#mahariel x Alistair

[snacobie]

King and Lionheart

@greenieart ‘s warden 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[wickedsnack-art]

Ziphrane Mahariel, Martyr of Ferelden, and Alistair Theirin before he became King.

🌸 MY COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN 🌸 more info at link in source!

[inquisimer]

happy friday mer!!! for your mahariel/alistair, "❛ if only the time and space between us wasn’t lonely ❜"

happy dadwc kia and ty for the prompt! it's sad mahariel hours in my house (it's always sad mahariel hours in my house) ;-;

for @dadrunkwriting

-

Sari used the cover of darkness to sneak back into Denerim. When she left, months ago, she’d planned to stay away forever. Even now, with corpses cleared and buildings repaired, ghosts lingered on each and every cobblestone.

But she had to come. Her heart beat against the scrap of paper in her breast pocket, an unsigned message in loopy writing: it is built.

When she rounded the corner up Queen’s Row, Sari’s breath caught. Alongside the palace gates stood a new structure, gleaming in the moonlight. A proud, silver-plated griffon perched on the roof, wings unfurled, about to take flight. Piles of flowers and coin and ribbons cluttered the entrance where a magical flame flickered, blue and undying to honor the one who gave his life to save them all.

Sari kept her hood drawn, past the lone guard and all the way up to the shrine. A few pieces of armor (that she knew to be fakes), a glass case over a polished medal, and a sword affixed to the wall above it. That was real—there could be no mistaking the dried flecks of the archdemon’s Blighted blood.

A smooth inscription in the marble read:

Alistair Theirin Warrior | Grey Warden | Hero of the Fifth Blight In Death, Sacrifice.

She placed her hands over the words so that she wouldn’t have to see the terrible code that condemned him to die. As soon as her palms touched cool stone, her knees gave way; she sank to the floor and pressed her forehead to it instead, tasting salt on her tongue as tears made their lonely, inevitable journey to the floor.

I miss you, she cried, silent. I cannot do this alone.

She had not been allowed to grieve for Tamlen. But there was no one in this world or the next, no quest or crisis that could keep her from anguish now. Not when her love was gone to ashes.

They should have been heroes together. Or he should be here, and she in the gilded urn, just a legend, a myth. That’s what she would be, anyway. The people who claimed to exalt her did not recognize her pointed ears or tattooed face—their eyes glazed over her where they would have latched on to Alistair.

You should be here.

She could feel the tears ending, for now. Just as well—she could not linger, lest she invite Leliana to descend her perch from the palace. And she could not bear the presence of her friend, not now, no matter how dear, no matter how she’d covered for Sari’s absence with both the crown and the crowds. Her touch was too gentle and forgiving to survive the barbs that Sari would stake into her if they met now.

With shaking hands, she loosed the leather cord from her neck. She felt off-balance without the weight of the tiny vial at her throat, but she set it alongside the other offerings at the shrine. The dark, sludgy concoction within oozed and warped as it settled.

Sari knelt before the shrine once more and pressed a kiss just over his name. How cold the stone was beneath her lips; the hardness sealed itself in her heart as she stood and wiped her face.

Ar lath ma, vhenan.

With each step she took, pieces of her fell away. A myth, a legend, a cautionary tale left in her wake.

The Hero of Ferelden left Ferelden behind.

[greypetrel]

Oooh "the moment you turn around, our deal is done!" From the prompt list for whomever it fits best!

Hi Mo! <3 Thank you so much for this, eheheheh, I had just the right idea for it.

Trigger warning: I really don’t like Eamon Guerrin, so if he’s your favourite character, dear reader, this may not be the fic for you. (but Alyra is not a good character either, she just relies in being petty and is honest about it)

Tis the prompt list (if you're reading: feel free to send me another prompt!)

Does it Howl Inside? (🎶)

[ Warden Mahariel x Alistair | 4355 words | CW: classism, King Alistair, I never said Alyra was a good person ]

Become the beast, we don't have to hide Do I terrify you or do you feel alive? Do you feel the hunger? Does it howl inside? Does it terrify you? Or do you feel alive?

“No.”

Alyra spitted, full of venom, right in Eamon’s face. For all she cared, the man could die in a ditch in that exact moment, and she would laugh and dance on his grave. She owed Alistair an apology for having spoken so harshly on Duncan. Not that she liked the Warden, now, but she found she much preferred Duncan’s terrible manners for a good end, instead of Eamon’s perfect courtesy as he toyed with people.

