like theres just that one interest on your mind and you Gotta Talk About It? aki wld sit there and listen with that lil smile on his face and nod and be like “whoa really ?” and ask questions for more elaboration
like part of it is bc he likes knowing your interests but he also likes how happy you look when youre talking about your favourite things.. it makes him happy in turn :-)
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agreed..... 🥹
aki is just naturally a very good listener, but he really loves learning about your hobbies and interests. he feels special knowing you want to talk about it with him, he enjoys living through you so to speak when you tell him about all your favorite things. he loves the smile you have when you're telling him something that makes you happy... he'll gladly listen to you while you tell him all the things you needed to get off of your mind...
also I think he always gives you time and space to indulge in your favorite interests and hobbies... but he secretly really wants to experience them with you too haha
Oftentimes children from the camp in the valley manage to find their way up to the hold. Some of them are the younger siblings of apprentices, some of them bring sewing and other work that must be done, some simply spend their days within Skyhold, where they’re out of the snow and their parents can trust the Inquisition to keep them safer than they would be in the camp itself. For the most part they keep out of the way, though sometimes they collect like flotsam to watch training, or Cullen will pass by a group of them up on the battlements playing at being great warriors, defending the keep, much to the amusement of the guard. So long as they keep to themselves and cause no trouble, they receive about as much attention as the ravens that flit to and fro on the mountain winds, or the messengers that run memos through the keep.
Skyhold, like any other town, has its share of urchins.
Today though, he hears them in the courtyard, a shrieking and giggling cacophony remarkably out of place among the well-oiled machine that is the Inquisition’s headquarters. The older ones know well this is more army camp than town common, and even the younger ones manage to keep out of the way; to hear them carrying on suggests something out of the norm, and so he detours from his usual route to the war room to see what exactly has them so excited.
The answer to that, it turns out, is the Inquisitor.
Vesper sits cross-legged on the bottommost step leading up to the main hall, ignoring the stares from passers-by going about their business in favor of the children flocked around her, sitting on the stairs and crouching in the well-trod grass. She looks to be in the midst of a story; a girl with tousled blonde hair sits in her lap and the rest cluster around her, giggling and prodding each other, eyes following her hands as she sketches her story in the air like one of her spells. The youngest looks about two, the oldest maybe seven.
Cullen finds himself stilling as he watches the scene unfold before him. Vesper leans forward suddenly and stretches her arms wide, and an elven boy in the front tumbles backwards at the surprise. The little girl in her lap tugs on Vesper’s outstretched arm, and she bends close to hear what the child has to say, nodding seriously at all the proper points. She glances up a moment and her eyes catch on him across the courtyard, head still tilted towards the girl chattering in her ear. Her expression takes his breath away; his stomach flips and turns all to butterflies.
She offers him a smile, warm and soft and a little conspiratorial, as though they are in on this together, and returns to her unexpected charges. The sight loosens something in his chest and when finally he returns his feet to the path he intended––fully late now, and Josephine will never let him hear the end of it––it’s with a lighter step than he set out with.
He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Leliana points it out to him with a knowing smirk––grinning like a schoolboy, she tells him––but not even his companions’ teasing can dampen his spirits or shake his fire-bright mood.
