This week is going way too slow but at least I'm learning to draw on my phone more. Have a slightly unhinged know-it-all.

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins

Title: ZevWarden Week, Day 3 - Fights & Reconciliation

Pairing: Zevran x male!Warden; Zevran Arainai x Salem Surana (x Leliana, poly!Warden referenced)

Word Count: 1,510

Something has changed in the Warden. Zevran avoided it for a while, hadn’t wanted to think about it. Because he’s seen plenty of heroes fall, seen people who swore themselves to the protection of others suddenly turn sour. It’s easy, it seems, to let power win. Let it make you feel like you walk above it all while having the arrogance to act as though that power makes you a victim. 

He just never thought his Warden would become one of those people.

_______________

Since he was a child, Zevran had had a painful understanding of the idea that power changes people. From close friends to distant strangers, he’d watched people start out with seemingly good intentions only to betray them as soon as the appropriate amount of wealth or influence landed in their hands. 

It happened again and again. Every time, it pointed to an inevitable change somewhere along the line. A point of no return. A moment where that person, who once understood their fellows in struggle and pain, ceased to care.

It was knowing that that made it so easy to assassinate them. Those people had forfeited their right to be considered worthy of life the moment they stopped considering those less than them as such. Killing people like that, it was no less killing beasts.

Meeting the Grey Warden, though... Zevran had thought, for a while, that his theory had been broken.

This strange man, with his thin frame, eldritch scars and sharp, intelligent eyes. He had looked upon Zevran in the moment he learned of the plot to kill him with not horror or fear or condemnation. Instead, what was written on his face was simple understanding. And the sparkle of amusement. 

Perhaps that amusement should have been a warning sign, rather than the endearment Zevran had thought it was.

Or perhaps Salem Surana had simply changed.

It was no clearer than in the moment that the Warden averted his eyes, colder of late, and uttered a distant, “You could never understand,” when both Zevran and Leliana told him to stay for once. Let someone else handle the crisis this time.

Salem was tired. Anyone could see that. 

“This is not about understanding!” Zevran argued, words fast and harsh, hands gesticulating with his point. “What is there to understand? Not every fight is yours to win. And yet this one, just another petty chore from another petty noble somewhere, is somehow more important than everything else - than us??”

“Help us understand,” Leliana added, much more gracefully, though even she had a furrow to her brow that told Zevran she was fighting her own temper, the hurt flooding her heart. “Perhaps you are right, but we never will if you do not talk to us. That is why we’re here now.”

Salem sunk back, seated on a chair covered in furs and loosely-knit throws at the head of the bonfire ring, where so many parties had been spent indulging in spirits and dancing around a roaring fire beneath the stars, now vacant. Deserted. “I have the burden of a responsibility that neither of you, gods willing, will ever have to bear.”

He spoke so coldly. This was not talking to; this was talking at.

Zevran felt his frustration build. “Bulls**t! Do not start spouting that self-righteous s**t at us, do not treat us like children!”

“We were with you at the end of the Blight, Salem.” Leliana had clenched her fists. “We share in your responsibility, we always have.”

“No,” Salem insisted, jaw clenching. “You don’t. Even when we fought the archdemon, there were machinations at play that you still don’t know about. Can’t know about. I...” At last, he looked at them, but it was with such... pity. “I wish to spare you; don’t you see? This weight... I don’t wish to see it on your faces.”

Zevran boiled over, lashing out with a hand and pulling the man up by the collar so that perhaps, he would have no choice but to look him in the eye. And get that arrogant pity off his face. “Spare us? Spare us? You f**king idiot, you push us away and call it sparing us?”

“Zev...” Leliana. Her hand rested on his shoulder. “Don’t.”

“Do not tell me that, tell him that,” Zevran bit back, looking back at her over his shoulder. There was a pointedness to her expression, though. Her grip on him tightened, her eyes, even more concerned now than they were before, darted from Zev to Salem and then back again.

