what you are in the dark

════ 𝕯𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖔𝖓 𝕬𝖌𝖊 ──✦•

I love the nobility and the political intrigues in DA, so my writings are rife with them. Not a big fan of how the Quns are portrayed, so that's probably the origin I write about the least. I prefer Dalish Elves than City Elves, especially after DATV. Human and Dwarven nobles are my fav origins.

Because of personal reasons, I choose to not write too deeply about the religious aspects of the game, so what I have in my fics are usually just surface-level. Which makes it funny because my best girl is Leliana lol. For her I would delve deep into Andrastianism, but for her only.

My comfort ship is Leliana/f!Trevelyan and I have been shipping it for what 10 years now? This ship got me through an-across-the world-move, my best friend's death, and covid, so it's really special to me. But I don't mind reading other Leli-ships. She has a lot of love to give, and more people should experience that!

worldstate & ocs [✥ is main]

Ashvath Mahariel || bow rogue || assassin & duelist || ultimate sacrifice || 💘 morrigan ✥ Kavita Mahariel ✥ || twin-daggers rogue || assassin & ranger || alive || 💘 zevran + morrigan

✥ Marian Cordelia Hawke ✥ || purple || fire mage || blood mage || 💘 isabela

Valini Lavellan || twin-daggers rogue || assassin || mage route || 💘 cullen rutherford

Evelyn "Eevie" Lucia Odette Trevelyan || ice mage || knight-enchanter || templar route || 💘 josephine montilyet

✥ Emilia "Emily" Adalene Celestina Trevelyan Voisard ✥ || two-handed axe warrior || champion || mage route || 💘 leliana

Slavius Laidir || storm mage || lords of fortune || spellblade || 💘 lace harding ✥ Zea "Rook" Caecilia Travinius Thorne ✥ || bow & twin-swords rogue || grey warden || saboteur || 💘 neve gallus

════ 𝔽𝕚𝕟𝕒𝕝 𝔽𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕤𝕪 𝕏𝕀𝕍 ──✦•

I love the exploration of the WoL's origin back before the sundering and their ever lasting struggle with giving too much of themselves to the world until nothing is left. HW, ShB, and EW are my favorite expacs because I cried the most during those three, ShB especially. I would put Stormblood in this list here too but the first half was so hard to get through. Stormblood's patches were AMAZING and made up for everything I had to suffer through before getting to this point.

My best girls here are Y'shtola and Yotsuyu, so my main wolships are with them.

worldstate & ocs [✥ is main]

✥ Adala Gesi ✥ || xaela au ra || gridania || tank || pld/war || 💘 y'shtola rhul

Adala Gesi || alternate timeline || xaela au ra || kugane || sam || 💘 yotsuyu naeuri

════ 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊 𝕰𝖒𝖇𝖑𝖊𝖒 ──✦•

Probably the franchise I have been with the longest besides Pokemon, I've loved Fire Emblem since Rekka no Ken or Blazing blade received its EN localization back in the 2000s. I love the medieval theme and strategy aspect of the game, and of course the compelling characters and their relationships.

I have a love-hate relationship with Awakening because although I know it's a lot of people's entry to the series, and also one of my favs, it brings with them the mainstream audience into the fandom and now we get stupid shipping wars . Unfortunate, but what can you do.

I love a lot of entries in this series so let me just say the ones I DON'T LIKE are FE 14 Fe:if or Fe Fates, FE Mirage, FE Three Hopes.

My ultimate favs are FE 8 Sacred Stones, FE 12: New Mysteries of the Emblem and FE 13: Awakening. FE4 has a special place in my heart BECAUSE IT TRAUMATIZED ME 😭so remake when????

games and ocs

˖ ✧ new mystery of the emblem kris (f) || the scarlet beast || human || swordmaster || 💘 linde

˖ ✧ awakening ✥ robyn (f) ✥ || the tactician || human-hybrid || thunder mage || grandmaster || 💘 chrom

robin (m) || fang of grima || human-hybrid || berserker || 💘 cordelia

——

✺ might add more, but thanks for reading so far!

Leliana waits.

Uncharacteristically nervous, as if this is her first time ever coming to visit a potential paramour’s house.

It’s not, really, and this house belongs to someone she knows very well, so really, she shouldn’t be so nervous about this. But the thing is, thing have changed so much between them, especially in the past 48 hours, that their status quo might just have been obliterated straight to hell as long-kept secrets are exposed.

And now, they might as well be strangers, and Leliana is making her intentions clear just in case she wasn’t taken seriously last night.

