serindrana:

[Hey tumblr folk, remember “A” Is For…? That I wrote for Shimmy? I wrote her a follow-up today! Here, for your enjoyment~]

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Athenril will get her hands dirty, up to her elbows in filth - but she doesn’t stay around for the fallout.

It’s something Bethany has always known, ever since the first day they met. Athenril will do the job, but if it turns sour, she’s out. She retreats. She’s very good at making it look like she’s not running, but that’s the truth and always has been. So when templar patrols increase and the knight-commander loses what little shreds of sanity and dignity she has left, when Bethany spends more and more time in Orsino’s office or with the apprentices or praying for guidance, she’s not surprised when Athenril stops coming.

But she is surprised when the letters stop completely.

She tries to bury it, but the hurt is unbearable.

It’s easier to tell herself that Athenril has run than to think the templars caught her. It’s easier to tell herself that Athenril has run than to think that Garrett has somehow decided to stop approving, because that makes no sense. He would never deny Bethany that little bit of hope, of smuggled sunshine.

But the truth is, Athenril doesn’t come around again.

__

When the final battle comes, Bethany isn’t sure she’ll make it. Her stomach wrenches and roils and rots at Orsino’s words, at what he becomes, and she nearly dies in the wreckage of it all. Her faith, her hopes, her trust. She stares at it all, putrid blood on stone, and she feels nothing and everything all wrapped up in a hard rock that won’t go down her throat, no matter how she gasps for air or swallows desperately.

Garrett settles a hand on her shoulder. Anders offers a small smile, and doesn’t say anything except,“You can do this.” There are no statements against blood magic, no I told you so, no why didn’t you listen to me in the Vimmarks. And she finally begins to see exactly what Garrett sees in him.

There’s Varric, too, and Merrill, and all the others of Garrett’s friends she never really got to know, not well enough. There’s Isabela, still not wearing pants and still magnificent, and her hug is better than all the hugs she has ever felt save Garrett’s and Malcolm’s.

And then, somewhere in the fray that follows, there’s a flash of dirty blonde hair, a familiar shout, the gleam of daggers in the dark.

She tries not to watch for it. There’s no time, no room. There’s only howling and creaking and roaring, deafening noise and unending silence when her ears ring and she can only stare at the dark sky, filled with smoke. Tears streak her face, but she can’t feel herself cry. Blood runs in rivulets down her arms, her cheeks, but she presses on.

There is no Athenril; things are too dangerous, and she’s run.

__

And yet, when the smoke clears, when she drops to her knees even as the remaining templars surround them in ranks, when the end is near, the hand she feels on her shoulder isn’t Garrett’s. It isn’t Anders’. It isn’t Isabela’s or Varric’s or Merrill’s or Fenris’s, but she knows it. She swallows. She tells herself it’s just a last minute dream before death.

“Hey, darling,” a voice murmurs, and it’s the voice she’s wanted to hear for three years. She looks up, and it’s Athenril looking down at her with a grim smile and a scar running down along the side of her face that wasn’t there before. The tip of one beautiful ear is gone. Her cheeks are hollow but her eyes flash with determination, and Bethany slowly reaches up to take her hand.

“I’m here for you,” Athenril says as Bethany rises and they meet the gaze of so many helmeted templars. “I’m back.”

And maybe it’s only Garrett’s strength that has Cullen stepping aside, only his charisma that leads them out to safety, but she’ll always think of Athenril as her savior, in so many ways.

__

“Where did you go?” Bethany whispers as Athenril slides her ruined robes from her shoulders. She’s missing two fingers, too, and there are so many signs of pain and loss on the elf’s skin. She reaches up to cover Athenril’s hand with her own. “What happened?”

“A mistake,” Athenril breathes into her hair, sliding her arms around Bethany as the fabric slithers down and off.

“Did you run?”

Athenril stiffens for just a moment, then dips her head to press a kiss to the curve of her shoulder. “No. I’d never run away from you, darling. It was a deal gone bad.”

Bethany looks at Athenril’s arms across her belly, scarred and more tan than she remembers them being. “How bad?” she whispers.

“I was in Llomerynn for two years, and almost wound up in a magister’s slave quarters,” Athenril says, and she says it quickly, and follows it with, “But it’s done now. And now I’m home, and I’ve got you all to myself. No bloody templars guarding the door.” Bethany can feel her smile, but can also feel how small it is. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get here in time. But I did.”

