Pairing: Teia Cantori/Rook de Riva
Rating: explicit
Tags: pre-canon, explicit sexual content, dom/sub
Wordcount: 2.6k
Teia Cantori has already made a name for herself amongst her fellow Crows when Chiara de Riva meets her for the first time at the Cantori Diamond in Treviso. Teia, in turn, has also heard about Viago de Riva's protégé, and offers to add to Chiara's education where it might be lacking.
Or, the one where Chiara sleeps with Teia about twelve hours before she finds out how Viago feels about her.
A sparring lesson between Cassandra and the Inquisitor!
Inquisitor Vheya Lavellan’s specialty isn’t in physical combat, but she enjoys the practice with the Seeker regardless… for reasons unrelated to improvement.
finished my shadow dragon mage run the other day, which was also my second Neve romance run (she's pretty, ok?) so here's a quick doodle of Neve and my Rook, Siobhán!
Sera/Dagna, 4408 words. Sera tries to find a gift for Dagna. Something that means, somehow, but meaning is a difficult thing to pin down.
For @dragonagesapphicweek day 4 - "flowers." A fun Sera-centric romp (to balance out my last two angsty grimdark pieces lol.)
Girls, they liked flowers.
At least that’s what Sera knew from half-memories-maybe-dreams of the Alienage, that’s what Sera knew from courtly-romance-maybe-rubbish from Ladies Emmald and Josie.
Girls, like a girl was supposed to be, or something, they liked flowers. And they got all gushy when you chose the right ones— a rose for if it was big true love like in stories, crystal grace if someone’s leaving, embrium if they’re coughing their guts up, and so on. All sorts of rules you could stuff in your head and sit in a meadow and pick and pick until your fingers stained green, but it would all be worth it. It would all be worth it because of her.
Written for Day 2 of Dragon Age Sapphic Week, Wound Tending/Battle Couple. I've missed my girls.
AO3 link
Leliana gingerly lowered herself onto the steps of Redcliffe’s chantry and came to a shocking conclusion: every tale she had ever heard about the aftermath of an epic heroic battle had been a horrible lie.
The irony of this particular revelation wasn’t lost on her, considering her own love for storytelling, and she could certainly see the logic in it—the hero of the tale wouldn’t look very impressive if the aftermath was described in horrific, depressing detail. Better to keep it all vague and happy, to let the listener not linger too long on the details and come away with the satisfaction that the day had been won and the people had been saved.
They’d won the night, and they’d certainly saved more people than they’d expected. That was good; she didn’t want to take away from that accomplishment. But between the steady, constant throb starting in her foot and slowly but surely moving up to her knee and the corpses of those who had fallen in battle, the former bard found that it was difficult to be entirely happy about the situation.
They hadn’t managed to get into the castle yet. That particular bit of adventure wouldn’t even be attempted until the next day, and Maker brace them for whatever they found inside its walls. If it was anything like what she’d seen tonight in the village, the chances that Arl Eamon and his family were still alive and whole were rapidly dwindling by the second.
It wasn’t a thought process she should follow to its conclusion, but Leliana was tired, and hurt, and she didn’t have enough energy left to try and find some kind of bright side to this. She shifted absently to try and ease the ache in her foot and tilted her head back, watching the way the dark storm clouds drifted over the moon, nearly blocking out its rays and seeming to perfectly match her mood.
There wasn’t any rain. That was something, at least. A small something, but Leliana would take it right now.
“Leliana?”
It was a coincidence, the former bard knew. A simple shift in the wind that she could feel, just enough that she had to brush her hair out of her eyes. There was nothing magical about it, and yet she couldn’t deny the way her breath caught and her heart skipped a beat as the clouds shifted and Saran Aeducan’s hair seemed to glow silver under the light of the moon as she came to a stop in front of her.
It was a coincidence. For just a moment, though, it felt like something out of the romantic tales Leliana had often heard sung throughout Orlais.
