#I just wanted solas working in a field

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

I love the idea of Bodhi coming to you for comfort after a long day, especially given all the additional stress that he and the other marked ones are under

Changed it a bit because you know me but here we go... My first little something something for our lover boy!

warning: contains some slight spoilers from iron flame. Nothing major but still wanted to give you a warning.

Not giving up on us

Almost nothing managed to get under Bodhi's skin. Just like his cousin Xaden, he could pull up a cold wall and no one would manage to get a single look at what was going inside. He was able to shut off his visible emotions. Leave all the problem-solving and brooding over something when he was alone or at least among the people he trusted but this mess that unfolded after the Parapet... God damn... At this point, Bodhi didn't even know who he was blaming and who was he mad at.

All he remembered was how he instantly reached for you the moment that flames erupted. He wasn't even thinking about it. His brain worked on its own. And in sight of danger, the only thing that mattered to Bodhi was that you were safe. Even if it wasn't what a good rider should have thought of first. He had pulled you both on the ground. His larger frame practically covered all of your body. And that all would have been fine. Everyone would have presumed that he as a section leader was protecting one of the cadets in his wing. If only...

The moment the heat died down and Tairn had chased Solas away, Bodhi had pulled away ever so slightly, his palm instantly cupping your face as he looked you over. The way your eyes seemed slightly glassy. And that's when the panic set in and all of his instincts kicked in. "Hey, look at me", he tapped your cheek as he pulled away, "Love, can you hear me?". You blinked up at him feeling your head throbbing from the impact. You were sure it was nothing you just had to let it pass. Lay low for a few minutes.

Bodhi had carefully brushed the hair away from your face, panic slowly settling in. You caught his hand pulling it away. There was no room for little touches like that. Not here. You shook your head slowly, "People", you muttered and Bodhi's eyes instantly snapped up. Verish and other wing leaders had their eyes set on him. And even if they hadn't, they've seen it. Don't think too much of it, Cuir, Bodhi's dragon, had mused but he knew better. Should have known better.

Nor was he surprised when he got pulled for an urgent conversation. Nor when he was assigned to the flame section. He saw it coming. They were going to do everything to separate you two. Weed out the threats of whatever that was starting to form between you two. Bodhi missed Xaden often but now even more so. In situations like this, he realized just how much having his cousin around meant. Was he pissed to find out that you were made the section leader of the tail section now? Yes. Sure, it was a higher rang and you deserved it but something deep within Bodhi screamed that it was done on purpose so you two would have even less time together.

And it slowly was driving Bodhi insane because the whole day after the incident he didn't get to see you. Nor did he know anything about your health. Did anyone even take you to the healer? Did you have a concussion? He had shoved his stuff angrily into the bag, so he could change rooms. It was almost unbearable considering that most of your stuff was already there. You two had quietly settled in. Your smell was all over his stuff. It felt safe. It felt like home. His haven. But more than most Bodhi hated the thought that all of this might put you in some kind of danger. Varrish was already all up on Violet what if that wasn't enough? What if he will want to have another play toy? That could very well be you.

"Sulking much?", your voice made Bodhi flinch. He had slipped out to stroll through the fields after an excessively long conversation with his new wing leader. "No", he muttered back, already hating the way his tone sounded. "Right, Ceir said just that", you rolled your eyes as you moved to sit down next to him. Both of your dragons were on rather friendly terms meaning that even if you two couldn't talk directly to them, they still were willing to help you find one another or warn one another when needed.

You leaned against your boyfriend's shoulder, letting your chin rest there. His stiff demeanor softened but you could sense the distress lingering. "How's your head?", Bodhi murmured, turning to kiss the side of it. "It's okay, just a little whiplash. I feel perfectly fine now", you reassured him. Hoping that it would ease his nerves but to no success. "What is it Bodhi?", you breathed slowly pulling away so you could see it better.

"What do you mean what is it?", he huffed, throwing the bits of grass he's been plucking from the ground across the field as he stood up. "I'm not hurt, all the people we care about are fine too", you stated. "They fucking pulled us apart because they know", Bodhi hissed through gritted teeth. "They would have changed your position regardless of what happened out there, Bo", you tried to reason with him. The loss was too big, they were lacking options when it came to repositioning.

"They know, that's the problem. Did you see the way Varrish was looking at us?", Bodhi tried to stay as quiet as he could but his angry gestures spoke loud and clear. "So what? We're breaking up now?", you said, crossing your arms over your chest. Bodhi instantly frowned as he moved closer to you, "Of course, we're fucking not". You let him wrap his arms around your lower body as you held onto his toned arms, "Then don't stress over it. We've got this", you cupped his face softly, "You can handle yourself so can I". You reassured him, leaning in to kiss the side of his jaw. "I just hate the thought you haven't to go through extra shit just because you're with me", Bodhi hissed through gritted teeth. "Watch me do it with my head held high", you smirked at him, "I'm not giving up on us", you whispered. Bodhi let out a sigh. His grip on you tightened as he rested his forehead against yours. "I'll never give up on us", he breathed. You smiled up at him, pushing up to kiss his slowly. Missing the feeling of him against your lips after such a long day. The warmth. The smell of him. "You know now that I think about if...", he breathed, "We're a dang hot couple. Both section leaders", Bodhi mussed. You let out a chuckle as you shook your head, "And it had only taken a couple of minutes for your ego to grow twice the size". Bodhi let out an awful fake hurt hiss as he wrapped you up in his arms pulling you even closer into his embrace, "With a girlfriend like you, what do you expect?", he purred against your ear.

#bodhi durran #bodhi durra x reader #bodhi durra imagine #bodhi durra fourth wing #bodhi durra iron flame #bodhi durra x you #bodhi forth wing imagine #bodhi iron flame imagine #fourth wing imagine #fourth wing x reader #fourth wing x you #iron flame x reader #xaden riorson x reader

[dragonagecompanions]

It's been a while since I've submitted anything, but no pressure ^.^

Romances react to Fem!Inquisitor dealing w/ debilitating chronic pain. They hid it for so long because they were worried they wouldn't be an effective leader if it was known they were always in pain. (I am dealing with it myself so if you want specifics, hip and shoulder pain. Frequent migraines.)

Cassandra: She sees it right away.

Seekers of Truth have a calling to watch for magic, and that is their primary duty. But in that pursuit the martial and combat arts have always featured heavily, and in her tenure with the order Cassandra has trained more than one apprentice to the sword and shield and fighting arts. Young people are so impatient to learn and eager to show their prowess, even in the face of injury; women tolerate pain better and hide even more, already feeling the difference on the field.

All of that experience means that Skyhold's seeker sees the short swings and tighter movements, the subtle winces and how their lady inquisitor always sits just close enough to the fire on even the warmest nights. There are no injuries to cause this, and after a life of combat Cassandra is well versed with the sapping radiating ache of chronic and untreated pain.

"You are a herald, not Andraste herself. You must tell me or one of the others if you are in pain. We will support you. Come with me-- I will show you how to wrap your shoulders and we will find a new stance to help your hips. I have a tea that will help your head."

Varric: Ten years of fighting the good fight in Kirkwall can leave anyone with a few aches that just don't go away, and his keen eye for detail does not miss the signs. Blondie hasn't been around to tend those joints and muscles for a long time (not that Varric would trust him anymore regardless), and so a shopping list goes out to those merchants who specialize in a few key purchases.

Its after a late round of wicked grace, when there is no one else to save face for, that Varric briefly blocks her path and heaves a crate into his arms.

"This might be a poor story for heroes, Herald, but that doesn't mean you get to martyr yourself before the final act. Don't ask what is in the muscle balm, you don't want to know. Burns like bad whiskey but it works. Got some servants putting cushions on that throne for you, and Dennet has a good padded saddle like the jousters use. Few other things too."

He doesn't let them demur, and instead takes the crate to their quarters for them to avoid an argument. "You give enough, sunshine. Let us give back."

Solas: Chronic ailments are the most frustrating to manage, for there is no simple cure. When her pain follows her even into the Fade Solas can feel it, and when there is time he sits with the Herald and is gentle but firm.

"There is no reason to suffer-- your silence does not make the pain noble, no more than asking for help is callow. We will find a way to make this better for you, if you will only let us."

They establish a routine of slow healing spells to reduce the worst of the pain, and Solas coordinates with spirits of healing and valor to ease her sleeping mind and guard her dreams. Better rest and continual treatment are the best he can offer-- his guilt at aggravating her suffering he will carry in silence.

Sera: Hurting is stupid. Hurting when there is no injury is stupid. Stupid bodies are stupid!

Without any solid healing training there isn't much Sera can do to cure the symptoms. But the softest cushions and pillows find their way into the inquisitor's quarters, and the not insignificant portion of Skyhold's staff that coordinate through the Red Jenny keep her abreast (ha) of how their herald is doing. Sera ends up coordinating with those who can help, and heading off the most boring and unnecessary work so that their inquisitor can rest.

Blackwell: A hard life on the road adds up on any warrior, and the Herald is putting so much into a short amount of time. He knows the aching of his own joints enough to recognize it in her, but understands the need to hide any sign of weakness enough to not wish her embarrassment.

And so on the road he is less careful at measuring out the herbs to ease pain, and uses waste as an excuse to keep her cup full of the draught. He works with the others to make sure she has the best ground for her tent, and watches are coordinated so that she has ample time to rest.

When it finally does come to a head, his answer is simple and gruff-- but honest. "You alleviate enough suffering, my lady. Let me help when I can."

Vivienne: She is not fooled. Caretakers, when it comes to knowing the ins and outs of pain and the necessity of treating it, rarely are. The inquisitor is of course due her pride, and Madame de Fer can find no fault with keeping even the rumor of weakness at bay. The game is ruthless when it smells blood in the water, after all.

But that does not mean she lets the situation go unaddressed, and who but one of the most talented alchemists in Orlais to treat the Herald herself? The regiment starts off trial and error, as most treatments must, but in time the first enchanter isolates and perfects the tonics needed to lessen the worst of the aches and negate the migraines. Magic and herb work hand in hand, and few truly appreciate how much good can be done with just a shaving of root and leaf and the proper spells. She can even make them pleasant to the tongue.

"Think nothing of it, my dear. Though I do hope you will accompany me to my tailor's salon, next time we both grace Val Royeaux. There are better options for your comfort than...whatever they are having you wear now."

Dorian: Few physicians and even fewer magic users will ever gain the minute and detailed understanding of the human body quite like the necromancer. It is a study down to the cellular level, and understanding is key when knowing how much mana is required to reanimate bone and muscle. Many famous Mortalitasi were also famed healers, and for those who straddle the line between life and death it is the body that builds the bridge.

Dorian is no slouch in his own field, of course, but in truth it was the long months he spent with Felix that sharpened his novice healer's gaze. His late friend was never good at letting anyone know the extent of his suffering, and so the scion of House Pavus became a seer of suffering. The smallest shift or wince, or even the dillation of the pupil were enough to prompt rest or food or a restoration potion.

The Blight made all of his stud complex and hard to chart-- at the risk of down playing their leader's condition, chronic pain is childs play in comparison. She has only to lean back in her saddle at a certain angle (indicative of pain in the hips) before Dorian is bemoaning the Southern terrain and demanding a rest. The stoop of her shoulders after a long march will cut even the most important missions short, and Dorian is both vain and selfish enough on occasion to make all the delays entirely his fault.

The Inquisitor has chosen intelligent persons for her cirlce, thankfully, and after awhile the others catch onto his game. They still let his play the shirking violet, mostly for their Herald's sake, but as a rule the entire squad defers to the Tevinter's judgement on their inquisitor's condition. And that self same anatomical knowledge means that on the worst days Dorian calls heat into his hands and works the muscles and joints in theraputic massage until at least the edge of the pain is gone.

(The lack of rumors following the sounds of those massages might annoy the inquisition's resident necromancer, but the simple fact is everyone has heard him and the iron bull by that point and no one is fooled.

Shame.)

The Iron Bull: Having only one eye does not lessen his attention to detail, and like Dorian the Ben- Hassrath agent learns to read their leader's tells quickly. Stitches will be glad to have someone who actually wears the poultices for once, and when they are in the kind of terrain where horses cannot go (and he sees the pain wearing lines in far too young a face), he is the easiest solution.

"Now boss, come on! Think of the mayhem you can unleash from ten feet in the air! You'll be at rift height, really get them sputtering. Say, think if you get at the right angle you can get a rock into the Fade?"

Cole: "Like glass in the joints, can't get comfortable, no good angle. How can I lead if I can't even make my body listen? Too much pain, on and off but always on, no one will listen to a weak Inquisitor. But you aren't weak! You keep going even when it hurts, so that others don't hurt more. It helps! You help. And I can help you too.

Sleep."

Josephine: Once she is made aware of it, there is no stopping the Inquisition's ambassador. Doctors and healers and any number of resources are brought in. Work is reassigned and assistants are hired, soldiers are assigned so that there is enough gear for comfortable accommodations on the road. It takes hardly any time at all to arrange, but Josephine does make sure the pull their herald aside first. Her tone is as compassionate and unyielding as when her brothers were sick but still wanted to be outdoors and active.

"Your are important to Thedas, yes. Maybe even vital. But your health is even more so. You must let us be there for you, Your Worship, as you have been there for us. It is easy enough to manage, and no one shall begrudge you. Now, would you prefer down or wool for your cot padding?"

Cullen: He understands. Maker does the Commander understand. Withdraw leaves him with pain in every muscle and headaches that can last for days. Much of what he suffers is the consequences of his own choices and actions though, and Cullen cannot imagine how much worse it must be to have no understanding of why-- and no idea how to cure it.

His support is quiet, a bulwark against her duties. The medicines and treatments that help him are shared, but sometimes simply knowing that another deeply understands your plight is enough. He hopes, for her, that is helps.

Leliana: Divine Justiania hurt, sometimes. From her understanding, it was a combination of arthritis and age, but the pain was frequent enough that intervention was sometimes necessary. Justinia believed firmly that what was eaten affected who ate it, and the personal chef of her office had made careful notations and created a diet designed to ease the worst of her suffering.

When she asks, blunt in the way she can only be with those who understood the Divine, his answer is full of common sense and compassionate suggestions. These are sent to the people who can best use it, kitchens and servants and those members of the inner circle who can help.

