#ash writes.

It's around 3am when it happens.

Harper is sitting at her bus stop, all alone, when a man in a hoodie comes up to her. He strikes up small talk, and shes so tired (for once) that she doesn't notice the flash of metal in his hand until its pointed at her. Hes demanding her wallet and phone, arm shaking and voice nervous.

"Hey now, buddy," she starts, intending to talk him down, but then he steps forward and theres a sharp pain in her stomach. In momentary shock, she looks down and sees the knife plunged deep before he pulls it out, hand bloody. Her lungs give a short exhale and then her body drops to the concrete. Panic almost sets in before her rationale takes over, pushing fear to the back burner as her hands press against her wound to try and stem the bleeding.

Her attacker is rifling through her backpack while she does this, ignoring her in favor of strewing her things across the sidewalk; scrubs and personal effects shoved aside until he finds her wallet and bolts. Waiting a moment to make sure hes far enough away, Harper pulls her phone from her back pocket (thank God it wasn't in her bag for once) and dials 911. She does her best to remain coherent with dispatch while they confirm that help is on the way. The person on the other end is still talking when everything gets kind of fuzzy. Her consciousness is fading in and out when she hears the sirens.

Doing her best to uncurl from the fetal position (how did she manage that?), Harper hears the vehicle pull up, doors slamming open. She hears the clatter of a gurney and footsteps getting closer. Eventually, someone is leaning over her, trying to get her attention.

"Hello there. Mind opening your eyes for me?" a soft brogue asks, and she struggles to comply (when did she close them?). When she manages to open them, she sees quite possibly the prettiest man she's ever met. Gingery blond, angular features (are those freckles?). His smile is gentle and warm, and his eyes... it seems as if theres something unsettling there. But then she blinks and its gone. A trick of the streetlights, perhaps. Clearing her throat the best she can, Harper asks, "What's your name?" He lifts her bloodstained shirt slightly to press gauze against her injury as he answers. "Avery. My name is Avery. And yours?" She hisses at the pressure before giving him a shaky grin. "Harper."

Avery's smile gets brighter. "Well Harper, my friend and I are going to get you to the hospital. You'll be fine in no time." She gives a laugh that's cut short as he tapes down the gauze. "Katys gonna be so mad. She just managed to convince me to go home." While she's speaking, Avery shifts behind her, sliding his arms underneath hers while his partner takes her legs. He huffs out '1, 2, 3' against her ear and then she's laid out on the gurney. He covers her in a blanket before strapping her in and sliding her into the back of the ambulance. Avery is handed her bag (the other guy must've collected her stuff while he took care of her) and settles into seat next to her as the vehicle starts to move, sirens wailing.

"Do you need anything for the pain?" Harper shakes her head. Concern crosses his face before he decides to change the subject. "So your friend convinced you to go home? You work at the hospital? I've never seen you around." She nods before blowing some hair out of her face. " We're short staffed, so I've been on rotation in other departments. I usually work the trauma unit, though. Guess we just kept missing each other." He begins to reply just as they hit a bump, jostling her wound. The intensity of the pain wrings a cry out of her and Avery reaches for her, gripping her hand in his. She grits her teeth, fighting back tears as he brushes her hair back, trying to soothe her. She's breathing harder, vision blurring at the edges (oh. Its shock. She's going into shock).

As her consciousness fades in and out, she feels Avery lift her hand, feels him press something to it, and mumbles something she doesn't catch before she blacks out.

You're going to be alright, a mhuirín.

Harper wakes in a hospital bed, stitched up and exhausted. Her phone is plugged in to charge, her bag in a chair beside her. Theres a small bouquet of daisies and a 'Get Well' card on the side table (probably from her coworkers), along with a note from Katy (who's probably apologizing for something that wasn't her fault). Leaning over carefully so as not to aggravate her sutures, she picks up the card. She was right. There are signatures from Katy, Dr. Bertrand, Javier from triage, Duncan (the ambulance driver, apparently) and... Avery. She flushes slightly, remembering how tightly he held her hand, how softly he stroked her hair, before she passed out. She shakes her head and tells herself to get a grip. She was in pain and it was his job to help her. She can understand that, being a nurse. She herself has done some similar stuff to comfort patients before. That's all it was (but theres a niggling feeling in her gut, instincts telling her that something is off about him). At this point, Katy pokes her head in the door and her face lights up when she sees Harper is awake. Eager to talk to her friend, Harper pushes her previous thoughts from her mind.

Warning for mentions of past abuse and well. Jay.

Sabrina had gone for a walk to clear her head.

Rey stands there, arm outstretched with tears in her eyes. She’s shaking.

She's just so tired. She just wants this man ( who is Luke Skywalker and awe fights with fatigue) to take this lightsaber, to go home to his sister.

When all he does is stare, she feels like screaming. When he finally does take it, she crumbles.

He looks alarmed but Rey can’t bring herself to care. In such a short time, she feels like she’s lost so much. 