“Saran,” she managed, when the silence lingered for a moment too long and the warrior’s eyebrows were starting to knit with concern. “Have you been to see Wynne?”
Icy blue eyes slowly drifted over Leliana, taking in her state. “I think I should be asking you that question,” the dwarf replied dryly. “You seem… tired.”
It shouldn’t have been funny; it was polite to the point of pain, a way of trying to avoid the obvious fact that the archer was clearly injured and had decided to curl up in a ball of misery about it instead of trying to seek help out. It should have honestly been a little insulting, but somehow Leliana found she was actually snorting with amusement, bringing a hand up to her mouth to muffle the sound. It didn’t help—the snort was rapidly collapsing into full on laughter.
A delayed reaction to… everything that had happened tonight? Probably. It was better than crying, though, so Leliana would take it. Anything was better than breaking down. It was worth it anyway, just to hear the amused, heavy sigh that escaped Saran as the human tried to muffle her giggles. “That bad, huh?” she murmured, rubbing the back of her neck.
“You can say I’m injured,” Leliana managed, as she took a breath and began to calm down. “It’s fairly obvious. I appreciate you trying to not say anything about it, but…”
Saran bowed her head in acknowledgement; all too quickly though the amusement faded, and that furrow was starting to form again between her brows. "Do you need help getting to Wynne?"
Leliana waved a hand. "She has enough people to tend to after tonight's battle," she said. "I don't want to add to her burden. All I need is some rest and I'll be ready for whatever tomorrow brings."
She didn't think it was a lie, at least. Her foot ached but it still supported her weight; hopefully as long as she stayed still and slept through the night, it would be in better shape come morning. The fact that they would be sleeping in Redcliffe's chantry and not on the cold, hard ground of the wilderness would certainly help.
Saran was frowning, though, and Leliana softened, leaning forward carefully. "Saran, truly, you don't need to worry about me. I'm hardly the worst off from this battle."
"You're still hurt," Saran replied, and after a moment she seemed to make up her mind because she squared her shoulders. "Stay here, I'll be right back."
Leliana opened her mouth, but Saran was already leaving so she ended up closing it without saying a word, huffing out a soft laugh as she leaned back onto the stairs. That woman, she thought fondly, tilting her head back again to look up at the sky.
She didn't have to wait very long, at least; she lowered her gaze as she heard footsteps coming back in her direction, and she blinked as Saran carefully set down some fresh bandages and a poultice. She placed them on the first step, apparently not wanting them to get dirty, before she looked at the bard.
"Do I want to know how you got those?" Leliana asked, carefully sitting up as the dwarf knelt down in front of her.
"I asked. I only took enough for one person, anyway." Saran hesitated, then nodded towards Leliana's foot. "May I?"
A slim red brow arched, but Leliana nodded. Once she had permission the dwarf didn't wait, gently reaching out and resting one hand against the human's leg as her other one carefully eased her boot off. Saran had taken off her gloves for this, so it was literally just her fingers against Leliana's leg.
The bard swallowed subtly. Maker, it had been far too long if even a simple touch with the intent to heal was distracting her like this. She wondered if Saran would be this gentle and careful with—
No. No, she wasn't going to go there. She was not going to let her mind go there. Some light flirting didn't mean this was something she could fantasize about, at least not when Saran was literally right there. She needed to focus on something, anything else.
"You can treat injuries?" Leliana asked, and even if her voice wasn't breathy it was definitely softer than she would have liked it to be.
Saran chuckled, continuing to be gentle and careful with her touch as she pressed her fingers into Leliana's foot, feeling for the sore spot. "I'm a woman of many talents," she joked, pausing for a moment when she felt Leliana wince. "Is that the spot?"
Leliana blew out a breath. "Yes," she confirmed. "I must have rolled my ankle while fighting the skeletons coming out of the lake."
"I didn't hear you cry out."