The Herald will never need to know who it is that realized how much fish helped instead of red meat, or who ordered the green tea of Rivian that reduces inflammation in the joints. She need never be told of the letters, full of blackmail and threats, that silence those nobles who claim the herald unfit to lead, or keep the deliveries and ingredients to help off of manifests and inventories.

Her work is in the shadows, and she does not need to show it. But it feels right, somehow, that even gone the Divine might help the Herald. And her Left Hand shall make it so.

Mod Fereldone

#dragon age inquisition #solas #blackwall #dorian pavus #cassandra pentaghast #sera #varric tethras #cullen rutherford #josephine montilyet #lelianna

[ontherocks21]

Can't have this day go by without a little Anidala love, so here's a little snippet to celebrate my fave ship of all time!

Nothing explicit mind you, but also adding a forewarning of just a little spice to be found under the cut. 😏 Happy Valentine's Day! ❤️

The day after our wedding was a steady waterfall of warm summer rain.

Anakin and I didn't care.

Truth be told, I'm not sure we would have even noticed had Naboo blessed us with another temperate day. Our itinerary likely would have remained the same.

In the twenty-six hours immediately following our sunset ceremony, we were completely and totally absorbed in each other. Part of me thinks we were trying to even the playing field after having navigated so much of our fledgling relationship dealing with emotional walls, mental anguish, and societal constraints. For one standard day, we let our bodies figure out how to catch up.

Now I know what you're thinking. How can two newlyweds experiencing the thrill of physical intimacy for the first time possibly know what they were doing?

For most beings, at least of the human species, the first time is usually woefully subpar at best, and cringingly awful at worst. At least, my sister would agree with you on this point. After her incessantly haranguing me for the details, I told Sola that Anakin and I only left our bedroom for actual sustenance and to retrieve new sheets - one of our spontaneous excursions to the veranda ended up soaking the bedding with rain water and sweat. Eyeing me dubiously, she laughed with amused pity.

"Oh Mé-Mé" she said, smiling and thinking my perspective still naive and bordering on exaggeration. "No one is that good the first time"

Smirking right back at her, I had simply shrugged, my eyes shining with their own brand of knowing.

As I told you before, Anakin was a very quick learner when the task before him aligned with his own desires. Believe me, physicality is something he excels at.

Later, he would confess to using the Force. Not to unfairly influence my experience or perception of our "aggressive negotiations", but more as a guide.

It whispered to him the secrets of my body like a road map, telling him when to press his advantage, where to send a fleeting touch or kiss, how to stoke the flames of my desire until I was burning for him, aching for him. It told him what angles worked to dissolve me into a puddle of nothing. It told him exactly where to be when, something I myself in those early days didn't even understand I wanted, let alone know how on Naboo to communicate those wishes to him.

But once he learned those sacred routes, he never forgot them.

Anakin showed me the stars, and I became a Skywalker in more ways than one.

#anakin skywalker #padme amidala #anidala #star wars #fanfic writer #snippet #sugar and spice #valentines day

[greypetrel]

(resisting the urge to not say "i'm not calling you a liar" for Raina LOL)

Maybe "This is as good a place to fall as any" for anyone who fits for Radha, or anyone else who fits? c:

Hello Laya!

Thank you for asking and LOL that song for Raina would have been so funny. x°D

This got me thinking. As previously said, I’m all for Solavellan when it’s platonic, not much when it’s romantic. But, Bedroom Hymns was undeniably romantic, and I couldn’t find one way to decline it as platonic (I TRIED). Thinking and rethinking about how to make myself like Solas as a romance enough to write something convincing unlocked me, tho!  I tried, let me see how it went, it was out of my comfort zone, but I hope it’s convincing enough.

And for the record, this is the book I followed. Some names are adapted to Dragon Age of course (Arbor Vitae sounded so similar to Arbor Blessing that I just put that. And “Virginian Spiderwort”… I put the name of a random city in the Free Marches. Also, Tevinter Plum is Indian Plum, with a VERY rough assignation.)

Tis the prompt list

Floriography

[ “This is as good a place to fall as any” ]

This is his body This is his love Such selfish prayers And I can't get enough Bedroom Hymns - Florence + the Machine

Radha observed Josephine with the air of a person that firmly believed she was being made a fool out of.

“Oh, come on.” The ambassador laughed. “Don’t make that face, it’s just a coded language like any other Leliana taught you!”

“Except assigning meanings to flowers makes no sense. Why should a Pansy mean thought?”

“It means I think of you. And I don’t know, maybe because it’s such a pretty flower?”

Radha watched Josephine fix the bouquet in front of her with care, a smile she couldn’t contain on her lips and in her eyes. She looked happy, and even if Radha knew who sent those flowers and was burning to tell her that Blackwall was hiding something, and to watch out… Whatever made her smile like that couldn’t be all that bad, she considered. She could attach meaning to those flowers, if she wanted, it really hurt no one, as much as a nonsensical way of communicating that was.

“If you say so.” She shrugged in the end, not convinced.

“I think it’s sweet.” Josie kept on, and turned her smile to her  in a way Radha didn’t like. “Wouldn’t you like for Solas to gift you flowers as well, and know he meant something with each one he chose?”

The elf groaned in all answer, rolling her eyes to the ceiling of the office. It was far too silly for her, and as Josephine laughed at the display, she smiled back at the woman and wove a goodbye, turning back and leaving her to attach whatever set of words she wanted to the plants she received.

She crossed the Great Hall, headed to the library, and the thought still stuck, picking at her curiosity all the more because she couldn’t really understand the purpose of it.

She was there when Ydun filled the aravel she and Aisling shared with field flowers, once her sister complained the other never did anything spontaneous. She was there to help Aisling  and her girlfriend clean the damn flowers out of the cart, which took the three of them hours of work, and a big question on what to do with all those flowers.

It had been silly and uncomfortable, and even Aisling had agreed that maybe picking flowers wasn’t that nice. That they were nicer growing in fields, instead of dead just for a fleeting moment of beauty.

That had settled the flower matter, for Radha, and she told Solas right away that if he really wanted to court her, beside not entering her dreams uninvited ever again, not to gift her flowers. And he had listened on both things.

But now, working with Leliana on how to circle the Templar blockade in the Emprise du Lion, reviewing reports and trying to concoct a safe way around the main pathway that could lead an armed group into Sahrnia off track, without having them trapped in the snow… The thought kept bugging her most annoyingly.

So annoyingly than when they were finished for the day, after she checked that Aisling and Dorian weren’t planning on setting themselves on fire or make something else explode that afternoon, she started shuffling the bookshelves until she found… ah.

Floriography.

There was a whole book about it, and it was fairly thick. Surprisingly thick.

Shuffling through pages, she discovered it contained pages upon pages with pictures of every single flower and plant, with instructions on how to recognise the wanted variety precisely, curiosities and other uses. Beside a dictionary of associations, ordered one by flower, one by meaning.

Radha wondered why it wasn’t just a book of botany and nothing more.

But, curious as she always was when meeting something new to learn, she placed herself on her spot on the couch in the rotunda, and started to read. With a grudge, and fully intending to disprove that silly method and silly book.

“I thought you weren’t the type for flowers.”

A known, dear voice chuckles over her, coming to sit beside her some minutes after.

She huffed, settling better to get in contact with him, allowing Solas to hug her shoulders and peek on the page she had opened on her bent thighs, as she kept on reading.

“This language is stupid.”

“Is it? I think it’s a clever way to communicate in an environment where being open is socially frowned upon.”

“Bah.”

She scoffed, not convinced, and turned the page.

“A rose changes its meaning according to the colour. It makes no sense.”

“A letter can stand for two different sounds as well, making equally little sense.”

Radha huffed through the nose, shaking her head. Not convinced at all. Solas chuckled some more, and bent to press a kiss on the side of her head.

“Would you like to try?”

She turned to him, raising one eyebrow in a silent and very disappointed question that, apparently, just amused him more.

“Just to see if it makes sense in the end, or if it’s fun.”

“Crittography is fun and doesn’t require the death of a plant.”

“It’s far less beautiful, tho.” He countered. “The brief time a flower is allowed to bloom adds to its meaning. Even if its life is brief, it’s not less precious. All the more so for it. And the sentiment attached keeps on even if the petals wilts. I find it quite poetic.”

Radha shrugged, seeing the point of his words but not fully agreeing with it. She settled herself more comfortably against his side. If he was in a mood for explanations and reading and not for painting, it was fine with her. Aisling had rubbed off her too much for Radha to not have picked up that love was in touch.

 A slender arm clutched her closer, another kiss made her lips curve up in a smile, and she turned another page, deciding she may as well indulge him. If not just to prove it wrong. It didn’t work for Cullen and Aisling, she didn’t see why it should work for her. But if he wanted to try…

“As you wish.”

“I will think of something.”

She shrugged it off, and went on reading, trying to figure out if the whole thing had some sense upon it. But no matter how much she read, she just couldn’t figure out how one person could look at a bush of lavender and think of Distrust.

---

Radha found the first flower three days later, early in the morning when she walked out from her room.

On the ledge of the half wall, just in front of her door, he left her the Floriography book. In its pages he firmed the stalk of the first flower, shining white against the dark of the stone, tiny flowerets gently moving in the breeze that swept the Keep. She conceded herself half a smile, just for the care he took to leave her the guide as well. Shuffling through the pages, it was easy to find the flower she needed. It was a fairly common bloom and she of course knew its name well.

Lily of the Valley: Return of Happiness.

She rolled her eyes to the sky, but kept smiling, as she gently smelled the flower.

Silly and sappy.

She needed to find just the right answer. She was early anyway, she could spend ten minutes finding for something on the damn book.

Facing Aisling and asking her if she could please summon a very specific flower she had but a picture of in a book was another story. She hated to ask, and she knew that of her siblings, the one truly skilled with Creation magic was, without a hint of a doubt, Pavyn. But, she didn’t really trust other mages on such a personal matter, their brother was miles and miles away, and Aisling would have had to do. Even if she smirked with a horribly knowing smile at her. Saying nothing, and at the same time saying everything.

Radha groaned at it, Aisling laughed, and she gave her the flower she had asked anyway, telling her to come anytime for the next. This looked like an important mission, and had the priority, surely.

The flower was left on his desk right after, during lunch.

Ostwick Spiderwort: Momentary Happiness.

Because she was playing the game, but she was playing to prove it silly.

They went on for days, leaving flowers to each other back and forth, in places each one knew the other would have found it and know whom it was from.

When they met, they never spoke about them, of course: the fun was in the secrecy of it, and talking about the flowers would have broken the game.

Solas left her a White Periwinkle: Pleasures of Memory.

Radha shook her head and oomphed, found just the right flower, and pushed Aisling to create it anyway even if she disagreed with her choice of proving a point.

“Can I at least tell him I disagree with-”

“No, Shrimp.”

“Oomph.”

Tevinter Plum, for Privation.

He didn’t say anything, but looked at her funny that evening, raising just one eyebrow as he saw her, in a silent question. She rose one of her own, challenging him to say something. He smiled under his breath and spoke of something else.

The next morning, there was a jonquil in a small glass jar on her spot at Leliana’s table. Leliana smirked knowingly, but all she had to say at the third time she looked at the plant – just to check the jar wasn’t staining the map it rested upon, of course- was:

“It means ‘I desire a return of affection’.”

Radha groaned and urged everyone -who was horribly giggling at her, to get back to work, they had no time to lose in silliness and flowers.

She wasn’t ready to give in so early, so her choice was, and at that Aisling giggled in mirth. Not that Radha minded.

A Lady’s slipper: Win me and wear me.

To which the answer was quick:

Saffron Crocus: Mirth.

Radha smiled at it, and mirth was what she felt. Before the cook saw her with that particular flower in her hand and yelped, asking her where did she found it and if there were others, if there were enough they could have saffron for free and-

Flowers were dangerous, Radha decided, running for her -and mostly for Solas’ life from an overeager cook that would have demanded the mage to grow her a field of crocuses daily, if she had caught her and coaxed a name out of her.

The next flower, she found it herself in the garden, growing spontaneously in the meadows. A fitting answer, she thought, returning to the rotunda just to slip it behind his ear, with a briskness that masked some shyness out of inexperience. He turned, and she was out of the opposite door with just a glance of pink cheeks.

Wild Daisy: I will think of it.

When she finished with her training, patting dust away from her trousers after the Iron Bull threw her to the ground the fifth times as she was distracted by parrying Krem’s sword, his answer was in the scabbard of one of her daggers. For all she blamed this stupid flower thing for being silly and pointless -and it was silly and pointless and a waste of magic- the small twig with red lantern-like fruits brought a smile to her face, and made her forget that her back was sore and she fell badly on her shoulder.

Gooseberry: Anticipation

The game continued in the next days, and keeping a straight face when they were together became more difficult.

Radha thought she had a good control over herself: she wasn’t emotional in the way Aisling was, bursting into tears and smiling wide so everyone could partake in her emotions as well. She felt hers, but always kept them private. This new thing, tho, the expectation of seeing the hint of a coloured petal or of a leaf every way she turned, made her silly.

Her lips curled up in a smile almost automatically when she caught a glimpse of Solas, in a way she found silly and blamed herself for it. It happened to others, it happened to Aisling and Pavyn and Vyrina: it didn’t happen to her. It never did, and she wasn’t interested in having it happen. She was happy as she was.

And yet, seeing him smile back, something melting in his face, posture relaxing ever so slightly, took some of the disappointment away from her.

She left him a sprig of mezereon: Desire to please.

He answered with a white mignonette: Your qualities surpass your charme.

She was happy that he left it in her room, so nobody could see her blush. He wasn’t scarce in compliments, but she wasn’t really good at receiving them. Less of all in replying it: it felt… Too much, too soon, and she didn’t know what she should do.

After hours and hours of mulling it over, thinking if she was ready to be more direct and give a compliment back -he knew she admired him, what more could he want? Courtship was stupid. She decided that maybe not. She also decided that asking Aisling would have been a terrible idea if she didn’t want her sister to arrange with Leliana and Josephine a way to close them both in the same room with candles and rose petals and a chocolate cake so big no couple of living beings could ever dream of eating on their own… she may as well just offer him some sincerity back.

That would have worked better than Aisling setting them up, surely.

Amaryllis: Timidity.

