Accursed Ones

From Kinloch We Fled by @thethirdamell, the prequel to Accursed Ones

Nothing to see here, just Amell holding a talking skull, no biggie 👀💦

PLEASE read Accursed Ones

Amanders shotgunning scene lives in my head rent free

@thethirdamell 's Amell from Accursed Ones

Chapter 191 / ??? - Something in the Water Fandom: Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Awakening & Dragon Age 2) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Blood Magic, Dark, Horror, Angst, Sexual Content Main Pairings (M/M): Anders / Hawke, Anders / Amell, Anders / Justice Summary:

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift, and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world, or Beyond.” Anders knew the verse. Every mage did. But Anders was a runner. He ran from the Circle. He ran from the Templars. He ran from relationships. So what did he care? He was never going to rest anyway.

Chapter Excerpt:

It was worse than a plague. The people ceased to be people. They were just red. Lyrium and blood and rage. There were three plague ships in the harbor, and the only mercy was that the first was the worst of them. For whatever reason, it had spread faster than the other ships, a pulsing heart of red lyrium in the ship’s hold that might have been people once upon a time but was something else now. Read More

Chapter 190 / ??? - What You Wish For Fandom: Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Awakening & Dragon Age 2) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Blood Magic, Dark, Horror, Angst, Sexual Content Main Pairings (M/M): Anders / Hawke, Anders / Amell, Anders / Justice Summary:

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift, and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world, or Beyond.” Anders knew the verse. Every mage did. But Anders was a runner. He ran from the Circle. He ran from the Templars. He ran from relationships. So what did he care? He was never going to rest anyway.

Chapter Excerpt:

“As I was saying in the courtyard, the arling is in crisis because Kirkwall is in crisis. Refugees have been flooding in from across the Waking Sea for the past fortnight.” “What are they fleeing?” Amell asked. “Would that I could say, but I don’t know what’s to be believed. They’ve brought with them… stories.”   Read More

ficlet for the latest chapter of accursed ones (190)

“He seems….” Alistair tailed off as he watched the door close behind Anders.

“Excitable?” Amell offered.

“I was going to go with ‘insecure,’ but sure,” Alistair said, shrugging as he returned his attention to Amell. The war room felt a lot bigger now that Anders and Seneschal Garavel had left it. The room, and indeed the whole of Vigil’s Keep, was a lot smaller than Alistair remembered it. He’d managed to explore all of it within the first day he’d arrived.

Well, all of the parts that weren’t occupied by refugees and Grey Wardens and recruits. The Keep was filled to bursting, and Alistair couldn’t help the longing that stung his chest as he watched Wardens mingle with Wardens and recruits and servants and… everyone. Even a handful of children had been running around.

“Are you speaking from experience?” Amell asked, a small smile creeping across his lips. Oh, were they still playing?

“Are you asking if I’ve been jealous of another man talking to you, or making fun of me for being insecure? Because I’ll have you know I’m pretty insecure about my insecurities,” Alistair joked, taking the few steps back to Amell’s side that he’d vacated during Anders’ outburst. “It would be mean to make fun of them.”

“I’d never,” Amell lied, turning his face up to look at Alistair but missing the mark by a few inches, staring more at Alistair’s ear than at his face. It made him uncomfortable so Alistair tried to ignore it.

For all the world, Alistair couldn’t see any difference in Amell’s eyes. To him, it seemed as though one day they’d just stopped working. They were still just as bright and red and warm as the day Alistair had met him. Of course, they hadn’t just stopped working. Alistair knew that. Knew what had really happened— Well, he knew more or less what had happened. It hadn’t been an accident, at least. Amell was stingy on the details and Alistair was too concerned about looking concerned to press him about it. Not that Amell would have told him anyway. Not without a fight. Not without Alistair ordering it. Amell didn’t tell him many things voluntarily anymore.

“To your left a smidge,” Alistair said and maybe it was rude to try to correct a blind man’s vision, but he couldn’t stand how… off it made Amell look.

“What?”

“Your eyes,” Alistair said. “You’re staring at my ear. It’s giving me a complex.”

“I’m blind, Alistair,” Amell said, as though Alistair needed the reminder.

