Completed commission for @briarfox13, featuring Cullen and her Inquisitor Brenna at the Winter Palace <3
The man that carries rays of the sun asks Brenna for a dance.
“Of course,” she replies, taking his hand. “I thought you didn’t dance?”
“For you?” I’ll try.”
Her heart quickens. It’s not as though she’s been plucked from the ground to an imaginary pedestal. Cullen wants to try with her. He wants to try for her. If only he knew how much she’s been trying for him as he pulls her into his frame.
She gasps softly when they’re shoulder to shoulder. He takes her breath with his roughhewn, chiseled sort of gallantry, that scar on his lip accentuating rather than marring his handsomeness. As they begin, Cullen’s rays embed themselves against a sea of stars, while Brenna stands adorned in midnight colored silk decorated with embroidery that looks like drops from the moon. A translucent cape drapes shoulders, swaying with her as she dances. She feels beautiful, but when Cullen looks at her, she transcends. She’s herself at last, and as they dance they become each other’s own again.
In Ostwick instructors taught Brenna how to dance. She learned with incongruent partners who were awkward to the feel when she stood shoulder to shoulder with them. This moment, even with Cullen’s smashed toe when she accidentally steps on his foot, is an unlocking. Her oh. Her realization she can be congruent, if only if Cullen.
Step by step, they ease into effortless. Brenna laughs as the two begin to find a rhyme in the music, the next time she steps on his toes eliciting a chuckle rather than a hiss of pain.
“It’s alright,” he says softly after. “Besides, I quite like this.”
“I quite like you.”
Their swaying stills. Cullen clutches her hand left over his pattering heart. When had she put it there, awed at the thrum of life underneath? Maker. Like isn’t strong enough of a word to describe the quickening of her heart coupled with the still world whenever she’s near him.
“You like me?”
He smiles. He’s delighted. “Yes,” she says, firmer this time. “Of course.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Cullen.” She stifles laughter. “I thought it was obvious.”
“I like to hear it. That’s all.”
He caresses her face with his gloved hand. It’s not all. He wouldn’t hold her face in his hand as if he held the moon otherwise. He wouldn’t hold her so deliberately otherwise. He said he was shy once, though she never observed him as shy. He was gallant and brave, even when they first met. She brought him to the battlements that first time they kissed and admitted to one another how they felt, but he was the one that kissed without reservation or fear first.
A commission for @batdarkladyvampir, featuring Malika Cadash and Iron Bull. In which Malika learns the truth about her watchword.
Malika’s pleasure at Bull’s hand and will was a solid, centering pleasure. At his mercy, tied in his ropes and blindfolded on their shared bed in her quarters, she begged herself to float back to him. She begged her body to find her pleasure and give him her pleasure.
She was too far away. She would have floated completely, gone somewhere else other than the only place worth being. The restraints and the blindfold were too much together tonight. It reminded.
Go back, she told herself. Go back to him. You’re not there at Adamant. You’re here. You’re here.
She didn’t hear Bull, not until the second time. She didn’t hear him utter “katoh.” He used the word he gave her, the one she never wanted to use.
He began unfastening immediately, undoing her blindfold first. All their time together, and it had only been uttered by him, she thought as she blinked back the brightness of the room. Then he untied the rest of her, delicately yet efficiently. Her hands were free first before he loosened the ropes across her waist, her feet the last thing free. Dazed, she rubbed at her ankles absently as he sat next to her. In any other circumstance, she would have laughed. He took up most of the space on the bed and then some. His vastness should have been intimidating. It never was. To Malika his solidness was a challenge and a promise. She could take all of him and then some, every day.
She felt the pressure of tears, tears she bit back and hoped Bull wouldn’t see. Of course he did anyway. He knew her. He wiped them away, as carefully and delicately as he did when he took off her restraints. He shouldn’t have. She didn’t need to use her word. She could have shown him and proved she was as strong as he believed.
But Bull decided for her. He decided she wasn’t strong enough. That hurt most of all.
“I was fine,” Malika said. “Why did you stop it?”