She stayed the whole morning on pins and needles, uneasiness settling in the depth of her stomach in a way that was familiar of every time someone had requested something physical or emotional from her, and she just… Hadn’t it in her, and was made to feel in defect because in the field of love she wasn’t interested… Or in this case, when she surprisingly found herself interested, she needed to proceed slow.

He didn’t make her wait, tho: his answer was waiting for her in the war room, where she was expected for a recollection of the official plan to gather an entrance in the Emprise and Leliana had requested her presence.

A ceramic glass, stained with paint on the border -one of those he used for water when he painted, she knew- with clean water and a sprig of Evergreen Thorn, heavy with firey red berries.

Solace in adversity.

A consolation, and an acceptance. Aisling and Josephine looked at her, seeing the twig. Josie was worried, knowing probably the meaning of it, and asked her if everything was all right.

“Yes.” She answered. “Yes, it is.”

And she was fully sincere in her words.

The answer was fairly easy to find: it was Aisling’s favourite after forget-me-not, and it felt like a witty remark.

A tiger-lily on the top of his scaffolding, in the same glass: For once may pride befriend me.

She was up in the first story of the library, in the corner beside Aisling and Dorian to see his reaction. He turned the flower in his long fingers, and he heard him chuckle, as she had intended him to. He turned towards the nook with a sly smile, caught her eyes.

She felt the shiver of magic and the smell of ozone, and the next thing was something velvety and delicate caressing her right cheek. She startled to the side, thinking of something evil, for to her right there was just stone wall.

It was no demon what met her, but a single flower growing between two stones, and what velvety touched her was its leaf, spiky and sharp beneath delicate rosy and purple flowers.

“Can you go elsewhere before I puke with all this sappiness, please?” Dorian complained, groaning aloud.

“Hush, you!” Aisling giggled, swatting his arm aloud. “They’re cute, leave them be.”

“They’re getting sappier than you and Cullen, and I’m getting diabetes. Too much straight energy for me.” He groaned aloud, as if he was in pain, and let his bust fall heavily back, a wrist on his forehead for added dramatics. “I think I may die.”

Aisling hoomphed under his weight, collapsing back a little in surprise. A pile of books fell down under their combined weight, but they went on bickering about Radha one moment, their experiment the next. In the meanwhile, Radha had found which flower it was, and what did it mean. She snorted a laugh.

Oak leaved geranium: True friendship.

“See? Sappier by the minute, I swear!”

“Leave her be!”

It was, all in all, a nice afternoon full of laughter. And in all sincerity, all Radha could answer was but one flower.

Saffron Crocus: mirth.

It went on for some days more, and Radha slowly and carefully had to admit, if only to herself, that it was indeed amusing to go back and forth that way. No words, no grand declarations nor speech. Just colourful messages, well thought for their synthesis, to the point.

A bellflower in her glass, at breakfast: Gratitude.

Corn straw, deftly braided, between his quills: Agreement.

And then, after a day, when Radha was thinking he had stopped, they got through with it and had their fun but there was only so much they could tell each other through flowers -not thinking that she spent the day looking this way and that expecting a petal, a splash of colour in her field of vision… Another one that left her unsettled.

He had asked her if he could leave a couple of books he had meant to lend her directly in her room, instead of leaving them in the rookery where she was, and let her bring them back herself. She paid it little mind and told him yes, and in the evening, when she returned, there wasn’t just the four volumes of history on her desk. No.

There was a flower on her pillow, bright and colourful on the white of the sheets.

Ranunculus: You are radiant with charms.

Radha felt her breath grow short, the blow stronger this second time around, and she wondered if it was normal. She didn’t like this romance thing, she always felt like she was dancing without knowing the steps nor what he expected from her. This compliment thing… It left her uneasy and terribly, horribly seen.

Was it so bad, this insistence and being seen? Yes. But maybe… She didn’t mind being seen by Aisling, but Aisling had ways that were more delicate, and didn’t put a mirror in her face. This… A rational part in her calmly acknowledged that it was courtship, every animal did it. Birds flaunting coloured feathers to attract the female, hallas fighting for the same reason. Bonding gifts served the same purpose. Reproduction as the end goal. But this wasn’t that. She’s been clear that she wasn’t interested in that, she didn’t want children of her own, and she didn’t know if she would have ever been willing to try more intimacy than kisses. She never had the urge before, after all. He had been understanding and told her he didn’t mind it, he was happy with just whatever she had to give, and wouldn’t have asked for more.

It was the companionship, what she didn’t expect. It was the gratuitous appreciation of what she was, not what she could do, her qualities and skills. The way he listened to her and asked her opinion after long, long explanations, and seemed to value each and every of her words, remembered what she told and interpreted her ways for what they were, appreciated them. It was the smile he had just for her and the tender way his eyes would melt.

It was how her heart beat fast and how her mind could, if she tried, figure out the exact way he would have said “You are radiant with charms”, and how it made her horribly dizzy.

She prayed Aisling was in her room and was alone -she couldn’t face Cullen on this. Creators, asking one person was a lot.

Luckily, she was there and she was alone -made a weird face when Radha confessed she didn’t expect her to be, but was quick in changing the topic. In a way that told her that she didn’t want to talk about it, but still. They sat together on her bad, legs crossed, with all the curtains of the canopy drawn, it almost felt like an aravel: Radha spoke and Aisling listened with attention.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” She asked in the end, an understanding smile on her face as she cupped her face to look at her in the eyes.

“What?”

“Falling.”

Radha glomped down. Was that it? Was it? All the fuss, all the chasing and sighing, all the novels and poetry, for this? For feeling dizzy and unsure? She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all, but something clicked true in her.

She nodded, feeling herself blushing madly.

“Yeah, I know, it’s shitty. Truly horrible.” Aisling agreed, moving forward and dragging her bust down to hug her shoulder, collecting the rogue against her frame. “It’s ok, tho. You can cut the game any time, there’s no obligation to answer. You already told him that you were shy, it’s ok. He won’t insist if you don’t want him to.”

Radha hummed, knowing she was right. It wasn’t anything serious, this game of theirs, anyway. The experiment had proven its point, she could call it out whenever she wanted.

And yet, that ranunculus…

“And- What if I wanted to?” She squeezed her eyes shut and drowned her face in the crook of Aisling’s neck.

Fingers started to thread in her hair, caressing and soothing, a kiss pressed on her cheek.

“Well, then. If you wanted to… You can be sincere about why you don’t want to reply. What about it?” Aisling asked. “Is there another flower for shyness?”

There was, they discovered after running all the way down to Radha’s room and the book. And checking also what Dandelion meant now because Aisling decided she may as well try it too, and “Cullen is definitely a dandelion”. She was very disappointed when she discovered that Dandelions meant “Rustic oracle” (“What does that even mean?? It makes no sense!” and Radha couldn’t but agree). But they found one for her as well, and it was with a sigh to get some courage, that she left it on his desk, very early in the morning.

Peony: Bashfulness, shame.

As embarrassing as it was, that was what she felt.

Waiting for an answer, after all, was still better than dreading answering in the first place. She had work to distract herself with and… Was that Cullen with a crown of dandelions on his head the one Varric and Sera were whistling at?

She had work to distract herself with.

The answer came soon enough, thankfully, and it calmed her down considerably.

A twig with leaves of white poplar: Time.

She smiled at it, relieved in her anxieties. The perfect answer, really, and she felt silly, now, for doubting him so. He gave her time, and time was what she needed. With a fuller heart and a calmer mind, and more faith in the future, she gently pressed one of the leaves in her notebook, as a keepsake, and went on with her day.

Her answer was a columbine: Foolishness.

She felt a little foolish for worrying so, truth to be told, and if sincerity paid off… Why not keeping up? Maybe it would have brought something else of good, while she tried to unwind the ball of yarn her feelings and thoughts got wound up into.

She had time, yes.

The next one was another leaf. One she knew fairly well, and which spoke thankfully more of him than on her.

Arbor Blessing: Unchanging friendship. Live for me.

Radha knew, turning the trail in her hand and rubbing the leaves between two fingers to release the balsamic perfume of them. Surely he meant just the first meaning of it. He was the first one to say she should pursue other interests and friendships that weren’t him. With a dedication she didn’t really understand.

That little slip tho… That little inattention, finding something with a meaning so contrary to whatever he ever told her.

Maybe he was equally bashful about this whole endeavour. Thinking of it, he always spoke of her and her qualities, what he saw in her. Never of what he himself was feeling more deeply than expressing friendship. Before this one. This one little slip that…

Maybe she was reading too much into it. But he was always so precise and careful, measuring his words with such attention, that Radha found hard to believe that he just read half the definition.

Weirdly enough, that little slip made her heart beat, but not with the anxiety of those days before. No. This time it was tenderness, and recognition.

If he was bashful too… Maybe she really had nothing to fear.

Maybe she already had fallen, and she didn’t realise she already landed.

Beside, her mother didn’t raise a quitter.

So, she marched to Aisling and asked her one last flower. This time, knowing perfectly well what she wanted.

The next morning, Solas found a thin vase on his desk, in a corner as if it had been always been there.

Inside, sprouting tall and proud, one single purple lily.

First emotion of love.

Radha, that evening, got back into her room to find not one flower, but a full bouquet. It was just one bloom, and it filled the room with a pleasant, sweet perfume.

Lily of the valley: Return of happiness.

She smiled wide, didn’t mind he entered her room without asking, and let her treacherous heart keep her awake for long, that evening.

Enjoying the sweet smell of lily of the valleys for the brief and precious moment while it lasted, and maybe understanding a little better why people gifted flowers.

Why Lavender meant Distrust, tho, she never understood.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #solavellan #solasxlavellan #da fanfic #dai #writing petrel #radha lavellan #and look this is probably the first thing I can properly tag as solavellan! #(flower language means absolutely nothing to me either if you were asking) #(why lavender means distrust?? WHY??) #oh yeah she's ace #and definitely demiromantic

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

I think the thing that made it harder for me to get into inquisition at least initially as opposed to the other two is the fact that for the most part, characters won’t seek you out. You have to do the work of maintaining friendships. In dao you’re all living together in tents having gay sex and singing kumbaya (or yknow. Helping Morrigan figure out how to kill her mother) and in da2 people just show up to your house to talk to your dog and even though you have to work to progress the friendships, you get the vibes that we’re all on an even playing field even when we come from very different backgrounds. In dai for the most part characters don’t try to build up friendship with the inquisitor first. The inquisitor is the one who has to speak to them all following recruitment, and you could go the entire game without learning nearly anything about anyone except for Cassandra, Varric, and Solas, who all have some form of major plot relevance.

One could see it as a failing of the game but actually I think it speaks to the way the position of the inquisitor is so wildly different from the other two protags.

The Warden is effectively a criminal on the run for much of the game, with the meeting of Alistair and Morrigan established before the real inciting incident so they have a background before they all start traveling together. And the Warden is not a leader, not initially anyway, they’re simply thrust into that position because Alistair prefers to follow.

Hawke is a refugee, rising from the ashes of a life they can’t return to even if they want to, and many of their friends live much the same. They have family who relies on them for guidance after the death of their father. Varric, though a Kirkwall lifer unlike the rest of them, sees the potential in Hawke as a cunning business partner. Hawke becomes a leader because they must, because people look to them for guidance. Because surely they must know what they’re doing, right?

The inquisitor begins as the herald of Andraste. No matter what background you choose, you are instantly thrust into this nearly saintlike position. People look to them for spiritual and tactical guidance even if they don’t believe in Andraste or the Maker, because this is the role that society has put upon them. And they gain friends in Varric, Cassandra, and Solas immediately. Solas mostly for dramatic irony, Cassandra because she wants to believe (especially after the death of the divine), Varric because he saw how rough being thrust into power was for Hawke and recognizes that this kid might need a friend. But everyone else is a little yknow. Intimidated by the whole magic glowing palm thing. If they are really the Herald, why them? What kind of holy power has Andraste granted them with? What retribution can they wreak if something goes wrong? And if they’re not really the Herald, if that whole maker business isn’t real, they’re still the commander of a major army leading what is essentially a holy war. Herald or not, that’s some intimidating shit. It’s no wonder it’s hard for the inquisitor to make friends. They woke up one day and were effectively told “hey, there’s a giant asshole in the sky and we think your evil hand has something to do with it. And we think it’s because the Holy Spirit says so. So you’re gonna lead our army now.” That’s not really a great way to garner meaningful friendships.

Basically everything Varric says about the inquisitor being intimidating to people simply because of their role. That’s the point I’m trying to get across here.

#the whiscash administration

[rosella-writes]

Find the Words

Tagged by @sulky-valkyrie (thank you!!) to find the words majestic, feral, kinship, and impact in my works (or their variations)!

This sent me on a wild hunt that spread across my entire catalogue of works, including some I haven’t read through or thought about in a long time, so thank you! 💚 I’m very proud of these.

MAJESTY: this heart is open (bloodstain on my sleeve)

Rhiannon smiled at him. “Your majesty, King Alistair.”

His nose wrinkled slightly. “All thanks to you, I guess. Your puppet king, reporting for duty!” Then, his tone lowering from its embittered, joking one to a slightly more serious one, he said, “But in all honesty, well done. You know, with the whole archdemon thing.”

She shook her head. “You’re no puppet, Alistair. You’re certainly not mine, anyway, and I wouldn’t want you to be.”

His eyes flicked to Anora, then back to Rhiannon. “Nor hers,” he said conspiratorially. Then he leaned in slightly and muttered, “As for the archdemon, I am very curious as to how you killed it without, you know, dying. From what the Wardens from Weisshaupt said in their missives, that’s not possible.”

FERAL: drag my teeth across your chest (to taste your beating heart)

“Would you like something, vhenan?”

Virelan seemed half-feral, her chest heaving, teeth bared. She slid her hand from his chin to the back of his neck, as if to pull his head up between her thighs. He wished she would.

“I will not make you,” she said through clenched teeth, “but neither will I beg.”

KINSHIP: Basvaarad

She took in a ragged breath. Her chest felt tight. “They would not have me back. I am dead to the Qun, whether I take my life or not.”

“And yet you must feel some kinship? Some concern?”

His back was turned to her now, but the muscles of it were tense. Eris drew close to him and put up a hand spotted with age, but her fingers curled in towards her palm before they made contact with his shoulder. She dropped her hand to her side. Panasaam looked between them with wide eyes, her eyelashes flickering as she held back unexpected tears.

“They… they will die?”

