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Listen- I love lace Harding with all my heart… but I do think Dagna would have made more sense with her arc :/

(Saying this at the tail end of Harding week feels bad)

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He GIVES the best hugs, no past tense, I refuuuuse that, and I needed to see these hugs realized so, here, indulge 💖

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WIP Whenever and Last Line

Tagged by @redheadsramblings

I'm a slow, perfectionist writer, so I don't know when WIP will ever be posted. But maybe even snippets are enjoyable... these are from two different scenes, but basically the same timeline.

****

Turning on his side, he retrieved the red rose he’d laid on the table before forcing himself to bed depressingly alone. He pressed the silken petals against his lips, inhaling the scent that still clung to the wilting bloom. He freshened it with a twitch of magic from his fingertips.

It was, Rook had explained, a damask of the color that King Alistair Theirin, then a young Warden, had presented to his lover, not his queen, but the Hero of Ferelden. A thing of beauty in a blighted world, the king had said, describing both the rose and the woman. 

A Lothering Rose, she had called it. A common token of love from one Grey Warden to another.

Cutting an open blossom from a bush adorning the Warden’s grave, Rook had slipped the flower through the top buttonhole of his waistcoat, directly over his heart. She’d given him a coy glance over her shoulder as she walked to the Eluvian, Shoud’s Kiss tucked behind her ear. The veilfire lamps made the thin ring of blue around the green in her irises blaze like lyrium, and his mind stalled, malfunctioning spectacularly like one of Bellara’s artifacts.

****

Last line

In what was perhaps the most tender gesture Rook ever witnessed between them, Manfred placed a gloved hand on Emmrich’s head, a low coo wheezing from his chest cavity as he stroked his necromancer's hair. 

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oh, he fell asleep :')

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The Rupert Giles to Emmrich Volkarin pipeline is a slide:

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WIP Wednesday

Tagged twice today by @redheadsramblings! Thanks for letting me play!

This is a WIP I might actually finish some day, so get on board for hurt/comfort and mutual pining. A short story following the prompt, "What happens when your healer's wounded?"

When I told my husband - a perennial healer in Co-ops - this prompt he just said "you're fucked."

Rook et al. figure it out.

“I could drown in your veilfire eyes, darling” Emmrich slurred. 

“Best not,” she covered him back up with the oil cloth blanket, “you know I can’t swim in after you.” She tucked the blanket in around him as his eyes drifted closed again. 

A smile pulling at her mouth, she shook her head, and jumped down from the bed of the cart. Harding frowned at her, eyebrows raised, her arms folded across her chest. 

“It’s just the poppy talking,” Rook shrugged, though she felt her cheeks grow warm. “He’ll be mortified when he wakes up. If he even remembers.” 

“Uh-huh. Right.” Lace planted her fists on her hips, “you know he’s got it bad for you, don’t you?” 

“No.” Rook bent to pick up her field pack, hoisted it up and on to her back. “I don’t know that, and neither do you.” 

Harding kicked at the mud and scoffed. 

“Rook,” she said, her voice stern and motherly, “just be careful with him, okay? He’s…well, he’s not fragile, but he’s…sad sometimes, more than he lets on. I know what Wardens can be like…”

“Do you?” Rook gave Lace a hard stare, a surge of anger suddenly cracking through her chest. 

Harding knew her better than that. 

Maker’s balls, she knew Evka and Antoine better than that! 

Wardens, it was true, had a well earned reputation for being reckless with feelings, flippant with bonds of friendship and love beyond their oaths. Rook had always counted  herself and her friends as exceptions who proved the rule. She thought…hoped, anyway, that she showed it to those she cared for, Lace Harding included.

Harding let her head drop backwards, looking up at the grey sky, “ugh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I know you’re not… I just worry about him. I’m not even sure why. It’s not like he can’t take care of himself.” 

Rook fiddled with a loose thread on the tip of her gloved finger, avoiding Lace’s eyes just as much as Lace was avoiding hers.

“Because,” she sighed, “he cares so very deeply. About everyone. And he lets us know it. It’s very…” 

“Vulnerable,” Lace supplied, nodding. 

“I was going to say stupid,” she smirked, stuffing her hands in her pockets, “but yeah, that works too.” 

“You were not,” Lace punched her in the arm, eyes crinkling as she smiled. 

“If you say so,” Rook chuckled as she massaged her arm. Her face grew soft as she glanced back at Emmrich swaddled in the bed of the cart as it pulled away, “I worry about him too, Lace. More than I should, I think.”