Duncan would have yielded. Duncan bought her boots when she pettily insisted she wouldn’t have set food in Ostagar barefoot. It had been a lame excuse to try and force him to let her go, not chase after her. He had sighed and returned after ten minutes with a pair of boots in soft leather. And “forgot” to remind her to give him his money back. Duncan cared, in his own way.

Eamon? Eamon cared but for his goals.

“No?” He asked, sighing in his chair as if he was dealing with an unruly child. “What are you suggesting then? You made plenty clear you despise Anora.”

She did. But she hated the man in front of her more. The proposal he made the most, and the way he looked at her with complacency, knowing he had the upper hand and knew more than her. She had been reading non-stop about Fereldan laws and customs since they reached Denerim again, but of course she couldn’t read as fast as to gain the decades of experience the Arl had in a handful of weeks.

“Would you trust Anora to back you up in battle? She had already sold you off once. She’ll betray you like her father did. And you know it.”

“Your solution is no better.” She hissed, fists closing so tight she felt her nails digging in her palms. “We’ll trade a wild card for one that’s unexperienced at best, so convenient to sound a ruse at worst. With the country in a civil war, an army to command and-”

“My dear.”

He closed his hands on the armrests of his high chair and pushed it back from the desk. He rose slowly to his feet, not in a way that spoke of old age but in one that spoke of calculation. He was in no hurry, unbothered by her protests. Alyra observed him, turning as he moved and leisurely passed his fingers on the books in one bookshelf of the many that circled his study. She didn’t want to show him his back, but he wasn’t giving her the same courtesy. A tell of who considered the other a threat, and something that made Alyra's blood boil.

"I know you're not used to our politics yet. No fault of your own of course, but you do are intelligent." He went on, picking one volume from the shelf. "Alistair may be inexperienced in politics, that's true. But he has Theirin blood in his vein, people to prove he has, and looks enough like Maric to support the claim."

Keeping the book in his hand, he strode towards her, with the same unhurriedness he was speaking with.

"Do you think the Landsmeet will follow after an upstart with shrewdness fit for a seasoned politician but nothing else in her quiver, save a bodycount and uncomfortable lineage, or for the blood of the Rebel Queen?"

The question was perfectly rhetorical. Eamon handed her the book, keeping it in the air between them, cover up for her to read. A biography of Queen Moira and the Rebellion against Orlais. Alistair's lineage, there to look at her, much an accusation than anything else. She wasn't sure he was talking about Anora anymore.

"I was told that you suggested to execute the mage, Jowan, to use his ashes and not Andraste's to cure me. Beside, I'm told you already have another to warm your bed, for all your nice professions of care for Alistair. A heart of gold fits you poorly, Warden Mahariel, and you're more clever than not recognising that Alistair on the throne is the only solution to win your war."

Alyra wanted to puke. To puke or to kill the man with her bare hands. Or maybe both, possibly at the same time. She saw the logic behind his reasoning. She saw it, and a part of her knew he was right, and she should yield. Take that book, do as he says, stop fighting against windmills.

Convincing Alistair wouldn't be so hard, she knew him well enough to know what to say and how. She knew he would have done it, out of duty. And hated every minute of it.

She did wonder if he would have hated her. If that was finally the thing that would have made him stop seeing what good she had and ignore all the rest, after months and months of convincing everyone, Alyra included, that she was the good person she wasn’t.

Because Eamon was actually right. She wouldn’t have trusted Anora on the throne. Not after she sold Alistair and her to gain her freedom, to win a voice in the Landsmeet against the two people that could actually end the Blight. After Orzammar, furthermore, she doubted that she could pull through the Landsmeet postponing the choice of a new ruler. She needed one person to take charge, and for that person not to be the man in front of her.

“I will talk to Alistair.”

Every word fell out of her mouth tasting of bile, heavy as a rock. Eamon smiled and she struggled not to punch that smile and show him the same patronizing benevolence by coming just short of killing him.

“A wonderful choice. I knew you were reasonable, after all.” Eamon sounded content, sitting back down on his desk and picking a quill to continue the letter he was writing when Alyra barged in. “Do your part and convince the boy, and you’ll have your army to face the Blight.”

