#surana voice i did NOT pick this one out oghren | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

degenerate-perturbation · 3 years

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Chapters: 24/38 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Loriel had not expected to miss Avernus quite so much.

Months went by without word from him. First few enough for her not to notice, and then too many for her to ignore. A dozen times over the past months she had thought to write him, and then decided that no, she didn’t need to after all, but she couldn’t pretend that forever.

It was her own petty, childish pride, then and now. She had fought him just to prove that she’d win, and writing him now would be admitting that she needed his counsel. Which she did

She still wasn’t going to do it.

More than the man himself she missed his knowledge and experience. And if not that, then at least someone to report her findings to. Someone who would care if she didn’t get anything done, and who would care about what she had to say about it. And yes, perhaps that amounted to missing the man himself, too.

The worst of it was that her work had stalled without him. Her rigor and meticulous care wasn’t enough anymore, and she was no closer to cracking open the crystal and finding the Architect than she’d been any time before. She began to lose whole days to restless pacing, to picking up books and putting them down again, to feeling her eyes move across pages and absorbing absolutely nothing. She had not thought that the loss of a sporadic correspondence partner would undo her so badly.

The work had to continue.

Had she been a spirit mage, she would have had options—spirits of knowledge weren’t that uncommon. The Chantry did not teach its prisoners to speak to them, but a powerful spirit mage could have managed it. The Dalish did so, and so did the Alemarri. Spirit lore was something that might have been available to her, when she was eighteen or twenty and still fresh.

But she had bathed too long in her own blood, and her connection to the Fade had rotted. So it would have to be a demon, and she would have to bind it.

For all her transgressions, Loriel did not make binding demons a habit. Less out of any unwillingness to transgress—what sacred rule had she not already broken?—than a sense of calculated risk. Any imperfection in the binding, and the demon was out, ready to turn its wroth on the first target it could get its hands on—generally, the mage who had bound it.

It was a bad idea, she knew that going in. She would do it anyway.

That did not mean she would be stupid. She did her due diligence. She read up, poring over every scrap of demon lore in her library. Abelard’s Index of Foulest Daymons was particularly helpful. She had borrowed the tome from Avernus and only vaguely intended to return it, and now it seemed like she wouldn’t have to. It was a murderously heavy text, listing every type and subtype and sub-sub-and-so-on-type of demon known to exist, their names and habits, their foibles and tricks, how best to bind one, and what one might ply it with. Better yet, Abelard had lived in Tevinter during the Steel age, and his text was unsullied with Chantry prejudices.

She practiced first. When finally it came time to summon something, she spent hours carefully inscribing the binding circle—with far more care than what she intended to summon really warranted. She started with wisps and wraiths, half-formed blobs of Fade-stuff still waiting to become, lashing them to her will and releasing them again. When she could do this as easy as breathing, she moved on to demons of hunger. Hunger was something she no longer felt, and could not be tempted by, though hunger demons were more likely to try and eat her than to tempt her.

Next she tried Rage and Desire, creatures of things she had felt once, but hadn’t for months and years. If Rage might still bring heat to her blood, if only in the form of intense irritation, Desire offered nothing she’d ever take. Loriel had no fear of Desire. She’d already had the thing she most greatly desired, had it, and thrown it away—on purpose. Nothing else in this world existed that Loriel could be said to desire.

Sloth she avoided. Sloth—Torpor—was the only one demon who had ever gotten the better of her, who she hadn’t defeated herself. It was too great a risk, that she’d lie down and sleep until the end of the world, given half a demon-shaped excuse.

These lesser demons, though, would be of no use to her. What she needed was knowledge, and what that meant something like Pride.

Abelard’s Index was not very reliable for lesser demons who had since returned to the Fade-sea and reformed. It listed appearances they no longer wore, personalities they had long shed, even if their basic natures would reform. But for powerful demons who had amassed centuries of memory—just the one she would need—Abelard was perfect. She read and reread the relevant heading, squinting at the antiquated Tevene. Vainglory, Audacity, Superbia, Narcissus—no, not quite, no, and no. Demons that dealt with forbidden things—Censorus, Proscripta, Obscurus, Taboo—no, not that one, not this one neither. Then she saw the subheading—Daymons of Knoweledge.

Demons of knowledge came in all manner of forms—she paused for a time on Secerne, who collected secrets. It dealt only with knowledge that no-one else knew. Tempting—but such a creature would hardly be likely to give its secrets up and render them useless to itself. A blood mage could bind a demon and constraint it, but to compel it was pointless—you’d probably just end up destroying it, and if you were after knowledge, what good was that? No, once bound, the demon would have to be dealt with the old fashioned way.

Revelatus traded desired knowledge for undesired knowledge. It would tell you anything you wanted to know, and then something you didn’t want to know—the worst thing your lover had ever thought of you, how happy you might have been if you had just chosen differently, what was really in your sausage. Countless men had been driven mad by this one, Abelard warned. Loriel decided not to test her luck.

Finally she settled on a demon called Veritas, who spoke only truths. It was an ancient creature of malice and cunning, but it would tell her the truth, and for that Loriel would give anything.

tck

There came a point where even she could not justify dithering any longer. Weeks had passed since she had decided she would bind a demon. On the chosen day, she made all her preparations, triple-checked her summoning circle, cast spell after protective spell. Finally she could find no more excuses to delay—she spilled her blood and spoke the words.

The air itself seemed to part, and a greenish miasma spilled forth from the crack. A shape was being pulled through, too big for such a modest aperture, yet somehow, terribly, emerging. Reality bulged and bent, and finally, a demon climbed out.

It was smaller than other Pride demons, shaped something like a bear and something like a lion, though in place of claws or talons, it had clever human fingers. Its face was covered with a golden mask, shaped into the form of a human face. Its hide was pitch black, and every inch of it covered with blinking, roving eyes. It raised its head, as though to sniff the air, and bent to examine its new situation, noting the summoning circle, the runes of binding and restraint.

“Hello,” said Loriel. “Might you confirm your name?”

The thousand eyes blinked all at once. “I am Veritas, he who knows ten thousand truths.” Its voice came through as though from far away, echoing around the chamber.

“Ten thousand only?”

“No, far more! Many, many more! I know more truths than there are stars in your sky, more truths than there are grains of sand in your deserts, more truths than the number of breaths you will take—”

“That is more than ten thousand.”

“That I know ten thousand truths was not a lie.”

“Oh, I see. You’re one of those demons of knowledge.”

She had succeeded in offending it. “What do you mean by that?”

“You speak only in riddles and technical truths. You say things that are true by letter only, and lies by implication. Disappointing,” said Loriel, pouring unimpressed into her voice.

It scowled around the room—or seemed to. She could not see its face behind the golden mask. “Why can I not see you, little mageling? Where are you?”

Invisibly, Loriel produced a faint crescent of a smile. “I am here in this room with you, Veritas.” Her voice echoed through the chamber as she spoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The demon’s ears twitched, and only then did Loriel realize that even telling it that she was there in the room with it was more than she meant to say.

“So you are, mageling, so you are. Why have you summoned me?”

“Why do mages ever summon you? I seek knowledge you might have.”

“Why should I tell you anything I know, when you have dragged me so rudely from my home?”

“I will make it worth your while, Veritas. I offer knowledge in exchange for knowledge.”

