WIP Wednesday Thursday!
Who's even keeping track anymore!
Hiya! I wanted everyone to know I'm alive! Hurrah! And to show it, I've got a bit of a WIP I've been working on. I wanted to see my Warden, Champion, and Inquisitor all in one place, so I'm tweaking canon a bit and just throwing the two boys and one enby together. Tossing them like a salad; call me romaine
Here's a bit of what I've been working on (a little is below the Read More because I've actually been hard at work on this).
“I appreciate your answering our request,” Thales said. “The fact that you chose to come in person to help us resolve this speaks volumes to the magnitude of your dedication. I am exceedingly grateful.”
“It’s nothing,” Alistair said. “As a Warden, it’s my responsibility to attend to all matters pertaining to Wardens and the Blight.” Alistair didn’t mention how absolutely stifled and overwhelmed and bored he’d felt in the castle because Anora had told him that wouldn’t be polite.
“I cede myself to your generous expertise,” Thales replied with a sweeping bow, and ah. Alistair could see why Anora didn’t really like the Inquisitor. Despite lacking the accent, he was far too Orlesian for someone with Anora’s upbringing. After the Blight, Alistair typically wasn’t too fond of Orlesians either.
But Thales straightened himself out and grinned, a self-aware tilt to his lips, and Alistair found himself thinking the Inquisitor wasn’t too bad. A bit showy, like Zevran, but he’d been wrong about Zevran back in the day, so who was he to judge?
“Our council on the Warden conundrum is convening on the battlements,” the Inquisitor continued. “The Champion of Kirkwall has come, as Warden matters pertain directly to their brother, and they have close contact with the Warden who first blew the whistle on the Wardens’ strange activity. The Warden Commander has also come, all the way from Weisshaupt—I hadn’t expected him to even answer our letters, but my spymaster insisted we at least try, and I trusted her over anyone else to somehow manage it.”
Alistair froze. He could feel his comically shocked expression as it formed, but couldn’t bring himself to care. The Warden Commander? He was here?
Thales’s smile had gone simultaneously pleased and amused. “If it pleases Your Majesty, he may head to the battlements now, and I shall join the council presently. I have a few things left to do before I can attend with my full attention.”
“Of course, yes, that’s totally fine,” Alistair rambled. His skin itched beneath his fine clothes. His head was already turning back toward the door.
“I’ll be there soon,” Thales repeated, then turned and walked away, immediately caught not two steps away in a conversation with an advisor of his.
Alistair hardly noticed. He pivoted on his heel and started back out the door, his body traitorously flushing, his mind racing with too many thoughts to catalogue properly, save a few repeating stand-outs—Does he even remember me? Does he want to see me? How has he been? Why didn’t he come see me before?
Alistair ascended the last of the steps, trying to calm the raging typhoon in his chest, trying to quiet the thunder of his heart. Two people stood side-by-side: the first, a tall person with dark hair, head half-shaven down to stubble, a dark mustache and beard beneath an aristocratic nose smudged across in blood red. The second, a familiar waterfall of ginger hair (he hadn’t braided it today), thick eyebrows resting low over a mismatched pair of eyes, one blue as moonlit waters, the other as brown as the densely-wooded forests he so dearly loved.
He was unmistakable. To Alistair, he always would be.
Thelien Mahariel turned his head as Alistair finally reached the upper walls, perceptive as ever. His murky expression at once cleared, his lips parting in surprise. Alistair grinned, sheepish.
Thelien approached at once, dressed down to a Warden’s gambeson and some well-tailored trousers made to tuck into his habitual foot wrappings. Alistair privately longed to be wearing his Warden armor, feeling ill-suited for the royal ensemble he’d been forced to wear.
Thelien didn’t look anywhere but Alistair’s eyes, and with that look, the last of Alistair’s insecurities melted away. Thelien fell to an easy stop before him, a bit of his long hair still flowing with his momentum. He tilted his head back to look up at Alistair.
“Hi,” Alistair said, nerves making his voice waver.
“Lethallin,” Thelien breathed, as if able to for the first time in a decade.
“I’m so happy and relieved to see you,” Alistair said. Thelien had made him aware long ago he preferred not to mince words, and that he found Alistair’s earnestness a haven in a human world he was wildly uncomfortable in.
A smile broke across Thelien’s face like sunlight after a harrowing storm. Something in Alistair’s chest squeezed. “Weisshaupt could not keep me away.”
They stood there a moment, near and quiet, and Alistair could almost pretend it was ten years ago, and they had just finished a drawn-out skirmish, and Thelien was messily applying poultice to Alistair’s busted forehead while Alistair insisted he was fine.
But nothing stays. Thelien reached a hand to Alistair’s cheek, brows furrowing, eyes flitting about Alistair’s face. No doubt cataloguing all the ways time had changed Alistair. Thelien hardly looked different at all—no, perhaps just a bit more regal in the way he stood, in the effortless grace of his movement, in the confidence in his actions.
