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[idiedinthedark-blog]

Indefinite Hiatus

[[After considerable thought I’ve decided to put @korcari-shapeshifter and @idiedinthedark on indefinite hiatus; I love Morrigan and Cole still but I’m spending most of my time on my OC blogs and have most of my motivation there and I’m not really giving these guys the attention they deserve, and in consequence their drafts are mostly just adding stress. May come back to them at some point but for now please please come hit me up at @ostwickjoker and @somniari-hawke if we’re not already writing there. :) 

Have a fantastic day and thanks for following me. <3 ]]

[idiedinthedark-blog]

A Voice in the Dark

They came out of the silence, wide eyes and thin faces, frightened, forgotten, the children of a broken world.

Cole moves among the sleeping mage children, watching their small bodies move with the subtleness of inward and outward breath. Occasionally they tremble, and he can feel the ripple of their fear as a nightmare tugs their thoughts, as the Fade prickles and pokes with demons drawn to their dreams.

Sleep safe. Skyhold sits where the Veil strains but you’re safe... He slips through the shadows, perches himself on the windowsill among the beds, occasionally shifting to lay a hand on a shoulder or whisper words in an ear, soothing the fear, helping them stand strong in sleep.

His head lifts abruptly at the sound of a footstep; the door at the far end of the room opens, revealing the woman who cares for the children, peering out into the dimness. He looks back at her, utterly unashamed of his unexpected presence. “They’re all right,” he says softly. “Still safe, still sleeping. They’re stronger than they seem.”

@magicnotmiracles

[idiedinthedark-blog]

circlemageamell:

“Dogs are superior to cats in every way,” she says dryly. “Ask anyone in Ferelden.” The corner of her mouth twitches as she considers Cole’s description of the mentality of a dog. It’s… comforting, in a way, to know that there are beings who can feel such uncompromising happiness. It’s also indescribably adorable.

Her mind wanders back to his description of her, though, and she can’t help voicing her confusion. “I never would’ve described myself as bright, Cole.” She smiles slightly as she looks at him. “I feel like I’m moving through darkness most of the time, to be perfectly honest. The Harrowing showed me my pride as much as it showed me anything else, and the Blight showed me so much pain and fear. I know that I’m better now, having survived it, but I feel very broken. There are days when I can’t see past the memories.” Cullen in the tower. Everyone I grew up with changed forever or completely destroyed. “Going to Amaranthine and dealing with the darkspawn civil war just added more nightmares. Over the past few years, I’ve tried to find little pockets of happiness, but there’s the cure for the Wardens hanging over my head everywhere I go, and that darkness pulling at me…” She swallows and looks down. “And I lost my mabari not too long before I came to Skyhold, and I just feel empty without him. So, no, I don’t feel very bright. But you’re welcome to listen to my thoughts whenever you want to. I’m just not sure why you’d want to.”

"You feel the Fade," he reminds her quietly. He can hear the sadness in her voice, ringing through her mind. It tugs at him. "Power, and pride in that power. The darkness pulls you, beats and batters, but you're better, brighter, more than the broken bits." He frowns, reaches out and rests a hand gently on her forearm. He doesn't need the contact, but he's found it helps, sometimes, the warmth of a human touch, the part of him that is flesh and bone.

"You aren't your fear. There's fire in you, banked but still burning." He shakes his head slightly. "You can hurt, and hope and heal and hurt again...it doesn't make you less. Your light doesn't go out just because the pain is dark." He watches her expression intently for a moment. "But the memories torment you, tossing and turning...too much, sometimes. Too much to bear. Hard to see the light when the pain presses. Cold...clammy, nights in a tent lit by flickering flame, so alone with the burden." He shakes his head again. "You don't have to be alone."

[idiedinthedark-blog]

"The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die."

“Yes,” Cole agrees quietly, watching the woman thoughtfully. “You lost the blade but bring brightness anyway. Where others might have withered you work on.” He smiles slightly. “It’s a good way to help.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

Wrung, ringing, running-- she rides through the tempest but it tosses her, takes her from herself...

