#shivunin scrivening

[shivunin]

A To-Do List

For the prompt "writing found in your OC's trash can" for Hawke:

(133 Words | No warnings)

A grimy list, stained with a red fingerprint in one corner. Each item is crossed off except the last:

The girl on the corner—locket, belonging to her mother. Near the encampment?

Prayer book of some sort. Initials on the inside leaf. Check w/Seb?

Those sticky buns Orana likes in the marketplace

Leftover salve at the clinic (left cabinet, lower shelf–remember this time!)

Check dead drop

That flea wash for Miser (and ask why he keeps licking his paws!!)

Varric’s manuscript–don’t forget!!

Ask Merrill about that spell from last week. How force distributed across full surface area? Still doesn’t make sense. Bring pencil this time. 

Av. wedding gift from the brazier (hide w/Norah if necessary)

Check dead drop

Docs off to lawyer (tell him to stop calling at house; poor O)

Tell Fenris

#maria hawke #prompt response #i don't remember who asked for this one i'm so sorry T.T #shivunin scrivening #da2 #fenhawke

[shivunin]

In Confidence

( Arianwen Tabris/Zevran Arainai | 2,392 Words | AO3 Link | CW: Fantasy racism, past parent death, emotional hurt/comfort)

“Where are you taking me?” Zevran asked, keeping pace with his Warden as they scaled the side of a building in the alienage. It was not a difficult task, though the state of the scaffolding they were climbing did give him pause. 

“You’ll see,” she told him, grunting slightly when she caught the board over her head and pulled herself up. 

Only fifteen feet separated them from the top—or so he hoped. Meeting her family had been trial enough on its own. He had not anticipated this sort of exertion afterward or he would have eaten far less at her father’s table. 

“Almost there,” she added, and there was the faintest note of an apology tucked beneath her usual impassive tone. If he had not known her so well, Zevran might not have heard it at all. 

“I am in no particular hurry,” he told her, and she stopped climbing to cast him a skeptical look. 

“Well,” Zevran amended, glancing below. “I must admit this is not how I thought we would be spending our evening.” 

Below, the vhenadahl swayed in the evening air off the Drakon River. People stood in clusters, their voices ringing off the stone, and food peddlers had staked out rival ends of the courtyard. It surprised him even now to see the condition of the alienage; he supposed that it explained something of his Arianwen that she had grown up in such a place. And yet—these people had built something here, among the ruins. He could see the bright hair of Tabris’s cousin bob through the crowd, pausing near one cluster of people and speaking for a time. They opened to her reluctantly, but even from this distance Zevran could see some of them begin to nod. Perhaps they would yet rebuild their community, even after what the slavers had done to them. 

“Are you coming?” Arianwen called down, and he realized that she’d made her way to the top while he’d looked below. Zevran climbed instead of answering, and reached for her hand at the top when she offered it. 

“We used to play here,” she told him, bracing to pull him over the edge and onto a wooden platform. “Shianni and I. Before and after it burned. It was our secret place, just the two of us. Poor Soris was never one for heights. He’d wait until he heard us climb down and then we’d all wander together. When his parents still lived, he’d grown up in the building next door. I used to hear his mother singing while she made dinner, back when I used to wander the streets looking for strays.”

“Ah—I see,” Zevran said, glancing around. 

The two of them stood in the burned shell of a house three stories from the ground. He had thought that they’d reached a platform at the top of the scaffolding, but he saw now that he’d been wrong. They stood on all that was left of a wooden floor, the edges blackened and crumbled away. Arianwen stood to the empty doorway, patting the wall beside it fondly. There was little else to see here—only the remnants of a bed, piles of fabric in the corners of the room that might once have been blankets or clothing, holes in the floor where the structure below had given way. He did not struggle to imagine two young girls finding this place out of curiosity, for he had done much the same when he’d been a boy. 

“Ready?” she asked while he was still considering this. She vanished through the darkness of the doorway before he could answer, so Zevran had little choice but to follow her into the hallway beyond. 

“How did this place burn?” Zevran asked, ducking a fallen beam and testing the floor before he went on down the hall. 

“Humans,” Wen said, and her face was shadowed when she glanced back at him. “It burned the night Soris’s parents died.”

There was a heavy silence then. She stopped long enough for him to catch up and caught his hand in hers. This was still new—Arianwen reaching for him, for comfort. Zevran did not know quite what to make of it yet. 

“She tried to escape the building after they set it aflame. One of them kicked her back inside. The man who—oh, nevermind. You don’t need the details,” she took a sharp breath, her hand squeezing Zevran’s, and went on down the dark hall. “A few days later, my ma was gone all night long. They found his body washed up on the river, cut to ribbons and bloodless. I didn’t realize until far later what that meant.”

“She was a fighter, your mother?” Zevran asked, for it seemed the safer topic of conversation. Tabris dropped his hand to climb under more debris. 

“She taught me everything I know,” she sighed, “I tried to forget it after she died. My body remembered for me. I’m grateful to it. But—here. Look.” 

They’d found the end of the hallway at last. Arianwen pushed the door open and revealed—

A closet. 

Zevran looked at her, brows arched high in question. To his surprise, she laughed. That was new, too—hearing her laugh when they weren’t in the heat of battle. It was a tired laugh, but that mattered very little in the run of things. 

“Watch,” she said, and turned the coat hook on the back wall. The wall fell away at the pressure of her hand, swinging open into the room beyond. 

“However did you find this?” Zevran asked, stepping into the room behind her. This room was lit by the lone window on the far wall, through which moonlight poured. In the cool light, he could see her clearly enough to read her face. Wistful—yes. She seemed wistful. 

“You know—I don’t remember,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know which one of us opened the door, or even when it happened. I only remember it being our place, Shianni’s and mine. Here.”

She lit a candle and held it up to the wall. Messy colors snaked up the crumbling plaster, handprints followed by rough drawings and holes in a familiar shape. 

“Throwing knives?” he asked, making his way to her side. Arianwen nodded silently, her lips parting and pressing tightly together again. 

Zevran knew that look. She was fighting some battle with herself, weighing what she ought to say to him. They would both be better served if he gave her space. 

“May I…?” he asked, gesturing to the room at large. Tabris nodded again, stepping closer to the marks on the wall, and Zevran slipped away. 

The corners held stacks of books here and there, all adventures set in distant lands or histories of Ferelden. He found only two that he supposed must have belonged to his Warden: a book about animal physiology and one about the care and keeping of various household pets. Zevran smiled at the sight of them, leaving a streak in the dust covering each volume, and moved on. 

Most of the wooden walls bore the marks of her blades. Many of the marks had been thrown wide from their fingerpainted targets. He could follow the progress of her skill by those holes, could trace the time spent in this room by the neatness of the circles they fell within. 

When he had met the Wardens on the road all those months ago, he had met a blade of a woman. She was hard and quick and sharp, flashing through the crowd of Crows like light through a fast-running river. There had been nothing of fear or weakness in her. She had seemed—impervious, somehow. As if nothing in the world could touch her, as if she had sprung into existence precisely as he saw her in that moment. 

Zevran knew better now, of course. He had seen her at her most vulnerable in the mornings when she slept, had watched her uncertainty upon seeing her father again. Two days ago, she had wept over Zevran’s body when she’d thought him dead by Taliesen’s hand. Today, standing in the dusty remnants of her childhood, he knew her better than he might have thought possible even a month ago.

Even so—it was surprising and endearing, somehow, to know that she had not leapt from her mother with blades in hand. Once, many years ago, she had learned her craft just as he had. Maker’s teeth, but sometimes Zevran wished they had known each other then, before the softness had been carved from them both. Who had she been? Who might he have been, in that other life that neither of them would ever live? 

“Here—this is what I actually meant to show you,” Arianwen said. 

Zevran blinked and found her beside him, though he had not heard her approach. She slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers together, and pulled him with her to another door. When she opened it to the night beyond, cool air brushed over his cheeks. They had only been in the room for ten or fifteen minutes, hardly long enough to notice how still the air was. Even so, it was a relief to step into a fresher breeze.

“You can sit,” she told him, but leaned forward against a flimsy railing. 

They’d stepped out onto a narrow balcony of sorts. A broken pulley hung from the wall to their left and an alleyway stretched into the darkness of the alienage beneath them. It was wide enough for two chairs and little else, though the gleam of glass bottles beneath them suggested what this space had been used for most recently. 

“This was—” she sighed, and one fist thudded lightly against the wood of the railing. “I was last here on the night before my…before the wedding.”

Arianwen leaned forward until her shoulders hunched.  Her hands were joined into one fist, knuckles pale against the brown of her skin. Zevran breathed sweet night air and watched her. It was still difficult—to wait, to allow her to unspool whatever she’d been fighting. It would be easier to make some joke. Already, one stood waiting on his tongue. But—no. 

No, he found he rather wanted to know what she’d brought him here to say.

“Shianni was too drunk to climb down. I was too scared to try on my own. We dozed off here and dragged ourselves back home at dawn. I remember thinking that it would be the last time I ever came up here. I knew…I knew I would never want to share this place with a stranger. How could I?” 

Zevran nudged one of the chairs aside, wincing when he heard the bottles beneath tipping against each other. He found a spot beside her at the rail and rested his arms against it. Arianwen did not look at him.

“The night my mother died, I was here. I came home late because I’d argued with my father and I knew he would worry if I was out for too long. I was…punishing him. By the time I came back, she was already gone.”

A breeze brushed small, loose hairs over her forehead. Tabris reached up and pushed them back, frowning slightly. Zevran edged closer and leaned his shoulder against hers. After a moment, she bent to lean her head against his shoulder. 

“I don’t blame myself. It wasn’t my fault. This isn’t about that. This is—ugh.”

Zevran wrapped an arm around her waist, thinking hard, but there was little he could say. He had come to trust her slowly, had given himself over one careful piece at a time before he’d realized that he was doing so. It did not often pain him to tell her the hard things now. For her part, Arianwen had opened her arms to him readily enough once she’d begun to care, but it had taken longer to offer pieces of her heart to him in turn. Even now, he could feel her cutting them free for his perusal. 

“There is nothing that you must tell me. Yes?” he said, resting his shoulder against hers. “It can wait. A different night, some other place.” 