“You look pale,” he murmured, concern in his rumbling voice. “What have they done to you?”
“Nothing I didn’t deserve,” Alistair joked, and this close, he could see the edges of Thelien’s eyes tighten, distressed. “It was a joke,” he hastily amended.
“A poor one,” Thelien replied, a gentle scold. “You know how I hate that particular joke of yours.”
I tag @exantivancrow, @regard-me-not, @teahugsandcookies, @dungeons-and-dragon-age, and anyone else with something they'd like to share this week! Absolutely zero pressure!
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I was tagged by @vakarians-babe (hi O:) & @greypetrel 💛✨ thank you so much!!!
I'm working on um, different things I can't show here (or yet lol), so I'll just present you with the things I'm carrying forward at the moment, among the moltitude of wips I'll finish after the armageddon, probably :'D
Hopefully I'll finish Ankhie's outfits before the next artfight ;; send help
So! Here we have:
A back! Which I'm trying to render correctly (along with the rest). I was looking through my old notes of Anatomia Artistica 2, but everything looked very off because that sketchbook has um, almost 15 years of existence lol so I had to make new studies from scratch. tl;dr: it's taking me a while. From the skintone alone, you know who the subject is :' also it's the base I'm using for her new outfits so you already saw the front
A stranger! O: you'll get a small post before the weekend 👀
Two familiar idiots <3 I'm trying to finalize it but I went for another approach on some sections and I think at this point this picture can be used under the definition of self-sabotage hahah <3
Cassandra being all cute and fancy <33 I'm not super sure on that palette, maybe I'll ditch the greens (argh)
I'm tagging (no pressure, no obligation <3): @daggerbean @shivunin @underneathestars @alienturnipp @magspy & @herearedragons
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WIP Wednesday Thursday
Tagged by @salsedinepicta and @hollytree33, thank you very much! <3
It's the next day, but Glaze didn't want me to post yesterday apparently. And yes I toggled all the options but "to trust is good, not to trust is better".
Some expression chart of Aisling, this time in Whale AU shores.
Top right one is my favourite, and it isn't really her if she's not crying in at least three ones.
Going on with the symbolism one, I'm kinda stuck over the object for Miss Trash Raccoon. I'd put a trashcan but I already painted one in the chart.
A collage from my sketchbook: I was in the dukedom of Prosciutto last week for some work, and I scribbled something. Always Whale AU themed.
I am very upsed there's so few paintings themed around the Orlando Furioso, I referenced the possibly one I found. Raina in this iteration has more themes taken from that poem (lost her wisdom upon the moon).
Some smooching as I listened to Hozier's I, Carrion (Icarian), which quickly became their love theme.
And some random storyboards which I don't know if I'll keep. I found a piece of lore which gave me an idea for some comic pages to start... but it was in a book whose authors wrote for a broadcast notorious for featuring conspiracies and being very historically inaccurate. Think history channel, but worse. (Sì sto parlando di Mistero.)(I bought some books in a rush and didn't check the authors in the store). It needs to be double checked: I haven't found anything on the internet, but I have other books on lore from Alghero on which I hope to find a confirmation. Meanwhile, it's there.
Oh wow it's another wall of text! :"D
Sorry, oops.
Tagging! @shivunin @ndostairlyrium @underneathestars @pinayelf @blarrghe @dreadfutures @inquisimer @dungeons-and-dragon-age @daggerbean and YOU!
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wip wthursday
tagged by @hollytree33 and @greypetrel this week, thank you friends! <3 I wasn't originally going to have anything new that I could share, then I was possessed by "Divine Cassandra with Cullen as her Right Hand + sooooooo much knight/lady devotion" and I threw this out in my notes app as I was falling asleep
tagging forward (for this week or next, I know I'm a day late!) to: @midmorninggrey | @dungeons-and-dragon-age | @shivunin | @dragonologist-phd | & @ammoniteflesh
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He looked radiant in the red and silver of the Knight’s Divine armor. Neither it nor the sword at his hip were ceremonial and he knew how to use both, as Divine Victoria is well aware.
His new vows fell from his lips confidently, assured, taking the place of the shattered purpose leftover from his years with the Templar Order. Before the assembled clerics, nobles, the remnants of the Inquisition, he swore himself into her service: by Andraste’s grace, by the Maker’s will, up to and including the cost of his life.
He dropped to one knee before her and bowed his head so that she could place the wreath of prophet’s laurel around his neck. She offered him one gloved hand and only narrowly kept her composure at the whisper of heat through the fabric where his lips brushed against her knuckles.
“Rise, Ser Cullen Rutherford, Knight-Commander of the Divine Order!” Thank the Maker her voice did not shake. She was better at that, these days. “May the Maker guide your duty, your purpose, and your path.”
His eyes did not leave hers as he stood. They both knew, of course, that is was not the Maker who would guide his path, just as it was not the Maker who brought him here. Not really.
It was her.
It was always her.
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