#amaryn

- The Trials and Tribulations of Palladino & Rook in Classical Suggestion -

Comic 165

Again, there’s the tiny caveat that while I do have 10 drafts in progress right now, at least ones that are recently written, they are limited in their scope. I’m torn about dipping into some of the WIPs I haven’t touched since spring to add a little diversity to this. This is why I’m glad I started using my story tracker again. Reminds me of the pieces that are still working even when my brain grabs hold of something else with a vengeance.

COINCIDE: (I had to dig for this one, even had to break down and grab a WIP I haven’t worked on since early this year. But here have some Siobhán and crew meeting up with an unexpected Abomination in a warehouse. In fact, I clipped far more of this than I intended originally because I am kind of really proud of my interpretation of the scene. But that could just be ego speaking. Though I should perhaps caution, that I kind of replace the DA magic system with something more akin to D&D, just because I find the DA system lacking and impersonal.)

Her gaze locked on the blue eyes of a young woman cowering, curled up in the middle of the floor. Her face dropped into her hands just before the convulsions started. Hawke’s eyes widened in horror as fire seemed to engulf the other mage. She didn’t know what was happening at first. But in another few heartbeats, the raiders weren’t the only ones caught unawares when a beast rose from where that girl shivered.

Siobhán knew as well as anyone that mages were susceptible to possession by demons. And she had heard of it happening, but never witnessed it for herself. It was terrifying and heartbreaking all at once. The girl called for help and someone answered; Siobhán just wished she’d gotten here sooner.

“You know nothing of magic!” a dark disembodied voice told the raiders. Its hands glowed purple as the abomination lashed out, lightning arching from gnarled fingers.

“Get the raiders. Leave the abomination to me,” she told her companions, who had waited for the fire to clear out before following through the door.

From her knees, Siobhán arced lightning through the room, which flashed bright white as the crackle of ozone filled the long thin room as it jumped from the ghastly form of the possessed mage to several of the raiders. While it stunned the men, the beast turned and growled at her. Clearly, she’d angered it, but that had been her intent. A simple string of syllables passed Hawke’s lips and a burst of thunderous sound shook the room, barely staggering the abomination.

It shambled toward her and swiped at her with skeletal, long arms and sharp elongated fingers. Blood dribbled down her cheek with a tickle, the metallic scent of it nearly overpowering the sharp scent the lightning left behind.

Reaching out for Varric’s arm, Siobhán whispered another incantation when she saw the demon’s hands sheathe with fire. With the last word, she and the dwarf vanished. Immediately after she disappeared, a thunderous boom sounded. A moment later, she and Varric appeared on the other side of the room.

Varric reached out for her arm, disoriented by the teleportation. “What was that?” His question coincided with an explosion that would have engulfed them both in a ball of fire if she hadn’t been

“Just a trick,” Siobhán said. Her attention remained on the creature across the room from her. Its eyes glowed with rage as it lashed out with lightning directed straight at her.

Her shield went up a second too late and her body stiffened and her nerves felt like they were on fire. With a wave of her hand a sphere of water about the size of her head appeared, and before it fell to the floor another motion formed several sharp shards of ice that hovered in midair for a moment before the flick of her wrist sent them shooting across the room at the abomination. Varric followed suit, firing a volley of crossbow bolts with Bianca.

The beast cried out and crumpled, and the pair shifted their attention to the one remaining man whose sword clanged off Aveline’s shield. Isabela danced behind him and dug her dagger in his back. He glanced over his shoulder in surprise as she pulled the blade free.

“Well, I can say that’s a first,” Aveline said, looking directly at Siobhán.

“For me, too,” Siobhán admitted.

“I thought that was a mage thing?” Isabela asked.

Siobhán eyed her harshly, as if the pirate might be able to read every drop of irriration that statement conjured up. “See if you can find anything that will tell us what they did with Feynriel,” she said, stripping her gaze from Isabela and glancing at Varric.

“It was so nice to see Rainer again,” Isabela said, looking down at the corpse as she twirled her dagger back into its sheathe.

There was a hint of menace in her voice that made Varric and Siobhán chuckle. Aveline seemed far less amused as she followed Hawke towards the mangled form of the former mage.

WELCOME: (Again, I went digging a little farther back to December of 2019. Clearly I need to revise and proof this because it’s been resting more than long enough to have been polished up. This is for my Doc-mancer, Amaryn a Sith Pureblood Jedi Knight--because that needed to be a thing.)

Hidden among the stars, amid the gentle hum of her ships engines, in the lithe arms of the man who tended all their wounds, Amaryn Rha could always find a moment of comfort. Something always drew her toward the medbay on the lower decks. She finally knew what it was—her heart.

When she entered, Doc looked up and flashed her one of those crooked smirks. Setting aside the datapad in his hand he crossed the room. She met him halfway, but they stopped, just inches from the welcome back kiss that had become like a ritual for them.