---

Alyra walked out of the Arl’s studio fuming, her breath coming ragged.

Eamon outplayed her, forced her to dance to his own tune, and she hated the feeling. It picked at the betrayal of Merethari selling her off to the Wardens against her wishes, it picked at Tamlen showing up at camp, barely alive but still breathing and conscious. She thought she was over that rage and hatred, she thought she made her own peace to her destiny, but everything was resurfacing, acrid and scolding, making breathing difficult and zeroing her whole perception to a crippling sense of impotence. Her hands trembled, her breath came difficult, and she couldn’t relax her shoulders.

All she felt like doing was killing someone.

Possibly someone of the Guerrin bloodline.

But, she would have gained her agency in her life back again, it would have spared her the guilt of betraying Alistair by putting him on the throne… It would have lost her the Archdemon and the Horde. They would have been happy again, but for how long? And with how much guilt from losing the country?

She remembered Lothering, the wasteland that the darkspawn had left where once the village and its fields stood, as they passed it headed back to Ostagar. The half rotten corpses barely buried under ashes and debris. Ferelden would be thoroughly unprepared to face the tide, without the Landsmeet. And with her luck, Ferelden would rile up against a mixed army of Mages, Dalish elves and Dwarves first, ignoring the zombies in their fronts. Anora proved herself not to be trusted, and she didn’t want to consider her.

Simply speaking, she was cornered.

“My lady?”

The elven servant in the corner greeted her, shily. It took Alyra weeks of showing her some basic decency to be in speaking terms. Right now, she had no words to spare for her. Not anything that wouldn’t have been read as aggressive.

So, she said nothing, noticing she was so up in her head that she had stopped walking. Her hands, contracted in fists, hurt from being contracted for too long.

“Let me help you.” The maid said, shily.

Alyra felt a hand on her shoulder, delicate like a newborn bird at first, firmer when it was clear she wasn’t reacting. She let the maid move her, guiding her by an elbow and a shoulder through corridors and away.

The wooden planks of the pavement she was looking at left space for roughly cut stones, with rough spun rugs covering them instead of woolen carpets. The air smelled like food and onions, and she knew they were in the servant’s quarters, close to the kitchens. Someone muttered something and complained against the maid, but Alyra looked up to glare at them, and all the complaints stopped instantly.

Some more steps later, and she was brought to sit down on a cot, in a room that held three beds, a small windows and bedside tables with drawers for each bed and a small brazier in the middle.

“Wait a moment, please.”

Alyra didn’t remember her name, she pondered. She didn’t put much attention to it -as she didn’t with much of anyone- but when the girl returned some minutes later and offered her a cup of hot tea, she considered that she should at least put an effort to learn how was she called.

She stared at the infusion in the cup, closing both hands upon it, and at the vapour gently raising. Her reflection looked as contracted as a goblin from legends, and she minded not when the thin mattress dunked to the side, as the maid sat beside her.

“You should drink, my lady. I told the cook to brew it for Lady Anora. It’s something she brews for Lady Isolde, it always does wonders for the Lady’s nerves.”

Just what Alyra needed: the same infusion for two people that she had a really low opinion of.

“If it’s fit for them, I don’t want it.” She spat, but she moved slowly to give the mug back.

She waited, keeping the mug up for the other woman to take, but all that happened was that she felt a hand on her own, gently moving hers back.

“… It’s just tea, my lady.”

“I’m not a lady.”

“The lords treat you like one.”

Alyra snorted. “They just need me. It’s just a word with no stance, and I’d better just stop acting like it holds some weight. It’s a pointless fight, anyway.”

It slipped out without her fully realizing it, but it rang all too true with her, and the thought felt good. Going with the flow, let others decide for her as they already did, but without opposing it. Do her job, end the Blight, no more and no less. Stop studying politics without knowing anything about it, stop trying if all she gained was recognizing just how much Eamon outwitted her.

She could stop caring, and the thought calmed her down a little. Her shoulders relaxed. Alistair would hate her, but Morrigan would not. Morrigan hated that place as much as hers. She had let her kiss her, finally: they could run away together, when all would be over, and disappear in the woods never to be seen again. Away from war, away from politics, away from the Grey Wardens.

The thought was tempting. So very tempting.

But. Silence followed. The tea stopped fuming, and she could imagine the Witch looking at her with that disappointed bent of her mouth.