Veritas laughed. It was a horrible sound, like broken glass. Loriel didn’t dare speak. “Little mageling, you know nothing I do not. I have sought out truths for centuries, bent only upon knowing, and you, little girl, whose lifetime is as a mayfly’s breath to a being like myself—you presume to offer me knowledge? You presume to know something I do not?”

Loriel let the echo of the last word fade, then said calmly, “What is my name?”

No answer.

“So you do not know it,” Loriel said. “And I am forced to conclude, Veritas, that I do know some things that you do not.”

The demon paced inside its narrow circle on all fours. “Aren’t you a darling little pedant! Very well, I’ll take your deal, but I will take it on my terms. You may ask me one question, but first, you must tell me something I do not know. Do not lie! If you answer falsely, I shall know, and I shall devour your heart.”

An empty threat. Veritas was bound. It was subject to her will. It couldn’t get out if it wanted to—or else what was the point of blood magic binding? She was perfectly safe. It was bluffing—

...No, it wasn’t. Of course not. The demon of truth could not bluff. If Veritas bluffed it would no longer be Veritas. I shall devour your heart. Not a promise or a threat, but a statement of fact.

“Very well,” Loriel said steadily. “I shall speak truly.”

“What,” grinned the demon, “is the full, entire, and complete name by which you are called?”

She should have seen that coming. “My name is Loriel Surana.”

Loriel was common enough for elves. And Surana was not even her family name; it was just what all elves were called in the Circle. Elves had no family names.

“Loriel Surana,” said Veritas, tasting it, savoring it. “Loriel Surana, Loriel Surana...yes, I know of you.”

She was so startled that the question came out unbidden: “What do you mean?”

“Your name floats upon the Fade like a dying leaf upon the breeze! One who often walks free along its emerald waters has called and called it, lacquered it with misery and love, twisted it with hatred and longing. Your name forms an island of despair and desire; tempests that will not calm; storms that will not pass. Yes, what a name!”

“I see,” Loriel said neutrally. Whatever bloomed in her to hear that, she stoppered it at once. “I answered your question, demon, so here is mine—”

“Ah, ah, ah!” The demon waggled a finger not-quite-at her. “You already asked your question. You asked me what I meant. Now it is my turn again. Where in this room are you right now?”

“I am standing in the northeastern corner of this chamber,” Loriel answered, and slowly, on magically silenced feet, moved to the southeastern corner instead.

“No fair,” the demon complained. “I did not know which way was northeast.”

“Oh? Then my mistake. But I answered your question, so here is mine. Where is the ancient darkspawn being known to many as the Architect?”

“The Architect is underground,” the demon said sulkily.

Loriel felt a vein throb in her forehead. “I could have told you that.”

“Then you should have asked a better question,” sniffed the demon. “Now it is my turn—”

“No,” Loriel interrupted. “No, it isn’t. I didn’t say I would answer any question you asked. I agreed that I would tell you something you did not know. You have just told me you do not know which way is northeast, so I will tell you—it is the direction of the corner where the empty pouch of lyrium powder lies. Here is my second question: what is the cure for the Blight?”

“Why—blood, of course.” The demon smiled with hidden teeth. “It is always in the blood. That was a dirty trick you played, Loriel Surana, but no dirtier than mine, so I will forgive you, this time. Here is the next thing that I do not know and that I would have you tell me.” The demon smiled wider, showing teeth. “What do you love most in all the world?”

“Well?” said the demon, when she had been silent too long. “Will you answer, Loriel Surana? Or will you let me go?”

“I will answer.” And she answered, truly: “Nothing. What I love most in all the world is nothing.”

“How interesting. Yes, very interesting...you are a pleasing little mageling. I think I like you after all. Well, Loriel Surana? It is your turn. Speak!”

“I’m thinking,” said Loriel, and finally settled on: “What concrete set of actions should I take next—immediately after ending this conversation—that, of all possible actions, would take me the further along my goal of discovering the cure for the Calling?”

Veritas grinned wider still, its face little more than teeth. “Take a man infected with the Blight, and find a way to take it out of him. A man, and not a rat. But why waste your time with me asking me that which you already know?”

Loriel exhaled through her nose. “Thank you, Veritas. You may go now.”

The demon’s grin was all that remained of it as it disappeared back into the Fade, making no attempt at all to remain within the waking world. Loriel was alone, the floor littered with truths both new and old.

“Shit,” she muttered finally.

tck

It had been a mistake to summon the demon. She was no good at dealing with creatures of the Fade. When Loriel had been small and scared and helpless she’d had a silver tongue, been so adept and turning minds to her advantage using nothing but her words. Not it seemed she had forgotten entirely how to deal with a mind she could not break and twist and bend.

All she had succeeded in doing was in giving an ancient, powerful demon tools to hurt her with, and what had she learned? Nothing she didn’t already know. Stupid. Careless. Idiot.

“Warden Pollard has begun to hear the Call.”

Loriel had been half-listening to Brigit’s report; now she startled to full attention, rattling her morning tea in its cup. “What?” Brigit repeated herself. “Warden Pollard...who is he?”

Warden Pollard was Orlesian. He had transferred from under Warden-Commander Clarel some years ago. He had served well, saved three of his comrades in a raid, and fought with a pike. He had been a Warden for only thirteen years. This was early, but not unheard-of.

“Where is he?”

“The chapel. He prays for his soul. He intends to visit his mother in Velun before heading to the Deep Roads.”

“I would like to speak with him in private.” She said it so quickly as to be unseemly. But Brigit only nodded and moved to acquiesce.

When her office door opened and Brigit admitted him, Loriel couldn’t help but think he didn’t look much like a dying man. Perhaps he was pale, perhaps a sheen of sweat stood out on his skin, but she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he always looked like that.

Only when traces of discomfort began to appear on his face did Loriel realize she had been staring at him silently for far too long.

“Commander,” he said awkwardly, still with the traces of an Orlesian accent. He’d never met her before. Was he one of the ones not quite aware that she still lived, and still ruled? “I’m honored.”

“Do not be,” she said flatly. “How is it?”

How are you feeling might have been more appropriate. But it would have rung false.

“Not so bad, yet. I knew it was coming. I accept it.” He paused. “Is there some manner of ceremony?”

Loriel had no idea. There probably was. She had never cared to find out, never cared to make sure that her wardens had a good sendoff. “If you wish it. But that is not why I wanted to speak with you. Can you get more specific?”

A flash of confusion.

“About how it is.”

Pollard looked even less comfortable. “I’ve had nightmares, ser.”

“Different from the usual?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“With respect, ser, I’d rather not.”

Her mouth set. “Please,” she said, and there was the power of blood in her voice, and not a trace of a request. “Tell me more.”

Pollard’s eyes went foggy and distant. When he spoke, he sounded oddly flat. “The nightmares were only the beginning. Now when I sleep, I hear the most beautiful voice. Like my mother calling me home. And when I awake, I want nothing more than to hear that voice again. I can hear it now, just barely. And a strange music in my ears.”

“What kind of music?”

“Bells. Like chantry bells, calling me to prayer. Ugly and beautiful at once.”

“Is it anything like lyrium song?”

His brow knit. “Yes. Not unlike lyrium song. But different. Richer and darker. I can almost pick out voices in it, but never what they say.”

She took out a notebook, her shorthand flying across the page. “What do you see? In the dreams?”

