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problems-of-immortality · 3 years

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[🪀] what was your muse’s childhood like? how did their upbringing affect them? (for Sahren)

Oh wow, this will be a lengthy one, still one of my favorite questions for him, so thank you! I'm going to write this with a lot of detail so even people who haven't played can understand, as the lore is very extensive and convoluted and it is some chunky sections of that lore that shapes his upbringing and his entire personality. Also a fair amount of it takes up heavy content, so check the tags before reading to make sure you are comfortable reading. Sahren grew up in Dalish culture, essentially nomadic clans that live away from human settlements because of major cultural disagreements. Most of Thedas believes that mages should be locked away because of their power, and their ability to reach their minds across the Veil when they sleep makes them susceptible to being influenced or possessed by the denizens of the Fade. The entire world and all of it's cultures have some degree of fear of mages. Dwarves don't have them, but Qunari essentially enslave their mages, the Tevinter Imperium is run by mages that are too power hungry, and humans trap theirs in tower colleges. Dalish clans don't like interacting with humans for a multitude of reasons, but the main reasons are: Dalish clans consider mages to be a risk but also necessary to lead the clan as Keeper, the clan's diplomat, the leader, and the mage healer of the clan. They are the only group besides the Imperium to give mages freedom. But because they wander Thedas with no homeland, they have to avoid humans for long periods or else risk situations where humans under the Chantry deem them to be blasphemous to the Maker and try to convert them or kill them. The Tevinter Imperium still has a slave trade, and elves make up an overwhelming majority. The Dalish in the long forgotten past used to rule all of Thedas as a magical utopia with an advanced culture of people that never died and all were mages, but for mysterious reasons the humans came along, and the Dalish believe that the fall of this nation made them lose their immortal lifespans to become mortal, and then enslaved, which caused them to lose most of the knowledge of Arlathan. (The name of their nation) Different clans take different approaches to humans, but most are wary of them. Sahren's clan had bad experiences with the Tevinter Imperium because they lived much farther north, closer to the border with Tevinter. There were skirmishes with his clan twice in his life, and both he ended up losing a loved one, to. His mother was his clan's Keeper, Thalia, and his father Athras the head ranger. It was expected when Sahren was born that he'd become her First when he developed magic, and eventually succeed her. When he was four, she gave him a large book in which he would write all of his knowledge, but he passed the age where he would develop magic without so much as creating a spark. That same day came a kid his age that Sahren grew to love dearly, came into the clan after his own was destroyed. Feladara, with auburn hair and honey gold eyes. Feladara ended up developing magic instead. Sahren really tried not to be bitter. His mother let him study longer, even though only the keepers could really study all of the lore they had. But then tragedy happened- Some bandits came along while Thalia was out with just Sahren and Feladara at 10, gathering herbs with her. She convinced Feladara to run back to camp just as she heard them nearby, but Sahren refused to go.They tried to demand that Thalia tell them where the clan was camped, but she calmly tried to diffuse the situation and convince them to go elsewhere. They call Thalia a knife ear, so Sahren runs up and kicks one of them in the shin, and ends up becoming a hostage. His mother had a different opinion than the normal views on the denizens of the Fade, because she actually understood their nature, and was friends with a Spirit of Loyalty. So she fuses with the spirit and together they fight off the bandits, killing all of them to defend her clan and her child. When she does, she goes to hug Sahren, and because she secretly taught Sahren the ways of the spirits, he isn’t afraid. But then Feladara comes back with Sahren’s father, Athras. A more superstitious person than his wife, he immediately assumed she was a typical abomination, and thought she was going to kill Sahren, so he struck her through the heart from the back with an arrow. Sahren never forgave him for that. After her death, Athras more aggressively tried to make Sahren learn how to be an archer instead, going down his path instead of his mother’s. A retired Keeper from another clan became the new Keeper for Clan Lavellan, and Feladara became her First. So Sahren would skip his lessons to hang out in the Keeper’s aravel with Feladara, learning whatever Feladara was learning. The new Keeper enabled it for some time, but eventually Sahren’s father found out where he was going and forbade him from entering the Keeper’s aravel, grounding him to staying in camp for a week. It was then he noticed all the stares, and the whispers. “Abomination’s child”, “he’s going to end up like her even without magic”. None of the other kids wanted to hang out with him, and Feladara was too busy with lessons. He quickly found that the rest of the clan didn’t like him, and that ended up souring his opinion of most of them. It made him a really angry teenager- When the week ended, Sahren took to hiding in the woods outside the camp instead of sleeping in camp. He refused to bunk with anyone, instead sleeping in the trees. It led to quite a few falls at first, but then it became impossible to knock him out of a tree. Feladara found him first, and then they began to hang out together at night, talking for hours about nothing and everything- magical theories and theories about the stories that remained of the Creators, the Forgotten Ones, and the Dread Wolf. In return, Sahren teaches Feladara how to use daggers. (The elven pantheon) Sahren picked up a lot of words from these exchanges that belonged to the old language of Arlathan. He laces them in Common often, like “Ma serannas” as thanks, “Ir abelas” as I’m sorry. Learning the meaning of family names: Feladara’s simply was the old name for the herbs they gather the most (elfroot), his own name meant “One who commands respect”. His father’s meant “Half in shadow”. He picks up many more words and names during the events of the game, and when he drinks from the Well of Sorrows ( Vir’abelasan ) he sometimes speaks completely in the old language because of the voices of the elven scholars who placed their knowledge in the Well. (There’s a person who created an entire lexicon on the language to fill in the gaps that the actual games left, I reference this and the game all the time) They end up falling in love over time. Eventually, when they both turn 18 and receive their vallaslin (tattoos on their faces, right of passage for Dalish elves. It means “blood writing”) Sahren and Feladara end up confessing their love to one another and marrying each other privately in the Dalish way, by exchanging hand crafted gifts and then tying each other’s wrists together with a ribbon. When Sahren told his father, there was an uproar. Sahren assumed it was because his father was homophobic, but in reality, Athras didn’t want him to marry a mage after what happened to his wife, worried the situation would repeat itself. About a year or so later, tragedy strikes yet again. This time, slavers attack the clan because they got too close to the Tevinter border for too long. Athras gives himself up to them after some fighting so they leave the rest of the clan alone. Sahren comes to the clan, smelling blood and ash. Feladara convinces him to save his father, but in the fighting when they catch up, Feladara dies in Sahren’s arms. Sahren becomes incredibly distant and unapproachable, always sleeping alone on the outskirts of camp whether he’s hunting or not, and begins to drink alcohol often to numb his feelings. The worst part: he gets drunk in trees and high places. He never falls from the trees, though- he considers them places of safety, away from other people who see how bitter he is and avoid him anyway. Over the course of the game he gradually mellows out, makes friends, drinks less. But the game just gives him the worst luck based on his choices, and the backstory I wrote myself for him gives him reason for those choices. So he’s surprisingly open about spirits, interested in learning new lore about his own culture from Solas, even becoming friends with him, and with nearly everyone else, even Cassandra and Cullen, who are very Andrastian in their faith.

He goes from being blamed for the explosion to being praised as the Herald of Andraste, sent by the Maker Himself to save Thedas. The worst part is, he doesn’t even believe in the Maker and hates the Andrastian faith, but no matter how often he forces himself into a Dalish figure and acts deliberately blasphemous while denying that he is the Herald people still praise him as Inquisitor and later on, ask him who should lead the Chantry. He absolutely loathes the role, and the way people look at him because of it. His inner circle is full of interesting, loyal people of all races and walks of life, and somehow, despite his prickly nature he ends up befriending them all, while successfully saving the world for a time. I’m going to cut this short before it turns into an entire biography, haha!

#tw alchoholism #tw emotional abuse #tw: bad parenting #tw religious trauma #tw: religious themes #dragon age #dragon age inquistor #dragon age inquisition #tw violence #tw fictional slavery #tw fictional death #tw slavery mention #tw: witnessing a parent's death #tw: homophobia mention #v: Oh Father I'm Not You #v: The Path That Leads Astray #Sahren Lavellan

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5lazarus · 4 years

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Dregs

Anders baits Varric, or Varric baits Anders, both drunk at the Hanged Man. There's no resolution to an argument when they're both just angry, thinking about dead mages.

Read on AO3 here.

They were drinking and it wasn’t going well. Hawke had already left, pissed off at Fenris’ rant about the Viscount’s complicity with the Tevinter slave trade, as if any of them could do anything about it, and Fenris was sulking in the corner by himself. Donnic was slumped in his chair, hand loosely wrapped around a dirty glass of whiskey. All glasses Norah gave him were dirty. She didn’t like guards much. Varric kept talking hopelessly, trying to improve the mood of the party, but even retelling the story about Bartrand’s aborted wedding failed to provoke hilarity. Anders continued to glare, eyes glinting slightly, and kept drinking. He was blatantly ignoring him. At least Donnic tried to grunt at the appropriate parts, and Varric had long since given up at getting Fenris to rejoin their table. Varric stopped himself and decided a new tactic was in order. Baiting Anders was always worth a laugh, so he pointed his chin at him and snapped his fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention. “Blondie, what’s up? What’s with all the sighing and the glaring and the doom and gloom? Templar step on your tail?”

Anders drew himself up in his chair. “I wish you wouldn’t joke about that.” He took Donnic’s glass from him. Donnic blinked at him and blearily protested, but Anders drank it regardless. Varric was amused. He was pretty sure Norah spat in that. “Right. The sighing? The templar? Or the tail? You’ll have to be specific.” Varric wasn’t in the mood to be easygoing anymore--he’d been trying to cheer them up all night, and they could at least return with a story. “Evelina,” he says. “Huon. I knew them, you know. And they were better than what became of them. They weren’t-- blood mages . They were desperate! They were scared. They missed their families. They deserved help , not Tranquility. Not death. Not the templars. They deserved more . So, I guess you’re right.” He stares at his empty drink bitterly. “‘Templar step on your tail’--what haven’t they stepped on?” Varric is only temporarily speechless. Anders never has anything good to say, he shouldn’t have asked, at least not without Isabela gone, she could normally get him to laugh. Varric personally thinks the ending is a little too depressing, he gets tired of the constant misery of the mages--and the templars made her Tranquil because she was going to turn into an abomination, she was already using blood magic. He’ll have to write it cleaner than it happened, because yet another Tranquil blood magic lacked the tragic punch. Varric says, “Well, shit. That’s crazy. That’s how it goes sometimes.” “ All the time,” Anders hisses, and reaches for Varric’s drink. Varric stops his hand warily. “Buy your own,” Varric said. “This round’s on you.” Anders, unimpressed, gets up and goes to the bar. Donnic raises his head, tired. “Careful,” he says. “Don’t bait him too much.” Varric snorts. “Or else? I get a fireball to the face?” Donnic says, “No. You can only push someone so far before they break.” He drops a couple coins on the table. “Get your last round on me.” He leaves, stumbling only slightly, and Varric marvels at his perspicacity. Donnic does like his one-liners--the man’s so anodyne, he has to spice him up when he finishes Hard in Hightown . Aveline already forbade him from writing about anything interesting, since her investigations into the corruption of the guard were still ongoing. He shakes his head at the exit. Donnic, what would they all do without Donnic? Live exactly the same as they did without him--and for that blessed quality of irrelevance, he has to write a story about him. Anders returns to the table and sets down his whiskey. Varric squints at him. “You sure you should be drinking that?” he says. “Don’t want Justice taking control.” “You were laughing,” Anders says. “What were you laughing about?” Varric sighs. He gets that watching what happened to those Circle mages bothered him, it bothered him too, but Varric knows all too well that sometimes you just have to breathe and let it pass, because there’s no use obsessing over the past. He glances at his crossbow, which he had given its own chair: perhaps he’s a hypocrite. He’s a lot of things--but he’s not paranoid, and he doesn’t want to deal with this. Varric says, “Oh, you know, everything. Donnic. You. The same old stories shaking out the same. You and me bristling over a drink. What to talk about between disasters. The usual shtick.” Anders drops into his chair suddenly, so fast Varric reaches for Bianca. “Oh,” he says. “So glad you can find the humor in it. I guess it’s easy to laugh when you’re not in it.” Varric scowls. “Not in it? Blondie, I live here.” He gestures grandly, to try and take the sting out of his tone. “Don’t be obtuse,” Anders says. “You know what I mean.” “I know I’ve lived here longer than you,” Varric says testily. “Not getting nativist. But I know this city’s problems. Been stuck in the muck of it longer than you have, Blondie. By a good thirty years.” Anders’ eyes flash, Justice peeking through. He snaps,“That is not what I mean and you are deliberately misunderstanding me.” Varric raises a hand wearily, glancing to see who has taken notice. A few apostates in the corner are watching, but they’re friendly with the Mage Underground, so that’s fine. Fenris looks up, eyes narrow, but Varric shakes his head at him. Anders isn’t going to blow up in public, at least not tonight. He’s prone to picking fights, but Varric’s not going to fall for it. “Sure,” Varric says. “Tell me what I’m deliberately misunderstanding.” Anders flashes, “Don’t patronize me.” “Okay,” he says. “I’m not. Sorry.” He reaches for Anders’ drink. He really doesn’t need more liquor in him, and Varric’s got money and the influence that comes with money, but not even the Merchants’ Guild can bribe Meredith to look the other way if Anders goes on a Justice-rampage in the middle of the Hanged Man. Donnic is at least gone--they’ve put him and Aveline in enough difficult spots, lately. Sometimes Varric wonders if Hawke realizes how stressful it is, being their friend. Varric grimaces and sips at the whiskey. It’s alright for what it is. He’s fine with it. Anders says, “You don’t know what it’s like, to be hunted. For people to want to-- lobotomize you, just for existing. That people think there’s something fundamentally evil about you, just because you--see things and feel things!” His voice breaks, and he says raggedly, “The Maker made me this way, Varric. He made us like this. Don’t tell me you know what it’s like. To be made to be punished.” Varric says, “Well, shit. You are drunk. Let’s get you out of here.” “Fuck you,” Anders says. “Really, from the bottom of my heart. Fuck you.” Varric scowls. “Cool it, mage. I get you’re upset about your friends being Tranquil, and yeah, it sucks, but what did you think was going to happen? They ran away from Meredith , they were dealing with demons, and that Huon guy put the whole alienage in danger, coming back to his wife. It was fucked up. You gotta admit that.” “That his family loved him and wanted him safe?” Anders says. “What’s so fucked up about that? You think Nyssa wasn’t elated when he came back? She’d been smuggling--” He stops himself, and Varric realizes that there is a story there, there is something he’s not saying, there is something he probably shouldn’t know. “But sure, think what you like. Write it whatever way that makes you happy. Crazed blood mage beating his wife. Clinging Ferelden refugee selfishly taking care of two orphans. Compassion’s just a despair demon, after all. Hope is really just pride. And Justice? That’s just vengeance. As we don’t deserve any recompense. No, forgive and forget, that’s what you want. Reconciliation. Compromise by surrendering all of our rights.” Varric says, “What the fuck is your problem? I haven’t said any of that shit. I have been nothing but a friend to you. Sure, I think you’re crazy. Bit of an asshole too, and I don’t even pretend to get that Fade shit you got going on with Justice. But you do good work in Darktown and you don’t get in the way of my business, and that’s fine for Kirkwall. I want what’s good for Kirkwall. I don’t get what you mean by ‘compromise,’ forgiving and forgetting. I just want the job fucking done. And your job--you take care of the refugees. No one else does that. You take care of Hawke and keep the rest of us patched up. That’s nice too. But get out of my face with this pity-me bullshit.” He says that, and realizes that perhaps he is drunk too: well, shit. He tries to roll it back. “Let’s get you back to the clinic, you’re drunk.” Anders says, “And you’re not?” Varric says, “Your point?” Anders settles back in his chair and crosses his arms. Justice has left his eyes now, and he smiles grimly at him. “No fucking need. You made it for me.” Varric stares at him and considers violence, considers stomping all the way to Hightown and shaking Hawke for sticking him with this mule disguised as a man. He throws his hands. “Right! So glad to help.” He shakes his head. “You’re impossible, do you know that? Fucking impossible sometimes.” “Yeah,” Anders says. “So I’ve been told.”

#varric & anders #varric tethras #anders #da2 #dragon age fanfic #donnic #fenris #hawke #fanfic

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maleficarfic · 3 years

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Of Unicorns, Virgins, and Other Such Things

Pairing: Female Lavellan/Solas

Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition

Rating: Explicit

Additional Tags: Only partially crack

Summary: A noble attempting to curry favor with the Inquisition gives Inquisitor Lavellan a unicorn. It gets in the way. A lot.

On AO3: Link

“But what is it?” the Inquisitor asked, ears flicking with annoyance as she peered at the massive white beast stomping around her courtyard, nickering nastily at everyone who wasn’t Cole. It was quite pretty, with a flowing mane and tail that shimmered like starlight. Its hooves and horn glimmered gold in the brilliant light of early afternoon.

“A gift,” Josephine said, a bit too cheerfully. “From a noble who seeks to curry your favor. It is a rare, almost mythical unicorn.”

The Inquisitor peered at it. “It doesn’t have a sword through its face like the other one.”

“Because this is a natural unicorn,” Josephine said with infinite patience.

The Inquisitor’s right ear twitched, her expression flattening. “You said mythical.”

“I said almost mythical.”

“And this from you,” Varric interjected, leaning against a wooden post and giving the Inquisitor one of those shit-eating grins. Her ears twitched again. “The woman who does at least ten impossible things before breakfast.”

She pulled her lips back and gave him a snarl. Any normal person would have seen that expression and pissed themselves, but Varric just laughed like this was all good fun. It was infuriating how she was supposed to be the most deadly person in Thedas – though, probably, the Hero of Ferelden was more so – but none of her companions seemed to treat her with the respect deadly people deserved. Actually, now that she thought about it, no one did. It was always Inquisitor, fetch this thing or Inquisitor, take this other thing to the place with the people or even Inquisitor, my wife is dying and my son knows how to cure her so please go to him but, oh, no, he won’t come back with the potion or even given you the recipe he’ll just give you the potion to bring back to me necessitating you making future trips to bolster the Inquisition’s reputation. Not that she had strong feelings about this.

“Also this unicorn is not dead.”

“Fluffy,” the Inquisitor said with sharp enunciating, “is not dead. She is respirationally challenged. More importantly, why doesn’t this one like anyone except Cole?”

Solas, who had been hovering at the edge of the courtyard with a studious expression on his face, swung toward her at the question. “Lore surrounding unicorns posits they prefer the company of virgins and will defend a virgin quite violently.”

The Inquisitor went still. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Oh,” she finally managed.

