#a wiser woman would have left the margin around the middle one too

[eonars]

3 of them 👍

[crqstalite]

after adamant.

ugly little fic that i wrote in the middle of the night a while ago and shared with a friend. post-adamant about my inquisitor trying to rationalize their losses at the fortress and in the fade. nothing’s capitalized, so if that annoys you, this isn’t the little fic for you.

chose not to use warnings? im not quite sure what to use here, so tread lightly.

dragon age inquisition. 

-

she stays strong, after adamant it’s all everyone needs. she sees to the few wardens that had been at the keep, had offered inquisition aid.  they thank her thousands of times over, as uneasy as they are.

their senior warden, alistair, won’t meet her eyes. deep brown orbs looking anywhere but at her, even with a smile on his face. he thanks her, quietly. bandages wrapped around his side, muttering that he’d need to get a letter out to the hero of ferelden — tabris.

she leaves him, offering to let leliana find her. to let leliana send the message and get it back to him as soon as possible. he agrees, numbly is when she swings a leg over the elk in the morning, sun peaking over the rise in the distance.

she knows that look that settles in his dark brown eyes, that look that cries it should’ve been me. but she’s sure he knows what he must do now, to lead the wardens properly against corypheus. she thanks him.

he doesn’t say it, but he does respond that hawke’s sacrifice would not be vain. that shatters a part of her, seals her lips all the way back to skyhold. thankfully, marzeyna is lucky enough no one else is in a talkative mood. but they will be, with questions, with reactions, maybe with thinly veiled anger.

she’s not sure if she’s lucky or simply being lied to when varric seems more despondent than furious with her. he simply responds there are letters to write, to bethany, to other friends she’d made in kirkwall. they’d been close. she bites her lip hard enough to draw iron laced blood to keep from crying.

he hugs her.

though he’s not mentioned, marzeyna doesn’t make the request to send a letter to the mage anders. though he will be left in the dark, surely varric would know how close they’d been. the way hawke spoke of him, with a wistful tone laced with uneasiness, she doesn’t want to look into his eyes and tell him she was the reason reyna hawke would not be coming home.

she makes her rounds. to cassandra, to blackwall, to dorian. then to the others who learning of it secondhand, to leliana, who’d been hurt over justinia. to sera, to bull, to vivienne, to solas, who was fascinated about her journey into the fade.

she doesn’t indulge him. any other day, she might’ve, but not today.

marzeyna has to put on a brave face when she’s nearly hit with what she assumes to be a lyrium kit when she visits cullen. to think she’d thought she’d get any miniscule amount of comfort from anyone after her return, she would’ve thought, just maybe, that it would be him. but no, her nerves are shot and she’s terrified and can’t think straight. she hasn’t slept since before adamant, doesn’t even want to think about dreaming in the fade. and yet, she’s able to give cullen the strength he needs to go on. 

she wavers. her tiny form struggles to make it back to the war room after the moon has long risen in the sky. working, bent over the war table. they’d head out for the exalted plains in the morning. switch out her ground forces, get to work.

get her mind off the blonde woman that haunted her thoughts these days. piercing storm cloud eyes with dexterity over daggers that she’d never seen before. a determination to save mages from the templars that burned white hot within her, flames licking everyone she met.

her voice never wavering when she’d accepted her fate. a strong nod when she drew her daggers for the last time.

she shoves the knife meant for josephine’s diplomatic mission into the table deeper than she’d intended, grinding it into the table with a groan. her fire red hair falls into her face, her once tight ponytail loosening into a lump of curls at the base of her neck.

magic crackles at her fingertips, papers flying off the desk and fluttering to the floor. lelianna’s secrets, cassandra and solas’ requests, josephine’s agreements, cullen’s reports.

yanking off her gloves in front of the fire in her quarters, she grits her teeth when she can’t yank a swollen finger out of it’s respective sleeve. eyebrows knitting together in frustration, fire climbing her thoughts.

why hadn’t she been quicker? why hadn’t she forced them ahead with magic? she could’ve done something, done anything different. could’ve fade stepped them past the bastard. but no, she hadn’t done any of those things. she’d knowingly sent hawke to her death, not fought alongside her and alistair, but sent her away so she and alistair could get away.

the glove comes off, pain reverberating through her hand in waves. she kicks off her boots, the pair thumping away somewhere in the darkness.

she should be the one in the fade. running for her life, terrified in the darkness of the spiders she saw racing towards her. reliving nightmare after nightmare.

