❝Simple is good. It sneaks up on you, makes you smile. Maybe that should be enough once in a while.❞
independent merrill roleplay
private | semi-active
sideblog to arlaathvhen
(sidebar by xfreischutz)
merrill is probably going to be moving to a multimuse -- either a DA multimuse or a more general gaming multimuse! and moving around a lot of my side blogs. i won’t be dropping anything and i’ll be getting to my replies when i’m able
as i mentioned on my solas blog i’m taking a summer course / finishing up grad school and job hunting AND im going on a cruise later this month in june but i’m making ok progress writing and should be getting to merrill replies soon, but i’ll prob be moving blogs beforehand just fyi
sera x merrill drabble. “morning after” kiss. written for femslash february! mild suggestive themes.
It’s funny, waking up in the wrong bed but the right place.
The first thing Merrill feels when she wakes up is warmth. Not heat from the sun nor a fireplace, but a body pressed up against her. The second thing she feels is how her hand seems to end at her wrist. She looks, met with the sight of Sera draped over her arm, pinning it against the mattress. Her mouth still hangs open in a comfortable sleep, a trail of drool drying on her cheek. With her free hand, Merrill tugs the blanket up over her chest, fixing what a fitful sleep had cast away.
Waking Sera strikes her as cruel. The sun has only just risen, not yet peeking over Skyhold’s formidable walls, and who knows what the day has in store for them? Peering into eluvians and fletching arrows that will fly in the faces of their foes. Nothing terrible, perhaps, but nothing quite as nice as... this. So Merrill turns in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, at old stone soaked in older magic. Light plays across it, inching further and further across as the sun rises over the battlements.
Sera stirs, little humming noises that warm her heart to hear. “Good morning,” Merrill murmurs as Sera smacks her lips and wipes her chin.
“How’s it you’re so... bright-eyed this early?” she groans.
“Oh, I’ve been awake for-- a bit.”
Sera sits up, pulling the blankets away with her. It frees her arm, but feels heavy past the elbow. Her brow furrows, frown concentrated as she moves her dexterous hand to encircle her wrist. She throws it forward into her lap, earning a curious look from her bedmate.
“It’s asleep,” Merrill explains, to undignified laughter. Sera lifts it up and drops it, giggling again.
“Aw, like a dead fish.”
“Hey!”
Her arm flops uselessly to her side, but Sera only laughs when she’s met with the sight of Merrill’s pouting. “Aw, don’t...” Sera says, leaning in to peck her cheek. With a put-upon sigh, she lifts her hand, still heavy, but with enough dexterity to cup Sera’s jaw. A smile (a small smile) might just quirk the corners of her lips. “That’s better.”
Sera pries her fingers from her jawline, threading them together, easing Merrill back onto the bed sheets. “Still tired?” Merrill hums. Fingers glide down her chest, curving along the soft rise of her stomach. The mere suggestion that those fingers might slip between her thighs sends small thrills up her spine.
“A little,” she laughs, “but I know something that’ll wake us both up proper quick.”
"Does your clan have special holidays and things?" Bethany asks. She only knows the ones that are mostly regarded by humans in the south, and she's heard of Arlathvhens, but that's about it. "Today is sort of meant to be one that's about love, and I've only spent it with family and friends before, but -- I think I'd like to spend it with you the most."
“Well, of course we do.” It’s a bit of a silly question, but she doesn’t want to say that. At least, not now. Maybe later.
“Oh--” She flushes, cheeks glowing a bright pink. “I’ve always thought... I mean, all of our holidays are a little about love.” But then, isn’t anything you spend with loved ones?
Immediately she feels a twinge, as though she’s supposed to have done something that she didn’t. “You’ll have to tell me what it entails. No one ever tells me the rules to human holidays.” Summerday she’d been left to puzzle out why children were wearing white herself. She reaches forward, guiding the tips of Bethany’s fingers to her hips. “What I’m trying to say is, I’d love to.”
i don’t quite see either as having romantic chemistry with her, but of the two? isabela.
varric has this tendency to undermine her when she’s not around, whether its calling her “crazy” to hawke when you romance her or mentioning the “evil blood magic” thing to isabela, again, related to the romance. plus their chemistry is even more familial than what’s between isabela-merrill.
isabela is like the one person who doesn’t say stuff like that or belittle her. i think the biggest problem with their relationship would be that while merrill thinks the life of adventure and on the seas could be fun, i’m not sure how much she’d enjoy it long term. i don’t think it’d break them up or anything, but it would require some adjustment so merrill can pursue her more academic/nerdy ass interests.
carver/merrill has been something i shipped since i first played da2, but i love the dynamic my merrill has with lisa’s bethany so like???? it’s difficult b/c they have divergent character development depending on what path you choose, so like merrill probably would date neither templar carver or circle bethany. due to both the technical difficulties of dating someone mostly/totally confined to the circle and that her status as an apostate blood mage is a bigger problem on those paths.
i’d say overall merrill/bethany would win out, especially warden bethany who likely has a different experience with non-sanctioned forms of magic and potentially less discomfort with blood magic.
the main reason for this being that bethany seems a little more capable of voicing her feelings than carver? like, she doesn’t exactly state how she feels about sebastian, but also those are circumstances where they probably couldn’t be together. carver just kind of loses his ability to be forward with merrill when that’s really what she needs, so in a universe where both of them are alive her and bethany might be more likely to get together.