“You did,” Bethany say, and she turns, pulling Athenril into her arms and pressing her worried and cracked lips to her forehead. “You did.”

serindrana:

minorearth replied to your post: So, writing up the last section (actually, the…

Using the prompt generator to give me something … Bethany/Loghain, at a party. :)

Orlais.

He will never understand why Weisshaupt assigns him to any place in Orlais. They are not kind about it, either; they do not send him to the Fields of Ghislain where he could think more about military history and less about shared history. No, they sent him first to Montsimmard, where the town still remembers the movements of chevaliers and of supplies into Ferelden during the war, where the people know his name and tell stories of him.

And now they send him to Val Royeaux.

On a mission of diplomacy.

They are all fools.

“Or,” Bethany says from behind a folded screen, imported from Llomerynn by their host, “they are pushing you to move on.”

“That does not make them less foolish,” he snaps, and tries not to watch the shadow of her as she laces herself into Orlesian finery. This is not how he wants to see her, all painted up and tied into a frilly package. Warden blues suit her better. Dirt suits her better.

But then he amends; she will be lovely, unbearably so, and it will all be because of Orlais.

He sighs.

“Are you at least dressed?” Bethany asks, and his frown intensifies. He’s gotten himself into the leather trousers that cling too tightly, the ridiculous boots, even the frilly shirt and too-elaborate doublet. So, in a sense, he is dressed - except for the mask his host has told him he must wear. At least, he thinks, it isn’t a mabari’s face.

It’s a grey and blue griffon, befitting his office if not his identity.

“That’s a no, isn’t it,” she continues, and it’s her soft laugh that makes him sigh and lift the mask to his face, tying it in place.

“No,” he says, “I’m dressed. Maker take them all, I’m dressed.”

“Good,” she says, and with a rustle of fabric and his sharp intake of breath, she steps from behind the screen.

“Because so am I.”

serindrana:

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Snow still clings to the ground and stone where roofs and walls shelter it from the rain, but it won’t last long. The winter has taken its final miserable turn, when it is not quite cold enough to put ice in the stable troughs but it is still cold enough to sting, to ache, and like always in Amaranthine it’s accompanied by heavy rains. Winters are dry, only a few inches of snow at most - until the air begins to warm just the slightest bit.

But he’s lived in Amaranthine for enough of his life to know just the cure to what has Cauthrien bundled in heavy wools as she worked on mending her armor, her fingers stiff where they peek out from her sleeves. She wears gloves, but they do not cover the tips of her fingers, and were knitted so long ago they fray along the palm.

“There’s a fire in the main hall,” he says as he settles down cross-legged beside her. The carpet she sits on at least breaks the worst of the cold, and his hands only shake faintly as he shivers and sets the cup and saucer down.

“Everything I need is in here,” she responds without looking up.

He can’t help his chuckle. “That it is.” He already knew she would refuse, and so he simply shifts the cup and saucer closer. She pauses her work at the sound of porcelain against the carpet, and looks down.

She eyes it cautiously. “And that is?”

“Hot chocolate. It’s just the thing in this weather.”

“Chocolate-” she says, as if sounding it out- and then she groans. “Maker, it’s that Orlesian confection.”

And those five words have him burning with embarrassment. He coughs to cover it up, shifting his weight. “I- ah-“

But as he watches and stumbles over words, she reaches out and takes the cup, folding her frigid fingers around it and bringing it to her lips. Her eyes narrow, then close, and she takes a sip.

“… Any good?” he asks when she says nothing.

“Not so good as spiced cider,” she says, and he holds his breath. She cracks a smile. “But nothing’s better than spiced cider. No, this is good. Thank you.”

His chuckle is relieved and grateful and all-too-amused. “I’ll drop a suggestion to the cooks, then. Hopefully we’ll have a good Fereldan cider at dinner, to counteract our little bit of cultural treason.”

“Did it have to be Orlesian?” she says with an answering laugh.

“Well,” he says with a shrug, “the Antivans make a similar drink. But they add peppers to it.”

