gabby. 30s (and still on this hellsite). she/her. ♎. lil healthcare worker in the big world of new jersey just here to write some silly stories and hyperfixate on stuff.
Keep Your Brittle Heart Warm (a Davrook Modern AU)
Hi, so I committed to the bit and, after two previously shared chapters, I posted a new third one today because I can't get Silvia and Davrin having a happy ending out of my head.
After, a little brainstorming and very vague outlining, I have a general idea of where we're heading, so here I am again, like a bad habit you just can't get rid of.
There's a little smidge under the cut.
divider from here.
When his eyes break open, Davrin is all too aware that he hasn't slept enough. Sunlight pours in through the thin curtains he had been convinced to buy for the aesthetic. To this day, he can't fully understand their purpose, especially when they clearly don't do very much. He can feel his pulse pounding against the inside of his skull. That, though, he knows is not from the minimal booze he consumed the night before but might have something to do with the crick in his neck from sleeping sitting up on the couch. By the time he successfully dragged his blind date back into his house and finally settled in on the couch with a mugful of Gatorade for her–which, he notes, was met with nothing but complaints for being “yellow flavored” and sugar free–and a plate of grocery store brand mozzarella sticks that she explained were a disgrace to mozzarella cheese.
Yet when he rolls his neck to the side, he finds her fast asleep, wrapped up in the blanket that usually sits on the back of the couch. The one his mother sent him off to college with and has somehow lasted all these years. Her mouth sits slightly ajar, and a half dried string of drool graces the soft point of her chin. Makeup from the night before is smudged around her eyes, dragging ever so slightly down her cheek. Rays of light skate through the fine strands of silver hair hanging all around her face. Glitter on the still oil painting of her form. Faint and white, he notices a thin scar running over her cheek and onto the corner of her lips.
It takes all his strength not to run a finger over the length of it, wondering how she acquired what must have been such an angry wound. Tracing over her cheek bone, just below her eye. Across the constellations of freckles that litters her skin. Dipping down into the hollow of her cheek. Brushing over to her lips. Full and pink.
He thought about kissing her at the bar, and maybe he should have. Pressing his mouth up against herself. Soft and warm under the shitty bar lighting. Truthfully, it's been on his mind since he laid eyes on her. “The little one that's not Lace,” Taash had explained, having caught sight of them sitting at the bar when they walked in. "That's Silvia. She's a little bit of an asshole, but I trust Lace. She thinks you might like her.” Even if he didn't, he thought he might get to hook up with a pretty girl.
literally there’s so much joy to be found in being earnest. so much happiness in being sincere. anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to get company for their misery.
you have to be careful reading too many things that are good/smart/well-written bc then you encounter something that isnt and you get confused like ? why didnt they just make this good ? were they stupid
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
Good grief, it really grates my cheese how you're not actually able to opt out of anything anymore.
'Don't suggest posts like this user' doesn't actually prevent the algo from suggesting posts from that user.
'Unsubscribe from our email list' doesn't actually unsubscribe you.
No option to actually say 'no' to anything, it's all just 'remind me later' or 'finish this later' or 'ask me next time'.
I know this is not a new complaint, but GOD, I HAAAAAATE this.
I HATE that the option to actually say 'no' to stuff quietly died several years ago, and now you can't control anything on your digital landscape anymore.
so this idea has been sitting in my drabbles for a hot minute (ever since i was gifted with this beautiful vision) and I am pleased that something finally sprouted from the sprout of an idea(: I adore your Mercar siblings @seaglassmelody, i've inducted them in to Cyri canon lore, so I hope its okay I borrowed Callie for a bit<3
Even in the dull, heavy gray that is Minrathous in the fall, the golderite tip of a knife blade flashes white in the air just briefly as it reaches the height of it's arc, before it tumbles end over end back into deft fingers. Cyrilla Mercar snatches the blade out of the air by its scaled hilt.
She leans back against the stone wall at her back, in a half-concealed alleyway. The streets beyong are filled with the clatter of merchants packing up their wares for the day, dogs snuffling along every crevice in the cobblestones and the endless, dismal rhythm of rain into already gathered puddles.
In a swish of gray robes and an inky black ponytail, her companion turns around, lower lip protruding in advance of her complaint.
"Why do they keep pinning us on the most boring parts of the mission?" Callie asks, crossing her arms across her chest in an almost comical huff.
