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shivunin · 6 months

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In the Quiet Dark

Zevran/Arianwen Tabris | 1,633 Words | M | CW: Mild/implied sexual content

I originally started writing this to go with this piece I commissioned from pinayelf (thank you again!) but I did not finish it in time to post them together. It may be a little late, but here they are in all their messy, sharp glory c:

Zevran sat on the other side of the campfire from Arianwen.

She knew this without looking, just as she had known approximately where he was all day. It had been a traveling day, uneventful, and they’d made their way through the Brecilian’s outskirts with little trouble. This annoyed her almost as much as her new awareness of Zevran did, for she would have dearly loved the distraction of a fight.

Instead, she…itched.

Nowhere in particular. Under her skin, perhaps; she did not know. She knew only that she had gone a very long time untouched and uncaring and now she could feel every inch of her skin where he was presently not in contact with it. There had been some barrier, perhaps, some veneer that had kept her from noticing such things. Now, she could not stop feeling the precise distance between them. Every scuff of his boots grated against her skin, every laugh felt pressed directly into her eardrums, and whenever she caught his eyes—

“Are you alright?” Alistair murmured next to her. Tabris dropped her fork, grimacing, and set the plate aside. It clattered in indignation against a loose rock and fell silent sooner than she would have liked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been scraping your fork against the plate there for minutes on end. Just thought I’d—don’t give me that look! I’m only asking.”

Arianwen stopped glaring at him and glared at the fire instead, which was a poor replacement for looking across it at Zevran.

All sorts of people lay together all the time and still the world went on turning. It was nothing; ought to be nothing important. She certainly shouldn’t feel any different than she had when she’d woken up yesterday. Wen ran sharp nails over her forearm, but it made little difference; this wasn’t that sort of itch.

“Ugh,” she said, slinging her leg over the other side of the log and walking away without any more farewell than that. She didn’t have the words; had left them all behind in Zevran’s tent the night before, it would seem.

Her own tent was dark and cool, a welcome contrast to the fire outside. When the flap of fabric fell closed behind her, Wen pulled the tie loose from her braid and combed the plait to loose waves with harsh fingers. Disarming took some time, her knife belt set less neatly in its place than usual, the knives in her boots cast aside with an equal lack of care. Her armor fell into a dark corner readily enough when she was done. She retrieved her final dagger from it the moment before it thudded against the bottom of her tent. Wen tucked the scabbard into her waistband and loosened the ties of her tunic, as if doing so would help her breathe more easily.

She had just cleared her plate, but she was hungry. She needed to run, to climb, to fight. She wanted blood, the thrill of battle, wanted to bite into—

“Warden?’

Wen hissed between her teeth before she could stop herself, the exhale of relief whistling and sharp instead of the soft thing she supposed it ought to be.

“You seemed as if you may want company,” Zevran said, his voice low. “Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, short and clipped.

Firelight painted her tent with fingers of gold and red when he ducked inside, but when the fabric fell again the two of them were left in near-complete darkness.

Touch me, she thought, and leave. Her hands flexed until they ached, then curled into fists at her sides.

“Why did you come?” she asked him.

The words felt almost detached from her, for they were nowhere near the things she wanted to say instead.

A pause. She could almost feel him weighing his answer.

“Because,” he said at last, the words very slow, “I wanted to.”

She didn’t see him move, but she felt his callused fingertips when they trailed along her forearm. For a moment, she thought she might cry out at even so little contact. All day, she had been thinking of this and now—it was like an itch. She had been scratching at the absence of him all day and now she had finally dug her nails in deep enough to find relief, but too deeply for it not to hurt a little.

Arianwen pressed her hand over his, deepening the contact and stopping the gentle motion at once.

“Then stay,” she said.

When she breathed in, the air was sharp and too much. She wanted; she wanted far more than was safe. Knowing that she could have this almost made it worse—because who was she, to want to be touched? Who was she, that she couldn’t stand knowing she’d already forgotten the way his bare skin felt under her hands, the precise texture of his hair—who was she? She did not know.

A stranger, she thought.

“If you’d like,” she finished, because even now she would not say please, and he laughed somewhere before her in the dark.

“Yes, I think I would,” Zevran said. When he touched her hair, he was gentler with it than she’d been, the touch a caress instead of a rebuke.

“I have never seen it loose before,” he murmured.

His breath skimmed her cheek–too close. Not close enough.

“You still haven’t.”

“I did for a moment—in the light,” he told her. Wen let go of his other hand and he found her jaw with it instead. His palms were warm and rough and perfect. She vowed never to tell him so and pressed her cheek against his hand instead.

“How lovely you are, mi vida,” he went on.

His lips pressed against her ear, moving so slightly that she almost didn’t feel it at all. Wen reached between them and found the leather tie in his own hair. It came loose with little effort, but the tug it took to free his braids seemed somehow momentous. She had half-undressed him last night, but she had been too distracted then to think of doing this. It felt…intimate, somehow, as Zevran seeing her hair unbound had felt intimate.

“More,” she said, and he laughed again.

When he answered her, he murmured directly into her ear.

“More flattery? I am sure that I can think of a few such things to say, my dearest Warden, but I did not think you were the t—”

“No,” she said, impatient. When she turned them both and tripped him onto her bedroll, he fell so easily that he must have done so on purpose. Arianwen did not care. She cared only that she could finally feel him pressed against her at last. A relief, though it was relief that did not lessen the need at all.

“More,” she told him again, and caught his laughter on her tongue when she pressed her mouth to his. Zevran felt just as good as she remembered—better, perhaps, because she had already begun to doubt her own memory. He moved with her whenever she shifted, tilting his head when she angled hers, tucking his fingers beneath her collar when her fingers trailed across his cheekbone.

“Impatient,” he murmured when she abandoned his mouth in favor of his neck, his voice low and breathless. Wen grunted in response and nipped at the warm skin there. His pulse thrummed against her mouth, frantic as her own heartbeat and twice as precious. She traced the skin with her tongue when she was finished, soothing the small hurt she’d set against his skin.

“Perhaps I am impatient, too,” he said. She did not know how he had grown so skilled at kissing her in the dark when he had only a night’s practice at it. She hovered on a dagger’s edge, much as she had the night before; unlike the night before, she knew she would not run from this. When it was almost too much to bear, she twisted a lock of his hair between her fingers and found herself anchored again.

Zevran’s hand slipped lower, lower down her back. The knife she’d tucked behind her shifted slightly.

“You should be more careful,” he said between kisses. “Leaving your blades where anybody can find them. Someone dangerous could take it, yes?”

Wen nudged his nose with hers, searching in the dark for what little she could see of his face. The faint light flashed in his eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat.

“But not you,” she said.

After a moment, he squeezed her hip. His hand slid away from the knife, tracing the length of her spine instead.

“Not me, no,” he agreed. She could feel his voice now as much as she had felt him not touching her earlier. She wanted his words and wanted them to stop in equal measure, but silence was the easy choice. It had always been kinder to her.

Wen leaned forward to kiss him again. If she shut her eyes very tightly, she could feel his body wherever it touched hers, could focus more completely on his hair wrapped around her fingers, on his fingernails where they dragged lightly against the base of her skull.

