Oh god, these are juicy questions!! Thank you for the ask! :D
26. Guilty Pleasure
Sophie’s no stranger to chasing pleasure (in fact it is a flaw of hers to use pleasure to distract from The Bad Brain Times), but her true guilty pleasures would probably be swimming in the ocean. She doesn’t often get the opportunity, and usually feels badly to take the time out of otherwise busy schedules to go do so, but when she’s feeling especially bad and overwhelmed, she’s gotta. It helps her feel like herself again, and closer to home!
Yerrhec’s are simpler: he takes a great deal of pleasure in things that would seem frivolous and not particularly warrior-esque. He likes to listen to Bards sing, to watch his son paint or read him interesting facts, he loves romantic adventure stories, and he loves taking walks in nature, and working with his hands.
30. What was adolescence like?
Sophie lived happily with her mother, father, and older sister in their home and workshop on the reef bed in a merfolk kingdom. She helped around her father’s workshop a great deal, and protected her older sister and others from rude bullies and obnoxious suitors, and generally was somewhat of a little busybody. She sort of threw herself into studying her father’s trade while her sister studied politics and courtly intrigue and got picked to work at a distant castle, and as a result, she took to heart all of their mother’s warnings about royals and romanticizing them, so was always a bit anti-authority and anti-romance.
Yerrhec’s childhood was very regimented and structured. He studied night and day, politics, war, strategy, kingdom management, sabotage, and some elements of magic (with the help of his trusty tutor, the Court Wizard Alidair who later befriends and rescues Sophie & Pals). He did not have friends, but companions who rarely spoke to him, just trained him and kept to each other. He did have his younger brother, and though they were not encouraged to be companionable, they were friendly when they got to see each other. Things were a bit more lax when his mother was still alive, but she died fairly early on, so his childhood was. Not Great.
49. What are some themes tied to your character’s story?
I kinda wanna explore with them how to open yourself up, and be vulnerable after being hurt. There are more specific things with each character, but overall their big theme together focuses mostly on that and that like. The person you love should be someone who challenges you, pushes you to be your best, be your friend, your confidant, someone who you can’t even HELP being friends with again even with all the hurt from before. Like I don’t want them to fight or bicker a lot, but it will happen because they are sort of forcing themselves to not be as natural with one another as they want to be. But when they let go of pain, and just talk as they clearly want to, it’s easy. The hard part is letting it be easy.
Separately, I want Sophie to deal with themes of motherhood, of personhood, of trying to rediscover yourself in the mess of your life, trying to come to terms with the bad things that you’ve done to yourself to cope and learn better ways to cope. To learn to trust again, and be open with people are particularly big themes with her, and letting herself like. Hope. Trust other people, and herself. A lot of very personal themes and mental health kinds of things.
Yerrhec has similar stuff, but more specifically I want to explore with him what its like to grow up not just privileged, but privileged because of the evils of one’s parents. In his narrative arc, he’s already quite in the middle of discovering the world that made him and that he occupies is Evil, and needs to be demolished. He just doesn’t know how to fix it, and if even he is the one who should fix it. Part of him wants to run away and forget it, and part of him feels its his responsibility solely to fix it. (Very similar actually to the Lord Mayor’s themes!) But while the Lord Mayor sort of is stuck in his Solution (which isn’t quite perfect and he’s not sure how to improve it), I want Yerrhec to open himself up to the world around him, meet new people, work with new people with similar goals, and recognize that it is his role to help push a new world forward, but that once he’s done that, its best to step away and let go.
IDK if that all comes across in my current writing of them, but that’s sort of their general trajectory! xD
For the writing prompts, #25 fluff for August/Valya and/or #10 angst for Sula/Tom?? :D
August x Valya first! I’m will probably get to Sula and Thom tomorrow! <3 Thank you so much, my dear, for the prompt! <3
Adventurers had been attacking Death’s End for decades now. Tales of an undead mayor and skeletal guards tended to provoke the most obscenely heroic.