“Darkspawn. All gathered together in the biggest chamber I have ever seen. It’s dark, but I can see perfectly. They’re darkspawn, but they do not seem ugly. At the center sits a beautiful figure, bathed in gold, smiling. They welcome me home. I’m glad to be there.”

“When did this start?”

“Three weeks ago I first heard the voice in my dreams.

“Any physical effects?”

“My skin is hot. The sun hurts my eyes, even on cloudy days. I feel stronger now than I have ever been, even stronger than I was as a young man.”

“Anything else?”

“I hope not to be alive by the time there is anything else.”

Loriel finished transcribing. “One last thing. Come here. Roll up your sleeve; give me your arm.”

Pollard obeyed. He did not protest, did not react at all, when she took some of his blood. It glinted darkly in the glass vials she had fetched for this purpose, easily a few shades too dark. She stared at it for a few seconds. There was the Blight itself.

She took a few vials. Enough so he wouldn’t notice, later, and closed the wound she’d made with a clumsy burst of creation magic. The vials went into a wooden box inscribed with a rune of entropic suspension—blood spoiled so soon after it left the body.

Frustration overwhelmed her, that all she had was a few vials of blood and a brief coercive interview. Imagine all she might have learned if she could watch as he succumbed to the Taint, hear in his own words what was happening to him. He was going to die anyway—this way he might help save the lives of countless other Wardens, who could object to that? She could just—

No. Velanna had been wrong. She cared about the Wardens, of course she did, why else do all this? She would not subject an innocent man to such a fate. She was better than Avernus.

Pollard blinked as she released his mind, but if he was aware of the lost time he did not show it. She thanked him for his service and assured him that his family would be taken care of. He thanked her in turn, and departed as quickly as was seemly. She watched him go with only the smallest burst of dark regret.

#dragon age #femslash #amell #surana #dragon age: origins #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

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contreparry · 4 years

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"Verbena- pray for me" for Morrigan or Alistair and any other characters you want!

Why not both for @dadrunkwriting!

Verbena- pray for me

Alistair’s picking flowers. They’re strange flowers, tiny, pale purple ones that are clumped together in a great lump at the end of twig-like stalks, and they smell like lemons and grass after a summer rain. Alistair doesn’t even want to pick flowers, but he’s restless and anxious and doing something is better than sitting around a campfire and waiting and wondering-

“Ah. Not content to murder every being we come across, we must behead the flora as well,” Morrigan’s sardonic comment drifts over him like sour smelling smoke. Alistair scowls and stands up straight.

“If I wanted a running commentary I’d ask for it,” Alistair muttered- he doesn’t mean to be nasty, he really doesn’t, but Morrigan is so impossible and she’s always picking at him, trying to draw blood. Can he really be blamed for snapping back? Especially tonight, when Surana’s under the weather and they have that strange assassin skulking in the shadows and making grim jokes, Leliana is trying her best to make conversation while Wynne’s fussing more than usual, and Oghren’s been drinking- it’s been a bad night, is all that Alistair means, and he’s not exactly feeling friendly at the moment. Everything is setting him on edge tonight, especially the weird witch who always manages to say something unnerving and cryptic.

“Ah, the dog bites,” Morrigan commented. “You’ve picked enough verbena, I think. Our fearless leader’s cough isn’t that terrible. Yet.”

“What?” Alistair asked.

“Verbena. The flower. You can use it for sore throats. Or was it arthritis? Ah, memory,” Morrigan sighed. “What are you even doing out here?”

“It’s... too crowded. Needed some privacy,” Alistair offered cautiously. Morrigan was being... nice? Nice for her, which was truly something to behold. Today had been strange, even for him, and Morrigan’s cryptic helpfulness was just the sugary topping on the Satinalia cake. Morrigan stretched her thin arms over her head and fixed her strange golden eyes on him. Like a cat, he thought. A very predatory, observant cat who was toying with him-

“Ah. In that we are agreed,” Morrigan replied, and the very idea that he and Morrigan shared something in common made Alistair feel a little uncomfortable. He awkwardly held the bundle of purple flowers- verbena, what a strange name- in his hand, and began to trudge his way back to camp. After a moment of silence, Morrigan joined him, walking in perfect step- predator and prey, cat and mouse.

“I thought you would be praying to your Maker and Andraste for deliverance from our new companion’s running commentary,” Morrigan said, and Alistair grimaced. Why did she always make everything sound obscene?

“Never been good at praying. Or anything scholarly. It’s what made me a bad fit for the Templars,” Alistair replied, and Morrigan’s chuckle is hardly pleasant.

“Ah. So they didn’t find you so irritating that they threw you out,” Morrigan remarked. “You were just blasphemous.”

“Excuse you, I can pray! I’m not good at it, but I can pray,” Alistair grumbled.

“Hmmm,” was Morrigan’s response.

“I could pray for you, if you wanted. But you probably wouldn’t want me to, so I won’t,” Alistair stated. Morrigan was quiet for a moment (a miracle), but she found her tongue again (of course she did).

“Considering how miserable our luck is, and the chances of worse to come in our future,” Morrigan mused. “I would welcome any divine intervention, even if it results from your prayers.”

Quiet again. The light from the campfire is a warm glow in the distance as they walk, and Alistair could hear Leliana singing softly, her voice drifting above them like bird song.

“Soooo,” Alistair said, “that’s a yes?” He could hear, rather than see, Morrigan’s eye roll.

“Yes. You may pray for me. All of us. We will need it, in the days ahead,” Morrigan replied, cryptic as always.

“Good to know,” Alistair retorted, and they walked back into camp in mutual silence.

#my writing #da drunk writing circle

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saltlordofold · 5 years

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Tumblr ate the ask because of course it did but a good while ago @ma-suranas prompted me with number 50 from this great list of cliché tropes and prompts by @bucky-plums-barnes : “ I’m scared but won’t admit it so you take my hand,” for Alistair and Aedan.

I went a bit all over the place with this but it’s been so long since I posted any writing, i thought this was a good time to get it out at last XD Thank you for the prompt!!!

Characters: mainly Alistair and Aedan Cousland (oc), rest of party briefly featured (Wynne, Zevran, Leliana, Morrigan, Shale, Sten, Oghren)

Pairing: (Unresolved pining) Alistair/Aedan

Raiting: G

Warnings: Pining, Unresolved emotional tension, claustrophobia, scotophobia

Words: 2007

>Read on Ao3

Alistair had no clue what it was that caused the carved vault to collapse. It could have been anything, really: a shift of the terrain, a sudden whim the many miles of rock and dirt above their heads, a trap laid by the Spawn, or even simply, for all he knew, the sound of their footsteps, heavy with armour and supplies, echoing too loudly against the stone corridors of a dwarven thaig left so silent and still for so long. Not that the why mattered much: all that Alistair had needed to know was how, with just a dusting of warning pebbles and a long, worrisome groan of stone, a whole section of the ceiling had come down in one swift, murderous go, and it was all Aedan and him could do but to pull each other out of the way of the deadly weight plummeting down.

Gravel drummed and trickled down the back of Alistair's armour. The air was full of a fine-grained dust that left a trail of fire down his throat at every inhale, forcing him into a painful coughing fit. Under him, Aedan seemed to be in no better condition, because his voice sounded more a rasp when he grabbed Alistair's shoulder and asked, between two hacks of his own:

“Are you hurt?”