If she had left them open, she might have seen the way he looked at her all the while—might have known that he watched her as intently as she had not watched him before.

In fact—she did not think of her dagger at all.

But this was not something she was ready to see. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut as tight as they could go.

Zevran rolled her onto her back several minutes later, the motion as natural and obvious as the moon rising somewhere outside her tent. When he set her dagger to the side, Arianwen neither lifted it from the blanket nor drew it from its sheath.

#zevwarden #zevran arainai #arianwen tabris #warden tabris #da fic #shivunin scrivening #zevwen #okay!!! this is the first of three as my little private celebration of a kudo milestone #but i fear the other two will have to wait for tomorrow! c:#feelings are always so intense to wen that it is a pleasure and a challenge to write her #(but more the former than the latter!)

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greypetrel · 1 year

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Last Resorts of Good Men - Aftermath

Who else wanted to hug Dorian after Last Resorts of Good Men, tho? I'm sure I'm not the only one, come on, and this scene lives in my head rent-free.

Some feelZ I wrote more extensively here, an extract under the cut!

It’s a couple of hours before Dorian gets out of the tavern, and finds Lavellan napping against the wall just out of the tavern’s door, sitting on a stool and propped against the white lime of the outer wall, tucked securely in her cloak and feet well planted on the sittee, nose and cheeks red from the cold.

“Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up…”

He shakes her delicately by her shoulder, meeting her eyes as she bats her lashes as she realises where she is and whom she’s looking at, just awake. Her eyes are red and a little puffy still, making her irises even greener than usual by contrast.

“What time is it?” She asks, groggily.

“Time for you to stop falling asleep in the snow, before your dashing Commander will have my head.”

“Mpf, it was only a nap.”

“I know, it’ll get me some good money on Varric’s poll. Come on.”

There is sarcasm and friendly teasing in the hole he leaves behind, raising up and reaching to fumble with the horse pasturer the elf has put on on both of the animals in the meanwhile. None of them fills the gap, tho, settling to work in silence, fitting in each other’s space automatically and not looking at the hole that’s still there. It’s the hug she didn’t give him in Skyhold nor in the day and a half of travel, it has the shape of Felix, putting them both at ease when they’re both to tired and upset to speak anymore. It’s the two hours that passed since Aisling left the two Pavus alone, and the incognita of the future. It’s the place they fit with each other with the ongoing rumour about them, and the fact that they’re by default unfounded, but by default they can’t be ignored. It’s the small, crucial, little chance one of them just had, and the small, crucial difference it painfully highlighted.

They walk out of the village still in silence, Aisling helping Dorian up cupping her hands without him asking, to offer a step closer to the saddle. He just nods in thanks, she oomphs when he steps on her hands, pushing him up. She mounts second, clicking her tongue to signal both horses to start. As it starts snowing lightly, she slips out her hood, pointing her nose up and breathing deeply.

The path needs to wind up an ill, running on the hilltop and looking out at misty valleys, grey and white all around dotted by black trees and still green conifers, before someone speaks again. And it’s Dorian.

“He says we’re alike. Too much pride.” He explains, words coming out slowly and heavily, and as she turns her head towards him, horses walking side by side, the snow falling too light to really pose a concern to be blocked down, his head is turned towards the hills, looking at everything and at nothing at all. “Once I’d been overjoyed to hear him say that, you know. Now… Now I’m not certain. I don’t know if I can forgive him.”

She knows when he’s faking a laughter, when he’s bitchy and snappy because he’s tired or upset or hungry, when he’s sincerely happy. She has never heard him this down, tho, and it clenches her heart painfully. She has a question on her tongue, about what and how, but it can wait until later. Not now, not here.

“Are you all right?” Is all she can ask, now, delicately.

“No.” He sighs, deeply. “Not really.”

He turns towards her, pulling the reins to bring the horse closer. With little success, and it’s mostly the elf who needs to slower and manoeuvre a little to pull them side by side, as much as it’s possible.

“Thank you for bringing me out here.” He continues, looking at her, finally. “It’s not what I expected but… It’s something. Maker knows what you must think of me now, after that whole display…”

He snorts, the deprecating irony still something to patch the hole that’s still there. But it’s just them, out there, no one around to see them or mind two random travellers on the road. So, she can stretch a hand, making grabby motion to beckon him on. He huffs, shaking his head but still grabbing her hand, a little unsurely.

“I think you have a huge heart that you don’t get yourself credit for, and that you’re very brave.” She replies, squeezing his fingers to underline it.

“Brave?”

“It’s not easy to abandon tradition and to walk your own path, is it.”

A pause, he doesn’t reply, just motions to let go of her hand, but she doesn’t follow it, still letting them hang between them. It’s not so comfortable, on horseback, but she cares little, leaning a little on the side against him, as much as she can without Walter mistaking it for a command. Luckily the fourier isn’t the brightest of horses, or the more attuned with her, and doesn’t veer.

“I wouldn’t have made it, in your place, and… I’m sorry, about before.”

“What for?”

“I didn’t push you to do anything you didn’t want, did I?”

“You horrible person, push me to do what?” “To bridge a gap you maybe didn’t want to cross. I… I never wanted to know my mother’s name.”

There’s another pause, and Aisling is the one, now, to look away, words coming out of her mouth automatically.

“It’s not to… Take the attention away, I swear, it’s just…” She huffs, shrugging her shoulders. “Some Dalish clans don’t accept more than three mages. The Keeper, the First and the Second apprentices. If another child shows magic, they’re either adopted by other clans, or… or left in the woods. That what happened to Minaeve, she was lucky to be found and brought to a Circle. I was luckier, the Lavellans had just a First apprentice, and I was adopted by them. I didn’t speak for two months, when I realised that my mother didn’t follow me. Sometimes parents cross the clans as well, but mines… Didn’t.”

It's Dorian’s turn to squeeze her fingers, and she cracks a smile, squeezing back at the gesture.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore. But… I don’t know, I think it must count as something that your father came all the way down here to see you. That he actually looked for you and tried to fix it. But I hope I didn’t push you, did I? Maybe you didn’t want to, and that’s-“

“How do you- What- Can you maneuvre the mega-fauna some more??” He grumbles, now tugging at her hand and flapping the reins about, frowning at the horse.

Aisling giggles, asking what he wants to do, and devising a plan that just makes him fumble with uneasiness and worry, as she slips her feet away from the stirrups and carefully, cooing at the horses, steps from one to the other to sit in front of the Tevinter, with both her legs dangling on the side of poor, good Gwinevere and snaking her arms around Dorian’s torso. He grumbles a little that this seems like a much dangerous situation and they’re both gonna break their necks in a very stupid death, but as she squeezes him, laughing and promising him some riding lessons, he hugs her back, holding tight. It’s long overdued and none of them let go, settling against the other more comfortably: it’s just them, out there, no one’s rushing them over, no one’s watching or spreading rumours, they can just be, and fill the hole of before together.

“It’s ok. You’re not alone, you know?” She whispers, rubbing circles on his back as she feels him shivering.

