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Chapter Text

The thin canvas of the tent barely aided in keeping out the blinding light of the sun. Nothing like the wooden aravels he could tuck into in the comfort of his clan, thick and seamless thanks to the talents of their woodsmen. He missed the woodsmen. He missed the craftmaster Ilen. He missed Ilen and Paivel and Fenarel, there were countless names that crossed his mind.

  Linise groaned as he rolled out of his poor bedroll, his mess of few blankets. His body ached, he noticed. It ached with exhaustion and it ached with grief. He looked down at his calloused hands in desperation, as though he’d find something strange enough within his veins to prove this was all a dream. He wanted nothing more than to awake in the blissful bore that was Sabrae. He cracked a humorless smile; for ages, all he wished was to get away. Now all he wanted was to be a child again, in the arms of Ashalle.

  Oh, Ashalle. Linise’s chest bloomed with regret. He was so unkind to her the last time they spoke. Perhaps it wasn’t that she wasn’t his mother — he wasn’t her son. What kind of child was he? She’d had a baby thrusted into her arms and all he’d done in return was fuss and complain and whine to the point he was considered among the likes of Fen’Harel himself. How ungrateful he must’ve seemed. How ashamed she must have been.

  He pushed himself onto all fours to crawl towards the flap of the tent, swinging it open unceremoniously. His palms touched the damp grass. The sun was barely warm yet, but Alistair was already awake and kicking up a morning fire. Morrigan was still slowly stirring into the flow of the dawn across the way. Linise sat back on his haunches to observe the atmosphere. He could feel it was supposed to be serene, a calm before the storm, but he felt like he was already in the center of it.

  “Linise!” he heard Alistair’s voice call, and a quick upturn of the eyes helped catch the sight of the bigger man waving an arm invitingly. “About time!”

  The elf stayed on his knees for a moment. It took effort to pull himself out of the murky gray stormcloud over his head and stand to his feet, unfamiliarly booted with thick leather. He missed the ground beneath his feet and the dirt between his toes. He watched the press of shoeprints in the soft soil as he walked to his unwanted companion, bound by blood. The smell of the fire was nice, at least. It made him think of the too-late nights he’d stay up with his sister Manvena, when she was so tired she forgot that she hated him.

  “Morning,” Linise quietly greeted as he crouched down beside his oafish companion. He didn’t particularly care for Alistair. He was as stupid as any other shemlen he’d ever met and didn’t seem to get the hint when Linise didn’t want to engage in any sort of conversation with him. Alistair liked him much more than he liked Alistair.

  “You sleep well?” Alistair asked.

  “Not particularly,” Linise responded truthfully. How could he have slept well? Everything felt like a nightmare. He’d lost the love of his life and closest friend, was told he’d die if he didn’t follow along with whatever some human he didn’t know asked of him, had to drink the blood of a darkspawn, was helpless as the Order of warriors he’d been sworn into was all but wiped out, and had to travel with two shems he didn’t want to be around, lest he want all of Ferelden to be wiped out next. He wasn’t sure anyone could sleep well after that.

  Alistair only raised his brows with an amused hum, taking note of Linise’s shortness. He stared at the grumpy elf for another beat before turning back towards the growing bonfire, toeing the edges to keep it breathing. His stocky hands stayed planted firm on his broad hips. He was younger than Linise, but was probably the biggest human he’d ever seen. Not that he’d seen many up close like he was.

  “Bad dreams?” the other Warden pried when the silence grew uncomfortable. “That’s, uh, normal. Part of the whole Grey Warden business, the nightmares. Darkspawn and the like, yeah?” He tilted his head back to glance at Linise.

  “Not like that,” Linise shook his head, curling his knees to his chest, “other bad dreams. Bad week.”

  “Bad week …” Alistair echoed, a pondering upon his brow as he squinted into the flames. “Yeah…yeah, bad week. Bad, bad week.”

  Despite all of Linise’s inner thoughts screaming for him to not , Alistair plopped down to sit beside him, a little too close. He could smell the saltiness of his body, his humanity clear in his stench. He was going to have to get used to it quickly.

  “You know, Linise, I get it,” Alistair said, in a hushed tone as though they weren’t the only people within earshot of their conversation, “it’s not easy. Feels scary, doesn’t it?”

  Linise managed a tired smile, his palm dragging down the lower half of his face as he stared into the fire rather than at Alistair. “Scary, yeah,” he muffled into his palm, “scary and…weird. I feel weird on the inside. Is that normal, too?”

  Alistair had to think about it for a moment, straightening his posture and gazing into the way the sunrise kissed the lining of pine over the horizon. His hair looked golden under the glare and Linise couldn’t stand to look at him even more. Too bright. He looked back down at Linise with a purse of his lips, pity softening his eyes. That told Linise enough – it wasn’t normal, he was just empty with the loss of everything he’d ever known being ripped from his trembling hands without a choice.

  “It’s not easy,” was all Alistair said, almost too quiet to hear. They were both feeling empty, he gathered. No more family. No more home.

  Silence fell between the two. Linise wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked down at his feet. He toed off his boots and kicked them aside, simply craving to feel the dirt so nakedly again. He’d have to plant his feet and get comfortable with the two humans if he was going to hope of having a home ever again.

Chapter Text

Don’t go where I can’t see you , Mother had said.

  Of course, Joetta was too stubborn of a girl to listen. She had looked over her shoulder, slow as a snail, to ensure Leandra was more focused on her gardening than she was on her young daughter. Quiet as a mouse, she tiptoed away to the brush of foliage that called her name. It was plentiful and had longrass taller than she was. It made her feel small again, smaller than twelve, at least.

  She felt like she was in a fairytale. The sun wasn’t smoldering, but just hot enough. She could pretend the cawing crows were cooing doves. The flies became bumblebees, the weeds became sunflowers, the gray sky turned blue with nothing but a blink. She could pretend it was beautiful there. She could pretend she never knew what horror was. She closed her eyes, too big and too brown, and inhaled deep. The ground was warm under her bare feet, the grass tickled, she felt an insect dart over her big toe but found herself minding less than she used to.

  Joetta also found herself moving, her body taking a single twirl amidst the winding breeze. She breathed in, and out, in, out. She focused hard on the way the air crisped her throat. The coolness that inflated her chest, purified her, made her new again. She inhaled as hard as she could, over and over until it hurt. It was a good kind of hurt, like when you wiggle a toothpick against your gums, the kind you didn’t want to stop inflicting.

  When her eyes opened again, her eyes trailed her surroundings. She noticed the frown of a tree branch, a rather spindly tree. At the end of the branch was a single fruit. It wasn’t very plump, nor did it look particularly edible, but she stared. It was low-hanging and begging to be chosen. Joetta felt like it was pleading for her to do something as simple as see it. There was personality in the way the midday sun caught the dim shine of the orange’s peel.

  The beckon of the fruit drew Joetta closer. She pushed through the brittle prairie towards the sad tree. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from it, the dull orange felt like her due north. She saw her mother’s crow’s feet in the crevices of the bark, her father’s laugh lines swirling down the trunk. As she stood beneath the tree, the fruit hanging over her head like a mistletoe, she gazed up at it like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  She stood on her toes and outstretched her arm upwards, mouth falling agape. She couldn’t help herself but to pluck it. She cradled the fruit close to her chest, brows creased in reverence as she admired it between her little palms. She saw her reflection in the rind, warped and faded. It saw her.

  “ Joetta! ” Leandra screeched, startling the girl into dropping the orange, her shoulders tense and eyes wide. “Where are you?”

  Joetta left the orange lost in the waving longrass. She spun around on her heel to retreat back to her mother. She already missed the fruit the sad tree had bared to her. The earth had offered her a companion, or at the very least a mirror to view her own soul. She hadn’t even had the chance to dig her thumbs into it and find out what was hidden inside of it, to find the salt of her tears already seeped into the juice, evidence that perhaps the hole left in her chest was worth it.

  Don’t go where I can’t see you , the orange begged.

Chapter Text

Inquisitor Lavellan was on his knees. Laid before him on the balcony of his quarters was an arrowhead he’d carved from stone himself, the foot of a rabbit, a moonstone.

  Drynne’s golden waves whispered white under the glow of the moon. His thick hands were firm on his knees, his head bowed as he glanced to and fro between the objects that made up his last-minute makeshift altar. A shaky breath left his mouth before he whispered, his eyes scrunched shut.

  “ Andruil, evun’asha’ma’lin, da’lav ara’vir. ” His body, entirely inked with devotion to the one who had always guided his path, rocked back and forth as it always happened to do when he prayed. He imagined his voice circulating through his skull before pouring out of his mouth, drenching his collection of tokens in warmth. There was an emptiness that filled his heart since separating from his clan, from his family. His eyes lingered on the moonstone. He missed his U’vunlea – it had been eight years since his wife’s passing, but every indication of moonlight reminded him of his.

  He sighed a heavy sigh and stared at his open palms. They were as empty as his heart, heavy, too. He didn’t want what he was given. He didn’t want to be the Inquisitor, he didn’t want Skyhold, he wanted to be home. He missed the Free Marches. He missed his friends, the few that had welcomed him in as if he were a brother. Lailani and Ivun, the couple that had taken him in, were getting old. Very old. He feared what would happen if he was away from them for much longer, and he didn’t want to hear of their deaths through a hastily scribbled letter from Keeper Deshanna. Age was even getting to her , making her hands tremble in any attempt to hold a pen.

  “Mamae,” he whispered, unable to stop himself from reverting to the spirit of the boy Andruil had first touched so many years ago. Skinny, starved, only nine years old. “I…I’m lost. I’m alone out here. The people here…I’m not me . I’m some figurehead of a church I hate, a blessing from a god I don’t believe in. I, I, I…I’m scared, mamae. I’m no savior. I’m a woodsman, I’m supposed to be a husband . I’m supposed to be…to be…”

  He found himself staring at his strange hands again. His golden eyes traced the lines in his palms. The green crackle. He wondered if who he was truly supposed to be was living in the creases. He tried to stare long enough that a king’s crown would sprout from his bones and make home upon his temple. Could he be a king if he tried? He was good at being what other people wanted him to be. He was good at being good. He could be a king. He could be someone’s salvation.

  He could . Though what he truly wanted was to be Drynne again. To be respected and loved for the size of his heart, not the ripping and tearing extravagance that his hand had become. He wanted to be U’vunlea’s husband again, to get to hold their son, to cry. Oh, he wanted to cry. He could cry.

  Cried, he did. His hands curled to his chest, his body hunched in over itself and he wept. His ribs felt like they were crushing themselves with every gasping breath that got heavier than the last. His shoddy altar became wet with his sorrow, the sky absorbed every echo of his heartache, the moon illuminated the loss of his sense of self. He was no one’s. Yes, he had found himself in the beds of a handful of his new companions, but no one yearned to hold his heart and bite into it as though a too-ripe fruit, to clean the juices with tongue rather than cloth. To want him all over and too much, the same way U’vunlea did.

  The Inquisitor pressed his palms to his eyes, ignoring how the sizzling anchor burned against his skin. He knew he’d never be Drynne again. He was a sacred symbol of hope, this false image of him immortalized far longer than his name would be. He would be remembered as a man akin to Andraste herself, not as a husband, as a son, as a friend.

  The Inquisitor sniffled as he dropped his arms limply in his lap. He studied his tokens of worship as though they’d save him. The way the moonstone shimmered under its namesake, the way the fur of the rabbit foot flitted with the gentle breeze, the sharpness of the arrowhead.

  The arrowhead.

  Inquisitor Lavellan stared at the arrowhead and gulped, reaching to pick it up as gently as he could. He held it like it was fragile, though he knew it wasn’t, for he crafted it with his own skill. He grunted softly as he stood to his feet, his knees weakening with middle-age, and turned around to walk off of the balcony and into his quarters. He kept his eyes, little replicas of the sun itself, steady on the crude weapon between his palms. He kept walking until he got to the foot of his bed, then dropped to his knees again.

  He moved mindlessly. He dug the point of the arrow into the wood of his bedpost. He scraped and scratched at it, wincing at the strength he had to use to carve into it. The sharpness was duller than he wanted it to be. He watched each and every letter imprint itself into the furniture.

  Drynne , he wrote.

  He cast the stone aside when he was finished and left himself with his blank mind. He stared until the letters stopped looking like anything at all. Perhaps this would make people write it in history books and remember him for his love, not for the weight shoulders even as broad as his were never meant to bear.

  He was no king. He was a woodsman.

Chapter Text

“You… lethallin. ”

  Linise felt sick. He knew that voice. He kept his back turned to the source of it for a moment more, eying the deceased shrieks that surrounded him. He had to have been hearing wrong. It had to have been a trick. It had to be.

  “ Linise. ”

  The Warden closed his mouth with a dry swallow. His companions blurred out around him, the edges of his vision went black. The smell of death lingered much stronger. Linise dropped his sword to the ground and began to turn to face his fiance, presumed dead. Tears welled in his eyes at the mere sight of Tamlen. His skin rotting, his beautiful hair gone, his eyes pale and bleeding pus. He felt his chest crush with the first sob he let out.

  “ Vhenan ?” Linise croaked, taking a wobbling step towards his first love. He ached to reach out and snatch him back into his arms, kiss his face until better. He almost believed he could. His knees felt like they were going to give out beneath him as he watched Tamlen take a step backwards, his blackened fingers twitching madly.

  “Don’t– don’t come near me!” Tamlen snapped, his voice raw and scathing as it climbed the well of his cobblestone throat. He sounded like he had no choice but to growl. “Stay away!” His face looked so hollow, the sadness in his eyes broke Linise’s heart. Tamlen backed up further and further before spinning around on his heel and darting off.

  Linise gaped at him while he sprinted away to the edge of the forest. He looked back over his shoulder to his nearest companion – Oghren, who was staring at him with his usual half-drunken confusion – before chasing after him. He moved so quickly it hardly felt like he was moving at all. Tamlen stopped just before he could disappear into the brush, whipping around to look at his longtime best friend again.

  “Don’t…look at me…” Tamlen gurgled. It was as though he was trying his best to control the animalistic roar his voice wanted to become. “I am… sick .”

  “No, no, vhenan, fenor , let me help,” Linise choked through his thick, hot tears, “Tamlen, let me help. Please.” He braved through everything in his gut that told him to not touch, reaching both hands out to hold his biggest heartache’s face between his cold, shaking palms.

  “No help!” Tamlen cried, but pushed further into Linise’s small embrace despite himself. “No help for me…the song…in my head, it– it calls to me.”

  “What song?” Linise whispered defeatedly, finding himself becoming less bothered by the sight before him. He smoothed his hand over Tamlen’s head where his hair used to be, silky tresses replaced with velvet skin. “What song, my love?”

  “He sings to me!” Tamlen shrieked, his faded eyes widening as they bored into Linise’s. “I can’t stop it!”

  Linise’s tears were coming faster now. Tamlen’s hands had loosely hooked around his wrists, allowing him to continue his gentle hold. “Who?” he tried again. “Tamlen, please. I can help .”

  Tamlen, or whatever he had become, looked like he was about to weep as well. He nestled into Linise’s hands like it was muscle memory. “Don’t want to…to hurt you, vhenan ,” he hissed, “please…please, stop me…”

  Linise’s eyes popped open wide and he shook his head in a panic, stepping even closer to Tamlen until their bodies were nearly flush. He couldn’t bring himself to care about how strongly he smelled of rot and blight. “Don’t ask me to kill you, Tamlen, you know I can’t do that,” he blubbered, “Tamlen, no. I won’t do it. Tamlen, please , vhenan , don’t say that.”

  Tamlen sobbed once, his breath hot and disgusting against Linise’s face. He brought his forehead down to rest against Linise’s. “Then I must leave you no choice, fenor ,” he rattled, “I always…loved you…I’m so sorry.”

  In a flash, Tamlen took a sharp jab into Linise’s side, leaving him to cry out in pain and hold his now-aching ribs. Linise coughed once, then twice as he fell to his knees, then looked up at Tamlen like a dog would look at a master who had thrown away the rabbit he killed for him. He shook his head again, his face contorting with disaster.

  “ Ma’garahnen ,” Linise spat back, “ garahnen ar uth gasha myathem ma. ”

  “ Ir abelas ,” Tamlen said through his teeth, lowering down to his knees beside his only love. “ Ir abelas, vhenan .”

  Linise groaned anxiously like he was the one about to be killed as he reached for the small leather sheath at his thigh, a gift from Zevran. He pulled out the knife that was a little too small for it and clapped his free hand onto Tamlen’s shoulder. His breath fell out in tearful gasps, but he tried his best to stay steady for his boy. He brought the blade to his own mouth and sniffled before pressing a kiss to the side of it, then offered it to Tamlen’s lips.

  “I love you,” Linise huffed as Tamlen repeated the gesture, kissing the other side of the dagger. “Tamlen, I love you so much.”

  Tamlen finally cried, really cried. It came in a rush, spittle connecting his upper and lower lip as he started to rock back and forth. He was inching forward on his knees to get closer to Linise. The Warden opened his arms to catch his lover. He held him close in one last embrace, his arms around Tamlen’s middle with his arms thrown over Linise’s shoulders. They rocked and wept together. Linise tried his best to kiss his cheek, ending up only kissing his jaw. He suppressed a wince at the bitter taste of his decaying face.

  “Don’t make me do this,” Linise whispered into what was left of Tamlen’s pointed ear, his own tears soaking into his lover’s.

  “Lin–” Tamlen whimpered, then took in a shuddering gasp that faded into a grizzly growl. His hands dug a little too hard into Linise’s body. He was beginning to lose himself. There was no other choice.

  “I’m sorry,” Linise choked out as he plunged the blade into Tamlen’s side, squeezing him close as he listened to the hurk in his breathing that signified it would be his last. “I love you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Guilt pressed heavily on Linise’s shoulders as Tamlen’s body sank into him, limp and lifeless at last. He didn’t feel like he could breathe anymore. He kept rocking back and forth, just as he had in their last moment holding each other. He tried his best to take deep breaths, but every time, he failed. He failed to breathe, he failed to save his Tamlen. He tried to breathe again, a rattling noise that finished with a guttural cry. He stopped rocking and folded over himself, cradling Tamlen in his lap. He couldn’t stop crying out as though he had been the one stabbed.

