#highwayphantoms

[thornaelle]

Cassian Peg'asi for @highwayphantoms!

[shouldaspunastory]

for @highwayphantoms and @dadrunkwriting

June Lavellan x Dorian Pavus, **VEILGUARD SPOILERS** (SFW, grief & loss, hurt & comfort, family), 475 words

"Dorian," June's voice cracks as he speaks, trembles almost as much as the elf himself is. Maker, Dorian has only ever seen his Amatus like this once before. Just after he'd encountered Solas and lost his hand. Somehow, he'd hoped there would never be another day like it. They've had so many good days together since they'd met and saved the world from the whole in the sky. Years together with more smiles, laughter and love than Dorian had ever thought that he might have. And hadn't June suffered enough? Given enough? His lover clings to him like he might just fall into the Fade, fall forever into the abyss if he lets go, and all of it just breaks Dorian's heart even more. June isn't often one for displays of emotion and articulating them coms even harder for him. He has a language of his own, one Dorian has learned over the years and come to love about him as much as any other part. Seeing him so openly fearful, so heartbroken and lost, it's alarming. Dorian has always been the one to bring levity, but that won't help here, even if there were any to be found.

"Dorian," the elf whimpers again softly, lifting his head from his lover's chest to meet his worried gaze. "I- I don't know what to tell him," the elf admits, tears filling his eyes. "Felix- he- he thinks you and I saved the world."

"We did," Dorian whispers, pulling June closer, holding him a little tighter in his arms.

"But it didn't stay fixed," June replies brokenly, shaking his head. "A blighted dragon set the city on fire, and those fucking Venatori cultist bastards swooped right in like Carion. They're not even hiding anymore; they're here in the streets. They're rounding up and hanging anyone they think may have known about the Shadow Dragons, let alone aided them. Even if they didn't suspect- you and I, we fought and killed plenty of them in Ferelden and Orlais over the years-" June continues shakily. "Vhenan, we can't- I cannot lose you. I can't do this without you anymore."

"You won't, Amatus," Dorian whispers, running a gentle hand through his lover's hair as he attempts to soothe him, but June just shakes his head again.

"You can't promise me that," the elf whispers through tearful brown eyes.

"I just did," Dorian smiles ruefully, hugging June a little tighter, tucking his lover's head beneath his chin. "Have I ever lied to you? I mean, where it wasn't a joke or about anything that was truly important," June shakes his head softly and Dorian smiles softly. "Nothing, no person or force, this side of the Veil or the other is taking me away from you and Felix, Amatus," he promises, pressing a tender kiss to the top of the elf's head.

[lottiesnotebook]

Happy Friday and welcome to DADWC!! For any pairing of your choice, how about "❛  you still don't see it? she's played a trick on you.  ❜" from the spirited away prompts?

Happy Friday and welcome to DADWC!! For any pairing of your choice, how about "❛  you still don't see it? she's played a trick on you.  ❜" from the spirited away prompts?

Thank you for the warm welcome, and for the Spirited Away prompt! Sorry this didn't get to you last week, but I hope you enjoy some Origins Angst about my favourite family of witches, and the aftermath of Flemeth's A+ parenting skills.

@dadrunkwriting

Morrigan & Flemeth, Morrigan/Luna Tabris, Flemeth's A+ Parenting, set late in Origins

i was wild once

"You still don't see it? She's played a trick on you." Flemeth has been dead for three months now, but that has not dulled her needle-sharp voice to Morrigan's ears, or blurred her face in her memory.

She knows she's dreaming, that this is some trick of the Fade or of her own mind. (Luna would call it a guilty conscience, but Morrigan has no use for guilt or its associates. What's done is done, and there is no taking it back.) She tries to force herself to surface, to feel the stifling warmth of the small tent, the body pressed against her back, but the only thing she can feel now is the icy wind of the winter Wilds, where the sun barely rises and warmth is a distant memory.

"You are dead," she murmurs, more to herself than the ghost who's breath makes clouds in the air. "She told me, she promised she killed you."

"Foolish girl." Even from beyond the grave, Flemeth's words can cut through flesh like the ice on the wind, striking bone. It's not that she's angry - her mother has seldom been angry with her, since she learned the ways to avoid her wrath, but that she's disappointed. That even when Morrigan is the one who survived, in obedience to the first lesson her mother ever taught her, she is still a failure on some level so fundamental she will never understand it. "Who ever heard of a witch that really died? Did I truly teach you nothing in your twenty years on this earth?"