Solas’s hand clenched on the tabletop. “Those who target our supply lines and kidnap my messengers will. Those who are dispatched to kill my agents in the field will.”

Her next breath guttered in her throat. “Oh.”

IMPACT: held close to its purple-thrumming heart

But she didn’t have time to coddle the voices that lived in her mind. Now that she’d been released from the Well’s grip, her eye flew open and her grasp tightened on her sword, just in time for another impact on her barrier that made it sputter into nothing.

An arrow.

“Virelan!” Dorian was shouting, tugging at her. “Now is not the time!”

Flames flashed, slicing through the violet-inked darkness of the forest, and cut a swath through the underbrush. Dorian’s outstretched hand, studded with rings, formed a spidery silhouette against the rising wall of roaring daylight — it clenched into a fist, and tongues of flame lashed from his wall towards the deeper bowels of the Tirashan.

Tagging forward to @melisusthewee @cleverblackcat @plisuu and @mxkelsifer to hunt for the words lyrium, taint, euphoria, and regret.

#tag game #my writing #dragon age #virelan lavellan #solas #I spy the lemon #alistair theirin #rhiannon mahariel #panasaam #dorian pavus #long post

[esta-elavaris]

Fluffmass ‘22 Day 1

Dragon Age: Inquisiton -- Cullen/F!Trevelyan

Prompt: “This made me think of you.”

Cullen and Evelyn exchange gifts on their first Satinalia as a couple. 

It started with a fleeting comment, written as a postscript in one of her reports to him in the earliest days of the Inquisition - back when she’d “simply” been Herald of Andraste, and not the Inquisitor. 

P.S. I’m sorry for the atrocious handwriting. It’s so damn cold here tonight that I can hardly feel my hands, much less write.

Cullen had smiled upon reading it - the first sign of ease in her missives to him, and perhaps (he hoped) and indicator that any awkwardness between them thanks to his once being a Templar, and her always being a mage, was not so insurmountable as some might assume. It had hardly prevented them from working well thus far, but he hadn’t been blind to the tentativeness that took over her when he walked into a room for the first few weeks - and he thanked Andraste that it didn’t seem to be a permanent fixture. Not just because it would have interfered with their work, but because he didn’t want to induce that sort of discomfort.

Her next report proved far more legible, and so he’d added a note at the end of his letter; a simple I see your hands have warmed up. And then he’d cringed over it from the time the letter was sent until he received her next one, reading in a note tagged on after her signature ten fingers going strong so far - but if that changes, I’ll be billing the Inquisition. 

Almost a year, a move of bases, and one budding new relationship later, the temperature of Evelyn Trevelyan’s hands had remained a topic of conversation between the two of them. Not in that way - although there had been a joke or two from Sera. 

“Does your Cully-Wully warm up them icy hands of yours, yeah?” she’d giggle whenever the two of them were in the vicinity of one another.

Sera’s comments, while certainly the most inane, weren’t the only ones. After a month or two they’d sought out Solas’ opinion on the matter, worried that perhaps it may be something to do with the mark on her had, only to find that if it did, it wasn’t direct. A product of stress, he’d called it, justifiable, undoubtedly, but the body’s response to a heightened sense of danger. What followed was a long, rambling explanation of how the body responded to the threat of danger by bringing the blood away from the extremities an in towards the internal organs, but Cullen heard it for what it was. Evelyn Trevelyan was living in a near-permanent state of fight or flight. 

Gloves were out of the question - at least in the field, for they would interfere with her ability to channel her magic through her staff. So she developed a liking for pyromancy, and Cullen hid his worry as best he could. Until they’d acquired Dagna. And that was how he found himself moving through Skyhold on Satinalia with a present wrapped in brown paper and string wedged tightly beneath his left vambrace.

The garden was all but deserted, everybody tucked away from the cold inside, dedicating their attention to the feast. Which, of course, was the point of this meeting time and spot both - the Inquisitor’s attention was in high demand, but surely they could take a moment or two to themselves.

“Hello, you.”

Her voice broke the silence of the garden not long after he’d taken up a seat by the chess table under the gazebo. The undoubtedly daft look of surprise on his face earned him a smile as he turned to watch her descend the last couple of steps from the battlements, explaining as she approached.

“I had to take the long way round - otherwise I’d have never gotten here at all.”

“I’ve at least some idea of what you mean,” he said ruefully “It takes me twenty minutes to walk half as many feet through the encampment outside the gates.”

Evelyn was garbed in a fine dress of deep crimson red for the occasion, long-sleeved, embroidered with gold and trimmed in fur. With her hair cascading down her back in dark brown curls and a circled of gold atop her head, she looked more a queen than an Inquisitor - and a lovely one at that. Not for the first time, Cullen was tempted to doubt his gift. Weren’t men supposed to buy the women they were involved with jewellery, or some such token? Was there some sort of tradition for first Satinalia’s as a couple? He thought not. He knew not, though. That was the problem - he’d never been involved with somebody for long enough, nor seriously enough, to encounter this particular dilemma.

But, days like this notwithstanding, she had little occasion for jewellery, and little use for baubles. No, his gift was a good one. The only one he hadn’t been able to talk himself out of. It could go with her as she travelled, and keep her warm and comfortable when he could not. Safe when he could not. Or so he prayed. 

“Here.”

Thank the Maker she chose to speak before he could get himself into more of a laughable state over something so minor as a Satinalia gift. Cullen watched with a smile as she produced a box just a little bigger than her hand from the loose, draping sleeve of her gown. It was wrapped in red and green paper that sparkled as the light caught it, and tied with golden ribbons that matched her dress.

“I’ll own up right now and say my gift for you isn’t wrapped half so well,” he chuckled, accepting it “Thank you.”

“Well, I’ll own up and say the shop I bought it from in Val Royeaux offered gift wrapping services, so I can’t take credit for it.”

Ah. Dagna offered no such service. 

Unravelling the bow with one careful pull, it fell away and he then lifted the lid from the box. Inside lay a clear, square-shaped glass bottle filled with some sort of liquid of a deep golden-red. He unstoppered the bottle beneath her gaze, and sniffed it carefully - before looking at her in wonder.

“It made me think of you when I found it. It’s embrium extract,” she explained “The really pure stuff, designed for multi-use. I noticed you always burn those incense cones in your office and that you favour that scent. This way you can wear it.”

He did - for its medicinal properties. It helped clear his mind, and on a more literal level it warded off headaches and the chills. But it appeared that use, thankfully, had gone over her head. The withdrawals were a topic he had not yet broached with her.

“It…may also be rubbed into the temples to ease headaches and migraines. Or elsewhere, for muscle aches.”

Guilt threatened to graze him then. Because he’d underestimated her, and because she of all people was worried about him. When it was clear that he had not the words to respond quite yet, turning the bottle over with a soft smile on his face, she rested her hand atop his. His gloves were just thin enough for him to feel how cold her grasp was. 

“You work yourself too hard, Cullen,” she said “I hate seeing the toll it takes. I hope this might help.”

He gave a tired half-smile, mostly because she was one of the few people from whom he could hear such a plea without growing annoyed. Evelyn gave just as much as he did, if not more, and the toll matched. Surely she knew what a bad joke it was for her to say such a thing while doing the exact same thing - and he could hardly blame her, for he would say the same to her without a hint of irony. He often did.

“I love it - and it’ll be of great use to me. Thank you.”

Taking up the hand that had lain atop his, he pressed the back of it to his lips, smirking when she beamed in response. 

“Speaking of hoping to help, though,” he said.

He had to fully unbuckle his vambrace to dislodge the gift, and when Evelyn caught on she assisted him with a swiftness and ease that did threaten to send the mind wandering. The package slipped out, and he handed it to her with far more shyness than a man of his age and life experience had any business feeling. Evelyn Trevelyan just had a way of inducing that in him. It was difficult to say whether that fact was made better or worse by the fact that it did not seem to be deliberate - but at least, judging by the flush in her cheeks as she unwrapped her gift, the feeling was mutual.

Fine, soft leather gloves the same dark muted purple shade that she favoured in her armour were revealed as she unfolded the paper, with black crystal panels so high in number that they would not inhibit dexterity sewn into the palms. 

“I collaborated with Dagna on them,” he explained quickly, before she could mentally deem them largely unuseful “The crystals will amplify your magic and send it through to your staff, so you needn’t remove them in combat.”

Her dark eyes widened as she inspected the crystal panels carefully in wonder. Cullen smiled as he continued.

“There are also mild fire and frost glyphs carved inside, so depending on the climate in which you find yourself you might either heat or cool your hands.”

“Oh, Cullen,” she murmured, turning them over and over in her hands as she admired them before she breathed a laugh “Has my penmanship truly been that bad?”

He chuckled “Perhaps I’m hoping you’ll write more frequently.”

Or just stop leaving at all. He stilled when her inspections brought her to a small piece of needlework, hidden on the inner cuff of the gloves. An E and a C entwined in thread just a few shades lighter than the leather it was sewn into, so as not to be too noticeable. It was a detail he’d thought a touch trite when he’d first gotten the idea, but when he saw how her smile widened and her blush deepened, he was glad to have gone with the idea. When she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, he was gladder still. 

#dragon age inquisiton #dragon age fanfic #cullen rutherford fanfic #Cullen Rutherford/F!Trevelyan #cullen rutherford/female inquisitor

[kaija-rayne-author]

Finished the main game with my qunari. (Again, 3rd time, this series has me so hard.) I'm very ready for this run to be done.

The 'make Solas hate me' thing wasn't even remotely easy for me. Though, I gotta admit antagonizing him was fun for a while. 😅 I'm only playing Trespasser with this character, (not the other DLCs) because I'm having painful dysphoria issues with the curvier female qunari form.

There's a reason I usually play male elves. Skinny little twinks are pretty androgynous and don't bother my dysphoria so much. Even female elves don't bother me. They're all pretty androgynous. If only I were.

Plus pointed ears. My entire family has slightly pointed ears so it's just fun.

I actually only gave Sera a Romance chance because of a tumblr post I saw. I'm glad I did. It was the hardest Romance of all for me, but it’s actually really sweet and happy. Good brain chemicals.

As soon as I finish Trespasser to get angry Solas end lines, I'm going to take another run at modding Frostbite. (Seeing bitchy Solas in game was way more powerful for me than a YouTube watch would be.)

I've been modding games since modding became a thing, so it wasn't fun to realize how bloody difficult Frostbite is to mod.

But because I really want to play DA:I with some of the mods, and because DA:DW is built on Frostbite too, I gotta figure it out. It was mostly an ADHD patience/frustration thing, I think. I expected reasonable levels of difficulty in modding Frostbite and it is an absolute monster.

I'm actually tempted to play the whole series again since I'm almost done with reading the books and comics. They added so much depth to the games and characters that I'm curious about how it'll change my perception of them.

And I've heard there's art and references to 'The Dread Wolf' in all games. Curiousity absolutely gets me into trouble, frequently. 😅

It's how I ended up on the Solavellan Hell train. I knew who Solas was 'cause I'd already played DA:I, but I still did a Solavellan playthrough out of curiousity.

Being a writer/editor/literary analyst, I didn't truly think that Weekes would snag me, much less snag me so fucking hard!

So, yeah. A day or two, depending on how much time I have to game, to finish Trespasser, and then I'll be trying again to mod this beast of a game engine.

Once you're an insider in publishing, it becomes more and more difficult throughout the years for stories to capture you. I know all the tropes and can see where things are going so easily because I've been working professionally in this field for close to a decade.

Even with that, Weekes grabbed me by the heart then proceeded to rip my heart out. (He did it in Masked Empire too, great book.) Gotta love star crossed lovers. It's one of my very favourite tropes and I'm actually grateful that Weekes reached me. So little does anymore. And to think I got into this field after leaving STEM because I love to read 🤣, oh... sweet summer child.

Once I get it successfully modded, I'll decide on a full series replay (it would give me more to write about) or not.

Right now, I'm so stressed out by my job search that I'm clinging to DA as my only real stress relief. Usually special interests aren't this chronologically long lasting for me. I tend to cycle through them more quickly.

But with the job search being what it is, and my stress levels being through the roof, I'm just grateful this one hasn't abandoned me yet.

You really wouldn't think finding a decent job (something I'm good at, salary with good benefits, ideally remote because I'm more productive from my home office) would be so difficult, would you?

Anyway, enough of me jawing about DA for now. I need to make an online portfolio for my graphic design stuff. I've been doing it as long as I've been doing editing & literary critique (24 years), and writing for 33 years, but having an online portfolio hasn't ever been a priority because my clients have always found me by word of mouth.

Sigh. I'd rather be doing many other things. I just want a job I can be good at that I'm paid a living wage for that actually uses my skills and maybe pushes me a little to increase my abilities. One that doesn't require my autistic/ADHD ass to do social things because that's probably around the 7th layer of hell for me. Why is that so hard to find?

#dragon age series #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #solavellan #solavellan hell #dragon age confessions

[rowanhawthorne22]

Progress Update 01 - Character Introductions

This is progress update 01 for my novel. I'm writing it for my master's classes at SNHU. To date, I have an intro, the first chapter, and half of the second chapter. I'm writing this blog to keep my shit in order and my brain on track and free of thoughts. Additionally, earning a following pre-publication seems like it would be useful, so I'll just be transparent about that. I'm not trying to live off my writing, but I do want an agent and a good editor. So I can't just publish my work and pray to god that people read it, I've gotta put in a little leg work.

With that in mind, the main focus of this blog is to talk about my progress with the novel and contextualize the writing process against the publication process. I have no specific plans for publication now, but as they develop I'll detail them here.

Let's get into the novel. The idea for The Stars have Always Beckoned Us is relatively simple. Ernest, a scholar at Solas Realt in a fictional Boston Victorian inspired city, feels the rush of discovery and love for magic. He wants to make a contribution to the field of Astronomy, which in this universe is a combination of arcane magic and science. Spells are created by invoking the names of certain planets and channeling their power. Ernest intends to find a new planet which he can harness the power of, and then cast a spell to observe farther and more closely than anyone before. He intends to leave a mark on the field and establish his name.

I wanted to use the name Ernest Ebreitas, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate or even legal to bite Bloodborne like that. Of course, the game is a huge part of the inspiration for the book, but that doesn't mean I can just copy it, I think. I mean it's only a name and a reference, I'm not like stealing the intellectual property of the game, or is just the name considered IP? It's a question an editor would know the answer to.