Harding’s brow pulled, a line forming between her eyebrows. She cocked her head to the side, looking at Rook as if trying to read the confused feelings Rook was only beginning to sort out herself. Lace’s eyes went wide for a moment then dropped to the ground, growing sad as she sighed.   

“Be careful with yourself too, then,” a gentle hand rested against Rook’s back and she bit the inside of her lip to keep her throat from tightening as they began to follow behind the cart,

“Be careful with yourself too, then,” a gentle hand rested against Rook’s back and she bit the inside of her lip to keep her throat from tightening.

“Ahh,” she waved Lace off, a grin on her face as they began to follow behind the cart, “you know me. I’m always careful.”

“Yeah,” Harding laughed, “that’s exactly the word I’d use to describe you. Careful.”

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Username Origin tag

Tagged by @redheadsramblings

“Ferocious notes” is taken from the first line of the Billy Colins poem “Marginalia,” which describes people’s interactions with literature. I thought that was appropriate for a sketchy personal/fan forward blog and pretty on the nose for a fan fiction writer.

I’m also an archivist/librarian irl, so the bookish stuff always appeals.

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OC inspiration 'Rook'

Are there any characters from fiction that inspired your OC creation, either in their physical appearance or personality?

So I don't think i have any direct inspirations for my Rook, but here are a few characters that I think have had some influence on my character. Maybe unconsciously. Ultimately, this is going to reveal how varied my media consumption is.

Explanations under the cut.

Brother Cadfael: So, @smoreofbabylon caught this very early. The name 'Avis Thorne' is very close to a character in the Brother Cadfael series - Avice of Thornbury. Originally, I picked Avis for its relation to birds (Rook as in the corvid), but eventually started incorporating herbalism into the character, which is very Cadfael coded indeed. Also Cadfael is a warrior given over to the contemplative life, which feels right to my Rook as a Grey Warden.

BJ Hunnicutt: Controlled Chaos. This is a man who pulls pranks to feel normal in a completely unnormal situation. But he's still a calm and sweet family man, who will always be there for you when you're suffering. But the pain in him is clear.

Adora: An unexpected hero. Remaking herself from the Frightzone, and then remaking the Frightzone. She doesn't know where she comes from, but she knows who her friends are and she'll fight to the death.

Mrs. Audrey Hall: Calm, collected, totally in control of her household. When I think about dialog for Avis, I default to Mrs. Hall and Helen Harriot from All Creatures Great and Small. Not just because of the accent, but because of how they command their spaces with firm gentleness.

Anders: This character is so Anders coded. A blond mage from Kinloch hold, who became a Warden, lots of storm magic, who once dropped a building on Darkspawn?? She even turns spirit healer when there's an emergency. I'm sure if Varric thought about it he might have had reservations. I even think she can't swim because the stopped teaching apprentices after Anders escaped.

Emily Lacy: This was the actress who i originally wanted to base Rook's look off of. She's brash and self-serving, but she makes it to the end of the series. Survival is key to Emily Lacy.

Buffy Summers: I think more than any character, my Rook is influenced by Buffy Summers. A natural leader who never meant to be one. Punny beyond belief. And very much influenced by love and friendship and found family.

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Have we become so fearful, have we become so cowardly – That we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION S04E21 | The Drumhead

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Of course, I'm now thinking of a 5 year old Emmrich looking in the window of a shop with huge sad eyes.

Nevarra has a history of making many traditional sweets, two of the favorites among them candy necklaces and bracelets. They are given to young children oftentimes before receiving their first pieces of grave dowry. The creations can be rather elaborate and realistic, the prices stretching to rival the gold they imitate.

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THIS. Yes. I don't know why its so much more annoying that it is in Origins, except that now I'm that bitch in her late 30s. I hand wave the 'Junior Warden' bit with the First Warden. A Warden could technically be a 'Junior Warden' at any age and I'm going with 'this guy's so far up his own ass, he...has no idea who I am, does he?' Reconciling Evka being a high ranking Warden when she's only been in the Order for, like, 3 years according to the wiki is a little harder.

again this is very nitpicky but i dont like that even tho veilguard is very handwavy when it comes to rook's backstory, you cant really roleplay someone who's Older TM.

