#knights templar hall conversion

[hometoursandotherstuff]

We love conversions and this one in Kriebsensgatan 16A, Sweden, is a townhouse in the former 1929 building that was built for activities of The Knights Templar. Now, that's unique, and several of the original features are still intact. It has 3bds, 2ba, SEK 8,975,000 / $871,958.

Lovely original entrance hall to the unit. Note the original doors.

Inside you will find a large living room.

And, look at the pocket doors revealing a mural of the Knights Templar symbol.

Bedroom #1 has some funky art.

There's quite a large dining room.

And, a nice kitchen with an original cabinet.

Up a few stairs is a pantry.

Stairs to the 2nd & 3rd bedrooms.

The room has a lovely alcove.

The 3rd bedroom is a little smaller, but it's nice and makes a good guest room.

And, look at this- the meeting hall is still intact, with the built-in benches, and balcony.

And, at the other end is a stage with the symbol.

Here's one of the baths.

Huge light and bright basement has a kitchenette and lots of potential.

The unit also has access to a lovely gated courtyard and parking.

Some original plans.

https://legrandpropriete.se/till-salu/kriebsensgatan-16a-gb0-vpk/

#temple conversion #knights templar hall conversion #unique homes #townhouses #swedish homes #houses #house tours #home tour

[my-deer-history]

The John Laurens walking tour of London

On my recent trip to London, I took a walk through the centre of the city, retracing the steps that John Laurens would have taken while he was living and studying law there. London’s outward appearance has changed immensely over the intervening 250 years, but its underlying structure and streets are all just as they were, and a few of the historic landmarks remain.

St Mary Axe

I shall drink Tea, in St Mary Axe this afternoon, and give advice of the Bill, &ca as you desire_

John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 20 April 1775

Starting from the furthest east is the street of St Mary Axe - notable for two locations. The first is the home of the Manning family. Henry had asked William Manning to keep an eye on his sons when he left London, so John was a frequent visitor for dinner, and his brothers often stayed with the Mannings when they weren’t at school.

The other landmark on St Mary Axe is St Andrew Undershaft, the church where John and Martha got married, and where Frances was baptised.

Source

Birchin Lane

I am writing in a great hurry as you may see, in the Carolina Coffee House

John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 1 March 1775

25 Birchin Lane was the location of the Carolina Coffee House - the London meeting place, social club and administrative centre for Carolinians in London. Business and personal correspondence sent to Carolina natives living in London would usually be directed here. John spent his fair share of time here - socialising (and arguing), writing letters, and picking up or dropping off packets for posting.

Chancery Lane

how delightful is it to Sit here talking to my Son in Chancery Lane

Henry Laurens to John Laurens, 22 January 1775

Chancery Lane was - and remains - one of hubs of the legal profession in London. It leads to Lincoln’s Inn, the oldest and biggest of the four inns of court (then, as now, legal schools for the training of barristers), housed the crown rolls (records of the crown court), and was the home of many lawyers in the city. That included Charles Bicknell, the lawyer with whose family John lived for most of his time in London.

Street numbers were rarely used in the 18th century, but I think I’ve narrowed down where on the street John lived in this post here.

Middle Temple

To morrow I shall take [Harry] to the Temple Church with me, where my Bond requires me to attend

John Laurens to Henry Laurens, 5 November 1774

John was enrolled at the Middle Temple for his legal studies. To “keep term” - in other words, meet the requirements of the school and complete one of his twelve required academic terms - John had to attend a certain number of dinners at Middle Temple Hall, which dates back to Elizabethan times.

(Fun fact - Middle Temple Hall is closed to the public, but you can go there for lunch on certain days if you pre-book! Highly recommended.)

He was also required to attend church services at Temple Church, a beautiful 12th-century church built by the Knights Templar and jointly owned by the Inner and Middle Temples.

Fludyer Street and St James’s Park

these are hard lines my Son, but not too hard for us to walk on, necessity has no Law_ remember our Conversation in St James's Park

Henry Laurens to John Laurens, 8 January 1776

When Henry and his sons first arrived in London in 1771, they stayed little further west, in what was once the separate town of Westminster. The street they lived on - Fludyer Street, which ran parallel to Downing Street - no longer exists, though you can see it marked on old maps (bottom right, leading out onto St James's Park).

Fludyer Street led straight to St James’s Park, where the Laurens family frequently took walks.

Detail from Canaletto's New Horse Guards from St James’s Park (1753)

#john laurens #historical john laurens #18th century history #18th century london #american history #amrev #middle temple #temple church #chancery lane

[tendertenebrosity]

This is a scene I’d meant to put in my old OC Dragon Age fanfic. I never got to the point in the story where it went, though. I remembered it last night and decided to polish it enough to post here.

Two mornings after he’d refused to let Petyr in, Reece was shaken awake by a mailed hand.

“Ah- !”

“Peace,” the templar said. “It’s all right. Get up. Your room is being searched this morning.”

Reece jerked upright in the bed and stared around, his heart hammering.

The room he’d been given when he passed the Harrowing was small and thin-walled – most nights Reece could hear his neighbours turn and sigh in their sleep. There was just enough space for a bed that was almost too short for him, and a chest for his clothes. He also had a wooden board that he’d scavenged from a storeroom, to lay across his knees as a makeshift desk.

Reece thought it was great. Sure, he could just about touch every wall without leaving the bed, but there were walls between him and other people. Apprentices couldn’t hold conversations over his head while he tried to sleep, or jostle his elbows, or put things in among his clothing. Small as the room was, it was more privacy than he’d had in nine years.

A pair of fully armoured templars filled it almost completely.

He pulled his sheet up to his chest, pointlessly. “But - what – why –”

“Spare us the bewildered twenty questions,” the other one drawled. Reece recognised him - perhaps his name was Carl? “Teresia, just take him out.”

“Come on,” the first templar, the one who’d shaken him awake, said. Her voice wasn’t harsh, but it was firm. “Up you get.”

“I – can I dress?”

“No.”

He got up, scrubbing sleep from his eyes, and was gently steered out of the room by Teresia. She sat him down on a bench in the hallway, still in his nightshirt, and stood there beside him with her arms folded. Nobody else was in the hall at this hour; the light coming through the window was pre-dawn grey.

“What’s going on? Why are you searching my room?” He crossed his arms and shivered, tucking his bare feet and ankles under the bench. Inside his room he could hear furniture being shifted.

The shock of being awoken suddenly began to give way to a deeper, colder fear.

“For contraband,” Teresia said brusquely.

“What do you mean, contraband…”

“Illicit books. Stolen items. Evidence of blood magic,” she said. “Don’t look so worried. If you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve nothing to fear.”

Reece realised that the Fade felt distant and dull. If he had been stupid enough to reach for magic now, he wouldn’t have been able to touch it. Tiresia was keeping it away, surrounding him in a magic-dispelling bubble.

He began, quietly, to panic.

There was no contraband in his room, he told himself. He would know if there was something in there! An illicit book? Even if the previous resident had left something, there was just nowhere for it to be for that long. But…

Some day, Reece, you might regret not having a friend in me. I only ever tried to help.  

His room had been empty all day yesterday. He wasn’t in the habit of locking it when he wasn’t there - who would take his things? It would have been easy for somebody to put something under his bed or in his clothes-chest while he was in the library teaching Emmit, or at dinner…

He buried his face in his hands and began to shake.

Teresia noticed. She crouched in front of him with a clatter of metal, so her face was almost level with his. “Mage, is there something you want to tell me?” she asked.

“What? No…”

She gave him a long, thoughtful look. Her eyes were bracketed with lines, but they weren’t hard or cruel. “Are you sure? If there’s something in that room, you’d do better to tell us now than have us pull it apart and find whatever it is anyway. I can tell the knight-Lieutenant you gave it up, and he’ll be much more inclined to go easy on you.”

“No! No.”

“Then why the shakes? You’ve nothing to fear.”  

“I just – I just – nobody’s ever wanted to search my things before, I don’t understand,” he said desperately. “I haven’t done anything wrong! What did I do to make you think I have something? You must have a reason…” Petyr could have engineered this somehow, but if so what had he told them?

She stood. “Maybe. Perhaps we just like to keep mages on their toes.”

Carl appeared in the doorway. “What do you think?” he asked, showing Tiresia a handful of papers.

Reece sucked in a breath, not daring to object. Be careful, he wished he could say. The topmost paper was a drawing that Cora had done; the only one he still had. It was crumpled slightly from Carl’s grip. Please. That’s precious.

Tiresia flicked through the papers briskly.

“Look at that one,” Carl pointed out.

She flipped the paper to look at its back, found nothing and flipped it back. Held it up against the light from the window. Apparently satisfied there wasn’t any other writing there, she put it down. “It’s the Chant. Canticle of Trials. What about it?”

“Who has handwritten scripture tacked up on their walls?” Carl said, his face screwed up a little with suspicion. “That’s a little much, don’t you think?”

Reece blinked hard, wrapping his arms around himself. Both templars glanced at him thoughtfully.

“It’s mine,” Reece said in response, hearing how small and unsteady his own voice was. “It’s… my favourite stanza…” I thought nobody else would ever see it. Put it back, please.

Tiresia shrugged, handed the papers back to Carl. “Suspiciously pious isn’t something you can take to the Lieutenant, Carl,” she said dryly. “Is this all?”

Carl shrugged. “Yeah, nothing. There’s a hideyhole behind the bed, but it’s empty.”

Tiresia nodded, and gestured for Rill to get up and come back into his room. He did so, cold relief passing over him in waves. They had found nothing?

Well, of course they’d found nothing. There was nothing to find. But for a moment he’d been so afraid…

His chest stood open and empty, robes and blankets strewn across the room. The small chair was overturned and the rug pulled up to reveal the bare stone. His bed was pulled away from the wall and the mattress lay on the floor - it had been slit open and straw poked out of it.  

Carl poked a pile of bedlinens with one boot, then let the papers flutter down onto it. “Looks like you’re clean, mage. Sorry for the mess, but you’ll soon have it back to rights.”

“We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” Tiresia added. “Good day.”  

They left. Rill stood and looked around the wreckage of his room, feeling sick. He knelt and poked at the mattress – how was he supposed to fix that? He supposed he would have to get a replacement from the storerooms.

He picked up the drawing and smoothed it with shaking fingers, looking around for a flat surface to put it down on and finding nothing. He set the chair upright and sank down into it.

Petyr had only been trying to frighten him.

It was working.

#Dragon Age whump #Reece Hywell #abuse of power #mages and templars

[sanctamater]

❛ i have survived, but i have not been spared. ❜ ( DAI verse 👀 )

deathless prompts. no longer accepting.

  As the years go by, Our Lady finds herself turning further from the Prophet, from his fire and brimstone and ash to the white-washed walls of the chapel of her youth; to the serene face of Andraste, to the Maker her grandmother had told her of; full of life, full of love - full of forgiveness that she has never been able to find in this life; or any life. It feels hollow, she thinks - but she can never escape it; always rooted to one spot, always looking up to something ( someone ) bigger than her. Perhaps that is why she haunts the Skyhold Chantry so - like a shade, like a spirit; no body, no anchor to this world - walking in the same circles, saying the same things; over and over and over again - and no one listens. No one ever will. It burns her, still.   Perhaps that is why Meredith is here - perhaps that is why they are both here - never far from one another though the distance between them remains vast, unreachable. A part of her prefers it that way - another part wishes, as always, that they were closer. But Our Lady is nothing if not resolute - nothing if not devoted - and so, she remains at prayer when those familiar footfalls echo, and stop - steps she would know anywhere, through any life. Steps she wishes she did not. And for all her trying, they never did have that final conversation - blame the lyrium, blame the idol - blame everything and everyone but herself.    Often, she prays for Elizabeth; for her safekeeping, her freedom. She prays for Meredith, too - prayers she will never voice aloud, things she will never say. Sometimes, she prays for herself - and Maker, she knows how selfish she is when she asks for guidance; selfish when she rises - turns to see the former Knight-Commander there - a once formidable woman who now seems so frail - grey within the halls of Skyhold. They are both grey, she thinks - and the years have not been kind to either of them. Where she had once glimmered and shone like the morning sun, Meredith was now dull - dented; and for once, the sainted lady is grateful for the distance between them that evens the field; no longer looking up at Meredith, but at her - and though Meredith is not as she once was, Our Lady still finds looking at her is too much - perhaps it is that heavy, heavy heart of hers; immaculate in nature; bleeding, always bleeding. Meredith had stuck another blade into it, left it there - and as with anything, as with any one, Our Lady will hold her hands over the wounds in her heart, so she will not hate Meredith for it, for any of this - for anything she has done, and will do. Most days, it works.    “I do not think any of us have been spared, Knight-Commander.” How soft her voice is; how cold. It cuts clean and clear as a sword, flies straight and true as one of her arrows. It matters not that she is no longer that rank, that station. A name is an intimate thing - and if it leaves her lips, what then? What then? “What of Kirkwall?” When she thinks back upon it, she burns with such fury - it could consume her, if she lets it. How slow she had been to open her eyes, how stupid - foolish, too. She should have advocated more, should have picked a side; should have stuck close to her duty - her daughter - and kept moving. Now, as always, it comes too late - or, perhaps, it has come at the right time.   No matter how much she tries, she will never be right - they will never be right. “What of the mages? What of your templars? Of all those caught in the middle? YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF ALL IN YOUR CHARGE. What of that bloodshed, of all that death?!” How her voice raises; strains - things she had wished to say then, but had been too frightened to speak - what had happened to her convictions? What had she left at that riverside, so very long ago? Who had she buried? “What of my daughter?!” AND WHAT OF ME.    Childishly, her lip trembles; eyes wet and mutinous and red; and the sainted lady blinks her tears away, takes a breath. How unlike her. How human of her; full of hurt and hope and anger. It suits her not - gives her a hard line to her mouth that does not quite fit; hands balled into fists at her sides and the sainted lady wonders just how long has she been swallowing it back - Maker knows, that if that idol had not destroyed itself, had Meredith stayed in that state, she would still be there - behind her, head bowed, mouth shut. I have been here before. Not with her, but with him. She hates herself for it.    “No. No one has been spared.” A deep, rattling breath - pressing her lips tight together until she steadies herself; the silence long and weighted, poignant in the same way her anger had tasted like copper in her mouth. A few more steadying breaths; and her face relaxes, turns back to that same serene expression that she wears so often - that Andraste in all her stone and marble carved glory has, too. Sorrowful. It suits her a bit too much; and despite the way she values the distance between them; our lady closes the gap slowly, carefully; with small, soft strides - warily approaching as one would a wounded animal, as one would when they were unsure if it would bite.

  Much like prayer, this, too, is familiar - looking up at Meredith and they are much too close - her eyes lingering upon new, fresher scars - a delicate hand moving - she makes an aborted motion to press her hand to Meredith’s cheek, as she so often had in the past; to hold her, to brush her thumb against her scars, her skin. She thinks better of it; and her hand drops listlessly to her side. If I touch her now, it will be as if none of this has happened. Instead, she offers biting words - anger that, as always, masks her hurt. “But then again, you have always thought of yourself. It’s always been about you, hasn’t it?” 

#i wrote this to mary on a cross and i think it shows. #the chantry sister; listening to this in the bg: OH OK - #our lady of the hypocrites back at it and better than ever <3 #🕊️❝ she speaks in channels ! ( answered. ) #idolbound #🕊️❝ who is she who looks like the dawn; beautiful as the moon; bright as the sun ? ( m.s & a.c ) #🕊️❝ ( verse. ) SHE TELLS THE TALES BUT IS NEVER PART OF THEM. SHE WATCHES AND REMAINS ABOVE WHAT SHE SEES.

[cumbiazevran]

I am married to the idea that Orsino is around the same age that Malcolm Hawke would’ve been if he had lived. Or at the very least, within the same age range. We know Orsino is the youngest First Enchanter to hold the position in Kirkwall, so it’s entirely possible.

I can’t stop thinking about how Malcolm and Orsino had a very similar approach about underperforming in public so they were left alone, and while I don’t doubt it’s an approach taken by many mages in Circles, you’re going to let me have it as it makes sense that Orsino, as an elf, was more or less allowed to get away with it. The Chantry isn’t kind to elves, but the chantry also thinks elves are inferior, so if Orsino appeared as more average it didn’t matter as much. Not to mention I think Orsino was generally more reserved and less boisterous than Malcolm ever was.

You would never heard Orsino’s laugh resonating in the halls because of something Ser Carver (or another tolerable Templar, if such thing is possible) said, or him swearing during silent study time in his native accent because he dropped him. That was all Malcolm. Orsino couldn’t have said they were friends, but they shared a room in the Gallows, maybe, and when you’re united by such an experience you cannot help but to feel some camaraderie in all of it. 

Don’t get me wrong, perhaps the basis and the spark of the Orsino we knew existed before all these things happened. He was a City Elf after all, and I believe the bones remember. Yet Malcolm left first. All that remained of him was a note explaining to Orsino, the only room-mate he had that he trusted on not ratting him out, that he would not have his life used against him. Along with asking him to bury this note immediately after reading it, because he would’ve hated to get him in trouble, he made a joke at his own stake, saying that if he took all the laugh from the Gallows with him then Orsino would have to find another reason to make their fellow mages smile on his own.

Orsino has never been a class clown, nor he understands Malcolm very much in that moment, but he feels something decidedly. He doesn’t discard that Malcolm could afford this because he’s human, not an elf, but if the commotion and the rumours coming from town are anything to go by (and Ser Carver’s constant look of dread), perhaps it wasn’t so easy as Orsino bitterly thinks it was.

Yet, the First-Enchanter-To-Be has no place for bitterness or any emotion whatsoever, because the Templars feed on that, so he takes a deep breath and moves on. He knows nothing, Malcolm never said anything, and he has, absolutely, never had a conversation with him (where no else could hear them) about whether they would escape the Gallows if they could.

Then Maud died, and Orsino felt like he no longer could afford his practised neutrality, his careful measure and ever present composure. 

(Ser Carver was made an example of too, but a Templar is a Templar and all Templar, even the tolerable ones, are bastards. Some Templars did not like that he was made an example of, or the Knight-Commander’s actions, but Orsino saw none of them making a stand against Meredith. Not that Ser Carver ever said anything, but he is starting to believe actions are louder than words.

Only speaking is an action too.)

Between Maud’s “this is no life” and Malcolm’s “I will not have my life used against me”, Orsino begins confronting things he already knew: Elven Mages have it worse than Humans, but they all have it bad. He isn’t thinking about this when he pushes back, however; there is no agenda behind his actions, only what is right to him in that given moment. And what is right is pushing back and not letting his fellow mages fall into the endless pit of despair that is the Gallows and the Kirkwall Templars.

If they want to label him a trouble maker, they’re allowed to. He’s a mage, he’s an elf, they won’t be the last, let alone they have been the first.

Maybe, one day, he’ll get to be none other than Bethany Hawke’s First Enchanter. Maybe there will come a day when he will call her to his office, and say that while he will not play favourites, so she has to earn her ranks like everyone else, as long as he is the First Enchanter she will not be alone. It is  a shame that Malcolm's daughter has to return like this, because he is sure her father did not do what he did so Bethany ended in the Gallows, out of all places.

Bethany will not turn into another Maud, or so many others who died by their own hand if he has any say in it.

(And when he meets Rowan Hawke, future Champion of Kirkwall, he will confirm what he already thought from the rumours he has heard: that she is the spitting image of her father.

Maybe not all is lost in death.)

#my writing #first enchanter orsino #da2 #worldbuilding.exe #jules' orsino apologist agenda #speaking of which i do not see his boss fight. i don't wanna go off about that in this post but even if he did resort to blood magic like #that let the guy have 1. agency 2. a dollop of hope 3. charge against the templars to make way for hawke not to turn against hawke #if anders gets to hold his agency then so should orsino #dragon age meta #rowan's malcolm #malcolm hawke #rowan hawke #worldstate: what is right over what is easy

[potatowitch]

Hawke as Companion

Template by @little-lightning-lavellan

Is your OC a Companion in the Dragon Age series? What would it be like for a player to select them to join their party for quests (or romance them, perhaps? 👀)

I did originally plan on doing this for my Inquisitor but, as always, I've got Hawke brainrot instead, and I figured writing some companion interactions would be so much more interesting with her as a companion than my Lavellan. This got .... very long.

You have selected RIAN to join your party!

Race: HUMAN

Gender: FEMALE

Class: MAGE

Specialization: BLOOD MAGE

BACKGROUND

Marian Elaine Hawke, known also as “Rian”, “Chuckles”, “Champion of Kirkwall” and “Hawke, NO” was born in 9:06 Dragon to Malcolm and Leandra Hawke. Despite having to keep her father's magic a secret, she was never led to believe that magic was anything but a gift. Therefore, she spent much of her younger years experimenting to see if she could produce magic, eventually managing at age 9 to light the fireplace with a tiny fireball.

Growing up, she was attached to Malcolm at the hip - the two of them shared not only their magic but their senses of humor and general chaotic energy.

After the Hawke family fled Lothering during the Blight, Hawke joined Athenril’s smugglers to pay off her entry into Kirkwall. As soon as she met Varric at the start of Act 1, they became inseparable best friends - Hawke often cites Varric as her soulmate and the platonic love of her life. During the Deep Roads expedition, Carver became infected with the Blight, and with the help of Anders, Hawke was able to lead him to the Grey Wardens so he could join their ranks.

Over the years, she developed close relationships with most of her companions except for Aveline and Sebastian. Her friendship with Merrill eventually developed into a committed romance, and Hawke started to practice blood magic after recognising that Merrill could do so without being "evil". The two of them eventually also developed feelings for Isabela, and as such she joined their romance as well.

By Act 3, Hawke had become a staunch supporter of mage rights, a dedicated member of the Underground, and wholeheartedly supported Anders’ choice to destroy Kirkwall’s Chantry.

Following the destruction of the Chantry, Hawke and her friends fled Kirkwall, splitting up despite Hawke desperately wanting them to remain together. Isabela and Merrill chose to remain with Hawke, and the three of them traveled across the Free Marches, occasionally running into Anders and assisting him in rescuing mages from rebelling Circles. Eventually, Isabela managed to acquire a new crew, and her partners were more than happy to sail with her as she established herself once again as the Queen of the Eastern Seas.

INQUISITION

Depending on the player’s choices in Here Lies The Abyss, Hawke can be convinced to stay and help the Inquisition further instead of accompanying the remaining Wardens to Weisshaupt, becoming a full companion. She will move to sit with Varric by the fire in the main hall. Hawke will also be present in Varric’s companion cutscene where he invites the Inquisitor to play Wicked Grace.

Upon first being recruited to the Inquisition, Hawke’s specialisation is not available - when automatically leveled, she will put points primarily into the Inferno and Storm trees. Her unique specialisation, Blood Mage, only becomes available if the Inquisitor has allied with the mages at Redcliffe. At that point, Hawke will initiate a conversation with the Inquisitor about their opinions on blood magic, and if the Inquisitor states that they have no problem with it, her specialisation will open. Otherwise, she will refuse to admit her use of blood magic to the Inquisitor.

At this point, Hawke will also speak more openly about her support of Anders. She will eventually admit that they are still in contact, though she won't tell the Inquisitor anything that could give them an idea of Anders’ whereabouts.

Her specialisation is not open to the Inquisitor, however Hawke can offer to teach a mage Inquisitor "a neat trick", which will give the player the choice to replace their current Focus ability with Hawke's.

BLOOD MAGE

Upon unlocking Hawke's specialisation, she will gain a large increase to her Constitution but her mana bar will become considerably shorter, and conventional healing effects will only operate at 25% efficiency. If she is out of mana, she will automatically revert to using her health pool to power her spells instead.

