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guacamolleee · 1 hour ago

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Happy Thedas Weekend! Back on my Sweetness and Light Agenda: "You want a revelation, some kind of resolution? Tell me what you want me to say." - No Light, No Light, Florence and the Machine

The siren song of the Agenda calls me againnnn. For @thedasweekend

Words: 747

Characters: Melia Surana, Lux, Cullen

~~~~~

The day the sky split open, there was no Maker in the Golden City. Instead there was an outpouring of fear that rocked the world, already on the edge of breaking.

But then, the Maker hadn't been present when the ground had fallen out from Lux's feet, and the tower fell. There had been no miracle to save the children, only Lux's sweat and steel.

The Maker hadn't been present when she'd had to lie to save a life that had used hers for its own purpose in all the ways she was meant to fight against, and yet the lie had come of its own accord. Because if she had spoken the truth, they would have not waited to hear the rest. There had been no Maker then. Only Lux.

The Maker hadn't been present when Alrik had cornered her time and time again. Perfect soldier, perfect obedience. And she feared what he would order her to do, who he would make her hurt, a prospect far more frightening than abominations and blood mages, for those could be fought against with a blade, and she had no recourse against him. No Maker. Only Melia.

No revelations had come the day the tower fell, the lies were told, the blood was spilled, the sky was opened.

No resolution between them, brimming with anxious fear through two towers where perhaps they would have been best rid of each other, and a war that had separated them at last.

It should have been an end to things. But how could it, when they had just begun to bear each other again? When she had just allowed herself to see Melia for herself again, and not those nightmarish minutes that had called everything into question.

Though it had to be said, the moment of seeing her again had been a nightmare in and of itself. Alrik's cold touch and the cold look in Melia's eyes still played equals parts in nights that made her jolt awake. The heat of his blood and the warmth of her arm. Kinloch and Kirkwall, all confused, night-sweats and night-terrors.

And still the Maker had no answer. If only someone would give her the words to plead, the prayers to make, that would guarantee some certainty.

Work and duty were all she had. The Inquisition needed numbers, and Cullen needed someone he could trust. It had been easy to fall to new instruction, better instruction. Far away from the darkened halls of the circles and power wielded over her that she could not fight directly, even when she knew it was wicked.

Now, in the light, there could be understanding.

Now, in the light, they could work to resolution.

And Cullen, Commander unlike her first and the rest of them, had been kind to her. Had seen the cracks that splintered through her sense of belief as the idols they had been raised to worship crumbled before them. Recognised that they both needed purpose. That they would need to find one that was all their own, and not words laid upon a child who took to them when there was nothing else they could hear.

Kirkwall felt centuries away. She could protect without her hands tied so tightly. Did not have to fear that her actions would hurt her charges from on high. She could speak, make decisions, and people would hear if it was worth hearing.

It was not the Maker's light. But it was a light they had made, with sweat and steel and words of diplomacy and hope they barely thought they had.

And then the mages came, and at the head was a shadow Lux had seen too many nights since, ice in her eyes and the light behind, catching the curls of her hair like a halo as blood pooled on the floor.

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, Kinloch was here, Kirkwall was here, and if Melia would arrive like a ghost of flesh and blood, what could stop Alrik? What could stop Meredith?

But her heart shook and shattered, aching relief, because her friend was alive, who had been so good to her, who had tried to care for her. Who had used and hurt her. Who had protected her. And for all of it she ached to clutch her to her chest like a crying child, like a unicorn on a tunic, to protect to protect something precious.

And still there came no revelation.

#dragon age #fic rec

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guacamolleee · 1 hour ago

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I opened you tumblr and IMMEDIATELY saw the reblog of spicy/jealous prompts lmao.

Whoever you want to do this for, let's get some good gothic possessiveness vibes up in here. (I mean I would not say NO to a sweetness and light gothic possessive au...)

❝ You should be mine. I don’t care what they say, you are mine. ❞

Lee, I'm really sorry in advance for co-opting your prompt for my Toxic Blood-Mage/Templar Yuri Agenda, but in my defense... No actually I don't have any defense, but you knew who you were prompting! Anyway, Sweetness and Light be upon ye!