“No,” she said sharply. “I want to say—I’m glad you’re here. You should be here. I love this place and I hate this place and I miss it all the time. It was my secret, but now it’s yours, too. And that’s all.” 

Her eyes flicked up and away again, focusing on the dark alley below. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Zev,” she repeated quietly. “That’s all.” 

What could he say to this? Wen could be harsh and difficult and wore the intensity of her feelings like armor. Even so—she had brought him to this, the most vulnerable of places, the tenderest of wounds. She had brought him here and no other. 

Zevran swallowed around the thickness in his throat and nudged her hip with his. She looked up at him, the moonlight snared in her eyes, and what could he say? 

“Do you suppose any of these bottles still have wine in them? Some wine, a fine whiskey, perhaps?” 

Arianwen snorted, shoulders loosening slightly. 

“None that I’d chance drinking,” she said, but tugged a slim, dented flask from her pocket. “Here—I’ll share. But only because you asked.”

“You have my most sincere thanks, dearest Warden,” Zevran told her, voice smooth and dripping with charm. She snorted again, tapping his chest with the flask, and he took it. It was warm, held tight against her side all this time. He treasured the feeling of it as he unscrewed the cap. 

When they walked back to Eamon’s estate later, all but alone on the street, he sought better words. It was easier when she wasn’t watching him. It was easier when they were away from the place that had hurt and raised her. 

“I am glad I am here, too, mi vida,” he told her, watching the ragged road ahead. “Thank you.” 

Her hand slipped into his, palm warm and rough. Zevran wondered if she knew that the words were meant for more than just tonight. He wondered if she understood how far back the sentiment could stretch, that he was grateful for more than a secret shared and glad for his continued existence in a broader sense than glad could encompass. 

“Thank you,” she echoed quietly, and held on tight.

(For Zevwarden Week Day 2: Secrets, Kept and Told. Thanks @zevraholics for organizing this!)

#zevwarden #zevran x tabris #arianwen tabris #fantasy racism #parent death #zevwarden week 2023 #da fanfic #shivunin scrivening #zevran arainai

[shivunin]

for the oc codex prompts: a note/letter found in your OC's pocket, for Arianwen?

Ooooh absolutely chewing on this, thank you!!

(Codex Prompts)

For "a note/letter found in your OC's pocket" (377 Words | No warnings)

A handspan of paper, marked with stains and retrieved from a Warden’s pocket after the death of the Archdemon. Its corners are grey with handling, its creases deep, and it is dated only a month previous. The letter reads:

Wen, I know you’ll never listen to me say it aloud, so I’ve written this down in advance. I did what I had to do, and I guess you did, too. If I were to do it all over, I never would have pushed you like I did. For what it’s worth now, I didn’t know what would happen because of it. Maybe you would never have had to become what you are now. Maybe you would have been taken away to Tevinter like so many of the others. I guess we’ll never know, will we? I am proud of who you’ve become. You won’t believe that, I think, but I am proud of you. I wish I could tell you properly how I felt the first time I held you. Your ma wouldn’t let you go for the first day—couldn’t stand to set you down. Couldn’t bear to stop looking at you. She wanted you more than anything else in the world. When she fell asleep at last, I picked you up and took you to the window where the light was brightest. Your head didn’t even fill the palm of my hand, my Wen. I thought—you could do anything in the world, nothing decided for you yet. There’s so much I would change if I could, but I have always loved you. Whatever you think of me now, I want you to know that. Maybe you still can do anything in the world. If anybody can save us from what’s coming, I think it must be you. I saw the way you fought before. I’m proud of you. Maybe I said so already, but I mean it. I’ve already written more here than you’ll ever read, I know. You have been one of the greatest joys in my life. Maybe you’ll allow an old man this one foolishness. I will not tell you to be strong; you always have been, even without my encouragement. Be well, then, my dear, even if you cannot be safe. -Pa

#arianwen tabris #prompt response #cyrion tabris #dao #shivunin scrivening #long post

[shivunin]

Lend a Hand

(Maria Hawke/Fenris | 965 Words | no warnings)

They’d been wandering through Sundermount for what felt like hours before Fenris noticed the change in Hawke’s spellcasting. 

He didn’t want to notice. For his own reasons, Fenris tried not to watch Hawke too closely, even if his efforts were usually in vain. In the end, he couldn’t help noticing the change; during their fight against a particularly tenacious group of spiders, one of them carved a line across his chest and Fenris called out for help. Usually, this would be the point at which Hawke turned and threw fire at whatever he was fighting. Instead, she just hissed and hit it with a lackluster burst of sparks. 

Fenris cast a disgruntled look over his shoulder, but had little time to object to her lack of assistance. Three crossbow bolts thudded into the spider, felling it at last, and he paused to down a health potion before turning to the next. 

Several minutes later, when they were the only ones left alive, the others set about searching the cavern and Hawke went back to the stairs, frowning down at her hand. She set her staff aside with little care, and it hit several steps before rolling to the floor with a dull thud.

Odd, that. Much as Fenris tried not to watch her, he knew that she was meticulously careful with her staff. He paused, crouched over a dead explorer, and watched her warily. 

Hawke sat stiffly on a splintering step and bent over her hand. A lock of curly black hair drifted back over her face and she blew it out of the way, annoyed. 

That—that was precisely why he kept his eyes to himself. 

Despite her occasional hints, Fenris had been careful to hedge his bets. She was, above and beyond anything else she did, still a mage. Not to be trusted; he’d had a lifetime to learn that, even if he didn’t remember much of it. So—he hadn’t responded to her attempts at flirting, but he hadn’t turned her down outright, either. 

He could not explain to himself why he was crossing the cavern to her now, when it would be so much smarter to stay where he was.

“What is it?” he asked when he got close, “A wound?” 

Hawke grimaced, then looked up at him. 

“Hand cramp,” she said, “Foolish. I should have done something when it started hurting hours ago, but here we are. I’m sorry about earlier, by the way—dropped the damned thing and had to improvise without the staff. Nothing ever works right without the staff.”

She mumbled this last sentence, and glared down at the staff in question. It went on lying on the cavern floor, faintly muddy now, and Fenris peered down at it.

This was a bad idea. 

It was a very bad idea. 

“Let me see,” he said, carefully holding out one hand. 

Hawke’s eyebrows shot up, but she offered her hand after a moment. Her fingers were curled in, the thumb extended past what must be comfortable, and there were red marks on her palm from where she’d been rubbing it. 

Don’t do it, he told himself firmly, she can manage it for herself. She’s a healer; let her heal it herself.

Fenris crouched before her and took her hand in his, running a thumb over the swell of her palm. There was a knot in the muscle there; he could feel it even without pressing hard, and the hiss between her teeth confirmed it for what it was. 

“Stretch more often,” he told her stiffly, and ran both thumbs down either side of the cramped muscle.

“Are you a healer now?” she asked, and he wasn’t looking at her (he wasn’t!), but he could see the quirk in her full lips when she said it, as if she was laughing at her own joke.

“No,” Fenris said stiffly, but went on after a moment, “There was a woman—an old slave—who did this for the swordsmen when I lived in Danarius’s household. It helped with the pain.”

“Oh!” Hawke said, and hissed between her teeth when he hit a particularly bad spot. Fenris ignored this and moved on to the skin beneath her knuckles. 

Her hands were callused here, which made sense. His hands were callused in the same places, for a staff and a greatsword were gripped in a similar enough manner. He’d not accounted for the warmth of her, though, nor the way her breath stirred his hair when she craned her neck to see what he was doing. 

Fenris had known this was a bad idea, but here he was nonetheless. Getting closer to her could only end badly for both of them. And yet…

“You should be more careful,” he told her sternly, to banish the odd fluttering in his chest. It had begun when he’d watched her blow her hair out of her face. Ignoring it had not yet forced the sensation to dissipate. 

Good enough; he ought to let go and move away quickly, before anything else—

Her fingers clung to his when he drew away—not very much, only for a breath or two longer than he’d held onto her, but it was enough. 

Enough—ha! Too much by far. 

Fenris stood quickly, sidestepping her fallen staff without needing to look for it.

“Thank you,” Hawke told him, flexing and curling her fingers before bending to reach for her staff. 

Fenris turned away, willing the heat and tingling to vanish from his ears. At his side, his hands flexed, as if by doing so he could shake off the feeling of her skin against his.  

It was...the first time they'd touched each other that didn't involve healing.

“It was nothing.”

He wondered if Hawke could hear the lie in his voice as plainly as he did.

(At @jtownnn's request for the prompt "6. Massage, either full-body or partial (hand, shoulder, etc.)" from this list. This was fun! I don't think I've written them this early in the game yet c:)

#fenris #fenris dragon age #maria hawke #fenhawke #fenris x hawke #my writing #da2 #i s2g i edited this one but if there are errors...my apologies #this is like. still act one #fenris you got a big storm coming #i might revisit this for them #this is one of those ficlets that feels like it wants to be a before and after thing #like this and then six years later she's giving him an actual massage #oh dear #i will tack that onto my list of fics to write lol #shivunin scrivening

[shivunin]

Like Constellations

Happy OC Kiss Week! Kicking off with my dear @star--nymph's Eurydice and my Emmaera. Thank you for letting me borrow her, friend!

(721 Words | No Warnings)

The rain had left the ramparts of Skyhold slick and glistening. Here, near the lights of the Great Hall, they shimmered like tiny stars caught inexplicably in stone. It was a mirror to the stars the two elves discussed now, perhaps, but these were more touchable by far than the ones cast away in the sky.

“It shouldn’t be possible,” Emmaera murmured thoughtfully, looking behind them at the tiny lights. “The rain, I mean. By all rights, we should have snow on this side of the wall, too. This place and its seasons…it’s never made sense to me.” 

“Stop moving,” Eurydice said behind her. “I’m not finished.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

The clouds above parted, slowly revealing a narrow slice of the heavens above. Early evening stars peered through the break in clouds.

“Falon’Din walked,” Eurydice prompted behind her. 

Emmaera had no idea what her dear friend was doing behind her, but she wasn’t especially concerned. They’d grown used to spending time tucked between crenellations, Eury’s fingers quick and clever in Emma’s long hair while Emmaera told stories. What a relief it was to sit here just like this, where she need think of nothing more than whatever tale she’d been telling. 