marzeyna was a mage. she could’ve handled it longer before she went mad. reyna was not, she was a young woman from kirkwall. a rogue no less. so stupid, marzeyna should’ve been the one to stay behind. from what little she understood of the tensions between varric and cassandra, hawke could’ve been the inquisitor. hell she probably was supposed to be. or alistair’s love, tabris.

both were older, wiser than she was. with only twenty five years on her, she wonders if some God with a sick sense of humor had decided it should be her. things had only gone wrong when she appeared in haven, half alive and delirious. justinia had died, the mage/templar conflict in the hinterlands that she couldn’t solve, alexius.

then they lost haven. and so many people. the smell of wood burning around her and screams of people being cut down by red templars. her advisors asking for orders, her mind spiraling in a thousand different directions.

she wonders if cullen saw the terrified look in her eyes when he’d spoken to her. saw her fumbling for answers, saw the little girl that had been given too much power, much too soon. had second thoughts about her being the so called herald of andraste. had wondered why he put his faith in her.

marzeyna lavellan. she was a mage. and a dalish elf. two of the most marginalized statuses you could have in thedas, and so many people still looked up to her. asked her what to do, trusted her not to lead them astray. 

hawke had trusted her. marzeyna had promised her she’d get her out alive, had promised she’d get her back to bethany. to anders. that they could do this.

she yanks a box, some sort of box, maybe empty off the desk and throws it, chucks it into the wall just off the windows. it crashes, shattering into splinters of oak. then something else holding an ink quill, lighter, easier to throw. that too shatters, ceramic maybe. it’s satisfying almost, anger and regret and everything in between flooding her emotions like a tidal wave. they drown her, choking her when she screams like a caged animal, chucking another small box into the wall. raw magic dances at her fingertips and lights her ablaze, body glowing a gentle white as hot tears slide down her face in rivers.

justinia. maybe. she’s needed her and there was nothing she could do. she failed her.

every single person in haven believed in her. they needed her when corphyeus arrived with his forces.

hawke had believed in her. smiled at her. told her jokes. at first skeptical, as any non andrastian would be. but quickly had become her friend. her first real one that wasn’t asking her what was next all the time. someone she could go to when her advisors were too much that day.

her hands clench into fists in her hair, sobs heavy and heaving as she slides to the floor in a heap against one of the walls. now hawke was gone, and it was all her fault. just like it’d been before. another person who’d gotten killed because of her.

she’d tried to justify her decision. the wardens would need someone to lead them through this possible blight. tabris would need him when she got back with her research into the fake calling. 

nothing answers when she thinks about hawke. she can’t justify her death. she was a good person, supported mages to a fault. didn’t seem the type to kick puppies. was friendly to everyone, had a sister, had a friend in varric.

then, why isn’t marzeyna dead?

she has nothing. clan lavellan maybe, but they’d surely replaced her by now, it wasn’t as if she was coming back now. it wasn’t like they were clambering to see her again. she’s a mage, she’s already being persecuted anyway. and it wasn’t as if what she’d started with cullen couldn’t be forgiven. it wasn’t anything serious, he could meet someone else.

sure, she was young. younger than most in the inquisition. but others still had most of their lives ahead of them. she had nothing. no future beyond what lie inside of skyhold.

hugging her knees, the pants legs begin to wet with the fat tears rolling down her cheeks. the anchor was the only thing that made her important, that kept people from actually wanting to get her killed. people put their lives on the line for her. and she couldn’t even return the favor.

her nails dig into her biceps, curling in on her herself as a draft whips into the room. a shiver after the fire chases it away. 

then why is she still here? she’s nothing, no one. 

and right now, she doesn’t want to be anyone. she doesn’t go to bed that night, reading reports until she can’t. staving off sleep to keep from drifting into the fade against her will. eyes blurring and burning when she dresses herself in the morning, she avoids varric’s gaze following her down the corridor to the war room. josephine follows, rattling off things she doesn’t understand. nobles. treaties. alliances.

lelianna and cullen join them a few minutes later. if they notice her hands shaking, they don’t say anything. a glimmer of concern in cullen’s eyes, josephine outright with the words on her lips, gently biting them back.

she should be dead, she chants when they arrive in the plains, i don’t even have a right to be alive. she should be here, and yet i handed the situation to her like the scared child i am.

it’s the beginning of many restless nights.

[dm-of-elemental-evil]

NaNoWriMo Day 3

I am sitting in a desiccated airship, perched on the abandoned Sky Port, as I write this. We are straying far from the path of “heroes” that I had originally envisioned for our motley bunch, but I suspect that we are still doing some good.

