For @aldisobey, who is apparently a fan of my Inquisitor Shen Lavellan, have a picture of the boy:
As of the events of Veilguard, Shen is 42. I tried my hardest to actually make him look his age but the Veilguard CC loves smooth skin and hates a widow's peak.
Some more lore on Shen if you'd like:
Shen is the former First of Clan Lavellan, adoptive son of Keeper Deshanna. At the age of eight, he displayed magic for the first time and was sent to Clan Lavellan, as they did not have any mages at the time and he could not stay with his birth clan due to them already having several.
His younger brother is my sister's Lavellan, Da'lavmidal, also known as Twig. In our shared worldstate, Shen is Inquisitor while Twig has the Anchor and is the Herald of Andraste, though few people know this--aftet the events of Inquisition, when all the rifts are closed and Solas has reclaimed the Anchor from Twig, Shen sort of takes on the mantle of Herald to protect his brother, who's young and never wanted to be involved with the Inquisition in the first place. However, in my own canon worldstate, Shen is obviously both Inquisitor and Herald. My multiple nesting canons make me sexy, you see.
Anyway I think Al will be the only person who cares about this but there you go! That's some info on Shen. Maybe I'll do one of these about my Warden and my Hawke if I feel like their stories are relevant enough to my canon.
(Talesfromthefade) Happy Friday! <3 How about something with your Lavellan twins talking to one another and totally confusing the hell out of a would-be eavesdropper/other people around them for the DWC? (My brother and I are terrible with this- not completely finishing a sentence(s) aloud, but the other knows where it's going and jumps in with a reply. Annoys the crap out of our other siblings XD)
omg thank you, this was really fun. i might do more later if anyone wants to request a certain character’s reaction or a subject they would be ”””discussing””” lmao
for @dadrunkwriting!!!
Varric was looking over some papers next to his preferred fireplace when the Inquisitor’s voice caught his ear.
“Hey, have you seen..?”
“No, but try the rookery. He’s been messing with Leliana’s wine and playing with the birds recently.” Adhlea hadn’t even looked up from the book she was reading, perched as she was at the far opposite end of the table. She blew into a mug of some sort of hot liquid, and Shen nodded gratefully.
“Ma serannas.”
“Mhm.”
He squinted at them, trying to figure out how they knew the other would understand who they were talking about. After a few moments, he shrugged and went back to his paperwork. Twins, he supposed. Maybe he could work something like that into his next book.
Dorian hadn’t seen Adhlea so happy since...well, since before Solas left them. He watched from across the library as she and Shen shared a bench in an alcove.
“So then what happened?” she asked, her knees drawn up to her chest.
“Well, you know how I had said--” Shen started, but Adhlea was already nodding vigorously. “Yeah. So…”
“You didn’t.” She paused, staring at Shen’s face. “...you did.” The two erupted in giggles as they leaned their heads together.
Later, when Dorian asked her what it was they had been talking about, she provided far more information than what had actually been spoken between the two.
Baffling, that.
“No, no, no. You have to get along.”
Krem looked over his shoulder to where the Inquisitor and her sister sat a few tables away. Several bottles and mugs covered the stretch of wood between them, and from what he could tell, Shen’s cheeks were rosy as...well, roses. Hey, he never claimed to be a poet.
The sister was pouting. “It’s not…”
“No, it is that simple, it really is,” Shen barrelled on. “Just...do stuff together! Like--”
“We’re not building another fire together.”
Shen’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but as soon as she seemed to get her words straight, Adhlea continued.
“No, we’re not doing that either. And I don’t want to have sudden shortages on books either, by the way. I’m not sharing with him.”
“I would never--”
“Yes, you would. Now drink your wine before I finish it for you.”
Krem turned back to his own drink and a few of the other gathered Chargers, who apparently had also been listening in. They looked about as confused as he felt.
Happy DWC Friday! How about this prompt? "Flashes of lighting across an angry sky"
thank you, darling!!!
1521 words
for @dadrunkwriting!