“If I may.” The maid said, and suddenly the shyness she had showed disappeared, some new line of frustration creeping up in her voice.

Alyra turned, and the maid was looking down at her hands, closed together in her lap, her knuckles equally contracted and white as her own. She didn’t wait for her permission to continue, and Alyra was strangely grateful for it.

“I don’t know why the Arl hired me for Lady Isolde. The Chamberlain surely hated me from the moment he sat eyes on me, and I…” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I do, how hard do I work or how little I complain. I was the first awake and the last asleep for months, it changed nothing but teaching everyone that they can give me the extra task nobody wants to do. I was hired as a maid, I am cleaning chamber pots and yelled at if I take a breather for five minutes. I washed those pots until my hands bled and the wounds couldn’t close in water, and when I asked for help, they just told me I didn’t take the job seriously.”

Alyra stayed silent, her hands not relaxing for a whole other set of reasons than before. The maid kept up with her tale, listing abuse after abuse, all the little things that happened to her and made her life miserable. Her shyness and demure became all too reasonable, and if Alyra couldn’t understand at first why she was so held back with her, another elf… She now admired her for resisting so long without entering a killing spree. She would have never made it, in her place.

At the end of the tale, the maid turned to her, eyes shining from tears she refused to shed and lips contracted in a thin line. Her lips where dry and flaky, signalling she at least wasn’t drinking enough water.

“They listen to you, Warden. It’s more than any elf in this city can obtain in a lifetime of good service. And you just want to quit?”

The accusation hit her, putting more wood on the fire of her rage.

“They listen to me just because they need me. I’m useful for now, but when the Blight will be over, I’ll be just another elf.”

“The Blight is not over, tho.” The maid insisted, morosely. “You still have some leverage. I know you’re a Dalish and you don’t care for City Elves, but-”

“I am a Dalish, and I have no idea how a Landsmeet or politics work in this country.” She stopped her, glaring at her. “Eamon cornered me to make a decision that will hurt a good person. I know how to fight, I know how to keep a group of people sheltered and fed in the wilderness. I don’t know how to not have your conditions worsened because I made the wrong move.”

“You’re a coward!”

It stroke her, stopping both as if a lightning fell between them. The maid paled, bringing a hand to cover her mouth in horror to what she just said. Alyra, on her own, was stunned. She had been called many names and many things. Cruel, cold, ruthless, amongst others similar. Coward, tho, was definitely a first.

“I’m sorry. I forgot my stance and- Oh please, don’t tell-” The shyness came back, and the maid curved under the weight of what she did, visibly terrified. It wasn’t a kind of power Alyra wanted, and it just served to shake her out of her stupor.

“Don’t be.” She told her, firmly. “It’s all right.”

She turned, focusing back on her thoughts and staring at her own reflection in her tea. It was growing cold, but it mattered not. The new appellative felt weird on her shoulder, and she rolled it around in her mind, once and twice, reflecting. There was little she could do about it, she was asked to step up to deal with a delicate matter and had not the instruments for it.

But Dalish she was, and as bad as her clan has been, as much as she would have laughed if anyone would have asked to get back to Merethari after this story was over… She restored to what she knew, instead of what she didn’t.

“What’s your name?” She asked, frustrated from really not remembering it.

“… I already told you.” The maid answered, disappointed.

“I’m bad with names.” Alyra begrudgingly admitted.

“… Nigella.”

“Fine. Thank you, Nigella.”

The maid hummed an affirmative, little convinced about it. It was a wild bet. But Alyra Mahariel didn’t like to be cornered, and as every animal being cornered acts, she moved to a crazy bet.

“Eamon had cornered me in making a choice I don’t want to make. I’ve been cornered three times in the last year and as tired I am of being so, I never was able to exit the corner on my own. I’m not a good bet, for you or the elves in Denerim, and in the worst-case scenario you’ll all pay for my mistakes.”

“Why are you-”

Alyra took a sip of her tea. It was too sweet, too much honey covering the deeply balsamic taste of herbs, and having left it to cool down didn’t really help the taste. But she swallowed anyway, thankful for it, before turning to the other woman, resolution settling in her heart.

“I am tired of having other people decide for me. Mortally so. But to out myself from this corner, I will need help.” She explained, calmly. “I am asking you a lot, and putting you in a risky position. If you don’t want to do it, if you have a family you need to protect, I won’t hold it against you. But otherwise: would you help me?”