Bawbbe brought to our attention that he needed to return to the plains of Oheila within the next handful of months in order to be present for his daughter’s coming of age ceremony, and in the same moment, a young halfling woman wandered towards our table with a sack over her shoulder and clothed in mismatched leathers. She explained that she could get us an airship to head back to Oheila, but that we would need to do something for her as well. Before we could reply, she reached for a roll in the middle of the table and a couple dozen gold coins fell from her sleeve. She barreled away through the crowd with pieces of silverware and coin tumbling from her pockets. (scrawled in the margins: “She’s got Shiba! She was meowing from that sack!”) We gave chase through the streets, but ultimately had to split up in order to find the brigand.

In the end, it was Bawbbe who found her. She seemed awestruck at his immense size, and he simply picked her up off the ground and carried her to the rest of us. Her stench was… palpable, and the grime on her face and hands harshly contrasted with the glimmering jewellery and coins that were tumbling into the dust around her.

“Hi there!” Her voice was bright and cheery, and even though she was dangling several feet off the ground, the halfling beamed at us. “I’m Sorry!”

“Um, apology accepted?”

“No, silly, that’s my name.” Behind her, Emuswa was rummaging through the fallen sack to retrieve a sleeping Shiba.

Wolfram stepped forward. “Who are you, and why are you stealing our things?”

“I told you, I’m Sorry, and it’s for my family.”

After a fairly short interrogation, we agreed to follow Sorry to her “family” and hear out her plan to get us an airship. The trek across the city culminated in a steep climb into the abandoned Sky Port tower through a tight ventilation shaft. Despite the cramped nature of the ascent, the interior was surprisingly cool. Ten minutes later, we emerged into a scene of chaos. An airship had settled where it docked, embedding itself into the metal struts and covered platform that sprouted from the bulk of the tower. The fall had splintered the hull and left a gaping wound in the side of the ship through which the hold could be accessed. Large chunks of wood were strewn about the dock, which made walking an act of concentration in order to stay upright.

Sorry skipped ahead of us into the recesses of the ship while we carefully picked our way through the rubble. We followed the sounds of her kicking open doors and stomped up the stairs to the upper decks. Suddenly, there was the sound of a ringing bell and dozens of feet throughout the ship. I nearly ran into Wolfram’s back as he stopped in front of me, then Sorry’s voice rang out.

“Ladies and gents, please come and meet your hosts! Babyface’s Burgling Brigands!”

Wolfram and Bawbbe exchanged looks, but I must admit that I was intrigued and excited by all of the pomp surrounding the whole affair. We made our way up to what used to be the mess hall, where a haphazard museum featured various marble busts, dusty pieces of artwork, and intriguing curios. On a makeshift pedestal at one end of the room, Sorry stood proudly holding a rope that stretched through the ceiling. The footsteps grew ever louder, and suddenly a half dozen children sprang out of holes in the roof and the walls and took their places around the room.

“Here they are! I am the brave and admirable leader, Sorry!” Sorry gave a theatrical spin and began to point at them in turn. “We’ve got Stinky, Sexy, Sly, Silly, Spicy, Shiny, and… um. Roger. We don’t have a name for him yet.”

The children saluted as their names were called out. Stinky was an elven boy, probably close to sixteen years old, with a selection of scars across his knuckles. Sexy was a grimy, dirt-caked human child, somewhere between ten and fifteen years old, though it was impossible to tell for sure. Beside him, two dwarven boys stood together. They were clearly brothers, their beards only just starting to come in, but they both had shocks of blonde hair and bright green eyes. Spicy was an elven girl around fourteen, and as she stood there, she danced a coin across the backs of her fingers and smirked. A half-orc girl who looked to be close to Sorry’s age was leaning against a table with a bundle of papers rolled under one arm. Of all the children in this ship, she seemed to be the one who was wary of our little troupe. And finally, Roger. He was a young human boy wearing leathers that clearly seemed to be two sizes too large and simply watched us nervously.

“And you guys are?”

We introduced ourselves. Bawbbe, Wolfram, Emuswa, Peregrin, and of course, myself. I wondered not for the first time what a motley bunch such as ourselves must look like from the outside.

Emuswa cleared his throat. “Uh, are you all children?”

Sorry’s eyes narrowed. “I’m twenty-two years old. Just because I’m a halfling doesn’t mean you have to be rude.” Her gaze softened somewhat. “Other than that, yeah. Just a bunch of orphans making our mark on the city. Pretty dramatic, dontcha say?”