Ernest is determined. He's a little snobbish about the Academy; he doesn't have a lot of friends (two, to be exact, and one of them lives far away) and he doesn't make any effort to be social. All of his time is poured into his research and his classes. Ernest doesn't really understand the concept of "getting his hands dirty" because things sort of naturally fall into his lap. He's not exactly a genius, but things kind of tend to go right for him. This ease of access for him makes him look down a bit on his classmates. He can't understand why everyone else seems to be struggling and failing when it all comes so easily to him.

The first few chapters I want to spend setting up the academy and Ernest's interactions with it. Chapter 1 has Ernest arriving back at the academy after summer break to find that the headmaster still has not returned. He's been missing for three years now after a mysterious happening at his tower. Here we are also introduced to the interim headmaster, Alder Stately, and the mysterious new Professor Marwyn.

Chapter 2 introduces us to Ernest's friend Viola Tillman and Ernest's observatory space. It's not really his, but he has picked up enough of a reputation at the academy that most people just sort of leave it for Ernest. This chapter will be used to introduce some of the basics of the magic system as well. We'll see Ernest doing some Astronomy(TM).

In the next few chapters, I want to spend some time establishing the school and the magic system. The big problem will be hooking the audience - I need to drop some clues as to Elrick's (the headmaster) whereabouts. I think I will have Ernest overhearing chatter or have Viola drop some gossip, or something. Eventually, Ernest will demand to see the headmaster, and Elrick will reveal himself as having been mostly fine over the past three years. He's just been desperately trying to find out more about what happened to him - which was, of course, contact from an Old God residing deep in the center of a black hole. Elrick was given an inadvertent gift. Just as the planets are great sources of arcane power for the scholars of Solas Realt, this Old God was drawn on for power accidentally. This resulted in Elrick experiencing the first instance of blood magic ever recorded.

So, once Ernest and Elrick get in contact, they both make efforts to understand and control this new magic. It will go poorly for Elrick and he will be transformed into the primary villain of the novel. Somehow. This is subject to change.

Anyway, more blog posts forthcoming. I'll try to stick to a roughly weekly upload schedule so that I can continue to organize my thoughts and think through the structure of the novel.

I need feedback. If you, by chance, find this post, read the whole thing, and decide you want to rip me a new one and call my ideas stupid, I completely encourage you to do so. I need everything.

#lovecraft #cosmic horror #science fantasy #writers #space #new writers #magic #book writing #fiction

[giffingthingsss]

Enterprise rewatch order project.

Think of this as a streamlined first two seasons of Enterprise experience. Hits the major points, cuts out some of the more boring eps, puts things in an order in which I think they more or less flow. 

I'm aiming for something resembling a throughline. Obviously, I have put the episodes I like in here, with the exception of maybe two that are just too essential to the flow to take out. Your list might be slightly different.

Broken Bow Strange New World Fight or Flight The Andorian Incident Unexpected Sleeping Dogs Cold Front Silent Enemy Shuttlepod One Breaking the Ice Acquisition Shadows of P'Jem Vanishing Point Shockwave Carbon Creek Minefield Dead Stop Cease Fire Fusion Singularity The Catwalk Horizon The Crossing The Seventh Regeneration Stigma First Flight

Reasoning Breakdown:

Broken Bow Strange New World Fight or Flight

The one thing I insist on is that Strange New World is the second episode, not Fight or Flight. The only indication that there’s a switch is it’s been two weeks in Fight or Flight and six weeks in Strange New World. But I just say Trip meant it’s been two weeks since the last thing happened. 

In the Pilot you’ve got Archer going from ‘grrr Vulcans’ to ‘okay this particular Vulcan is pretty cool, I need to leave my prejudice behind.’ Strange New World is that confrontation for Trip and T’Pol. It needs to happen before things settle into a routine. I like the tone of it more as a follow up as well. In this ep Archer and T'Pol are pretty chill and work together which I think follows more. In the next ep there's a little tension but it's born of his own ethical struggle.

I took A Night in Sickbay out of the list and put the Hoshi eps back in. I still sort of stan A Night in Sickbay as ENT’s one real attempt at a whacky episode. But Archer again trying to get beyond prejudgments at that stage in the game seems like a little bit of a backslide. He will still have his frustrations with Vulcans, but for the most part I prefer to keep the development momentum going.

Plus there's some fun stuff in Fight or Flight relating to the wet behind the ears nature of this crew. And if Hoshi's arc is eventual captain, kinda need to see this build up.

The Andorian Incident Unexpected Sleeping Dogs

Keeping the excitement up we jump into a plotty episode that will play into a larger arc with the Andorian Incident. Then switch to something more fun in Unexpected.

Unexpected ends on Klingons threatening Archer, so I thought Sleeping Dogs flowed from that pretty nicely. Back to a more dangerous ep. 

Vox Sola has that nice T’Pol/Hoshi stuff and it’s got Malcolm figuring out an early version of a force field. But I don't have it because T’Pol and Hoshi haven’t really butted heads since the pilot. They have a nice meditation moment in Sleeping Dogs, so if you want Vox Sola I would put it before that. I haven't tried it to see if that would actually work, just sayin'.

In Cold Front we get back to the overarching temporal plot. It works better when it’s not so far removed from the pilot that you’ve kind of forgotten such a thing exists. 

Silent Enemy Shuttlepod One Breaking the Ice

Shuttlepod One flows from Silent Enemy nicely. The quest for Malcolm's favorite food followed by "Never got very close to my family either, for that matter, not that it's any business of yours. But with the crew of the Enterprise, it was different. I was really starting to feel comfortable with them.”

Shuttlepod One has Trip poo pooing T’Pol as a romantic prospect so I thought Breaking the Ice was a fun follow up where he acts as accidental relationship confidante. 

Acquisition Shadows of P'Jem Vanishing Point

The previous eps had a hefty dose of peril, so now we go to the fun in Acquisition.

Shadows of P’Jem is another plot episode with Vulcans and Andorians. Follow that up with a character ep that also highlights the discomfort with the transporter technology.

Shadows of P'Jem also had a brief moment of trepidation with the transporter, so Vanishing just kind of expounds on that fear. You could stick another ep in here though if you have a different preference. The basic point is breathing room between Shadows and Shockwave. 

Shockwave Carbon Creek Dear Doctor Minefield Dead Stop

Shockwave, big plotty episodes. Follow that up with a nice calm character piece with 1950′s Vulcans. Nothing needs to change there. 

I wanted Singularity next and for Minefield to follow, but Singularity mentions Travis' brain implants, so no dice.

Cease Fire Fusion Singularity The Catwalk Horizon

Cease Fire gets us back into the main story. Alliances and all that.

Fusion is put here rather than earlier to be closer to Stigma. I also feel like T'Pol has been on the ship long enough now to explore this.

Singularity is just a standalone ep I like a lot. Ditto for The Catwalk. The Catwalk flows into Horizon via T'Pol, Trip, and movies.

I originally did not have any Mayweather eps, but as you go along, it becomes conspicuous that he hasn't had one. Having just one cargo ship episode rather than two helps a lot. You're like, 'oh interesting things here' rather than 'another cargo ship ep?' So I think it works.

The Crossing The Seventh Regeneration Stigma First Flight

We've kind of run out of wider world plot episodes and are left with me trying to arrange standalones I like. Other things can be put here if people have different preferences.

Character ep in Horizon, then switch to an ensemble with The Crossing. Another character ep in The Seventh. My major problem is spacing out T’Pol episodes. Here we see some backstory and her kind of losing it. You buy that she trusts Archer. 

Excitement/action in Regeneration. Character ep in Stigma. I like the sort of build up in these episodes with T'Pol and Archer. When my 'next season' begins with The Expanse you buy her choosing the Enterprise over the Vulcans. You might even buy her glow up.

The only problem with putting Stigma closer to Fusion is you kind of remember that the whole 'forced' thing is a little questionable. Coercion, manipulation. At some point it became forced and that's what caused the brain damage, so maybe? But the main thing is they needed a way to get the Vulcans to let her off. So squint. I like this ep even if it does stray dangerously close to being too on the nose (okay it crosses that line a couple times, but T'Pol). And I like Stigma going into First Flight.

My ‘season’ end is First Flight. None of the characters look younger so it's a lil hard to suspend my disbelief and picture what I'm supposed to be looking at, but it’s a nice button on the overall thematic arc so far. Plus T’Pol insisting she go with because she knows he’s upset and she wants him to talk about it is just like... I’m an absolute sucker okay. I'm weak.

So this ep is a nice button on the arc and on a relationship that started out rocky. Wraps it all up more or less before we get into a new chapter and new dynamics with the Xindi.

So that's my streamlined 'season one' that hits the main themes and plot points and I think keeps a nice throughline of Archer and T'Pol's growing friendship without a lot of backsliding. I would then start 'season two' with The Expanse.

There might be a context thing or two missing since we didn't see episodes like Bounty, but oh well. The Klingon thing feels kinda shoehorned into the Xindi start up anyway, imho.

The eps that didn't make my cut might make someone else's. Most of them are fine or have some great stuff in them, just maybe didn't fit my flow or I found a bit boring. They're in a 'pull out and watch randomly if so desired' pile.

#i should really watch it through again in case i would change my mind #but imma burn out #may revisit in another year #enterprise things

[lightcreators]

@tiimecrash​ continue from here

“It’s something isn’t it? Those shooting stars. They look beautiful at night. Namely when your laying in the grass, don’t you think?” Sola smiled adoring over to the hobbit as she was laying on her back in the field, looking up at the night sky. Ever since she could remember, the lady always had a knack for knowing things she shouldn’t have access too. Dreams, visions, whatever they were .. she had them. She could see things that have not happened yet and things that could happen differently. Something she honestly couldn’t explain either. She was just a strange lady that happened to be found by an equally as strange brown wizard deep in the forest. The stars were a link to something deep inside her that she couldn’t explain. She often had visions of herself flying through them, floating and being spread out amongst them.

There was a long pause, something told her that he didn’t believe her. A soft sigh escaped her lips, looking the hobbit over. She was fond of Bilbo and it showed. She liked spending time with him, even if she felt he didn’t care much for her company -- but he never told her to leave. Odd as it seemed, perhaps there was some sort of link between Bilbo Baggins and herself. One in a far future, but that was impossible. Only elves and wizards could live forever. Not hobbits or Man. Glancing over to him, he had her full attention. He always gathered her attention it seemed. It was an odd mix of feelings she was experiencing. “I heard if you make a wish when you see one, it will come true. I made a wish, but it’s not came true yet. I don’t think my wish will come true anytime soon - let alone tonight. Go on and wish for something Bilbo, maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”  She dare not even say what she wished for, it was more than likely not to come true tonight.

An  deep  fondness  was  expressed  towards  the  strange  Man  who  crossed  their  lands  …  but  living  among  them,  afterwards  be  flattered  of  possibly  an  strange  education  to  been  expected  to  been  receiving  by  an  wizard  …  He  supposed  possibly  the  wanderings  of  Gandalf  the  Grey  allowing  him  to  offering  an  comfort  of  a  child,  to  becoming  an  landmark  presence  but  at  his  most  disappointment,  he  wasn’t  the  wizard  to  had  experienced  the  leisure  to  be  a  father.  Oh,  he  remember  perfectly  how  the  wizard  had  been  flattered  by  the  assumption,  offering  instead  another  strange  riddle  in  the  atmosphere,  as  another  information  slipped  out  his  lips.  Eventually,  he  would  discovering  such  happiness  to  be  ‘a  father’  himself,  as  the  old  ancient  wizard  he  was  would  knowing  pleasure  to  showing  his  protective  abilities,  though  rusty.  It  sounded  an  natural  conclusion  for  each  other,  for  that  casual  conversation  between  them.  He  expected  himself  to  be  surprised,  to  waiting  to  know  the  answers  behind  the  mysteries  —  as,  somewhere,  he  always  knew  the  answer.  How  'natural’  it  was  supposed  to  be.  How  inevitable  circumstances  who  didn’t  happened  yet  would  fall  …  and  how  …  how  he  would  have  to  acting  differently.  To  embracing  that  warning  ambiance  he  would  have  to  be  here,  that  complicated  times  would  be  ahead  —  even  though  so  far  he  awaited  an  opportunities  to  discovering  densities  of  his  whole  world  !  An  Hobbit  in  Bag  End,  attached  member  of  Hobbiton,  searching  heresy  desire  to  travelling  among  the  beauty  beyond  common  lands,  to  discover  new  worlds.  An  adventure.  He  craved  one  so  deeply,  and  reassurance  of  the  wizard  he  would  get  one  day,  managed  to  appease  temporary  his  heart.  Enough  for  condensing  himself  towards  that  patience,  when  ordinariness  of  daily  life  following  every  day  —  exploring  at  the  occassion  the  various  lands  of  the  Shire,  updating  old  founds  places  of  their  places,  searching  into  lost  archives  when  wizard  louable  help  him.

There  was  no  surprise  when  you  were  an  Hobbit.  Life  was  always  filled  of  simplicity,  friendliness,  tenderness  and  determination  to  work  the  land.  His  hands  and  his  mind  offered  him  the  gift  of  an  author  —  he  wanted  keeping  marks  of  such  instants,  inscribed  it  somewhere  when  Hobbits  from  a  long-term  future  would  have  remains  of  these  ancient  lands  of  an  forgotten  age.  There  was  also,  for  some  reason,  an  accepted  useful  reasons  for  such  things.  As  he  often  spoken  with  Gandalf  how  he  reacted  as  a  'guardian  visitor  of  these  lands’,  a  wish  to  sharing  such  position  naturally  came  out.  After  all,  though  it  remained  usually  unsaid,  little  whispers  between  their  silence  and  their  shared  gaze,  he  feel  there  was  something  going  on  in  the  wind.  As  there  was  a  clue  left  all  around  about  circumstances  who  happening.  How  that  inevitable  wind  wouldn't  be  always  so  inevitable  —  but  for  the  moment,  there  was  absence  of  someone  for  daring  control  it  and  avoid  a  possible  tempest  to  born  …  Gandalf  pretended  to  fool  him.  He  witnessed  how  much  his  eyes  were  filled  of  knoweldge,  of  an  consciousness  he  preferred  be  left  alone  for  share  the  burden.  He  witnessed  an  hidden  anxiety,  when  sometimes  the  future  was  spoken,  when,  sometimes,  he  offered  an  comments  over  ruins  …  when  into  those  moments  he  wished  didn’t  understand  what  he  was  speaking  about.  An  secretive  word  between  them,  a  long-term  foreshadowing  about  the  future  sensation  of  'father’  that  will  laying  inside  his  shoulders  :  chaos.  For  some  reason,  there  had  been  darkness  who  altered  their  world,  who  touched  deeply  the  core  of  the  earth  …  when  how  much  Gandalf  refused  to  frontally  face  it,  he  sensed  it  …  and  realizing  there  was  possibility  others  people  in  the  ground  would  feel  it  too.  Where  the  conversation  diverged  if  he  didn’t  have  impression  to  familiarity  over  circumstances,  where,  if  he  did,  to  deciding  to  act  as  his  heart  and  intuition  content  instead  to  contenting  himself  to  'what  expected  to  him’  …  It  had  been  single  advices  he  received.  However,  without  knowing  why,  he  understood  them.  He  understood  perfectly  the  kind  of  references  left  in  the  mysteries,  understood  half  of  these  riddles.