He snorts, and hugs her tighter nevertheless, shaking his head a little -his moustaches tickle her cheek, making her giggle again.

“Look at you, already catching on the road of perdition of Dalish scandalous nonchalance about physical contact…” She teases, just to lighten the mood a little, but far from letting him go. Oh, she has needed a hug herself since she woke up on the mountain, cold as hell, under her weight in pelts, and with a dislocated shoulder she was forbidden to move, and she’s not letting go before he does.

“It’s definitely all your fault, you see, your mushiness is contagious. Mother was never a hugger either...” It’s self-derogatory again, but this time there’s no Vivienne to shoo her away, nor distance or holes that need to be filled.

“Mh, lucky I’m here to give all the hugs you’re owed, then…”

“Lucky indeed…”

They stay there for some more, the horses deciding to stop on their own, the snow giving them privacy and silence. It’s been the week, and none is really in a hurry to get back and put up masks again. But just for here, and now, they can let everything go and just breathe and exist. For once, it’s not Aisling the first to start crying.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da fanart #dorian pavus #inquisitor lavellan #lavellan #da: i #sketch #sketchbook #aisling lavellan #dragon age oc #oc love #traditional art #da fic #writing #greypetrel

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aces-to-apples · 1 month

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"a kiss may be grand"🔒

Written for hollyand (@hollyand-writes) for Nobody Expects the Dragon Age Smutquisition 2024 (@dasmutquisition)!

When the cat's away and whatnot.

Rating: Explicit Category: F/M Relationships: Carver Hawke/Merrill (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Dragon Age II - Act 1, Developing Relationship, Miscommunication, Sex Pollen, Aphrodisiacs, Vaginal Sex Words: 4,078 Collections: Nobody Expects the Dragon Age Smutquisition 2024

#dragon age ii #da fic #by apples #carver hawke #merrill #carverrill #nobody expects the dragon age smutquisition 2024 #not safe for whales #citrus scale: lemon #i had this post queued up and subsequently posted earlier today but then the authors reveals got delayed and i had to delete it lolwhoops

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sourfacedlemon · 1 month

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"memento (mori)" 🔒

Written for SidheLives (@sidhelives) for Nobody Expects the Dragon Age Smutquisition 2024 (@dasmutquisition)!

King Cailan has a very special request for Duncan's new warden recruit.

Rating: Explicit Category: F/M Relationships: Cailan Theirin/Female Warden, Female Surana/Cailan Theirin Additional Tags: Ostagar (Dragon Age), Fereldan Politics (Dragon Age), political maneuvering, mostly based on my sketchy knowledge of early-modern england tbh, First Kiss, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, attempts at historical dress Words: 7,060 Chapters: 2/2 Collections: Nobody Expects the Dragon Age Smutquisition 2024

#dragon age: origins #da fic #by lemon #nobody expects the dragon age smutquisition 2024 #cailan theirin #warden surana #i had this post queued up and subsequently posted earlier today but then the authors reveals got delayed and i had to delete it lolwhoops #not safe for whales #citrus scale: lemon

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nightwardenminthara · 5 months

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WIP Whenever

I was tagged by @idolsgf and @shivunin, thank y'all!! i tag @sinquisition and @transprincecaspian and @foxboyclit here is some Grant Hawke spiraling post Act 2 c:

It’s an old letter. From a few months back, there hadn’t been any response yet to the ones Grant had sent since. Sometimes that was the way of it. His letters piling up in Ansburg while Carver was off doing Maker knows what. He did his best not to worry, it’s what he’d want Carver to do for him as well. Worry never got him anywhere but deep in his cups.

He swirls the brandy, a vintage gifted from Aveline. Usually Grant would save it for company but an exceptionally lonely night deserved something better than cheap ale from Lowtown that tasted like piss. The parchment is well worn, folded and unfolded into his inner breast pocket. He spent too much time idly touching the paper, coveting it as if he were back living at Gamlen’s and it was a note for gold.

Another swirl of the brandy and a long sip, it burns his throat on the way down. No one is here to see it so he ventures holding the letter to his face, inhaling the smell of paper and ink for any lingering scent of Carver. There is none, of course, and it just leaves him feeling dumb.

He places it on the table and drains the rest of his glass. His eyes close and he tries to conjure his brother’s image in the darkness. Every day it seems to get harder to see Mother… Bethany... Father. But Carver is still here. Even in the absence of letters, he has to believe it. An image of dark hair and blue eyes.

He grips the glass and clings to the image, paper crumpling in his other hand as he clenches it tight. Where are you? Are you safe? Are you somewhere in the Deep Roads again?

Abruptly the vision in his eyes changes from Carver before him to Carver, sick and dying. Anders desperate pleas to the Wardens as Hawke held his brother. Another image: Bethany torn apart by an ogre. And another: Mother, horribly malformed and raised like an undead. Father, that once strong and impenetrable figure, pale and sickly on his deathbed.

Yet more images flood, Feynriel made Tranquil, the mages he’d sent to the Gallows that had never appeared again, the cries of a mother separated from her child in Lowtown as he watched silently while the Templars took the boy away.

He balls his hand into a fist, the letter crumbling with it. The burn of the brandy echoes in him, he feels it all over — the pit of his stomach, deep in his chest — and finally it spills into his hands in a fervent flame. The parchment stands no chance in the destruction. It burns into ash and tears threaten to sting his eyes.

Grant shouts through gritted teeth, a fiery frustration. The flame doesn’t stop, he wants to fling it from himself.

What have you done? He hears it in Carver’s voice. Accusatory and angry. His mind supplies Carver’s indignant anger at Grant’s hesitation to bring him on the expedition. Would he still be safe in Kirkwall if he hadn’t?

Grant shouts again and unclenches his grip. All he can do is destroy. Force magic erupts from his hand and sends the empty glass of brandy flying and shattering on the floor.

What have I done?

#ch: grant hawke #wip wednesday #cole writes #this is a finished thing not a wip #but im using this to post it lol #carver hawke #da fic

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highwayphantoms · 1 year

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Hi! I would love to see “Is it okay to hug you?” for Handers, or even Anders + a Hawke sibling with background Handers 👀

hello hello I wrote this a while ago and never remembered to post it! 😂 so here's some pre-relationship Handers for @dadrunkwriting

Words: 975 Warnings: nah

At first, Anders took little notice of Hawke's departure from the table. He had a winning hand for sure this time, and that was rare with Isabela at the table. But when she still hadn't returned after several rounds, Anders scooped up his meager winnings: a few coins that somehow seemed smaller than it was compared to the much larger pile Bela had amassed. As he got to his feet, Merrill glanced up from where she sat across from him and asked, "Oh, is it that late already?"

Anders waved her off and said, "I'll be back in a minute. Don't stop on my account."

Merrill brightened immediately, while Isabela said, "Give Hawke our love."