“Falon’Din walked the woods,” Emma went on, “but most of the time he flew. He wore the shape of a great owl, its feathers cast with dark spots. An owl has fine eyes for little things, hidden things, and one by one he found all of the lost souls wandering alone there.”

The soft smell of lavender began to eclipse the scent of falling rain. Emma smiled and tilted her head back when Eurydice adjusted her grip. 

“He tucked each of them safely amongst the feathers of his wings, for the journey to the Beyond is a long and dangerous one. It would have been very easy indeed to lose some of them along the way. After all, it is not so simple a thing for a mortal creature to leave behind everything it knows.” 

She paused, trying to remember what came next. Eurydice’s hands gave one last, decisive tug on her hair. Stretching slightly, for she’d been sitting very still for quite some time, Emma turned and let her feet dangle over the long drop to the valley below. She began to reach for her hair, but her friend caught her hand before she could feel what had been done to it. 

“Keep going,” Eurydice said. 

Obligingly, Emmaera went on talking, unspooling a story beat by beat: a soul lost to the woods, a daring rescue, a home among the stars. It was one she had told before, and one she never minded telling again. It was difficult to mind when she had such a a captivated audience. Still speaking, Emmaera watched as her hand was turned upright. Eurydice's cool, green-stained fingertips traced the lines there with care. 

“Falon'Din is gone now, as are all the gods,” she said at last. “Even so, perhaps his dark wings stretch across the sky even now, the way to the Beyond lit like a beacon between his feathers. Even on this very night, we can use them to show us where we are and where we ought to go. The Chantry calls them by another name, but elves know his stars nonetheless.”

“Hmm,” Eurydice said. Her eyes had drifted closed during the telling of the story, but her pale lashes fluttered open again when Emma stopped speaking. Emma turned her hand over and lifted Eury's to her mouth. She kissed each knuckle very carefully, neither too firm nor too soft. Eury allowed this, though not without a faint quiver at her ears. 

“Thank you,” Emmaera said when she’d finished. “Can you remind me where it is? I'm still turned around now that we've finally found this place, and the clouds…”

“There,” Eurydice said, pointing with her free hand. As if by magic, the clouds drifted apart in the direction she pointed and a familiar cluster of stars was revealed. 

Emmaera scooted closer and leaned her shoulder against Eurydice’s. As one, their palms pressed together, the two of them watched the stars. They thought of words long since past, words yet to come, and tried valiantly not to think at all about the faint green tint the sky had given to the distant stars.

#ockiss24 #oc kiss week #eurydice lavellan #emmaera lavellan #dai #shivunin scrivening #is it platonic? idk. Is it romantic? eh. They can hang out somewhere in the middle #ty kat c: #does emma forget what she was talking about occasionally because some fine point of how something works has occurred to her? #of course yes

[shivunin]

A Good Fight

(Arianwen Tabris/Zevran Arainai | 2,440 Words | AO3 Link | CW: Mild sexual references/sexual tension)

Summary: Things that annoy Tabris: frivolous conversation and being the butt of a joke. Why, then, can she not get the insufferable Crow out of her mind?

“May I rest my head on your bosom?” the Crow asked somewhere behind Tabris. “I might cry.”

Tabris grimaced, casting a look at Alistair. He echoed her glance, nose wrinkled. It galled her to agree with him, but plainly they were in accord when it came to this.

“You can cry well away from my bosom, I’m certain,” the mage said severely. 

“Reconsidering keeping him around yet?” Alistair asked in a low voice, bending closer. 

Wen pressed her lips together, eyes narrowed, and glanced behind her at the other two. Zevran gazed at Wynne soulfully, one hand pressed to his chest. Wynne was grimacing, staff thumping into the dust of the road as they climbed the hill. 

“Did I tell you I was an orphan?” the former Crow went on, his voice sorrowful. “I never knew my mother.”

“Egad,” Wynne said, disgust as plain in her voice as it was in the lines of her body. “I give up.” 

She sped up, outstripping Zevran and both Wardens. Arianwen watched the mage go, shaking her head, and glanced behind her again. 

Zevran caught her eyes at once and winked. Wen stared back, lips still pressed into a tight line. 

“Maybe I am,” she told Alistair, and turned away again. 

Before them, the harried mage left small clouds of dust above the road. The late afternoon light diffused there, giving the road an odd sort of dreamlike quality. 

“Could still give killing him a shot,” Alistair muttered. 

“What was that? I could not hear you over the sound of all that armor,” Zevran said, abruptly behind them. Arianwen took a large step to the left and carried on. 

“Oh, nothing,” Alistair said. Wen could feel him looking at her, but she ignored the desperate glance. “We, ah…thought your conversation was interesting. That’s all.”

“Ah—so I suppose you also have an opinion about murder, then?” 

There was something under the words. Some sort of…double meaning, hidden undercurrent. Ugh. Wen hated plenty of things, but trying to understand what someone meant when it wasn’t what they actually said ranked highly on the list. 

“Let’s not,” she said. 

“Not what? I am afraid I do not understand you.”

If he started talking about her bosom, she’d just stab him, Wen decided. When she sped up, the assassin matched her. 

“Talk.”

“Pardon? I did not catch what you said.”

“I, ah—wouldn’t push your luck, there,” Alistair said, jogging for several steps until he drew even with the pair of them. “She’s got a short temper.”

“Yes, I had determined as much,” Zevran said. “And how lovely she looks when she is thinking of death.”

Wen stepped directly into his path and stopped moving, forcing the assassin to stop in his tracks or dodge to the side. He chose the former, still smiling broadly, though he stopped only an inch or two away. Arianwen met his eyes squarely, thinking. 

She didn’t think she wanted to kill him. The man was decent enough at what he did. Fighting him had been the best part of fighting any of the Crows. Actually, he’d been her favorite person to fight since they’d left Ostagar. There was something fluid about the way he moved that—well. Fascinated her, actually. She liked watching him. 

No—no, she didn’t want to kill him. What would be the point now? It certainly wasn’t as if she cared that Wynne, of all people, was annoyed. Actually, she should be thanking him. For once, the mage hadn’t been hovering over her shoulder and asking questions. 

“I don’t think so,” she said, to the dust in the air as much as she was speaking to either man, and turned to continue up the hill without any additional elaboration. 

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Zevran said behind her. 

“We aren’t friends, assassin,” Alistair said stiffly, but added in a quieter voice: “Best to avoid prodding at her when she’s already tired.”

“Mmm,” Zevran allowed. Wen gritted her teeth, irritated again, but he went on a moment later. “I shall take your advice very seriously, Warden.” 

Wen glanced behind her one more time, expecting the same cocky grin or perhaps another wink. Instead, she found a flash of something she didn’t expect: 

Exhaustion. Hiding in the corner of his eyes, in the subtle roll of his shoulders.

Ah. That was harder to ignore. 

Wen closed her eyes, willing herself to keep walking. It would be easy. It would be better. He was so annoying; maybe he’d stop talking if he was too tired to manage. 

As soon as she reached the top of the hill, she swung her pack from her shoulder and sat back against a fence. 

Not for him. Obviously not. 

But—maybe it was time for a break. That was all. Redcliffe was almost in sight and they’d probably be busy as soon as they got there. Best they sit and rest now before they no longer had the choice. 

She certainly, pointedly did not breathe easier when the Crow sat to her left with an audible sigh of relief. 

|

“Are you quite certain you are ready for this?” the assassin asked. 

Wen, who’d deposited the last of her armor to the side of the clearing, nodded curtly. She’d have to be a fool to think he had nothing to teach her. Whenever possible, she did try not to be a fool.

“I need to know all I can. Show me, if you want to.”

The outskirts of the Brecilian rose around them, trees already towering higher than she’d ever seen them before. This place was odd and old, breaking the monotony of carefully planted fields and abandoned villages. She didn’t feel like herself here. It was as if she’d slipped off her skin and found it ill-fitting upon its return. Or—perhaps something hung watching in the air here. Something that saw her, that waited and knew. 

She couldn’t say she liked it. 

“If I want to?” Zevran flipped the knife in his hand once, neatly. “And here you have been asking so politely, Warden. How could I say no?”

“You’ve just said it,” Wen replied, taking a slow, smooth step to the side. “Obviously you know how.” 

“Tch,” he began to circle with her—taking her measure, she thought. Some of the glossy humor fell away, baring the steel beneath. “So literal.”

Wen huffed, refusing to be dragged into a conversation. She’d get distracted by talking and then he’d strike. She knew exactly how this worked. 

“First and foremost,” he said, “I have seen you fight. You are very skilled, yes? But you are not careful.”

Wen felt her eyebrows climb. Zevran feinted, she sidestepped, and they resumed pacing each other. 

“Are you suggesting I get thicker armor?” she asked. 

He laughed, a deeper thing than his usual chuckle. Wen narrowed her eyes. 

“You have been spending too much time with Alistair. No—I am suggesting you learn to be quieter,” he said, and moved—it was like his body had become liquid for a moment, flowing so close that she was forced onto her back foot. A blow in the right spot and she was stumbling back, struggling to halt her momentum enough to guard herself. 

To her surprise, he did not press his advantage. He took a step back instead, watching her with an odd look on his face. Wen scowled and rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles that had gone taut. 

“I’m plenty quiet.”

“Not quiet enough to be an assassin—and that is what you asked me to teach you, yes?”

Wen pursed her lips. She had asked him. She’d wanted to know how he moved the way he did, but she certainly couldn’t ask him for that. It had been plenty easy to imagine what he’d say in response. 

“Fight me, then,” she said, and dropped her knife. It sank into the soft earth point-down, which meant she’d have to be very thorough when she cleaned and oiled it later. At the moment, she didn’t really care. 

Zevran cocked an eyebrow at her, but stepped back to set his knife aside. 

“Are you quite certain? Surely you would like some sort of explanation first.”

“No,” she told him. “I’m too literal for that.”

Zevran tipped his head back and laughed. 