Cole could feel the woman, the Herald, fighting. Fleeing. Frightened. The envy demon wanted to take her from herself, to wear her face and feel the fear as all knelt before her. It wanted her because it couldn’t do anything else but want, and want, and want...

But Cole, compassion, knew better. And he would help. He would help her escape, he would help her fight. Because that was all he could do.

“Yes. Think, feel, focus, fight,” he agreed softly, shivering into existence upside down on the ceiling of the ‘room’ the woman’s mind had fashioned for her. “You won’t be free without a fight, but you want freedom more than you fear failure. Envy hurt you-- is hurting you, but I can help. I can show you the way out.”

Dimly he could feel the rumbling of envy’s anger. The demon knew he was here. But not where. Not for a little while. And in that time they could speak, and he could help her forward.

@idiedinthedark

“At last!”

His hands clamped around her neck. Drawn in. Therinfal? No part she’d seen, certainly. Horrible. People immobile, on fire. Cullen and Josephine looking on, passive. It isn’t real. It can’t be real. Coming to this conclusion cleared her mind, at least for a moment. After that…

Knowing it was all false didn’t help much. Watching the demon, with Leliana’s face, cutting Cullen’s throat. Watching as it took Josephine’s appearance, and then her own. Brave words were all she had. Insisting this wasn’t right, wasn’t real, that she would never. “Do you know what the Inquisition could become?” it mocked her, as she ran through fragments of her own life, and fragments of what could be. “I will be you,” Envy proclaimed.

Dodging green fountains of flame the likes of which she’d never seen, she sought an exit. But how could one find an exit from a nightmare? She darted toward an open doorway, found… a bedroom. The only thing stranger than finding this here were the tables and chairs on the walls, and the papers scattered across the ceiling. And the door slammed shut behind her. She’d never been especially comfortable with fire, but now, in her efforts to avoid it, she’d been trapped.

“I have to think,” she said aloud.

[idiedinthedark-blog]

unpreparedviscount:

“Well. That’s easier said than done.” Kendall busied herself sheathing the daggers, suddenly hard-pressed to stifle a smile. The young man clearly prided himself on being cryptic - and she had to admit he was doing well - but there was something oddly endearing about the act. Everyone knew what had happened during the Right of Annulment, and what she had done. There were no secrets once you were Champion and Viscountess.

“I’m not upset,” she went on, gently. “We’ve all been through hard times, but you don’t have to worry about me. I have everything I need.”

He looked almost familiar somehow, she thought as she studied him. Mage? Templar? Someone from the city? The more she thought, the harder it was to place the resemblance. No bother, then. It would come to her eventually.

That wasn’t true, he knew. Not entirely, at least. He’d felt her agitation as she walked about the place, the pain that went with the responsibility. “Mind choppy like the cold water, chaotic...must go to the Gallows but the memories stand like the sentinels you shattered...”

Blood and bone as they carved through the mages, frightened and fearful trapped in the tower. He knew that pain too, the fear of the beaten and broken. He had moved a great deal among them, watching  But they were not here. And in his eyes all pain was equal.

He lifted his head slightly with some surprise at the surge of amusement in her mind-- almost affection. Then he smiled back slightly. Bright eyes and gangly limbs. Like Carver before he-- before-- “I’m not him,” he murmured. “That sword would be too big for me. But I’ll help you like he would, if I can.”

Go Demonstrating Again

[idiedinthedark-blog]

“But you could. If you wanted.” He shakes his head, leaning against the wall of the tavern where he often drifts, healing those hurts he can find. “Hard choice...too hard...rolling sea, ever-changing, home and hard work...but home here too, treacherous, tantalizing...how long before the hurt comes...” His lips twitch down in a frown.

idiedinthedark:

He falls silent and looks at her expectantly, head cocked slightly back so he can watch her from under his hat. After a long pause he speaks again. “You don’t have to be afraid here. They mean it when they want you to stay.”

