Day 3: Community

thinking about surana. her poorly contained rage

The Assassin - Huevember day 3

my dragon age girls... tabris hawke and lavellan (elf from the city edition)

13.09.2020 | Some Dragon Age 2 Elves… but like, less same-y…

Fenris and Merrill? They’re here

IT'S FRIDAY ASTER!! I come begging for some Kallian Tabris & Daveth pretty please! With the prompt "(Lure) Silent beckoning of the forest" from the Eerie Vague Autumn prompts, please??? (It's always Halloween in my heart, okay LOL)

HAPPY FRIDAY NIRI AND HAPPY MARCH HALLOWEEN!!! 💖

thank you for the prompt! this was my first time writing awakening-era kallian :) not quite sure if i really filled the prompt lmao but i enjoyed it anyway! (apologies in advance.)

rated t. kallian tabris & daveth for @dadrunkwriting. 811 words. creepiness.

*

"Something's wrong," Kallian muttered, holding out her arm to stop her companions.

"It's just the Blackmarsh," Nathaniel replied, his voice low. It was an eerie place, full of fog and cricketing bugs, and they'd each fallen silent without discussion as they crossed into its boundaries.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kallian remarked, impatient as she turned to inspect him. They hadn't quite gotten used to each other yet. When Kallian looked at him, she saw his father who'd sold her people into slavery. When Nathaniel looked at her, he saw his father's murderer, the one who'd disgraced his family name.

"My... family used to tell me stories of this place," he said, stepping forward and waiting for her to carry on. "It's haunted."

"The Veil here is thin," Velanna interrupted, clutching to her staff tightly.

"Great," Kallian grumbled.

"Nothing our fearless leader can't handle," Anders grinned. She forced a smile back, but he reminded her too much of Alistair for it to be genuine. She hadn't seen him for weeks.

"Just be on your guard," she said, drawing her sword and hefting her shield into place.

Within the hour; the marshlands had separated them.

"Shit," Kallian hissed, stumbling past another tree she'd been sure was one of her Wardens. Travelling with them was incredibly different to what she was used to. They were not her friends, and they never would be. She was their Warden-Commander. Their Duncan. She'd brought them into this forsaken place, and it was her responsibility to get them out.

"Anders?" she called, suppressing the shiver that ran through her at the prospect of raising her voice. With any luck, her Wardens would be the only ones who heard her.

"Velanna?" She would have plenty to say when they did reunite, Kallian was sure of that. She reminded her of Morrigan. The thought made her grit her teeth. If her best friend hadn't run off as soon as she could, Velanna's disappointment and scathing remarks might have been a fond reminder.

"Nathaniel?" There was still no answer.

The Blackmarsh was suffocating in its darkness. The tall, willowy trees forbade moonlight, and she'd stupidly been relying on the mages for light. It had barely been something she'd needed to think about before, between Morrigan, Wynne, and Shale.

Every twig that snapped underfoot was a painful buzz at the back of her neck. She felt like she was being watched.

She missed Ciarth.

"Kallian?"

She spun around at the sound of her name. There was no one there. Her breath came quick, pluming ahead of her like campfire smoke but not half as comforting.

"Oh, you bastard," she whispered shakily, her wide eyes wildly darting from side-to-side. Demons, spirits, whatever it was... she hated it.

Kallian slowly pivoted back, ready to press on and find her group.

A scream tore through her throat without mercy. She staggered backwards, tripping over a sprawling root and landing in a heap on the wet ground.

As she'd turned, she'd been nose to nose with an impossibility.

"D-Daveth?" she whimpered, gaping in horror.

He stared at her. It wasn't him, it couldn't have been, she knew it. If not for the fact he'd died over a year ago – he wasn't smiling. Daveth was always smiling.

"Kallian," he said, and Maker, did it sound like him. She'd thought that voice was familiar.

He sounded strange, though. There was no laughter in his voice, no hint of a joke ready to go.

Dried blood drenched the lower half of his face, and his nose sat at an odd angle.

She knew it wasn't him. But for the life of her, she couldn't tear her eyes away.

"How did you do it?" he asked, standing stock still. For a moment she thought he was talking about the archdemon, and panic throbbed in her chest once again at the thought of anyone finding out about Morrigan's ritual. Of her part in it.

"Do–"

"Let me die?"

A lump stuck in her throat, and tears quickly flooded to her eyes.

"I–"

"Why didn't you help me?"

"Daveth–"

"And now you've forgotten me."

Her hand flew to her Warden's amulet. She'd scratched his name and Jory's on the back of it almost as soon as she'd gotten it.

"No," she whispered, struggling to her feet despite the sickness in her stomach threatening to spill over. This was the Gauntlet all over again.

When she stood, her sword shaking in her hand, Not-Daveth still stared at the spot she had been. His eyebrows pinched upwards, his head tilted slightly. He looked unbearably sad.

He wasn't real. Not a ghost either. Daveth was gone. She had to say something to vanquish whatever demonic magic was at work.

Kallian drew in a deep breath.

"Fuck off."

A rustle of leaves.

"Commander?"

She turned to see who it was.

When she looked back; Daveth was gone again.