Zevran looked back to the man he’d called his lover for so long now. Only to find him all but deflated in his grasp. That stiff-backed pomp and pity was gone, and in its place, was simply... exhaustion. Eyes not cold, but hollow. When had that happened? Salem brought a hand up to rest on Zevran’s, where he’d fisted it in the man’s collar. “It’s not fair. I know it’s not... I know.” His voice was shaking now, words spoken low, in that way that was clearly meant for their ears and theirs alone. He wasn’t even speaking for the woods to hear now. “I... don’t know a better option. I really don’t. I’ve thought it over, and over, and over and over and over but no solutions ever come. Just... dark dreams. And an overwhelming desire to protect... this. This place, this... feeling. The two of you. My lights in the dark, when the shadows close in.”

Zevran swallowed down the irate retort that jumped to his lips, the impulse to call him out on his talking in aimless circles and how he only ever did that to people he considered intellectually inferior. But... a tremor had entered the Warden’s voice.

This was not arrogance. It was fear.

Something about that made Zevran’s hand withdraw, releasing Salem to sink back into his seat. Sink he did, with more weight on him than even before, like if he had his way, the chair, no, the earth would simply swallow him up.

Something was very wrong.

He’d been so distracted. So infuriated, so convinced this was about status. That he and Leliana were being deemed second priority to some power play. Was that all there was to it, though? No. They were missing something.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, wary. “There is no danger here, only what can be expected from the wilds. And you do not need to prove your power to anyone here.”

Salem had already begun shaking his head. “No, it’s not... it’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about!?” Zev spat, patience thin.

Before Leliana could get an objecting word out, Salem jolted to his feet, abrupt enough to make both of them jump. “I am a Grey Warden! What that means... do you understand? No. There are some things you can’t understand, and if I can help it... you won’t. Ever.”

Zevran shrugged Leliana’s hand off, leaning in so Salem couldn’t avoid his scowl. “Why!? So you can lord it over us like this?”

“Because--!” One syllable escaped, Salem’s voice risen to match the anger in Zev’s but immediately dying out again. Just that one word seemed like the only fight the pale man could dredge out of himself. Instead, his hands flew to clasp Zevran’s face, startling him. “Because...” The tremor was back, twice as strong. “I.. I love you... so very much, and... I couldn’t bear... if you left.”

The words took so much for him to say, but he managed them still. Left? He was... afraid that they would leave? Why? The thought seemed to kill all trace of anger Zev had felt in him, like water dousing a flame. His guard dropped as Salem leaned into him, his own hands rising purely out of confusion and the instinct to comfort this person who, despite how frustrating he was, had all of Zevran’s affection.

Zevran shared a look with Leliana, seeing his bewilderment and growing concern reflected back at him from her eyes as she stepped in to put her arms around both of them.

“Please, Salem,” she muttered, resting her forehead against the Warden’s shoulder. “You do not have to protect us. Whatever you’re fighting... let us help you.”

“We told you,” Zevran added, what remains of his guard just enough to make the words unyielding, so he didn’t get any ideas about brushing them off again. “You do not have to shoulder this alone. We are yours.”

At first, it seemed like Salem might object. He opened his mouth, eyes closed, with a reflexive, “You cannot...” but he trailed off before he could finish. He stopped to think for a long moment, his hands sliding from Zev’s face to either side of his neck, as much holding him close as he was holding himself up. Like this grip on Zevran was the only thing keeping him on his feet. 

Zevran heard the surrender before it came, It was evident in the way the Warden’s shoulders drooped further, his body swayed, and he took a deep, shaky breath. 