Nigella blinked thrice, mouth open in surprise as if she wasn’t expecting it.

“I’m just a maid.”

“Exactly. You know the nit and grit of the nobles in this estate. You are invisible for nobles and servants, meaning that no one really cares if you’re listening. Right?”

“… Right.”

“Well then. You wanted someone to listen to you. As much as it may be worth, I can listen. I can keep listening. If I can play my cards well, I can put on the throne a better option on the table for the elves in this country. But I need help. Will you lend me yours?”

Nigella was right: she was being a coward, and going down without a fight after a man she despised told her so. Killing him would have helped no one, but she could do better in trying to outwit him in turn. If she had some help and some more elements not visibly biased… A solution came to mind, but she needed an external opinion. She could and would swallow her pride.

Nigella needed no time in finding her answer.

“Yes, my lady.” She smiled at her, and the honorific was now said with a new vein of respect and hope that didn’t felt so bad on Alyra’s ears.

She smiled, too, and nodded.

“Good. Now, tell me.” She took a deep breath. Alistair would hate her anyway, so she could at least weight all her options. “What can you tell me about Anora?”

---

Alyra slipped in Alistair’s room in the dead of night.

She slipped in his bed as quiet as a mouse and hugged him from behind, pressing a kiss on the nape of his neck and breathing him in. They did nothing but quarrel in the last month, since the Arl woke, and she knew they would have argued worse in the next period of time. In the next hour particularly, if he would wake.

She owed him some last tenderness. It wouldn’t milden the blow, but she owed it to him to remember that she wasn’t acting out of hate for him.

She felt him stirring awake, and shift an arm up.

“It’s me.” She announced herself, before he could grab the dagger underneath his pillow. Her heart clenched, it had been her idea to keep one there and in spite of all the wrong words they vomited upon each other so far he still kept it. “Just me.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you were at least sorry to wake me up?” He sighed, relaxing back on the bad but not turning towards her. But some weeks prior, he would have.

She was sorry for many things regarding him, but not for waking him up.

“You’re gonna hate me anyway.”

He didn’t answer right after, but she felt his muscles contract underneath her fingers. A couple of moments, and he shifted to face her.

“Did you kill Wynne and need help in dumping her body in the Chantry Well?”

“No.” Not yet, at least.

“Well then, it can’t be that bad then, can it?”

It was that bad.

---

“You can’t be serious.”

Alyra, armour splattered with Sir Cauthrien’s blood after the idiot waited for her in the foyer and thought she would have let her beat her twice, had successfully convinced Eamon to exchange a couple of words in private with her. The Landsmeet was over that door, so close they could hear people discussing just beyond the heavy wooden doors, but Alyra’s first real success was how purple the old geezer’s face had become when she told him.

Oh, she would have kept that face scrunched in indignation as a badge of honour until she died.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked, calmly. Knowing she managed to outmaneuver the Arl was sweet on her tongue, and she wanted to drag it.

“You are suggesting you’re putting on the throne a-”

“-I’m leaving on the throne its rightful queen.” She simply stated, now it was her to speak to the other as if dealing with a child throwing a tantrum, mindlessly examining her nails to check if some blood ended up under them. “I am sure King Maric was favourable to the option, if he bethroted his firstborn to Anora.” She looked up at him and smiled, as sweetly as she could. “I’m sure you would never be so contrary to the own decision of a Theirin King to plot and scheme to undo it as soon as the throne is vacant for five minutes. You’re far too honourable and faithful to the crown for that, my lord.”

He was intelligent enough to understand the sarcasm she put in the honorifics. It was after all the first time she used it to address him, and it clearly wasn’t a chance. She saw him straightening his back, as his guards looked at the two of them with uncertainty on their parts. He was a noble man with a long ancestry, but he was getting angry at the decision she informed him of. Eamon looked at the guards, and took a deep breath, calming himself some.

“You’re making a mistake I beg you once again to avoid. You still have to talk in the Landsmeet, you know better than leaving the crown to Anora.”

“Careful, my lord, this conversation could be passable of treason.”

“You don’t accuse me like that. I raised you up to the task, I raised you to speak in this occasion and be listened to in spite of your background. And this is your gratitude?” He snorted.

