#bryn lavellan

[fitzloathed]

'the inquisitor is presently occupied'

[vir-adahlen]

hey everyone i love my inquisitor all the sudden

[juniper-tree]

Holystone | 9. Innovate

"The purpose of etiquette is to create a standard.  Everyone knows the same rules.  It's quite egalitarian."  Josephine looked up at Bryn and smiled brilliantly.  

He had more than a head's height on her, and more years than he cared to count.  Josephine, on the other hand, bested him in nearly every other quality worth having.  He was fairly certain she would rout him in a fight, if she spent a moment to learn how.

"There may be little reason for you to attempt to master the Game," she said, "but a general knowledge of the ways of the court, and the quirks of the nobility, could be life-saving."  

"If it's that essential," he said with a disparaging smile, "how am I still alive after all this time?"  

Bryn was in no mood for pointless lessons.  Regardless of what the Orlesians considered the proper fold in one's cravat or the most elegant way to eat buttered snails, he had no desire to change himself to suit Halamshiral.  There was a well-worn saying about old dogs and their ways, and lately he felt like a very old dog indeed.  

That Cassandra had avoided him entirely since their confrontation in the tent was not of consequence.  It was not on his mind.  Not today, or any other.

"Oh, Inquisitor, I am certain a man of your wit will have no troubles at all."  She swept around to the back of her desk, her taffeta overskirts rustling.  With one finger on her lower lip, she perused the stacks of books and parchment pamphlets, humming softly.  She piled them into her arms and hurried around the desk again, to where Bryn had sat down upon the stone hearth, tired by all the requests upon his time and mind, and tired by his own thoughts.    

"If you care to do any reading, these may be helpful."  She held out the stack to him with an eager smile, but he only stared at her, weary and unsatisfied.  

Her smile strengthened, and the stack inched closer to him.  Formidable, she was, and disarming.  He was more suited to force to get his way, or the occasional underhanded, though mild, maneuver.  

Josephine had different ways of acquiring what she wanted, and he had seen first hand how often she was successful.  Mostly what she wanted was a yes to a question, or a request.  And she was skilled at understanding what her requestee wanted to hear.  

As she stood there smiling down at him, it occurred to him that all the skills and qualities he lacked in certain personal areas could be learned.  Just as she said.  

"Josephine, may I ask you something?"

"If you take these books and promise to read them, certainly," she said, her smile growing wry.  

He took the stack and set it beside him.  He left any promise to actually read them unstated.  "Is the... etiquette you insist upon," he began, folding his hands on his lap, "is it what you might call 'courtly?'"

She pursed her lips and blinked.  "It is used at courts throughout Thedas, but—"  Her eyes narrowed, gently.  "Perhaps you refer to a more... romantic definition?"  

"Perhaps," he said.  

She nodded and made a poor attempt to hide her smile, and moved toward a low bookshelf, filled with rows of neat red volumes in perfect order.  Her finger drifted along the spines until she stopped in the center of a row, and carefully pulled the book from its place.  

When she brought it to Bryn, he turned it over in his hands, admiring the rich red leather and bright gilding of its pages.  

"This is a romance, one of the most famous in Antivan literature," she said.  Her eyes shining, it was clear this was a sentimental favorite.  "It is full of tales from a bygone age.  Poems and songs I sang when I was a bard.  I think it qualifies as 'courtly,' as you put it."  

All he could do was nod sheepishly, hoping she would not pry into what was in his mind.  If she did not already know.

"There is much to be learned from it," she went on.  "How lords and ladies wooed and won their loves, with poetry and noble deeds.  If not life-saving," she said with a knowing smile, "it could still be quite valuable to you."  

Of course, she did know.  Despite appearances, it was a small Inquisition, and as gossip-hungry as any Orlesian dinner party.  

"Thank you," he said, placing the red book on top of the stack.  "I am sure it will be very useful."  

She nodded, and gave him a look of gentle reproach.  "We all hope so, Inquisitor."  

[glaringapollo]

9, 22, 26, and 28 for bryn!

(09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? 

They give small trinkets and gifts! They love buying/finding really trivial things that make them think of their loved ones- in their opinion items like that are more special than anything extravagant.

(22) How often does your OC read romantic literature? 

In canon- they only really learn to read properly later and read Varric’s writing once they pick it up. As a hopeless romantic though, they always consume some form of it in different aus to varying degrees.

(26) Is your OC ever the first to say “I love you”? 

LMAO YES ALL THE TIME EVERY TIME SOMEONE STOP THEM.

(28) What is something unconventional that your OC thinks is romantic? 

