#suranastair

[artofmisi]

#dakiss25 - first knight

[shiftycatstudios]

Dragon Age Kiss Week 💋 Day 5

"Battlefield" ~ Alistair holds my warden, Selph Surana, and she kisses his head as she stirs awake from the final blow to the archdemon. Morrigan's ritual has succeeded. 🩸

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[suranastair]

Alistair Week 2025 ~ Prompt 3: "Reunion"

Title: Unexpected Rating: Teen & Mature Warnings/Tags: Angst, Emotional, Hurt but very little comfort in the wake of it all... Count: 1,454 Summary: A reunion--and first meeting--Alistair never thought would occur.

A/N: More angst! I know, I'm late for prompt 3 and I'm still working on prompt 5's drawing, but...yeah. This reunion kills me every time with a Warden Alistair + the circumstances that lead to this. It is a bit of dialogue from the game, but I eat it up every time. Enjoy! :D

“That’s him?” Alistair found himself nearly out of breath when asking, a moment of weakness Morrigan was sure to exploit with that barbed tongue of hers.

But she didn’t. In fact, she was silent. Still. And him being him, he couldn’t help himself but continue talking as his gaze settled on the boy between them.

“I thought he’d look, I don’t know, more demonic.” The words were quickly dying. “Tentacles and fiery breath.”

Morrigan finally spoke, the edge he was expecting dulled much to his surprise. “He is a normal boy, Alistair.”

His mouth twitched, a competitive smirk pulled down before it could take over his forced stoicism. “Uh-huh. And what does he know of…how he was made?”

The boy—Kieran, she says he was named—wandered over to sit down on the garden bench. He smiled and watched some birds flutter about and pick at seeds some of the chantry sisters had laid out for them. They even offered him a handful. He took it, the child’s smile only growing wider.

Alistair found himself staring, the pit in his stomach growing, the canyon of want and wonder sealing itself in real time. It was a feeling he had to curb, one that couldn’t get out of control. He was so seeped in his own thoughts that when Morrigan spoke next, he almost jumped.

Morrigan’s eyes were almost forlorn, tired for certain. “He knows his father was a good man.” She paused, swallowing that pride of hers, Alistair imagined. “I—I thought you deserved that much.”

Maker’s blood. He thought things in Thedas couldn’t get any stranger in these time. Now the ice queen he knew—once upon a time—had given him benefit. And not just him, but the child they had conceived that night before the final march on Denerim, before the archdemon’s fall and subsequent bequeathing of its soul to that child.

Alistair’s stomach churned, too many emotions all at once. In place of whatever else he could have said to her, his sincerity won out.

With a light exhale mixed with a chuckle through his nose, he said, “He’s changed you.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she clapped back.

The smirk he’d been holding back made itself known. There was the Morrigan he knew. Yet, it was still curbed, still laced with that exhaustion that comes with a decade passing since their last meeting. He wondered what he looked like to her—if she spotted new wrinkles, the new bags under his eyes, perhaps even the taint that ever-swirled in his veins, slowly killing him. At the very least, he wasn’t on the throne. That was a miracle in and of itself.

“I hear Leliana’s part of the reason this all got off the ground,” Alistair said, shuffling a boot into the soft earth to ground himself once again.

“She is,” Morrigan answered and crossed her arms. “She holes herself up in her loft with her army of feathers and prayers to a god that has once again abandoned them.”

“Of course,” Alistair chuckled again, remembering the time they met the wayward sister in Lothering’s tavern. The left hand now to a departed Divine. He’d caught a glimpse of her when they returned from Crestwood. She, too, had changed.

One of the messengers of Skyhold soon came to deliver to Morrigan; the Inquisitor needed her assistance, and off she went with naught so much as a goodbye—something more familiar than Alistair was willing to let on. After all, she probably knew the familiarity.

Truly, they all had changed in their own way. And time, more often than not, was not kind.

“You’re a Warden, aren’t you?”

Not many could creep up on Alistair nowadays, but Kieran had done so without effort. Alistair cleared his throat and removed his steady hand from the pommel of his sword. He turned and gave the boy a smile, one that Kieran returned. He noticed then the Grey Warden’s crest on his clothes—Morrigan’s doing, no doubt.

A ‘good man’, she had said. Perhaps, though unlikely, a good friend as well.

“Was it the big ‘ol griffon on my armor that gave me away?” He asked, his throat almost pinching. “I see you’ve got one, too! Did your mother give that to you?”

This was harder than he thought it would be. Maker. This was his…offspring. No. This was…No matter how much he told himself that he shouldn’t think of him in such a way, how much of a monster he tried to make himself think this child was, it was no use. Kieran was his son.

The smile on Kieran’s face faded, turned downward. “No. Well…yes.” Alistair’s eyes reflected back at him. “But it’s because your blood is singing.”

And that made the reality of this situation all the more grave for Alistair. He didn’t think this child a monster, no. Not after that. He thought him what he was in all of this: a child. One forced to carry the burdens of past decisions. Irony was the least definitive word he could think of in this situation. In fact, he didn’t think there was a word to describe any of it. All he could do then was shiver and hold back his tears.

Kieran stepped forward and tugged on one of his gauntlets. “I’m sorry.” He frowned even more, his brows coming together. “Mother says I sometimes say things that could make people sad. Did I make you sad?”