“I know,” Alistair replied a little too quickly, defensive. “I know that.”

Amell raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you?”

“Of course I do,” Alistair snapped. He didn’t mean to snap. There was no reason for him to get angry about it, but Amell always made Alistair angry. It didn’t matter what he did— or what he couldn’t do, apparently.

…Maybe Anders had had a point about the aggression.

“You’ve got the dog to prove it,” Alistair added, trying to recover from his conversational faux pas and waving a hand at the mabari in question, then realized how ironic that was.

Amell’s mabari, a thick, small thing swathed in black fur and painted in a red kaddis, snorted dismissively at Alistair’s hand. Rude.

“…His name is Dumat,” Amell said carefully, like the dog’s name was a secret. Dumat’s ears quirked at the mention of his name, but otherwise he didn’t move, sitting ramrod straight at Amell’s side like a guardian or maybe a Sentinel.

“Couldn’t think of a pun without me, huh?” Alistair teased. “Should have wrote. I’d have had plenty of suggestions.”

“It is a pun,” Amell protested. “He’s a mutt.”

Alistair snorted. “Well, then it should have been Dumutt,” he explained. He should have to spell it out. It’s right there! Amell was losing his touch. “Dumat is just the Archdemon’s name.”

“Are you really critiquing my dog’s name?”

“I’m just saying you could have done better.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s serious business.”

“So you can do better?”

“Of course I can.”

“Then, go ahead. Give me a new name for him.”

Alistair looked down to the mabari at Amell’s side, drawing a blank. The dog looked entirely unimpressed with him and with whatever he could potentially come up with. Alistair couldn’t believe Amell had found a dog who was more critical of him than Amell was. He must have trained him to do that.

“…Dogre,” Alistair said when he couldn’t come up with anything else.

Caught off guard, Amell barked a horrible cackle that threw his head back and flung his braid back over his shoulder. His nose wrinkled and his eyes squeezed shut and for a moment Alistair could pretend they weren’t who they were now and remember who they were before.

“Dogre?” Amell wheezed, trying to catch his breath with a hand on his chest to steady his breathing and a smile so wide Alistair was sure it’d split his face in two.

Damn Amell’s partner and his threats and the years between them since the last time Alistair had touched Amell with anything but his fists. Cautiously, Alistair reached a hand up to tug Amell’s braid back in place, massaging the strands between his thumb and forefinger as he traced the knit of it down his shoulder to his collarbone. He waited at the band, twisting the locks between his fingers as he rested his wrist against Amell’s chest. Amell didn’t push him away, so Alistair didn’t let go.

“Yeah, like ‘ogre,’” Alistair said.

“That’s so stupid,” Amell said, grinning up at him, his bright, red eyes shining. “You’re stupid.”

“It’s to keep the peace,” Leliana implored. “There have been uprisings in Circles throughout Thedas since Kirkwall. Intelligence tells us that Anders either took part in, or initiated the explosion at the Chantry. While we haven’t been able to locate Anders, Amell is still a prominent figure here in Ferelden and acts as Anders’ Warden Commander.”

“So just ask him where Anders is,” Alistair said, pacing the length of his office. He was anxious, he was always anxious but he was especially anxious right now. Leliana gave him a pitying look.

“We have. Of course, he won’t tell us—- If he even knows,” she said.

“Then that’s that,” Alistair huffed. “Asked and answered. Move on.”

“You know it is not that simple,” Leliana said gently. “He has a personal connection with Anders. Amell publicly announced his intent to court the man less than a year ago. For all appearances, it implies that he endorses Anders’ actions in Kirkwall, and as he is your Chancellor, by extension, it appears as though the Throne endorses Anders’ actions.”

Alistair snorted humorously, shaking his head. “Don’t we?” Alistair muttered, and then louder said, “Kirkwall is— Was? Is. Was…? Kirkwall is a mess. Maker, red lyrium veins are growing throughout the entire city. People were losing their minds, their Viscount, Whats-His-Name—”

“Hawke,” Leliana supplied politely.

“— was mad! The Knight Commander was mad! Everyone was mad! Kirkwall was a lost cause before all of—” Alistair makes a vague gesture with his hand “—this. That some guy blew up some building barely makes a top ten list of the most shocking things that happened there.”

