#roserford

[theluckywizard]

Illustration for a forthcoming chapter of my agonizing slowburn long fic In the Shattering of Things, featuring my very Level 1 rogue!Trevelyan Rose x Cullen with a helping of Rose x m!Hawke on the side.

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 59: Tangled**

Chapter Summary: Rose contends with the aftermath and consequences of her night with Hawke while forging ahead trying to access the rift underneath the lake.

Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke. Excerpt below cut ⏬

I distract myself momentarily, flipping open the lid of my pen box and retrieve my locket. I pop it open and pinch the little coin between my thumb and forefinger. It feels like it’s been an age since I first held it in my hand. And it feels nearly as long since the meaning it once held was tarnished.

I gather up the pieces of all my ridiculous hopes. The ones I never let go of, the ones Hawke of all people had offered this morning, wishes patched up with his confident, clumsy assurances. Maybe it just wasn’t the right moment for Cullen and I. Maybe I’ll return to Skyhold and get another chance.

“I thought you would be in the tower,” says Cassandra. I nearly spit out my mouthful of tea then slowly turn to look at her. She doesn’t look up, seemingly absorbed in her reading. I put the locket away again.

“I— will be staying in our usual tent,” I tell her.

“Oh, I heard that you stayed there last night,” she remarked, her expression mildly entertained try as she might to hide it.

Maker, does she know? Varric seemed keenly aware.

“I— yes.” 

“When you did not come to turn in, I thought I would check with the scouts about your whereabouts. I was told you had gone to the keep tower with the Champion,” she says in her usual flat tone. “I did not mean to pry.”

I feel the heat of a murderous blush race across my cheeks. Somehow I doubt her lack of interest.

“Didn’t mean to pry?” I ask her, forcing a skeptical smile through my mortification. “You could just ask, Cassandra.”

“I— am sure you had work to discuss,” she says, nodding with a perfectly straight face that moments later dissolves into a ridiculous pink-cheeked smirk. I bury my smile in my hands and then lose myself in a peal of tenacious laughter. The absurdity of it surges forth again.

“Yes. Work,” I laugh. “We were— planning.”

After a prolonged pause she continues. “I— hope it was a good planning session.” She peers up at me from her sixth reread of the last issue of Swords and Shields with a raised brow and then hides her amusement behind the well worn volume. 

Well, I can’t leave her entirely in the dark. 

“It was an exceptional planning session.”

“But you do not need to plan again tonight,” she confirms. 

“I— think just the one night of planning should suffice.”

Cassandra eyes me doubtfully while I sip my tea.

“But you said it was exceptional,” she protests. 

It was . I don’t have an answer for her. Even now I catch myself gazing across the upper bailey from inside our tent, searching for him, his whereabouts interesting me more than I care to admit.

If everyone knows, they certainly aren’t teasing me about it, which leads me to doubt the gossip had spread thoroughly through the ranks. Maker knows that Bull and Sera would have had a smart remark. And Dorian would have cornered me on the matter first thing.

I stand to stretch my back and walk to the tent entrance, gazing across the keep through the drizzle. An orange glow flickers in the tower windows. I squint like it’s a mirage, and then laugh because it’s real.

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[theluckywizard]

HI LUCKY i am once again asking for a smut emoji prompt fill:

cullen / rose / 🛀🏻 / ❄️

Thank you for this opportunity to torture my blorbos. This is easily one of the most painful pieces I've ever written so weeeeeeeee. Also I did not do a final proof read soooo... yeah. For @dadrunkwriting Somehow this piece clinches all of the following square (kind of incidentally for the Whumptober ones lol) WHUMPTOBER BINGO: Pinned down, Aftermath of Failure, Troubled Past Resurfacing, Goodbye Note and Betrayal KINKTOBER BINGO: Begging, pain play (play might be a stretch, but there's a lot of pain during sex)

Rating: Explicit CW: Sex, sex while recovering from severe injuries, there's a lot of pain emotional and physical WC: 3650

Summary: Cullen is recovering from severe injuries after an encounter with Samson in Emprise du Lion in Rose's quarters. Rose has been nursing her anger and anguish for weeks and it all comes spilling out at last.

***

We’d found him in a grove above the Tower of Bone camp battered and unconscious, pinned to the ground with his own blade through his left shoulder. I’d grown so accustomed to waking to an empty bed that it didn’t faze me initially. But he’d left a note, a short one, and based on our conversations and the persistence of his ruminations and silent brooding, I knew, I knew what it meant. 