Her spell tree is very similar to the Dragon Age 2 Blood Mage tree, however it does not include the Blood Slave ability - it is instead replaced with Blood Bomb, which is a variant of Walking Bomb. Instead of applying a damage over time curse to a target, Hawke channels a spell that corrupts the targets' blood from the inside until the target dies - at which point they explode, doing damage to nearby enemies. This spell continually consumes Hawke's mana and health while it is being channeled.

Her Focus ability is Major Sacrifice, a variant of the Knight-Enchanter's Resurgence. Instead of healing the party to full health and providing an ongoing healing aura, Major Sacrifice will instead heal the party to full health but take 25% of Hawke's current health, and will provide an aura of ongoing damage to nearby enemies, converting their health into health for the party.

VARRIC'S PERSONAL QUEST IN VALAMMAR

If the Inquisitor brings Hawke to Valammar, she will be suspiciously quiet throughout the quest - though she will pipe up to complain about the Darkspawn. Following the reveal that Bianca shared the location of the thaig, Hawke will be furious and will argue with her.

Upon returning to Skyhold and speaking to Varric, the cutscene will begin in the middle of a conversation between him and Hawke.

HAWKE: You deserve better, you know. VARRIC: Yeah, you've said that before. HAWKE: It bears repeating. As many times as it takes to get it through your thick head. You deserve so much better. VARRIC: *sigh* Thanks, Chuckles.

APPROVAL AND ROMANCE

Hawke is not romanceable, though she welcomes playful flirting from a female Inquisitor. She will eventually initiate a conversation where she makes sure the Inquisitor isn't expecting the flirting to go anywhere further, as she is already in a relationship.

RIAN APPROVES OF: Supporting mage freedom, open-mindedness with magic and spirits, sarcasm, humor, stealing from nobility, pranking nobility, loyalty to your friends, being nice to Varric, terrible puns.

RIAN DISAPPROVES OF: Chantry rhetoric, the Circles, Templars, Tranquility, authority, betraying your friends, ignorance, pomposity, being mean to Varric.

Hawke will not leave the Inquisition, even if her approval is at Hostile. When questioned about this, she will say:

HAWKE: Did you miss the part where Corypheus is my responsibility? I’m going to fix my fuck-up, Inquisitor. If I have to put up with you while I do it, then, well … I’ve always said the Maker has a sick sense of humor.

TRESPASSER

Following Corypheus' defeat, Hawke leaves the Inquisition to rejoin Merrill and Isabela.

Once Trespasser is started, Hawke can be found accompanying Varric and Bran to the Winter Palace.

During exploration of the Eluvians, if both Hawke and Varric are in the party, they will briefly discuss how excited Merrill would be by all this, and Hawke will say "You'd better be writing all this down, Varric."

She will approve of redeeming Solas, though she won't disapprove if the Inquisitor decides they would rather kill him.

High Approval

If Varric has chosen to give the Inquisitor an estate in Kirkwall, Hawke will pipe up during the conversation saying she's excited to be neighbors, offering to give the Inquisitor the key to her wine cellar - though she will complain that Varric has never given her control of the harbor, to which Bran will mutter "thank the Maker".

Regardless of the Inquisition's fate, Hawke will return to her lovers, occasionally keeping in touch with the Inquisitor via letters.

Low Approval

If the Inquisitor has low approval with Hawke, they will be informed that she left as soon as the Inquisitor stepped back out of the Eluvian following the final confrontation with Solas. The epilogue slides will state that her whereabouts are, once again, unknown.

COMBAT COMMENTS

Killing an enemy

And stay down!

One more for me. We’re keeping score, right?

Have at you!

How’s my hair looking? (COMBAT ENDS)

I wonder what’s in their pockets. (COMBAT ENDS)

Oh, ew. I’m not cleaning that up. (COMBAT ENDS)

Low Health

This is going badly!

Little help, maybe?

Why are none of you healers?

This hurts! This really hurts!

Low Health (Companions)

INQUISITOR: You good over there, boss?

VARRIC: Varric, that blood better not be yours!

COLE: Help the kid!

CASSANDRA: They’re swarming the Seeker!

BLACKWALL: Hang on, Beardy!

IRON BULL: Bull’s in trouble!

Fallen Companions

INQUISITOR: Shit! Trevelyan/Lavellan/Adaar/Cadash is down!

VARRIC: Don’t you dare leave me now, Varric!

COLE: Cole! No!

CASSANDRA: Seeker is down! How did they manage that?

SOLAS: Come on, Solas!

DORIAN: Help Dorian!

SERA: Awful quiet, isn’t it? Oh shit, Sera!

LOCATION COMMENTS

(first time seeing a High Dragon) *laughing* "Oh, this will be fun!" IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "Hawke, the last time you fought one of these you nearly died." "Yeah, but I didn't die. That's the important thing."

(approaching a campsite) "Well ... I've slept in worse places."

(when collecting a Shard) "Let me guess. We have to collect a stupid amount of these for a really stupid reason, and they're all going to be in really stupid, hard to reach places. *sighs* I love adventuring."

HINTERLANDS

"Have we been here before? Feels like we've been here before."

(upon unlocking the cabin in Redcliffe with the Tranquil skulls) "That's ... fucking Maker. Tranquil have always made me uncomfortable but ... they were still people. They were still... shit, I need a second."

FALLOW MIRE

"Eugh, that smell! Worse than my dog when he's eaten cheese, and that's saying something."

(upon killing Widris) "Something, something, crazy mages ... "

"Oh, walking corpses. That's nice."

STORM COAST

(upon seeing the dragon vs giant fight) *laughing* "Oh, that's brilliant!"

"Not to sound like Varric, but why are there so many bloody hills around here? My legs hurt."

EXALTED PLAINS

"Maker, I hate Orlais."

(finding Valorin's corpse) *sighs* "Might sound a little hypocritical coming from me, but ... blood magic is not for the careless."

(seeing the ruined bridge, if Varric is in the party) "Hey Varric - " "Don't you dare, Hawke." "C'mon, please?" "You are not tossing me!" "Spoilsport."

EMERALD GRAVES

"I've always thought it was beautiful how the Dalish bury their dead under a tree sprout. Like ... I don't know, maybe death doesn't have to be the end."

HISSING WASTES

"There's sand in ... places. So many places."

"Have I said I hate sand? Because I hate sand."

EMPRISE DU LION

(seeing Red Lyrium) "Maybe don't touch that. It'll do all kinds of weird shit to you."

"I'm fucking freezing. When can we go home?"

(seeing Red Lyrium giants) "What the fuck?"

(Elfsblood River rift - near the lady with titsicles) *giggles*

SHRINE OF DUMAT

"I'm getting the weirdest sense of deja vu." IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "You're not the only one."

DEEP ROADS (THE DESCENT)

"Why do I always end up back in the Deep Roads? Am I cursed?"

COMPANION COMMENTS

VARRIC: "I was worried about what would happen if I brought her here, but ... it's nice to have Hawke around again."

CASSANDRA: "I have to admit, I do admire the Champion. A woman who built herself up from nothing to defeat the Arishok ... there's a certain romance to Varric's stories about her."

SOLAS: "I've been informed that Varric also calls Hawke "Chuckles". I ... don't see how we are similar."

DORIAN: "Hawke? Oh, I like her. She's not as daft as she acts."

BLACKWALL: "The other night, I found her getting teary-eyed in the tavern over how much she misses her dog. Don't quite know what to make of that, really."

VIVIENNE: "She is a powerful mage, I'll give her that, but she's also a naive fool. No wonder Kirkwall fell to pieces around her."

IRON BULL: "She's fun. Got a lot going on in that head she doesn't talk about, though."

COLE: "Fleeing, fighting, falling. Failed father, failed mother, failed Beth and Carver too. Fire and freedom, and she knows it's right but it still feels wrong. Old wounds that never healed, sometimes she can still taste the blood in her mouth. You chose to save her. She wishes you chose differently."

SERA: "Thought she'd be scary, but she makes me laugh. Hasn't let owning a mansion get to her head, either, and have you seen those arms? She's strong."

CULLEN: "I'd ... rather not talk about her, if you don't mind. We've a less than friendly history."

JOSEPHINE: "Lady Hawke is charming, certainly, but I cannot imagine her being popular amongst her neighbours in Hightown. She throws the very concept of decorum bodily out of the window."

LELIANA: "I knew her when she lived in Lothering. She didn't seem to like the Chantry much, but she was always sweet, and her jokes made me laugh. It's a little odd to see the woman she's grown into."

TRIVIA

Malcolm also made sure he trained Hawke in using a sword. She's not very good at it, preferring instead to use her staff as a melee weapon if an enemy gets too close.

She has a mean right hook.

Her and Varric have matching tattoos on their left buttcheeks.

Despite being Ferelden and adoring her own mabari, Hawke has a preference for cats.

She's awful at singing. She sings a lot anyway.

#oc as companion #who goes to weisshaupt instead of hawke? i don't know and i don't care #rian

[ardunkothe]

Vhenan as a Companion

What's up folks I have dragon age brain rot again let's GO

(Templates used were made by dextronoms. They can be found here and here.)

Inquisitor Name: Vhenan Lavellan

Alternate Name?: Vhenan; no last name

Race, Class, & Specialization: Elf, Archer/Artificer

Varric’s Nickname for them: Lover boy (undecided)

Default Tarot Card: Two of Wands

How they are recruited: He is found in the Hinterlands, camped behind the waterfall on the Western Road; only available after Templars to the West is completed.

If recruited while the Inquisitor is in Haven, the first time talking to him (found near Varric’s campfire) instigates a cutscene wherein Varric is asking him what he hopes to gain by joining the Inquisition, personally. (Varric: "Come on, lover boy, everyone's got a personal stake in this. Me? I just want to see how this story ends...") Vhen uses the Inquisitor's approach as a distraction to end the interaction with Varric.

If recruited after the Inquisitor has moved to Skyhold, his first interaction cutscene finds him offering his help to Skyhold's new quartermaster.

If the Inquisitor has interrogated the quartermaster about his credentials, Vhen will add: "It isn't that I don't think you're qualified, I just want to help... in the only way I know how."

The Inquisitor can ask him why he’s offering aid to the quartermaster, and Vhen will admit that he was apprenticed to his clan’s craftsman. He had hoped to take their place one day.

Where they are in Skyhold: When the Inquisitor first arrives at Skyhold he is found at the base of the stairs next to the tavern. If the Inquisitor upgrades Skyhold with a training area, he is found leaning on the fence observing (if the Inquisitor does not, he is found in the farthest corner of the courtyard, past the stables).

Things they Generally Approve of: Sympathy for mages and elves; small acts of kindness (such as taking the elven widower's flowers to his wife's grave); humorous replies; attempts to avoid violence through compromise.

Things they Generally Disapprove of: Turning away any companion recruited after his own recruitment; leaving Hawke in the fade; Inquisitors that agree with the claims that they're the Maker's chosen; sentencing mages to tranquility. Attacking the ancient elves causes major disapproval.

Mages, Templars, Other?: Does not seem to have a strong stance in either direction. Moderate approval gained regardless of which side the Inquisitor picks.

If prodded prior to locking in a choice he responds with: "I'm a craftsman, not a Keeper, I don't know the first thing about magic." "Between you and me, Inquisitor, I... Nevermind." "This is a hard choice to make. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make it." “I’ll stand by whatever decision you make, Inquisitor, just make it soon…”

Friends in the Inquisition: Keeps to himself mostly, but occasionally is found in the company of Dorian in the tower, seeking discussion of a book they’ve read. A missable cutscene wherein he can be found outside Cullen’s office. When spoken to, Vhen will tell the Inquisitor he wants to talk to the knight-captain but expresses belief that Cullen probably hates him and leaves. Asks Solas periodically about his knowledge of elves and the fade. Leaves after Solas expresses interest in his interest. (If Hawke is a rogue) found on the battlements with them, shyly asking them for fighting tips. (If Hawke is not a rogue, he instead asks what the Free Marches are like.)

Once in a while Vhen will “disappear” from Skyhold. If the Inquisitor scours the castle, he will be found in the dusty library beneath the castle, where he gives only distracted responses.

Romanceable?: open to all races/gender. Flirting options available from the start, answered by flustered, dismissive responses. Continuation available as completion of side quest progresses; further availability determined by outcome of second companion quest. Implied to be potentially romanced by other characters.

Small side mission: “Helping Hunters”. Vhen requests the Inquisitor’s help in seeking out lost dalish hunters last seen in the area. (One group in the Hinterlands, one on the Storm Coast, one in Crestwood). Becomes available after Crestwood is unlocked.

Companion quest: “Things Better Left Unsaid”. Becomes available after What Pride Had Wrought, if Helping Hunters has been completed. Vhen has a personal matter he needs to discuss with the Inquisitor in private. Transitions to a cutscene in the hall outside the Inquisitor's quarters. Vhen claims that he has arranged to meet a member of another Dalish clan with news about his own, but would like the Inquisitor’s company. If the Inquisitor presses, he promises he will tell them the details only after they help. He asks them to trust him.

Should the Inquisitor refuse, he clams up and leaves, and the conversation and quest ends. Any prior flags are cleared and he is no longer available to be romanced.

If the Inquisitor was romancing Vhen, he ends the conversation by saying "this isn't going to work. I'm sorry. I… forget it."

If the Inquisitor agrees, but inquires further, Vhen gives evasive answers, again promising to tell them later.

After the quest is completed (a one-time-area visitation and cutscene where Vhen speaks with the aforementioned Dalish before exchanging coins for an unseen item), Vhen admits that this wasn't an update on his clan. He has been hiding his budding magic and has bought an amulet that he believes is going to help.

If Solas is present, he makes a noise of interest, but otherwise does not comment.

If Dorian is present, he lets out an uncomfortable laugh. “Is he serious? He’s, oh…”

If Vivienne is present, she sympathetically remarks "oh you foolish thing."

Option 1: If the Inquisitor responds sympathetically (>Be honest with me: "You don't have to hide who you really are. Least of all from me.") Vhen will promise not to keep it a secret anymore, because the Inquisitor has made him feel like his magic isn't something he should hide anymore (but expresses that he still fears it, and uncertainty that such will ever change). An option becomes available to change his class, and he is more often found in the company of one of the other mages, asking questions. If the Inquisitor was romancing him, it can now be completed.

Option 2: The Inquisitor responds neutrally (>It's your life. "I can't tell you how to live your life. Just promise you know what you're doing with it.") Vhen responds favorably. It's still a relatively new problem for him but he's confident that it'll all be fine. After expressing a fear of his magic and what it might do to him, he puts on the amulet and smiles, assuring the Inquisitor nothing will change. The amulet is equipped and his class/spec do not change. If the Inquisitor was romancing him the romance can now be completed.

Option 3: If the Inquisitor responds disapprovingly (>I don't like secrets: "Anything else I should know? This is huge. Don't lie to me anymore." Vhen will respond defensively, telling the Inquisitor he's afraid of his magic, of what it will do to him, what he could do to others. He swears it won't be a problem, and that nothing will change. The conversation ends. The amulet is equipped by default and there is no option to change his class. Any prior romance flags are cleared and he can no longer be romanced.

If the Inquisitor had begun a romance path with Vhen, it and the cutscene ends with an added remark of: "Not everything, anyway. ...I'm sorry." He will not speak to the Inquisitor again until after The Final PIece is completed. ("Not now Inquisitor... please.") He will now only be found on the battlements beside Cullen’s office or in the library.

Tarot card change

Option 1: Six of Wands (he embraces his magic/the Inquisitor responded neutrally)

Option 2: Eight of Cups (he suppresses his magic/the Inquisitor refused to help)

Option 3: Nine of Cups (Romanced)

Banter:

Cole’s reflection on their thoughts:

(general) "A frown of disapproval, not at him, no, but he feels the weight of it, heavy on his shoulders. He’ll find comfort in dusty books tonight."

(before Things Better Left Unsaid) “He holds it inside himself. His chest aches with the burden of it all. I can’t tell them. I can’t let them know. No one can know." “Cole…?” (if the Inquisitor is a mage) “They would understand. They could help you. “No one can help me…” (if the Inquisitor is not a mage) “They can’t help you if they don’t know.” “No one can know.”

(after personal quest, the Inquisitor disapproved) “It hurts to breathe. He can’t meet their eyes. He shouldn’t be here. Anywhere but here. But there’s nowhere left to go.” “Stop it.”

(after personal quest, the Inquisitor was kind) “He’s so happy he could cry. The burden is no longer his alone to carry.” “(laughing) Who needs a journal when you have Cole?”

(after personal quest, Inquisitor was neutral) "It still hurts, but it's a good hurt. It isn't a secret anymore. He's going to be okay."

(if Vhen is unromanced) “He likes the feel of the wood under his fingertips, the taut pull of a string, the twang of an arrow. He wonders what another hand over his would feel like.”

(if the Inquisitor is romancing him) “Fingers firm around his wrist. Warm breath on his cheek. A laugh in his ear. He’s never been happier.”

(if another character romances Vhen) “Fingers firm around his wrist. Warm breath on his cheek. A laugh in his ear. These moments are stolen, but he’d never give this up.”

Comment(s) on Mages:

(after fighting apostates in the Witchwood) “What were they thinking?”

(after visiting Redcliffe) “Desperate people will do desperate things... Can’t say I blame them.”

(after recruiting the Mages) “Fiona seems… I don’t know. Lonely. Do you think I should talk to her? Or do you think that would annoy her?”

(in the future that wasn't) "Inquisitor? Inquisitor! You came back for me! I don't care if you're a demon or a fake. Please. Just get me out of here."

Comment(s) on Templars:

(after being recruited) “There were Templars camped not far from me. They seemed rattled. Are all Templars like that?”

(during champions of the just) “We don’t have Templars among the Dalish… Can you still be a templar without mages to guard?”

(after recruiting the Templars) “I thought Cullen was the good sort. I think it’s actually Barris. He’s nice. He seems sad, though.”

When looking for something:

“Oh! I think I found something.”

“There’s something there…”

“Look here.”

When finding a campsite:

“Good a place as any.”

“Can we make camp here?”

“I miss the Aravels…”

When the Inquisitor Falls:

“Inquisitor!!”

“Man/woman down! Man/woman down!”

“Get up! Please get up!”

When they are low on Health:

“I don’t feel too good.”

“(swears in Elven)”

“Inquisitor, help!”

When they see a Dragon:

“Oh that’s… that’s big.”

“I don’t want to fight that. Tell me we’re not going to fight that.”

(If The Iron Bull is in the party) “(groan) We’re going to fight that, aren’t we?”

When during their small side quest:

“Now I know what you’re thinking. Those silly elves, lost in their forests…”

“We’ve got their trail. Not far now, I reckon.”

“(if the Inquisitor is an elf) Once we’re done here, Inquisitor… I was thinking we could have my friends send word to yours. You know. Just to let them know how you’re doing. Just a thought…”

“(if the Inquisitor is human) You don’t know how much this means to me that you’re helping. Thank you.”

Default saying: (greeting the Inquisitor)

(general) “Oh, hey Inquisitor. I was just thinking… Nevermind. What do you need?”

(if Qunari) “Have you and The Iron Bull compared heights yet? (if Adaar is male) Actually… nevermind.”

(if Dalish) “Do you ever get homesick?”

(if human, approval high) “You’re a lot nicer than most humans I’ve met.”

(if human, approval low) “You’re a terrible example of humans, you know…”

(if approval is very low, any race) “(irritated) What?”

(if romanced) “I was just thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you, actually.”

(if romanced) “(obvious delight) My favorite person.”

(if romanced by someone else): “...don’t even know their favorite color… huh? Hey, Inquisitor.”

Travel Banter with Canon Companions:

Dorian: You should really take me up on my offer. Vhen: I am not letting you dress me up, Dorian. Dorian: At least let me replace that ratty scarf of yours. Vhen: Ratty…? You take that back!

Solas: Are you aware of what your name means? Vhen: Huh? Solas: 'Vhenan'. It is Elven for 'heart' or 'love'. Someone must have loved you to give you such a name." Vhen: Hmm.

(If Sera is present) Vhen: Hey, Solas? Solas: Yes, Vhenan? Sera: (snickers) Solas: (pause)... I see. Sera: Blackwall owes me two silver!

(if romanced by the Inquisitor) Varric: You’re staring again. Vhen: You’re staring too if you noticed. Varric: You won’t even deny it? Vhen: (morosely) I can’t help it! He/She’s right there!

(if romanced by someone other than the inquisitor) Sera: Saw you two kissing again. Vhen: Shut up. Sera: (cackles) You shut up.

(if Vhen chose to repress his magic) Vhen: Stop it. Vivienne: Hm? Stop what? Vhen: Staring at me. Judging me. Stop it. Vivienne: (aloof) I don’t know what you’re talking about. Vhen: (inaudible grumbling)

(if Vhen chose to embrace his magic) Cole: He doesn’t hate you, you know. Vhen: You know that for sure, do you? Cole: You make him nervous. He doesn’t like things that make him nervous. Vhen: Dislike is the opposite of like, and is much closer to hate than you think.

Cassandra: Elf— Vhenan. Tell me. What were you doing alone in the Hinterlands? I thought elves travel in packs. Vhen: Clans. My clan avoids humans as much as possible. The Inquisition is made up of a lot of humans. Cassandra: And so they let you go alone. Vhen: I just want to help. Is that so wrong? Cassandra: No. It is brave.

Leaving the Inquisition: (if approval is very low, and the Inquisitor killed the ancient elves): “I put up with a lot, Inquisitor, but you’ve gone too far. (if the Inquisitor is human) I shouldn’t be surprised though. You really are just a … a shem. (if the Inquisitor is an Elf) They were our people! Centuries may separate us from them but they were still elves. How could you?! (If the Inquisitor is Qunari or a Dwarf) I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand, though.”

#inquisitor as a companion #dragon age #vhenan lavellan

[kylorengarbagedump]

Little Bird: Chapter 41

Read on AO3. Part 40 here. Part 42 here.

Summary: You need Kylo Ren to understand. He needs you to understand, too.

Words: 3900

Warnings: an attempt at emotions

Characters: Kylo Ren x Handmaid!Reader

A/N: Is this angst? Is this how you write angst? Is it angsty enough? Hahaha.

Thank you all very much for reading. Only four chapters left, and I am honestly terrified! Haha. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, I tend to like the ones where I can attempt something new. I want the emotional beats to feel correct. 

I love y'all very very much. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. 

You were awake.

Your bed was stone, a slab that poked through your flesh into the bone, forcing adjustments between tired sighs. Even though this movement exhausted you, you found it impossible to sleep.

It couldn’t have been the baby. After all, it was blueberry-sized at this stage, a time when most women didn’t even know they were pregnant. And it couldn’t have been pain, as most of it had subsided, or faded to a pleasant, ambient hum in your nerves, far more comforting than distressing. It couldn’t have been hunger, either--at least not anymore. Sneaking food from the kitchen after sunset had quelled your raging stomach.

But you still found it impossible to sleep. 

It was obvious, of course, why you couldn’t, but it was a memory you wanted to avoid processing. Johana’s tattered voice, gleaming tears, her admission--I give up, you won--played in your head like a busted cassette tape, rewinding with a sickening click every five seconds. Your Commander’s decision, his cruelty, that remained unprocessed too, a willing rejection of his apparent reckless obsession. You would not, could not consider just how deep, how desperate this obsession was, would and could not consider the urgency of its terrible course.

If you considered it too long, you would feel its twin, the ache in your blood, the silver pulse of your own mirrored need--and know its depth and its desperation as easily as you knew to breathe.

You sat up in a sigh. Beyond your porthole window, the quarter-moon was an opal shimmer over the garden, and the only stirring residents outside were crickets, grasses shifting with the whispered wind. If you were going to be awake and miserable, you could at least gaze into something other than your own empty ceiling--so you rolled out of bed with a groan, deciding bare feet and a nightgown were plenty appropriate for a time where you planned for no one else to see you.