  His pained cries alerted some of his companions, and a few came bolting over to him; Zevran, Oghren, Alistair. The dwarf was the first to dive onto the dirt beside Linise, hand firm on his shoulder with an aching worry hidden under his thick beard. Zevran was on his other side, not touching him yet, just kneeling and waiting to be needed. Alistair was the most overbearing, collapsing before Linise and staring down at the elf in his friend’s arms.

  “What happened? Who was– who is this?” Alistair asked, disregarding the sideways glare he got from Zevran.

  Zevran shifted, as though trying to get between his wailing partner and the stubborn human. “Tamlen,” he said shortly, the furrow in his brow lingering as Oghren huffed a heavy sigh and rubbed up and down Linise’s back in an attempt to be comforting.

  “Tamlen?” Alistair’s brows shot up to his hairline. He opened his mouth to speak again, but another one of Linise’s heartbreaking screams created pause. “He was with Lin when he…”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit,” Alistair hissed through his teeth, dismissively using the back of his hand to move Zevran aside to kneel closer to his friend. He knew Linise wasn’t listening, but he tried anyway. “I’m so sorry. This is what happens when the taint is left unchecked. It was…it was better for him. To end it. It was a mercy.”

  “What?” Oghren snapped next, straightening up to stare at Alistair with a bitter snarl. “What words of wisdom. ‘ It’s a good thing your little friend died. ’ That’s what you’re sayin’, asshole.”

  “I’m trying to help!” Alistair said desperately, his eyes widening in incredulousness as he gawked at Oghren.

  “ Go! ” Linise suddenly shouted, his eyes as hard as stone as he stared at Alistair between his gasps for air. He rocked further forward, trying to escape from Oghren’s hand on his back. “Go away, go away, go away! Leave me!”

  A silence fell between the three men, blankly glancing back and forth amongst each other before one by one beginning to rise. Alistair whispered an apology, however drowned out by Linise’s crying it was, and was the last to leave. The smallest elf was left to grieve, cradling his Tamlen to his chest. His chest felt like it was sprouting a wildfire, roaring as loud as his shouts of despair.

  Everything in him was breaking. Each blood-curdling cry was more pressure stealing the air from his lungs, but he kept crying anyway. The forest swallowed each scream of Tamlen’s name, each bellow of sorrow. He wished there was more of Tamlen to hold onto. The tighter he held on, the more he believed he could keep him together. Maybe he could fool himself into feeling Tamlen hug him back one last time. He didn’t want to have to bury him yet. He didn’t want to leave him; the last time he left Tamlen believed to be dead, he survived.

  “ Sul’ememah ara lath, Falon’Din ,” Linise quietly prayed, and his lips found his other half’s bitter forehead, “ sul’ememah ara lath, sul’ememah ara lath. ”

  Bring me my love. Bring me my love.

Chapter Text

Joetta stared at the face of her newborn baby girl. She panted, sweat beading down her temple as she welcomed the miracle into the world. She smiled and wept as she combed the babe’s hair off of her forehead, she heard Fenris laughing tearfully in her ear, voice full of warmth. Her body was in the worst pain she’d ever felt, but looking at what that pain brought her – it was worth it.

  The baby had big brown eyes, waving raven hair, apple cheeks dusted pink. Fenris kept laughing. Her skin was too red, still sensitive from the first touches of cold air. Fenris kept laughing. Joetta brought a hand up to brush their child’s cheek with the backs of her fingers, causing the kid to stir. Fenris kept laughing. And laughing. And laughing. His soft chuckles had become a hollow cackle, loud and thunderous in Joetta’s ear. His hand on her shoulder started to dig in too tight.

  She found herself frowning as she turned her head towards her lover, and the sight made her breath lurch into a gasp.

  Fenris’ eyes were sunken in, spilling blood. In fact, every hole in his face was spilling blood – his nose, his mouth, his ears. He hadn’t been laughing, he was crying , gut-wrenching and reminiscent of a heartbroken toddler. Joetta sat up straight, her eyes widening in fear. She tried her best to keep the baby cradled to her chest, her free arm hooking around Fenris’ middle to keep him upright.

  “Fenris?” she huffed, out of breath. “Fenris, what–?”

  She looked back down at her baby to make sure she had her eyes closed, not wanting for her first experience with her father to be something so horrible. What Joetta saw made her want to vomit; Bethany stared back at her. Her eyes weren’t closed, quite the opposite, really. She stared up at Joetta so intensely. She stared like she was truly trying to burn a hole through her skull. She stared like she hated her.

  The baby, or Bethany, or Baby Bethany’s face contorted with an evil snarl, teeth sharpened into points. “Fenris is going to die,” she growled, voice distorted and demonic and cruel, “just like me, just like mother and father, and everyone else you’ve ever cared about.”

  Joetta shook her head, her eyes prickling with fresher tears than the ones that had previously been falling. She looked back up at Fenris, who was now groaning half-alive, blood pouring out of him and onto her. She glanced down to where she gripped his side. Her fist was curling animalistically into his flesh. She was tearing him apart. She was killing him faster.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she muttered hurriedly. She tried pulling her hand off of him, tugging with force, but it wouldn’t pry. Her breathing picked up as she panicked. “No, no, no, Fenris. Fenris!”

  “Fenris is going to die!” Baby Bethany shouted, over and over again. It sounded like a promise, not a threat. Not a fear.

  The child had crawled out of Joetta’s arms and up her chest. Tiny fists pounded at her collarbone, they hit until the skin broke. Joetta choked at the sound of her own bones cracking. She knew it should hurt, but it didn’t. She watched in agony as her baby used claws to shred her open, red splattering the white sheets she’d been laid on.

  “Haw– Hawke…” Fenris droned, his voice a raspy drawl from the back of his drowning throat. His body was slowly deteriorating in her hold, crumbling against her. She could feel his blood soaking her ginger tresses. His voice broke into a hiccuping sob like she’d never heard from him before. It hit her right in the chest, or maybe it was the demon tearing into her ribcage. Either way, something hurt .

  Joetta’s eyes couldn’t rip away from Fenris’ gaping wound of a face, though she could feel the Bethany-thing tearing her heart directly out of her chest with a disgusting squelch. She let out a shuddering gasp as she looked down at the creature she had birthed, helpless as she watched the demon sink its teeth into her still-beating muscle as though it were nothing but a pomegranate.

  Joetta awoke with a start.

  She groaned, an aftereffect of her hellish nightmare, and pressed a hand to her racing heart. Still there. She coughed a few times before she sat up in her bed – it was a bad bed, belonging to the rickety inn she’d bought a night at for her trip to Weisshaupt. It was as shitty as the rest of the room. With what she paid for it, she didn’t know what else she’d expected.

  Joetta’s hand reached out for Fenris on instinct, huffing irritatedly when she found he wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t, she’d directly asked him not to come with her this time, not to Skyhold and definitely not to Weisshaupt. To protect him. To make sure he didn’t die. She didn’t know what she’d do if he died. She could barely remember who she was before she loved Fenris. She loved her mother, she remembered, and she loved Carver. She loved Bethany. She loved Rhiannon. She loved her father. Only two of those people were alive anymore, and neither wanted absolutely anything to do with her, she noted. She couldn’t let Fenris suffer death, and she couldn’t let herself suffer losing him.

  When she disappointed herself in the lack of love at her side, she rested her hand on her stomach instead. There was barely a bump under her soft layer of fat yet. It had only been a handful of weeks, and only two since she’d found out. It’d take much longer for her to show. There was a worry in her brow as she stared at the darkness pooled above her in the dead of night. She was starting to wonder if making her final journey was a bad idea. The Fade was clearly fucking with her psyche, and being pregnant wasn’t much help to the way her brain was reacting to her eventful escapades. 

  Joetta pressed her palms over her eyes. No, she needed to go to Weisshaupt. She had a duty to fulfill. She had to make Varric proud, despite his last words to her being him insisting he go instead of her upon learning about her little predicament. It’ll be fine , she’d said. Let me have a last hurrah , she’d said. If she didn’t know how needed she was, she’d have accepted Varric’s offer. She could’ve been home again by now, or whatever home had become for her.

  She was almost tired of being needed. Needed was the only thing she knew how to be, though. She quietly accepted her fate and rolled onto her other side in the fetal position, cradling her stomach with both arms. She missed being needed in the way her siblings used to need her; her second helpings, her comfort, her coat. She wanted to be needed simplistically again. She wanted to be someone’s home. Maybe a new family was what she needed.

  Oh, she missed Fenris. She needed to be home.

Chapter Text

“Keeper!” Drynne hollered, his eyes narrowed sharply as he tracked after Deshanna. The old woman was walking away from him as quickly as she could without running, her frown hard and wicked. “You cannot just– Keeper! ”

  Deshanna turned glanced back over her shoulder at the young one – twin braids down his shoulders strung of gold from the sun itself, face made up of not-quite-girl and not-quite-boy, freshly inked with the Goddess of the Hunt. At the pause in her steps, Drynne paused as well, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Unsure of himself, she noted. He wasn’t confident yet in what he was trying to argue. He was too young yet, only seventeen.

  “You know not what you ask, da’len ,” Deshanna said, her voice low and haunting. She lifted a hand in front of herself as a warning. “You cannot ask that of me, of us . It’s far too dangerous.”

  Drynne’s huff was heavy, angry. His heel stomped into the ground beneath him. “My mother is still alive!” he spat. “She– she’s an elf. She loved stories of the Dalish. She’s the only reason I got the courage to come crawling to you lot, she deserves to be here!”

  Deshanna shook her head, her hand winding tighter around her staff. “ Da’assan ,” she started, soft and easy, “I will not bring my clan anywhere near Tevinter, and especially not Minrathous. You’re asking for an early graveyard, one full of everyone you care for. Is that what you want?”

  Drynne’s face scrunched tight, eyes shut. He pressed his thick hands to his frustrated temples, a hiss of breath escaping between his teeth. “I’m not asking for an early grave, I’m asking for my mother! ” he said. His voice was desperate and clawing. “Send me! Send me alone! I just– Keeper, I want my mamae! I need her!”

  The Keeper felt her heart sink at his words. It wasn’t hard to find it in his face, how young he was. He was like a puppy parted from his mother too soon, suckling blankets for warmth and comfort. Baring his teeth when he got too scared, and he got scared often . She knew if little Drynne had a tail, it’d be tucked between his knocking knees. She sighed as she watched him anxiously tug on his braids, carefully woven by the woman who had taken him in.

  “Is Lailani not enough for you?” Deshanna questioned, using her free hand to gesture to Drynne’s hair. “She cares for you like you were her own for the last eight years, and this is what you do? You still yearn for the one incapable of loving you as dearly? She allowed Andruil to guide you to us for a reason, da’len. Don’t be ungrateful.”

  “She deserves to be saved, too!” Drynne still fought, his throat raw from how long he’d been begging to deaf ears. “It’s not fair! Should the Dalish not seek the preservation of all elves? Does my mother deserve to know nothing but abuse?”

  Deshanna downturned her chin to better show her scowl. “No,” she said plainly, “though if the preservation of elves is the argument you are choosing to use – even if I send but five of our hunters into Minrathous to attempt a rescue, there are slim chances they would come back out. What of the preservation of those elves, Drynne? ”

  She practically spat his name upon his foot like it was nothing more than a curse – like she needed to remind him where he came from, why he had come to live in their clan in the first place. It made Drynne stumble back a few feet, blinking in a daze. He swallowed hard and thick, his golden eyes fluttering beneath white lashes. The breeze put emphasis on the rarity of his silence, the flyaways in his hair whisking back.

  Rather than backpedaling, though she knew she shouldn’t be so hard on the boy, Deshanna took a step closer and straightened her back. “You are a guest among my people,” she said, voice low and firm now, “I let you stay here, Drynne . I am doing the best I can to fight for the preservation of my people. Not yours. Not you .”

  She shoved down the guilt she felt boiling in her gut as she watched Drynne’s lips quiver, silver tears pooling in his sunflower eyes. He swallowed hard. He looked like he was shrinking in on himself – a strange look on the stocky, pompous child – and lowered his head as he stepped back. She’d achieved what she wanted, reminding him who he was. Not-quite-Dalish and not-quite-Vint.

  “ Ir abelas , Keeper,” Drynne whispered, “you’re right. Ir abelas .”

  He nodded a few times in acceptance, then footed backwards with his hands fiddling amidst themselves. He gave her a pained smile, sniffled in trying to hide the hurt that wrecked his body. Deshanna could see how his shoulders shook the moment he turned his back to her, disguising how he was falling apart by putting on a show with a skip in his step. He was good at that, she’d noticed. Making sure the sun was still shining when all evidence pointed towards an incoming dusk.

  She did what she had to do. She couldn’t risk her family for one child, especially not the child she never wanted to welcome into her clan in the first place. She had to remind herself, Drynne was as selfish and twisted as everyone else in the city he’d come from. She’d never let more of him into the clan she’d fought her whole life to protect, no matter how many more strays the Creators brought to her feet.

Chapter Text

It started between his thighs.

  Linise knew it from the moment he woke up. It was a unique kind of sore, like his core had been bruised. He laid as still as he could, staring at the way the sunrise barely illuminated the canvas of the tent yet. There were already tears in his eyes as he squeezed his legs tighter together. He felt dirtier than usual.

  He knew all too well, it was different than the sore he normally felt when he awoke beside his lover. The kind of pain he felt, it was one that brought inner turmoil. It brought the urge to carve his innards out with his own sword upon him. There was something inside of him that wasn’t supposed to be there. There was something invading his body.

  Despite all his best judgment pleading for him not to, Linise slipped a hand beneath the thin covers and into his linen trousers. He sucked his tongue as he dipped his first two fingers into himself, plunging into where it hurt. Wet, warm, red as wine. He put his clean hand over his mouth with a trembling sigh, his eyes drifting back shut. He was nauseated and starving all at the same time, his pelvis felt too big for his hips to handle, his gut was already squeezing and stirring like it was trying to rid itself of the unfamiliarity inside of him.

  He heard Zevran breathe to life beside him, rolling onto his side to sleepily sling an arm over Linise’s chest without much thought. It was then that Linise realized how tender his body felt, and he grimaced in discomfort. He felt cold, he felt warm. He tried to be discreet about shoving Zevran’s arm further down his torso, but everywhere he tried to relax it, it hurt .

  He hated it. His body was built to heal itself, but was prone to creating an open wound in the parts of him most sensitive. Tearing itself open again and again in the sake of killing him slowly. He squirmed under the covers. His stomach lurched with a surge of pain that shot from his core to his ribs, like the monster inside of him was trying to rip itself out. He wanted to rip it out himself, to extract all the worst parts of him. The corner of his eye caught the hilt of his sword, leant against the side of the tent. He wanted to pierce it into his naval. He wanted to slice off the parts of his chest that ached.

  The stifle of his breath made Zevran lift his head, eyes unable to open. “Lin,” he rasped, “what’s wrong?”

  Linise hesitated. He considered not telling Zevran, but he knew the pool of blood that would soon start seeping beneath him would give him away. “I’m bleeding,” he said, quiet and ashamed and emasculated. He turned his head to look at his lover with a soft frown, eyes big and sad.

  “You’re– what?” Zevran murmured, his eyes blinking open to glance between Linise’s face and limbs until his gaze cast to where the blanket hid the rest of the Warden’s body, where his insides were surely forming knots. “Ah. I see. Hmm.”

  Linise felt his throat hollow when Zevran scooted away from him and tossed away the pathetic excuse of a blanket, askew across Linise’s body. The Crow sniffled away a noseful of morning drip as he crawled over to his satchel. Was he leaving? He shouldn’t have said anything. He should’ve known better than to try to introduce Zevran to the snarling thing inside of him, the madman made of uterine lining throwing knives in all directions. He was about to roll over onto his side and leave his back facing Zevran, but the assassin straightened up after a moment and inched back over on his knees.

  Between his hands was a folded up wad of gray-brown rabbit pelt, cleaned and brushed to perfection. “Here,” he said, his voice still thick with drowsiness, “wear this. The women in the whorehouse I grew up in, they…they used rags. Alas, we don’t have many of those, so I’ve been…”

  Zevran cleared his throat, albeit awkwardly. He snuffled again, his jaw clicking as he offered the wad of fur to Linise, who stared at him with a confused furrow upon his brow.

  “For you,” he finished, insisting the makeshift cloth into Linise’s hands.

  Linise pushed himself up with his elbows, grunting softly with the effort. His lips parted in gratitude as he took the gift. He gazed at it, ran a thumb across the softness of it. It felt comfortable, if anything. “Oh,” he whispered, “thank you.”

  So that was why Zevran had been insisting on being the one to skin the animals they’d hunted for their suppers. Why he seemed to slip away to the nearest stream ‘for a wash’ a little too frequently. He’d been preparing for a morning like the one they laid in. How sweet.

  Linise didn’t waste time when it came to changing out of his bloodied trousers and smallclothes, his new set worn with the rabbit pelt comfortably between his legs. Zevran, despite being an early bird, had insisted they lie together a little while longer; Zevran laid on his back to bare his chest to Linise, allowing space to rest his head and curl up in a position he found that didn’t make him feel like he was being ripped apart. A late morning spent relaxing with his lover might soothe the oozing wound for a little while.

Chapter Text

It was the first time Joetta had been back in the Hanged Man since her mother died weeks prior.

  She wasn’t drinking, unusual for her, just bunkered in Varric’s suite above the bar. She laid curled up in his bed with as many of his blankets as she could find thrown over her body while the dwarf lounged in a chair in the corner of the room, idly nursing a pint of ale. It had been quiet for far too long. Joetta made sure she was out of tears to cry before leaving her estate in Hightown.

  “I think I wish I was dead, Varric,” Joetta said suddenly, staring at the wall as she stayed in the fetal position. She had bundled herself up tight enough that it would be difficult to move. Even her head had a blanket wrapped around it, an opening made only for her face to poke out so she could get some air.

  Varric’s lips curled into a dry smirk, and he scoffed before taking another slow swig of his drink. “No, you don’t, Chuckles,” he said against the rim of his mug, as sure as sunrise.

