The People Have Spoken...

while I have nothing new to post have these random old Fenris sketches

Warden commander Tathas Tabris

The people have spoken...

City Elf Appreciation Week will take place between the 5th of August and the 11th of August 2024!

Optional prompts soon to follow <3

I miss my lil aria

Marital Duo: A Performance

Part of the Alienage Soundscapes series for @cityelfweek

"TONIGHT, at th VHENADAHL: "Love, let me in" performed. BRING FRIENDS & DRINKS!"

—One of many haphazard posters distributed around the Denerim Alienage. The paper is thin, the ink cheap, and the words have been chosen with care to reduce the amount of text and thus the cost of printing the posters

WARNING! The following song talks about alcohol abuse.

(Lyrics and song without sound effects under the cut)

Love, let me in! Love, let me in! Love, it's dark and cold outside. Love, it's dark, and deep at night! Love, please let me in.

Let you in? Let you in? Won't your friends then take you in? Is the light out at the inn? Let you in? Let you in? Sleep outside, you bloody din!

Love, please don't shout. Love, please don't shout. The neighbors will wake and hear us be loud. The neighbors will ask why I am still out Love, oh please, don't shout.

Please don't shout? Please don't shout? I don't care if they see you out! Be proud that once you made me loud! Please don't shout? Please don't shout? Well, don't anger me, you lout!

Love, you’re mad? Love are you mad? Love, just hearing that makes me sad. I don't want to make you feel bad. Love, please don't be mad.

Don't be mad? Don't be mad? You drank away what coin we had! My patience has worn out, my lad! Don't be mad? Don't be mad? Leave me alone, you fucking scad!

Forgive me! Forgive me! My guilt is as deep as the sea, We can make up, love, can't we? Love, please, I'm sorry.

I will not forgive you yet. First, you will pay off your debt. Go and wake your brother up, Sleep in his house, sober up. I don't want you back again Til you got coin to sustain Us. Now go! I need to sleep! At least I got a job to keep. Think about what you've done!

@cityelfweek has been going on all week. Seeing the new and old works on my dash has been absolutely fantastic!

I didn't think I would have time to participate, but all the love for city elves got me excited, so I whipped up a quick story with my OC Loran from his childhood in the Starkhaven alienage.

This story does include fishing and a brief mention of animal death.

--

When he finally came home out of the rain, knees muddy and hands scraped, Loran went to hide with the only quiet person in the room. His grandmother had spent the storm next to the stove, swaddled under their best blankets. She’d grown so old that she looked young again; she resembled her newest grandchild, born only a fortnight ago, more than she did any of her black-haired daughters. Still, she smiled when Loran kissed her waxy cheek, and her bony grip was strong when she took his hand.

"Oi, Fish Fingers."

Caught, Loran met his brother’s bright eyes. He hated the nickname even though Ru always sung it out like a compliment. 

"We're going to the river tonight," Ru told him then went back to poking the cook pot. “Eels are out.”

Only Talea, looking up from the table where she was rolling biscuits, found room to argue with Ru. With long brown curls and an upturned nose that was now dotted with flour, she was called one of the prettiest girls in Starkhaven before she married Ru. He’d heard his brother call her beautiful every day since their wedding, but Loran always thought her face was too small. Whenever she looked at him, her eyes and mouth shrank tighter.

“Can’t you wait til morn?” she asked, voice pinched. “They’re so slimy.”

"Nay, this storm will have them all riled up.” Ru spoke with an easy confidence that matched his broad shoulders. Any elf could nail two boards together, but if an elf in Starkhaven wanted their home to be standing for their grandchildren, they put the work in Ru’s hands.

Loran watched his brother reach out and wipe the flour from Talina’s nose. Ru went on.

"The guard took all the traps up, broke 'em to bits, and said no more nets either. It's the blasted slow poles now. But Fish Fingers will pick them out of the water - won't you?"

He mimed a fast pinching motion and grinned at Loran. 

Sometimes, when Ru smiled, Loran wondered if he looked like their father. His cheeks were marked by the pox that had taken their mother and a sister, but there was plain handsomeness to his face; no one had doubted Talea’s decision to marry him. Her family was happy with the match too. With his good sense and unbroken promises, many understood that Ru was building a reputation worthy of a Haren.

Loran could imagine his brother among the Elders. When they first came to ask Ru favors, he had served them weak tea, and Loran was allowed to linger if he sipped his cup in silence. These days, when the Elders came through the door without knocking, Ru brought out a bottle and sent him away.

"I don't want to go for eels," he spoke up.

