The Dread Husband Rises

The air in her lungs seeks to bite her. It rakes with frozen claws and blighted teeth. It stings. She has no time to reflect on the familiarity of the stones beneath her feet, nor the echoes of memory that paints the scene of strife around her. A large gate, secure and stately now bent in at the irons. A tavern, wreathed in smoke where once only music and drunken revelry prevailed. She pays no mind as the place she once called home is torn apart at the grasping hands of Darkspawn. She does not let herself see it. All she can do is run.

There is humming in his ears. A subtle song, sweet like honeyed poison. It calls to him, to Devotion, but he refuses to hear it. Around him, Skyhold is falling. He thinks to himself, bitterly, that maybe he never should have taken this job. He did not want to die on foreign soil. Amidst the Blightsong and battle din, he nearly forgets why he had come. Why he stays, still. He is reminded only in the silence of the dead by his feet, and the promise that the silence will spread. That it might reach his clan, his family, until the sound of youthful laughter dies and only the humming remains. The song screams to fill his ear, shifting to something bright with lute strings, but he shuts it out. He does not let himself listen. The only option left is to fight.

The battle is hungry and consumes all. It blinds the sight of the wary. It deafens the ears of the patient. In among the throngs of bodies and swords and death, two lovers pass as strangers to each other. They do not see. They do not hear.

A very wonderful commission from the great @wolfs-dawn and @oxygenforthewicked, with the captions written by Ed herself! Thank you so much for trusting me with this idea. It's been such a blast working on it! 🫶

Haven’t stepped into the DA fandom for a long time but this story caught my attention and I had to start reading it.

Check out no closer could I be to god by dirthavaren. Her Vythral’a inky really inspired me to pick up the pen for the DA universe once more. Thank you for letting me paint her! Might have to do it again in the future! 🥰

Feat. Dhavihal Lavellan (she/her), based with permission on a drabble a friend wrote for me here.

Disclaimer that I actually love Morrigan and don't hold her yapping in the Temple of Mythal against her at all and this actually started because I thought it was funny Lavellan can ask who Mythal is, potentially while wearing Mythal's vallaslin. So the question became why would Dhavi do that? and the answer was to be a little shit.

Eyes locked on hers, he half smiled, the other half like her own expression was something else, something still fearful and unsure.  “As soon as I begin to feel certain, you change everything again,” he whispered.  “Sorry.” She smiled again, this one less tainted than the last.