They had never gotten this far though.
The town would heal, but the scorch marks on Death’s End’s walls felt like daggers in the flesh August no longer possessed. The screams of his constituents would not leave his ears, even now that they were happy, grateful cheers of relief and faith.
It could not have been done without the help of his friends. Chuparosa, his dearest Barbarian and dearest friend, Cirel the lively Druid with powers unimaginable, Astra the mystical rogue with a wild hint of destiny about her, Thormund Irondale the quintessential Hero, and his faithful squire, Mepo (even the little Kobold had done amazing things in service to the town!)...
And of course, Valya.
When the mightiest of the adventuring foes had crossed the threshold of his manse, crawling with a fighter’s eagerness to his tower, to interrupt his magic protections and take down the Monster Mayor for the utmost glory, it had been Valya who had saved him. She tore into the vile fame hunter, fighting like a goddess, vengeful, ruthless, beautiful.
He had been so close to the death he’d fought off for centuries, and she held his broken bones in her arms, and gifted him with all her light.
He loved her before, and his love only grew in devotion and intensity.
A part of him wanted to seclude himself--to hide away in his manse and never come out, so ashamed he was for letting his people down. But no. He had a quest himself.
He approached the tavern, slipping between the towns’ revelers with practiced ease. They were too preoccupied to notice him passing through doorway, and all of them pranced and preened outside, leaving the usually packed tavern with only one individual.
Valya sat by the fire, warming her tired hands. She looked no less the goddess, but now… Soot from the fires that had raged through Death’s End’s walls stained her cheeks, and her tunic was torn, showing bold and bright bruises soon to form. She was too talented a fighter to have been cut, but the blood of others still stained her trousers and sleeves, pink now that she had attempted to wash it. Pink too, were her cheeks from the effort of it, contrasting with the deepness of her eyes, which stared ahead into the flames, thoughts dancing through them, begging to be asked what they were.
And so he did, “I should have known to expect you here, rather than among the party outside… Please tell me, Valya… Are you… are you well?”
She glanced up at him slowly, surprised. “You were at death’s door but a moment ago, August. I should ask you.”
If he could, he would have smiled. But she always seemed to know that of him, and hers grew for the both of them, anticipating his joke. “I have been at death’s door longer than I was alive. It suits me.”
She chuckled, but shook her head. “Come sit with me. Unless… It is your party after all, I’m sure you have others to attend to?”
August sat immediately, and took her hands. It was quite the gesture, something a braver would do, and he was not brave. Evident in what he said instead of what he meant to, “You’re the only person I want to be with tonight.”
The pink to her cheeks deepened as he still held her hands. Even without one, he felt his heart drop. “Unless… Forgive me, I’ve overstepped…”
Her grip tightened. “Please,” she said, so softly. “Stay.”
last prompt for @shimmerbee !!! this one was way fun ;D
35. “Do you trust me?” Sula x Thom
“Do you trust me?” What a question. She’d asked it so often, of all her inner circle, and somehow, she’d earned the trust of all these disparate, desperate people.
But he never asked it back. How could he, when none of these people even knew his real name? If she turned to him with her big, amber eyes, and that soft, warm smile of hers and told him that she trusted him, when he did not deserve such a gift, he’d turn himself in right then and there.
Or so he’d like to think. But he knew better. Thom Rainier was a coward, and always had been.
All of that would be much easier to deal with if they weren’t currently absolutely and thoroughly fucked.
The damned rain in Crestwood mixed with the fog made it impossible to see outside the little hovel hidden in the hills he’d found for them. They thought that after clearing the damn place of the rift in the lake that the weather would have settled into something less supernatural, but rain was rain, and happened anyway, and was just as horrible as when it had been magically influenced. Worse yet, demons and dragons had been the least of their worries here before. Now there were bandits, and Red Templars everywhere, and in searching for Hawke’s damned contact, they’d been split from the others, and the Inquisitor injured by one of the templar bastards. Surrounded now by the templars searching for them, they were stuck, at least until help or a miracle found them.
