nature held me close and found no fault with me

Tension

Anaelle was exhausted to an extent she would not have thought possible. She'd spent several days traipsing about the Fallow Mire, a wretched place that she would have happily left to the demons and undead, if not for their captured soldiers. When they made it back to Skyhold that afternoon, she was still splattered in muck from head to toe. Even worse, her leg muscles were spasming. She had a custom-made saddle that made it easier to ride a horse despite her limitations, but every time she had to do so, it still made her lower body as cranky as her mind. Anaelle could have had a dozen guesses, and she still wouldn't have guessed what she'd find in there: the Iron Bull. Sitting on her bed like that was a normal thing for him to do. He was lucky she liked him, because just about anyone else who intruded on her space might have found themselves flung off the balcony, or at least dangled menacingly.

I was thinking about Bull's first romance scene and imagined how Anaelle would react to that, and I was so amused I had to write it.

Just Friends

"Hmm. Guess you don't have to worry about being able to walk after," said Sera, apropos of nothing, as she and Anaelle were sitting at a table in the Herald's Rest. Anaelle paused with her wine glass halfway to her mouth and narrowed her eyes. "I beg your pardon? What are you talking about?" "You and Bull."

This was inspired by a prompt and by Sera's canonical response to a Bull-romancing inquisitor, which doesn't exactly make sense for Anaelle. Writing Sera is sooo fun. I should write more of these two, I love them.

Two Rebels

Anaelle found Jem mid-meal at a small table in the Hilt. With no preamble, Anaelle tipped her spirit chair to plop herself into the wooden chair opposite Jem. "Gender," said Anaelle. "Explain." Jem looked up from their food. "Well, hello to you too."

This was written (very last-minute, lol) for Trans Thedas Fest 2025. Jem and Anaelle are a fun duo, I should write more of them.

Scars

It was sunlight through the hole in the roof that woke Anaelle. She squinted up at it, shielding her eyes with one hand. Why on earth did the Iron Bull's room still have a hole in the roof? Ridiculous.

My first attempt at an Anaelle/Bull fic! That they are both disabled is so important to me, I gotta write something more in depth about that

Birds of a Feather

“How’d you know?” Taash and Jem were sitting on the stone steps after feeding the gulls, watching them flap and hop around and peck at what was left of the crumbs. It was the third time Jem had come along to help feed them. They did like feeding the birds, and watching them, but it was mostly an excuse to spend time with Taash. “Know what?” “About…” Taash folded their arms on top of their knees. “…your gender…stuff.”

Another ficlet about gender for Trans Thedas Fest 2025.

Hands

Jem had the jitters as they approached Taash’s room. Stop it, they told themselves. You’re just going to have a regular conversation. Casual. Normal. All the intricate puzzles they’d had to solve in dusty old ruins over the years, and the greatest puzzle of all was how to act like a person. How to flirt in a way that was actually parsed as flirting. How to flirt, period. Until recently, Jem had just about given up on all that. But if there was any time to shoot your shot with someone you liked, it was when the end of the world was on the horizon.

My first Jem/Taash fic, and the first DA fic I wrote when getting back into it after Veilguard! I still think it's cute.

untitled WIP

Sometimes Anaelle wondered if taking part in the mage rebellion had been a mistake. She thought she'd finally be free, finally be safe, that her fate would be her own to decide. Instead, they had all put themselves at greater risk than ever, and once again, the decisions were in someone else's hands. She felt like was trapped on a ship in a storm, getting buffeted about by the waves. A slightly different brand of danger and helplessness than she'd experienced in the Circle, but no better. All that running and fighting, all those people who'd died fighting each other or gotten blown up at the Conclave, and nothing had really changed.

This is from the first chapter of what was intended to be a longfic. idk if it's still going to be. Maybe I'll try to finish this chapter and post it as a oneshot.

another untitled WIP

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Anaelle finally removed the pins keeping her hair twisted up into a bun. She had too much damn hair, and up or down, the weight on her scalp was aggravating. She had half a mind to chop it all off one of these days. But she kept it long for the same reason she wore a dress every day—to remind people that she was, in fact, a woman, and not a genderless thing in a chair.

Unfinished Anaelle/Bull feelings confession fic, once again inspired by a prompt. I'm struggling to write the actual confession part, but I do have over 1,000 words of Anaelle arguing with herself her spirit coworker about whether she should do it in the first place, lol.

Modern Girl in Thedas Simulator (WIP)

You’re having a painfully ordinary day at your regular and deeply boring job, when suddenly a portal opens up in the walk-in freezer. At least, you think it’s a portal. It’s round and there’s all that swirling and glowing going on. You don’t have much time to contemplate the situation, because you’re sucked into it. The feeling of being transported between dimensions is an unpleasant sensation. Like squeezing an almost-empty tube of toothpaste, except you’re the toothpaste. When you finally emerge, you’re dropped onto snowy ground. Disoriented as you are, that’s all you notice at first—the snow seeping through the seat of your jeans. Which is odd, because you were in the dog days of summer, last time you checked. You rub your eyes and look around. You’re in the midst of snowy mountains, near a river that’s frozen solid. You blink several times, realizing the people and structures around you look awfully familiar. A tall stone wall with a big wooden gate. Little fabric tents. A crowd of soldiers training with swords and shields. You’ve been here before, in a way. You… > are in denial. > are freaking out. > are excited. > (lie) are fine with this development.

This was going to be an interactive fiction game where you play, as the title suggests, as a modern girl in Thedas. It was a Create-a-thon project and I couldn't finish in time 'cause I bit off more than I could chew, lol. Maybe I'll go back to it one of these days

High Stakes Gambling

The intellect devourers lay dead on the ground. One of them drifted gently across the ice Tav had created while throwing an Ice Knife. “You fight well,” Shadowheart said. Tav was only half-listening, trying to brace herself. She knew that as soon as she moved, she was going to be fighting a losing battle against gravity. “Perhaps our survival isn’t such a distant—” Tav took a step and slipped, limbs flailing in a fruitless attempt to regain purchase or balance. She fell right on her ass. On her own patch of ice. Her own ice! Shadowheart looked at Tav. Tav looked at Shadowheart.* Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “I spoke too soon.”