He  would,  then,  recognized  the  moments  when  his  role  would  have  to  diverge  a  little.  The  Baggins  would  eventually  turn  out  the  outcasts  of  the  Shire  —  these  offensive  Hobbits  who  dared  discovering  the  unknown  and  involved  themselves  !  The  perspective  was  amusing.  Someday,  he  wish  he  would  met  the  concerned  wizard  who  raised  that  wonderful  woman,  who  brought  him  down  his  path,  and  welcomed  his  days  with  a  ligthness  he  rarely  knew  about  !  Even  though  she  had  been  educated  among  them,  when  all  norms  and  lifestyle  had  been  somewhat  accepted  by  his  people  (  who  rarely  met  a  Men  before,  and  still  perceived  strangely  the  many  appareances  of  Gandalf  ),  she  remained  coming  from  another  culture  …  when  she  didn’t  know  where  she  came  from,  where  she  didn’t  even  know  who  she  was  truly.  No  last  name  —  or  rarely  used.  No  wonderful  landscape  of  attachment  unless  a  forest,  when  he  wondered  truly  how  childhood  had  been.  He  wanted  one  day  thanks  the  couple  who  helping  her  raising  her.  As  common  thing  to  do  !  Watching  at  the  nigthttime  sky,  he  imagined  himself  travelling  around  them.  Oh,  he  would  change  that  sentence  ahead.  Watching  over  that  night  full  of  stars,  he  knew  one  day  he  will  be  the  companion  of  them  —  an  sentiment  following  down  his  childhood,  when  there  was  immensity  to  explore,  then  he  will  get  all  adventures  he  desired  …  but  would  have  to  preparing  himself  to  another  one  inside  his  own  land  …  then  preparing  the  next  and  be  careful.  As,  often  following  that  sentiment,  he  wasn’t  supposed  to  be  the  one  weighting  responsabilities  for  creating  that  wonderful  future  wished  to  everyone,  but  was  one  of  the  people  who  was  supposed  to  becoming  the  guardian  of  such  person.  A  mystery  about  how  he  knew  that  !  He  also  knew,  instinctively,  there  would  be  an  amusing  perspective  around  his  own  presence.  That  possibly  they  would  be  a  shared  closeness  that  he  thought  towards  not  realized  circumstances  !  Inclined  to  smoke  when  his  thoughts  who  allowing  such  opportunities  in  complete  calmness,  without  denying  appreciating  the  current  position  of  each  other,  and  the  gentle  observation  he  could  do  over  her,  he  smiled  as  she  shared  an  comment  not  coming  from  their  land  …  not  even  coming  from  their  universe,  he  wanted  to  say  !  Stars  were  mysteries  laying  in  the  night.  Rare  were  the  ones  wishing  upon  them.  Rare  were  the  ones  who  wished  to  be  lost  inside  them.  Offering  a  wish  to  the  stars,  mh  ?    ❝  One  wish  looks  ridiculously  small.    ❞  He  flattered  himself  with  an  amusing  expression.    ❝  I  would  love  these  peaceful  moments  last  forever —  ❞    He  expressed  slowly  as  he  watching  over  her.    ❝  As  I  would  love  to  lost  myself  inside  the  stars.  Which  will  be  terrible  for  the  first  wish.  Unless  maybe,  the  stars  must  come  to  me  directly,  speaking  to  me,  sharing  their  light  and  their  beauty,  for  got  both  wishes  answered.    ❞  There  was  another  laugh.  ❝  Watching  the  stars  remind  me  I  want  to  be  lost  into  them,  travelling  around  them,  discovering  what  behind  the  wall  of  darkness.  Someday,  I  would  probably  sharing  knoweldge  about  what  happened  into  this  obscurity,  if  ever  that  wish  is  granted  …  An  Hobbit  shouldn’t  never  worrying  about  the  end  of  peace,  nevertheless,  it  seems  I’m  a  little  different  of  what  to  be  expected.    ❞  There  was  an  short  moment  of  silence.    ❝  What  kind  of  wish  seems  unrealizable  who  must  ask  the  stars  to  grant  it  ?  Did  your  heart  show  shyness  concerning  these  struggling  feelings  to  expoe  themselves  ?    ❞

#tiimecrash #ic :: bilbo baggins #frodo third timeline tag #pre travels with the doctor tag #bilbo and sola tbt. #long post /

[crackinglamb]

OTP Asks, fully knowing how you are with 'favorites' but indulge me anyway: #25, 26, 33, and 43. *bonk* 😘 and an extra 💖

I will indulge you, because I love you. *bonk* 😘 And I'll do these for both of my girls and Solas, since I need to get back into their respective headspaces.

This got super long, so I'll put it under a cut. Questions are from this list.

25 - Favorite canon moment of them? (oh, this ought to be fun, since neither of them are 'canon' romances)

Imogen

Honestly? Anytime they have each other's back in the field of battle. They are a Power Couple, and it shows. I mean...

(this shot is included in chapter 54 of WG)

...need I say more?

Lark

The nature of Lark's existence falls so far outside canon that it's tough to find in-game things that match her relationship with him. BUT! The soft tone he uses when he tells stories, and the soft tone she uses when she asks questions is arguably the best thing ever for both of them. They are disillusioned, bitter and Tired(tm) people, who are soft for no one...but each other.

26 - Least favorite canon moment of them?

*snort* Am I allowed to say that it's the fact that neither of them can canonically romance him?

Like, I get the whole aspect of his being Like That about other races. To him, humans are newcomers barely out of barbaric infancy in comparison to his own culture (regardless of how they end up mirroring each other; Tevinter conquest anyone?). And dwarva...well, I don't want to get spoilery. You get to claim beta's rights to know my thoughts on how Elvhenan affected the dwarves. (Solas, I love you and I'm sorry; you're a Boomer.)

But the level of Tragically Doomed Relationship is still incredibly high with both races, and I wish we were given an opportunity to explore it as part of our character arcs as players. I would love to know how the Crestwood breakup would have gone with a human or dwarf. Qunari too, for that matter. Would it still have been about duty or would he have found some other, equally as painful justification for it?

33 - How do their personalities compliment each other?

Imogen

Imogen is clever, intelligent (those being two different things), curious and confident. All of these combined into being absolutely irresistible to a trickster god. She understands his motivations in a way no one else in the Inquisition does. And he understands her sense of displacement and overwhelming exhaustion at having to be a reluctant leader. They can be themselves together, no facades, no lies, no hiding the ugly parts. She gives him the space he needs to work through stuff on his own, and isn't afraid to call him out on his bullshit when he needs that too. They are very similar in the ways that matter.

That said, Imogen hasn't lost her childlike wonder. She's able to bring that to the fore for him when he's overcome with his own guilt. They have both lived through the cataclysmic loss of their previous lives. But she still finds joy and beauty in the present. She drags him - yes, kicking and screaming - into building something new, rather than focusing on what came before.

The fact that she knows exactly who he is doesn't hurt. He was initially intrigued by her foreknowledge, then a little bit frightened at just How Much she knew, then comforted by the fact that someone in this chaotic world got him on a level that no one aside from Cole does. Besides, the sex is amazing.

Lark

In much the same way as Varric, albeit from a slightly different angle, Lark challenges Solas. She gives as good as she gets when he's on his soapbox about spirits, lost empires and just...humans in general. She doesn't want to be here any more than he does. They have something of a rogue's pact between them. Get the job done, then move on.

Of course, it gets complicated as soon as emotions get involved. Unlike Imogen, Lark doesn't know he's the Dread Wolf. Not yet anyway. But she understands having to make tough choices. It's not so much that she's particularly forgiving, because she really isn't, but that she truly knows that desperation leads to the road to hell lined with good intentions. And deals with the devil only cost your soul.

The pair of them have more in common than they think, and more than mere shared languages and mourning the lost things. Lark is also rather tricksterish. She loves a good con. She's adept at hiding in plain sight. She's scholarly. She's got a temper. too. They are very much the 'I'm either going to kiss you or kill you' kind of couple.

I haven't quite decided what that means for them, post-Trespasser. I have a feeling she'll never stop trying to convince him to do things differently. And she'll never give up on trying to preserve his better moral self (which is saying something considering her own).

43 - How do they say ‘I love you’ without actually saying it? Ex “Have you drank any water today?”

Imogen

She lets him in, no reservations, no using him to enhance her own power or status, no judgments. When he needs space, she gives it. When he needs to be held, she holds him. She thinks of him, including him in her planning stages, making him better armor and weapons, making sure he has what he needs. She indulges his sweet tooth and doesn't poke fun at his toddler's palette. She imagines after several millennia of uthenera, food has a lot of Unpleasant Sensory Experience for him.

He, in turn, takes care of her. He makes sure she eats and rests and gets out of her head from time to time. One might call it a soft dom approach, although there's very little of that dynamic between them. Well, okay, there's more than a little if we're going to be honest. But it comes from a place of devotion and not obligation, perceived or otherwise.

Their love is also expressed in the little things that aren't so little. Touches of assurance after battle, moments of trust in tense situations and constant support.

Lark

Lark listens. Solas has spent much of his life being disregarded, but not by her. She might not always agree with what he says, but she allows him to say it and she weighs it instead of brushing him off. She's highly observant, and a lot of their relationship seems invisible because they often do things unspoken. She keeps track of his mural supplies and orders refills before he needs to ask. She notices the trend of books he asks for in his research and finds sources he might not have thought of.

She accepts him as he is.

He gives her freedom. It's the greatest gift he can give to anyone. She is free to do as she likes without fear of reprisal from him. He does not own her time or affection, and he knows it. He doesn't judge her previous life as a smuggler and assassin. In his time he has been both himself.

He also collects things she might find interesting and leaves them where she'll see them. He welcomes her son into his life as part of her with no resentment or difficulty. In a way he sees Fedric as a gift to himself too; it's been too long since he had a hand in shaping the spirit of a child. And there is nothing quite like watching the potential of a child grow.

He accepts her as she is.

Bonus round: Lark and Garrett Hawke

Just for this question because at the heart of this complicated FWB/unspoken polycule is love.

Lark was immediately drawn to Hawke as another someone who took on a mantle of responsibility with reluctance and got their heart broken for it. Up to and including the inability to ever go back to what they were before. She gives him a soft place to land and asks no questions he doesn't want to answer. She knows their arrangement is not permanent and holds no resentment for that. But neither does she treat it with less respect than it's owed, because they do care for each other, very deeply. But not all relationships are meant to last, and they're both aware of it. It doesn't make the present any less precious.

Hawke gives her steadiness, in a way he can't give himself. He's someone outside of her circle of advisors and companions and the politics of her position. He's always there for her to unload on, either in words or actions. He puts no demands on her. He brings lightness to an otherwise very dark time of her life.

Losing him nearly destroys her, much more than she thought was possible.

I mean...what? Nah, it's fine, they're fine. Promise. 😇

#ask #random otp questions #imogen mclean #lark cadash #solas #and a tiny bit of hawke

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

I'm super fucking torn about whether I should post all the Dragon Age/ Herald Dream Au Notes to tumblr as I work instead of just yelling in Vaults DMs because one one hand, I know there's like Two Other People who know what the hell I'm talking about. On the other hand, If I just posts in Vaults DMs I'm far more likely to get a response and possibly additional thoughts. I am struggling. Every Day I Wake Up.

Anyway, have some stuff for the AU, for the people who DO know what I'm on about, at least a little:

- The War Table consists of Punz as the Spymaster, Techno as the Commander, and Bad as the Ambassador.

- Sapnap and Dream were childhood best friends, but when Fereldan was struck with the blight they were separated. Sapnap ended up in Kirkwall, where he met George, and they were companions of the Champion of Kirkwall. Sapnap dragged George to Haven after he heard Dream was found as the only survivor of the Conclave. They missed each other so much.

- Solas and Cole still exist in this AU! Dream adores Solas and trusts him completely, and while Cole's insights make Dream uncomfortable, he also regards Cole as one of his people, and won't tolerate people attempting to hurt him.

- George loathes Solas with every fiber of his being, and most of their banter is extremely snarky. Throughout their time together George has made multiple attempts to convince Dream that they don't need him, but Solas is using his spies and a lot of really well timed incidents to make George look like he's just being silly and jealous. George isn't aware of who Solas really is (he doesn't care enough to go looking) he just doesn't like how much of a self important asshole he is, or how much he takes advantage of Dream's favor.

- Karl is this world's Dorian, and he's enjoying it very much. Karl going "Don't worry; I'm here, I'll protect you" to Dream lives in my mind rent free.

- More of Dream's party members include: Philza, who is a Knight Enchanter, HBomb, who is a Champion Warden, Tommy, who is an artificer Red Jenny. I have some vague outlines for stuff I want to do with them, and like three paragraphs of writing for Tommy and Dream.

- When Tommy suggests Jar of Bees, Punz is disturbingly enthusiastic about the idea. Techno is forced to take the soldiers out to go find the beekeeper, and he spends the entire time grumbling.

- Punz and Dream have a very important friendship in this AU. As some of the best lone mercenaries in their field, they ran in the same circles and took related jobs often, and grew to rely on each other. Punz worked hard to gain Dream's trust, and Dream has put in effort to make sure Punz always had food on the table, even if it risked not having any for himself. Despite this, Dream holds Punz at arms length (not willing to get so close to anyone after both the Blight and all the times he's been betrayed as a merc) and by the time Inquisition starts, Punz's position as Spymaster and Dream as the Herald has left their relationship strained.