  His eyes stayed cast away from her depressed husk. She’d been like this for what felt like ages, wallowing and mumbling could-haves and should-haves and would-haves between her momentary bouts of suicidal ideation. He knew she would never, though. He knew that she knew what kind of havoc would ensue in her absence. What he didn’t know was what would become of him in her absence. The thought of any other death didn’t frighten him at all in comparison to how the thought of hers did.

  Varric sighed and rested his half-full cup on the arm of his chair. “You don’t wish you were dead,” he began to explain, his dark eyes finally falling to his best friend, “death just happens around you far too often, and now you’ve gone and tricked yourself into believing that you’re next. You’re not.”

  Joetta groaned and rolled over onto her other side so her back faced Varric, the sight making him smile with endearment. She was a bit like an overstuffed caterpillar, writhing in his bed the way she was. Quite the woman he’d found to be the protagonist of his own life.

  “How do you know? ” she argued, her tone that of a moody teen. She curled herself tighter into a ball and inched up the bed to lay her head on one of Varric’s pillows.

  “I know it because your story isn’t over yet,” Varric said, pointing a reassuring finger at her, though he knew she couldn’t see his gestures. He just liked to talk with his hands. It made him feel bigger than he was. “You’re in the aftermath of the climax now, Hawke. You’ve still got another story arc to get through before the epilogue.”

  Joetta flopped onto her back, arms splaying out as she threw the bundle of blankets in all directions. “I don’t want to be a story,” she complained, “I want my family again. I miss having a…”

  Her hands came up above her face, and she made a soft noise of frustration as she strangled the air. Varric could feel the ache in her chest by how sullen her face was. He’d never seen her eyes so devoid of joy in all the years he’d known her.

  “...A family ,” she finished, her fingers widening into a small explosion of feeling. She stared at each finger like it was the family she remembered; a mother, a father, three sisters and a baby brother. She closed one hand into a trembling fist. Five fingers down, only one Hawke left. She was always bound to be a tragedy. The pick of the litter out of her siblings, big and broad and strong. Smart as a fox, funny as a cockeyed drunk, and unforgettable as a first love.

  Varric shifted in his seat and pursed his lips, mindlessly lifting his drink to take another sip. He looked down at the floor with a sideways frown. “Aren’t we like family?” he asked, rhetorical. “I mean, after Bartrand, I…”

  Joetta hummed flatly, staring up at the ceiling above her. She stayed with her limbs spread out like the star she was. “Yeah, I guess we are,” she murmured, her red brows furrowing over brown eyes, “but it’s…you know.”

  “Not the same?”

  “Not the same, no.”

  Joetta looked at Varric with a downward curve to her lips, then moved onto her side again to prop her head up with her palm, elevated by her elbow. She looked from eye to eye, but he could tell she was using the depths of his soul as a distance to stare into as she thought. He couldn’t help but to tilt his head at her with a warm smile, a doting twinkle in his eye. She smiled back when she realized his affections, though her smile was bittersweet and as gentle as she was beautiful.

  “The hero always dies,” she said quietly, as though they weren’t the only two people in the room, “don’t they?”

  Varric clenched his jaw, but did his best to keep his smile. He’d said it himself – a story was only a good story if the hero died at the end. Not his Hawke, though. Not his Hawke. His heart felt like it wanted to stop at the mere idea of losing someone like her. He’d rewrite the very elements that made a good story himself if he had to, if it kept her alive.

  He turned his body towards her and leaned against the arm of the chair closest to her. “You’re not dying,” he said, just as quiet but twice as firm, “I won’t let you die, how about that?”

  Joetta broke into a small laughter, laying her head against her own bicep, thick with a soft layer of fat over the muscle. “Sure, Varric. Sure,” she responded once her laughter died down to a chuckle, “my trusty dwarf will protect me from my incoming death that will ultimately further the plot, whatever that may be.”

  “Damn right, I will,” Varric grinned, faking his confidence.

  Joetta snickered and shook her head in endearment, moving to lie on her back with her hands crossed over her ribs. The way she looked at him all but solidified his role in her story. Her best friend, her right hand that made her smile like that when everything else felt like it was falling apart around her. He remained the place she could come to and fall apart in, no matter how many years had passed and how many tragedies befell them. It was an honor.

  “I love you, Varric,” she broke the silence. Her words made Varric blink a few times, raising his brows as he subtly reeled. His mouth split into a breathlessness of a laugh, his hands clasping together as he adjusted in his seat. His eyes took a few seconds to count every freckle on her apple cheeks. He wanted to build a home between her teeth, to listen to her say that over and over again.

  He’d let her tear him apart, twigs from twine from timber. He’d make a Chantry out of it, or a whole new place to spread the religion she inspired within him. He wanted to love her until they became children again, if they could come to know each other so innocently. He was a candle on a nightstand. She was an unmade bed. The only thing he craved was to immortalize her in the form of prose, to declare her a figure worthy of being praised. He wanted to love her the only way he knew how.

  “I love you, Jo.”

Chapter Text

Solas was painting a mural on Drynne’s north wall while he decorated, a homecoming gift as he unpacked his belongings into his new quarters in Skyhold.

  Upon his dresser, Drynne placed two rabbit’s feet; one loose and one corded into a necklace. He readjusted some of the smaller items cluttered atop the piece of furniture, gathering some into his plain ceramic bowl that acted as a trinket tray. No matter what order he put his things in, nothing felt right. He sighed in frustration after another failed attempt and swept his necklace off of the dresser again, slipping it over his head. He didn’t bother fixing his hair to layer over it.

  He stepped away from the dresser to sit on the corner of his mattress instead, taking a moment to absorb whatever it was that Solas was painting on the brick wall. His eyes followed the long brushstrokes, his shoulders relaxed at the sound of breeze flowing in through the opening to the balcony.

  The mural was already beautiful, despite only a handful of hours being put into it yet. The eye of the Inquisition, golden iris turned into the sun itself. At the bottom of the blade that pierced it was an elf that was almost beginning to look like Drynne, but something that resembled more of a god. Winding brilliant hair that overtook the elf’s body, a body that was broad and strong enough it could handle the weight that hung above him, a chin upturned in a powerful confidence.

  “Who’s that?” Drynne asked, his usual smirk fitting onto his mouth despite himself. “That me?”

  Solas hummed shortly, glancing down as he dipped his paintbrush into the white, then the orange, stirring together to make something lighter to streak into the mural’s hair. “It could be,” he said simply, “if you wanted it to be.”

  Drynne huffed amusedly. He pushed off of the bed to walk over to where Solas sat cross-legged on the cobblestone floor. He stood beside his friend and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head down to look at him. “You think too highly of me, if you think I look like that,” he commented, gesturing a nod towards the painting. “I never wear my hair down, don’t know where you got that idea.”

  Solas rested his plank of wood that held all the different colors of paint in his lap. He tilted his head far back to look up at Drynne, the corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile. He squinted as though he were looking at the sun. “And why don’t you?” he asked. His tone sounded truly curious, though the mage always had a flare of curiosity about him. He lowered his head down again to glance over his paints.

  “I can’t go trekking the wilds with my hair to my ankles,” Drynne responded with a bouncy shrug, bringing a hand up to smooth down the flyaways at the crown of his braided hair. The braid alone fell past Drynne’s hips.

  He caught Solas’ eyes glancing to said hips, lingering as he trailed back up to Drynne’s smug face. There was a flash of smugness on Solas himself before he fully turned his head away to run his paintbrush down in waves, recreating the movement of his hair. “So my interpretation is correct,” he said, just as the tip of his brush came down to the bottom of the little Drynne-like figure. Down to its ankles. “I’d only been guessing.”

  Drynne’s brow twitched as he took in the comment. Such a smartass, he was.

  With a quick intake of breath, Solas continued. “I’m gifting this mural to you so you have something to remind you why we are here,” he explained, “the shining light in all of this. Amongst rifts and tears, you must be like the sun. To rise and fall beside your people without question. That is what they need of you, da’len.”

  Drynne puffed his cheeks and let out a slow breath through the thin slot of his mouth, eyes shooting sidelong. He reached his hands behind his head to unlatch his necklace and reclasp it beneath his hair. “That’s a tall order, gaildahlas . I’m only a man.”

  “Not to them,” Solas responded without hesitation, turning at the waist to look at Drynne through his lashes. Not to me , it looked like he wanted to say. He didn’t speak it, but his eyes said everything, the little reverent sparkle and all. “You’re just short of a god.”

  Drynne scrunched his nose skeptically. “Am I?” he strained his voice to show his uncertainty.

  Solas sighed through his nostrils and set down his palette and brush. He stood to his feet, taking a moment to take in the expanse of the mural he’d been building. Doubt flashed across his features, like he was second guessing the trust he held in his fellow elf. His eyes traveled up to the sun in the painting. It was the same golden shimmer as Drynne’s eyes.

  “You are,” he came back with firmness. “If not, you must become it.” He turned his body towards Drynne. He realized how close they were standing to each other. He noticed how tall Drynne was, how broad.

  He lifted a hand to rest on Drynne’s cheek, thumb smearing a streak of golden paint over the bigger man’s vallaslin. Drynne couldn’t tell if he knew the paint was there and he was being weird and symbolic again or if he was simply trying to show affection for his friend and made a mess on accident; either way, he couldn’t look away from the intensity of his eyes. The devotion in them.

  The way the pad of his thumb pressed into the soft of his cheek, it was as though he was trying to dig up the broken fragments of the Andruil-given gift his clan had claimed him to be. He wondered if Solas was trying to convince himself of Drynne’s holiness, be it by Andraste, by Andruil, whoever. He had to have been holy. He was too ordinary otherwise.

  “ Sathan ,” Please. “ Ma ela’ea .” You have to be.

Chapter Text

Zevran unclasped the necklace from behind Linise’s neck. He placed a soft kiss to the back of Linise’s head and settled his forehead against the soft of his buzzcut. He remembered when Linise first cut his hair so short. It had only been for easier maintenance, but it stuck. It made him feel handsome, he’d said. He was.

  He took one breath, two, then straightened up again to rest the necklace in the trinket bowl beside the mirror. He watched in the reflection as Linise’s hands, nicked and scratched, worked to unbutton Zevran’s loose linen shirt.

  Linise’s skin was revealed slowly but surely. His collarbone, his chest – it had broadened considerably since they met twenty years prior. It felt like a lifetime ago. Zevran reached a hand around to Linise’s front to trace down the ridges and grooves of the scars that mapped out the moment Linise became who he always felt he was. He helped his lover peel his open shirt down his shoulders. He smiled at the tired man that looked back at him in the mirror.

  Zevran leaned forward to trail a kiss from the corner of Linise’s eye to the curve of his jaw, the same trail a tear would take. Linise turned around in Zevran’s arms and, as he did every night, moved to unbutton his husband’s shirt as well. It was ritualistic, the way his hands skated down the slats of Zevran’s ribs like he was molding clay. He smiled as he tipped his chin up to look his lover in the face, though his eyes fell upon Zevran’s lips. He wasn’t strong enough to not look at what he wanted. Zevran gave him a breathless laugh, he was ridiculous. He kissed him anyway, short and sweet.

  Zevran held Linise’s face between both hands and kissed him again, this time on his forehead, perfectly in the middle of the vallaslin that split down his face. He slipped away a moment after and stepped to the bed to grab Linise’s sleep shirt, thick and long-sleeved. Linise followed and sat at the foot of the mattress. It was wordless, it was perfect, how in-sync their movements were; Linise lifted his arms, Zevran helped him slip his shirt on over his head. They were opposite in their nighttime clothes – Linise got far too cold far too quick, but Zevran was prone to overheating.

  Dressing wasn’t something Linise particularly needed help with, not anymore. Thirteen years had passed since Linise had some months of recovery where he couldn’t lift his arms over his head and did need help, but they never wanted the intimacy of being relied on to go away. It felt nice. It felt simple. They seldom were allowed the pleasantry of simple.

  It was right as a puzzle, the way Zevran’s legs came to bracket Linise’s waist as he moved down to sit in his lap. His face fit snugly in the crook of the old Warden’s neck, the dips in the vertebrae down his spine were just big enough for Linise’s fingertips to settle into. Zevran felt the chill of Linise’s wedding band against his back. It was practiced, how quickly the lines between them faded away and it became impossible to tell where one man stopped and another began. Every god was silent to make room for the sweet sounds of quiet breaths.

  Linise was far stronger than Zevran was, pulling him along with ease as he scooted back in the bed so he could lie his head on a pillow and Zevran could lie atop him. They held onto each other like they were keeping each other alive. To hold a lover before bed, it was more profound than any prayer.

Chapter Text

It had to have been divine intervention that Joetta was still alive, let alone conscious.

  Her hands trembled, all the cuts and slashes at her palms and arms burned as her sobbed tears flooded into them. The body in her arms, her father’s body, was cold and his skin was sickly blue underneath the smattering of red. She’d done the one thing she promised to Malcolm she’d never do – she had tried her options until blood magic was her only choice. She just couldn’t lose her father. She had no other choice but to try.

  It was odd. Even in death, he looked disappointed in her. He’d never had a preconceived notion of who he wanted her to become, but she felt like she had become the opposite of the kind of woman he’d want his eldest daughter to be. She could picture the disgust on his face if he’d walked in on her in the back of the barn, hushing prayers into a dead body.

  Before his illness had taken him, Malcolm had been preparing her, trying to lend her grief from the future. She’d known it was coming, the certainty that awaited her family.

  He’d said it was the Maker’s will. Well, maybe, she thought, the Maker couldn’t see the things Joetta could see. He couldn’t see the way Malcolm smiled when he’d pick up Joetta and her twin sister, Rhiannon, when they were children. How the two girls would squeal with laughter in the arms of their father. He couldn’t see the way he wept with joy when he held Carver for the first time. He couldn’t see the pride in his eyes when two of his girls became fit to truly lead his legacy with magic at their fingertips. He couldn’t see the way Malcolm’s knuckle would sweetly trace the pieces of hair that framed Leandra’s face.

  The Maker couldn’t see Malcolm’s humanity. He only saw the genesis and the denouement of his life, the beginning and the end. Joetta held the ending between her hands and had tried too desperately to give it a good epilogue. The crimson stained him, soaking his ginger hair a darker color than it should have been. She stained him bloodier than he should have been.

  If the Maker couldn’t see who Malcolm was underneath the stains she left on his family name, perhaps He was a god she didn’t want to believe in. How could He not see that Malcolm deserved to live? How could He let her fail to allow him to? To herself, she swore in spite, she would spread Malcolm’s ashes somewhere the Maker couldn’t reach him.

  Joetta looked at her arms that would surely cover in scars, nasty reminders of the failure she had become. She’d carved pieces out of herself that would never be touched again, slid her fingers through the bloodied slits in poor attempts at deifying herself. She was a fool. She couldn’t recreate Malcolm’s soul like it was something she could weave with her own two hands, as much as she’d like for it to be that simple. She wished it was as simple as the feeling felt – the feeling of wanting her dad.

  She felt it in her chest. Religion was slipping through her fingertips between each drop of blood.  She was still a little girl who believed in her father like he wanted her to believe in a god.

Chapter Text

The cold bite of Emprise du Lion’s winter air pinkened Drynne’s cheeks as he laughed at an offhand comment Varric made at the expense of Cassandra’s pride. Dorian did his best to hide his smirk, Cassandra groaned and rolled her eyes as she always did. The dwarf was always good at making light of an otherwise bitter situation – like the one they found themselves in at the very moment, having to make idle chatter to drown out the hum of red lyrium surrounding them.

  Drynne’s ax came down on the node of red lyrium, making the deposit shatter little by little with each strike. His three traveling companions made sure to stand a reasonable distance away, as to not get scratched by any flying shards. They’d all taken proper caution of Varric’s warnings to not touch it under any circumstances.

  When the request arose, Drynne had been more than happy to take up the job of destroying as many nodes and deposits as he could for Varric. He got to swing his ax the same way he did when he was home in his clan, when he was a simple woodsman. He missed the days before he was sent to the Conclave, the days where he could wake up late, feel the warmth of his wife’s lips on his cheek. A smile settled on his face as he ruminated on the mornings they’d share a joint of lavender before he’d get to work, supplying Lavellan with as much wood as they needed to get by.

  Drynne brought his weapon down one more time with an especially shattering crack . Ruby fragments and splinters flew in all directions, and in a flash of a second, the Inquisitor felt the smallest of scrapes slice over his cheek, followed by a small spark of energy that warmed his ears..

  The moment the reality of what had happened struck him, he didn’t know if it was his own psyche or the effects of the lyrium, but his heart fell down into his stomach. Drynne squealed in fear and dropped his ax, scrambling backwards until he tripped and landed on his ass. His companions all shouted and jumped out of the way of the collapse of the massive man. He held his gloved hand to his face and cradled the small wound with a whine.

  “It touched me! It touched me!” he shouted, uncharacteristically high-pitched and anxious, his golden eyes wide and panicked. He tried turning his head to look at Varric for help, but in his tumble, he’d sat on his lengthy braid and rendered his head immobile. “Varric, it touched me!”

  Confused and concerned, Varric was quick to fall to a knee at Drynne’s side and clap a hand onto his shoulder in an attempt to catch his attention. “Woah, woah, Goldie,” he said, slow and steady, “calm down. It’s just– give me your hand– see, it’s just a scratch. You’re fine. You’ll be fine.” His hand came to Drynne’s cheek to replace the elf’s hand, thumbing away the sliver of blood that prickled out of the lush brown skin.

  Drynne still scrambled, pushing himself onto his hands and knees. He knew it was all in his head with a wound so small, but that was the problem. The slightest blow of anxiety and he had been reduced to a paranoia-infested mess, ears muffled by a low buzz. He pressed his cheek to the snowy ground and rubbed , as though he could cleanse himself of the effects of the mineral. The freeze shocked him into a shuddering gasp, but he kept his face to the ground despite it.

  Cassandra and Dorian exchanged uncomfortable glances. Drynne was ritualistically calm and mellow and smooth. One scrape from the red lyrium, and it brought him to his knees in a predator-animal-like abject terror. The Seeker was the first to bring her gaze back to the Inquisitor, her lips parted as she pondered the uncertainty of her words.