On your tip-toes, the creak of wood could be mistaken for the settling of an old home, your fingers skimming the walls for stability while you crept down the steps and through the darkened halls. You weren’t sure what time it was, but you knew your Commander to be a man of little sleep and littler compromise--seeing him was the last thing you wanted at this moment. When you reached the back door, you held your breath, flipping the lock and easing the knob to the left, prying it open, only to be greeted with a huge black shadow.

“Jesus Christ!” You bit a scream between your teeth, stumbling back--as your vision focused, heat rushed you. It was a Knight Templar. “Um. Hello.”

“What are you doing here?” This was Ushar again--you recognized his voice from earlier--and you relaxed, slightly. Your awkward moment with him was already addressed. “You’re not permitted to leave the premises.”

Another sigh escaped you, and you crossed your arms. You would’ve felt more embarrassed to be only in your nightgown if he hadn’t already seen everything else. 

“I’m not leaving,” you replied. “I just want to be outside for a second.”

Ushar glanced into the garden, then back to you. Or at least, you thought he did. Helmet and all of that. “It’s late. The Commander will expect you to be sleeping.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t really care about that right now.” You went to push past him, and he side-stepped to follow you. “Oh, come on,” you said, “why are you even here? He’s home, he shouldn’t need you.”

“We’re on duty until his meeting with the Council tomorrow.”

You blinked. “Oh. I thought all of that was today.”

He shook his head. “Preparation. Tomorrow is execution.” A pause. “Figuratively speaking.”

Dread sank its tiny teeth into your stomach. “Or maybe literally, knowing him.”

Ushar cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “Well.”

Silence settled between you. Strange, to speak with a man who had, less than 24 hours ago, stood in a circlejerk to spatter you with sperm, and stranger still to converse casually with him about the fact that your mutual Commander’s preferred solution to any issue was to blow its brains out.

“Well.” You cleared your throat, too, as if this would ease the tension in any meaningful way. “Look. I just want to walk around the garden a little bit. You can stand and watch me the whole time.” Half-grinning, you held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh. Um. Boy Scouts?” Your shoulders sagged. More heat at your face. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the reminder that anything and everything familiar had been razed like a forest by Gilead’s flame. “They were like. A thing. Before…” 

“Never heard of them.” Ushar paused, and pivoted to the side. “Go ahead. Don’t be long.”

“Thank you.”

Pinching your lips between your teeth, you slipped outside, neglecting the stone pathway and cutting into the grass. The little blades were fuzzy at your feet, wedging between your toes, and the air cleaned your lungs, the sky a lonely galaxy beyond the hedges and the yard. Gold twinkle lightning bugs flickered between the flowers, hovered above the pond, the sole source of light outside of the sterling moon and stars. You peeked over your shoulder at your sentinel--but he was motionless, observing you in silence.

Your feet carried you past the bench into the mini-maze, catching sight of the birdfeeder, the bag of seed. The Marthas hadn’t gotten to it, yet--not that they would have had time to--and in its day and a half of neglect, the bag had toppled over, spewing seed onto the ground, the feeder abandoned in two pieces by its side. It seemed almost rude, now, to see this mess and decide it was a job for someone else. With a shrug, you strode over, heaved the bag onto its bottom and started scooping handfuls of tiny kernels, dumping them back in.

They spilled like water through your fingers, raining onto your feet and the dirt--you seemed no closer to your goal with the next scoop than you had with the one previous. Another one, and another, and still the seed scattered, palms empty before you reached the bag. Sighing, you gave up, choosing instead to grab the feeder and pop on its top. As you gathered both halves in your hands, the backdoor opened, and you froze. 

“Where is she.”

Your throat thickened. You dropped the feeder. He was here.

“She’s beyond the hedges, sir,” Ushar replied. “She just--”

Scuffing soles on stone cut him off, storming toward you--and you remained, unflinching. Even if you wanted to run, there was nowhere for you to go.

Kylo charged the corner into the maze, still dressed in black, his shirt unbuttoned low enough to expose his clavicles, which you hated to acknowledge. At the sight of you, he stalled, capturing you in his gaze, focusing on your figure, curves draped in your white nightgown, your breasts unbound, your hair wild vines over your shoulders. He swallowed, air rolling through him, attention drifting to your face. The muscle under his eye fluttered, his fists furled.

“You weren’t in your room.”

You knew hadn’t imagined it--the tremor in his voice, the quiver at his chin. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded scared.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Kylo took a single step--the distance between you seemed at once too great and too smothering, and he stopped, drawing a long breath through his nose. He stared, held it, chest rising, then released it, hands relaxing as he exhaled. His gaze slid to the hedge, tracing the woven ropes of leaves through the trimmed branches, wandering to the grass and landing there. The crickets hummed in the void. You would’ve asked why he had headed to your room if he hadn’t made the answer so plain to your eyes.

“The first time we met here,” he began, “I said I wanted to know you.”

You offered a slight shrug. “We’ve definitely become more familiar.”

“I do know you.” He glanced up. “I know that there’s a part of you that wants to stay.”

“Really.” Frowning, you shifted on your feet, ignoring the warmth at your cheeks. “You know that.”

Kylo stole a step. “Yes.” Another, and another. “I do know that.” Two more, and his long legs had brought him within arm’s length, his pupils wide in the night. “Because there’s a part of me that wants to leave.”

Oxygen escaped you, and you shook your head, averting your gaze. Crackled embers glowed in your heart; given his hesitations, his strangled frustrations, and your own inability to find resolve, this had been a part of him you’d already known. But to hear it from his mouth, given life on his lips, it was palpable. Tangible. You met his eyes again, paralyzed by their power--they were endless, brimming with emotion even you yourself had never been asked to name. 

For a second, you forgot to speak, wondering how you could snatch this moment like spun glass in the air. Then you stepped closer, and grabbed his large, strong hand.

“Then why don’t we?” you murmured. “We can go. Just be. We can forget all of this.”

Kylo fled--for only a millimeter--before steeling himself, curling his hand around yours, and bringing it up to his face. He examined your thumb--now scabbed, but still sore, and stroked it with his own. Satisfied, he wove his fingers between yours, pulled you to his chest. 

“All of this,” he said, “is under my control, now. I can keep you safe.” His other hand cupped your cheek, fingers coasting over your skin. “Make you want for nothing.”

Staring into him, into the vortex of his gaze, you tried to swallow the thickening desire to admit the only thing you did not want him to know.

“You keep saying that,” you replied, tugging his hand from your face. “But as long as I’m in Gilead, I will never want for nothing.”

His hand squeezed yours. “There’s more I need to do.”

You shook your head again. “Well, even if you could make that happen--”

“I can.”

“Even if you could.” You unwound your grip from his, stepping away. “What about everyone else?” The Resistance, the car chase, Poe’s head, Snoke’s mansion, the dress, the party, Tera Jackson, the Widows, the Wives, Johana--all dangled above your brain, a broken mobile composed of the casualties of your affair. “It’s not enough, it’s not fair to change my life when it makes everyone else suffer,” you said. “Why not just live a life where you don’t have anything you need to change?”

He raised a brow, as if he hadn’t understood the question. “Because I need to.”

You sighed. “But why?”

Kylo’s gaze broke from yours, aiming beyond you as his tongue traced his teeth in thought. A soft exhale, and his attention returned. “The world was flawed, before Gilead.”

“Gilead has only made the world more flawed.”

He grumbled. “Do you understand what happens to those without direction?” he asked. “Without order?” You were silent, waiting for him to continue--he speared you with his stare. “Chaos.” A tension in his throat. “Suffering.”

“Those without direction…” Head tilting, you searched his face. Puzzle pieces shifted close, edges locking--his rage, the graveyard, his terror, his Wife’s own words. “If the world wasn’t flawed, you wouldn’t have been abandoned,” you said. “That’s what you think.”

His eye twitched, jaw rigid. “It made sense.” Blowing air through his nose, he paced around you, fingers curling in and out of fists. “Snoke made sense. At first.”  He huffed. “But he was just as flawed.” Steady and still, you watched him, watched his thoughts race through his mind, watched while he struggled to match them with words he had never had to speak.  “Only I understand the consequences of chaos. Only I have the capability to perfect this.”

It emptied you, his hopelessness, his resignation that the only way out of his depthless hatred was to drown it in a void of control. You knew another way--knew it was nested within the words you couldn’t say.

You sighed. “You think that will fix it?” you asked, folding your arms over your chest. “You think that will make you satisfied? More whole?”

Kylo rounded, shoulders pinned back, a predatory curve to his spine. “Were you satisfied with life before Gilead?” he asked. “The loneliness. The uncertainty.” He drew closer, trapping you in his gaze. “Falling asleep empty. Waking up in agony.” Inches from you, he clutched your shoulder, turning you toward him, brushing your hair to your back. “I know your life, little bird.” His hand pinched your chin, his tone tinged with ire. “I know it because it was mine.” 

Heat flashed through your spine. “It still is your life,” you growled, swatting his wrist and backing away, “you’re still miserable. And it’s still my life too, and it will be as long as you keep me!”

“You’re miserable,” he said, following you step for step. “You are the one who said you wanted all of me.” He was chasing you, stalking you as you retreated further into the maze, eyes rimmed gold in anguish. “And now you want to leave. Like everyone else.”

Your heart fractured. “Kylo--”

“I will end the Council if I need to.” He was black-winged in the moon’s shadow, a luminous Lucifer. “I will tear out every tongue that threatens your life if it will keep you here.”

A branch caught your sleeve, and you stumbled for only a moment, chin stiff. The threat was not hollow, but it was equally not wise. In his wrath, Kylo Ren did not believe there was a fight he could lose. In your sanity, you did not believe there was even a fight to be had.

“You can't do that. You know you can't.” A curly finger of the maze tugged you into the vines--you shrugged it off. “You know you won't be able to keep me safe forever.” There was no cease to his advance, no glimmer of cessation. “Johana is right.” The words flew from your mouth in a bid to convince him. “The Council won't stand by this. There's no such thing as divorce--”

“I don’t care.”

“--there’s no such thing as living with your Handmaid, I mean, do you expect us to get married--”

“I don’t care!”

Rapt in his gaze, you stumbled again, back flush with a wall of leaves, and Kylo consumed you, a silhouette against the sky, swallowing your sight. One hand grasped your wrist, the other pressed to your cheek, his palm smooth, your skin hot at his touch. You resisted the urge to melt into it.

“I want you,” he breathed, your name a ghost on his tongue. “I need you.” His lips trembled. “You are the only thing that makes sense.”

You were trembling too, quaking as you struggled to restrain the inevitability forming in your throat. Kylo Ren had been your Commander, the architect of your suffering. And he had been the only one in over three years to stir you, save you, see you--to care if you lived or died, to truly and genuinely desire not just your mouth, but the thoughts that came with it. 

He had found you. You didn’t want to be lost again.

“I want you, too.” You nuzzled his hand, and he led you closer. “I need you, too.”

Kylo gathered you against his body, the hand at your wrist sneaking to caress your back, his fingers carding through your hair. There was no vacancy in his eyes; they were flooded, overflowing with warmth, with worship. You felt it--the thump of that silver pulse, the genesis of a clandestine reality you wanted, with every screaming cell in your body, to speak into existence--felt its weight as an echo on his tongue. His lips parted, his focus falling over your face. 

Words would damn you. So you thrust your hands in his hair and pulled him into a kiss instead. 

He enveloped you, mouth meeting yours as if it’d been years, a tender groan cresting in his chest while his grip clung to you, seeking your flesh through cloth. Humming in bliss, you sketched over his scalp with your nails, basking when he gasped and shivered at your touch, your tongue slipping past his teeth and sliding over his own. He moaned into you, pressing you to his frame, breaking off only to kiss you again, lips touching once, twice, before his full, plush mouth massaged yours and his tongue returned. There was no fury, no primal insistence--Kylo cradled you and contained you, held you like a man who was terrified to lose you, terrified to let you go.

Soft lips skimmed yours, and he stepped between your legs, pressure digging the hedges into your back. You whimpered in shock--he stopped and snatched you to his heaving chest, seeking the origin of your pain. It almost made you laugh, this protective urge, when you still bore the bruises and bumps from the previous night. Grinning, you eased away, catching his face in your hand and forcing him to meet your gaze. His eyes swam, spinning oceans, eager and alive. Your breath hitched. It left your mouth without even trying.

“I don’t want to leave you,” you said. “Leave with me.”

Kylo paused--you could almost see his mind reeling--as he stared at you. His chest fell with dejected air, and he held you closer, tighter. A strong hand returned, cupping your face again. His head offered the tiniest shake.

“It’s too late.”

Your heart fractured further. “No, it’s not.”

His hold left you, then, comfort torn like skin from your bones when he stepped back. In summer air, you froze, icy without his embrace.

“What I’ve done…” He glanced to the side, pacing away, steps taking him a slow circle while he gazed into the corners of the mini-maze. “What I’ve done cannot be undone.” Looking back to you, the knot in his throat bobbed. “Even if I wanted it.” His hands clenched, unclenched, and he approached you again. “If I leave,” he said, “it won’t be with you. I will be arrested.” The severity in his expression petrified you. “Or I will be dead.”

Perhaps, in the back of your head, you’d always known this, always known that escape was not a simple solution for a Commander, and certainly not a man like Kylo Ren. But to hear him acknowledge it too, to seal himself to his own inexorable conclusion--it decimated you.

“Oh,” you said, as it was the only sound you could make for a moment. “War crimes.”

Kylo’s head dipped in acknowledgement. “Yes.” A pause, and he turned, thoughts cast across the yard, before swiveling back to you. “To stay is the only way,” he said. “For you to be mine.” He gestured to the garden. “For this to be ours.”

You frowned. “Ours?”

His hand dove into his pocket, plucked his wallet free. Stone-faced, he flipped it open, fished into the slot and produced a folded piece of paper, presenting it to you as an answer. Cocking a brow, you pinched an edge, looking between him and the little note as you unfolded it.

One corner was swathed in smooth, swooping ink, the opposite end festering with wobbly attempts at leaved-lines. In the middle, they met, blooming into a tiny Eden--beautiful, borne from the hallowed recognition that suffocated, unspoken between your mouths.

“Kylo…” Chin quivering, you suppressed a laugh. “You think,” you said, “after all of this, what I want is,  is… to what, control this with you?”

“No.” His tone was serious. Sincere. “You want freedom. You want me.” Stepping toward you, he took your hand, dwarfing it in his own. The heat of his body choked you. “But we don't get to choose what we're owed, little bird. Destiny decides it for us.” His attention flitted to you and the drawing. “I know what roles we are meant to fulfill. This is not just mine.” His gaze bored into you, chaining you in a plea. “It’s yours.”

Kylo Ren did not want to leave. He wanted you with him. In power. In whatever capacity he decided. 

The offer was not only disappointing, it was insulting. To think you would want to stay in a land where you’d watched women hang, to remain in a nation where, without him, you could never hope to survive. No matter what route you chose, with him, you lost. There would be no agency for you in a world where you reigned standing on cadavers. And for your child--there was no purity coming home to a burial ground. 

You glanced at the drawing, mapping it to memory, imagining it in his pocket while he met with Council members, ferreted threats, worked late into the night--pictured it tucked away at his hip in the Audi, stowed somewhere safe on the Buzzard when he was with his men. And your fractured heart splintered into scarlet shards.

Meeting his eyes, you shook him free, taking the sheet in two hands. Without a blink, you shredded it in half, layered it, ripped again. You caged him in your stare, unflinching, as you turned the paper into flakes, tear by tear, and littered them across the grass. Kylo watched, carved from redwood: large and flushed and eerily still, until his gaze dropped to the ground. He was speechless--and the inevitable words burgeoned, a tangled mass in your throat again. This time, you said them.

“I hate you.” 

His eyes snapped to yours, struck black with horror--but before he could think to respond, or you could take it back, you fled, sprinting through the maze with your nightgown hiked to your knees. 

There was no sound behind you, not even the crunch of boots, and you were grateful for it, grateful as you skipped past the pond and up the stone path, as Ushar veered to the side, as you pounded the halls and up the steps to the annex. You were grateful that you hated Kylo Ren, grateful that it would not hurt when you rended him from your heart, grateful that whatever route you chose, without him, you’d win.

It was gratitude, certainly, you felt when you opened the door to your room, an empty hole and empty bed. It was gratitude, too, that flooded you when you collapsed onto the mattress with a groan, and gratitude that stung your sight, flowed past your cheeks, stained your pillowcase. Thank God, thank God you hated Kylo Ren, thank God he was so easy to hate, thank God you would not ache when you left him behind, made a home without him, or gave birth to his child. 

A tiny knock on your door. You stopped, cries arrested in your chest, as you cranked your neck to the threshold. Were it not for this timid request for permission, you would’ve ignored it in belief it was the only person you did not want to see. Clearing your throat, you straightened and hopped onto your feet, wiping your face clear--not of tears, but gratitude--while you turned the knob and cracked it open an inch.

Johana, cloaked in a frilly blue robe, stood anxious in the hall. Her face twitched with fear, her eyes stark, her mouth tight. In silence, she held out her fist, and opened her palm. 

The switchblade.

#kylo ren smut #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren #kylo trash #little bird #handmaid au #fanfiction problems #i am so sorryyyyy

[pikapeppa]

Samson/Roman Hawke: Worry

The next installment in Samson and Roman Hawke’s adventures, for my beloved @schoute! 

~9000 words; only half of the chapter is here. Read on AO3 instead.

*******************************

- ROMAN -

The Arishok’s charred body dropped to the floor with a shuddering crash. A second later, Roman hit the ground on her hands and knees.

Get up, she told herself viciously. Come on, get the fuck up. Don’t let them see you looking weak. She dragged a deep breath into her lungs, ignoring the smell of blood and burning flesh as she did, then pushed herself shakily to her feet.

A second later, Anders and Varric were beside her. Anders grasped her arm. “Hawke—” 

She pulled her arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

He held up his hands, but his expression was stern. “You’re nearly overextended. I can see it. You need—”

“Not here,” she hissed. The nobles in the great hall were whispering and staring, and Roman couldn’t tell whether they’d looked more scared when the Arishok had been holding them hostage, or right now as they gaped at the blood trickling down her arm — her own blood, which she’d used in a desperate but powerful move to stop the fucking Arishok from running her down. 

She clumsily untied the red scarf from around her wrist to mop up the blood. She hadn’t wanted to use blood magic in front of all these people. But somehow, like fucking always, she and her unfortunate group of misfits seemed to be the only people who’d made it all the way into the Viscount’s Keep to stop the Arishok, and the fucking Arishok was determined to take Isabela, and then somehow the only way to stop the Arishok from killing more people was for Roman to agree to duel him by herself. 

Isabela came over to her. “So, um—” 

Roman cut her off. “You fucked me over, you know that?”

“I know, I know,” Isabela said quickly. “But listen—”

Roman cut her off. “Don’t fucking talk to me tonight. I’ve had enough.” She tried to push past Isabela, but almost tripped over her own feet.

Varric stepped toward her. “Uh, Hawke…” 

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I just want to go home.” She braced her weight on her staff — like a weak old man, she thought angrily — and headed for the doors as quickly as her aching body would allow, but before she could reach the exit, Merrill slipped inside. 

“Meredith is coming!” she whispered. “Meredith and some Templars, and they don’t look very happy.”

Fuck, Roman thought with a fresh rush of frustration. Beside her, Anders rolled his eyes. “Great,” he drawled. “Just what every terrible situation needs. A bunch of bloody Templars.”

Varric tapped Roman’s elbow. “Hey,” he said urgently, “when they get here, let me do the talking. I’ll smooth it over.” 

Isabela wrinkled her nose. “What’s there to smooth over? Hawke killed this big horny bastard.’” She shot a distasteful look at the dead Arishok.

Fenris was the one to reply. “She used blood magic in front of Kirkwall’s elite.”

Roman glared at him. “Fenris, for once in our fucking lives, can you piss off about the blood magic?”

He narrowed his eyes, but his tone was calm. “I am simply stating a fact. One that you are aware of yourself. This doesn’t look good, Hawke.”

“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?” Roman demanded. “Let him murder my ass? That was not going to happen, I promise you.”

“That’s the spirit,” Varric said cheerfully. “Listen, I’ll take care of this, okay? Everyone just calm down and look heroic.”

Isabela snorted in amusement. “I have no idea what that looks like.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “After your sudden abscondment yesterday, that’s not surprising.”

She shot him an offended look. “Ouch. Someone stepped on some broken glass tonight.”

“You said it yourself, not me,” Fenris replied.

“Both of you shut up,” Anders hissed. “Here she comes.”

Sure enough, Meredith strode into the room with a group of bloodied Templars at her back, including Carver. “Is it over?” she demanded. 

Roman couldn’t help herself. “Yes, no thanks to you,” she said loudly. 

Isabela snorted softly, and Meredith’s expression became even stonier than usual. Varric sighed quietly before addressing her. “Knight-Captain,” he said with a casual salute. “You’ll be happy to hear that Hawke killed the Arishok.”

“Hawke?” Meredith said. Her sharp blue eyes darted to dead Arishok’s body then to Hawke’s staff, and her eyes narrowed. “A — you are an apostate?”

Roman opened her mouth to make a barbed comment, but Varric stepped on her foot. “Yep,” he said to Meredith. “An apostate took down the Arishok all by herself. She saved the city.” He looked around at the assembled nobles. “You all saw it, right? It was incredible.”

The nobles murmured and looked at each other, and one of them stepped forward. “That’s right,” he said. “Hawke killed the Arishok with magic. I saw her do it.”

The murmuring grew louder, murmurs of agreement now, and Roman watched with disgust as the nobles’ expressions became approving as they looked at her. The Arishok was a murderous bastard, but he’d been right about one thing; nobles really were a bunch of brainless pigs. 

Varric was still talking, telling Meredith a colourful recounting of the Arishok duel — loudly enough that all the nobles could hear. Beside Roman, Merrill sighed with relief. “Isn’t Varric clever?” she whispered. “Everyone looks so happy now.” 

Fenris scoffed quietly. “Most nobles are just wealthy fools who are easily entertained.”

Roman grunted. “We finally agree on something.”

“It was bound to happen eventually,” Isabela said drolly.

“Not necessarily,” Anders muttered with a resentful look at Fenris.

Anders, Fenris and Isabela fell into a quiet semi-bickering conversation while Merrill sidled over to Varric to listen, and Roman just stood there with her whole body aching, waiting dully for the moment when Varric deemed it safe for her to leave. Honestly, if she had it her way, she’d be halfway home by now.

“Roman,” Carver said quietly. 

She looked up. Carver was standing beside her with a deep frown. “Are you okay?”

“Like you give a shit,” she retorted. She waited for him to make the usual angry retort, but to Roman’s surprise, it didn’t come.

He pursed his lips, then spoke in a lower voice. “You don’t look well. Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fucking fine, okay? I’m fine,” she snapped. “Or I’ll be fine as soon as your fucking commander lets me leave this hall. It stinks like sweat and burnt meat in here.” 

Her voice was louder than she’d intended, and Meredith looked over at her. “So,” she said. “Master Tethras says you saved the city from the Qun.”

“She sure did,” Varric said. “She’s a real champion.”

Some of the nobles started clapping, and within a few seconds, the whole hall of them were applauding and calling her the Champion of Kirkwall. 

Roman ignored them and returned Meredith’s hard stare. Meredith was clearly trying to find some reason to detain her, but as they stood there staring at each other, Roman started to realize just how powerful Varric’s words had been. With a hall full of nobles cheering for her and a dead qunari chieftain on the floor, Meredith couldn’t arrest her without inciting a huge protest. 

She sauntered up to Meredith as casually as she could despite her trembling legs. When she was a mere foot away from Meredith, she paused and lifted her chin.

