psst… wanna know a secret? it’s almost midnight where I am and I fucked up the YouTube premiere time so the album’s actually premiering in like 6 minutes…… well the show must go on I guess. come hang out!
Darren’s most prized possessions are a drawing/plotting toolkit and an ornate compass. While he is a superb warrior and prince of Orzammar, Darren is a cartographer in all but name, an art and science he can’t pursue outright. He is a son of the noble caste, not the artisan. Yet, he has led and drawn out every expedition into the Deep Roads he was a part of. The Shaperate won’t admit some of their most detailed and intricate maps are by Lord Darren Aeducan.
Also, here is the fic I had no idea where I was going with but I went somewhere and finished it (maybe) a lot sooner than I thought. I finished a one shot/writing! Prepare for some romance and nothing like the writing I usually share!
He is lost on the surface, cast out with only sword and shield and the Wardens his only true chance for survival. The landscape is nothing he could ever imagine, looking at mountains instead of in them and noticing each tree is different, but the maps he is given and shown are crude, incomplete, and vague. Darren no longer wonders how they do not disappear into the sky, instead he wonders how the humans have not been swallowed up by the land.
This landmark is gone. Weather is new and destroys things. How have you not heard of a compass? No! That is a wing divider. Measurements could be different from map to map, person to person.
Then, one night, Morrigan talks about the stars, those lights better than any colony of glow worms. She told him farther north and west they change, but these are Ferelden’s stars. Every night they are the same. Slowly, Darren’s sense of direction comes back, he leads not questions and wanders, and their maps are simply references for his sketches.
In Denerim, he finds Gorim, and while they were–and still are–good friends, Darren hugs him for the first time when Gorim presents him with his toolkit and compass, smuggled out of Orzammar. With each rest at camp, their maps are replaced by Darren’s detailed work. All their discoveries and exploits in proper dwarven measurements, with the proper constellations… for surfacer guidance and reference.
Morrigan walks with him now, when he backtracks for another measurement or perhaps that was a better landmark to use, a better stopping point. She says it’s to be rid of Alistair or humans have longer limbs so his numbers could be off, but she always holds his compass during their walks. Darren is teaching her to read it just as she taught him the stars.
Alistair and Sten question why Darren does not find the Sylvans unnatural and creepy. The dwarves have golems, stone and steel that lives. Why is it odd that the surface–covered in trees as it is–has trees that move and speak? It turns out a large enough tree can rival metal. It is a Sylvan that surprises Darren when he believed the area safe and crushes his beloved compass. The glass is shattered. The frame bent. The needle broken. The detail to House Aeducan’s crest ruined. Darren is so furious he storms away, making enough noise to summon werewolves, darkspawn, or more Sylvans to his location so he has something to hack at.
He calms… eventually, after growling at his companions and snapping at every complaint as if Trian were reaching up from the Stone to act through him. The stars are still there, and he still has his tools, but Morrigan no longer walks with him. She stays by her roaring fire or in her tent. Leliana tells him stories about the stars, connecting them in strange ways, to keep him company and amuse herself. Sometimes they are interesting, most of the time they are nonsense and annoying, and Darren is grateful when Alistair or Zevran draw her away from his side to let him work in peace.
They camp at the gates of Orzammar. Tomorrow, Darren returns home and the comfort of enclosed spaces… to the label of murderer, fratricide. Everyone’s retired for the night. Darren can’t sleep, and Morrigan surprises him by sitting next to him. She looks tired but ever confident. She says she isn’t in the habit of debts, all the random trinkets and her mother’s grimoire, and she shows him his compass.
He’s afraid to touch it. It looks pristine, unreal. Morrigan scoffs and takes his hand, placing his compass in his palm. It is real. Where the glass shattered, it looks like etched spider web. The components inside are unobscured by it though. He turns it over to see the other difference: the Grey Warden heraldry next to House Aeducan’s.
Magic can do many things with enough time and energy. Her explanation is cut off because Darren is kissing her in thanks. The biggest smile in years on his bearded face and the purest of smiles on her stained lips with her face tinged by embarrassment. She says she did her best and it’s not perfect, but it is.
After the Blight, there are new Grey Wardens, the order to rebuild. Alistair keeps the tradition of giving each recruit an amulet after their Joining, a reminder of their trials, fallen, and oaths, but around Warden Commander Aeducan’s neck is not the amulet but a compass. It’s rumored to be indestructible, protected by magic, and on the back, above two crests, is a pair of piercing but gentle eyes with a small raven and cat beside them.
There’s another rumor, across Thedas, of a babe and a witch and the golden mirror at her waist with a secret. Beneath the mirror’s glass is a drawing, a silhouette of the witch and a dwarf with a starry night sky behind them, constellations of the keep where she can always find him.
omfg. i just... got the worst vibe from this guy that dm’d me im literally shivering. he gave off the vibe he beats women and freaks out when they don’t agree w him
@sparky-nobody not to be needy, but i need a little support 🥺
Do you think Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran would be a wedding song Everlark would dance to on their wedding day?
In a modern AU context, I don’t see why not. It’s a lovely song with lyrics full of things I can totally see Peeta saying to Katniss. Also, I’m kinda in love with the dance on the video. So gorgeous. *sigh*
Are you plotting a fic, Anon? Or is this just a general question? Don’t tease me, now. I love plotting fics for others to write as much as I love writing and reading them myself. So if you’re fic plotting...Come talk to meeeeeeeee.