Blackwall turned to the Inquisitor, and sucked in a breath. She was breathing shallowly, holding back any indication of her pain, knowing that any wayward sound would have them discovered, but she looked horrible. Her gray face, normally alight with a pinkish undertone, was pale and covered in rain and sweat. She shook all over, and her eyes were glazed. The blood from their battle had washed off in the rain, but he knew her ribs, and maybe her leg were broken. And it was all his fault. He hadn’t protected her.
He knelt before her, and without thinking much of it, put a hand to her cheek--she was burning, another turn of bad luck. She’d have a fever on top of all this, and that would be the thing to kill her first. He removed his hand, and swore under his breath. He barely noticed that she was looking at him intently now.
“That was nice,” she said. It was such a bizarre thing to say, he wondered if the fever had already taken hold of her.
“What?” She was injured and unwell, no reason for his heart to speed up. But she offered a weak smile, and his fool stomach flipped.
“Your hand. It was nice,” she swallowed, hard, and looked away, wincing. “Oooff, can’t talk much.”
“Don’t talk at all. Rest, as much as you can,” he said, softly. Somewhere in the back of his head, the old Thom shuddered to think of the punishment he’d endure at the death of the Inquisitor, and his failure to protect her. Much more prominently though, try as he might to deny it, the fear he felt was not for his own life.
The Inquisitor meant a lot to a lot of people. He meant what he had told her at their arrival to Skyhold. She was a symbol of hope for all the refugees and pilgrims who arrived there--himself included. As fond as he was of Sula Adaar, the sweet, awkward freckled woman, the Herald of Andraste was something to believe in--a righteous cause, protecting the innocents from a world of powerful people who did not care. But she did.
The world would be lesser without her in it.
He wouldn’t let her die. He couldn’t.
Blackwall took a moment to remove his gambison, soaked as it was, it was another layer to keep the chill off of her, and laid it across her. Her eyes fluttered to his for a moment, and though she was still focused on breathing through the pain, she watched him far too closely. Guilt quickly filled his heart, and he left her side to peer out the hovel, and analyze the situation.
They hadn’t been able to run too far from the Red Templars that had overtaken their camp. The attack had surprise and overwhelming numbers as an advantage. In the midst of battle, he recalled hearing Varric wager that they were not just looking for the Inquisitor, but Hawke as well, scrounging through the hillsides of Crestwood, just as they had been, looking for the contact’s hideout. That the templars were still here had to mean that they knew the hideout was nearby, or they had seen Blackwall drag the Inquisitor somewhere around here, after the Behemoth had gotten a lucky swing at her. The others likely went back to Caer Bronach for reinforcements, and hopefully were on their way, but the Inquisitor needed help now, and more than he could offer her. But that Behemoth was still out there, with about 15 other soldiers setting up camp around the area. He could certainly try his hand at taking them all on. It would be the noble way. It would also be a dead man’s way, he could almost hear the real Blackwall laugh.
Varric had said Hawke mentioned these hills had tunnels of some sort, bandit highways. He’d utilized similar tunnels himself to get out of binds in parts of Orlais. He glanced back towards the inside of the hovel, and considered.
Stepping over the Inquisitor, he pressed his hands to the walls of the hovel, looking for any hollow sections, or pieces of stone or wood that could be hidden and moveable. With luck, the southern wall budged, just slightly enough. With a bit more back into it, the hidden door moved slowly back, and a pathway was revealed. He resisted the urge to cheer, focusing instead on the next task…
Moving the Inquisitor.
Fuck. He knelt down beside her again, and she looked at him, shivering. His fingers flexed as he tried to come up with the proper way to ask, but the direness of the situation outweighed propriety. She’d understand. He hoped. “Inquisitor, there’s tunnels back there… I think I can get us out of here, but…”
“You have to carry me,” she answered, not nodding, just watching, thinking. “Do you know where it goes?”