“Indeed.” Solas slipped closer to her. “Given the unicorn’s nature, it might be best to have—”

He broke off as the unicorn, with a whiny loud enough to burst eardrums, rounded on them and charged. He threw himself to the side, snapping a barrier into place around himself, Josie, the Inquisitor, and Varric, and stumbled. He righted himself only with Josie’s help.

“Oh,” the Inquisitor said as the unicorn paced in a circle around her. She felt heat rising to her cheeks. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of being a virgin. That didn’t bother her at all. It was just that a four-legged beast with a spike growing out its head was telling everyone in Skyhold that she’d never gotten laid.

Twenty-four years old, leading one of the most powerful political forces in the world, surrounded by men and women who pretty much oozed sex appeal, and she’d never had sex.

This was her life.

She dragged a hand down her face as Varric made a noise of pure delight. “Inquisitor, he seems to like you.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she muttered.

The unicorn’s muzzle rubbed against her face. It lipped her ear. With a shriek, she bolted away from it.

“He really seems to like you!” Varric called after her as she tore across the courtyard, the unicorn prancing happily after her.

She tried hiding in the great hall. She tried hiding in the tavern. She climbed the ladder to Cullen’s Blighted bedroom and crawled under his bed – much to his sputtering horror – and the damn thing somehow managed to follow her everywhere. When she decided to go out on missions, it was waiting in the stables, somehow saddled, looking at her with huge, watery eyes that seemed to say Ride me, beautiful virgin, and she’d go red to her ears.

Passing judgments was next to impossible. The Tevinter shem who had led the Wardens astray had taken one look at the unicorn standing proudly beside her throne and dissolved into giggles. Ser Ruth, who had turned herself in around the same time the Tevinter mage was brought before her, took one look at the unicorn and started choking. Ostensibly on laughter, but the Inquisitor hoped the woman swallowed her tongue.

“You can’t follow me everywhere,” she told the damn beast as it followed her across one of the ramparts. She and Cole kept putting him in the stables. He kept escaping. Somehow.

Vivienne thought he was possessed, and Bull tended to agree, but everything was demons and despair with those two anyway.

“You need to let me do my job.” He stared at her with watery eyes. She attempted to remain unmoved. “You need a name, too.”

He pranced, hopping from hoof to hoof as if he understood. In the back of her head, she heard Solas intoning, Unicorns are widely believed to be incredibly intelligent creatures. Do your best to be polite. That horn isn’t for show.

“Pokey?” she suggested.

The unicorn gave her a look that pretty clearly said, You’re shitting me.

“Fine, fair, I agree, it was a bad idea.” She was bad at naming things, though. The other day, she’d scraped together enough lambswool to make a new set of robes for Solas, and when asked by Dagna and Harritt to give the coat some kind of identifier, she’d just said, “Sheep’s Clothing.” They’d looked at her like she’d grown two heads before declaring it Resisting Magical Something or Another.

She had told Solas about the incident. He hadn’t approved, though she couldn’t fathom why.

Tugging on one of her braids, she gave the unicorn an assessing look. “You kind of look like a Bob to me.”

He blinked at her and that blink somehow managed to convey his dripping disdain.

“Not Pokey. Not Bob.” She chewed on her lower lip, and the unicorn made a sound that might have been horsey delight. It disturbed her. Deeply. She stopped chewing on her lip. “We could go with something noble. Charger?” He shook his head. Or ruffled his mane. Or something. She took it to be a no. “Dasher? Dancer? Prancer?” She paused. “Now that’s just ridiculous. You’re not making this easy, you know.”

He shuffled up to her and rubbed his nose against her shoulder. She, meanwhile, eyed the exceptionally sharp tip of his horn as it bobbed next to her face. Tentatively, she stroked the unicorn’s neck. “What about Hanal’ghilan? You’re not a halla, but it’s a noble name.”

He whickered and caught her ear with his lips. With an indignant shriek, she tore across the parapets.

In a rare moment of unicorn-free time later that afternoon, she slipped into Solas’s room to study the murals he was painting. And possibly to snuggle up to him and make him incredibly uncomfortable. There was something to be said for flustering him, and it was so delightfully easy that even a virgin could do it.

In her defense, she wasn’t much of a virgin. The unicorn might count her as one, but she’d done more than her fair share of playing poke and tickle with some of the other youths in her clan. She’d just never gone far enough to jeopardize her position.

“Solas,” she greeted cheerfully.

His head snapped up, his eyes darting all around her. Then he relaxed. “I see you’re without your stalwart protector.”

She slipped up to him. He wasn’t painting, was standing beside his table with a book in one hand. His fingers, long and lithe and delightfully wicked, were splayed across the pages of a book that lay open on the table before him.

Dancing her fingers up his tunic, she drew closer to him. “Stolen moments are so rare,” she purred, watching with delight as his eyes widened slightly.

“Inquisitor, I—”

“You?” she asked, rising onto her toes to brush her lips against his. It wasn’t even close to a kiss, but it was enough to get her a little tingly and a lot interested in actual kissing. She wanted real kisses, the fiery, passionate, he-shoves-his-hands-in-her-hair kinds of kisses. Kisses that involved tongue, but not Fade tongue. Fade tongue only got a girl so far.

He swallowed and made a strangled sort of noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t think…”

“Oh, but you do,” she murmured. “Entirely too much.” She canted her head to the side, sliding one arm about his neck. His book tumbled to the ground as his arm went around her waist, tugging her flush against him.

Their mouths were so close, his eyes so intent and filled with burning, desperate wanting.

From above them came a mighty crash.

“Confounded creature!” Dorian shouted. He followed that shout with many more, none of them understandable, all of them Tevene.

Solas all but shoved her away from him, throwing himself at the scaffolding to the side of the room as she heaved a heavy, beleaguered sigh and Hanal’ghilan tore into the room looking like a demon. He snorted, chest heaving, head lowered, and charged straight at Solas.

His horn missed Solas’s butt – and what a tight, sexy butt it was, she thought as he scrambled up the ladder – by inches.

Hanal’ghilan skidded to a stop between her and Solas, scratching the stone floor fiercely with his hooves. He huffed, dragging one hoof over the stone as if readying to charge, and she sighed heavily. “We need to discuss personal boundaries,” she said to him, patting him on the back.

It took her and Cole promising Hana’ghilan the best oats and a stupid amount of sugar cubes to get him to leave Solas’s rotunda. It took even longer to get the unicorn back to the stables, where the Inquisitor assured him up and down that she wouldn’t go anywhere near Solas ever again and he needn’t worry about her losing her virginity in the near to immediate future. He snorted, clearly not believing her, which was pretty much the right response because that night, Solas barged into her dreams with all the subtly of a charging druffalo.

He caught her face in his hands and kissed her, and she threw her arms around his neck, wrapping her legs around his waist and forcing him to hold her. They stumbled until her back pressed against a wall, and his tongue was in her mouth, tasting her, and it was so good.

Except for the part where it wasn’t real.

“I’m going to kill that creature,” Solas growled against her mouth, working his hands under her tunic to cup her breasts. That was also good. It was better than good. Heat lanced through her, and she dragged his mouth back to hers for more kisses.

She’d done a lot of kissing in twenty four years. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t as though she’d popped out of the womb and started kissing people. Maybe it was more like twelve years, unless she counted that time she kissed Theron when she was six. It hadn’t been a good kiss. She decided not to count it.

“I’m going to kill you,” she growled back, tugging at his clothes, wondering why he bothered with them in the Fade at all.

Probably because they never got much further than kissing shirtless. He always balked at that point.

“What have I done?” he asked as he caught her lower lip in his teeth, tugging gently.

She responded by grinding her hips against his, making him gasp with pleasure and shock and, really, he should be used to her doing this like this by now. “Nothing, hahren,” she replied in a throaty murmur, and he pressed closer to her, his eyes flickering with lust. “And that’s the problem.”

She heard something crash. It was a splintery sound. Rather like what wood might sound like when it shattered. She went stiff in his arms, and he noticed immediately. “Vhenan?” he asked, drawing his hands down her sides.

“Oh, by the Dread Wolf’s hairy ball—” The Fade dream fractured as a very large something pounded up her stairs and neighed loud enough to wake the dead. She bolted upright from her nest on the floor – she still wasn’t used to the concept of shem beds – and hurled her pillow at Hanal’ghilan’s face.

It hit his horn and stuck.

As he shook his head wildly, trying to dislodge the pillow, she threw another one. “It was a dream!” she shouted, hurling a third pillow. “It was just a dream, I was dreaming, and how did you even get in here?”

In the end, her pillow went flying off Hanal’ghilan’s horn and straight out her open window. It soared over her balcony and disappeared into the snowy mountains. Hanal’ghilan had the good sense to bow his head and give her those sad, watery eyes that were almost as guilt-inducing as puppy eyes.

“I’m still mad at you,” she groused as she patted a spot next to her pile of blankets. Hanal’ghilan happily settled there, and, after a moment, she dropped a pillow on his side and curled up against him. It wasn’t so different from sleeping with a halla.

The next morning, she stumbled into the tavern for breakfast with Hanal’ghilan on her heels, and Varric, who was always obscenely cheerful at all hours, saluted her with a mug of that wonderfully bitter, disgustingly perfect drink the shems called coffee. She made grabby hands at it and he surrendered it to her. “Looks like you’ve still got your unicorn chastity belt,” he said and she dragged her hands down her face, pushing the coffee aside and leaning across the table.

“All I want,” she hissed, “is to kiss him.”

“Who, the unicorn or Chuckles?” Varric asked, waving a serving girl over for another cup of coffee.

She pinned Varric with a glare that could probably melt silverite. At the very least, it should have seared the flesh off his bones.

Varric, however, was immune to such looks. She knew this. She still tried to employ them. They always failed. “My hahren—”

“That’s what the kids are calling it these days?” He rubbed his chin. “I’ll have to remember that.”

“That,” she sputtered, “is a term of respect for an elder and not some – some—” She broke off, still sputtering.

“Some salacious pet name?” he supplied.

Dorian dropped into the seat next to her. Aside from Cole, Dorian was the only man Hanal’ghilan let touch her. “Who are we giving salacious pet names to? Can I be next?”

She dropped her head to the table with an audible thunk. “It’s bad enough everyone knows I’ve never had sex with anyone,” she complained into the wood.

“And all you want is for Solas to throw you down and have his wicked way with you, but you have one very large, very white, very horny problem,” Dorian said with far too much cheer for the time of morning.

There was a beat of silence. Then he and Varric broke into laughter so loud it probably reached the Creator’s in the Beyond. She wanted to claw their faces off, but that wasn’t what civilized Inquisitors did.

The door to the tavern banged open, and she turned her head to see a very surly Solas in the doorway. He stopped there. Saw Hanal’ghilan. Hanal’ghilan saw him.

Some kind of energy snapped between the two of them, Hanal’ghilan pawing at the hardwood floor as she hissed at him to behave. Solas spun about on his heel and left. With a cheerful whicker of pleasure, Hanal’ghilan nuzzled against her shoulder.

“I’m going to die a virgin,” she groaned.

“Was this even an issue before our friend showed up?” Dorian asked. He had tried to pronounce Hanal’ghilan’s name once. She had told him if he ever tried again, she would burn all his silky robes and force him to wear cotton. The horror on his face had been priceless.

“No,” she moaned, reaching blindly for her coffee.

One of them, Creators bless them, pushed the mug into her hands. She picked her face off the table and hunkered over the steaming mug, taking small sips of the still too hot drink. It was black and bitter – as bleak as her sex life. She pointed to the mug. “This coffee is my sex life.”

“Hot and steamy?” Varric asked.

“Bitter and black and awful.”

“I thought you liked coffee,” Varric said.

“I don’t. I hate it.” She drank it anyway. “It’s just a good kick in the ass in the morning so I’m awake enough to wrangle all of you. Like whiny little halla who don’t want to go in their pens.”

“We have pens now?” Dorian asked. “That’s rather deviant, Inquisitor.”

“I hate you,” she muttered, throwing back the rest of the coffee in a single gulp.

She began to plan. She went to Cole, because Cole was the only one in Skyhold other than her, apparently, who was a virgin. It was awful. It was terrible. Because of Hanal’ghilan, she knew more about the sex lives of everyone in the Inquisition that she ever wanted or needed to know. The reverse, of course, was also true, and the only one who didn’t seem to care was Cole. Everyone else teased her mercilessly.

“Still have your white shadow,” Leliana had said idly in the War Room two days ago while Hanal’ghilan had lowered his horn at Cullen and proceeded to push the Commander around the room – the Inquisitor had not wanted to consider why.

Just yesterday, Sera had gone on at some length to Blackwall about being elbow deep in circumstances. And had asked the Inquisitor how her circumstances were. They’d both howled with laughter. The Inquisitor had wanted to die.

Or to stick them with something pointy.

Hanal’ghilan was off harassing someone else, so she was planning. With Cole. Planning with Cole was more like trying to herd cats than halla. He kept wandering off in his mind, and she kept having to refocus him. She understood the drifting; they were in the tavern, and there were lots of thoughts constantly brushing up on him. “We should have gone to one of the empty towers,” she said after two hours of getting nothing done.

“I can lead him away for a while,” Cole said abruptly. “We can make crowns of flowers and give them to you when it’s done.”

Her head hit the table with an audible thunk. “Couldn’t we have come to this conclusion at least an hour and a half ago, Cole?”

“Maybe,” he said. He tilted his head to the side. “But you weren’t ready then. You are now. Don’t worry, Solas burns, too. Heated, hot, heavy hands on his—”

Squeaking, she flailed, shushing him. “That’s private, Cole!”

“But he thinks it so loud.” Cole blinked at her with those huge eyes of his. “So do you. You think about him pushing, pressing, pinning. Holding you down and—”

She sputtered, pressing her face into her hands. “Private,” she groaned. When her face stopped flaming, she lowered her hands. “Let’s do it, then. You lead him away. Do the flower thing. And I…”

“Will have and be had,” Cole supplied.

“Yes, that,” she agreed.

So Cole left, and she watched him go to the stables. She watched him lead Hanal’ghilan to the gates. She watched him lead the unicorn out. And then she ran for Solas.

He was pouring over some book she was sure was very interesting, but it couldn’t be more interesting than him bending her over something and—well. She really didn’t know where to go from there, she’d just heard Dorian talk about being bent over things. Presumably, it worked the same way as everything else, but she just didn’t know.

“Hahren,” she said breathlessly, stumbling to a halt just in front of him.

He looked up at her with interest, but not interest.

“Forgive me, but I—”

“Cole took Hanal’ghilan out of Skyhold,” she said, and there was the interest she was looking for. She held out her hand. “Come with me?”

Creators, it suddenly occurred to her that he might say no. That he might gently rebuff her. He had hinted, on more than one occasion, that she was too young for him, that it was inappropriate for him as her hahren to act on any feelings for her. She would strangle him, she decided, if he told her no.

He shot to his feet, taking her hand. “You deserve better than what is sure to be a quick tumble,” he said as she all but dragged him out of the rotunda and hauled him across the great hall.

Behind them, Varric called out, “Unicorn chastity belt, Inquisitor!”

“I’m going to stick you on a spit and roast you, Varric,” she shouted back just before she pushed open her door.

She and Solas tumbled through the door and scrambled as quickly as possible around the tower to the actual door to her room. Then they were through it, and his hands were in her hair, dragging her mouth to his as he pressed her against the side of the stairwell and kissed her. Creators, it was a kiss. His nails scraped against her scalp as his tongue swept into her mouth. It was real and visceral and it flooded her with heat.

“Bed,” he said against her mouth, and he started to draw away.

“The wall is fine,” she protested, pulling him back.

His teeth found her lip, biting and tugging, and she whimpered softly before pressing another hot kiss to his mouth. “Not for your first time,” he said.

“Solas, you could fuck me in the dirt in the woods, and it would be fine,” she snapped, thrusting her hand into his breeches to find him achingly hard.

He swore, cleverly and creatively in Elvish, as she closed her fist around him and stroked. Creators, he was big. She’d stroked boys in her clan until they spilled in her hand, but they were boys and Solas was a man, and the idea of having this part of him inside of her was turning her brain to goo. Her smalls were a mess. She was a mess.

“Fuck me here, hahren,” she breathed, squeezing his cock. He gasped, his breath fanning across her lips. “Up against the wall, just like this.” She rubbed her thumb over his tip, rolling her hips against his thigh.

“Vhenan,” he said, strangled.

“The more you protest, the more time you waste,” she pointed out, taking his hand and guiding it between her legs.

He hissed, pressing the heel of his palm against her clit, rubbing her through the fabric of her trousers, and her mind went blank. She rocked against him, grinding herself on him in a rhythm that practically had her soaking through the fabric. Words escaped her. All she could do was gasp and moan, mewling for more as she worked herself over his hand, hers still stroking him.

Yanking his hand back, he deftly unlaced her trousers. Pushed them down her hips. They caught on her boots, but that didn’t deter them. He stepped between her legs, and she lifted them, trapped as they were, around his hips. His fingers pressed against her wet cunt, one sliding easily into her, and he groaned. “I should do more for you,” he said.

“Fuck me,” she demanded, sliding the fingers of her free hand behind his head. She urged him closer, feigning a kiss, then went straight for his ear. Her lips closed around the delicately pointed tip and he snapped.

He tore at the laces of his breeches, knocking her hand aside in his efforts to free himself. She kept sucking him, pulling broken groans from him with every drag of her tongue along the shell of his ear. And then his cock was free of his pants, and he was pressing it into her, and she had to release his ear so she could let her head fall back against the stone.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she hissed, clawing at his shoulders as he worked himself inside her.

He murmured something in Elvish she couldn’t understand – he was always doing that, speaking far more of their language than any elvhen had a right to – and then he was all the way inside her. “Vhenan.” He sounded strangled.

She brought his lips to hers. “Doesn’t hurt,” she told him. “Shouldn’t it hurt?”

“Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t,” he ground out, and she ground against him, rocking her hips over his. They both gasped at the same time.

“Lucky me,” she said on a soft exhale. “Now, won’t you shut up and fuck me?”

He did. Creators, he did. He wasn’t tender or gentle. He was demanding, taking what he wanted with brisk thrusts that had her moaning his name every time he pushed into her. One hand curved around her ass to support her, to give her more leverage, while the other worked between their bodies to stroke her clit.

That was a revelation. Having a man inside her as he played with her? She could hardly breathe for how good it felt. Some demented part of her thought it felt so good in part because it was petty revenge on an obnoxious unicorn, too.

Then she was lost to thought, drowning in the feel of him. He made her cry out, made her quiver and shake in his arms, until finally, finally, her body clenched around his cock. It was the strangest, most delightful sensation she’d ever experienced, the orgasm somehow more intense for having him inside her. She swore – something about the Dread Wolf’s balls – and Solas swore – something about Mythal’s tits – and then he was coming, too, with jerky, abbreviated thrusts and a look of ecstasy on his face.