“But it was not just some building,” Leliana said. “It was a Chantry; and it was not just some guy, it was a mage. Regardless of the state of the city, the Chantry was the seat of power for their Circle. It is so for every Circle. The message Anders sent was clear. It is much too late to downplay what has happened. The significance has already been made apparent, and the Circles are responding in kind. Like it or not, the time to choose sides is upon you.”

“I don’t like it,” Alistair said, if only to make his position known. Leliana smiled at him, a sad smile, a smile that said she understood how difficult this was for him. But she couldn’t know, because she didn’t have all the details.

“To the populous view, Ferelden has been distancing themselves from the Chantry for years,” she explained. “What you have done to the Circles and the asylum you have offered mages and apostates has not gone unnoticed. Not just by the Divine, but by all of Thedas. In this time, the eyes of every other country are on you. Circles are rising, but how other kingdoms, free cities, and provinces will respond might come down to you.”

“Oh, great, thanks for that. No pressure,” Alistair groaned, raking a sweaty hand through his hair.

“It is true, Alistiar,” Leliana said seriously. “Ferelden has started down a path other countries did not know existed. You and Anora have walked a thin line for many years, and it has only grown a more precarious one as you have continued. Eventually, you were going to meet its end. It seems today is the day you must decide which side of that line you will settle on.”

“Maker, Leliana,” Alistair whined. “You’re not helping.”

She shrugged. “It has been many years of relative peace within your country, and the longer Ferelden resists falling to chaos without the Chanty’s guidance, the less it appears the Chantry is needed at all. This is a threat to the Divine.

“You have an influence you do not fully comprehend, but the Divine does. And now, your Chancellor has allied himself with a revolutionary. If Ferelden refuses to unseat him, the Divine will have no choice but to retaliate. She will need to make an example of Ferelden if she is to maintain her control over the rest of Thedas.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck! And shit! And piss! And balls! And every other vulgar word Alistair could come up with. This was a nightmare. Actually, it was worse than a nightmare. Alistair would have gladly taken an Archdemon nightmare over this mess. This was— it was— It was so bad Alistair couldn’t even come up with an analogy for how bad it was.

In a fit, he quit his pacing and threw himself into his chair, burying his face in his hands and then his hands in his hair. Maker. What was he going to do? What could he do? Leliana— the Divine was asking him to do something he couldn’t do. Not like this. Not because of this.

“Alistair,” Leliana prompted when he didn’t respond. “You must give me your answer.”

“I need to think,” he said, muffled from behind his hands.

“There is no more time to think.” she said. Her voice was soft, but he felt no comfort for it. “No answer is an answer.”

“...I can’t do it,” Alistair said miserably. “You can’t ask me to.”

Even if Amell still had his Warden standing, his son and Morrigan didn’t. If Amell lost his station, Alistair wasn’t sure Amell could protect them. Alistair wasn’t even sure Amell could protect himself. Amell was a known necromancer, he was a blood mage with a hundred casting scars littered across his body— it was impossible not to notice. Grey Wardens had a lot of latitude, but even their leeway had its limits and Alistair would bet ‘blood mage’ pushed them. For all he hated Amell, for all he’d threatened him with over the years, Alistair couldn’t actually send Amell back to a Circle. He couldn’t send his son to a Circle. Not with everything he knew was waiting for them.

The whisper of Leliana’s robes alerted Alistair when she stood. Soundlessly, she rounded the table and came to sit beside him, prying his hands from his face and holding them in her own. She ran her thumbs across his knuckles reassuringly. Alistair wished he could find it comforting.

“I can’t do it,” he repeated.

“You must,” she said, and it sounded apologetic but if she was truly sorry, she wouldn’t have been here on behalf of the Divine. Her allegiance was as unmistakable as the robes she wore.

“I won’t do it,” he clarified, pulling his hands from hers gently.

“Alistair—” Leliana started, but he shook his head and stood, moving to the window, needing to put some distance between them. “You will see your country to an Exalted March if you do not. You will be endangering thousands.”