Forgive me.

The flood of nausea was immediate. I was forever competing with his obsession with Samson and on that day it all came to a head. I’d asked him to stay at Skyhold while we dealt with Emprise, keenly aware of how deeply red lyrium affects him. But he insisted that he should be there to help deal with the templars and I couldn’t find the will to fight him on it. I didn’t have the strength to resist the force of his stubbornness. Not on this. 

And I wish to the Maker that I had.

Even with the healing draughts on hand we quickly found their limits. They’d only mended him enough that he became aware of the pain and then all we could do is sedate him for the journey back to Skyhold. He’d need bed rest and the skill of our best healers at Skyhold to repair the broken bones and torn ligaments properly and it was an eleven day ride by carriage, stopping in every reasonably large Orlesian town to seek the aid healers with greater skill than those we had with us.

I had him installed in my quarters upon returning, ignoring Ellendra’s bloody impertinent looks and raised eyebrows. Maker knows everyone in the Inquisition understood we’d gotten together at last. And he wanted to work even though Rylen had it well in hand. 

I’m going to allow him to compromise his own recovery. 

Not after he denied me the chance to talk sense into him with regard to Samson.

“How much longer am I to be kept here? Are you my lady or my boss?” he complains, propped up in bed by the mountain of pillows I’d made for him earlier. All the contusions and lacerations have long since healed, but he hobbles to see me at my desk like a centenarian and I know I’m right in keeping him a little longer.

“When you can climb that bloody ladder to your loft yourself, you can go back to your own quarters,” I tell him, standing and leaning in gently to kiss him.

“You can hold me, you know. You won’t break me.” 

It’s true, I’ve been keeping him at an arms length, clutching his hand from across the mattress so that I don’t accidentally roll onto him at night. I tell myself I’ve been terrified of causing him greater pain. But really it’s the anger. It nests inside me, burrowing deep, severing all the little tethers between us. I’ve been wondering if I’ll ever cauterize the wound inside me. It’s still bleeding.

He returned to a small measure of duty a week ago, taking briefs in my quarters with his closest lieutenants, trying to alleviate the awkwardness by complaining lightly to them about my solicitousness and the stubbornness I’d shamefully reasserted long after I should have.

I slip my arms around him gingerly feeling the anger squash between us. Sighing into the scent of elfroot salve and earth and elderflower that amalgamate to make up him, it evaporates for the moment. I long for a mutual squeeze, so I can squeeze the feeling, the questions that have been ravaging me into him. 

How could you leave me like that? 

Why didn’t you trust me?

But for now, I surrender to the comforts: his nose and lips nuzzling over my face, the warmth of his body radiating through our comparatively thin casual clothing, the glow of aurum in his eyes as the brightness of the whiteout conditions outside reflects within them. He’s recovered enough that the hunger of his body is readily apparent, bearing into me more than any other part of him. And it’s been weeks without his touch, exacerbating the gulf— real or imagined— between us. I can feel the sensation low inside me, my body opening to him, the yearning taut in my belly. 

But the bell tinkles above us to let us know someone is below and I remember what I’d arranged. I hold up a finger and stride over to the stairwell.

“Come up!” I call. 

“Come up?” Cullen says in a mild panic. I ease him into my desk chair and toss a blanket into his lap with a mildly threatening smile. 

The first things that arrive are two copper tubs, carried in by staff I’d paid extra out of my personal stipend. Then comes the water, hauled two buckets at a time by a string of staff lengthy enough that no one has to make more than one agonizing trip up the six floors of tower steps. 

Cullen sits pink cheeked through it all, no doubt worrying over what everyone must think of us, having two bath tubs prepared side by side.

“A little extravagant, Rose,” he remarks, a little tick of consternation marring his brow.

“Since you’ve been resisting more healing sessions, this is the next best thing,” I tell him, perching on my desk in front of him, his legs stretched out on either side of mine from my chair. 

“But two tubs? Maker’s breath.”

“Yes two. And it’s not what you think,” I say and the bell rings again. “And now you’ll see.”

A staff member comes huffing up the stairs with two large buckets of crushed ice which they lug into my chamber and dump artlessly into one of the tubs. They hand me a palm sized rune on their way out. 

“An ice bath?” he says looking at me like I’m mad. 

“Ellendra says an ice bath will keep your inflammation down and help you recover more quickly. So you can return to your cursed loft,” I tell him with tense, scolding brows, bending to kiss him. I hold up the rune. “And then you can take a warm bath with me after.” I drift over to the warm tub and drop the rune in.

