Void gremlins for Defira! ❤️

Belly gremlin is Yuna. For the first weeks, she wouldn’t let us touch her, now she’s the cuddliest cat you’ve ever seen.

Plant gremlin is Merlin. He’s a cheeky one and definitely NOT supposed to lay in our plants 😆

Sending love ❤️

BELLY! I WANT TO TOUCH THE BELLY! Is it a trap? Will I get clawed or chomped if I indulge?

"My lady." Aymeric murmurs to Seike with a bow, ignoring the pointed looks from the people around them. It's been months since last they met and she looks --- well. Not as haggard as before, maybe, but he cannot help but worry all the same.

"Aymeric," she offers in return, the barest hint of a smile curling her lips. "Formal as ever."

For those unfamiliar with her the words might sound cold, a dismissal; Aymeric knows enough to detect the warm affection underneath.

"A habit that is hard to shake, even among friends," he agrees, gently taking her hand in both of his and lifting it to brush his lips over her knuckles. "I pray you have fared well in your travels."

He says that and yet the evidence is plain on her hands; in the short time it took to kiss her hand he made note of the split knuckles, the fresh scar tissue parading over her hand like a mountain range and the slight tremor in her fingers as he held them.

"I have," Seike says.

Featuring @corey-067 's brainspawn Jakar, Xaja's bestie and the Taerich-verse Barsen'thor.

--------

Monster. Demon. Traitor. Broken.

“Shut up,” Xaja desperately whispered as she paced through her cabin on the Serenity. The voices in the back of her mind just laughed and continued their mantra that the Jedi couldn’t escape. 

Sith. Traitor. The whispers followed her around the small ship, followed her onto planetary surfaces whenever she disembarked, haunted her every moment, both awake and asleep. Murderer. 

“I’m not--!” Xaja clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her agonized sounds. She couldn’t deny the voices, not when the fragments of memories she still had confirmed them. Master Orgus, while he had been able to drive the Emperor out of her head, couldn’t have soothed the scars left behind. Xaja doubted even the best Jedi mind healers could have. But she didn’t deserve healing, did she? Traitors didn’t deserve to be spared pain. “Shut up,” she whispered to the empty cabin.

Broken. Monster. Sith. The voices refused to heed her pleading for silence. Weak. Demon.

“Stop,” Xaja pleaded, heedless of the tear escaping her squeezed-shut eyes and trickling down her cheek. “Please, stop...”

Sith. Monster. Demon. Failure.

“Shut up!” Xaja blindly lashed out with her right hand, as though she could hit away the monsters plaguing her mind. All she made contact with was the mirror, the sound of glass shattering temporarily drowning out the voices. 

She hissed as she felt the shards of broken glass bite into her hand, blood appearing on her too-pale skin. With an effort, she forced her eyes open to assess the damage to her hand. She couldn’t go to Doc; he would just give her that sad, disappointed look while healing the wounds that she deserved. Maybe she could just wrap her hand in a towel until the bleeding stopped?

Her gaze travelled to the mirror’s remains despite her best efforts. The haunted eyes that stared back at her were green, not sulphuric yellow. But that didn’t mean anything, did it? A monster lurked under her skin, one that Master Orgus couldn’t have saved her from. 

Footsteps outside the cabin door warned Xaja that the sound of the glass shattering hadn’t gone unnoticed. Shit. She looked down at her hand as the door slid open, the footsteps approaching her from behind, then stepping around her. She just saw the hem of a dark green robe, then felt two larger hands carefully lift her injured limb for inspection. When the hells had Jakar arrived on the Serenity? Then again, she was still docked on the Voss orbital station. Perhaps he had been around?

“Come on, short stuff,” the Barsen’thor finally said, scarred face drawn with worry as he stood back up and gave Xaja’s arm a tug. “You’re scaring me as much as you are the rest of your crew.”

Xaja shook her head minutely as she was pulled to her feet. “I’m fine--” she tried to say.

I asked the wonderful @pookydraws do paint this for @elveny and her wonderful oc Lyssa with Solas. 

The thought behind it:

I had a random fluffy idea a while back about a Lyssa and Solas scenario and winder holidays. Because I thought, what if mistletoe as a kissing custom exists in Thedas - but its a Dalish thing and not many people know about it? And we know how Solas is about the Dalish right? But he also cares deeply for Lyssa and notices she's a bit extra down before winter's day because she misses her clan and everything in Skyhold is just so different that there is little of the spirit she enjoys around the winter festivities. It’s mainly humans and they do things differently. Solas, being Solas, gets over himself and does some research into Dalish customs that would be prominent in her clan so he can do something nice for her and comes across the mistletoe custom - and thus you get a saccharine sweet holiday imagery of him kissing her under some mistletoe he is holding up himself.

((Send “Talk about-” and a name for my muse to talk about that person!))

Aeryn: I miss her. I always will.

She was the first one to really understand what I was going through. We spent a lot of time trying to puzzle out what it all meant, and the whys. I think of all we went through on the First, and wonder if she ever learned the truth, connected as she was to Hydaelyn. She had always been so certain, so faithful; was that ever rewarded?

I have my suspicions on who her soul used to be part of, but it’s naught more than idle speculation. The only ones who might have known for sure are gone. And now her soul lives on in another special girl, as Ardbert’s does with me. Minfilia might have found the parallels amusing, or at least significant.

There are many who misunderstood her, and her place in our order. It seems like many in Eorzea have forgotten about her, not realizing who she was, or why she was so important. She built all of our connections, confidantes, chains of supply and information. Without her the Scions wouldn’t have the resources we do today. We wouldn’t be the Scions.

