My Big Ol' Dragon Age Fic/WIP Update List
I am delighted every time I realize how much fic has come out of the last eight months-ish of finally falling in love with Dragon Age, so here's the chronological set of fics I've written thus far, all taking place in the same universe, with some bonus WIPs in the mix:
Spilling Light Unearthly: [Rated T - 4700 words - Solavellan & ensemble]. After Crestwood, the Inquisition comes to the belated realization that at some point their leader must have simply walked out of Skyhold and vanished.
“Sure,” Bull said. “Hey, quick question. What exactly is the plan if the Inquisitor doesn’t come back?”
(in progress - <10% complete) Untitled Post-Trespasser Fic [Rated M - aiming for around 30,000 words - Solavellan & ensemble]. Stunned and shaken even months after the Exalted Council, Lavellan has taken Varric up on his offer to move to Kirkwall. As All Soul's Day approaches and the city-state's politics start to churn, members of the old Inquisition are gathering to lend their support to the illustrious Viscount. But something shifts in dreams, a howl at the door, and Lavellan is coming untethered without an Anchor to hold her down.
“Oh,” Cassandra said, her cheeks reddening. “I’m sorry. I just-- does it still pain you?”
It was a reasonable question, Zephyr supposed. Cassandra had been there to hear it, the first few times the pain had broken through in camp at night or at Skyhold in some meeting with dignitaries. She’d been there at the end, when the screaming agony had finally refused to be contained and they’d all stopped pretending Zephyr was going to survive this. And then she’d been there in the impossible aftermath, hurrying up to the eluvian to see Zephyr cradled half-conscious in Bull’s arms, stunned and drifting and somehow still breathing.
“No,” Zephyr said shortly. “It doesn’t pain me anymore. Not in that way.”
Death with Its Favorite Song [Rated T - 5500 words - pre-Rook/Lucanis, Harding]. Two days after his rescue from the Ossuary, Lucanis heads back to Treviso, trying to reconcile his torn-apart memories with the suppressed chaos of a city under occupation. Rook, for reasons beyond understanding, insists on tagging along.
The city was so close to correct that it felt like a dream.
In his torment, he’d mentally walked the streets of Treviso, darting down familiar alleys, lingering on rooftops, sipping coffee, watching gondolas carve through the inky blackness of the canals. It had been an easy escape, well within the realm of his experience and training, and he’d reveled in it. But as time had passed, as his lacerated mind had been stitched back together with the edges not quite meeting, he’d struggled to fill in gaps. The blocks leading up to Cafe Pietra had become a blur of starry skies and hushed voices, of warm spice and cool walls. The Diamond had seemed smaller and larger all at once: a smear of soft conversation, Teia’s amused smile, Viago’s piercing eyes. His grandmother’s face had wavered, shifting from gentle to stern, and Illario’s laugh had turned hard, mocking, until family had become just another way for Zara to torture him.
A Place at the Table [Rated T - 5100 words - Rook/Lucanis, ensemble]. Five times Lucanis cooked for the team and one time they cooked for him. Covers the entire game's timeline. I may have been hungry while writing this one.
Caterina’s cooks would make huevos rotos when he asked, as a child, and would even let him peel and slice the potatoes when they realized the speed with which his clever fingers could work. He’d never let the knife slip, and they’d praised him for it, showering compliments on his thin shoulders that had leached through to muscle and bone.
(in progress - 40% complete) Untitled Treviso Fic [Rated T - aiming for around 15,000 words, pre-Rook/Lucanis, Harding, Illario]. In the aftermath of Weisshaupt, Lucanis has disappeared back to Treviso without a word. Now Rook and Harding must follow his trail into the tumult of Crow politics after Caterina’s death... with Illario Dellamorte as their guide.
Illario laughed. “You don’t know him as well as I do. Ask me over a drink and I’ll tell you the story of how he got that Demon of Vyrantium nickname. That was not a subtle case. If I’d had my way, we would have been in and out and nobody the wiser.” But his jovial expression faded as quickly as it had come. “He’s always been... sensitive. He feels strongly, in ways an assassin can’t always afford to. And that makes him ruthless. Reckless. Cruel.”
“Uh-huh,” Rook said.
Illario’s distant gaze snapped back to her, the smile flickering once more to his face like a child’s clockwork toy being wound up. “If you haven’t seen it yet, you will.”
