#luzial writes

[musetta3]

Six Sentence Sunday and Last Line Monday...on Monday

Thanks for the tag, @barbex and @rakshadow ! I have a bit of chapter 54 of Songstress, in which Isabela is having a very bad day getting chased by the Ostwicker Navy. Tag list under the cut!

But her First Mate’s maneuvering wasn’t enough to spare them; much to Isabela’s dismay, the nauseating crunch of wood giving way to steel shook the ship, as the Ostwicker battering ram caught the starboard stern. She ran to the stairs leading below deck, nearly losing her footing from the impact.

“What’s the damage?” She shouted over the drum.

“We’re patching as we speak,” the ship’s carpenter shouted back, “tell Cavendish to move his leaden arse, Captain: I can only do so much here…”

She scoffed a laugh at the profanity, returning to the fray. The Siren’s Call was  already pulling away from the Ostwicker ram; Isabela and the crew managed to take down a few more enemies before they drifted out of range. But the relentless Ostwickers pursued; Isabela cursed, eyes widening: they were in the perfect position to shear off the Siren's oars…

And the last line: 

Isabela heaved a sigh. “Can we last till Kirkwall?”

The ship’s carpenter shook his head, “we’ll barely make it to the mainland, at this rate, Captain...”

Tagging with love:  @inquisitoracorn @oxygenforthewicked  @best-of-the-vein ​ @dreadfutures @darethshirl  @fiadhaisteach @bogunicorn @rosella-writes @noire-pandora @tkwritesdumbassassins @drag-on-age @thevikingwoman  @in-arlathan  @melisusthewee  @effelants @potatowitch @imperatrixvini @bluephoenix1347 @bluewren @cleverblackcat @johaeryslavellan @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul @rakshadow @morganlefaye79 @serial-chillr @luzial

#six sentence sunday #last line monday #wip whenever #six sentence someday #dragon age #dragon age 2 #dragon age fanfic #dragon age fanfiction #isabela #naval warfare #pirates #my fanfiction #musetta writes

[thevikingwoman]

Fic Author Self Rec

When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love.  

Thank you @roguelioness, @dreadfutures and @darethshirl for tagging me for this a while ago! 

Tagging forward to @galadrieljones @beaubashley @redinkofshame @luzial @barbex  @ellstersmash  @ladylike-foxes @buttsonthebeach @bearlytolerant @sinsbymanka @musetta3 and anyone else who hasn’t done this yet!

I’m not sure if these are my all time favorites, but here are some fics I like today. 

Wind - a Solavellan small future piece, where Iwyn teaches her and Solas’ children to sail. Solas is nervous, Iwyn’s brother is not. I love this piece, because the highlight is Solas and Branwen’s relationship. I love writing older, wiser Keeper Branwen and the way he has come to terms with his sister’s choices. But it’s also a piece of small everyday family fluff -- and a tiny foreshadow of what I think DA4 could have been about. 

 Temporal Arrangements - Solavellan time travel AU. I love this because I wrote it, a full story full of plot and lovely moments. I enjoyed my own vision of Arlathan and of how it changes Solas and Iwyn’s relationship. And tbh I love Solas being confronted with the stupidity of his plans. 

Home - Uprooted (book) coda. I just think this one is neat, and I really hit the mood I was going for. 

Ties - alternate future Solavellan smut. Well this one love because it’s very spicy :P. Iwyn and Solas are enemies, but Solas is bad at it, and Iwyn is grabbing every advantage she can. 

Temerity - Solavellan future smut . Another enemies (but are they really?) spicy piece. I love this because I did not think I was brave enough to write it, but I did. I also think I did a really excellent job of balancing the smuttiness and the character development. Smut with feelings, trying to solve an unhealthy relationship with unhealthy sex, and Iwyn enforcing her boundaries.

#author self rec #I was tagged #thank you for the tags always #sorry if it takes me a while to get to

[luzial]

4. “Come back with me.” Nighttime + fight for Solavellan?

Thank you for the prompt! Here’s some relationship Solavellan in Skyhold. I’m back on the angst train for 2021.

Read on AO3 || @dadrunkwriting​

They had lingered late in the Rotunda, working with maps and texts spread across Solas’ desk as he and the Inquisitor tried to determine the location of a temple buried long ago. The later they stayed, the more people retired for the night and the more precarious his situation became. Their hands would touch. Their lips would meet. And, inevitably, Solas would be forced to make a choice.

“Come back with me.”

He had refused her once before. In truth, Solas had not expected her to ask again, and had no excuse prepared. He hid his oversight beneath an agonizing silence as he hurriedly scribbled one final, unnecessary note on the map they’d been using.

“I cannot,” he said, finally.

