#I kind of fell out of the app before dorian so I don't know if they ever finished that story | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blarrghe · 2 years

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Ooooh. For the ask game: The idea that got you to All Hail West Thedas or Twelve Nights?

funny you should pick those! Both of those fics were planned out in more or less one go, so it's a little harder to say which scene was their raison d'etre.

For Twelve Nights, I spontaneously wrote out the plot of a stereotypical Hallmark movie (only make it Pavellan) on my phone one day on a whim. It was very brief and silly, but I think it was the stereotypical "turning point" of that kind of film that hooked me into actually writing it. You know, the "BusinessMan McMoneybanks' business is a threat to LocalArtsit OutdoorsyGuy's small community!" of it all. The scene that really solidified first, and had the fullest pre-planned notes (literally the entire conversation word for word was written in my notes app I just had to fill in the scenery), was this one:

“I don’t want your help,” he said, and as he said it Dorian’s face fell into a frown, and another one of Taren’s agitated thoughts settled into place, “or your money.”

But Dorian kept his arm, and kept his eyes in their uneasy connection with his own; grey storm clouds of fear and longing pulling his heart into faster beats.

“Taren, please.”

He snapped his own eyes away, pulled back his arm with deliberate purpose. “What?”

Dorian looked at first like he had a whole speech to give, but then he swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down before he opened his mouth, and all that came forth was a hoarse, quiet stutter. “I — I’m sorry.”

Taren sighed, a vice around his heart, and whether it was because he was too tired to think or too full of thoughts to be reserved, it wasn’t clear, but he opened his mouth and out they came: the words to begin a conversation he wasn’t at all ready to have.

“I care about you, Dorian.” His voice came out now with a sudden clarity, and from there it was really all over. He’d be honest, and he’d say everything, whether it was wise to or not. Dorian flinched with the confession, and Taren tried to keep from watching what was sure to be a trembling avalanche of guilt again in his eyes. “You might be the most interesting person I’ve ever met. You’re charming, you’re impossibly smart, and passionate, and I” — he shook his head — “I like you.” The word sounded juvenile and insufficient for what he felt: impossibly connected; fate-twined and breathless. His face full of smiles he couldn’t help every time Dorian’s glance fell on him, besieged by the knowledge that he’d risk his stupid heart over him from the moment he’d complained his way into his life. Like one of a pair of blushing pilgrims, and in the wrong play; "too much, probably.” he said.

Dorian reached for his arm again, and this time he didn’t draw back.

“But you’re so obviously unhappy, uncomfortable in whatever life it is that you have, and I think you deserve better.” Taren risked a glance up into his eyes, and found them quivering, a glint of distress mixed with that heady pull of want, “I believe that you're sorry, that you mean well, I just wish you had told me.”

And that was that: all he had to say. He watched Dorian register the words and sigh, shaking his head as he took a turn now in tearing his eyes away.

“I can't have better.” Dorian breathed bitterly, “I didn't tell you because, I don't know, because you’re right. I hate this life, and I hate that everything in it is about my father and his company. Even if fighting from the inside is the best thing I could do with my life, it somehow never feels like it. And I have such a history of just being that poor little rich boy, but…” It was more from him than Taren had expected to hear. He watched Dorian take a deep breath, and whether it was due to that pull on his heart or Dorian’s grip on his arm he couldn’t say, but he stepped closer. “With you I'm not. I'm just me, and you're so real and I've never had anything like this and I just wanted it to be mine.” Dorian continued, so close to him that Taren could fall, if he let himself, just collapse right there into the dark sea of longing waiting for him in Dorian’s eyes. “For just — fuck — for just twelve fucking nights.”

Dorian took another deep breath, and then both of them fell — and it was still unclear who had the pull on who — into a long, deep kiss. It filled him; shook his soul and cleared his mind and warmed up every ache left by the fight in the snow and the night on a cold bench in a cell. He closed his eyes and sank into it, Dorian’s hands firm at his sides the only thing keeping him standing. It felt like it might never end, like he might just keep falling into him forever.

But it did, and he pulled back and looked once again into Dorian’s lonely eyes, and then away. “I’m not your fantasy, Dorian.” He whispered. Twelve fucking nights, he’d said. Just something to have for the sake of having had it, a taste of freedom to remind him that somewhere in the world, things were still real. “I don’t want that.”

(sorry that was long, I was gonna format it somehow but tumblr sucks)

For AHWT, similar thing. I had a couple conversations with @gaysolavellan where we came up with some hilarious ideas and then I basically plotted the whole thing out point-form in one go. The things I really wanted to include and looked forward to writing most were 1) All of the Satinalia chapter, especially Dorian Finding Out, and 2) Ehsaan feeds a baby goat.

#twelve nights #the chapter was twelve fucking nights and it was very exciting to get there #thanks for asking!

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