He paused. “No. It could lead to more danger. But…”
“It’s the only way,” she looked away, taking the chance to steady herself. For a moment, she looked scared. “I won’t be much help… I might just slow you down. You could,” she steeled herself, trying to push through the pain, “You could leave me, and get help.”
That was completely unacceptable, for a thousand different reasons. Without thinking, he gruffly responded with the one question he thought he’d never ask, “Sula… Do you trust me?”
The answer should have been no, of course not. But of course, instead, her amber eyes looked up at him, and the full weight of her affection for him hit him completely. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, she smiled so fully, even through the pain, and raised a hand as high as she could to grab his arm, and squeeze.
“Completely,” she whispered. It hurt just as much as he feared to hear it. But the moment of guilt passed quickly as she winced, holding her sides, and looking up to him once more to ask, “What do I need to do?”
He wrapped his arms around her. It was an awkward carry, with her being so tall, and there was no way around her injuries. She swallowed down a yelp, burying her face into the crook of his neck to try and keep silent. It was likely unwise to move her at all, but there was no way that the templars wouldn’t find this hovel soon. As quickly as he could, they were through the door, and swiftly surrounded by darkness. There was only one path ahead, and the walls were narrow enough that he had to walk them sideways.
Coupled with the darkness, the silence was nearly overwhelming. So he whispered, gently, to soothe and distract her from her body tensing and spasming in his arms. He couldn’t quite think of what to say, so he just said the first thing that came to his mind.
An old Thom Rainier story. Internally, he cringed, hoping that she wouldn’t be able to decipher anything from it, but how could she? She’d never heard of Thom Rainier before.
“You know, this reminds me of a mission I was on once… Not quite the Deep Roads, but low hanging caves like this. Felt like the whole ceiling would fall on you.”
She didn’t say much in response, too much in pain, too focused, but he knew she was listening, as she nuzzled closer into him. It was almost intoxicating, to think of better times, and holding her this way, in a better situation. But luckily, there was too much to think about to be distracted by that.
“Some bastard had asked us to go down there and check it out, and suddenly, we realize the lake all around us is oil, and whatever lives down there didn’t want us down there, and it’s ablaze.”
She stirred, and he tried to adjust her in his arms, fatigue starting to take him. Damn, he could have done this easily when he was younger. “Darkspawn?” she said, and for a moment, he thought he misheard, lost in the story as he was.
“Er, yeah, probably. Didn’t realize how smart the bastards could be back then,” Blackwall almost thought to stop the story completely, but he laughed, remembering the punchline he’d always matched with it.
She wouldn’t suspect. It was nothing. And Wardens… Some were paid for their deeds. “We went back to the arsehole who sent us down there and demanded hazard pay.”
It was dark, but he could feel her smiling against his neck. “You think Cassandra would go for that?”
He barked out a laugh, and they both stilled for a moment, waiting in the dark to make sure no one else heard. But they were alone, and tittered quietly as he moved them further still.
“Best go through Lady Josephine,” he winked, despite knowing there was no need. She couldn’t see him. “She seems the understanding sort.”
They went on like this for awhile, until he spotted light ahead, and heard voices. He paused, bending down to lay her on the ground and prepare to fight, until the voice made himself known.
“Oh thank the Maker, you both scared me half to death! And you made me go through this blasted cave!” Varric shouted, rushing to their side, joined by Solas, and a healer from Caer Bronach. Blackwall leaned back against the wall, exhausted, but relieved to see them.
Solas and the healer made short work of Sula, magic attending to her broken bones in a way the small amount of field medicine Thom remembered would never be able to achieve. Her own exhaustion quickly put her to sleep, and when it was time to leave the tunnel, Blackwall carried her again, despite Varric and Solas’s protestations. He was really the only one who could carry her. And, perhaps, he didn’t really want to let her go.
