A very belated birthday gift for @bisexualryder of their DA OC, Rylee Tabris by the very cool and talented @faerun! 

"Secondly, and most importantly, you don't fuckin' listen, yeah? My friend here," she gestured with her dagger toward Isethari, "said she wasn't interested. An' you..." She trailed off into a fake laugh, shaking her head. "You wanted to keep on pushin' anyway. That's the problem with you shems. You don't know how to take 'no' as an answer. An' it's a perfectly reasonable answer, at that! She don't need to explain herself, don't need to tell you why. All she's gotta do is say 'no' and you need to back the fuck off."

Rylee bent down, pressing her foot against his chest a little more. She tipped his chin up with the hilt of her dagger and gave him a cold stare. A brief moment of silence dropped down between the three of them as she enjoyed watching him squirm. Her fellow elf had gone silent, but Rylee wasn't focused on her at that moment. More intent on letting this idiot stare death in the face.

"Now," she said, gaze narrowing, "two things are gonna happen when I let you go. You're gonna get off your arse and march it over to boss man, an' then you're never going to talk to my girl here again."

"That's, uh, that's three things." He gave a tittering laugh that was quickly cut off as she applied more pressure on his ribs.

"I didn't fuckin' ask for your opinion, did I? Now we can stay here and I can keep pressin' my foot into your chest and we can see how long it takes before I start hearing cracks." She grinned wickedly at him, "Or you can be a good lad and do as I've told."

She watched the adam's apple of his throat bob up and down as he swallowed, hard. Slowly, then, he nodded. Rylee's grin split into a wide, toothy one.