- Dream and Techno playing chess also lives in my mind rent free.

- Foolish is responsible for all of Skyhold's repairs, and he's also in charge of making sure XD doesn't commit Criminal Activity. Most of this criminal activity is bothering Cole, who does not like him, but asking Dream questions and pissing off Solas are also his preferred pasttimes. XD can be found on the Courtyard roof holding a chicken in his lap.

- Sometimes Cole will just appear, put a cat in Dream's lap, and vanish. Catnip will mysteriously appear in Dream's pockets,

- Dreams mount of choice is the Dracolisk. His name is Arlo. (Spirit died before the conclave, taking an arrow meant for Dream)

- SNF used to do a lot of cuddling during DA2. DA:I they still can be found lounging together, this time attempting to coax Dream into a big sleep pile. Truly DTeam wins this.

- Yes Dream loses his arm in Trespasser. Sapnap, George, and Punz have collectively decided to murder Solas for it. After forcing Dream to rest.

- Dream takes Solas' betrayal really well! (no he does not)

- I have like five fanfics right now two thirds of the way done for this series, but every time I sit down to finish one I go "y'know this could be a bit longer" and then I get distracted.

Bonus:

#Herald Dream AU #DASMP #lmaolmao #genuinely feel free to send me asks or just talk to me at all about this if you feel like #75 percent of this is me writing. 15 percent is me worrying over if I should bother Vault #and 10 percent is me agonizing over the rivalsduo prompt i havent finished for Flattery #Im so fucking sorry Flattery lmao I swear its gettting done I've just rewritten it like 3 times and Im still not really satisfied with it

[thevikingwoman]

AU-gust 2020 - Prompt 11: Farm/Ranch AU

It’s no longer August, but who cares. More AU. based on these prompts from @augustwritingchallenge. This one is is explicit and was a lot of fun. I had some clear images in my head, and the smell summer in my nose. For @dadrunkwriting too. 

AU-gust masterpost.

Fandom: Dragon Age, Words: 1871,

 Read this on AO3 || Part 2

Iwyn Lavellan x Solas | Modern AU | porn with plot-ish? roamance? Rating: Explicit. Sexual content, oral, handjob, summer, flirting, flash-fire romance.

Hay

Iwyn Lavellan had forgotten how quiet it is at the farm. She can glimpse the light from the neighbor’s house across the field, and another across the road, but she can’t hear any of them. The only sounds are the cicadas, singing themselves through the night, and the far gurgling of the river.

Above her, twinkling stars in the vast expanse of the sky.

She breathes in, and out, and closes her eyes. Her brother was probably right – a vacation will do her good. Her memories of the farm are hazy and beautiful, of long summer days full love, picking sweet ripe berries and swimming in the river. She hasn’t been up here since Branwen took over the farmhouse, and she’s a little ashamed she hasn’t visited him, but he’ll be back in 4 days. All she has to is feed the hallas, and maybe he needs a vacation too.

-

The next day she decides to go to the river for a swim. The river isn’t far, bordering the edge of the property, behind the fields. The hay here is the best of the world, she remembers Grandfather telling her, of how they shipped it all the way to the Dales. Now there is only a small field left, mostly used for their own hallas, but the memory makes her smile, and the just-cut hay smells the same. Dusty and warm and full of summer.

Half lost in memories, she crests the hill and stops. Someone is loading bales of hay into the bed of a gleaming silver truck.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

She hurries over to the guy, tall and broad-shouldered and bald.

He turns, and frowns.

“Who are you?”

“The owner of the hay you’re stealing.” It’s technically her brother’s, but it’s the same thing.

“I think you are mistaken. This needs to get in before next week, and my neighbor, Branwen Lavellan, asked me to help while he was out of town.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m Branwen’s sister, Iwyn. He didn’t tell me he’d asked you for help.”

“And he didn’t tell me he had a sister, let alone such a beautiful one.”

He smirks and she suddenly notices his lush lips and sharp cheekbones and sharp, blue eyes. She blushes. She’s barely dressed, wearing a thin sarong over her one-piece bathing suit. Dark green, it plunges deeply in the back and front, the fabric covering her breasts held together with a string of golden beads. It’s more suitable for a Riviani beach than a farmland river, or arguing with beautiful strangers in the middle of a field.

“And I didn’t know he had such beautiful neighbors,” she says, trying to regain her balance.

“I’m Solas.”

He pushes up his sleeves, and holds out his hand. She shakes it, his long fingers wrapping around her hand, warm and a little sticky from the heat. She doesn’t mind.

“I’m going to the river.”

She points ahead, as if her bathing suit wasn’t a clue.

Solas nods. “Have a nice swim, Iwyn. I hope to see you around.”

She walks away, and she can feel his gaze on her back. She needs to cool down, and not just from the merciless sun.

-

The day after Solas is back, hauling the hay from the rest of the field. He’s on this side of the hill now, and she can watch him from the front porch of the house. He waves when she comes out, and she want to stay and watch, his solid arms lifting bale after bale. It would be strange though, to watch someone work while doing nothing.

Iwyn walks out to him with two filled water bottles. She tosses one to him, and he catches it and drinks, tilting his head back exposing his long throat.

“Thank you, Iwyn.”

“You’re welcome.”

She picks up a bale, and heaves it into the truck. Picks up another. Solas looks surprised, raising both eyebrows almost comically, then he goes to work to.

“I thought you were on vacation?”

“It didn’t feel fair to have you work on the farm when I’m here too. I don’t mind helping.”

“You’re certainly more than capable.”

She wipes sweat from her brow.

“Is this a competition?”

“I was merely noticing your strength and grace.”

She blushes. It must be the heat.

“I’m not sure throwing hay is graceful, but thank you.”

“Your grace is evident in your every movement, Iwyn.”

“Like when I was wearing a bathing suit yesterday?”

“Like that, yes.”

He doesn’t blush, but his cheeks are reddened a little from the sun, and his nose is dotted with freckles. Despite his imposing figure, he looks cute.

“Where do you live?” she asks. She’d not heard of any of the neighbors selling, but maybe her brother forgot.

“I just purchased the property at the end of the road. Your brother’s property borders my own.”

“You purchased Mythal’s house?”

“I suppose so, if you mean the yellow house at 535?”

“No one has lived there for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, Grandfather used to tell ghost stories about it.”

“I assure you, I have seen no ghosts.”

“That’s a relief.”

The talk while they work, Solas has purchased the house to use in the summer, and plans to rent it out during the rest of the year. Iwyn learns he’s a professor, teaching ancient history. She tells of her childhood visits to her grandparents, of all the secret places and shortcuts. Ever so often, they stray into flirting again, the heat of their conversation rivaling the sun above them.

She grabs some water, and it’s gone a little hot, but she’s very thirsty. She hands the bottle to Solas, and picks up some more hay. She turns to toss the bale and bumps right into him as he’s doing the same, water bottle already empty. She’s thrown off balance but he catches her, and now she’s trapped against his broad chest.

“Graceful, you said.”

She smiles at him. He doesn’t let go of her.

“I certainly feel off-balance.”

She kisses him, briefly, on the lips she’s been thinking about since yesterday. They’re soft, not rough or chapped even though he’s been working in the sun. He doesn’t allow her to pull back before his lips are on hers again, hard and soft and when he opens his mouth, she does the same, letting him in, stroking and moving and pressing their bodies closer. She gasps when his hands find her ass, pushing his leg between hers.

He nipples tighten despite the heat, and she shudders and moans. She wants more, now, and she tears at his shirt, running her hands up his back, his skin under her palms. Solas moans into her mouth, and she bites his lips, gently. He gasps and presses closer as if it’s possible.

“Iwyn, --” he kisses her jaw, his hand travelling downwards, pulling at her skirt. “Iwyn. Can I?”

“I want you, Solas.”

They’ve just met and maybe it’s reckless and maybe he will be her brother’s neighbor for years, but those are fleeting thoughts, much less important than his fingers stroking her thigh, than the sound he makes when she kisses his throat. She wants him, and she wants him now.

She leans back and works on the buttons on his shirt, and his hand slide under her skirt and up, up right where she wants them. He runs his fingers over her panties, teasing her, rubbing softer and harder, making her wet and wanton. She pushes his shirt is off his shoulders, and slides her hand over his pale skin, finding his pink nipples. She pinches, and is rewarded with a deep groan. She does it again.

He kisses her viciously, and she grinds against his hand, moving her own to his obvious erection, rubbing his cock through his pants. She works on the fly, but he grabs hold of her and lifts her, seating her on the truck hatch.  

His hands rest on her thighs, spreading her legs. They are long and elegant and rough from the work. He stands between her legs and he kisses her again, deeply and thoroughly.

Iwyn takes the chance to tease him again, his nipples, his cock. He bucks against her hands, and his hands are back on her sex, teasing. His thumb circles her clit and she tilts her hips up, seeking his clever fingers.

“More, Solas. More.”

He pauses, and pulls down her panties, all the way down her legs and off her feet. His hands eagerly push her skirt aside and up and she is unashamed. No one should come by, and she doesn’t care if anyone does.

“Iwyn, I want –” he looks her in the eyes, and licks his lips. “Can I taste you?”

She nods and he drops down, pulling her forward and draping her legs over his shoulders. He licks and licks again and it feels very good. She is scrambling for anything to hold onto with her hands, stroking his head, grabbing straws on the truck bed. He isn’t slow or teasing anymore, and he knows what he is doing. Her pleasure spirals and everything blurs into to hot, soft, hard, touch, blue sky above and she screams his name and comes.

He brings her down gently, kissing her inner thigh, and she reaches for him, wherever she can touch, his shoulders, his ear. He shudders with the latter, and she does it again, and sits up while she pulls him closer.

She undoes his pants, and now she’s not interrupted. His cock is large and hard, the head red and peeking out from the hood. She pumps him, gently and then harder, until he groans and buries his head in her shoulder. She moves faster, twisting her hand a little, keeping the same pressure. She wants to know what makes him shudder, what makes his cock pulse in her hand, just like that.  

“Solas, do you have protection?”

“Not –” she presses her thumb to his slit, and circles the sensitive skin around. “—not here. Iwyn, I’m –“

She wants to feel his thick hardness inside of her, but for now she just nods, and increases her speed a little, her other hand tweaking a nipple.

“Come, Solas. Come for me.”

He stiffens and jerks and groans, sticky warmth flooding her hand. She holds him through it, and she wipes her hand on some straw. He kisses her or she kisses him, and somehow they both end up on the ground, half way in the shade of the truck.

She is sticky and sweaty and everything smells of warm grass and summer. She is too hot to move, and too hot to stay, but she likes the nakedness of him next to her. The sky is still blue, she is leaving a few days, but summer feels endless, the heat stretched across the centuries. She wants it to be endless, shimmering, just the two of them half naked in the field forever.

“Do you want to come to dinner,” she asks. “Tonight?”

“Yes.”

The straws tickle her. There’s two tiny fluffy clouds in the sky. She kisses his shoulder.

#au_gust_2020 #dragon age fanfiction #au fanfiction #solavellan #solavellan au #solas x iwyn #solavellan fanfiction #ranch au #I just wanted solas working in a field #so here we go #Iwyn wanted it too #hehhe #hello iwyn you are having sex in public AGAIN #I do have all sort of backstory ideas here but ah #flash fire #chosen as opposite to slow burn #viking writes #published 9/4/2020

[5lazarus]

Salt, Flesh, Heat

Bull notices that Solas is a deeply sensual person, reveling in clean clothes, good-smelling herbs, and hot water. He's also deeply masochistic. When the two find themselves enjoying the baths one early morning in Skyhold, Bull decides to press. Solas decides to play along. A @black-emporium-exchange gift for gamerfic. Read the other works in the AO3 Collection here! Read the story on Archive of Our Own here.

Steam on skin, worn wood pressing slick into his back as each vertebrae clicks: the Iron Bull sighs as he unwinds in the Skyhold baths. Few beyond the servants and the hungriest soldiers and Josephine herself were up at this hour. Bull has the steam room to himself. Carefully he unwinds his bulk onto the bench, laying his towel over his eyes. The clearcut eucalyptus smell lingers on his skin, sweated into his muscles. He groans aloud as a muscle in his bad knee pops.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he grunts.

Then the door opens and the dawn rushes in. Bull lifts the towel from his remaining eye. Solas stands there, a bit nonplussed. Shit, Bull thinks, and slowly makes room.

Solas lets the door close firmly shut. He holds a bundle of white birch twigs and dried eucalyptus.

Bull grins. “Want me to hit you with that?”

Solas climbs onto his bench and drapes himself on the upper story. “That may not be necessary.” Right, Bull thinks, you self-flagellate enough for both of us. He inhales deeply. “Would you mind putting more water on the stone? Some of the steam escaped.”

Bull says, “Uh, sure.” Slowly, because the ache in his body is delicious and he savors it, he reaches for the ladle and throws another pail of water onto the heating stones, and then another, and another. He hears Solas settle onto his bench, right leg stretched out. Bull turns to look. The man’s pale, graying red hair trailing down his chest. Dorian managed to catch a glimpse of his cock when they bathed after a particularly fetid journey into a Dalish swamp, and reported that it was the largest he’d ever seen on an elf and one of the bigger he’d seen on a man. Bull has to admit he is curious.

Amusement in his voice, Solas says, “Are you quite done?” Still tense, he turns away from Bull. He’s wiry, built broader in the shoulder and legs than most mages he’s met, but still has a weak core. Blackwall told him he’s fought in “some elven skirmish,” and he looks like a man about to retire from the field. He has a slashed scar on his right shoulder and claw marks on his right leg.

“Where’d you get that?” Bull points.

Solas does not turn around. Bull’s eyes travel down his back and rest on his well-shaped ass and thighs. Solas is a bit too thin for him, practically speaking, but he does like to look. He’s built like a dancer gone to middle age, rather than some Emerald Knight stalking the Dales for humans to kill, or—so he has heard from Ben-Hassrath stationed in the outskirts of the Tirashan—Dhal’Vallaslin chasing down strange elves with crimson vallaslin, who sacrifice the living to their long-forgotten gods. He seems more the type to plan and give orders, than carry out the dirty work himself, though of course Bull has seen him do it. He saw what he did with those Kirkwall mages.