Alistair wanted to say something like “what do you think?” and “you're asking me?”but after counting, he was pretty sure he could feel all his limbs, which was enough to warrant a mumbled “'think so” instead. Alarm rung loud in his ears, a dangerous buzz, and in an effort to not give in to it, Alistair forced himself to push up, which he managed more than precariously. Still, Aedan didn't turn down his offered hand to help him do the same, and as soon as he was standing, the Warden was already stumbling to the wall of rock that now closed off the corridor they'd just been walking.

“Zevran?” Aedan called, with as much breath as he could manage, “Wynne?”

The second that followed felt as frozen to Alistair as the sweat pooled down his back. In the trembling flame of their weakened torch, half-buried under rocks on the ground, he could see the worry on Aedan's dirt-plastered face, and there was no doubt in his mind that he wore the exact same expression on his own.

But the crease between Aedan's brows soothed down at once when friendly voices mercifully started answering from behind the wall of rubble.

“We're all fine, here,” Wynne's voice carried first, “Are you boys?”

Aedan dipped his head in relief, hand resting against one of the largest rocks. Somewhere behind it, Dog was barking, distant and muffled.

“Yes!” Aedan replied, while Alistair closed his eyes for a second, letting relief wash over him too, “Yes, we're alright, both of us. Maker be thanked.”

The corner of Aedan's mouth tugged upwards at the sound of Zevran's voice.

“So much for fine dwarven stonework,” the elf jabbed, from behind what felt like meters of rock.

Oghren's answer soon followed, short of both breath and patience, to deliver the curt yet eloquent response of:

“Sod off, elf.”

Ever the good sport, Zevran did not seem to take too badly to the blunt answer.

“Would that I could, my friend,” he simply said, “but sadly it seems my way to do so has become quite impracticable, has it not?”

“Would you both shut it?” Morrigan sneered, “Just for once? My head is hurting enough as it is without you jabbering in my ear.”

“Maker,” Leliana said, very purposefully cutting the bickering off before it could spread, “What a mess. It'll take a while to move all this rubble...”

Sten's voice sounded as stern and level as always, as if pounds over pounds of deadly rock hadn't just come close to sealing them all into an unmarked tomb.

“Not if the Golem puts her back to it.”

“The Golem has a name,” Shale drily reminded, “not that it cares much for it.”

Oh, they were all alive and well alright. Alistair would have managed in a quip of his own, but Aedan urgently cut him off.

“Don't!” he shouted, “Don't try to dig through. We don't know how sound the tunnel is, displacing the rubble could bring it all down again.”

A sullen silence followed that realization, and Aedan wiped a hand down his face, grimacing and blinking away the dust best he could.

“Walk back to the crossroads and wait for us there,” he instructed, “We'll find a way around.”

“Are you sure?” Wynne asked, “You might get lost.”

Aedan glanced Alistair's way, who returned an uncertain wince. He remembered the way, sort of? They were leaving a Thaig, and he was pretty certain there had been more than one tunnel connecting it to the main Deep Road. If they managed to find one such way, they could meet with the rest of their party there. Granted they found it too, of course. And made it there safely. Given where they were, and in what sort of company, that was everything but guaranteed.

Overall, not much of a sound bet, but the only bet they had, nonetheless.

“We'll be fine.” Aedan said, managing to sound sure of it, somehow, “Hurry back, now, and stick together. It's dangerous to linger here.”

“Very well,” Zevran said, “But don't be too long.”

He had to keep his voice raised to be heard through the collapse, but Alistair still heard it soften as he added:

“Or I'll have to come look for you.”

The light was growing too dim for Alistair to discern the exact expression on Aedan's face from where he stood, but the hint of a smile was easy to hear in his reply.

“Understood.”

Slowly, the rustle of footsteps and Dog's worried barks subdued, leaving behind only silence, and Alistair knelt down to recover their torch. Ever so carefully, he picked it up, making sure to hold it angled just so it would keep burning best it could. Which wasn't well, but still a lot better than not at all.

“I don't like them alone,” Aedan said, quieter now that they were the only two left, and without a mount of rock to shout over, “They can't sense them coming.”

Aedan often confessed things to him as such, Alistair had noticed. Low, when it was just the two of them, out of reach of the others' ears. Granted, it was rarely under such extreme circumstances, but it had happened more than once. Worries. Questions. Doubts he wouldn't share with the others.

For the life of him, Alistair couldn't understand why Aedan would want to do that with him, who so rarely had a smart answer to supply.

“Even if they don't, there's more than enough of them to hold against Spawn, should any show,” Alistair still tried, doing his best to sound reassuring, “They'll be fine. They can handle themselves.”

After a moment, Aedan sighed.

“You're right,” he said, a sentence that Alistair only wished he could say as well about himself, and with as much conviction, at least once in his life.

The torch finally recovered some health, making it safer for Alistair to hold it straight. Without the flame of the others' beacons, though, and the eerie glow of Shale's crystals and Morrigan's and Wynne's staves, the light didn't reach to much more than a few arms around them.

After it, there was pitch black, total darkness. Alistair tore his gaze from it to focus it on Aedan instead, who had come closer. Much closer, actually. The bubble of light was faint and tight enough around them that if they wanted to see clearly, they had no choice but to practically brush shoulders under it. Alistair could count the specks of dust caught in Aedan's lashes, as the man rustled beside him, still blinking out dirt as he tightened a loosened fastenings on his belt.

“Bloody Void,” Aedan muttered under-breath, “I hate this place.”

Despite the circumstances, and having to refrain the urge to brush away the small rocks he could see stuck in Aedan's curls, Alistair couldn't help but scoff.

“You steal the words right out of my mouth,” he said.

Mouth which was still full of dust, he realised, and grimaced at the unpleasant taste and crunch of dirt under his teeth. Luckily they had some water with them, and Alistair reached for it. They would be wise to save it, just in case, but a sip to wash the taste away couldn't hurt.

“Good thinking,” Aedan said, grateful for the offered flask.

They sipped in silence. Slowly but steadily, the weight of the situation was starting to fall on Alistair's mind, an uncomfortable blanket, clinging to his shoulder like a wet cloak: Maker, but this could have been it. They could have died, right there and then, crushed by the mountain in less then the blink of an eye. It was a miracle they hadn't, really.

“It could have ended like that,” Aedan said, as if reading his mind.

His look was to the distance, his voice quiet.

“The lot of us, under rubble.”

Alistair swallowed hard. His ears still rang from the noise of the collapse, he realized. In the silence, the high-pitched whistle felt painfully loud. Despite the torch, the darkness around them seemed to inch closer.

That would have been the last thing they saw, wouldn't it? Darkness, and then nothing but more of it. And then nothing at all, eventually.

“Yes,” was all he found in him to say, “It could have.”

Shaking himself, Aedan breathed in deep, and landed a hard pat on Alistair's back. He even managed to throw him a hint of his usual grin, which gleamed fleetingly in the flickering light of the torch.

“But it hasn't,” he said firmly, “So let's keep at it.”

Adjusting the shield on his back and the sword to his side, he started in the direction they had come from.

“Come on, let's hurry around,” he said, walking off at his brisk pace, “We're not much safer here ourselves.”

Walking off. Into darkness. Just a few steps away from Alistair, and the wall of shadow had already started to swallow Aedan away, licking past his shoulder like the surface of deep, dangerous waters.

“Don't!”