As soon as his eyes were closed, she struck. It ought to have been a glancing blow, only a soft slap to his shoulder to get his attention. The strike never landed. Instead, he flowed away from her and spun, planting a hand on her back and pushing. Wen was ready for it this time. Her weight shifted hard to her back foot, but she did not waver.  

“Good,” he said from behind her, but when she reached back to grasp his arm Zevran was already gone. 

Arianwen spun slowly, listening. He must have gone up; there was nothing closer than the branches to hide behind. Her heart thudded in her ears, distracting her. Where was he? That rustle in the bushes had the rhythm of a squirrel, the scratching at the bark to her right was certainly a bird, and the crunch in the leaves behind her—

Zevran dropped from above and locked her into his arms before she had a chance to strike back. 

“As I was saying,” he told her. “Not very careful.”

Arianwen tried to kick him to little avail. Zevran laughed into her ear, his mouth briefly brushing against the point of it. An odd tingling sensation spread from that point to her cheeks, burning as it went. What was this? Some sort of poison?

Arianwen planted her feet, gripped his arms where they wrapped around her, and flipped Zevran over her head. His eyes were wide when she straddled his chest, a knife already pressed against the hollow of his throat. She could feel his pulse against her knuckles, could feel his breath whenever his ribs expanded between her thighs, and—what was this? 

“What did you just do?” she snarled. Zevran’s brows lifted. 

“I caught you,” he said. 

“Not that. You—” 

She pressed her lips together all at once, her face hot, and climbed off of him. If there had been some way for Arianwen to scratch the sensation from her skin with bared nails, she would have done it immediately. It lived somewhere deeper than her skin, entirely beyond the reach of fingertips or knives. 

Had he ever touched her skin to skin before? She could not think. 

“Well? Teach me,” she demanded, taking several steps away from him. The distance, such as it was, did not help.

Zevran rose more slowly, dusting himself off. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. It was—speculative. Like he was weighing her against something in his mind. 

“Or was that it?” she asked. 

“No, no—I was merely thinking how best to show you what I mean,” he said. There was some hidden meaning to his words. She could feel it. 

Wen frowned at him, eyes narrowing. What was he actually saying? 

“Let us begin again,” he said, spreading his arms. Wen took a deep breath, wishing away the odd burning at the back of her neck and the tips of her ears. 

“Let’s,” she gritted out, her heart beating curiously fast, and raised her fists.

|

“Are you awake yet?” Zevran murmured. 

“No,” Wen told him, hand skimming over his loose, night-rumpled hair. Zevran grunted and pressed his face more firmly against her bare chest. 

“It should not surprise me when you make jokes,” he said. His lips pressed against the skin over her heart. “And yet…”

“Oh, ha ha,” Wen said, rolling her eyes. “If you’re going to be a pest, you can get off.”

“Oh?” he angled his head until he could look at her, morning light glinting across one golden eye. “Can I?” 

“Andraste’s tits,” she muttered, squirming without any real effort to dislodge him. 

“Yours are finer by far, I assure you,” he informed her solemnly, pressing a kiss to the nearest of them. 

Arianwen rolled her eyes, but threaded her hand through his hair again. Some of the tangles smoothed under her touch, but not enough. He’d still need to comb it when he rose for the day. 

She tried very, very hard to pretend that she couldn’t hear the army moving outside their tent. 

“Zevran,” she began, her voice soft, and he lifted his head to look at her. 

What could she tell him? That there were even odds she would die today? That she was grateful? What more could she possibly tell him now? 

“It will be a very good fight, yes?” he said, as if he knew what she was thinking. “Your favorite thing.”

Tabris pressed her mouth closed, searching his face for meaning. She found none. There was only the warmth of his eyes, the comfort of his body pressed to hers. The clamor of steel rose beyond their flimsy canvas walls. Time was almost up. It would be a good fight, yes. If there was anything she loved, it was a good fight. 

Arianwen loved Zevran more.

She’d planned to leave him behind, where the fighting was less heavy, but she already knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it. How could she fight through the city, never knowing if he’d been struck by a stray arrow or felled by an ogre? She could not protect him and seek the archdemon both. At least if they were together—at least they would both know. At least neither of them would have to wonder.

Until the end, then, and perhaps whatever came next. At least she knew she wouldn’t be alone. 

“Yes,” she said, passing her fingers through his hair one last time. Her hand fell to a stop at his cheek, thumb tracing the bottom point of his tattoo. 

“You will remember what I taught you, yes?” 

He lifted himself onto an elbow and leaned forward to kiss her. It had been meant as a glancing thing, she thought. It ran deeper than that in the end, desperate hands on shoulders and teeth and tongues and heat. She didn’t want to lose him. She raged at the world, for giving them to each other right on the doorstep of ruin. 

“Always,” Wen told Zevran, and clutched him to her when he would have risen to go. He endured this for several moments longer, his breathing uneven, before he pressed a kiss to her cheek and moved away. 

When she pushed the blankets aside to stand, his was the hand that pulled her to her feet.

(For Zevwarden Week Day 6: Favorite Things and Pet Peeves. Thanks again @zevraholics!)

#zevran arainai #arianwen tabris #zevwarden #zevran x f!warden #zevran x tabris #zevwarden week 2023 #shivunin scrivening #zevwen #you know someday i gotta write him digging her out of the wreckage after she kills the archdemon #or just that whole sequence from his POV #bc she didn't tell him what was going on but he for sure knew *something* was happening

[shivunin]

To Build an End

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

It was finally over. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But first: the mountain.

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

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

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

No. No, they needed to go now. 

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

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

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

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

|

It was finally over. 

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

It was done. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cullen gestured sharply, shaking his head. 

“Of course not! I only—”

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

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

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

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

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

Well. Well, then. 

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

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

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

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

And—it was finally, finally over.

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

[shivunin]

Stack the Deck

(Maria Hawke/Fenris | 1,310 words | Fluff | no warnings)

Fenris could have caught Hawke before she reached the stairs if he’d really been trying, but that probably wasn’t the point. 

Hawke had left the Hanged Man when he’d excused himself for a few moments, and he’d been chasing after her since he’d returned to the table to find her gone. He knew quite well what she was doing, because she’d spent the whole evening “accidentally” running her fingers over the inside of his wrist, whispering so close to his ear that her lips often skimmed the sensitive skin, and tilting her head back in the way that occasionally exposed the small red marks at the joint of her neck. 

She’d also been cheating at cards to no avail, but that was nothing new. Fenris hardly noticed it anymore, since Hawke slipped the extra cards into his belt more often than not these days. As he jogged up the stairs to Hightown, he retrieved three from his waistband alone. He would almost certainly find more tucked away on his person when he finally reached her manor and disrobed. 

Perhaps this sort of thing was odd to do with one’s lover, but Fenris didn’t especially care. He could hear her laughing from here, after all, and the sound of it lightened his steps. As he rounded the corner at last, he spotted Hawke at her manor door, stepping into the firelit foyer.

“Hawke,” he called, speeding up. 

She held the door open for him, beaming across the courtyard as if she hadn’t seen him in days. 

“Oh, dear,” she said, with not an ounce of concern in her voice. “You’ve caught me.”

“You didn’t hide yourself very well, if that’s what you were trying to do,” Fenris told her as he stepped through the door. She swung it shut behind her with a soft click and he caught her waist in his hands, pressing her back against the wood. 

“Heavens,” Hawke said, still smiling, “how forward, messere.”

“I seem to recall having you twice before breakfast,” he murmured, kissing her cheek as he spoke. “How could this possibly be forward, Hawke?”

She seemed disinclined to explain herself, and laughed breathlessly when his lips trailed over the curve of her ear. Fenris huffed and directed his next words there in a murmur.

“Was there a reason for this little game, or did you tease me all night so I would chase you home?”

“Hm?” she said, angling her head away. 

Fenris obliged the silent request and nipped at the soft skin of her neck. It felt just as good as it had this morning. 

“I’m winning a bet,” she said after a moment. 

Fenris leaned back to look at her, brows raised.

“Oh! No, not that,” she said, and produced a playing card from her sleeve with the casual flick of her fingers. 

If he hadn’t known better, Fenris might have thought it was magic, but no—these were only the skills she’d learned as a pickpocket when her family had first come to Lowtown. She’d solemnly sworn never to pretend to pull a coin from his ear again, but that hadn’t kept her from producing various other objects from elsewhere on his person or her own. 

“The Angel of Death?” he asked, reading the card, “Were you losing all night on purpose?”

“Yes and no,” she laughed, producing another card, then another, and another, from her sleeves, then her decolletage, then her belt, and so on. When she finally stopped, Fenris was staring at more than half a deck stacked neatly in her left hand. 

“And the bet?” he said after a moment. She smiled again, eyes lit from within, and produced a card from behind his back. 

“That I wouldn’t make it out of the Hanged Man before Varric realized I’d taken most of his Wicked Grace deck,” she said, and plucked yet another card from the front of his belt. “Angel of Temerity. I was proud of that one.”

“Of course you were,” Fenris said, resting a hand against the door beside her head. “What have you won?”

“Two sov off of Isabela,” she said, tipping her head up so she could meet his eyes. “Would’ve been three, but I couldn’t quite get the last of the Angels. I think she had it in her bosom all along, the blighted pirate.”

Ah. 

Slowly, Fenris reached into his pocket and pulled two cards from it. One was the Knight of Dawn, but the other…

Hawke gasped. 

“No!” she said, reaching up to touch the second card. “Fortitude! But how?”

“I take my cards with me when I leave the table,” Fenris told her, extending the cards. “Or someone would steal them.”

Hawke gasped and would have pressed a hand to her chest, but he’d caught her fingers when she’d reached for his cards. 

“I would never,” she said, the dimples on either side of her mouth deepening despite the solemnity of her words. 

“Never,” Fenris said flatly, not letting go of the pair of cards, “and yet you are doing so now.”

“You offered!” Hawke protested. “Fine, then. What do you want for them?” 

Fenris considered her for a moment. The long walk to Hightown had brought a flush to her cheeks. Her hair, formerly wound into her customary braid, had already begun to come loose. Ringlets sprung from its twined length and brushed against her neck. Beneath dark brows, her eyes laughed at him. 

“What are you offering?” he countered, leaning closer. 

