#i love elrich and morrigan so much they're so chef kiss so i made sure to put a bunch of cute Moments between them in here hehe

[trvelyans-archive]

lost time

a commission for the lovely and ever iconic @dauntless-necromancer of their cousland and morrigan and kieran and kieran’s Bae <3 thank you very much for commissioning me again, you’re the absolute best and i appreciate it a lot <3 i hope you enjoy the fic as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!

-

Kieran did not have any friends in Orlais.

He did not know why. Mother said it was because he scared them too much, but he didn’t know what it was about him that scared them. He was quiet and shy and rarely raised his voice – how did that scare everyone so much? He didn’t know his place in the noble children’s friendship circles, so he did not want to push his luck or speak when he wasn’t supposed to when they already looked at him the way that they did, but they didn’t like him no matter what. It felt like there was no winning, like his Mother would be his only friend forever. And he loved Mother, but… she had jobs to do for the Empress and she was not always around. Sometimes he sat alone in his room all night, deciphering ancient writing as best as he could and playing games with his wooden toys by himself. He didn’t have any friends, and he was lonely.

Until Satine came along.

He was roaming the Hall of Heroes in the Winter Palace when he saw her the first time. After a while, he spent almost all soirees and balls and other parties by himself, so this time he was so focused on the statues in front of him and the low-burning candles at their feet that he barely noticed her peeking out from behind one of them, watching him with a small smile and bright, intelligent eyes. She had a nice dress on – she certainly wasn’t one of the serving girls who occasionally tried to play with them when they said he looked sad – and was watching him carefully.

“Hi?” Kieran said when he realized she hadn’t looked away, frowning.

“Hi,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at the statues,” he answered, pointing at them. “I like this one.”

It was a lion, big and broad and shining gold. The girl crept out from the statue she had been hiding behind and looked at it. “Do you like lions?”

“I like all animals.” Kieran turned to her as she approached. “I think I’d be scared of lions if I saw one in person, but I like statues of them. They’re very elegant.”

That was one of Kieran’s favourite words.

She walked over to the lion and ran her fingers over the edge of the statue. “What’s your favourite animal?”

“I don’t know,” Kieran said genuinely, tilting his head as he thought. “I like dragons, but I think I’d be scared of them if I saw one in person, too. They’re very strong and very old.”

She glanced over at him and studied him for a second and then suddenly, just as Kieran realized that perhaps that was an odd thing to say, she grinned. “I like dragons, too,” she said. “I like birds the most.”

“I like birds, too,” Kieran replied. “I wish I could fly. Maybe one day.”

“Maybe one day we will become great dragon tamers and ride them across Thedas,” she said.

“Yes,” Kieran said. “Thedas and whatever lies beyond it.”

She was fiddling with the skirts of her dress. “You think there’s something across the ocean?”

He shrugged as he nodded. “I think so,” he admitted. He should learn how to stop saying such weird things, he thought. He’d have a lot more friends if he did. “I’d like to stay here, though. Mother is here, and I don’t want to leave her.”

“Who’s your mother?”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, debating whether or not to tell her. It wasn’t like either of them could get in trouble for it – the Empress hired Mother to be her Arcane Advisor willingly, it wasn’t like she didn’t know that Morrigan was a mage – but he knew people didn’t understand what Mother really did in Orlais and he didn’t know if this newfound friendship would last through him trying to explain it.

“The Empress’ arcane advisor,” he answered finally.

She blinked at him before smiling again. “That sounds very interesting,” she said.

“Oh, it is.” He was always proud of the work Mother did – the things she’d show him, anyway – and it was nice for someone else to think so, too. “Very interesting.”

She held her hand out to him and wiggled her fingers. “I want to show you something cool I found in the library earlier,” she said. “And you can tell all about it while we explore, okay?”

He looked down at her hand. “Do you… Are you asking to be my friend?”

“Yes,” she said. “I would like to be friends with you. What’s your name?”