For a moment he considered asking if he was that obvious, then quickly concluded he didn't want to know the answer. Instead, he acknowledged Isabela with a nod and ducked out the door of Varric's suite. Though the front room of the Hanged Man was as crowded as usual for this time of day, Hawke usually managed to stand alone, her dog putting space between her and drunken strangers. Scanning over the room, he saw neither Hawke nor her dog, and Bear was not a small dog. Not getting drinks, then, and she had never seemed the sort of person who would sleep with just anyone. Still, Hawke didn't usually leave without telling anyone. For that matter, Hawke was usually the last to leave. More than once, he'd heard Varric complain that she'd passed out on the floor of his suite rather than go home.

Curiosity compelled him to navigate across the mass of drunks to the front door. The winter air cut right through his clothes, but it was refreshing at the same time.

Nothing felt as good as being outside.

He spotted Bear first, the dog's eyes glinting in the flickering light from the lantern outside the door. Though the dog's dark fur blended into the inky shadows, Hawke's bright red scarf did not. She was on the ground, slumped against a wall with her forehead pressed to her knees; Bear laid on the ground just in front of her, as still as a statue but for the gentle wagging of his nub of a tail.

Acutely aware of the way Hawke reacted to people getting in her space, Anders approached her but maintained a wary distance. For some unfathomable reason, he liked her, as prickly and difficult as she could be. Maker knew she was certainly no worse than Fenris. Maybe that's why they get on as well as they do, he thought with faint amusement. "Hey," he said, stiffly crouching down to be closer to her level. "Are we out in the cold for any particular reason?"

Without lifting her head or otherwise moving a muscle, Hawke said dully, "Fuck off."

"Mhm, I would, but Bear seems so happy to see me," he said mildly.

In apparent agreement, the dog barked softly.

Hawke made a frustrated sound, but said nothing.

"I've known you long enough to know something's wrong," he added. "You don't have to tell me what, but you can't sit out here all night."

"I can, and I will," she muttered. "Hawke," he said, faintly exasperated.

Finally, she picked her head up to glower at him. With clouds blotting out the moonlight and only one lantern to see by, he couldn't make out much of her face, but the way she rubbed at her eyes suggested she'd been crying.

That was… not like Hawke. Hawke didn't cry. She raged. Shouted. Cracked bad jokes. Snarked at people. Cast walls of ice purely to shatter them.

"You were there," she said flatly. "You heard what Aveline said."

Anders paused, trying to think of what Aveline could possibly have said. He generally tuned her out when she started echoing templar talking points—she never said anything he hadn't heard a thousand times before—but he was sure she hadn't said anything in that vein recently.

"Saved her life, and this is how she repays me?" Hawke muttered sullenly. "It's like I don't even exist."

Ah, he did vaguely remember Aveline talking over Hawke at one point. That wasn't particularly unusual either, but evidently Hawke had hit some kind of tipping point.

"You seem pretty real to me," Anders said lightly. "But I know how to prove it, if you don't believe me."

She snorted humorlessly. "How?"

"Can I hug you?"

For a moment, she didn't say anything. In truth, he'd expected one of her snarky retorts. Then, quietly, she said, "Okay."

Anders stood, and offered her his hand. For once, Hawke didn't hesitate—she was usually so reluctant to admit that she had trouble getting off the ground on her own. He pulled her up to her feet, then loosely wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Hawke stood frozen for a few seconds. Then, to his surprise, she turned and hugged him back. Her voice muffled somewhat by her face being pressed against his chest, Hawke mumbled, "I don't know why you're so nice to me."

"Despite your best efforts, you're my friend," he said mildly. Part of him wanted so much more than that, but spending as much time around two other apostates was dangerous enough as it was. The last thing any of them needed was a relationship that could be used against them.

"I guess," she replied quietly. After a few seconds, she released him and withdrew, taking a half step back. "I don't… I mean, I never really had friends."

"Well, you do now." Anders gestured loosely towards the Hanged Man and asked, "Are you going to come back in?"

She shook her head. "No, I… think I'll go home."

"Okay." He brushed aside the faint disappointment that washed over him, then added, "You know where to find me if you need anything."

#jay writes #dragon age #da fic #serafina hawke

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maddies-writings · 4 months

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Trevelyan x Solas fic idea!

I wanna write a post trespasser fic where Solas changes his plans. Basically, he plans on slowly tearing down the Veil within the bounds of newly reclaimed Elven lands of the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves.

Anyways, to prove that Solas isn't going to Conquer all the human kingdoms he needs to have a political marriage with a human. Which ends up being former Inquisitor Evelyn Trevelyan.

I wanna write a fic about their very tense marriage, trying to navigate their new roles in the world and each other's lives. Yes, they are the end goal ship but there is a lot that needs to happen before then.

I need to come up with the other part of the plot. Elven extremists who wanna take out more humans in revenge for how their people have been treated. Loyal servants of the Evanuris waking up and wanting to wake up the "gods" and take out Solas? I'm open to ideas.

Also, since Inquisition itself has a lot of backstory for the relationship post trespasser I'm wondering if I should do Inquisition in flashbacks or do a prequel before I write this Political Marriage AU. Thoughts? Ideas?

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #solas #fen'harel #solas x trevelyan #solavelyan #DA Fic #evelyn trevelyan

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becauseanders · 2 months

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Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age), Anders/Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Karl Thekla, Lirene (Dragon Age), Female Amell (Dragon Age), Hawke (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Nathaniel Howe Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Past Anders/Karl Thekla, Mental Breakdown, Substance Abuse, Self-Destruction, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Drift Compatibility (Pacific Rim), Title from a Sunn O))) song

After Anders loses his husband fighting kaiju, he loses himself to his grief, despite his friends' best efforts to keep him from a point of no return.

After Hawke loses his entire family and finds himself spiralling, his best friend tries to give him purpose.

But at the Kirkwall Shatterdome, against all odds, they discover they're both worth something more than they'd ever thought possible.

_____

wild that it took me this fucking long to write a dragon age/pacific rim au, but here we are, and there are already two chapters live! (if anyone remembers when i said i might be starting an au i’d been wanting to write in some fandom for a while…this would be it, and tbh i always should have known it could never be anything but dragon age.) also my very first time writing m!handers, so this should be interesting.

anyway, let’s fucking go!

#dragon age #pacific rim #da fic #da2 fic #handers fic #pacific rim au #fan fiction #my writing #handers #dragon age ii #ao3 #encouraged to reblog

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k9rage · 11 months

Text

From Different Puzzles (But We Fit Together) Chapter 1

Trans male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus, 2k, Teen

Tags: Cultural Differences, Post-In Your Heart Shall Burn, Developing Relationship, Shovel Talk, Dorian Pavus POV

“You know I don’t give a halla shit what anybody says about you, right?” the redhead reminded him, far more earnest than the leader of the entire Inquisition had a right to be. “You’re one of the best men I’ve ever met.”

“Naturally,” he responded, feeling oddly bereft when Nydha pulled away. He still wasn't used to the Inquisitor’s earnestness, though he'd certainly been around it long enough that he likely should have been.

"I'm serious, Dorian!" Nydha insisted, his laughter warm. "You really are."