He thought, from her silence, that perhaps that would be it. But then she spoke again.

“Do you not want to?” Lavellan asked gently. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Of course I want to,” Solas answered before he could stop himself.

“Then, why?” she asked, entirely reasonably.

“The Orlesian delegation we are hosting never retire before dawn,” he said, offering the excuse he’d only just concocted. “They will see us if we enter your quarters together, and such a scandal would do you no credit in their eyes. An elf in a position of power is detestable to Orlais, and yet Ambassador Montilyet has convinced them to overlook it. Were an elven advisor appear to be too close to you, I doubt even she could preserve their support.”

“And who says we need to go to my quarters?” Lavellan asked, leaning back against his desk.

The invitation was more appealing than she could know. But still, he shook his head.

“It is too much of a risk. For all the reasons I’ve already stated.”

“You know Skyhold better than I do - better than any of us,” she countered. “You must be able to think of a dozen places where we could find some privacy.”

And, fenedhis, but he could.

There was an alcove at the tip of the rotunda, deserted at this time of night, when even the Spymaster had finally retired for the few hours she allowed herself to leave her desk each day. Then there was the room below the kitchens, warmed by its hearth and yet far too secluded to attract attention after dark. The loft of the stables, if the Warden could be distracted to a game of Wicked Grace in the tavern. Any of the three currently unoccupied rooms in the guest quarters where foreign dignitaries slept. Pressed against a wall beneath the stairs at the edge of the gardens, he considered with agonizing clarity.

And if - if only - he could shape this place with a thought the way he used to, Solas would sculpt a room just for her. Hidden behind a stone wall that would give way only for them, he would carve a balcony that overlooked the frozen lake and seal it with a spell to keep the cold at bay while allowing the snow to swirl into the room for a brief moment of fragile beauty before it melted away. The hearth would be ornate and enormous, large enough to hold a fire that would warm them all night long, even after it crumbled to embers. He would build the fire himself, with his own hands, choosing the branches from the nearby woods and finding the herbs to scent it.

He would craft her a bed made from the twisting branches of the white-barked trees that grew only in Arlathan Forest, and weave them into an intricate knot that conjured protection and devotion with each twist. The bedclothes would be Fade-touched silk - the only material that could come close to matching the softness of her lips. Time would pass slowly, if at all. He would steal each minute that he could and savor her touch, her taste, her voice. He would forget himself in the press of her body against his, and hide from the duty that lurked just beyond the door, threatening to drag him back out into the cold.

Solas had built such a place in his mind a hundred - a thousand - times. So he did, again. But this was not a world that could be shaped to his whims. And so he dismissed it, again. He chased the thought of it away, because he knew what must come first.

He could not ask such a thing of her without first telling her the truth. And he could not tell her the truth.

Candles and moonlight lied. Desire lied, most of all. It tempted one to believe that it alone was enough.

Solas knew that if he viewed the situation in the harsh light of day, his choice was really no choice at all.

He had been silent too long. Lavellan stared at him with eyes that saw too much.

“It is impossible,” Solas said.

“Only because you’ve decided it’s so.”

Her rebuke was not gentle, and he could offer no response that could adequately counter it. So he said nothing.

She shook her head at him and let out an angry breath. She was halfway to the door when Solas caught up to her, his hand tight upon her elbow.

He kissed her once for every five steps they took, darting from shadow to shadow as they made their way clumsily to the deserted guest quarters above the gardens. And when he laid her down upon the bed and drank in the sight of her, Solas began to understand that there was really no choice at all.

#prompts #da drunk writing circle #dragon age #dragon age fanfiction #luzial writes #solas #lavellan #solavellan #solas x lavellan #midnightprelude

[baejax-the-great]

Zevran & Alistair, “Did you just bite me?!”

A little Zevran x Tabris, a little Alistair being cranky. @dadrunkwriting

~

It had been tense all morning, though Darrian found himself too sleepy to really listen to the conversation until Alistair yelped. He pulled his knee to his chest, hopping on one foot. “Did you just bite me?” he accused.

Zevran raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Of course not. What sort of man bites another?”

Zevran, just this morning, Darrian thought idly as they made their way through the brush, fingering the resulting bruise at his neck. It was the reason he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Might be the reason Alistair hadn’t gotten enough sleep, come to think of it.

“That’s strange,” Alistair grumbled in his lowest voice, “I could have sworn something just bit my ankle, and no one else in our party could reach that low.” He let go of his knee and strode off toward the front with a huff.

“Oh, ho ho, you did not just call me short, you enormous, gigantic, humungous—”

“Zevran,” Darrian cut in. Zevran lowered the throwing knife he’d been brandishing at Alistair’s back. “I give you permission to assassinate us both after the Blight. But for now, we need our mobile battering ram stab-wound free.”

