Written for @thelighthouse-server's DreadFluff Weekend 2026:
Feb 15 - Prompt: Happily Ever After
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The antique door swung open to slowly reveal the last person in the city he expected to see, and Solas blinked at her several times before finally understanding she wasn’t a mirage. “Rook?” But it wasn’t just Rook – it was the woman underneath The Rook’s mask. He’d never seen her without it before and, come to think of it, she’d never seen him without his, either. How she knew who he was and where to find him was a mystery he fully intended to solve later. Right now, there were more pressing questions. “What are you doing here?”
“I... I had nowhere else to go.” Her mask was pushed up onto her head, revealing a distraught expression resting on a beautiful face, and she was hunched in on herself as though she expected to be hit. “I’m sorry, I can—”
He didn’t need to hear more. Solas pushed open the door the rest of the way and wordlessly gestured for her to enter. With the assistance of the bright ceiling lamp, he began to pick out fresh injuries blooming on her face. She stood meek and trembling while he locked the door behind her, not comfortable enough to venture any further into the house. There was no resistance as he gently removed her mask and began turning her face back and forth to examine it more closely.
Enough time lapsed in his contemplations that she nervously broke the silence with, “You don’t have to—”
The smudges that initially looked like dust around her throat were resolving into distinct finger-shaped bruises, and similar round marks that could have only been the tips of someone’s strong digits digging into her jaw were darkening by the moment. Around her eye, green and blue circles were already turning ruddy and ochre, and the split in her bottom lip kept oozing blood even though she’d been taking care not to aggravate it. In short, she’d had the shit beaten out of her.
Written for @thelighthouse-server's DreadFluff Weekend 2026:
Feb 14 - Prompt: Romance Tropes [forced proximity, enemies to lovers, touch-starved]
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“Have you suddenly become a god?” he prods. “Has there been an addition to the pantheon of minor Thedas deities that I have missed?”
The deceptively mild tone in his voice as it slithers at her forces a huffed chuckle. “Not that I’m aware of, o god of sarcasm,” she mutters darkly, peering up at him through her eyelashes. His aquiline nose appears particularly hawkish from this angle, but no strange perspective could change her opinion that, even though he’s an asshole and a threat to the very existence of her world, he’s also irritatingly handsome.
“I see.” One half of his mouth is drawn up with amusement; he’s pleased with her recalcitrant response and the reference to their very first Fade conversation. “Then perhaps you can enlighten me on how you planned to stop two blighted dragons attacking cities at opposite ends of northern Thedas? I will concede that you are a mage of considerable skill, Rook, but I believe even I would have had trouble dividing myself in order to protect both populations.”
Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Wow, don’t come for me all at once.”
Solas scoffs, and with one hand wrapped around her bicep, drags her to her feet. “My point, if you choose to listen for a change, is that it was an impossible situation.”
Written for @thelighthouse-server's DreadFluff Weekend 2026:
Feb 13 - Prompt: Date Night/Day
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She drums her fingers against her arm, her keen analytical mind warming up to the topic. “Who’s holding the event?”
“Ah.”
That’s all he says, however, and after she stares at him for several seconds, she prompts him by repeating it like a question. “Ah?”
He sits up straighter in the chair and picks at the fabric of his slim-tailored trousers to loosen them around his thighs, an unusual outward sign that he’s nervous. “My oldest brother is hosting it.” All of the department heads at VeilGuard know the story of his casting out, and she winces involuntarily, which he catches. “Yes, Ms. Thorne, that is precisely how I felt about the invitation,” he admits. “Sadly, the benefits of my attendance outweigh the risks. We may never have a better chance to openly investigate the labour complaints against EVAnuris. It could win the case for us.”
Someone has to play devil’s advocate here, and it appears that the man who should have done it had passed the buck to her. Felassan owes me for this. She spears him with a hard glare. “You haven’t seen your ex-wife in years, and she will be there, hanging off the arm of your brother, whom you openly despise. Is this really the best idea?”
Of all things, he appears affronted, insulted that she’d even ask. “Mythal is of no consequence,” he firmly asserts, but the wishful affirmation doesn’t stop him from fidgeting as he considers her words.
“If you say so, sir,” Rook says with a shrug. She has absolutely no faith in his prediction, but who is she to question what family means – she’s never had a real one, only the kind she made herself as an adult. “What do you need from me?”
The managing partner—the man who owns the entire city block, who argues persuasively and passionately in front of judge and jury alike every single day, and who, whether he realizes it or not, binds the Veilguard together—swallows loudly enough that she hears it, another anxious tell. “I require a date.”