He wiped more tears away. “You didn’t want to go on.”
a fic commissioned by the lovely @elveny featuring the lovely Adriene Shepard and Kaidan, post ME3. The two of them enjoying their first Christmas after retiring. Rated M for soft smut
Kaidan and Adriene bought the old cabin up near Lake Louise in Alberta. When they first purchased it from the elderly couple, they were warned they’d be off-grid if not for the nearby town with the appropriate tech for emergency calls and vids. It didn’t bother either of them. They loved the stars they used to call their home as they sailed on the Normandy, but they never saw the universes on earth, their home. Even staying in Canada, they saw several new universes a day.
The cabin was meant to be a small autumnal getaway, but October became November and then December. Snow dusted the mountains like powdered sugar, and Lake Louise turned into frozen blue and white marble. “Hey,” Kaidan said that day it snowed in December, holding her in his arms. “It’s Christmastime.” It was their first since coming home. To celebrate, they decided to decorate. Up in the attic the previous couple left their old felt cardinals, red and silver bulbs and other decorations. They decorated their tree together little by little and bit by bit all through December. By Christmas Eve there were three snowmen outside, a plethora of snow angels underneath fallen snow, a brass star on top of the tree, and two presents for each of them underneath.
On that Christmas Eve, after spending the afternoon on the frozen lake overlooking the mountains, they made a fire inside. Kaidan cooked a hearty stew while Adriene made sweet hot chocolate with cinnamon. Their home smelled like sweet chocolate with herbs and musky wood. They ate and then had their hot chocolate, whipped cream getting on Kaidan’s nose and resembling a white mustache. “There’s whipped cream on your nose,” Adriene said. “Let me get that for you.” He knew what she was doing. The truth was she wasn’t that slick, at least not to him, and he laughed as she gave him a bigger mustache on his upper lip before he brought her in his arms to kiss her. His kiss tasted like sweet cream and musk and Kaidan. One thing lead to another like one thing always lead to another. Like usual, they didn’t make it to the bed.
Some Cullen and Alistair for @nolenag03, thank you for the commission!
Cullen’s favorite novels are adventure volumes. He loves large, nearly unyielding tomes stuffed with long, complicated plots with lots of characters, descriptions of hijinks, and demonstrations of chivalry. He loves books that could make him chuckle and make him cry at the end with their bittersweetness. “What are your favorite endings?” Alistair asked Cullen when they met again at Skyhold and he saw the books on his desk along with the several dozen on his shelves. Cullen laughed at the time. Most people would ask about beginnings first before the endings.
“Everything is so unsure,” Alistair replied. “I want to know at least there’s a happy ending if I can help it.”
A look passed between them. Some things had changed since they were boys in templar training. Their desire to read about only happy endings was one of the things that hadn’t.
Few people know that about the Commander and Grey Warden, that they want happy endings only in their novels. Alistair and Cullen know this of each other. Alistair knows Cullen gets a soft look in his eyes when he reads over a particularly poignant passage. Sometimes he’ll even share it with him. He speaks softly when he reads aloud. He speaks as reverently as he touches when they make love. It’s a secret Alistair would both love to share with the world and keep to himself, that Cullen is a reverent lover. Cullen is his.
The morning light is bright through Cullen’s broken roof. He reads his favorite novel called Sir Galen the Green, a novel about a man who wanted to become a knight of old. Alistair has read it too. In the pages Galen made giants of windmills and swords of shovels, all until war came and he transformed into a true knight. Galen received his wish. He’s immortalized in the stories now. Cullen steals a few chapters in the early hours of dawn, Alistair wondering how on earth he can see.
“You’ll lose your sight like that,” he even says. “I daresay there are better things to do in the morning than read.”
“I daresay,” Cullen says with a smirk, looking up from his book. “You enjoy reading yourself. You always have.”
When they knew each other back then in templar training they would share the same novel outside on the field in their sparse time off. Cullen always finished the page first, and he patiently waited for Alistair to finish before turning the page. The world was quieter with Cullen. It’s taken a Blight, a war, and a hole in the sky, and Alistair has finally learned that quiet is his favorite.