Ru’s look of disappointment, Loran knew, came from their mother. “I’ve got these lines all mended, food in eight bellies, roofs patched all the way up the hill – what’ve your fast fingers been helping me with lately?”

“I helped fix Karsi’s place.” Loran slowly began to work his hand from his grandmother’s grip. With her deaf ears, she’d already dozed off.

“That take all day?” Ru raised his brow, and Loran knew his brother was calling him a liar. “Go fetch bait.”

Loran answered with sullen silence, looking at the hot, half-made supper that would be cold by the time he returned.

“Now.”

-

After night had set in, the brothers put baskets on their backs and set off down streets swollen with water and filth. The storm had sent all of Starkhaven’s dirt spilling onto the doorsteps of the alienage. Come morning, when the sun broke through the gray clouds, the smell would be worse than the bag of chum in Loran’s hand. He kept his other hand on the knife tucked into his belt. Ru, carrying their old poles tucked under his arm, moved through the mess unbothered. Loran was careful to step in his footprints.

Not many people knew the old path they took to the river. Ru said their father had shown him the way; he kept some secrets for family. Tonight the narrow trail was slick, with the cool mud coating Loran’s toes, and he slid to his knees twice before they reached the bank. They didn’t stop until they were knee-deep in the wide, flat water.

Ru moved upstream in the shallows, but never so far that Loran couldn’t catch the glow of his eyes. He was right that they venture out tonight; the eels were quick to bite, and the brothers dragged their long, whipping bodies from the stillness of the river. After a short move with their knives, the wriggling struggles of the fish ended. Even in the dark, Loran could see that after each eel Ru put in his basket, his brother made the sign of thanks across his forehead like their mother had taught them. Loran tried to copy him until his hands became thick with eel slime.

When Loran’s basket was beginning to grow heavy, Ru waded over to him.

"Your fingers aren't feeling fishy, eh?"

"I've caught more than you." Loran mumbled, trying to thread fresh chunk onto his hook.

Ru peered into his brother’s basket. "All the wee ones, looks like."

When Loran only scowled in reply, Ru stretched his arms tall.

"You used to catch the big ones - bigger than you! With your hands." 

Loran cast his line with a sharp flick of his wrist. "I'm not a kid anymore."

"Okay, okay, if you don't think you can do it.” Ru pressed his palms together in a show of exaggerated sympathy. “It's a shame you got slow in your old age." 

“I’m not slow,” Loran snapped, although he knew his brother’s game. "I can do it. It's not hard."

"If you say so."

Loran shoved his pole into Ru’s hand with a glare, grabbed a handful of bait from the bag, then knelt down in the river. He reached his arms out in the black water. Even though Ru kept his smile, he seemed to understand the seriousness of Loran taking his challenge, and he stayed still. They waited.

After a time, when all he felt against his hands was the black push of the river, Loran began to worry. He worried no eel would come. Or if one finally came, with Ru’s eyes on him, he would miss it. The cold river ran faster around his neck. Ru believed he could catch one; what if he was wrong?

Then he felt a sliver flash over the back of his left hand. He held his breath. When it came again, he struck. He pulled the eel out of the water and it began to thrash, but it was too late. Loran had his grandmother’s grip.

Ru whooped. “Gods! You’ve caught a water dragon.”

Loran giggled as he juggled the slimy beast. The eel wasn’t the largest catch that night, he knew, but when Ru grabbed his shoulders and laughed, it felt like it could be.

Hiiii! For Atros x Solas! "come, before the band stops playing. dance with me." Happy writing!

oooh this was fun thank you! my chaos boy........ i love him sfm 😭 @dadrunkwriting 558 words cws: mentions of background character death as in canon

Solas looked right here. Which was ridiculous, or should have been ridiculous, but… he did. He looked right. In the uniform that Atros had scowled to see, refusing to look in a mirror, detesting the idea of having to dress up and be presentable for a bunch of shems, but Solas just slipped in like he was made for this place. Even in his stupid little hat. He should have looked ridiculous. Atros wanted him to look ridiculous, had been expecting to have a good laugh, a shared joke between them. 

Instead, this. Solas wearing the uniform and the hat with a stunning grace and authority, and damn if that didn't do something to Atros. He had some thoughts about having Solas stay in that uniform tonight, but those would keep. For now they had to navigate all the complexity of the Winter Palace: and it was outrageously complex. When they got to the fighting—practically inevitable, really—it had come as something of a relief, although he had to choke down his rage at the servants' lives carelessly and cruelly spent. But at least he knew how to fight, knew the steps. This was honest, where the Game was all deception, saying what you don't mean, smiles like blades slipped between ribs except he only understood the second part. 

