ARCHIVE.

@starlyht

sent a raven … “ i firmly believe you and i can withstand any kind of hardship, as long as we are together. “ from mal!

BY ALL RIGHTS, THOM OUGHT TO BE HAPPY. the mission was a success: corypheus suffered a blow that rattled followers into the wind, samson was captured, and none of the party were loss. the inquisition needed this victory. try as he might, he can’t dreg a mote of joy out of the icy dread in his gut. mal questioning him on the fourth day out from the arbor wilds helps his mood as much as a nug needs wings. 

when thom refuses to answer, withdrawn into pensive silence, the mage helps himself to crawling into bed, straddling his hips, and forcing him to pay attention. “ i firmly believe you and i can withstand any kind of hardship, “ a gently tug on thom’s beard draws his eye, at last, encouraging mal to resume saying. “ as long as we are together. “

the battle with samson and his templars was fiercer than anyone anticipated. harder still for you, reflects thom. he regards a long cut an arrowhead dashed across mal’s cheek. everybody else assumed it was exhaustion behind the mage’s increasingly drawn eyes and nervous hands. i knew and i didn’t say a maker - damned thing because you asked me not to. look at what happened. the sound an arrow forged out of red lyrium loosed from mal as it bit into his lower back visits him nightly. he became complaisant in the three years this war has raged. it was easy to start believing that mal could, indeed, survive anything.

“ … it’s been a while since i’ve given you anything, hasn’t it? “ thom traps mal’s hand between his so he can remove the griffon ring from his finger. “ you really have turned me into a sentimental old fool. sit back a bit. “

his eyes stay low, fixed on the other hand that is now within reach. he needn’t look up to know mal is staring a hole through him. “ you told me once how you lot hold … “gifts” differently from us. i don’t know when this fight will end or whether either of us will see it for ourselves. i do know i’ll never forgive myself if i let that stop me from living today. “

thom tucks the ring into the palm of mal’s left hand and folds his fingers around it. “ you already have my heart. what left is there to give other than the rest of me? “

weariness edged the dragon’s words,  as did sincerity.  i firmly believe you and i can withstand any kind of hardship as long as we are together.  the last several days were not as kind to either of them,  certainly not so much as he had hoped,  but together they remained.  he swore hoped it meant something.  

he too had believed more than any that he could survive anything.  arrow’s scrapes and sword’s bites were nothing to a being who trawled centuries.  except now he was touched by new aches,  new scars. the scrape of an arrow along his cheek far from sated his vanity.  red lyrium had cut so unforgiving into his back.  and yet he did nor said nothing about it,  sulking instead over corypheus and his beasts’ defeat. 

mal ran a thumb over his lover’s hand,  more than staring a hole through him.  he willed a response,  he hoped for a response,  and yet could find himself unable to conjure even one.  the dragon stared a lifetime through him,  or several lifetimes.  the dragon stared as many lifetimes as he wished to have with his lover,  brown eyes pensive and searching.

he understood the look thom offered him perhaps because he could not deny how often he knew that same look from himself;  something raw,  something real.  as though he were always seeing the other for the first time,  anew.  he stared a hole through his lover indee,  far too sentimental not to understand nor to pretend not to understand.  he clasped the ring gently,  folding his fingers gently over the other man's.  he pressed a kiss to thom's mouth.  “you know you've had everything i could give,  all of it,  for a while,  don't you?"

THAT’S A WAY TO PUT IT. he was the one that introduced him to life as a mercenary. thom had been eight - and - ten, two years younger than the fast - talking ferelden, and aimless with the grand tourney fading on the horizon. vance painted a splendid picture of gold to fatten his purse and challenges to test his strength. their roads diverged when orlais’ gilded hooks took purchase. the empire declaring its price for the head of now national traitor, former captain thom rainier, decades from then catalyzed a reunion saturated in blood. thom’s eyes wander from vance to mal.

somewhat absently, he says, “ i did have a life before the inquisition, love, “ before frowning. the griffon ring had attracted vance’s eye; out of the corner of his, thom scrutinizes him. time hasn’t erased a couple of old tells. “ … is there something on your mind, dryden? you’re staring. “

heedful, the sellsword looks at rainier. “ i was admiring his ring; quality craftsmanship, that. you two are, uh, you’re this in it … – ? “

