#cassaric

Chapters: 70/70 Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras, Female Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan & Cassandra Pentaghast, Bethany Hawke/Sebastian Vael, Fenris & Female Lavellan (Dragon Age), Past Implied Hugin/Ilsa Characters: Cassandra Pentaghast, Varric Tethras, Female Lavellan (Dragon Age), Sebastian Vael, Leliana (Dragon Age), Michel de Chevin, Fenris (Dragon Age), Aveline Vallen, Donnic Hendyr, Dorian Pavus, Vestalus Pentaghast, Josephine Montilyet, The Iron Bull (Dragon Age), Bethany Hawke, Anders (Dragon Age), Merrill (Dragon Age), Cullen Rutherford, Bianca Davri, Cole (Dragon Age), Hawke (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Original Characters Additional Tags: Political Alliances, Marriage of Convenience, Arranged Marriage, Requited Unrequited Love, Fluff and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Warrior Lavellan (Dragon Age), Minor Donnic Hendyr/Aveline Vallen, Rated For Violence, Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras' Chest Hair, Bad Poetry, Slow Burn, epistolaries, Story within a Story, Past Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, The Kind That Makes Blood Magic Work, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Wedding Fluff, Hugin (Dragon Age) Summary:

(Another Political Marriage Fic)

Varric Tethras, Viscount of Kirkwall, has a pretty good handle on the whole running-a-city-state thing until Cassandra shows up. He'd be exasperated as hell except that she keeps dragging him along. Hey, it gets him out of the office. Things are tense up North, especially with Starkhaven slobbering over Kirkwall like a gurgut over a wounded bogfisher. Then, Nevarra needs an ally in the Free Marches and Cassandra is her country's best hope. Now, the holier-than-thou, self-important, Choir Boy who invaded Kirkwall is out to marry Cassandra. He's tall and human and Chantry-loving and Varric's got a nug's chance at supper, but who gives a shit?

If Sebastian wants his city or his Seeker, he'll have to step over Varric's grave.

DADWC fill. Prompt: of all the idiots in the realm, I’m trapped with you. fic + tag list under the cut. as always, lmk if you'd like to be added or removed from the tag list for my fic c:

She growled, frustrated, and turned away from him. She was busy, dammit, and did not have time to entertain the dwarf. They needed to plan, to—

"Seeker?"

Renowned journalist and author Varric Tethras attends the ill-fated wedding of Cullen Rutherford and Evelyn Trevelyan. At the reception, he meets with none other than that firey police detective Cassandra Pentaghast who he has not stopped thinking about since the last time they had to work together.

This takes place in the canon of The Dreadful Hearts Saga a number of years before the events of The Blighted Butcher.

One of these, the true last statement probably, will be for Hawke, whether they are alive or dead.

We throw Bianca a last word or two.

A few for various others or the world at large to add to his legend.

“Respite.” It’s not a word that features in many of his novels. There’s enough to get done in two hundred pages without his lead stopping for a cup of tea by the fire, and his publisher didn’t pay him by the word, anyway.

But then again, this shit wasn’t so bad. The sun was warm and the breeze was cool. Shade and sunlight made an intricate web through the trees above him. Below, Sera and Dorian kicked water at each other as the Inquisitor sprinted through the shallows between them, laughing as he’d scarcely seen them do. Maybe he should start writing more scenes with meandering streams, he thought. More moments with the main character’s boots off, their toes tickled by tall grass, and a wide-brimmed had shading their eyes. What harm could it do the good guys to breathe a little?

It certainly wasn’t hurting the Seeker who lay to his left on their shared bank. Her armor was neatly deposited beside her, abandoned for his latest and filthiest work of smut. She breathed easily and turned another page. He checked the number on the corner and marveled at her ability to remain unreadable in the face of complete debauchery. He admired it, truly.

She peeked an eye at him out from behind the cover, and he took the opportunity to give her a knowing wink. “Getting good, huh?”

Cassandra grunted in feigned annoyance, then rolled over to her stomach and shook her head. “The things that you write, Varric.”

“They’re the things that you read, Seeker,” he joked back.

She looked at him again, only for a moment before a deliciously coy smile spread across her lips. She put the novel down, then raised herself to her knees and then to her feet. She towered over him like the tree above, and ran a finger along the scruff on his jawline. “If you behave yourself, dwarf,” she teased in a low murmer, “perhaps I will show you that they are also the things I do.”

Cassandra is cautious of being too clingy and behaving “foolishly” and restrains herself for fear of rejection. Varric is so used to having to hide his relationship for his own safety, he finds himself hesitating even when he desperately wants to just pull his girlfriend in for a kiss or hold her hand. Cassandra feels like she has already asked plenty of Varric by expecting to be courted, and would be selfish to push him further. Varric has the communication skills of a teaspoon and is terrified of opening up about the fact that he desperately wants more hugs, kisses, cuddles, etc.

Changes do start, however. Cassandra pulls him into a kiss after a particularly rough battle with a dragon, and Varric loses himself in the moment. Varric reaches out while they’re drinking together in the Herald’s Rest, brushing his hand against her cheek because her smile is so damn beautiful, and she gladly leans into his touch. People either don’t care, or excitedly congratulate them.

It slowly becomes clear to Cassandra that Varric genuinely wants her closer and won’t reject her affection. It finally dawns on Varric that he doesn’t have to hide his happiness and can just...kiss the woman he loves because he fucking can!