#zolanhras

Thank you for the prompt for @dadrunkwriting!

Here’s a fic about Aylwen & Keeper Deshanna (aka, basically her adoptive mom)–in the past! I’ve never written much about my Deshanna headcanons on this blog, but I imagine her as a very young Keeper, only about 25 when she assumed the role, and maybe only a year or two older than that when she took Aylwen on as her First.

“Keeper!”

Deshanna, who’d been kneelingon the forest floor to gather elfroot, jumped at the voice. She turned.

“Da’len, how many timesmust I tell you not to shout so?”

Aylwen, her four-year-oldapprentice, ground to a halt, looking cowed. Internally, Deshanna winced. Shehadn’t meant to sound so harsh.

“Sorry,” Aylwen said. Herfoot scuffed in the dirt.

Deshanna sighed and gotto her feet. “Just remember next time.”

She brushed off herskirts and walked over. Aylwen’s eyes were on the ground, and that guilt Deshannaso frequently felt around her new apprentice burned inside her. By the DreadWolf, she didn’t know how you were supposed to act around a child. She hadn’t evenexpected to be training a First so soon, much less one so young.

Once closer, she tried tocatch her apprentice’s eye. “Well, Da’len.” She offered an uneasy smile. “Whathave you come bursting out of the forest to show me?”

Aylwen brightened, and Deshannanoticed for the first time that her hand was behind her back. She held herchubby fist out to the Keeper. Clutched in it was a white flower.

“Here!”

Deshanna narrowed hereyes. “And what is that, Da’len?”

“A present. For you!”

Deshanna faltered. She’dbeen hoping Aylwen would come back with Elfroot, like she’d told her to. Butnow she was too touched to correct her. She reached out and accepted the flowerfrom the child. Aylwen smiled and Deshanna felt a fluttering in her heart, asort of tearful feeling.

“Thank you,” Deshannasaid. She smiled, a more genuine one this time. “Did you know, Da’len, that thisis an herb too? Would you like me to tell you about it?”

Aylwen nodded, her blondecurls bobbing.

Deshanna stumbled acrossit while she was cleaning, a day after Aylwen left for the Divine Conclave. Shewas rearranging her meager collection of books and on a whim she opened one.Pressed between two pages was a dried white flower.

She took it and held itup to the light, mouth falling open with wonder. She didn’t even rememberkeeping it, and yet here it was. Immediately her mind went back to that moment,so long ago. The forest, little Aylwen holding the flower up to her, as clearas if it were yesterday.

Sonja Hawke x Anders, for @dadrunkwriting

Anders does his best to move with the utmost care. Light is only just beginning to peak in through the high window of their room. They surely have another few hours yet before they’ll need to leave the comfort of the room they’ve rented for the night. After so many weeks on the run, roughing it, and now with the newfound knowledge of his lover and traveling companion’s pregnancy… She deserves as much rest as she can get. She deserves- so much more than he can ever give her, he thinks frowning. Sonja Hawke has given him everything, and what has he done for her in return?

It’s in that moment the healer becomes aware the young woman whose body carefully spoons his own is a little too still to actually be sleeping. There’s a gentle squeeze where her arms wrap around him just above the waist as nimble fingers sweep strawberry blonde hair out of the way to press a kiss to his neck with a whispered greeting.

“I can hear you thinking,” Sonja teases, though there’s a measure of concern in her tone that’s impossible to hide. “Talk to me.” She intends for the words to be a directive, if a gentle one. But so many weeks carrying and keeping this secret from him, knowing how he was already tormenting himself with possibilities and how he thinks he’s wronged her, make it sound more like a request, even a plea. “We’re in this together. No matter what happens,” she reminds him, a hand finding one of his and lacing his fingers through her own.

“How long have you known,” Anders manages finally, throat constricting even as he gives voice to one of the many thoughts he’d woken to.

“A few weeks,” she admits reluctantly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

The hurt in his voice is a physical ache in her chest. Justice had suggested his host might not be happy she had known and kept this information from him for any length of time. It’s still difficult, however, to imagine such news would have gone over any better when first she had realized it.

“I didn’t think you were ready yet.” The ‘I’m still not sure you are’ goes unspoken, but hangs in the air between them somehow anyway, and Sonja carefully begins the process of disentangling herself, because however warm and comforting his presence may be for her, the rogue can’t be certain it’s any help, or that it isn’t, in fact, hurting him worse.