“Kieran,” he said, placing his hand in her palm. She squeezed it, hard.

“I’m Satine,” she replied, pulling him along behind her as she began walking up the stairs. “I think we are going to be good friends, Kieran.”

He wanted to say ‘me too’, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to get his hopes up only for them to get dashed on the ground again.

… He did have a good feeling about this, though.

-

Kieran taller than most of the guards at Castle Cousland. They shrink a little as he walks by – though whether it’s because he’s tall or it’s because he’s the son of a Witch of the Wilds, he can’t tell – but when he offers them as friendly of a smile as he can manage they seem to relax somewhat. Not all of them do that, though, and they don’t do it all of the time. Every time he wanders through the fortress at night and, admittedly, catches them a little off-guard, they seem to be scared of him even when he smiles; even when he tries to make conversation. Perhaps he should pull his hood down on those occasions, but he doesn’t really feel comfortable doing that just yet.

He can’t blame them, though. He definitely doesn’t look like an average Ferelden. The rest of them are tanned, strong – he’s pale, or paler than them at least (though he’s tanner more now that he’s spending more time outside), he’s freckly, and he has a shock of dark brown hair that hangs down over his wide forehead, which Mother says is “unforgivingly mysterious”.

And then, one night, Elrich asks him if he wants a haircut, so he says yes.

“I wish there were other people my age here,” Kieran comments, half-heartedly flipping through an Elven text while watching his father out of the corner of his eye in between falling clumps of hair.

Elrich is sharpening his sword, but stops when he looks up at Kieran and smiles, eyes softening. “I know, pup,” he says gently. “And if things in Thedas were different –“ He glances over at Morrigan – “and if your mother allowed it, I’d suggest you go travelling, but…”

“My son is not going to die in Tevinter,” she says. Kieran can hear the frown in her voice. “Or the Anderfels, or Antiva, or wherever a boy his age would travel to.”

“Not even Denerim?” Kieran asks.

“Maybe Denerim,” Elrich says, leveling an even stare at Morrigan over Kieran’s head that Kieran hears her respond to with a groan. “Next summer, perhaps. If things die down.”

Morrigan snorts but says nothing, and Elrich just smiles at her before looking down at his sword again. Kieran watches them for a moment, stomach twisting with unease, before glancing back down at his book.

… He really needs some friends his age.

-

One day, when Mother was away visiting some city called Serault on important business for the Empress, Kieran had free reign of their quarters in the Winter Palace.

Granted, that didn’t mean much – their quarters were, rather simply, three adjoining rooms in a very dusty, disused hallway – but still, it meant something. Though the servants came in every once in a while to check up on him, and he kept all of the doors open in case someone needed to get him for something, he liked how free he felt. He felt so free that he occasionally dared to touch the relics on Mother’s desk, but then found it too overwhelming and started keeping away from them after that.

On a rainy morning, Satine came to visit. She was carrying a small pack of dainty Orlesian cakes and cookies. Kieran welcomed her into his and Mother’s quarters with a smile, and closed the door tightly behind her as she sat down on the table.

“I know you said you were lonely without your mother,” she began, “so I thought I would come visit while Papa had business with the Empress.”

Could she really tell that easily?

He did like having control of their quarters without her, but he did miss her, too. She said they probably couldn’t exchange many letters while she was gone, and he missed her jokes and her smile and the way she sung him to sleep when everything else around and in his head were far too loud. He winced, glancing away. “I don’t miss her that much,” he said defensively.

Satine opened the pack and drew out a single white cookie. “Of course you do,” she replied. “I would miss Papa if he left for a while. He’s my favourite chess partner.”

“I play chess with Mother, too.”

He walked over to the table and sat down beside her, grabbing a cookie that was the same in appearance to her’s but didn’t taste the way he thought it would.

“We should play chess together sometime,” she said, playfully wiggling her eyebrows at him. He smiled and took another bite of his cookie.

“I think you would beat me,” he replied.