Cyri tries to reign her laugh, knowing from experience that it'll only exacerbate things further. Instead, she tosses her knife in the air once more, hoping that her concentration hides the brief spark of amusement that flits through her.
"I don't know, Cal."
It's not entirely true.
Cyri knew why she'd been assigned the boring post. She was being punished—Ashur would deny it, but she knew it was true. He'd been upset with her following last night's venatori raid for reasons she found absurd. They were guarding a red-lyrium artifact that Cyri had been able to recover with very little fuss. There were only half a dozen of them holed up in that basement, and aside from two broken knuckles courtesy of one of their faces, her injuries had been entirely superficial.
She suspected Ashur was more upset about the fire she'd started to cover it up, but she'd ensured no one else was in or around the warehouse when she set it, and hung around long enough to watch the flames be doused by the appropriate authorities. All things considered, it'd gone off without a hitch.
The two of them seemed at odds on that last point.
Cyri was of the belief that she should be praised for executing an impromptu single-handed raid so flawlessly. The fire had really been a stroke of genius. Ashur seemed to be of the opinion that a fact finding mission should involve less killing.
He had frowned the entire time he'd healed her hand. Which wasn't long, but it still felt significant. A significance which had multiplied when tonight's assignments had been handed out. Cyri probably would have complained more were it not for the fact that Rhys has been giving them. It wasn't his fault that Ashur could sometimes be a mother hen.
Cyri can only assume that Callie has been kept off this mission for similar reasons, though in her case it was an overprotective brother calling the shots and not…well, whatever Ashur was. The two of them seemed to share a boat quite a bit these days. Were it not for the implications, Cyri wouldn't have minded it. She liked Callie. Quite a bit, actually. She was eager to help and more than a little hotheaded. Honestly, Rhys and the others should have thought a bit harder about pairing the two of them together. Though maybe they knew that putting Cyri in charge of Callie—which wasn't officially the case, but even though Cyri has only a couple of years on Callie, its is a bit impossible not to feel at least a little protective over her—would temper her usual impatience just enough.
They would have been right thus far.
Ashur will never hear the end of putting Cyri on guard duty. Come to think of it, it seems likely Rhys will never hear the end of it either. Perfect. No one will dare leave them on the sidelines again.
"We could really be useful!" Callie huffs as she kicks a spare bit of rock so hard that it ricochets off the ground, hits the wall and clatters to the floor again. "They should stick Vesper or someone over here on guard duty. He loves this sort of thing!"
Vesper is a six-foot-something qunari with unbelievably broad shoulders and a wicked curve to his horns who has never complained once about any of his assignments. Cyri expects that last truth is less because he loves wasting time in shadowy back allies and more because, despite his overwhelming size, he's one of the most timid people she'd ever met. If Vesper were in this back alley, leaning against the wall, everyone who passed by would think he were up to something nefarious.
Which is precisely the reason that Vesper is at the hideout having his post-supper cup of coffee.
"We're less conspicuous," Cyri sighs, her eyes flicking lazily toward the mouth of the alleyway and then pointedly back to where Callie paces several steps one way before turning on her heel and repeating the process. "Which is precisely the point."
Unfettered by logic, Callie turns her head up to the clouds above and lets out a long groan. Cyri hides her bemusement behind a more familiar scowl—not that any expression seemed to ever deter Callie.Nor her brother, for that matter. Must be some sort of genetic resistance. A musing which is immediately deterred by the fact that the two siblings didn't share an ounce of blood.
Like Cyri, Callie was adopted. Unlike Cyri, Callie was adopted into a family that already had multiple children. If Rhys was anything to go by, their family was relatively close-knit. Or had been, at some point. Cyri hadn't actually met their sisters, but she's heard of them. Their parents less-so, though Callie has never spoken a bad word about anyone—save for smugglers, slavers and venatori, but if she had kind things to say about them it seemed unlikely that she and Cyri would get along so well.
And they did get along well. At least by Cyri's standards.
Callie is fierce, energetic, and always willing to spar, a definite highlight insofar as Cyri is concerned. Rhys tends to hide his disapproval behind a mask of pleasantry for the most part, but it sneaks into the stern line of his mouth whenever Cyri returns his sister with more bruises than she had last. He never complains aloud—at least not to Cyri—but she tends to believe he's smarter than that, anyway.