His chuckle breaks into all-out laughter as she crinkles her nose and drinks her Orlesian cocoa instead.

serindrana:

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“Have you ever been to Lothering?” Bethany asks, unable to stare another minute at the bowl where she’s trying to mix up an effective poultice. She’s never been a cook, or an herbalist, but somebody needs to be.

“Of course I have.” Loghain is half across the room, maps spread out on the table. He really should be doing this with the Commander, she thinks, but it is hard to get him away from his maps and his plans and this thoughts. She can do it only through words that are not requests or orders, winding her way into his thoughts until he can’t ignore her.

“Before this, that’s where I spent the longest part of my life,” she says, setting down her pestle and looking over to him. “It was where we actually settled down. It wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t go to town often and there were templars everywhere, but it was lovely.”

“Bandits and bears,” he mutters.

“Well, yes. But that’s true just about everywhere.” She pushes away from the table and goes to him, touching lightly at his lower back. When he doesn’t pull away, she slides her arm around him and nestles up to his side, looking down at the painted hide stretched out over the table. “And it was lovely in the summer and the fall. Miserable in spring, though, with all of the rain - you would think it was the Wilds.”

He grunts in response, not forming words.

“I do miss it,” she says, softly, and he pulls away abruptly.

“Say what you mean, girl,” he snaps as he begins gathering up his maps and papers. “That I destroyed the place you called home, that my actions forced you and your family into exile. I know well enough what I did, you don’t need to-  to-” He sputters, then falls silent, anger and what she has come to recognize as his peculiar form of guilt, the I did nothing wrong but I regret some of what resulted guilt, creasing his brow.

“I didn’t mean that,” she says, simply shaking her head. “I never said any of that.”

It’s true, though, that she remembers the way he pulled her brothers to Ostagar and nearly killed them. It’s true that she remembers the march of his armies, the way their boots churned up the grassy plains and turned them to mud before they reached the Imperial Highway. It’s true that she remembers - all too well - the darkspawn surge from the south, Carver’s death and-

But she wants to remember pleasant things, good things, and it’s also true that she blames him for none of it, not in any way that stops her from going to him and taking his hand in hers. He flinches, but doesn’t pull away.

He’ll listen. She knows that look.

“It was a wonderful place,” she says, quietly, “and I would not have chosen to leave it - but it remains a wonderful place when I think of it.”

He says nothing.

“And I hear they’re rebuilding.”

“I will,” he says, frowning as he looks for the words that can so often elude him, “talk to the Commander. Perhaps… perhaps they will have some need of our assistance in the south.”

She can’t help her smile. “Perhaps indeed. I’ll get my best oh, please, please, you don’t know how much it would mean to me face ready, shall I?”

He snorts. “As if you ever put it away.”

serindrana:

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“Well, you have the strength for it, at least,” Nathaniel says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. The arrow is lost; there’s no point in looking for it out in the fields, not with how far she shot it. The target remains unmarked, and after a brief thought, he steps close to Cauthrien. “Here, let me-“

“I can manage,” she says, her brow creased and jaw tense. She’s frustrated; he can see it in the way she curls her fingers too far around the string as she draws back again, the way she’s locked her elbow where she holds the bow from her. Her pride is wounded; five arrows lost, and not one has been anywhere near the rather larger, rather close target.

He takes a deep breath. “Please?”

Her shoulders seem to tighten even more for just a moment, but then she relents. She has grown better at relenting to him in the last several months, and her lips even curl into a wry smile as he fits himself against her, closer than he needs to be. He breathes warm against the shell of her ear, and she slowly relaxes the string.

Nathaniel’s hand slides down her upper arm to her elbow, which he eases into an angle that won’t hurt the joint and will let her control herself more easily. His fingers against her other hand shift her hold so that the string is braced only on the pads of her fingers. And then he moves with her as she draws again.

“Shh,” he murmurs, nuzzling at the side of her head. “Don’t worry so much.”

“I…” she says, then falters, draw arm giving. She takes a deep breath and redraws. “I want to… do well.” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “For you,” she adds, almost so soft that he can’t hear the words.

He can’t help his small laugh, kissing her scalp. “Shh. Don’t worry so much.”

