#aurelie

“I would prefer he was more clever than handsome,” His handsomeness would be wasted on me, Aurelie thought.

Laurent shook a thin finger at her, “That is asking too much, Lady Bergerac. Too much. He will be handsome of face, but an idiot. That is the nature of men. That is why our blessed Andraste had to be the Maker’s Bride.”

Aurelie mockingly sighed as she finally took her first sip of wine, “Ah, well. Pity. Perhaps I should offer myself to the Maker then as well.”

The luncheon continued. Aurelie showed him the courtship letters. Or more accurately, she had only taken letters from minor nobles. It would not be wise to insult men from the more noble houses. Laurent laughed boisterously, drunk from the wine, as he read out a letter:

“Your gaze is like the Golden City. Now I understand the Magisters, it seems impossible not to disobey the Maker to reach it.”

Aurelie playfully winced.

“You are a maleficar, Lady Bergerac! Bewitching me! Ensnaring me! Now that I have seen your visage, my lady, how can I sleep? Neither wine nor food. Nothing sates me. What can quench my fire then?”

Thoroughly drunk, Laurent slammed his fist multiple times as the elves proceeded to hold a platter from slipping off the table’s edge.

“I do not know if I should send this letter to the Divine. Do you think she’ll punish him for the blasphemy or punish him for the sheer audacity?” Aurelie asked.

Laurent was red from laughing, “Ah Aurelie. I think. I think we might need to accept that we will not wed a great wooer. I am just happy with a girl with a comely face.”

Aurelie’s laugh softened as she toyed with her rings, her face turned sideways to the glen. In the Grand Game, it was taught that it was too dangerous to reveal everything about oneself. There was power in ambiguity–a shadow can hide a dagger well. But, here was Laurent. He revealed everything about himself in his pitiful state. And Aurelie felt a need to balance the scales.

“Myself as well,” she said.

Laurent stared painfully long. Aurelie took a sip of wine. Then he understood it. He laughed even harder. READ HERE

--- Outing yourself as a gay ass loser Summary:

Set doing the last years of the Orlesian's occupation of Ferelden.

The Lady of Bergerac knew that she must bring the doglords to heel. Civilization demanded it. The Chant demanded it. The Empire demanded it. The Maker blesses those who do not falter, but the chevalier finds herself briared by the slow rot of her soul and by a Fereldan woman who will not bend. A ballad of how Lady Aurelie de Bergerac destroyed and was destroyed by Ser Branwyn of the Briars.

Aurelie found it almost comical. Here, the chevaliers were supposed to bring the Chant of Light to the entirety of Thedas. And somehow, they had lost a soul to the heathens.

Yet.

“Maker watch over you, Roslin,” Aurelie muttered with a nod, surprised by her own earnestness.

Branwyn and Aurelie walked down to the main road. To the keep. To civilization. For some reason, Aurelie looked back. There, on top of the hill, she saw the red-haired girl watching them. Fiery strands of red hair. Tears in her eyes, touched with a certain madness. It was as if Roslin had realized the finality of her decision. She had seen those hung upon the tree. If the Chantry ever caught her, she would join them as well. She was no longer Fereldan… But the elves were never truly Ferelden–not really. What was Roslin really leaving behind? The smallness of the alienage, the smallness of man’s cruelty….The smallness of the Orlesian Empire.

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On the carriage ride, their mentor forced them to drink and drink and drink. Fortified wine in a wineskin bag was passed between her and the others. At one point, Aurelie begged to stop, but the older chevalier slapped her.

“I am doing you a kindness, de Bergerac,” he roared as Aurelie drank more. By the time they left the carriage, their shirts were stained with wine as they stumbled their way into the Alienage. Each of them was to kill an elf.

Laurent was the first; he spotted a poor girl who was simply enjoying the full moon. He wept when he grabbed her, but by the time it was done, he was laughing. Laurent stared at them with bloodied hands, then pressed his face into them as if to hide himself. Then he frantically urged them to do the same. He could not be alone in this.

