Of Observations and Obsessions

use this specific brand of shampoo

Omg, ok, let's do this!

Harding: she's actually aware most people don't like her cooking but she still persist at it. She's trying to get better, ok? She just didn't have much time for lessons or practice when running around with the Inquisition and then with Varric. Now that they are staying mostly in one place, she plans to actually sit down with a cookbook and learn.

She should probably start with the most basic stuff.

And ask Lucanis to supervise.

Neve: she will never tell how she lost her leg. Or at least, she won't ever tell the truth. Each time the topic comes up, she tell a different story.

All of them are false.

Bellara: her last conversation with Cyrian was them arguing over Bellara risking her life in her experiments.

Lucanis: he won't admit it but he no longer remembers how his mother smiled or what her voice sounded like.

He only remembers what she looked like because there are portraits in the Villa and in his house.

Davrin: he couldn't decide on a vallaslin design so he flipped a coin.

Taash: they thought for years that bananas are spicy. They never learned better until years after the Last Blight, when they were talking with Lucanis and they wondered why parents would feed something as spicy as bananas to little kids.

In Arlathan, behind a ruin that acts as the Veil Jumper's base, there is a little vegetable garden. In it all manner of things are growing well; courgettes and parnips and peas and beans tied to wooden stakes, cabbages and beets with leafy tops splaying over the soil. The carrots are in a raised bed to avoid a type of fly that likes their roots.

Strife is amongst it all pulling up weeds. "May I help?" Emmrich asks, as he kneels next to Strife.

"They're just normal weeds," Strife says.

Emmrich had helped with a more magical weed problem some time ago, wild fast-growing things that had attempted to choke out the plants, as well as a few unfortunately Veil Jumpers. Nobody had come to harm, only the crop suffering.

"I know," he says brightly. "I have done my time tending the Memorial Gardens, I understand the need to keep them at bay, magical or not."

Strife sits back on his heels, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand and returns a smile so soft and bright it makes Emmrich's chest flutter.

"You look beautiful like this," says Emmrich.

"What, covered in dirt?"

"Yes. It's charming. That you tend this, to keep the Veil Jumpers in good food."

"It's not so selfless," Strife says. "The Veil Jumpers know to leave me in peace when I'm in the garden."

It is not a veiled comment, but Emmrich considers the possibility of the meaning anyway.

"Would you like me to leave you to your sprouts, my love?"

Strife catches his wrist as if he is worried Emmrich means to leave. He hesitates then, looking at the dirt spread from his hand to Emmrich's. He links their fingers together before Strife can pull away, and leans across to press his lips to his bared shoulder.

"You bring me peace," Strife says seriously.

Emmrich sighs happily. Grave or garden, he's never minded a little dirt.

[my fic on ao3] [my fic on tumblr] [bluesky] [prompt me]

Anyway apparently Mr. Eclipse made 5000 years' worth of solar eclipse graphics, which you can find the simpler versions of here