She snorts, but her lips quirk into a full smile and her next arrow glances the side of the target.

serindrana:

[YEP YOU HEARD ME]

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Lyrium. The part of her that was Justice knew it almost before she even saw them pulse into brightness, blurring Jormungandr’s outline until she was nothing but light that could cleave a man in two, nearly flesh made magic. The part of her yearned towards it, while the Dalish in her crept around the boundaries carefully. Lyrium was rare to her still, enticing but unknown, an element to be weighed and judged.

It took an entire month before the moment came when they brushed hands and Velanna didn’t die from the contact.

Lyrium made her mouth water and her eyes fixate on the intricate lines and whorls on Jormungandr’s face, marking her as other to the point where she could no more escape notice than Velanna could. It cracked her skin like Justice cracked Velanna’s when he gained ascendency enough to be separate for just a moment, just a fight. They stradled the Veil with every heartbeat.

It was six months before Jormungandr crouched beside her in a battle they were not winning and pressed her hand to Velanna’s mouth and told her to draw.

The power had flooded through her, intoxicating and transcendent, and before she had risen back to her feet, the earth answering her cries, she saw Jormungandr shudder and sigh. Even after, her heart did not return to normal beating, but the warrior attributed it to bad memories. Her magister lord ordering it of her. The memory of being used. You didn’t use me, the woman assured her, but I remembered. Velanna doubted.

It was a year before Jormungandr - Cauthrien, now, Cauthrien with a whispered identity, a history, a name, a role in the selling of city elves in Denerim but now a warrior for her - got drunk on too much whiskey after they parted, heated words hanging between them. It had been a year since they first met when Velanna went looking for her not three hours after their argument, to resolve it or continue it she didn’t know. It was at the end of that first year that Cauthrien dragged her close and kissed her, lyrium flaring and Velanna responding, seeking out the lines on her cheek and chin and throat until all she knew was the song of it.

The song.

It was lovely, and it was more than earthly, and it was a respite from the unending anger, anguish, pain, hatred, need, determination. It was no Dalish song and at the same time it was every Dalish song.

It was a respite.

For a night, Justice rested, and so did she.

serindrana:

[Your wish is my command. And it’s even rebloggable!]

It’s her stories that Bethany takes into the Deep Roads.

Bethany can carry little on these trips. Her pack is filled with rations, water, poultices and bandages, even when brontos follow them down into the dark. She can barely tuck her old scarf with it all, let alone trinkets from the surface, mementos, bits and pieces of the past. Even memories can’t be carried into the dark, not ones of home or of family. She must fight, and to fight means to be only as she is - tainted, driven, and deadly.

But around the fires they build when they decide it’s night, she tells stories learned from a red-headed Orlesian Sister in Lothering. And when she beds down, face pressed into her roll of clothing for the next day and thin blanket barely keeping out the chill, it is Leliana’s voice that tells her new ones.

—

They meet four years after that fateful expedition. At first, Bethany doesn’t recognize her. It’s crowded in Val Royeaux and Bethany has places to be, places to go, duties to lose herself in. She shoulders through the crowd, into an open plaza, and takes the momentary freedom of movement to stretch, to find her bearings.

The Chant drifts through the air, beautiful and unending, and it can still bring a smile to Bethany’s lips even after all that has gone before. She pauses, face tilted to the sun spilling into the city, and it as if the light of the Maker has for a moment freed the darkness festering inside of her.

“Bethany? Is that you?” comes a quiet, lilting voice, Orlesian-accented but carrying the oddest hint of Fereldan. Bethany blinks and turns, and can’t help her stare, her flickering smile.

“Sister Leliana?”

“I thought it was you,” the older woman says, smile blossoming over her features. She reaches forward and takes Bethany’s hands, then leans in to kiss her cheek in greeting. It’s Orlesian, Bethany reminds herself - but it still makes her stomach twist and flutter.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Bethany murmurs as Leliana doesn’t quite draw away. “Lothering-“

“I was gone before the darkspawn arrived,” Leliana says with a small shake of her head.

“And you came to Orlais?”

“Eventually.” Her fingers lace for a moment with Bethany’s, and Bethany is caught in memories of summer days in what was almost home, sitting by the great windmill and listening to this woman tell stories. Then, she had wondered what it would be like to rest her head on her shoulder. To take her hand. To kiss her.

And now she’s wondering that again, even as Leliana finally pulls away.