HMMM I think their love for minor trinkets/gifts is something? Naps? Bar hopping???

[apollosglare]

I love them and they love each other.

[juniper-tree]

Holystone | 8. Ambition

One of the ways she looked at him was curiously.  

Bryn had seen only the briefest flashes of interest from Cassandra Pentaghast in the earliest days of their time together.  She was grieving then, he soon learned, and she had hardened and hid her true self away.  Cassandra's façade was not deep, but it was consistent.  Every day she wore the responsibility of her role like another set of armor.  

But Bryn was an unknown to her, and for reasons he hoped for and others simply guessed, she was curious about him.  Wary, at first, then curious.  Her brow would quirk just at the inner corner, and her head would tilt slightly to the left.  If he was trying to amuse her, and sometimes when he did not try, her right cheek would lift, an almost imperceptible smile.  

One of the ways she looked at him was softly.  

When he spoke to the advisors at the War Table, when she still joined them for those talks, he felt her eyes on him while he asked questions he should have known the answers to, if he'd paid any attention to the world on land for the last thirty-odd years.  

When he returned her gaze, she answered with a soft smile and a blink of her eyes.  She reminded him of a ship's mouser, who blinked at you to show her approval, and only nuzzled you affectionately if no one else was around to see it.  

The others were patient, but Cassandra was gracious.  She would stand beside him, show him the map, point out the conflicts.  She would give him lists of names and relations and factions—everything he needed to fathom the depths of Thedas' political currents.  She would give him an encouraging smile, and her eyes and nose wrinkled adorably.  It was adorable to him, he knew that even then.  

One of the ways she looked at him was... a way he could not define.  

There were times Bryn felt that strange, prickly, magnetic feeling that someone was staring at him, from across the crowded great hall or a dusty campsite.  Just as magnetically, he would find the person with his eyes in an instant.  

And it was her.  Her eyes wide and clear, that hint of a smile at her lips, she looked at him as though she had never actually seen him before.  With a curiosity that was stronger than it had been before.  With a softness that clutched desperately at something inside him.  She looked hopeful, but tentative.  

Then she would turn away, to look at the glittering mosaic on the wall, or a map spread upon a makeshift table, but the expression on her face did not change.  He would feel a heat rising along his skin and an itch in his feet, in his soul, to walk to where she was, to look into her eyes again, but closer, so close he might hear her breath hitch or catch her warm scent, if he leaned in.  

He never did.  

For one reason, he was not sure that was what Cassandra wanted.  Perhaps her curiosity truly was idle, and her softness only conviviality.  Perhaps her interest was less... secular than his own.  Perhaps she saw him less as a man, and more as a Herald, as a hope for her faith.  

The other reason was that he felt like an absolute fool around her.  Foolish in his manner and his speech.  Foolish now to catalogue her every look and twitch and turn of her head as though it meant anything.  A fool to imagine she wanted anything more from him than hard work and the right decisions.  

She had tied all her hopes to him, the Inquisitor.  For him to want her to fall in love with him, over battlefields and bloodshed, was the most foolish notion of all.  

Cassandra must have realized what his feelings for her truly were, and grew nervous.  She must have found it out, because after so many times he caught her look and did nothing for fear of his own foolishness, there was a change in her demeanor toward him.  

At camp, or in meetings, she was stiff where she had been easy, quiet and withdrawn when she had been open and warm.  Sometimes she would not meet his eyes at all.  

It was, he thought sorely, even more distracting than before.  More than longing for her to look at him again, he wanted much more for her to be herself again.  For her to not be compromised or unnerved by his affection, which he had been so dreadfully bad at hiding.  He would improve that, in the future.  He would focus on the task at hand.  

And he would let her know that she had nothing to worry about.  

He found her at camp one warm evening in the Dales, leaning upon one of those makeshift tables, hunched over a loose pile of scrolls.  When he approached, she did not raise her eyes, but he saw her shift nervously where she stood.  

"I..." he began, and cursed how squeaky and youthful his voice sounded.  "I was hoping we could speak privately," he said, gesturing to a tent behind her.  Its open flap showed that it was empty, and quiet.  

Eyes still upon the scrolls, she nodded, and swiftly entered the tent.  He followed her in, and pulled the flap close.

Cassandra stood near one of the tentpoles, holding her hands together tightly.  Somehow at once she looked nowhere near him and followed his every move.

There was no way to say this but to say it.  "I feel—"  He sighed.  "I feel responsible.  For making you uncomfortable."  

Her eyes stayed on the ground, and she fiddled with the loose lace of her leather glove.  "I don't know what you mean by that," she said, a false note of ignorance in her voice.

