#marin lavellan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

greypetrel · 6 months

Note

For the Florence + Machine prompts - 'this is the only thing I've ever had any faith in' for Radha Lavellan~

Hello! Thank you for asking, and thank you for asking Radha! :D I get her definitely too little attention, I’m glad she can have a moment for her own. It's long, so I put it also on Ao3.

Post game, post Monster fic, we’ll see what became of her and I’m fixing her and Aisling, I hate to see them quarrel and she had... Some things to sort out.

CW: mentions of childbirth and pregnancy. Very mild, there's nothing graphical, but better safe than sorry.

Tis the prompt list

Come Scoglio (🎶)

39. This is the only thing I've ever had any faith in

And you, you were the one I treated the worst Only because you loved me the most We haven't spoken in a long time I think about it sometimes I don't know who I was back then And I hope on hope (hope on hope) I would never treat anyone like that again Grace - Florence + the Machine

Radha didn’t want to come but Pavyn had insisted.

Pavyn had decided to go even before he asked for the hahren’s counsel. As most often when he made a decision, she discovered soon when she got back to the clan.

After the Darvaraad, she woke up in a dilapidated, but dry enough, ruin by the sea. The Eluvian was closed and inert, no matter how much she kicked and screamed. Her daggers were back in their sheathes, cleaned and polished, and all she was missing was her notebook, which she had to abandon in the Library when she was surprised by the Viddasala. There were no clues, no hints at all around her: whatever that building had been, its purpose was long gone, eaten by the sea and wind that blew from a façade that was missing and opened to the waves. She couldn’t activate the Eluvian, of course, and all she had to do, after beating the rooms carefully, looking for anything she could use and finding nothing at all save for some carvings depicting marine life, she walked off, seething in rage, delusion and desperation, and found herself in sight of Wycome. It made her all the more furious, because how dared he.

And still, she screamed at nothing at all, she cried, and she walked back to the clan, not knowing, now, without her notes, without a clue, where to head next.

Pavyn had been Keeper since a year, she discovered. And even if her bare skin caused some gasps and whispers, she got back to whatever her life before leaving had been. She wasn’t the same person she had been when she left, and everything in the light of what she knew felt… Pointless. Bleak. It didn’t matter anymore. The clan, luckily, was too busy to really mind her, and still remembered that she was on the solitary type. Life in Wycome was hectic, and, she discovered, proceeded with more ease than she had thought it would.

She didn’t participate much, even if Pavyn asked her to sit in the City Council with him, bring her experience in the Inquisition to good use. She refused. All that Aisling had done not listening to her but to her advisors bore fruit, and the Dalish and the city lived together in harmony. It made her all the more furious.

She was furious, because all she could think of when she thought of Aisling, was her face when she had stopped her from killing the very Dread Wolf, and how she hadn’t reacted with an apology when she had called her a traitor. And in all the years she had known her, Aisling had never apologized for something she wasn’t sorry for.

All she could think of when she thought of Aisling, now, was that she had doomed them all, and willingly. And what was the point of having saved the clan and contributed to effectively giving them a better chance at a stable life, permanently camped around a city that welcomed them and accepted Pavyn and Deshanna in the government? What good was it, if everything was for nought?

She just told the Hahrens that Aisling was a traitor to the People, that the Dread Wolf had her scent and she betrayed them all past forgiveness, working for an evil wizard she had put her trust in and saved against all better thoughts. The Hahrens, though, refused to listen to her without listening to Aisling as well on the matter. She had done good to them, after all, and paid a high price for it. She at least, Pavyn told her looking in her eyes with a finality to it, deserved to be listened to.

There was nothing to do but waiting.

Waiting for some strange elves to come and speak in the night of a future for elves all over Thedas. Strange elves that Radha took on the side, when she caught one talking to a couple of un-tattooed fishermen, and threatened to kill if they didn’t leave the city alone. She told the spy her name, and spitted to go tell his puppeteer just exactly whom she was. And to go fuck himself.

Waiting for an Aisling that never came back, just wrote.

She never read any of her letters.

And yet, somewhat short of four years later, Pavyn told the clan to pack their things, left just the older Hahrens and everyone who didn’t want to travel, and set the Lavellan off to another journey.

And told her, calm and collected as he did when he explained Nehnis that no, evoking refined sugar right from the Fade wasn’t anything he could do, that if she hadn’t come, he would have tied her and shut her into an aravel forcibly, and to stop being an idiot.

---

The farm was defensible, cozy, and filled with people and life.