Mouth coming ajar only to close again, Alistair kneeled down and shook his head. “Not at all. You’re…right, after all.” He stood up again and wrung a gloved hand, feeling the leather scrunch in his palm. “This blood of mine…”

“I’m sorry, ser.”

“No, no! Don’t be!” He placed a hand behind his head and pushed out a laugh. “And you can call me Alistair.”

“Okay,” Kieran looked back up at him. “But…is something wrong, ser Alistair? You do seem sad. Mother says it’s okay to be sad.”

Maker’s breath, he thought. He really had changed that woman. “Less sad and just…maybe needing a hug.” It was genuinely how he was feeling, but the awkwardness of the situation didn’t lessen.

“Oh!” Kieran smiled. “I can give you a hug! Mother says I give the best hugs!”

Caught completely off guard, Alistair laughed. “Does she now?”

Kieran nodded fiercely before opening his arms wide. “Mm-hm!”

Hesitation took over then, and Alistair found himself glancing around Skyhold’s garden as if he were going to commit the greatest of sins in front of the sisters and possibly the Maker himself.

He felt ridiculous. He felt elated. He felt too much all at once as he knelt to meet the child’s height again and pulled him into a hug. It was warm, it was welcoming, was real…and it wouldn’t last.

He felt his chest and stomach tighten as the moment passed quicker than he wanted. He discreetly wiped his eyes free of the tears he refused to let fall in Kieran’s presence, a burden for only himself to bear. He could only imagine how many Kieran was already shouldering.

“That was nice! You give really good hugs, too!” Kieran said with a smile so bright it nearly broke him then and there.

“And your mother was right! I feel right as rain now!” He said with a dramatic hands-on-hips pose.

“Do you want to feed the birds with me?” he asked. “The sisters have more seeds we can give them?”

It was then his vision met others’ across the gardens. The Inquisitor themselves, Hawke, and Morrigan all motioned for him. News of the rogue wardens’ and Commander Clarel’s doings must have surfaced. Now or never, it was time to make their move.

Alistair sighed. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to go do some Wardening. The blood keeps singing, after all.” He tried to make light of it, but it sounded better in his head, like a lot of things.

“Until it doesn’t,” Kieran said, eyes darkening and mouth forming into a flat line.

Alistair found himself nodding, answering quietly, “Very true.” There was a pause before he took one of his hands, reached out, and ruffled the boy’s hair. “You take care of yourself, Kieran. And your mother.”

Kieran laughed at his action. “I will, Alistair. It was nice talking to you!” And just like that, the ‘normal boy’ was back, the old soul quieted until another cryptic message was to sneak its way out, Alistair was certain.

Every step away from the boy was it’s own class of torture.

And he knew every step away was a finality.

Alistair and Morrigan shared a final look as well before nodding and parting ways.

“Ready when you are, Inquisitor.”

[smutnug]

Day 1: Rose

Alistair thumbed the flower absent-mindedly. The petals were beginning to wilt at the edges. Amazing, really, that it had lasted this long.

She entered the tent in a flurry, throwing herself onto the bedroll with a huff. "What's that?"

"What?"

Neria turned and glared at him. "That. You just tucked it under your bedroll."

"My bedroll? Oh. This?" He fished under the straw mattress, and the rose emerged bent and squashed.

"What's it for?"

"What's…? It's a rose." He brandished it like a limp sword. "It's not for anything."

"But you're carrying it around." Neria plucked it out of his hand and twirled it, a faint frown on her brow. "It must mean something."

"Nothing at all," he said breezily. "Just a rose."

She concentrated. The browned edges of the petals pinkened and unfurled; the stem slowly straightened.

"How did you -"

She shrugged. "Something like healing. I'm not sure. Anyway," she said, handing the rose back to him, "here's your flower. Have fun with it."

He accepted it with numb fingers. It's for you, he thought, it's supposed to be for you. But she had somehow made it fresher, cleaner, more fragrant. Was there anything he could offer her, anything at all?

Alistair tucked the rose away in a corner of the tent and lay awake, imagining lips soft like petals.

[shiftycatstudios]

Sketchy Alistair and Selph in a modern-day AU. Ali's a barista and Selph is a florist.

✨ Link Tree || Bluesky || Ko-fi || INPRNT ✨

[shiftycatstudios]

I wanted to practice drawing comics again. It's totally not an excuse to draw more Dragon Age content, oh nooooo. 🤞

⭐ Link Tree

[shiftycatstudios]

I've been sad as hell and Alistair makes me happy. So...a doodle dump it is (ft. my Warden, Selph).

...Okay, maybe a little more effort was made than doodles--expressions, shading, and angles were practiced, too. :T

Please do not edit or repost any of my works, thank you!

⭐ Link Tree

[suranastair]

Greetings and Welcome!

This is going to be a Dragon Age sideblog for myself as I can't stem my obsession and love I have for these games and its universe, or my unending need to make OCs for them.

Also, Alistair. I love him. Always.

As such, I'll be yelling about my OCs on here as well as reblogging art or writings I make from my other pages. I'll start sharing screenshots of the games as well--free to use for whatever unless said otherwise. And I'll be reblogging other plethoras of DA content on this hellsite. I'll do my best to tag accordingly.

Feel free to follow me on my other blogs as well, but if you're just here for Dragon Age stuff--for better or ill--this is the place! ✌️

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