“Oh I don’t think so, Rose. I’m not getting into that tub of ice unless you are,” he says emphatically. He thinks he’s outfoxed me but never one to back away from one of his little challenges, I drop my robe, calling his bluff and swish my fingers into the shocking cold of the first tub. If it means he’ll get some proper care, I’ll do it. 

Cullen shakes his head at me, hobbling over and I catch him halfway, looping my arm under his and around his middle to help him the rest of the way. 

“You’re a terror,” he says with a scolding eye, undressing and wincing and fixing his eyes upon the ice filled water with anticipatory dread. When I pull the nightgown I’ve been lounging around in all day over my head, Cullen’s eyes sweep over me, his breath snagging his his throat and he pulls me back to him again. Breathing warmth into my neck, he rakes his fingernails over my shoulders and then my back like he might just take me right here, powerless against his own saved up lust.

“You’re not getting out of this that easily,” I gasp, when he grazes his fingers between my thighs. “But perhaps we can continue this discussion after the ice bath if you’re cooperative.” And yet I can’t find the determination to stay his hand. He fixes his eyes to mine as he dips a finger into me, gently, like he’s about to taste the cream on a dessert. I shake my head from side to side even as my knees weaken when he nudges my clit with the heel of his palm. 

He’d been such an eager student, asking and practicing and remembering, my pleasure an unwritten tome to fill with his discoveries. And I’d been just as eager to find out what made him grip his bedsheets by the handful or groan open mouthed and unrestrained.

I will myself to stop him.

“After,” I insist, helping with him with his clothes which he insists he can do on his own. I wander bare to my desk for my hour glass. “We’ll climb in together and sit for the prescribed five minutes making miserable faces at each other and then emerge utterly reborn. Well. In theory.” I don’t bother with managing my reflexive gape as my eyes devour his sculpted form, his skin flushed under the soft spread of golden hair across his chest and the hardened length of his cock bobbing gently as he turns to me. It took months to convince him to stop hiding it from me and I reward his comfort by biting my lip gently before reaching up on my toes to sweep my open mouth against his.

“We could skip the ice bath,” he suggests, his breath tight in his chest as his finger traces down my upper arm.

“And render all the hard work our staff did moot? I don’t think so. Together?” I ask and I’m met with a pained, defeated expression. I slip my arm under his around his back and steady him while he lifts a leg into the tub, a sharp gasp snagging in the back of his throat as he steps in. I follow suit, standing in the tub fully, my heart fluttering in response to the breathtaking cold and reach to help him in behind me.

“You’re punishing me, aren’t you?” he says. The corner of my lips twitch slightly because the thought had crossed my mind, but no. I just want him to recover fully.

“We’re going to sit down together on a count of five,” I tell him and he sighs hopelessly, the tawny gaze that I’ve coveted nearly since I first laid eyes upon it connects with mine like it’s a lifeline. “We’re going to survive. It’s just ice water. It’s just five minutes.” I flip the hourglass and count down and then we ease in, puffs of strained breath and agony jumping from our lungs. We submerge to our shoulders and he tugs me to him immediately requiring a scold for cheating.

“Maker’s breath. Five minutes?!” he bleats desperately.

“We can sing all the known verses of Andraste’s Mabari. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“I only know two. How many do you know?! I recall you not knowing any that night at Harritt’s.”

“None! But I can mumble along with you. Or make some up.”

Cullen half rises from the water and I cock my head to challenge him on that move, stubbornly staying inside the bone chilling vat. He sinks back down wiltingly, glancing at the hour glass.

“How can we be sure any of our parts will work after this?” he complains, his teeth chattering.

“We can’t. We’ll just have to find out.” 

We gasp and bicker our way through the remainder of the sands, our eyes trained fiercely upon the last grains that spiral through the glass isthmus with painstaking deliberation. He rises first— too quickly and I need to lunge forward to assist him out of the tub so he doesn’t exacerbate some strain or tear he’s still nursing. Stepping into the next tub we gasp nearly as much as we did in the first— the relative warmth feeling like it’s scalding our skin.

I insist on bathing him, training my eyes on the soapy wash cloth as I run it over each curve of him, failing to ignore the new scar, the evidence of his betrayal. The anger I’ve been managing so carefully jostles against the cage I’ve got it in. Swiping trails of suds over his chest then his clavicles and shoulders and around the his back, I can feel his gaze upon me, watching me, waiting for me to look at him. But even at this distance, I find my emotions brewing into a quiet storm, churning behind my carefully fixed gaze.