  “Lord Inquisitor – Drynne,” she started, “you must gather yourself. We need to–”

  Dorian cut her off by stepping forward and sighing, bending down to grab two handfuls of bicep to hoist Drynne up to his feet. “Up, up we get,” he said through a disgustedly wrinkled nose, “let’s stop rolling in the dirt and get a move on, yes?”

  Drynne whimpered and leaned his heavy body into the mage, using his non-anchored hand to dig into his strapping robes and hold himself up. The graze on his cheek had begun idly oozing again, and Dorian thinned his lips into the line between annoyed and concerned as he wiped it away with the back of his finger.

  At the gentle touch of leather, Drynne’s mouth fell agape as he closed his eyes in a soft breath. He furrowed his brows beneath the oncoming pressure of a soft, squeezing headache. He inhaled deep. He was starting to climb down from his panic. The miniscule amount of contact with the lyrium likely meant the reaction would be minimal as well. He adjusted his lean, removing his arm from Dorian’s grasp and instead throwing it over his shoulders.

  The edges of his vision were blurred, so he pressed his other palm to one eye and let out a dry, embarrassed huff of a laugh. He felt an arm wrap protectively around his thick midsection, and Drynne pressed further into the other body that supported his weight. Something about it felt like the best comfort he could be offered, something felt familiar in the way he felt a thumb stroke beneath his ribs. His smile got a little bigger as he relaxed into his partner, keeping his eyes blissfully shut.

  “Ah…s– ha , sorry, Uvvie, I–”

  Drynne’s jaw twitched as he interrupted himself. His newly-clear eyes shot open and he looked down at Dorian, not U’vunlea, who was now squinting at him in an otherwise unreadable expression. That was a lie – whatever little Drynne could read, he could pick up that he wasn’t happy. The Inquisitor gulped, finding himself in the rarity of speechlessness.

  “Uvvie?” Dorian cocked a brow.

  “It’s, ah…” Drynne thought quickly, flashing Dorian a toothy grin, as charming as he could possibly get. “It’s Elvhen. Baby .”

  Dorian could tell he was bullshitting. Firstly, Drynne was bad at bullshitting. Secondly, both of them knew that he’d retold the tragic tale of the day he lost his wife and unborn child more than once, recounted each syllable of her name like it was the finest prayer someone could whisper. He knew the name U’vunlea as well as he knew the constellation pattern of moles on the back of Drynne’s left shoulder. The lie made his tongue press to the soft of his cheek in bitterness.

  While Varric cut the silence with an incredulous snicker, Cassandra stepped over to where Drynne dropped his ax and lifted it with one hand, as easy as plucking a blade of grass. Dorian removed his arm from around the Inquisitor’s body and gave him a small shove in Cassandra’s direction when she offered him the hilt of his discarded weapon.

  “Now that you’re standing,” Cassandra spoke, deciding to ignore the awkwardness of the exchange and the hard frown from Dorian, “let’s not waste time. We’ve a keep to capture, Inquisitor.”

Chapter Text

Manvena Sabrae was the Keeper’s Second – second best to Merrill. She was cold and calculated and borderline cruel. Whatever she had to do to get as high up on the ladder as she possibly could, she would do it without question. There was no woman in their clan more indomitable than she.

  Beside the crackle of campfire and the sweet smoke of a lavender blunt, though, Manvena was Linise’s big sister.

  The curly-headed girl smiled as she took a draw from the cigarillo between her fingers. She tilted her head back to look at the moon at its peak while she listened to Linise tell his little story. She slowly let go of the smoke, watching it curl around the light in the sky as if it were a wolf’s howl. She turned her face back towards her little brother and cocked her head to the side.

  “...then Tamlen and I, we– we heard this these two shem kids from the village – we could tell ‘cause the accent – and we, um, we went to scare him off,” Linise’s face slowly split into a giggling grin, “and Tamlen had the idea to make them think we were a bear.”

  Manvena’s face melted into a soft, warm smile that didn’t look like something she could wear easily. Her green eyes glittered hazel when the firelight caught them. She pressed her knees together and rested an elbow on them, her other hand nursing her snout against her lips. They weren’t blood related, but hers and Linise’s noses twitched the same when they let out soft, breathy laughs. He felt like a dog raised by cats when he was around her, poorly trying to mimic something that didn’t come all too natural to him.

  “What did you do?” Manvena asked, reaching across to the other end of the log she sat upon to pass the blunt to Linise. “To scare them away, I mean.”

  “Well,” Linise furrowed his brow as he took a puff that was a little too big for him, coughing it out with a fist to his lower lip, “we didn’t do it very well. We tried making some stomping noises and roaring and all that, but they just got weirded out and left. We didn’t sound very much like a bear.”

  Manvena let out an amused hum, raising her brows with a lopsided smirk. Her little brother was endearing to her, awkward and twitchy at best, irritatingly socially inept at worst. She found herself thinking of him instead of listening. As she looked at him, really looked – the dash of blue in his big brown eyes, the scarred cleft in his lip, the patches of pale amidst his brown skin – she found his humanity. She almost felt as though she could see the small intimacy of his soul as he sat beside her.

  “I like that Tamlen,” she said, tipping her head in Linise’s direction, “he’s funny, isn’t he?”

  She took a mental note of the way Linise’s cheeks turned pink and his quiet laugh got a little more bashful. Aww. Her baby brother had a crush. She didn’t think the boy knew how to do that, to find beauty in something as simple as a friend.

  “I like Tamlen, too,” was all Linise said, staring down as he poked at the dirt with his big toe. He let his too-long fringe fall over his eyes, hiding his blush behind the streak of white amidst his black hair that grew from the crown of his head.

  Manvena looked into the fire while Linise took a second hit, that time without hacking up a lung. She’d die for Linise, she found herself thinking. As much as she hated him and all that he wasn’t, he was the only person she’d ever known to be able to pull her out of her bouts of being stuck in her own head, dedicated to drowning herself in puddles of hard-to-reach dreams that part of her knew she’d never be able to achieve anyway.

  She could barely even achieve being his big sister in a way that mattered. She couldn’t handle a fussy brother and she expected to be able to handle the entire clan someday. What a foolish girl she had to have been.

  Child of fire , was what Linise meant, Manvena remembered as she stared into the crackle before them. She brought her eyes up to her brother’s face, catching him focused on his poor attempts at puffing out a smoke ring, his nose wrinkling and his tongue poking out. Manvena thought of how angry he was in his day to day life, how different it was from the way he was acting now. She reflected inward; she saw a reflection of herself in him, the way she always acted so bitter and closed off.

  “Sometimes I forget why I ever hated you,” came out of Manvena’s mouth before she realized it. The words gave both of them pause.

  Linise all but choked on the smoke in his mouth and he quickly smacked a hand over it to try and cough into his palm, though his bewildered eyes said everything. The tower of tension built between them had caught on fire, or perhaps it had been on fire for a while, and Manvena’s eyes begged him to leave it. To join her. Her name translated to road of water for a reason. She couldn’t leave the tower without him.

  Maybe Ashalle knew before either of them were even conceived that there would be a collapsing construct between her children someday and there were only two ways it could go; Manvena could leave the past in the past, stop blaming Linise for his mother’s death, and douse out the flame between them. Or Linise could refuse forgiveness, she wouldn’t blame him, and keep fanning the flames forever.

  Linise used the back of his hand to unsurely wipe a spot of spit from the corner of his lips that had spilled out amidst his shocked coughing. He lowered his hand, lowered his defenses, and stared warily at his sister. She’d admitted to him the worst parts of herself – the part that hated him. He swallowed thickly and made slow movements as he handed the blunt back to her. The longing in his gaze made him look just like his mother.

  “Oh,” was all he whispered. He decided to let the moonlight in his eyes do the talking. It said he forgave her. She felt like she could breathe.

Chapter Text

“I don’t feel like a champion,” Joetta said.

  Varric glanced up at the newly-appointed Champion of Kirkwall from behind his pitcher. He watched as Joetta sipped from her own. He tilted his head quizzically, and she understood his question without him having to say a word out loud. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, her eyes brown as a cozy sweater became downcast. Her lips parted with a deep inhale as she tried to figure out how to put her feelings to words.

  “I feel like a scared dog with a sword in its mouth,” she decided. “Does that make sense?”

  Varric was an author. Of course it made sense to him. Even still, he cocked his head to the other side with an easy smile. He always found it easy to smile at her. “Explain that to me,” he said, a soft command. It wasn’t hard to pry her open.

  Joetta shifted in her seat, glancing around the bustling Hanged Man. “I feel…like all of this is too big for me and I don’t know what I’m doing,” she continued, “and I’ve been given a paper shield and a wooden sword. Swatted on the ass and told to get a move on, to…I don’t know. Take on the world, or something. But I-I’m just– I feel like a kid.”

  “You’re twenty-eight.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  “Ah.” Varric nodded thoughtfully and looked down into his mug, pursing his lips. He did his best to hide his frustration. Joetta was a feeler and even yet, she was giving him metaphors and similes rather than telling him how she really felt. He’d strangle her with the red string that tied them together if he could. She’d taken after him too well. “Hawke, I love ya, but you keep telling me bullshit after bullshit.”

  Joetta frowned and crossed her arms over her chest before leaning her upper body against the table. She sighed heavily and fussed a hand through her hair. “I’m just fuckin’ tired, Varric,” she huffed under her breath, “there’s been so much shit happening this year. I just want a break. I feel like becoming the ‘champion,’ whatever that means, is just taking away any chance I had of that. Now everybody’s going to depend on me. Hawke this, Hawke that, y’know.”

  Varric rested his cup on the table and leaned forward, keeping his eyes steady on her face with his mouth pressed into a thin line. She had to have been hearing herself. “Jo,” he spread his hands with an incredulous laugh, “everybody already depends on you. Everybody always has. Everything you’ve ever told me about your family, everybody has always depended on you. You’ve been doing this your whole life, you just have a title a little grander than big sister now.”

  That didn’t seem to be what Joetta wanted to hear. She reeled her head back and shot Varric a certain type of glare he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen from her before, but he wasn’t particularly upset by it. He knew she needed to hear it. He steeled his face and mimicked her posture, crossing his arms over his chest as he awaited a response from her. He made sure to keep his following thoughts inside his head until she did – silence would give her no choice but to speak.

  “I’m not a big sister anymore,” she finally murmured, “why should I have to act like it?”

  There was truth in her words. Carver and Rhiannon wanted nothing to do with her anymore, and Bethany…was gone. Had been gone for some years, and Joetta could still be found running her thumb over the name embroidered into her pillowcase at night, an old shirt of Bethany’s that she’d had turned into something to use as a reminder. Varric remembered the night Joetta realized it didn’t smell like Bethany anymore. He hadn’t heard her cry like that since.

  “Because you’re good at it,” Varric said matter-of-factly. “If your siblings can’t see how hard you try, that’s on them. I see it. This shithole city sees it. You’re the kind of older sibling I wish I’d had when I was a kid, Hawke.”

  Joetta let out a sharp breath and tipped her chin down, the way she always did when he’d said something that hit her particularly hard. “Dammit, Varric,” she whispered. She was quiet for a moment, and he let the pause hang in the air. He knew she needed it. She often reprimanded him for how often he knew what she needed.

  “You deserve this,” he said when he decided the pause was long enough. “You do more for Kirkwall than you should. It’s about time they gave you some recognition.”

  Joetta’s shy smile almost seemed silly, when Varric remembered what it looked like splattered with the blood of the Arishok just a handful of weeks prior. She was loud and boisterous and a little too much, but when she got caught in a one-on-one situation where she didn’t have to pretend to be nothing but a charming smile, she was different. Quiet, sensitive. Still funny, just less raunchy about it. She was a sweetheart. He wished she knew.

  She didn’t say anything more, leaning back in her seat to mull over Varric’s words. She picked up her pint and downed the rest of it, slamming it back down on the table with a soft exhale. He smirked at the sight and gestured his head towards the mug.

  “Another round for the champion?” he asked. He knew what he was doing.

  Joetta laughed, short and light. She shook her head and looked down at the dwarf across the table. Part of him wished they could stare at each other like that, doting and half-drunken, forever. The brief moment of it was enough for him, though. He was proud to have it for even a second.

  “Yeah, ‘nother round.”

Chapter Text

“Is this your idea of a date, then?” Dorian said with a surprised tilt in his voice, gesturing to the dingy table between them. His smile was small and incredulous, like he couldn’t believe Drynne’s audacity.

  Drynne shook his head defensively, waving a hand in front of them. He let out a laugh from his gut, the corners of his eyes squinting with humor. “No, no, love,” he tried to get out through his laughter, “I misspoke, I misspoke! Believe me, fenor , you are worth endlessly more than a dingy tavern. Hand over my heart , you are.”

  It was too late into the night, the Herald’s Rest was bustling as quietly as it usually was. Dorian and Drynne had wanted to do something a little more exciting than chatting in Skyhold’s library for once, for it was no secret that Drynne loved to have fun. Maryden’s soft music had dulled into a hushed musing in the background, strings idly plucked. She’d likely be packing up for the night soon, leaving the two men alone with the bartender and two of Bull’s Chargers – Skinner and Rocky, if Drynne remembered correctly.

  Drynne thought Dorian’s smile was pretty. His eyes were silver like they were coming from the moon itself, the twinkle in them akin to little stars. The way he nibbled the side of his lower lip to try to squash his smile was flirtatious at worst, painstakingly sexual at best. “And what am I worth, Inquisitor?” he asked, playfully pointed.

  A groan slipped through Drynne’s grin as he exaggeratedly outstretched his arms over the table, mocking defeat as he laid his chest on the fine wood. “Don’t call me Inquisitor , I don’t want to be the Inquisitor tonight,” he whined like a fussy child would, though he giggled between every few words. “Please, just Drynne me. I want to be just Drynne.”

  Dorian snickered at the dramatic display of the older man, leaning back in his chair with his hand firmly wrapped around his mug of ale. “Well, just Drynne,” he mused slowly, “what am I worth, if not a first date in a dingy tavern? One named after you, no less.” After muttering the end of his sentence, he raised his brows and took a small sip of his drink. It wasn’t very good ale, honestly, he’d been nursing it. It tasted dirty and too thick.

  Drynne sat up straight again, thinning his lips in feigned deep thought. He hummed and pressed a finger to his puffed-out lips, his golden eyes gazing into silver. “You, ir'ina'lan'ehn, deserve a night not even the highest amounts of gold can buy,” he purred, his voice intentionally low and hypnotic, “one where we’re made to glimmer beneath the moonlight, imagine it – a kiss to the back of your hand is where the devouring begins.”

  Dorian couldn’t hide his amused scoff, cocking his head to the side as he watched Drynne draw his tongue across his lower lip, leaning a little closer with his elbows on the table. His pauses were well-timed, his words chosen carefully and tactfully.

  “I’d trace my fingers along the veins in your wrist that would guide me to your heart,” Drynne whispered, dragging two fingers down his own wrist as demonstration, “and I’d kiss you there, too. Right over your heart. I can see it in my head, how beautiful you’d look. I’d do my best to keep it chaste, but how could I, when you look like that? I’d kiss you until you became ara ematha’av . My…what is the word? My comfort food, I guess, is the closest word. Or at least until you’d ask me to stop. Have you ever been devoured like that, Dorian?”

  Dorian’s face didn’t seem very impressed by his array of flowery, perfectly-arranged words. He took another sip of his lackluster booze. “You’re perverted.” He set his mug down on the table with a soft thump . His lips had a wiry amount of interest that kept the corners quirked up. “What book did you steal that from?”

  “Why tell you, when I could read it to you?” Drynne’s flirting was peculiar and persistent. “I take it you’d rather be handled gently. No biting. Yes?”

  Dorian pursed his lips as he considered, crossing one leg over the other. “Yes,” he finalized, “no biting. Try again.”

  The elf hummed again, pretending to be stumped as he pushed against the back of his chair and crossed his burly arms over his barrel chest. Just as he thought Dorian was pretty, Dorian thought he was pretty, too. He had the longest hair he’d ever seen on a man, his braid alone almost touched the floor while he sat. His face was chiseled and his lips were full and his golden honey eyes were sickeningly sweet and his white lashes were long and soft. His shirt – sleeves rolled to his elbows, first few buttons undone – revealed more tattoos than he was used to seeing on a Dalish. Not that he’d seen many, he had to admit. He was too pretty to be as kind as he was trying to act.

  “Maybe a night you deserve would cost me a pretty penny after all,” he said simply, the softness a touch more genuine. “I’d bring you to a nice dinner. I’d spoil you, get you whatever you wanted. I wouldn’t touch until you told me to. But I’ve noticed you smile a certain way when I do so much as put a hand on your back, so…you’d be asking for my touch frequently, yeah?”

  He could see right through Drynne. Through the golden glimmer that he always projected, there was a version of a man he tried to hide. He dressed himself up in every sense of the word to lure in his prey – the animal artwork had chosen to use to symbolize him was a rabbit or hare, but Dorian could see the lion behind his fanged smile.

  He knew what the lion sought after. The lion was insecure and lonely. It wanted someone to tell it when it did a good job, even if it didn’t accomplish what it wanted to. It wanted to be told it was handsome. It was begging to be noticed and adored, unashamed and unabashed. He wanted to run his hands through the lion’s mane and bring it to its knees.

  “I’d make you breakfast in the morning,” Drynne tried again, uncomfortable in Dorian’s silence, “and you could wear my shirt. I’ve got a lot of shirts. Nothing flashy like you like, though. I’d carve you a pendant, if you’d like that. Whatever you wanted.”

  Whatever Dorian wanted came up in each of Drynne’s offers. He was always desperate, he was just getting more and more obvious with it. The poor lion, it just wanted to be loved, for someone to rub its belly as though it was something as docile as a housecat and not something that could be so vicious. Poor Drynne, trying to act like the housecat he could never be. The lion, it hardly knew what housecats acted like. It was a shameful mockery of what sweetness a cat could bring.

  The lion could be taught.