“What... do you know of the taint the Grey Wardens bear?” Salem lowered his arms, wrapped them around Zevran’s waist and the great, untouchable hero all but shrunk between the two of them. Like he wanted nothing more than to disappear in their embrace. His curtain of silver hair, streaked now with more white that Zevran had never really noticed before, hid his face from the two that encircled him.

i only just learned this is a thing, so i have nothing prepared, but i figured i’d attempt some flash fiction anyway. i’ve never written for dragon age before, much less written zevran, so... here goes. be kind to me jfklsfjds

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins

Title: ZevWarden Week, Day 1 - Culture

Pairing: Zevran x male!Warden; Zevran Arainai x Salem Surana (x Leliana, poly!Warden inferred)

Word Count: 1,493

Zevran has a difficult relationship with the memories of his old home and the culture surrounding it. The Warden never got the chance to have a home, a culture, which tends to lead him to pry into others’, especially Zev’s. Finding some sort of balance between these vastly differing histories is a complicated affair. 

_______________

It had been a long time since Zevran fully denounced anything that reminded him of Antiva. As much as he often told boastful stories of the hardships that land held for all who called it home, relishing in the way it made more fortunate people incredibly uncomfortable to consider, he never liked recalling those darker corners of his mind. They were the parts of him that haunted his worst nightmares. He didn’t know what to do with them. So he made light of them, brushed them off as inconsequential campfire stories and little more. Beyond that, he was content to ignore the memories.

So when his dear Grey Warden began asking probing questions about the Antivan observation of Satinalia, he dismissed it at first. Mentioned the usual, the drinking, the dancing, the Crow meetings, the feasting and tomfoolery, everything the average tourist would expect to hear, and he didn’t bother elaborating. He’d come to realize later that he’d neglected to notice the subtle furrow of disappointment in Salem’s pallid brow.

In his defense, Salem had many furrows in his face. The blood magic had not been kind to his elven features. Zevran was used to finding him sitting beneath a tree, legs and arms crossed, back to the trunk and a ponderous expression twisting that pale, scar-worn face. He’d ask what he was thinking about, and Salem always had an interesting answer.

As the Ferelden autumn waned, Salem kept coming to him, little questions about Satinalia on his lips. It reached a point of incessance, and Zevran let his temper get the better of him at one point.

“Stop! I do not know what this is, why you seem so insistent about a culture that is not yours, but I am not a guidebook. This is not a pleasant thing for me to remember! Do you understand?” His voice had been sharp, defensive. “Question after question. Please - let it lie.”

No, Satinalia - as infectious as the lively holiday air was every year, as enjoyable as the festivities and the masks and the food was - was a fancy coat hanging on the emaciated shoulders of all his greatest regrets. Greatest fears. A life in which such occasions were only temporary respites from despair. 

Salem had heeded him, left the subject alone after that. Later, when his royal majesty, Alistair, came to Zevran with similar questions, he just about told the Ferelden off for doing Salem’s dirty work for him. Alistair had been confused, in that silly, rather endearing way he always was.

“What are you talking about? He has nothing to do with - well, not nothing...”

“Aha!” Zev had been so terribly confident. “I knew it! I told him, I do not want to think about it, and now, I am telling you the same.” He’d folded his arms, pointedly averting his gaze, like a petulant child. He didn’t even care that much, but he’d made his stand and was digging in his heels.

“Oh, well, I mean...” Alistair had shrugged. “I guess... That makes some sense. But uh. If you change your mind... we’re all sort of... conspiring? What I mean is, we - Leliana, Oghren, Teagan - were hoping to throw a sort of... our own celebration, just for Surana. Just a little private matter. Bring a little something from all our homelands, since... you know... the Tower and everything.”

The Tower. Something had clicked, then. Zevran wanted to ignore the culture of his homeland, leave it behind, never look upon it again. Salem... had nothing. No culture, no history to speak of, fondly or not. He’d spoken of it in passing, always fleeting and shallow, the same way Zevran spoke of his own history - a young city elf, just a boy, taken from his home. Locked in a fortress. Knowing of only what traditions the Circle deemed fit for him to know.

That experience was what gave Salem the bone-deep curiosity Zevran found so enticing, after all. 