And so they went. Her peers did it quickly and efficiently. And there was such tenderness: the men kissed each other’s foreheads, caressed each other’s cheeks, comforting one another. They whispered: “Le courage, le courage,” and wiped away each other’s tears. There was comfort in shared misery, but Aurelie stood alone.

How she found the man, she did not remember. But he was already on the ground when Aurelie began kicking him. Aurelie remembered the man had pissed himself as the other chevaliers laughed. And it made her angry. She was stuck in a piss-soaked alley. All those fucking years at the Academie–just for this. He stopped moving at some point, but she continued. Then Aurelie remembered vomiting over herself—and realizing, to her horror, that she had pissed herself as well.

Their mentor congratulated them- they were now chevaliers.

She became the swordarm of the Maker, covered in vomit and piss. She was to bring civilization.

“Yes. I killed an elf. I kicked him until he died. And I kept kicking long after. And then I got my spurs,”

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They were just two bodies under Branwyn’s cloak as Aurelie thumbed her finger against the fabric. A dark burnt orange. An extravagant color for an otherwise unextraordinary person. But it suited Branwyn. Aurelie wondered if it was just the color that had caught the chevalier’s eyes at camp. A solitary marigold amidst the shit, the woman thought. Of course she would be drawn to it.

“I don’t know much about you,” Aurelie finally said.

“Hm,” Branwyn responded. The chevalier had to roll her eyes in the dark. Maker’s breath, so taciturn for a young woman.

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--- What if you're an Orlesian and the woman you're sharing a bed with is just... not great at conversation.

Ferelden is a damning weight on the Orlesian neck. An onus for previous generations and for those that come after. At the height of its power, Tevinter was a grand empire that held many kingdoms such as Anderfels. Yes, the land provided much wealth— bodies to be fettered and beaten. But for centuries, the uprisings emerged and were squashed, emerged and squashed… Slave-soldiers were sent in the thousands and sovereigns were spent in making them bend. Note the absurdity: whatever wealth flowed to Tevinter was balanced by what it cost to have that wealth in the first place. Anderfels bled Tevinter in many ways.

I am a proud Orlesian. I am proud of our culture. I am proud of our Empire. We are not as powerful as the Tevinter Empire of old — we dedicate our ways to the will of the Maker. No mages rule our kingdom. Yet if this terrible Empire was unable to keep its territories, even with the ability to tap into the most dangerous of maleficars, how could we?

My readers, it has been decades since Orlais sent its army to the Ferelden border. Yet, each year there are more Orlesian sons sent, more sovereigns raised, and more strongholds erected in those unyielding lands. The Chantry had sent their people hoping to bring Andraste’s song to the savages of Fereldan: the Dalish, Avvars and the Chasind. Yet, the sisters and brothers came weeping that most of their struggles dealt with opposing the cruelty inflicted upon the Maker’s followers.

The Anderfels was the weight on the Tevinter Imperium’s neck. And Ferelden is ours!

Fereldans will bleed us dry. It will not be a sudden and violent burst, but a slow and terrible drip– READ MORE

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I'm doodling my oc orlesian chevalier (Lady Aurelie de Bergerac) /oc fereldan knight (Branwyn) doing the Orlesian occupation of Fereldan (read if interested). I was thinking about their appearances- playing around with what I think they would look.

And when it came to their appearances I was like...

Oh my god guys, I could just make them both tall.

They could both play for the WNBA.

Aurelie paused as she turned her gaze toward the woman and to the sheathed dirk at her waist.

“You were coming to kill me?”

“Yes,”

“Why?”

“I had no other choice, I suppose,” Branwyn said with a shrug as she poked at the fire. Sparks flew up into the air. And Aurelie kept staring. The leaping flames made the scar look more grievous as if it were gouged deep into her skull. Bile lurched in Aurelie’s stomach. Maker, what a fool of a girl, trying to play Hessarian as if Aurelie were Andraste. 

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