Darkness Had No Need [Rated T - 10,000 words - Rook/Lucanis, ensemble]. The Lighthouse is sinking deeper into the Fade, its protective magic failing. To save the team, Rook, Lucanis, and Spite must embark on a risky journey into the space between islands... and must confront what they've become to each other.
At that, his face closed all at once like a book snapping shut. But his eyes, she thought, gave him away. For all his pretending at control, he’d never managed to hide the way he looked at her.
She took a step back, took a deep breath, and said, “Make the damn bridge, Spite.”
The Thunder Breaks [Rated M - 4,100 words - Rook/Lucanis, Harding]. Injured in the battle with Ivenci after a fight riddled with clouds of qamek and phantom enemies, Rook notices both Harding and Lucanis acting strangely.
She gasps, drawing back, and feels something tear in her side with the sudden twist and turn. Another arrow skips across the stone of the wall next to her, and there’s a little flicker of red hair over on the far side of the Library, and then Harding is gone and Rook is pelting after her, sprinting out into the open courtyard.
(in progress - 100% complete, should be posted soon) The Lily and the Raven [Rated T - 8,300 words - Bellara, Rook/Lucanis]. Bellara, Rook, and Lucanis get a request from Strife to venture into Arlathan Forest to rescue a team of Veil Jumpers who’ve vanished under mysterious circumstances. The mission begins like any other: an enemy, a puzzle, a rescue. But if there’s one thing Bellara’s learned in her writing, it’s that happy endings must be earned. Scratch it out. Begin again.
The Lily and the Raven, Bellara writes, and sits back, beaming at the words on the page. It’s a good title, she thinks. Intriguing. Compelling. A… a third thing, a word to finish out the thought that also ends in ‘-ing’. Um. She’ll get back to that.
Anyway, speaking of words ending in ‘-ing’, she needs a beginning. There are a few scenes she knows she wants to hit along the way, and it’s unfair, really, that she can’t just throw them all up on the paper in whatever order she likes. Unless that’s actually very experimental and extremely literary of her?
The Enigma of the Mysterious Gifts [Rated G - 2,200 words - Neve, ensemble]. When everyone at the Lighthouse receives thoughtful presents out of nowhere, speculation abounds as to who the gift-giver might be. Neve is, as always, on the case.
From the moment she walked into my office, I knew she’d be trouble.
She exuded the kind of home-grown wholesomeness you got when you grew up too close to farms and paddocks, but she had a charming head of curls and a wicked glint in her eyes, and she knew how to use both to her advantage. “Neve,” she said. “You’re narrating mentally again. I can see it in your eyes.”
How the Light Gets In [Rated E - 70,000 words - Rook/Lucanis, ensemble]. Defeating blighted gods should have led to a well-deserved retirement. Instead, a botched assassination attempt on the First Talon throws Rook and Lucanis into a maelstrom of secrets, mysteries, and danger, even as Spite's behavior becomes increasingly erratic.
The upper chambers of the Cantori Diamond were quieter than usual as she approached, even for the early hour, but she knew better than to mistake the silence for anything other than wariness heightened to paranoia. She had no doubt there had been eyes on her from the moment she’d stepped through the eluvian, and for every shadow she caught from the corner of her eye, there were doubtless a dozen more she couldn’t see. Treviso had circled a ring of blades around its wounded First Talon. Rook couldn’t help but feel on the wrong end of them.
(in progress - 80% complete) As Sings the Lark [Rated E - aiming for 150,000 words - Rook/Lucanis, ensemble].
Two months ago, the eluvians mysteriously went dark. Since then, Rook and Lucanis have been trapped in Antiva and have settled uneasily into life among the Crows. Faced with an unexpected death, a contract that hits too close to home, and a new recurring nightmare, they must try to survive the wars that have been raging, unseen, behind their backs.
All the while, something strange and impossibly ancient has been awakening in the space between mirrors. Something of rope, something of chain, something of blade.
“Hope is the thing that hollows you out,” she said. “It’s what eats your insides and leaves you brittle, so the first cruel touch shatters you. You can let it in, but not before building it a stronger home. Not before letting the stronger scar tissue crowd out the thinner skin.”
“That’s a cage.” He breathed slowly, feeling his heart pounding in time with the thrumming of Spite’s banking rage. “You’re talking about building a cage. But hope doesn’t live in a cage. It opens doors."