All in all, it did look like a clan. A clan of Templars and former so of all ages and upbringings and grades of lucidity, to which added Dagna, Sera and the Chargers. Everyone able was working, helping out in the house, stables or in the fields, no one was much shocked to see a Dalish clan arriving, and they were greeted as any other visitor.

Aisling was very round with child and not happy to see them, not at first. There was the same stiffness about her that was there when she had to entertain aristocracy in Skyhold. Smiles and politeness, but from three steps away. Pavyn ignored that and hugged her, as did the rest of the clan. She exchanged with Radha but a brief glance, and she lost all the ease she gained with the welcoming as soon as their eyes met. It lasted but a moment, before Vyrina dragged her away and asked her if she could feel the baby kicking and how did she felt. She didn’t look for her again.

Radha was happy she didn’t. She didn’t want to be there, after all.

She made herself scarce, avoided everyone that knew her. She glanced Sera and she knew instantly that it would have been a fight: she shadowed Aisling even more than Cullen did as she walked along the farm and refused to just sit down and rest, told them that they were all too fussy, it was just a late pregnancy and she wasn’t dying. She laughed, adding a “not anymore” that made everyone groan.

They weren’t the first clan to visit, most likely, but Radha didn’t care. She just wanted for this baby to be born so they could return North, as she told her mother when she came and tried to talk her down her offense.

“At least come. Your brother, me and the other Hahrens here are listening for her, today. You were so adamant in condemning her, the least you can do is be there when she tries to defend herself.”

Her mother, she could hear it in her tone, wasn’t happy with her. Radha didn’t care. Radha stopped caring for much of anything when she discovered who exactly Solas was, and stopped caring about the rest when the person she thought was her sister and on her side defended him and not her, with the world at stake.

Aisling told the clan everything Radha had been silent about. She explained them about Solas, who he was, and how she yes, acted on his behalf without knowing it for much of her mandate as Inquisitor. And how yes, she discovered he was the Dread Wolf chasing for the Viddasala in the labyrinth, and willingly saved him from Radha.

Pavyn asked her if it was because he could save her life.

She answered yes.

But she would have done the same even if she hadn’t been on the brink of death.

It caused a ruckus, everyone started to buzz and talk, and she sat there, impassible with her hand on her belly, still as much the Inquisitor as Radha left her, even dressed in commoners clothes, even with her hair braided in a style Radha saw Fereldan women wear, even if years had passed and no one in the farm that hadn’t been there seemed to know exactly who she and Cullen had been. Dignified and solid in her position.

Radha just glared at her, but it was perfectly pointless.

“I refuse to believe he’s unsalvageable. You thought I deserved a chance to speak, even if I was ultimately the reason you all got targeted in Wycome. I don’t see why he shouldn’t deserve exactly the same. He saved my life time and time again, I wouldn’t be here if he was evil, and if you think I’m idle on the matter, you’re mislead.” She refused any help from Vyrina who jumped up trying to help, rose on her feet again, huffing and wobblying on her spot. Her balance, Radha noticed, was off. Finally, Aisling sought her out in the crowd, her green eyes staying on hers with fire burning behind them, and the next words were more for Radha than for everyone else. “But if thinking he deserve another chance makes me a traitor, than be it. He’s more powerful than any of you realise. If you really think that hate and open hostility will ultimately save us all, I am glad to call myself a traitor and die as one.”

Silence around, Radha held her eyes and clenched her fingers on her arms, her pride and rage flaring again.

“If you can excuse me, I have duties to attend. I will accept any decision you’ll come up with.”

Aisling just informed them and, bringing her hand to her heart and after bowing as much as she could without tripping, she turned her back and marched away back to the house, without turning her back.

The clan had a lot to talk, that evening, but Radha didn’t participate. She marched in the opposite direction, and entered her aravel, tired and… With a weird mixture of utter disappointment and frustration, and the old wound burning nastily.

How bitter, how much it tasted of salt to feel yet again that she was the third wheel in whatever mentorship relationship Aisling and Solas had. That even if he kissed her and called her Venhan and indeed told her first whom he was... what she thought was love vacillated and burst and turned to hate, Aisling’s didn’t falter, not after almost dying, not after losing an arm because of him. That she was still, after all this time, there to defend him, when Radha just wanted to stuck her dagger deep in his chest and see if there was actually a heart. She could cope with whatever happened and find her peace only if she found out there was none.

