I Went To Bath – They Have A Vhenadahl :)

I miss my lil aria

WARDEN TABRIS. Hero of Fereldan. Grey warden. City elf. Two handed warrior. Romancer of a former Antivan Crow.

Tabris | Hawke | Inquisitor [WIP]

Zev and a warden surana

WIP Wednesday

Thanks for the tag, @daggerbean! c:

I haven't had much time to write this week (given the circumstances), but luckily I have a handy pile of WIPs in various states of completion. This one covers the wedding scene at the beginning of Origins, the return to the alienage, and the Landsmeet, but it's a bit patchwork at the moment. This scene is set just after finding Shianni later in the game.

Sorry if I tagged you on the other blog already this week haha, my brain is goop. Tagging (no pressure): @demandthedoodles @dungeons-and-dragon-age @greypetrel @ndostairlyrium @vakarians-babe @star--nymph @zenstrike

CW: Panic attack, indirect references to the events of the Tabris origin

“The things that happened after your wedding,” Shianni said, her voice tight, “it was horrible.” Already, being back in the alienage was doing something to her. Wen was not the same girl who’d walked away from here. She could not duck her head and hope for the best as she had for the last ten years. She…also could not hate these people as she had when she’d left. Plenty of them were awful—had been awful to her family for as long as she could remember—but she could see the pained exhaustion in their faces now, too. They were all trapped here together and none of them could do a blighted thing about it. The closest they’d ever come to feeling powerful was kicking at her family when they could.  Arianwen didn’t want them all to die.  But this was—oh, this hurt her. Shianni’s eyes flicked to the left a second before Zevran spoke.  “A wedding?” he sounded like his old, amused self—which, she supposed, meant that he was very hurt. Curse it all. Curse this place and everything that'd happened here. “So there is a secretive side to you after all.”

Little insects crawled around inside of Arianwen’s skin. They carried with them the stench of the alcohol on Vaughan’s breath, the sharp scent of the hair oil Wen had been wearing that day, the heaviness of the dress on her body, the ringing in her ears when she’d woken in the arl of Denerim’s residence. Secretive—yes, she’d been carrying many tiny secrets inside of her. She’d thought she’d gotten rid of them, pawned and forgotten like the golden ring in Ostagar.  Zevran was waiting; she did not want him to wait. Wen looked over her shoulder at him and forced herself to meet his eyes.  “I was…betrothed,” she said, and his face didn’t change one whit. She’d have to explain herself later, when she wasn’t…when they weren’t… “It didn’t end well.” Shianni looked at her, but Wen couldn’t read her expression. It was too loud in her ears to make anything out, though she’d once known her cousin’s face better than her own. Everything around her seemed blurred, somehow, oil paint smeared by a careless finger. Zevran and his bright eyes and his kidskin voice were her present; this place, crooked and dark and foul-smelling, was her past. She didn’t like them meeting. If she’d been thinking, she would have left him at home and dragged Leliana and her pity along instead.  “No?” Zevran’s brows were arched, his mouth crooked with something that might be described as a smile. She wished she didn’t know him so well; she wished she couldn’t see the wound underneath the golden veneer.  Wen wanted to crawl out of her own body. No—she wanted Morrigan’s trick of shedding her own skin and taking another instead. She’d be a cat up the vhenadahl by now if she could, or a mouse lost to the roots.  “You left him at the altar, didn’t you?” Yes.  Yes, she had, in a way. She hadn’t been there for that, though. She’d been neither here nor there, really. She looked at Zevran, her lips parting and pursing again, and his smile faded to a sliver. Beside her, carefully, Shianni’s hand crept into hers. They’d stood like this a hundred times: in the market, when the other people would jostle them as they carried their purchases home; down the street to the gates when Shianni would leave for work; beside the pyre when Mother had been burned. Wen squeezed and Shianni squeezed back, her hands rough and cold but nonetheless comforting in their familiarity.  Tabris couldn’t read Zevran’s face, either. He wasn’t smiling. His eyes looked—she didn’t know. Would it be horrible if she was sick right now?  Yes. She should say something instead. Wen worked her jaw loose from its rictus and spoke.   “He died,” she said. 

you ever think about how the first time the tabris family saw tabris fight, like truly fight, it was protecting them? from tearing though the arl of denerim's castle to cutting down tevinter slavers to fighting off the darkspawn horde itself

using all that "martial training" and "swordplay and knives" and "whatever else your mother trained you in" to keep their family safe and dsfkds oiughhug hh ighh

Artifacts of Thedas

A set of 40 writing/art prompts situated in the Dragon Age universe:

A vial of lyrium; one drop remains

Crushed elfroot leaves

A freshly painted vhenadahl

A mage’s staff, splintered in the center

A Joining cup, its lip badly dented

Two handprints on an aravel

A Crow’s dagger, sticky with drying blood

A basket full of embrium and blood lotus

Dracolisk scales

A shard of mirrored glass that reflects a different sky

Avvar furs, warm before the fire

A book of Tevene grammar, open on a table

A partially melted statue of Andraste

Volume of Koslun’s teachings, the page edges soft and worn

A meticulously clean elven mosaic

Bronze statuette of the Champion, polished by handling

An Inquisition banner, mended many times over

Lyrium dust suspended in a clear fluid

A pendant of a Paragon

An empty nug cage

An unstrung bow that whispers when touched

A set of leather armor with bolt holes in the shoulder

A plaque denoting the Hero of Ferelden’s birthplace

Halla fur caught on tree bark

An empty chest with scratch marks around the lock 

A letter with a broken seal; the wax is stamped with a familiar symbol

A small pot of kaddis, partially used

A handful of werewolf teeth

A sketch marked with the symbol of the Shaperate

Party favor from an alienage wedding

A Satinalia mask

A palm frond from Seheron

Orlesian shoes with jeweled buckles

A hand mirror, its glass irreparably shattered

A Rivaini amulet on a golden chain

Templar armor, marked by lightning

A cask of ale from Orzammar

Sketchbook marked with a griffon insignia

A doll dressed in an Antivan gown

Tiny cakes that taste like melancholy

Inktober, Day 27: Blood Magic (DA2) (prompt) - Creepy Huon

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