“No way! You’re much smarter than I am.”

“I am not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Yes, you are,” Satine said, rolling her eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Though I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.”

Kieran sighed but, eventually, gave in, because who was he to say no to her?

-

Kieran has very big quarters in Highever Castle.

He has more room than he initially knew what to do with, but he fills it up quickly. After all, he’s allowed to travel down to the market whenever he wants to (since his mother and father know that no one would lift a finger to try anything with him) and he certainly does not take those opportunities lightly. Though he probably should, considering how much money he’s spent on various interesting things that make him curious – but e earns his keep, and his mother gives him a fair enough allowance to buy what he wants since, for the first time in his life, they live in an actual city he can explore without fear.

That’s all he’s wanted for so long, even if he doesn’t have the friends – or any friends at all - to explore it with as he’d like.

His newest toy is a small hawk claw that hangs from the end of a golden chain. The man at the stall said the hawk was very old and have a good life, which Kieran felt relieved about. He’s fiddling with it at the dinner table, smiling, thinking about the creature that it belonged to.

“Hawks are such fascinating creatures, aren’t they?” he asks.

“Very noble,” Elrich says from the head of the table. “We could get you one, if you’d like, to take care of.”

“I do think he’d be quite good at that,” Morrigan adds in.

“I would like that a lot, Father.” Kieran smiles at him and rests the necklace against his chest again, smoothing the chain out over his shirt. “How was your day?”

“It was good.” Elrich glances over at Morrigan. “It was certainly nice to spend some time with your mother, since I didn’t have very many duties to attend to. We took a stroll through the garden, ate lunch on the battlements and watched the city…”

“I miss living in the mountains, but seeing that drunken man stumble around in the street earlier before face-first into a pile of horse droppings…” She smiles wistfully, thinking back on the memory. “Ah, there’s nothing like it. And spending time with you, of course, my dear,” she hastens to say, looking at Elrich with a playful glint in her eye. He winks at her and brings her knuckles up to his lips, kissing them gently.

Kieran smiles and looks down at his plate, giving them a moment to themselves.

“Actually, Kieran, I was thinking we could go somewhere together tomorrow.” Elrich looks over at his son. “There’s a beautiful viewing point a few miles away from the city, and though it’s a small hike through the forest to get there, it’s well worth it. We might as well do some hunting on the way there to get dinner for tomorrow night, as well.”

“You should go,” Morrigan says. “Spend some time with your father, Kieran. I will take care of everything here – I’m sure the guards will love that.”

“Fergus, too,” Elrich adds, chuckling.

“You’re sure, Father?” Kieran asks. He still hasn’t spent much time with his father, just the two of them, and a part of him is slightly nervous for it.

“Absolutely sure,” Elrich says, grinning. “Besides, I’ve been working hard for half my life. I can take a little more time off to go out and explore my childhood home with my son, hm?”

“Okay,” Kieran agrees. He can’t say he’s not looking forward to it, despite his nervousness – and it’ll certainly be good to get out of the castle.

-

The last day Kieran saw Satine was a bit of a blur.

The scouts from this ‘Inquisition’ came to him and mother’s quarters to pack up their things to take to some place called Skyhold, a supposedly grand fortress in the mountains where they would be living for the foreseeable future while Mother worked alongside someone named the Inquisitor. Satine came to the palace as soon as she received Kieran’s letter – he sent it the night of the ball and the peace talks, when his hands were still shaking from the events of the evening – but they were already almost gone, and would not have much time left to spend together to say their goodbyes, a thought that made Kieran more sad than he remembered ever feeling before.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” she said, sitting on the windowsill across from Kieran as the soldiers carried some furniture out the door to the front gardens where their carriage was waiting.

“I can’t either,” Kieran replied, looking over at Satine with a frown. “I don’t want to go.”

“I know you don’t, but… It’ll be an adventure, right?” She nudged his leg with hers, smiling. “And you can still write to me. I’ll pen a response as soon as I hear from you to make sure you’re not waiting around for a reply.”