Bitter still, being left there to think that either Aisling’s affection faltered for her, and just for her. That she could make peace with Ydun of all people -she saw them talking the other evening, and laughing in the end. That she could make peace with the man who almost killed her and took her arm, and all she herself got was disagreement and the reminder in front of the whole clan that her rage served no one. It made her feel like it was all in her head.

She was called by at least three people asking her for help, but Radha just slammed the door of her aravel shut and tossed her jacket on the bench. Marched to the bed. If she was so despicable to be blamed for what she said, there was no point in helping out. See how much Aisling had helped her.

She stopped abruptly, focusing on the bed.

On her pillow lied her old notebook, the one she had lost in the labyrinth. Kept in pristine conditions, a little worn with time and stained in the ink she spilled when she had to flee, the latch around the cover, tied up with a bow.

A small piece of paper was folded beneath, in a terrible cursive she didn’t think to be still able to read so well.

I found it in the Library. Leliana insisted I should keep it, in case. I fixed the binding where it was ruined, didn’t touch the pages. I couldn’t do anything for the spilled ink. No one had time to decipher it, in Halamshiral, and I never attempted it, later.

I didn’t think you would have trusted it in any courier’s hands, so I was planning to give it back as soon as the Chargers made it to Wycome. You all came South first so here. It’s yours.

With- Hoping it will- I’m- A.

She screamed as she tossed it on the other side of the cart, and screamed some more in the pillow, not knowing what else to do.

She kept it. She found it and kept it for three years. Fixed it.

It was true that she would have hated for her to ship it with the first random messenger, and it made her so, so angry.

She wanted hostility, a good excuse to hate her truly and for good and give her reason to be angry. Not her notebook back and the rage still safely kept in her heart.

---

The child was born on a Thursday evening.

“Thursday child has far to go”, Vyrina declared, beaming as she gave the child, cleaned and checked that it was healthy, back to the mother who finally lied down on the bed. “It’s a healthy girl and before you ask: no, it’s too soon for curls.”

Radha left Aisling that she was crying, in joy this time, and didn’t turn back, even if she heard her call her name as she stepped through the threshold. Even if Cullen turned to try and stop her, too, running up the stairs back again.

She didn’t know how she felt.

Cullen had been shooed off the room, apparently for trying to tell his wife what to do in childbirth, and Deshanna had dragged Radha up to help in his place, pushed her into the room. She had kneeled in front of her and surrected her, better than what she could do with just one hand. Aisling just commented that it wasn’t a good moment for her to stop pretending she didn’t exist, and that was it. She accepted the help she was offered, and was all in all too preoccupied with more urgent matters to really do much else or to be hostile.

She wondered, as she entered her aravel, grunting everything was fine to the clan members that asked her for news. She told them it was fine, the baby was healthy. She didn’t stay to hear the name, and she didn’t care. She had nothing to do with it. She picked a small box with some first aid supplies she kept in a bag, always at the ready should she depart quickly.

Opening a jar she found inside took some effort, with her fingers not closing perfectly. They never did, not after she grabbed a knife and was late in reaching a healer. The tendons never healed properly. Beside that, she noticed with irritation that her hand was trembling. She ignored it and pushed through, managing to open the little tin. The elfroot paste was a little stale, but growing up with her mother she knew when it was too old to use, and that wasn’t it. She left the jar and the lid on the bed beside her hip, and quickly slipped her shirt out of her belt and up her head, examining her bare shoulder.

Aisling bit her, in instinct and in pain. Not hard enough to draw blood, but it left a sore, angry and purple. It was, all in all, better than just…

She spread the paste generously on her shoulder, putting more frustrated force in her fingers than she should have. Her hands were still trembling, and it frustrated all that much.

The hurt her sister gave her was done when she was in labour, tired and exhausted and in Radha didn’t want to know how much pain. The actual hurt. Nothing bad had happened, in the two weeks they’ve been there.

There had been no confrontation, Aisling hadn’t look for it. Not after three years of very sporadical letters between the death of Corypheus and the Exalted Council, and the next years of total silence.

And yet, Aisling knew her still, and knew her boundaries and how much she could push. She knew that forcing her to speak wouldn’t have worked. She answered the accusations, spoke her mind, and kept outside the limits Radha imposed.

The worst thing was that Radha knew that it went against what Aisling would have wanted to do. Which was to talk. After those years, she still was adapting to her boundaries first.

Exactly like-

“You can’t treat people like you treat horses, da’len.”

No.

She wouldn’t think of him. Even if her mind, traitorous and confused and still in pain, went exactly there. In territories she hadn’t allowed it to roam in years.