  Dorian finally gave Drynne an easy smile. “Just…pay for my drink,” he offered, and received an enthusiastic nod. He wanted to know who Drynne was, truly.

Chapter Text

Morning came far too quickly for Linise’s liking.

  Through the wooden slats of the aravel, the sun greeted Linise first. He was warm, sticky with sweat from the night before. In his brief attempt at moving, he became aware of the weight on his stomach. He turned his gaze downwards and was met with Tamlen’s head on his navel, arms wrapped tightly in the gap between the floor and the arch of Linise’s back. The slowness of Tamlen’s breathing was evidence enough that he was still sleeping.

  Linise still couldn’t believe they’d done that. Innocent snuggling with his dearest and oldest friend had evolved into slow kisses, then lazy gropes, and before there was time to stop and process what they were doing, Tamlen’s head had ended up between Linise’s thighs.

  His hands skated through Tamlen’s hair, soft blond he’d never dreamed of being able to touch in such a way. He hadn’t realized how greatly he loved Tamlen until he said it first, but now, it felt as though Tamlen was the only person he could confidently say he loved without having to turn his eyes away in shame. Tamlen had never been ashamed of him, nor was he ashamed to admit how Linise had been his token of affection for quite some time.

  Tamlen’s breath drew out against Linise’s bare stomach when he felt his hair get tucked behind his pointed ear. He stirred awake, burrowing his nose into the breastbone of his young love. The first thing he did was smile at the simple fact that he held Linise between his arms. He lifted his head enough to look at him through his lashes. His eyes sparkled like he was looking at something worth gazing at – the purple in the midnight sky, the way the sunrise peeked over the dewed mountaintops. Certainly not Linise, he couldn’t help but think.

  “ On’dhea ,” Tamlen rasped, inching up Linise’s body to rest his chin between his breasts. Good morning . He took in a deep breath and pressed his lips to Linise’s collarbone; not a kiss, just a reverent press. It felt too gentle to be real. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had been so careful with him.

  “ On’dhea, vhenan ,” Linise greeted in return, both hands coming to cup each of Tamlen’s warm cheeks, fresh and puffy with his newly-earned vallaslin. He felt the younger man’s arms hold him tighter, trying to get even closer than their bodies could ever allow. Tamlen was always so warm. Not like a lizard basking in the sun, but like the way fingers felt after releasing an arrow. Like the way the sun browned him. A dream of a boy, he was.

  “Did you sleep well?” Tamlen asked, kissing at Linise’s chest once, twice, each soft embrace biting as milk and harsh as a baby’s first snow.

  When Tamlen touched him, Linise almost forgot what anger felt like. He made Linise feel like an abandoned dog. He was too good at violence and Tamlen was too good at forgiveness, at faith. He couldn’t understand why he was Tamlen’s kernel of faith, the one he considered to be the brightest light he’d ever seen. Linise didn’t deserve such praise. From his mother’s womb, he was destined for insignificance. Every gaze he met was a glare earned, not by his own actions, but from his mother’s sin of falling in love.

  “I slept perfect,” he whispered. His shoulders relaxed into his pillows as he felt Tamlen nuzzle back into his chest, hands raking up his back until they were wedged between his shoulder blades like a toothpick between teeth. He encased him in intimacy like there was no better use for his body.

  Linise was his mother’s son. His cardinal sin was always destined to be falling in love.

Chapter Text

Guilt consumed Joetta from the inside out as she watched Rhiannon sob while she shoved as many of her belongings as she could into a backpack.

  “I-I can’t believe you would desecrate him like that,” her twin sister choked out, “you– he– he was so bloody .” Grief knocked at Rhiannon’s knees, sending her falling to them. She dropped her sack onto the ground and buried her face in her hands, her cries striking Joetta’s chest with every breath as she watched her fall apart from the doorframe.

  Joetta, in her poor attempts at restarting Malcolm’s stilled pulse, had wailed a little too loudly from the barn. Rhiannon had heard and came running. She had started screaming like she’d witnessed a cold-blooded murder – she had, though. The death of the respect she held for her older sister. To see Joetta, curled over their father’s limp body with blood seeping from her arms and onto his chest, did nothing but add to the trauma of losing him to begin with. It had looked as though Joetta was trying to eat his heart out.

  Rhiannon took one unsteady breath, trying to steel herself before going back to shoving her things into her bag; a few more shirts, her childhood teddy, one of Havok’s old collars that he’d grown out of. “He told you– he told you to never unless you had to–”

  “I did have to!” Joetta shouted in defense, throwing her arms up in the air. “The only other option would’ve been to live without him!”

  Rhiannon whipped her head around to glare at Joetta, her frown hard and hateful. “Then you take that option,” she huffed, “if your only other option is blood magic , you are out of options. That’s what he always used to say. To you and Bethany.”

  Joetta thinned her lips and took a step into their room, the room they’d shared since they were children. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t ready,” she started quietly, “I couldn’t lose him yet, I still– I still needed him, Rhia.”

  In the middle of shakily folding a shirt, Rhiannon slammed it down into her lap. She started rocking back and forth in her anger. “He’d be disgusted by you,” she spat cruelly, “you’re acting so selfishly, Jo, I can’t– you are so selfish . The Maker decided it was his time, and you tried to rip him away from a peaceful afterlife because you’d miss him? You don’t think anyone else would miss him? You don’t think I miss him? Well, I do. A lot. And I know better than to try and tell the Maker He’s wrong.”

  Joetta bit her tongue and reeled back. Her and Rhiannon had had their spouts in the past, but she’d never been so…hurtful. She didn’t look like she was going to take them back, either. Oh, Maker, she meant them. She meant them.

  “I don’t believe in the Maker,” Joetta admitted under her breath, her body frozen and her eyes blinking owlishly. She didn’t know what else to say. “So I…don’t believe he was supposed to die.”

  “Of course, you decide to stop believing in the Maker,” Rhiannon muttered under her breath, turning her reddened face downwards again to resume her hurried packing, “you love to rid yourself of all the good things in your life. All the things that help. Gives you more reason to make yourself the victim, right?”

  Joetta swallowed hard and blinked away the lining of tears in her eyes, watching in agony as Rhiannon stood to her feet to grab her makeup bag. “I would never believe in a god that rips my father away from me when I still need him,” she said, stepping closer to Rhiannon, hot on her heels. “What kind of god would do that, huh? Split up a perfectly happy family? Sounds like an evil god to me , Rhia!”

  Rhiannon silently shook her head, her lips closed tight. She looked tired of fighting. It was all she and Joetta had been doing since Malcolm’s passing, and finding them the way she did was her final straw. Seeing her cram her makeup bag into her backpack was something that gutted Joetta whole, as though the redness of her organs was what colored her lipstick so crimson.

  Leandra, Bethany and Carver weren’t home. All four of them were supposed to be gone, which was why Joetta had chosen then to perform the ritual. Rhiannon had just come home far too early. It occurred to Joetta that that could be the very last time Rhiannon ever came home. Her lower lip trembled as Rhiannon pushed past her to leave their room for the last time.

  “Rhia,” Joetta called after her, her footsteps heavy with unreality as she followed her sister. “Rhia, please. Rhiannon. Rhiannon! ”

  Rhiannon stopped in the hall, turning at the waist to jut a sharply-nailed finger into Joetta’s chest. “You don’t get to do that,” she said firmly, “you don’t get to decide who stays and who leaves. Not me, not Dad. And don’t even think about doing some– weird– don’t blood magic me into staying.”

  “Rhia, I wouldn’t –”

  “I don’t believe you anymore,” Rhiannon shook her head and took two steps back. “You always swore up and down you’d never, ever in a million years use blood magic. Then I find you destroying the body of the very man who taught it to you, who told you to never resort to it. Could you imagine how betrayed he’d feel? Look at what you’ve done to yourself.” She gestured loosely to Joetta’s arms, sliced-open wounds just crusted over with blood.

  “Rhia, you can’t leave,” Joetta insisted, “what would Mother think? What would she do? ”

  “She’ll blame you,” Rhiannon shrugged. She didn’t care any longer. “As she should – she’s a smart woman. She’ll know it’s your fault.”

  Joetta choked on the breath she dragged in, her hands curling into fists. She felt the muscle pull, threatening to rip her cuts and slashes open again. “Don’t say that…” she said hoarsely, brokenly.

  Rhiannon resumed her leave, taking long strides towards the door. Again, Joetta stayed close behind. She felt panic rising further up her throat. She couldn’t let her leave. She couldn’t lose her father and her sister in the same few days. Rhiannon had always been her best friend, and had supported her through everything. She couldn’t imagine her life without her sister. She didn’t want to imagine life without her sister. Rhiannon’s hand on the doorknob was the nail in the coffin that confirmed Joetta was the Maker’s most hated creation.

  “Rhiannon,” Joetta pleaded one last time, her hand flying up to catch her sister’s shoulder, “you– you can’t go. Where will you go?” There was nothing but desperation in her eyes, and it worsened when Rhiannon looked back at her. Their eyes were the same deep brown, their cheeks the same smattering of freckles. She savored the sight.

  “I don’t know,” Rhiannon admitted after a momentary pause, “I just can’t be here anymore. Not after that. I can’t stand by and watch you succumb to this…”

  Her gaze traveled down Joetta’s arm until it landed on the hand that palmed her shoulder. She lifted her own hand to rest atop it, soaking in the last bit of warmth she’d ever get from her big sister. It was enough to bring her pause, but not enough to make her stay.

  “...this temptation,” she concluded.

  Joetta felt her body lurch with heartbreak. She didn’t feel her body falling, she only felt the jolt of pain when her knees hit the ground. She was losing her sister, her savior. She was losing Rhiannon. She could feel the absence of her in the house already.

  “Joetta,” Rhiannon crouched down to her level. It was her turn to put a hand on Joetta’s shoulder, coaxing her to lift her head and make eye contact. “Remember two things for me.”

  Joetta lifted her head like she was being tugged up by the roots of her hair. Her throat ached as she tried to hold in her devastating tears, gasping for air before the loss even began. As she stared into Rhiannon’s eyes, all she wished was to absorb the grief she saw deep within them.

  “One; that I love you, but I will never forgive you,” Rhiannon whispered, “and two; you did this.”

  Rhiannon stood up. She didn’t look back before closing the door behind her. She didn’t slam it like Joetta expected her to, but Rhiannon never got angry like that. She didn’t get angry the way Joetta got angry, the kind that made her do things like slam doors and say things she didn’t mean. Rhiannon was intentional. She was smart, calculated. She always knew what she was doing and she was always confident in the fact that her choices were the right ones.

  Maybe that’s why the Maker seemed to favor her so. She was a reflection of Him. So sure of the choices that hurt the most, the choices that ruined families and tore apart homes. Despite her guilt, Joetta knew one thing Rhiannon had said was right.

  She did this.

Chapter Text

“We’ll be fine, Uvvie, don’t you worry so much,” Drynne said with a confident chuckle. He rested his ax against the stump he’d dedicated to housing the logs he was chopping. He cupped the back of U’vunlea’s head to pull her close and press a kiss to the center of her forehead. “It won’t reach us. Not here.”

  He was so sure of his dismissal of the Blight, the plague that seemed to be spreading quickly through all of Ferelden. It wouldn’t take long for it to cross over the sea and begin infecting the Free Marches, not if ship rats could contract it.

  U’vunlea frowned and brought her gaze down to Drynne’s chest, a place she normally called home. The Blight had been going on for almost a year, and even still, her dear husband acted like it was ‘no big deal’ that just across the water, Thedas was suffering. Their traders came back weekly with new stories they’d heard from humans, horrors she had never heard of. She was afraid. She was afraid and Drynne continuously had been brushing it off for a year .

  “But– ma’len , it’s getting closer to the border, and the Keeper hasn’t made much effort to move us, exactly,” U’vunlea quietly explained, still as a stone while Drynne dotingly ran his fingers through her hair. His empty-headed grin told her that he was only half-listening. She huffed and pressed her cheek into his warm, thick palm when it came to frame her face. She loved him with all her heart, but he was frustrating at times.

  “She hasn’t moved us because it’s nothing to worry over,” Drynne hushed, leaning down so their noses were a little closer together. Both of his paws cupped her face now, calloused thumbs rubbing up and down her cheeks. His affection was suffocating at times. “Nobody’s getting sick, baby, trust me. Shivana Sylaise. Dhrua em, Uvvie. You’ve got Her blessing, see?”

  He paused a little longer than what would have been considered normal, likely distracted by the way the back of his knuckle traced down her vallaslin; the puffy part of her left cheek, then her right, then the small knot of art beneath her lower lip. His golden eyes stared across her features, hot as the sun. She loved his eyes. She’d never seen another pair like them.

  “She won’t let you get sick, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Drynne’s voice dropped down to a whisper, “lest She and I have a little problem between us.” His nose wrinkled while he giggled, dipping down to nestle the tip of it against hers in a sweet gesture. U’vunlea took a moment to return it, and when she did, Drynne’s smile got even broader.

  She trusted Drynne. As stubborn as he tended to be, he had never done anything but provide for her – safety, food, shelter, comfort. He had never failed her. He was simply loving her the only way he knew how; all over, too much. He just wanted her to be happy and safe, she reminded herself. Her lips parted in a gentle breath that beat against Drynne’s and her hands came up to sweep the sweat-damp strands that framed his face behind his ears.

  Drynne fought through his grin to kiss her. And kiss her. And kiss her. And kiss her. He had to break into his giant, wolf-toothed smile in each pause. Each press of his mouth to hers felt like honey running down her sore throat, soothing her of the pain she felt.

  She swallowed down a cough. She wasn’t sick. She couldn’t possibly be sick. Drynne said so.

Chapter Text

“‘Tis about time!” Morrigan said as Linise pulled his blade out of the not-Flemeth, the spirit that had taken her shape in some failed form of trickery. “That was most– ”

  “Morrigan?” Linise cut her off as softly as he could. He didn’t mean to be rude. He let the spirit fizzle out from under his hands before standing to his full, unimpressive height. He tossed his head back to knock his fringe out of his eyes.

  Morrigan sighed, exaggeratedly heavy. She rested her hands on her hips and raised her brows, wordlessly asking him to continue. She had just been so confident in knowing the signs of foolery in the Fade. She had to know what she was doing, what was happening. Linise felt like he was going crazy the longer he was there. He’d turned into a rat, for Mythal’s sake, how else was he supposed to feel but absolutely insane?

  “I’m…I’m pretty freaked out,” he started, wary and tentative. His stance was akin to someone trying to keep a wild dog calm, hand raised with a certain precision. “I-I don’t know what’s real, or who’s real, and I just, I just…”

  Morrigan’s lips curled up into a sly, knowing smile. Naturally. She knew everything, it seemed. She took a step closer to the Warden and crossed her arms over her chest. She was so feline, so pompous, Linise could seldom take his eyes off of her as she moved closer to him. The corner of his brain that sometimes worried she’d size him up in the night in preparation to eat him started to rear its head.

  “Whatever might be frightening you, dear?” she purred, her brows furrowed over her quirk of a smile. “Everything here resides only in your head. What’s in your head, little one?”

  Linise swallowed thickly and shifted his weight onto his dominant foot as he sheathed his sword at his back. He ran his tongue across his top layer of teeth, his eyes skirted to the gooey green glow in the distance – something that looked like mountains, something that looked like he could fall off and never stop falling. He’d seen many things in the Fade as of yet. Demons aplenty, burning hounds, powerful golems. A distant call of Manvena’s voice. It was hard for him to imagine why any mage would willingly allow their minds to ebb and flow into the stream of it.

  “I keep seeing monsters,” Linise said, taking an impish few steps closer to the safety Morrigan provided. “Monsters and…I can’t tell which ones are things I’ve imagined. How can you tell when a spirit is a spirit, Morrigan? How do I tell the difference between my sister and a cruel trick?”

  Morrigan’s eyes glistened in some sort of far-away resonance his question brought, one that caused a shift in her posture and the weight on her chest. She tilted her head to the other side as she considered his words, taking in a slow inhale of breath. She had never taken so long to come up with a wit-ridden answer, Linise noticed.

  “The Fade knows how you wish your sister was,” Morrigan said, slower than she usually did, “but you know your sister. She’s your sister, of course. A spirit cannot know how she acts at her best and worst.”

  Linise bobbed his head into a nod and took pause to wet his lips, readying himself to ask her to stay at his side, but he froze when Morrigan’s body started to sprout with light – at which, she only groaned.

  “What is this?” she looked down at her slowly disappearing hands. “No, not this again! I refuse!”

Chapter Text

Joetta’s small hands shook as her father cupped them between his own.

  He paid no mind to the kindling houseplant in the corner of the room. In her frustration at her own pot of Andraste’s Grace dying, liveliness dwindling no matter what she did to try to bring it back to life, she’d stamped her foot and watched in horror as the flowers burst into flames. Her eyes, big and watery and brown, stared up at Malcolm in fear. She didn’t understand what had happened.

  Malcolm just laughed, soft and sweet, and brought Joetta’s hands up to kiss her clammy palms. With a wave of his wrist, the flames were extinguished. A pathetic black crisp stuck up from the soil in its wake. She understood what that was – her father was a mage. Putting out fires was what he did.

  But Joetta wasn’t a mage. She couldn’t be a mage. That was Malcolm’s job, to be a good mage, and it was something he did quite well. She wasn’t a good mage.

  “My Joey,” Malcolm whispered into Joetta’s hands, his red beard soft against her skin, “a mage . A mage! Oh, my Joey.” He laughed again. It was the warmest sound Joetta had ever heard. Despite the safety it usually brought her, her eyes wouldn’t rip away from the magnetic shame the potted plant brought her. It was a shame embedded in her long before she ever knew what she’d done wrong. She’d done something wrong. Hadn’t she?

  Joetta swallowed thickly and stared up at her father in silence. She knew she should share the joy she saw in her father’s grin, but behind him, there was some sort of mountain that intimidated her into fearing the river of magic she could become. Her jaw trembled as she watched Malcolm kiss her hands again, that time pulling her close for a crushing hug.

  “This is wonderful,” he whispered, his smile evident in the lift of his voice, “I can’t tell you how happy I am, Joetta. How do you feel? Do you feel it in your fingers? Oh, I remember when my magic first showed, I felt it from here to here .” He leaned back to press both of his hands to his chest, then held out his hands and wiggled his fingertips. 