She lost someone who felt like a father, and she almost lost Finn. She had lost the ability to pretend someone was going to come back for her on Jakku (no one was ever going to come back).

She's having trouble breathing and then theres a hand on her back, rubbing slow, soothing circles. She cries herself out before the man offers her hand to help her up. 

Its all she can do to lift her head to look him in the eye. Its all she can do to speak.

Her father is tall and broad shouldered, horns curved back and straight. He smiles easy, and his laughter is loud. Under the Qun, he was ben-hassrath, deception second nature, as it had to be. Lying left a bad taste in his mouth, funnily enough, but lie he did. Lied to those he was to spy on, lied to his people, lied about his loyalty. His faith ended completely when he fell in love.

When he had left for the Free Marches, lover in tow, he needed a name. He had seen the ocean only a few times, rolling waves, dark and deep and wonderful. He took the named Meraad.

---

Her mother is a lithe woman, and towers over the few she selects to interact with. Her horns are shorn, and her lips are scarred. She carries no staff. She is quiet and stern, and her low voice demands she be listened to. She is a font of knowledge, has shelves crammed with books on very nearly everything. Before becoming tal-vashoth, she raged against those who bound her, viscious and burning. Her trust in the hissrad who led her away from those who imprioned her was slow to grow. Now, it is too hard to break.

She has always been a collector, her shelves at home full of knick knacks, and treasures that only she’d find valuable. A small length of gold ribbon. An undamaged leaf, large and flat. A simple silver stud earring. Small things a young girl would find fascinating.

---

She doesn’t grow out of it, and she is a girl of 12, hanging up bunches of herbs to dry, and pressing flowers into a journal. She had to have more shelves added, and her array of oddities is even larger. A jar of shells, a chipped saucer with a beautiful pattern, a buckle from Tiberius’ boot. 

---

She is 13 when her ma sends her and Tiberius off to the Chantry. She’s always been devout, is happy to leave, to learn. But there is only so much that the Chantry will allow even a noble’s daughter to have. So she leaves her trinkets, tattered and shiny. She’ll have chances to collect at her new home.

---

She is 17 and a lay sister known for her kindness and her affinity for keeping baubles that the older sisters disapprove of. She usually finds them herself, when shes out doing errands, catches them from the corner of her eye. A smooth white stone, a scrap of elegant stationary. The people that come to the Chantry, the people that Hayl helps, give her small gifts. A sachet of rose petals, a carved mabari, a tarnished chain. She keeps them all in a small box that she sits next to her bed. 

She collects letters as well. Some a from her ma and pa, yes, but almost all of them are from her brother. When she got the first one, it was all she could do to not cry. Tiberius had been recruited by templars not long after they had arrived to the Chantry, and it had been so long since she had seen him. She wrote back, and soon she had hundreds of letters from him. They are, by far, her most precious collection.

---

When the Inquisition is reinstated, and she is named Herald, she keeps amassing items, though most of them she doesn’t keep. She stops to pick elfroot, blood lotus, deep mushroom. She pries iron and vitriol out of crags. She takes them to the traders, to the healers and craftsmen. She keeps the smaller things for herself. Tarnished lockets, ratty dolls, battered journals. She’s asked why its the useless items she keeps, and not the more helpful things. And her answer is simple.

She finds him in the Hinterlands, near an abandoned shack next to a pond. He’s pacing in front of a group of young men (boys, really, if she’s honest), telling them how to use the shields that they hold. He’s older than she had expected. Grey Wardens don’t often live long enough to literally start going grey themselves, let alone have a beard that full or shoulders that world weary. Ashtalan decides to speak, her voice even.

“Blackwall? Warden Blackwall?”

The man turns sharply, brow pinched. “You’re not- how do you know my name? Who sent y-”

He’s interrupted, his shield flying up to the side of her head to block an arrow aimed for her temple. The force of the shot knocks the shield against her horn slightly.

She turns to stare in the direction the shot came from and there’s a smaller group a little ways away from where they stand. Ashtalan can see the archer nock another arrow as his companions draw their own weapons, and rush forward. She opens her mouth to speak, but Blackwall cuts her off.

“Thats it. Help or get out. We’re dealing with these idiots first,” he says brusquely. Turning to his trainees, he barks, “Conscripts, here they come.”

Blackwall and his recruits rush the others. They outnumber them 4 to 3, but Ashtalan draws her sword nonetheless (there are only two  people in the vicinity qualified for an actual fight, and that is Blackwall and herself). She rushes the archer with her own shield, her speed catching him off guard, and shoves him backwards. She waits until he stands to run him through, and lets him crumple to the ground again. She turns to see the last two of the offenders are dead, and the recruits are stunned and a little bloody, but otherwise fine. Blackwall is kneeling next to the bodies.

“Sorry bastards,” she can hear him mutter. He stands, and then says to the young men, “Good work, conscripts. Even if this shouldn’t have happened, they could’ve- well thieves are made, not born. Take back what they stole. Go back to your families, you saved yourselves.” 