She was right, wasn’t she? He had an obligation to his people, to protect them, and he wouldn’t be protecting them if he let the Divine March on Ferelden. But he couldn’t turn Amell over to the wolves either. A lifetime ago in a dying village on the tailend of a massacre, Alistair promised Amell he’d never let the Templars take him and while a lot had changed, his word hadn’t.

Leliana must have been able to tell what he was thinking.

“I know you were close with Amell, but you can’t risk the lives of your people for him.”

And she was almost right. Except that Amell was his people, just like every mage in Ferelden was his people. Alistair didn’t get to pick and choose which people were his people and which people weren’t his people. The Divide might have thought some of those people were her people, but they weren’t. They were Alistair’s people.

“It’s not for him, it’s for what he represents,” Alistair said slowly, still trying to put his thoughts in order. “He’s a mage, Lel. He’s a mage with titles, and one of the highest ranks in my court.”

“There are other qualified mages you can appoint—”

“And what’s to stop the Divine from bullying that person out of their appointments too if I allow her to do it to Amell? What about the next one? And the next one? And the one after that?” Alistair asked. “Will she have a say in my council next, too? Am I to beg her for the right to seat those I see fit to serve the kingdom? Where does it end, Leliana?

“If the threat of a March is all it takes to intimidate us out of naming good people — good mages — then she proves she still has control over them and still has control over us. And that’s what she wants, isn’t it? It’s about power, isn’t it?” He asked, but didn’t give Leliana time to respond. “It’s not about who or what Amell supports, it’s about proving she still has the authority to have him removed for it.”

Leliana frowned. “Alistair…”

“That’s what it is, isn’t it?” He said. “Amell is a powerful mage, both in politics and magic, and that has been a risk to her status quo for years. This was just an opportunity for her to prove her authority over him. That even with all he’s accomplished, he still only exists by her grace. And if even he can’t get out from under her control, then what hope do the other mages have for autonomy?”

“Alistair,” Leliana said, but she couldn’t tell him he was wrong.

“You said it yourself, other countries are watching us. If she can force me to unseat a powerful mage, it proves she still has Ferelden under control and reinforces that no matter how influential a mage gets, he is never out of her reach. She wants to make an example of him. That’s what all this is for, isn’t it?”

Leliana didn’t respond immediately, so he pressed. “Isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Leliana relented. “But if you do not remove him, she will make a different example.”

Chapter 189 / ??? - In The Moment Fandom: Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Awakening & Dragon Age 2) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Blood Magic, Dark, Horror, Angst, Sexual Content Main Pairings (M/M): Anders / Hawke, Anders / Amell, Anders / Justice Summary:

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift, and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world, or Beyond.” Anders knew the verse. Every mage did. But Anders was a runner. He ran from the Circle. He ran from the Templars. He ran from relationships. So what did he care? He was never going to rest anyway.

Chapter Excerpt:

“He is fond of you,” Morrigan noted. “… Are you actually approving of me right now?” Anders didn’t think his luck could last this long. “Do not get too excited,” Morrigan cautioned. “Kieran is fond of many things. The arts, the histories, magic and music… Oghren. Whatever entertains him in the moment.” “I’m not a moment,” Anders frowned. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” “We shall see,” Morrigan said. Read More

Chapter 188 / ??? - It’s Your Funeral Fandom: Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Awakening & Dragon Age 2) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Blood Magic, Dark, Horror, Angst, Sexual Content Main Pairings (M/M): Anders / Hawke, Anders / Amell, Anders / Justice Summary:

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift, and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world, or Beyond.” Anders knew the verse. Every mage did. But Anders was a runner. He ran from the Circle. He ran from the Templars. He ran from relationships. So what did he care? He was never going to rest anyway.

Chapter Excerpt:

“Like anyone could resist you, love,” Anders said. The word still felt a little stilted. Anders had only confessed to the feeling two days ago, but he wanted to keep confessing to it, especially seeing what that confession did to Amell. Amell forgot everything from their conversation to his own name whenever Anders affirmed his affection. Whatever they were talking about went out the nearest metaphorical window, and Amell fell to fidgeting with his cuffs, shuffling his feet, and turning a shade of red to match his eyes. Read More