She has to focus. Keep her breathing steady.

Despite Inara's protests, the Inquisitor has sent her to Denerim, to the palace. She is to investigate the rumors of Venatori infiltration, a threat to the Court.

She did not want to be here, to do this. But what is she to do? Tell the Inquisitor, Sorry, saving the world is noble and all, but I don't want to see my ex?

So there she stands in Denerim's kitchens, dressed as a commoner who has gotten lucky enough - through Arl Teagan Guerrin's help - to land a job working in the kitchens. The imposing woman in charge of those kitchens has dispelled any fantasy Inara had that she might be recognized as the Hero of Ferelden with a speed that is quite frankly shocking, commanding the woman to kneel and clean the walls leading to and from the kitchen with a bucket and a brush.

But it's not all bad -- from the halls, she can hear many conversations as people pass by, none of them minding her as she scrubs. And, so far, there is no sign of Eamon or Alistair lowering themselves to come mill around outside the kitchen begging for scraps. Small mercies, she supposes.

The red blush traveled from her collar bones to the tips of her ears, shoulders raising in embarrassment. Gray eyes quickly turned away to avoid his gaze as she tried to grapple with the fact that the King of Ferelden was kissing her hand. What the fuck...

She cleared her throat, and her voice came out higher than usual. Myrna didn't remove her hand from his, but the other one did try and fail to cover the blush on her face. "Okay, maybe you do know how to be a little suave. Just a little bit."

The etiquette lessons they were forced into were helping both of them, sure, but damn his goofy ass for pulling this one in play in the middle of fake introductions. All it served to do was make her want to sprint out of the room and hide somewhere.

The forest floor was nothing like the hard-packed dirt and gravel of the Alienage. Tura's feet seemed to sink half-an-inch or more into the mossy soil, every step like walking on a sponge. She found herself disconcerted by the uncanny stillness in the trees—all narrow and straight and not at all like the broad, twisting shelter of the Vhenadahl.

Daveth and Jory trundled along behind, neither any more sure-footed than herself. Being surrounded by humans put a prickle in her neck as well. She'd yet to encounter any other elves besides that errand boy. Hang what Duncan said about great hero elves in the Wardens' history: even here, her kind were treated as second rate.

That old familiar anger burned under her skin. She grit her teeth and searched for a distraction. Flicking her eyes over to Alistair, she measured his stride and the set of his shoulders under his armor. He seemed young—not entirely in appearance but perhaps in demeanor. Or maybe it was just that Tura was still carrying a surreal, ghostly kind of haze following her near hanging and conscription that made her feel old.

"It's quiet," she said, breaking through said quiet. "Eerie. Doesn't it feel like something's breathing out there?"

Boredom was dangerous. Not that the youth needed an excuse to cause a little bit of chaos. His favorite trouble making, prankster partner was out in the field, and he was... Well. Currently unsupervised. A dangerous thing, truly, not that Sera could be considered 'supervision' by any means.

Thus, he found himself lurking one of his favorite places, the rooftops overlooking the gardens. It was colder than usual, and he was happy for his oil slicked coat, keeping his ass dry from the snow on the rooftops. There were few people below, the dear Revered Mother opting for warmer places to lurk. A shame really.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Cullen assures, cloth bunched up and pressed to the side of his head, a somewhat sheepish grin on his face as he stands before Alistair. "I must admit, I don't know how it looks- but I've heard head injuries always bleed more."

He'd strayed 'too far' into the training grounds, although he maintains he would have been perfectly safe had the newest recruit been facing the right way. He wouldn't have described the arrow as errant, given the young man would have needed his back to the targets to hit him. A word will be had, later, about not turning to chat with an arrow nocked and drawn, but for now-

Who was your first muse? / (@aetherianxarchive / @valorcorrupt / @quiisquiliae)

i'm pretty sure i've answered a similar question at...some...point, but it was auron from ffx, and my baby ass had no business trying to write a grown ass man (this is what squeenix thought was "old" at thirty-five, y'all). this was back in the ye olden days of livejournal and greatestjournal rp, and how and why i got approached by the final fantasy house cult (if you don't know, you don't want to know, i promise) which was a ride, let me tell you.

OTP for your muse? (@intothewildsea) outside of strife? (i'd give my eyeteeth for a strife to write with.) canon-wise, probably neve or davrin, actually. with a side of zevran, but that was based on jokes and a vibe and while it counts to me, i'm not sure it does to anyone else. neve is very much the pragmatist to his idealist, and davrin is...i mean you've seen davrin, right. you've seen him. also the single dad meetcute has a vibe, you understand. in either case, it's generally people who live exciting lives (whether they intend to or not), and by extension pull him into that chaos. so i guess when you boil it down like that, my otp for emmrich is having a life outside of his weird culty bubble.

What’s one random headcanon about your muse that people mightn’t know? (@aetherianxarchive / @archaeval) emmrich's been snatching cuttings of native plants everywhere he's been in thedas and water propagating them in empty ink bottles. part of it is pure curiosity and they serve as a souvenir of the places he's been and the things he's seen, but partly it's academic curiosity, because the herbariums he's seen have been woefully under sourced and has toyed idly with creating his own in more depth once, you know, the whole stop the blighted gods business is taken care of.

Munday Meme @inevitableking

Are there any AU’s you’d like to explore but haven’t had the chance to yet? Hmm. Arranged Marriage AUs are fun for ships either for angst of "the person I love is married/getting married to someone else" or "i will totally not fall in love with this person I'm being forced to marry (which inevitably fails)".

Pokemon trainer AU could be fun as well considering I've been a pokemon fan for most of my life and it gives me an excuse to build teams for my kids.

What about your muse are you most proud of? Cop out is that I'm proud of a lot of them.

I'm proud of Jasper because of the unexpected character growth that he's gotten especially thanks to @nekrotisch. Man was supposed to be just a slut but turned out way deeper than that to my surprise.

I'm proud of Cullen because despite my terror of being yelled at for doing canons "wrong", I was brave and decided to play him.

Serra I'm proud of because she's the oldest of my DA characters from my first playthrough of DAO back in 2012. Girl has stuck herself in my brain despite multiple replays and different HoFs since.