But it was strange that Solas understood it all. Strange that he carried himself the way he did. Atros had been watching him all night; in front of other servants he moved naturally, smiled warmly, was sincere. In front of the shems he was coolly indifferent, unaffected, poised. Their gaze slipped across him as if he wasn't there, blending into the background despite standing tall in plain sight. 

Even had he not been the Inquisitor, he knew he couldn't manage that. He was always going to be ill-fit here, always gangly and disproportionate, at odds with expectation. That was him. 

So when they were done with bloodshed and politics (were they even separate things in Orlais?) and he stood on the balcony trying to get some fresh air, something far from the thick rush of perfumes that had given him a headache as soon as he'd entered the palace, he was not terribly surprised that Solas joined him. He must have known this was the right moment… he knew everything else about this. 

What did surprise him was the other man asking him to dance. “Me? You're kidding.” His voice was deadpan but Solas' hand remained stretched out to him, bent in a slight bow. And he was smirking.

“Come,” he said, voice warm and with just the edge of teasing. “Before the band stops playing. Let's have this moment—dance with me.” A raised brow, a challenge. “Or does our brave Inquisitor fear dancing when it's not for political gain?” He scowled at the memory of dancing with Florianne.

“I was so scared I was going to step on her foot,” he muttered even as he placed his hand in Solas', inhaling sharply when that hand closed around his and drew him near. “I think now I should've.”

“She deserved as much,” Solas admitted as he led Atros in a far simpler dance, “but you conducted yourself admirably. And I am confident Josephine is relieved you danced well.”

“Can't let Josie down,” he shot back, lips quirking when Solas grinned. With teeth.

Started replaying the dragon age series in preparation for Veilguard and I cannot not draw tarot cards of all my player characters… lil wip of my warden’s card here🙂‍↕️

"saying I love you for the first time" for Zevran/Tabris?

Really leaning into Mara's aloof black cat energy here! Gotta hide in Zevran's cleavage before she can bring herself to say it lmao @dadrunkwriting

It was cold. Mara could feel that much even through the pile of blankets she was huddled under, curled up with her face tucked under them like a cat. She could feel the warm press of a body at her back, soft flesh curled up around her, so close that they might as well have been joined by a seam. She smiled and snuggled down further, sighing at the soft fluffy blanket whose edge on slightly tickled her nose when she breathed in. On her waist she could feel the gentle drawing of shapes and patterns with bare fingers. The soft pads occasionally replaced by a light scratch of longer nails. “Wha time isit?” Mara slurred out, tongue still clumsy from sleep. “Now, now Mara, you know I love you but we have to get up. They will be sending out a search party for us otherwise.” She grunted, turning over and wrapping her limbs around the other elf, pressing her face against his chest. Zevran’s limbs stiffened and Mara looked up at him, the actions happening practically simultaneously as their sleep addled minds processed what he had just said. You know I love you… Neither of them said anything, just looking at the other in shocked silence. Mara couldn’t quite make out the emotions which were at war within Zevran’s eyes. It was a distant look, as if he had been yanked out of bed and into the cold. Partially fearful, partially shocked, and partially…something else she wasn’t quite sure of. She looked away from his gaze, a blush rising on her cheeks. They had slept together, they had made love, they had fornicated, they had committed sodomy, and this was what made her blush? She reburied her face into his chest to hide the growing redness on her face. “I love you too Zev.” His voice was in her ear, soothing and gentle, even as she could hear the pounding of his heart through his ribcage and the slight quail of his voice. “I’m sorry warden, I didn’t quite hear that.” She removed her face and tilted her head up, though she couldn’t bring her gaze to meet his own. She spoke with a frown, or perhaps a pout. “I love you too Zev.” His whole body relaxed and he let out a shaking laugh. “Well! That is a relief. Mara.” Her frown deepened and she pulled him close to her into a tight embrace. Her mouth right next to his ear, looking out past him. “Were you really that in doubt?” She asked, certainly pouting now. “Hm, I am picking up that the diplomatic answer to your question is ‘no I was never in doubt’.” She laughed at that, sudden and from the stomach. “But I must confess I was a little.” She growled and peppered kisses over every bit of skin that she could reach from their current position. Not willing to give up the feeling of being enveloped in strong arms. He squealed as her lips grazed across a ticklish spot and she grinned, doubling down and clutching him tight. Through his rolling laughter he said, “well don’t worry I’m not in doubt anymore.”