"We were in the middle of battle." Leliana saw the way Saran's jaw briefly clenched before she gave a small nod of understanding. Any sound of pain could have been seen as a weakness, and they had needed every advantage they could take in that fight; Leliana could worry about the consquences of it now, when she was relatively safe.
Once she had confirmed the spot with the worst inflammation, Saran opened the poultice and covered a few of her fingers in it, applying it carefully to Leliana's foot. She rubbed it in gently to make sure it stayed in place, then picked up the bandage and began wrapping. Leliana watched her in silence, oddly fascinated by the way her fingers moved. She wasn't sure what she had expected, truthfully—that Saran's touch would be heavy, perhaps, that there would be some strength to it from how easily she was able to wield her massive two-handed weapon. Right now though Saran's touch was gentle, and there was an adorable furrow between her brows as she focused on her task.
Leliana was content to sit in silence for once, but Saran must have had a case of post battle nerves; that, or she just didn't like to leave a topic hanging. "I used to lead expeditions into the Deep Roads," the dwarf murmured.
Leliana blinked. "For Orzammar?"
"Yes. Every once in awhile I'd have to take a squad out to push the darkspawn back and boost soldier morale, or Father thought we could retrieve some lost treasure in a thaig. Trian was the heir and he'd insist he needed Bhelen to stay with him as his Second, and I was eager to prove myself as a warrior."
Saran gave a small shrug, like nothing she'd just said meant anything to her; Leliana would have almost believed it, if not for the way she saw the blonde chewing on her bottom lip. Even her touch had paused against the redhead's foot, like she was fully processing the fact that she was talking about her life in Orzammar before she'd been exiled.
Leliana didn't want her to stop. Maybe that made her selfish, but—maybe it was also good, for Saran to talk more about it. She'd already encouraged her to speak more about her past as a bard, after all. Why wouldn't Leliana try to return the favor?
"And that was where you learned how to tend to injuries?" Leliana prompted gently, and Saran blinked, seeming to focus on the present. She returned to her work, but not before shooting the human a grateful smile.
"Yes. Dwarves don't have magic, so we do everything the old fashioned way. Several medics are usually dispatched with a squad, but everyone knows at least basic injury treatment just in case." Saran finished wrapping Leliana's foot. "Nothing worse than being days out from Orzammar and several of the men can't walk. How's that feel?"
Leliana rested her foot on the ground, then took a quiet breath and pushed herself up before she could think too much about it; her foot ached, but it held her weight even as Saran quickly got up with her, gripping both her hands to keep her steady as she tried a few tentative steps. Leliana blew out a slow breath when she stopped, leaning into Saran for a moment, and the dwarf was kind enough to not say anything about it.
Maybe she liked it. Maker, if only Leliana could be that lucky.
The bard squeezed Saran's hands, after the moment passed and she didn't collapse. "Well, I can walk," she said with a weak smile. "That's better than I was before, so thank you."
Saran nodded thoughtfully, her thumbs absently rubbing small circles into the tops of Leliana's hands. "We'll keep it wrapped until we go to bed," she decided. "In the morning—"
"I'm coming with you." Leliana didn't let Saran finish her sentence; when the Warden looked up at her with a frown, she held her gaze. "I can make it, Saran."
They simply looked each other, and it was a moment that might have lasted for only a second or lasted for all eternity; Leliana didn't know, but it was Saran who finally looked away first with a soft sigh. Despite the unhappy sound, she squeezed her hands gently, and Leliana smiled.
"Fine," she murmured. "But I want Wynne to look at it first before we move."
"Of course," Leliana agreed, and she treasured the way Saran's warmth lingered in her hands even when she pulled away to check on everyone else.
It's not fair to Kiora that Sera is all boney when she's so smooshy. She's busy trying to save the world, and all Sera can offer are some tiny tits. It's mad that she doesn't think it's a problem, but if she really wants to prove it...