Alistair had moved before even realizing it, and his voice had rung far too loud in the enclosed space of the corridor. He winced, embarrassed.

“Stay close,” he said, quieter.

His hand had grabbed Aedan's forearm, without him meaning for it to do so, but rather than letting go like he should have, Alistair tightened his hold instead.

“I can barely feel you on most days,” he whispered, “so with this all Corruption around us...If you wander off, or if this torch goes out, I might not be able to find you anymore.”

And that terrifies me, he thought, but did not say aloud. All at once the idea of that dense, cold shadow engulfing Aedan and leaving the both of them wandering, alone and lost, in those cursed tunnels, had sent shivers down Alistair's back that even shame wouldn't let him hold back.

“Right,” Aedan said, “Of course.”

Alistair fully expected him to step back, but instead, he raised his armored hand, and firmly landed it on Alistair's.

“Let's stick together,” he agreed, “It's safer this way.”

Alistair could only nod back.

Soon the small, dark tunnel would give in to a larger corridor. The faint gleam of deep mushrooms, exposed lyrium veins, as well as a a few surface rays, expertly-guided to the Thaig's hall by the Dwarves' engineering, would allow them to see clear enough to let go of each other and walk normally side by side.

But as they did, and even, much later on, as they finally joined back with the rest of their party, Alistair could not shake from his head - just like he couldn't shake the ringing from his ears - the firm touch of Aedan's hand holding his back.

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whereismywarden · 5 years

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for the prompts; 158 for ana ! ⭐️🌟⭐️

Thank you so much for asking!

As it turned out, I actually had an awkward moment on my list of things I wanted to write for Ana and Carver. I guess I just needed a little push ^^

[200 Writing Prompts]

read on ao3prompt: this is awkward.pairing: female surana x carver hawke.warnings: awkward boner.

Carver was training with Captain Garavel. He was supposed to hone his skills with another Grey Warden, but the only other warrior around was Oghren, and Maker only knew where the dwarf had passed out this time. So the captain of the guard had offered to spar with Carver instead. And truth be told, he preferred it to the dwarf’s drunken antics.

“Captain Garavel,” someone called out from across the training yard.

The newcomer walked up to them in a few quick strides. Judging by her stature, she was an elven woman wearing Grey Warden fatigues. Could she be-?

“Warden-Commander Surana.” Garavel saluted the young woman. “Glad to see you back from your travels.”

Carver stared at her like an idiot. He had met this woman before. At Ostagar. Ana. Her name was Ana. Back then, she had been a spunky warden recruit. She had gotten lost around the camp on her first day. This was awkward… No, awkward couldn’t even begin to decribe it. This was bad. Very very bad. The things they had done when they thought they might not survive the battle… Maker be damned! They weren’t supposed to ever see each other again!

“This young man is Carver Hawke, one of the new recruits from the Free Marches.”

“Warden-Commander.” He saluted her, his voice surprisingly steady.

Warden-Commander Surana… He was starting to feel a little lightheaded. She’s the Hero of Ferelden! I've… I’ve… with the blighted Hero of Ferelden! With any luck, she wouldn’t remember him.

“The Free Marches? You’ll have to tell me how you wound up so far from home, someday.” She smiled at him, oblivious to his discomfort. “At any rate, I’m happy you made it out of Ostagar in one piece. Many didn’t.”

Shit, shit, shit.

He could feel the heat rise to his face and his heartbeat quicken. “I- Me too, Commander. It’s, err, nice to see you again.”

“Shouldn’t you be training with Oghren?” She looked around the training yard for the missing dwarf.

“N-no one could find him, ma'am.”

“I see,” she sighed. “Then I’ll train with you, Carver. Captain, you can carry on with your duties. And if you can spare someone to look for Oghren, I would be much obliged.”

“Right away, Commander.”

Surana picked up a training sword from the closest weapon rack. She swept it from side to side, swishing through the air to test its balance, and, satisfied, moved into a fighting position.

Carver frowned. “Aren’t you a mage? Shouldn’t I be training with another warrior?”

“I can swing a sword well enough to spar with you,” she said with a hint of mischief in her voice. “I promise not to use any magic.”

He felt stupid for even asking. It wasn’t uncommon for mages to pick up a few fighting skills here and there. His own father had taught him the basics of sword fighting. Still, Carver was supposed to get some advanced training from a seasoned grey warden warrior, not a skinny mage with a stick.

“I’ll try not to kick your butt too hard,” she teased him.

Steel clashed against steel, their blades meeting each other over and over as they thrust and parried with strength and skill. She fought well, better than he had expected. Maybe he shouldn’t have underestimated the woman who faced the Archdemon. She used her small size to her advantage, dodging his attacks with a smile on her face. He did manage to land a few decent hits on a few rare occasions when she left obvious openings. So obvious, in fact, that she was probably doing it on purpose to test his mettle. He scowled. I’ll show her what I’m capable of!

Groaning, he doubled his efforts to impress her. He added more strength to his blows, his muscles tensing with the effort. Surana’s smug smile disappeared from her face, replaced with a crease in her brows as she concentrated harder. He was finally getting the upper hand on her. She was losing her balance, making more mistakes and appearing to be defending herself more than attacking. It was now or never. Carver raised his weapon, ready to strike a decisive blow, when he lost his footing on something slippery and fell backward.

Smiling down at him, Ana kept him pinned down with her legs on either side of his waist and her sword held against his throat. It should have annoyed the crap out of him. His brother always had the same self-satisfied look on his face whenever they sparred together. But his mind brought him back to that night, before the Battle of Ostagar, when she had straddled him like this and… Oh no…

“Good work, Carver.” She lowered the blade but remained seated on top of him. “You almost got me a few times.”

Carver covered his face with his hands, wishing he could dig a hole in the ground and hide there for the rest of his life. This couldn’t be happening. Maker, please, make it stop. He tried thinking about something else. Ugly things. Hurlocks, ogres, Uncle Gamlen’s porridge. Anything to keep his mind from focusing on the pearls of sweat running down her forehead, or on the way her eyes squinted when she smiled. Oh, Maker…

“Don’t feel bad. You did great. In fact, you would have come out on top if I hadn’t cheated at little with the… Oh!” Shit! Her eyes grew wide, her face turning a bright shade of red. She rose to her feet with the swiftness of a wolf. She cleared her throat loudly to try to regain her composure. “We’ll talk later,” she said, looking anywhere but at him.

She practically sprinted out of the training yard, leaving Carver all alone with his shame.

#lavellane #dragon age #carver hawke #warden surana #carver x warden #carver x surana #ana surana #fanfiction #my fics #pairing: carana #sad mages worldstate

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degenerate-perturbation · 4 years

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Chapters: 21/32 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

All around Yvanne the enormous cypress thrummed with life. If there was a world beyond the belly of the hollow tree, she didn’t quite believe it.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Of course you don’t understand,” her great grandmother said kindly. Distant bells seemed to ring with every one of her words. All of a sudden Yvanne wasn’t sure if the old woman’s lips were actually moving when she spoke to her. “Who could possibly expect you to?”

“Why did you bring me here? That spirit I saw—was that you?”

“In a way,” the old woman allowed. “But I did not bring you here. You brought yourself.”

“But you called me. You told me to come home.”

“Is that what you heard?” She smiled. “Oh, my daughter.”