“Nothing you couldn’t have for the asking,” she laughed. “A kiss for the two of them.”

“No.”

“You don’t even want them!” Hawke protested. 

The skin at the corners of her eyes wrinkled when she smiled; Fenris marked it whenever it happened. 

Especially when he was the one who’d made her smile. 

“But you do,” he said, keeping his grip on the cards she was trying to tug away. “Two apiece and I will let go.”

“One apiece,” she countered, “and that’s my final offer. Surely you wouldn’t haggle with your dearest beloved over so—”

Fenris cut off the rest of her sentence with a kiss, and caught the edge of her smile on his lower lip for his haste. He did not mind it, of course. Hawke was smiling half the time when they kissed regardless, and feeling the shift in her when she turned her full attention to him was a pleasure in and of itself. 

“One,” she murmured, tilting her head away. She returned to him before he could think of something to say in return. This time, she let go of the cards and traced the line of his jaw as she kissed him, fingertips running along bone until they reached his chin. 

“Two,” he began when she pulled away, but she was kissing him again before the rest of the syllable tripped from his tongue. 

This kiss lasted the longest of all, until Fenris was leaning harder against the hand he’d braced against the wall, until he’d half-forgotten what they were still doing in her foyer at all. When she tipped her head away at last, he blinked at her for a moment, surprised at the sudden absence of her. 

“That has to count for at least four,” she said, and Fenris felt something brush against his ear. 

“Thank you, my dear,” she added. Fenris turned his head. 

The cards. Of course she was holding the cards. 

“Why argue,” he asked, taking a step back, “if you intended to take them in the first place?”

“It was the principle of the thing,” Hawke said, shrugging. 

Fenris scoffed and shook his head, but she only smiled up at him and pushed off the door. 

“Come on, then,” she said, hooking her fingers into his belt and tugging lightly. “Let me give you the rest.”

And Fenris, as they’d both known he would, followed gladly.

#fenris #fenris dragon age #maria hawke #fenhawke #da2 #my writing #da fanfic #doing a quiet dance in my office because i finished a whole piece c: #and my special yarn gets here today so i can go back to working on my fenris scarf! #anyways i love them and i think the idea of maria constantly pretending to pull things from behind his back and/or his ear is so funny #bc he is so deadpan most of the time #au where she is a stage magician and he is a begrudging audience participant #oops. now i gotta add it to the story idea list #shivunin scrivening

[shivunin]

Petal-Crowned

Borrowing the lovely @greypetrel's Aisling for this piece! I adore Arja and Aisling both and I also think they would be good friends and good for each other. When I saw her absolutely gorgeous piece of Elowen and Aisling, I couldn't help but want to write a piece to fit it. So---here is my contribution. Thank you, as always, for your friendship and for letting me borrow your baby!

(Recommended listening)

(Elowen & Aisling Lavellan | 874 Words | No Warnings)

"yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!— take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine." ---Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Sonnets from the Portuguese 44..."

The sun was warm, the air was sweet, and half the meadow’s flowers clung to Elowen’s hair. She felt as if she was half-dreaming here amongst the soft grasses and bright colors of this glade, but she knew that she was not. Perhaps the beauty of this place only felt dream-like because things had been so miserable for so long that beautiful and nice things must feel, by some token, somewhat dream-like.

Thoughts better not to dwell on, she supposed.

“When do you think the others are coming back?” she called to Aisling, who was wandering some distance away, judging by the rustling of her feet through the flowers. 

“Hmmm,” Aisling said. “I’m not sure. But look!”

Elowen looked, fingers still busy on the twined flowers in her lap. Triumphant, Aisling held an elfroot plant in the air, dark earth still clinging to its roots. 

“I’m going to bring it back to Skyhold,” she announced, beaming at the slender stalk. “I know just where to plant it.”

“It’s perfect,” Elowen agreed, taking in the slight woodiness of the stem, the healthy green of the leaves. It was easy to plant elfroot seeds, but much more difficult to transplant an existing specimen. For all that it seemed to grow all over Thedas, the plant did not take well to being uprooted. 

If anyone could coax it to take to a new home, Elowen was certain it would be Aisling. 

“Do you want any more of this or should I put it away?” she asked while her friend carefully bundled the plant away. 

Aisling glanced at the saddle blanket they sat on, which also held the open pack and the scattered remnants of their lunch. The cheese was nestled under an active ice spell (Aisling’s contribution; Elowen had never been good with frost magic) and the bread had been set neatly aside where it could avoid any potential dampness. The remaining fruit, purchased from the nearby and very grateful residents of Crestwood, was nestled in an open satchel. 

“Hmm,” Elowen’s friend said. “We can leave it. There’s time to have more later.”

Elowen made a soft noise of assent and turned back to the half-made chain of flowers in her lap. It took a little deftness to do this without losing anything crucial. Petals wanted badly to fall off once the flower had been plucked, and if she was not careful she would wind up with fingers stained green and a chain of battered stems. 

After a time, Aisling sat behind her, back pressed to Elowen’s. Elowen made little progress, half-dozing in the dappled sunlight, and for once she did not blame herself for it. It would have felt silly to hold herself to such deadlines and pressures here. This place was far too comfortable to bring herself to care. 

“Elowen?” 

“Hm?” she roused slightly, eyes heavy, and almost fell backward when Aisling moved away from her. 

“Here!” Aisling said while Elowen steadied herself, “I picked the ones that seemed to fit. See—the green of the leaves here match your vallaslin precisely.”

It took her a moment to comprehend what was happening, fingers still tangled in the chain she’d begun to weave, the sunlight almost too bright now that she’d opened her eyes again. But—while she had rested, her friend had made something beautiful and bright. It hung from her pale fingers now as Aisling held it out: purple and yellow and white against green leaves that—yes, actually would match Elowen’s vallaslin when they weren’t in direct sunlight. The petals of the pansies looked unimaginably soft, velvet-sheened in the sunlight. Aisling grinned at her, smile just as bright as the sunshine in the meadow.

“I think it suits you,” she said. Elowen smiled as the little crown settled over her head and Aisling leaned forward to kiss her cheek. 

What a gift this was. A gift—to have the easy company of a good friend, to sit in the sunlight and smell the flowers. A gift, to be safe and full and cared for

“Thank you,” she murmured when Aisling rocked back onto her heels. Aisling clapped her hands together, eyes fixed on the ring of flowers atop Elowen’s head. 

“It’s perfect!” she said, grinning. 

Elowen leaned forward and pressed her lips to her friend’s cheek in turn, sun-warm and soft as it was. 

“It is,” she agreed, and turned her attention back to her lap. “Perfect. It’s beautiful work, truly.”

Forget-me-nots still clung softly to her fingers as she wove a lily into its place near the center. What a pleasure it would be to give her friend the joy she’d been given. How remarkable, to offer something simple and good to someone she cared for. 

Behind her, Aisling began to speak again, describing a mishap with her dear horse and a thorny bush. Her voice had a pleasant cadence, rising and falling like a friendly and familiar tune. The bees hummed nearby, drifting from flower to flower. Soft breezes brushed past stems and leaves and bobbing blossoms. Sparse clouds drifted between them and the sun, never obscuring the light for too long. 

Elowen listened and found herself glad beyond measuring to simply be herself at this precise place and time. Smiling faintly at the sound of her friend’s voice, she lifted her fingers and wove on.

#aisling lavellan #elowen lavellan #ockiss24 #oc kiss week #shivunin scrivening #the music recommendation is arja's! it fit so well that i had to borrow it too c:

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @greypetrel @layalu @daggerbean and @zenstrike (Zen, I've decided I'm just going to post all fic things on this blog from now on, but I will post something that isn't Dragon Age c:)

Tagging @ndostairlyrium @heniareth @pinayelf @buchimgay @brother-genitivi @jtownnn @dreadfutures @inquisimer

I don't have a picture right now, but I've gotten the first two rows of purple onto the Leliana scarf and I'm really pleased with how the color looks so far! It's been really nice to do something with my hands in the evening, especially since I got hooked on a DND show I can watch at the same time.

Here are a snippet from some Mass Effect fic I'm still playing around with, then a bit from a BG piece I've been working on the last month or so.

From "Sure As Night," a ME WIP (535 Words):

The hum of the elevator to Shepard’s cabin had become familiar and comforting, in an odd way. 

The rest of the ship sounded just slightly off to Garrus. It’d taken plenty of hits after they’d gone through the relay, had almost certainly taken some damage from that final blast. The Normandy wasn’t actively falling apart or neither of them would be up here, but the sound of the engine was just one more thing that was…off. Or maybe Garrus was just hearing things. Wouldn’t be the first time in the past few months. 

But her elevator sounded exactly the same as always. It was…nice, for one thing to stay the same.

“Shepard?” he called. After a moment, the door unlocked and slid open. 

It was not immediately apparent where she was when he stepped inside. Garrus glanced at the trail of water on the floor and followed it to the couch in the next room (top notch detective skills there; wouldn’t his father be proud of him now?). He saw Shepard as soon as he walked down the stairs, sprawled over the couch with her feet braced on the bulkhead. Her hair was tousled and darker than usual, water droplets clung to her exposed shoulders, and the rest of her torso was wrapped in a towel. 

“Hey there,” she said, and Garrus blinked down at her. 

“And here I was coming in to give a formal report,” he said drily. She grimaced and pushed herself up, raking her hair away from her face. 

“Tell me that’s a joke,” she said. “Don’t think I can handle another emergency right now.”

She could, of course. They both knew that if there had been an emergency, she’d bolt out of here as quickly as she could and handle it. It’s who she was, after all. 

“You ask the engineers, it’s all an emergency,” he told her. “But I think they’ll hang on for a little longer or Ken would be talking less.”

Shepard snorted and shifted aside, glancing at the open space beside her. 

Well. He could take a hint. He just hoped she wasn’t about to tell him that last night had been a mistake. He’d been thinking about it plenty since then and he’d reached an entirely different conclusion. Racing through destruction with the expectation of certain death could do that to a person. 

Garrus passed the last step and settled beside her as best he could. He still wasn’t used to the human preoccupation with these squishy pieces of furniture. Didn’t they ever get stuck? He always felt like he’d sink all the way to the floor if he sat back too far. He considered telling her this to break the tension and discarded the idea immediately. He could definitely manage better than that.