There won’t be much quiet later on. Tonight at Lady Josephine’s suggestion, the Inquisitor will host a grand fete, meant to celebrate the Inquisition’s might. Days after, a march to Adamant Fortress will begin. It’ll be long and grueling with mush for meals, perpetual sweat, sore legs, and stiff backs from sleeping on the ground. Alistair hasn’t asked Cullen yet if they’ll share a tent on the road. He hasn’t even asked about the fete or what they will do when they see each other from across the hall. It’s not a bad thought to meet each other there as strangers and fall in love again, but Cullen may wish to keep his professional distance. The most important matter remains unasked.
Varric and Bethany for @ladynorbert, thanks so much!
Sunshine has decided to read Swords and Shields.
Varric’s not in the habit of actively watching people read his work. He made one exception with the Seeker, though that was more of an accidental eavesdrop than a deliberate game of spying. At the time he was on his way to the tavern when he caught her outside reading his book—the book the Inquisitor asked him to write for her. She was about seventy percent through the novel. Compelled, Varric watched her find out what happened to the Knight Captain. She gasped, actually gasped in surprise with a lack of composure she never had while fighting, her cheeks red as buried her face in the pages. She must have gotten to the part where the guardsman broke the Knight Captain out of the prison and declared his love. It was drivel. Complete and utter drivel, the writing courtesy of spite and wine. The Tale of the Champion taxed him when he wrote. He had to make sure he was honest with every word. He didn’t need any of that with Swords and Shields. He only needed to have fun. As a result, so did Cassandra, So is Bethany.
Sunshine is having a blast reading Swords and Shields, and though he’s not in the habit of watching people read his books, he does peer at her as she reads, almost done with the novel. He’s sitting on his chair, half interested in editing his newest manuscript about the Inquisitor while she’s sprawled out on the loveseat. The fire crackles in the hearth. It’s not cold outside but it is chilly with the promise of a crisp autumn and snowy winter. But Varric commissioned only the finest craftsmanship for his home in Kirkwall, and Sunshine picked out the gold trimmings herself that adorn the mantle. If she could have a fire going, she would. She likes cozy and indeed Kirkwall has never been cozier, especially since they’re back home for good now, overseeing rebuilding efforts. He’d never attribute “cozy” to Kirkwall, but Sunshine makes it that way, especially in their home where she’s the brightest. Sunshine likes taking up space. She deserves it. He’ll let her have the bounty on as much space as she desires.
She smiles as she reads, occasionally laughing. Few sights are so delightful as Sunshine reading. Once books were all she had, a promise of the wider world beyond Lothering. Now free she still reads, and she’s just as thrilled by his attempts at romance in Swords and Shields as she is when he whispers something soft in her ear, or when he kisses her shoulder as they’re laying by the fire reading together on the furs. More than the pages of love, as even Varric’s own pages of love wax on about trials, and love, and love making it through the trials in only the most transcendent way, he’ll take a women reading and absorbing the words and seeing herself in the characters over even the most poetic words of on the subject. Empathy is the most romantic of things, to read something and see yourself in someone else’s shoes. Sunshine has always thought of others. He always thought his romances, particularly Swords and Shields as drivel, and perhaps it is to some. But not to Cassandra, he thinks with a small laugh. And not to Sunshine. They’ve found the truth in it.
Maybe after he writes the Inquisitor’s story he’ll start a new romance. He never had a muse before when he wrote romances. Now when he drafts and when he writes, he’ll think of his Sunshine.
A commission for @weird-aunt and @commandersarah, featuring their lovely OCs Flynn and Lyndsi from ME:A. Thank you for commissioning me!
“Wanna go on a hike?”
Standing outside her door on the Tempest, Flynn was already dressed in what was only typical Flynn—short shorts and a muscle top, fitting to the contours of every slope and plain. Damn did he look good.
Lyndsi decided not to give him the satisfaction of letting him know however. Not when he was already quite aware of how he looked. Not when she already knew her eyes told the whole autobiography of her attraction to Flynn Ryder. Once she would have even tried to feign disinterest.
She’d rather be soft. She’d rather let him know. He deserved that.
But not too much.
“Would you like to go on a hike with me?” he asked again. “You said it yourself, there was some great trails here.”
“You’re already dressed,” she pointed out, crossing her arms. “What if I say no?”
“I’d convince you.”
He winked. Suppressing a laugh, Lyndsi shut the door to her cabin. “Hey,” Flynn called from behind her door. “Bring a bathing suit. There’s a surprise at the end.”