“Rose,” he says, knowing the way my face holds tension, knowing what it means when my quiet stretches too long. I can’t look at him yet, afraid of what might spill from my lips.

“Darling.” It’s softer. A plea. I let him tug me closer and allow myself to look at it, the healing wound. The backs of his fingers stroke down my cheek and then across my lips. I clasp his hand against my face, my eyes slipping closed, feeling the heft of his palm like it could erase some small scrap of the anguish inside me. Laced gently together in the warm bath, we trace wet fingers over and around each others twin scars, our thoughts circling closer to one another.

“Cullen—“

“I’ve been wondering if you’ll ever be able to forgive me.” We speak simultaneously across the short span between us. The silence aches while I search for words.

“I nearly lost you.”

“I know.” His voice is a hoarse whisper, penitent, his eyes glossy and guilt-ridden.

“I’m just scared. Of what’s becoming of you. This obsession of yours— it’s so personal. I’m scared there will be nothing left of you when all is said and done.”

“I know.”

“And it kills me that I can’t save you from this.”

“Rose. I know.” 

I run my finger gently over the taut red line just below his collar bone again, made by his own sword. It had been a warning. Samson could have ended him. But he didn’t, like a filament of friendship still connected them even as bitter rivals in a war for the fate of the world.

“You have to stop. Let me handle it.” I beg him as though I couldn’t stay him with an order alone. But I’ve never wielded my superiority over him in such a way. Cullen’s ragged sigh betrays him. I find myself pleading with him. “I’ll go to Dumat with my best people. We’ll find him. We’ll find Maddox.”

“Let’s not speak of this. Not right now,” he whispers, touching my cheek. “I love you. Kiss me.”

I submit to his command, bracing myself gingerly on the edges of the tub to lean in and kiss him. 

We pause to regard each other, the brilliance of his eyes muted to a soft tawny hazel in shadow but there’s intensity there. I know the need that aches behind his eyes, it aches inside me too. I want to drive our agony into one another, through one another. He crushes me against him, our mouths meet with unprecedented wildness. We consume one another, slipping and clinging clumsily in the sloshing bathwater, our arousal proof of life after everything. But ungainly in the tub, I stumble against a particularly sensitive spot and he cries out in pain. Pulling back reflexively, I give him space to stretch and he shakes his head at me, his eyes smoldering into mine like they could ignite me. 

“No, come back,” he breathes.

“I’ll hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then let’s get to bed where it’s a bit softer,” I propose. At his nod, I rise from the tub and step out carefully, wrapping my shoulders in a towel before returning to help him. He groans and winces as he rises and steps out of the tub. When I turn to fetch him a towel he arrests me by my elbow and pulls me to him, his body slick against mine, wet fingers impressing into my rear as he draws me in and backs slowly toward my bed.

“We have to have be careful,” I fret, as he grazes his lips over my neck.

“No,” he insists. “I need this. All of you. Please.”

“Then let me— I could go down,” I suggest, grasping him firmly, his erection warm and heavy in my hand.

“Please,” he says again, tugging us back onto my bed. Even this short tumble elicits an agonized grunt of discomfort and I roll to his side.

“You’ll get reinjured. Your hip—“”

“The bone is mended.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Maker, Rose. Just wreck me,” he says, his frustration and hunger plain. I can’t help the way my eyes widen into unblinking shock at the expression. At the desperation that’s driven him to such vulgarities. “I need you. I need to feel you.”

Stuffing the unresolved feelings down, I run my hand over his damp chest, raking my fingers through the golden hairs. I try to regard him as I once had when everything between us was less fraught. When the beauty of his eyes left me dumbstruck. The way I’d marveled at the sprinkling of freckles across his nose and the sharp cut of his jaw. How I’d ached for him to be mine.

Leaning down gently I brush my nose against his, remembering that uncomplicated feeling. Willing it into existence.  

“I love you.” I will those words too.

We lose ourselves in a kiss, so utterly detached that his slight groans and whimpers of pain disappear into the haze that holds us. Our cold lips and warm tongues ply for whatever’s left of one another. Cullen lifts my leg over his hips and we bear into each other, the pleasure surging in jolts as he thrusts past my entrance.

“Maker,” he gasps, as I draw my hips back, withholding. “Please.”

“You really want this?” I ask, ferocity escaping my hold, like my anger wishes to play as well. 

“I do,” he mutters against my lips.