They slumped against each other, gasping.

“Vhenan,” he began, but she cut him off with bright, wicked laughter, peppering his face with kisses.

“Finally,” she crowed, laughing, kissing him, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders and just hugging him. “Finally, finally, finally!” She pulled back, eyes widening with delight. “You know what this means?”

“I’m damned for all eternity for despoiling you?” he asked mildly.

She knew her expression was demented from the way his brows rose slowly. “That Blighted unicorn is going to hate me now!”

An hour or so later, Hanal’ghilan came screaming into the great hall, flowers braided into his mane. He slid to a halt before the Inquisitor’s throne, where she sat idly drinking coffee. He approached slowly, his nostrils flaring, and then recoiled from her. There was, interestingly enough, no condemnation in his eyes. Just quiet acceptance. He trotted away.

“I almost feel bad,” she said, taking a noisy sip of her coffee, as Solas drifted through the great hall toward her, a predatory look in his eyes.

At her side, Varric said, “Do you really?”

“Mmm. A little. A very little.” She sighed happily. “My sex life is still like my coffee, though.”

“Bitter and black?”

She gave him a wicked smile. “Hot and steamy.”

“More than I needed to know, Inquisitor,” he said, and he fled as Solas gained the dais.

“I believe I owe you hours of leisurely lovemaking, vhenan,” he said.

She tossed back the rest of her coffee and set the mug aside. “Let’s see if you can keep up, old man.” He did. But so did she, and it was wonderful.

#solas #solavellan #dragon age #dragon age: inquisition #fanfic #dai

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ofgoodmenarchive · 4 years

Text

Blighted Empire: 8.5

Bound by Light

Something was different.

Something was out of place.

Identifying the source of this unease was a sluggish, difficult task. Evallan attempted an intake of his surroundings, listing each detail in his mind.

Immediately he knew whatever his location, he was safe. Wrapped in blissful warmth and comfort, the world muffled by layers of blanket and a pair of strong arms. His sleeping companion was no mystery- Dorian had allowed him into his bed, no? Even if that memory eluded, the hint of fire and sweat was significant on its own.

Yet there was certainly something amiss.

We did not fall asleep like this.

He would not allow it...

Nor just that- beyond Dorian's smokey aroma the room smelled quite different from what it had. One grows accustomed to the damp within the tower, a dingy cloud lingering in every hall. It was a scent you only remember in its absence- and it was absent now- as absent as his clothes. Evallan appeared to be wearing nothing and Dorian was equally under-dressed, bare skin pressed to bare skin.

Startled, he lay stiffly and burned, trying to fathom his predicament. Eventually he realised the room was lit far brighter than Dorian's- where a window had been bricked. The ceiling here was spacious and a soothing breeze whistled through an out-of-sight opening, all fabrics and carpets dyed warm, luxurious shades.

It is me.

I am the thing out of place.

Though it wasn't terribly surprising. Cut off from the Fade, theoretically Evallan should no longer dream. Except in order to survive, he'd connected to something else- some place. With nowhere else in reach, his dreams brought him here.

Understandable. Evallan could even describe himself as grateful- almost.

Still- this timing was highly inappropriate.

Dorian's breathing was languid, tickling the side of his neck. Biting his tongue not to make a sound, Evallan scooted ever-so-carefully from the bed, determined to roll away and onto his feet without waking the man.

Luckily there was a robe hanging from the headboard. He slipped into the thin fabric, satisfied it at least covered more delicate areas. Not that it mattered- the true owner of this vessel was obviously comfortable to be seen by Dorian in such a way. It was just that Evallan found himself feeling rather intrusive.

Aimless, he padded around, blinking at paintings in the dim light, or frowning at books with titles he'd never heard of. After some time he settled at the writing desk and perused notes, finding most to be personal logs. Written by something akin to his own hand- his actualhand was clumsier in any language, than the careful Dalish script he poured over now.

The writing style was at least familiar; direct, to the point, sparing no time for frivolous detail but listing everything of importance in practical fashion. Yet he could make no sense of the information, lacking proper context for the endless descriptions, names, doodled maps...

Evallan debated searching out Amrallan's letters once more but never came to a decision.

“Mmn...Amatus...? Come back to bed...”

He froze, anxiety rendering him mute. Dorian's hand grasped at sheets, displeased by their emptiness. Since Evallan was unable to think of a response, the grumbling continued;

“Alright...either come back to bed or close the bloody balcony.”

At first he was lost- then recalled that gentle breeze. Indeed nearby was a balcony door, left ajar to reveal snowy mountains. Even in this life, his other self must find these quarters stuffy, needing a draft to counteract. Not having the same issue, Dorian required his partner to heat their shared bed.

Stepping towards the balcony, Evallan swung it closed and flipped the latch. He returned to the desk then and sat tensely, brooding at his knees.

After a short bout of silence, Dorian sighed with dramatic misery.

“...It'll be one of those nights, will it? I see how it is.”

Not really comprehending, Evallan observed from behind his hair. Dorian unfurled from the bed and instantly he looked away, cheeks flushed and lips thin.

“Bloody cold!” Thank the Gods for small mercies- Dorian also acquired a robe, saving Evallan from the shame of fighting with his own gaze.

To an extent, at least.

“So...what is it keeping us awake tonight, hrm? Orlais, the Chantry? Or maybe someone's just not doing their job?”

What to even say? Should he announce himself? Should he simply act as though nothing was wrong? While he thought and Dorian spoke the man also meandered for him, stretching and yawning, perfectly relaxed.

“Or, you're not...did you have a nightmare...?”

Thinking of his existence as a nightmare almost made Evallan laugh. He held himself.

Dorian's shadow fell over him, the other mage bending to his level with a sigh.

“Evallan...don't ignore me, now.”

Lips brushed against his and he seized, fingers clutching to arm-rests.

“...O-oh.” Dorian jerked back, laughing. “I-I'm so sorry. I didn't notice you at first.”

Aware his face was several shades of red, Evallan lifted it for Dorian to see.

“...At...first?” He hiccuped, forced composure. “How can you see any difference?”

The Tevinter snorted, leaning upon the table.

“Well, no offence to you at all, of course, but my Evallan doesn't tend to look around himself like a scared rabbit-” Choking, he hastened to add. “Not because of your ears- or anything! Your- your eyes. You stare around like a cornered mouse, or something. That's all I meant. Your ears are perfectly normal.”

Perplexed but not taking it as an insult, he nodded, considering-

“...That is not how you have described it to me before.”

“Oh?” He seemed amused by that, chortling. “And how did 'I' describe it before?”

“You said I scowl with only my eyes.”

This inspired peals of hilarity from the man- a calming sound. It gladdened Evallan to hear the same laughter he knew so intimately.

“Well- yes,” Dorian breathed out, wiping his eyes. “It is that- but behind the scowling- it's obvious you're quite terrified.”

Evallan's spine firmed, corner of his mouth tugging downwards.

“I am not afraid.” He stated in defence.

“Oh, forgive me,” Dorian rolled his eyes, teasing. “Distraught then, or stressed. Are those more appropriate descriptors for your terribly masculine ego?”

He bit the inside of his cheek to avoid sniling, muttering only-

“Yes.”

Which caused Dorian to roll his eyes again, though Evallan noted how affectionately he was regarded between these jabs.

This must be difficult for him...

A strange thought- not because of its content. Thus far it was the only internal dialogue he discerned as 'shared' between him and the quiet presence whose life he'd invaded. He was doubly compelled to express the sentiment, mumbling-

“I...am sorry. This must be very strange for you.”

“Ah, well...” Dorian shrugged, forcing nonchalance. “It's probably awful to say aloud...but I think I would be more upset if you had no idea who I am. Luckily, even when you're speaking intongues or drawing diagrams on the walls...you always seem to know me, so...”

“I still...cannot imagine that being so much of a comfort.”

“Well...” He paused with a sense of apprehension. “He is...still in there, isn't he? He just won't remember what we talked about. Or at least...that's how he explained it.”

“I hear his thoughts sometimes,” Evallan was quick to confirm, wanting to reassure. “I do not believe he 'goes' anywhere as such, no...”

“Good- that's. That's good.” Though he tried to seem unswayed the relief was obvious in his posture, relaxing with a huff.

“It really is you in an awkward situation here,” Dorian began again, snickering “I imagine waking up naked in another man's bed without alcohol to blame, was- wait, do you drink? I suppose you might.”

Evallan shook his head.

“No, I thought not. Well, my point stands then.”

Pondering it over, Evallan shook his head a second time.

“It is fine, really. We fell asleep in a similar arrangement, only, I, ah...both of us were clothed.”

“Oh.” Dorian snorted into his hand, stifling amusement- then abruptly straightened. “Wait a second! Does that mean you took my advice?”

He blinked, not comprehending.

“Your advice...?”

Sighing at Evallan as if he were the slowest man in any universe, Dorian conveyed;

“I told you to find me, remember!? To hold onto me?”

“O-oh-” Recalling, his face overheated. “I...Yes, I did follow that advice- but I...I forgot where I heard it, I think.”

“Typical!” He scoffed, full of exaggeration. “I don't get credit for anything.”

“You can have that credit now, if it means so much to you.” Evallan joked automatically.

“Careful, now,” Dorian chuckled, flashing a grin. “You don't know what sort of 'credit' I might ask for.”

He must have looked strange- for certain Evallan knew his mouth had fallen open slightly. Seeing this Dorian became apologetic, spluttering and waving his hands.

“Maker, my stupid mouth! It's easy to forget um...different stages of familiarity, and all that?”

“I-I understand.” He choked on a nervous laugh. “It is fine, really.”

“Well...” Dorian gestured around himself. “This is still your room, as far as I'm concerned, and it's a tad late for a tour of the castle. How about we go back to bed, and you can have a little rest before you're whisked off to whatever blighted world, hrm?”

“I would not mind that.” Evallan muttered, then tugged at his robe. “But...can we put on clothes?”

Dorian cackled at that, nodding.

“That would feel more appropriate, no?” He strode to a dresser, waving Evallan to follow. Once he'd done so, Dorian patted the top with a smirk.

“This is where you keep your clothes. It's actually the third time I've shown you.”

“The third?” Evallan perked a brow. “I do not remember the other times.”

“Yes, well...I say it was 'you' in a very...general sense.” His voice tilted between sadness and humour, though the sincerity of his smile never faltered. Encouraged but still skittish, Evallan dragged open one of the drawers and simply stared. In his reality he owned maybe three sets of robes, nearly identical. Looking at the plentiful folds of rich fabric, he couldn't imagine how this other self managed to dress himself in the morning.

“Need some help?” Dorian offered, leaning into his side.

“I only wanted some underclothes.” He ground out, massaging his forehead. “There is so much here...it is giving me a headache.”

Not an exaggeration- rooting around in these belongings provoked a throb in the centre of his skull, close to unbearable.

“I don't think it's that- you're looking somewhat green.”

A hand steadied him and Evallan braced against the attached arm with a grunt.

“I think...I am...” Incapable of completing a sentence, apparently. All at once his strength dissipated and he slouched into Dorian, who was steadfast in catching him.

“There he goes-” He heard the Tevinter mumble into his hair, holding close. “Don't worry, I'm here.”

His voice was the last thing Evallan heard, his careful touch the last thing he felt.

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#dragon age #dai #dragon age inquisition #inquisition #dragon age fanfic #dorian pavus #m!lavellan #lavellan #pavellan #apocalypse au #fanfiction #dragon age fanfiction #fanfic #writers on tumblr #dorian pavus x lavellan #i missed updating blighted i can go back to work now #my writing

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jackdawyt · 5 years

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Hello Thedosians, I am here today to explain 6 fan theories that must come true in the next Dragon Age instalment.

Saria and I have been researching and tinfoiling away on many popular fan theories that plenty of others have theorized as well. Please note, these are all theories, and we would love to hear your ideas in the comment section below. There is no right or wrong when it comes to speculation.

But without further ado, put those tinfoil hats on, and strap seatbelts to your ears because we're going to take them on the ride of their lives!

Theory: I believe the Blight emerged from a Blighted Titan

The origin of the blight is quite the mystery throughout Thedas with many sources having their own validation on how the blights began:

Chantry-folk talk about a Maker casting a blight onto his failed creations as a plague for punishment of man's excessive pride.

The blight was to be the tool by with the Maker would end all of creation. They preached that it came from the Void, a place of nothing. (Codex entry: Lyrium).

In Threnodies, The Chant of Light exclusively condemns the kinsman of the Tevinter Imperium for the blight's existence.

Threnodies 8.13: "The Chant says that the Maker created the blight as he cast down the seven magisters who blackened the Golden City. Twisted and corrupted, the seven found the Old God Dumat snoozing, their taint spread onto Dumat, cursing the dragon and unleashing the first blight onto Thedas."

However, Tevinter's Imperial Chantry claims that The Chant of Light is a fabrication, a lie to spite the Imperium. Henceforth, the Imperial Chantry believes that the darkspawn have always existed, even before the blights. The main culprits for the blackening of the Golden City and mankind's corruption are the lies of the Old Gods, not mortal pride.

Contradicting the chantry's tale of the blight. As history recalls, it was the Dwarven Kingdoms that were the first to fall to the darkspawn. While the Dwarves don't care for the blight's origin, or what causes it, a pair of Dwarven scouts do believe that the Darkspawn were created by a queen broodmother - the first in existence - responsible for breeding all darkspawn.

Perhaps at the very heart of our world sits a queen—the first mother. Instead of focusing on her children, we should target broodmothers and ensure that future reinforcements will never be born. Codex entry: The Eternal Battle: Darkspawn.

Even The Grey Wardens believe that the Blight is a spiritual corruption that pervades all that it touches, and that all Archdemons must be destroyed in order to stop any future Blights.

Now, According to Solas this is untrue - he indicates that killing all the Archdemons would not stop the blights, the hordes of Darkspawn would still continue to ravage Thedas. He knows that there is something much worse that's behind the blight.

So, the majority of humans in Thedas believe in either the Maker creating the blight, or the blight already existing in the Black City. While the Dwarves don't care as long as the blight can be stopped, and the Grey Wardens are adamant that the Archdemons' death will end the blights.

In short - it seems no-one in Thedas knows what caused the Blight, and those few who do dare say a word. *Stares at Solas*

However, there is something that we do know regarding the origin of the blight! The substance known as "red lyrium" is intrinsically tied to the blight, because red lyrium actually has Blight within it, spreading the taint:

"Red lyrium... it has the Blight."

—Bianca Davri

Regular lyrium is the blood of the world-shaping Titans, the substance empowers magic because it is a conductor that "bridges the gap between the dreamer’s world and the waking world." - (World of Thedas, Vol. 1).

It's used by mages to strengthen magical spells and abilities, while Templar's use it to maintain their immunity to magic, and repel spells.

However, Red Lyrium is blighted Titan blood - corrupted and distorted - carrying this plague throughout the land. Unlike regular lyrium which requires you to digest it in order for it to impact you, just being around red lyrium will significantly affect you.

The substance is most unique, it can thin the veil, allowing spirits and demons to interact with the "real" world. Prolonged exposure will change not only your mental outlook but your physical appearance too. When a templar ingests red lyrium, it improves their powers, grants them new ones and pushes their strength beyond measures.

Once consumed you can become easily become addicted. The more a Templar ingests, the more likely it is for the red lyrium to manifest - descending the subject into pure madness and crystallizing their body until it's pure red lyrium, not being recognized as having once been a human.

What's most concerning is how Red Lyrium came to be, the mystery still alludes us today. However, we can assume that it comes from a Titan, more apropos - a blighted Titan.

Based on Codex entries, we know that in the time before the veil, the Kingdom of the Elven hunted and declared war against the Titans.

"In this place we prepare to hunt the pillars of the earth. Their workers scurry, witless, soulless. This death will be a mercy. We will make the earth blossom with their passing."

Mythal, the God of Justice, personally slew a Titan, destroying the dwarf kingdom.

"Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!" - Trespasser DLC.

With the defeat of a Titan, the Ancient Elves discovered lyrium from its body. The elves continued to fight with the Titans, mining their bodies for lyrium and "something else". Potentially, their hearts that control the will of the Fade.

"The runes say the Evanuris fought the Titans. They mined their bodies for lyrium and... something else. It's not clear." - Trespasser DLC.

Lyrium has plenty of benefits to a mage, however, if Titan's created the Fade, perhaps their heart's can change the will of the Fade and that's why the elven people needed to slay one, so they can acquire a heart and change their reality.

Believing that the Titans were slain, the elves resumed their lyrium mining operations, until something changed. The normal lyrium became red lyrium, affecting the workers at an alarming rate, nothing could stop this.

"For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire. The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy. A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic. Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast. A voice whispers:"

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all." - Codex entry: Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads.

The blight spread through red lyrium onto the Elven workers, killing and turning them into tainted ghouls. With their meddling, the Evanuris already knew what the Blight could do even to them and their people...

"One day Andruil grew tired of hunting mortal men and beasts. She began stalking The Forgotten Ones, wicked things that thrive in the abyss. Yet even a god should not linger there, and each time she entered the Void, Andruil suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning." Codex entry: Elven God Andruil.

They figured out that the Titan was not really dead and since the Blight infects only living beings, they had no choice but to seal the mining place.

The Evanuris returned, using red lyrium as a weapon, becoming mad. Mythal protests and is betrayed and "slain", Solas forges a trap for the remaining Evanuris, creating the veil and sealing the tainted "gods" away. Not only did the veil's creation lock away the blighted Evanuris, but the veil was needed to prevent the Titans from waking up.

"He broke the dreams to keep the old dreams from waking."

- Cole

In some regards, Solas saved the elven kingdom by severing the connection the Titans had with their "children".

Finally, we make it to the theory: I believe that the blight originated within a Titan.

Before the veil, the Titans exacted their revenge, blighted and breaking the seals of its prison with its newly acquired slaves - the elven people. it mentally called the dwarves and made them break the seals from outside thus freeing it and in turn, it infected them with the taint and made them its slaves - a corrupted form of a hive-mind.

It planned to strike vengeance upon the Evanuris. After some time, through its newly acquired slaves, it found the prisons of the sleeping Old Gods and decided to infect them too. planning to unleash the Taint upon Thedas.

The Old Gods, slaves of the blighted Titan and the generals of its army: they command the entire Darkspawn horde and in turn, they are commanded by the Titan to do its bidding.

Whether the blight came from the Titans like a defensive mechanism, or a plague to defend itself from hostile forces, or if the ancient elves/forbidden ones concocted the blight by using blood magic on a slain Titan. It's still unknown.