Read the rest on Ao3

#sorry. i refuse to format my fics for tumblr its so difficult #anyways #da fic #oc: nydha lavellan-ghilain #dorian pavus #dragon age #idk what tags are used for da fic yet ill figure it out later this is just for the five (5) ppl who care abt this oc #we ball!!!!!!!!#calicos fics

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5lazarus · 4 months

Text

Work in Progress Wednesday

“Surely you don’t think the gods are coming back,” Imladris says, nonplussed. “I didn’t see Fen’Harel in the Fade.”

Briala says, “Isn’t that the story, that He trapped them in slumber, waiting in the Fade? Well, the barriers between the waking and the dreaming are broken now. The dead have been rising. Why not the gods?”

“Because the gods are dead,” Imladris says furiously. “If they ever existed. If they ever cared. I cannot imagine the degradation of our history, Briala, if the gods were real. Who would let this happen to us? They were legends, nothing more. Perhaps there was some historical antecedent, folk heroes who became cast as divine after—why are you here? If you wanted to argue theology, you could’ve just sent in an essay.”

“I have better things to do than write for your little magazine,” Briala says. “But you have made my point nicely. Something existed, to make the legend. The religion. And whatever was does not seem to have cared too much about what happened to their people.” She leans forward and fixes Imladris with a stare. Imladris tenses. “I believe the gods existed and I believe they were not kind. I have seen the ruins of Elvhenan, Immo’.” Imladris looks down. She hasn’t heard that name since Val Royeaux. “It was a caste-based slave society. I cannot believe the gods in charge of that were good to us. And if they are waking, as I believe there are—well.” Briala settles back in the rickety chair, which creaks dangerously but does not break. “That does not herald well.”

Imladris digests the pun. “Do you have any evidence?”

Briala says, “I met an ancient elf who called himself Slow Arrow in the old tongue, who told a the Forbidden One called Imshael ‘something big is coming’ to convince him to let myself and Mihris go. Something bigger than the Orlesian civil war. You’re not the only one who has been walking into legends, lethallin. The Forbidden One possessed Mihris. She saw something. And it is time to prepare.”

Imladris says, “For what?”

“The end of this world, of course. Do you think what’s coming is good? Is better than where we are now? I want the Dales, Imladris Ashallin. I want Elvhenan for our people. And I want it without the gods.” Briala gestures. “Lindiranae and the Emerald Knights thought the gods would save them, and we ended up little better than slaves again.”

Imladris, a bit shocked, laughs. “What are you asking of me? I can’t fight legends.”

“Except you are,” Briala says. “After you kill Corypheus, one would-be god, what’s a whole pantheon?” She rises and smirks down at her. Imladris, realizing she’s gaping, hurriedly fixes her face and glares. “Think about it. It would do us all some good, if you used your position for the people.” She picks up the tray still sitting on the table and offers it to Imladris. Mechanically she takes it. “You should eat before your food gets cold. When you’re in the Graves, do give Fairbanks my regards.”

Briala leaves quietly, head bowed and movements small and quick like a servant. Imladris hears the ugly sound of cutlery clattering against stoneware and looks down. She’s shaking so violently she is spilling her soup: a waste, she thinks, and mechanically begins to eat.

#WIP WEDNESDAY #WRITING #WIP #DRAGON AGE FANFICTION #DRAGON AGE FANFIC #DAI FIC #DA FIC #IMLADRIS ASHALLIN LAVELLAN #SOLAVELLAN #FEN'HAREL'S TEETH #briala

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cactusnymph · 12 days

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Srry ur having a bad night 🍨 maybe a warden of your choice w zevran + shielding the other w their body?

Being an Antivan Crow means that Zevran has always been a priceless asset and absolutely disposable at the same time. As long as he does his job and makes himself useful he's somewhat safe—as safe as one can be as a hired assassin.

If he stepped out of line or got killed, he would have quickly been replaced by someone else and no one would have shed a tear about him. Zevran decides not to dwell on this fact for too long because being depressed is counterproductive to his survival.

Being in the Warden's company has meant a lot of tiptoeing, making himself as useful and desirable as possible—to little success.

Nerian Mahariel never seems to need anything and his stoic demeanor betrays the sexual attraction of a brick wall at most. Whenever he says "Thank you" after Zevran hands him something or asks if Zevran is alright after a fight, Zevran jokes about it despite feeling decidedly weird.

He's hardly more than a prisoner. At least that's what he thought. It's the deal Zevran made with Mahariel after his failed assassination attempt. Mahariel though seems not at all interested in treating Zevran like a prisoner or a personal guard dog.

No.

In fact he goes out of his grumpy, stoic way to treat Zevran with respect.

An absolutely insane move on Mahariel's part, but Zevran can't help but be intrigued. So far Nerian has offered to mend Zevran's pants ("If you wanted to see me out of my pants you need only ask, dear Warden."), keeps bringing him food whenever he's done cooking ("I know they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I assure you there's no need to charm me with stew") and asks his opinion during group discussions ("You know me, I like being ordered around").

None of Zevran's sexual innuendos are ever perceived with any flicker of either annoyance or interest.

Nerian oftentimes just shrugs, nods and carries on with his life.

Zevran has no idea how to deal with it.

He knows how to secure his survival through means of seduction and that has always worked for him. Up until now.

This respectful behavior on Nerian's part distracts Zevran more than it should, especially when they're in deadly combat with a whole group of abominations.

Zevran is covered in blood, templar intestines and gunk and usually he doesn't mind much, but the smell of this entire tower overrun by demons is horrendous and the impending possibility of getting his mind controlled by one of them doesn't much appeal to Zevran.

Nerian's face is grim and determined as he fires arrow upon arrow into their opponents. Zevran knows that his bow means a lot to him—as one of the few connections to his clan. It's covered in blood now, much like Nerian himself.

Zevran stabs one of the abominations into what used to be a human's face and the shriek it gives off reverberates through the hall like a cacophony of death and misery. It takes more force than Zevran anticipated to get the dagger out of the torn flesh.

"Zevran!"

He lets go of the dagger immediately to swirl around and raise his second weapon, but there's no need. Nerian has interposed himself between Zevran's back and one of the other abominations, his bow discarded on the ground and armed with nothing but a hunting knife.

Something very weird happens inside of Zevran's ribcage but he has no time for sentimentalities, because the abomination rakes its claws across Nerian's chest and throws him to the side. Zevran doesn't hesitate to swing his short sword, tearing through the abomination's torso and making it fall backwards.

He's at Nerian's side before he can check if there's any more abominations left.

"What would you do that for?", he asks, quickly rummaging through his pack to find one of the healing potions. Nerian huffs as he holds the claw wound on his chest, his warm blood seeping through his fingers.

"You're not disposable, you know", he grumbles and takes the potion.

Zevran doesn't know what to say. He can't even make a joke. The so important bow was discarded without hesitation, as was Nerian's own safety. Just to keep Zevran from taking a hit to the back.

"I suppose thanks are in order", he says and does his best to ignore the slight quiver in his voice. Nerian nods.

"It's not a problem."

Oh, Zevran thinks foggily as his heart stomps in his chest like a mad Bronto, but it absolutely is.