Like Cyri, Rhys had served in the Legion. A few bruises were nothing compared to what their own training had inflicted. So even if it seemed he wasn't willing to train Callie himself, there was a kind of unspoken agreement. And it wasn't that Callie was un-trained—if Cyri found herself relegated to an alleyway with an untrained Shadow Dragon recruit, she'd have entirely different complaints.
As it was, Callie was a gifted mage who'd had plenty of mage training at the circle. It was the hand-to-hand that found her lacking—though she had come with a demonstrable right hook, which Cyri could appreciate. Most mages were more than happy to let their mana do all the heavy lifting, which, for the most part was understandable. But for someone who enjoys close combat as much as Callie, she could do with a great deal more martial training.
"Can you show me that thing again." Callie asks, abruptly halting her agitated steps to raise her chin, indicating the knife that has just returned to the safety of Cyri's fingers.
Cyri preemptively adjusts her grip. "The disarming technique?"
Callie steps back into a battle stance, hands raised to block. A stane which Cyri never once had to adjust. All owing to the fact that Callie also hails from a military family. And apparently one where even mages didn't skip out on basic training.
Conversely, Cyri remains leaning back against the wall in a show of reluctance.
"I'm almost certain that starting a brawl will draw the exact attention we'd like to avoid," she drawls.
"It's just one move!" Callie rolls her eyes, not even straightening out of her stance. "Nothing flashy, I swear."
Cyri wasn't good at saying no to Callie; she didn't think most people were. It was part of her charm. And one of the reasons Cyri was determined to improve upon the other woman's non-existent bluff. Callie could be a hell of a swindler if she didn't pout every time she was dealt a bad hand in Wicked Grace.
Instead of agreeing outright, Cyri does what she intended from the moment the question was asked. Che lunges. By this point, Callie is familiar enough with Cyri's tricks that she'd apparently seen this coming. The blade is pointed toward Callie's ribcage, low on the left side. She steps quickly to the outside of the strike, her own right arm knocking into the outside of Cyri's intended blow. Callie strikes her quickly across the face with her opposite hand, disorienting her just enough that Cyri barely catches the too-pleased expression that has bloomed across Callie's face just before a bolt of purple lighting spears down her arm. She can't even fight the instinct to recoil. Her fingers seize momentarily, sending the knife splashing and clattering to the cobblestones.
"I didn't teach you that," she hisses through the pain.
"I was improvising!" The pride in Callie's voice isn't at all well-hidden.
And because Cyri has never not been a sore loser, she steps through, kicking her own knife out of reach and twisting her still-stinging hand within Callie's grip until they have hold of each other. It isn't easy with her still-trembling fingers, but her grip doesn't need to be firm. She pulls Callie just within reach, dealing an open-handed strike to the shoulder of the offending arm. The sharp blow undoubtedly ringing through her joints, Callie snatches her arm away.
Cyri feels her muscles tense as she steps back. It's a moment until she can force herself to relax, rolling her neck in an attempt to shake off the residual sting of the strike. For a moment the two of them stand there, braced—before relaxing.
And because Cyri notices the line of worry in Callie's mouth, she says, "That was a nice one, Cal. Good improvisation"
The concern dissipates instantaneously. Cyri rolls her eyes to hide a fond smile—and catches sight of a couple of bloodstained shadows slinking their way.
"Well, Callie," Cyri stoops to sweep her knife up out of a puddle, not taking her eyes off the spot just off the other woman's left flank. "it looks like its your lucky day."
Callie brightens like the sun has emerged from behind a particularly wispy cloud even before she turns to see the trio of Venatori slink into their alleyway. Her inky black ponytail bounces merrily as she settles back into her fighting stance, lighting crackling through the alley until Cyri tastes metal.
It's a wonder the venatori ever thought they stood a chance.
I will have WIPs to Wednesday tomorrow? I've been doing a steady stream of a couple hundred words in the morning while I work because I DO NOT CARE.
I am writing a little blackwall x lavellan tonight tho because I support being angry at ur dumb beefy bf
Where there is usually warmth in her eyes, he is met with flames hot enough to scald even across the room. The sort of fire that doesn't warm the weary soul but one that ravages anything and everything in its path.
it's important to me that you know this was all that went on in my head as I wrote it:
charmed by the scene where Lucanis complains about Neve's coffee in her office from the perspective of a nevemancing run because it essentially goes like
rook: chaos in minrathous, you say?😏 sounds fun 😏😏 though everything is fun with you 😏😏😏
neve: is it now 😏😏😏😏
lucanis: this coffee tastes like ass I've GOTTA make viago try it