The blight could be a natural infection. Red lyrium might just be Titan cancer, a piece of their biology mutating mid-life and turning into something destructive and dangerous. That's why the blight has so many Titan properties. It has a Hive-Mind because Titans have Hive-Minds. It Sings, because Titans Sing.

With the veil in place, the Titans returned to a remorseful slumber. Angry because they can't reconnect with their children, awaiting the chance to embrace them once more. This yearning anger has manifested throughout the years with the growth of red lyrium, and the blight's progress.

The Titans have a strong connection to The Fade, or at least an association with it. When the Magisters used blood magic to physically cross the Veil and enter the Black City, the reestablished connection between the physical world and the dreaming Fade unleashed the blight again.

With the veil's destruction, surely a blight the likes of which have never been seen would be released onto Thedas. The Titan's pain will be heard by all.

We are here

We have waited

We have slept

We are sundered

We are crippled

We are polluted

We endure

We wait

We have found the dreams again

We will awaken - Whispers Written in Red Lyrium.

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Theory: I believe Solas is a Spirit of Wisdom/Pride in the time of Arlathan

Let's start at the beginning. His name:

Solas - In elven, means: 'Pride’

Pride is mentioned a lot in ancient elven texts, and it's used in the common dialogue of ancient elven tongue. But the only time Pride is mentioned throughout the knowledge of spirits and demons, Pride is represented as a demon.

Pride Demons are known as probably the most powerful demons out there.

"because they, among all their kind, most resemble men; as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human" -Beyond the Veil: Spirits & Demons.

In it's corrupted form, it's a malicious beast, known for it's 7 eyes. Much like the Dread Wolf’s depiction in it’s given mural…

Now there's a lot of spirits we have met in the Fade throughout Thedas, in this case, Wisdom Spirits are known for giving knowledge. Knowledge of either lore or history from the past ages.

The thing about a spirit’s nature is that it's evident who they are, and what their name describes them as, so it's easy to interpret their purpose. Cole as Compassion fixes up relationships, mourning those of the dead, and help resolve hard situations in which is hard without the need of Compassion.

The hard thing to notice is that if a Pride Demon resembles so much of humanity, and Wisdom is the opposite spectrum of Pride. Wisdom would also resemble this trait, of being human. Making Solas that much easier to tie into our reality.

"Wisdom and Purpose are too easily twisted into Pride and Desire" -Solas

The Chant of Light, says, the Spirits are the first children of the Maker. He turned his back on them because they lacked a soul – they could twist the Fade to their liking, but lacked the ability to imagine and create, and thus emulate their creator.

The only entity we can come across in ancient elvehn would be Elgar'nan,

‘Elgar’ translated in elvhen means "spirit"

‘nan’ translated means "revenge, or vengeance"

So it directly translates as ‘Spirit of Revenge/Vengeance’, whom Elgar’nan’s purpose as a God is as well...

Thus, the Evanuris could all be implemented as spirits first and came into existence to a body…

The Fade began as an "ocean of dreams" and was reduced to a well when the Maker used its "emerald waters", lyrium. He "took from the Fade a measure of its living flesh" and created men.

"They made bodies from the earth. And the earth was afraid. It fought back. But they made it forget ." — Cole

Solas begins to tell the Inquisitor that the Evanuris were remembered as Gods due to war against someone else. Either the Forgotten Ones or the Titans, it doesn't seem to matter when the result seems to resonate in Solas much more than we would expect...

I believe that when Mythal came to seek Solas for more wisdom when he was a spirit. She actually needed him for this war. What I mean is that he would now become seated as a left-hand man to Mythal - a general to help the People into the justice needed for their power.

Solas; probably being convinced, for the time being, comes into a body:

He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. — Cole

He becomes a guardian to her side, a servant of Mythal. Mythal describes those into her service more of a gift than a boon. So those who felt convinced for seeking knowledge or power must have been willing to be at her side just like Solas was.

“You didn’t do it to be right, you did it to save them.”

Solas, what is Cole talking about?

A mistake… One of many made by a much younger elf who thought he knew everything…”

Solas, as a Wisdom spirit had no desire to enter this world with a body, (such as limiting things), but for whatever reason 'she' asked him to come, she being Mythal.

‘He wants to give wisdom not orders. He isn’t that kind of wolf’ — Cole

Solas loathes his purpose. He’s Pride, but he hates it, he wants to change, wants to be Wisdom, but that’s not his purpose at this moment….

He envies Cole’s purpose as a spirit of Compassion:

‘You don’t have to envy me Solas.’ — Cole

He is sad to see his friends depart this world, knowing things are being forgotten, broken, and lost. He will endure, and he will be their Pride.

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Theory: The Griffons Are Alive, And The Wardens Know It

The Weisshaupt conspiracy:

Fortress Weisshaupt has stood through the ages as the Grey Warden’s headquarters, it is located in the southern Anderfels. During the height of the Wardens' power, the fortress was a thriving place, accommodated thousands of Wardens and a large stable of griffons.

Griffons are heroic winged beasts that joined the fights with their Grey Warden counterparts in the previous blights, as warden and beast shared an unbreakable bond throughout Weisshaupt's history.

Each of the defeated Old God’s remains are memorialized in Weisshaupt’s treasury, declaring the grand victory that the previous wardens had claimed in the name of the group.

The castle is a reflection of everything the Wardens have stood for, throughout the ages. However, in the current Dragon Age, Weisshaupt has become a barren place with a garrison of only a few hundred, the griffons are long extinct, and the reigning First Warden is rarely present.

The Grey Wardens have become irrelevant in the current age with the last blight that occurred over 10 years ago. In actuality, the Wardens have become a hindering, reckless group. During the crisis of Corypheus’s ascension to Godhood, the Orlais Grey Wardens submitted themselves to Tevinter, so they could defeat the two remaining Old God and “end the blights” once and for all.

Once Thedas’s only protectors, and now blinded by their own cause. The Wardens couldn’t even see the real enemy in front of them. And since those events, the group has become even more corrupt with rumours reporting on broken ties between the leaders at Weisshaupt, and how a civil war awaits each of them.

“Rumors abound that they severed ties with their leaders at Weisshaupt, and that a bitter war now rages between them.”

“What becomes of Hawke/Loghain/Stroud/Alistair is unknown – save that all news out of Weisshaupt soon ends.”

“Does the sudden silence indicate a battle within... or something far worse?”

Morrigan, Epilogue

Weisshaupt fortress remains silent, having gone dark from the rest of the group, but why? What caused the Wardens to stop communicating with each other? Was it merely to stop the corruption of the group from spreading, or is something even more aloof?

Have the Wardens finally met their own demise? Has each brother fought their sister? What has truly become of the Weisshaupt Wardens?

Well, perhaps it’s not as suspect as everyone in Thedas is making it out to be. The Wardens have always been a highly suspect group with many secrets, most of the general public don’t understand the Joining, there are plenty of things that the Wardens keep hidden from the average Thedosian.

So, what exactly could the Wardens of Weisshaupt be harbouring, that would force them to isolate themselves from the rest of the group?

Well, in 9:41 Dragon, several Warden-Recruits are assigned to Weisshaupt and begin a research project into records from the Fourth Blight. While there, one of the recruits discovers the diary of Isseya, a Grey Warden from the Exalted Age which reveals that there is a clutch of live Griffons hidden in the Anderfels. The new Wardens successfully rescue the griffons and resolve to return them to Weisshaupt where they will have the facilities to help the griffons re-establish themselves.

Valya; one of the recruits who found the griffon clutch, shows hesitancy at informing the wardens of her discovery. Valya says of the First Warden, Chamberlain of the Grey and High Constable:

"I don't trust them to place the griffons' well-being over power or politics." (pg 280).

Could the Wardens of Weisshaupt be fighting over what is to come for these griffons? Who controls them? How they will be raised? What will their purpose be?

The sheer existence and resurgence of Griffons in the Dragon Age could have caused the need for a sudden silence across the group, if the people of Thedas knew this secret, it could be dramatic.

And with the corrupted Wardens in the South, it may not be in Weisshaupt’s best interest to share this information with the rest of the Wardens for fear of this secret being revealed.

Perhaps this has caused a rebellion inside the Fortress, splitting the group’s leaders over the future of these griffons, and if the people of Thedas deserve to know. With factions within the Grey Wardens both agreeing and disagreeing with sharing this news to the rest of the Wardens.

A civil war brews in the Wardens HQ, will what’s left of the Griffons preserve in this Age? Or will the ignorance of the Wardens once more be an obstacle for the existence of these beasts?

Can the Warden’s rise up to their former glory? Or will they soon meet their demise? As it stands, Weisshaupt remains in the dark, the Wardens are waring amongst themselves, while the fabled Griffons return to the Dragon Age.

__________________________________________________________

Theory: I believe the Evanuris will return once the Veil is torn.

Solas' plan involves tearing down the Veil and restoring the 'time of the elves'. It is stated that when the Veil is torn, the Evanuris will return. But why does that not bode well?

'They were fickle, they amassed wars against one another' — Solas

The Evanuris are known to be power-hungry tyrants that used the bidding of their slaves for power. The more power they received, the more the threat they posed against the world.

'Had I not created the Veil, the Evanuris would have destroyed the entire world' — Solas

It is stated that Falon'Din began wars to amass more slaves, and filled lakes as wide as oceans for those who wouldn't bow low to his shadow.

Andruil, made armors of the Void, hunting the Forgotten Ones in the thrill of the hunt. And brought back plagues and speaking about madness, things forgotten.

‘One day Andruil grew tired of hunting mortal men and beasts. She began stalking The Forgotten Ones, wicked things that thrive in the abyss. Yet even a god should not linger there, and each time she entered the Void, Andruil suffered longer and longer periods of madness after returning.

Andruil put on armor made of the Void, and all forgot her true face. She made weapons of darkness, and plague ate her lands. She howled things meant to be forgotten, and the other gods became fearful Andruil would hunt them in turn.’ — Translated from ancient elven found in the Arbor Wilds, source unverified.

Ghilan'nain made monstrous beasts that threatened both the skies of the heavens and the depths of the earth. Even rumored to have used the body of slaves and animals as armor.

Elgar'nan cast down the sun unto the earth, seeping the life's blood onto the land. Eidolons were made by thousands of slaves built upon mountains, screaming his worship upon the lands.

'You said that the Elvhen Gods went too far. What did they do they made you move against them?' — Inquisitor

'They killed Mythal' — Solas

The Evanuris plotted out the kill the All-Mother of the Pantheon. They were crazed by reaching for ultimate power, by killing even their own kin to do so.

“She cared for her people, she protected them, she was a voice of reason, and in their lust for power, they killed her” — Solas

The Evanuris warred against one another commonly, this civil war began first with them being generals against the Forbidden and Forgotten Ones.

'Long ago, there were two clans of gods, the Creators, who looked after the people, the Forgotten Ones preyed upon us' - Merrill

'After the war ended, they became respected elders, then kings, and finally Gods, the Evanuris.' — Solas

They banished those of that kin and were rose up into godhood for their power. Sent them to belong in the Abyss, and thrive on things forgotten to somehow bring their People into glory. However, that did not last, slaves represented power in the Pantheon.

Such power was not given freely, all were threatened by each of their knowledge and striked against one another to become divine. When Mythal became a voice of reason to protect her own People, they killed her and began planning to gain power against all who opposed them, making them almost unstoppable.

Solas then began a plan to stop this once and for all:

'Fen'Harel was clever. He went to each side and told them the other had forged a terrible weapon, a blade that would end the war.' — Merrill

Solas trapped both the Gods, by putting them in their respectful places, banishing them to an eternity of torment.

'He sealed them both in their realms forever.' — Merrill

'And when they went too far, I formed the Veil and banished them forever' — Solas

'You banished the false Gods, you didn't kill them?' — Inquisitor

Solas then created the Veil to trap the false gods into their respective prisons.

'Hiding, hurting, and to wake them.' — Cole

The Evanuris were now trapped from destroying the world, Solas begins to state that he finally freed the elvhen people, but their results ended in destroying their world as well...

But there are still some remnants of being alive to return once again:

“You meet Mythal did you not? The first of my People do not die so easily” — Solas

Since the Evanuris will return, I believe their remnants must already grasp some remains of beings of Thedas. Just as similar as to when the Breach stirred the Titan, the Evanuris could be having the same effect as well.

"There are no gods. There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon. Those with will to earn dominance over others gain title not by nature but by deed."

"Let Andruil's bow crack, let June's fire grow cold. Let them build temples and lure the faithful with promises. Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery." — Codex entry: Geldauran's Claim

__________________________________________________________

Theory: I believe the Dread Wolf will Rise.

'When He rises, everyone will see' — Sandal

It is already claimed in the teaser trailer that the Dread Wolf will rise. Solas, the next antagonist will rise up against his opposers in the next instalment.

However, the Dread Wolf rising doesn't have to be him doing so physically, but rather, rising up to take responsibility in ending our Veil-like world to restore his elvhen People.

'I will save the elvhen people, even if this world may die' — Solas

Particularly, what will Solas 'rise up' to do when ending our world? The mural we saw looks as if the Dread Wolf is rising much higher above the elvhen bald-figure, and poses as a threat with its red eyes. Could Solas be looking for a source of power to rise against the Veil?

'The shadows will part, and the skies will open wide.' — Sandal

'I would've entered the Fade using the mark you now bear, then I would have torn down the Veil. As this world burned in the raw-chaos, I would've restored the world of my time, the world of the elves. ' — Solas

At the beginning of the Inquisition, Solas kept at a nearby village to retrieve the Orb that carried power over a period of time for millennia. Solas' plan was to retrieve the Orb after Corypheus had died unlocking it, and then have the mark which the Inquisitor bears.

His plan the whole time for this world, was to destroy it and revive the world of his time with the elvhen and also the evil Evanuris. He gave the orb to Corypheus so it could gain enough power to tear down the Veil, which is what he wanted all along. He would have risen up to power and created a plan to destroy the Evanuris before they got their chances of gaining ultimate power.

I believe not only his first personal plan involves him rising up to power against the Pantheon. But that he also 'rose' from a slumber he took. Solas now has awoken to a Tranquil-like world, and will begin his journey to go against the forces of this world. Seeking help where he can reach with spirits and the elvhen, and then opening the Veil in the sky and render the Fade into the Waking world as one.

'I was too weak to unlock it after my slumber' — Solas

He seemed quite sad when the orb broke after all the orb was key to opening eluvians and the Fade.

After defeating Corypheus, Solas’s last chance after the Orb broke was to reach out to Mythal and gain enough power to tear down the Veil. He takes the remnants she bestows to him, and he begins his journey to rise up against the Veil. He starts by taking over control of the eluvians, unleashing spirits to fight against the Qunari threat.

Solas isn't messing around this time, he finally has some amount of power to break the Veil and restore a world before it becomes bad. But how will he rise?

Thedas knows very little of the Dread Wolf, known as a treacherous, merciless, figure that is heavily feared in Dalish tales, the Evanuris fear it too.

'The pages of this book-memory?- warn of a terrible danger, a wolf with slavering black jaws and pits for eyes. The Evanuris-the elven gods-stand in a ring around it, as if preventing it from attacking.

"Beware the forms of Fen'Harel The Dread Wolf comes in humble guises, a wanderer who knows much of the People and their spirits. He will offer advice that seems fair, but turns slowly to poison. Remember the price of treason, and keep in your heart the mercy of your gods."'

— Note: The Treachery of the Wolf

This depiction of Solas having pits for eyes, and slavering black jaws, they warn those of the terrible danger coming. Wherever the Evanrus are hiding, they are surrounding this Dread Wolf to prevent any attacks. What could be speculated is the factor that Solas and the Dread Wolf could be different aspects of each other, like Corypheus puts an aspect in his Red Lyrium Dragon. This, could be closer to a red lyrium wolf.

What if, as described in the codex, Solas is going to finally reach the place were the Evanuris are hiding, use this aspect of himself, the Dread Wolf, to rip open the Veil?

However, the Veil is to be known recently to be weaker than it has ever been since the Breach:

The Tevinters once theorised that the Veil is thin in places that have seen great bloodshed. — Codex entry: Tears in the Veil

Demons seize every opportunity, every tear in the Veil, to enter our world. The Breach is living proof of the chaos it can unleash. In Hushed Whispers was living proof of how the world can become...

But it is theorized that the Veil tends to be weaker in places that feature, or have experienced, extensive death or use of magic.

‘Small tears occur naturally when magic weakens the Veil or when Spirits cluster at an area that has seen many deaths’ — Solas

The tear occurs because spirits are attracted to death and they press against the Veil. The Veil is particularly thin at night when most people sleep and spirits are most active. The use of blood magic can allow the Veil to be torn so that demons may physically pass through it into the waking world.

Once the Veil is torn in places, it is extremely difficult to mend, and some might even say impossible. "Mending" these Tears, i.e. strengthening the Veil, is extremely difficult. Depending on the level of damage done to the Veil, it can be closed through several methods ei. The Anchor.

One place that is particularly known to have the Veil thinner, is Kirkwall. A lot of chaos was constantly influenced upon that city, and that is ultimately where we first located Red Lyrium as well…

It is well known that the Veil is thin in Kirkwall, small wonder given the suffering in the city. But we've discovered the magisters were deliberately thinning it even further. Beneath the city, demons can contact even normal men. Did they seek the Black City to compound the madness of their previous efforts? Or was it something else? We've found a chamber where the Veil is at its thinnest, long-since looted, but the power is still there. — Band of Three, The Enigma of Kirkwall

What is known is that places around Thedas where deaths/chaos have occurred more than frequently are now further weakening the Veil. For Solas, that only means an easy key to breaking the barrier that separates the Fade from the Waking World.

“You’d murder countless people?” — The Inquisitor

‘Wouldn’t you to save your own?’ — Solas

The sky may have never healed ever since the Inquisitor sealed the breach, which may prove worthy for Solas’s plan to destroy the veil. His execution to tearing down the Veil might work once and for all.

And the sky is healed. Healthy, whole, there’s just that left to remember.. - Cole.

A new dawn is appearing, the dawn is coming upon Thedas.

‘One day the magic will come back - all of it. Everyone will be just like they were.’ — Sandal

Solas will rise as the Dread wolf to take the Veil down, and whether his plans are fully executed, could be the end of our time…

‘We aren’t even people to you?’ — Inquisitor

‘Not at first, you showed me I was wrong, you were people and you deserved better. Like all the rest I used after one hopeless battle after another.’ — Solas

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Theory: I believe that Mythal is the true Antagonist of Dragon Age.

'For a reckoning that will shake the very heavens. She was betrayed, as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!' — Flemeth/Mythal

All Mother, all Protector, a voice of reason, who calmed Elgar'nan's rage, has been betrayed by her own kin. She is the Goddess of Justice and is due for her bidding.

