, she was greeted to the sight of her roommates on their worn, secondhand couch. Hawke was wearing nothing but a sports bra and gym shorts and Ellana was naked from neck to waist, wearing only a thin pair of underwear. There was a quart of melting ice cream between them and a cooking show blasting from the TV. Solona could only deduce from the sweltering, unrelenting heat of the apartment and the tear tracks down Ellana’s cheeks that a) the air conditioner was still broken and b) her elven roommate was still reeling from her recent break up.

Solona sighed deeply. Her bath and the next chapter of Swords and Shields would just have to wait.

“Hawke,” Solona addressed her cousin, who was busy spoon feeding Ellana ice cream while simultaneously dabbing her cheeks with a tissue. “Didn’t you say you had a friend who could come and fix the AC?”

“Hello to you, too. And actually, it’s Ellana’s friend Dagna who said she’d come over to fix it, but she’s been holed up at work. She’ll be here soon, don’t worry so much, Sol. It’s not good for you. Remember your blood pressure,” Hawke said easily, in her Hawke-ish, charming way that almost made Solona forget that she was annoyed.

Almost.

Solona stripped off her outer shirt. If she couldn’t beat them…

She plopped down next to Ellana. “Are you alright?”

Ellana waved her hand. “Oh, fine. I’m fine. I’m tired of dwelling on my bad luck with men. Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about Hawke.”

“Always a fascinating topic of conversation,” Hawke agreed and Solona rolled her eyes.

Ellana wiped her face with the back of her hand and wiggled her eyebrows, instantly cheered up. “Fenris, you know, the elf from the building that Hawke is crazy about, passed by the apartment on the way to the basement to do his laundry and I swear, I’ve never seen Hawke run so fast!”

“I never run after a man.” Hawke plucked the spoon from Ellana’s hand, dug it into the soupy ice cream, and slurped it indecently. “But for tattoos and muscles, a girl might just power walk.”

Solona threw a couch pillow smattered with cigarette burn holes at Hawke’s head, laughing despite herself. “You’re incorrigible.”

“But you love that about me,” Hawke said with a shit-eating-grin.

She did, but there was no way she was going to admit that out loud. Hawke was loud, ridiculous, and unpredictable, but her heart was in the right place. Still, Solona would have preferred it if Hawke could settle down, just a little, instead of burning the candle at both ends all the time, but that just wasn’t Hawke’s style. Hawke with her five part time jobs (some of them not quite legal, Solona deduced, but somehow she never got arrested -- Solona suspected that Hawke’s very connected dwarf friend, Varric, had something to do with that but the rumor was unconfirmed) and endless energy and need to help people.

Solona loved her cousin but her poor life choices with partners and work and living in general really left a lot to be desired.

Ellana Lavellen, the third part of their trio, was sweet but young, and only slightly more put together than Hawke. She was a graduate student that had ventured far, far away from her clan to come to Kirkwall to study and write her dissertation on eleven history and relics.

“I think I’m going to title it: ‘How the Shem Steal Dalish History, Give It a Mediocre Andrastian Twist, and Slap Their Name on It’,” Ellana told her the first time they crossed paths in the library. “I was going to call it, ‘The Study of Shem Perverting Dalish Culture for Political Gain’, but apparently that was ‘too controversial’. Can you imagine?”

Solona liked her immediately and the rest, as they say, was history.

“You know, you can’t be sad forever over one guy ghosting you,” Hawke said to Ellana.

Ellana sniffed, affronted. “We were together for a year and then he just ups and leaves. To do ‘field research’. Except he just disappeared off the face of the planet. That’s more than just ‘ghosting’. That’s-- that’s-- a full blown haunting!”

Solona had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Apparently Hawke’s penchant for the dramatic was contagious.

“Maybe he did you a favor,” Hawke suggested. “Your friend Dorian said he dressed like a hobo, anyway.”

Ellana took another couch pillow and shoved it in Hawke’s face. “He did not! It-- it’s a style choice!”

“A bad one!”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk!”

“Stop defending him, he ditched you!”

Solona shoved herself between the two arguing roommates, hands on both of their faces to pry them apart. “Alright, you two. Break it up.”

“Yes, Mother,” Hawke said snottily, acting every bit like the rebellious teenager she once was. “All I’m saying, Ellana, is that there are plenty of fish in the sea. You’re cute with perfect tits--” Solona snorted,  “-- shut up, Sol, so let me hook you up with someone.”

Ellana’s frown softened. “... who?”

“Anyone you want. Just name them.”

“... Varric?”

“... anyone but him,” Hawke amended. “Trust me, it’s for your own good.”

Solona desperately wanted to ask if it was because, as she had long suspected, Varric was secretly Hawke’s Sugar Daddy and that was how she could afford to live life on part-time salary, but that was more than Solona ever really wanted to know about her cousin and her proclivities.

Hawke waved off Solona’s openly suspicious look. “All I’m saying is that many have tried and failed miserably. The dwarf is immovable. A fortress against venereal temptation. Ellana needs someone… easier. What about Merrill?”

“Why?” Ellana asked. “Because we’re both elves?”

“No,” Hawke corrected. “Because you’re nice and she’s nice and you can be nice together. How about it?”

“Isn’t your brother dating Merrill?” Solona asked.

“No, Carver has his thumbs up his ass and is wasting time pining away from afar. Besides, I’m not suggesting they get married,” Hawke said. “Maybe they just go on a casual date. Make out. Have sex and then report back in graphic detail.” Solona slapped Hawke on the arm. “Fine, fine. Maybe just the first two, then. Spoilsport.”

Ellana chewed on her bottom lip. “Well… it couldn’t hurt. It might be nice to go out.”

“Great! I’ll text her. You won’t regret it, Merrill is the best.”

Anytime Hawke said, You won’t regret it, the person almost immediately began to regret it, but Solona didn’t want to rain on Ellana’s parade.

“It’s disgusting in here,” Solona announced. “I can’t sit here another moment longer.”

“Dorian’s apartment complex has a pool,” Ellana suggested. “It’s not open now, but we could climb the gate and sneak in. The security guards are usually napping at this time or watching soap operas.”

“Before Captain Killjoy nixes the idea, I’m making an executive decision and we’re going,” Hawke said quickly before Solona, could in fact, nix the idea. “It’s either that or die of heatstroke. I vote pool.”

Solona unstuck herself from the couch. “Fine, but we better not get arrested. I’m lecturing tomorrow.”

“What could go wrong?” Hawke wondered aloud.

“With you?” Solona asked. “Only everything.”

#dragon age #hero of ferelden #f!hawke #inquisitor #k writes trash