“ you’re observant as ever. “

“ easy, big man. i didn’t think you were the settling sort’s all, “ vance’s hands flicker up from his hips, placating. he cuts his eyes toward mal as though seeing him anew. the watery incandescence at the center of the band around his finger is due to lyrium, no question. rainier chose a mage. the world is burning up. he addresses the couple as one, even though it’s thom’s shoulder that his hand clasps. “ congratulations. we should have drinks later to celebrate. everything goes well with your ambassador, i’ll be around for a while. “

half a dozen thoughts clatter and clank through his skull. josephine? what does “a while” supposed to mean? the recognition dawning in thom’s blue eyes shakes a laugh from vance. a goodly number of the inquisition forces were lost in the arbor wilds. they can’t afford to nitpick so close now to the end… . we are paid well, too, muses thom. the vance dryden of his memory wasn’t a man of scruples. moxie will pocket someone his friendship; loyalty is bought with a different currency

thom moves his hand with a lover’s ease across the small of mal’s back. “ what do you want to do? “

everywhere red lyrium broke skin was burnt into memory. worried as he is, and has been since the temple of mythal, he respects mal’s wish to forgo healers and tend to his injuries himself. for an instant again, it is the two of them alone in the skyhold garden, vance and the meandering chantry sister falling to the wayside. he flattens his hand as an unscathed space is found.

the dragon blinked,  noting the too keen and too knowing stare the stranger tried to conceal.  he folded his arms across his chest even as though affronted,  even as he registered the other’s expression of surprise with some pleasure.  i think i’m as shocked as you are,  for other reasons.  perhaps he couldn’t so intimately know what thom had gotten up to during his younger years,  but he doubted most men would so gracefully embrace that they had been making out with a dragon.  he was astoundingly tender for a man who wasn’t the type to settle.

of course he knew that thom had a life before the inquisition,  just as he did.  both of them,  far different creatures from what they now offered thedas.  he shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was,  though,  that the acquaintances would begin to trickle in after val royeaux.  he shouldn’t have been as surprised that thom had acquaintances living.  

me when my sister figures it out:

“ I’M OLDER THAN YOU. OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, “ thom poked at his little sister’s shoulder with all of the unflinching authority a lad of eight years can muster. “ it’s called – “

the crackling hearth prevented her giggles from rousing mother and father. if she was heard, it would have been alright, too. for a few wonderful seconds, his liddy was back with him. father’s disappointment lost the edge he once feared the day she fell ill. thom’s hand now, decades from that night in markham, slowly closes as though his fingers are combing through the constellations themselves. “ four, “ he says. “ i was eight. “

he rests his fist below the weave of their hands on his chest  a yawn that dampens his eyes quiets into a mumbled. “ there’s few things left anymore in this life for me to claim with complete confidence. liddy … she would’ve liked you. “

what she’d think of me, however, thom doesn’t voice. i would rather not dwell on. maker knows i’m a long ways from the hero i’d crow to her about becoming one day. he lost himself somewhere along the line.

“related to you,  she would have impeccable taste,”  the dragon jested softly,  though with a somber note touching his words.  it was not a pain unfamiliar to him,  the loss of a sibling,  while neither of them had been anywhere near so young.  it was a loss he would have wished to shield from his lover if he could.  he’d had more than a mere inkling of how much thom’s sister had meant to him,  but to carry so much grief for so much time,  since such a tender age?

@starlyht liked for a little starter

     “Everyone says that thing looks like an Archdemon,” Inara frowns like this is a normal, light topic of conversation, hands on her hips and disapproval heavy on her brow. “These fucking Orlesians have never even seen an Archdemon.” 

A Darkspawn incursion, the frilly fucks call the Fifth Blight. Morons. 

     “It doesn’t look like an Archdemon, for the record.” She would know. The scars on her arm from the Archdemon’s teeth seem to itch when she thinks about it. Just makes it all more annoying. “The Archdemon was…” Powerful. In charge. Bold. “Not a pet.”

alas,  this was not the dragon’s mage’s ideal turn of conversation,  as much as the newly minted skyhold buzzed over the destruction. 

“don’t even think i can count on a hand what an orlesian noble knows,”  he muttered,  taking a drink from his glass and grimacing.  the wine here had what he swore to be the flavor and consistency of piss.  it wasn’t exactly assisting his mood,  and only by some grace had he managed to bite his tongue because he knew far,  far better.  and now he could do little more than silently sulk that dragons weren’t pets,  either,  or that the entire spectacle had been an aberration.