“Those are Warden colors,” she says, smile turning conspiratorial. “Things have changed, I see.”

Bethany blushes.

“You look good in them,” Leliana adds. “You look lovely. You always were beautiful.”

Bethany toes the ground, and bites her lip to try and keep her darkness inside of her. It would be a shame to shadow and blot out this woman’s light. But it spills out, as it always does. “Something tainted is hardly beautiful, Sister,” she mumbles, tucking her hair back behind her ear with her free hand. “But thank you.”

“I have known beautiful Wardens in my time,” Leliana murmurs, squeezing her hand. “And you are the loveliest of them.”

Bethany looks up, startled and open-mouthed, and Leliana only smiles.

“Come,” she says, “let me steal you from duty for a few hours. I want to hear everything I have missed.”

—

Bethany forgets what she meant to be doing. The sunset is beautiful over the city, the wine is good, and Leliana is warm against her side. The Sister’s arm slips around her waist and Bethany learns what it feels like to rest her head on her shoulder.

And for the first time in four years, Bethany does not feel the weight and the shadow of her darkness so heavily. For the first time, she almost feels normal.

—

In the Deep Roads, she tells herself again the stories Leliana taught her and crafts stories anew in her voice. One day, Bethany will tell her all of them. One day, Leliana will put her words to song, and make her blush and squirm and laugh. One day, Leliana will breathe them against her skin.

But one day is not today and she fights with the fury of Andraste to find her way back to Orlais. Every darkspawn felled is another step closer to the surface, to sun, to Leliana. Each darkspawn felled is a tribute to the woman who journeyed once with the Warden, who knows already about the nightmares and the horrors, about what awaits. Bethany pushes forward, and the darkness does not seem so thick or endless.

serindrana:

[As tempus-teapot informed me, otters sleep holding hands so as not to drift apart. :D Originally troll!prompted by GreyTaliesin, Like an Otter]

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Sleep

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It took time for Cauthrien to adjust to sleeping with another beside her, whether they were in a tent with bedrolls side by side or curled in his bed or hers in the keep. She wasn’t used to the movements of somebody so close by when she was sleeping, and for the first month, she would start awake at the slightest motion.

In time, she grew used to it, first waking but staying still and falling easily back asleep, and then not marking it at all.

But the nightmares were harder.

When she wasn’t dragged down into horror dreams of running with darkspawn or being set upon by a hoard determined to make a broodmother, it was Nathaniel who jerked in his sleep and woke with a shout or with ragged breathing and sweat-slicked skin. Those never grew easier or less frequent; they could only take more comfort in waking up to the other, drawing close to shut out the fears and the panic.

And that was what made her bed down beside him every night she could. It was the comfort, the warmth, the familiarity. The knowledge that her closest ally, her dearest friend, was inches from her at the very most, and should she start awake, he would be there. He might only grunt in half-wakefulness and throw an arm over her, or touch her knee, but he was there.

It was a nightly affirmation that duty had not pulled them apart just yet, and eventually it became one of the many signs that theirs was not an alliance of the flesh alone, even if they were reluctant to admit it.

So when, on the ship to Ansburg, they had to sleep in separate hammocks that hung side by side but not close enough to touch or to share heat, Cauthrien reached across the space between them. Nathaniel took her hand.

And they slept like that, at least one link in the middle of the Waking Sea, every night for the whole of the journey.

serindrana:

“Let go of me, Nathaniel,” she hissed, and for a moment he wondered if this was what the Warden had felt when Cauthrien had nearly cut him down. He didn’t let go, instead tightening his hold on her, keeping her dragged against his chest.

“Stop,” he said, and then grunted as she landed a kick against his shin, just an inch below his knee. “Maker’s- Cauthrien-“

“Let go of me. I can’t stay here.” She twisted her head around to look at him, her eyes alight with something he had never seen in her. Her lips trembled, and it wasn’t with need, or pleasure, and his gut settled into a knot.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but all he could do was loosen his thumb just enough to stroke along her arm. He swallowed. “I know this is hard. But we need to leave for Ansburg in the morning. You can’t-“

“Can’t what? Can’t protect my home? Can’t protect Ferelden?”

“No,” he said, and he would have closed his eyes in shame if he didn’t think she would take the chance to injure him, if only to break free. “No, you can’t. It’s not your home anymore, Cauthrien.”