Up ahead, Alistair made a far more convincing cry than his earlier yelp, and it was followed by a lot of crashing and the crack of Wynne’s stone fist hitting… something.

“You were saying?” Zevran asked before they both ran into a battle already started.

#zevran #alistair #zevran x warden #zevran x tabris #tabris #ficlet #my writing #luzial

[wizardofozymandias]

Heads Up 7 Up

Thanks for tagging me, @nug-juggler and @luzial.

Challenge: Post the last 7 sentences I wrote and tag 7 people.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot lately, as I’m trying to figure out my newly rearranged work schedule. But here’s the last coherent thing I wrote. No title for this yet, and it might not go very far. But it might turn into a Solrian modern AU. In a world where D&D and MTG exist in Thedas.

The Witch of the Wilds gaming shop was several blocks from the university, and Solas always enjoyed the quiet walk. The only issue was the risk of being recognized by someone who knew him. But he had been going there for almost two years and no one had noticed his habit yet.

Friday Night Magic was always a good time. While Solas had his own private reasons for disliking D&D, Magic was just the type of game that appealed to him. There were so many ways to strategize, to build a deck, to lure your opponent into a carefully constructed trap.

It was Solas’s great passion and his greatest secret.

Tagging: @blarfkey, @noire-pandora,  @brightoncemore, @midnightprelude, @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold, @myrddinderwydd, @queenaeducan. Let me know if you’d rather not be tagged again, please.

#my writing #dragon age #fanfiction #solrian #solas/dorian #ozy writes #tag game #nug-juggler #luzial

[5lazarus]

For fanfic asks: 1 & 12?

thanks for the ask! 1. has a comment someone left on a fic of yours ever made you laugh out loud? someone once commented on my story Anders in Autumns: “And then they were comrades. OMG, they were comrades.” and indeed, they were comrades. and in that one moment we reinvented the comrades-to-lovers trope, abandoned since the McCarthy era. 12. what headcanon will you keep implementing in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it? I will screech in rage if they make Mythal and Solas lovers. I hate it. Give me my (abusive, manipulative, codependent) mentor/student, mother/son dynamic over any more weird heterosexual nonsense.

#ask #writing #fanfic #luzial

[thatdreadbitch]

For DWC, from the Senses 2 prompt list: "6. The sight of something you lost, returned."

Some more tamlen Angst for @dadrunkwriting . this time a snippet of a fic i plan to write at some point.

setting: Temple of Sacred Ashes, approximately one week before this prompt fill

Pairing: Ciara MaharielxTamlen

Word count: 614

----

     Ciara watched as the last of the wisps flew into the doorway, allowing it to open and revealing someone waiting for them once more, though not the same Guardian as before. She was ready for whichever test came next. She took a deep breath and walked towards the figure which came into focus as she crossed the threshold. She could make out from the back that it was an elf this time. The armor was of Dalish make. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, so far all of the spirits they encountered were connected to Andraste; yet, as far as she knew no Dalish elf had a place in Andraste’s tale.

    “It is so good to see you again, lethallan.” The figured spoke with a voice that brought Ciara to tears just hearing it. She found herself shaking when the elf turned around and revealed himself to be Tamlen. What in the creators name was going on here? This could not be Tamlen. Tamlen was dead. She knew that when she saw the ghouls in the deep roads despite her never finding his body. But yet. Her heart wanted it to be him so badly. She felt a yearning to step forward and hug him, to hold him once more; to at least let him know how badly she missed him and how she tried to continue the search despite the knowledge that this couldn't be true.

    “Tamlen!” her voice trembled with relief as she stepped closer to the elf. “Tamlen you have no idea-” her voice broke as she went to hug him. Though when she tried to wrap her arms around his form, she found that they merely passed through him; as though he were a spirit with no corporeal form. The tears fell from her eyes as she buried them in her hands and sobbed. She knew it was too good to be true. She had accepted his death. As it was still a far better fate than that which had befallen Ruck and Hespith, but still part of her wanted it to be possible for him to be alive. “What are you demon?!”

   “Some things lost can never be found, vhenan. Some mistakes can never be unmade.” The figure spoke sadly as Ciara lowered her hands and looked up at the being, tears still flowing from her eyes. “You have suffered enough, thinking there was something you could have done to save me. Those that survive must go on living.” He then placed a small necklace in her hand. “Take this as a token of my love, it is nothing when compared to the crafts of our forefathers but I know it would mean more than anything in this world . . . We will not meet again.” The spirit faded away.