Bull asks, voice casual, “You know, you’re kinda built like a dancer.”

At that, Solas shifts. He opens a single blue eye, looking down at him like a large cat eying a much smaller, squeakier dog. “I was many things, as a youth.”

“A dancer?” Bull says, taken aback, and slightly turned on.

“Not that,” Solas laughs. “And you, Iron Bull? Were you ever a—performer in your youth?” Solas slowly raises to his knees and leans over, taking the ladle from him. In one easy swoop, he throws more water onto the steaming rocks, and leans against the wall, inhaling deeply.

Bull says, a tad defensively, “That’s not how we do things in the Qun. I was earmarked for the Ben-Hassrath pretty early on.”

Solas says, “But there are many ways of being a spy, regardless of how your government attempts to standardize. Though I suppose you are too—big for the more subtle aspects of infiltration work.” He stretches. During his time with the Inquisition, he has put on enough weight and muscle that his ribs no longer show.

Bull says, “I did my job okay. Most of it is people-work. Watching, being watched. Don’t need a lot of variety in that.” He snorts. “The less, the better.” He eyes the bushel of branches Solas brought with him to the bania. The eucalyptus mingles wonderfully with the heady scent of sweat. He says, “Are you sure you don’t want me to hit you with that? That’s why you brought that here, right? I thought that was just a Dalish thing.”

He’s hit a nerve. Solas says sharply, “The Dalish do not monopolize all aspects of what has become of my people’s culture. And one simply…rubs the body with it, harder force is not necessary.”

“Ah,” Bull teases, “but if you really want to get the eucalyptus into the skin.”

“And I assumed this early, I would be alone,” Solas says flatly. “How is your knee, Iron Bull?”

Bull grunts, “Shitty. Running from all those demons tore it up again. But this helps. How’s yours?”

Solas pauses. Bull edges to the intersection of the benches, trying to find enough space to spread his leg out without having to sit on the floor. He maneuvers his bulk carefully, and gently lifts his bad leg onto the bench, folding his good leg underneath. It’s a vulnerable position, but he can see the door.

Finally, Solas admits, “My sleep has been disrupted with the amount of strain I’ve put my body through. I am hoping this will help before I must return to my desk and Vivienne’s lectures, as we calculate yet again the futility of using templars to isolate the rifts.”

Bull chuckles. “She’s still on that?”

“She has relented that a team of templars cannot hold the perimeter by themselves. We differ on how many mages are needed to perform the ritual to stabilize the Veil, and how vulnerable it leaves them.”

Bull says, “Give yourself a little bit of a good thing before you charge into the bad. That’s what I like about you, Solas.”

“Oh?” Carefully Solas climbs down onto the lower bench, favoring his unscarred leg.

“You know, you’re such a sensualist. You clearly like the baths, you don’t mind talking, you like the birch broom and feeling your blood roil and all that. I’ve seen you flirt with the Inquisitor before, and you were positively purring at the Winter Palace. But!”

“But,” Solas repeats, looking up at him. “But?” He is enjoying this, Bull is amused to realize. He enjoys it when people talk about him. As a younger man he must have preened. With that red hair, he would’ve had to.

Bull says, “But you never go all the way. You never fully surrender yourself to it. You get tipsy but not drunk. And you never let yourself alone with the Inquisitor, or anyone, really.”

“I am here with you,” Solas points out.

Bull shrugs. “And even though you like to talk, you like to argue, to debate, you never hang around the Mage’s Tower, or go back to the tavern with Dorian and the others. You keep patching up your shitty homespun even though with the Inquisition salary, you can buy yourself proper robes. You’re a masochist, man. I’ve never met someone so—sensual—who likes to torment himself so much.”

Solas is silent. Sweat pours from both their bodies, dampening the smooth hot wood. He fingers the bundle of oak twigs and eucalyptus, rubbing a single leaf with his thumb. Lowly, voice pooling like steam, he says, “Surely I do not need to tell you of the pleasure of desire, long-denied, finally sated. Or of living simply, with the occasional indulgence in luxury. After all, what is an elvhen apostate to do with silk? I take pleasure in making and mending my own garments, Iron Bull. As for other indulgences of the body…”

He trails off and Bull swallows heavily. He flicks his tongue around his lips. The air tastes of clean water and sweat: his own and the sharper, earthier scent of the elf’s. Every species has their particularities.

Bull says, “In the Qun, we believe in moderation, sure. And if you’re into edging, more power to you. But you know that’s not what I mean. If someone ends up that tightly-wound, that isolated, the Tamassrans intervened—“

“And if you do not give a proper showing of yourself, they break your mind and set you sweeping floors,” Solas says flatly. “I have seen how such authoritarian systems deal with dissenters. I take my pleasure in my own ways, in my own time. Not at my commander’s orders.”

Bull says, “It’s not like that. Sometimes you just need a good fuck, or a massage, or to be sat down in a discussion group with the priests and get into an argument all night long. The Tamassrans just prescribe the medicine. It’s good, it works. Keeps you from going too far.”

“Which is precisely why there is no Tal-Vashoth problem in Par Vollen,” Solas says. “Once, while in the Fade—“

Bull groans, “Right, let’s put some demons into this.”

Solas says, “Do you ever tire of repeating what your elders have told you, or would you like to learn something? Once, in the Fade, I saw a young Qunari working in a simple kitchen, baking bread as she was ordered every morning.”

“Cute,” Bull says. “So I’m not the only Qunari you’ve asked about their horns.”

Solas ignores the dig. He continues, “In every loaf she broke the rules. She’d take a pinch of sugar and would fold it to the center, like a secret.” He leans back with a fond smile. “And this act of small rebellion brought a shining smile across her face.” He spreads his hands, as if he has laid a winning flush in their game.

Bull thinks, you had to have been a slave. Are you the baker? Rather than provoke him further, Bull takes a different tact. “Hey, Solas. Why do you shave your head?”

Solas blinks. He raises a hand to his scalp, which is beginning to get bristly again. He says, “Fastidiousness, or lack of fastidiousness. Take your pick.”

Bull says, “No, really. If you can ask me how I put on a shirt I can ask you about your hair. Why do you keep it shaved? You’re not naturally bald, are you?”

Solas eyes him. “I am certain you have heard Dorian complain, at length, of the difficulties of keeping his hair perfectly coiffured and shaved while traveling. I have been nomadic most my life. It became easier, this way. Particularly since it is such a prominent color.” He shifts slightly.

Bull says, “Hey, I like red heads.”

“I know you do.”

“Don’t you ever think about growing it out?”

Solas laughs. “No. Never.” He pops his knee up and stretches his other leg, sighing as the muscles in his back audibly crack. Taking the bath broom, he begins rubbing the leaves into his skin. The air fills with its medicinal scent, and under that: earth.

Bull says, “I can rub that into your back.”

Solas says, “I prefer to take my pleasures simply.”

Bull says, “But I can look.”

Solas rolls his shoulders back and begins rubbing the bundle into his arms, swiping sweat away. “I never said you could not.”

Bull, frustrated, brings his bad leg down with a thump. He says, “You gonna take a dip in the cooling pool? Or is that too much of an indulgence for you?”

“My people first discovered this way of bathing,” Solas says distractedly. “I will take any opportunity to enjoy it now that I can, however primitive our facilities in Skyhold.”

“You’ve got baths, out in the woods?”

“You’ve never built a steam hut, and then flung yourself into a snow drift? Really, the Qun did not let you enjoy your youth.”

“But your people did,” Bull says, seizing on this note of autobiography.

Solas places the bundle on the bench. He stands up in silence and tosses another ladle of water onto the furnace. The room fills with steam, and Bull feels sweat pool in the back of his head.

Solas takes his towel and wraps it loosely around his waist. Looking over his shoulder, he says, “I took pleasure when it came my way.” With that rejoiner, he grins, and opens the door. Bright light and cool air pools in; the steam thins. The day has begun. Solas leaves.

Alone in the steam room, wonderfully hard, the Iron Bull says, “Fuck.”

#dragon age fanfiction #dragon age fanfic #da fanfic #dai fanfic #dai #dragon age #solas #iron bull #solabull #solas/iron bull #iron bull/solas #slash #banya #romance #flirting

[rosella-writes]

feel free to save this prompt for dadwc but from the codex prompt list, "a note/letter found in your oc's pocket" for any character you'd like!!

Thank you for this one!! I stole another chance to indulge my new hyperfixation on this Arlathan AU idea that @dreadfutures' Sunbird AU spawned. In which Solas is femme!Pride and Virelan Lavellan is Valor, Falon'Din's champion.

Pairing: Pride/Valor (solavellan)

Rating: T

Words: 1130

~~~

“Yet another one of these?”

Pride glanced over her shoulder towards the door. Valor leaned against the jamb, her dark eyes twinkling in a smile that didn’t touch her broad mouth. Pride scoffed and turned back to the wall before her.

“Sylaise wished an event immortalised,” she murmured, pressing ochre into the wet plaster with her brush. “Who am I to refuse an appeal to my talent?”

When Valor spoke again, her voice was close. “A wheat harvest is worthy of a fresco? Of your work? Your brushes should see only the most magnificent of pieces.”

Pride couldn’t contain the surge of her defining trait — it coloured the air around them a vivid blue, ringing of delight and giddy acknowledgement of praise. She reigned it in at the sensation of Valor’s hand on her waist.

“No no, bring it back,” Valor whispered in her ear. “Your pride lifts my spirits. Or will I have to praise you again?”

Pride chuckled and traced the ochre of her first line with a dark swipe of blue. “I will not turn down well-deserved comments.”

“And how many must I whisper in your ear before you let me kiss you?”

Longing flavoured the space around them now — like warmth, like reaching, like the bated breath from Valor's lips. Pride pulled away.

"If I begin," she murmured, "I would be hard pressed to stop. And I cannot let my plaster dry before I finish."

Valor leaned on the table that held her pigments and tools, her collarbone standing out from her dark flesh. The muscled line of her arm tensed clear from her wrist to her shoulder, and its tension bled into her neck and jaw. Pride let her sense just a taste of the self-satisfaction she felt at the sight.

"None are so gifted in artful magic as you, vhenan," Valor rasped through clenched teeth. "The plaster will not dry so long as you don't wish it to."

A prideful surge once again — really, her heart laid it on thick when she wanted something. She shrugged her braids off her bared shoulder and revelled in the sight of Valor's gaze following the motion. She raised her brush to the plaster.

"It would not," she finally said, "but I would need to be prevailed upon to work such magic. I paint by hand for a reason."

"You could finish this art in the blink of an eye, should you try."

"I could, but I would miss the enjoyment of it. The scent of lime, the sight of pigment bonding with plaster, the rasp of my brush as it runs dry — and besides, once I have done the work, it is all the more satisfying to bring it to life. Watch."

She could feel Valor's eyes on her skin as she finished the final corner of her fresco with confident strokes of her brush. She set her pigment and tools away, leaving her ringless hands — an unusual sight, in Arlathan — to spread wide, inches above the still-wet surface of the wall.

Pride took a deep breath, taking sky into the great bellows of her lungs, and sighed out magic through her hands. She moved along the length of the wall, her bare footsteps sure and steady and practised, and where the sigh of her will touched the work of her hands, it came alive.

The great field of wheat, golden in the streaming sunlight, began to undulate as if guided by soft winds. Clouds scudded across the white sky, nearly as real as those outside the small window she had painted around, and what green there was in the fresco brought the remaining colours into vibrant relief. Valor made a soft sound behind her.

Exultation filled the final breath of her magic, sealing the fresco with the mimicry of its concrete counterpart, and she spun on one heel to reach for Valor with both hands. Valor was already there, eyes wide and full of wonder, and Pride crowed in her heart of hearts at the sight.

"She will love it," Valor gasped, her hands landing on Pride's forearms. "She will love it."

Pride reached for her face and took it between her ochre-dusted palms. Valor did not seem to mind the stain on her cheeks — she spared no concern for that, her attention concentrated on Pride. Pride stroked her broad, high cheekbones with her thumbs.

"Enough praise," she breathed. "Your sight on it as I finished was pleasure enough."

Valor's smile was broad and toothy and creased the corners of her sparkling eyes, and she made a happy sound in her throat as Pride leaned down to lunge for her mouth.

The kiss was sunshine. Pride overlapped with joy overlapped with wonder overlapped with yearning, and Valor stepped into it with her whole self. Pride could feel her wholly against her — both the form that she touched and the form she could feel. She slid one hand down from her cheek, over her arm, to her waist. Pride tugged her closer by the hip with an insistent, possessive grunt into her mouth.

Paper crinkled in Valor's pocket.

Valor broke the kiss with a gasp. The two froze, mouths moments away from the next touch, but neither moved. Valor finally sighed and pulled away, reaching into her trouser pocket.

"The summons," she sighed. "The reason I'm here."

Pride laughed mirthlessly. She tucked her emotions away once again behind her impenetrable guard. "And here I thought you missed me."

"I did!" Valor insisted, hurt flashing in her eyes and tinging the air. "This was my excuse."

It was no use — Pride's core was bruised, her ego crumpled like the paper in Valor's outstretched hand. She knew she should be more resilient, but it was easy to be fragile with the one who held her heart. She took the note with nary a sound.

"Ah," Pride finally said when her eyes finished scanning the flowery contents of the summons, "Andruil wishes to conduct a hunt. Wonderful. We will both be expected to attend her, will we not?"

Valor shook her head. "Mythal will be there, and so I guess will you. Falon'Din will not go. I'll remain with him."

Malcontent fluttered around Valor — she was so free with her expressed emotions here, so lax with their containment that it was almost rude. Pride leaned into the sensation of it.

"I will hunt for the both of us, then," she said, stepping closer. She tucked the note inside the front of her bodice, and smiled when Valor followed the path of her hand with a glint in her eye. "Try not to have too much fun while I'm gone."

"Impossible, vhenan," Valor said with a mere twist of her lip.

Pride merely reached out, smiling slightly at the flash of hope in Valor's eyes, and brushed ochre away from her cheek with her thumb. There was nothing left to say.

#no refuge so sure as valor #valor x pride #dragon age #solas #virelan lavellan #solavellan #arlathan au #arlathan #solas is first and foremost an artist #and a snob