"She killed you," Morrigan insists, and wishes she could believe it in her bones, believe in words above the chill she feels seeping into her soul. Luna Tabris is fearsome, and determined, and brave beyond all reason, but the idea of killing Flemeth feels as implausible now as killing a mountain, or the sky. She can repeat it until her lips turn blue, but she still feels like a child hiding her head under the blankets and pretending that is safety.

"My body, perhaps," Flemeth taunts, "but I cannot die while you still live, can I, my darling girl? My memory still dwells in your head, in your heart, in your bones, and you cannot erase me from the world lest you erase yourself along with me."

"That does not mean she lied," Morrigan insists, and does not know why this is the point she must drive home, why trusting Seluna Tabris, of all people, has become the bedrock upon which her world rests. Because if Luna lied to her, if she bargained with Flemeth rather than killing her… If the one time she'd dared to ask another for help, she was betrayed, made a fool…

"Little fool." Her mother's voice echoes her thoughts. Who better? Flemeth is the one who put them there, who sowed the seeds that would blossom into her unnatural daughter, the child who would one day grow up to strangle her. "You know there is more to traps and trickery than simple deception."

"How so?" she demands, and her mother's lips curl into a vicious smirk of victory as her presence is finally acknowledged, as battle is joined. "The girl sleeps in my bed, guards my back, obeys my will. She won me my freedom from you, lest you forget."

"Darling girl, dearest daughter," Flemeth croons to her as she never did in life, a hand carding through her hair, tender, proprietary. "You will never be free of me. And now, you will never be free of her."

"Once the archdemon is dead, I can go where I wish." She reminds herself of this often, whenever she sees the distant blue of the mountains, the shimmering sweep of the sea, that for the first time in her life, freedom is almost within her grasp. She can taste it on the tip of her tongue - sweet and airy and burning like the whiskey they drank in Denerim. "I will not be bound again, by you or anyone else."

Her mother is laughing at her now, high and harsh and cruel. "And where will you wish to go, little fool? The forests? The mountains? Across the Amaranthine Ocean? Or wherever she goes, as long as she holds your leash?"

She says: "I am not a bird to be caged, or a dog to be collared. I am still your daughter. I am still a creature of the Wilds."

She wakes to the echo of her mother's laughter, and her parting words: You will be wild only as long as she wills it, and by the time you feel the choke of the collar, it will be too late.

Luna stirs, rolls to face her, opens one bruise-blue eye. "Bad dreams?" she murmurs, smoothing a hand over Morrigan's arm to pull her back down into sleep.

"Nothing that concerns you," she lies, sitting up.

Luna rises with her, presses a kiss to her shoulder. "Come back to sleep. It's not even sunrise."

She cannot help but relax into her touch, her softness, her body the only warmth in the world after a dream that still leaves her shivering. She leans back against her, head falling back against her shoulder, and feels the press of her lips against her throat. In the darkness, in the silence, her kiss is the sound of a lock snapping shut.

[me1onmi1k]

Commission for @highwayphantoms of their Shepard! Thanks so much!

[lesetoilesfous]

Happy Friday! :D For Nate/Anders, perhaps “The self is not so weightless, nor whole and unbroken.” from the lyrics prompts?

Thank you! Ah gosh I had fun with this.

(If you’d like me to write you a da2 fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Anders/Nathaniel Howe

Characters: Anders, Nathaniel Howe

Tags: reference to past child abuse, Rendon Howe is a horrifying bastard, etc

Rating: Mature

“Naaaaaaaate. Nathaniel. Ser Howe. If this is some kind of sexy hide and seek thing I should warn you that I’m going to need a minute after our little lunchtime rendezvous.” Anders pauses, scratching his chin. “Then again, we could always experiment with the old warden stami- oh. Shit.”

Nathaniel is sitting in what Anders thinks might have been his father’s bedroom. It’s long since been ransacked, but there’s a grandiose air to the palatial size of the place that gives that impression. That, and the scent of blood. Anders wrinkles his nose as he tentatively crosses the threshold: eyes catching on the old stains littered around the room like paint flecks. 

Nathaniel is halfway to scrubbing at his red face, scowling as he gets hurriedly to his feet. Anders lifts his hands, palms forward in surrender. “Woah, woah, woah, slow down bronco.”