She straightens up when she hears the lock on the door clicking open, followed by the many latches that are being undone right after. This makes her smile—she remembers the time where she nagged at Emily to put better security on her home. She’s been fiddling around with it during her rounds as Nightingale, and it utterly vexed her that Emily doesn’t even bother to use extra security like maybe CCTV or the like.

She has to keep nagging, but thankfully, Emily listened.

When the door is finally opened, Leliana couldn’t help but grin widely at the person behind it.

Emily, true to her usual self, scowls at her.

“Stop being weird on my porch.”

Even though her old friend is as grouchy as ever in this beautiful morning, Leliana is undaunted. Her heart is singing within her chest.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she raises both of her hands which are full with gifts. “I come bearing gifts.”

Her old friend’s eyes go to the bouquet of flower on her left, and a box of breakfast pastries on the other. Emily’s scowl deepens for a fraction for a second before she heaves out a sigh of surrender. She opens the door wider and jerks her head at her.

“Fine. Come in.”

And Leliana does so, happily. This is the first time she’s ever visited Emily outside of the Voisard home, so she’s rather excited to snoop around. She doesn’t know what to expect since she and Emily have been estranged as far as childhood best friends goes in the past fifteen years, so whatever she’s seeing will be a surprise to her.

Emily’s home is of minimalistic decoration.

It’s almost spartan—stripped down to its barest necessities and little frivolous decorations. No funny family pictures or trinkets brought back from holiday visits or anything along that line. There are instead black and white pictures of landscapes, and corny science posters with puns that most people would roll their eyes at. Leliana finds them charming and she smiles as she takes her time looking over them.

But what’s more eye-catching than the lack of decoration, is the presence of the many mobility assistance mechanisms which are obviously customized installations to help Emily do housework with her one functioning arm.

It’s simply amazing to be moving around this house and noticing that on each and every side there exists a mechanism that would assists Emily in holding, carrying, reaching out for things that she would need two hands for.

This is definitely a house designed just for Emily’s ease, and Leliana burns with pride at the ingenuity of it.

When she turns around from her snooping in the living room, her friend is there watching her with unreadable eyes. It makes her sad sometimes, to think like this. Because way back in the past they used to be thick as thieves. There was little about Emily that Leliana didn’t know, and she was always proud and even smug about knowing more than even Elizabeth, Emily’s own sister, back then. But things have changed in the past 15 years they’ve been apart, and now…they might as well be strangers.

This moment though…it doesn’t seem like Emily is watching her with disapproval.

She’s…waiting for Leliana’s reaction instead.

“Your home is lovely,” the redhead ends up saying. “I love what you’ve done with the place.” she is nothing but earnest in her admiration of all the additions Emily’s done to the place, and the younger woman nods, accepting her words without fanfare.

Even this little notion makes Leliana’s heart skip. Maker. She’s so far gone.

“I have coffee in the kitchen. And a vase, I guess.” Emily glances at the bouquet still in Leliana’s hand before she turns around and makes her way out the living room. Leliana instantly follows her, keeping two steps behind as she watches Emily in her morning glory.

Her old friend is in a baggy shirt and jogging pants, long hair tousled because she probably just woke up not long ago—and yet she is still lovely to Leliana’s eyes. The usual heavens-high steel walls of guard she puts up around herself are nowhere to be found, leaving this usually distant and uninterested woman with a soft air around her.

Leliana can feel the yearning burning in her chest. Her want to know more about this side of adult Emily that she has missed out on during the years she’s been away. She’s only seen slivers of it during her time as the superhero Nightingale, because Emily is only ever comfortable with showing that soft side of her to Leliana’s alter persona.

There was no hope of Emily showing that affectionate side of her in front of Leliana.

So right now, the redhead is savoring every minute of this time she’s let inside Emily’s walls.

She’s told to sit by the kitchen island after putting her flowers in a vase that’s filled with water. There are toasts on the table, along with a box of cereal, a bowl of fruit, and jugs of milk and orange juice. She places her box of pastries besides them and marvels how it looks at home. There is coffee brewing on the electric pot by the stove to complete the set and Leliana smiles softly at the domesticity.

“Help yourself.” Emily says as she takes out an extra mug and bowl from the kitchen cabinet. “If you want water, my fridge has a water dispenser.”

“I’ve eaten before I came here, so don’t worry about breakfast.”

Her friend’s eyes are narrowed when she places the mug and bowl on the island before Leliana. “…You don’t eat breakfast. If it’s just one banana, you should eat some more.”