  She pushed the tip of her tongue between two of her molars as she thought, assessing the sensations in her small body. She felt warm all over, too warm. The warmth’s precipice was in the center of her chest – in her heart, it burned. She put her small hand over where it felt wrong. She looked up at Malcolm again and a sigh rattled in her chest as she pressed into it.

  “Hurts.”

  “Hurts?” Malcolm furrowed his brows in concern, confusion, and dipped his head closer to his daughter. “It shouldn’t…it’s not supposed to hurt.”

  Well, it does , she thought bitterly, though she’d never speak to her father like that. Not out loud. She looked down to where her hand was pressed and focused on how hot her skin felt. She felt like there was a furnace in her chest, like she could explode. Her eyes flitted up to the flower she had burned again.

  “What do you mean, love, it hurts?” Malcolm asked, settling fully on his knees in front of her. His hands found her shoulders, squeezed, and repeated the motion all down her biceps. “Come here, Jo. Let me see.” He ushered Joetta a step closer and helped her lower her hand from her chest, replacing it with his own. It did burn, like she had a fever.

  Malcolm let out a slow breath, and with it, the tips of his fingers chilled. “Probably just first-time jitters,” he said under his breath. Joetta wasn’t sure if he was trying to calm her nerves or his own.  He rubbed his frozen-cold thumb over the fire in the center of  her chest in soothing circles. He did what he did best and began putting out her fires.

  Malcolm met Joetta’s eyes, a crystal blue she had no choice but to stare back at. Wordlessly, he took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and exhaled. When he repeated the action, Joetta got the hint to follow suit. In, out, in, out. She could feel the heat in her chest begin to calm, it was strong enough to burn the very will of nature but softened by the hands of her father. Even after he stopped, Joetta kept breathing slow and deep, her eyelids drooping underneath the relaxation he brought.

  “I’m so lucky I’m your dad,” he said with a quiet giggle, giving her a pat on the shoulder when he could feel the warmth fade away, “I-I know it can feel scary at first, but you don’t need to worry. I’ll help you. Every step of the way, I’ll be right beside you. Okay, love? No need to be afraid. This is wonderful. This is so wonderful, Joetta.”

  Malcolm sounded breathless as he spoke, overtaken by his emotion and the pure excitement that radiated through his entire body. Every star in his eye twinkled that he loved her.

  “Oh, my girl,” Malcolm cupped the back of Joetta’s head with both hands to pull her forward and plant a kiss to her forehead. “I can’t wait to tell your mother. Oh, I love you. I love you. We’ll do this together, yeah? I’ll show you everything you need to know, every type of magic. Here, come here.”

  Malcolm stood to his feet and took his daughter’s hand, guiding her over to the burnt flower. He smiled at her while he took a knee. His other hand came up to dig the tips of his fingers in the soil. Joetta watched carefully as a soft glow began to sprout beneath the dirt in a winding pattern, like little road maps that led the way to the blackened stem. The magic coursed up through the plant, the original green slowly breathing its way back to life, until the white petals bloomed at the head. It was like there was never a fire in the first place.

  “Everything will be alright, dear. We all make little blunders at the beginning. I’ll teach you how to fix them.”

Chapter Text

Drynne’s lips traced down the back of Josephine’s neck, his smile small and drunken. He laughed breathlessly and pressed a kiss to the small bump where her back began. His hands worked deftly as he unlaced her corset, using the strings to keep her upright as she giggled under his soft, slow touch. They’d both had a drink too many in the tavern, he had to admit – but she’d just seemed so stressed . He wanted to make sure she had a good time for once in her life.

  “By Mythal, Josie, you smell so good ,” Drynne murmured, nestling his nose into the crook of Josephine’s neck, his senses full of a sweet vanilla. She squealed with laughter when his mouth opened and his fangs playfully nipped at the skin there, causing her to lean forward out of his touch.

  “That tickles! ” she laughed, scooting to the foot of her bed to get away from his sharp teeth. “You need to keep that mouth to yourself, ser.”

  Drynne snickered as he followed behind her, wordlessly apologizing by kissing the back of her neck again as he took a hold of the strings to the corset again. His touch was as gentle as he could make it. Her hysterics calmed down after a few tugs, loosening the sinches. The humor left his movements, instead turning focused and precise. Every grommet he pulled the lace from, she seemed to relax more and more. He enjoyed seeing Josie , not Ambassador Montilyet.

  Josephine’s eyes began to flutter shut once Drynne’s hands began to get closer and closer to the gap at the end of the corset. She allowed herself to melt beneath him – it felt like he’d done it a million times before, how quickly he was able to unravel her. He made her feel so light, so carefree, like no one else had ever been able to.

  “Inquisit– Drynne,” Josephine spoke quietly, “I must confess something to you.”

  “Mm?” Drynne hummed back, resting his forehead against the base of her skull. He kissed the back of her neck again and she felt her heart flutter.

  “You…you make me feel more alive than I ever remember feeling,” she said, her voice low as it could go, like she was afraid someone could hear. “You are the most exciting man I’ve seen in ages. Every moment we spend alone together, it feels so…special. I feel special. And I know you have the entire world to worry about, and I mustn’t seem so special in comparison, but still, I–”

  “Josie…”

  “I can’t help it. You make me feel as though I’ve been swept off my feet.”

  “ Josie… ” Drynne repeated, a little louder. He’d loosened her corset enough for her to remove it if she so wished, but he wrapped his arms around her middle to pull her against his chest and rest his chin on her shoulder instead. “You’re rambling, little one.”

  “Forgive me,” Josephine sighed, settling down when she felt Drynne’s heartbeat against her shoulder. “I simply…feel foolish.” She shook her head at herself and put her hands over top of the Inquisitor’s.

  Drynne hugged her close and buried his eyes into the crook of Josephine’s neck. He should have known it would come eventually – the spilling of feelings. Feelings he admittedly shared. Feelings he was always too self-conscious to act upon, lest he want to put a damper on how bright her light shone. Her light was what he liked about her. He’d never forgive himself if he was the one that stamped it out with his own childish behaviors pertaining to romance.

  He lifted his head to whisper into her ear. “I love you too much to let you feel that way about me, Josie,” he said. “I’m not good for you. Not in the long run. I’m fun now , but…it’ll wear off. I promise.”

  Josephine was too good for him. He always knew it, from the moment he first smiled at her in a way that made her cheeks turn pink, he knew it. She was too sweet, too kind. Too nice . She was clever, and witty, and knew all the little nothings to whisper to turn the energy of a room completely around. She was absolutely wonderful. His chest ached when he saw how her face fell when it sunk in that he was letting her down easy.

  She frowned and sat up, shoving his arms off of her middle. She stared down at her bedsheets, soft blue silk, in total silence. Drynne knew better than to reach out to pull her back into him in a poor attempt at comfort. That wasn’t what she wanted at the moment.

  “I honestly thought you–” Josephine’s voice raised, almost a snap, but she regathered herself quickly. She straightened her back, huffed frustratedly as she slapped her hands down into her lap. She shook her head again and stood up from the bed.

  “Josie–” Drynne started, scooting to the end of the mattress when she began to pace.

  “What was the point of all this then?” she threw her hands in the air in confusion. “When you asked me to the tavern with you tonight, I-I honestly thought this was your way of doing something about all of the…the flirting, the winking – who winks at someone like that anymore? What else was the point of it all? You– you’ve been kissing me!”

  Drynne sucked on his upper row of teeth and darted his eyes away from her in a loose shrug. “I’m just kind of… like that,” he said, his voice soft and apologetic, “and tonight was…you’d seemed stressed lately, and I just thought…I don’t know. I’m sorry, Josephine. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Truly, I didn’t.”

  Josephine took a few deep breaths and used a hand to fix her hair behind her ears. “It’s a little too late for that,” she said under her breath, “you can’t just– you cannot treat people like that, Drynne! People are not things you can just–” She cut herself off to let out a single frustrated cry, pressing her palms to her eyes. Oh, she felt so foolish.

  “Josephine,” Drynne called her name once again, ushering himself to his feet to stand beside her, hands idly hovering by her arms. His heart felt so heavy, he wanted to help . He didn’t know why he was the way that he was, and he never quite learned how to fix it either. He just knew he wanted to fix it. “Josie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-it was stupid, I’m stupid, I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean– oh, love, don’t cry.”

  When Josephine looked up at him, her eyes red and welling, her brows furrowed in anger, Drynne paused and took a step back. He’d never seen her do anything but smile before. He didn’t know she was even capable of looking so hateful.

  “You need to leave,” Josephine said, gesturing a hand towards the door of her room, “ now. ”

  Drynne sputtered a few times in a poor attempt at rebuttal, but he sighed and shook his head when he decided to resign. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said as he spun on his heel and strode towards the door, “have a good night, Josephine.”

  “You have the night you deserve, Inquisitor.”

Chapter Text

Zevran had gotten settled back into the house after being away in Kirkwall for some weeks. It had taken him a little longer than it should have – he’d gotten tangled up with Nuncio, had to stay with a Dalish clan in the area, met a lady named Joetta Hawke whom he’d said was quite fetching. But Nuncio was dead, thanks to Hawke, and Zevran was able to come home to his Warden.

  Linise, blanket in lap, was sitting cross-legged on one end of the couch, his back pressed into a pillow propped up by the arm of the couch. He faced Zevran, who sat on the other arm, feet planted in the worn-down cushion. The arm had a dip in it from how often Zevran sat there. Linise hummed to himself as his hands worked deftly to knit as neatly as he could. Zevran’s tongue poked out, pushing up against his top lip while he focused on the whetstone and kitchen knife in his hands. Ghast, Linise’s mabari, was curled up between them, snoozing as peaceful as can be.

  “Oh! Lin,” Zevran said without looking up at his other half, “I meant to tell you sooner. The clan I stayed with – it was your family. Sabrae, yes?”

  Linise’s breath caught in his throat at the name of his clan. His eyes darted up to Zevran’s face, which was still staring intently at the way the blade glided against the stone. He couldn’t have heard that right. He dropped his knitting needles into his lap and furrowed his brows.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Zevran finally glanced up at Linise, taking a double take when he noticed the look on his face. He slowed the movement of his hands and pressed his tongue to the soft of his cheek. “Your…family?” he repeated, confused at the hardness his lover was showing him. “Ashalle, and…? You’re unhappy. Why are you unhappy?”

  “Did she know who you were?” Linise asked, crossing his arms over his almost-fully-healed chest. Ashalle was always unbearable, ever since Linise had been appointed the Hero of Ferelden, asking for favors and land and money or something he didn’t have the real power to attain anyway. He hadn’t told her before he up and moved to Antiva to live with Zevran.

  Zevran made an unsure noise, a wince falling upon his face. “She…she figured it out eventually,” he said slowly, shrugging in a half-apologetic manner, “she’d said she recognized me from somewhere, and I couldn’t prevent her from remembering after a day or two. She went on to tell everyone else who I was, too. Lots of people asking how you were. Not that I minded. I love to talk about you, amor .”

  Linise sighed and slid his hand down the side of his face, the one partially blacked out by his vallaslin. There was a reason Linise had stopped writing letters so often, why he stopped telling Ashalle where he was stationed, why he stopped promising to visit. He couldn’t handle her any longer. At least Zevran was kept safe while he was with them.

  “Does she know where we live?” Linise asked in near exasperation. If he received one letter from her, he swore he’d tie Zevran to the dining table so he couldn’t go adventuring any longer, lest something like that happen again. Zevran didn’t seem to be understanding how dire the situation felt to him.

  “No! No, no,” Zevran jumped a little as though Ashalle had come around the corner herself to spook him. “No, Maker , no. She was…just, no. I would not do that to us, Linise. A few days with her was enough for me.” He shook his head and waved the kitchen knife dismissively.

  Linise firmed his lips together and curled in over himself again, going back to his knitting. It was a sweater, one he’d started making for Zevran when he realized he was going to be gone a few weeks longer than expected, but he still had a long ways to go. He didn’t know why he’d started it. Zevran didn’t even wear sweaters. Maybe he’d give it to the dog instead, if Zevran didn’t like it.

  Speaking of the clan he was raised in made Linise feel like he was walking through a nighttime graveyard. Even though it was a perfectly fine thing to do, it just felt innately wrong , like he’d step on the dirt somewhere he wasn’t supposed to and end up cursing his household for a thousand generations.

  Zevran living amongst them for a week or so was like digging up his mother’s grave – his real mother, not Ashalle. The woman everyone always silently hated him for killing. He’d spoke Linise’s name into the air and it was like everyone remembered his crime of being born, of not dying when his mother’s body gave out after the injuries she’d suffered. His crime outweighed the hero he had become. It always had. It always would.

  The sound of Zevran’s voice yanked him off of his train of thought. “I met your sister,” he said, made uncomfortable by how pregnant the silence was, “she was…fine, after a blunt. A little patronizing, maybe. She was the only one who didn’t ask about you, oddly enough.”

  “We’re not on speaking terms,” Linise answered the room Zevran left for his unspoken question. He pursed his lips and pressed the tip of his tongue into the cleft scar that left his upper lip open.

  Manvena, prior to Linise leaving with Duncan, had made a comment about how it was likely that Linise wasn’t meant to be loved in the way he wanted. Falon’Din kept taking the people that were supposed to love him away; his parents, Tamlen. She and Linise had gotten into an explosive argument about it that Linise eventually gave up on, leaving with the Warden without ever looking back. He didn’t want to look back.

  Zevran hummed shortly. He let the next pause linger in the air a little, moving forward to sit on the flattened couch cushion rather than continuing to sit on the arm. His crossed knees rested against Ghast’s barrel chest. He hunched over himself and set his whetstone and knife into his lap. “You’re still upset, txavo . What’s wrong?”

  Linise kept on knitting for a few stitches, then met Zevran’s eyes with a defeated resignation. “I’m just worried,” he admitted, “I don’t want to…I just don’t like them. I didn’t want to have any sort of contact with them ever again.”

  Zevran widened his arms in a questioning gesture, wordlessly wondering where the stress was coming from. “ Amor ,” he started bluntly, letting the pet name start his process of bringing Linise back to reality, “you think I’d give your mother the means to bring all that over here? Surely, you know me better than this. No. She asked if she could send letters, but I directed her towards the Donarks. Told her we were planning on a change of pace and the jungle life sounded absolutely irresistible this time of year. I look out for you – this you know. I only did what I had to do to come back home to you.”

  Zevran leaned over to take Linise’s left hand, forcing him to abandon his little project. He brought his lover’s knuckles to his lips and pressed a kiss over his wedding ring, as a show of proving his words.

  Linise took a moment to nod and lean over the snoring dog between them, cupping Zevran’s cheek the best he could. Zevran was trying his best. He couldn’t fault him for that, even if it opened Pandora’s box of bad memories and anxieties. “ Ir abelas ,” he said, soft and earnest. “I know you look after me. And you listen. Serannas .”

  Zevran hushed Linise and pressed a few kisses to the ball of his palm. His own hand wrapped around Linise’s wrist to keep his warm touch where it was. “No need for apologies,” he affirmed quietly, “I love you. That’s why I pointed your mother in the one direction I knew she wouldn’t try to follow us.”

  Linise smiled a small smile. He didn’t think it was possible to get his overbearing mother off of his tail, but Zevran had figured out a way to do just that. He was so wonderful.

  Linise was glad Falon’Din hadn’t found Zevran yet. He didn’t know what he would do if he ever lost him. He felt like the only family he had left.

Chapter Text

It had been a long time since Fenris had slept easy.

  He laid atop Joetta, back rising and falling with how deeply he breathed. Joetta held him like the night held the moon, her eyes half-lidded and staring at the mess of white hair atop his head. Even in his slumber, his shoulders were tight and tense. It was as relaxed as he would ever get, though. She cherished the nights he’d allow himself to collapse on top of her and melt into her, allow himself to be held. She liked to hold him. She liked the way her fingers fit on the small of his back.

  Her breath hitched when Fenris shifted in his sleep, fitting the top of his head beneath her chin. His brows furrowed deeper than they were before, his arms squeezed around her middle a little tighter. He sniffled quietly, sighed, and went back to his little snores. His hair was soft. He was softer than he realized, she thought.

  She found herself thinking of how Fenris was raised the same way a dog was raised. To wait for someone to come back home and learn to wait longer if someone came too late. To not speak unless spoken to. To give away the reins of everything he wished he could control. To be led around by a string at his neck, or staked by the length of a chain to the untouched ground. To try and fail at freedom. To realize being a runaway is still being a dog. To wait by the end of the bed to be invited up. To not think of himself as a dog at all.

  Fenris was still unlearning such things. He was trying his best to speak as much as he liked without fear of being put behind a door. To scratch all the itches he ever felt. To climb into bed because he was tired and he wanted to be held. Joetta felt like he liked to be held as much as she liked to hold him. She hoped so, at least.

  Fenris’ head lifted up when he felt her start to pet up and down his back, her middle finger tracing the spine of his markings. She often forgot how sensitive they were to the touch, and how sensitive a sleeper he was. He sniffled again and looked down at her face, his eyes tired and sentimental. They were such a light color, they almost looked like they glowed in the dark. He stayed as calm as he was when he was sleeping – if anything, the tension between his shoulder blades only eased up more while he searched over his lover’s face. Hers was tired for a different reason; she hadn’t slept a wink yet.

  The gleam in his wolfish eyes as he stared into hers said that he was hers and he wanted her to know. She knew what he meant, but she didn’t like it when he said he was hers. She wanted him to learn what it was like to love, not belong to someone. She knew that kind of blind devotion was the closest thing he knew, though, so she couldn’t fault him too heavily.

  Joetta’s hand, thick and strong, came up to brush Fenris’ hair away from his forehead. Her thumb carefully ran across the three dots in the center of his forehead. She sighed to herself, as she ever so often did, at the implications they left. His eyes fluttered under the touch. He let her rub at his forehead for a few moments more before he made a soft noise and went on the move. He unraveled his arms from around her waist and crawled up her body that dwarfed his own, just a few inches higher.

