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DA Kiss Week

day 7 - celebration

Kalais Mercar/Liam Mercar/Spencer Talendren (non!rook au OC ship)

1,050 words

endgame datv, featuring the beginning after the end of the world

They won. Elgar’nan’s army is in retreat, spun on their heels and running after no sign Kalais can see. He tugs one of his knives from the spine of a Venatori, wiping it off on the cultist’s stupid tunic before stowing it on his bracer. He’d dogged their tracks for a while, convincing himself they really were leaving. Well. The Venatori would be regrouping, so he’d had no compunction about picking off as many stragglers as he had knives for, but the rest of the army isn’t from Tevinter and, he assumes, wants to go back home. It’ll be up to their homes to deal with that.

He aches: it’s been days and weeks of trying to hold the streets against the Venatori and the blight tendrils, the city closed off and smothering itself to please a god. At least Rook finally showed up to be the big damn hero. Whatever he thinks about them, at least they managed that.

There’s no one around him but dead bodies, and he realizes maybe he went a little further afield than he’d intended. The city streets are uneven, fallen bits of masonry forcing the magically smoothed avenues into tectonics more closely resembling those found in the poorer districts of the city. Kalais doesn’t feel much aside from a tired schadenfreude. This place will be rebuilt within months; his areas of the city will be lucky to take years.

With a sigh, Kalais turns his steps back toward the Divine’s manor, lest anyone think he’s dead again. His feet drag in the dust, exhaustion pulling on him to simply lay down atop a column and sleep. But he has people waiting for him, or, at least, he hopes he still does. Spencer and Liam are both the type to get into trouble by overextending to protect someone else, and the press of enemies against them had been thick and near relentless. Kalais has a sudden, nauseating fear that one or both of them might have tried to follow him as the battle began and he dashed off toward the approaching Antaam, knowing where his skills would be best put to use. He hopes they stayed put: they’re a formidable duo against the Venatori, with Liam’s magic to back up Spencer’s greatsword.

Kalais grips tightly at the fear, letting it seep into tired muscles to fuel them again, and runs. He leapfrogs over rubble, using walls as springboards to propel himself onward. He doesn’t remember them setting a meeting point for when it was all over: it’s possible he slipped away before they could. It’s courting disaster to do that, and while he might not give one shit for the machinations of self-styled gods, he certainly has enough battleground superstition left over to instinctively avoid such things. He just has to hope he can find them and that they haven’t tried to come find him. He’s the fastest of the three, though Liam’s given him a run for his money once or twice: it makes the most sense for him to seek them out.

Rook stands at the base of the blight tendril connecting the manor to the Archon’s palace; those still alive cheer. Kalais breathes heavily and scans the crowd, looking for Spencer’s height, Liam’s hair, listening for their familiar voices in the din. He whirls, searching, grabbing onto each panicked thought as he has it and burning it to keep moving. He can’t stop, can’t give up: if he lets himself do that, they’re gone for good, and they can’t be, not after everything.

He sees them as they see him, the relief in their eyes a mirror of his own. Other Shadows around them point and wave, and while he’ll be glad to see them all too later, right now he only cares for two. He quick-steps the last few feet and hurls himself upward, heedless of the armor Spencer wears, trusting him to catch him. Strong arms wrap around his back and hips, and Kalais buries his face in Spencer’s neck, breathing in the sweat and grime and blood they’re both covered in.

“Da’hale,” Spencer murmurs into Kalais’s hair, and he can hear Spencer start to let go of the worry they’d never see each other again.

There’s a hand at his back, Liam stepping in close to his side. Kalais twists, one hand on Spencer’s armored shoulder, the other reaching for Liam, brushing a thumb across the swell of their cheek and the tattoo there. He leans over, Spencer’s grip shifting to keep him steady, and pulls Liam in for a kiss, lips graceless and bruising. Liam’s hands come up to bracket his face, holding him in place as though he’d want to go anywhere else. Teeth sink into his bottom lip, and he smiles.

“Glad you’re okay, too,” he says with a laugh when Liam releases him.

Liam rolls their eyes, their hand still on Kalais’s back. They’d worried just as much as Spencer had. Around them there’s a crackle and a boom, and all three of them have hands on their weapons before they realize someone in the contingent from Rivain brought fireworks and has started setting them off. The rest of the Shadows stand down, startled to attention as well, embarrassed chuckles mixing with the sounds of awe and delight as the show in the sky continues.

Kalais looks at Spencer, still held in his arms as the fireworks play lights across his face, reflecting in the depth of his green eyes. He traces the vallaslin that follows the line of Spencer’s nose with a finger, then abruptly tosses his head back and laughs.

He’s alive, they’re alive, against all odds they’re all still here. There’s still work to do, there’s always work to do, but they can do it together. He grins down at Liam then back at Spencer, twisting his fingers into Spencer’s hair and tugging as he ducks in to kiss him, soft and sweet until Spencer licks into his mouth and Kalais pulls away breathless. Liam watches them with heat in their ecliptic eyes, and Kalais climbs down from his perch on Spencer to grab both his lovers’ hands and pull them away from the crowd.

They deserve to take to take this moment to celebrate. He’s not too tired for that.

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