That stung. “Stop it,” Yvanne growled. “You don’t even know me.”

“Not as well as I’d like. But we have met, in the world beneath the world.”

“You’ve been spying on me,” Yvanne realized. “Through the Fade. Just what gave you the right?”

The old woman’s bright eyes flashed. “Precisely the same thing that gives you to look in on those you wish to see.”

“That’s—that’s not the same,” Yvanne faltered. “I didn’t want to look. I tried not to look. I couldn’t control it.”

“But you’d like to. And so you are here.”

“No, I’m here because you called me. I’m here because I had just settled into a perfectly contented life when all of a sudden I became tormented by these voices—your voice.”

Yvanne could load quite a lot of furious accusation into a short phrase spoken softly, but the old woman remained unmoved. “Believe me, my daughter, I do not have the power to bring about what you experienced. If you heard my voice, it was as a trickle in a torrent. You have begun to awaken as a spirit mage.”

“And just what in the void does that mean?”

In tones of infinite patience: “For years you have hobbled yourself; now you are beginning to walk freely for the first time. Of course you were overwhelmed. Anyone would be. Nobody here in Dairsmuid awakens in their third decade of life, without the benefit of any guidance whatsoever.” In tones of bottomless sorrow: “You have been done a great disservice.”

Yvanne stood for a while, feeling all the hot air leak out of her.

“So can you help me?” she said, defeated. “Or not?”

“Of course I can. And I will. If you choose it. But how far you walk along the path is always up to you.”

Something sat uncomfortably in Yvanne’s stomach. “Alright, fine. Can you at least answer me this?” she said wearily. “Where is my mother?”

The old woman cast her eyes down. “That I do not know. She never came here.”

An unspoken hope died in her chest. “My father, then? My sisters?”

“Three of your sisters live,” the old woman said. “In one way or another. But of all who I called, only you returned.”

All she did not say fell upon Yvanne like a mountain. She dropped her head. “I see.”

“Oh, my daughter. I am sorry.” She sounded like she meant it.

More questions sprung to her lips. When did my father die? And how? Which of her four sisters lived? And how? But as soon as they occurred to her, she thought better of them. She didn’t want to know. Of course she didn’t. If she’d wanted to know, she would have seen it in the Fade. It was a cruel thing to know about herself.

“Why me, then?”

“You are the one who answered.”

“No. Why call at all? My father never spoke of his home. We have nothing to do with each other, blood relatives or not. What do you want with me?”

“Is it so wrong for an old woman to wish to see her lost daughter?” The old woman’s eyes closed. She said no more for many long moments. “I apologize. I am tired now. I must walk in the Fade for a time.”

“What? But I’ve only just arrived!”

“We will speak again. For now you will go with Itai; he will be your companion today.”

“Now hold on, I—” Yvanne began to protest, but the old woman was already asleep, having slipped into dreams in the space of a few breaths. She was alone. But she did not feel alone. If anything she felt like an intruder. The tree keeping her great-grandmother alive thrummed steadily, like a heartbeat.

“Yvanne?”

She turned to face a young man with wide cheekbones and a halo of black curls. “How did you know my name? Or that I was here?”

He gave her a polite, puzzled smile. “Buya called me, of course. I’ve finished my training for today, so I can show you around.” He was younger than her. Was he even twenty? “I’m Itai—I think we might be cousins.” He crossed his right arm over his chest and tilted his chin down in greeting.

She stiffened. “Well, maybe we’re cousins, but you don’t know me, and I’m only staying here for as long as it takes me to get this—this problem under control, so don’t get too comfortable. There’s no need for all this…this…”

Itai shrugged. “Well, you’re going to have to wait at least a few hours anyway before she wakes up, so you might as well see the city, right?”

—

On her way to the great cypress, Yvanne had paid no attention to her surroundings at all. A compulsion to reach the tree where her ancestor dwelled had consumed her, and only now had it loosened its hold on her. Now she was finally seeing the city with clear eyes.

Dairsmuid was a city built upon the water. Wooden planks, shiny and smooth from the thousands of feet that walked upon them, were its streets, but so was the water; everywhere were gondoliers carrying goods by canoe, chatting with each other as they passed. Some of the buildings were built in the trees themselves, and what trees they were; they flared at their twisted, knotty bases. Some grew fused together, making masses large enough to support homes. Circling steps were bolted to many of them, and cables ran between the boughs, sending packages and messages zipping overhead.

Itai introduced Yvanne to more distant cousins and uncles and aunts than she could possibly keep track of, men and women of all ages. Each one greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and a quick embrace, too swiftly and with too much assurance for her to protest.

And not a single one of them batted an eye at all the magic.

Magic didn’t seem to exactly be common in Dairsmuid, but every once in a while she would spot a shopkeeper levitating his wares, or a gondolier lighting a lantern with a snap of his fingers. Everywhere she saw spirits, mostly formless wisps, but larger, more distinct spirits, too. Children chased them like chickens, earning scoldings from their parents when they were caught. She watched, rapt, one group of mage children play a game of spark-shooting with each other. As she watched something cracked open deep inside her, and suddenly she wanted to cry.

“Alright, there?” said Itai. She snapped out of it, drawing her eyes away from a scene where one child chased a wisp right over the edge and into the water, where he was fished out by an irritated gondolier. She just barely managed to nod.

Itai kept rambling as he took her around, away from the center of the city—”Dairsmuid’s mostly on the water now, but old timers will tell you how the sea used to be much further out“—past rows of fishermen hauling in oysters and crayfish—”They’re best with lemon sauce,”—inland towards residential areas that were raised over mud and peat rather than standing water. They went past shrines to Andraste laid with offerings of fire-lilies—”What? Of course we worship Andraste! What a strange question,”—past spirit-lanterns nestled in the branches of the cypresses—”They’re always lit, so nobody falls off the platform. And if someone does, the spirits signal the night watchman to come over and fish them out…it’s usually just the drunks, though.”

Yvanne found herself liking Itai quite a lot. Until—

“And my Templar training isn’t so bad, usually, but master has us getting up so early, and usually at night I find myself thinking of so many things and unable to sleep—”

She stopped in her tracks. It took him a few seconds to notice, and he turned, puzzled.

“Your what training?”

“Templar training,” he repeated. “Are you alright? You look like you ate something curdled.”

“I didn’t realize Dairsmuid had Templars.” She did not try to keep the hiss out of her voice. Including my own family.

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Sorry, I don’t get it. What’s the problem?”

How in Thedas was she to respond to that? “So was that why they picked you to give me the tour? Were you supposed to keep an eye on me and cut me down in case I turned out to be dangerous after all? I knew I was right to be suspicious—”

“Hold on!” Itai was laughing. Actually laughing! “I think you’re confused. In Dairsmuid, Templar is a ceremonial role. We don’t take lyrium or anything like the westerners. I’m not even being taught to fight with this thing—” He tapped the ornate weapon belted to his hip. “It’s all just rituals and basic forms.”

“Then—” She stumbled. “Then what’s the point?”

He shrugged. “Tradition? Got to be a Circle at Dairsmuid, with Templars. So we have them. We’re supposed to keep the Seers safe, but the Seers don’t really need protection, so it’s pretty boring. Once I finish training, I’m probably going to be a fisherman like my da. Look, the sword’s ceremonial—it’s not even sharp.”

She must have still been staring. He smiled, embarrassed. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I don’t really know much about western Circles.”