“How’s the arm?” she asked him, nudging the arm in question. Garrus shrugged and rolled his shoulder experimentally. After taking a rocket to the face, he’d found that his scale for pain was kind of shot. He hadn’t even realized there was something wrong with it before Chakwas had insisted on scanning him. 

“I’ve had worse,” he told her, and she snorted. 

“Tough guy, huh?” she asked. 

“Something like that,” he paused. “And you? You took a few shots yourself.”

“I’ll survive,” Shepard said, looking at him sidelong, and smiled.

And (with a very different tone!) from a piece I am working on for Tav (234 Words):

Hope; a curious thing. She had been bereft of it for so long that its touch burned her then. 

“Be welcomed, faithful paladin,” Lathander had said. “Be free of the bonds that held you. ”

“My Lord, I will serve you for all my days,” she had told him, and only knew that she was weeping when the droplets struck the hands she’d clenched below.. 

She had never been touched like this. Nobody had ever been touched like this, she was certain of that. 

“You are mine now. The past is done,” he said. “Name yourself to me, Oathsworn.”

Octavia fell away, dead at last and free to rest. The woman she left behind took a deep breath. She had been a child once, and loved. Her family—her family had called her a silly nickname, coined by a brother with too few teeth to say her real one properly. She had left them behind too young, had left behind any hope of belonging somewhere at the same time. 

But—she belonged here now. She belonged to Lathander, as she had once belonged to her family. 

“Tavitha Hallowthorn,” she whispered. “I am Tavitha.” 

“Tavitha,” the god said, already dissipating into countless flecks of light, each of them composed of all the shades of every perfect sunrise. “Be welcome.”

Octavia was dead. Tavitha bowed her head before her god and knew herself for the first time in a very, very long time.

#wip wednesday #tav tag #jesse shepard #shivunin scrivening #work has been. kind of a nightmare for the last two weeks #so i've written very little #but the good news is i am not getting laid off #the bad news is i am so good at my job that they fired someone else and now i have to fix her shit before i can go back to normal #but. i am glad that i will not have to look for something else #i just miss having the energy to do stuff T.T #oh. but i am getting a tattoo on friday too!!! so that's happening!!! #and hopefully i will have the time/energy to write again soon #because i have lots of Thoughts

[shivunin]

In Good Time {1/3}

Thank you as always to the lovely @scribbledquillz for letting me borrow her Warden Revka for @ockissweek. She and Wen are such utter disasters together that I couldn't help but go a bit overboard. (I have broken this into three smaller parts to post while I get comfortable with the editing on the other pieces for this week.)

(Part 2 | Part 3)

(Female Warden/Female Warden | 2,101 Words | No warnings)

"For a chance to make your little much, To gain a lover and lose a friend, Venture the tree and a myriad such, When nothing you mar but the year can mend: But a last leaf---fear to touch!" --Robert Browning, "By the Fire-Side"

Somewhere in the alienage, a bell rang. 

It was not the bell of a clocktower, nor the bell of some stalwart city watch. The alienage was afforded neither luxury. It might have been someone’s musical instrument, or perhaps the little bell over the general store in the central courtyard. From this distance, echoing through the fall fog and the alleyways in between, it was difficult to tell much about it. 

Arianwen, who’d already been lying awake, held her breath until she was sure nobody had roused from their sleep at the sound. Around her, her cousins and father went on sleeping, snores rising above the faint ringing. 

Good. Now must be the time.

She slipped from her bed, careful to avoid putting too much weight on the floorboard that creaked the loudest. She slipped her feet into her worn shoes, took her threadbare cloak from the hook beside the door, and slipped soundlessly into the mists of night. 

Somewhere behind her, the bell chimed. Wen found her feet matching its cadence without intending to as she dodged the puddles waiting in the center of the road. It was never a long walk to her dearest friend’s house, but it seemed longer in the mist with the lonely ringing behind her. She passed the burnt-out wreck of a house, a lean-to with a lamp burning inside, and one of the little nests she’d assembled for the stray cats in the neighborhood. She paused there a moment, fishing a cloth from her pocket and shaking her dinner scraps out before the little den. The street seemed less lonely when the tabby crept from within and butted her head against Wen’s fingers. 

“Shh,” Wen told her, trailing her fingertips over the cat’s back. The cat made a soft noise, twining around Arianwen’s ankles before taking her spoils and darting back into her little den. 

Wen waited a moment, listening, and heard the soft sounds of satisfaction from within. There’d been a night much like this, years ago now, when the fog had clung to the banks of the Drakon and she’d slipped through alleyways with her best friend in hand. This very cat had been a newborn kitten then, her little eyes unopened. Wen had fed her mother all through the pregnancy, had watched the kittens be born herself, and she’d been so punch-drunk with happiness that it had seemed the most obvious possible thing to track down Revka and show her, too. 

The tabby was, incidentally, also named Revka. Only her favorite people ever got to share their names with the animals she cared for. 

Wen deposited other scraps as she went, leaving trimmings of fat on this wall or along that gutter. She could hear the stray dogs and cats making their way from the shadows, and the occasional skitter in the refuse of the street that told her the rats had found it, too. Fine enough. Her other creatures could hunt the rats if they were quick enough—and if they were not, she made this trip every night. She would leave more for them later. 

The fire was still lit inside Revka’s house. Wen sighed in relief (she always felt bad climbing through the window, even if nobody here minded) and rapped her knuckles against the door. 

“C’min,” a drowsy voice murmured beyond. Wen turned the knob and slipped through the open door into the golden-lit room beyond. 

Rev was slumped over the table, her mending strewn over the surface before her. There were creases on her cheek that suggested she’d recently fallen asleep on the uppermost piece, and she blinked owlishly at Wen when she shut the door behind her. 

“You should be asleep,” Wen whispered. She slid the latch home and paused to Revka’s left. Rev fought a yawn, pressing her hand to her mouth, and fussed with the things on the table for a moment. 

“Would be, if you’d been earlier,” Revka said, but there was no accusation in her voice. Wen shrugged and offered a hand, which Revka took readily to stand. There were calluses and welts across her fingers, a sign that she’d been long at her mending and the sewing needle had taken its toll. Her fingers were stiff, too, and Wen ran her thumbs over the swell at the base of Rev’s thumb until her joints loosened slightly. 

“Shianni couldn’t sleep.”

“Course not,” Rev said absently, her eyes on their hands. Wen dropped the first and took the second, pressing into the palm until Revka sighed and her shoulders relaxed. 

“Come on,” Wen said, slipping out of her shoes and shrugging her coat loose. “You never lie down unless I make you.”

“’S not true,” Revka yawned, but obligingly unbuttoned her stiff vest and set it aside. 

The two of them fit neatly on Revka’s bed as long as they were both lying on their sides. This was fortunate, because they’d been sleeping precisely like that for a very long time—before Revka had lost her parents, even. Wen slept with her back to the wall because she was never at ease with her back to an open room. Revka, for her part, slept huddled against Wen’s chest. The blanket wasn’t really enough to warm both of them otherwise, as they’d found out many winters ago. Rev had patched it with scraps from the tailor’s shop she worked for, so it was far thicker than it had once been. Even so, they had their routines—both liked their routines very much, in fact, and this was one of the most important. 

“Your day?” Wen asked when they were both amply covered by the blanket. 

“Fine,” Rev said, but the corner of her mouth turned down. 

“Hmm,” Wen said. 

“Was awful.”

“Thought so.”

“Bastards all day,” Rev said, tucking her face into the crook of Arianwen’s neck. “Didn’t get a thing finished.”

“Mm,” Wen said, smoothing a hand over her friend’s hair. Revka sighed, and it was a weary thing. 

“Couldn’t leave at the end,” Revka went on, her breath heating Wen’s throat, “were people against the door—nevermind.”

“What?” Wen asked, pulling back slightly. Revka wrinkled her nose. There were dark circles under her eyes. No matter how early she crept through the streets to Rev’s door, the circles never seemed to get any lighter. 

“Kissing,” Rev said, and her voice was odd around the word. Hesitant—no. Something else. Something strange. “Had to leave through the back.”

“Oh,” Wen frowned. “I don’t know why people do that.”

“Block the door?”

“Kiss.”

“You…?” 

Even in the shadows, Wen could see the faint flush against her friend’s cheeks. She shrugged, then pulled the blanket back over her exposed shoulder. 

“You know I haven’t. I would have told you,” she paused, considering, and went on: “It doesn’t look as interesting as people make it seem.”

“You’re not—” Revka swallowed audibly and shifted on the bed against Wen. Their knees knocked against each other. “Not curious?”

Arianwen considered this seriously. She was curious about very little, actually, and kissing was one of those odd marks of growing up that had seemed irrelevant to her. That sort of landmark only seemed to apply to other people, just like having lots of friends and feeling comfortable in conversations. Rev was more knowledgeable about this sort of thing. She always seemed to know more about which of these questionable necessities Wen actually ought to care about. 

“Should I be?” she asked. 

Revka squirmed under the blanket. Her cold feet brushed against Wen’s calf. 

“Dunno,” Revka said, but she was dodging Wen’s eyes. Arianwen frowned. 

“Who would kiss me?” she asked, because this was clearly some important thing she’d been missing. All the years she’d been alive and it hadn’t come up until now; perhaps this was some threshold she’d been meant to cross before tonight. How odd that nobody’d told her so. 

Revka made a strangled noise. 

“What?”

Rev didn’t answer. 

“Rev. What?”

“I’d,” Rev cleared her throat. “I’d do it.”

“Oh,” Wen said, sinking further into the blankets. “Why?”

“Well. If you’re curious.”

Was she curious? She couldn’t tell. But Revka was the sort of person who always knew what to do, and even when she didn’t she usually had an idea of what ought to happen. If she thought Arianwen needed to be kissed, it was probably for a very good reason. She’d never steered Wen wrong before. 

“Alright,” Wen said. She propped herself up on her elbow, thick braid slipping from the pillow to rest against her arm. 

“I—really?”

“Why not?” 