When he churns his hips against me, I tilt mine until he can push into me, the friction and our heat mingling, prompting broken gasps from both our lips. I brace myself against the headboard and ride him, the fury I’m desperately trying to hold back slipping out, suffusing through my movements. Cullen grits his teeth against the pain.

“More,” he begs. It seems absurd, watching him strain against the force of it, gripping a handful of pillow and another of bedsheets with blanching knuckles, but I oblige him, driving down upon him until sweat beads at my hairline and between my breasts. His eyes never leave mine, the creases between his brows deep even as he looks penitent beneath me, glossy with tears that won’t spill.

His breathing grows shallow and erratic, taut puffs as his climax builds. I relax and let myself open to my own, pleasure aching in my core, my entire body flushed and charged. He reaches up for my breast and the intensity of it too much and I snatch his hand away, pinning it above him and come, riding it out amidst my curses and exclamations, my thrusts growing more fitful and convulsive. I drop my head over his chest but Cullen grasps my chin with his free hand and asserts his fierce gaze, climaxing himself as I dissolve above him. 

He almost never cries out, but today it erupts from him like a caged beast, his hips arching high into me, nearly bucking me onto his chest. He gathers me against him, grimacing and groaning as the pleasure dissipates enough for the pain to break through. As my own surges of ecstasy settle, my emotions wrestle free of my exhausted grip and I wash him in tears. The questions loom heavily even while his fingers tips brush lightly over my back, even as his lips press softly against my hair. His chest jerks from the same sort of restrained sob as mine, matching shudders inside our ribs.

“Why?” I croak the word out from where I’ve kept it all these weeks. “Why, Cullen?”

“I— I felt,” his voice breaks. “I felt it was my responsibility to deal with him.”

“Responsibility?” I ask, my hackles rising. I lift my head to smear the fluids from my nose and eyes and lay it back down again. “Let’s talk about responsibility. You leave me in bed with naught be a good bye note and offer yourself up to him on a platter. Cullen, you know what his powers are like. Better than anyone.”

“I don’t know what came over me. I— I’m sorry. I— think the red lyrium must have clouded my thinking.”

“The red lyrium isn’t what has you obsessed with him. You were ready to leave me over this. Forever. I’ve never felt more alone in these last few weeks.” I lift my head again to stare him down. “Do you know what it was like to find you like that?”

“I would do anything to undo it.” 

“You’re my love. And Maker, you’re the commander of my army— and I don’t know how I can trust you again. Do you know how that feels?”

“I’ll make it up to you, Rose. I promise,” he says, reaching to clutch my cheek.

“You were pinned to the ground by your own blade. You were so broken you were nearly unrecognizable. How are you going to take that memory from me?”

Cullen’s tears spill over.

“I’m sorry, Rose.” He avoids those other words, the words he’d written on that too-big piece of paper and left on our nightstand. But sorry won’t cut it either.

I roll gently to the mattress and his hand follows, tracing warm strokes up and down my waist. I don’t know what I hoped would come of this conversation, but I’m left feeling unfulfilled, my grief and distress still roiling about within my breast. My next words escape me, petulant and resentful.

“You were meant to be the steady one.” I hear his breath catch and I regret them as soon as they’ve slipped past my lips. His sigh flutters and he swallows. He withdraws his hand, a void gaping wide between us.

“Well. That was your mistake then.”

[theluckywizard]

Find the Word Tag Game

Thanks for the tags @greypetrel and @zenstrike!

My words are WONDER, CARRY, and SIGHT

WONDER: From my fic Into Her Hands, a companion fic to my long fic In the Shattering of Things written from Hawke's POV as he decides to woo Inquisitor Rose:

Dream aside, there’s something about her— unwittingly charming, deliciously guileless. Wrapped up in the possibility of the world. Fueled by it. She could change everything. Stealing another look, Hawke wonders if she might be a bit lonely, still suffering perhaps from whatever disaster transpired between her and that damnably handsome commander of hers, the one who figures into his own history more than he cares for. The impulse is too strong to resist any longer, and without taking his leave of Dorian or Bull and oblivious to their knowing looks, he approaches her.

CARRY: From my DA:I long fic In the Shattering of Things, here's a conversation between Rose and Hawke in Crestwood regarding their interactions with Flemeth:

“What do you think Flemeth wants with us?” I ask him. “A laugh,” he answers in a scoff. “Seriously.” “A couple of unlucky sods to carry out her bidding, damn whatever comes their way?” “But what would we have done without her?” “Oh we’d be dead of course. Without question. But neither of us asked to be put in the middle of all this madness.”