To drag this out with formality and pretense just might kill him.  He felt as though he had run up the mast and down again, the way his heart raced and his palms sweat.  "Cassandra, please."  He took one stride with his long legs to stand inches from her.  "Let me be blunt with you," he said hoarsely.  "It's the only way I know how to be."

She met his eyes then, and they were soft and curious and the other thing he had no name for.  It was the look he had missed.  It hurt, nearly, to be the target of such a gaze.  To be so vulnerable and exposed to her, so that she could see everything that was in his heart.  

He wished he had never begun this.  But he had.  So he steeled himself to tell her what he thought she needed to hear.

"I understand you don't share my feelings regarding... you and I," he said.  

She said nothing, did nothing, but her nose twitched three times.  So he cleared his tight throat and continued.

"We are adults.  Decidedly so, in my case.  I will not let how I feel complicate this any further."  He took her silence and stillness as assent and went on.  "I promise you I expect nothing from you," he stressed, "or would even ask it.  Please, I would prefer to be friends again if... if nothing else."  

Her silence continued, but her expression became dark.  Her beautiful, soft eyes narrowed and grew hard.  "You—"  

She stared at him as though he were a rat who had got into her bedroll.  "You expect nothing from me?  Was this—"  She gestured around her, confused.  "Was this talk for my benefit?"

His sweaty palms went cold, and his rapid heartbeat seemed, to him, to cease entirely.  "Well, I—"

"Do you expect nothing from anyone?"  She paced angrily around the tentpole, shooting him with a look that was fiery, and dangerous.  It was all the passion he had imagined he might want—and he had been right to be wary of it.  "Are you so rootless and— and sea-addled that you want for nothing in this life?"  

Her hands were tight claws.  She paused and fixed her eyes upon him.  "Is your only desire to wash ashore somewhere, and spend your days shaking down coconuts?  Alone?"  

He made a feeble attempt to speak.  "Cassandra—"

"Don't."  She held both hands in front of her, to block him, now, from her sight.  "If we do not want the same thing, there is no point in continuing this.  As you said."  

Bryn liked to think of himself as a perceptive man.  An observant, keen-eyed sailor who saw a problem before it was one.  A man who knew, and did not need to be told.  

He learned, at his age, far too late, that he had a fatal blind spot when it came to love.  

He had no idea of what was in front of his face, when it came to her.  He needed to be told.  

"What do you want?" he whispered.  

Her dark expression become discomfited, and her face flushed a striking, sensuous red.  "I—I want... poetry.  Flowers.  Love," she said harshly, as though it angered her to admit to wanting.  "My heart yearns for these things.  For someone who wants me.  Desperately.  The way I want him."  

Tears pooled in her eyes.  She swallowed hard and turned away, throwing open the tent flap and stomping out into the sunset.  

Bryn could hardly breathe.  He had only thought he was a fool before.  Now he knew it.  

[juniper-tree]

Holystone | 5. Plot

The kitchen had too little to choose from that day.  There were heavy roasts lining the counters, waiting to be sliced, fresh pies cooling in the windows, and a melange of leftovers—all hearty and wholesome, and utterly bland.  Fereldan cuisine lived up to its reputation.  Bryn hoped it would not be too offensive to the good men and women of the Inquisition kitchens if he had Josephine acquire spices and sauces from the islands that he missed.  

Surely everyone would enjoy them, eventually.  Once their tongues and bellies became accustomed to the heat.  But would the cooks know how to use them?  How to steam the anguis peppers so they plumped, and the fiery, orange oil beaded softly through the skin?  How to crush just the right amount of bichu seeds into a thin paste, and blend that into the thick, red syrup of a crushed visnia?  

Bryn could show them himself, if it came to it.  It had been decades, truly, since he was a ship's cook, but he knew what he liked.  And if he were the only one to enjoy it, perhaps that would not be the worst outcome.

Still, Bryn had a large appetite, and what was available would do.  Sera was shadowing him that day, though there was no official reason—he simply enjoyed her company.  In some ways, in good ways, she reminded him of himself, at her age.  Reckless and driven, angry and hopeful.  And she was just as hungry as he was—for many things, but mainly food.  They had piled their plates high and wobbling with all that would fit, and walked through Skyhold together, talking and laughing, mouths full.  

They had made their way to the Undercroft to see Dagna, at her request.  Dagna's easy smile and sweet voice hid the mind and skills of a mad genius.  The thought of what she might be capable of was terrifying.  It was only a matter of harnessing that terror into something that would give them an advantage.  