“Mother says that she doesn’t trust the Inquisition entirely yet,” Kieran said, tipping his head back against the wall and looking out the window at the rolling hills outside of Orlais. “I don’t know if she will want me to be sending very many letters.”

“Oh.” Satine’s face fell, her bottom lip crumpling. “Well… Send them when you can. I’ll write you a letter about everything exciting that happens and then send them all to you at once when I hear from you.”

Kieran looked over at her. “I’m going to miss you, Satine.” He leaned forward, swinging his legs down from the windowsill. “You know that you’re my only friend, right?”

“You’re mine, too.” She pursed her lips. “The other noble children don’t like me very much. I was so happy when we became friends, Kieran.”

She reached out to tangle their fingers together and Kieran, at a lost for words, squeezed her hand as gently as he could without hurting her.

“Kieran,” Mother called from the other side of the room, “we have to go soon.”

He knew Mother felt bad telling him to prepare to leave soon, but she couldn’t do much about it besides give him an understanding nod and leave the room.

Letting go of her hand, Kieran pushed himself off of the windowsill and landed on the floor. Satine followed, the skirts of her dress swishing. “I suppose this is goodbye,” Kieran said quietly.

“Don’t be foolish, Kieran.” She smiled. “I’m going to see you off. I’m not wasting a single second I have left with you.”

He grabbed his bags, filled with gifts Satine had given him over the past two years as well as all of his clothes and other treasured belongings, and declined her offer to help him as he left his room in the Winter Palace for the last time. He would miss it. There were many things he would miss about Orlais.

Satine did see him off, even though the sky was growing dark and trip back to the city would be long. Still, she waited for the soldiers to pack everything into the carriage and did it all standing at his side, holding his hand, and when it was finally time to go, she turned to him tearfully.

“Goodbye,” she said quietly.

“Goodbye,” he replied, hugging her tightly through tears of his own before hurrying to the carriage where his mother was waiting.

-

His father is marching ahead of him through the woods while Kieran lags behind, listening to the sound of happy birdsong while looking up at the trees.

They’re thick and full, and the dark green leaves tremble in the occasional gust of summer wind. He swears he’s never seen a place so beautiful before, nor one so peaceful, even when he and his mother lived in the mountains. At one point during their walk, a small creature scurries out from the undergrowth and into the hollow of a large tree where it disappears somewhere in the shadows. It was a mouse, Kieran thinks, but he didn’t get a very good look at it.

“Kieran?”

He looks up at his father, standing higher up the path with a concerned look. It’s a wide path, with shallow cuts on either side where wheels of carriages from years past have traversed the long road to Highever. He’s more surprised that they haven’t encountered a carriage so far today, especially considering that Ferelden is in the height of summer and it’s the perfect time of day for hunting.

“I’m fine,” Kieran replies, hurrying to catch up. “I was just distracted by a creature.”

Elrich smiles. “You’ve always been a curious boy,” he says fondly, then tilts his head. “Though I suppose you’re a man now, hm?”

Kieran nods. “It doesn’t always feel like it, but yes, I suppose I am.”

Elrich takes a step down the path towards Kieran, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be a good man, Kieran,” he says. “I see a lot of your mother in you, and she is… well, she is very special.”

A smile curves his lips, and Kieran blinks, unsure what to say other than ‘thank you’ which seems unfitting for the sentiment.

“And I want you to know that I’m proud of you.” He shifts to place his other hand on Kieran’s shoulder as well. “You’re going to grow into your own soon enough. I know you will. I was going through…” Elrich laughs, glancing away. “Well, a lot when I was your age. But I grew into my own, too, with time.”

“You had a few more things to contend with than I do,” Kieran points out with a smile.

“That’s very true.” He squeezes his son’s shoulders softly before letting his hands fall down by his sides. “In any case,” he begins, “we should –“

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of a voice distantly calling for help.