“Look,” Bawbbe interjected before Emuswa could reply, “you said you could get us a ship so I can see my daughter. Is that not happening? This thing doesn’t look like it can fly.”

“Oh definitely not! Our home isn’t meant for flying. But, before I can get you a ship, I need you all to help us first. And by help, I mean steal something with us.”

“Oh no, we’re not thieves. I hit things.”

“Relax, big guy! We’re not thieves either. We’re, uh, collectors! Yeah, we collect things for our collection. We’re definitely not thieves.”

“So, we’d be helping you guys collect something?” The skepticism in Wolfram’s voice was obvious, but Sorry seemed to not notice.

“Yeah sure let’s go with that! And let me tell you, it’s a doozy. Shiny, bust out those maps and whatnot.”

A space was cleared on the central table that dominated this mess hall-turned-museum, and several of the pieces of parchment were spread out for all to see. The brigands crowded around the table to get a good look.

“This is the home, mansion really, of Lord Belton Fortram and his son and heir, Pendleton Fortram. They are rich, they own the inn that you guys were staying in, and they like to collect things almost as much as we do. More importantly, they like to collect things and hide them away without letting anyone else see them.”

“No one can see the things that you collect,” Peregrin pointed out.

Sorry scoffed. “People can see them if they come up here. It’s not our fault that nobody comes and visits.”

“There’s a sign on the tower that says ‘Stay Out on Threat of Death.’ And death was spelled wrong.”

Sorry didn’t reply, and simply stared at Roger, who slowly stepped behind Shiny to avoid the leader’s gaze. She clapped suddenly and directed everyone’s attention to another one of the sheets of paper. “Regardless, there is a vault underneath the mansion, and in that vault there is an assortment of priceless artifacts. Now, any one of them would be worthy of a place in the BBB Museum, but there is a single item in particular that we’re looking for. We’ll be visiting the place during a large party that Pendleton is putting on, and that party will provide the cover we need to get our goal. And that’s where the big guy comes into play.”

I realized that three of the papers on the table were loose floor plans for the mansion as Shiny continued to explain. “The main entrance will be the first step. Sexy is responsible for getting us invitations into the main event. Most of the BBB will be posing as staff, so we’ll be sneaking them in through the servants’ entrance. But the party doesn’t start for another four days. So in the meantime, we need to get everyone a good cover story and a means of entry. We do, unfortunately, need to get just one proper invitation so that Sexy has something to go off of with all of his forgeries. Sexy, get your grubby hands off of these blueprints. Now, once we’re inside, we need a few things to be in place before we can access the vault. Pendleton has one of the two keys and needs to be distracted, the crowd needs to be drawn away from the area, and the treasure needs to be brought out to the front. I think Stinky and Spicy have plans for those.”

At that, Stinky leaned forward and pulled out one of the papers, revealing a recipe. “Oi’m makin’ truffles.”

“And they’re gonna make the richie riches loose their bowels.” Spicy grinned. “I been gatherin’ plentya stinkweed fer these truffles fer the last two months. Stinky’ll dice ‘em up real good and under all that chocolate, ain’t no one who’s gonna be the wiser.”

I stepped closer to the table, hesitated, then took a deep breath. “I think I can distract Lord Pendleton.” Sorry looked surprised, then gestured for me to continue. “I met him the last time I was here in Sunburst. He was hosting a beachfront extravaganza, lots of live performances, and I was one of them with my spoken word poetry. I think he described me as ‘breathtakingly beautiful and luscious.’” I shuddered involuntarily and Spicy laid a sympathetic hand on my arm.

“Well then I think we’re in luck. He’s got another one of those beachfront thingies coming up tomorrow, and if you happen to run into him, that can be our ticket in.” Sorry turned to Bawbbe. “And then the big guy is the key to getting the goods out.” She reached up and squeezed one massive bicep. “Yeah, you could probably lift the thing all by yourself.”

“What exactly are we even stealing?”

Sorry triumphantly lifted the last piece of paper, which bore a roughly ovular sketch. “We’re stealing the Grand Egg.”

*** *** ***

Sunburst and the Veluth Empire, ca. 450 BF (inlaid into the paper is a sketch of a piece of tapestry depicting a battlefield littered with bodies)

Long before the city of Sunburst had grown from the barren sands of the Crimson Wastes, long before the dwarves had carved out a nation of their own in the Black Iron Peaks, long before the advent of magitechnology and flying ships, the Veluth Empire sprawled across the Sunrise continent. The royal family, Vel, conquered through whatever means suited the situation and the emperor of the time. It is said that the First Emperor, Slan Vel I, laid waste to such large numbers of his foes that the sands turned red with the blood of the fallen, giving birth to the Crimson Wastes as they are known today. The name of Vel spread across the land faster than the borders of the Veluth empire. The Black Iron Peaks soon become home to numerous mountain fastnesses and monasteries, and the southern monks were brought into the fold.