#zevran arainai #dragon age #dragon age origins #da fic #zevran x warden #zevran x mahariel #mi writes #nerian mahariel #thanks so much for this prompt #i love these two (well technically three with alistair in there) so dearly :D:D

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greypetrel · 3 months

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Hello! ✨ Hand-holding n.3? For the character(s) you think it would fit best 👀

Hello! 💜

Thank you for the prompt, maybe it's not what you expected but well... Some Anders for you, I hope I treated him well enough!

Tis the prompt list

No One Else Left Behind.

Hand-holding 3. - Cold hands in warm hands [ Female Mahariel & Anders | During DA2 Act II | 4533 words | AO3 link ]

The audacity of the man, really.

As if he could really disappear into the blue and avoid her discovering where he ran to, in which hole he slipped.

And indeed, he slipped into such a literal shithole that it had taken her some time, to his credit. Something pointless, nonetheless: Alyra found him anyway.

To say it shortly: she was pissed off when she returned to Vigil’s Keep, heart in pieces because Morrigan had gone through the eluvian and she couldn’t bring herself to follow, and the first thing that she was welcomed with was that.

Anders had disappeared.

In a fit of rage, because it had really been a hell of a week and the next would have been worse, since she was expected in Denerim for an important Council, she swore he could die in a ditch for all she cared, and went on with her life.

It was a low hit, but he was a free man, she guessed. He was free to go.

She searched what had been his room far and wide, that evening, when she was still angry about it. Any hint, any note would do, just a goodbye to calm her down, help her find a peace she was missing: there was nothing. He had collected his few things and left. Nathaniel knew nothing about it, Velanna neither. They woke up and he was not there, after being weird for days. He hadn’t speak to anyone, just looked pensive and distracted, less prone to joke around. It felt weird, but he’d been quieter ever since he took Justice in.

She wasn’t so cruel as to send soldiers after him. Not after the Circle. She didn’t peg herself as being a good person, in any way: she killed too many people to be one, and set on the throne the least person that wanted the position. Maybe it was fooling herself, but she at least considered herself better than that, anyway.

She told her spies to be on the lookout for him, and resigned herself to peg Anders in her long list of shortcomings.

Four years later, her spies found him.

She dyed her hair dark, dressed in casual clothes and jumped on the first ship to Kirkwall, sending word to Alistair that she would be gone for a couple of weeks at worst, and congratulating Nathaniel for finally being in charge of the Bannorn. Temporarily.

---

Kirkwall was a shithole, and Alyra hated it.

The Gallows let her deeply suspicious. She took a look at the courtyard, since she was there, wondering why exactly the ships had to stop there before reaching the city. Austere and with the air of a prison. Templars and mages looked at each other sideways and- had she already met that Templar in the corner, the one with a pole up his ass? His face felt familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she had seen him. She would have remembered, if it was important, and the least time she spent in there, the happier she was.

When she landed in Kirkwall, she missed the Gallows.

The Gallows at least were fairly clean and didn’t smell so much of… she didn’t want to know what exactly the Docks smelled of.

“Fucking Anders…” Alyra muttered between her teeth, as she side stepped to avoid a suspiciously looking puddle.

Why there were suspiciously looking puddle on the street? Who was in charge of this city, and why the problem had not been addressed? She knew the Qunari presence was a threat, but judging from Sten, it wouldn’t have been a hindrance for some-

- she turned on herself quickly and snatched the wrist attached to the hand that was just slipping into her bag, pivoting so she could twist the attached arm around and press it to the back of the thief, and pin them in place.

“No.”

She just hissed… Him. Too young. 13 at best, a mousy face filled with dread and pimples, ragged clothes patched in more than one spot, a toe peeking out from a hole in his left shoe. Not the face of a convinced criminal. She huffed in annoyance, twisting his arm a little -not to hard to hurt him, but enough so the lesson was understood.

“Next time you want to pickpocket someone, choose your targets better. Elves are either used to be in slums, or trained to hunt. Not a good place to start. Choose a person in fine clothes, they usually don’t expect it and won’t notice if they’re missing few coins.”

The boy looked at her with wide eyes, blinking twice before shily nodding to signal he understood. Alyra huffed and pushed him forward, with little grace, but just enough to send him stumbling and not falling.

“I- Th-thank you. Sorry, ma’am.” The boy fumbled, turning back to look at her.

“Don’t get caught.” She reminded him, nodding and walking past.

She clutched her bag a little closer: one warned pickpocket was enough for the day, and she wasn’t there to start a class on how to rob people. Because Kirkwall wasn’t even good for that, apparently.

Recover the lost idiot, get back on the first ship. Easy.

---

Of course he had to choose the sewers to open a clinic.

Alyra didn’t want to even think about it, and about how many illnesses and infections the patients ended up with. The very idea sent shivers down her spine, and every step she took in this Creators-forsaken town made her think that really, the problem-waiting-to-explode that was the Gallows was not that bad, after all. If she only could remember where did she saw pole-up-his-ass and exert a favour to have a clean bed…

But she didn’t, and she needed to be there. She entered the clinic and scrunched her nose at the nasty mixture of smells, following a group of people that entered there.

It was busy, and for the state it was in and the location, it wasn’t as filthy as it threatened to be.

The linens were clean, the pavement as clean as it could be, every patient on their own cot.

She sat on one, grunting in assessment as a person asked her if she was severe. She observed the place, looking at the people there. Lower classes and refugees, judging by the poor state of their clothes. Humans and elves and dwarves, sporting all kind of wounds. She found peculiar that so many had what clearly were cuts from a sword or a dagger, but for her own mental sanity, decided not to dwell much about it.

A group in a corner stayed separated, looking around with suspicious eyes, clearly on alert. Mages, she could have bet: they were in no physical shape to be thugs, had too much meat on their bones to be beggars, and were a little too clean, their clothes a little too well sewn. Stupid mages, at that: isolating would only attract suspects on them, make them stand out. Another thing she didn’t dwell much on, but it didn’t take a genius to assume their presence there could mean the clinic was a cover for something else. In the state of the city and its Circle, they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a safe place. And if she knew Anders just a little, he would be dead before leading them back to the Gallows.

Speaking of which.

He stepped out of a backroom, drying his hands on an apron and looking around with tired eyes, hair unkempt and messily tied in a half ponytail, earring gleaming in a beam of sunlight that filtered from the high windows. A little older, a little more consumed, but definitely him.

He turned, and his eyes skipped her for a moment. Stopped. He paled and his mouth opened as he realized.

Her hair was a dark shade of brown, but the tattoos sold her off. She wanted for them to sell her off to people that knew her, and that did the trick. He recognized her, and stood still as a statue staring at her. So much that one of his collaborators had to shake him to bring him back to attention. He fumbled back and tended to other patients -with nerves that were all legit, since he had the audacity to make her wait.

Finally -finally- he came to sit on her cot, clearing his throat. At least he had the good sense of being nervous about it.

“What is it?”

Hostility? Fine.

“My blood is boiling, I think I am allergic to everything in this place and I have the great urge to beat someone back to their senses.”

He frowned at her, mouth bending in a harsh line.

“Lean your head back and open your mouth, please.”