“You’re in my fucking way,” she said, very quietly. 

Meredith’s eyes were as cold as marble. Without breaking from Roman’s gaze, the Knight-Captain shifted slightly to the side. 

Roman smirked, then did a sarcastic half-bow to her before leaving the great hall. She breathed shallowly as she made her way to the exit, ignoring the icy heat in her muscles and the pounding of her head, gritting her teeth to keep the nausea at bay. 

She vaguely heard the others following her out of the hall to the exit, but she didn’t look at them and she didn’t speak. She pushed open the doors to the keep— 

Or at least, she tried to. But she couldn’t muster the strength to push open the solid wooden doors. 

“Fucking fuck,” she muttered, and she shoved her shoulder against the door, to no avail.

“I’ve got it,” Anders said from behind her.

She clenched her jaw and tried again to open the door herself, but Anders reached over her shoulder anyway to push it open. She stepped out into the cool nighttime air and took a breath, then promptly vomited all over the front step of the Viscount’s Keep.

“Oh shit,” Isabela lamented.

“Oh dear,” Merrill said tensely. 

Fenris grunted. “You’re nearly overextended.”

Roman shakily wiped her mouth and straightened up, ready to snap at him. Then she swayed to the side as her legs tried to give out. “Fuck—”

Varric caught her by the arm. “Yikes. Okay, come on, Hawke. You need to get home.”

She pulled her arm away from him. “Where the fuck else d’you think I’d be going?” she demanded. She made her way down the steps using her staff for a support, no longer caring how weak she looked as long as she could make it home without any of their fucking help. 

A minute later, Anders caught up to her. “I’m coming with you,” he said. “And don’t try telling me to piss off; I know you can take care of yourself, but I just need to be there in case your symptoms get worse before you’re home.”

“I can take care of myself,” she hissed. “I don’t need any fucking help!”

“Call it a doctor’s conscience, then,” Anders said calmly. “Just let me do my job, all right? And let me patch up that wound on your arm while I’m at it.”

She gave him a sour look but allowed him to heal her sliced arm, and they walked in silence for a while. But as the silence stretched between them, she started to wonder where the others had gone. Fenris and Merrill had probably gone home, but where had Varric and Isabela gone? 

At the thought of Isabela, Roman’s head felt like it was swelling with rage. Fucking Isabela, she thought. She still couldn’t believe Isabela had just taken that Tome of Koslun thing and run. Sure, she’d come back, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d run off in the first place, leaving Roman high and dry. 

She fumed about Isabela the rest of the way home — a helpful rage, really, since it distracted Roman from the fact that her whole body felt like it was aching and burning and freezing at the same time. By the time she and Anders were within sight of her mansion, she was doing everything in her power to focus on her anger and not on the fact that her feet were dragging as she walked. 

Anders sighed. “Hawke, just let me carry you the rest of the way. It’s not that far—”

“No,” she snapped. “I said fucking no. I don’t need your help.” Then she tripped over her staff. 

She dropped her staff and caught herself on her hands, sending a bone-rattling ache from her palms up to her shoulders. Anders sighed loudly and reached for her, but she twisted her elbow from his hand. 

“Stop trying to coddle me,” she yelled. “Stop trying to take care of me. I don’t need taking care of, okay? Just stop it!” 

Anders plopped down beside her with a scowl. “You’re a pain in the ass. You’re aware of that, right?” 

“It takes one to know one,” she said acidly.

Anders gave her a chiding look, and she glared at him before looking away. For a long moment, they were silent as Roman tried to gather the strength to stand up again. 

She stared fixedly at the door of her mansion, which was now only about a hundred paces away. She just needed to get up onto her feet and walk a hundred more paces. Just a hundred more steps…  

She breathed through the nausea and the chills and stared stubbornly at the door. Then Anders spoke in a quiet voice. “I told the others not to follow you, by the way. Varric and Isabela especially. They wanted to come to keep an eye on you, but I told them to go do some good elsewhere.”

Roman shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care.” It was good that the others weren’t here. It was humiliating enough for them to see her vomiting on the steps of the Viscount’s Keep like an amateur drunk. Having them stare at her while she was sick in her own house would be even worse, so it was for the best that they weren’t here.

Anders nodded, then stood up. “All right. Ready for the home stretch?”

She ignored his outstretched hand and used her staff to heft herself onto her feet. A couple of torturous minutes later, she was placing her palm on the front door of the mansion and muttering a spell.

“Hey,” Anders said sharply. “Hawke, don’t do that—”

It was too late. The spell had already activated the magic lock embedded in the door, and Roman realized too late that using magic to unlock the door was a mistake. 

The door opened, and Roman collapsed into a heap in the foyer. 

She heard Orana and Bodahn exclaimining in dismay, and Anders tsked as he stepped over her and shut the door behind them. “Maker’s mercy, Hawke. Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t think about it,” she mumbled. And truly, she hadn’t. The front door of the mansion had a regular lock and key, of course, but she’d long grown used to using the magic lock she’d installed for nights when she was too drunk or tired — or both — to get out her keys after a night at the Hanged Man. 

“Well, it might have put you over the tipping point,” Anders scolded. “You can’t use any more magic tonight, or you could go into shock.” 

Roman glared blearily at him, but before she could retort, she heard an anxious bark. A second later, Monty was butting her shoulder with his nose. 

He whined worriedly and pawed at her. With a titanic effort, she reached up and hooked her arm around the mabari’s neck. “I know,” she muttered. “I know, I look like shit…” She trailed off and narrowed her eyes at the people in the room.

Bodahn and Sandal were crouched beside her while Anders hovered over her. Orana was standing in the doorway wringing her hands and looking scared, and Monty’s muscular bulk was pressed into her side. But there was one other person she’d been expecting to find here. 

Samson, she thought. Where the fuck was Samson? He’d been coming over here almost every night for the past couple of weeks. She would have thought he’d be here by now.

An icy feeling started to fill her chest. Was he in Lowtown still? With the fighting and the qunari and everything being on fire? If he’d gotten himself stuck in Lowtown during the qunari attack, or if he was injured somewhere…

Her heart stopped at the thought. That fucking dumbass, she thought furiously. She took a deep breath, then started pushing herself upright. 

Come on, she scolded herself. Get up right now. She tried to force herself to her feet, but by the time she was sitting upright, her head was spinning so much that she thought she might be sick again. 

Bodahn patted her shoulder. “Come on now, Miz Hawke, let’s get you off to bed then.” 

Don’t touch me, she thought, but she didn’t have the energy to say it. Monty whimpered and nudged her arm, but she ignored him and used his furry shoulder to try and get her feet beneath herself.

“Hang on,” Anders said sharply. “What are you doing?”

“An Orlesian waltz,” Roman gritted out. “What’s it fucking look like?” She tried to stand, but she couldn’t get her aching legs to move, especially not with her head spinning like this.

She closed her eyes to try and stop the spinning. Then Anders spoke to her in a quiet tone. “Where are you trying to go?” he asked. 

She took a deep breath to quell her nausea. “To Lowtown,” she mumbled.

“There’s no point,” Anders said. “The Hanged Man is a wreck.”

Very fucking funny, she thought sourly. She took another deep breath, then opened her eyes to glare at him. “I’m not going to the Hanged fucking Man,” she told him. 

His tiny smile faded to seriousness. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re a spell away from going into shock.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then tried again to get her feet under herself, but Anders placed one hand on her shoulder to keep her down.

She pushed his hand away with way more effort than such a simple act should have taken. “Get out of my way, Anders,” she snarled.

“Make me,” he said. 

She glared venomously at him. How dare he look and sound so calm?

He gave her a look that was both knowing and obnoxiously sympathetic. “Come on, make me,” he said. “If you can make get out of your way, I will.” 

She gave him a hard look. He was right, and she hated it. She was well-attuned to her own mana, and she knew that if she even tried to light a candle using magic right now, she’d pass out and run a risk of going into shock.

“Fuck,” she hissed, and she pounded her fist feebly on the ground. “Fuck!”

Anders crouched beside her. “Hawke, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she snapped, furious at Samson for not fucking being here. He should have been here. He was supposed to be here in this house where he could stay safe. That was the whole point of him sleeping here, after all: somewhere safe to sleep where he wouldn’t get kicked and spat on. What was the point of having a safe place to sleep if he didn’t fucking use it? If he just ended up staying in Lowtown instead and maybe getting injured, or even killed— 

No, she told herself viciously. Don’t even fucking think it. Samson’s like a cockroach. He’s a survivor. He’s fucking fine. He just got caught up somewhere.

And that was why Roman had to go to Lowtown. He might need help getting out a sticky spot or something, the stupid dumbass. 

Anders gave her a skeptical look. “Clearly something is wrong. Tell me what it is. Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t want your help!” she yelled. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want your help. I’m fine. I’m not the one to be worrying about.”

“So there’s someone else you’re…” Anders trailed off, and his frown slackened into a look of understanding. “You’re worried about Samson, aren’t you?”

Fuck, shit, the backs of her eyes were pricking. “Shut up!” she barked. “It’s none of your business!”

“I’ll go look for him,” Anders said loudly. 

Roman froze, and Anders went on in a soothing tone. “I was headed back in that direction anyway to help with the casualties,” he said. “I’ll look around for Samson while I’m there. After I make sure you’re not going to do anything stupid like leave the house, I mean.”

“We’ll make she stays right here, Master Anders,” Bodahn said firmly. 

Roman glared at him, but his mustachioed face was resolute. Then Monty let out a determined little ‘woof’ and sat in her lap.

She grunted — the mabari weighed as much as her — and Anders nodded in satisfaction and stood up. “All right. I’ll be going, then. Hawke, I mean it: stay here and rest up. Eat something if you can stomach it—”

“I know, okay?” she snapped. “I know. I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Anders retorted.

She glared at him and tried fruitlessly to shove Monty’s muscular body off of her legs, and Anders smirked. “All right, off I go,” he said. He turned and headed for the door.

Roman gritted her teeth, then called out to him. “Anders.”

He turned back and raised his eyebrows, and Roman sighed. “Thanks, okay? Maker’s balls.”

He gave her a faint smile. “You’ll pay me back someday, I’m sure.” A moment later, he was gone. 

Roman sighed, then leaned her forehead against Monty’s shoulder. Bloody fucking balls, she was exhausted. She hadn’t been this tired since she’d fought that ogre a few years back. The ogre that killed Bethany—

No, shut the fuck up, she told herself, but it was too late; now she was thinking about Bethany’s glassy dead eyes, and her mother’s glassy dead eyes and her father’s waxy dead skin — almost her entire family, the whole family except herself and Carver: the people she hadn’t been able to save and who she should have been taking care of, and if Samson got added to that list—

Fuck it, she could feel her face crumpling. She buried her face in Monty’s fur and bit the inside of her cheek until she could taste blood. 

Monty whined softly, and Bodahn patted her shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Miz Hawke,” he said soothingly. “Let’s get you something to eat, and everything will be better then.”

Sandal patted her head. “Enchantment,” he said kindly.

Roman ignored them both and breathed in the woodsy smell of Monty’s fur. She listened as Bodahn spoke softly to Orana, assuring her that he’d seen far scarier battles during the Fifth Blight and encouraging her to go clean up the smashed window on the second floor. 

Her legs were going numb from Monty’s weight. “Get off,” she mumbled. “I won’t leave the house, I swear.”

Monty finally shifted off of her legs, and Roman sighed in relief. Then, painstakingly, she started crawling toward the flickering fire in the main room’s hearth. 

She was so cold, and her entire body felt like she’d been running too hard for too long. If she could get warm in front of the fire, she’d feel stronger, and she’d be able to go to Lowtown herself. 

Fucking Samson, she thought. If something had happened to him, she was going to be really fucking pissed.

It was the last thought she had before she passed out.

Read the rest on AO3, from Samson’s POV.

#samson #raleigh samson #samson/hawke #samson x hawke #romanson #pikapeppa writes #a crew cameo! #fenris #isabela #anders #merrill #varric tethras

[aricazorel]

A Dragon Age Inquisition WIP:

This is from a future chapter of Anchor: Ripples featuring Cullen Rutherford and Anyssa McBride after the defeat of Corypheus.

Cassandra let out another disgusted noise which quickly changed into a menacing growl. “I will not have this discussion with you since there is nothing to discuss. The Knight-Captain and I are simply…friends. We exchange letters and enjoy each other’s company when our duties allow.”

As Anyssa followed Cullen down the steps, he threw over his shoulder, “Rylen will be back at Skyhold before Satinalia. His assignment at Griffon Wing Keep is nearly over.”

Anyssa waved goodbye to their friend as she caught the small grin pulling at the Seeker’s lips, her hands playing with a folded piece of parchment. Apparently Cassandra already knew of the letter and had read it. Maybe it had been what had inspired her to lend her copies of Swords and Shields to the Earth woman.

As the two made their way through the blacksmith’s forge to walk the narrow hallways back towards Anyssa’s quarters, the Commander chuckled, “Cassandra hasn’t been able to take her eyes off Rylen since they met in Kirkwall. It is good to see them continue to keep in touch.”

“She couldn’t keep her eyes off him? Really? Cassandra has a crush on Rylen?” Anyssa asked as they took a shorter route through some halls used by staff and servants.

“A crush?” Cullen asked in confusion as he placed a hand at the small of her back to guide her passed a messenger.

She nodded. “I supposed it’s like taking a shine to someone or maybe more like being sweet on them? I think that is an appropriate comparison.”

“Ah,” the former Templar said with a grin. “I would think it was much like how I might have acted when you first came to us.”

“The way you acted?” she asked in surprise as she looked up into sincere golden brown eyes.

He nodded. “I apparently mooned over you from the beginning according to—well, anyone you may ask.”

“Cullen—”

“I couldn’t take my eyes off of you, but we’d only just met,” he confessed as he drew her closer to his side. “You were still incredibly vulnerable and I was not sure…I did not understand what I felt for you or why I felt so strongly after just meeting.”

Anyssa bit her lip as she tilted her head. They were still shy concerning certain areas of conversation. How they felt about each other early on was one of those areas. For him to admit she had caught his attention so early surprised her. It only showed her further how much restraint he was capable of in not acting on his feelings. He had been there for her regardless the whole time, never pressuring her to do more than she was ready to do.

“You said after the avalanche that you remembered why you wanted to protect, that you wanted to protect me,” she murmured as they paused their journey down the corridor.

He took her chin in hand and kissed her forehead. “I came so very close to losing you…I had never let myself care about anyone enough since leaving Ferelden when that was even an option…Before you I had never had anyone to lose…and now…”

“I’m right here,” she said softly as she placed a hand over his heart, thankful he was without armor for once.

“And so you are,” he agreed with an adoring smile.

#dragon age #cullen rutherford #anyssa mcbride #ripples #cullen x original character #read on ao3 #wip whenever

[darlingrutherford]

Back in October, I received an ask about Lana and Alistair sharing Cullen, which prompted me to think about what circumstances would have to happen in order for that to work in my DA canon. I started thinking about it deeply, which has turned into a lot of posts and, in November, I started working on the story version of how that would play out (or, rather, what would spark that first spicy encounter between Lana and Cullen, which could make way for more spicy encounters). I hit a rather big writer’s block on it (like most of my writing, thanks CFS) and was stuck writing a line here or there every week or so, but all this talk recently with @jellysharkbat​ about Cullanistair sparked something in my brain and I finally FINISHED IT. 

This ended up being way longer than I had originally planned lmao. So, I’m uploading to Ao3 as well if you’d rather read on there since they format a bit better than Tumblr. Enjoy!!

Healing | Cross-posted on Ao3 | Alistair Theirin/Lana Surana/Cullen Rutherford | DA:I | Explicit - trauma, PTSD, referenced non-con, sex | 18+ only, please!

     “You look exhausted.” 

The words flowed from her tongue easily enough. The past few months that she and Alistair had been at Skyhold putting together the pieces for the cure had found her and Cullen becoming even more comfortable around one another than back when she was a mage at Kinloch. As such, Lana hadn’t been expecting the almost put off glance from Cullen as his eyebrow quirked at her accusation, and her eyes widened as she quickly followed up her comment, silently wishing she could suck the words back in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean - It’s just, you seemed like you were almost falling asleep there for a moment.”

Cullen sighed as his expression relaxed in understanding. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes returning to the chess board in front of them before his hand quickly dragged against his face in an attempt to wake up.

“My apologies,” he said. He leaned forward, moving one of his templars on the board to take her pawn. “I have not been sleeping well these past few nights.” 

“Is it the withdrawals still?” Lana asked. She kept her voice down when she asked the question, knowing full well that Cullen still had yet to make it known to many that his withdrawals were apt to keep him up at night. The corner of Cullen’s mouth quirked in a short lived smile as Lana pondered her move. 

“Those have not been as frequent as they once were, thankfully.” He paused as he contemplated his next words, the silence between them filled by the sound of crows as they flew above to Leliana’s tower. When he finally spoke, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wake up more often, because of the memories.”

Lana nodded in silent understanding. She knew well what Cullen was referring to: of Kinloch, of the torture he had endured for days before she, Alistair, and their friends had rescued him and the few left alive by Uldred and the other blood mages who had taken over the Circle Tower. He had uncomfortably explained it to her weeks after she and Alistair had arrived at Skyhold together months ago, something he couldn’t have avoided when the initial sight of Lana had brought all those memories screaming back to him in his waking hours. Cullen had forced himself to make time for her, to help his mind realize the difference between her and the memory of the demon who used her image to torture him so many long years ago, but also for her. Lana’s guilt when he had eagerly left the room the first time had been clear as day, and Cullen knew she had no need to harbor it. Lana had saved his life, had protected the others he had so quickly wanted to condemn in his hysteria. She was not the same as the nightmares he so frequently experienced in his sleep. So they had spent time together ever since, talking through the past and making way towards the supportive friendship that had quickly grown between the two of them. 

“I still have nightmares from my childhood. Vivid ones, of the night my mother died.” Lana leaned forward, moving one of her rooks before sitting back. Her hand came up to tug at the end of her long braid, fingers pulling at the loose copper strands. “I used to have them every night, back when I was first taken to the templars. I went days without sleeping once, hoping that if I went long enough they’d never return.”

“I remember you being caught once after curfew, sitting in the hall,” Cullen said. A faint smile grew on his face as he looked at Lana when a laugh escaped her at the memory. “Knight-Commander Gregoir threatened to cut off your library access because of it, since you spent so many hours there, but First Enchanter Irving talked him out of it.”

“The only time I ever got caught,” she laughed. “The apprentices who slept near me would chastise me until I’d leave to calm down after one of them. I was too loud, apparently. They weren’t nightly by then, but they did occur every week at the least. They were still awful when I first left Kinloch for the Wardens. I’m grateful they’re not as frequent now. A couple times a month, perhaps.”

“What helped?” He wasn’t looking at the board at this point. His eyes were focused on Lana, watching her as she stared off at a nearby shrub as if it held all the answers in the world. 

“Time,” she finally said after a brief pause. “Time, and a lot of help. I blamed myself for my mother’s death. If I hadn’t come into my magic, she may still be… Well, but I know now that it wasn’t my fault. It took a long time for me to realize that, and I couldn’t have done it alone. That, and…”

Cullen waited for a response that didn’t come. Lana had closed her mouth, her cheeks turning pink. Cullen tilted his head, curiosity on his face.

“And… What?” He casually asked. 

“Well… I…. Had a trigger, for the memories when awake… Kind of like how they came back for you suddenly when you first saw me arrive. The nightmares were mostly in my sleep, but also, whenever I used magic… It was like I could hear her again in my head, screaming. The nightmares got worse the more darkspawn we came across, the more I had to fight. I hated my magic and what it represented.”

“I assume you no longer loathe it, if your dreams have calmed so much?” Cullen asked. Lana nodded her head quietly. She chewed on her lower lip as she returned her gaze to the board in front of them. Taking his cue, Cullen moved his templar once more. Truth be told, he was more focused on their conversation at that point than the game between them. “How did you accomplish that?”

“We… Alistair figured, if I used my magic and something good came out of it, that my reaction may change. I always used magic out of self defense, to kill darkspawn and such. He suggested that using magic for another person who would have a good reaction to it, that I would think of that instead of my mother by association. He’s a smart man. It definitely worked, the more we tried it.”

“That is fortunate that you had a way to disassociate from those memories,” Cullen said. “Healing magic can be very helpful, especially for those who fight darkspawn so often, I would assume.”

“It, well… Wasn’t all that we did.”

“I can’t imagine there are many other kinds of magic that wouldn’t be harmful to the recipient?” Cullen raised his gaze to look at Lana, noticing the pink that had spread to her ears as she cleared her throat.

“Alistair is… very receptive to it, if, um… You know, it’s controlled….”

“I see.” Cullen’s face had gone red the moment he realized what she meant. The two of them averted their gazes from the other, both intensely staring at the chess board as if their game had suddenly become just that more serious. They went through a few exchanged moves in silence, waiting for the awkwardness to tide over - as if it ever could - before Lana spoke again.

“Do you think this has helped you at all? Us, spending time like this together.”

“I haven’t had any feelings of those memories when I am around you in quite a while, so I would say, yes, it has helped considerably,” Cullen said. Lana seemed to visibly relax at his words as a warm smile grew on her face. 

“Is there anything else I could do to help redirect those memories?”

Cullen watched her as she moved her templar, taking his. The redness was returning to his face rapidly, well aware that she had no idea of the gritty details of the torture that involved her likeness. As Lana looked up and saw the almost shocked expression mixed with color on his face, her eyes widened again.

“Maker, I’m sorry, Cullen, I didn’t mean to make you think about it,” she said quickly in a mumble. “Do you want me to leave?”

“What? N - No, I… It’s, um…”

“I just, I know you said that a demon took the form of me. I don’t know what was said, what was done… Sometimes playing out a memory and changing the outcome, we’ve found it really helps me - Andraste silence me, I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?” 

Cullen swallowed, forcing his eyes back to the board as he tried to formulate what to say. Maker, what could he say in a situation like this? Cullen’s boyish crush on the young, red-headed circle mage was a memory long since passed. Of course she was still beautiful - more so now, if it was even possible - but he had moved on... Hadn’t he? Besides, she was with Warden Alistair, and quite happily by the looks of it. But still, for her to be suggesting without knowing what she was suggesting…

“It’s… It’s not that simple, unfortunately,” he stammered out.

“Are you afraid of what might happen? That I’ll hurt you?”

“What? No, I’m - I’m not afraid of you, it’s… Maker’s breath, I was tempted, tortured by your likeness, Lana. Touches, and - and, visions of so… so much more… You have no idea what you… what you’re offering, or how I will… how I would... ”

Their chess game was all but forgotten at this point. Cullen’s breathing had become heavy, his grip on the armrests of his chair tight. He had turned his gaze sharply to the side, staring at the stone wall beside them as he tried to hold back the emotions that threatened to break through his usually strong resolve. Lana sat there quietly across from him, sadness filling her as she watched Cullen all but break in front of her, like a teacup slowly hitting the hard ground. Minutes went by and, once Cullen had allowed a few heavy breaths to sigh from him and the color had calmed in his cheeks, Lana finally spoke.

“What if we tried?” She asked. Cullen looked at her incredulously, and she smiled softly. “Nothing has to happen. A completely safe environment. We wouldn’t do anything more than you felt comfortable doing. You would be in control this time. No demons.”

“What about Alistair?” Cullen asked quietly, the question surprising himself. Maker, but was he actually considering this? Lana’s laughter surprised him even further.

“Alistair won’t mind. He’ll probably encourage it, once I explain. He should be there, too. So you have someone else reassuring you who doesn’t embody the face of your memories.”

“I… I’m not sure if… You actually think it would help?” Maker help him, he was considering it.

“It helped me a lot.” Lana nodded. “It wouldn't hurt to try, right?”