   Ciara wasn't sure how long she stood there in silent tears replaying his words in her mind and staring at the necklace in her hands and tracing the wooden animals with her fingers as she fought back the tears. The necklace was one he had given her when they were young, before they even went on their first hunt together, as a token of friendship. She thought about everything she had been through up to this point. All the friends she had made, the laughs she had shared with her companions. She realized how wrong she had been to judge humans at first. She was making a mistake. She couldn’t defile the ashes now.

   Yet part of her felt relief at the words the spirit spoke. She could let go of the pain and uncertainty of what happened to him.

   After several months of grief and denial, she could finally heal.

#tamlen angst #dragonage origins #dragon age origins #Mahariel #Dalish Warden #ciara mahariel #Female Mahariel #angst time. im so sorry my writing is rusty #luzial #MaharielxTamlen #OC:Ciara mahariel #CiaraxTamlen #tamlen

[athenril-of-kirkwall]

For the DWC: "Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys." Happy new year! 🎉

Haha, thanks! Same to you :D

Juniper Hawke/Anders, “Hide and Seek, Kiss and Tell” (AO3)

“Oh, in the name of the Maker’s hairy cheeks,” Juniper Hawke cursed, as she surveyed the street which lay before her.

Anders caught up with her once she’d stopped, asking, “What is it now?”

She turned to him, testily asking as she clutched her side, “What do you think? It’s the Dog Lords this time, what with their mabari out for our blood. And all I wanted to do was to get to the Hanged Man from yours.”

“Oh joy,” he muttered, saying, “Your fine countrymen at work once again, right on the heels of those Sharps men we just dealt with.”

“My fine countrymen?”, Hawke hissed. “You carved out an entire career for yourself at Amaranthine—”

“Being knee-deep in the weirdest darkspawn in history for a couple of months is not a ‘career’, I’ll have you know—”

“—so you don’t get to deny your own Fereldan background, messere. These Dog Lords are as much your problem as they are mine.”

Anders protested, “It doesn’t really matter what my life history is, I’m still in as much trouble as you are purely by dint of where we are right now. Speaking of which, they’re getting closer! I assume you have a plan?”

Hawke took her palm away from her side, observing the blood coating it, shaking her head as she felt the fresh pain from the wound a lucky Sharps archer had dealt upon before he’d been exploded from within with a fireball, judiciously placed by her.

She leant towards him, whispering, “I need a heal, but they’ll see it from here. Follow me.”

Anders followed her glance to a nearby alleyway between them and the gangsters, and the two of them slowly hobbled over to avoid eliciting a response from the Fereldans.

The moment they were out of sight, Hawke pinned Anders to the wall, her lips crashing into his as she took his hand and placed it on her wounded side, breaking away for just long enough for her to hoarsely whisper to him again.

“Now’s a good time,” she said, looking down at where his hand was.

Anders nodded, and the alleyway was lit for brief moments with the healing energies coming off his palms, Hawke shuddering as she felt its rejuvenating aura course through her. Breathing deeply, she looked deep into his eyes before closing the gap between them, their lips smacking together wetly as he finished the spell.

He moved his hand to her shoulder as his lips left her grip, asking, “I think we’re now just being more conspicuous than subtle.”

Hawke raised her eyebrow, saying, “Nobody pays lovers in alleyways any heed, but not with the way you were kissing.”

“Me?”, he defended himself, saying, “You’re always the one who’s being wet and lo—”

Staring daggers at him, she said, “Finish that sentence and I’m leaving you to them.”

“Oh, right,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “We should probably do something about your countrymen. On your mark?”

“Lead the way, doctor,” Hawke said, gesturing at the main street.

-

Ten minutes later, at the Hanged Man

“About blasted time you two got here,” Varric said, putting his cards down as the two mages entered the tavern, their robes stained with human and mabari blood. “Pay up, Isabela, it was gangsters after all and not a steamy roadside tryst after all.”

“Hold on a moment,” the pirate said, holding her palm out. “Seeing as we’ve got a turf war and the Coterie still running amuck in there, I bet our beloved leader took our medicine man aside for some passionate healing between fights.”

Hawke and Anders stood rooted to the spot, thunderstruck, before Hawke blabbered, “You-how did-I absolutely did not—”

Isabela shook her head, explaining, “It’s the ponytail, love. You always ruffle it up when the two of you go about exploring each other’s tonsils. It’s rather endearing, really.”

Anders, reflexively tying it back it in place, protested, “You have absolutely no right—”

“Not when my money’s on the line, Sparkles,” Isabela said, glancing over at Varric and counting one silver out from two in her hand. “There you go. One for partial credit.”

“You’re much too generous,” the dwarf said, adding it the pile of coins besides his cards. “But she’s got a point, Hawke, that move is getting rather predictable.”