She saw the drops falling on her trousers, painting them darker, before she realised she was crying.

Three years of being angry at the man she thought she loved for ultimately taking her sister away, at her sister for defending him and not her -and a part of her still knew that if she managed, she would be living with the consequences still- and said sister was still there, waiting for her to be ready to come closer. Keeping her things and giving them back. Calling for her name right after she gave birth.

She slipped down the bed and took her head in her hands, fingers splaying on coarse buzz-cut hair, and allowed herself to sob.

Three years of rage, and she was finally tired of it.

The farm was so busy with people that it looked like the Inquisition never ended, just moved. Leliana and Vivienne were missing, as well as Cole and Varric. The rest was all there, cramped together in rooms and tents and couches and in every available space.

Finding Aisling alone had been difficult.

Difficult, but not impossible. Radha just had to wait and be close enough to know, not enough to actually be seen and dragged in.

Well, there was Cullen with her, but neither him nor the newborn really counted, at this point.

They were discussing about food, standing in front of the other in the kitchen.

“I’ll be fine. If it’s a soup, it won’t require much effort.”

“You didn’t sleep and aren’t feeling well either. Let me help, I’m sure Doris will behave. It’s just soup, not baking, I can help you.”

“You gave birth three days ago, I just have a headache. Having something to do will help me, not you. Go and sit down.”

“Exactly, it was three days ago, I can stand for a while. She’s sleeping and well tied, my hand is free. Let me help and we’ll go sit down together, sooner.”

“It’s never sooner with you in the kitchen, love-”

Radha knocked her knuckles on the jamb of the door, loud enough to catch their attention. When they both turned towards her, Radha caught Aisling stiffening up, her hand instinctively going up to rest on- it hesitated on her stomach, and corrected its course up to the head of the child, securely wrapped to her chest. There was a moment of stasis between the three, before Cullen smiled at her and nodded.

“Just in time. Maybe you can get her to sit down and take a nap.”

“The bench outside is free.” Radha answered, unsure of it. Her eyes ran to Aisling, who was looking at her, unsure of what to do.

An invitation. Radha hoped she was really still the person she knew, even a little, and would accept it.

“I don’t want to bother you.” She answered, and Radha knew she meant more than just now.

“You do bother me, if you stay here.” Cullen announced with affection, making Aisling pout at him. “And if I ever partially knew your sister, she wouldn’t have asked if she wasn’t ready for a yes. Right?”

He turned towards her, expecting.

For all she mistrusted him when they first met, she had to admit that Aisling was right. On him as well. She nodded once, enough to signify a yes.

“Wonderful. Now go, I don’t want any of you three in my kitchen.”

Aisling grumbled, as she was gently pushed towards the door, and it only made him chuckle and bend down for a hug and a kiss. One to her, and one to the tiny head that peeked out from the cloth of the binding. A long strip of halla wool, dyed in teal and embroidered finely in golden thread, that the clan gifted her for the birth as it was custom.

Radha stepped on the side to make the other pass, and Aisling smiled at her, if somewhat awkwardly as if she didn’t exactly know how to behave.

Honestly, Radha didn’t know either.

So, they fell into old habits. She didn’t talk, nor Aisling pushed her too. Radha just nodded to the side, where she saw the free bench on her way there. A small stone one under a wooden arch that held a wisteria tree that climbed the arch and up on the side of the house. In the sun, but the leaves shaded it nicely: whomever had built it -for the stone was old and smoothed by wind, rain and snow, thought it carefully. Aisling refused help to sit down, and wobbled her way, grimacing a little but stubbornly making it on her own. With a relieved oomph when she finally sat and rested her back against the stone, bending her head behind and closing her eyes. She was tired, of course. Her hand kept absent-mindedly caressing the baby’s head, ruffling delicately hairs so fine they almost looked white in the light.

Radha sat beside her, but didn’t rest nor relax. She just looked before her, at the clothing line, the veggie garden and then the fields and the woods. It was a nice place, days still warm in the early Kingsway.

“I’m sorry I bit you.” Aisling broke the silence, after some minutes. “And… Well. For everything else I guess.”

A deep sigh escaped her lips. All that time, and her apology -which Radha knew would have come- meant nothing. All that mattered, right now, was that she was there.

Her, and her horse methods for people.

In spite of everything, it brought a smile.