He doesn’t know her, she wants to say. But apparently this kid knows exactly what she’s thinking. And she’s a little put off by it. “…Even if they did, kid. That’s not the kind of person I am. I never stay.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

“Yes. No? I don’t know.” Cole looks slightly puzzled. Happy doesn’t really enter into what he does. He just is. “I don’t feel things like you do-- all your own, whole in the heart. I hear and I heed and I help.”

He looks back at Krem with equal curiosity, reading the expression on his face. “You help too. All of you. Fierce fighters, firm, but the Chargers aren’t cruel. A slash across the face in a crowded bar; he saved a stranger who became a friend.”

@idiedinthedark continued from here [x]

“You know, it’s okay to have preferences and help people at the same time.” He grins slightly at the kid for a moment, resting his head on his hand.

“You would rather help someone who’s hurt, and making them happy makes you happy. I think. Does it make you happy?” He had a hard time getting a read on this boy. He was interesting, if not puzzling.

[idiedinthedark-blog]

onthesirenscall replied to your post: “I figure, every time someone dies and it’s not...

“…Okay, I’m going to need you to stop that.”

He falls silent and looks at her expectantly, head cocked slightly back so he can watch her from under his hat. After a long pause he speaks again. “You don’t have to be afraid here. They mean it when they want you to stay.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

Wait and hope. Revenge was sweet till it spread too far, fire licking the edges of its pit.

[?]

[idiedinthedark-blog]

“I figure, every time someone dies and it’s not me, my chances of survival go up.”

He eyes the pirate curiously-- not judgmental but almost sad, as if parsing what kind of person, what kind of past, would build such a thought. “You’re afraid,” he says softly, simply. “Sails on the seas, always with a cargo too hot to hold. Chased for so long that you can’t stop running.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

"You obviously haven't seen Dom swim. It's a lot of flailing and splashing interrupted by occasional bouts of drowning." (Crossing the streams!)

“Slick silt where it meets the shore; firmness fails, falls, sinking into silence...breathing in brack, bleak...” He pieces together the picture of a recent trip to the Storm Coast, the Herald and Hero’s memories mixing for the full image. Then he grins. “You pulled him out by the collar, cold water but the laughter was warm.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

“I didn’t realize you had preferences.” (Waves hello!)

“It’s not about me. I want to help.” He smiles slightly at the Charger lieutenant, eyes peering from under the wide brim of his hat. “Kind to everyone, but a preference for those with pain, calling for compassion, for clarity.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

Mass Effect  {Sentence Starters}

“So if we’re going to try this, I need to know that you’re always coming back. “

“I figure, every time someone dies and it’s not me, my chances of survival go up.”

“I’m not nearly drunk enough for that.”

“I’m sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you. I’m getting a lot of bullshit on this line.”

“Okay, yeah, you’re on your own with that.”

“Why are you curled up on the floor?”

“You can’t believe everything you find on there.”

“How do you know when someone is romantically invested?”

“Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”

“If it’s all civilized, you’re not doing it right.”

“I didn’t realize you had preferences.”

“You obviously haven’t seen ______ swim. It’s a lot of flailing and splashing interrupted by occasional bouts of drowning.”

“Long story. Nobody will believe it anyway.”

“When I die, it will not be in bed. I am at peace with that.”

“This isn’t their fight. But they are buying us time with their lives.”

“It’s a brilliant tactic when you think about it.”

“Only few people get what they deserve, good or bad.”

“Next time you need something, just ask. We’re all in this together.”

“But if you don’t respect your enemy’s capabilities, you’re in for one nasty surprise after another.”

“Can it wait for a bit? I’m in the middle of some calibrations.”

“Well, that sounds like a major step backward.”

“They tell me it’s a suicide mission. I intend to prove them wrong.”

“Yeah, that was the only way to get you inside.”