Ignite the fire inside of me Embrace the life of tragedy A tide of war and broken dreams

~~~

Tagged by the lovely @daydreamingdragonage, thank you, hun! Not sure who has or hasn’t done this yet, but gonna tag @bosmerie, @sunshinemage, @sidestepsbutt, & @halfblood-fiend if any of y’all wanna do it! And if anyone else has been wanting an excuse to do this, consider yourself tagged! c:

Origins

Lanariel Surana - Anjali Bhimani

I’ve always imagined Lana’s voice is bright, but also with the ability to be subdued and soothing when she wants. A voice where she can be loud and mouthy, but turn around and coo softly to someone she cares for. Something in Anjali’s voice just clicked for me when I was listening to that vid once with her and Chloe and here we are, lmao.

Rylee Tabris - Cara Gee (à la Camina Drummer in The Expanse)

There’s nothing soft about Rylee. She has a rough, throaty voice that commands attention when she speaks no matter how loud or soft she is. I also love the idea of city elves sounding distinct from the humans. Not like the Dalish, but there’d be this pride, almost, to not lose your “elfy-ness” and start sounding like a shem. Tbh part of it is also that she brings a nice counterpoint to Ise’s bright, lilting voice.

Isethari Mahariel - Joanna Page

Ise’s voice is very bright, high, and... distinct to her. There’s usually a sing-song tone behind her words when she’s in a good mood. It can drive her companions crazy at times, but she still manages to bring a sunshine mood wherever she goes.

Eleri Cousland - Alex Wilton Regan (à la the femquisitor in Inquisition)

This one has taken me forever and a half to fucking figure out. Eleri has such a, idk, distinct voice in  my head I guess that’s made it difficult to pin down an actual voice about it. But something about Alex’s performance as the Inquisitor just feels so much more accurate to Eleri that anyone else I’ve found. I actually tossed around the idea of it being like Rebecca Ford in how she portrays the Lotus in Warframe. There’s a similar... tenor? I guess? To their voices that just fits Eleri. She doesn’t have a higher pitched voice, but it’s also not overly low and sits right in that space between.

DA2

Rayna Hawke - Jamie Murray & Ashley Hawke - Jo Wyatt

Can’t get away from the default voice for Ashley. It’s just... her to me, but also why I felt Rayna needed a voice all her own, but still something somewhat similar. Her voice, however, is definitely on the more haughty side compared to Ash. Where Ashley usually sounds bright and playful (and flirty), Rayna often sounds like she’s talking down her nose at people (she kinda is tho, to be fair).

Inquisition

Olivia le Blanc - Chloe Hollings

Being from Orlais, I naturally wanted to have someone that sounded French for Olivia, but not too French. Olivia’s been away from home for quite a while and her accent has definitely faded (except when she gets angry, then it suddenly pops up again and usually it’s quite thick an accent at that point, too). While she can carry a commanding tone if she desires, her voice is much more soft and subdued than most expect of her - not just because of her templar background, but her position as Inquisitor. A few nobles have even commented on how honeyed her voice was after meetings with her.

Nathra Lavellan  - Paula Burrows (à la Rayla in The Dragon Prince)

She has that Dalish sound, that accent, but not as strong as, saaay, Ise. It’s an accent she picked up from her parents, and one that fades in and out at times the more she’s around the Inquisition. Her voice is generally pretty mellow and soothing.

Anika Ramsey  - Shirley Manson

Anika always has been, and always will sound blatantly from Starkhaven, lol. Something about Shirley’s voice just seems right for Anika to me, I dunno. There’s kinda this warmth to it? And that’s definitely something key to Anika being the warm and nurturing type she generally is.

Talonia Adaar -  Shohreh Aghdashloo

Tal has somewhat of a lower toned voice, and she’s more on the soft spoken side. There’s a roughness around the edges, some of it from simple disuse - she doesn’t talk much and when she does there’s a frayed sound around the edges. Shohreh’s distinct voice just... something about it seems to work for Tal unlike anyone else I’ve been able to find.

Bonus

Aela’Shar nar Moreh - Gal Gadot

Rylee's ear twitched and she looked over at her fellow elf. "And he didn't have to be a piece of shite, yet here we are."

She huffed and looked back toward the dog pens. Truth be told, she was still stewing over the whole thing. Regretting not just gutting him right then and there; save herself the trouble later. She knew he'd be trouble, had that sense. The pure arrogance in his cocky attitude reminded her of the foolish shems that so often pulled the same shit in the alienage. The same fools she happily relieved of their heads after they killed her fiance and ruined her wedding. Rylee's fingers curled into fists, nails digging into her own palms as she squeezed them tight in her frustration.

"He wouldn't have done anything."

Isethari's light lilt stirred Rylee from her thoughts. She frowned and looked over at the young woman in utter disbelief. Her ear twitched again. Could she really be so naive? And more importantly, was this a Dalish thing or a... a her thing? She uncurled her fingers, shifting around in place to better look at her companion.

"You can't be serious."

"And why not?" Isethari frowned back.

"I can't believe I have to explain this," she muttered to herself. "Look... shems like that... no, men," she corrected herself, "like that are all the over the place and they're all the fuckin' same. 'No' ain't a word they understand. It don't go through their thick skulls." She gestured to her own head as she spoke, shaking it again with another sigh. "They..." she trailed off, in spite of the prompting look from Isethari. "They take what they want,” she continued, “all of what they want - regardless."

"There were people around, though! Someone would-"

"No." Rylee's voice was stern, dark and bitter at the edges. "If he didn't get put in his place, he would have tried something. Some ain't all stupid, they think they're real sneaky, right? They'll wait, plan, watch and come take what they think is theirs when you ain't expectin' it." She deflated, pushing a lose strand of hair away from her eyes. "They'll take everything," she added, her voice a harsh whisper.

She watched as Isethari's expression changed from curiosity and confusion to one laced with concern.

"Did something happen t-to you?" she asked, voice hushed.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

Ahhh, first off - thank you for asking! I’m happy to gush about my trio of idiots wardens :D Secondly - don’t apologize for asking! I love talking about my OCs, I’m just bad about keeping up with posting and such lately (but hope to fix that soon, especially if I make this extra sideblog). ANYWHO, gonna jump in and apologize now if this gets long, lol.

—