The night she arrived was perfectly dramatic. Despite everything else refusing to fit in this bizarre, alternate universe, the way the lightning flashed across an angry sky was poetic; it lent her drenched, hooded figure an air of confused desperation when she arrived in the center of Haven. Adhlea let her Fade Cloak dissipate as another bolt lit the distant skies. The few people still outside flinched at her sudden appearance out of thin air. She paused for a few beats, allowed the thunder to roll ominously, and finally spoke, “Where is the Inquisitor?” loudly enough to startle the guards into action. They were still so very green in these early days. A random Dalish elf materializing in the center of a stronghold should’ve prompted a far swifter response. She forced a breath. They would get there. Cullen and Leliana would get them there. She forced an exhale. This world wouldn’t shatter.
The scuffle culminated in the huge chantry doors swinging open. First strode out the unmistakable Knight-Commander, followed by the always-charming ambassador, and then out stepped a stranger who wore her face. Almost, at least.
Her blonde hair was pulled high, braided in a few places and culminating into a ponytail that fell past her shoulders. Tan skin, lanky build, a vibrant emerald vallaslin for Dirthamen stretching its wings across her cheekbones, and clothes that didn’t quite fit. She held herself remarkably well for someone who had been thrust into a wholly unfamiliar environment and position. Adhlea had known what she was walking into-- it was hard not to, hearing the name pronounced strangely on shemlen tongues, the whispers of mage and elf and Herald and Dalish-- but even so...she paused, her cloak clenched in her hands. Leliana had stepped out from behind the Herald, eyes narrowed and head cocked ever so slightly to the side. Her spies had seen her during her time in Redcliffe, of course. She knew the uniforms, she knew the way that they stooped to search for something amidst the grass and dirt, she knew the vaguely identifying marks so that they wouldn’t accidentally kill a comrade. But she had remained
Taking in one last breath, she flipped her hood back and revealed her own face. The recognition was instantaneous; whatever mask the Herald wore was wiped away by shock. Adhlea smiled faintly. “Shenuvun,” she acknowledged, voice clear.
“Adhlea?” The question hung there, quavering, just as the clouds seemed to shift. A drizzle began to flow downwards and people began to scatter.
Faint laughter left her. “It seems the rain caught up with me. Shall we?” She inclined her head towards the chantry. Shenuvun seemed to recover from her brief paralysis and nodded quickly. The advisors glanced at each other in mild confusion, but they acquiesced without any complaints. Adhlea bounced up the familiar steps with a strange sense of nostalgia. The rain was beginning to fall colder and harder and would soon become sleet. Her lungs burned a little with the chill, a refreshing feeling, and then she was enfolded into the heat of the chantry’s halls. She spotted Vivienne among the pillars, a flash of Varric’s ponytail as he vanished into a room, and the rhythmic clink of Cassandra’s breastplate prefaced her appearance in the doorway of the war room. Her eyes narrowed at Adhlea’s approach, but Shenuvun was already waving a settling hand in her direction. The scene made her heart clench in the most bittersweet way.
The Herald and her advisors (plus Cassandra and Adhlea) all filed into the room at the far end of the chantry. Once they were all situated around the table, an awkward silence fell as Adhlea and Shenuvun stared at each other across the table. The chill of her sopping clothes was beginning to get to her, so Adhlea sighed and got the ball rolling by brushing a glowing palm over each side of her body, first the left, and then the right. Cullen had gone a bit more rigid, but before he could begin to sputter anything she had definitely heard before in her own time, a delicate hand touched his arm. He stilled, then Shenuvun retracted her hand. Her eyes, somehow even greener than her vallaslin (which was already as vibrant as a fresh, summer leaf after a summer storm), bore into Adhlea at her flagrant display of her abilities. Adhlea just gave a lopsided smile.
“Tell me, Adhlea: just how did you arrive in the Frostbacks when, last I heard, you and yours had been sighted on the coast just south of Markham?” Shenuvun finally asked.