“Flynn,” she called back. “It’s not going to be much of a surprise if you tell me to bring my bathing suit.”
“You could always skinny dip.”
“You wish.”
He chuckled as she put on her bathing suit before throwing on her hiking clothes over it and slapping her long dark hair into a ponytail. She packed her art supplies in her bag, thinking she could sketch when they stopped to break. In ten minutes she was ready.
“Awesome,” Flynn said when she emerged. “May I escort you to the ball?”
She snickered. “Maybe later.”
Once they left the ship and were inside the city, Flynn lead Lyndsi toward the outskirts. There were several hiking trails available, Lyndsi letting Flynn lead her along to a more secluded pathway carved within a jungle, lush and secluded from the city.
“I got an idea,” Flynn said with another one of his winks. “We could race. First one who has to stop loses.”
“You’re on.”
Their backpacks were cumbersome but they raced down the pathway, both growing more out of breath but neither wanting to stop. Lyndsi’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest and she could see Flynn’s red cheeks from the corner of her eye and still she ran, only stopping when the wicked idea made her veer toward him accidently on purpose, knocking him to the side. “I win!” She announced as he stumbled and then stopped, huffing and puffing and catching his breath.
“Fine,” Flynn said, breathing heavily. “You win. But we both know what happened.”
“I won is all,” she said slyly and winking, taking a page from his book. “Lucky for you, you just need to take me where you promised.”
He grinned at her. He let her have the victory.
They made it at last at to the top of the small cresting hill. Lyndsi heard the water as Flynn readied himself to lay on the ground and quit.
“See?” he asked, pointing to the waterfall as they put their bags down. “I told you we just had to persevere.”
It was a hidden oasis, a small waterfall in a thicket of lush greenery. Taking off their hiking clothes they wadded into the water. They swam and the splashed, the water azure and cool. Neither had been swimming for so long. They stayed at the shallow end first, Lyndsi eventually venturing further than Flynn. He swam to her, proudly announcing his arrival as he splashed water in direction. She called him a regular merman before wrapping her arms around him dunking him underwater, speaking their mutual love language through playfulness and a friendly duel. They spoke their love language constantly, trying to find ways to compete with one another. Sometimes they even spoke their love language behind closed doors in the bedroom, where sometimes Lyndsi let Flynn take a victory or two. Whatever victories either one had however, Lyndsi was glad he won the most important competition, the one that got them up near the waterfall feeling freer than either one had in all their lives.
One missed competition and they were having a go at it. They were together and each other’s. One day, maybe soon, she’d admit just how glad she was that she lost that day.
Flynn continued to swim. Splashing him one more time, Lyndsi began drying out in the sun before deciding she could do some landscape painting of the area. “I can see why you want to paint this,” Flynn said, still in the water. “It really is beautiful. It’s worth preserving. I—”
He paused for a moment. “Wait a minute. Why do you look so sad?”
Did she? Lyndsi shook her head, and said it was nothing.
From the water, Flynn raised his brows. “Not nothing.”
“Well…” When she used to paint with her mother that’s exactly what she used to say—paint memories and places that deserve to be preserved. And not just preserve how it was, but how she saw it. Her mother, and now Flynn said she had a way of seeing the good in everything deep beyond her tough exterior. With her paintings, she made her memories baubles to hang on her wall to remember. She painted her mother often, always with poppies, her favorite flower. Poppies like the tattoo on her shoulder that Flynn always liked to kiss when they were together. Sometimes she could even paint her without crying.
“It was something my mom used to say,” Lyndsi said, taking a deep breath. A moment passed, and then another. From the water, Flynn smiled at her.
Lyndsi smiled to herself, not realizing how long it had been since she spoke of her mother without wanting to divert the subject. “You got this,” Flynn said. “I promise.”
She did. She sketched the waterfall with her stash of art supplies, finishing up a quick likeness of the landscape before rummaging through her pack for her paintbrushes and gauche. She had to mix the paint to get the right shade of blue, but as she looked up, trying to examine every shade of azure and cerulean in the water, Flynn caught her eye. It always struck her how he didn’t have to be Alex Ryder’s son when he was with her, how his rougher edges smoothed away. With her he was playful, carefree, younger. He was like drops of sunshine after rain, always searching for adventure. Especially with her.