SIGHT: From my long fic In the Shattering of Things, here's Rose and Cullen in Haven the night the Red Iron came to pick Rose up and take her forcibly home to Ostwick (hired by her mother). He's stubbornly standing watch outside her cabin and she's nothing but amused.

“Are you going to fight all twelve of them if they decide to come?” I ask with a raise of my brow as he scowls at me lightly. “You can come in, you know. For five minutes. So your ears don’t drop off,” I tell him and it’s a practical suggestion but he looks visibly uncomfortable. “I— that— would be improper,” he fumbles and I can tell it was agonizing to even have to say it. I fail to suppress my smile. “But a sight better than frostbite,” I poke. “Who’s going to reprimand you? The Chantry? Your superior officer?” I tuck my smile behind my hand but he just blushes and looks agitated that I’m bothering him.

Tagging @nirikeehan, @warpedlegacy, @delicatefade and @crackinglamb with the words CRACK, GRAZE, and HARSH

[theluckywizard]

It's so easy to forget that there's magic in all of this - Body from Sleeping At Last Prompts

Hiii thank you! I decided to travel back in time and write something very early in my Roserford relationship for this one:

Rating: G

Pairing: Cullen x Rose Trevelyan, Cullen POV

WC: 1369

for @dadrunkwriting

More below the cut 👇

“Ser, an update on construction of the outer checkpoint.”

Cullen doesn’t attend, watching the Herald of Andraste land most of her arrows in a dummy’s straw stuffed chest through a crowd of recruits in training. Thank the Maker she’s a competent archer. 

“Ser.”

He knew of her unorthodox pursuits from Leliana’s hurried investigations into her following the blast. And now it’s a boon, though a perplexing one. As far as he knew, archery isn’t a common pursuit for Marcher women of noble lineage, not like it is in Fereldan anyway. She isn’t a fighter, no, but she can hunt well enough to bring game to the kitchen early in the morning and she’s been standing up to Cassandra’s training regimen admirably. There’s something to work with here.

“Commander, Ser.”

She doesn’t carry herself like the nobles he knew from the Circle, not nearly as fussy or preening as he worried she might be. There’s a swing in her step. A rebellious slump in her shoulders. She doesn’t seem bothered by the girlish, haphazard braid over her shoulder, though he suspects her lack of skill is the result of years of maidservant styling. The templars who came from noble backgrounds had similar struggles adjusting. Even he could manage a better braid. His sisters knew.

“Ah. Forgive me. I was thinking about a tactical plan for the eastern ramparts,” he says, cursing his warming cheeks as he collects the update. “Thank you, James.”

The Herald empties her quiver but doesn’t wander down the slope to collect her arrows. She punches the end of her bow into a snowbank, tugs on her mittens and stares at the Breach, tucking cold fingers under arms. Perhaps he should talk to her. It would make sense to get to know his charge better.

He heads in her direction, a sea of sparring recruits parting for him readily and snapping salutes as he strides his way over. The Umbralis sun hangs low and impotent over the eastern mountain ridge, but the air is unseasonably warm and humid, softening the trampled snow pack under foot. She doesn’t notice him immediately, shaking her head almost imperceptibly at the disturbance.

He clears his throat lightly. “I try not to look at it too much.”

She startles a step away from him with a squeak and then recovers, clutching her chest. “Commander. I didn’t see you there.”

“Forgive me, I saw you over here and I thought I’d say hello.” 

Lady Trevelyan regards him with bright eyes, a hint of a smile warming them. They’re indigo, he notes, indigo like his mum’s yarn, one of the few dyes she’d save for during spinning season. She flushes— or perhaps it’s the chill in the air— and tries to straighten up the errant strands of her hair, but doesn’t say anything. 

“I suppose you have more of a reason to stare at it though,” he adds after an unwieldy silence. “Connected to it as you are.”

She exhales a little cloud in a tense puff and gestures at it. “It looks like the Veil is just over there up in the sky. But it’s everywhere isn’t it? Right here where we’re standing. Under the ice on the pond. Inside these tents. It’s strange to think of.” She shakes her head. “Before all this it was easy to forget there’s magic in all of this.”

“I wish I could forget. I’ve seen things I can never unsee,” he muses. “But it’s my duty to remember.”

“As a templar?” she asks. There’s a bite to that question, he can hear it. It wasn’t always so polarizing to have been one, but it certainly is now.

“As Commander of these forces,” he answers, wishing as he did many times a day he could shake that shadow. But the headache that pulses between his eyes reminds him how fruitless that is. 