“It’s also getting increasingly pointless,” Isabela said, dealing out new hands for the two of them. “You’ll wake up half the neighbourhood if Hawke’s kissing gets any louder and wet—”

“Isabela!”

-

@dadrunkwriting

#f!hawke/anders #juniper hawke #anders #varric #isabela #dragon age #dragon age ii #ao3 #prompt fic #fanfic #athenril-of-kirkwall #luzial #dadrunkwriting #da drunk writing circle

[bdafic]

For fanfic writer asks: 13, 20, 29? Thanks!! <3

[Main post]

13. When did you start writing fanfic? In the before-times, in the long long ago. Usenet, circa 1995 or 1996. 

20. What feedback makes you the happiest to hear? This is a tie between, “I’ve read this multiple times” and “I normally don’t like (thing in your fic) but this pulled me in”. I know a lot of people don’t care for the latter but I’m just like fuck yeah. Changed your mind. That’s always gonna be cool. 

29. What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? (Brainstorming, outlining, writing, editing, etc)  Lying in bed awake at 3am daydreaming the same scene from 15 different angles. Other than that, editing. Because the hard part is done. Editing is like whipping out a chamois and just going to town - I like watching the shine come up.

#writing adjacent #luzial

[dadrunkwriting]

DWC housekeeping - Team NA/AUS/Asia

Hi friends, 

as spring rolls around it’s time again for a little house keeping and updates to the active / in-active list of DA Drunk Writing Circle. 

This is just to make sure everyone on the regular roll-call is still interested, as this makes the life a little easier for the admins.

If you are interested in staying on the headcount list, please reply or reblog to this post with a message. If your blog name changed, please let us know too!

If you want to be inactive, you do not have to take any action.

Reminders:

You’re not required to write or participate any set number of times, so if you think you’re going to write this spring/summer, by all means stay on the active list!

You can ALWAYS request to go back on the ‘active list’, just message an admin!

You can always opt in for an occasional Friday, even if you’re not on the active list. Just reply to the head count post - though earlier notice is easier for the admins.

Regardless of whether you’re active or inactive, you’re always welcome to post and tag us Friday night, as long as you are a member of the group. If an old prompt suddenly inspires you, just tag!

The discord is open for both active and inactive writers :)

I will keep tagging people on this list throughout the week, to make sure everyone sees it. The change will go into effect Friday May 6th.

thanks!

- admin viking

@contreparry

@nilesdaughter

@rileys-nest

@irlaimsaaralath

@luzial

@midnightprelude

@juliafied

@blarrghe

@fairfaxleasee

@protect-him

@tsuraiwrites

@oxygenforthewicked

@mx-nplm

@queerspacepunk

@potatowitch

@shutupaboutandraste

@teknicianwrites

@dreadfutures

@for-the-ninth

@best-of-the-vein

@silvanils

@cas-writes-occasionally

@platoonharmonica

@nirikeehan

@wildercrow

@rosella-writes

@melisusthewee

@queenaeducan-writes

@musetta3

@tevivinter

@waterkelpies

@glowing-blue-feathermage

@queerspacepunk

@anatidae-dragonage

@imperatrixvini

@inquisimer

#dwc #housekeeping #psa

[luzial]

I recently commissioned @salesart to do a portrait of Solas (aka “Song”) and Lavellan (aka “Ink”) from my fic, In And Out Of Time Again. I’m so thrilled with how it came out, especially all the little details that reference their codenames. Thank you SO MUCH to Sales for all your work on this piece, and for asking me all the hard-hitting questions like “what’s their height difference.” I had so much fun collaborating with you!

The first chapter of In And Out of Time Again is below the cut, and you can read the completed work on AO3.

Song has had many names. The latest suits him no better nor worse than the others. If he has one complaint, it is that this name lacks specificity. Fen’Harel was a name that was a lie, and a lie that has long since become irrelevant, but he cannot argue that it painted a clear and awful portrait. His other name, the one that came both before and after, he is only too glad to be rid of. He rarely thinks of it now.

Song is in his element in Strands like these, when he can submit to the demands of his teeth and claws and blessedly forget the version of himself that is not like this. It is simple here in the verdant expanse of his home, his first love. When a mountain stands in his way he moves it with a thought. When a beating heart must be silenced, he rips into it and tastes warm blood on his tongue.

His assignment today is a wonderfully simple one: a death. The target is ancient and powerful, though only in comparison to the other things of its world. Beside an agent of Music, it is nothing. He longs for a crush of strength against his own and for the moment when uncertainty asks him whether he can snap his target’s neck before it breaks him in two. The answer, of course, is that he will hear the crack of bone and hold its dying form within his jaws too quickly to satisfy the hunger that burns within him.

Still, he will try to afford it a fair fight.