Elrich and Kieran shared a look before springing into action, both of them hurrying down the road towards the source of the noise (thought Kieran was lagging behind due to his heavy pack). Quickly he starts huffing, feeling a sheen of sweat on his brow, but the person sounds distraught, and he is not going to let someone get hurt when he could have helped.

His father reaches them first, and when Kieran crests the hill he can see them – an older man and a shorter woman who Kieran guesses must be around his age, wearing a dress that seems to be Orlesian in style. Elrich is helping the man push their carriage out of the mud from the back while the woman pushes from the front, her face tilted to the ground with effort.

With one final shove, the carriage glides up onto the path once more, and the three of them stumble forward from the momentum as Kieran rushes down towards them. The older man begins thanking Elrich profusely, to which Kieran’s father waves off with a warm smile, and the woman turns to Kieran as he approaches while wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

When his arm drops to his side and he can get a good look on the woman’s face, his stomach drops, too.

No. No. Surely it can’t be her. Of all people, of all places…

“Kieran?”

Suddenly, he feels like his knees could give out from underneath him.

“Satine,” he breathes softly, and he doesn’t get a chance to say anything else before she hugs him.

-

“I just… I just can’t believe it,” Satine says, leaning back in her chair and smiling.

“Me neither,” Kieran replies, running his thumb over the pads of her delicate fingers. “Are you sure you don’t want my cloak? Or to move closer to the fire?”

“Kieran.” She tips her head towards him and looks at him from underneath her eyelashes, a bemused smile on her lips. “I’m fine, here, with you. And you’ve barely gotten a chance to talk about yourself yet! Where did you go after you moved away from Skyhold?”

His story is much less exciting than her’s, and he tells her as such. After it, it took her their whole meal to describe what had happened to her life since he had last seen her. A few years after Kieran left Orlais, Satine’s father died and, as the oldest child, she inherited the family name and fortune. She was even betrothed for a while when she was 17 – before he died, too, apparently. After that, it wasn’t long before she was deemed a weaker member of court with little to no resources to her name (which was blatantly untrue, she explained to Kieran, but people found the lies to be much more appealing) and blackmailed into leaving Orlais.

“We were going to travel to my father’s old estate in Denerim which he bought when he was very young,” she told him, “as it’s the last place I have claim to, but… well, the wheel of our carriage broke, and you know the rest.”

He can still barely believe she’s here. Their carriage could have broken down anywhere, but it broke down here, with him. If they had come even six months earlier, Kieran and Satine never would have crossed paths.

He tells this to her, too, and she asks why, and he explains how he spent the last several years living in the mountains with his mother, and they only just made the trip to move to the city when Elrich returned to them, cured of the Blight and shed of his Warden duties.

“I still can’t believe he’s your father.” She’s holding his hands, now, running her fingers over the back of his hand and drawing absentminded shapes on his skin while she glances across the room to where Elrich and Morrigan look suspiciously like they’re watching them. “The Hero of Ferelden. How could you never tell me?”

“I tried. Once.” Kieran smiles. “You didn’t believe me.”

Satine rolls her eyes, blushing briefly. “That doesn’t sound like me,” she replies with a hint of sadness. “I was a foolish child – I always played into those foolish fantasies…”

“Like what?”

Kieran’s question catches her by surprise – she meets his gaze and shrinks a little, dropping her eyes to their hands. “Like I could be the head of my family at such a young age,” she says. “Like I could do that and be a good person. Ha! There’s only so much you can spend on resources while paying your servants ten times what other nobles do… It worked for a while, but not for a whole life.” Satine ducks her head, then frowns. “I wouldn’t take it back, though. I hope you know that.”

“You’ve always had a kind heart,” Kieran tells her. “It’s one of my favourite things about you.”

She blushes, biting her lip. “Thank you, Kieran,” she says quietly.

Across the room, Elrich drapes his arm over the back of Morrigan’s chair. “He’s never mentioned her before,” he says. “I’m surprised that they seem so… close.”