In Ancient times of Arlathan, Mythal, born out of a sea of the Earth's tears.

"In most stories, Mythal rights wrongs while exercising motherly kindness." — Morrigan

She was the aducator of her Elvhen People. Making sure threats were kept at bay, and opposers stuck down for justice.

“Let fly your voice to Mythal. Deliverer of justice. Protector of sun and earth alike.

Pray to Mythal and she would smite your enemies, leaving them in agony" — Morrigan

Mythal was a speaker for all people and even the Evanuris, yet her actions were recorded to be sinister like the rest of the Evanuris:

'Other paint her as dark, vengeful.' — Morrigan

Being more than the other Evanuris gave Mythal an edge, a way to take any of them on and win. hence her dark side being interpreted in tales. She demonstrates this ability in confrontation with Andruil.

So Mythal spread rumors of a monstrous creature and took the form of a great serpent, waiting for Andruil at the base of a mountain.

When Andruil came, Mythal sprang on the hunter. They fought for three days and nights, Andruil slashing deep gouges in the serpent's hide. But Mythal's magic sapped Andruil's strength and stole her knowledge of how to find the Void. After this, the great hunter could never make her way back to the abyss, and peace returned.

— Translated from ancient elven found in the Arbor Wilds, source unverified.

This also makes her nigh impossible to defeat, but she has one glaring weakness: her desire to protect the People. In the time of Arlathan, Titans were threatening the Elvhen, and Mythal sought out the Titan to stop the chaos of their lands.

"Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!"

— Codex entry: Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads

So, when the People kill their first Titan, and in the process unleash the Blight:

'The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle as if filled with angry energy.

A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells, is cast.'

— Codex entry: Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads

Mythal, having a closer association with the Land (the Stone, the Titans) knows exactly what has happened and sacrifices herself to keep the Taint at bay. She splits herself into aspects and buries them as a magical seal against the Taint, replacing the lost Titan. One aspect she keeps on the surface world, to remain among the People. This sacrifice made her vulnerable and the other Evanuris did not hesitate to strike.

'they killed Mythal, a crime for which an eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment.' — Solas

Then Solas moves against the Evanuris, creating the Veil and banishing them into their respective prisons until the bidding of Mythal comes. In which, she has put herself into aspects that effect chaos throughout the lands, buying time for power, until she becomes one again. It awakens and takes form when an uncorrupted piece of Mythal is found by a Tainted priest, their form becoming malicious and broken, until an effective ritual to retrieve the soul uncorrupted...

Flemeth, as we know now to be Mythal, has been manipulating the Ages ever since, she enforces the effective immortality unto her bodies of her daughter to live an abnormal life to endure the ages, all the while.

'Seeking the Justice denied to her' — Flemeth

Mythal has been quite busy after her death when Solas created the Veil, it seems that

'Mythal still endures' — Solas

Solas is now enforcing her plan, it seems to pain him that his mistakes cause further action to take place with Flemeth.

'I am so sorry' — Solas, Epilogue

Solas respects Mythal. He once sealed away the Thedosian versions of heaven and hell and shook the world to its foundations in order to avenge her murder. Now, his own mistake—getting the Orb to Corypheus—means that he himself will now have to take her life and do her bidding.

She plans to seek revenge for the Evanuris, she does not care for the Veil-like world, she believes it was a last-minute effort against an enemy, she seeks to bring all into the new Age, where she rules, the Dragon Age.

'A soul is not forced upon the unwilling, Morrigan, you were never in danger from me.' — Flemeth

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askdragonagecompanions · 5 years

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👀👀 dai romances finding out that the Inquisitor is a vampire...?

Dorian: Dorian first finds out after quite the harrowing battle. No one in the party had walked away unscathed. What truly worried Dorian was that the Inquisitor wouldn’t let any of the healers check his wounds. He just walked away from the battle and kept his nose and mouth covered. He had noticed plenty of odd behavior from the Inquisitor since he joined, even more since he and the Inquisitor started to spend more time together. Honestly? Dorian was just worried about the man. He’d seen the injury when the Inquisitor got it, stabbed right through by one of the Red Templars. Dorian doesn’t know why the Inquisitor won’t let any of the healers help him, but maybe his Amatus will at least let him take a look. When he gets to the Inquisitor’s room he hears things being tossed around and he immediately rushes in thinking that the Inquisitor is being attacked or robbed, or something. What he finds is the Inquisitor rummaging through his room, tossing things aside, clearly looking for something. He’s shirtless, and that’s when Dorian sees it. His side is completely fine, not even a scratch left. Healing magic would have made a scar, but the Inquisitor’s side looks like he wasn’t even touched in battle. Dorian and the Inquisitor look up at each other at the same time. Dorian sees the Inquisitor’s now black eyes and the long fangs in his mouth. For a moment his heart races. He’s heard tale of vampires, but he thought they were all fictional. Sure there were some in Tevinter who insisted Vampires were still out there... Maker it was breathtaking. In hindsight maybe Dorian should have been more scared, but all he could see was the dawning horror on his Amatus’s face having realized that Dorian knew what he truly was. Dorian steps towards him slowly. The Inquisitor makes his vampiric features recede and he looks away. Dorian hugs him from behind and sighs softly, “I’m... guessing you misplaced a vial of blood?” His voice is free of judgement. When the Inquisitor nods Dorian kisses his neck. “And I’m also going to assume you haven’t fed in a while, which was why you avoided the healers and us all day?” Another nod. “Well. I suppose, since we don’t want you losing control I can let you take some of mine.” He murmurs. “And don’t worry Amatus, the only thing this changes is that you’ll have to promise to be extra careful when leaving hickeys alright?” And there’s the smile Dorian’s been waiting for. Honestly with ancient Magisters turned Darkspawn and giant tears in the Fade? His Amatus being a vampire isn’t all that strange or terrifying. The Inquisitor has never hurt him, and so Dorian doesn’t fear that he will. He only worries that the Inquisitor isn’t taking proper care of himself. After battles Dorian distracts the other party members so that his amatus can collect blood from the fallen. He also starts asking questions, because he thought vampires would turn to dust in the sunlight. He’s fascinated by what the Inquisitor tells him.

Solas: Solas has known a few vampires in his time. Some are just as bloodthirsty as the tales say they are (but those vampires tend to have been just as bloodthirsty before they were turned), and most were just trying to adjust to their new life style. When Solas woke up he had been under the impression that vampires had all died out over the centuries. It was sad, but with how fearful humans were it wasn’t a surprise that they would have hunted the creatures down. So, when Solas starts to see evidence of a vampire in the midst of the Inquisition he’s quite surprised. It’s just small things, the apothecary starts running low on plants and herbs that Solas knows can be made into an effective salve to keep the sun from turning a vampire into ash. Some people begin to complain about little cuts that appeared out of nowhere. He would have investigated more but things began to grow increasingly stressful. It was on the journey to Skyhold that Solas began to suspect the Inquisitor might be the Vampire he had been noticing about. The longer they traveled the more anxious she seemed to become. She would start dawning more layers, though this could be explained by the cold air of the mountain, but she also looked a little gaunt. He could only assume that the blood she had stored was dwindling and that she was trying to ration it, if she was a vampire of course. It wouldn’t do anyone good if the Inquisitor went into a blood frenzy, so Solas prepared a vial of his own blood. He knew it would be potent enough to keep any vampire satiated for the rest of the journey, and he left it somewhere inconspicuous. A vampire would find it sure enough. Solas watched from a distance and when he saw that the Inquisitor was the one to pick it up it only confirmed his suspicions. His opinion of her didn’t change, in fact he was impressed that she was keeping it hidden so well. What Solas didn’t expect was to fall for the Inquisitor. She had such a brilliant mind, and she was so open to ideas about the Fade and spirits. Solas had been so blindsided that he fell in love before he could steel off his heart. One night they are together the Inquisitor seems more nervous than usual. When she finally speaks up she tells him that she’s a vampire and she starts to ramble but Solas just laughs gently and kisses her. “Ma Vhenan, I already knew.” His voice is soft as he cups her cheek. She looks shocked before replying, “You did? Why didn’t you say anything?” “It simply wasn’t my place, and clearly you were only taking what you needed. What you are doesn’t define you.”

Sera: Okay the only stories Sera knows about vampires is that they’re blood sucking demons who kill their victims by biting into their necks and drinking all the blood. Great for scary stories not for real life. She finds out because the Inquisitor tells her. They had just started getting serious and Sera was really excited, she really liked the Inquisitor. She really felt like she could trust her with everything and that Inky would always have her back. So when the Inquisitor told Sera that she was a vampire, Sera thought she was joking at first. That’s when the Inquisitor showed her the fangs and how her eyes went all creepy and black. Sera... did not handle it well at first. She kind of freaked out because 1. vampires were friggin real and that was really fucking scary and 2. Her inky was one of them? Inky left that night, she looked really sad and Sera felt really guilty. She hadn’t meant to make Inky feel bad, she was just... scared. It took Sera a few weeks to really accept it. Inky only hurt bad people, and she never bit anyone in Skyhold... there weren’t any bloodless bodies being discovered. And Sera was only feeling worse. Inky was giving her space, and the more Sera waited the more she wanted to hang out with Inky again. She really did love the Inquisitor, and as long as she wasn’t going to get all bitey and monstery Sera was pretty sure she could handle it. They talked about it together for a while and finally Sera hugged Inky close because, “I’m sorry... I acted like an ass... I just... i only heard about scary vampires, but... you’re not scary. Not really. You can be, but you’re also bloody amazing and you’re sweet, and you know how to make me feel... really nice and stuff. I’m sorry.” Sera is OK with the fact that Inky’s a vampire, as long as she isn’t hurting enemies and doesn’t drink blood around Sera it should be fine. Sera’s still a little nervous, but she trusts Inky.

Blackwall: Blackwall’s honestly just stumped. He finds out that the Inquisitor is a werewolf after she gets seriously hurt during a fight. He sends the others to go get a healer or something while he stays with the Inquisitor and tries to keep pressure on her wound. What stumps him is that the wound starts closing underneath his hands all on his own. He’s not a mage, and even so a spell wouldn’t work that fast or that clean. The Inquisitor tells him to grab the red vial from her pack and he does. The liquid inside looks suspiciously like blood and she quickly drinks it down. In a matter of seconds she begins to look better and within a few minutes she’s back to normal. Blackwall raised a brow and the Inquisitor sighed and quickly began to explain how she was a vampire, how she only took blood from the enemies they killed in battle, and how she hoped this wouldnt’ change anything about how Blackwall felt about her. Blackwall just gave her a smile and then kissed her, “Inquisitor after everything that’s happened you being a vampire is like the least crazy thing that’s happened alright? You still love me after finding out who I truly am, and honestly this doesn’t change how I feel.” He promises. As long as the blood is in a vial it doesn’t bother Blackwall. He does ask a few questions and while they travel he picks up herbs he knows that can be used to make the salve that will keep her safe from the sun. He also makes sure to remind her, in private of course, to pack enough blood vials if they’re going on a long journey. It’s actually the Inquisitor who’s so surprised that Blackwall’s taking the news so well.

Iron Bull: He’s had a few run ins with vampires. Nasty creatures if they’ve gone feral from hunger. Honestly Bull’s not one to judge. He figures out that the Inquisitor is a vampire shortly after meeting them. The eyes, the teeth that just look a tad too sharp, on top of the way they always look so nervous when they’re traveling during the day are a dead give away to him. What he does do is keep his eye out for any strange deaths of Inquisition soldiers, but none come along. He knows the Inquisitor must be getting blood from somewhere, or else they would have gone feral by now and Maker that would fucking suck. But he’s pretty sure that’s not going to happen, so he drops the topic. He’s confident that the Inquisitor has their shit under control. The more he gets to know the Inquisitor the more he likes them. They guard themself a bit, only natural, but as the two grow closer Bull finds himself... he cares about them a great deal. The feeling is only solidified after they tell him its okay to save the Chargers. They trust him, they care about how he feels and what’s important to him, and honestly it feels amazing to have someone that close that cares for him like that. He wants to make them feel the same way. Every night they spend together he makes it special. He wants them to relax, to trust him, and afterwards when its just them curled close in bed he smiles. They both know a side of each other that no one else will get to see. It was the night when his Kadan gave him the dragon tooth necklace, they were curled up against Bull’s chest and he was playing with their hair and making sure they were resting when they told him they were a vampire. No wonder they had seemed so worked up all day, they were planning two huge things to admit to Bull. He kissed their neck gently and ran his hand down their side. “I know.” His voice was gentle and he chuckled when they asked how. “Ben Hasrath remember? Besides it wasn’t my place to ask about it Kadan. You weren’t hurting anyone and you still trusted me even knowing I was still working for the Qun. And before you ask, no it doesn’t change anything. You have my heart.” And he kisses them again before smirking a little, “One question, will biting me turn me into a vampire? No? Great.” It’s all about trust really, and Bull would trust his life with the Inquisitor. There’s only a few times that the Inquisitor gets gravely injured during battle, and Bull lets them drink from him. They’re always gentle and only take what they need. He feels a lot closer to them, and he’ll fight anyone that calls his Kadan a monster.

Cassandra: She has heard of vampires before, yes. Cursed creatures forced to drink blood and dwell in the dark shadows just to survive. She knows they are not demons, but they are dangerous. Cassandra had always been confident that if she saw a vampire she would be able to tell right away. They would have large fangs, black eyes, and unable to step into the sunlight. Besides they were also quite rare, so she never even suspected that the Inquisitor was one. His odd behavior could simply be written off as someone who was squeamish around injuries which wasn’t uncommon at all. She finds out the Inquisitor is a vampire when he tells her. They had started to grow quite close. They weren’t dating yet, but Cassandra was really starting to open up to him, and he was making it very obvious that he wanted to be with her. She was nervous. He said they needed to talk and that never really sounded like it was going to be a positive thing. She frowned when she saw how nervous the Inquisitor looked. For a moment Cassandra thought she had done something that upset him, but then he started to talk. He explained what he was, how he felt she deserved to know before they got serious or anything, and that he’d understand if him being a vampire changed anything for Cassandra. She was stunned at first. This felt like a joke, she wanted to accuse him of making this a joke, or some prank, but the way he was looking at her. He clearly believed that what he was saying to be true. As if seeming to notice she was doubting his statement he showed her his fangs. Cassandra is not proud of how she handled the news. She walked away from him without a word. She needed time to think. The Seekers taught that vampires were monsters, no humanity in them, that they would kill because they enjoyed it and because they needed the blood. She began to go through the reports of every mission, looking for any odd deaths, of corpses drained of all of their blood, but she found none. No one seemed to have been turned either... Cassandra began to realize that she may have overreacted. She still needed to time to sort out her own feelings. It become obvious to her that the Seekers had lied once again, that the Inquisitor wasn’t actually a bloodthirsty killer. He couldn’t control what he was, and he wasn’t killing people and draining them. Eventually she decides that she still has feelings for the Inquisitor and she tells him as such (it’s awkward and she’s blushing because feelings are hard to express). Their relationship has a bit of a slow start, they both need to earn each other’s trust again, but once they do Cassandra feels so stupid for how she acted when he first told her. She makes sure he has enough blood vials, and she makes sure that he always has enough salve before leaving on journeys. She would hate if he turned into ash because he didn’t bring enough.

Cullen: One would think that Cullen would be quite nervous around the Inquisitor once he finds out she’s a vampire, but honestly? It was the opposite. The Inquisitor told him about what she was on a night where he was really struggling with beating his Lyrium addiction, and he had been embarrassed that anyone saw him so vulnerable, let alone the Inquisitor, but there was no judgement in her eyes. She closed the door to his office and began to help him pick up the shattered remains of his phial before sitting next to him. His hands were shaking, so she put hers on top of his. She told him what she was to show him he wasn’t alone. She too had something similar to his addiction, and how much of a struggle it could be sometimes, but that having those feelings didn’t make her weak, or any less of a person. He’s a little surprised at first, a little nervous for just a moment, but it ebbs away. She has done nothing but help people and do her best to save Thedas. Besides shes... she understands what hes going through... kind of. Knowing what she is early on actually helps them grow closer. Cullen opens up a little more and she comforts him and helps him stay strong on the days where it feels impossible to just get out of bed. When Cullen sees the Inquisitor start to get nervous because there are too many people in the room, too much temptation he pulls her out and makes an excuse so that they can be alone, so that she can have a chance to calm down. Sometimes he worries about her, that he’s going to lose her either because someone else found out and took things into their own hands, or because she runs out of her salve... when those worries fog his mind he finds her and murmurs to her so that they can retire to his room. He just needs to hold her close and assure himself that she’s okay, that she’s safe. Whenever she’s away on missions he’s nervous and jittery, but when she comes back safe and sound he relaxes almost immediately. He knows she doesn’t need sleep, but he does appreciate that she will spend the nights with him, just holding him close. It helps keep his nightmares at bay, and she assures him she likes to watch him sleep.

Josephine: She was very surprised when the Inquisitor told her they were a vampire. For a moment she thought it was just another prank, but they were so nervous it couldn’t be. If she had had to suspect anyone of being a vampire she would have thought Dorian to be one, granted her only knowledge of vampires was based off what she had heard in stories. It is hard for her to wrap her head around it, but in the end she knows the Inquisitor. They haven’t attacked any allies, they haven’t drained anyone of all of their blood, and they are so kind to her. Josie keeps an open mind about it all really and she asks questions just in case. She wants to be prepared if word ever gets out because it would be absolutely awful if people wanted to kill her love just because of what they were. It takes a while for her to get used to it, but once she does it’s really not a big deal to her. Josie treats it like a condition. The Inquisitor just has rare dietary restrictions, a severe allergy to the sun, and doesn’t need sleep.

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oathbled · 4 years

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Shiro Backstory Drabble

!!! content warning: mentions of murder, abduction, human trafficking, enslavement, rape, drug abuse, torture and ptsd. !!!

Shiro sat cross legged atop a great wooden table, he made it look as if this was always how tables were supposed to be used, and everyone else had been doing it wrong for ages. The table he sat on was covered in books and ledgers all discarded as he flipped through each one at an impossibly fast pace.

“The hell is that?” Shiro didn’t have to look up knowing it was Sera peering over his shoulder.

He sighed and put the heavy Templar ledger down, knowing that these two would not just go away and leave him to his reading. He read through the names and rank of every single recorded templar ever recruited or knighted in all of the Free Marches and had come up empty. The name he was looking for was not there. Damn it all.

He fixed her with a look that demanded to know what she wanted and why she was interrupting him.

“Why are you reading all these Templar books? Don’t you like, hate them?” Sera asked, picking up one of the books and wrinkling up her nose. He shrugged neutrally.

“Know thy enemy.”

