Summary: In the shadowed crypt beneath a ringing church, a broken man meets a runaway bride at the exact moment both their lives begin to unravel. They’ll spend the next chapters of their lives re-discovering themselves and each other through buried truths, dangerous pasts, and the fragile, uncertain hope of second chances.
Warnings: 18+, mention of religion, and religious trauma, kinda. mentions of somewhat arranged marriage, panic attacks, faith uncertainty, minor violence, eventual smut
Death's Kiss | Chapter 49: The Quiet Before the Storm
Fandom: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Pairing: Rook/Emmrich Volkarin
Rating: Explicit
Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Necromancer Boyfriend Problems™, and Dalish Cultural Feels
Chapters: 49/70
Word Count: 316k+
Still full of necromancy and yearning. Yes, there is kissing. Yes, there is emotional sex. Yes, they are still stupid about their feelings.
A dream? A memory? Or truth worn like a mask—this was how it began.
Evie did not remember falling asleep. There was no threshold, no border. One breath she was tucking Franny in, the next she was somewhere older than time.
The land accepted her without protest. The ground folded gently beneath her feet—pliant, reverent. Sand shimmered beneath her shadow, stretching long and low like twilight. Wind stirred no leaves, carried no scent, no sound—only the weight of what remained unspoken.
And in the center of it all stood Falon’din.
She moved like a story remembered in muscle and bone, barefoot, gliding across tangled roots and soft clover. Not a single blossom stirred beneath her. Birds whispered into wakefulness as she passed. Wings beat like uncertain thoughts. Even time hesitated.
I COULD. NOT. WAIT.
Chapter 49 is live and it’s the calm before everything explodes. I’m finally getting to the part where Rook's Rental Contract with Feelings™ gets fully activated and it’s got angst, tenderness, and enough emotional turbulence to ground a griffon.
Huge shoutout to Evie, who belongs to the amazing @starfleetteddybear — go read their stuff, they will destroy you in the best way possible.
Read on AO3 Comments and kudos are love potions. Every scream fuels the next chapter
a demon's tea party gets crashed. in a display of brilliance, sirius lets the source of his headache stay within his vicinity for half a year. and we get a glimpse into the roller coaster of anxious thoughts spritzkuchen deals with on a daily basis.
at long last, we finally reach the end of our first act.
thanks to lime and bobble for their renditions of a new character introduced in this chapter :D
previous chapter is here
next chapter is being worked on
preview under the cut!
lord spare me from this site's mobile weirdness because i had to type out all the twitter links by hand. and now it torments me by asking if i want to paste the link on my clipboard (and still won't allow me to do it)
It's an OC insert story and it's based after the third movie, and the first chapter explains why Ahkmenrah is still in New York. Here's the OC intro, as they are an exhibit, this would be their info sign.
Also thank you too @yonkitybonkity and @tappanoot for helping proofread this!
Cornelia 'Onyx' Payne
Cornelia Payne, born on July 13, 1763, and was a spy during the American Revolutionary War, helping many times in dangerous situations with the information they had acquired. Through one of their journals, it was discovered that they liked when people used they/them as their pronouns, and their chosen code name, Onyx. Of course, this was only disclosed to close friends, and it is assumed that they were non-binary, but we will never truly know. It is also assumed that they were biromantic as they talked about both women and men in their journal, but only was described as wanting to be physically close, but also stated they were disgusted when the other people would mention anything past kissing.
Their childhood was described as nice, but their father left them at 3 years old. His name was unknown, but their mother was named Miriam Payne. Onyx went by their mother's last name, as their mother wanted them to forget about their father. They were taught by their mother in English and french, along with basic math and religion. This led Onyx to realize they didn't truly follow their mother's religion and hid this fact from Miriam.
When they turned 17 they joined the army and because they could dress as a man or a woman and not be questioned they were used as a spy against the British. They helped get information for the patriots by acting and dressing like a British loyalist and drinking with British soldiers, or maybe dressing as a washerwoman and listening to them discuss plans they had heard family discussing or personal issues that the soldiers had so the patriots may be able to use those against them. They were captured in late September 1781. They were finally killed on October 4, 1781, and will never know that they missed the last true battle of the American Revolutionary War.
Here's a piece I did as a companion to the first chapter of Shade's oc insert fic "Beneath the Shadow of a Manhold Cover". Todd was Shade's first friend after he was mutated and made his way back to New York. Want to know more? Check out my fic on AO3.
I've got a Klaus Hargreeves/OC insert au going and it's full of angst and it hurts a shit ton but I took a break from planning my fic the other day to make a mood board for it and y'know what, I like it, so I'm posting it!
The working shorthand title for the fic is "Glow" so if you hear my rambling about Glow, that's what it is ahaha