Lady Trevelyan assesses him carefully, the soft lines of a faint scowl creasing between her brows. He wishes he was better at forcing a smile when it would behoove him to, but his cares weigh too heavily. She blinks away her look and snorts a laugh.

“Well, there’s no ignoring it now,” she says, holding up her left hand. “I’ve always thought it was fantastical, magic. Something like a gift. And now that I’m marked by it I’m not so sure.”

“It’s raw power,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “Those who wield it suffer nearly as often as they thrive.”

“Which do you think I’ll be?” she asks, looking at him again. She’s clear eyed but the creases are back. Perhaps she’s as anxious as he is. 

“Truthfully? I don’t know,” he says, pursing his lips.

“Well, I appreciate your candor. Feels like everyone around here seems to believe I can save them.” She snorts quietly. “I don’t even know how to fight for Maker’s sake.”

He knows. Maker he knows. But he feels compelled to say something to encourage her.

“That dummy down there might disagree,” he says, scratching his nose.

She eyes him skeptically and then her lips twist into a wry smile.

“It’s not special to be a good shot with a fixed target,” she answers. “You don’t need to puff me up, Commander.”

“I’ve trained enough recruits to know that sometimes a little puffing up is in order,” he answers, nearly smiling himself. “You’ve met the demands of the training regimen admirably.”

“Admirably,” she says slowly, rolling the word over her tongue. “Very diplomatic.”

A chuckle crackles in the back of his dry throat. “I don’t suppose you’ll accept a compliment.”

“I don’t see how compliments will help me survive all this,” she says. “But— thank you. All the same.”

Cullen fumbles as his attempts at connection flounder. “I just— You’re trying. Considering you were a prisoner last week,” he explains. “It means a lot.”

Maker, what had he hoped she’d say? He found himself searching for more conversation, some way to recover himself, but instead he’s gazing at her awkwardly. She tucks her nose and chin inside her cowl, the same soft indigo hues as her eyes, the same thick yarn his sisters might have knit with. Her freckled cheeks are balled in a smile. He grasps for words but none arrive.

“Commander.” Ser Carys strides into view and salutes firmly in a timely intervention. “There’s a shipment of lyrium just arrived. It’s on your desk for inspection. Ser.”

“Thank you, Carys. I’ll be there momentarily.”

“Lyrium?” asks the Herald. 

“Yes, for our templars. It's what gives us our abilities.” It felt like a lie to say ‘us’. Was it reflexive or was it cover?

“Hm," she snuffs and then casts him a cheeky look. “Sounds like magic.” It’s a prod, he can tell, but he answers it in earnest.

“I can sure you it is anything but,” he says, amusement infusing the rumble in his voice. He toes at a clump of snow before crushing it under his boot. “And there’s a terrible price to that power.”

“Suffering nearly as often as they thrive?”

Cullen fixes his eyes upon her suddenly, assessing her look like she’d seen him. It would be impossible, but it stirred something inside his chest he hasn’t felt in ages. Like tufts of milkweed taking flight in the marshes of Honnleath. 

“Yes, I suppose,” he says slowly. “Perhaps we’re not so terribly different in the scheme of things.”

“We’re all just people,” she says, smiling. “Even me. The oddest one of all.” She pulls off her mitten and frowns at the mark while she rubs it.

“I can think of a few others who might give you a run for your money,” he says, his lips turning at last.

“Now that makes me feel better.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can get them,” he chuckles.

Rose Trevelyan takes her leave to fetch her arrows, retrieving her bow from the snowbank. Cullen watches her stride away for a few moments before turning to return to his tent where he’d be faced with another test of his resolve. Whatever this woman is dredging up inside him is something different for a change. Something old and precious. Impossibly light. Memories of a life before Kirkwall and Uldred. Of a life before lyrium.

And it’s absurd. They’ve only just met. But he felt it all the same.

Also tagging @caitlam who asked for a similar prompt in a reply to my prompt list!🥰

[theluckywizard]

Hello!! Sorry if it comes late, I saw the OC relationship ask list just now. If it's late/you don't want to answer it's fine, don't worry!

But if not…

Roserford: 30, 94

Rawke: 74, 87

And 29 for both!

Thank you! <3

Thank you for asking, my dear! 🥰 Roserford! (Rose Trevelyan x Cullen Rutherford

Describe how one character would cheer the other up after a hard day.

