#afraidofchange

—

ilona's loss had nearly been her undoing.

even now, faced with her astonishing return, neve is terrified to accept it as fact. for weeks, she existed in a vacuum of grief compounded by grief. first, it was lace, lucanis, and bellara; then, it was ilona; and as the final, brutal nail in the damned coffin, it was minrathous.

she let herself shut down for exactly one day—penciled it into her schedule, more or less. she had screamed and sobbed until it felt like her voice would give out. she drank. she cried until her stomach turned. she screamed until nothing was left but the gaping hole in her chest where so many people should be. at some point, she fell asleep.

that was weeks ago.

eyes had been laser focused from the moment V had crossed her periphery. in a city littered with net runners rife with main character syndrome it was rare to stand out amid the crowd, and fuck she was h o t.

Sky's teeth sank into her bottom lip when the other's hand so brazenly met with her waist. she wasn't going to complain, she loved a bold woman. she loved physical touch.

" V... mysterious and sexy. yeah I like you. " Sky placed her hand onto the wrist V had at her hip and slid up the length of her forearm, closed the gap between them that tiny bit more.

" the net knows me as Tinkerbell but, you can call me Sky. "

@afraidofchange asked:

❛ Tell me about her? ❜ ( from Fareeha) || Tell me ( accepting! )

"She's... everything," Stars blossomed in Lena's eyes, awestruck at the concept of the woman she adored. It was easy to fall in love with Emily, easy to fall into the relentless pit of love and humor and playful competition that Emily created around her, easy to be trapped in the burning rings of fire so many have sung about over the years. And Lena was lucky to call her hers.

"Journalist - a real one, not like the parasites that 'ang about these parts," Lena's face soured at the thought of tabloid smears and paparazzi stealing whatever content and twisting it for the most views. Emily was dedicated to the mission of truth, picking at scabs where Trouble had dipped its knife until they bled, discovering the sources and going even deeper.

TEEEEEXT MEMES!

ACCEPTING!

[ oh. lovely. she can’t help but smile about it. sincerity is a virtue she believes in pretty staunchly. ]

[ TXT: SHEP ] that’s maybe one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

[ TXT: SHEP ] choosing a specific kiss.

cat’s head remains aside — and how simple she is, how simple she’ll always be, the way her thoughts turn as quick on a dime as she can. for every sudden 180 she’s capable of, it’s just as fluid in the way her voice chokes into a partial whimper, a half-whine that drowns in her throat and delves, dies. a hand swiftly finds itself winding into hair, self bent half akimbo to allow the eye contact. for anyone else it would be uncomfortable, but for selina every inch of her body is as flexible as every other. joints move and that chocolate brown gaze is locked and unmoving, fingers crooked fearlessly to capture a jaw in place.

the motion is not meant to intimidate and is, instead, instinctive. eyes are smeared in dark, eyeblack streaked in stark veins across pale, pale cheeks. aubergine dark and cobalt create a constellation of bruising that dots the highest point of her cheekbone. the safe house walls are muted midnight around her, washed out by halogen lights that hum and drone overhead. the bedroom is violet. it’s snowing quietly just outside.

❝ i never realized how much i needed you until you were the one person who wasn’t there. ❞

it would be so easy to rebuff her with humor, to tell rana that she doesn’t need anyone (let alone someone like her), that she’s one of the most capable and level-headed people neve’s ever met.

but that isn't the message rana means for her to take from that, is it?

the admission is spoken as sacred, made holy by the unabashed vulnerability that it imparts. neither of them are favorable to baring their necks to anyone, even each other; and yet, unbidden, here she stands with rana's in plain view. neve can't decide if this is humbling or terrifying.

"going soft on me, savas?" she remarks halfheartedly, an instant pang of regret her only reward for such cowardice. neve compulsively licks her lips and turns her head down and to the side for a heartbeat (or three). her chest feels as hollow as a chantry bell waiting to be struck, dull in its anticipation of the ache that follows.

"here i thought you incapable of rash decisions," a last-ditch effort to stay behind her labyrinth of carefully crafted walls or the 'out' neve feels she must provide - that's for rana to determine.

"you should know better, rana," you should know me.

Thora moves her hand before her eyes, shielding out the sun's rays so she sees more than a black shape overhead.

"Never really got used to these things," she confesses. "Don't know if I ever will."

The same can't be said for the new girl Varric picked up. Dorian hadn't been kidding back when he told her dwarves were more than merchants and smugglers down south, she'd just never thought that meant sailor.

(Though maybe pirate is cutting it two ways- sailor and smuggler, she snorts).

The wind picks up, eastwards to their destination, and Thora struggles to her feet. Burping into her hand, she excuses herself quietly before adding in a louder voice, "Anything- ugh- anything I can do to help get us going?"

"Two things can be true," he answers, almost deadpan were it not for the lilt of his accent. "You, at least, always have the option of waking up."

He, on the other hand...

Overhead, a statue carved in the Inquisitor's likeness rounds to face him, unseen by its temporary occupant, but looming large in his vision. Summoned by the fleeting realisation that this is the second dwarf he has unintentionally dragged into the Fade. Ilona lacks Thora's tact, however. Whatever disagreements he had with her over the course of his time in the Inquisition, she would never have wrought such destruction upon his ritual.

Perhaps that is why she hadn't come.