Maker, but this place was weird.

“I can’t believe the Chantry lets this place exist,” Yvanne said just as the silence was growing awkward..

“Well, Rivain’s pretty far from Orlais.” He shrugged. “We do things our own way. Really, the Qunari up north are a much bigger problem, but Dairsmuid’s not anywhere near Kont-Arr. Anyway, the Seers wouldn’t let anything happen.”

“Just what is a Seer? Exactly?”

Itai looked at her like she’d just asked the color of the sky. “Huh? But you’re a Seer. Aren’t you?”

She shook her head.

“You know—a woman who communes with the spirits. You call them mages out west, right?”

“But plenty of men are mages,” said Yvanne. “What do you do with the boys who are born with magic?”

Itai snorted, laughing.“Nobody’s born with magic. Spirits pick who they want to talk to. And sure, boys can talk to spirits, but they can’t be Seers.”

“Why not?”

“They just can’t.” He scratched his head. “Look, I don’t really know. Why don’t you ask Maita? She’s not a Seer yet, but she will be. Come on, you’ll like her. I have to get home and help da clean today’s catch, anyway, so I’ll leave you with her, if that’s alright.”

Three girls sat laughing and weaving reed baskets as Itai and Yvanne approached. One of them stood in anticipation, her eyes widening in delight. All three girls wore bright brass jewelry, but one—the Seer?—wore the most; bangles on her wrists and ankles, and a headdress of overlapping discs that glittered and clinked with her tiniest movement.

“Is this her?” she demanded of Itai, and didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh, it is! Oh, welcome! We are also so glad you have come.” She jangled as she wrapped Yvanne in a tight, loud embrace. “Ambuya told us you had come.”

“But how—”

“Oh, but your hair!” Maita gasped. Never had Yvanne heard anyone sound so heartbroken over hair. She glanced over her shoulder to plead wordlessly with Itai, but he was already grinning, waving goodbye, and backing away, the traitor. “You poor thing, you must have been through so much.”

Yvanne suddenly became aware of her body, sharply and unpleasantly. She hadn’t looked at herself in so long that she had forgotten that others could still see her. Maker, she didn’t even want to think about how she probably smelled She self-consciously tucked a piece of it behind her ear. Unending months of neglect and salt had caused it to dread up into unsalvageable masses.

“You must let me fix it for you. Oh, I love to do braids, but–may I?” She reached out to touch Yvanne’s hair. She struggled not to flinch. “No, I don’t think there’s enough left to do braids. How about knots? Or twists? I do the best twists; ask anyone.” She turned to her two friends, clinking, for confirmation. Both nodded earnestly.

Nobody had done Yvanne’s hair since she was nine years old. Loriel had been useless at it and nobody else had come close to earning the right. “I—Okay.”

“Yes! Wonderful! Please, do come in. You must have some of my beads. I’m getting married soon, so I won’t get to wear them, and I don’t even have any sisters to give them to. Only brothers–it makes me so sad!”. Then an expression came over her face. “Wait! You aren’t married, are you? I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have assumed…”

Yvanne felt the absence of the ring upon her finger, and answered, truthfully, “No, I’m not married.”

Maita’s animated expression returned. “Oh, good! Then you can have the beads. Come, come!”

She tugged her inside, enticing her friends to come join her in solving Yvanne’s hair problem. She was altogether reminded of Leliana. Yvanne slipped out of her grasp. “Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but—we’ve only just met.”

Maita gave her a confused smile. “But of course we’ve met. In the world beneath the world.”

Again that phrase.

“Maita, you’re shaming her,” one of the others said, rolling her eyes. “She has no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” Maita said, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh, no, you really don’t, do you?”

If Yvanne had not spent the past years being humbled over and over again, she might have taken offense. As it was, she only shrugged.

Maita covered her face in shame. “I’m so sorry—I assumed, since you were training with Ambuya—we were all so jealous when we heard…”

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m afraid I only look Rivaini. I’m not a part of any of this. I’m certainly not a Seer.”

“But you are a Seer,” Maita said encouragingly. “Or you will be.”

She crossed her arms, doubtful. “She said I was only beginning to learn. That I was already late.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn. You’re her blood, after all.”

“Isn’t half of Dairsmuid her blood? I’ve lost track of how many cousins I’ve met today.”

Maita laughed. She had a musical laugh. “Perhaps not so much as half! Our Buya had many sons, but even those who are not her blood are still her family; she is buya to all of us.”

Yvanne, who had been assuming that ‘Buya’ was the old woman’s name, made a small adjustment.

Dairsmuid had a public bathhouse, and she was in luck—today was the women’s day to use it. The next several hours went to matters of hair and beads and other things so trivial that Yvanne had nearly forgotten they existed. Was there really still a world of moisturizing hair cream and scents and jewelry? She had liked such things, once, because in the Circle they had been—if not forbidden, then strictly discouraged, and difficult to get a hold of. The habit had stayed with her as the Vigil’s keeper, and she had yet to be cured of it. It was so ridiculous. It was so nice.

Somewhere in this process she told the story of her travels. She hadn’t meant to—she’d thought it far too painful—but somehow it all came out. She started with hiding in Highever—she left out that she had ever been a Grey Warden—and by the time she got to the part with the pirates her hair was done. It had been long all her life, and was twisted close to her head and bound with bells and beads. She looked both like and unlike Isabela, like and unlike her old self. She had never felt so light; she couldn’t stop tilting her head back and forth and feeling the absence of the weight. It was strange, but not—bad. No, not bad at all.

By then it was time for the evening meal was upon them, and Maita’s mother—a stout woman who had clearly never taken no for an answer in her life—was insisting. Yvanne ate with Maita and her mother and her younger brothers who stared at her with curious eyes the size of dinner plates. Maita’s mother, it turned out, was not from Dairsmuid, but from a village on the eastern coast.

“—I came here to be with my girl, of course. She wanted to learn here in the capital, and I was not about to let her go alone,” she said proudly.

Yvanne slept there on a palette by the smouldering hearth, sick with imagining what it would be like to have a mother like that.

As the days passed and her great-grandmother did not summon her, she was folded into Maita’s family almost without noticing. Maita had three younger brothers who Yvanne somehow fell into the watching of—boys of six, ten, and twelve, who begged her to show them how to make lightning. She helped with the chores, kept the boys busy. She even learned a few words of the local Rivaini dialect. On the last day of the week, she helped decorate the household shrine to Andraste with marsh-lillies and necklaces of carved wooden beads. The prayers spoken over the shrine were not entirely unlike the Chant, but not entirely like it, either.

Finally came market day, so Yvanne saw the Dairsmuid market. Maita tugged her along as she did her family’s shopping, informing her of what fruits were in season and asking frequent questions about what things were like in Ferelden.

“Oh, I used to love the star-reader,” Maita sighed, pointing out a woman’s nondescript stall. “Of course, it is not Seeing, but that’s what made it special. My friends and I used to giggle for hours over the fates the stars had in store for us. The men we would marry, how many children we would have…” She trailed off, then finished cheerfully, “But I’ll be getting married soon.”

Yvanne could not help but notice that no husband-to-be was in evidence.

Maita clinked loudly as she laughed. “I haven’t met him yet, of course! He lives in a village far away from here, one that needs a Seer. Once I have passed the ritual, I’ll be ready to serve. I’m told he’s very kind. Is it bad that I hope he’s handsome, too?” She giggled behind her hand. “But you aren’t married! Do you want to consult the star-reader? Don’t you ever wonder what your husband will be like?

