Summoner's Sketchbook

Castelin gets to dress like I do at the beach. Racer-back tank (yes, it's Warden-themed, though mine IRL is just striped) and board shorts, because then that's less skin you have to slather with sunblock, and then a hat to keep the sun off her face and and a flowy cover-up for a touch of girliness. Practical sandals that won't fall off, though. She probably burns easier than I do, though.

Hawke, meanwhile, went the bikini route, but with a practical sport style rather than something meant more for fashion. While I do wear a big hat like Cas does for just existing on the beach, a visor like Hawke has is what I wear when out on the water (more secure, dries easier, probably won't fall apart if it gets wet). In Hawke's case, it's mostly for keeping the sun out of her eyes while she ropes the other ladies into beach volleyball. (Not pictured: shorts and an oversized beach shirt for her cover-up.)

Tyria's sense of beach style trends more toward the fashionable but not too revealing type, so she's got a one-piece swimsuit and a sarong. Barefoot sandals because Dalish, other coordinating jewelry and a big flower for her hair, sunglasses because sometimes it's just too bright. Cullen's coin as a necklace.

Saadrah, of all people, has the smallest swimsuit because she likes showing off her wing tattoos. Her cover-up is a lace wrap for the same reason, which she ties around her hips when she has to hit the shops, and she adds some beachy jewelry to coordinate. She prefers basic flip-flops, easy to kick off as needed, and because she's my knife nut, she gets a diving knife strapped to one calf.

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Good dog.

Alistair eventually pulled back, slowly, breathless. “That...wasn’t too soon, was it?” he asked, a little awed, a little desperate. “Please tell me it wasn’t too soon.”

Castelin didn’t respond. She just looked dazed, as though she hadn’t quite caught up with events yet.

Oh no.

Maker, I’m an idiot.

Castelin blinked. Looked up at Alistair like she didn’t know what to make of him.

What to do with him.

Probably stake him out for bogfishers to pick at or something. Likely after castrating him.

The Void could swallow him right then and there and it would probably serve him better than whatever Castelin would do and—

She grabbed the collar of his shirt.

This is it, this is how I die.

And yanked him down the inch or so needed to plant her lips on his.

Oh. Nevermind.

She definitely knew what she was doing. That didn’t surprise him. Why didn’t it surprise him? Castelin angled their heads just right to avoid smushed noses or clacking teeth, and her mouth moved in a rhythm that he tentatively matched, rewarded with a hum of satisfaction. Her fingers twisted in his shirt collar, keeping him close, the pressure against the back of his neck enticing instead of painful, and he leaned in closer when she pulled a little more. His heart hammered against her knuckles. Neither of them still had any idea of what to do with their free hands, moving in a clumsy dance around wrists and waists and elbows before settling tentatively on forearms or just dropping to the side again.

When the kiss—longer, warmer, the best part of Alistair’s day—finally broke, it was Alistair’s turn to be dazed. Definitely breathless. Maybe there was no way to do breathing right, but he didn’t mind. Castelin simply smiled, soft and small, but so full of warmth that actually reached her eyes that it spread to his chest too.

“Good night,” she murmured, and turned to walk away with Garrus again. He let her.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It is.”

And a second one, from the same fic, but Chapter 23. I could go with the steamy bit, but I actually like this scene of the aftermath more.

Alistair watched the firelight dance across tent canvas and listened to Cas’s soft snores against his collarbone, and wondered that he hadn’t been struck by lightning yet like all the Chantry sisters had told him. Maybe it would happen later, once he fell asleep. Or needed a few more indiscretions out of him first, just to be sure it was necessary.

He looked down at the curve of Cas’s freckle-dusted shoulder, at the spill of her coppery hair everywhere, and smiled.

It would be worth it.

Assuming he hadn’t scared her off, of course.

She shifted against him, skin on skin, and he shivered involuntarily and pulled her closer. Her hair smelled like soap, like trees, like wild things and kaddis and a certain mabari, and her skin, though scarred in places—her left arm especially, thrown across his chest like it could hold him down and was certainly doing a bang-up job of it—was soft and warm. He wished they could lay like that forever, and hang the Blight and Loghain.

“I am a lucky, lucky man,” he murmured.

She hummed softly into his skin and nuzzled closer still against the chill. Waking up, or simply dreaming? He couldn’t tell. He tucked the blanket more firmly around the two of them, and hoped it was the latter. She could use the rest.

A thought struck him. “Zevran isn’t going to shut up about this,” he muttered with a sigh.

“Mmm...I’ll fight ’im fr’you.”

Alistair tried to hide his surprised little jump behind a smile at the sleepy mumble that drifted up from under the cascade of hair. “Go back to sleep.” He stroked her shoulder in soothing circles.

“Can’t. Need t’fight an elf first.”

That startled a laugh out of him. “In the morning, Cas.”

She grunted and buried her face against his chest with a barely audible “love you” and a stronger “not goin’ ’nywhere.”

His heart fluttered at the words. “Good,” he said, swallowing against the swell of affection at her sleepy promises, and kissed the top of her head. “Neither am I.” He looked back up at the canvas overhead. “I’m staying right here.”

A quiet snore was his only response.

Of course, he had to move later when Garrus finally nosed his meaty bulk into the tent, flopping down across both of their tangled bodies like they were inconveniencing him. His weight crushed a muffled oof out of Alistair as all of the air was forced from his lungs. Castelin barely roused to mutter oaths and shove the mabari to the side, and then she tucked herself back into Alistair’s waiting arms without so much as a “by your leave”—not that one was necessary—but with a sleep-fogged kiss to his bicep by way of apology.

It all felt oddly comforting despite the extremely tight quarters, like sleeping among the dogs in the kennels again, only with the best—and if he had his way, last—bunkmate ever, and in no time he had chased Cas into a warm and peaceful sleep.

There's one more, but it's for Lucanis Week Day 5, which isn't up yet, so stay tuned for that!

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Again, he didn’t care.

Her hands rested briefly against his sternum, lingering where his heartbeat pounded like a drumbeat, before skimming down his sides. Past his waist. Hooking under his thighs, and—

He bit back the sound of surprise that lurched up his throat as she hoisted him up against the wall, bracing his weight on the stone. Violet light flared as spectral wings beat free of the cage of his bones and steadied him, and Spite rumbled in irritation about “touchy-feely things.”

Still, Lucanis didn’t care.

“Much better angle,” Saadrah murmured against his lips after pausing to catch her breath.

He hummed in agreement.

Rain poured down around their arch, but sheltered beneath it—though already drenched, their leathers glistening in the rain-dulled lanternlight—they leaned into each other, noses brushing, foreheads touching, laughter bubbling high in their chests like they were children again.

“Sentimental,” Spite hissed once.

He earned a peck on the nose from Saadrah for it, and retreated to the depths of Lucanis’s soul to mull it over like a crow with a shiny bauble, or perhaps swat at it like an inquisitive cat. The demon’s presence no longer felt like hooks, but nettles woven through him, still sharp but gradually softening over time. The bite of cinnamon rather than teeth. Lucanis worried the needles would prick those around him, draw blood and leave wounds.

Every time Saadrah touched him—gently, willingly, unconditionally—he felt another barb dulled, another spur smoothed away.

What would he and Spite look like in a year? Ten? Fifty?

He looked into Saadrah’s silver eyes, and accepted that he looked forward to finding out.

Saadrah shifted Lucanis’s weight against the wall. One of her hands came up, stroking gently through his beard, and he didn’t fight the vulnerable noise that escaped his lips. Nor did he protest when she kissed him again, long and lingering, the giddiness shifting to something no less heady but much deeper.