“Yeah well that’s dumb. We already know our enemy, or do you think knowing the names of all the red templars is gonna give us a leg up?” Shiro stood, unfolding gracefully, and gave Sera an amused look that did not reach his eyes. “If you want to know about templar stuff why not ask Cullen? He’s all about that stuff, and he was a templar back in Kirkwall right?” All though they both knew the only reason Shiro would approach Cullen willingly was with a knife.

“This isn’t about the red Templars. I’m looking into the Templars that went rogue before the mages rebelled.”

“Why? Aren’t the red ones the evil ones.”

“Templars were evil long before the red entered them.” He replied with a clipped tone. “Now are you going to tell me what you wanted?”

“Lady busybits is calling a meeting and she wanted you to be there.” Shiro hated being interrupted above all things and scowled darkly, but Sera had already flitted away to avoid the inquisitor’s wrath. He swore and slammed the large tome closed and stalked out of the library, his mood as foul as the weather that raged outside.

As he descended the stone stairs memories washed over him. His body was not his. It was not the first thing they had taught him but it was the first thing he had learned. A heavy boot kicks him to the ground and he stays there, afraid to move, afraid another crack from the whip will cut his skin further. They tell him not to move but he can’t obey, because what touches his back is not the harsh lash of the whip, it’s not the cold edge of a blade, or even the forceful touch of a hand. What touches his back is burning and so is he. The smell of charred skin only made it worse as Shiro tried to twist away but the boot pushed him on his throat until the only noise he could make was a choked out sob. When the man pulled the brand away to inspect his handiwork Shiro pulled away into a corner as far away as he could get, his chest heaving. Every breath he gulped down was frantic and shallow, too short to make it to his lungs, just thick and quick enough to choke on.

“-quisitor?” Shiro blinked once, twice, and he’s back, standing over the oak war table, staring blankly at the map laid out sloppily on the grand table before looking up at Josephine and glaring.

“I thought you were aware, my lady, how much I hate having my studies disturbed.” He growled, picking nonexistent lint off his robe, not intending for his voice to come out a sharp as it did, but still a far step from offering an apology.

“We were asking if you had any thoughts on troop movements.” He was silent, looking over the proposed movements and frowned.

“No, this will not work. See this choke point here? It will most likely be trapped and as the troops move through here they’ll be slaughtered. Move them here and here in two tight groups. It will take longer but at least our men won’t be used for target practice, or had that been your intention?” He said cooly before looking over at Leliana. “Will that be all?” His advisors shared a glance but Leliana nodded.

He retired to his quarters after that, sinking into the chair of his desk, and pinching the bridge of his nose with a slow exhale. He picked up a quill, and stared at the blank parchment for a long time before dipping it into ink and drawing the design that haunted his nightmares, the one he felt every time he went to scratch at his scarred back. A twisting V and an I, burned into his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how long he stared at the inked parchment, but when he came back to himself it was dark.

He didn’t understand and he hated that above all else. The men who had attacked his clan, who had taken him, had worn the armor of the human Order, and at least one of them could use Holy Smite— he had never even considered that they would be anything but Templars, but their names hadn’t been recorded in any of the countless records Shiro has scoured. They could have been zealots, or the records could have been damaged or impartial but something in his stomach churned, slow and sick.

“Varric.” The creak of the door opening should have alerted the Dwarf of his presence, but Varric started at the sound of Shiro’s voice.

“Inquisitor! What are you doing here?” He knew how rare it was for Shiro to seek out someone of his own volition, even those in his inner circle.

“I have questions I think you are best suited to answer.” This seemed to be what Varric was expecting, since he nodded and gestured to an open chair across from him. Shiro sat, folding and unfolding the piece of parchment in his hands. He felt like his body was turning to stone, as Varric poured him a glass of Scotch. The sensation that had been boiling in his gut now settled like a whale carcass sinking soundlessly to the ocean floor. He was about to tell someone the truth. He was going to admit it.

He’s breathing too fast, Varric has probably noticed, so he quickly grabs the glass of scotch and downed it. The alcohol helped soothe his nerves, a few more and he could be comfortably numb.

“What can I do for you snowflake?” Shiro doesn’t comment on the nickname, but merely gestured at his now empty glass.

“I need your help finding someone.” He says, taking a slow breath. His fingers curl around the sheet of paper one last time before sliding it over to Varric. “You grew up in Kirkwall, I need to know if you recognize this symbol.” He said, with only a slight edge to his voice.

He looked at the parchment, the swirling ink that was filling Shiro’s head. “Not off the top of my head, but I can look into it. Am I allowed to ask why?” Shiro forced himself to take a shaky breath.

“Only if you pour me another glass.” Shiro replied after a long time.

He drank the next glass as quickly has he did the first, and was clutching a third with unsteady hands when his words finally came. Varric waiting patiently as he built up to it. “It has come to be known that the reason I was at the conclave was because my clan’s keeper sent me there as a spy. This was a lie. My clan was killed in winter of 36 dragon.” Just saying it felt like airing out a wound for the first time and he had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself in check. Varric raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything, allowing Shiro to continue his story.

“We were camped just outside of starkhaven, preparing to head south, when a group of humans approached us. They were dressed in Templar armor, and claimed we were harboring dangerous apostates and demanded we hand ourselves over. I didn’t realize at the time they meant me, but my keeper did. We had several mages with us at the time, four or five more than a normal Dalish clan, all of them preparing to travel to different clans, and traveling with us for as far as they could.” Varic filled his glass only for Shiro to empty it once more. “It ended in conflict… It always does with humans. I had never experienced the Templar’s powers to kill all magic and I was powerless, caged and forced to watch as they slaughtered my family… Most innocent women and children… My younger sisters.” He tasted blood in his mouth and swallowed forcefully.

“Maker-” “They took the mages and left my clan to the wolves. They drugged us stupid, beat us, raped us… I don’t know how much time passed, snow fell and leaves turned but it meant nothing to me. In my moments of clarity I realized we were moving westward toward tevinter, I had assumed they were taking us to a human circle-- they were templars after all, but instead it seemed they planned to see us as slaves.”

“I took shelter in my dreams. The fade was my sanctuary and each night I dreamed of tearing those men apart in the most terrible ways imaginable. These thoughts attracted Spirits, though I suppose Demons are perhaps a better term in this situation. Rage was the strongest and with every passing torment it’s offer grew stronger.” This wasn’t relevant, Shiro thought, he didn’t need to be sharing this with Varic, but once the words started he couldn’t stop them. The dam had broken on all of his festering secrets and now he had no hope but to swim and hope he didn’t drown.

“Uh, I think I see where this is going.” “It is different.” He snapped. “I am no abomination nor blood mage. I am not your blondie foolishly offering myself as a vessel. I did not bend to the demon’s will. I bent it to mine. The fade is so different from anything here, and you as a dwarf could not possibly understand. I convinced the demons that my captors would be easier targets for possession. That I would help them… Killing them was easy when they were nothing but mindless abominations- driven only by animal rage. Beasts now in form as they were in spirit.” His head ached with sharp, unrelenting pain, but memory of frozen blood and shattered bodies still brought him sick satisfaction.

“That… That sounds more like slavers than templars.” Varic offered slowly and Shiro sneered.

“Yes. So I have gathered. But this discovery did not dawn on me at the moment. Instead I went south, Joined the mages traveling to the conclave and planned to murder every templar I saw there… Instead I found Corypheus and he did more damage then I could possibly hope to. The irony is not lost on me I assure you.”

“I’m going to be honest, that makes a lot more sense than the spy story, knowing you and I don’t want to sound rude but why exactly are you telling me this Inquisitor.” That was a very good question; one Shiro wasn’t sure even he had the answer to.

“I’m not looking for council Varic. I want you to use your connections in the Free Marches to find out anything you can about the people that did this to me so that I can--” He cut himself off and scoffed, standing up sharply. “As for why you and not my spy master? Because I believe you are less likely to use this information against me. Do not prove me wrong.” He sighed, a painful thing that felt as if it had barbs stuck inside him, that cut and tore him up on its way out. “And do not tell anyone else what I have told you… Please.”

#( writing // drabble )#( muse talk // shiro lavellan )

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hadiden-lavellan · 5 years

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14 Days of DA Lovers - Napping Together

Pairing: Fenris x M!Hawke Words: 1037 The world was quiet as Samuel laid in bed, fingers tangled into soft white locks while humming contently. The world outside, the people of Kirkwall and beyond did not exist in the bedroom; it was just Samuel and Fenris, tangled together under the soft blankets of his bed. It would be a lie to say that Samuel wanted to stay in bed all day. After a run in with a high dragon, Varric, Aveline, and Anders had put Samuel on bed rest, demanding that he stay in and heal. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have the magic to heal himself, but apparently his injuries were too severe to heal with just magic. Anders had directed him with strict bed rest. “No running around and playing Champion, Hawke,” the healer said, arms crossed and frown on his face. The eldest Hawke had huffed and begrudgingly agreed to the bed rest. Some time away from the crimes of Kirkwall was probably healthy for Samuel. Not to mention, the broken leg and sprained arm restricted Samuel from any kind of self defense or walking. But Samuel was content, enjoying the quiet as the brooding elf softly breathed against his chest, eyes closed and relaxed. The normal frown or stoic expression had lifted, his eyebrows relaxed and even, lips slightly parted, and frown lines gone. Fenris wasn’t quite snoring, but Samuel could hear his breathing. A soft smile crossed Samuel’s lips as he continued to play with Fenris’s hair. There was a time that Fenris wouldn’t allow himself to be close to Samuel. Their first meeting was rough as it was; Fenris hunting down slavers and finding that Danarius was not in the mansion. He had attempted to thank Samuel and his friends, but he had pointed out Samuel’s magic. At the time, Samuel had no idea that Fenris’s hatred for magic stemmed from fear, but what made it worse as that Fenris had caught a glimpse at the scars lining Samuel’s skin. He accused and tried to claim that Samuel was a blood mage, but Carver had shut him up, yelling at the elf before Samuel cleared the air, attempting to what the scars were from. The next day was a little lighter as Fenris apologized for assuming things about Samuel. It was nice to see the progress, seeing the elf comfortable around him. Even after their first night together, after Fenris left, Samuel waited and it paid off. Fenris was happy, as was Samuel. Hawke continued to run his fingers through snow white hair, feeling the elf in his arms move and tilt his head up. Slowly, said elf opened his eyes, allowing green eyes to meet gold ones. Samuel didn’t hide the smile that was painted on his face, brushing white bangs from Fenris’s forehead, exposing the three little dots. “You should be resting,” Fenris said, adjusting himself so his head was more on Samuel’s shoulder than his chest. Carefully, using the hand that wasn’t around Fenris, Samuel moved his hair to the other shoulder, making sure that Fenris didn’t pull on his long hair. He really didn’t enjoy having his hair pulled. “I’ll rest later,” he said, holding back laughter as Fenris adjusted, sitting up and looking at Samuel from a higher position. “I did not say later, Samuel,” Fenris said, leaning back into the warmth of his lover and pressing his forehead against the side of Samuel’s head. The eldest Hawke smiled, turning his head and stealing a kiss from the Tevinter elf. There was something very sweet about Fenris and his concern for Samuel’s health. He wholeheartedly wanted Samuel to get better, to rest, and it was enduring to see him fuse over the man. “Samuel,” Fenris said sternly. “You need the rest. How else are you to heal?” “With kisses?” Samuel said, fluttering his eyelashes like a Chantry girl and laughing as Fenris lightly smacked his cheek. It wasn’t long before Fenris was following, laughing as he curled up against Samuel again. Hawke didn’t hesitate to adjust himself to Fenris’s shape, holding the elf close. He was warm, much warmer than Samuel had noticed earlier, but the heat may have been from the flushing in his cheeks and the laughter. It wasn’t everyday that he got Fenris to laugh at one of his corny lines. Fenris’s fingers absently traced the faded scars on Samuel’s arm. Some of the lines were gnarled, ghastly and disgusting while others were precise, even, and straight. Some looked deliberate and others looked like battle scars. But Fenris paid no mind, fingers finding no difference as they followed lighter lines on dark skin. “Do they hurt, still?” Fenris asked quietly, not moving his head or stopping his actions. Samuel hummed, considering the question. “Not anymore,” he said. “I try not to think of them. They don’t make me who I am.” It was Fenris’s turn to hum his answer. What was there really to say? It wasn’t like Samuel chalked his whole being up into his scars, into the marks that plagued his memories for years. He was learning more acceptance for himself, to grow as a person. If his past had taught Samuel anything, it was that he couldn’t stay stuck, couldn’t linger on old feelings and mistakes. The only way to get better was to grow, to learn, and to become better. It wasn’t long that in the silence of the room that Samuel found himself dozing off, sleep finally attempting to claim him. Fenris’s fingers slowly and finally stalled, letting a half awake Samuel know that his lover had, once again, fallen asleep. For just a moment, a rare moment for Samuel, everything was good. He may have been a little broken, a little hurt, but he was comfortably in bed with his lover, warm and content to stay for just a moment longer. While Samuel would have preferred adventuring, doing the one of the few things he was good at, he wouldn’t have traded the time he got to spend with Fenris. The pair was sharing the comfortable, silent company of each other. Everything was all right as Samuel let himself fall asleep, allowing dreams of a sunny future claim him for a couple hours.

#14dalovers #14 days of da lovers #fenris x m!hawke #fenris x hawke #hawke x fenris #male hawke #samuel hawke #dragon age fenris #i havent gotten to write them together and honestly im here for soft dorky fenris with his dorky hawke boyfriend #also comfortable fenris is top tier and i die by that thank you #ten more days to do folks

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aeducanwrites · 5 years

Text

In response to the @dapromptexchange prompt, also found here on AO3:

“With the mark comes increasingly severe chronic pain - pain like the Inquisitor has never experienced. They keep it under wraps, though, not wanting to appear weak or have anyone pity them. But some days are worse than others and their intake of potions made by the healers plus their own herbal remedies and even alcohol are beginning to become noticeable to others. How does their LI find out and help them? If it is Solas, does he feel guilty for causing this?”

Pairing: Cassandra Pentaghast x Female Trevelyan

Words: 3540

Rating: T

---

Elera Trevelyan was woken up to the feeling of fire in her veins and sudden breathlessness, her private quarters—usually dimly lit by the moon’s light—aglow with a sickly green hue. She grabbed the pillow behind her in time to shove her face into it and muffle her agonized scream, body curling into a tight ball and arm convulsing freely as the pulses from the mark on her hand came steadily. She wasn’t sure how long it was until the pulses slowed and finally stopped, but by then Elera was covered in sweat and her throat felt raw. Her entire arm twitched from the after effects of the mark’s spasms, veins still feeling like fire but slowly ebbing into the dull throb she normally felt on good days.

If tonight’s episode was anything to go by, today would not be a good day.

Elera sighed in defeat and reached over to her bedside table, tugging the drawer open and pulling out a small bowl, a cloth, and a half-empty bottle of Tevinter wine Dorian had gotten her for her birthday. With a wave of her hand the bowl was filled with water, and she began the tedious process of wiping the sweat from her brow and checking on her arm, the same as every night. A few weeks back she’d found blood oozing from a battle-earned wound, reopened from the intensity of the mark’s spasms, but tonight she was lucky. Instead of blood, she noticed what looked like several scars creeping their way up her arm, tinted the same shade of green as the mark on her hand.

Elera grabbed the wine bottle, uncorked it, and chugged straight from the bottle.

She’d deal with the panic that would no doubt come in the morning. The moon was still bright in the sky, way too early an hour for her to be up, and at the moment Elera wanted nothing more than to sleep. She set the bottle aside and curled back under her covers, covering her hand with the pillow she’d screamed into to block out the light glow from her palm.

Just another average night for the Inquisitor.

***

Elera had a routine.

It started at Maker-knew-when at night when her mark decided she needed a little more pain in her life, a pain so sharp that when it had first happened her scream was enough to summon some guards who believed she was being murdered. Solas had assured her that once the Breach had been closed, the pulses were sure to stop and she’d finally get a full night’s rest, and--fool that she was—Elera had believed him. She’d suffered the pitying glances from her fellow troops and supposed worshipers each day while at Haven as she made her way from her cabin to the healer for a potion or two, then later to the tavern for a stiff drink. Blackwall had often joined her once he’d been recruited to their cause, the two of them swapping stories about their home and the biggest creatures they’d fought; a real dick-measuring contest. The Iron Bull, of course, beat them all once he figured out her routine, though half the time she wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. Properly drunk, Elera would stumble back to her cabin, stare at reports that she didn’t know half of the words of, and collapse onto her bed to cycle through the day again. Missions were a little more difficult, but Solas was a competent potions-brewer and Dorian always had a flask on him, either of them helping her through depending on her party for that trip.

The pain didn’t stop with the Breach, though, but Skyhold didn’t need to know that. She was no longer Elera Trevelyan, Herald of Andraste, which was daunting enough on its own. She was Inquisitor Elera Trevelyan, leader of the Inquisition and a figure all of Thedas was to look up to if Corypheus was to be stopped. Showing pain wasn’t an option for her, so she had to hide it.

Her pain-filled nights never stopped, but it was easier to hide that with how secluded her quarters were from the rest of the hold. Elera had given the staff strict orders to only clean when she gave the go-ahead to stop any accidental discovery, and so far they had obeyed. From her room she made her rounds, gritting her teeth against the throbbing that seemed to increase in pace and intensity when she was near Solas for a reason she couldn’t understand. Perhaps it was lucky she always looked stressed or tense, because no one bothered asking why her jaw was clenched enough to hurt, nor why she kept her hands clasped behind her back when she could help it. By the time she got to Cassandra the surgeon would finally be in sight, and Elera told herself that was the only reason her heart leapt in excitement. It was never the way Cassandra swung at her training dummies that made her react that way, with her toned muscles flexing in the rising Orlesian sun under a loose shirt that hung just right (because she didn’t always wear armor, contrary to popular belief). Nor was it the way Cassandra would startle slightly when she noticed Elera approaching, a slight smile touching her lips in acknowledgement.

No, it was because the surgeon had the stronger healing potions that she’d always been awful at making herself. It had nothing to do with her ill-fated crush on Seeker Pentaghast.

That never fooled the surgeon, of course, not after the woman saw Elera run into a wall several times already as Cassandra swung at the practice dummy with well-practiced ease, stopping just short of chopping its head off or puncturing it beyond repair. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and she was proud when it didn’t happen again, the only embarrassing aspect of the morning being that Cassandra caught her staring and smiled at her.

Smiled. Elera could swoon from a smile like that.