“Missed me, huh?” Doc said.

“Always.”

His fingertips grazed her jaw, tipping her chin upward gently. His eyes moved over her face, his lips curved into a sweeter smile. Then he slowly bent toward her. She welcomed his kiss, craved it with every fiber of her being. When he pulled her against him, her hands fisted in the back of his shirt, holding on with all her strength.

They moved in tandem in a dance she learned some of the steps to from him. Her hips met the edge of the medical table, caught there between cool metal and his warm body.

“I prefer to not be apart from you,” she whispered against his lips.

“Then you shouldn’t leave without me. Never know when you might have need of Ol’ Doc’s talents.”

“Talents, huh?” she asked with a wide grin that broke into laughter when he lifted her onto the examination table.

He pressed another passionate kiss to her lips. His fingertips traced down her neck, tracing the ridges that ran down her sternum.

“Like quick hands,” he whispered against her mouth. He bared her shoulder to the amorous march of his lips.

“Doc,” she whispered against his cheek. “Anyone could walk past.”

“Mmm, perhaps.”

Amaryn shivered; it could have been the nonchalance in his tone or the shift of cool air across her skin when his hand tickled against her side as he opened her robes. Regardless, her pulse pounded in her veins as her eyes darted to the open door. Doc sucked at the pliant skin of her neck, drawing a quiet moan from her. Her eyes slipped closed in response to the overload of sensations—her own fretting about the inherent risk seemed to intensify every touch, the smoothness of his hands baring her skin, the chill in the air and cold metal clasps on his shirt against warm flesh, the brush of rough fabric warmed by his body, the heat of his mouth and sharpness of his teeth.

It was enough to drive her mad there on the spot. “Please,” she breathed, pulling at the back of his shirt.

SHAME: (Ok, somehow this word is absent from a lot of my in draft WIPs, I mean I had to dig for this word in an unpublished fic. I honestly went to a piece I haven’t touched in 3 years--September of 2017 to be exact. Yes, I actually track those kinds of things in my document notes. It’s part of a large piece that I intend to complete entirely before posting any pieces of. It is Aderyn and Cullen after she returns to Kirkwall after the trip to the Deep Roads. It is one of the few pieces that is at the moment still part of this WIP--I’ve trashed a good bit of this piece in the years I’ve been working on it.)

In shame, like so many other times before, he looked away, staring at his hands, calloused and scarred. She had held his heart in such gentle hands and he’d thrown that away despite all his promises to do the opposite. Even with that thought, his mind jumped to excuse it, justify the actions took, that he begged her father to help ensure. True, it protected her in one way. The measure keep her entire family safe, but still he was sure now that he’d broken her heart entirely. His own ached keenly with the separation, with his own uncertainty.

Finally, his wandering halted and he took a seat on the bench that faced the center of Kirkwall. Leaning back against the cool stone, he stared upwards. Past the stairs toward the keep of the city that loomed over all.  

His fixation left him vulnerable. Staring up towards the clouds dusted in sunset hues of orange and pink swirled just beyond the peaks of the keep’s roof, his attention focused on their wispy dancing as he tried to calm the argument in his head. At least until the ring of wood on stone rang in his ears. Cullen whipped his head toward the sudden and foreign sound. He locked eyes with Aderyn Hawke, aghast to find her there within a stretch of his arm.

How long had she been there, he wondered, staring blatantly at her. How long had he been unaware of her presence? He hoped not too long, that would be far more unforgivable.

“You really should try to be a bit less conspicuous, Knight-Captain,” she said with a tone that mixed familiarity and propriety in the strangest way.

With the formality of her, of all people, using his title, Cullen looked away. It pushed away at the rising spark of hope that dared blaze in his hollow chest when he saw her. “Perhaps you are correct, serah. I should have thought this through a bit more clearly." He stood and started to walk past her.

"Why did you come?" she asked in a quiet tone paved over with a calm which tried to conceal the quiver beneath.

When he looked at her, those eyes like the cloudless noontime sky were locked upon the place where her hand gripped a familiar staff, her father's, if memory did not fail. He stood beside her in that still moment, his skin prickling from the impassable proximity. Finally he lifted his eyes to survey the growing dark of the passing dusk.

(Amaryn of New Loka – Syndicate teaser trailer)

Ask from Mistress’s forum gallery: Does she own any of the flora introduced in Silver Grove? And how does one care for those? (link)

Shortly, yes, yes she does. This is Mistress we are talking about. As for caring for flora; while none of the specimen would survive on her private garden, the many greenhouses and research centers she both sponsors and owns are well equipped to look after even the most needy plants. 

Speaking of Silver Grove: Contrary to popular belief, Mistress does not like New Loka one bit. They have broken into her collections more than enough times to get into her bad side (you only need touch her plants like, once, for that), and Amaryn’s continuing attempts to convert her doesn’t help.