Finding him waist deep in the water however, Lyndsi found Flynn mediative and calm. His eyes were closed as he sighed to himself, enjoying the cool water and soft sound of the waterfall. He knew Lyndsi was looking. He wouldn’t have had that small knowing smile otherwise. He loved it when she looked. He loved it when she studied him, looking for an answer to a question she didn’t even know she had.
“Hey Flynn,” Lyndsi said, flipping to a new page in her sketchbook, “would you stay there for me?”
He smirked. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Yes reason.”
“I’ll show you soon. Just…hang on a minute, alright?”
It wasn’t soon. She had been called a perfectionist before with landscapes and even a few other models she had portrayed, but Flynn was another matter entirely. He was tall and fit, more so lanky than bulky, wiry with blue at the ends of his blonde hair that were more electric in color than the water. She sketched him the way he was with her, cocky in stance but strong, his eyes off in the distance. This was the Flynn few were privy to. This was the Flynn she knew and loved the most.
“Hey Lyn, can I move now?”
She smiled, erasing one askew line of his shoulder on the drawing before loosening her pencil. “Yeah,” she called back. “Go ahead.”
“Can I look at it?”
She showed him when he swam back to her side, emerging and drying off. She thought he would laugh, say that due to her chosen subject, it would be impossible to make him look bad. It wouldn’t be wrong. Flynn had so many shades she could spend hours trying to decide which exact shade to portray, even when she only considered who he was when he was with her. He was ethereal, like he was the one born in the Andromeda Galaxy.
There was no quip. In fact, he didn’t say anything. He was at a loss for words. She never thought that could happen before.
“Are you alright?” she asked. “Oh you don’t hate it do you—"
“It’s perfect. It…wow. I…I can’t believe it.”
“You matter,” Lyndsi promised. “You matter to me.”
They went back into the water. As they let the waterfall sluice over them, Lyndsi at last admitted she was glad she lost that day.
***
They were back on the Tempest. Lyndsi sketched Flynn again. She wanted to get more of his shades. She wanted to commit every one to paper.
He sighed, sitting on a stool in her makeshift studio. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said.
Lyndsi’s pencil drifted across the paper. “What are you talking about? You did earlier.”
“Yeah but now I know for sure you’re looking at me and trying to get me down on paper…”
“You know for sure?” She laughed. “What else would I be doing looking at you with my sketchbook?”
“Admiring me? I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. What do I do?”
Think about something nice she instructed. “Oh!” He exclaimed after a moment thinking, settling on the stool.
It was some time later. At last, she showed him her newest sketch of him.
“I wish I could do you too,” he said. “You matter to me.”
She handed him her sketchbook on a new blank page along with a pencil. “Oh, you want…Now?” he scratched behind his neck. “I’m not going to be good.”
“It begins with practice. It’s going to take me a while to practice with you too.”
“But it looks so good already!”
“You can always practice. Some things are worth practicing.”
Flynn began practicing that night. He said she made it easy to want to start. “You do too,” Lyndsi said. “You’ve made everything so easy for me.”
Finished commission for @queentheirins featuring her Bridget Cousland and Alistair. Thanks so much for your support!
Bridget stood on a precipice.
She put a tentative hand on the door. She could open it, go back to Eamon’s Satinalia fete, and go on pretending everything was alright. Teagan would see her. He would come to her. Though he knew her heart and knew she couldn’t love him, he would still ask if she was alright. She was good at pretending, but only just. It was the first Satinalia without her family. The weight of it was too heavy. It would be Satinalia without her lover. She couldn’t dare think of that. But she was once a noble lady, a teryn’s daughter. She once learned how to wear masks.
She had forgotten. She was now a Grey Warden. Masks had been discarded. She had to stop the Blight. Perhaps she could relearn.
What would be the point of relearning?
There was still the other side. She could see both sides now. Alistair was on the other side, standing on the balcony. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his thoughts. She knew him as well as herself. Perhaps better than herself. He didn’t have to say a word. He wanted her. He loved her. He needed her. They were never supposed to be alone.
The alone was dark. She would not go where she could not find him.