She entered the surgeon’s building and quickly shut the door behind her, ignoring the older woman’s chuckle as she took a few breaths to slow her heart rate. When she was certain her flushing had stopped, Elera finally looked to the surgeon, an older woman with a kind smile that reminded her of her mother. She remembered vague details about her family, having been eight when she was brought to the Ostwick Circle, but she was certain her mother had a smile like Surgeon Rein.

“Hiding from your object of affection again, Lady Trevelyan?” Rein teased, and Elera brushes the hair out her face with her good hand to compose herself.

“Please, I haven’t been a lady in twenty-seven years,” she responded, sitting on one of the free cots and smiling warmly at the surgeon. “Do you have the potion ready, Rein?”

Rein’s smile faded, and she grabbed the potion from the top shelf with practiced ease. “I always do, my lady. How was the pain last night?”

A flash of intense pain sparked through the mark at the thought of the previous night, and she stifled her gasp by clenching her jaw tight. “It was worse than previous nights, I admit. Unfortunately, I can say that I’ve had it worse than this.”

The surgeon tutted and knelt before Elera, examining the mark and tracing the branches from it that traveled up her arm, tinted the mark’s unique shade of green even when the mark itself was otherwise dormant. “There’s only so much I can do to help with this matter, my lady. Perhaps Solas would be able to relieve some pain that my potions and tonics cannot.”

“No,” Elera said quickly, almost tanking her hand from the woman but just barely resisting. “It is bearable with what you’re able to provide, I promise.”

“It is spreading, Elera. It cannot be that bearable if it is consuming more of your arm each day.”

Elera swallowed thickly and looked away. She knew the surgeon was correct, that seeing Solas was likely the best solution for whatever was going on, but she didn’t want any of her companions to see her as lesser for being unable to handle the mark. She didn’t want Cassandra to see her as lesser, more truthfully. If it affected her field work, however, and endangered her teammates…

“I’ll consider it,” she finally said, voice trembling slightly. “I owe it to the people I fight beside, don’t I?”

Rein smiled gently and nodded. “They will be more understanding than you believe, my lady. Even your Seeker.”

“She’s not my Seeker, Rein. Nor am I a lady.”

“If either of those become true statements, then I will follow them as such. Until then, you are of House Trevelyan, a noble household, and I shall respect you as such—mage or not. Likewise, if you confess your affection to Seeker Pentaghast and she does not reciprocate, I will stop referring to her as yours. Believe me, though: she holds more affection toward you than you believe.”

Elera gave the surgeon a small smile and nodded. “Thank you. I’ll let you know if I’m right and you’re not.”

Rein smiled cheekily and stood, brushing the dirt off of her knees. “I would expect nothing less of you, my lady.

***

In the end, it was her own stubbornness that revealed her pain to her companions, rather than her approaching Solas for help like Rein had suggested.

Elera had meant to go to Solas, honestly, but soon after meeting with the surgeon her advisors had told her the sooner she got to Crestwood the better. The humidity and general dreariness of the place didn’t do anything for her mood, let alone the pain that seemed to worsen in bad weather. Though the constant rain had ceased after she’d helped get rid of the large Rift in Old Crestwood, it still rained about as much as the Storm Coast, and hunting down the Rifts she’d missed the last time they were there in such bad weather wasn’t the best. Varric and Solas were arguing with one another a few feet ahead over Cole, something that was becoming increasingly common between the two of them, and at her side, Cassandra huffed.

“They’ll never agree,” she said. “I do not know why they bother arguing circles around each other every day.”

“They both care about Cole in their own way,” Elera said, smiling fondly at the two men. “Solas keeps treating him like a spirit, and Varric a human, so they’re bound to disagree.”

“But he is a spirit,” Cassandra said, brows furrowing.

“He’s the most human spirit I’ve met. Unless Cole says something to me, and so long as Cole is treated kindly, then why does it matter?”

“I suppose you have a point. You can be the one to get that in their heads though.” Cassandra nodded at the men, and Elera laughed, bumping her arm against the Seeker’s fondly. For a moment she thought she saw a light flush on her cheeks, but that had to be because of the weather. Armor could get hot, and humidity did nothing to lower the heat of Crestwood. The silence dragged between the two of them for a time, only filled with Varric and Solas’ arguing and the pattering of rain against the cobblestone path they walked along, and it was comfortable in a way that Elera only felt in Cassandra’s company.

Which should’ve been weird, considering when they first met Cassandra was holding her prisoner, but no one was perfect.

A familiar green hue flickered up ahead, and Elera tensed, reaching back and grabbing her staff from its holster on her back. Her companions did the same at once, their eyes to Elera for the okay. They had a routine: she would aim her mark at the Rift to drain its power and weaken the demons that came from it while the others attacked them, join them while the demons were down until the Rift reaches full power again, rinse and repeat. It was only a matter of getting close enough to start the process, and Elera muffled the sound of her footsteps as she inched closer.

The mark flared as it usually did around a Rift, but rather than tingling it felt ready to burst, and she shoved her hand at the Rift to close it. The mark burned as it sucked the power out of the Rift, and Elera let out a scream, clutching her forearm and dropping her staff—a critical mistake. The demons were going after her at once, but her companions made swift work of the majority of them. Cassandra used her shield to block the ice beam a despair demon shot her way, glancing at Elera as she cast a barrier around them both.

“Are you alright?” Cassandra asked, though it was more of a shout so she could be heard above the demons’ shrieks. Elera nodded quickly and brought herself to her feet, grabbing her staff and casting a bolt of lightening toward the despair demon.

“I’ll be okay,” she responded. “Go help the others. I’ll be alright here.”

Cassandra seemed hesitant but conceded a moment later, nodding and running toward the pride demon trying to attack Varric. Sweat was on Elera’s brow, and she wiped at it before continuing with their routine. Fire, attack, weaken the Rift, repeat. It was elementary at this point, but each time she weakened the Rift she nearly collapsed again. Even while fighting her companions kept sending her worried looks, but Elera just downed a health potion and continued her onslaught until the Rift was weakened enough to close. Her knees were weak and her breathing was heavy, but she shoved her hand at the Rift anyway to close it; somehow, it hurt worse than just draining it did. She tried to swallow back a scream but ultimately failed, sounding more strangled because of her effort and feeling as though her arm was about to fall off.

If this was death, she’d gladly take it, though she’d miss seeing Cassandra every morning. A small price to pay for relief from this.

When the Rift closed she fell to her knees, arms wrapping around her to keep her from falling any further. Elera looked up and saw worry in Cassandra’s eyes, said eyes flickering between Elera’s face and her left hand. So much for a secret, she mused internally.

“Are you alright?” Cassandra asked, and Elera laughed painfully.

“No, not really,” she admitted truthfully before passing out, the last thing she heard being Cassandra ordering Solas to look her over for injuries.

***

Elera woke Maker knew how long later in an Inquisition camp, the red tent ceiling instead of her scrappy brown travel tent giving it away. She was in her night clothes and covered by what felt like two blankets, both pulled up to her chin and still managing to cover her short figure. It could’ve been a normal stop at camp, truthfully, but then she remembered the Rift and winced. That was certainly a way to reveal how much pain she’d been in since Haven, and not the way she’d intended by far, but what was done was done. She groaned and tried to sit up, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

Cassandra.

Elera winced and lay back down, staring up at the other woman uncertainly. The contemplative look on Cassandra’s face could mean anything, she’d come to learn over the past year, so she had no idea what to expect. It didn’t seem like she was inclined to speak, though, so Elera wet her lips and asked,

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About half a day,” Cassandra responded. Elera’s mind froze.

“Did you say half a day? Seriously?”

The Seeker raised an eyebrow. “Would I lie to you?”

She winced and sighed. The unlike you went unsaid but was certainly understood. “I’m just surprised. I haven’t slept that long in… in a while.”

“Because of your mark?”

“Yes, because of my mark.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it troubles you?” Cassandra asked, looking genuinely hurt. Elera’s heart broke; she hadn’t wanted to hurt Cassandra. “We could have gotten you proper help if we had known you suffered.”

“I didn’t want to worry any of you,” she admitted quietly. “I’ve dealt with pain before. It hurt like this back at Haven, and I couldn’t stand the pitying looks everyone gave me, Cassandra. I don’t want pity. I can’t stand it.”

“I believe you mix pity with concern,” Cassandra said slowly, pulling the blankets back from Elera and lifting up her left hand. Elera tensed, ready for pain to flare up, but was surprised to feel nothing but vague pins and needles along her arm. When she sat up that time Cassandra didn’t stop her, instead using her finger to trace the veiny branches that emerged from the mark to just above her wrist. She watched silently as she did so, uncertain of what to make of the situation. “I too often find myself mistaking concern for pity,” she continued, eyes flickering up to meet Elera’s own. “As a Seeker, we are meant to withstand enormous pain without flinching to do what needs to be done. As a Pentaghast, I am expected of the same for far less noble intentions. During my time with the Inquisition, I have taken a great deal of hits that led me to sustain serious injuries. Did you pity me while I was in pain?”

“No,” Elera said quickly, eyes widening. “I thought about dragging you by the ear to lay down and rest though.”

Cassandra chuckled and nodded. “I suspected as much. Tell me, then, why you would believe we would pity you, when you obviously do not pity us while we are in pain?”

“I—” She hesitated, looking away and rubbing her neck with her free hand. “I don’t know. In the Circle, when someone was ill or in pain we hid it in case a Templar saw and used our weakness as an excuse for punishment: Tranquility, because we couldn’t fight back, isolation under the guise of keeping disease from others, sometimes worse just because they could.”

“That is repulsive.”

“That was reality,” she countered, frowning. “I know you and Cullen wanted me to side with the Templars while closing the Breach, but between what was happening in Redcliffe and my experiences in a Circle personally, how could I not support the mages? Maker, I couldn’t show it, but when I heard Kirkwall’s Chantry went in flames and the Gallows were destroyed by the infighting I was ecstatic. Would Andraste and the Maker want a world like this?”

It was Cassandra’s turn to frown, and they both watched each other for a moment, neither trying to make the first move. Elera could slowly accept that she saw concern, not pity, but if the mark brought enough pain to knock her unconscious, what good was she as Inquisitor? She swallowed thickly and closed her eyes.

“So—”

“Elera—”

They both chuckled a bit awkwardly, and Elera nodded. “You first.”

Cassandra nodded and gripped Elera’s marked hand loosely in both of hers, her eyes intense as she looked at her. “I wish you had told me. I have… I have come to care for you a great deal since we founded the Inquisition, and seeing you collapse on the battlefield not from an enemy, but from this mark, terrified me.” She paused. “I do not want to see you come to harm, and if your pain is more chronic than temporary I wish to help you however I can.”

“Seeing you every morning helps me,” she murmured, blushing when Cassandra grinned. Slowly, as if she could scare Elera away with any sudden moves (which was possible, given her history), the Seeker brought the hand she held up to her lips and brushed them across her knuckles, her cheeks a deep crimson red.

“Is that why I’ve seen you run into walls while looking my way?” Cassandra teased, and Elera giggled to hide (or show) her embarrassment, nodding and leaning closer to the other woman.

“Perhaps.” Elera steeled her resolve and took a deep breath as she said, “Cassandra, I’ve come to care for you deeply as well. If I may, could I take you to lunch or dinner sometime? Just the two of us? There’s this little restaurant in Val Royeaux I’d love to try with you.”

“I would like that.”

The tent flap opened to the two of them grinning like idiots at one another, and Elera didn’t even mind when she heard Varric laugh at them. “You two finally got over yourselves, huh? Good for you. Hey Chuckles, she’s awake.”

She vaguely heard Solas explain how he’d cut off the majority of the pain she felt through the Fade and agreed to seeing him every few days to keep the mark from spreading any more than it already had, her mind more focused on the fact that she had a date with Cassandra.

Surgeon Rein would be delighted to be able to say ‘I told you so’. Elera couldn’t find it in herself to mind.

#dragon age inquisition #dai #dragon age fanfic #da fanfic #dai fanfic #my fics #dapromptexchange #cassandra pentaghast #cassandra x inquisitor #cassandra x female inquisitor #cassandra x female trevelyan #bi cassandra #lesbian cassandra #r: cassandra pentaghast x elera trevelyan #cassandra x female mage inquisitor #cassandra x mage #varric tethras #solas

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ourdawncomes · 5 years

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repost of a thread with @theshirallen. unfortunately the original ask was lost but for context bruno asked about alpha wolves, a totally real thing.

Ian

Ian’s mouth twists, and he isn’t certain if he’s trying to grin or to grimace. The stem of his pipe blocks most of the expression, anyway, until he pulls it from his teeth to lean forward, chuckling into his palm. When he looks up, his annoyance is well distant. Bruno means well–or rather, he means no harm. There’s sincere curiosity in the other elf’s eyes, and a bold innocence that permits him to speak his questions, even when the question is ridiculous and largely founded in misinformation.

“I did. The four-legged kind. I still do, though less often, now that…now that the other kind has me so occupied.” He sits back again, following Bruno’s glance to the toppled statue, and his mouth tightens, and he isn’t sure what expression matches the tangles in his chest. The pipe returns to his mouth, tucked into one corner as he bites down, considering how best to explain. “But…wolves don’t…there are no alpha wolves. Wolves are–are family. They live and travel and experience life as a family. Some families are larger than others, some are more cooperative, but…there is no rigid rule of order.”

He clicks his thumb against his index finger, summoning a small burst of flame, and a moment or two passes as he finally lights his pipe. “As to my role…I never had one. Shapeshifters don’t quite…I was never part of their family. They indulged me, generally. We sang and laughed and told stories. But I was their strange traveling friend, and that is very different than being part of their family.”

Bruno

Ian makes a face like he’s swallowed a lemon, and Bruno’s ears flatten in response. He breathes in the smell of Ian’s pipeweed and coughs as quietly as he can manage against his hand. “That’s, uh–” Weird? Interesting? Cool? He can’t deny he’s looked at birds against the sky and sort of envied them. Fuck, even chickens are at least too stupid to know what’s coming for them. People like him are just smart enough to know their luck all depends on other, sharper sorts.

Wolves, though. They sound complicated. Anything that needs an alphabet is too much.

“Something.”

But he shuts his face, ready to listen. There’s something familiar in the picture Ian paints, but defining it feels foolish. “Oh,” he says, rubbing his knuckles sheepishly. “I always figured that it was all about survival, you know, dog eat dog. Or, wolf eat wolf.” Then, just to prove he’d really been listening: “Wolves tell stories? What about?”

Ian

“Dog eat dog…” He echoes the sentiment, watching as Bruno rubs his knuckles. The other elf’s sheepish hesitance is tangible, and Ian closes his eyes, breathing deep and pushing smoke through his nose.

“I’ve heard the sentiment before, but…” A soft shrug, a quiet sigh. “The only creatures I know of that destroy each other for nothing but the sake of hierarchy are…are people. Wolves fight, but…but not over who is the most important.”

He doesn’t open his eyes as he leans back, resting his fist against his crossed ankles, pipe smoldering gently between his fingers. “Survival has nothing to do with brutality. Cooperation, teamwork, understanding. Wolves learn their own shortcomings, the–the strengths of their pack members. They help each other, support each other. Kindness can lead to success, though not so…so loudly, or…or noticeably as force.”

“What do you tell stories about?” Is his answer to the next question. “Their children, their dreams. The adventure they had last summer. The hope for tomorrow’s sights. The impossible things they’ve done, or claim to have done. How the stars got their names.”

Bruno

“Oh.”

He’s not sure whether to be disappointed or glad that not EVERYTHING in this world’s always at something else’s throat. Tevinter and the qunari, Templars and mages, and– actually, that’s all the can think of, but then again… “I guess wolves don’t have our reasons for fighting. Never seen wolves leash other wolves, or anything like that.” The right reasons to fight, or as right as you can get. It feels strange, judging some fights as right and others as wrong when he’s never been able to lift a sword without dropping it first, but the more time goes by, the less sorry he is to have seen Severina’s end.

Bruno musses the tips of his hair, then shrugs. “I’ve never told stories about any of those things.” Then again, even when those things existed where he grew up, people didn’t tell them. Telling them just made everything taste sourer when they went awry. “The stars, maybe, but…” He shrugs again.

“Wolves probably have seen more stuff to tell stories about.”

Ian

“No. Wolves don’t do that to each other. Only–only people do.” His right hand falls to his left wrist, rubbing a slow circle almost without realizing it, and his teeth catch at the inside of his cheek.

Bruno’s expression grows distant, for a moment, in a way that Ian recognizes. There are many stories Bruno might tell, if he felt they were worth speaking–or if someone indicated that those stories were worth being heard.

“Just because you don’t speak stories doesn’t mean–doesn’t mean you don’t have any.” Ian points out. “You have seen as much as any wolf. Different things, perhaps. But you have lived a longer life than they, and–and every day offers a story.”

He thinks of one Solas is fond of telling–of the Qunari baker and her sugar–and smiles softly. Little stories have as much merit as stories of the stars, and the story of the baker is as significant as any tale Ian has ever heard of Andraste.

Bruno

“They don’t really have the hands to do it with if they wanted,” he remarks. That’s not what Ian means by it, but he’s not so sure animals wouldn’t do the same to each other if they could. Still, he’s seen enough of what people do to each other that he’s a little jealous Ian can just be something else, even part-ways, even for a little while. Maybe it’s pretend, maybe he’ll never be a real wolf, but being half a wolf sounds like a better deal than half a person.

“Maybe,” he says with a noncommittal shrug. “Boring stories, mostly. And some sad, y’know, in hindsight.” At the time they’d just been life, and no mother wanted to explain to her child that his life wasn’t his own. “The only story I’ve got that’s worth telling is the one where Miraen just kinda… melted out of the mirror, which– um, I don’t know. Seems pretty normal here.”

“A wolf’s probably got better stories s’all I’m saying.”

#theshirallen #the truth is rarely pure and never simple ( bruno | ic )#v; we are as strong as we are united ( bruno | agent )#the dawn will come ( queue )#( long post )

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impossible-rat-babies · 6 years

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owen.... i can't believe you thought i would not ask you every question yourself in return.... go! dimitri or darva for All The Questions! ❤❤❤❤❤

Ooooo boy here we go! Vi, you’re a peach and wonderful

This is probs gonna be long so mostly below the cut?

Dimitri Enallasani, an Anderfels Elven Mage

art by haloneshiral

1. If not for the Conclave, what would drive your character to join the Inquisition?

Dimitri would be recruitable depending on if the mages or templars were sided with. If the mages were sided with, he would be an apostate who came with them to Haven who would be causing “issues” with the templars already there and the PC would be asked to step in.

If the Templars were chosen, he would be brought with them as a “prisoner” and since the Templars are in no real position to judge others–especially if they were conscripted–they would turn him over the the Herald to judge then.

