#theharellan

"I did, yes." It was a spontaneous decision to slip it into a sentence, but he wasn't being careless. As honest as Ameridan is, there is a measure of care in everything he says, the stories he shares of himself, of the past. He is careful when speaking of spirits, of tranquility, of blood magic, because a thoughtless word could bring the new Inquisition's reputation in question. When it comes to more personal matters, some things he simply prefers to hold close to his heart. Maybe it's a leftover from when he had enemies who would use anything they could find to hurt him—which he still does, though they are fewer and not as powerful. Maybe it is just the way he is.

But as he sits with Solas by the watchfire at night, their companions sleeping around them, he's speaking of Telana and he says, "it was a good thing we married when we did; she would not have wanted an Inquisitor for a wife." He's not certain Solas will pick up on it, and he's fine either way. It is an invitation, he supposes, extended to one of the people close to him he thinks will understand him the most.

Being Telana's wife wasn't a given thing, even if marrying her was. At first they just said spouse. He didn't like the sound of it, but it was what they had. He liked calling Telana his wife and he liked the way her face lit up when he did, but he never had a reaction like that to when she said spouse, or partner, or any other variant. They were staying at an inn in the heart of the Daled one night, and he was thinking about how nice it had felt to walk up to the innkeeper and say "we need a room for the night, and my wife wants a bath" and then he realized he had the answer right there.

He turned his head towards Telana and pressed a kiss to her forehead, where she had a small scar from a spellgone awry when she was young. "What would you say if I said I am your wife?"

"Of course you are", she said, scrunching her brow the way he found so endearing, "we're—oh, wife." She smiled when she caught herself, then more softly when she understood. "I suppose I would say, 'this is my wife Ameridan, who I love beyond everything.'"

He drew her head down and kissed her again so she couldn't see the way he blushed. "I like that."

"I would say, 'I waited years for him to come back to the Dales and be my wife, and I would wait for eternity, but I don't have to because he already is my wife.'"

"Telana..."

"I would say", she propped herself up on an elbow, so she was looking down and he couldn't escape her gaze, "'there, look at my wife, he's the most beautiful person I know.'"

"You wouldn't."

"My wife is a fool who thinks I'm lying, but I love him anyway."

He pulled her down on top of him, and flipped them over, and the rest wasn't said in words.

—

He's drawn back to the present when a log bursts in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks, and finds himself smiling at the memory.

"You misunderstand." Easy to do, when it is still difficult to express himself in this side of a broken reality. Before, he'd been merely awkward. Now, it stymies him.

name one thing to worry about with regard to this situation cullen

๋࣭ ⭑𓆩✧𓆪🗡ྀ࿔ 〖 and other stories . . . 〗, always accepting!

@theharellan made solas cry

❝     solas?    ❞  she  asks  as  she  nears  him,  &  can  see  the  haggard  lines  of  his  profile.  valeria  doesn't  expect  him  to  react  -  half  the  time,  no  one  in  these  memories  hears  her  at  all  -  &  she  certainly  doesn't  expect  him  to  shatter  when  he  does.  head  in  his  hands,  the  tears  come  freely,  &  she  wonders  whose  skin  she  might  be  wrapped  in  this  time  that  he  would  allow  himself  to  collapse,  to  show  his  vulnerable  underbelly.  or,  maybe,  he's  so  tired  that  he  doesn't  care.  a  glance  at  her  gloves  yields  no  clues;  to  her  eyes,  they  remain  hers.

cautiously,  she  moves  to  crouch  by  him.  she's  never  had  to  confront  the  raw,  jagged  edges  of  him at his lowest,  &  she  finds  herself  missing  the  distance  provided  by  the  lighthouse's  murals.  this  suspended  moment  has  already  played  out,  its  course  predetermined,  but  even  still, something twists in her gut &  she  has  no  idea  what  to  do.  &  she  can't  help  but  wonder  if,  like  herself,  the  figure  she's  impersonating  was  also  entirely  in  over  their  head.

after  a  protracted  moment  of  hesitation,  she  pats  him  twice  on  the  back, gently.  or,  tries  to.

❝     you...  okay?    ❞   

the  point  of  these  memories  is  to  find  something  they  can  use; he  may  be  hurt,  but  she'll  need  to  stick  her  hands  into  the  wound  &  pry  it  open.

Skyhold is a wonder. When he stands on the battlements and stares out, it’s almost like they’re standing on the mountain itself, clouds and snow-crested caps there where he must look down. Yet, somehow, the air inside is warm enough that flowers bloom, that air does not puff off his lips when he breathes. He wonders if it’s some kind of magic, something he can’t understand. 

Plenty of things he doesn’t understand these days. 

approval + (prompt) // not accepting // @theharellan

Elgar'nan's hand falls over the Wolf's shoulders, fingers digging into flesh in an act of comfort, of fatherly pride under the heavy, single focus, gaze. It is heavier than the world, dense enough to crack bone. The wolf does not bend, his shape not faltering.

The war was over and Mythal already weaved it in colour with brightly coloured shattered pieces of glass. That broken dreams should be reminded for their sacrifice, for all the light that would bathe all Children could continue refracting the victory that they had clawed on this day.

Mythal's wolf looks up to him with the same anger simmering just behind light eyes. Mythal might be blind to it like only a mother could, thinking and seeing only the best on those that she had welcomed to this world. She was blind to it. This was a wolf pup that would day would learn that his teeth were made for more than play, more than eat. This was a wolf that would find others like it and when the time came, it would come into their home in the night and bite into the necks of those that had fed it as a pup. Elgar'nan smiled, a ill fitting grin that hardly covered his teeth.

He would look forward to it.

The war was over and he could already feel this... nagging taste and drum of emptiness, gnawing at the back of his mind. There was work to do, to build this empire that Mythal had dreamed and weave the world into shape from a song that he could barely remember the melody of. The time for drums was coming to an end and he felt his heart grow colder for it.

Elgar'nan sighs, squeezing the other's shoulder.

Promise me pup, promise me that you will meet me with bared teeth and an anger capable of burning worlds. And I shall await every night with one eye open and one hand on my sword. Nodding, Elgar'nan pushes past him towards where Mythal stood, overlooking the devastation "You have done well."