I wanted to bring her home. She promised--maybe she shouldn’t have. It’s not like any of us can know the future. I want to remember her as she was with us in the Waking Sands and Rising Stones; her laughter, her gentle voice, the way she teased Thancred or encouraged Alphinaud, playing games and singing songs and telling stories. I want to remember all the times she and I sat in the Solar or somewhere out in town, our walks, how we spent so much time figuring out this “Blessing” of ours.

I keep remembering her as the Word, as the Oracle, wreathed in Light, the souls of the Heroes of the First glimmering around her, the gold expanse as she gave everything she was to Ryne.

Minfilia’s smile was the same. That, at least, I’ll remember.

OKAY

so in Gisele’s verse, Haurchefant went on the trip to the Far East during SB because once he joined the Scions he was basically joined at the hip to Gisele lol so that means he went with her to Doma and then to the Steppe with her and Lyse and Gosetsu and met Hien the same time she did.

It helped a lot that Haurche and Gosetsu got to be thick as thieves even before then, and Gosetsu had been regaling him with all kinds of stories about Hien to the point where Haurche was very eager to finally meet him.

The thirst was instant when he did. I mean Hien is very much Haurchefant’s Type as a start--extremely beefy and handsome and a talented swordsman. And the only thing Haurchefant loves as much as his People is a noble cause! They hit it off immediately. And as Haurche got to know him, even on top of those qualities that immediately attracted him, it was Hien’s kindness and compassion and love for his people that really made Haurche fall for him. In his view, Hien is everything a knight and a leader of men should be and there’s no greater compliment to him.

And because Haurche is very much King of Compersion and enthusiastically encourages Gisele’s relationships with her other lovers, a big part of his fondness for Hien is also rooted in the vicarious joy he got from watching him and Gisele fall for each other. I mean he gets shoujo hearts in his eyes anyway whenever she’s happy, but there was just no way he wasn’t going to fall for Hien, given who they both are.

For Hien’s part, he also developed a crush on Haurchefant very quickly--I mean, Haurche is tall and handsome and a fiercely skilled warrior. But he was a bit of a bi disaster when he met Gisele and Haurche. XD I mean they’re a very striking couple to begin with, but falling in love with Gisele was always a package deal to him, because a big part of why he did was seeing the two of them interact, how she just glows in Haurche’s presence, what they mean to each other--until Hien met them, he didn’t realize how much he’d yearned for something like that. He’d been carrying the burden of his past and his grief for his people alone for so long.

Once when they were doing some manner of manual labor--chopping wood or wevs--of course they were shirtless and Haurche was flirty as was his wont and Hien returned it, and they were trading stories about each other’s scars, and Hien finally asked Haurche about the Big One. So Haurche told him what happened at the Vault, how he took that blow for Gisele and almost died. Hien was so moved that he got choked up, and listening to the passion in Haurche’s voice when he talked about why he did it--and that he would gladly do it again? That was the precise moment Hien’s feelings toward Haurche turned from lusty camaraderie to love, and that he’d fallen for him just as hard as he had for Gisele. How could he not love a man of such fierce passions and devotion?

When they were captured by Magnai, the Buduga wanted Hien AND Haurche, and Hien’s bright idea to get them out of it was to have Haurche challenge their champion to traditional Buduga wrestling match (it’s basically Turkish oil wrestling but somehow even gayer). Naturally Haurche lost because he’s a slut and couldn’t focus and after that, when Haurche had retired to bathe, Hien offered him some much needed...relief. So that was when they became a thing. It was an official triad with Gisele in the wake of the Nadaam.

(BTW in the end, after the Nadaam Gisele pulled rank with Daidukul to solve that problem. She also banged him to smooth things over but that’s another story for another time fhsdk)

It’s worth noting that everyone around the Enclave knows that Gisele and Haurchefant are Hien’s lovers. They’re circumspect for the sake of cultural mores but Hien doesn’t hide it at all and neither do they. I don’t think he could even if he tried, tbh. Everyone ships it, Yugiri most of all, because of how happy he is around them and the way he just lights up. They spend a lot of time together horseback riding around Yanxia, enjoying the natural beauty--that’s something Hien and Haurche very much have in common, on top of their love of animals. They have sexy sparring matches that always end with their pants off. And they are fiercely competitive when it comes to insane workout regimens, like racing each other around the Enclave carrying increasingly heavier packs full of rocks and similar nonsense. Like...both of their himbo tendencies are magnified around each other it’s so ridiculous lmao.

The sword that Haurche carries for the back half of Stormblood literally until the moment he got snatched to the First was a gift from Hien. He’d commissioned the most skilled smith in the Enclave, one well familiar with Western-style blades, to make it for Haurche’s nameday. Hien named it Silverheart, after Haurche’s knightly epithet, and it’s got the Fortemps crest on it, only the familiar unicorn is crowned by the cherry blossoms from the Rijin Clan’s crest. Hien is deeply sentimental and that was his way of saying to Haurchefant that no matter how far apart they were, he would always be with him fighting alongside him in spirit. There’s an old Doman folk belief that if a Samurai is ever parted from his blade, he’ll always return to it if the blade is well kept. When Haurche was summoned to the First and collapsed at the Ghimlyt Dark (right after Alisaie), Aymeric was beside himself, and Hien entrusted Silverheart to his keeping. Hien would have done it himself and badly wanted to, but he saw that Aymeric needed it more.

TY for the ask :D

3. What was their first kiss like?

Ari was pissed off, yelling just outside of camp. Mid-rant Zevran kissed her. She’s still not entirely sure if it was just an attempt to get her to be quiet or not, but sparks flew after months of flirting.

8. Who gets jealous easier?