both are estranged somewhat from their respective communities
merrill would appreciate sera’s sense of humour, and when she doesn’t get it that’d probably just amuse sera more
merrill would be understanding about sera’s struggles with anxiety and wouldn’t undercut or mock her feelings
sera would help oriente merrill in the present even while she tries to restore knowledge of what’s past, and compliments the end of her arc in da2 quite well
both are into qunari and would 100% bond over mutual attraction to lady qunari while in a relationship
there’d be tension what with merrill’s dalish heritage and blood magic to make it more exciting
I think Briala and Shianni would be really sweet! Briala deserves better than Celene, and I love the idea of them combining their efforts to better the lives of elves in Thedas. 💙💚
Repair lost eyesight (as mentioned by Sweeney in the Magi Origin) and other means of healing the sick* (as said in the Responsible Blood Magic codex entry)
Restore failing crops*
Create defensive barriers* or disrupt them (as done by Merrill in Long Way Home)
Cleanse the Blight (as done by Merrill to her eluvian, and Isseya to the griffon eggs in Last Flight) and otherwise resist it (as done by Avernus)
Determine if someone is possessed or not (as done by Merrill in Enemies Among Us)
Track a missing person (as done by Gascard in All That Remains)
Be used offensively or defensively like any other spell
Blood magic is no different than any other form of magic. Meaning it all depends on how someone chooses to use it. You can kill someone with blood magic just as you can kill someone with a fireball. But the Chantry doesn’t mind sending mages to throw those in their wars.
*This is said in the IDW Comic #3, so it’s debatable if canon or not.
Send me a word and a character/series/pairing and I will write a drabble:
Cheiloproclitic - Being attracted to someones lips.
Quidnunc - One who always has to know what is going on.
Ultracrepidarian - Of one who speaks or offers opinions on matters beyond their knowledge.
Apodyopis - The act of mentally undressing someone.
Gymnophoria - The sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.
Tarantism - The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing.
Autolatry - The worship of one’s self.
Cagamosis - An unhappy marriage.
Gargalesthesia - The sensation caused my tickling.
Capernoited - Slightly intoxicated or tipsy.
Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain.
Cataglottism - Kissing with tongue.
Basorexia - An overwhelming desire to kiss.
Brontide - The low rumbling of distant thunder.
Grapholagnia - The urge to stare at obscene pictures.
Agelast - A person who never laughs.
Wanweird - An unhappy fate.
Dystopia - Am imaginary place of total misery. A metaphor for hell.
Petrichor - The smell of dry rain on the ground.
Anagapesis - The feeling when one no longer loves someone they once did.
Malapert - Clever in manners of speech.
Duende - Unusual power to attract or charm.
Concilliabule - A secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot.
Strikhedonia - The pleasure of being able to say “to hell with it”.
Lygerastia - The condition of one who is only amorous when the lights are out.
Ayurnamat - The philosophy that there is no point in worrying about events that cannot be changed.
Sphallolalia - Flirtatious talk that leads no where.
Baisemain - A kiss on the hand.
Druxy - Something which looks good on the outside, but is actually rotten inside.
Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.
The mineshaft is dark, the lights long snuffed out when the oasis was abandoned. Elvhen eyes adjust quickly, Merrill leads the party with him at her heel, the both of them navigating around the debris with ease. Somewhere behind them he hears Cassandra stumble over an upturned plank of wood and curse beneath her breath. “Can someone please light a torch?” she asks, failing to keep the annoyed edge from her tone. It is Solas that complies, seeking out an empty sconce that burns with unseen energy. Lighting it is a simple task, but a gesture and the fire sputters, as though gasping for breath.
He lights a torch with the conjured flame, casting the passage in an otherworldly blue light. “Will this suffice, Seeker?”
“It will do,” Cassandra grunts, taking it. “Thank you.”
As the rest of their party moves forward, Merrill comes up beside him, examining the rune the Veilfire had exposed. It sings with an apostate’s message, ringing with rebellion and solidarity: a shout in the dark, a dare to dream that they were not alone. Merrill breathes in deep through her nose, and holds it a moment. “Your magic always makes me want to garden,” she sighs wistfully.
The remark elicits a quiet snort, his attention turning to her. Light catches her eyes, glowing the same colour as that of Veilfire. “Does it now?”
“It smells like after a rainstorm. Sun-baked earth and grateful flowers, even fueling a fire. It’s a shame, though,” Merrill’s hand pauses at the base of the markings, frown pulling at her vallaslin, “it’s almost drowned out theirs.” Solas inhales, and sure enough, beneath the scent of ozone and earth upturned by heavy rain, there is a hint of flame, a singular hope that still burns at the rune’s heart. “I hope they found someone, before this place was emptied. It’s lonely, hiding parts of yourself from others.”
His throat tightens, and he swallows the tension, reaching out towards the sconce. Reality swallows the Veilfire, blue giving way to blackness, extinguishing his magic with it. It is dark a moment, while his eyes adjust, the only light bobbing further down the shaft, held aloft by the Seeker. “Let us continue in the dark, then,” he suggests, “we hardly need the light.”
“The Keeper thinks I’ll be ready soon,” Merrill says, and even just saying it sets a dozen butterflies loose in her stomach. “For my vallaslin, that is.”
She touches her cheeks, bare beneath her fingers, imagining patterns that mark a higher power. And then, an imagined pain pierces them. She’s never applied the vallaslin herself, but she’s seen it done. The eyes of bold hunters, who wear their scars proudly, well with unshed tears. Elves far stronger than she is have emerged with half-finished vallaslin, scraps of what was meant to be more. What hope does someone like her have?
“I was wondering,” she ventures, gaze lifting to take in Lyna’s own vallaslin, “if you had any tips. I don’t know what I’d do if-- if I failed. What the Keeper would think of me...”
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
prguitarman