She watches as they do what they were told, and waits until they leave to approach the warden. 

“You’re no farmer,” he states. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

Ashtalan decides to get to the point. “I’m here investigating Grey Wardens for the Inquisition. We’re seeing if their disappearance has anything to do with the murder of the Divine.”

“Maker’s balls.” Ashtalan has to hold a snort at that. “The Wardens and the Divine? That can’t- no. You’re asking so you don’t really know. First off, I didn’t know they disappeared. But we do that right? No more blight, job done, wardens are the first thing forgotten. One thing I’ll tell you, no warden killed the Divine. Our purpose isn’t political.” 

She can feel the indigence in the last statement. Ashtalan raises an eyebrow, face otherwise neutral. “I’m not here to accuse, not yet. I just need information. I’ve only found you. Where are the rest?”

“I haven’t seen any other wardens for months,” he replies. “I travel alone, recruiting. Not much interest because the Archdemon is a decade dead, and no need to conscript because there’s no Blight coming. Treaties give wardens the right to take what we need, who we need.” Blackwall points to the dead thieves, voice derisive. “These idiots forced this fight, so I conscripted their victims. They had to do what I said, so I told them to stand. Next time, they won’t need me.” He pauses, eyes distant, and then continues, “Grey Wardens can inspire, make you better than you think you are.”

Ashtalan mulls over his words. “Why haven’t you gone missing like the rest of them?” she asks, suspicious. One lone warden wandering around while the rest have just vanished of the face of Thedas is beyond odd.

“I was going to, or maybe theres a new directive but the runner got lost or something. My job was to recruit on my own. Planned to stay that way for months, years.”

“Do you have any idea where the other wardens could’ve gone?” The more, the better, she supposed. 

“Maybe they returned to our stronghold at Weisshaupt? That’s in the Anderfels, a long way north. I don’t really know. I can’t imagine why they’d all disappear at once, let alone where they’d all disappear to.”

She stands still for a few moments, going over the information. Nothing all that useful. Ashtalan decides to ask if someone could be send out to Weisshaupt when she get back to Haven. She could also probably get better details about the treaties from Lelianna than a lone recruiter. She addresses Blackwall once more. 

“Thank you, Warden Blackwall. You’ve been helpful. If you will excuse me.” And as she walks away she hears him call out. 

“Inquisition... agent, did you say? Hold a moment.” Ashtalan turns, and he walks towards her. “The Divine is dead, and the sky is torn. In times like these, think we’re absent is almost as bad as thinking we’re involved.” At this, Ashtalan nods slightly. Sound logic. “If you’re trying to put things right, maybe you need a warden. Maybe you need me.” 

This gives Ashtalan pause. She was just here to get information, but having a Grey Warden with the Inquisition would give them some sway over any others that could show up. Still.

“The Inquisition need all the help it can get. What can one Grey Warden do?” She wants him to give her a reason to consider saying yes.

He gives a slight smile at this, and chuckles. “Save the fucking world, if pressed,” and then he’s serious again. “Look, maybe fighting demons from the sky isn’t something I’m practiced at, but show me someone who is. And like I said, there are treaties. Maybe this isn’t a Blight, but it’s bloody well a disaster. Some will honor them. Being a warden means something to a lot of people.” 

A fair argument. 

“Warden Blackwall, the Inquisition accepts your offer.”

Shes had two gems for as long as she can remember. Others think its strange, that someone who isn’t a fusion has more than one. She never listened to them, just wanting to run, to explore, with her best friend by her side. She’d drag the shy, nervous obsidian helter skelter and pell mell. All she cared about was laughter.

---

She was on a ship in the vastness of space, lightyears from the homeworld. Her clothes are monochrome, a bright yellow diamond smack in the center of her chest. She isn’t here by choice. She was going to go to a lab, to be experimented on, her two gems of great interest to the Diamond Authority. She fought when they tried to take her, fought harder when they crammed Sid’s stone into a holding box until someone rammed her through with a destabilizer. She reforms on the ship, told that shes now a soldier for Yellow Diamond, and has a inhibitor collar slapped on her neck. 

---

She hears of a rebellion through reports. Small bands of gems from everywhere are leaving as quickly as they can, fleeing to a rose quartz. She manages to make contact with the gem, pleads her case as coherently as she can, joy overwhelming her. If she joins the rebellion, she could get Sid back. She could be free again, free to run, to laugh, to live. She’d do anything.

---

Its been years after the last battle, years since shes been home. Longer still since shes seen Sid. But she hasn’t given up hope. Rose’s strength and reassurance that they’re still out there, that they could be found drives her. Shes fueled even further by her freedom, her clothes bright and loud. If she could be free again, so could Sid.

---

(Going w/ neutral pronouns, but I can change it if u want me 2 friend!)

 They are brilliant and bright and blinding, like the sun, and just as warm. Its strange that someone so talented would be your friend, and yet they are, guiding you through your silliest questions and strongest doubts.