#freywall

I managed to grab a ko-fi sketch of Freya and Blackwall by the amazingly talented @star--nymph and oh my goodness would you just look at them!!!  

I was lucky enough to commission the amazing @bluekaddis for this absolutely adorable piece of Freya and Thom in the Hissing Wastes, inspired by Blackwall’s fantastic dialogue if you take him to the tombs. I’m still squealing about the surprise nugs! I love them so much! Thank you so much ❤️❤️

There will be fic to accompany it but I’m having a bit of a writing confidence wobble at the moment. In the meantime, here’s the game dialogue that inspired it:

Inquisitor: You still haven't explained how you didn't starve in the desert.

Blackwall: Wilfred found berries growing on top of the rocks we were stranded on. It was that or nothing.

Blackwall: An hour later, he started screaming. We both started screaming.

Inquisitor: Poison?

Blackwall: Er... no. I wouldn't call it that.

Blackwall: I was convinced a ring of nugs was singing sea shanties to us for two nights running.

Thank you @dickeybbqpit and @reverienne for both asking for this one.  Apparently I have a weakness for this, but have kind of ended up on the bittersweet side of things.  It’s given me a chance to think about new canon too, so thank you x 

Nostalgia

It’s an unfair move, against all the rules that she thinks they’ve been dancing around, an old affectionate habit he has no right to use anymore, yet Freya justs watches as Thom’s lips brush her knuckles.  He turns her hand palm up in his, just like he used to, and for all her good intentions of leaving, she lets him draw her closer.  

There’s a treacherous kind of nostalgia in that moment, the kind that tricks the mind into thinking the chill mountain air isn’t so bitingly cold, that the shuffling of hooves from the stalls might actually be the synchronised steps of dancers, and that the whispering breeze carries strains of long forgotten music.  It’s practically been ten years and she still remembers it all like it was yesterday; it’s a curse and a blessing all at once.  

Thom’s grey-blue eyes never leave hers, posing an unspoken question - permission that never used to be asked for when they could read each other so very well, back when it was all a game to them.  

Oh but now his expression is so much softer than all those years ago.  

The whole world has changed between then and now, and still Freya’s breath hitches in the back of her throat as he draws her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist.  

She can’t help the amused smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth when soft bristles tickle against the sensitive skin.  The beard is new, different, but not unpleasantly so - she has to scold herself for thinking it’s something she could get used to.  She wonders if Thom can feel how fast her heart is racing, because to her it feels embarrassingly fast, ready to rid her of any last hope of dignity by breaking free from her chest.  

It’s all too easy in the moment to let the loneliness force aside her doubts, to push away the bitterness and only remember the sweet memories.  He always was intoxicating; even now when the cockiness has been replaced with a soul-aching sadness that he tries in vain to hide, she can’t deny the need to have him close.  

Just a moment longer, she promises herself, I really have to go.  She’s told herself these lies before, when she knew that smirk was trouble, and she broke the promises then too.  But every time it was worth it.  Almost every time.  

Freya presses her palm to Thom’s cheek, brushing a thumb across his cheekbone, and for just a little while she smiles at him, and he smiles back at her, and they really could be all those years ago.  

“Well, thank you, Warden Blackwall. But now where does this leave us?”