“Fuck you!” she growled, and this time, her kick hit his knee, and he shouted, releasing her and stumbling back. His only blessing was that she was barefoot, half-dressed, and while usually seeing her naked to the waist and impassioned was something that made his heart sing, now it was all he could do to stumble to the door, leaning hard against it.

She stared at him, hair down and wild, cheeks flushed, fingers curled into fists.

“Ferelden will always be my home. And you cannot change it, the Wardens can’t change it, the bleeding Taint can’t change that.”

He wanted to say something. He wanted to soothe her, this snapping, snarling beast that reared its head, even though it had been almost two years since he’d held the Joining cup to her lips. He had thought she had moved on. He had hoped she had found a new purpose. And he had hoped- not that she would stay with him if the time every came to part, but that she would stay with him while she could.

And all this, for the barest rumor that there were troops on the other side of the Frostbacks, out of Jader-

“You really don’t give a shit if Orlais is about to march on your home. You’re as bad as your father.”

No.

Blood roared in his ears. Every muscle in his body went rigid, and he forced himself with the last shreds of self control he had to stay where he was. His lips curled into a snarl, and he bit out,

“I am not my father!”

And she laughed.

She dragged her arming jacket on over her unbound breasts, fingers working hard at the toggles, jerking and tugging. “Oh, you may not be torturing people for your own sick perversions, or bleeding your country dry to coat your dick in gold, but you’re just as bad. You would abandon it all, your home, your heritage, when it becomes an imposition. You-“

He slammed his fist into the door, wood booming as it shook in its stone frame. 

“I am a Warden, Cauthrien! Ferelden is not my home. And Ferelden has its queen to protect her, its people, and you?” His voice dropped in pitch as he shook his head, the muscles in his jaw and throat tensing, jumping beneath the skin. The fire in his blood poured from his tongue. “You gave up every right to be counted among them when you nearly burned this country to the ground, and again when you survived the Joining.” Her face paled, her eyes going wide as she stared at him across the few feet that separated them. He pushed forward. “And if you deny it, then you don’t know the meaning of your loyalty, your duty, and if you walk out this door- if you leave-“

“What?” she asked. “What will you do?”

He swallowed, still shaking even as he uncurled his fists and pressed his palms flat to the door behind him. “You can’t come back.”

“That’s it? That’s it?” Her laugh was too high, and even through the thudding red haze of his anger he could see her shaking, could see the way her brows drew up. “I can take that.”

But there was nothing he could do. “If I see you again,” he continued, “I put an arrow through your throat, because you have betrayed the Order.”

He didn’t want to say it, not even with the spike of rage burning a hole in him. He didn’t want to imagine it, the creak of his bow, the sweat on his brow as he aimed. As he killed the woman he- that he-

“You would do that?” Cauthrien asked, and something in her gave, a bowing of her shoulders.

“I would have to,” he said, and he finally dared to close his eyes, exhaustion replacing ire as he sagged against the door. “Don’t push me to that. Please, don’t push me to that.”

“But Ferelden needs me,” she whispered.

“The Wardens need you, too.” He swallowed, pushing away from the wood and limping towards her, looking to her feet and not to her face.

“Not as much,” she protested, but it was weak, and when he reached out for her, she didn’t pull away. He settled trembling, anxious hands on her elbows, then pulled her closer. He looked at her, the way her lips parted and trembled as if she would cry- and he had never seen her cry. Rage, yes; hurt, yes. He had seen tears of agony beading her lashes.

But not this.

“The Wardens need you,” he repeated.

“The woman who lost all worth when she burned her home to ash,” Cauthrien breathed, and he flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, reaching up to brush her hair behind her ears. His thumb traced the pattern of the kaddis he painted on her before battle.

“You’re not your father,” she mumbled in return, and his smile was weak but there, the twist of his lips making his cheeks ache. He tugged her closer, and she bowed her head against his, eyes shutting and breath coming in shuddering but even measure.

“The Wardens need you,” he repeated once more, but this time his voice softened. He had wanted to never say it aloud, not with what stretched before them, the uncertainty of assignments and the necessity of duty. But he couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around her, and when her fingers curled around his waist in turn, he whispered only,

“I need you.”