Melia Surana/Lux, blood mage/brainwashed Templar toxic yuri, past mind control, sexual harassment, murder, first kiss, Women's Wrongs

@librivore42 | @guacamolleee | @thedasweekend

execution in her eyes, she pointed to her prize

The first time Alrik’s hand stays a little too long against her shoulder, Lux dismisses it as her own overactive imagination, a lingering echo of the blood magic that sent her fleeing from Kinloch Hold (the blood mage who’d been sent to the Gallows with her, for all her brief, foolish hope that she might escape the hold Melia Surana had taken of her body, her mind her soul). People do not, as a rule, touch Lux deliberately. She unsettles them too much for that, with her wide, empty eyes, her lack of the right emotions in the right places at the right times.

(Melia had touched her, once, had looped her arm through Lux’s like they were any two girls in any place other than the prison that had made Lux a Templar and Melia a half-mad monster, had leant her head against Lux’s shoulder like they were friends rather than enemies, or draped her legs across Lux’s lap while she worked on her embroidery. She does not like, even now, how these memories glow warm against her skin, when they should make her shudder. She does not like to look at Enchanter Surana, with her lowered eyes and modestly-folded hands, and think of how softly those hands held her, before the nails cut through her skin and commanded the very blood in her veins.)

There is nothing soft in Alrik’s hands, the second time he touches her. They are discussing a change in the Tranquils’ rota, or a new transfer, or something she should have been paying closer attention to when she realises that her back is to the wall, and Alrik is far too close to her. Close enough to block off her exit with a too-casually raised arm, a hand rested against her shoulder. There is nothing improper about a hand rested on a shoulder, a fraternal gesture between fellow warriors, a sign of friendship, even, but still, it twists something in her stomach, the same thing that writhes and revolts when he praises her mildness, her perfect obedience. It is a Templar’s place to be obedient to their superiors, and to the will of the Chantry. She does not understand why in his mouth, it sounds like something filthy.

His thumb creeps from her pauldron to the place where her gorget meets the bare skin of her neck, and she shudders. She cannot help but shudder, when his hands are as pale and chill as corpseflesh, when his eyes are cold and hungry with some desire she cannot name. Does not want to name-

“Ser Alrik?”

There is a clank as Alrik pushes upright, away from her, and Lux stiffens like a rabbit at a different, more familiar fear: the sound of Melia’s voice.

“Surana. What are you doing out of the workroom?”

Melia’s eyes are modestly lowered, but her hands, when she spreads the skirts of her robe into a curtsey, are white-knuckled and shaking, and Lux’s hand twitches over the hilt of her blade.

But her skin does not prickle with rising magic, and Melia’s knees bend with a calculated degree of deference: “Commander Stannard wishes to see you, and requests Ser Lux’s presence in the workroom. If you please, ser.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I will inform the Knight-Commander that you are both- otherwise occupied.”

She looks up, then, and her smile is sweet, but her eyes-

Her eyes, when they meet Lux’s, hold the same half-wild look they held when Kinloch Hold broke, and Lux’s heart catches in her throat, her feet rooted to the floor, and she cannot tell if it is Melia’s magic, or only the memory of it, that pins her to the wall like one of the butterflies Alrik pins to boards.

“There shall be no need. Ser Lux will escort you.”

He turns on his heel, and is gone, and Melia moves to do the same, but Lux has her orders. She falls into step, three paces behind Melia, and watches her back with a curious mingling of terror and relief and guilt. There is something broken in her, that she prefers the company of this malificar to that of her brother-in-arms, but then, his hand on her shoulder had somehow felt far less than brotherly.

“Has he touched you like that before?”

She flinches at Melia’s voice, though she does not turn her head to meet her eyes again.

“Yes. Why?”

“Have you told anyone?”

“Who would I tell?” Otto Alrik is her commanding officer, a Knight Lieutenant appointed by the Commander herself. Otto Alrik is one of the few Templars in the Gallows willing to tolerate her strangeness, her stupidity. Otto Alrik is, if not liked, respected by their brothers. Lux is neither liked nor respected, and besides, he has done nothing wrong. There is no sin in hands on shoulders, or standing closer than she would prefer, and, if there was a sin in that…

Lux was asked Is Surana a blood mage?, back in Kinloch Hold, when Melia stood in chains, and she had meant to say Yes, and She was afraid, and She did not mean it, but what had emerged was: No, and was that lie not the greater sin? Perhaps this is her punishment, and she should accept it. Perhaps this is a test, as Melia's rebellion was a test. She failed the first. She cannot afford to fail the second.