"The Anchor," she said, her eyes gleaming.  She followed Bryn's hand as it lifted an assortment of cold pastry and grilled vegetables from his plate to his mouth.  

"What about it?"  He mumbled through a mouthful of food.  

"There must be a way to harness all that power."  Dagna smiled wide, and it was not comforting.  "I mean, we don't even know the source.  Or the strength!  You could be operating at ten percent of the Anchor's full capacity."  

"Doesn't feel like it."  The constant ache in his forearm, and the blinding flashes of pain which raged through his body when he closed a Rift—these suggested to Bryn that the Anchor was at maximum levels.  If it weren't, he'd rather not know.

"Imagine the kind of weapon we could create with that energy.  Or if it could be focused somehow.  A sword, maybe?"  Dagna's focus began to drift as she looked toward the sky outside the forge, and spoke softly, almost to herself.  "A directly charged enchantment.  But he's not left-handed... If it could travel through the arteries?..."

"It's already a weapon, though?" Sera asked.  She still grazed from her plate, but she was seated on the forge's cold floor, in front of a locked chest.  She was attempting to pick the heavy iron lock with a greasy chicken bone.  Dagna did not seem to care, if she noticed.

Bryn nodded.  "What she said."

Dagna tilted her head, her rounded nose wrinkling.  "Not exactly.  As I've said, it's more like a key.  Useful in its current application, of course.  But the possibilities are... well, totally unknown!" she said joyfully.  "Which is the best part!"  

"Got it!" Sera called from the floor, holding up the rusty, opened lock.  "Haven't done that in ages."  

Bryn appreciated her ingenuity, but at that moment he was preoccupied by Dagna's growing interest in his hand.  "I don't want to be a weapon.  Not literally."  

"Oh, of course not," Dagna said, raising her gloved hands.  "We need something a little less destructible than your body.  You're just bones and soft parts."  

He didn't like thinking of that.  No one enjoys ruminating on how fragile and short-lived they really are.  So instead, he held his dwindling plate close to his chest, and scooped up the last of the meat pie, which had grown cold in the forge.  

On the floor, Sera rummaged through the unlocked chest, picking up a ceramic jar or glass tube, looking it over for a moment, then tossing it to the side.

"You know, most of the things in that chest are explosive," Dagna said, her voice fluttering nervously.  "Which is, you know, why it was locked."  

Sera's shoulders heaved in a put-upon sigh, and she stood up, going back to her plate.  She dug out a piece of smoked fish and took a bite.  "Simple," she said.  "That's the best, right?  When I was a kid, worst thing was an old fish head."  She shook the rest of the fish at Dagna for emphasis.  "Let her rot in the alley, thwack her at some knob, he stinks for days."  She laughed and stuffed the rest of the fish in her mouth.  

Bryn smiled.  "We may want something more fatal than fish heads."  

Then Sera gasped.  "A bomb!"  She shook Dagna by the shoulder.  "Make a fish bomb.  Blows everyone up," she said, "and stinks."  She folded her arms and gave a self-satisfied smile.

"Well," Dagna said, "that's certainly not a complicated idea.  Original, perhaps, but, mechanically it's..."  She looked as dissatisfied with the idea as Sera was pleased.

"Not hard for you.  You can figure anything out."  Sera winked at Dagna, and smiled.  

A fiery blush bloomed in Dagna's cheeks and she avoided everyone's eyes.  Bryn stifled a grin, and wondered if these two would be more trouble together than they were apart.

Dagna coughed.  "I, uh, suppose we could infuse a a chemical explosive with... fish rot.  I'll check with the kitchens."

"They are demons, generally," Bryn said.  "I don't think they smell wonderful to begin with.  Do we think they care about smelling like fish?"      

"Nobody wants that," Sera insisted.  "Don't care what you are."  

He supposed it was worth a try.  

Later, after the trial, it was swiftly banned.  

Dagna had done her job, and more.  The explosion was wide and strong, and the residue was inescapable.  Those closest to its blast radius, including Bryn, could smell it in their hair and clothes for weeks.  He had been the one to ban it, and even Sera agreed it was not worth stinking oneself to ensure the stink of another.  

[juniper-tree]

Holystone masterpost

Bryn Lavellan left the clan as a restless youth. After many years exploring Thedas as a sailor, he longed for home and returned, only to be asked to venture out once again to spy upon the Conclave.

As Inquisitor, his identity and power plague him. He's a man of simple tastes and wants for little, though there is one woman who has captured him entirely.

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Prayer

Confer

Explore

Ponder

Plot

Procrastinate

Rain-drenched

Ambition

Innovate

Sonnet