Revka’s eyes were dark and warm in the firelight. Wen watched them, looking for some second meaning. This seemed like one of those conversations that was happening twice, and she only understood one half of it. A pity; Rev was usually one of the few who told her precisely what she meant. 

“’f you’re sure,” Rev said, licking her bottom lip and shifting on the thin mattress. 

Wen shrugged and leaned forward, pressing her mouth to Revka’s. The air had cooled her lips, especially the lower one, but they warmed against Arianwen’s. Rev made a small sound—surprised—and moved her lips in turn. It was slow at first, then slightly faster. She could feel the ridge of Revka’s teeth beneath her skin, and the small but noticeable scar where her lip had once been split defending Wen in an alleyway. 

Her lungs ached. Wen leaned back, taking a sharp breath, and lay back against the pillow again.

When she felt steadier, Arianwen blinked at Revka. Revka pressed her hands over her cheeks, then rested one palm over her eyes. Wen eyed her hands for a moment, resolving to steal some hand cream from somewhere. The colder it got, the harder the weather was on poor Rev’s hands. Someone ought to do something about it. 

“Well?” Rev asked after several silent moments. 

A bell chimed somewhere in the alienage, the rhythm uneven and halting. 

“Guess it’s nice,” Wen said. “Don’t understand why people are always doing it, though.”

Rev squeaked and rolled over, burrowing under the covers. It was awfully chilly in here, Wen supposed. She found Revka’s hip under the blanket and pulled her closer, looping an arm over her stomach. 

“Thank you,” she added belatedly, and Revka made another indistinct noise. 

The bell went on ringing somewhere in the distance. Wen pulled the blanket up and over her pointed ear, wishing that everyone else in the world would just go away. Hesitantly, pausing halfway through, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Revka’s hair. She didn’t know why. Seemed like the thing to do, maybe. 

“Go to sleep, Rev,” she said, already comfortable enough to feel the pull of slumber. She never slept better than she did tucked into Revka’s cramped bed. She might even go so far as to say that this was her favorite place to be in all the world—the fire flickering past the kitchen table, Revka’s brother breathing softly in the other room, and Rev herself held tightly in Wen’s arms. 

Maybe she’d try to find something else for Revka, Wen thought, yawning slightly and nestling into Rev’s shoulder. A thicker blanket, maybe. Rev was shivering against her, so she must still be cold, and true winter would come very soon. 

Yes, she decided. A thicker blanket would be just the thing. 

Long after Wen fell asleep at last, Revka lay awake. The pillow was damp under her cheek and her hand was pressed hard against her traitorous mouth. It wasn’t even worth wondering what she could possibly have been thinking. She hadn’t been thinking. Obviously. 

What a fool she was—let me show you what a kiss feels like—an utter fool. How close she’d come to giving it all away. If she ever did—if she ever let on how crucial Wen’s company was to her—she would surely lose this closeness forever. Ruin it, and for what? Because she couldn’t help but wonder what Wen’s touch would feel like against something other than her palms? 

Because kissing her had felt like liquid fire running under her skin? Because she had, for a moment, thought that Wen might feel the same? 

Ridiculous—stupid, to think that the hope of something beyond their friendship could ever be worth more than what she already had. 

When they woke in the morning, when Arianwen asked why she looked so tired, Revka told her only that some fool with a bell had kept her awake all night. 

What else could she possibly say? The truth was beyond consideration. She would just—hold it inside forever, and Wen would never, ever have to know.

#revka tabris #arianwen tabris #ockiss24 #oc kiss week #shivunin scrivening #(don't worry it isn't unrequited it's just that wen is wen)

[shivunin]

and an OC codex prompt for Maria: propaganda written in support of your OC?

Ahh thank you so much for asking! I'm fudging the "written" part of that prompt a bit, but I thought this was a fun idea c:

(Codex Prompts)

A Submission of Evidence

(425 Words | No Warnings)

A speech overheard in the Hanged Man shortly before the incident at Kirkwall’s Chantry. Submitted here to the record of the Seeker as evidence on behalf of the Champion. 

Record begins: 

Man 1 [Dwarf, red cap, didn’t get a look at his face]: And what do you care? Lives in Hightown like the rest of them, don’t she? Let them sort themselves out.

Man 2 [Ferelden, dark hair, mottled scar across his cheek]: D’you think they’ll keep that to themselves? Had three doors busted in last week by the Templars alone. Catching blood mages is all well and good, lad, but old Birta was no manner of mage at all. Meredith’s gone mad—you think she’ll settle for Hightown where the rich have guards of their own to fight her? Get your head out of—

Man 3 [Odd accent—obscuring his voice, perhaps. Tall, lanky, human, nondescript face]: So turning her in’s useless, you would say? 

Man 2: Ha! Turning her in would get you tossed in the wharf. All o’ them at the Gallows, they know exactly what that Hawke is. You want to get yourself a whole heap of trouble? Go ahead, tell a Templar the Champion’s a mage. I can see three of her friends from here who’d gut you for your trouble, and that’s if you’re lucky. 

Woman [Ferelden; recognized her from the Rose. Dark hair]: What did you just say?

Man 2: Whoa now, he didn’t mean—

Woman: Do you know what she has done for us? Not you; don’t you look at me like that, you worm. Annit’s girl has shoes because of the Champion, and Hari a working hand. She fetched me my wedding shawl back, even though it would’ve fetched her a pretty penny, and that family of hers without a cent to their name. Turn her in? Ha! Don’t bother looking at the lass by the bar, my boy, I’d gut you myself. Have you any idea what it was like to be Ferelden in this city before she knocked the Arishok’s head ‘round? No? Then keep your fool mouth shut while you can still make words.

Woman walked away to the bar. No talking for a moment. Then: 

Man 1: Heh. Fed you your own boot, she did. 

Man 3: Shut up. 

Note: The agent who supplied this information requested its inclusion to your investigation, Seeker Pentaghast. I have found a better assignment for them as we may all agree that they are getting too invested. Nevertheless, their information is good. Do let me know if you have any further questions. 

-L

#maria hawke #prompt response #shivunin scrivening #in my heart you (the PC) can do a lot more for the people at the ferelden refugee center #like. medical care and a recommendation for hard physical labor isn't enough #in my heart maria hires a tutor for the kids and slowly talks her neighbors into hiring some of the people there on if nothing else #starts a fund to help people get home if they want to go. and so on #no way she'd just let that stand

[shivunin]

Aaaaah for the OC codex prompt… 👀✨

3 for Maria 6 for Arianwen 13 for Emmaera 15 for Elowen 16 for Salshira

(of course, feel free to choose/skip some!)

Ooooh okay, I am going to do them each in separate posts for organizational reasons, but thank you for the prompts friend!!

(Codex Prompts)

6. Something written by your OC in response to an honor they've been awarded

The Morning Post

(299 Words | No Warnings)

A series of letters on the Warden-Commander’s desk, each neatly stacked in the tray for the messenger to take in the morning: 

Dear Lady Hartley,  No, thank you.  —Warden-Commander Tabris

Lord Horleth:  If you are going to build an orphanage, you should name it after someone who will pay you for the honor of having their name on the building. The messenger will provide you a contribution from the Wardens, which serves to do the opposite.  Regards,  —Warden-Commander Tabris

First Enchanter Irving, 

I can honestly say I am glad to hear you’re well. We don’t get much news about the Circle on this end of the Calenhad. I hear it’s being rebuilt, though I can’t honestly say if I’m glad or not to hear it. Better to raze the thing to the ground, I think.  To the matter of your letter: Yes, I suppose I will allow it, but only because it was Dagna’s idea. I hope she fares well, too. At the very least, it sounds like she’s among people who appreciate her. If she thinks it is a good idea to fund this scholarship, I suppose I agree. Let the messenger know where to leave the funds.  —Warden-Commander Arianwen Tabris

Alistair,  No. Absolutely not. If you commission a commemorative snow globe of the defeat of the Archdemon, I assure you that you will not like the bits of it I leave in your quarters to find later. It sounds funny now. It will not sound funny when you’re picking shards of glass out of your toes, you utter fool of a man.  You’d better be doing well. If not, tell me who is to blame for it. I’ve been too long idle in this keep and need some time to stretch my legs.  —Wen Oh—your humble servant, etc etc. Take care of yourself, you buffoon

#arianwen tabris #dao #prompt response #shivunin scrivening #wen does not allow the seneschal to proofread her letters after the incident

[shivunin]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @greypetrel--thank you for thinking of me, friend! I've got a few things banked that I don't think I've shared yet c: (Tagging, in turn, @vakarians-babe @cullenvhenan @ndostairlyrium @dungeons-and-dragon-age @brother-genitivi @heniareth @zenstrike @palipunk @daggerbean @jtownnn, if any of you would like to share something!) Here is a sweet snippet from that Act 2 piece I've been talking about. This particular chapter lines up with parts of Palimpsest, if you've read it, and makes sense enough on its own if you haven't:

Fenris’s eyes found hers unerringly the moment he stepped through the doorway. There was something on his face—something intense, vital, having nothing to do with anger or regret. The sight of it jolted her, and though she’d been playing the tipsy fool for nearly half an hour now she almost gave up the act at once to ask him what he meant by it. 

He swung a leg over the bench and sat beside her, just as he had for years now, but something new hummed in the empty space between them. She could hear it under the conversation and laughter of her friends, feel it in the moments when her sleeve brushed against his shoulder, see it when she glanced his way and the corner of his mouth rose in a faint but noticeable smile. 

What was this?

Maria didn’t know. It made her giddy, brought a flush to her cheeks. She was grateful for the latter, for it made her performance of drunkenness even more convincing, but it also felt…it was too much. She’d felt only echoes before, the flutter in her chest when he gestured in that elegant way he had, the heat in her ears that she batted aside whenever she watched him execute an especially graceful or brutal maneuver during a fight. She knew how she felt about him; she could list a dozen reasons that she shouldn’t feel them (foremost amongst them that he couldn’t be comfortable with that sort of attention) and a hundred reasons why she couldn’t help herself regardless. She hadn’t spent the last three years debating herself for and against it for nothing, for the Maker’s sake, but this—

When they all stepped out into the night air, she was relieved. It cooled some of the flush on her cheeks, though not soon enough to hide it from the others. 