“I don’t… think you realize just how… How far some of it went.” Cullen’s throat had gone dry, his voice a bit raspy.

“Alistair enjoys sharing me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Lana said. She placed her closed hand gently against her lips, laughing lightly at the look that spread on Cullen’s face. “Believe me, he enjoys it. He often joins in. Although, obviously, he doesn’t have to. This would be about you, Cullen. About helping you. If reliving all that without the bad helps you sleep better at night, I’d be happy to do it. Just think about it. No pressure.”

      No pressure. The words had left her so simply, so unironically, as if this wouldn’t be one of the more difficult things for Cullen to consider. It would sound perfect on paper, he was sure: taking a moment of trauma and reliving it with the ability to strike out what had gone wrong. Of course, he couldn’t strike it all out. There would always be the memories he couldn’t rewrite: of his friends, murdered in front of him after hours of torture; of the mages who trapped him and cut him before sending a demon to play with his mind. But she was there, in Skyhold - the mage he had secretly pined for all those years ago. The very person whose visage had been used to torment him again, and again, as they played her in his mind the way he had always wanted her back then: touching him, kissing him, just as he had imagined it might be, only for her to transform into the demon once more before they tortured him some more. If he had a chance to rewrite even just one part of it… After this long of trying to run from it all, he owed it to himself to try. After all the guilt she had felt since the moment she had rescued him only for him to look at her as if she had been the one to do it, he owed it to her.

“I’d say you won’t even know I’m here, but… I think we all know that would be a lie,” Alistair chuckled. 

The three of them sat in a small room, the one Alistair and Lana had been staying in since they had arrived three months ago. Lana had suggested Cullen pick the location once he had agreed to their meeting, wanting him to feel safe wherever they were - one more way for him to be in control of the setting. Of course Cullen had his own room, but the hole in the roof and the possibility of interruptions was much too high. At least Lana would be comfortable in her own room, he had told himself. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Lana sighed with a smile. She wasn’t wearing her usual blue armor that day. She sat at the edge of the bed, a tunic much too large for her hanging to her knees and breeches covering her legs. Alistair had gone without much of his armor as well, lounging in a comfy chair near the window and looking quite relaxed about the whole situation. Cullen felt a mess inside and, after the way he had blunderingly discarded his armor as he realized he was much too overdressed between the other two, he was quite sure his anxiousness was apparent as he sat in a chair near the small desk at the wall. 

“I’m teasing, of course,” Alistair said with a smile. “But, not really, at the same time. I’m here for moral support. I know things like this aren’t always easy. It wasn’t difficult for me to redirect Lana when her memories became triggered early on, but, then, I wasn’t the focus of that memory. It’ll seem awkward in the beginning, I’m sure, seeing me in the corner, watching you canoodle with my wife -”

“Alistair…”

“What? You can’t expect me not to.” Alistair grinned at Lana as she rolled her eyes at him. “What I was trying to say is: I’m not going to deck you off of her at any point, unless you’re hurting her, of course. We’re all adults. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. Anyway, it’ll get less awkward, and we have all the time in the world. So, chop chop, get at it, have fun you two.”

“Maker’s breath.” Cullen groaned as he buried his face in his hands. 

“Ignore him,” Lana said lightly. Cullen looked up as he felt her hands on his, pulling gently as she uncovered his face. She wasn’t much taller than him in that moment, even with him sitting and slouching the way he was. It had been one of the first things he had ever noticed about her, how easy she would have been to hold in his arms. “Focus on me. Now, tell me… How did the demon tempt you with me?”

“I….” Cullen trailed off. He tried his best to keep his eyes on her, but he steadily found it more and more difficult as the memories threatened to return to him.

“I know it’s hard to talk about,” Lana said after a moment of silence. “Maybe start with the first thing?”

“You… I mean, it… When the deception began, the vision… I thought I had awoken in the tower by myself. I had almost thought they left, and then… I saw you. I mean… Not you, but…”

“Take your time, Cullen, it's all right.”

“I don’t want you to… To feel like you have to do this.”

“I wouldn’t have offered this to just anyone, Cullen. You and I have a connection that is unfortunate in one large aspect, and that’s Uldred. Let’s remove him from the equation.”

Cullen took a deep breath and nodded before continuing. 

“You crouched next to me on the floor. I tried to warn you of what had happened, but you told me all was well. That we were alone. It had all been some awful dream. You touched my face…”

Cullen froze as Lana touched his cheek. First her fingertips, gentle and slightly cool to the touch. Then they slid to hold him, the calluses on her hand from years of wielding her staff rubbing softly as they went. Lana rested her hand there, giving Cullen a small and encouraging smile.

“How are you doing?” She asked softly. Cullen's eyes flicked towards Alistair, almost expecting him to become uncomfortable with the situation at any moment, only to find the man lounging sideways in his chair with his long legs hanging over the side. 

“F - Fine. I'm, ah, fine.” Cullen waited until Lana gave him a small nod, his cue to continue. He cleared his throat, giving himself courage to continue as he focused his gaze on her. “I tried to tell you again that we should go, but you… You were persistent. You told me that you - you knew, about my thoughts… My… My desires…”

“Did you desire me?” Lana asked sweetly. Color rushed to Cullen's face as she brought her legs to either side of his lap, settling softly onto him. Her other hand met the opposite side of his face to mirror the one that already cupped his cheek, and slowly her hands slid back to curl gently in his hair. 

“I - I did, at the time.” The words were raspy as they left his throat. His eyes widened slightly as he felt his cock twitch once against his breeches, against her. A lilting laugh left her throat as she smiled.

“At the time?” She teased. 

“He'd have had to be mad not to be,” Alistair commented casually from the corner. Cullen nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. Maker, he had already forgotten that Alistair was there. Lana's hand dropped to Cullen's chin, gently redirecting his gaze towards her.

“What happened next, Cullen?”

“You… It...”

“Did it kiss you?”

“I… Yes,” he choked. Cullen's heart pounded in his chest as time slowed down for him. Slowly, steadily, Lana began leaning towards him, her eyes gradually closing as her lips neared his. And then, they met, and he froze. 

“Cullen? Cullen?”

Cullen blinked, finding Lana still on his lap but staring at him at an arm's length. There was a hint of concern in her eyes, and as his gaze slowly moved towards Alistair he saw the same caring, concerned look on the man's face. As Cullen began moving again Lana visibly relaxed as her warm smile returned to her face.

“What happened just now? Where did you go?” 

“It was… Almost just as I recalled,” he breathed. Maker, but this was more difficult than he had thought it would be. His hands were shaking, and he gripped the arms of the chair to steady them. He couldn't even recall her ending the kiss, seemingly having lost that time in his mind. 

“What was different, though?” Alistair piped in.

“What?” Cullen turned his head to look at Alistair. The man was still sitting with his legs over the side of the chair, however now he was propped up more proper. 

“Before, when it happened. Did it feel like her kiss did? Could you feel the callus on her lower lip from her chewing it too much? Were the kisses before rough and forcing, or soft and sweet?”

“Ah, m - more rough, I… Looking back on it, perhaps it was trying too hard to convince me.”

“So focus on her, then. Kiss her again, but this time count all the differences. Starting with that lovely callus of hers.”

Cullen mentally prepared himself as Lana gently ran her fingers through his hair. Her touch was kind, soothing, not at all what he had felt back in Kinloch. She trailed her fingers over his cheek, tracing his features like a lover memorizing their partner's face. He watched her eyes, her gentle smile as she followed her fingers, and his body relaxed under her touch. Her fingers trailed over the scar above his lip, following it to his lips themselves. That was when her eyes met his, and for a split second a memory of those same blue eyes flashed in his mind, only younger than the ones in front of him now, smiling up at him as they stood talking about the Harrowing she had just completed with ease, and his heart skipped a beat.

“This is real this time, this isn’t a dream,” she whispered. “You're a templar no longer, and we are not in Kinloch. Kiss me.”

Cullen's lips were pulled to hers as if by some invisible force. His hands rested at the small of her back, gripping lightly as they kissed. He followed Alistair's instruction, focusing on every little difference. He found the callus Alistair had mentioned, right at the middle of her lower lip, born from years of nervous habits, something completely missing from his memory. Her kisses were soft, gentle, as kind as her fingers that snaked through his hair once more to caress him - a stark contrast to the gripping, needing pulls from his nightmares. She smelled of lavender and vetiver, of ink and the pages of very old books. She let him take the lead, kissing back only when he kissed her, leaving him in full control. At one point a whimper left her throat, high pitched and shaking, and Cullen suddenly realized that his hands had moved to grip her bottom.

“A - Andraste preserve me, I am so - so sorry,” he sputtered while removing his hands from her. He sighed as Lana kissed him once more, and this time he found his lips trailing after hers when she pulled back.

“I meant what I said before,” she said with a small smirk. “Whatever helps you heal this memory…”

“It… It never got quite that far,” Cullen said as he cleared his throat. “Or, at least…”

“What happened?” Lana asked. Her hands were busying themselves in his hair, brushing back strands just above his ear to help relax him.

“It… It got close. It was as if it was on a loop… Always… Getting to that point, with you - it - on - on top, and then, just before, everything became real again. And they'd… Start over.”

“That's terrible,” Lana said with a frown. “The way I see it, we have two options.”

“Which are...?”

“We can play this out exactly as you remember, only follow through. We break the loop. Or, if this is too much, we can stop.”

“And… What are… your feelings on that?” Cullen asked as he eyed Alistair. The man cracked a grin from afar.

“Judging by the look on her face, and the conversation we had last night about it, she's very excited about comparing templars, if you catch my drift.”

“You really don't mind watching another man… With your wife?”

“He likes it,” Lana said with a smirk. A groan left Cullen's throat of its own accord as she shifted herself against his straining erection that begged to be freed from his breeches. “He enjoys watching me being pleased. And I enjoy him enjoying it.”

“Well, if… If no one objects, we could always try to… See how far we can get.”

“That's the spirit,” Alistair said encouragingly. “I only have one rule - well, two rules: One - what's your watchword, my dear?”

“Wicker.” Cullen watched Lana's cheeks flush ever so slightly as the world left her tongue, then his eyes flickered back to focus on Alistair as he continued. 

“That's right: Wicker. You hear that word, Commander, and you stop. You can use the same if you'd like. Rule number two: no coming in my wife. Yes, I realize we're wardens and wardens don't get pregnant often, but just humor me. Agree to those simple things and I'll let you in on a little secret - If you rub her ears too firmly a few times she'll come, so, avoid that. Unless you want her to come. In which case, it is a nice little trick.”

“Oh, Maker,” Lana sighed with a smile. Cullen chuckled nervously at Alistair’s suggestion. Maker, was he really going to go through with this? Would he even make it to that moment with her? Did she really want this?

As Lana leaned forward and took Cullen’s lips with hers he realized, yes, she did want this. Lana may have been rather obviously allowing Cullen to pick their pace, but she gave herself away in the way her hips gingerly rocked every now and then to rub against his straining erection, as if she couldn’t help herself. Cullen’s hands slowly snuck back to her waist. A strangled hum vibrated in his throat as he felt her breath shake against his lips, as if such a simple touch from him had evoked such a strong response. Memories flashed behind Cullen's closed eyes, little glimpses of watching her from afar so many years ago, always from afar. There were no rules now to stand between them, no blatant imbalances of power to keep his conscience from allowing him this. 

Maker, he didn't think he could stop kissing her even if he wanted to. Each kiss from her melded into his subconscious, each further and further from the frightful memories he had associated her lips with before. He felt as if he were truly breathing for the first time in her presence, a clear headed feeling he hadn't felt since his last draught of lyrium, and he needed more. 

“May I?”

Cullen's lips slowed to a halt as she spoke against them. He pulled back just far enough to glance down at her fingers that played with the lacing of his shirt. With a nod, Cullen watched as Lana slowly unlaced his shirt until it was nice and loose. Then she took his hand, directing his fingers towards the lace on the large shirt she wore. Cullen flushed crimson, realizing that doing so would reveal quite a bit more on her than it did on him. He swallowed as she molded his fingers to grip the lace, then he slowly pulled.

As her skin was revealed, inch by inch, Cullen felt himself seizing up. His eyes were glued to her, staring at her skin just below her clavicle as the fabric pulled away as slowly as his fingers allowed it to. He felt his mind going dark, everything around him swirling, Lana's posture slackened as she caught on to the change in Cullen's appearance when, suddenly, he saw the tip of an old scar. It poked out from under the lacing as it loosened, just on the right at the edge of the top of her breast. 

Cullen's breath released heavily, and he let go of the lace. The rest of it fell, the fabric sliding from her shoulders with it. Cullen's eyes stared at the scar, unable to take his eyes off of it as she sat on his lap with the shirt pooled at her hips. He swallowed hard, raising his hand to draw his fingers over the scar. Its edges were rough, not the work of steel - no, a claw, perhaps? From the corner of his eye, Cullen caught a glimpse of another: one just above her hip, mostly obscured by the fabric of the shirt. He clasped his hands to her waist, causing her to squeak in surprise as he lifted her off his lap and set her to stand in front of him. 

“Everything okay…?” Alistair's question went unanswered as Cullen gently slipped the shirt from Lana's hips until it pooled at her feet. Cullen remained seated in front of her, his face barely an arm's length from her as he hunched over to look at the scar. This one ran from her hip to mere inches diagonal to her navel. It was sharp, piercing, the work of something sharp and rounded - definitely steel, unlike the other. It was covered by a burn, almost hand-shaped in appearance, as if someone had placed their burning palm to her flesh to cauterize the first wound. 

Lana's skin was reddening under his gaze and touch, standing before him in her breast band and breeches. Her head tilted as she watched him stare at her scars, trying to figure out what the significance was as he gently took her hand and traced the scar on her arm - the one that gave her the most nightmares of them all. She bit her lip as he focused on that one, setting aside whatever feelings she had of it for the moment. Then his eyes shot up to her shoulder and he spun her with his hands. Her eyes widened as she stumbled to keep her balance from the sudden movement, making contact with Alistair's gaze as his brows lifted. Cullen was running his fingers over the burn on her right shoulder, and Lana and Alistair's heads tilted almost in unison as they heard what sounded like Cullen laughing. 

“Cullen?” His name was drawn out on Lana's tongue. Alistair sat up in his chair, craning his neck in order to see the Commander's face. His eyes were slightly watering, a look of almost disbelief on his face as he quietly laughed. If it hadn't been for the smile on his face, Alistair would have been more concerned. The two of them waited, giving Cullen a moment, before he finally spoke.

“You have scars.” The words left Cullen, and Lana felt the relief they carried with them. She relaxed instantly, smiling as she laughed as well. 

“It didn't have scars, did it?” She asked, and Alistair instantly slumped back in understanding.

“None at all.”

Lana's body was peppered with them: big scars, little ones, each telling their own story, and Cullen had never known. The demon had drawn on his knowledge of her, filling in the blanks as he would have imagined: it had been unmarked; flawless light olive skin that had matched her face, save for the nail sized nick just near her left eye. Each scar was proof that she was different, that she was her, the one who saved him from that terror all those years ago, not the cause. Each scar was proof, and of them she had many.

Cullen stood as Lana turned and took his hand, pulling him from the chair. She walked him towards the bed, her legs barely hitting the edge before he pulled her towards him and bent low to meet her lips. 

“Walk me through it.” Lana's words bounced off Cullen's lips between kisses. 

“Through…?”

“What happened next?”

Cullen slowly parted from her kiss, the reality of everything coming back to him. His cheeks flushed as he straightened, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he glanced at the bed. He silently kicked himself in his mind as he felt his nervousness setting in once more. 

“Well, I was… We were on the ground… You - I mean - It, r - removed my clothes, and its… Clothes...” 

“Do you want to change that?”

“H - How so?”

“It removed everything… How about you do it this time? Let it be your choice.”

Cullen slowly nodded his head as he considered it. His eyes wandered down to her breasts, barely covered by the cotton that bound it back. He averted his gaze as he felt his face burn, quickly deciding to remove his shirt first. He grabbed the hem, pulling it over his head and taking his time setting it to the side. Cullen could feel the burning traveling down his shoulders and across his chest as his hands found the laces of his trousers. Chancing a glance at Lana, he felt his stomach do a bit of a leap as he watched her teeth bite lightly on her lower lip - right on that callus - all the while her eyes were glued to his hands as they pulled at the strings. Maker, she wasn't trying to hide how much she wanted him, and it made him more careless as he let the trousers drop to the floor at his feet. 

As he tried to step out of the legs of his trousers, Cullen felt himself turn beet red as he realized one fatal mistake - his boots. He dropped down to crouch, sputtering apologies in his smalls as he tore at the laces of his boots and tried to kick them off as if doing so would curse their very existence. 

“Alistair didn't even get his boots off our first time, if that makes you feel any better,” Lana said with a light and understanding laugh. 

“Traitor, you're not supposed to tell people that,” Alistair scoffed, though the grin on his face gave his levity away. 

“Not just me, then?” Cullen mumbled. He tried to take a breath to shake the embarrassment. The feeling faded away soon enough as he saw Lana's feet stepping closer to him. 

“My turn, I believe?” She asked sweetly. Cullen slowly trailed his eyes over her form from where he was crouched, starting at her feet and moving up her cloth covered legs to the skin of her belly, all the way to her ocean blue eyes that sparkled down at him. Maker, he could crouch there all day, he decided. Boots shifted to the side and trousers with them, Cullen shifted to his knees as his eyes zeroed in on the laces of her breeches. He unconsciously licked his lower lip for a moment as he reached out to grasp the string. His heart was pounding, hand shaking ever so slightly as he pulled at the knot until it loosened, then placed a hand on either side of her hips, ensuring his index fingers were touching her skin to feel her as he pulled the breeches down. 

Lana stepped out of the breeches one foot at a time as Cullen pulled them for her. Standing, he looked around the room as if there would be instructions written on the wall. When he met Lana's eyes again she merely smiled in a manner that seemed almost mischievous.

“I believe I'm still clothed, Cullen.”

Maker, but she was. Two strips of fabric kept her from being known to him. Two simple, measly strips of fabric, one which seemed a miracle it was holding her breasts back at all. 

“Which… Um… Which one should I…?”

“I vote the breasts,” Alistair piped in suddenly from his chair. Lana shot a look at him that clearly told him to stop meddling, to which he threw his hands up in defense and added, “Just a suggestion. I apparently don't get a vote, sooo…”

“Whichever you prefer,” Lana cut in, turning her attention back to Cullen. Whichever he preferred… Maker, was there a preference to be had? In that moment, everything so very different from his traumatic past, it felt not unlike being presented with two gifts on Satinalia: two gifts which went hand-in-hand, each which would be opened eventually. Just… Which order?

Cullen let Alistair decide for him. It was simpler that way, though he wasn't sure he wouldn't have done the same in different circumstances. The grey breast band wrapped around her chest seemed to have a difficult task. It got the job done, if that job was only to hold her breasts in place long enough to get her armor on which would surely help with the rest. The world had seen plenty of advances in armor and weaponry, but, it seemed, these had scarcely seen an upgrade since the Exalted Age. 

Standing and stepping close enough to reach around her back, Cullen peered over Lana's head to eye the knot. He fiddled with it a bit, gritting his teeth at one point when it seemed the knot had possibly gotten tighter, when suddenly he felt it pop free. He gingerly took a step back as it fell to the ground, his eyes shamelessly glued to her breasts. Cullen could tell Lana was blushing, but, Maker help him, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He barely even registered the happy hum of approval from Alistair over in his corner, until Lana spoke.

“Would you like me to take care of this?” Her eyes were on his, watching his eyes follow her hand as she hooked her fingers in the corner of her smalls. Cullen managed a nod, and took a step back as she slipped them down.

A breath escaped Cullen as she stood before him. When first he had gazed upon the demon’s form - her form, twisted by what it had read in his mind - it had given off a feeling. Cullen couldn't explain it more than that. It hadn't felt right. It had felt conniving, eerie, like a dark, thorny path in the woods on an otherwise sunny day, riddled with tempting berries that carried an uncertain fate to whomsoever was foolish enough to pluck one and eat it. As Lana stood before him now, she seemed to glow in his mind. There was nothing eerie about her - her scars reminded him of that. And, Maker, she was perfect. 

“Almost.” Cullen stopped in his tracks as Lana piped in after he had taken one step towards her. He furrowed his brows in confusion, only to catch her drift as her eyes trailed downwards on his body with a sly smile. “Not quite fair… Is it?”

“I suppose not,” he chuckled as he flushed once more. Cullen slid his smalls down, pink spreading across his body as his cock stood at full attention in the cool room. 

“So…” Lana smiled, glancing eagerly at his length before looking back up at Cullen while she walked back towards the bed. She sat at the edge before sliding into the middle and patting the mattress as she continued to steal glances of him. “You were on the ground? I thought a bed may be more comfortable. I can move to the floor if you'd like.”

“No - No, you're right. A bed is… Better.” Cullen nodded as he followed her over. He slid onto the bed, suddenly aware of how strange the whole situation must have been. Here he was lying naked on a bed, with a naked woman, and her fully clothed husband sitting in the corner - and yet, there was a part of it that excited him, enough to keep him wanting to see how this would all play out. 

“What happened next?”

Cullen took a deep breath as he prepared to answer her question.

“It… Sat on my legs, and began to… Situate. And that… That's when it all ended. And became… Then it turned, and…” Cullen sighed shakily, closing his eyes as Lana ran her fingers softly through his golden hair. 

“We can take our time,” she said softly at his side. “We don't have to do this all tonight, Cullen. You're doing wonderful. If this is too much -”

“No.” Cullen said it firmly, shaking his head adamantly. He turned his head to the side to look at her, focusing on the scar on her chest, the top of the burn on her right shoulder, a cluster of freckles below her collarbone he had never seen before, all the differences. “I don't want to associate it with you anymore. I - I wasn’t certain before, but now... I want to do this.”

“Good.” Lana smiled, running her fingers through his shallow chest hair. “Because, I have to admit… Ever since you took your smalls off, I've been curious what you'll feel like…”

“Maker's breath.” Cullen nervously laughed, unable to say much else. He had never felt less suave in his entire life, he was sure of it. He blinked, watching as Lana straightened her body and slowly slid her leg over his side. Seeing her above him then, her hands on his chest, fiery copper hair in the candlelight, his mind began swirling. Lana watched as the color drained from his face, his hands gripped onto the blanket beneath him as if it were his only lifeline. 

“Cullen?” She spoke his name softly. Placing her hands on either side of his face she could feel him beginning to sweat. His eyes seemed to stare right through her, as if he were lost in a deep memory. “Cullen?”

Alistair got up from his chair when Cullen didn't move. Cullen's breath was heavy, his muscles tense as Alistair crouched down next to the bed and put his hand on Cullen's shoulder.

“Come on, Rutherford,” Alistair said firmly, giving him a good shake. Alistair's voice seemed to snap him out of it, his voice and way of addressing him not too different from how he had addressed him when they were both Templar trainees. Cullen swallowed as he met Alistair's eyes, then he turned and looked back at Lana.

“Do it.”

“What?” Lana was shocked at Cullen's request. It left him more like a command than a plea, determination coursing over his tongue. Alistair had backed off again to his chair, trying his best to let the two of them work through it now that Cullen seemed to be back.

“I want it to end. Please.” 

“Then end it,” Lana said. “You said this was where it changed… So change it. Take control. What do you want to do?”

It had never happened before. In his nightmares, reliving that hell he had been through, it played over just the same as he had experienced: everything but, her soft legs wrapped around his torso, melting away into purple and horror before he could even experience her. He knew exactly what he wanted to do to change it. 