When he finds the edges of its lair, Song realizes something is wrong. Demons should swarm around him, challenging his right to intrude on their master’s territory even as he cuts them down. There should be whispers here, a choir of disembodied voices singing the Melody’s secrets for those who know how to listen. Yet all that greets him are emptiness and silence.

The raw Fade has begun to reclaim this place, the green waters of its currents rising up to erode the poisoned ground that has been here for three thousand years. Song wanders farther in, his paws sinking deep into the muck, until finally he finds the corpse.

The fear demon that claimed this part of the Fade is gone, reduced to a husk of tangled limbs and fangs that still drip with venom. Song has arrived too late. The death has already been administered, but this means that the timing is all wrong, and for Music, timing is everything.

Whatever killed the demon has done so before it had a chance to strike a bargain with a young mage girl in Kirkwall. Now she will not murder her family and dozens of others; she will not leave alive one angry, orphaned sister. Thanks to this single fault in the rhythm, the entire Strand is lost.

Song is so annoyed by all the absences that at first he does not notice the addition. It is so impossibly out of place that for a moment he simply stares at it. Stuck to the venom on the dead demon’s fangs is a piece of finely-made paper that smells of sugar and flowers, its perfume somehow drowning the stench of the rotting carcass. He reaches out for it with a hand and fingers; it is a thing too delicate to be held by claws. The venom stings but he pays it no mind, for he has seen the single line written on the page in a delicate script: Touch me with fire that I be cleansed.  

It must be a trap. Not the venom, of course. Whoever left this certainly knows it will take much more than that to wound him. It would be best to leave the note here and let it rot along with the rest of this discordant Strand. But this is a challenge and an invitation - words that hint at more words.  

Song ignites the paper between his fingers and it is as if he has turned the first page in a book. He reads, and when he is done he has become the wolf again, mouth twisted to a snarl. When he has committed the words to memory, he shreds what’s left of the sweet-smelling paper between his claws and grinds it into the mud.

When Song is gone, a shade steps into the pawprints he left and searches until it finds every piece of the burned, shredded, filthy paper.

--------

Tell me I have sung to Your approval.

I’ve always been fond of the Canticle of Transfigurations, or at least of the versions that I’ve penned. Hopefully you have more than a passing familiarity with it as well, or the cosmic cleverness of what I’ve just done will be totally wasted on you. (But I suspect your familiarity is more than passing. If you are who I think you are, you’ve probably written versions of it yourself. If so, how do you deal with the bit in 10:1 about the moth and the flame? I feel like I can never get it quite ominous enough, you know?)

I’ve barely just begun and already I’ve distracted myself with all the questions I wish to ask you. But that just speaks to my point (that I’m about to make).

Is there anything in this world more insidious than words? It took me eight of them to grab your attention. Honestly, I could have managed it in fewer if I didn’t want to make a dramatic entrance. But I did.

I’ve been curious about you for a while now. It’s not like there are many things left to be curious about when you have all of time to catch up on anything you might have missed, so I should thank you for that novelty. I think the first time I saw you was during that bad business in the Deep Roads in Strand 398. I was the hurlock, you were the Grey Warden recruit. Our eyes met as I bit into your commander’s neck and tore out his windpipe. (Sorry about the mess, by the way - I really enjoy getting into character.)

You were definitely meant to lose that fight. I know - I’ve gone back and checked a lot of other Strands and that recruit always dies, the darkspawn always swarm, and the Third Blight always begins. But then you single-handedly cut down the horde after everyone else in your party had died. (I know because I stuck around after you chopped off my head with that broadsword - I just had to see what would happen!) You killed enough of them to prevent the swarm, even though you died for it in the end. (And of course you died for it - you’re good but no one’s that good.)

My point is: do you remember how it felt when that shriek bit into your arm and the Blight burned into your veins? Do you remember the way it spiraled into you, burrowing in your lungs and your heart and your gut until it felt like your body had always been its home? (I’ve been Blighted a lot so I’ve got some pretty good descriptors for it.)

Anyway, let me spell it out in case my metaphors are getting too convoluted: In this letter, I’m the shriek and my words are the Blight. I’ve bitten you and poured my words into you. Your memory will pump them through your mind just as surely as your heart pumped the Blight to the tips of your fingers and toes. Want a cure? Too bad, there isn’t one.

I’m not only writing to gloat. I meant what I said above - I appreciate the novelty you’ve brought to the battlefield. Things are dreadfully dull most of the time. Mainly the Story sends me off to retcon the occasional plot holes your Music introduces to the narrative. There’s very little chance for improvisation, so I have to find amusement where I can.

And this has been very amusing.