What i mean is. here i am playing with my grey warden rook, who in my head is a 35 year old senior warden bc she's been a warden for over a decade. and then i meet the first warden and he says 'you're a junior member' and im like what.

and then i was thinking of making my qunari warden to be like. 45 or smthg. but then i remembered shattann, in the one time you have a qunari dialogue option, says rook is 'qunari youth'.

and like granted, in dao and da2, the hof and hawke are both supposed to be young. but in dao, since you get to actualy play the origin, your age range is established pretty early so i dont get confused later on. and with hawke, since the game has time skips, it also makes sense for them to be younger and again, that gets established pretty early on. and dai i dont think they ever talk about age or anything, so its whatever, but with dav it did bother me to be sprung up like oh yeah and btw you're 20 when i've been roleplaying as a bitch in her 30s or 40s.

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WIP...Saturday...?

So this is my first smut...not post. Literally my first NSFW post. So please be gentle with any criticism.

Morning edit: This is what happens when I have a margarita (or two...), I get bold and post stuff on the internet. I mean, at least I don't shop, I guess.

Rook nuzzled deeper into the pillows, the scent of cleansing sage smoke filling her waking senses with want for the man in whose bed she was nestled. She’d fallen asleep easily, blight-born nightmares appeased and mind quiet after an evening of reading, discussion, and making love under the glow of soft candlelight. Rolling over, she blinked into the darkness, disappointed to find only cold sheets rather than a warm, lithe body to wrap herself around.  

She shoved herself up and out of bed, hissing at the shock of her bare feet hitting the stone. Padding quietly across the small chamber and out onto the landing of the laboratory’s spiral staircase, she peaked over the railing. Her missing bedfellow sat at his desk below, illuminated by a candelabra with three tappers half burned. His head was cradled in one hand as he stared at a book open flat on the desk in front of him. 

He looked up from his work as she approached, eyes crinkling behind the lenses of spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, gentle amusement curling around his mouth. 

“You’re naked, dearest.”    

“Am I?” She smirked, leaning against the edge of the desk, “I was wondering where that draft was coming from.” She pushed his sleep mussed hair away from his face, “do you mind awfully?”     

He absently laid a quick kiss on the inside on her wrist, “no, not at all. Though it’s fortunate Manfred is otherwise engaged tonight. You’d provoke a litany of questions.” 

Concern ruffled the last vestiges of the evening’s languid bliss as Rook watched Emmrich’s gaze wander back to the notebooks covering his desk. The light of the candles mixed oddly with the teal of veilfire torches, shadows accentuating the anxious set of his jaw and the deep furrow of his brow. 

“What’s all this then?” She flicked her chin at the stacks of what looked to be years of journals all dated in his florid hand. 

“Something was nagging…” he shook his head, shoving the cover of the open journal closed with a thump. “I thought perhaps revisiting the years before Johanna’s exile, before our friendship sundered, might shed some light on what she may be offering the Elvhen gods. Collecting large quantities of magical energy hardly seems to be an end in and of itself.” He removed his glasses and tossed them carlesslessly aside before scrubbing his hands over his face. “It seems I was just as nearsighted a fool a decade ago regarding her true ambitions.” 

With a pang of guilt, she sat on his desk and placed his glasses in their case, closing the hinged lid with a soft snap. Racing thoughts had clearly kept him awake while she had peacefully slept awash in a pleasure drunk haze of his making.  “I can’t imagine predicting this mad future. That’s a lot you’re asking of your past self. ” 

“Is it?”  His eyes lifted to her face, “we were all aware of her…proclivities for traversing the darkest reaches of necromancy. That we did nothing. That I, myself, did less than nothing. I very well may hav…” 

“If you say you encouraged her to do…whatever it is she’s doing with the Venatori, I’m tipping your chair over, old man,” she chided him, pushing on the seat with the ball of her foot. “You know that’s nonsense.”

“You may certainly lay the heresy of half-Lichdom at my feet!” He folded his hands in front of him and let his head drop, forehead skimming the tops of his knuckles. “You shouldn’t excuse my inaction so easily, Rook. It was a cowardly thing. Justified by some asinine hope that she might see reason. That there might still be goodness in her. That there ever was. ” 

“It’s not my place to blame or excuse anything, love.” She reached out and tipped his face up with her fingertips, making him meet her eyes. “She was your friend. It’s natural not to want to think badly of our friends. If you’re looking for someone to fault you for that, it won't be me. You’re racing to stop her now, doesn’t that count for something?” 

“Is that not simply the definition of complicity?” He ignored her question. “She couldn’t possibly be an aspiring tyrant because she saw me through the agony of comprehensive examinations and kept beetles as pets?” He laughed grimly, “How Johanna doted on those beetles.”  