Cullen grasped Lana by the waist, holding her in place as he rolled them until he was on top of her while she squeaked shortly in surprise. Lana hummed as his lips crashed to hers, whimpers bubbling in her throat as his fingers delved between them to test how wet she was. Maker, she was soaking, clearly having been ready for this since the moment she sat on his lap what seemed like ages ago to him. 

In normal circumstances, Cullen would have liked to have taken his time. These were anything but normal circumstances. Desperate to break the cycle, to have something new to add to the loop, Cullen slid up slightly, groaning low in unison with Lana's loudening whimpers as he rubbed his cock against her heat, coating it in her quim. He sat back just enough to glance between them, taking his hard cock in hand as he guided it to her entrance. 

Cullen's breath was loud, relieved as he felt her heat surround him. It was as if glass had been his prison and it had shattered all around him the moment her mouth hung open with a moan that echoed throughout the room. The sound made him shiver, and he watched Lana as her brow furrowed near her shut eyes, hands gripping the blanket as she fought the urge to roll her hips until he was ready. She was waiting for him to be ready. Cullen pulled back with his hips before gently thrusting back into her. His eyes rolled slightly at the feel of her, quickly opening again to watch as her chest arched slightly with each thrust. Maker, she was already making so much noise, and he was barely doing anything. The thought made Cullen feel warm, stroking his ego as he moved one hand from her hip to balance on the mattress near her face. 

Lana arched towards him, her mouth hanging open as her lips curled into a smile. Maker, Cullen felt different than Alistair. Alistair was gifted when it came to his size - she knew that from the few she had been able to compare by then. Cullen still filled her well, though, very well, in a way that didn't stretch too much for comfort. Oh, Maker, and that slight curve Cullen had to him - that was new, that was very nice. 

Her arms reached up, wrapping around to Cullen's back as he pressed his chest closer to her. Lana took advantage of Cullen's shoulder being level with her lips, pulling him closer to moan loudly against his skin as his thrusts became more purposeful. His hand slipped down to her thigh, pulling until her legs were wrapped around his hips. Cullen slid his hand over every inch of her he could reach, memorizing the feel of her, embedding the memory of her and this moment deep in his mind: he felt the difference between the soft skin of her breast to the scar his thumb ran over; the curve over the peak of her nipple, the way she shuddered and gasped as he grasped over it; the dip over her navel, down to the rough and smooth of the burn that lay over the bump of the long, deep scar just near her hip; and the sweet, sweet way his fingers could dig into the flesh of her bottom, the way her moans became louder and louder as he pulled her towards him while he became totally and incandescently lost in her. 

Time slowed down for Cullen, and at the last possible moment he suddenly remembered one of Alistair's rules. His abdomen was tightening, his body practically lifting as he felt his end near so soon after only just beginning. Grasping her legs Cullen peeled her from his body, pulling out of her and grasping his cock with his hand as he sat up on his knees. He groaned loudly, covering the tip with his palm as he pulsed and spurted into his hand. Cullen gasped, suddenly finding the room less than full of air to him. He gave himself a few hearty, slow strokes, ensuring that he had been emptied of every last drop before falling back to sit on the bed. 

The sound of Lana's happy humming made the corners of Cullen's mouth twitch into a lazy grin. He lifted his head to look her over, finding her still in the position he had left her: on her back, practically spread eagled with a wide grin on her face and flushed skin all over. As her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze, Cullen felt his insides flip for what felt like the hundredth time that night. 

“How did we do?” She asked breathlessly, and Cullen couldn't help but chuckle. 

“I would say… We did a perfect job.” 

“Think you'll have better thoughts in your mind when you see me now?”

“I - Yes, I... I think I have quite the image to think of now.” Cullen flinched slightly as a cloth hit his shoulder. He looked down, picking up the light blue handkerchief Alistair had tossed at him before looking at the warden questioningly.

“I promise, it's clean.” Alistair winked as he lifted himself off the chair. Cullen nodded in sudden understanding, flushing as he used the handkerchief to clean his hand off. He looked up as Alistair approached the bed, watching as the man looked over his wife with a sparkling interest and a smirk that even made Cullen blush. “I hope you haven't been tired out just yet… My turn, yes?”

#spicy #lana surana #alistair theirin #cullen rutherford #cullanistair #lanistair #cullana #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #my ocs #my writing #fanfiction #the start of a beautiful friendship lmao

[ramonadecember]

48+50 for the angst list 👀👀👀 I wanted to send more but I don’t wanna bug you too much 👀🔪♥️

Angst Prompts or OTP Prompts

because you big me SO much >:*** this got... longer than intended. and I think as I told you, it went entirely NOT in the direction I first planned... or really secondarily planned. 48 altered a bit to fit my needs. here’s your boys.

small warning for mentions of... coercive relationships? I guess is a good way to put it? cullen’s romantic history is kind of a mess.

48. “Can you promise me no one else has to get hurt?” + 50. “Do you even know what love feels like?”

--

“The things we do for love.” “The things love does to us.”

The evening had started with the lot of them in the main hall toasting to their success against Corypheus, but now it was Cullen and Dorian alone in the mage’s quarters, knocking their glasses together over the latest sentiment before downing the rest of their drinks.

Earlier, Dorian had watched as Cullen slipped out one of the side doors of the main hall and into the garden without a word, and because of his propensity for curiosity and his seeing inability to leave Cullen alone for long, he’d followed as well. He found Cullen tucked away on a bench mostly obscured by shadows, sitting with his head in his hands, only to raise it when Dorian startled Cullen by sitting down next to him.

“Needed a bit of air?”

Cullen nodded. “In there, it’s…” It took a moment for Cullen to decide how to phrase it until he settled on, “It’s a bit much.”

Dorian didn’t comment on the fact it had been a rather subdued, intimate affair, he thought he knew what Cullen was getting at, so instead he did comment on the fact they were a stone’s throw away from his room, a room that was always supplied with at least a few bottles of something. Cullen had said it wasn’t necessary and tried to apologize for pulling Dorian away from the celebration, saying they could go back, but though he stood and motioned back toward the hall, he made no move to go back that way. Dorian waved it off, and when he stood as well, looping his arm through Cullen’s, Cullen didn’t object to being led away.

Cullen opened up more once he had a glass pressed into his hands. He confessed that he knew they had much to celebrate—the war was over, they had won—but that he couldn’t stop his mind from going to all they had sacrificed to get there, to all who weren’t there to share in the revelry with them. Dorian decided another healthy pour of the dark liquor he’d been plying Cullen with was in order after that.

Conversation drifted to one of the other reasons the get together in the main hall had seemed so stifling, and that was because despite how much their dear Inquisitor tried to act like she was fine, she was barely holding it together. 

Everyone knew what had happened—the dust settled on the final battle, they started to regroup, and there was one particularly notable disappearance. Solas was gone. Up until that point, Lavellan had convinced herself that it could still work out, but that was the final nail in the coffin that was her romantic daydreams.

She’d declared him dead. Others, thinking they were helping, tried to assure her not to give up hope, that he could just be loss on the mess that was the aftermath, but Lavellan only shook her head and more firmly said that he was dead. 

Which is how Cullen and Dorian had arrived at their most recent toast. It had Cullen wincing and Dorian letting out a snort of a laugh. 

“I envy her in a way,” Dorian said, swirling his freshly poured drink around the glass. “Able to cut him out so effectively like that. Andraste knows I’ve made a fool of myself trying to cling to what I should have run from long prior, all because I called it love.” 

“Love hasn’t tended to work out in my favor in the past,” Cullen agreed. “You put your faith in someone, your trust, and then...” Inevitably, in Cullen’s experience, they let you down. He shrugged it off.

Dorian frowned, moving from the arm chair he’d curled himself up in to sit next to where Cullen had perched himself on the edge of the bed. He rested his head on Cullen’s shoulder, letting out a dramatic sigh, and for a moment they both sat there in silence, lost to their own thoughts. 

When Dorian elaborated on some of his more failed attempts at winning love, it was supposed to be a way to lighten the mood, even if that particular flavor of self-deprecation brought with it a lot of daddy issues. He never meant for Cullen to feel like he had to share anything in exchange,  but the alcohol loosened lips.

It started innocent enough with Cullen claiming his very first heartbreak was as a child when, after working so hard to win the favor of a neighbor girl, she chose someone else as her champion when they were playing at knights at a tourney. Dorian couldn’t quite disguise his snort or mumble of valiant since birth behind his glass, but Dorian’s laughter died out the more they swapped their tales of woe, the look of concern on his face growing instead. 

It started with Cullen confessing that it took him far too long to learn that a Circle mage under his watch could never truly, freely be able to return his affections. Dorian winced, but like Cullen said, he had learned. He knew he’d like to think over a decade of time left plenty of opportunity for growth in person, he was sure Cullen would like to believe that as well. 

Dorian’s tried to distract from whatever spiral that seemed to be sending Cullen’s thoughts down with a more light hearted story that ended with a sigh of, “You think you know somebody,” but it only ended up pulling Dorian’s concern in a different way when Cullen nodded his head along in agreement. 

“Like when the man you once loved—“ probably still did, even if it wasn’t in the same way “—surfaces again as the right hand man to some darkspawn magister?”

Dorian’s eyebrows shot up and he pulled back a little to better look at Cullen. “Are you saying that you and that fellow currently occupying a cell in the dungeons were once...”

“Once, yes.” When Cullen was first reassigned to Kirkwall, most everyone was still treating him like he was damaged goods, but never Samson. He always knew that what Cullen needed wasn’t to be handled fragile and liable to fall apart at any moment, even when Cullen himself tried to use it as an excuse. 

“We... drifted apart,” Cullen said with a shrug. Samson being ousted from the Order may have had much to do with it, and then when Cullen left Kirkwall, he left behind any shreds of a relationship that might have remained as well. That, and, “The then-Knight-Commander made it... difficult to maintain anything as well.”

“Relations discouraged amongst Templars?”

“It wasn’t that she was actively discouraging that relationship but rather trying to... promote a different one.” A crimson blush washed over Cullen’s face, he was sure Dorian knew what he was getting at.

“With that woman?” Dorian may not have known her personally, but in the past he’d gleamed enough information from Cullen and others to form his own opinion of Knight-Commander Meredith. “But she was your superior.”

Cullen grimaced, and Dorian thought maybe that was how Cullen realized what he did about the way he’d chased the affections of that mage. 

“I was a good distraction to her,” Cullen said, and Dorian could understand that, everyone could use a little fun, even uptight Templars, but Cullen wasn’t finished and it made the difference. “It was for the best. If she was otherwise preoccupied then she—well—there was this sort of... implied promise that no one else could get hurt.”

No one but you, you fool, Dorian thought. “Cullen...” he managed to say instead. Of course Cullen would offer himself up like that if it meant taking the attention off of others. 

“I.. really do think that she loved me in the end,” Cullen said, ducking his head. “In her own way.”

“You call that love? Andraste’s tits, Cullen—“ Dorian sounded properly horrified. “Do you even know what love feels like?” He may be no expert himself, but he knew it wasn’t that, wasn’t whatever Cullen was describing. 

Dorian hadn’t meant to come off that harsh, but he was aghast at what Cullen was telling him. A wash of guilt came over him when he watched Cullen’s face fall. 

Cullen’s eyes dropped down to the glass clutched in his hands as his hands as he turned it about, like the dark liquor might offer him up an appropriate response, but seeing as it’s what helped start this conversation in the first place, he doubted it. “I’d like to think I do now,” he said, his tone a little too tight. There was a flicker of eyes in Dorian’s direction. 

Love felt a lot like taking time out of busy days to get a moment with each other, like chess matches with silences that didn’t need to be filled. It felt like leaving bits and bobs for the other because they thought it might make them smile and exchanging well-loved copies of favorite books It felt like an offer for quiet conversation when everything was ‘a bit much.’

#kinda ambiguous where their relationship is at BUT #cullrian #cullen rutherford #dorian pavus #dragon age #my writing #prompt fills #bh-chaotic

[jewishzevran]

this is how galaxies collide || alistair x warden (aeducan)

Alistair has grown up without touch. Touch is bad, touch is sinful, touch only leads to corruption. Then, at Ostagar, Duncan returns from Orzammar with a new recruit; a dwarf covered in darkspawn blood with silver hair and a silver tongue to match. As they travel Ferelden together, he finds himself re-evaluating everything he knows about bodily contact. [ao3]

a/n: cw for canon-typical violence and injuries.

chapter one - join us in the shadows

Wind howls round the cold, empty halls of the chantry; a haunting, melancholy rendition of the hymns sung that morning. Outside the rattling window, the storm rages. A crack of lightning throws the room into sharp relief, and Alistair curls up a little tighter under his blanket, fists clenched with fear. There are no warm bodies to keep him safe here, no mabari paws to cling to. No gentle whines or rough tongues licking his cheek as he cries. His chest aches with loneliness.

A rap on the door interrupts his thoughts and he sits bolt upright, wiping the tears from his face with the heel of his hand.

“Up, child. Your presence is required.”

Alistair pulls on a robe over his nightclothes and scurries to the door. One does not refuse the voice of the revered Mother.

Even if it is past bedtime, he thinks.

She barely gives him a second glance before walking off down the corridor. Alistair follows.

A crack of thunder sounds almost directly overhead, loud enough to make Alistair’s ears ring. He jumps, grabbing for the closest source of comfort he can: the revered mother’s hand.

Before the thunder roll has even petered out, she snatches her hand away from him and turns her eyes on him, full of cold disapproval. He cowers under her glare.

“You do not touch a woman,” she spits.

Before Alistair can even open his mouth to reply, she marches off. He bows his head and follows, fresh tears forming in his eyes while shame burns his cheeks.

Touch is sinful. He must face his fear of the storm alone.

*      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *      

Alistair huffed as he stalked across camp to complete his task. Of all the people to play messenger boy to the mages, why did the revered mother pick the ex-templar?

That’s precisely why she picked you, he thought to himself. It’s an insult and you know it.

He was going to refuse, but Duncan had been hovering nearby, watching, and Alistair knew if he had, Duncan would have stepped in and made him take it anyway.

Typical of his mentor, always pushing him to be the better person.

He wanted to just conveniently ‘not find the mage’, apologise profusely to the revered mother and get on with his day. But he’d never been a good liar and Duncan’s disappointed sigh was more than he could cope with, so he slumped off in the direction of the old temple, kicking at loose stones and muttering under his breath. If his armor had pockets, his hands would definitely be inside them.

It didn’t take long for him to find the mage in question; he was stood alone in the centre of the plinth, running through simple combat sequences, moves flowing one into the other as though he was meditating instead of letting off powerful blasts of fire at the crumbling pillar in front of him. He turned, saw Alistair, and sighed heavily, not bothering to hide his disdain. Whether it was at being interrupted or at Alistair specifically, he couldn’t say.

“What is it now? Haven’t the grey wardens asked more than enough of the Circle?”

Alistair bit his tongue. Remember to be civil. Don’t start a fight. Don’t antagonise him. He chose his words very carefully and spoke each one as neutrally as possible.

“I simply came to deliver a message from the revered mother, ser mage. She desires your presence.”

The mage scoffed. “What her reverence desires is of no concern to me. I am busy helping the grey wardens – on the King’s orders, I might add!”

Alistair fought the urge to roll his eyes, and just about succeeded. “Should I have asked her to write a note?”

He could feel the mage practically explode with impudent fury. “Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!”

I’m not a fucking messenger pigeon, he thought. Sometimes mages can be so fucking stubborn. “Yes, I was harassing you by delivering a message.”

“Your glibness does you no credit, man,” the mage spit back.

To hell with civility.

“Aww, and here I thought we were getting along so well!” Alistair said, each word dripping with sarcasm. “I was even going to name one of my children after you – the grumpy one.”

The mage looked as though he was about to hit him, and Alistair almost wished he would.

“Enough! I will speak to the woman if I must.”

It was not lost on Alistair that he just succeeded in annoying the mage into deciding that between him and the revered mother, she was the lesser of two evils, which was pretty impressive going in the time allowed, even for him. He suppressed a victorious grin.

“Out of my way, fool.”

The mage stalked off, almost bumping into someone on his way, and that’s when Alistair saw her: barefoot, muddy and spattered with darkspawn blood. White hair, dark skin and dark, determined eyes, that looked like they’d seen a lot more of the uglier side of the world than they should have.

Beautiful, said the loud, very unhelpful voice in the back of his head. He ignored it.

“You know,” his mouth said before his brain could stop it. “one good thing about the blight is how it really brings people together.”

Yes, that’s it, Alistair. Take one look at this woman with fire in her eyes who seems like she hasn’t slept in about four days, who is absolutely covered in blood and decide she’s the perfect person to tell a sarcastic joke to. Really stellar work there.

He winced internally, waiting for another outburst like the rapidly disappearing mage, but instead, the stranger just raised a single eyebrow and smiled wryly.

“You are a very strange human.”

Oh. Well then.

“Yes, I get that a lot.” He paused, doubting himself for a moment. “Wait, we haven't met, have we? I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?”

She frowned, then gestured to herself. “I’m… a dwarf? How could I be a mage?”

Maker, Alistair, you are absolutely killing it today.

What he wanted to do was apologise for being such an idiot. Instead, mouth bypassing his brain again, he shrugged and said “I don’t know. Sometimes they creep up on you.”

“Like your imagination, it seems,” she replied, dryly and without hesitation. There was a pause of a couple of seconds, where they stared at each other, both completely deadpan, and then, at the same time, they burst out laughing.

“My name is Janna—” said the dwarf, still smiling as she extended a hand for Alistair to shake. He noted the hesitation at the end of her sentence, as though she was about to give a surname but held back at the last moment. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Family is probably a painful subject, then. He thought. Avoid jokes where possible. Maybe we can bond over our tragic backstories in the future.

“I’m Alistair. Newest grey warden.”

“Oh good, you are who I was looking for.”

Duncan must have sent her.

He nodded. “As the junior member of the order, I’ll be helping you prepare for your joining.”

“Prepare?” She frowned, a tiny furrow appearing between her eyes.

“Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to say much.” He gestured back towards camp, and she fell easily into step by his side. “Sworn to secrecy and all. Duncan will explain to you and the others soon.” He paused. “Have you met the other recruits?”

Janna wrinkled her nose a little. “I’ve met Daveth.” The word unfortunately hung unspoken in the air.

“Yes,” Alistair replied apologetically. “The other is Ser Jory, a knight from Redcliffe.”

Janna nodded. Alistair was a little surprised by how easily he fell into conversation with her.

“So, that mage?”

“Mmmm?”

“Why was he so… uncooperative?”

Alistair barked out a laugh. “How much do you know about mage regulation?”

“Only a little,” Janna admitted. “I read what I could in Orzammar, but being a dwarf, it tends not to be a sought-after topic of study. All I know is that the Chantry controls the Templars and the Templars watch the mages.”

Alistair nodded. “Well, that’s enough to explain this particular situation. I used to be a templar.”

Janna frowned. “You were permitted to leave the order? Even from my limited knowledge, that’s surprising.”

Alistair laughed again. “Yes, well. I was still in training and Duncan had to invoke the right of conscription to get the Revered Mother to let me go. I’ll never forget the look on her face. I thought she was going to have us both arrested.”

Why am I telling her all this?

She laughed. “That I would have liked to see.”

“So, the mage was upset, because the revered mother sent me with the message as an insult. He was smart enough to pick up on that, and well, you saw the rest. I would have refused to take it in the first place but–”

“–Duncan.” Janna finished.

“Yes. Apparently, we should all be doing our best to get along and be civil, but no one else seems to have received that particular lecture.” He sat down on an unoccupied bench, under the shade of a large oak, only partly pretending to sulk.

Janna laughed again, joining him. “Sounds just like Orzammar. Though we tend to settle our grievances with one-on-one combat, and I can’t imagine that would go down as well up here.”

Alistair chuckled. “Definitely not, but I can think of several people who would jump at the chance. Including that mage. I’m going to have to watch my back in case he ‘accidentally’ trips and sets me on fire.”

Janna threw her head back in another laugh, and the swaying branches above her caught her eye. She smiled softly, reaching up to tug a leaf free and hold it, studying it in minute detail.

“I didn’t realise quite how beautiful the colour green is.” She said quietly. “The surface is full of surprises.”

A shadow of sadness flitted across her face, and Alistair wondered just how voluntary her departure from Orzammar had been. He flailed mentally for a way to distract her.

“Oh, Maker, you should see the southern coast in summer,” he started. “You wouldn’t believe the colours. Greens of the trees, bright oranges and reds of the fruit in the market. For a blissful month or two, the sea is a gorgeous teal, rather than, y’know. Dull Ferelden grey.”

“I’ve never seen the ocean.”

“Well, when we’ve dealt with the blight, I’ll bat my incredibly charming eyelashes at Duncan, and persuade him to let us all take a trip. We may even convince him to take his armor off.”

For a while, they simply sat and talked, laughing about some of Alistair’s wilder seaside adventures; he was grateful for the diversion – the mood had been so grim and serious recently, and it was a welcome relief to talk about anything that wasn’t darkspawn fighting tactics or the upcoming battle.

A comfortable silence fell between them for a moment, broken only by the background chatter of the camp, and the barks of the mabari from the kennels.

“What are mabari like?” Janna asked, evidently prompted by the noise.

“You mean you’ve never–”

Janna gestured to herself again. “We don’t have much use for them, you know, underground.”

Alistair flushed. “Right. Yes.” There was a pause, and then, “do you want to go and meet them? I’m sure the Kennel Master would oblige you.”

Janna grinned. “I’d like that.”

“Well it takes us in the right direction, since we’re obliged to go and meet Duncan anyway.”

She almost fell over herself in her excitement, and Alistair bit back another laugh. He’s laughed more times in the past half an hour than in the last six months combined. He followed her to the Kennel Master but pulled up short when he saw the look on the man’s face. He heard a little of the conversation, and pity filled him. He hated what fighting the darkspawn did to the mabari.

His train of thought was cut short when he saw Janna slip inside the gate. Curious, he crossed to the fence and observed.

“Hey there,” she murmured, gently crouching next to the injured creature. He growled warily.  “My name is Janna. You probably haven’t seen many dwarves before, have you? I’m here to help you. Will you let me do that?” She paused, giving the dog a moment. When he didn't react, she continued, offering her hand gingerly for him to consider. “I just have to put this muzzle on, so your master over there can make you feel better. Is that okay?”

The mabari whined a little, and sniffed Janna’s outstretched hand, then licked her fingers and rolled onto his side.

“Maker’s breath,” whispered the Kennel Master, talking to himself as much as Alistair. “That poor dog’s been snapping at anyone that so much as looks at him for the past three days.”

“Some people just have a way, I suppose,” replied Alistair, just as stunned.

Janna clambered out the enclosure, looking back miserably at the freshly muzzled mabari. “I hope you can ease his pain a little.”

“Thanks to you, I should have no trouble. But, if you head into the wilds, look for this.” He showed her a rough sketch, and Alistair recognised it as a Wilds flower. “I can make it into a salve that draws out the poison.”

“Got it. I’ll bring back as many as I can carry.”

“Thank you kindly, lass. You’re a good soul.”

“Alistair! Janna!”

Duncan called to them from across the fire, and waved them both over. Jory and Daveth were with him, and Alistair held back a groan. Time to head out into the Wilds.

*      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *  

Alistair grimaced as he wiped darkspawn blood off his blade and sheathed it, along with his shield.

Maker, they don’t get any less disgusting.

Janna made quick work of collecting the blood, storing it in the pouch at her waist with practiced ease. She seemed totally unfazed by the massacre, her indifference made all the more apparent by just how shaken Daveth and Jory seemed to be.

Alistair consulted the map, getting their next heading and directing as appropriate, but within two minutes, Janna darted off the path and crouched next to a rotting log.

“What in Andraste’s name is she doing?” Daveth said, rolling his eyes. “It’s like she wants to be ambushed.”

She returned almost as quickly as she left and held out her hand for Alistair.