  Joetta returned both hands to the small of his back, watching curiously as Fenris shifted and labored his breath to tilt his chin up. She felt the tip of his nose clumsily against the crown of her hair a few times before he steadied himself. He pressed his lips to the center of her forehead. She let her eyes drift shut under the tranquility.

Chapter Text

Ambassador Montilyet,

I regret that my help for your Dalish allies came too late to be of use. By the time my forces arrived in the area, the Dalish had been scattered or killed, and there seems little left of their clan.

I understand your Inquisitor must be feeling the loss of his clan. Please accept these gifts and my promise of future help whenever it is necessary.

Yours,
Duke Antoine of Wycome

Drynne kept rereading the letter and crying, over and over as the day went on.

  He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t possibly believe it. Keeper Deshanna was dead, that much was confirmed. Midha was dead, Isene was dead, his parents were dead, countless dead . Leanatha’s whereabouts were unknown, as were Vahari and Ghestlin. He wanted to ask Cullen to send troops out to search for them. Everyone he’d ever known was scattered to the winds, and Drynne was stuck in Skyhold, laid in the fetal position in his bed and wallowing in his misery.

  He should’ve been amongst them. That he knew. If things had gone just a little differently, Drynne would’ve still been with his friends and family. Maybe they’d have had a chance if he was there. No, he wasn’t very good at fighting in the first place. What was he supposed to do? Swing his ax as aimlessly as he always did and hope it worked? Oh, but he should have been there. He should have died, too. There was a pit in his stomach where the innocent souls felt like they were swarming.

  Drynne tried his best to be quiet as a mouse as he wept into his palm, his eyes darting between the words like they’d never stop. Too late. Scattered. Little left. Duke Antoine really thought a handful of gold would make up for the lifetime of love he’d lost. What a slap in the face.

  He’d been with the Lavellan clan since he was nine years old. It was all he knew, all he remembered. He had vague stills in the recesses of his memory about Tevinter, but his clan was his home . He couldn’t remember the mother he was born to anymore, he only remembered Lailani, the woman who raised him. He never knew his father, so it was easy to imagine Ivun in that role. He didn’t even remember the name he had as a child any longer, there was only Drynne Lavellan.

  There was Lavellan no longer. There was only Drynne.

  He curled into a tighter ball as a thick whine peeled from his throat, his face tightening into a wince, trying his best to hold it in. He hoped Lavellan got a good afterlife, that Falon’Din would treat them as well as they’d treated him, guide them to green pastures and still water with tall grass and happy second tries for them all. He hoped they’d remember his laugh and that they knew he’d never forget them. He’d already cried too many tears, more still coming, there was no way his body could forget how hard his chest heaved with every sob. He sobbed like he was going to vomit.

  Drynne found himself caring less and less about being quiet. He dropped the letter onto the side of his pillow to keep from crumpling it or getting it too wet with tears. He rolled over onto his other side and hugged his arms to his stomach, his throat raw and aching with each gasp, hungry for air he couldn’t get. He felt guilty, sucking up so much of the air that his family deserved to be breathing. He wished he could choke on his tongue, he was so greedy .

  His mind wandered off to the earliest corners of his memory. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to find where Lavellan began or if he was trying to find something else for him to belong to now.

  He remembered being small, a crime the world yearned to kill him for, but something kept him safe on his own for months after he ran from Minrathous. His clan told him it was Andruil trying to guide him to them. He believed them. He remembered running until his boots started to fall apart at the soles. His clan taught him to stop needing shoes. He learned quickly. He remembered a man’s voice, distant and booming – “ rattus ,” it said, though he didn’t quite recall what it meant. His mother’s voice said “ ma’vherain .” He knew it translated to my lion cub .

  Drynne stopped his small hysterics, his rapid thoughts coming to a halt when he heard a soft rap at his door. He sniffled and lifted his head, long lashes stuck to each other with the dampness. He blinked his eyes a few times in an attempt to clear his vision, seeing his visitor coming up the stairs.

  Dorian’s black hair appeared first from between the bars of the railing. Drynne’s brows knitted in almost-confusion as he moved to prop himself up on his elbow. It was odd for Dorian to show up uninvited; though, Vints had a tendency to claim space where they weren’t welcome, didn’t they?

  Drynne bit his tongue. Stop thinking like that , he spat at himself. Dorian was good. He repeated the three words over and over in his head a few times with clenched teeth, his doe eyes following the other man’s every movement as he came further into the room. Dorian’s face wasn’t smug and knowing like it usually was – it was dark and pitiful, the glimmer in his eyes clouded by half-liddedness.

  “I…apologize for coming in uninvited,” Dorian started with a tight sigh, stepping over to stand by the foot of Drynne’s bed. He crossed his arms over his chest as Drynne used the back of his hand to wipe tears off of his cheeks.

  The Inquisitor pressed his tongue into the soft of his cheek and moved to sit up. “What is it, love?” he asked, hiding his exasperation. He just wanted to isolate. He wanted to sit on the balcony and stare into the snow, into the nothing. He wanted to become the nothing.

  Dorian pressed his lips together in a small line and leaned his weight on one hip. He was good at picking up on Drynne’s little moody tells, no matter how hard he tried to hide them – the emotionless eyes, the uneven brows. It wasn’t hard to tell when he was annoyed, or when he wanted to be alone. Dorian knew Drynne shouldn’t be alone, though, he knew how the Inquisitor got when he drowned in his own head. He saw it when Haven fell, he was seeing it right in front of him. Drynne wanted to disappear.

  “I heard.”

Chapter Text

“Why did you want to be a Grey Warden, Oghren?”

  Oghren looked up from his feet to glance up at Warden-Commander Linise Mahariel – not much taller than he was, but he was stocky for an elf. Linise had his hands on his hips, idly kicking his toes in the dirt as the two of them stood watch in their shitty travel camp while Nathaniel and Anders slept off the hours of walk. Amaranthine was farther away than they thought.

  Oghren sucked on his molars before taking a swig of his bottle of…whatever it was that he grabbed. He didn’t remember, and his vision was a little too blurry to read the label. “Uh…” he murmured, then trailed off and bounced his shoulders into a vague shrug. “I’ve always been…good at, uh…killing darkpawn. Y’know.” He shrugged again and hid his frown behind the mouth of his bottle. His oxen face was hard as steel. He’d gotten used to fixating his eyes on one thing on the ground, trying to drill focus into himself so he didn’t topple face-first into the dirt. It helped make him feel less drunk than he was, or at least look the part.

  Truth was, he was disappointed in himself. There was a time in his life when he was considered renowned. He was a good warrior – still was, he hoped. Then he settled down in lovelessness, and things only got worse from there. He was left. He found his reflection in the bottom of a pint. His alcoholism solidified his citywide fame of foolishness.

  Linise, the man that stood beside him no matter how bad he got, gave him an ax and a purpose again. He wished he was more like Linise. Guilt ate at him every day when he remembered how he inadvertently taught the Warden to look for himself at the bottom of a bottle. Linise was better than Oghren was. He wanted him to be, at least. He deserved more than to watch his reflection morph into a wolftoothed boozehound.

  “You can kill darkspawn without being a Grey Warden,” Linise said after staring into the campfire for far too long, “it’d be a lot safer to do that, honestly. No Calling, and all that shit.” He turned his face towards his best friend. His arms were crossed over his full chest and his ankles were crossed together tight, like he was too cold and was trying to find warmth in his own body.

  Oghren hummed flatly. The Calling didn’t scare him. Not fully. Not even the Joining had scared him – it was a win-win either way to him. He’d either wake up a hero or not wake up at all. He felt like he didn’t get either, though. He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like the same ol’ shitty Oghren with the same ol’ problems.

  Linise took in a soft inhale, then hesitated with bated breath. He was about to tell Oghren a secret. He knew all the Warden’s tells. They’d spent far too many nights awake and bumbling tired, mumbling gossips for him to not know by then. He had a hard time telling where the back of his hand stopped and Linise began sometimes, or maybe that was the ale confusing him.

  “I regret becoming a Warden sometimes,” Linise admitted quietly, staring back into the flames that licked desperately into the darkness. “Sometimes I find myself wishing I…I’d either died with Tamlen, or…I don’t know. I never wanted this. Did you know that? I never wanted to be a Warden. I was forced to.”

  Oghren’s jaw twitched as he looked up at Linise’s face and kept his eyes there for once. He blinked in his moment of pregnant pause. “You were?” he grunted, brows furrowing over his eyes that he had to fight to focus. He couldn’t imagine a world in which Linise hated being the Hero of Ferelden, but he’d been living in it all along. He definitely couldn’t imagine a world with no Linise at all.

  “I had the taint,” Linise explained simply, “I didn’t have a choice. It was either I died of the Joining or died of the taint. I think I got the short end of the stick.”

  Oghren frowned hard. His chest hurt, hearing Linise talk like that. Like he wished he wasn’t around anymore. Oghren didn’t know what he would do with himself if Linise wasn’t around. Sod it, he could hardly handle six months without the bastard, let alone a whole lifetime. He wondered what his life would look like if he never met Linise. His head went light with a racing heart at just the thought. Linise was the only thing that could pull him out of Orzammar, to help him move on. He never would have even attempted moving on if it wasn’t for Linise, he realized.

  Linise hadn’t moved on yet, it sounded like. Sure, he was with the Antivan, but his eyes got faraway and depressed when he mentioned that boy he grew up with. He understood, he guessed. It took him years to get over Branka and she wasn’t even all he hammed her up to be. But when Linise talked about his Tamlen, he made it sound like he was telling a fairytale about an unlovable dog and the boy who dared to feed him from his palm. The way he twisted the story, it sounded like the dog bit the boy, and the wound got infected, and the boy didn’t make it. The way Oghren saw it, the dog only bit because it didn’t know any better, but it could be a good dog once it learned that an open palm didn’t always mean he was going to get hurt.

  “I don’t think the stick’s all that short, kid,” Oghren said gruffly, squeezing one eye shut to peer down the neck of his bottle to see how much booze he had left. He couldn’t decide if he should savor it to feel it longer or gulp it down to feel it harder. “You saved a lot of people. Good people.”

  “It wasn’t all me,” Linise replied, running a hand through his fringe to tuck it behind his ear. It was getting a little too long. “Pisses me off, honestly, that you guys don’t get any credit. Why am I the Hero of Ferelden? There were plenty of us. You think I could kill an Archdemon all by myself?”

  He did think that. With his whole heart, he did. That was the whole reason he wanted to be like Linse – why he wanted to become a Warden. When he saw the elf drive his blade through the skull of the dragon, it inspired in Oghren something he thought was long gone. He’d stewed on it for months before elbowing his way into Vigil’s Keep. Linise made him want to be a good warrior again. How dare Linise not see that?

  Oghren took a swig to swallow down a mouthful of hurt. Dammit, Linise being so brave had become the only reason Oghren rolled out of bed some mornings. Most mornings, really. Managing that was killing a beast all in itself.

  Linise didn’t notice Oghren’s minute sulking. He let out a sigh and planted his hands on his hips, his head knocking to the side. “Iono,” he murmured, “I always thought after I killed the Archdemon I’d be able to hang up the armor and go back to normal. I don’t think normal can exist for a Warden, though, can it? I wish I could just…get it out of my bloodstream. Or hide in a hole forever, maybe.”

  Oghren grumbled to himself and downed the rest of his bottle, throwing it aside once he was done with it. He slammed his hands down on his thighs as he pushed himself up to his feet, a frustrated air about him. He was tired of hearing such nonsense.

  “You wanna know why I wanted to be a Grey Warden?” Oghren said, his scowl firm and begging to be taken seriously for once. His drunken sway challenged that. “Because I wished I was more like you. You and your sodding heroics, inspiring me to be a better person…you know how long I was rolling in my own filth before I met you? You’re the only thing that kept me going. Still are, sometimes. And here, you’re telling me you regret ever stepping foot in Orzammar? Yeah, you saved plenty of good people, Linise, but you saved me . I didn’t deserve that shit. I still don’t know why you did it, but– shit . Being your friend was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that wouldn’t have happened if you sodding died .”

  Linise’s face was something between startled and offended. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, faced with the wound he’d pressed into Oghren’s chest. It was a blade he couldn’t hold onto any longer. His pointed ears flicked a few times, but ultimately pointed downwards in resignation. Oghren kept boring into his gaze, giving an immeasurable amount of effort to keep his eyes in one direction.

  Linise looked away from Oghren and stared into the fire again, a short hum of acknowledgement rising from the back of his throat. “I didn’t think about it like that,” he said, voice soft and hushed. “ Ir abelas , Oghren. I don’t regret you, if that’s why you’re angry.”

  Oghren huffed once, twice, and took a tumbling step closer to his friend. He didn’t speak, but Linise said the right thing. He had been worried the greatest person to ever waltz into his life regretted ever meeting him. Most people did – most people left. Linise had left for a while, but Oghren found his way back to him. He found who he was not in the bottom of a bottle, but in the reflection he saw in Linise’s off-colored eyes. There was a mirror of hurt there. A mirror of mourning and loss. They were two sides of the same coin, and Oghren finally felt understood. He couldn’t just let it walk away.

  Linise glanced up and down Oghren’s wobbling form and tipped his chin towards the single tent that their two other traveling companions were bunkered in. “You don’t look well,” he said, “I’ll wake Anders so you can rest. I’ll tell you how much I love you when you’re sober enough to remember it, yeah?”

Chapter Text

Joetta had taken up the joys of smoking lavender ever since Merrill introduced her to it – something the Dalish did, she’d said. Joetta would go to her house every Wednesday night and they’d share a joint and talk amongst each other.

  That Wednesday in particular, Merrill had thrown her head back to laugh with her eyes still open. She saw how the moon reflected in them. The giggle and the snort, the way her feet tapped on the ground. It felt all too familiar. Joetta couldn’t stop herself from seeing her sister in Merrill’s big eyes, wide and full of splendor. A pit dug its way into Joetta’s stomach.

  She kept up her soft, chuckling grin, but Maker, she couldn’t unsee it. The sight gave her an odd feeling, almost akin to deja vu, but a little worse. It was a feeling that gripped her by the throat and cut off her air supply, rather than just making her head spin.

  Everything down to the little shake of Merrill’s head as she tipped her chin back down was too entirely Rhiannon. The Champion’s mouth clamped shut as she gave her friend a tight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She hid the pain with a slow hit to the joint, hoping it would wash her over with a wave of calm. It didn’t. She puffed out the smoke as slow as she could, taking a moment to take in the way Merrill moved. It was almost eerie how alike their movements were.

  “You remind me of my sister,” Joetta blurted without meaning to. She gulped and shifted in her seat, taking it upon herself to pass the blunt to Merrill. She looked confused as she took it and drew a quick hit before she spoke.

  “Bethany?” Merrill asked. “Oh, you’ve told me about her. She did seem kind, from what I hear.”

  “No,” Joetta shook her head and ran an awkward hand through her red hair. “I have another sister – my twin, actually. I don’t talk about her often. Her name is Rhiannon.” She glanced up at the night sky, at the gleam of the moon. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and thinned her lips together, rocking on her toes. She couldn’t remember the last time she spoke of Rhiannon. She couldn’t even remember if she’d told Varric.

  “Oh…” Merrill furrowed her brows and looked down at her feet. She nibbled her bottom lip and parted her lips, took a breath, released it, and tried again. “Is she also…?”

  Joetta huffed a laugh and shook her head. “No,” she repeated, “no, no, Rhia’s not dead. We’re just…not on speaking terms, I guess. I fucked up bad a few years before I moved here, and she just…packed her bags, up and left. Haven’t seen or heard from her since. Honestly, none of us have. So I guess I don’t know if she’s dead or alive, actually.”

  Her heart sank at the memory. Rhiannon sobbing as she stuffed her things into a bag, taking her childhood teddy, removing as much of herself from the room they grew up in until it was like she never even existed. Joetta found herself pretending that sometimes – that Rhiannon never existed. It felt easier than accepting that she was gone. Accepting that she was gone was more difficult than accepting Malcolm was dead at first. Rhiannon was still out there somewhere, somewhere Joetta would never be able to reach.

“Why do you never tell us about her?” Merrill wondered, cocking her head in curiosity.

Joetta’s answer was simple. “Because it hurts.”

Chapter Text

“ Ma ir son’dirthem Elvhen, Inquisitor.”

  Drynne’s ears flicked in recognition at the sound of Solas’ voice. He looked up from the soil around the flower he’d been carefully planting in the ground, gloved hand on his hip. He had to squint to block out the glow of the sun around the smaller elf’s head. “The ancient Elvhen?” he asked, his nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I know it. Decently well, least. Picked it up when I was a kid.”

  He turned his attention back towards the ground as Solas came to sit beside him. Drynne kept packing the dirt in on itself, his tongue poked out between his lips in focus. Another one of the jobs he took up in his clan that he missed – farming, gardening. Treating the plants, harvesting the crop, that sort of thing. It was a particular type of love, the one of a farmer. It took a special man to know how to take care of something in a way that would ensure it saw age.

  “I’m surprised you had the resources to learn it,” Solas said, his eyes unmoving as they watched Drynne’s hands do what they knew best. It was almost endearing, how nonviolent Drynne was. His hands weren’t meant to provide anything but life. It was no wonder the Inquisitor was so heavily associated with the sun; nothing can live without the warmth and love that comes from it.

  Drynne chirped with a nod of his head, a smile growing on his face like he was proud of himself for being able to learn. “My Keeper favored the preservation of the old language,” he explained, resting back on his haunches to look at the results of his labor. “And her and I were…eh, weird. Yeah. Yeah, weird is a good way to put it.”

  The Inquisitor was nodding with a deep, accepting frown as he went over the category of whatever other word he could’ve used to describe his relationship to his Keeper. From the bits and pieces Solas had heard, he could gather that all of Drynne’s anxiousness for control stemmed from the desperation of Deshanna’s hands, grasping too hard and trying her best to keep his lines straight. He noticed the bristle in Drynne’s shoulders when Solas would ask a few too many questions about the person he was before.