“But, it couldn’t have all been deals with blood mages and disembodied hands either,”  she shrugged. “I’ve said before that you see the best in everyone. Maybe it makes you a little bit blind to the worst, but I wouldn’t trade that hope you carry for anything.” She bit the inside of her lip and let the next words slip from her mouth before she could hide them away to live privately inside her forever, “I love that hope, Emmrich.” 

Holding her breath, she watched his face move through that startled expression that made him look as if his mind had stalled entirely. She let it out when he smiled, took her hand, and brushed a kiss against the back, mustache prickling her skin. An unexpected rush of heat spread over her chest as his eyes finally raked over her body like he’d only just properly noticed she’d been sitting bare-arsed on his desk all the while he’d been flogging his own conscience. 

“My darling,” he slowly rose from his chair and rested his fingertips on her knees. Her lips twisted with mirth at his expression, mischief masquerading as contrition, a wicked glint in his eye more like that of a young apprentice than seasoned professor. Gooseflesh rose as he drew his palms up her thighs, the textured silk of his dressing gown slipping against her skin when he leaned over her. Lips grazed the shell of her ear and he spoke in a low husking purr, “how you indulge me. Listening to my melancholy ramblings…” his body was so warm against her nakedness and his kiss released a bloom of sensation on the column of her neck, “my vain pleas for absolution.” The sharpness of teeth was soothed by his tongue flicking against her pulse, “you might very well catch a chill sitting here in all your glory waiting for me to turn my back on despair.” 

“Well,” she toyed with the lapels of his dressing gown, leaning in to brush her lips against his, lingering when she couldn’t control the urge to nibble, “you’ll just have to warm me up then, won’t you?” Holding her spine perfectly straight to meet his height, she pulled him to her, opening for him when he licked at the seam of her mouth. Tongue sweeping over her bottom lip then gliding over her own, his kiss filled her chest with an electric rush that thundered through her body, reverberating in her core. She hooked her ankles together and rested them against the small of his back, arms curling around his neck and hands sinking into close cropped silver hair, soft and still thick at the back of his head. 

A small moan caught her by surprise, escaping her throat on the back of a heavy sigh brought on by the thumb sketching small circles around her hard nipple, never quite touching where she craved it. Emmrich smiled against her mouth, sweet and emboldened, changing the angle of their kiss to hold her closer. His other hand swept lightly over the skin of her inner thigh, lingering longer near the wet heat of her cunt with every pass he made. Her belly clenched at the lightning each little stroke of his fingertips released on her skin, aching for those clever fingers. 

Recently, it seemed she never stopped aching for him. Rapacious woman that she was becoming, she’d pulled herself from dreams, her body alive with desire despite their earlier lovemaking, with the specific intention of kissing him awake and enticing him come undone underneath her. He could sleep ‘til midday, she’d told herself, if he needed to recover whatever hours she stole from his rest. If Antaam or Venatori or Maker knew what else caused unexpected trouble tomorrow, she could take someone else. There had to be some perks to command.

But he’d foiled her, waking up with the weight of Johanna’s crimes laying heavily on his shoulders. He was angry and frustrated, but at no one more than himself. Rook tried her best to relieve some of that burden, whether that meant talking through complex necromancy she only barely grasped the basic concepts of or fighting by his side when he asked. In these midnight hours, though, she could think of only one way to help him, to soothe his worries and make him drop what he carried, at least for a bit.

Untangling the knot keeping his dressing gown closed, she let the garment fall open and trailed her fingers down his stomach. His mouth parted from hers with a gasping chuckle when she closed her hand around his length, her strokes loose and teasing to start, ticklish fingers urging his flesh to awaken, to fill under her touch. Eyebrows rising toward his hairline, he tipped his head back, a clipped exclamation leaping from his open mouth. 

“I’m…I’m not certain I can…not again tonight…” 

“Does it feel good?” She whispered, leaving a kiss on his throat.  

“Yes…” 

“Then enjoy it, Emmrich, I’ll stop when you tell me. And have a little patience with yourself. I’m in no hurry.” 

He gave a quiet whimper, pressing his face into her shoulder when she cradled his bollocks, weighty and pendulous, letting them roll in the cup of her palm. She laid her cheek against his head, closed her eyes, and took in the vetiver scent of pomade still clinging to his hair. Holding him close and basking in the needy little noises falling from his mouth. 