“I saved your life, I saved your son, your wife and your village, and your gratitude is using me like a pawn?” She countered. “I informed you of my decision so you can prepare for it. I didn’t ask you for your opinion. If you’ll excuse me, I have a general with an actual brain to face and a war to win.”

She bowed to him, equally with sarcasm and stepped back to turn.

“The moment you turn around, our deal is broken.”

Eamon threatened, raising his voice.

Alyra rolled her eyes to the ceiling, groaning. She really thought she made it clear that she cared not for his opinion anymore. Once more, she wished his and Loghain’s parts had been inverted. As much as she had to take the General down, she could understand his reasonings and motivations better. Respect him, even. Not something she could do with the man in front of her.

This time, it was her to turn her back to him, heading for the stairs that lead back down to the ground floor. She took her satisfaction, said what she had to and took great delight in observing him grow as red as a robin’s chest.

“Warden, you’re gonna regret this.” Eamon last called, full of contempt. “You’ll miss Ferelden’s army, when the Horde will show up.”

She stopped on the first step, but didn’t turn to him.

“You meant to say I will miss Redcliffe’s army for it?” She punctuated. “I think you’re gonna miss the army I rallied and the one of the crown I’m securing more than I will miss the handful of knights and scared, untrained villagers that I managed to save from the consequences of the action of your idiotic wife.”

It’s been months since she wanted to speak her mind on that matter, and doing it so with a man she considered less than a very pointed rock that once slipped in her boots felt incredibly sweet on her tongue.

“Good luck with the Darkspawn, Guerrin.”

She didn’t stay to hear what he answered her. She stepped down the stairs, feeling pride and satisfied of having won that little altercation and finally out-cornered herself. She had to thank Nigella for it, and the other elven servants she had contacts with - more than insisting far and wide to have her as her personal chambermaid and basically having her walk Sir Bonecrusher Ironjaw as she was up and about, since she could well tend for herself and her room. And truth to be told, she wouldn’t have imagined that playing these games would have been so… Fulfilling. So she went on, more optimistic for the future than she had been in quite a while, righting her chainmail and fixing the breastplate on her chest. The blood splatters would only have served in her role, and in reminding everyone that they were just discussing in a room, the one that was fighting for them all was hers.

After all, Eamon Guerrin could bark all he wanted, and call her all kind of names.

The idiot never even considered that she hadn’t tell him the full extent of her plan, and that Anora, and not Anora alone, was just plan B.

[goatsorcery]

in my canon mahariel and alistair break-up right before the start of awakening because both of them think placing duty before love is the right thing to do, but also because they started their relationship at such a tumultuous time (not only the blight, but both of them losing everyone they know) and begin to recognize their codependency on some level. they also have a lot of disagreements on decisions made (mahariel regrets killing loghain, alistair regrets the dark ritual) and have a hard time reconciling that they made the right choices, especially since they were made with the other person in mind (mahariel killed loghain because thats what alistair wanted, alistair did the ritual because he wanted to make sure mahariel lived). i just love the idea of them having a whirlwind romance based on the fact that they come out of ostagar the only survivors and then second guessing their feelings later (mahariel still grapples with her feelings for tamlen, alistair worries that his love for mahariel is so deep just because she’s his first).

[big-cheesy-productions]

Character Intro: Jayla Mahariel

Once again using Marian Churchland's templates and @palipunk's Absolution tutorial to introduce you to: Jayla Mahariel, my Warden! Jayla is a Dalish rogue who doesn't know anything about human politics and doesn't care to. The image above is around the time of Absolution so she has had the corruption for about 15 years and it is starting to show.

Her and Alistair have been reunited after Inquisition and she's just happy to be back with him so they can find a cure together.

She's a stabby sweetheart and I love her very much <3

Enjoy!

[glamfellens]

warden boyyyyy i love Youuuu

[ranasi]

Warden Mahariel has left a mark on him. As he on her. God help me with this drama.

A comic I drew while reliving and rethinking "becoming a mistress" ending. Lil headcanon about Al being so in love AND pain from being apart from her while she's doing her warden comander business that he puts his frustration over this and political shit into something beautiful

PS: also I love how this song is now fully about these two for me. I mean..."you and I drinking POISON from the same wine" line? Change my mind🥀😁

[milton-chamberlain]

Finally I finished this poster! I really wanted to do my AU in the daa style, I was damn tired:D

[valsnotgothstuff]

arl eamon: so hey, i wanna set you up with anora

alistair: oh i’m engaged to the warden :)

arl eamon: i thought you were gay

alistair: then why would you want to set me up with anora?

arl eamon: i don’t know

[gaiah]

“Have you ever licked a lamp post in winter?”