Still, it seemed a hollow gift if Zevran were to simply concede, knowing all the possible reminders of Antiva he may have to face should traditions make their way into this little celebration. He’d get lost in them.

"Then rewrite them,” Leliana had said one night, as the two lay in bed, waiting up for a Warden who’d been caught up in writing a number of diplomatic missives.

“How do you mean, exactly?” Zev hadn’t hidden his bewilderment from her.

“Well,” she said, patient, “it is not Satinalia itself that has caused you pain, is it?”

“Well, no.”

“It is the memories around it, yes?”

“I suppose.”

“Then perhaps it is worth attempting to replace those old and painful memories... with happier ones. Like covering an old painting with something new, better.” She’d smiled, reaching to pat his cheek. “Past hurts so easily become the gateway to future pain. If there is a way to leave them behind... try.”

It was easy to say. Not so easy to do. But... perhaps it could be worth it, he thought. Salem was certainly worth the effort of an attempt, at least once. The more he thought about it, the more he became determined to stare those memories in the face as he blatantly replaced them; it seemed a fitting end to them. Perhaps it was then pure spite motivating him... but he was more than willing to take it.

So Zevran helped the others out, and when the holiday at last arrived, his contribution was simple but noticeable - aside from the 10-course meal, he’d told them all to bring masks of their own making. He made two; one for himself, and one for Salem. His, he kept simple, just a black mask with a little beak, asymmetrical in design, a black plume rippling from the same side as his tattoo. 

For Salem, something stranger, macabre. A deer’s skull he found in the wilds, cleaned to perfection, iron melted into the cracks and polished, the inside hollowed enough to sit comfortably on a sultry, scarred face.

The grin that split Salem’s lips when he saw it made the whole endeavor immediately worth it. 

The night was one of revelry, fresh wine, lively music, hearty food, and even better company - so similar but so different from the Satinalias past that Zevran remembered. He had a few moments where something would strike deep and give him pause, leave him needing to recollect himself for but a moment. But each time, he found his dear Warden in the small crowd, met his eyes through the skull’s sockets, and Salem would beckon with a hand. It was enough.

After they all trailed home for the night, drunk and in very high spirits, Leliana told them not to wait for her. Salem didn’t question it; Zevran caught her glance and silently thanked her for the night to themselves. He’d repay her later.

Later, lying thoroughly exhausted against his Warden’s pale chest, he felt Salem’s voice vibrate against his ear. “It wasn’t too much, I hope... tonight.”

“Too much?”

“The reminders.”

“Oh... no. It... well, it was a little much. But nothing I cannot deal with.”

“Zev.”

“Yes, my love?”

A kiss graced his hair. “Don’t pretend. Not for me.”

He shifted, folded his arms under his chin so he could look up at Salem’s face from his belly. “Okay, okay. Maybe there were a few moments when I wanted nothing more than to leave that hall. But... I do not want to give those old memories the satisfaction of ruining my fun any longer. My present is not my past - thanks to you.”

Salem laughed, and Zevran swallowed down the flock of butterflies that swarmed his stomach. “Well, who could resist this charm?” Slender hand caressed his cheek, the side without the tattoo, and Zevran’s eyes fluttered shut. “Truly, though... I am sorry I asked so much. I was just-”

“Curious.” At last, Zevran smiled. Not smugly, but warmly. “I know. I think... we both know so little of life outside the ones we escaped. It is good to ask questions. To learn of all the wonders we were once deprived... at the same time, doing our best to honor the little joys that kept us from drowning before. So that they may add to the joys we get to share now.”

“The joys, huh? Well... Just so you know, there is no joy from distant lands that will ever mean more to me than... you. Your happiness. If I can help put your darkest moments to rest, I will do everything in my power.” Salem smiled back, those crooked lips so very gentled off the battlefield, behind closed doors. “And I don’t mean to brag, but... we both know that’s a lot of power. So really, those bad dreams should be running scared. They don’t stand a chance.”