This old argument makes her eyes roll, but Leliana smiles at the familiarity. “I had two bananas thank you. And water. Perfect breakfast to start off the day, no?”

“Knowing you, your day started out six hours ago. Did you even sleep? You look like crap.”

Leliana sputters at her blunt words, cheer faltering as self-consciousness envelops her. Does she really look that horrendous? She itches to reach out and make herself look better, but Emily’s sigh pulls her out of her inward panicking.

“I didn’t mean—you just—you look tired. And I can see bruises on you.”

“I can see yours too.” Leliana immediately says, her eyes tracing the purplish marks on Emily’s face and neck. she feels bad immediately. “I’m sorry. I should have given you some first aid—”

“S’fine. I have arnica. Did you give yourself first aid?” Suddenly there is concern in those stern brown-red eyes. “You took a lot of big hits last night. Didn’t you break some bones?”

Immediately Leliana remembers the pain she’s been suppressing thanks to her painkillers. She can feel the faintness of the aches still, maybe echoes of it, but she’s so used to them that they might as well disappear into the background the moment her focus shifts.

“Just a crack. And they’ll be fine. I’ve taken care of them.” Emily looks doubtful, but Leliana won’t let her linger. “Emmy, I’m serious. You should go see someone if you don’t feel well. I shouldn’t—I didn’t protect you well enough last night, and—”

Her friend’s scoff is clear between them and Leliana blinks.

“I don’t know how hard your head’s been hit, but if you remember, it was me who was doing all the protecting.” Brown-red eyes dance a little and Leliana watches the playfulness flitting past her face, transfixed. “You spent most of the fight on the ground before I came in.”

Leliana should feel insulted at the dig Emily gave out, but it was the furthest thing from it. Emily was right. Leliana was losing badly last night, when she was facing that Ogre. Having gone mad from the serum, it evolved into another species entirely before wreaking havoc across the city. She was still wounded from a fight gone bad two days before, so a full fight with that humongous Ogre was just a bad idea.

She knows she’s losing the moment her knees stumbled. Hit after hit after hit landed on her as if she was nothing but a sandbag, each blow leaving her winded and threatening to break her in half. She falls to her back, embarrassingly, but there were no bystanders to judge her—there were only the two of them then, as people have gone and run away the moment that monster starts breaking electric poles and tossing cars into buildings.

Only the Ogre was there to witness what she thought would be her permanent death.

Until it wasn’t.

Emily came in on a roaring bike that she jumped off of after sending it running straight at the Ogre. That monster flies back from the impact as Emily’s bike is one of those massive things whose strength are measured in horsepower. Threat neutralized momentarily, Emily goes to her—the prone Nightingale whose mask was torn in half from the blows she’s been exposed to.

It alarmed Leliana then to see how unsurprised Emily was to see her face underneath the mask.

“You’re an idiot.” Her old friend says, relief dripping from every word like she has spent the night worrying about Leliana ever since the news breaks about how she's taken on the Ogre alone. “Stop going after something this dangerous solo, you idiot.”

Two Idiots in one day, but Leliana is far too tired, far too surprised to say anything back.

When the Ogre roared angrily from across the road, Leliana was desperate to move. To get out of this damn crater she’s stuck in—to protect because Emily is here and if Emily is hurt, she will never forgive herself. She has hurt Emily before, and Leliana does not want that again. Not her. Never Emily.

But her body won’t move like she commanded, and her throat is dry, silencing her outmost terror when Emily moves to meet the Ogre instead. Stepping between Leliana and the monster like she is a bulwark made of steel and silver, instead of precious flesh and blood.

And then—

A miracle.

Emily’s fist hit the front buckle of her belt—and a thick armor grows out from it, covering her in layers of protective glimmering metal from the top of her head down to her toes.

And a silver arm comes out from the stub that once was her amputated left arm. Leliana’s eyes bugged out, fixated on it, unable to watch but she can’t tear her eyes away.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Emily saved her last night—

And out of gratitude and love, Leliana proposed.

Like a stupid, complete idiot in love—

She proposed.

“Marry me.” she had said—demanded—when the Ogre has been taken down and the dust has settled. She was delirious from the pain, sure, and happy from being saved and staying alive—but her words are true.

She never meant anything more in her life.

And Emily only stared at her wide-eyed, never giving her a clear answer even when Leliana’s backups came to fetch her and take her to safety before the authorities arrived.

And here they are now, the morning after.