Both opportunities would give the chance to recruit him as a companion. As for how much he would want to join, it would seem the logical choice in both circumstances. He’d been helping the mage rebellion and with that effectively under the control of the Inquisition, it would be logical to change his focus. With the Templars he would be free to choose his own course and he would want to repay the person who saved him + they are the only people fixing things. Plus he is a mage with no shortage of skills in magic outside the Chantry influence, so he would be ideal with strange magic like the Rifts.

2. How would they meet the Inquisitor?

They would get to meet him in Haven with his recruitment cutscene and one could meet him “better” after the choice is made, provided he would be allowed to stay. That would go something like him being very grateful for letting him stay and helping him out of a tight spot he hadn’t intended on getting into. He would also casually talk about the choice made with the templars or mages, which would be the first chance to get approval/disapproval with him.

3. What would some of their cutscenes look like?

A lot of them would play out in his private space in Skyhold since he is an exceptionally private person. But after Adamant, he would have a cutscene in the rotunda with Solas over what happened, especially if he was brought along. He would also have a special scene on the Storm Coast where he would find a wounded Great Horned owl and if the PC would let him, he would heal the creature and send her on her way. But she would keep following them and after three of his comments, another cutscene would trigger where she comes to rest on his shoulder.

Dimitri: She certainly seems intent on sticking around.

PC: Why not keep her around? She seems to have taken to you quite well.

Dimitri: Hm, I could see to giving her a good home.

From then on, she would be included with Dimitri when you take him out as a companion and she could be used as a scouting feature, reaching further distances and a way to plot out paths up complicated hills.

Dimitri would also have longer cutscenes by virtue of how his speech can be much slower and he takes his time to talk; it also goes along with his tendency to ramble on and on. He would be the kind of companion where one could have long simple cutscene conversations with.

4. What would their romance route look like? Would they be romancable?

Dimitri would be romanacble by male only Inquisitors of any race. A female quizzy could flirt with him, but he would shut that down at the first flirt and express his lack of attraction to her and anyone of her “fairer sex”.

He would be a much slower romance and require a high approval for him to consider a relationship in the first place. He is very hesitant about getting close to someone and embracing a new kind of relationship like that. It would be reassurances of attraction and comfort that would evolve into him giving that right back. Like at Halamshiral, he would express that he is proud of him and comfort him if it was trying for them. He would grow much, much softer in the relationship, growing to laugh and smile more as time would go on. His reservations with a relationship aren’t like Dorian’s where he doesn’t have that sort of angst with his status as a gay man, but it’s more the intimacy and the need for acceptance of who he is with all his messy faults and bad choices he’s made.

EDIT: His first romance scene would be him pulling the quizzy out onto the ramparts near the garden room and him exasperating about how he can’t be serious in having affections for him. He’ll comment about how it won't work between them for a whole host of reasons, but if the quizzy presses and reassures him, he is more willing to try.

Later on after one of the main quests and his approval is high enough, he’ll prompt a talk about the relationship and he’ll have grown more comfortable with the idea and the idea of soft affection like holding hands and the like. It would be nothing big, just something sweet and soft between them.

The first kiss wouldn’t happen until after his personal quest is resolved and he feels more comfortable and certainly more trusting of the quizzy to let down more barriers and grow more comfortable with him. (His romance is very much about letting down the barriers and walls around him).

His romance culminates in scene that can be sexy or not, but it’s that sort of final breaking down of walls--both physical and mental--and him letting the quizzy in completely. It would be the first time he would say “I love you” as well.

5. If they romanced someone as Inquisitor, would they still fall for that person as a companion? How would that play out? How would they react to that person being romanced by the “new” Inquisitor?

Maybe? See, I don’t think Dimitri would have the moxie as a companion to flirt with Bull or grow closer to him. He wouldn’t have the exposure to get out of his shell more like he would as Inquisitor. He wouldn’t rock the “lone wolf elf apostate” look that Solas has with the detachment, but he would be more passive in developing friendships. But him and Bull might’ve had a fling or two. Tbh most of their relationship if it did happen would be subtext and very on the down low. Both of them could be asked about it and there would be a few banters, but nothing like the romance with Dorian.

He wouldn’t mind the quizzy getting with Bull. He would be happy for the two of them with a few idle words; like I said, he might not have the moxie to approach that relationship, so there wouldn’t be anything to get upset about.

6. Write some of their party banter (in reaction to major events, scenery dialogue, or just shitting around. Askers can specify for which character/event, or leave it up to the writer).

(Exalted Plains, near the body pits) “Feels like the Veil is normal. Which to you is a bad thing.”

–

(Emprise Du Lion) “If you’re curious why I’m useless in the next fight, it’s because I’m using all my mana to make sure I don’t lose my fingers.”

–

“Tell me about Elrahal.”

(Only available with high approval +75)

“He was born a slave in Tevinter and never met his parents or any other members of his family. He was kept as a serving man which equaled to him standing around and looking pretty until his master needed blood for the rituals. He resented it or he wouldn’t have tried to escape a half dozen times. The final time he escaped, he ran to the Anderfels. He said that he ran to the Anderfels because if he was going to die, he would do it as a free man.”

*Chuckle* “Thankfully that didn’t happen. He found our clan first and we were used to taking in ex-slaves. If they ran to the Anderfels, they could make it in the clan. I was just shy of eighteen when he joined us.”

–

Banter:

Cassandra: I’m…sorry about what you had to witness in Kirkwall…

Dimitri: Why are you apologizing to me?

Cassandra: You experienced horrific things that could have been avoided–

Dimitri: The conflict in Kirkwall was far from inevitable, Cassandra. Any other Circle in any other city could’ve been a “Kirkwall”.

Cassandra: Undoubtedly it would have received the same treatment as Kirkwall.

Dimitri: Hopefully the chaos was enough–that the horror of it was enough for people to learn that the Circle as it stood was far from effective. The best we can do now is look to find a better way to move forward.

Cassandra: That is oddly optimistic of you, Dimitri.

Dimitri: I can be optimistic in affairs outside of myself.

Cassandra: *laughs*

–

Cole: It ripples around you, like a stone in a pond. It folds and folds and makes that sound–like when metal grinds upon metal.

Dimitri: I won’t rip it or change it.

Cole: I can see it around you. It wraps you up and the spirits see it and press back. They’re curious.

Dimitri: I’ll pull on them occasionally. Keeping the Veil thin makes moving to the waking world less…difficult. They won’t twist on themselves.

Cole: But then you let them go back. And then they come back to watch you. I don’t know if they know what to think of you.

Dimitri: Most people share the same sentiment.

–

Dorian: Dimitri?

Dimitri: Yes?

Dorian: It is you making that sound? The low bzzzz and the high pitched bit in the ear?

Dimitri: It’s the Veil making that sound. Well, me and the Veil. I make the low pitched sound and the Veil is the high pitched bit. Why do you ask?

Dorian: Curiosity is all. Why do you make such a sound?

Dimitri: The Veil in the South is kinda like a shirt too small for me. So I have to fill it out with mana to stretch it–thin it out. The high pitched sound is the Veil curling on itself and the low pitch is the mana interacting with the newly thin Veil and the Fade being closer.

Cassandra: It won’t rip a hole in the Veil?

Dimitri: I don’t have that much mana to expend to accomplish such a feat. I simply thin it down to draw magic through the Fade how I’m used to.

Dorian: *chuckles* Why not just adjust?

Dimitri: Force of habit. I could relearn how to do magic down here or I could simply rely on the methods I’ve always used. In the interest of time and my own stubbornness, I prefer the later.

–

Solas: You warp the Veil as to draw more mana through it?

Dimitri: I learned magic were the Veil is incredibly thin. Coming South was a drastic change and I had to find quick solutions. Thus, I expend the mana to thin the Veil to draw upon it in a way better suited to how I know.

Solas: What is it like without such measures?

Dimitri: Frustrating. Spells don’t burn as hot or have the desired effect with them. Glyphs come out…wrong. They don’t hit as hard or do as they’re supposed to. Spirits become twisted and wrong when the change is too drastic. I use more mana to create spells that don’t work.

Solas: Doesn’t this mean that you push more mana out of your body and experience more highs and lows of mana imbalance when you thin the Veil?

Dimitri: I suppose. I know it has a negative effect on myself, but I’d rather not spend the time to relearn and just use what I have.

–

Cassandra: You have said you would do away with the Chantry, Dimitri?

Dimitri: Such as it stands, yes. It cannot survive in its current state; not as a headless beast with it’s ready made zealous army on the loose.

Cassandra: A rather unflattering picture you paint.

Dimitri: It’s the truth of the matter. Such beasts can only wither and die, or they can grow and change. Sometimes I hope it is the former, and other times the later.

7. What would be on their tombstone in the fade (what is their greatest fear)?

Dimitri’s greatest fear would be himself. Ultimately, Dimitri fears what his actions will cause and the pain he has already caused to others. He is terrified of what he could become if he fell to his demon or if he will look back on himself and see how he was so much better of a person. He is keenly aware of how close evil sits behind his eyes and it would take only one slip to fall into it.

8. What kind of Inquisitor would drive them to leave the Inquisition/confront them about their actions (what gets their approval low? what does that scene look like)?

An Inquisitor who is cruel without provocation and has an open hatred of mages or a lack of wanting to understand the complexity of magic and the situations surrounding it. He has lived enough of his life with ignorant people who don’t care to understand, so he isn’t going to be bound to a willfully ignorant attitude. So things like conscripting the mages, agreeing with the Circle, cruel options. Those sorts of things would bring his approval down.

His scene would be of him packing his bags in his now empty room, only having a few terse words to say for their actions before storming past them. If one would grab to stop him, a sharp flash of lighting would immobilize the PC and he would walk away without a word. The PC would then be left to lay on the ground for the next two minutes–in real time–to think of their actions.

9. Where in Skyhold would they be found? (e.g. Cole is in the tavern rafters, Leliana in the top of the tower, Varric in the throne room, etc.)

Dimitri would be found in a room off the balcony overlooking the garden and it would be an organized disaster. It would be a sort of self contained set up. Like he has a pot over the fireplace and several bowls that would have potions or leftover food in them sitting near a bucket of water. He would have a place to prepare food, fruits and veggies sitting out along with herbs in glass jars, mugs and ceramic pots across the window sill. He would have a whole alchemical station set up, scattered with all sorts of herbs, gems, precious metals, strange magical objects and dozens of jars. Much of it would be bubbling along, magical flames to keep it going. Rugs would cover the walls and old paintings and tapestries would cover the old walls, many of them colored blues, greens and yellows. His bed would be shoved off in a corner, piles of blankets and pillows in various colors and furs too. Books by the stack would be scattered across the room too.

But the most notable thing would be the floating charms and crystals all across the ceiling with wisps dancing between them in orbiting patterns. They would be colored soft white and cast shadows across the room. They would be mainly used as mana reserves as rather simple little spirits that don’t have much to them beyond being reserves. They come in handy for making magical potions and the like. He has a very liberal use of magic.

10. If Inquisition operated like DA:O, what would their gift items be? What would their approval and disapproval Feast Day items be?

His main gifts would be a book on the Flora and Fauna of the Anderfels, pastries imported from the Free Marches, an Ironbark necklace charm, and some fine Tevinter wine.

His major feast day approval gift would be a handwoven wool blanket from the Anderfels, made by the Orth people: it would be decorated with patterns of Harts and Varghests across the orange sands, the sun blazing down upon them.

His gift for massive negative approval would be a book full of Chantry teachings on the dangers and practices of Maleficarum.

11. How would they grow as a person? How would they compare at the end of the Inquisition as a companion to who they were as the Inquisitor?

He would be changed like he is as quizzy, albeit with less friends and connections than before. But he would have peace and a new direction which he hasn’t had in over twenty years. His path is free and he can do what he wants, but most importantly, he has people who care, respect and love him for who he is and that is what truly makes him feel like he has a new chapter of his life.

He would be content in a way he hasn’t felt in ages.

12. Do they believe the Herald of Andraste is really the Herald of Andraste?

He isn’t keen on the Chantry, so he is inclined to believe that they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sees how the Inquisition is going to use that holy status to their advantage and he knows part of it is necessary, but also unsavory. He would support a quizzy who also rejects there Herald status–bonus points for a dalish quizzy–and be critical of a quizzy who thinks they are the Herald. It would be questioning them on how they know that they really are and if it’s not just a play into the power fantasy or getting caught up in the grandeur. He would be condescending about it to a quizzy he has low approval with.

13. If the Herald didn’t have them tag along to prep the trebuchets, what would they do during the battle for Haven? (bonus: would they join in on the impromptu Dawn Will Come choir practice in the camp?)

Dimitri would be fighting against the forces that would get loose from the others and protecting those he can, sheparding people to the Chantry. In the mountains he would be helping tending to wounds and wouldn’t pay any mind to the music, the task of healing and tending to the wounded much more important. He also doesn’t care for Chantry music.

14. What nickname does Varric give them?

Chatterbox, because it’s ironic.

15. Without the influence of their decisions for the Inquisition, which of the companions do they get along with? Which ones do they bicker with?

Dimitri would get along with Iron Bull, Dorian and Solas for the most part with him heavily bickering with Vivienne and Cassandra based on drastically different views of the Chantry and magic.

16. What would the Fear Demon say to them in the Fade to try and discourage them?

Nightmare: Look at you, Dimitri. Come so far and still so lost. How many people will die this time? How many will die and you won’t remember them? The screams last time were so delightful.

Nightmare: Do you remember how Elrahal screamed? *laughing*

17. Where do they hang out in the Winter Palace? What’s their thoughts on the nobles/The Game?

Dimitri hangs out on the Vestibule, up near the entrance to the library where he can watch everyone. He is intrigued by the Game and loves to watch it happen.

Dimitri: I do enjoy watching them spin circles around each other, trying to be polite to no real end. Killing each other in dark spaces is the same as killing them out in the open–they end up equally dead. Difference between assassinations and all out war, one would think.

18. What’s their reaction to a dragon showing up?

Dimitri: Oh….oh! *laughing* Chasing her, yes?

19. Once Corypheus is beaten, what do they do during the party? Do they stay with the Inquisition, or go somewhere else? What could the Inquisitor do to convince them to stay?

Dimitri would hang back in the hallway near the door, sitting on a bench with a drink in his hand. He wouldn’t much like the sound of the party/all the people around. Even after everything, he is still an introvert. Him staying or not staying would depend on approval level.

Dimitri: (low approval) I am leaving in the morning. I have no more reason to stay and I suspect you will not want me to stay. Congratulations, I hope the world doesn’t realize you made a tyrant trying to take one down. (He can’t be convinced to stay).

Dimitri: (high approval) I am going to stay for a while. I know I talked about joining the clan we met in the Exalted Plains, but….they are sorely lacking the company you keep. I…was looking for a place to belong and I think I found it right here. If you will continue to have me.

Dimitri: (romanced): I am staying, vhenan. I…can’t think of a better place to be than in this place made into a home and…anywhere else will lack my one, most precious love.

20. How do they react to learning abominations can retain their consciousness and identity, and even live peacefully with their spirits/demons, as seen in Stone-Bear Hold?

It’s not surprising, given how he’s lived much the same way for many years now. Its far from being the exact same with the Veil separating him from his demon, but they have an existence that could be called peace in a sense. Well his demon being rabidly possessive of him isn’t exactly peace. But it does give him a shred of hope that things could turn into a peaceful solution someday.

21. What do they think of the discoveries made in the Deep Roads? Do they make any comments on anything?

He thinks it’s groundbreaking and interested in the implications of such a find to a great deal. It shouldn’t be something to keep a secret and a fact of history to be remembered. But he would be extremely interested in what will happen to in regards to the Titans. If they can wake, then they are alive; maybe they can move or change or shape the world. The implications are staggering.

22. If you have another Inquisitor, how would those two get along, specifically?

Darva and Dimitri would get along well enough. Casual friends, but mostly at Darva’s insistence. But he would grow on Dimitri in that sort of protective caring manner.

23. In trespasser, what “gift” would they give the Inquisitor, if any?

He would give a friendship quizzy a beautiful indigo colored silk wrap that he had imported from the Anderfels. The gold would seem to shine in it’s way as if powered by magic or runes. It would also be incredibly tough and tear resistant on account of the magic weaved into the fabric. He would tell them he counts them as one of his greatest friends and that he wouldn’t trade their kindness and affection for the world.

For a romanced quizzy he would give the same gift and the idea of getting married would be shared between them. A slide in Trespasser would indicate they did get wholeheartedly married.

24. What are their plans for after the Exalted Council? Will the Inquisition staying in tact or being disbanded make a difference?

I have a whole thing written about that! He goes back to his given name of Dar’thenaras and during the two years he spent time in the Dales and the reconstruction work in the area.

(Unromanced, Inqusition peacekeeping force):

Dar’thenaras returned to his duties in the Dales, still trying to mediate the squabbles between the nobles of Orlais and the Dalish clans. Eventually, an accord is reached between the Dalish and the leaders of Orlais. Under offical decree, the land of Dales would be rightfully returned to the elves with reparations. The land would be protected by the new Inquisition under the Divine. The land would not be lost again. Many clans joined the new settlements and Dar’thenaras became the leader of the settlements, a voice for the Dalish in the courts and in the land.

(Inquisition disbanded): …The land would be protected by various agents, all with suspicious ties to the old Inquisition. However, few would question their origins.

(If romanced, peacekeeping Inquisition): The continuing work of the Inquisitor frequently lead him back to the new Dales, and back into his lover’s arms. The meetings they had were treasured moments of reprieve for both of them in their new duty. It wasn’t long before the Inquisitor and Dar’thenaras were spotted wearing matching rings, an enternal promise of love.

(If romanced, Inquisition disbanded): With the Inquisition disbanded, Dar’thenaras found himself with frequent company during the reconstruction efforts in the Dales. Even with the frequency of such company, they both treasured the moments they had with each other. It wasn’t long before they were spotted with matching rings, an eternal promise of love.

25. In the alternate reality, if they were corrupted with lyrium, how do they act? What’s their attitude about the end of the world/their inevitable death?

Dimitri–if the corruption would last long enough–would turn into an abomination and slowly lose his mind and turn into a beast. His speech would be a slurred mix of half spoken words and hissing sounds like two voices competing for one mouth. He would be twitchy as well, hunched over and a pale shadow of his former self. If it was late enough, he would attack on sight, unable to be reasoned with as a great beast, half metal and half man, wielding both magic and a sword and shield.

Beyond that, he would be excited for his death and the end of his life; he would have struggled so much and changed so much that death would be the only escape and saving to be had with him.

–

#dragon age #inquisitor as companion #oc tag #dimitri: companion #oof this was a lot of stuff #but im glad to finish it!#weeeeee #okay to rebloog #apostatetabris

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