Sincerely, Ink

(Keep reading on AO3)

#Art of my fic! #salesart #in and out of time again #dragon age fanart #dragon age fanfic #solas x lavellan #solas #lavellan #solavellan #luzial writes

[baejax-the-great]

For DADWC: Stepping in something squishy + Alistair/Bethany?

Wardens Bethany x Alistair for @dadrunkwriting!!

~

Bethany felt her whole body coil in revulsion. She was a Warden, she had faced shrieks and broodmothers and the endless darkness and she did not flinch. And yet stepping in something squishy made her muscles tremble from thigh to fingertip in pure disgust, and despite herself, she let out a tiny squeak of hatred.

“Bethany?” Alistair asked from behind her, slight alarm in his voice.

“It’s nothing,” she said through clenched teeth, unable to even look down to see what had squished like that. Nothing good. The knowledge would only upset her further, and a bath was very far off. “I just stepped in something.”

She could feel his scrutiny down her back, and then she heard his chuckling. She supposed he would find it funny.

“It’s just, I know that when I lift my foot,” she explained, “I’ll feel it going just as surely as I felt it coming, and whatever it is, it was disgusting.” She was trapped here now, in a perpetual stated of squishing.

Alistair laughed harder, as she knew he would, but then she felt herself lifted into the air. The shock was so distracting she hardly noticed the squelch of her foot being removed from whatever it was. Alistair placed her down on beautifully solid ground and bowed stupidly low to her.  

“There you are, my lady, delivered safely from the from the poor, oozing mushrooms that you utterly demolished with your careless boot.”

Oh. Well, mushrooms weren’t so bad after all. She rolled her eyes and uttered a sarcastic, “My hero.” And with the echoes of Alistair’s laughter through the cavern, they continued their trek.

#bethany #alistair #bethistair #bethany x alistair #grey warden #AHH I can't believe I completed four tonight after saying I was completely unable to write today #go figure #this one was fun #luzial

[midnightprelude]

WIP Wednesday

Hello friends! Today is a very special week for me (it's the week I magically transform from just Middy to Dr. Middy), so I'll probably be posting asks and memes to celebrate! For now, I'll post a snippet from the Kanders fix-it @oftachancer and I are diligently writing. :)

Angst below, I'm sorry, but they'll get a happy ending eventually. <3

His knuckles were white against the smooth wood of his staff as he ascended the steps one at a time, padding silently towards Karl. The rest of his companions seemed far away as he studied the curve of his shoulders, the familiar swoop of his neck. A beard, peppered with gray and tidily groomed, if his profile was any indication. Anders’ voice was thin when he finally spoke at the top of the landing. “Karl?” he asked softly, the stinging returning to his eyes. “It’s me. I told you I’d keep you safe. Just took me a trifle longer than we had anticipated-“

“Anders, I know you too well.” Strange to hear his voice after so many years, echoing hollowly in the vast dark space of the Chantry. The clip of the familiar Ferelden dialect. His name - spoken so many times over so many years, missed and remembered and reshaped- “I knew you would never give up.”

“Of course not, Karl, I-“ Anders stepped towards him, almost dropping his staff on the marble floor. “I’ve missed you.”

“Yes,” he answered quietly. “They told me you would.” He collected the papers, stacking them neatly. “Impulsiveness. We spoke of it once. Do you remember?”

“…Karl.” Why was he still so far away? They’d crossed miles and a bloody sea and Karl may well have been sitting on Satina. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.” He settled the papers into a leather folder and turned.

He had seen too many fresh sunbursts on too many foreheads; the skin tightened and bright red around the imprint of the brand, the eyes dull beneath it when they should have been wide with agony.

“It is as it should be,” Karl murmured, seeing and not-seeing him at once. Moments he’d looked like that in the past, rousing from sleep or from the deepest of his meditations. Seconds of introspection lingering before he focused on Anders and his lips twitched with affection and arousal, fingers reaching before he knew what he was doing… Only Karl did not reach. He did not focus. He stood, temples graying, silver in his beard, age in his features that didn’t yet belong there. And what did belong- all the light and humor and softness that had once been inside of him- that had once been him- was gone.

“N-no-“ The words escaped his lips on an exhale, his heart dropping like a stone to his toes. “No, you can’t-“ He lifted his hand, before letting it fall to his side. “No- It can’t be- Karl. Karl.” He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, his body going numb as he studied that brand. “Karl, you’re not-“

“Would you like to sit down? You seem to be having some difficulty.” Karl drew the chair from the desk and gestured to it vaguely. “You will feel better soon.”

“Soon,” he gasped. “How can anything possibly make this better, Karl?”

“Like you, I was easily overwrought. There is another way. It will be easier.” He looked up to the low balustrade flanked by Kirkwall’s codes of arms. “This is the apostate.”