  “Did you learn to impress her?” Solas asked, tipping his head to catch Drynne’s side profile just right. He tried to make note of each individual feature. The Son of Andruil , his clan had called him. Heir to the Arrow . It made him snort in amusement when he was first told. He looked nothing like Andruil, save the height.

  Drynne laughed at himself under his breath, his thick hands massaging his thumbs into the tops of his thighs. “Ah, yeah,” he murmured, “I guess I did want to impress her. She was a very hard-to-please woman, you know.” He grinned over at Solas, but he looked away before the Inquisitor could catch his eye. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about the way Drynne smiled at him made him feel so small in his presence. It was too sweet, too much for him to take in without burning up.

  Solas could read Drynne so easily. Of course he’d learned to gain the approval of his elder. Everything he did seemed to trail back to the desire to be loved. It was difficult to think of the mighty Inquisitor as a boy, bug-eyed in wonder as he trailed behind his Keeper like a dog at the table begging for scraps. He hoped Drynne didn’t feel like he had to beg anymore and he was loved without borders.

  “You are impressive, Inquisitor,” Solas said, his voice only just loud enough to be heard.

Chapter Text

The moment the last body hit the floor, Linise and Zevran separated to search the bodies. The pair of them had been slowly picking off the Crows scattered about Antiva for the last eight years, fighting their way up the chain to reach the Guildmaster. Zevran’s passion had become Linise’s passion – to dismantle House Arainai and make it so no child was abused the way he was. Zevran’s dream was to become the Grandmaster, but Linise told him to take it one step at a time.

  The Crow hideout wasn’t particularly difficult to find. The handful of assassins bunkered down in the warehouse had been considerably bad at the stealth they’d been trained to have, Zevran had noted. Even drunk, he knew never to guffaw as loudly as they were being.

  Sidestepping over the smattering of bodies laid across the hardwood, each man covered one half of the room. Zevran was rummaging in drawers and digging his hand into the assassins’ pockets and satchels. Linise was using a foot to nudge corpses aside to throw open the few other rooms in the warehouse. Nothing, nothing, pantry, nothing.

  “I’m thinking we’re clear, love,” Linise called back to his other, glancing in Zevran’s direction as he put his hand on the knob of the last door down the short hallway.

  Zevran made a short noise in response, still huddled over, fishing gold out of their victim’s pockets. Linise heard him clear his throat and cough into his fist; he always had the sniffles around that time of year. The old Warden watched his lover with a doting smile, finding himself distracted for a moment too long. What brought him back to reality was the sound of a shaky breath on the other side of the door.

  It gave Linise pause. He frowned and pressed his ear to the door. He heard muffled breathing, like a clasped hand over a mouth. He slowly grasped the blade at his thigh, unsheathing it as quietly as possible. The breaths sounded small – too small to be grown.

  “ Fenhedis ,” Linise huffed, closing his eyes and minutely shaking his head. “Zev . ”

  Zevran lifted his head to look back at Linise with a confused furrow in his brow, taking a moment’s pause before standing to his feet to cross the room over to his husband. “Hmm?” he hummed, tilting his chin down and squinting at the way Linise stared at him. “What is the issue, amor? Not clear after all?”

  Linise sheathed his knife again, not removing his gaze from Zevran’s face. He knew he didn’t have to say much, he never had to around his other half. His eyes just had to be soft enough to hold his attention and intent enough to show the severity of the situation, and Zevran would be able to narrow the situation down to five possibilities. He was always clever.

  Linise pushed the door open, and both men turned their gaze to the cramped closet at the same time. Sure enough; two children, an older boy and a younger girl. The boy held the girl – his sister, looked like – in his lap with his hand clamped over her mouth to keep quiet her nervous, erratic breathing.

  “ Braska –” Zevran swore under his breath, hand on his hip as he turned away, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re shitting me. What do we do? ” He took a half-step away from the situation.

  The answer seemed obvious to Linise, and he knew his lover knew what the answer was too. Zevran had always been wary of the idea of children, though. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them, he only knew that they didn’t have a very stable nor safe life, and their house was falling apart from the floors up. It wasn’t exactly suitable for raising little ones. The hesitance was less about the presence of kids, but more the quality of life they’d be able to provide.

  “Go away!” the brother screeched, protectively wrapping his arms around his sister. “Don’t– don’t hurt us!”

  Linise ignored the kids, glaring as he moved his head to follow Zevran’s eyes. “We can’t leave them here, so don’t you even start,” he hissed through his teeth, “isn’t that the whole point of us doing all this? To help the kids? Put yourself in their shoes, how’d you feel if someone just left you after taking out the Crows that were raising you?” He crossed his arms over his chest and steeled his face when Zevran gave him a sidelong glance.

  Zevran extended a hand out to tap the tip of his finger against Linise’s chest, inhaling slowly to reel himself up to speak. He looked frustrated, but quickly resigned. Linise knew exactly which buttons of his to press to get him to give in. “Damn you and being right,” he murmured, then glanced back at the two children.

  They were holding onto each other like their lives depended on it. They stared at the two swords-for-hire like they were monsters. Granted, they had just witnessed the two of them tear through a room full of assassins like it was nothing more difficult than blowing out a candle.

  “Did you really not have a plan?” Linise asked, cocking a brow as he looked up at Zevran. “What were you going to do if you ever came across kids like this, Zev?”

  Zevran sputtered, widening his arms incredulously. He let his mouth hang open for a moment while he decided on his words. “I didn’t expect them to be places like–” he gestured around the shitty warehouse. “To be here! ”

  Linise ran both hands over his face in irritation as he turned away from Zevran and towards the frightened kids. He crouched down at the doorway to get on their level and to get a better look at them. They were definitely related, both elven and too boney. The boy looked to be anywhere from fourteen to sixteen, the girl couldn’t have been much older than ten, if that. All she wore was a shirt much too big that likely belonged to her brother. That along with the bruises they wore made Linise’s heart sink and his stomach churn.

  “You’re safe,” Linise quietly reassured, “those men? They can’t hurt either of you any longer. I swear it.” He put his hand over his heart to emphasize his promise.

  The brother only scowled, protectively holding his baby sister closer. Everything in his body language screamed of distrust. The closet they’d hidden in was full of broken junk and smelled vaguely of death, like it was where the Crows hid a body or two at some point and never bothered to air out the room. The poor kids were likely used to it. The sister wasn’t, no – she kept her face buried in her brother’s shoulder and inhaled the smell of him instead.

  “My name is Linise, and Zevran isn’t as mean as he’s pretending to be,” Linise shot Zevran, cross-armed and back turned, a pointed glare from over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes as he faced the two children again. “We can bring you somewhere much safer, in fact, we’d be delighted to. You don’t have to stay here. You can come with us, and we’ll help get you in someplace you’ll be safe. How’s that sound?”

Chapter Text

They were leaving Weisshaupt to go back home to Kirkwall soon. Fenris and Joetta laid in bed together for a few moments longer than they should have; they deserved it, though. They’d been through enough. A late morning wouldn’t kill them.

  They didn’t care to move. They laid facing each other, mirrored positions, arms tucked under heads, legs tangled together with as little commitment to cuddling as possible. Breaths were slow and blinks were slower. Joetta could see the corners of his face that only shattered remains of a mirror could ever find. Fenris saw the moon in her eyes that would never go away and all the parts of her that would never heal.

  Fenris reached a hand out to rest on the rounded evidence of Joetta’s pregnancy. She was seven months along. The ever-present hardness in his face threatened to break in reverence as he glanced from eye to brown eye. There were two times of the day when the hopeless devotion was most obvious – as they rose and before they fell. He allowed himself to get selfish in the mornings, both with the blanket and with Joetta’s attention. She often told him he was allowed to have her focus entirely for more than an hour or so a day, but he never asked for it. She wasn’t sure why. She liked to give it, especially to him.

  Fenris was akin to a closed wound, she had noticed. He was faithless in most aspects of his life, but not in her. Despite all his cynicism, he had become accepting of the fact that he was beginning to believe he wouldn’t get hurt. He wasn’t being left. He wasn’t going to be torn open again, and he was just as worth staying around as anybody else.

  A quiet sigh left his mouth as he lifted his hand from Joetta’s stomach, instead brushing the backs of his fingers against her chest. Her shirt was soft, he thought. He hovered over her pulse point with hesitation, then pressed his palm to the spot instead. He had to consciously keep himself from smiling.

  Joetta was her heart. A bleeding one, at that. She was incapable of being anything but. She was an open wound, her love smearing against all who touched her like a smearing of sacrificial blood against a doorframe. It was contagious, the way her cup overflowed constantly and consistently. Fenris didn’t understand how she could keep pouring the warm whiskey of kindness into every shot-glass-heart she came across, and yet never ran dry. She was the opposite of him. She was faithful to a fault.

  “Will you be able to make the journey?” Fenris whispered, his voice hoarse and rough around the edges. They were the first words he’d spoken yet that day.

  Joetta took the sound of his voice as an invitation to reach an arm out and wrap it around Fenris’ middle. She pulled him closer with ease. He kept his hand in its place over her heart. She took in a slow breath of air, trying to wake her lungs up before she spoke.

  “I have to,” she answered. “I’d rather travel pregnant than with a newborn. It’s easier that way.”

  Fenris hummed. His eyes drifted down to her collar, along the line where his fingers stopped and her shirt began. “I suppose that would be wise,” he murmured. He didn’t like that she was correct in the fact that it would be easier for them , but traveling for weeks as pregnant as she was? It would be far from comfortable for her . The chronic, dull pain in her knees had only been getting worse. She couldn’t walk for long without needing a break, winded.

  Fenris let his eyes close when Joetta cupped the back of his head and tugged him in to press a kiss between his eyebrows. The markings on his forehead began to glow at the touch of her cold nose, illuminating her freckled face with a twinge of blue. She smiled at the sight. She watched silently as the blue glow traveled down his chin, his throat, all the way down his arm until it reached the hand over her heart.

  He took in a sharp breath and yanked his hand only half an inch away. His index finger trembled, still buzzing. He could’ve sworn he’d felt the pads of his fingers accidentally dip into her skin. His gaze darted up to meet hers, his ears becoming downturned and his eyes getting big – whether in embarrassment or a small curiosity, she wasn’t sure. It was a little electrifying, the thought of feeling her in such an intimate matter, but he tried to push the thought down. Instead, he decided to inch closer. She understood his silent request and pushed his head beneath her chin, holding him close to her chest.

  It almost made the curiosity worse. He could hear her heartbeat.

  He let himself curl into her, ear to her chest. He listened close to the core of all that she was. He wanted more of her even if he already had her. He wanted more than an hour in the morning. He was careful and slow as he put his hand back over her heartbeat, absorbing every soft thump. Her nails cascaded up and down the length of his spine, and it only made him more sure of what he wanted. He stared hard at what he wanted.

  From the core of his chest down to the tips of his fingers, his markings lit up again. He started small. He thrummed his digits against her sternum, the touch firm and intentional. He was asking permission to come closer. Joetta gave him an encouraging scratch between his shoulder blades. Oh, dear.

  Fenris’ breathing was getting shakier and more shallow the longer he took to take the plunge. His lips parted in awe as he watched his fingers start to disappear into her chest, at which Joetta let go of a breath he wasn’t aware she was holding. They quietly panted together, their bodies stilled in anticipation. He didn’t care about making sure his hands were stable any longer – he knew he’d never get them to stop trembling in the unreality of what he was about to do.

  He felt it against his pinky first; her heart, that is. He wanted to weep. Her heart was within his grasp. The night they first met, he was using the same fist and the same power to kill a man right in front of her. She’d seen the violence he could enact, and yet, she was letting him feel around her insides like it was nothing more than digging into a satchel to find her coin pouch.

  His hand cupped the beating muscle as gently as he was physically able. He felt it jerk and pulse at his touch. It had never been touched before, Fenris realized. He was the only person capable of doing so. His own heart lurched like it wanted to break out of his ribs and live in Joetta’s chest, too. He couldn’t hold in the small snivel that was threatening to force its way out of his throat, his forehead falling to meet her collarbone.

  “What does it feel like, baby?” Joetta whispered. Her voice was tight and restrained, like she was afraid to breathe in too deep.

  Fenris had to pull his hand out of Joetta’s chest, burying his face deep in her neck to gasp for air and try to calm himself down, lest his emotions overcome him and he squeezed too hard. “It feels like you .”

Chapter Text

“I hope this ends soon,” Dorian said, resting his chin on Drynne’s shoulder. His eyes lifted up to watch the horizon before them, mountains sparkling with the clementine orange light the sun cast overhead. His arms wrapped around the Inquisitor’s middle, fingers just clasping together. He tucked his head downwards to press a kiss or two into the crook of his neck.

  Drynne tilted his head to rest it against Dorian’s. He let out a sigh, long and profound, like all the terror of the past year or so was melting out of his body to be absorbed by the world around him. He was twice as broad as the mage, so he made sure not to weigh too heavily into him.

  “What are you hoping will happen once it's over?” Drynne asked, his voice smaller and softer than Dorian believed he had ever heard it. “Out of this, I mean. Us.” The patron saint of sunlight seemed to be mirroring the celestial body he represented – the sun set, as did his usual overjoyous attitude. Dorian pressed into his back like wax wings.

  “Well…” Dorian started slowly, pursing his lips in the length of his pause. He straightened up a little and turned his face towards Drynne’s side profile, taking a breath to notice the way the sunset lit him up golden. “I’d like for there to still be an us, if you want that as well. I’ve gotten quite used to having you at my side, Drynne.”

  “ Drynne… ” he repeated his own name in awe as soon as the title fell from his lover’s lips. To everyone else, he’d accepted that he’d never be anything but a religious figure. He hadn’t been anything but the Inquisitor in months. But with his lover? Please, he begged. He wanted to be just Drynne. He felt like his name was all he had left of the man he used to be, he’d become so different in a year alone. Dorian said he was wrong and that it was still very prevalent, but Drynne couldn’t find the sparkle in his eye anymore when he looked in the mirror.

  “Drynne,” Dorian agreed, his chin returning home on Drynne’s shoulder, “I’ve gotten used to having my Drynne at my side, yes.” It felt good hearing his vhenan say his name, like the word earned an entirely new meaning. He wasn’t sure he even remembered what Drynne meant in the first place, he just knew it felt right.

  Drynne laughed, the sound warm as honey down a sore throat. He remembered the days he’d have recoiled away from Dorian’s touch if the man ever dared to call him his . He didn’t mind much any longer. He saw his lover not through the lens of a traumatized boy, but for what he truly was – a man who was allowing himself the simple pleasure of love for the first time.

  Hmm. Love. Drynne hadn’t thought about that word in a while.

  He failed to hide his smile as he took his turn looking over Dorian’s features. He caught him in the middle of a faraway thought, it appeared. He watched as Dorian’s mouth opened and closed a few times, then he straightened up to press his forehead against Drynne’s in the softest of gestures.

  “I don’t mean to sound crass, amatus , I know it’s not what you believe in,” Dorian said, “but I do think you were sent here by Andraste herself. If not to close the Breach, at the very least to…to know me. For what it’s worth, I love you.” His voice opened in vulnerability, the quiet call of a mourning dove making his lips tremble. He wasn’t always good at vulnerability, but in the rare instance he did show it, it made Drynne’s chest cave to allow him inside.

  The dusk settled in, and Drynne only had one thing he could think to whisper; “ Ar lath ma, vhenan. ”

Chapter Text

Cybille felt like she’d been waiting in the tavern for hours . She likely had, actually. The contact her mentors had sent her to meet with didn’t seem to be very punctual. She hated when people weren’t punctual.

  Cybille had had a few pints already, adjusting in her uncomfortable seat as she glanced around the bargoers. She purposefully avoided contact with some of the other Shadow Dragons posted in a few corners of the room, there to easily bounce into the fight if one were to stir up between her feisty ass and whatever kind of people her family had set her up to meet with. She sighed and leaned back in her seat, taking a hard swig from her ale that was getting lukewarm – that was how long it had been.

  She leaned back far enough for the front two legs of her chair to lift off the ground, her lips hidden behind the rim of the cup in her gloved hand. She locked eyes with Jovian, one of her dearest friends, for only a half-second. Only long enough to see him have to fight back a vodka-colored smile. She twitched a brow at him in reply. Settle , she thought as hard as she could. She often wished one of the magical talents being a mage brought her was telepathy. How nice it would be to never have to speak something that should be obvious ever again.

  Jovian lifted his hands, moving them as subtly as possible to not be detected from across the room. “ They still haven’t arrived? ” he signed, a hard and confused frown on his sharp features.

  Cybille thinned her lips and shook her head. “ Not yet, ” she replied simply, her tongue poking through the small slot of her mouth.

  The dishonorably-discharged knight pursed his lips in annoyance, cocking his head to the side. “ Call it a dud? ” he inquired, then bounced his shoulders into an easygoing shrug. His smile only showed in his silvery eyes – he was looking forward to leaving. He got bored easily, that she knew.

  Cybille took one more glance around the room, and lifted her chin in preparation to nod. Before she could bob her head, however, someone grabbed the chair opposite of her and spun it around to sit straddling the back of it.

  The sudden, swift move of confidence made the elf’s ears perk up, her brows furrowing as she eyed the new tablemate. An older dwarf with gray streaks in his swept-back hair, a slash of a scar over his right eye, a strong nose that pointed towards a charming smile. “You must be the Rook I was hearing about,” he said, his voice low and oozing. He slammed his own mug of ale down on the table and made himself comfortable, adjusting his hips beneath his weight.

  Cybille eyed his outfit with a guarded downturn of her lips. A fur collar and a few buttons popped open in his shirt, a golden ring of a necklace settling prettily beneath his collarbone. His belt, though, held a certain insignia that she’d definitely seen before, once flashed around the corners of the world since she was a child. He was part of the Inquisition. Her golden eyes slowly trailing back up towards the dwarf’s. She didn’t understand why her family would agree to work so closely with such a large organization.

  “Varric Tethras,” he greeted, outstretching a hand for Cybille to shake. She didn’t take it. Practicing her trained poise of strength and strategy, Cybille straightened her back and crossed her hands over the table, locking her eyes with the dwarf as he sighed and retracted his empty hand.

  If he wanted a rook, he’d have to work to play it off the board first.