Cullen: HUGS. The man canonically gives the best hugs in Skyhold, we all know it, right? RIGHT? Hugs. Take her for a walk in the woods. Conjure up one of her favorite meals from the kitchen. Rose: I think it probably would depend on the kind of hard day. If he's still mentally very preoccupied with unpleasantness that he can't do anything about, she would probably try to distract him with something fairly physical that makes him feel competent like hand to hand sparring (LOOK this is not her strong suit, but she makes it *really* fun), hanky panky, a project of some kind (hey, help me rebuild the wall on the way to the War Room 😂 or weeding the garden). If it's just generic stress I think snuggles, chess lessons, going for a ride, walking the battlements. Their pet has caused destruction. Who puts the pet in jail? Who defends the pet?

Oh Cullen absolutely puts the pet in jail but also defend the pet 🤣 Rose isn't sure she's about Mabari. They are SO DANG SMART. She'd probably tell Cullen that CLEARLY the Mabari needs more stimulation and discipline or something (but she is absolutely not the person to deliver it lol)

What's an insecurity they hold about their relationship?

Oh there are so many! They are an absolute opposites attract relationship. There is so much appeal and so many possible pitfalls! Cullen worries that he's not exciting enough for Rose. She's so playful and lively and while he does have that dry-ass wit and a competitive spirit, he doesn't quite buy into her mischief the way he thinks he ought to. ALSO this is a huge one, his relationship with her is a follow up to HAWKE of all people. Andraste have mercy. That's a big act to follow. Rose worries she's too chaotic ultimately. Not tidy enough, not predictable enough, not cautious enough. 🥺

Rawke! (Rose Trevelyan x Garrett Hawke)

Art by Crunchyncrumbly

Who's more likely to bail who out of jail? Would they give the other one shit for it?

I mean Hawke is 100% more likely to end up in jail, but I think it's possible both ways and they would both bail each other out and the roasting would be ENDLESS. And they would laugh and laugh until the end of time. If they ever lost one another in a public place, how do they find the other?

Well, Hawke is 6'5" | 196 cm and Rose has really stupid bright red hair, so I think it would be tough for them to lose each other, BUT, knowing them they would have literally no plan, only their wits, so they'd probably go to the last known significant location they were at together (if they could). If it's very serious-- like a war breaks out or something-- they would just use their detective-y skills and track each other using contacts.

What's an insecurity they hold about their relationship?

Ohhhh great question! For Rose, especially early on, she worries that she's not captivating enough for him. This is the weight of his celebrity at work. She still has a lot of baked in feelings and presuppositions about him that are really hard to unlearn, even as they fall in love. It takes a lot of experience with one another to shake it. If they make it long term? Probably that they don't challenge one another enough. They are very much a like-like relationship and so they can be blind to areas where they can grow. I think this is something they would both worry about. For Garrett, early on he worries she's unable to see past "Hawke the Celebrity". The book had been written, in part, to cover up a lot of the vulnerable truths about Garrett as a person. Later on he worries he's not stable enough for her. He thinks she deserves 'a rock' and he can't see himself being that.

Answered for the AU in my multiship DA:I longfic In the Shattering of Things

[theluckywizard]

Cullen Blushes

A little illustration I did in Procreate for my Cullevelyan/ Roserford fluff smut one shot Some Kind of Witchcraft (WC 2213, Explicit).

Have fun imagining what else the note could say!

[theluckywizard]

For the new years AO3 asks!

Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Hi Blarrghe! Happy New Year 🥰

The work I have reread the most aside from the Long Fic which requires a lot of rereading as I go is probably Pull me from the Dark. It's a Hawke POV character study I wrote when I was just getting to know him more deeply and even though some aspects of him have evolved since then, I'm proud of the writing and just really relish the little peek into that particular moment in his relationship with my OC Inquisitor Rose Trevelyan. They started as a casual love affair and kind of bumble their way into a real one and the moment in this work is that edge right before they both fall into one another. :kermieeeee:

oOo

Ahhhh curses, must I choose between Rawke or Roserford? I love them both so much. I cannot choose. Instead I will choose a platonic pairing! and that would be Rose Trevelyan and Cassandra. They are opposites in so many ways but they are so *good* for each other. They are sisters they never had. 💖

oOo

The published work (I have some WIPs cooking that I'm suuuuper proud of) I'm most proud of is Together Alone. It's a little one shot that explores Bethany Hawke's arrest from Knight-Captain Cullen's POV and Bethany's POV. I have been thinking of turning it into a longer fic because I enjoyed it so much, but I'm also really happy with how it is.