The familiar shift of armor- clink and scratch- and figures that had been still as statues shifted from hidden alcoves behind tapestries to march towards them.

“Fuck me,” Cecily swore.

“No!” Anders shouted, his voice fracturing and turning two-toned as he swept his gaze across the approaching Templars, bending low, staff clutched close to his chest. Fury, anguish, and the sharp scent of ozone. He let the spirit surge past him, taking control as his consciousness slipped away. “You will never take another mage as you took him,” he heard Justice growl as the world went dark.

Tagging forward to: @dismalzelenka, @pinkfadespirit, @luzial, @in-arlathan, @hezjena2023, @serial-chillr, @ser-thirst-a-lot, @johaeryslavellan, @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold, @elveny, @kunstpause, @lavellanvibes, @dalish-rogue, @decimdraws, @jentrevellan, @wavesofinkdrops, @lethendralis-paints, @factorykat,@hazelestelle, @ramonadecember, @barbex, @nug-juggler, @latefortevinter, @hoiist, @gaysolavellan, @merrybandofmurderers, @hollyand-writes, and @laniardraws! Being extra thirsty with tags today, please let me know if you'd rather be or not be tagged for future WIP Wednesdays! :D

#anders #karl thekla #kanders #cecily hawke #unnamed kanders fic

[5lazarus]

1 and 3 for the end of year asks?

hey! thanks for the ask. :) 1. What’s your personal favourite thing you wrote this year? Open Mic at Quark’s, for the sheer scope and fun and verve and humor of writing it. just was a blast to write, a blast to explore, and I pushed myself out of my comfort zone there. And fadewalker is clean and tightly written and something I’m going to go back to later. 3. answered here. :)

#luzial #ask #writing #end of year reflection #personal

[thevikingwoman]

I know I should throw some fic recs and links here for fanfic writer appreciation day, but we’ve driven almost 700 miles / 1100km today and my brain is broken (and I wasn’t even the one driving!)

So I’ll try to remember everyone who has meant something to me, or whose writing I enjoy.

First and foremost, @galadrieljones a steadfast friend and writer of a beautiful Solavellan epic (The Dead Season) and unique adventures of Solas in Arlathan (The Young Wolf series) as well as numerous beautiful fics in other fandoms. Your friendship, wisdom and encouragement means so much to me.

@buttsonthebeach, a dear friend and amazing writer. The Hamilton inspired post-Trespasser series is amazing and I always appreciate you!

@redinkofshame a great friend and wonderful writer, @theduckpond is such a great fic among others

@roguelioness another great friend with just amazing writing. For goodness bakes is fantastic, and farmers market Solas is an revelation.

@idrelle great friend and writer and always so generous with amazing writing advice. And The Portrait is one of my all time Dragon Age shorts.

@keturagh great friend and encourager of always leaning in. Great writer, wonderful prose.

@bearlytolerant fantastic friend and writer - always so kind and Vhenan’ara is exquisite. Such mature and concise writing

@ellstersmash great friend who writes amazing stories. Three and Nothing On My Tongue are so fantastic and especially the part We Are Infinite is the most perfectly heartbreaking Solavellan short.

@wrenbee @ladylike-foxes @a-shakespearean-in-paris @ma-sulevin @allaganexarch @destinyapostasy @kaoruyogi @wickedwitchofthewilds writer friends!!

Always grateful for @playwithdinos and @commonevilmastermind ‘s writing, truly fandom greats!!

Great fics I love from @beaubashley @luzial and probably others I’ve forgotten for great fics

@cartadwarfwithaheartofgold for all the fandom encouragement of other writers and a great writer themselves

All the old writers in old fandoms; whose names I’ve half forgotten - thank you

I’m sure I’ve missed someone I’m sorry I didn’t mean to, I love so many writers and you’re all amazing

#fanfic writer appreciation week #fanfic writer appreciation #we’re almost home #getting pizza 1 mile away lol

[juliafied]

Bad synopsis meme

Tagged by @boshtet-juggler to describe my WIPs, but in the worst way. Thanks for the tag!!

Love All: Fenris and Hawke play four badminton tournament weekends with seasonal wish fulfillment fantasies in between.

The Lone Wolf’s Call: Sad Fenris solo trip across Thedas, where the real treasure is the friends he makes along the way.

Heist: Extended tour of Kirkwall with multiple members of the DA2 saying, “You son of a bitch, I’m in!”

Regency AU: Hawke wears a dress, but Badly.

Tagging @luzial​, @asaara-writes​, @blarrghe​, @midnightprelude​, @johaeryslavellan​, @thehawkewithgoldeneyes​, if you’d like to participate :)

#bad synopsis meme #thanks for the tag #fenhawke