“I wasn’t,” Anders agrees, swallowing the lump that’s formed in his throat as he carefully clasps her fingers in his own before she can tug them away.

“And now,” Sonja asks cautiously as he slowly shifts on the bed and in her arms to face her.

“I don’t know,” Anders admits shaking his head. “It’s still a bit surreal. I mean, it’s exciting. Unbelievable. I never thought… But I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Everything I’ve done wrong already. I can’t- I don’t know how to give you both the sort of life you deserve, or even the one you’re going to need,” the healer presses, brows furrowing deeper still as he speaks.

“I have everything I need,” Sonja promises, shaking her head.

“You say that,” Anders replies looking pained, “and Maker knows I wish it were true, but for how long?”

“For as long as the Maker sees fit to give us,” Sonja replies without hesitation. “Or didn’t that ring you gave me last night mean what I thought it did? I loved my mother,” she continues when he answers her question with a rueful half-smile, “but I won’t allow myself to become her, however similar some of our choices have been,” she continues with a patient smile. “Our baby will never have any cause to doubt they are loved, and by none more than us. Whatever sacrifices this comes with, I accept them. My home and happiness are with you. What we are doing, it’s good. It’s right. It’s making a better world for our child, for theirs. A hundred years from now-” she reminds him, pressing a gentle kiss between his eyebrows.

“We’ll need a plan. To find a place where we can stay for awhile,” Anders whispers finally. “When you get further along. Somewhere to have the baby and recover.”

Thank you to both @zolanhras and @aurianavaloria for the prompt! I submit to you my first Warden and Alistair piece.

For @dadrunkwriting.

Domesticity and Intimacy Prompts

“Have you ever learned to dance?”

Alistair glanced up at his wife - his wife, how in the world had he gotten so lucky? - with wide eyes and a quirked brow. “Whyyy do you ask?”

Regan shrugged nonchalantly as she leaned against the desk he was seated at. “You avoided it at the coronation. And again at the wedding.”

He let out a sheepish laugh. “Did...ah, did that offend you?”

“Not really. I’m genuinely just curious.”

Alistair sighed a little in relief. “Then the honest answer is that I never learned. There was never a reason I needed it. No one wanted to see the bastard prince at Redcliffe balls, and it’s not like Templars are known for their dancing skills.”

“Would you like me to teach you?” Regan asked softly.

Alistair did not answer right away. Regan did not have a very expressive face, so it was rare that he got to see genuine emotion upon her features. In that moment, there was an almost childlike excitement laid bare. He could not refuse such a face.

Orana Post-”Bitter Pill” (implied/background m!Fenhawke and f!Handers)  More under the cut, just because this one got away from me  @dadrunkwriting 

Orana keeps mostly to herself, preferring and feeling safer staying in the Estate despite both Garrett and Sonja’s assurances she is free to she is free to come and go as she pleases. Secretly some part of her fears if she ventures too far someone might realize what she is and snatch her away from this newfound freedom that still feels foreign, stolen, in some sense... and drag her back to Tevinter, perhaps give her to one of Hadriana’s friends or mentor now her former Mistress is dead. Her new Master has many friends, however, and over the course of the next few weeks, the young elf manages to become at least acquainted with all of them.

Thanks to both you and @dawnofakatosh for this prompt for @dadrunkwriting!! I had a lot of fun with this, and approached it from an usual angle (for me, at least.) Again, thank you both so so much! ❤❤❤Does anyone else remember the “...” npc from the Wastes? The wandering spirit/ghost that looked like a Chantry Sister? Cause yeah, this a lot of that.

              Some spirits, he thought, are more like ghosts. This particular spirit’s behavior seemed more akin to a phantom than a Spirit of Faith—though, he reasoned, the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Their party had stumbled upon it purely by accident while roaming around the Wastes looking for their campsite, having been overtaken by nightfall earlier than they expected.              Initially, they had thought it to be a living person: robed as a Chantry sister, and even appearing to almost be corporeal. Four times they had come across it, and thrice it had spoken the Chant to the Inquisitor.“Ours shall be the burden of knowledge, to take into the Earth and prove us worthy.”“All Men are the work of the Maker’s Hands: from the lowest slaves to the highest kings.”

             The fourth time the Inquisitor approached it seemed to shock his companions the most, as it touched Halesta. “You have found we. Take this gift,” It clasped her hands warmly as it placed a gave her a bow, “Do not falter. In the absence of light, shadows thrive."              The third time, though, was what troubling Solas. The spirit had looked directly at him: Rest at the Maker’s Right Hand and you will be Forgiven.