“Hm,” said Yvanne. “No, thank you.”

Soon after Maita encountered a friend of hers, and fell inextricably into an animated conversation that Yvanne couldn’t follow at all. Slighted, and resentful that she felt so, she wandered away. She could hear in the middle distance bell-like music. The source of it turned out to be a Vashoth woman sitting cross-legged, producing the tune from an instrument Yvanne had no name for, a wooden box lined with metal rods that produced unearthly music under the Vashoth’s careful fingers. Too soon, the song ended, and she lifted her hornless head to smile in thanks at the crowd.

Only then did Yvanne notice the scars around her lips.

“Did you mean to buy something?” the Vashoth asked suddenly. Yvanne forced herself not to stare.

“I have no money,” she stammered, then added, “Sorry.”

The saarebaas sized her up, and smiled. As she did, her scars instantly became the most noticeable thing about her. “Oh, I see. You’re new; one of Buya’s girls, aren’t you? I am called Amarna.”

“So I’m told,” Yvanne said stiffly

“You’re a bit old to start training.”

“I’ve had training.”

The saarebas laughed shrugging. “Mm. Well, it was probably better than the training I got.”

Yvanne’s eyes flicked to the woman’s scars again.

Amarna snorted good-naturedly. “Admiring these?” she said, touching her lips.

“I wasn’t—”

The former saarebas laughed. “Go ahead and look, I’m not ashamed.”

Yvanne wanted to apologize, but now she worried that it would only make it worse. Luckily the awkwardness was broken by a little Vashoth girl in pigtails, no more than eight years old, and already as high as Yvanne’s shoulder.

“Look what my friend showed me how to do!” the little girl said breathlessly to—presumably—her mother, ignoring Yvanne entirely. She extended her pudgy, little-girl hands palms up. Fireballs bloomed there, first, red, then yellow, then green and blue. Yvanne startled backwards and nearly knocked over a rack of fishing spears. “Are you proud of me?”

“Very good!” her mother beamed as Yvanne desperately tried to stabilize the rack of spears. “Indeed I am proud of you. But do you remember the rules?”

The girl let the fireballs dissipate. “No fire without my tutors watching,” she said ruefully, rolling her eyes.

“That’s right. Now go play.”

Only then did the little girl notice Yvanne and mutter a shy ‘hello’ before running off again.

“Sorry for her,” said the saarebas. “She’s always trying things she’s not quite ready for yet.”

“That…must be difficult.”

“I can’t even tell you how many times she’s hurt herself!” She shook her head. “But if she makes no mistakes, she’ll never learn.”

Yvanne had been that age when she’d first discover her magic. She never would have dreamed of showing her father. She’d hidden it. Had prayed for the Maker to take it away. “I’m surprised you don’t worry.”

“Of course I worry! What mother doesn’t? But she has good teachers here. I’ll never be much of a mage, but the Seers take care of her. And if she’ll receive some scars for her own foolishness, she will never have scars like mine.” She said it in well-rehearsed tones, like this was a speech she had been obliged to recite too many times.

Yvanne remembered Cheddar, and what had happened to her sarebaaset. But no, she daren’t ask. Instead she said, “What kind of instrument is that?”

And like so Maita found her some minutes later, profusely apologizing for leaving her alone, exchanging pleasantries with Amarna, and finally dragged her away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,” she said in hushed tones. “I forget that most people outside Rivain aren’t used to the freed saarebas. Quite a lot of them live here.”

That night Yvanne could not get to sleep beneath the unfamiliar ceiling. She thought of Amarna’s little daughter whose magic would only ever earn her a gentle admonition, and envy rose in her gorge like poison. What she would have given to have grown up here in Dairsmuid. What might she have become if her father had brought her here instead of to Ferelden? Why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he loved her enough to bring her here? All those years in Kinloch, the wretched thing that place made her—

She thought of Amarna’s scars, and thought—yes, it could have been worse. But it could have been better, too.

Yes, she was here now, but what good did that do her? It didn’t make up for it. Nothing ever would. Dairsmuid was not her home. If she had ever had one, it had been Vigil’s Keep.

That home was lost to her. Perhaps did not exist at all. Just like her mother and her father and her sisters. Everything was lost, lost—all that remained was here. A wave of nauseous longing rolled over her like the evening tide, and she went to sleep no less conflicted and confused.

—

She dreamt again of Loriel, buried deep within her tower of stone. Her hair was longer now than it had ever been, neatly parted in the center. Somehow in their time apart it had stopped frizzing, and fell to her back in elegant feathers. Were there new lines on her face? How old was she now?

She was writing busily in a blank parchment manuscript, occasionally consulting a tome at her elbow. She scribbled for hours, only occasionally pausing to sip water or stand up to stretch. All these little gestures, so familiar, so utterly strange.

Who was she? Who was she?

“I never even knew you, did I?” Yvanne said to her, knowing she wouldn’t be heard. “Not that you were any better. You never knew me either, did you? I don’t think I ever felt more alone than when I was with you.”

And Loriel kept scratching away, oblivious. It was starting to make her angry.

“You know,” she said, “If it hadn’t been for all that fucking blood magic, maybe you could have heard me say all these things. Maybe you could have heard me at all. I was too much a coward to say what I meant to your face, and now you’ll never know how I really felt. You selfish fucking bitch.”

And then—

—Loriel looked up.

Her forehead wrinkled in that burningly familiar way. Her mouth began to form the shape of the word, who—?

The dream collapsed.

—

Yvaanne woke in the middle of the night, knowing that she was summoned to Dairsmuid’s great tree. She received no message; only a conviction that she was wanted, and an intuitive understanding of where to go. She walked there, barefoot, the ancient half-drowned forest singing all around her.

Buya was exactly where she had been, awake and bright eyed. “I am sorry to have woken you. Did I interrupt your dreaming?”

She shook her head. “I did not want that dream.”

“I see.” The old woman’s lips still did not move when she spoke. “Have you decided, then, if you will stay and learn from me?”

“I…”

A heaviness lay on her heart. After a week in Dairsmuid, she had never missed the Vigil more. She missed her high grey walls, her fluttering banners, the smell of smelting iron in the air. She missed the training, the drinking games, the knowledge that everyone around her knew her name, that people would care if she was gone.

But here in Dairsmuid, everyone somehow knew her name. They would care if she was gone. So they didn’t know her, so what? Nobody had ever known her.

Dairsmuid was here. Dairsmuid was now. And was love not born of base familiarity? Was love anything besides mere exposure, mere proximity?

“Great-grandmother, I want to stay,” she said. “But…”

Ambuya waited, patient.

“But there’s someone I still love. Far from here.”

“Ah,” the old woman said. “I see. I will not pretend I am not disappointed, but it was good to lay my mortal eyes on you, my daughter.”

Yvanne shook her head, and knelt. Then she looked up, her eyes streaming. “And I never want to see or think about her, ever again. Please, grandmother—I am yours. Please, teach me.”

Ambuya smiled, reached out, and placed a hand on Yvanne’s bowed head. She was resolved; she would become a part of this. She would be one of many, and she would make this life a good one if it killed her.

#dragon age #amell #surana #femslash #rivain #dairsmuid #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

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