“I have no wish to speak with you.” Nathaniel snaps, trying to push past him. Anders catches him easily - he’s the taller of the two - and offers a grin when Nathaniel glares. 

“I get that a lot. So, uh, what’s going on?”

Nathaniel’s scowl deepens, his dark brown eyes almost black in the shadows of the room. “I don’t want to discuss it with you.”

He tries, again, to push past Anders. Again, Anders stops him. This close, Nate smells like leather and wood-polish, the bow he wears perpetually on his back gleaming like a gemstone. Anders tilts his head to the side, enjoying the soft swing of his hair. “Mm. And we both know you’re strong enough to lay me out if you really wanted to. So how about we skip the foreplay and you tell me why you’re crying in Daddy’s bedroom?”

Briefly, Nathaniel’s annoyance is broken by confusion. “How did you -?”

Bingo. Anders gestures at the vast scale of the bedroom, the carvings on the walls, the stains - all with a lazy gesture of his fingers. “I mean, I’m not actually a complete idiot, you know.”

Nathaniel snorts, and Anders rewards him for it with a bright grin, enjoying it when Nathaniel’s cheeks graze pink, his thin lips quirking into another smaller, softer smile. Anders thinks, sometimes, that he should tell Nathaniel how Circles work. But he also thinks that might mean the man stops labouring under the impression that he’s unaware of his obvious attraction to him, and that’d be tragic. Besides, for now, there are more pressing matters to deal with.

Satisfied that he’s no longer going to try and escape, Anders drops to sit cross-legged on the stone floor, careful to lean his weight on his good leg. He pats the flagstones beside him, trying to ignore the numbing cold of the stone under his bare thighs. 

After a moment, Nathaniel sighs, a gusty, performative thing that Anders thinks he could probably do competitively, and sits - in a far more graceful, less lopsided fashion than Anders had. He doesn’t look at him when he speaks. “It’s…nothing.” 

Anders nods, seriously, leaning forward to prop his chin on his fist. "For sure, definitely. You’re the kind of guy who often disappears only to show up in a dead relative’s bedroom crying. That’s just Nathaniel. Everyone says so.”

Nathaniel rolls his eyes, but his lips quirk in another smile, so Anders counts that as a win. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Make me.” At this point, it’s more habit than anything, but Nathaniel’s eyes darken anyway, and Anders files that away to think about in more detail later. He relishes the tension for a moment, before reluctantly pushing them back on track. “Are you… missing him?”

Again, Nathaniel seems genuinely confused. “What? No!”

Anders spreads his arms in a surrendering shrug. “Sorry! Sorry, as I understand it people are normally fucking, sad when their Dad gets murdered in the middle of a coup. Shit, I don’t know, my old man was a bit of a dickhead.”

That, unfortunately, seems to be the bit that catches Nathaniel’s attention. “Really?”

Anders bites the inside of his cheek and breaks eye contact, suddenly all too aware of how eerily silent this bedroom is. “Yeah, you know. Standard.” As if on cue, his mind fills with vague memories. “Rough. Violent. Sold me out to the templars.” Anders forces himself to lift one shoulder in a shrug, drawing a smile across his face like steel wire. “Parents, am I right?”

Nathaniel doesn’t react to his grin this time, instead looking down at his calloused hands. Silence swells between them, and Anders doesn’t quite have the presence of mind to break it. Eventually, Nathaniel does.

“I thought it was normal.” Nathaniel speaks so quietly that Anders finds himself leaning in, though he isn’t entirely sure he wants to. Nathaniel clears his throat, but keeps his eyes fixed on his hands. “He said it was normal. He said I was lucky. If I was whipped, or didn’t eat, or -” Nathaniel stops, mouth snapping shut with a click of his teeth. Anders tries very hard not to feel like the room in which they’re sitting gets colder.

“Or?”

That’s all the encouragement Nathaniel needs. “There was this girl. When I was a boy. An elf. One of the servants. Nassa.” A flicker of a smile passes across his face, like the sun breaking through a clouded sky. Then it passes. “She was my age. And I…she was funny. Clever. Kind. I liked her. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to the elves but I didn’t understand why.” Nathaniel’s jaw tightens, and he lifts his head, turning to look away from Anders into the corner of the room. “Father found out. So he brought me in here, and he made me watch, as he cut off each of her fingers.”