She turned to look at her, and found out that Cullen was right: she looked tired, dark circles under her eyes and eyelids half closed, struggling to stay open as she kept caressing her daughter’s hair. Radha could have found out something to say, surely. She just apologized. Instead, she just told her.

“Sleep.”

And slouched a little beside her, on the backrest of the bench, crossing her arms to her chest and her legs on the sittee, with a sigh as she closed her eyes. Once again, as they had done hundreds of times as children and teens.

Aisling had trouble falling asleep at night, she either couldn’t or wouldn’t. So, when Radha was tired too, she just hugged her and closed her eyes beside her. Soon enough, Aisling lied down and in respect for her rest, closed her eyes. Or just stayed quiet not to disturb her. She knew because she wasn’t really sleeping. Not right away, and she felt her tossing and turning at her side.

Radha didn’t hugged her, today. She stood there, close but not enough to touch. Aisling didn’t toss nor turn. She just hummed a “Thank you.” And her eyes definitely closed, her breath slowed down.

Radha fell asleep too, lulled by the warmth and the sweet smell of a brand-new baby.

She awoke, a couple of hours at best later judging by the sun, with the child crying, shrill and seemingly very desperate, loud in her ears. Too close to it, actually.

Radha jolted up, realizing she leaned to the side in sleep, onto Aisling. Aisling who was already awake and fussing for the child, hushing her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, no, it can be- Ah.”

She slipped the cloth down her shoulder and very, very delicately, shifted the now thrashing newborn in a good position for feeding. With effort, still not used to it.

Radha turned, out of feeling still on edge and not knowing where to stand, and kept turned, ears alert in case she needed something. No request came, tho: she kept muttering nonsenses to the child, humming a song about food and milk and baby cows Radha was pretty sure she invented on the spot.

“There, all better now, no?”

It was the signal, said louder for the benefit of everything present, that it was done. Radha gently turned, and saw her there, an impossibly small child whose back she was tapping on her shoulder – she had forgotten just how little newborns could be- with the faintest of taper to her ears, smiling and relaxed. For the first time in her life she looked like she belonged, melting with her surroundings. At peace.

More at peace, when the child burped and Aisling cooed at her and cheered her as if she just learnt to speak at the mature age of three days.

Radha couldn’t understand, until now, why exactly did she decided to even have that baby. The thought had been offensive and she thought it egotistical. Seeing it for herself, tho…

She felt on the fence, the gate was open, and as much as she had believed she would have found only despise and contempt there…

There were a thousand of questions she could ask, a thousand she had for her, a thousand of whys she had on the tip of her tongue.

“What’s her name?” Was the only thing that jumped on her lips.

Aisling turned, and the same bright smile was for her, now. Tinged in sadness, still, but bright.

“Niamh.” She told her. “We wanted something short.”

“Andaran atish’an, Niamh.”

The child gurgled in all answer, and her mother giggled at it, eyes shining. She didn’t cry, tho. She concentrated on her baby, slipping her down her shoulder and in the crook of her arm, extremely carefully as if she was made of glass.

“I am sorry, Ra.” She told her, in the end. It encompassed everything and at the same time nothing at all. It wasn’t remotely enough to erase all that went through.

And yet. She was still there, and she wasn’t fighting back. She had accepted accusations and hate and silence and just stood there, weathering the storm, flexing under the wind. Unmoving.

Ghilan’nain for guidance. Her mother had said.

A stone in a storm, a fixed star to set your course too. It was soothing to know that even after all that time, even after everything… Aisling was still there where she left her. Accepting contempt and accuses and rage.

“I am, too.” She just answered, equally encompassing everything and nothing at all. “Can I-”

“Yes.” Aisling said back, before she could even finish, relief settling deep in her voice.

They giggled together at that, and Radha reached forward with her hand, caressing gently the head of the baby. Soft and velvety hair, fine like silk, and plushy cheeks like her mother.

“Do you want to hold her?” Aisling asked, tentatively.

Radha considered. Exhaled loudly.

“Maybe later.”

Aisling just smiled broadly at her, nodding in all answer.

No more words were said, no more words were needed, for now. They just sat there, relaxing in a rare moment of quiet in a terribly crowded farm. The sun was gently setting beyond the woods, and everything felt at peace, finally.

For the first time in more than three years, Radha felt like there would have been a later.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #inquisitor lavellan #lavellan oc #dragon age fic #writing petrel #radha lavellan #aisling lavellan #solavellan #... I FINALLY can tag something as solavellan #cullavellan #cw: pregnancy #cw: childbirth #long post

3 notes · View notes