Very close. Elrich is surprised that they haven’t snuck away to some shadowy alcove yet, all things considered.

“You should have seen them together when they were children.” Morrigan sighs, running a hand over her forehead. “I could not keep them away from each other, no matter how hard I tried. I think he was in love with her the first day they met. He was so pleased to finally have a friend…”

“It seems he feels the same way now,” Elrich replies, gesturing to where Kieran clasps both of Satine’s hands in his. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him smile like that.”

“Well, thankfully, she is a brilliant girl.” Morrigan smiles wistfully at the sight of the two of them but, when she sees her husband beaming at her, clears her throat. “She used to be, anyway. Only time will tell if she’s still good enough for him.”

He leans over and presses a kiss to her temple. “We have to let him make his own decisions sometime, love.”

She sighs in annoyance, swatting his arm playfully as he wraps it around her and hugs her close. “Don’t tell me that,” she says. “Hearing that as a mother is worse than being run through with a sword.”

“It’s hard for me, too.” Elrich looks over at Kieran again, where he’s opening one of the books out of a stack of many that he brought down to show Satine after dinner. “Now that we’re all together again, it’s hard not to want to spend all my free time with him after missing out on so many years.”

He heaves a regretful sigh, but before he can turn his head, Morrigan reaches up to cup his cheek. “He understands,” she says. “And I know he wants to spend time with you too.”

“I hope so,” Elrich replies. “And I hope I’ve taught him well enough in the short time we’ve had together to make a good decision.”

“He will,” Morrigan says. “But not because of your teaching…”

He kisses her forehead again, chuckling. “Now that’s just cruel.”

“Perhaps.” She leans against his shoulder. “But you love me despite it.”

He laughs. “That I do, love. And either way,” Elrich continues, “I hope everything turns out well for all of us.”

Watching Kieran and Satine on the other side of the room, however, sitting so close together they might as well be in each other’s laps and still holding hands all the while, it’s very hard to believe that it won’t.

-

Within a few months, Satine is moved into the castle.

Her caretaker moves into the city, and after Elrich sets him up with a job working for a baker in the thick of Highever, he occasionally comes by Castle Cousland to bring the four of them food. Kieran and Satine have left piles of crumbs in every room and down every corridor, depending where they set up camp to read books or play chess that day, but Satine always convinces Kieran to clean it up instead of sweeping it into holes in the walls for the mice to get (and then they leave out fancy Orlesian cheese on plates for them, instead). Within a year, Satine moves into Kieran’s quarters; within two, they’re more or less officially betrothed.

“We’ll get married at some point,” Satine says to Morrigan and Elrich one day at dinner, holding Kieran’s hand under the table. “But it’s not our biggest concern right now.”

At the same time, of course, Kieran and Elrich are trying to make up for lost time. They go hunting together for game even though the soldiers try to convince Elrich to let them do it instead, and even when they’re not hunting they go on walks together, just the two of them, where Elrich tells Kieran stories of his time in the Blight and Kieran talks about whatever his latest interest is. They do end up buying a hawk for him that Elrich helps Kieran take care of whenever they have an hour or two to spend together. It becomes quite a popular member of the household, and with Satine around to draw him out of his shell, Kieran follow in its path. He has a few friends now, even without counting the soldiers who greet him warmly every time he walks by holding Satine’s hand.

She’s a perfect addition to the family. Elrich and her are very close, Kieran notes, and his father even teaches Satine how to shoot a bow and how to sword fight (neither of which Kieran is particularly good at himself). In turn, Satine tries to teach him how to sew – it doesn’t end very well, but it certainly made for an entertaining attempt.

Kieran can scarcely believe it most days, how he came from being such a lonely child to having a loving mother and father and a best friend who tells him she adores him every day despite his oddities. (“Of which you have none,” she always protests.) He is incredibly lucky, he thinks, to be end up with a life like this considering where he came from. He only hopes it can stay this way.