The third time, she tries not to shudder, or flinch. She does not pull away, as his hand moves from her shoulder to her jaw, as those corpse-cold hands turn her face this way and that.

“So close to perfection,” he murmurs, with that awful hunger in his voice, “to obedience, to contentment. If only we could people the world with Templars as well-trained as you, Lux.”

Not Ser Lux, and for some reason, that too nauseates her — the presumption of closeness, of an understanding that they do not share.

“I gave you a compliment, Lux.” She does not like the way he holds her name in his mouth, the way he makes it sound filthy, indecent. “It is proper to thank your superiors, when they offer you compliments.”

She wants to look anywhere but his eyes, his gleaming, white-toothed smile. “Th-Thank you, Ser Alrik.”

“Better, but again. Like you mean it.”

Andraste, Lady of Sorrows, bear our grief as we bear it. Weep the tears we dare not shed, and help us carry our suffering more lightly.

“Thank you, ser.” It emerges more as prayer or plea than thanks, but she can tell, by the way his thumb brushes along her jaw, that it has pleased him nonetheless.

“Good-”

He does not finish the endearment she does not want. Instead, he chokes on it, sinks to his knees, face purpling, and the mingled wave of terror and relief come close to drowning her as she wonders: Is this a miracle?

It should not feel like a miracle, to bring a brother in arms so close to death, and yet-

The shadow in the torchlit doorway is slight and slender, and haloed in amber light that bleeds through her dark curls, and Lux realises this is no miracle, even as Melia quietly closes the door at her back, and slides the bolt home.

“Malificar,” Alrik rasps, as though he cannot raise his voice above a whisper, as though he can barely breathe. “I knew- your kind- would try to end my work-”

Melia tilts her head as she looks down at him, a delicate, birdlike gesture. Her every movement is delicate and precise. It always has been.

“Fascinating,” she says, looking down at him as if he is a stain on her favourite robe. “You think you matter to me at all.”

She flicks her fingers, and Alrik makes an awful, wretched gurgling sound as blood bubbles from his lips, and drips from Melia’s hand. Distantly, Lux knows she should be sounding the alarm. She does not cry out. She does not move for the door. She does not look away from Melia as she approaches, slow and inevitable as the end of the world. Alrik seems suddenly very far away, rather than at her feet, and then he is further away, as Melia kicks him aside with her slippered foot, and raises her bloodied hand to Lux’s cheek.

She knows she should pull away. She does not pull away.

“I’m sorry,” Melia says, and if her voice was icy, when she spoke to Alrik, it is burning now, with anger, yes, but something else, too, something warm and bright that Lux has no name for. “I thought, after what I did, that leaving you alone was the best thing I could do for you. I was wrong.”

“I-” I missed you. I fear you. “I don’t understand.”

Melia rises onto her toes, and gently draws Lux down until their lips brush, and is there not something monstrous, that where Alrik — a Templar, a brother-in-arms, a good man — had revolted her, she cannot pull away from Melia’s kiss? Her lips are warm and bright and bloody, and they burn away Alrik’s corpse-cold corruption on her skin, even as she knows, she knows, this should make her filthy.

Melia draws back far too soon, and Lux wants to cling to her, to never let her go, even as she wants to flee whatever strange enchantment she has cast over them both.

“If you are not mine,” she says, “you will be someone else’s. And if they were good, perhaps, I could bear it, but there are no good men in this monstrous place, so I suppose I must simply be the kindest monster.”

She wants to say There is good here. She wants to say Most of us mean to protect you. But she thinks of gentle, smiling Karl, with the sunburst brand between his brows, and knows that that would be a far greater lie than the one she told in Kinloch Hold.

Instead, she tells a different one: “You are not a monster.”

“That isn’t what your brothers-in-arms will say.” Melia’s mouth twists into a bitter smile. “But I don’t care what they say- what anyone says, any more. You should be mine to protect. You are mine.”

“I was made to protect you.” It is the only truth she has ever known, and she clings to it now, as Alrik drowns in his own blood, as Melia cups her face in a bloodied hand, and it is the gentlest touch she has ever felt.

Perhaps she was not made for gentle touches. Perhaps that is why this one breaks her so uttterly.

“Then protect me,” Melia says, as if it is simple. “And let me protect you from filth like him.”

Obedience is a virtue. Lux obeys, and leans down to kiss her once more.

#da2 #fic rec #sooooooo good

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