“The universe is a dark place. I’m trying to make it brighter before I die.”

“You want me to sit there and watch you cook?”

“You know he’s going to keep bothering you until you tell him.”

“Dead is dead. There’s no such thing as a good way to go.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

circlemageamell:

“You forgot the Fade… on purpose.” The breath seems to shake as it escapes her. Did Justice forget the Fade? She blinks, brow furrowed. “Definitely more difficult for a mortal to wrap their brain around, but I think I understand. A little, anyway.”

She rubs her hand across her face, then crosses her arms over her stomach and begins to walk, indicating that Cole should join her with a slight inclination of her head. “So, when you sense people, how much information are you able to gather? Sometimes it seems like you’re pulling complete thoughts directly from my mind.” An odd thought strikes her, and she grins suddenly. “Can you hear dogs?”

“I hear what I have to,” he answers, following her easily, trailing after her almost as if he isn’t aware of what his legs are doing. He exists in his head, whole; the body simply carries him. “Clearer when there’s cause for compassion -- pain, panic...despair and doubt where the demons dig...” He shakes his head thoughtfully. “Some people are bright, brilliant, flashing with Fade or inner fire. Their voices are louder.” His lips twitch in a slight smile. “You burn brightly; I like hearing you.”

The question makes his smile widen abruptly. “Yes. Always happy, hurtling, howling, life lived with a sun that doesn’t set. They see the good even where the good isn’t but could be. Sometimes they’re angry because someone made them afraid, but the happy still wants to get out; it just...doesn’t know how.” A pause. Then he frowns. “They like me better than the cats. They swat at my feet and hiss.”

[idiedinthedark-blog]

unpreparedviscount:

Even before Kendall digested the words, she felt her back straighten and head snap up on reflex. A hand closed around the dagger’s handle, but she didn’t move to wield it yet, keeping the motion as smooth as if she simply wanted to prevent her weapon clattering to the floor.

“Who’s there?”

It was a few moments before her gaze came to rest on the one who had spoken - strange, she thought, that she hadn’t noticed him before. A man, young enough to still be in the awkward gangly phase Carver had complained about endlessly, sat just paces away. Kendall eyed him warily, clearing her throat before the silence could go on long enough to be awkward.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you get on…” The grip on her dagger loosened but did not fall away as she regarded him. “What was that you said, then?” It seemed as good a question as any, given she was a bit lost for words.

Compassion barely seemed to notice the shift of her grip on the dagger-- or her evident surprise at seeing it. Him, perhaps it should think -- and yet it had not stopped being what it was. It had merely found a form that fit the world, a form with a face...a good thing, too, since surprise, not fear, graced her face as she faced it. Familiar and yet foreign...she sees the face of a boy battered and broken, left behind...

It nodded slightly at the question. 

“You remember the blood brilliant on the blade,” it says quietly, eyes glinting attentively from behind a heavy mop of blonde hair. “You want to wash it away...but it’s harder to forget the fighting.” A pause. “You don’t have to let it follow you. It happened but you can let it fall behind you.”

Go Demonstrating Again

[idiedinthedark-blog]

“The pain passes when it’s faced, fought...” He trails off, looks at her thoughtfully as the images bleed through. “Bleak, black, silent unsure...surely the brightness will blind me with brilliance...” His lips twitch down at the corners and he looks at her with quiet sympathy. “In seeing nothing you saw too much. I’m sorry...”

@idiedinthedark

He sits cross-legged on the wide stone railings of the Skyhold steps and peers at her from under his hat, utterly unconcerned. “I want to help,” he says earnestly. “The dark is darker when you’re alone.” 

Mae looks at the boy attentively before giving a soft sigh. “You are very kind, spirit…” Her voice trails off, considering her words carefully. “When one lives in the dark for so long, light can be…painful.” Her thoughts wander to her time in Magister Titus’ dungeon. It was only a few weeks, but she would never forget being brought out to the sun again. “I will be fine.”