He lifted his eyes to hers, blown pupils edging out the amber of his irises, highlighting the brilliant green that ringed them, the shade of spring leaves in the sunshine. She tilted her head, a knowing little smile blooming slowly as she diligently worked the lovely, long cock hardening in her hand. Up and down, a gentle stretch of foreskin, special attention to the spot underneath where he liked best. Easy really, with a bit of patience.

He huffed at her expression. 

“You look very pleased with yourself,” he leaned his forehead against hers. 

“I am, thank you,” she teased. 

“Vixen,” he breathed against her mouth before he kissed her. 

No one had ever called her that before, she thought, letting out a startled laugh. Oh, the opposite had been hurled her way plenty. It didn’t take much to be called a frigid bitch in an order rather more thoroughly male than perhaps it should have been. Or a whore for that matter. But vixen? She rather liked the sound of it. 

“Shall we return to bed?” He asked, his voice a heavy thing, rasping and wanton.

She hummed, circling her thumb over his swollen head, spreading the slick leaking from the tip, making him shudder. 

“I don’t think I’m finished indulging you yet, love.” She gave the center of his chest a little push, “sit.”  

“Rook,” he tsked, with an audible click of his tongue. At the arch of her chastising eyebrow, he obeyed, but not without heaving a dramatic, defeated sigh. 

She bit back another cheeky grin watching him recline in his desk chair, his bearing so antithetical to the prim figure he usually cut. 

Professor Emmrich Volkarin of the Nevarran Mourn Watch, powerful psychagogue, metaphysician, and gentleman scholar, sat before her, the very picture of sex: naked, but for his grave gold and the burgundy silk falling deliciously down his arms and hanging around his impossibly long legs, his cock now at full attention, straining toward his abdomen. He leaned against the armrest of the chair, head propped on a loose fist, forefinger and thumb framing his jaw, regarding her with barely disguised anticipation. 

Her eyes softened as she stared, perhaps a beat too long. In the short time she’d known him, he’d given her so much that she had always wanted, but had never believed could belong to her. 

Open, unbridled affection, desire, and pleasure without fear of Chantry discipline or the brittleness she had often found in amorous bonds forged in the heat of battle against darkspawn. And care, Maker, she had never felt so cared for. Sometimes it was as if they both fell over themselves trying to be of service to each other. A silly pair of fools who felt too deeply for their own good. It was all so wonderful and overwhelming. 

Duty be damned and the Wardens with it, she wanted to keep all he’d gifted her. 

But there was still Johanna. And Lichdom.

If only the Maker, assuming he existed, could forgive her selfishness and let her have this, this sweet unnamed joining of two souls, until the Calling took her. Had she not done enough, sacrificed enough, to stave off losing him to the Necropolis? At least for a while? 

How small her short life, her forever, seemed compared to his eternity. 

“Darling? Are you alright?” He asked, straightening to his usual upright posture.

With a toss of her hair behind her shoulder, she dropped off of the desk, “yes, beautiful man, I’m just fine. Only admiring the view.” 

She insinuated herself between his legs, scattering a flutter of kisses on his forehead, the end of his nose, mouth, shoulders, chest, and belly as she sank to the floor, making him laugh. She smiled up at him, leaning into his touch as he cupped her face and twined her blond hair around his fingers. 

“I would have this be the only gold that adorns my hands for the rest of my mortal life and into death itself. What need do I have for base metal with such finery?”

She pushed a puff of breath through her nose and shook her head, now swimming from such intoxicating words, “the things you say, Emmrich, honestly…” 

“Are never uttered without fervent intent.” 

She ducked her head and nuzzled the line of fine silver hair leading to the thatch of mostly black, hiding from the squeeze he’d just given her heart. She felt his palm, heavy on the crown of her head, and took him in hand again, pressing wet, open kisses and quick, sharp tongued licks from base to tip. His fingers flexed against her scalp and her name, her real name, rushed from his mouth in a high exhalation.

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P*E*A*N*U*T*S for your viewing pleasure! There will be more of these, I'm already working on another with Henry and Radar!

Due to popular request, these are all available on my inprnt :]

Share this with a special old man in your life <3 (Note: you can be an old man at the ripe age of very young if you put your mind to it!)

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OC Wardrobe

Saw this on @caughtnyact and I love costume design so I had to. Here's Rook's wardrobe vibes:

Avis Thorne. She's a Grey Warden via the Ferelden Circle, so she has elements in common with Harding. Lots of embroidery and smocking:

The rings at the bottom are actually a his and hers (this is emmrook, remember). One commissioned by him, one by her. Any guesses which is which?