[mossyarts]

some mahariels

(my mom saw me drawing this and said “is this for pride? :)” and initially it wasnt but now it is! happy pride!)

[wickedsnack-art]

Just some cute sketches of Ziphrane and Alistair moments set during the downtime of Dragon Age: Origins

[inquisimer]

MER hap fri! How about ❛ i am trying to do the job that you were meant to do. ❜ for Alistair x Warden?

dredging this ages old prompt out for tonight's @dadrunkwriting, thank you ro mwah mwah

Some angst from Sari's first timeline :3

~~~

They made camp just a breath outside of Redcliffe, when the tension between Sari and Alistair threatened to snap. Tents came together amidst stony silence and soon the familiar smell of smoke and reheated stew enveloped them.

Sari heard her companions’ stilted attempts at banter as if through a fog. She took up a perch on the stump of a fallen tree and stared into the murky darkness of the forest. A yearning, deep and rooted in her heart, resurfaced.

Go. Run.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and looked down at her hands as she exhaled. They looked ordinary—pale, a bit scarred, perhaps a bit shaky. Certainly no one would expect the blood that coated them in her mind.

A twig snapped behind her and she stiffened, fingers folding into a tight fist. There was a very distinctive weight in the step and she knew each of her companions’ gaits well enough by now.

“We have nothing to discuss, Alistair,” she said. “You made your thoughts on my choices very clear.”

Alistair cleared his throat. “I know. But Leliana won’t leave me be until I talk to you. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stand here until I’ve satisfied her urge to mediate.”

“It’s not.”

“Hm?”

“It’s not all the same to me.” Sari glowered at a weathered root protruding from the ground. “I want to wallow in solitude.”

“Wallow?” Bitterness wrapped around Alistair’s words like thorns around a rose. “I thought you’d be celebrating the victory at Redcliffe. A demon defeated! A child saved!”

“Fuck off Alistair. You’ve been over here long enough for Zevran to distract Lana, and I’m really not in the mood to be your punching bag.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think Lady Isolde was in the mood to be your blood sacrifice either but here we are.”

Sari’s facade cracked like a lake under thaw and she whipped around, braids careening about her ears. She dropped down from the stump and stalked across the bit of distance Alistair had left between them.

“You had your chance,” she hissed. “You’re the senior warden, remember? If you wanted these alliances to be Chantry-approved, all you had to do was take the lead at Lothering.”

“But you didn’t.” She jabbed her finger into his chest with each word. “And now I am trying my best to do the job you were meant to do.”

“If you don’t like the way I work, go find some mage to send you back in time,” she bit out. “Otherwise use your preaching lectures on someone who cares to listen.”

“Sari—“ His hands ghosted over her arms, as though to grip her by the elbows and pull her close, but she swatted them away. The hurt in his eyes matched the hurt in her heart, but they were separated by an ocean of misunderstanding and miscommunication and right now she wasn’t sure there was a bridge wide enough to cross it.

“Just go, Alistair.” Her hands relaxed, fists unfurling as she gave him her back and returned to her stump. “Leave me alone.”

His hesitation salted the air, and a very small part of her underneath the layers of anger and hurt and betrayal wished that he would push back. But that was so far out of character, it was more of a foolish hope than a wish.

And the cracking twigs as he retreated back to the fire proved it.

[greypetrel]

For the size difference meme: A4 and E2 with any pairing of your choice :3

Buongiorno egregio! Let's start with A4, it was an obliged choice...

"Alyra, I wonder why people tend not to disagree with me. Did I grow up as a king to be authoritative and imposing?" "Sure, darling, that's exactly that. Good job."

The mood

Tis the prompt list

[goatsorcery]

mahariel absolutely misinterprets alistair giving her the rose and later telling her he never wants to sleep with another woman again to be two halves of a proposal, chalking up the lack of directness to alistair being alistair or as a part of some human tradition.

during their break-up, mahariel mentions that they’re ‘calling off the engagement’ and alistair very genuinely asks ‘what engagement?’