She did just so, huffing, and let him turn her head this way and that, in a pretentious visit. He took her pulse with two cold fingers on her throat, checked if she had a fever. A little quicker than he was with the other patients, but not anything too noticeable. He never was that much for stealth anyway, but at least he got decent at it. In five minutes he was finished.

“You look stable. I’ll give you some herbs to take, the pressure seems a little high. And I’d like to check you back this evening.”

The great urge to beat him back to his senses became bigger. If there wasn’t a group of mages in clear need of a shelter or something else she didn’t want to attract attention to, she would have slapped him and dragged him out.

“Will you be here for real?”

She asked, frowning at him.

“I…” He hesitated. “Yes.”

She huffed from her nose, took the pouch he gave her two minutes later, and marched right out, giving half an eye to the tall woman that entered in stride, followed by a dwarf and- was that Isabela? No, she shouldn’t stay and check. She turned her face away as the pirates turned to look at her, but didn’t hasten her steps.

“Anders! Apple of my eyes, guess who has another way to bring back a smile on this… Wow, you do are surly, today.”

The tall woman said. The accent was Fereldan, but there were so many refugees from there that it was hardly something peculiar.

She pulled her hood up and didn’t stay to listen to whatever fumbling excuse Anders pulled.

---

The night had grown chilly, the clinic was closed for the evening, and of Anders there was no trace.

Alyra would have waited days just to strangle him without any further charade. The last ship of the day was gone and the tavern she found and left her baggage in was… She didn’t want to think about actually spending the night there. It was better than the street, after much consideration about it on her part. Not by much, but at least the flooring of her room had no suspicious puddle.

Alyra hated Kirkwall.

After hours since the sunset, finally Anders showed up, walking forlornly down the stairway and using his staff as a walking stick. He had blood on his clothes and was clearly out of a ruffle of some kind. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care to know.

He looked left and right, but she had sat in a dark corner, exactly not to be seen. She slipped out caring to be as silent as she could. One step, another, closer…

… She slapped her palm hard against the back of his neck, the slap echoing loudly in the space, as well as his instinctive “ouch”. She let him turn hastily towards her and pushed his shoulder.

“You really think I wouldn’t have found you, did you?”

She hissed, marching towards him. Anders instinctively stepped back, even if her daggers were still sheathed on her back.

“You weren’t there, you don’t know-” There was defiance in his tone, nonetheless, and he didn’t look down.

“I returned and you were gone. Not an explanation. Not a goodbye.”

“You left too!”

He stomped his staff to the ground, the air shifted to push her back with pressure. She rotated a foot behind the others, bent her knees, resisting the spell and giving it less surface to work on.

“You waltzed right out of the Keep, you were gone for weeks. There were rumours that you weren’t going to return.”

“So you believed in the first gossip you heard and gave up. Forgot oaths and responsabilities. Left Nathaniel and Velanna to do your work. For a rumour.”

Truth to be told, when she eventually found out that the track she was following was actually Morrigan, for a moment she had thought that she wouldn’t have come back. Responsibility got the better of her, anyway. As it always did. And well. Hearing that she wasn’t given that credit stung.

“You have no idea what the situation was when you left.”

“Please.” She snorted at the accusation. “Velanna is a mage as well. She did told me, I took measures.”

“Sure, she’s a Dalish, and she hasn’t spent-”

“-I’m a Dalish too, and if we’re playing what category of people the universe hates the most, I’m dragging you to Halamshiral by an ear.”

He wanted to answer, Alyra could read it in his eyes, burning bright in anger and shining with a little flesh of blue, for a moment. She rose one eyebrow at it, daring Justice to come forth, show up somehow. She would have beat some sense into his ectoplasm as well. On the house.

A full minute passed, before Anders turned his head and marched away from her, snorting aloud.

“You came here to bring me back?” He asked as he walked up the last stairwell before the clinic, without looking at her. Disgust clear in his voice.

“Do not treat me like a Templar.” She chided, cutting that off abruptly. “I came here to talk.”

“Talk.” He laughed, with no amusement. “Sure.”

She followed him up, waiting for him to fuss with the keys to the clinic – which he kept all six hanging from a string on his neck. He wasn’t all that wrong in doubting her words, but she wasn’t going to step back anyway.

“If I wanted you locked off, I would have snatched you on today, kicked you on the first ship and I would be out of this fucking sewer of a city.” It was enough to cut any answer from him. “Or I would have sent a letter to the Knight-Commander, tell her where you are and about your guest, and suggest her how to better approach you. It would have been so easy, and all from the comfort of my desk. And yet I’m here personally, and on my own.”

He stopped, hand on a key, and considered it. As much as he clearly didn’t trust her intention, he knew perfectly well she held no love for the Chantry, and didn’t hesitate half a second in killing the Templars sent to bring him back to Kinloch. Not half a second. She watched him sag down, the tension on his shoulders melting slightly as he exhaled loudly.

“Come in.”

He just told her, tiredly, and opened the door carefully. She walked in and waited until he had closed it again - the number of locks at least was adequate. Once that was done, Anders lead her to the backroom, gesturing silently towards the other end of the room not to wake up the patients that were there.

He spent the same care in opening the other door -no lock- and closing it behind her. With a snap of his fingers, he lit a torchlight and bathed the room in a dim golden light.

It was as clean as it was possible. Sub-par by her standards, but still fairly clean, if less well kept and messier than the clinic, things thrown around without care around a cot that has seen better days and a trunk whose griffon had been scraped off.

“What do you want to talk about?”

He sighed, not angry anymore but just exhausted. He didn’t care for her, and unlatched his bolero -feathered shoulders, bah-, turning her back at her.

“Start telling me why you left.”

She prodded, walking to the cot. She unlatched her cloak, folded it in two and spread it on the bed, sitting down on it. It wasn’t filthy, around this room, but it wasn’t not filthy as she would have liked. She unbuckled the harness on her chest and slid the daggers down her back, resting everything beside her, still on the bed.

“You know why I left.”

“I want to hear your version.”

He grunted, slipping out his shirt too, which he left on the ground with little order -it was bloody and needed a launder anyway- and marched to another corner, pouring water from a jug into a basin.

“Mistress Woolsey started to… Not like me.”

“Expand.”

“She started speaking of abominations and corruption and walking bombs. It was all mostly behind my back, but she didn’t care of hiding it. I caught her discussing with Varel that the right of conscription wasn’t an excuse to welcome… People like me and Justice.”

“Same problem she found with Kristoff’s corpse.”

“Yes but me being living… I could feel her watching me, constantly. She was always there, observing. Made questions that were too close for comfort. Asked me if you informed the First Warden, and when I told her I didn’t know and she should have asked you-”

“-which she did.”

“-she would have written herself and taken care of the problem. People started to whisper, the looks got more and more. Nathaniel did his best but…”

“… But Nathaniel isn’t me and he needs to learn to impose. Or were you about to say anything else?”

She corrected him before he could say anything about it. She was slow to trust, allegedly so, but Nathaniel had grown to be one of the few people she could swear her life upon. He turned towards her, ready to counter, took breath to do it…

… And release it when he noticed she was glaring at him, daring to voice that thought, without blinking. It always upset people, when she avoided blinking: it was a fortuitous surprise she had discovered once, when she actually had wanted to be sarcastic. And had put in use with great results and amusement. Well, on her part alone.

