#k1tch3n

[mercysought]

❝ Be vigilant. I love you. ❞ émiliemara nation STAND UP

some meme lost to time // not accepting // @k1tch3n

How many prayers laced between fingers and how many attempts to make sure that those prayers would be answered. If not answered, then, perhaps, made sure to be close enough to a charm that they might work by her own strength of belief and will alone?

The room above the kitchens in the lighthouse is small and warm, the dust specks are visible through the small cracks on the side of the stone walls. In the strangest of ways, it reminded Émilie of the small hole in the wall room that she had used while in Skyhold. The room had been colder, the light that pierced through the old stones had carried a cold wind that doesn’t exist in the fade.

The sun bleached everything due due to the lack of vegetation and the snow; here, there was no true plant life to speak of, no snow, but everything still was muted to Émilie. A soft grain that continued on like noise in the back of her head, easy enough to tune out.

Easier still when Tamara spoke to her, so close that the voice broke as they attempted to keep quiet. Shifting their bodies, Émilie looks to Tamara, whose hand is still in hers, the grooves of her knuckles still pressed softly against the side of Émilie’s scarred side.

The words are so simple, and as warm as the space they find themselves in. In the small mattress that barely fits the four walls. The dusty books not even on shelves and potion ingredients that had been left in preparation because they would still be made into potions that night. And them, both of them beneath a blanket with laced hands and laced limbs - and prayers.

Her free hand crawls from the sheet to cradle her soft face, thumb over the apple of her cheeks, down to chin. Tamara is beautiful and warm in a way that the space around them could never hope to be. Welcoming. Loving. A perfect frame of what Émilie could only hope to share, to be, to others seeking solace when they needed it most. How lucky, Émilie was, so blessed, to have Tamara look upon her with as much kindness as they do.

To be loved by her.

Émilie kisses her hand once more, once upon the knuckles. Another in the soft back of her hand. Next, leaning down, she kisses her lips. Three prayers upon her skin, laid to rest with a smile “I love you too.”

[mercysought]

💋 abel and cléo.......

kisses ! (not accepting)

@k1tch3n

   “It was a pleasure to have met you.” spoken like a question; a different way of talking that he had never felt natural but felt right here. Words that mean one thing over another, to finally have a glimpse of belonging to this place where he had always felt so foreign in. But the question is half spoken in the half language that everyone but him had always seemed to be fluent in: will I see you again?

A kiss on her hand, uncovered which was uncommon but much was uncommon about her. That is what would be correct, had it been gloved. Cléo, just Cléo, smiles and he feels the pit in his stomach curl and burn. She was beautiful with a pull that wrapped the room and its lights with just her presence and charisma alone. The fact that she had spend any amount of time with him. Of all people. Him.

The thought of what game she must be playing crosses the chevalier’s mind, but immediately soothes it. Not because he thinks himself too smart to fall for such tricks but knowing that he wouldn’t truly be able to tell. That the energy of attempting to figure it out would drain him completely. Him, the room, and everything. So Abel holds her hand.

Cléo doesn’t reply, to either what he says and what he doesn’t, perhaps both are missed completely by something else that catches her attention. But she smiles, to him. His lips do not press against the skin but barely. Light eyes not leaving hers as his head bows.

In all that is unspoken, he hopes that she would like to see him again.

[vaindreams]

bad news? tessbev.. we're so back

⠀ sheltered as it is from any doors or windows, the air in the back corner of the bar is stale and hot and smells more than faintly of cigarettes. beverly thinks it likely the scent is just as much a fixture of the place itself as it is ferried in on smokers' shoulders, a remnant of the time when butt-studded ashtrays were dolloped on the bartop and an opaque grey haze crowded the long, thin room. indoor smoking's been banned in dc since 2006, but decades of constant exposure to that kind of contaminant don't just wash away. an atmosphere like that? it penetrates; it gets subsumed. cleaning crews can wipe down the walls and polish the tabletops all they want, but they won't ever get at what's beneath.

⠀ not like that, anyway.

⠀ while tess lines up her next throw, beverly stares down at the blue-bright screen of her blackberry and feels her jaw clench.

⠀ the hospital thinks that will is stable enough for transfer, alana's message reads. he'll be placed back under dr. chilton's care tomorrow.

⠀ in the periphery of her vision, a deliberate jerk disturbs the strong, compact line of tess's body. beverly monitors the practiced snap of tess's arm and the straight, sharp trajectory of the dart, looking up just long enough to evaluate the throw—another bullseye, goddammit—and then the blackberry commands her focus again, buzzing in her fist like the last warning of a cornered animal before it pounces.

⠀ he looks good, bev.

⠀ a sharp, derisive noise escapes her, clawing its way up her throat and out of her nose. beverly hasn't seen will since the day she processed him in quantico, and he sure as hell hadn't looked good then.

⠀ would it hurt less to see him whole, she wonders? or more?

⠀ with an agitated flick, she locks the phone and slaps it facedown onto the sticky table. what does it matter? it's not like she intends to visit him. why would she? there's nothing left for her to say.

⠀ "bad news?" tess asks. beverly snorts as she drains her beer, which is warm and more than a little flat.

⠀ "more like a bad apple." she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and leans back against the booth, stretching her legs out long beneath the table. a reflexive kick of guilt catches her just beneath the ribs, but she grimaces through it, rolling the base of her pint glass in tight circles on the table. around and around, tiny variations on the same path of motion. a corkscrew with an utterly predictable end.