As the empire expanded, the ruling factions grew as well. The true-blooded Vel maintained their position of authority, but it fell to the various guilds to maintain the wellbeing of the people. The tribes of the Wastes proved to be exceptionally skilled at accounting and matters of money, when they were not warring amongst themselves. The dwarves and lizardfolk embraced their role as guardians and craftsmen, and many of the Vel sought out the lizardfolk in order to learn their mastery of flames. The monks approached the empire first, seeking a place in the society where they could teach the common people of the gods that the highest of their order had come into contact with. These gods went by different names, but they would later become Dianoga, Juutibara, Cordelia, and Sandrelle. These forces ultimately allowed the strongest of the Vel to bond with dragons from the massive cave networks of the Black Iron Peaks and become Veluth Dragon Knights. They became symbols of the peace that had been delivered, and a memory of the blood that had been spilled in the process.

No empire is eternal, however, and despite the presence of clear-minded leadership and guidance from the gods themselves, a force was destined to bring Veluth to an end. The Empress of the time, Delina Vel IV, received a vision from Cordelia and her brother Sandrelle in which a tide of blood swallowed the entirety of the empire. It came from the northeast, a nation fleeing destruction that they had brought upon themselves, seeking a new home. But they were driven by blood and lust for conflict. Empress Delina Vel rallied the Dragon Knights from their positions throughout the empire to drive these invaders back, including her younger brother, Bren Vel. Bren was arguably the most famous of the Dragon Knights, bonded to the great silver dragon Sin’va Tak. In many ways, the peace throughout the empire can be directly traced back to Bren’s popularity with the common people. He was a formidable warrior, to be sure, but it was well known that he would respond to rising conflicts with his words before his blade.

The invaders, nameless to the Veluth, arrived on the northern bank of what would become known as the Shadowed Isle far sooner than the Empress had anticipated, and the military forces were quickly stirred to action. The navy departed from the half dozen or so cities on the northwestern coast of the Crimson Wastes, splitting into three fleets. The outer two circled around the Isle in an effort to flank the incoming forces. The center fleet transferred the cavalry and foot troops to the land before also splitting and rejoining its counterparts in the flanking maneuver. From there, the Dragon Knights escorted the bulk of the army across the island to meet the invaders head on. The Veluth could not have known that their enemies were skilled dragon hunters, armed with massive harpoon guns that grounded scores of knights over the course of the three week conflict.

The rest, as they say, is history. Empress Delina and the Veluth were woefully underprepared for such a formidable opponent, and despite their strength and numbers, they found themselves outmatched. Records of that era are few and far between, but conservative estimates put the total death toll from six hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand. Exaggerations claim that more than two million died on the Shadowed Isle, but even limited research on the island itself puts that theory to rest. It is widely agreed, however, that the Veluth could have survived the onslaught and salvaged the empire had it not been for a single pivotal moment. During the second week of the battle, Bren Vel led a heroic charge in an effort to get the fifty thousand troops under his command back to friendly lines. Fully half of the soldiers perished in the two hours that it took to reach the bulk of the army, and in the final push, Bren and Sin’va Tak were brought down. Empress Delina and the elite fighting force of the Veluth army witnessed the golden child of the Empire perish before them, and their spirit was broken.

The Empress died on the Shadowed Isle, but the sheer destruction on that fated land awoke another goddess, Meristopheles. She strode the land of death and carved her domain from the souls that met their end during that battle. Bren, Sin’va and Delina were brought to her side directly, but the remainder of the spectral army decimated the remainder of the invaders. There was no Empire to go back to, and it eventually splintered again. The Veluth capital was abandoned, swallowed by the sands, and over the course of several decades, the united tribes of the desert migrated to eastern Sunrise to establish the city of Sunburst. The dwarves and lizardfolk returned to their homes in the Black Iron Mountains, and the monks of the south resumed their isolation. One solitary sage witnessed the battle and wove a tapestry depicting the battle, though over the course of centuries it disappeared and faded to obscurity and myth. Nowadays there is very little information pertaining to the ancient Veluth, and what does exist is unreliable and vague. The Old Capital still lies buried in the sands somewhere, if the rumors are to be believed.

*** *** ***