“Blood and ashes.” Anders swears, vehemently. The corner of Nathaniel’s mouth twitches in a bitter smile.

“I never saw her again. I don’t know if she died of her injuries, or…or worse.” Nathaniel chews the inside of his cheek. “I wasn’t allowed to have friends. I wasn’t allowed to rest, or play. It feels stupid, even now, to complain of living in such luxury but -”

“No. Don’t you dare. Not with me. Come on, you know me better than that.” Anders smiles, as encouragingly as he can, despite the horrible feeling in his chest that he will not want to hear what Nathaniel says next.

Nathaniel’s voice thickens, his dark eyes glittering in the shadows. “I was just so scared. All the time. And I thought - I thought it was normal? I thought that was just how everyone lived. But Mahariel…” Nathaniel trails off. The silence stretches between them, heavy with ghosts. Anders breathes, and tries not to think about anything at all. “I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.” The admission is quiet, and given on a voice that breaks as he says it. After a moment he glances up at Anders, gaze searching.

Anders offers his best smile, and leans forward, covering Nathaniel’s shorter, stronger fingers with his own. “Well, that’s easy, you’re Nathaniel Howe.” Nate starts to frown, opening his mouth, and Anders raises his voice as he continues.  “And you’re fucked up. Maybe more than you realised. But take it from a guy who’s made being broken his whole profession: it doesn’t actually change who you are.” Anders hesitates, expecting to be cut off. But Nathaniel is looking at him, and listening to him, and he isn’t entirely sure what to do with that. He swallows. “Like...yeah, they can cut you. And bully you and scare you and whatever else. But at the end of the day there’s alway this bit that’s just, essentially you. That was there before they started hurting you and that sticks around after. So your Dad was a monster, and that sucks, and if I had the right spells I’d bring him back just to burn him again myself.”

Nathaniel snorts, and Anders thinks that’s a victory. He’s turned their hands over, and laced their fingers together. Anders squeezes his hand. “But when push comes to shove, when the axe meets the ogre…you’re not a scared little boy any more. You’re all honourable and shit.” This time Nathaniel laughs out loud, and Anders grins, and his cheeks ache with it. “You’ve got integrity coming out your ears. You’re brave, and loyal, and dutiful. Picture of a storybook knight, Ser Aveline eat your heart out. And you are so much more than what he made of you.”

Nathaniel’s breath catches, and when he goes to pull his hand out of Anders’, Anders holds him tight. For a second, Nathaniel just looks at him, dark eyes almost unreadable. And then he’s surging forward, bow-calloused hand scratching at Anders’ cheek as he holds his face, tightly, and kisses him. Tears tickle Anders’ nose and cheeks, but he does Nathaniel the favour of not mentioning them, melting under the hunger of his kiss the way he always does and resolutely denying the butterflies in his stomach. After a moment that is both longer than it feels and far, far too short, Nathaniel pulls back, still holding Anders’ cheek. 

“Anders, I -” Nathaniel catches himself, and breaks eye contact, clearing his throat. “Thank you.”

Anders shrugs, and ignores his sudden nerves, offering a broad, bright smile. “Don’t mention it.”

Nathaniel snorts, and slopes easily to his feet, holding out a hand to him. Anders takes it, and lets himself be hauled up. Nathaniel looks up at him, and his hand slips out of Anders’ fingers. “I won’t.”

[dismalzelenka]

for the relationship askmeme: #1, 8, and 35? :3

Ooo thanks for the ask, these are very good questions. :3 I'm just gonna do handers and not the trio because I just realized if I do both halves of every dyad that's six answers for every question oops idk if I have the energy for that lmao

Journey has a bit of an adrenaline kink and occasionally gets inappropriately aroused in dangerous situations. Her first meeting with Anders, she startles him while he's alone after hours in his clinic and Justice slips out and yells at her. So the first two things she notices about Anders are 1. oh shit he has beautiful eyes and then 2. oh shit idk what's happening but he's very cute and also could probably really fuck me up, I wanna bang that man like a screen door in a hurricane.

Anders is wildly attracted to her reckless bravery. When she comes back to the clinic the next day to talk to him and cracks jokes about Justice instead of being nervous or afraid he's like wait what. She asks him out to dinner, and the whole time she's just really chill about everything, and she's very cute and small and confident and strong. She kisses him kind of roughly in front of the clinic after and he's like holy shit she's got hella upper body strength, oh no she's really hot.