Adhlea considered closing her eyes, but she doubted that would provide any sort of efficient coverage for the eyeroll that was fighting for existence against her manners. Her manners lost, as they usually did. She noticed the tilted head of Josephine and the smooth, mask-like expression Leliana wore. They were curious now, not just about her sudden appearance in the courtyard, but by the familiarity that was immediately shown despite it being obvious from their other interactions that they hadn’t seen each other in an unfathomably long time. She allowed one hip to rest against the war table. “Of course you would ask something as inane as that when we haven’t seen each other in over twenty years,” she teased, her tone gentle beneath the layer of playfulness. “Ma suledin.”
Shenuvun’s lips twitched up, clearly against her will, at the fond epithet. “Ma suledin,” she echoed, soft and reverent. Then she was circling around the table, leaving bemused comrades in her wake, and they were in each other’s arms. The fit was foreign and took a few movements for them to close around the other properly, and then Adhlea’s eyes began to well up as she felt the heat of Shenuvun’s own tears on her shoulder. “Ar lath ma,” she whispered, her blonde hair tickling Adhlea’s ear. A soft hum slipped from Adhlea, and she closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotion as she rubbed the other’s back.
It was Josephine who finally interrupted the moment. “Ah...Lady Lavellan?” When both heads perked and turned to the ambassador, Leliana’s expression brightened.
“Ah-hah, I was right,” she said, a quick smile briefly pausing around her lips as she asked, “You two are sisters, no? I was wondering why there was a Dalish elf staying at Redcliffe.”
“You were staying at Redcliffe?” Shenuvun asked, pulling back as her brows drew together. “Why didn’t you come here sooner?”
Having anticipated this, Adhlea’s brow raised challengingly as she pointed in the vague direction of the nearby mountaintop. “There’s kind of a hole in the sky, as I’m sure you’re aware. It also took a few days for news to spread to us of who the Herald of Andraste actually was.” She gave her sister’s shoulders a squeeze while Shenuvun looked abashed, then separated them to give her a good lookover. She was toned, especially in the arms, and Adhlea could detect a faint amount of...ice magic? Yes, that would explain why her aura had an almost crystallized quality to it. Unlike herself, Shenuvun didn’t bother with any makeup or paint. Her lips were naturally rosy like her own and didn’t actually need a stain of any kind (not that that ever stopped Adhlea). Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary aside from the ill-fitting clothes she had noticed outside. Her own had probably become unforgivably tarnished after the events at the Conclave though, so they would do for now. Satisfied, Adhlea released her and turned towards the others gathered. “In answer to your question, Lady Nightingale, yes: we are sisters. Twins, actually.” She grinned and tugged Shenuvun’s face over to press cheek-to-cheek.
Josephine nodded as she took in the similarities. Cassandra’s expression became less suspicious, Cullen looked vaguely ill at the prospect of another Lavellan roaming about, and Leliana appeared somewhat smug. Shenuvun, face hot, removed herself from the awkward comparison pose. “We were separated when we were young,” she began to explain. “Clan Lavellan was blessed with an excess of mages, so...we shared.”
Adhlea slid smoothly into the explanation. “It’s not actually as bad as it sounds! It just means that if one clan doesn’t have any new mages born but has a child around the same age in the clan, you just trade.” She shared a glance with Shenuvun, both knowing it unwise to reveal much more about the magical situations among the Dalish, and finished with, “Too many little mage children with only one fully-trained mage adult around? Not an ideal situation.” Cullen looked a little pale. She took pity on him and moved the conversation along. “I was the one who got traded, so we’d write letters back and forth once we were older and more curious about our origins, but we haven’t really met up since we were…” She paused and looked to Shenuvun again. “What, five? Six?”
Shenuvun nodded, her expression thoughtful. “I think so. Thereabouts,” she confirmed. “That aside, this is Adhlea, my twin sister. I trust her. She won’t bring any harm to us.”
Adhlea’s heart panged, and she truly hoped she wouldn’t.