SO I’ll hit romance first since that’s quicker and easier. Rylee and Ise (eventually) become a thing - they’re married by the time DAI rolls around. Typical grumpy asshole falls in love with ray of sunshine and doesn’t want to admit it at first. She tries to play it cool and ends up playing it too cool until she gets some help from the couple companions she befriends (mostly Zev, since Sten doesn’t care that much, but he offers his insight on what qunari do). But they don’t actually, like, really become a romance-y thing until after ghoul!Tamlen shows up and oof that one is painful.

Eleri I… don’t know yet, to be honest. She was a re-imagining of my old Cousland, who romanced Alistair, but with Eleri I’m actually leaning a bit more toward Zevran. But uh, still not sure yet, I’m mad indecisive on this one. tbh even Nate is in the running for her *shrug emoji*

On to the rest!

DA:O

They don’t all join the standard way, I guess, but they do all meet at Ostagar. Ducan officially recruits Rylee and Isethari, Eleri recruits herself, lol.

Rylee is recruited first. Standard Tabris origin there and it’s on the way to Ostagar that they plan to stop and see the Dalish elves and that’s when they find Isethari half-dead in the middle of the woods (it was sheer luck, really). Duncan sends Rylee, carrying the nearly-dead Ise, to the camp and goes to investigate the area. Other than Rylee wandering around the Dalish camp like an awestruck idiot, most of the Mahariel origin is the same. Rylee stays behind in the camp, though, when Ise and co. are sent back to the ruin where they run into Duncan. Once they leave, Rylee earns herself the duty of ensuring that Isethari doesn’t run on their trip to Ostagar, bc let me tell you Ise is not happy about leaving without finding Tamlen.

Now for Eleri, she escapes the castle with only her mabari after her parents sacrifice themselves to buy her time to get out. She manages to make it to the stables for her horse and rides as hard as she can to Ostagar, desperate to find her brother. When she basically gets told that he’s out scouting and she likely won’t see him before the battle, she asks about the wardens and is pointed toward Duncan. At that point, she goes up to him like: “I just slaughtered my way through an army of men trying to assassinate my family. I have nothing left but this dream, please.” He asks clarification, she provides, he eventually agrees and sends her off to gather the other recruits and report back with Alistair. It’s at that point she meets Rylee and Isethari, who are hanging around close together by the quartermaster (after Rylee nearly kills Daveth for hitting on that one woman, you know the one). 

From there up until the start of the fight, it progresses as it normally would in canon. They all get their quest, go out into the wilds, etc. etc. And once they survive the Joining, they have a pre-meeting meeting thing. Alistair and Eleri join the meeting as per canon, and Duncan assigns Rylee and Ise to the remaining warden forces. So from there, canon-typical for Eleri. Go to the tower, light the beacon, get almost killed and then saved by Flemeth, etc.

Rylee and Ise, however, have a much more trying experience. Rylee takes a genlock to the face (claws? blade? idk lmao) for Ise to protect her - this being around the time they can see the battle is going south. Duncan’s already been killed at this point and Ise starts to panic (she hates fighting as it is) and manages to half convince, half drag Rylee from the fighting and they flee the battle to the nearest town (naturally, Lothering). They end up meeting up with Eleri and Alistair (and Morrigan) again and explain what happened from their perspective and then work with Eleri and Alistair to come up with a plan of action.

Eleri takes up the role of warden-commander (since Alistair and Ise don’t want to lead and everyone knows Rylee leading is a Very Bad Idea™).

Uhhh, key highlights of what they do I guess would be:

Sided with the Mages

Irving saved, Uldred dead etc etc

Put Bhelen in power

Branka’s killed

sent Dagna off to study ofc

Sided with the Dalish against the werewolves

two elves with one being Dalish and the other violently racist made it a simple choice for Eleri to lessen a headache later (she had way too much else to worry about than argue with them)

Helped Redcliffe and saved Conner

demon killed w/Jowan’s help (he does the ritual and Morrigan is sent in to yeet the demon out)

Isolde’s alive

side note: didn’t poison the Urn

Anora rules w/ Alistair

Loghain alive & recruited as a warden (recruited post-final fight)

Alistair still performs the ritual with Morrigan

Awakening

Not too much of note here. Rylee is the one that finds Nathaniel, though, and it does not go well for him. It’s only Ise that stays Rylee’s hand from killing him. When they bring him to Eleri, she immediately recruits him when she realizes it’s her old friend. He’s still pretty ticked, but softens about the whole thing a bit when he realizes Eleri is around.

With more wardens, they’re able to more easily protect the Keep and Amaranthine. And the Architect does live (much to Rylee’s great annoyance).

DA2 & DAI

Sometime in here is when Rylee and Ise get married. They have two ceremonies - one in the Denerim alienage to honor Rylee’s culture and then again when they find Ise’s clan outside Kirkwall.

Hawke and co. do run into Ise and Rylee in the Deep Roads during the expedition (as they are canon with Ashley Hawke, there’s not a twin to save). BUT the two of them help Ash and crew gtfo and back safely to Kirkwall. Turns out they saw Bodahn on their way into the Deep Roads to investigate and got a tip to keep an eye out for some lost members of the expedition (the whole leaving suddenly without them thing didn’t sit right with him).

Later on, in that mission where you run into Nate? Eleri’s with him, though doesn’t actually advertise herself as the warden-commander while chatting with Ash. Ash isn’t dumb, though, (not always, at least) and gets a feeling Eleri might be kinda more in charge than she was told. So when wardens start disappearing, she takes a chance and makes contact. It ultimately pays off when Eleri sends Rylee and Ise to help the Inquisition.

During the events of Here Lies the Abyss in Inquisition, it’s Rylee that stays behind to buy everyone time to escape. And, much like when Ise was taken from her clan, she has to be dragged out - this time by the Inquisitor herself (Olivia, for the record) - kicking, screaming, and utterly sobbing that they’re leaving her wife behind.

BUT because fuck canon, Rylee survives and kinda wanders around the raw Fade until she finds another open rift. This ends up dumping her into the ass end of Orlais somewhere and it takes her a while to make her way back to Skyhold, but dammit! She and Ise do get a happy ending. It does take a while though, it really does. And for that duration, Ise doesn’t leave Skyhold for anything after they get her back there. Resigned, more than anything, she usually perches on an empty wall away from the hustle and bustle of the main areas near the stables. She also doesn’t eat much, only what small bits that Cole brings her.

As for Eleri, she - along with Nate, Velanna, and Sigrun - are searching for the cure. And I really haven’t thought much beyond that.