Before Anders, Journey was not into romantic love. Her girlfriend, more or less, in high school was an aro lesbian, and they had a lot of really spicy sex, but they weren't exactly in love so much as they were teammates on the track team who banged regularly and eventually grew into close friends who banged regularly. Romantic love scared her because she wasn't sure she really dug the idea of letting someone get that close to her. She and Anders actually started out as friends, then roommates, then roommates who banged occasionally, but at some point she realized whatever she and Anders had, that was definitely turning into something very close to romantic love. She had some uncomfortable self searching to do at that point before she realized, oh fuck, I love this man, in a way that she's never, ever felt for anyone else before.

Anders, on the other hand, is kind of a hopeless romantic. He doesn't like to admit it, especially earlier in his life, but he idealizes the concept of having someone to adore and care for and dote on, and he initially found and explored that in Karl. Arguably he was in love with Journey long before she realized she was in love with him. Merging with Justice toned that down a little initially, but his relationship with Journey as it developed drew it back out of him, and eventually Justice begins to see the merits of that kind of devotion, especially to someone who supports the ideals he shares with Anders.

Oh yea. For sure. Actually I'm gonna answer this one for nahanders because Journey and Anders are both cat people and Nathaniel is squarely a dog person. Eventually they end up with two fat ginger cats (Ser Pounce and Biscuit Junior) and a very lazy mabari (Tyrdda Bright-Paws). Anders requires some convincing about Tyrdda, but when they meet her as a puppy she immediately decides she likes him specifically and between Nathaniel's puppy eyes and the actual puppy eyes he can't really say no.

Tyrdda adores Anders and is always begging him for cuddles. Pounce has decided his favorite napping places are Nathaniel's chest when he's home and Nathaniel's clothing when he's away. It's an adventure in chaos and expectation adjustment for all three of them tbh 😂

Ask me about my ships!

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

i wanna know more about teja and varric interacting! :o

Teja and Varric’s relationship is fun because Teja begins inquisition under a false identity (pretending to be a member of the Carta and going by the name Cadash). Varric though knows things, he knows enough about Dwarven culture and about the Carta to know:

Teja is not a surfacer dwarf. He knows how dwarves act when coming to the surface for the first time or first time in a while and that’s exactly how Teja is acting.

The tattoos Teja has are Literally Unseen/Unheard of among surface dwarves. While Varric might not be entirely knowledgeable about the tattoo designs of the Legion of the Dead, he Can at least guess that Teja’s tattoos are the type seen among folks in The Legion of the Dead.

In game, during the Wrath of Heaven, Varric has banter with a Dwarven PC, one of his lines being “I can tell a proper Orzammar dwarf from twenty paces.”. Varric can tell Teja isn’t a surfacer but also isn’t exactly a “proper Orzammar dwarf”, which would again point towards Teja being part of the Legion.

Teja doesn’t know much about the Surface, The Carta, or organized crime in general.

So, Varric immediately knows somethings going on because it doesn’t take him long at all to realize Teja’s who she says she is. But Varric also isn’t the type of person to snitch and be like “Hey the Herald’s lying about her identity” so he doesn’t really tell anyone. He’s already lied his ass off to Cassandra why stop lying now lmao.

I imagine the first conversation they have one on one though is more or less Varric being like “Alright, you look like you’re afraid you’re gonna fall into the sky and seems like you know barely anything about the Carta and the surface so here’s some tips,”

More or less I imagine Varric’s immediately 100% down to cover her ass and keep her from getting found out. He figures she probably has a reason to lie, and even if she doesn’t, there would be some bad consequences if she was found to be lying.

As such I imagine Varric’s one of the first friends Teja makes in the Inquisition. Especially since Teja trusts Varric since he’s going on with her lies, and as such Teja can trust him enough that she can just be herself around him. Plus Teja and Varric are like the same age.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

fun fact forrr teja!

Teja is one of the members in the Legion of the Dead who is trained in the art of their tattoos. When someone joins the Legion and starts getting their tattoos, Teja’s one of the artists that does the tattoos. It’s something she really loves doing and one of her favourite part of her duties in the Legion.

send me “Fun fact” + an ocs name for a random fact about them