Nepenthe

Wrapping up OC kiss week with more Tabris cousinverse, this time between Ariya and @shivunin's Arianwen. I hope it's okay that I borrowed Wen twice - when I sat down to draft these, I couldn't choose which idea I like better, so I wrote both💜 And I wanted young Wen to have a friend ;-;

read it on ao3 here

Female Tabris & Female Tabris | Rated G | 948 words | No CW

-

A great boom of thunder echoed out over Denerim. It shook the Tabris’ door in its ill-fitting frame, rattled the thin sheet of glass in their lone window, and pulled nails from boards that barely built a house. Ariya bolted straight up in bed.

Her first thoughts were of raids and purges. Fingers closing around the dagger under her pillow, she rolled into a crouch, eyes glinting, searching for the threat in the dark. Then she heard the rain—against the crumbling roof, dripping into the bucket they kept under the leak—and a streak of lightning cut across her face. She relaxed.

Her second thought was a realization that she was alone in the bed where three had gone to sleep. No need to panic, yet, she told herself. Stepping in her careful way to avoid the creaky boards that might wake her father, she checked the darkened corners and spaces underneath where a child might hide.

Nothing.

“Andraste’s ass,” Ariya muttered under her breath. Hiding her dagger safely at the small of her back, she shoved her feet into boots, wrapped herself in a cloak, and stepped out into the storm.

Rain fell in sheets, turning the roots of the Vhenadahl into a small lake and soaking right through Ariya’s stockings. It blew sideways in the wind, blinding her unless she shielded her face. Even then, water caught on her eyelashes and dripped from her chin, cold tendrils that jolted as they snuck beneath her collar .

The main path that wound through the alienage was nothing more than a mud slick now. She felt the squelch of her boots as she went, though the boom of thunder and the crack of the lightning that answered drowned out any other sounds. Sticking close to the buildings, she darted past Valendrian’s door, praying that the storm had not woken him. The only thing worse than the hahren catching her would be city guards doing the same—and none of them were going to come into the alienage on a night like tonight.

She circled the main square and skirted the edge of the meeting hall, right up to the old apartments. A generous name for such ramshackle lean-tos with no insulation and hardly a family’s worth of furniture between them. But that’s what they’d always been called. Ariya ducked inside and made a beeline for the back corner.

“Wen?” she called softly, wringing out her braid with numb fingers. “Wen, are you in here?”

Another peal of thunder shook the building—louder and closer than before. The cracks in the windows gave way and Ariya barely heard an alarmed squeak over glass clattering and the roar of the wind rushing in.

Hastily, she pulled the shutters closed and held them with a scrap of wood wedged into the latch. She kicked as much of the glass as she could see into in a pile, then knelt alongside an old wardrobe.

In some storm previous it had rotted through and collapsed, forming a small nook against the corner. Splinters would shred her hands if she tried to move it. Instead, she laid herself out prone and looked through the gap between it and the floor. Two wide eyes blinked back at her.

“Wen?”

“Ari?”

A sigh of relief pushed the tension from Ariya’s shoulders. “What are you doing out here, a stór?”

“Shia said we should climb up and see the lightning from the roof. That only pathetic babies would be scared.”

Shianni. Ariya frowned. Their cousin ought to know better—did know better, really, and just needed to think more. “Did she leave you here, Wen?”

Fabric rustled against wood as Arianwen shrugged. “She said she was going to get Soris, and she would be right back.”

Hm. Perhaps Soris convinced her to stay inside, or maybe the storm had worsened and she couldn’t make it back. Either way, she would have words with Shianni about dragging Wen into such nonsense. There were enough scamps giving the girl trouble without her cousins doing the same.

“I’m sure she meant to and got caught by the storm,” she said. “Would you like to go home and dry off?”

Hesitant silence met her request. “It’s…a lot of noise,” Wen finally said.

“What if you cover your ears?”

“Then people make fun of me. And I have to punch them, and then I get in trouble. It’s easier to stay in here.”

“There’s no one here but me.” Ariya couldn’t help a smile, even as she coaxed. “Do you think I’m going to make fun of you?”

A long pause. “…no. Probably.”

“Will you come out then? I’ll cover your ears with my hands if you want yours free for punching, just in case.”

“Really?” Wen poked her head out of the tiny gap and Ariya scooted back along the dirt floor to make room for her to squeeze through. At least they had stopped for cloaks before venturing out, she noted, not that either of their cloaks had done a very good job of keeping them dry.

Capturing Wen’s palms between her hands, Ariya blew hot air over both their fingers. A shiver wracked through Wen and little droplets of icy water sprayed off of her.

Unclasping her cloak, Ariya wrapped it around Wen’s narrow shoulders—it wasn’t dry, but it was the driest thing between them. She tugged the newly bundled girl into the circle of her arms and pressed a comforting kiss against her dampened crown.

Another peal of thunder shook the building and Wen tensed. But Ariya’s hands were already over her ears, stroking reassurance down the line of her jaw.

“Really,” she promised.

The people have spoken so I will be printing DA100 as a zine wahoo

Here’s a preview of the updates you can expect in the final version, with the old art on the left and the revision on the right <3

smolder

Original post here.

I did consider October, however as we don't know exactly when Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released outside of "autumn", I thought it would be best to avoid those months just in case they coincide. I know September is an autumn month, but I think it's unlikely to come out then? But maybe not!

Please let me know your thoughts :)