“This is the flower the kennel master wanted, right?”

Alistair blinked. He had all but forgotten, but yes, in her hand was a small clump of Wilds flowers, red centres bright against the pure white petals.

“That’s the ones.”

She smiled and stowed them away, before falling into step beside him. Her alertness did not escape his notice; one hand always on the hilt of her sword, whilst her eyes scanned the wilderness with expert perception. It took him a second to realise she was still barefoot, and only just stopped himself wrinkling his nose.

What possesses someone to hunt darkspawn without boots?

“By the stone,” she breathed, faltering beside him, and Alistair followed her gaze to where three soldiers were strung up like cured meat from a tree bridge. Every face was contorted with fear, and his gut wrenched uncomfortably.

Poor bastards. They didn’t deserve that.

“Look there!” Jory called. “There’s movement on the path!”

Janna was gone in a blur, and she had already crouched at the source of the disturbance by the time Alistair realised that it was a wounded soldier.

He sprinted after her, in time to catch the end of the man’s sentence.

“… out of the ground. There were too many. Everyone is dead.”

“You’re safe now, it’s alright. We can get you back to camp. What’s your name, soldier?”

“A-a-aaron,” He stuttered, making any coherent noise clearly an intense effort.

“My name is Janna, I’m a Grey Warden. I’m here to help you.” She was knelt beside the man, cradling his head in her lap. She’d removed his helmet and started stroking his hair, gently wiping the sweat from his pain-creased brow. She looked up at Alistair.

“Do you have any poultices? Any bandages?” Her voice was deathly calm, and her eyes flicked down to his abdomen. He took the hint and chanced a look, and then instantly wished he hadn’t. The soldier’s – Aaron’s – blood-soaked hands were cradling his stomach, and Alistair could see the glistening of his intestines underneath his shredded tunic. Beside him, Daveth gagged.

“Never mind bandages, you’re going to need a fucking funeral pyre.”

Jory glared down at him, and Daveth cowed uncharacteristically under his gaze, mumbling out an apology.

“I have both in my pack,” Alistair said, ignoring them both, delving into the bag and pulling them out. Janna wasn't even looking at him as she held her hand out for the items; her eyes were on Aaron’s face, keeping him distracted and stopping him panicking.

“When I give him the signal, Alistair here is going to put a poultice on your wound and then bandage you up, ok? I’ve got some draught here as well, which should help with the pain. It’s going to hurt to start with, but I need you to just hold on, alright?”

The soldier grimaced and nodded, breathing shakily.

Janna turned to Alistair. “Ready?”

He wasn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Ready.”

She lifted Aaron’s hands and gripped them tightly. “Deep breath in, Aaron,”

As he took in a shaky gasp of air, Alistair pushed the poultice deep into the wound. Aaron went grey and half screamed, half sobbed in agony. His knuckles were white under the blood, clutching Janna’s hands with a death grip. Alistair worked quickly, wrapping bandages around his torso and tying them off neatly.

Janna soothed him all the while, and once Alistair was finished, she propped him up gently and helped him take a swig of the healing draught. When he finished, he took a deep breath and slumped back into Janna’s arms. Fresh sweat was beading on his forehead, but his pallor was far healthier than it had been five minutes ago.

“I’m going to help him back to camp,” Janna said, the tone of her voice brooking no room for argument. “He’s stable for now, but if he encounters any more darkspawn, he’s done for.”

“Andraste’s tits,” Daveth muttered. “As if we didn’t have enough to be worried about. Should have just put the poor guy out of his misery.”

“We’ll come with you,” Alistair said, a little too loudly, deliberately speaking over Daveth and shooting him a warning look.

Janna smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

It took them about an hour to carry Aaron back to the gate. Janna propped him up the whole time, offering him generous swigs of healing draught and keeping his mind off the pain by chatting with him continuously. She asked him about his home, his family, his sweetheart. With each response, Alistair could see the fear dissipate from his shoulders.

The guards on duty looked stunned when they opened the gates.

“Maker’s breath–Aaron? Aaron, what happened?”

“Squad got jumped.” He replied, grimly. “I would have been off to the Maker with them, if it hadn’t been for the Wardens.”

“Thank you,” said one of the guards, his voice thick with gratitude.

Janna nodded in recognition. “We’d best be getting back to our own mission now. I will come to see you later, Aaron.”

“Andraste watch over you, Janna.” Aaron said, wincing as he leaned against one of the guards.

Janna turned back to the rolling hills of the wilds. “Thank you,” she said to the group, as the gates to camp closed behind them again. “I understand your reluctance to assist him, but I appreciate your help regardless.”

Daveth opened his mouth to retort something, but Jory punched his arm before he could get it out.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “It’s nice to see kindness isn’t completely abandoned in this desolate place.”

Janna turned back to them, and Alistair watched as an emotion he couldn’t quite place crossed her face, and then she smiled.

“Onwards, then?”

*      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *  

Alistair paced back and forth near the fire. The meeting seemed to be taking an age. He’d tried to lie in his tent and settle down for the night, but his heart was too heavy to sleep.

Two more were dead. Jory’s last words echoed through his ears.

There is no glory in this.

“The Light shall lead her safely, Through the paths of this world, and into the next,”

The words came almost subconsciously. Alistair knelt down by the fire and clasped his hands together, closing his eyes. He wasn’t one to pray much, not anymore, but he somehow always found himself reciting Transfigurations when there was cause for mourning.

“For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, She should see fire and go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker Shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword.”

Alistair finished the verse, its familiar lines settling over him like a blanket, comforting him, even if only for a moment. He stood, wiping away stray tears, and kicked a smouldering twig. He doubted he would ever get used to watching a joining. He wondered what they would tell Jory’s wife – widow.

He could only be grateful that Janna made it through. He would never, could never, celebrate the deaths of the others, but if there had to be only one survivor, he was glad it was her.

The moment they had got back from the Wilds, she had made a beeline for the Kennel Master and deposited a veritable mountain of flowers at his stunned feet; she had picked every single one she could find on their journey, and by the time they returned her pack was almost overflowing. After that, she marched to the infirmary to check on Aaron. The nurses and healers practically fell over themselves to thank her for her quick action. Alistair had watched her from a distance; once she had had a long talk with Aaron and left him to rest, she went round every other patient and helped the medical staff prepare ointments and poultices with the competence of someone who was definitely not new to the experience.

She is certainly a puzzle; he thought to himself. He had watched her cut down darkspawn with terrifying efficiency, and then find the body of a fallen soldier, recover his last will and testament, and insist on seeking out the hidden cache mentioned so that she could hopefully return it to his widow. Jory had been right. She was kind to her core, and that was very rare. War usually stripped kindness out of people before anything else. Janna seemed to be determined to hang onto hers until her last breath, probably to her own detriment.

And she did all of that with no fucking shoes on.

“Alistair!”

Her voice broke his train of thought, and he looked up to see her walking towards him, the rest of the attendees of the meeting going their separate ways behind her. He found himself smiling at her sudden appearance.

“All finished?”

Janna rolled her eyes. “Mercifully, yes. No thanks to Loghain or Cailan. We could have cut that time in half if they would stop clashing over literally everything. Now, I think I would like to settle down and have something to eat and then I am going to sleep for as long as possible. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”

“That can be arranged.” Alistair smiled.

They walked together to the food tent in comfortable silence. Once Janna had wolfed down two and half helpings of stew and a good-sized mug of ale, she looked up at him softly.

“Thank you,” she said. “For earlier. With Aaron. You didn’t have to help, but you did.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Alistair replied, truthfully. “I’m just glad we could do something before it was too late.”

Janna reached out and took his hand, squeezing it appreciatively. “Still. I am grateful nonetheless. I will sleep a little easier tonight knowing we helped save his life. Especially after…” She tailed off, but Alistair knew she was referring to the joining.

As silence fell over the two of them, he bit his lip, and then seized his opportunity to both change the subject and answer his burning question.

“Look, I’m really sorry. But I can’t not ask. It’s been bothering me all day. And you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he finished hurriedly, as Janna tensed up, probably preparing herself for something tasteless at best and racist at worst. “But… why on earth aren’t you wearing boots?”

Janna blinked at him, like it was taking time to actually process what he said. Then she looked under the bench, looked back up, repeated the action, and then groaned loudly and dropped her head into her arms.

“Sweet Ancestors, I cannot believe -”

“Fuck,” Alistair said, feeling laughter bubbling up from deep in his stomach. “You didn’t realise, did you?”

Janna shook her head, still face down. He could see the tips of her ears flushing deep red and desperately tried to stop the laughter from escaping, but it was no good; when Janna lifted her head with the look of someone who has never been more disappointed in themselves, he lost it.

“How in Andraste’s name can someone forget they’re not wearing shoes?”

“I am beyond humiliated.”

“I mean, I admit that makes me feel a little better,” said Alistair, shoulders still shaking with laughter. “At least I know you weren’t deliberately wading around barefoot in darkspawn blood.”

“When I… left Orzammar,” Janna said carefully, and the particular way she chose her words was not lost on Alistair, “my boots were damaged, and Duncan didn’t have any to hand that would fit a dwarf. When I got to Ostagar, everything happened so quickly, and I never had time to ask the quartermaster for a pair. Please don’t tell anyone. I have to maintain some level of reputation. If I strike fear into people’s hearts because they think it was on purpose, then so be it.”

“Well, your secret is safe with me, now that you’ve put my mind at rest,” replied Alistair, raising an eyebrow but otherwise leaving the explanation well alone for now. “Thank you. I can rest easy knowing our newest initiate is not a total barbarian.”

Janna chuckled into her ale, eyeing him impishly. “You never know. I might just creep up on you.”

#dragon age #dragon age: origins #alistair x warden #alistair x aeducan #alistair theirin #warden aeducan #dwarf warden

[cullens-babe]

Extremely Detailed Inquisitor Questionnaire for Elle!

Elle’s turn :))). Love her the most lol. Her character background is kinda confusing so,,bare with me. Plus, every question is kinda too detailed and sometimes goes off track (but gets back on it) because I want to explain Elle a lot more. But this isn’t everything about her. There’s still a lot more >:)))).

Name: Elle

Age: 26

Race: Elf, but she uses her magic to put a glamour over her. She looks human to others.

Gender/preferred pronouns: Female. She/Her

Class (warrior/rogue/mage): Was a Mage but in DAI is a warrior.

Preferred weapon/spell type: She would usually use a staff when she loved her magic, but in DAI she likes to use a sword with both hands. Never was that great with a shield.

Specialization: Knight Warrior

Romance: Cullen (precious pup🥺).

Elle is a very loving woman. She’s a bit quiet, a little shy, but she always means well. The Templar’s weren’t that great to her when she was young (being a mage and an elf), but she refused to let that stop her from being herself. She showed kindness to everyone, sympathized with them, and did anything she could that would help them. However, her being so kind sometimes got her in trouble. Being used, manipulated, tricked, and other terrible things. Now, she plays as a human who has no magic whatsoever and fights for peace like she always will.

*Describe what your Inquisitor is like before the game’s events–preferably, choose three words that describe best. Then explain why those adjectives are appropriate descriptors.

She was a kind little girl. Her father was a Templar human and her mother was an elf mage. A little weird to everyone else, but her father truly loves her mother, and he loves his mage daughter like she was everything. And he loves his other daughter as well!! He loved both of his children so much (older sister is mentioned later). When she grew up, she would sing at the local tavern. It was shows they would put on every night and she loved it. She learned her glamour spell during this time. She didn’t want people to know who she was since she was a little embarrassed. She’d look like a human and her looks would change a little bit, but not much. She would be considered a bard, but not much. She was very observant. She watched everyone as she sang, listened to their conversations when she was by the bar, and acted playful to catch them slipping up. She didn’t really use the information for anything, but it was a little fun to her. Three words to describe her would be Kind, Playful, and Sneaky.

Kind because she is kind. She listens to people, does her best to help them, and tries to not be judgemental. She’s playful because of how she acts. Whenever a Templar would say “oh it’s a mage,” she’d be like “Oh, thank you for noticing me. I do like the attention,” and she’d laugh at how the Templar’s looked a little uncomfortable. She’d make jokes and almost never seem to take anything seriously. Always having a comeback to the Templar’s (or sometimes mages) that made fun of her or tried to bring her down. And when Cullen says “no one made quite the entrance you did.” She’d smile and pull out the playful side of her and reply “Well, I do like having everyone’s attention,” or something a little more playful. And she’s sneaky because she was a kinda spy. She would listen to people when they thought no one could hear them, she’d sneak through the halls of her home late at night to go see her friends, and because of what she’s doing now. Hiding what she really is out of fear and anger of her past.

Does your Inquisitor change over the course of the game’s events? If so, how? What events affected their character arc the most?

Yes. She learns to not be afraid of her past and shows her real self to the main people in her life (the party members and main people in the inquisition). She learns to not hide herself and accepts her magic as a part of her. The one event that affected her most was when she was thrown into the Fade. When the fear demon was speaking to her, it shook her to her core. Her past flashing in front of her when she closed her eyes, and she was afraid everyone would see her entire past. It made her panic the whole time there, but leave it to Elle to hide behind a well built mask. She was a performer after all and meant to never show her true emotions when the attention is all on her. And when she saw how panicky she was and how afraid she was for them to find out, she decided to talk to Cullen and everyone else.

What is their combat skill level before the events of the game? Are they already skilled fighters, or can they barely hold their weapon of choice properly?

She was a very well trained Mage. She loved magic and was always wanting to learn more, and her father, siste rand mother also wanted to learn more. With her family encouraging her and wanting to learn beside her, it made her learn more and more about magic. How she could protect herself and others, but also the bad side of Magic... However, she didn’t just know how to fight with her staff. She was curious about fighting with swords, daggers, and bow and arrow. Always wanting to know more. Her favorite way of fighting (without her staff) was either with bow and arrow or a sword. As she grew up, she learned how to fight with a sword by her father, but it never was intense training. She even tried to fight the Templar’s for training and beat most of them. Why is that good? Because she didn’t get the amount of training they did. She was observant, noticed their patterns (almost every fighter has a pattern in how they fight), how strong they really are, and looked for weak spots. This is why she would’ve been good as a full time bard, but nah. She would study that and win almost every time. Made her dad very proud. But he was always proud of her no matter what,,,

How well do they improve after becoming the Herald/Inquisitor?

She learns how to truly fight. As a kid (and a grown up before the main events of DAI), she never tried to fight hard, never wanting to actually hurt someone (even if it happened anyway...), so she didn’t train too much. Just wanted the basics with the sword. She grew stronger (TUFF baby), learned how to not hide her emotions, and learned how to love fully. She never truly knew how to love another person (romantically I mean) until she met Cullen. She’s happy about that and so is everyone else around her :). And she learns how to not let herself lead mainly with her emotions. She was a little naive and lead with her emotions most of the time, but she learned that that’s not always the best thing to do, even if it hurts her heart.

Does the Inquisitor have family they left behind? Friends?

This part is rlly long sorry lol.

She has her mother and sister left behind. Yeah, she has a big sister. They are very close. Her sister is an actual human and is a warrior and is a Templar. She became a Templar because she wanted to be like her father and actually protect people. If someone ever insulted the mages, she’d literally be like “wanna square up?? Wanna take this outside???” She imagines that mage as her sister and can’t stand it when people try to hurt the mages or treat them unfairly when most of them did nothing wrong! She believes Templar’s were not made to be like that, so she tries to help people see that. Elle left because of her past. It wasn’t on her own accord, she left out of fear and shame. She hurt people on accident, so she couldn’t show her face.

What made it worse, her dad died when she was 10 and her sister was 11. He was a Templar so he used Lyrium. When he and their mother had Lela (the older sister), he wanted to stop taking it, prove that he was more than just a Templar taking lyrium. That he could be a good father. However, irs like Cullen said, if a Templar stops taking it then they could go mad. And mad he did. He never abused anyone, he rarely showed the symptoms of an abuser of the lyrium, but his wife knew and she always tried to help him stop taking it, but after so many years of not taking it, he would go back to it. But he overdosed (I’m assuming that’s possible right?) and died. It haunts her everyday because she has a ring of his. It was a Templar ring. She wears it everywhere she goes, refusing to take it off. And she also Has a best friend who is a Templar! I’m kinda assuming Templar and Mage relationships aren’t really ‘allowed’. They’re not banned but frowned upon. However, they met in secret when they were kids, and they’ve stayed friends every since. His name is Caleb and he loves seeing Elle mess with her magic when she had it :))).

How does the Inquisitor react to the Anchor and the idea of closing the Breach–do they want to do the right thing, are they only along because they are a prisoner, or something else?

Oh boy,,she’s terrified. Having technically magic on her hand gives her anxiety. She doesn’t know if she’ll hurt people, doesn’t know how to use it, doesn’t know what will happen, and it gives her a lot of anxiety. She’s scared, but hides it once again. She gets anxiety bc the last time she used magic she hurt people on accident (I’ll explain it if someone asks or maybe later idk) and everytime she looks at her hand she feels the magic that’s still in her flow throughout her. It scares her, but she eventually learns to deal with it. She learns how it works, and what she can use it for. Plus, she does want to do the right thing. Always has and always will. She’s happy after she knows she can help people, but that past always comes back to haunt her.

Do they take the mountain pass with the scouts to the Temple or do they charge with the soldiers?

She takes the mountain path. She knows it’s dangerous, but believes in herself and her companions to make it through. Plus, she didn’t want to risk more lives, and she wanted to save the scouts if she could. Once again, letting her emotions lead her in the beginning, but she believes they’re alive and won’t take any other path. If her comrades didn’t go with her, then she would’ve went by herself. Stubborn girl😤.

How does the Inquisitor react to being called the Herald of Andraste?

She’s a little worried. She doesn’t like people fearing her. She does claim to like the worship, to like the way people bow to her, and its not 100% false. Everyone likes attention sometimes, and she does like it. But it causes guilt to rise in her mind. Would they bow to her if they knew what she did? How she hurt people? She just accepts it and smiles to everyone who gives her praise. But after awhile, she accepted the title and knew that meant she was someone important.

Do they believe it themselves?

She does a little bit. Not fully believing it, but not thinking of it as impossible. She’s just wishy-washy about her opinion.

How do they react to being thrown a year into the future? Do they believe they can get back? Are they focused on their goal, gathering information? Or are they just freaking out?

Hmm...she isn’t panic panicking, but she is still worried. She’s afraid of what happened to her family in this future (her mom, sister, and everyone in the inquisition) and she feels like they can’t get back. The walls feel like they’re closing in around her, and when she sees everyone with the red lyrium growing inside of them, it causes her heart to ache. However, she pulls herself together and will fight her hardest to save everyone. She would not let this come to happen. No matter what she had to do.

Does the Inquisitor help Harrit and save all possible citizens of Haven? Why?

YES!! She’s rushing around everywhere, checking every building that she can, and trying her best to hear for anyone calling out for help. She helps everyone the best she can and still feels regret for how many they lost that day. She does it because she cares. She cares so much for everyone and wants to save everyone if she can. She couldn’t live with herself if she let someone die because she was too lazy to search.

How does the Inquisitor feel about being a distraction for Corypheus while Haven flees? Are they resigned to their fate? Resentful? Determined to defeat the enemy/survive?

She feels sad. She knows this is needed, she has to do this. When she decided to help the inquisition, she signed herself up for this mess, and she WILL see it through. Even if it costed her her life. However, her sadness does effect her when she’s talking. Her voice cracking and tears almost falling, but she holds it together and does her best to distract Corypheus.

Does the encounter with Corypheus change their opinion of being Herald? Does it make them believe they are the Herald, lose faith, or affirm to their previous belief?

She’ll stare at the mark on her hand for awhile after everything, wondering if it is a blessing or a curse. She feels it flowing through her. Not pain, but just...there. And now seeing that Corypheus wants it and how he will come for her life, it only makes her more determined. Elle is not a woman known for giving up. Her faith doesn’t dim. Heck, the fire inside of her gets brighter and stronger after this. She believes she was meant for this. To see a creature that powerful and to LIVE after it? She believes she’s truly blessed, and she will use that blessing to her advantage.

How do they feel about being chosen for Inquisitor?

Guilt. Overwhelming guilt. They don’t know her past. None of them do. They don’t know how she is truly a mage, how she lost control of her magic once and hurt people. They don’t know, and yet she watches as they bow to her. Swear their loyalty to her. An elf playing human and champion, when she feels like she doesn’t deserve it. And as she looks at them, sees their bravery, their loyalty, their faith, and the way they want to see this through, she smiles and pushes her guilt back and raises her sword high. She will save this world and maybe, just maybe...they’ll still love her if she reveals herself.

How does the Inquisitor react to being in the Fade?

She feels like it’s a playground. Well, not an actual playground, but she’s excited to see all of it. Is it terrifying? YES. But does she also find it...kinda beautiful? Yeah. She feels how Solas feels. She was always interested in her magic, and that interest hasnt dimmed at all, and she looks so in awe of everything. She couldn’t hold back her curious eyes looking everywhere. The only part she truly hated was seeing the graveyard of fears. She saw hers and it said, “Herself.” She saw her past flash before her eyes and she felt like it was hard to breathe. Her curiosity now replaced with fear and anger. However, when one of the companions called her name, she was pulled out of whatever trance she was in, and laughed at their concern.

“I’m fine. I’m always fine. I’m the inquisitor. Let’s just get out of here.” And when the demon spoke to her, it’s cold, cruel voice called out, “Would they still love you if they knew?” She would yell a curse at it in Elven, and keep walking through the fade, desperate to get back to the world to save everyone and avoid her past.

Do they ever believe the spirit is actually of Divine Justinia?

She does. She likes to believe that Divine Justinia would look out for them, would want them to get out of here, and somehow stay behind. Is it a stretch? Yes. But she believes it was Divine Justinia. Let her have hope for once...

How do they react to learning it was the Divine behind them in the Fade, not Andraste?

She didn’t know the Divine, but she felt sad at how she sacrificed herself to save Elle. She feels at fault, but knows she isn’t. Divine made that choice. She feels sad at how she isn’t what people believe she is, but she still feels like it’s the Makers will. Or whatever is watching over them, she believes it is their will, and knows she is still destined to be here.

What is their opinion on attending the ball in the first place? Do they think it’s a waste of time, a necessary duty, or something exciting?

She feels nervous, but not too nervous. She was like a bard and was used to being someone else. Being careful, putting on a mask. It was a talent of hers. So, she is a little excited to be who she was when she was a bit younger, even if her decisions will affect everyone, she keeps a confident look on her face, gives playful responses, listens to everyone when they think she isn’t, goes with their opinions for their support, and knows how to persuade people. It’s something that was taught to her and she guesses becoming like a bard was a very important step in her life. However, she does see this as serious and treats it like that. When she’s searching, she’s moving as fast as her feet can take her, using her strength to maybe or maybe not break a door, keeping her mask on when she shows up, and knows how to play nice and when to play vicious.

Does the Inquisitor fight Grand Duchess Florianne, or expose her?

SHE DRAGS HER SWEETIE!! Even Cullen was holding back a laugh at how Elle was circling her like a shark, the way she had a smile on her face, the way she was confident, and noticing how she was very good at this. She said some...colorful words, and she dragged her, exposed her, humiliated her, whatever word you wanna use! She usually would feel bad, but this woman was going to get people killed without hesitation, so Elle held nothing back. And she loves exposing terrible people >:).

How does the Inquisitor get along with Morrigan?

She treats her with the same kindness and respect she treats everyone else with! She doesn’t trust her completely when they first met, her naive ways and too kind heart was now protected and wary. But overtime they grew a bit closer and became friend and when Morrigan acts coy and secretive, Elle would play along as well. As if it was a game between the two. They enjoyed it sometimes, but when it came to serious matters, they would drop everything and try to understand each other, no secrets or coyness involved.