⠀ "you'd think you get used to it," she drawls. "i've been with the bureau for years. but there's always something that manages to catch you by surprise."

⠀ on the table, beverly's blackberry lies quiet and forcibly blinded. she resists the urge to look.

⠀ "you want another? next round's on me."

⠀ @k1tch3n⠀ /⠀ the vampire lovers.

[mercysought]

❝ The lessons are an enjoyable side benefit. ❞ asharen & tamara <3 <3 <3

some meme lost to time // not accepting // @k1tch3n

Asharen finishes pulling a large scissors from her belt. Metallic fingers holding the oversized openings, each carefully marked by runes - the job had been not one of a master (both enchantment and carving) but in many of the current tools of the Inquisition, what they lacked in resources they made up for in drive and perseverance. With the scissors in one hand, a bright green thread in another - fingers whose hues were of the rosy pink skin but bloom in the scattering red of light that pierced through skin - red head covering covering most of the hair, away from her face.

   "Thank you," a pause, the thin thread cut without ceremony. The silence hangs for a moment as the older elven woman's eyebrow raises only softly, narrowing on Tamara before returning to the needle in her hand "I know I hardly make for good company these days,” another pause, glancing to the mage and then to where Émilie was lost in conversation with Imad.

The smallest hint of a smile lingers only a brief blink before returning to its previous state of neutrality “but I’m sure I attract enough of those that do.”

Turning around, the staff is kept to her side, looped loosely in the crook of her arm before being allowed to rest against the nearest seating arrangement. At even the smallest and softest movement, the needles sway silently, casting brief and quick bright specs of light paths on the walls, to the ceiling. Shooting stars cast from the orange warm of flame to a soft and dull green before settling into oddly geometric shapes once the staff came to a stop.

   “For one such as yourself,” they had spoken about Tamara's abilities at length, her training had been mostly focused upon specific aspects of magic that Asharen could not help her in, but there were others that had become far more important to cover: given the times they lived. The company she kept.

Sensitive mages to the fade, especially those that were non dreamers, were at greater risk. The closest to her, the risk only increased.

   “It is important that you carry this within your person.” the needle: as thin and likely as close as normal sewing needle she had ever been able to get one of her artifacts to become. Raw lyrium was unstable, the enchantment pressed upon it delicate.

Most needles were not delicate, they were closer to fishing net needles, others close to sharp shards of glass. But this, this one was easy to conceal, easy to use. Asharen places it upon Tamara's hand, folding her fingers atop it, covering it with metallic fingers

   “Accessible, but not visible. Not all will know what they are looking up, but those that do are unlikely to be those whose attention we want to bring upon the Inquisition uninvited.”

Squeezing her fingers, Asharen finds Tamara's eyes, holding her stare.

   “Keep it close, keep it safe.”

It was odd, hard to let go. She had worked so tirelessly, and this one in specific had saved her life once before. It was beautiful, and likely the most refined form that she'd ever be able to craft. Asharen steels herself, staring at this tiny, thin piece of her life and the sweat and blood that she had poured onto it.

It was time to let it go “While you hold this, you hold a piece of me.”

[wisdomsought]

❝ You look as if love and blame are doing furious battle inside you. ❞ tamara for solas. omg

some meme lost to time // not accepting // @k1tch3n

There was hardly a mission that is worth dedicating one’s life despite how thin it might be, which doesn’t involve some level of both love and blame wrapped into its very fiber.

A long life could hardly be called lived if one’s hand had hardly been pressed into the fabric of existence. That fabric had once been as soothe as water and as easy to weave around himself as it was to breathe. When things were simpler and touch felt closer to the sharp ringing of the highest note of a pipe than it did to the coarse fibers that would be woven from the wool of life and to cover their own skin.

I see you still.

Held in both hands, one in the shape of a red rope and another painted in the shape of a sleeping eye. There is no colour to it, for there are feelings still that could not quite take the physical shape that would weave such colours. There, perhaps, was where Mythal had found the limit of her powers: it was impossible to weave things that could be felt but were not manifested into shape, not to the visible eye, not one made out of flesh.

Teeth that do no find purchase other than their own cheek do sink still.

It was not a war to be fought, there was no battle to be won. Solas had loved the People and the weight of the blame was impossible not to see in himself. Not with the flesh within his skull when the light traveled from still waters or roar seas: but from within. Like a nameless colour that stuck to a spirit, its weight indescribable but world bending all the same.

   “Perhaps the depth of the fade is twisting your senses.” the words are spoken flatly though not lacking in their sharpness.

It was foolishness, perhaps, of youth and hope that such wants to see something could lead into the actual change of the self. The age of dreamers had come to a stark end and the remaining shattered pieces of the world was what Tamara called home. It had come to an end but it could be healed still.

Perhaps one day hopes would be enough to change one's heart in such a clear cut way again. For now all they held was reality. Solas looked at the other, knowing from brief glimpses that they still moved in his distant footsteps, attempting to reach him.

Solas expression soothes, if nothing else because he wished so dearly that she would pay attention to his requests. No good would come from this. And since the Inquisitor had made it clear that she would not have any direct communication except from letters, and the surprising approach at the use of more dwarves amongst the inner circle - an ingenious approach, it should not have come as a surprise and yet it was surprising how often those still came given the distance he now had from the Inquisition.

Having been awake and further from the Inquisition now longer than the time he had spent with them.

   “It is more likely that you are experiencing the reality that many non dreamer mages face when faced with thinner shades of the fade. A reflection of the self, instead of the other.”