“You did great work rescuing her like that,” Varric said with a wink, as they settled at their new, safer camp. “Real knight in shining armor moment for you there, Hero.”
He didn’t feel it. It was his fault she’d been injured in the first place. How much more trust could she put in him that he would betray?
He nodded with a tired smile, and retreated to his tent, eager to sleep. Almost tauntingly, he dreamt only of being the hero she thought him to be.
20 and/or 10 for August/Valya? Whatever you feel like doing!!
#20 is just TOO GOOD
Where you didn’t know they were your soulmate until you hear them say your name
It was an old story. The soul for your soul would be known to you the first moment that they said your name to you.
It was a pretty story. August remembered Nathaniel defending him from their other brothers whenever he sighed and dreamed of that moment. Nathaniel was not a romantic soul himself, and though he wouldn’t tease, he did laugh. For theirs was a house of little love. It was easy to believe that it was just a story.
In all the years he had been a flesh and blood man, he never once stopped in his quest for a better world to fall in love. It just. Didn’t happen. It wasn’t as important as Nathaniel’s vision.
And when he died, he figured that was it. Who’d ever heard of finding the soul to their soul in death? Whoever they were, they had to be long gone.
So when three adventurers rescued him from the plane between life and death, and ended the experimental curse he had been working on to locate his bones, he did not think much of that story then.
Not until the cleric said his name, “Lord August? Lord August Bane?”
He didn’t even correct her. Lord, Lord Mayor, how could that matter anymore? So rattled had every inch of him become in that single moment, overwhelmed by some feeling, warm, intoxicating, safe, and freeing, he never knew he’d been missing.
In the moment, they had been in battle. But afterwards, when the feeling persisted?
He could barely think straight, repeating her name and asking questions over and over trying to make sense of her and the miracle she brought.
The Lord Mayor is my current favorite! He combines a lot of the things that I liked about my early DND characters (can be sillier and easy going, often messes up), with some of the things I’ve wanted for in DND characters but never done before (I had a more serious character I played once, Nephis, and I liked actually taking my character seriously and having a backstory without a plan that introduced a lot of drama, and the Lord Mayor has drama out the wazoo and can definitely get serious). I have a feeling that my newest character will be a good mix of that too, but its fun coming up with newer characters and playing more because I feel like I can now reach that balance, and its much more enjoyable and manageable for me for sure! Plus, he’s super fun!
8. Your favorite fight/encounter.
As a player, one of my favorite encounters still is one of my earliest: when I double rolled a nat 20 on animal handling for my pet Bullet Dragon? Or Burrower Dragon? I don’t remember what it was called, but I convinced him to dig into the enemy stronghold, steal the thing we needed, and dig back out, and we managed completely unseen. That was a wild time. I also loved our latest game, getting to just go super Ham Romantic and Serious as the Lord Mayor. That was EXCELLENT.
As a DM, I loved you guys trying to infiltrate first Wanda’s Wondrous Wigs Emporium in the Imperium, and then stealing from the overworked and very evil retail worker blood mage from Wanda’s Wondrous Wigs Emporium. That had so many levels of bonkers and could have gone wrong so fast. I also really loved you guys infiltrating the Qunari meeting just cause it was really fun to monologue, and I think that was the first time I could really feel the energy of the whole group and it was a very cool feeling as a new DM to have created a scenario that was felt so effectively and was so spooky. Like I was glad I checked up on one of our players afterwards to ask if he was okay, and made sure everyone was fine, ‘cause it was so strange to have had that effect-but you were all okay, and had fun, it was just very creepy, and I really liked that! I was glad that it all went over well! :D
25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?
Stole from a retail worker. To be fair, they did warn me they wanted to, and she was a blood mage, so like. It wasn’t the most out there, but I did not anticipate it for sure. AND, to be fair, she didn’t give them a fair deal.