How does the Inquisitor feel about facing Corypheus for the last time? Do they feel confident? Do they believe they will survive the encounter? How do they cope with the possibility of failure?

Her heart hurts. She panics. She believes she can do this, she knows she can’t use her magic, she can’t show it, but her magic is flowing through her stronger than ever before. Her magic seemed alive and desperate to be revealed and unleashed again. She was tempted to unleash it and beat Corypheus, but she knew she could do this on her own strength. She feels a bit confident, but she is shaking when she goes to spend time with Cullen the night before facing Corypheus for the last time. It ends with private time alone (hehe know what I mean ;)), and she does everything to show how much she loves him. She holds onto him as tight as she can, as if he’ll disappear if she doesn’t hold on tight. She makes him feel as much pleasure as she can make him feel, whispers her love confessions to him, and gives everything she can to him. She loves him. She loves him. And she feels so happy when he does the same. He loves her. He loves her. And that night is the night she reveals herself to him, knowing she needs to let him know just in case she doesn’t make it...

How do they react to Solas’ disappearance?

Worried. She’s always worried for her friends and family. She was interested in Solas and everythint he taught her, so she considered him her friend. She liked his company and the way he sorta comforted her sometimes, so she was definitely worried. She sent out many orders to search for Solas, refusing to give up on him. Needing to find out what happen.

Now onto the people >:))).

Who does the Inquisitor prefer to have in their party? Why?

She likes Cassandra the most. She likes Cassandras voice a lot. She doesn’t know why but it just sounds beautiful to her, even if she mainly hears it with curse words or shouting, but it’s beautiful to her😌. Plus, she likes seeing Cassandra be kind to people who need it. She believes going with her is sort of teaching Cassandra to breach out and to show how people are suffering on every side. And she likes making Cassandra smile whenever she can, since Cassandra wasn’t one to smile or laugh.

What is the Inquisitor’s first impression of Leliana?

She finds her very interesting. She was used to being like a spy, but she saw how serious Leliana was and was in awe of her talent. She was still a little naive at the time and trusted Leliana with everything in her since Cassandra trusted her and how Leliana did stop Cassandra from basically attacking Elle in the dungeon👀. And eventually when she manages to soften Leliana, she loves how Leliana is hopeful and she agrees with her hopes and dreams. She’s happy she knows Leliana :))).

What is the Inquisitor’s first impression of Cullen?

First impression AND their development sorta is included.

She felt safe and was interested in him as well. In a different way from Leliana though... And as she fell for him, she felt love for the first time since she ran from home, and when she learned about how he quit Lyrium she felt a lot pride in her. Like, she was proud of him and supported him with all of her heart. And when she learned how he was suffering, her heart dropped so hard. She had seen this before. Her father was suffering like he was, dreams being terrible, and knowing that want to go back on it. She didn’t get it as a kid, but as she grew up she understood how dangerous quitting Lyrium was and she couldn’t let someone else she loves dearly die. She would NOT let it happen. Not again. She’s older. She can do this. She tells him not to take it and she watches him like Cassandra does. Checking in on him everyday and always making sure he’s telling her the truth. And sometimes she just flirts with him to take his mind off of it :))). It works and he feels so happy when she’s around him. Even if it’s in the war room...he just loves seeing her.

The same goes for everyone else. She treats them with kindness, loves their specific traits (Serahs prank, Cassandras true kindness, Morrigan interest in Elven lore, Solas’s knowledge, and everyone’s desire to save the world). This is it for Elle but this only scratches the surface of everything I’ve thought about her >:))). I love the idea of someone having a terrible past, misunderstood, and being afraid to show themself, but still also showing their true intentions and emotions. I love this baby and want to talk about her more but not sure how?? I guess I’ll figure it out. Anyways yeah, Julien is next >:))).

#long post #da #da:i #dai #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age: inquisition #my writing #I love Elle so much. Idk why shes so thought out. I chose human and champion ONCE GUYS!! ONCE!! Always usually an elf and a mage and #I was like ‘Hmmm—I got a sad sad Idea’ #and thus Elle having a tragic background (theres still a lot in her background) and hiding her true self out of fear and self-hatred. #I love her and she deserves happiness and loves Cullen with her whole heart and loved when he hugged her when she got back from defeating #Corypheus. I just—I LOVE HER ALRIGHT!! Hope y’all love her too and will ask me more things about her. Honestly anything because I love her #and wanna explain her background. Whether from asks or my own posts. Guess we’ll find out when I finish these questionnaires-

[forthelulzy]

Heaven By Violence: Chapter 5

How can a tree stand tall If a rain won’t fall To wash it’s branches down? And how can the heart survive Can it stay alive If it’s love’s denied for long? — “Lift the Wings”, Bill Whelan (Riverdance)

Irene returns to Haven utterly exhausted. Julien is alive, but it is somehow worse to be so close and unable to talk than it was when she had no idea where he was. Envy’s attempted hostile takeover leaves her with a pounding in her temples even days later, and she’s still trying to wrap her head around what that boy… spirit… thing… said. The templars had no idea what she was talking about, either.

Then she arrives back in the mountain village and has to endure a war meeting when all she wants to do is crawl into her bed and sleep.

Or drink… but no. She won’t. Sleep it is.

“You did not see what I saw, Commander,” she snaps. “The templars are too far gone. I never wanted to go to them in the first place, but now that I have, they’d damn well better help me close that Breach.” Her voice is straining, but she doesn’t care.

“Cassandra wrote that you found your brother,” Josephine says delicately.

She knows what the Ambassador means, though. They always think she’s stupid. “Yes. He is included in the conscription. He is too injured to help, but I will not be accused of favoritism. After the Breach is dealt with, I would support granting the templars more freedoms. For now, they are on thin ice.”

Cullen grits his teeth but doesn’t argue further. Leliana says, “We have a few dozen veterans on their way ahead of the rest. They should arrive—”

And then Cole is there on the war table, crouched just so that he doesn’t step on any of the flags. He picks one up, ignoring Josephine’s scream and Cullen’s shout of alarm, and says, “Soon. Templars don’t like to be late.”

Cassandra and Cullen draw their swords, and Leliana has a dagger out faster than a blink. Irene waves them down, but no one moves. “Cole,” she says, “what are you doing—”

“You know this creature?” Cassandra snarls, stepping forward to put her sword between Irene and Cole. He tilts his head at her, something in those watery blue eyes that makes Irene grab Cassandra’s wrist and squeeze.

The sword drops with a clatter. Cassandra yanks her wrist back, but Irene holds tight and says, “Stop it. He wants to help.” She lets go, turns to Cole and says, “Come on, off the war table.” She needs to control this situation before someone gets hurt — and it won’t be Cole. She has seen him fight, after all.

Cullen looks between her and Cassandra. His swordpoint drops a few inches.

Cole slips off the table, murmuring something about ‘not being a war’. He is literal-minded, and she is reminded of herself when she was young.

“I, for one, am interested in why he came,” Leliana says, folding her hands behind her back. Her dagger is undoubtedly still palmed there.

“You,” he says to Irene. “You help people. I saw. I want to help too. Help you help them.” He ducks his head and peers at her from under his lashes and the brim of his ridiculous hat. “I won’t get in the way. I won’t need any of your supplies. I just want to help.”

His voice sounds almost plaintive on the last sentence, and if she had not already decided, that does. “Cullen. Cassandra. He saved my life in Therinfal. I’m not turning him away. Or killing him.”

“Then…?” Cole says, blinking. Blue eyes. Her husband had blue eyes. Not nearly so big and watery, though.

She takes a deep breath, wills her chest to stop aching. “You can stay and help, Cole.”

He tilts his head at her again. “Tiny. No trouble. No notice taken unless you want them to.”

Cullen finally sheathes his sword with a frustrated sigh. “Fine, but you’re not honestly suggesting he can run around doing as he pleases?”

Irene turns to him and scowls. “He is currently in higher standing than the templars. He has not once tried to kill me.”

“That’s not—”

“Or blithely ignored others trying to kill me.” She is being petty, but she also doesn’t care. She needs to sleep, but undoubtedly something else will come up before she can. It always does.

“I don’t think anyone is suggesting he be left alone,” Josephine says, looking thoughtful — and neatly skipping over Irene’s point. “Perhaps we could— oh! Where did he go?”

Cole is gone again, the map marker he picked up right back where it is supposed to be. Irene sighs, rubs her temples. “He… does that. But he isn’t the main concern right now. If the templars are almost here, we need to prepare.” She barely waits for them to agree before turning on her heel and leaving the war room.

Colm has rubbed off on her, she thinks. Her husband was kindhearted, sometimes to the point of folly. A few years ago she would have killed Cole on sight, but now she’s a different person. She just hopes she’s different enough, and that her faith is justified.

“Oh, I see it now. It was hidden before. Hiding or running. It can never be both. You didn’t kill him, but you did kill him. Bare fists, bloody face. Eyes like yours.”

Her breath catches in her lungs as she freezes in the hall. Cole is half-hidden in the shadow of a pillar, but his voice is loud in the quiet Chantry, and the hushed conversation between Mother Giselle and Vivienne stops as both women look over curiously. Irene’s stomach feels heavy, but her heart is hammering away at her chest. There it is. You never truly thought you could run far enough to escape this, did you?

Footfalls behind her, but she won’t run, not again.

“Herald? What is he talking about?” Cullen. Irene cannot appreciate the irony of him taking Cole’s word for it now, after drawing a blade on him earlier.

She turns slowly, finds them all behind her. She knows her expression isn’t helping matters, but she never could control her face. She’s so tired, so tired of everything.

“Irene,” Cassandra says, like she’s just dredged up a memory long buried. “That day, you said you thought you must have done something, and only realized you hadn’t when you saw the Breach. Tell me. What made you think you could have destroyed the Conclave?”

Oh. Had she said that? Everything between waking up and waking up again is a terrifying blur. She gets that way, when she’s angry. Rage would have a fine time with her. “I—”

Cole starts, eyes going wide. “Oh no. I said the wrong thing. They’ll hurt you. I won’t let them!” He reaches for his daggers, but Irene steps between him and the advisors, hands out to placate. She doesn’t have the energy for anger.

“They’re not going to hurt me, Cole. Why don’t you go find someone else to help? I’ll be fine.”

Cole stills, staring at her. “You have the mark but you don’t need to lead. Locked up, trotted out only to seal Rifts then shoved back in. Or they could find another way. Too risky. You’re lying.”

“I… yes, Cole.” Shit. She should have thought about bringing home someone who could read minds. “I am. But sometimes hurt is inevitable, necessary. Sometimes hurt is justice.”

“Justice…? You’re not that person anymore. You never were.”

She can’t think under so much pressure, but maybe that’s for the best. “Please go, Cole. Whatever will be, will be.” Her voice comes out strangled, quoting one of Julien’s favorite lines to soothe her when she got angry. If only he were here, but he’s in the infirmary. He woke up once, but was delirious from pain and too many healing potions. What will happen to him, if she can’t explain this? If the others bring down the judgment that should have been brought to bear years ago?

Cole nods jerkily and disappears again. She can only hope he’s gone farther than a few steps this time.

“Now. Herald. What’s going on?” Cassandra asks, voice hard. It pains her, to see the woman she had formed a tentative alliance with so hostile, but it is no less than she deserves.

Irene glances to the side of the hall, where Vivienne and Mother Giselle are both looking on. The First Enchanter is fanning herself while she leans against the wall, face unreadable, while Giselle has stepped forward a few paces, showing concern. Concern for Irene? It is a strange thing, to know another has so much faith in her.

Either way, she doesn’t want an audience for this. Let them gossip, but it will be difficult enough to explain to just four people. “I’ll tell you everything. Just. Not here.”

Josephine turns back toward the war room, but Irene remembers her first time approaching that room, hearing Chancellor Roderick’s raised voice from within. She knows where this must happen. She strides toward the door leading to the dungeons before she loses her nerve. It is where she has always belonged, after all, and there won’t be a walk of shame if they condemn her. When they condemn her.

She leads them down the stairs, startles the single guard on duty. Knight-Captain Denam is supposed to arrive with the main force of templars, behind the veterans who will help seal the Breach, so the cells are empty. The citizens who tried to kill her before she was the Herald were released two days ago, according to Cassandra. Still, she marches all the way to the last cell. The door isn’t locked.

“Herald, what are you—” Cullen starts, but she cuts him off because if he asks it, she will think about it.

“I am Irene Stellana Trevelyan,” she begins, standing in the middle of the chilly cell with her hands clasped in front of her. Her breathing is shaky, but she has to do this. “Eight years ago I was a Templar recruit in Ostwick when I murdered one of my charges, Maxwell. Maxwell Trevelyan. My— my eldest brother.” She nearly chokes on her words. The advisors are staring at her, waiting for her to continue. Cullen shifts his weight, opens his mouth, closes it again. “I started drinking young. I couldn’t handle— I can’t handle it. Any of it.” She swallows, forces her eyes to remain open though her vision is blurring at the edges. “We were celebrating our graduation to full templars, and the other recruits had a flask of whiskey. I drank the whole thing. I knew it was dangerous.” Deep breath. Just the facts, don’t shift the blame.

“I woke up later, on the ground, face to face with my brother’s corpse. I had beaten him to death. Blood, everywhere. I…” She shakes her head, presses her fist to her mouth so she won’t get sick. Cullen no longer looks like he wants to say anything. Josephine’s lovely brown skin is green-tinged in the dim light of the dungeon. “I couldn’t remember a thing, but I knew I had killed him. My knuckles were skinned down to the bone.” She flexes her fingers, showing them the scars that will be there the rest of her life.

There’s still more to tell, and she barrels on. “I turned myself in to the Knight-Commander. I thought I would be expelled at the least, imprisoned, maybe even executed. Maxwell had been heir to the Trevelyan name once, before his magic showed. But my father intervened on my behalf. Said I was too talented to waste on a mage. The Knight-Commander was a good man, but my father… He threatened to withdraw his financial support, even get the Grand Cleric to demote him. Of course he bowed. I was sent back to watching mages the next day. The day after that, before I would get my first draught of lyrium, I ran.”

“Why… why would you kill him? Do you know?” Leliana is floundering, caught off guard as she rarely is. Irene is not surprised the spymaster didn’t find this out — Bann Trevelyan is well-practiced in cleaning up.

“I don’t know. The other recruits were terrified, refused to talk to me about it. Then they all were silenced, one way or another. Some with money, a few more with blackmail. And the remainder were sent out to hunt apostates and never came back.” Yet more lives, ruined by her. She only found this out years later, when others made inquiries on her behalf. “I had no plan, when I fled the city. I just wanted out. Away from my family. I had known he cared little for Maxwell, but…” She shakes her head, trying to banish the memory that comes to her mind, as clear as it was all those years ago: Maxwell’s face, inches from her own, a bloody pulp except for his eyes. Brown like hers, like their father’s, staring into her forever, accusing where the Bann wasn’t.

There are many reasons why she doesn’t sleep until she has to.

“I can’t… I’m sorry, everyone. For acting like someone I wasn’t. For giving you false hope. For creating this mess and leaving you all to try lessening the damage.” She’s done. She takes a deep steadying breath, and holds it.

To her dull surprise, Cullen steps forward. “Irene. You didn’t know what you were doing.” A beat later and he rubs the back of his neck, evidently nervous to be so close to a murderer. But he doesn’t take the words back, or shy away. “Maker’s breath, you were drunk.”

“That’s not an excuse,” she says quietly.

“Not an… Irene. You had no idea drinking that whiskey would affect you so much. You have torn yourself apart over this.” There is something gentle and understanding in his eyes when he says that. “I’m not saying you were wrong to feel guilty. But I will not condemn you for something that was not your fault.” He glances back at the women, but she can’t bear to. She fixates on Cullen, fascinated by his defense. She doesn’t believe him, but she could.

“Josie?” Leliana says.

The Ambassador taps her quill against her chin before scribbling something down. “It could be difficult to mitigate the scandal if this gets out. I could manage it, however. We may even play it to our advantage — that the mark proves Andraste has forgiven you.” A pause. “As for what I think, it would have helped to know this from the beginning. But this is by no means a crippling blow to the Inquisition.”

Josephine is being kind, she thinks. But, Irene is no diplomat. A tiny swell of hope rises in her chest — not that she will be wholly absolved, but that the Inquisition may avoid the fallout of her mistakes.

“The Maker chose you,” Cassandra says abruptly. “I do not like the dishonesty, but even if He had not…” She sighs. “Even if He had not saved you, I think you have suffered enough.” Her posture is stiff, as if she does not like what she is saying. But Cassandra is not the kind to lie about something like this.

“Then we are in agreement,” says Leliana lightly. “Irene, I understand why you didn’t want us to know, but now that we do… Was there anything else?”

Irene huffs a disbelieving laugh, and Cullen jumps. “No. Tevinter husband, blackouts, Maxwell’s murder. That’s it from me.”

“Very well,” Cullen says. “We still have to close the Breach. Let’s worry about our immediate survival for the moment. Get some rest, Irene. If we fail at this…”

“We won’t,” she says, reeling. It’s uplifting, their faith in her. Even if she still thinks it foolish, she will bask in their kindness for as long as she can.

***

The next two days are spent in a flurry of activity, before the work runs out and they return to the dreadful waiting. A storm in the mountains just east of Haven delays the veterans, Leliana tells them. The Spymaster’s plan to stop the rumors before they start is mostly successful, but there is still a whisper that some issue has divided the Inquisition’s leaders. Which isn’t strictly true, but it is the best Irene could hope for.

Cole makes himself scarce, but there are signs he is still around: she finds a sprig of prophet’s laurel in a vase by Julien’s bedside, and the infirmary healers have no idea where it came from. She doesn’t know where he could have gotten the rare herb, either.

Her brother is healing steadily. The surgeon claims he will make a full recovery, even be able to fight again, though it will take time. They had to make sure he didn’t have any red lyrium in his body, and an infection took hold early on, which is why it’s taking so long. Now, with him laying there, unnaturally pale, she just wants to hear his voice again. She tucks his hair — a darker blonde than hers — behind his ears and studies his face. Same strong jawline; it looks better on him, even if it is half-hidden behind a scruffy beard. His nose was healed properly after it was broken, unlike hers. Broad of body, with a little paunch around the middle, visible even under the bandages. She’s a little surprised it has remained, given that he isn’t eating any food. Just thin broth.

Whoever his mother was, she also gave him noticeably darker skin than the rest of the family, and dark green eyes. She was envious of those eyes, when she was younger. A far step up from her own muddy brown. Hers are the same as her father’s, and Maxwell’s.

She can’t sit by his bedside forever; she tells herself it’s because she’s restless, not because she’s afraid of ruining everything she touches. She lurches up with a groan and stalks off toward the gates, grinding her jaw when the healers’ whispers follow her.

The Breach is still in the sky, and while they may be close to closing it, it won’t matter if they can’t find this Elder One Cole and Envy spoke of. Cole also mentioned Empress Celene of Orlais; she may be their best lead. Envy boasted of a demon army, too, but Irene isn’t sure whether that was posturing or a promise. Probably both. Either way, ‘army of demons’ is yet another phrase she would like to never hear again.

She steps out of Haven, nodding to the gate guards when they salute. Maker, but she will never get used to that.

Commander Cullen is taking a break from drills to oversee the construction of… something. Siege equipment? Just the base is done, but people are building more parts nearby. She comes closer, standing next to him while the workers hammer away at a long arm-like piece of wood. “What’s all this?” she says.

Cullen flinches. “Maker’s breath! I apologize, Irene, I did not see you there.” She tries to smile at him — he must have been really distracted, not to have heard her lumbering up — and though she knows it comes out as a grimace at best, he continues, “Haven is no fortress, but we need some kind of defense. These are to be trebuchets. I pray we never have to use them.” He won’t look at her for more than a second at a time. Well, it’s not as if she expected everything to be perfect after her confession.

“Me too,” she says. He’s nervous, with her there, so she shifts her weight and turns away. “I shouldn’t be distracting you.”

“Ah, you— you aren’t distracting me,” Cullen says, voice tinged with a note of panic, and she stops. When she looks at him he’s rubbing the back of his neck, a faint blush creeping up to his ears. “I would welcome your company. Unless you have other plans?”

Irene remembers why she left Haven’s walls in the first place. “I was going to visit the overlook again,” she murmurs. His blush is throwing her, and she considers that the nervousness may be born of something other than fear. Cullen is almost unfairly handsome. She doesn’t think he’s truly interested in her — she knows she’s not a good-looking woman, and to have this man be falling for her personality is laughable — and in any case, her heart still aches. Someday, she will move on, but she can’t imagine it now.

“Oh.” His hand drops to hang listlessly at his side. “I… apologize, Herald.” He wants to say something else, she can tell, but he decides against it.

‘Oh’, indeed. “There is nothing to apologize for, Commander. Good luck with the defenses — may we never use them.” Irene moves on, the weight on her chest that’s been suffocating her for weeks pressing that much more. She feels him following her with his eyes, but she keeps going.

The land’s been cleared halfway around the lake, in preparation for the templars to come, but the overlook is safe, and her little shrine remains. There’s something lying in the snow in front of it, something that wasn’t there before. She stops a few paces away, wary. She hadn’t thought about it, but a thin layer of snow fell since she was here last. There are footprints leading up, fresh ones, and the rock’s edges has been dusted off. A cut flower — embrium — sticks up out of the pile of snow.

Who would have been here? Who would violate her husband’s empty grave? The white-hot rage that steals her breath and blurs her vision is familiar, at least. It is better than feeling lost, as she has mostly felt since waking up in the Chantry months ago.

She marches over, intent on ripping out the embrium, and throwing whatever is lying in front over the edge to shatter on the lake ice below.

It’s… a staff. It’s Colm’s staff. Still in two pieces, still charred from the explosion, but instantly recognizable from the iron crescent on top. Someone retrieved it. Someone went up to the Temple and found it, brought it back down to put at the shrine she thought only she — and Cullen — knew about.

She falls to her knees, now out of breath for a different reason altogether. She won’t cry. She won’t.

But why—?

Her hands ghost over the splintered wood, and she sobs.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da:i #dragon age fic #dragon age fanfiction #heaven by violence #lulzy writes

[blue-slates]

dragon age au for your ryder siblings?

Lmao thank you!! And sorry this took forever

___

Usagi clutched the book close to his chest, not looking at her but on a point ahead of them. "But you have to admit, it's strange, right?" His eyes were fixed on one of the templars, an older man. The knight commander. "I mean, he looks… kind of like m-"

"Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" Her words were harsher than she had meant, but she was tired. Tired of him always bringing this up. "All it does is make you upset, and give me a headache."

His face fell slightly and she looked away to avoid seeing it. When her gaze locked with the knight commander she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. He didn't exactly look like Usagi, but the slope of his jaw, the shape of his nose. She recognised those features in her brother. And herself. 

She must have failed to hide the revulsion forming on her face, because the knight commander turned away, too quickly for it to seem natural. She grabbed Usagi's sleeve - also too quickly - and began to drag him away. "That's enough speculation on that today. We're already going to be late for class." 

Usagi let her lead him down the hall, but he threw a quick glance over his shoulder. And Kopano knew that this wouldn't be the end of their conversation.

#Usagi Ryder #Kopano Ryder #Alec Ryder #Mass Effect Andromeda #Lol I was having trouble deciding between circle mage twins or dalish elf twins but circle won #cos of knight commander!Alec family drama #Ellen's the first enchanter obvs and maybe also an elf?? #was thinking of making this longer but gosh writing on my phone is annoying and I ran out of steam #why'd I write did instead of being easy on myself and jotting down headcanons like I think I was supposed to lol #Usagi: wouldn't it be nice if he moved us here to be close to us? #Kopano: wouldn't it be nice if I strangled him to death with my bare hands? he's a fucking templar