             That hauntingly personal counsel was the reason he had left camp after the rest were asleep, why he was wandering out in the cold, moonlit ocean of sand. It must have known that he put no faith in the existence of the Chantry’s “Maker”. It appeared again, as he had hoped it would, standing serene with hands folded. It watched his advance with a gentle, knowing smile, waiting silently for the questions it knew he had.

“I do not believe in the Maker,” A bit breathless from the struggle through the sand, he came to stand before it.

“Your gods know of this, but do not care,” Its thick Orlesian accent was strange to hear in the Fade’s echo, “Why do you?”

“They were never gods. You know that, too.”

“They hold no power over you anymore. Is she like your lost god, your Heart?”

“In some ways,” Sighing, Solas pinched the bridge of his nose, “Not in the ways that matter. She does not value revenge over compassion. She is….”

“Her heart is still pure, untainted by centuries of betrayal and ire,” It tilted its head, reminiscent of the Inquisitor’s same habit. “They cannot touch her. They know this, they rage at this, but can do nothing.”

“She was never meant to exist. I failed the People, and now I must make it right. I am sworn to the Protector.”

“Have you forgotten when you saw past the illusion? Your innermost cannot deny that your duty is misplaced. Do you not remember?” It touched the scar above his brow, and he felt its reverberation in the Fade. “Following your lost god took too much: scraped away at your bones, ate your insides, until too little of you remained. You burned the brand from your face.”

“I cannot bear the casualties!” He was desperate, pleading for validation; “These people live deaf to the Song, to the natural magic. What cruel fate is that?”

“You would sacrifice her life in attempt to revive a world long dead, without guarantee? She is a repetition in every part of you. She is the song that never quiets; even in your sleep, you dream of her. She is the only thing in color.”

             It was scolding him, putting words to the feelings he refused to acknowledge. He nearly barked in mock laughter when it crossed its arms.

“What would you have me do? You know already that I am torn,” Taking a breath to calm himself, “I am adrift in the Void without a guide.”

“You do not know whether you are damned or martyred. You have already succumbed to damnation for a perished cause, Solas. Each day, she becomes more worthy than your lost god.”

             With the tip of its finger, it tapped the flesh over his beating heart, a sense of finality to the gesture. It stepped back as its form began to slowly dissipate into glimmers of shivering viridian. It spoke its last piece before returning wholly to the Fade; almost an echo in the air, leaving Solas alone with the moon.

Thank you for the prompt!  I’m a little brain-blocked at the moment so here’s some very brief Hawkedith trash hahaha  @dadrunkwriting

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Hawke hasn't slept much since she left.  She never slept much in Kirkwall, or even inLothering, but that was usually by design. One more drink, one more game, one more adventure, and usually a slowmorning to break her fall.

Different aspects haunt her by days.  Sometimes she'll see kind-eyed Orsino tearinghimself apart, the terrible explosion and the way it seemed to linger inAnders' glassy eyes, or the blood on her own hands when she killed him.  Other times she's haunted by earlier horrors:the tattered remnants of her mother, the last words her sister said, or eventhe way her brother was there one minute and then gone the next.

Sometimes she goes a full week without thinking of Meredith.  She doesn't remember when she startedmeasuring time that way--time between bittersweet memories--but now it feelslike the only way to keep track.  A weeksince she last thought of the small smile Meredith sometimes afforded her whenthey were alone, three days since she last remembered the way Meredith's voicebroke when she talked about her own sister, a few hours since the image ofMeredith burned alive from the inside flashed behind her eyes, doubled herover, turned her stomach.

Of course she'd known. She'd known all along that she shouldn't even find anything to likeabout Meredith, shouldn't enjoy their time together, shouldn't carve out morewhen there was already so little to go around, shouldn't suddenly start sayingone thing and doing another just because she'd caught a case of the feelings.

And even putting all of that aside, Hawke had known thatthings could not end well between them. How could they have gone any better? Something had to give in Kirkwall--of course Meredith would go downfighting.

Five days since the memory of Meredith screaming had lastwoken Hawke from a feeble attempt at slumber.

Hawke knows she shouldn't even miss Meredith.  Good riddance, she's sure everyone inKirkwall will say, as soon as they've gotten over the fear that Meredith willhear them from beyond the Veil.  Goodriddance, Hawke's friends would say, too, if they were here.

For that alone, she's glad they aren't.  She doesn't want to hear it.  She knows--she always knew.

10/10 would play