“D’you feel a fever coming on, Hawke?” Merrill asked from Isabela’s back, her eyes glassy with too much drink. Even so, she lifted cool hands and patted Maria’s face carefully, feeling her forehead and cheeks in turn. “I’ve a draught for it in my room if you’re getting sick.”

“I’m fine,” Hawke assured her, reaching up to hug her one-armed, “just a bit too much to drink.” 

Merrill hummed in acknowledgement and snuggled her head back into Isabela’s shoulder. Isabela eyed Hawke for a moment before lifting an arm for Maria to tuck herself under. 

“Watch yourself, sweet thing,” Isabela murmured into her ear, “that one bites.”

“Nothing to watch,” Hawke murmured back, and pulled away. “Make sure she has water. She always forgets.”

“No, I don’t,” Merrill murmured, but Isabela smiled broadly. 

“Sure there isn’t,” she said, “we’ll see about that, Hawke. C’mon, kitten. Let’s get you home.”

Hawke smiled after them, shaking her head, and when she turned she found Fenris waiting, eyes fixed on her. 

The way he watched her sometimes…it had been wary at first, she was certain. Over the years, it had been replaced with mild exasperation, sometimes laughter, occasionally tentative affection. Now, there was something else in his eyes, some unnameable focus that set her heart to racing again the moment it’d finally calmed.

“Ready?” she asked Fenris. 

The moon loved the sight of him, she’d often thought. Its light was like silver-gilt on the planes of his face when he angled his head to the side and it tangled in the strands of his hair with the gentlest of brushstrokes. 

Who do I think I am, Varric? she wondered, looking toward the stairs home. Maybe I drank too much, after all. 

She knew better, of course, but it was a convenient enough excuse to seize upon.

“I am,” Fenris said, and together they started up the stairs home. 

Later, she wouldn’t remember much about the conversation that followed. He’d told her not to apologize to him—that much she held onto—but everything else was washed away by the way he’d reached out and taken her hand in his. His fingers were calloused and warm, bounded on every side by cool metal that occasionally snagged on her robes. While they finished climbing the steps to Hightown, Hawke wished fervently that she lived a little further away—somewhere outside of town, perhaps, so this walk could go on forever and she’d never have to let go. But of course the stairs home were as they’d always been, the walk as long or short as ever, and when they paused before her doorway they said goodbye in their usual manner. 

For the first time, as she pressed her cheek to his breastplate and wrapped her arms around him, Hawke wished that she could hear the thud of his heart through his armor. Was his racing as much as hers? Had the touch been a whim or did it mean something more? Her mind buzzed with it, hummed with the way he tentatively wrapped his arms around her in return, the whisper of his breath against the loose curls along the edge of her braid. This was—something new. She was almost certain of it. 

And yet, even then, the tiniest sliver of doubt held her from asking him what he wanted. It was not an unkind little voice. It was sympathetic—sorrowful, even, and its words were only logical. 

You’re not ready, it whispered when she would have held on to him more tightly. After a moment, it added: He’s not ready. 

So, flushed and weak-kneed, Hawke bade him goodnight as if nothing had changed at all. She was fortunate, she supposed, that she’d been keeping her feelings tucked neatly away this long. It had been necessary practice for this—whatever this was. 

When she climbed into her bed some time later, it felt almost unbearably cold, too large for her by far, and she huddled on the edge of the mattress trying to will herself to sleep. 

What would it feel like to—

No. He was her friend. It was enough; more than enough, after everything they’d seen.

But when he’d held her hand, he’d been gentle and firm. If he touched her somewhere else, what would it—

No. 

She had no idea what she was doing. She had very little experience with any of this, and having a crush on one’s friend was a different creature entirely than deciding to pursue these feelings. No. Until she could…figure this out, she’d leave it to Fenris. 

Hawke rolled over until her face was buried in the pillow. She groaned long and loud, and when she was finally done she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

#maria hawke #fenhawke #wip wednesday #long post #shivunin scrivening #i really like the idea of hawke being competent and experienced and deadly #but also giddy and tingly with that first flush of falling for someone #and like. this doesn't end well obviously but i wanted to unwind the moments before that #the rush of the fall before the the ground came into view so to speak #and so this chapter started out as a thought exercise--a warmup recounting her perspective of palimpsest/the act 2 romance scenes #but then i got attached and looped all of the little such stories into one longer thing #and here we are #i do intend to finish it eventually #we'll get there

[shivunin]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @greypetrel - thank you so much! 💗

I know this has made the rounds already. If I tag you and you've already done it, please feel free to tag me in the replies or disregard!

Tagging: @nightwardenminthara @vakarians-babe @transprincecaspian @star--nymph @blightbear @inquisimer @dreadfutures @scribbledquillz

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

43

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

688,185

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Published? Just Dragon Age. But I have some unfinished/unpublished Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate stuff as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All of these are Cullavellan fic:

Your Fate for Mine (129,681 Words | E)

More Than Memory (5,214 Words | E)

Search Your Hands (13,581 Words | E)

Unyielding (3,083 Words | M)

The Epaulet Mate (7,303 Words | E)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, though more slowly than I used to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooh. Probably The Scourge of Sundermount, though it wound up less angsty than the original ending (in which Cullen and Lavellan are turned to stone forever)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so this is much harder to answer! I am avoiding answering this with the obvious innuendo haha. Maybe In Any Life? I feel like the vibe of that last chapter is so very soft, with a spring breeze blowing through the window in the house Fenris and Maria made together c:

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten some snarky comments, but never outright hate (thankfully!)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes--not sure what is meant by "kind." M/F and F/F--soft and gentle, hard and fast, mildly kinky, plot-relevant and pwp, etc. A variety of smut, haha.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Not really. Crossovers aren't really my jam, but if I wrote one it would probably be Inquisition characters in Mass Effect (like a genre switch thing, not picked up and dropped into our solar system).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

When I was like 13 on FF.net, yes. It's why I stopped writing fic until I was 28.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Only in a sense! I have a few pieces sharing an OC with a friend that were largely rp first before I set them down as a narrative c:

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

God. Don't ask me this haha. My first DA ship was Fenris/Hawke and it still lives so closed to my heart, but Cullen/Lavellan got me into the fandom and Zevran/Tabris brought me someone very dear to me. I don't think I could ever judge any of them by the merits of the ship alone at this point!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm more than I'd like to admit :/ Probably The Red Crossing Arrangement, which is an arranged marriage/Halamshiral still belongs to the elves AU. It took so much more world building that my ability to write it slowly petered out. The odds are high that it will remain at roughly 80k for the foreseeable future (unless I suddenly want to get back to working out trade routes and governance and commerce, which is what did me in; I'm good at world-building culture on account of the degree and all, but the semantics of daily life don't really interest me as much) (tragically, this means the Adalene and Elandrin fix-it portions of this story may never be published :C and this does honestly make me so sad :C)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Voice and characterization/internal dialogue. I've been told that the canon characters I write feel very similar to canon and that's something I'm really proud of c:

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Physical space. I forget to define the setting very, very frequently. It's the next thing I want to focus on in my writing, actually, when I get back into it!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Eh. I think it can add flavor, especially in fantasy settings where the cultures and worlds are built dissimilarly to the real world. I don't think there's anything especially fun about not being able to discern what's happening in conversation---I think it's most effective when it's a handful of phrases that repeat (hello, I'm sorry, I love you, etc.) or when followed by a translation of some sort. As a lover of Latin, I especially find google translations very unreliable and often incorrect. Better to just italicize it and indicate it's another language, imo.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Code Lyoko

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oof. It depends on when you ask me this haha. For the moment, I think I'm loving As Two Reflected Stars a little extra right now c: I just love wound-tending and idiots in love and this is definitely both!

Blank version below!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

#tag game #shivunin scrivening #when i tell you how much i wish i could finish that fic :c

[shivunin]

Writing Patterns

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

Thank you for the tag @nightwardenminthara! Sorry it took a minute lol. Tagging back @greypetrel @inquisimer @dreadfutures @star--nymph @idolsgf @bumblewarden @scribbledquillz @vakarians-babe @bitchesofostwick

1.Scattered Stars (Fenhawke anthology work)

"The water in the bathtub was pleasantly hot, but Fenris was not sitting in it."

2. First Touch (Tabris/Tabris gift fic)

"Later, Arianwen would not remember what the fight was about."

3. Contrivances (Zev/Wen smut)

"Something had been weighing on Arianwen’s mind for hours."

4. Adoration for the Modest (Cullen/Lavellan smut)

"Elowen was in a mood; Cullen could see it as soon as he reached the practice ring."

5. A Good Fight (Zev/Wen)

“May I rest my head on your bosom?” the Crow asked somewhere behind Tabris. “I might cry.”

6. In Peace (Zev/Wen)

"When Zevran had first seen Arianwen, they’d been trying to kill each other."

7. Desk Job (Zev/Wen Smut)

“Soulless bitch.”

8. Ferelden Silver (Zev/Wen)

“Honestly?” Zevran said, resisting the urge to clutch at the awful ache in his shoulder. “I’d rather take my chances with you.”

9. In Confidence (Zev/Wen)

“Where are you taking me?” Zevran asked, keeping pace with his Warden as they scaled the side of a building in the alienage.

10. In Any Life (Fenris/Hawke)

"Fenris could not count how many times he’d dreamt of kissing Hawke."

Feeling In A Way about the bulk of this being from way back during Zevwarden week haha but. Observations:

Of the first lines that start with direct speech, several of them are pulled directly from the game.

Of the other lines, a lot of them are very short. Quick way to get into the narrative, I think.

I am having deja vu like i've talked about this at some point in the past, but I like opening with a concrete fact of the scene: an ache in the shoulder, hot water Fenris is close enough to feel but not touch, a conversation, etc. I personally don't like being uncertain about where the scene is/what's happening at the beginning of a writing piece, so I think it's something I'm extra conscious of.

I always think it's hard to put a name/observation to your own writing haha. Something about being too close to it to see it clearly, maybe? In any case, thank you for the tag! This game is always so interesting to me c:

#shivunin scrivening #tag game #man i love data though. i should make some sort of spreadsheet of all my first lines across chapters and then make observations #sickos meme: yes. YES!