Anders grunted and turned back, cleaning a couple of wounds he sported with a wet cloth he dipped in the basin and squeezed water from.

“I wasn’t waiting for her to make you send me to Weisshaupt, and I heard the situation here was dire. I packed my things and left. Nathaniel could have found me if he wanted, I didn’t hide on the way to the ship.”

“You are the most ginormous, stupid, blank minded idiot I’ve ever set my eyes on. And I deal with Teagan Guerrin more than anyone would ever deserve to.”

In spite of that, she rose and went to kneel beside him, snatched the tin box from his hand and batted said hand away when he tried to protest. Inside she knew she would have found a set for stitching wounds: it was the same box he had back then.

“Do you really think I would have handed you to the First Warden so easily?”

She asked, holding the needle above the candle to sterilize it. She knew him and knew it already was, but she felt she had been enough in Kirkwall to not trust the cleanliness of anything, at this point.

“What could you have done? You were already in a corner with him, with the surviving the Archdemon without explanations thing. You would have had your hands tied.”

There was no blame in his voice. He really believed in what he was saying. She wondered how much Justice influenced him, because that was more Justice than Anders, to her ears. She didn’t ask that, but she exerted less delicateness in breaking his skin to begin stitching a nasty cut on his waist.

“Ouch.”

“What hurts me the most is that you know me better than that. You just didn’t think.”

She told him, matter-of-factly. Because in the end he didn’t, and it was nastily disappointing.

“For your knowledge, I kicked Woolsey out of Amaranthine the day after I got back, when she suggested I should look for you and strike you down.”

“So she’s back to Weisshaupt?” He frowned. “But that’s-”

She snorted in annoyance, fighting the urge to stab him properly with the needle. She tied another stitch, instead.

“Did I say I kicked her out of the door?”

Silence.

“But- Weisshaupt –“

Finally the fucking audacity of his attitude was starting to crack. She had to give him credit for it.

“Weisshaupt can go fuck itself. The First Warden has only to send one soldier my way, I’m ready.”

She had spies at every border, contacts with the Crows -useful for that scope, and with the side hustle that she could send informations about them to Zevran. Leliana was alerted. The Wardens had not the numbers for an invasion, and she- well, she had the crown of Ferelden in her bed most often then not, when she was in Denerim.

“And regarding Kirkwall – move your arm.” She continued, not minding that he was too stunned to speak and starting to stitch the other cut. “You only had to tell me.”

“There is nothing you can do. The situation is-“

“-what are you doing? Mh? The clinic in the sewers attracts noise, I am surprised Meredith hadn’t caught you yet. And you should really tell the Mages you’re smuggling out of town to be less conspicuous about it, they’ll get caught in three minutes if they keep being stupid about it. And today they have been very stupid about it. I caught on in two minutes, and just because I was looking for you first.”

She cut the last stitch and retreated, sitting on her hunches and cleaning the needle and her fingers in the basin. He said nothing at all, slouching forward and breathing deeply. Defeated.

“Are you here to bring me back?” He asked, the same defeat of his posture.

Actually, she was.

“You could do so much more than this.”

She noted, not answering him. He looked at her, frowning, knowing that it was a circomvoluted way to bring him to admit what she wanted. It was a strategy: corner the opponent with sheer logic, make them have no choice but to agree with her. He knew it, tho.

“Politics did no good to this city. I’d rather actually help people survive it.”

“The Viscount is a spineless idiot and I give the city a couple of months at best before exploding, if he keeps treating the Arishok as a problem, and not an ally.” She admitted. “It doesn’t change that you’re helping with both hands tied at your back.”

She opened his trunk, shuffling inside with a snort of disappointment -everything was haphazardly put, not folded. At least it was clean. She ignored the protests that came and the note that the locket was close –“Buy a better one.”- and tossed him a clean shirt, returning to sit on the cot where she was before. He scrambled the cloth down his face, frowned at her a little more and put it on.

“Mythal’s full bosom, Anders, you have contacts with so many people in power. Nathaniel grew up here, he’d know how to move. You could write to Wynne and she would actually listen to you, of all people. March to Denerim and ask for Alistair’s help, he would say yes. You could have asked me.” She pointed out, letting some emotion in her voice. “You really think we’re all there to wait for the first good chance to lock you back again or strike you down? After all we’ve been through?”

“You never liked Justice.”

“I risked Redcliffe to save a child from possession, I remind you. And it worked.”

“Connor wasn’t possessed by his own volition.”

“Irving doesn’t need to know that. Irving can and will be swayed. I could reach Orsino and force his hand.”

Orsino would be the very last option, for her, but she didn’t tell him. Her spies reported on him as well, and she was not sure whether he was a puppet for real, forced to obey the Knight-Commander and putting up a feeble opposition as he still could, or if he was hiding something and acting so demure and agreeable to protect a secret. She would have trusted Meredith over him: Meredith was a royal bitch, but a predictable one.

Anders, tho, had no words to answer. He looked tired, more tired than she ever saw him after long days exploring the Black Marsh, or climbing down Kal Shirol. He moved to lean on the wall, bent his legs and propped his elbows on the knees, long fingers coming to twine together.

“You can’t do anything. Justice… something went wrong. He’s… Different. I am angry and I corrupted him, and now…”

So, that was the real reason for his behaviour, she thought. And damn her soft heart, but he was still her friend. Still one of her recruits, a part of the family and thus her responsibility. She brought him into this, even if just to save him from getting back into a Circle, and she grew to like him. Trust him, even. She huffed from her nose and filled the distance between them, sitting right beside him and taking his hands in hers moving them not as strong as to hurt.

He always had his fingers cold.

“Now, if you can be a little bit less of an idiot, we can find a solution. You and me, Justice can go fuck himself if he doesn’t want to help.”

She rubbed his hands in hers, closed them between her palms and breathed over them to warm them up a little. He let her do.

“Aren’t you angry?”

“Oh, I’m furious and very disappointed and disgusted by this shithole of a city.” She admitted, shrugging. “I would love nothing more to slap your face, weren’t you looking like a miserable wet cat.”

He snorted half a laughter from his nose, lips curling up in a smile.

“But you’re part of my clan, and I swore long ago that I would have never left anyone else behind.”

She didn’t need to add anything more. She let go of his hands and crossed her arms, leaning fully on the wall too -do not think of the noise of water you’re hearing, do not think of it- and closed her eyes.

After a moment, he carefully and tentatively leant on her side. Sighed, when she didn’t move.

“I’m sorry.”

“Leave lies to the professionals.”

“I am, tho.”

“I know. I was referring to all the other bullshit you tried to sell me.”

She scoffed, and he chuckled.

“As the Warden-Commander orders.”

#dragon age #dragon age awakening #female mahariel #anders dragon age #dragon age fic #alyra mahariel #writing petrel #da fic #fanfiction #lo schiaffone sul coppino era doveroso #*hawke stops the arishok* Alyra: But why?#she's not angry she's *disappointed*

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