Lol you know I had to do it to em Talaeris "how long has it been?" or "you look different" off the epic prompt POR FAVOR uwu AND OR Tae/Dorian "i'll be here, buying you time." hehehehehehe
I hope you're happy 😭😭😭
Pairing this with @nirikeehan's prompt:
Rating: T (for canon-typical violence) Pairing: Saeris Mathalin (my OC)/Talenna Ethera (@exalted-dawn-drabbles' OC) Content Warnings: Blood mention, angst Word Count: ~870 Summary: After believing Talenna to be dead for nearly a decade after the events of Inquisition, Saeris comes face-to-face with her again, but it doesn't exactly go as he'd hoped.
@dadrunkwriting
Saeris’ sword thrust forward, the blackened blood of the darkspawn before him spilling onto the earth as he yanked the blade out. It slumped to the ground - the last of the hoard. For now, anyway.
Cheers were ringing out through the bloodstained courtyard, but Saeris’s eyes landed on a single figure near the gate - the person who had brushed against him in the battle. Her hair was long and braided now, but he could see the glimmering gold of her hair clip.
It was the match to the one he wore around his wrist, tied together with the lover's knot.
But he had known her at a glance, had known her in his bones, even at only the barest touch between them. The spirit inside him had sensed her in an instant, but he hadn’t been able to stop as three hurlocks had rushed towards him.
But with the threat now gone, Saeris could hear nothing, see nothing but the woman across from him. His sword clattered to the ground as he crossed the courtyard, the world around him slowing as he stepped closer.
Grief, love, pain, despair all coiled tightly around him, feeding both his doubts and hopes in a way he had not felt in the years. Not since the Inquisition had given him her gold earring and told him of her passing. The earring still rested over his chest now, but it had never felt lighter.
He was mere paces away from her, and he could see her wiping the blood from her blade and sheathing it. Saeris pulled the cloth from his face, his heart pounding as he dropped it away.
“Talenna,” he croaked, his throat dry as he tried to speak a name that was almost foreign on his tongue, now.
How long had it been since he’d used it? He couldn’t remember.
She turned, her golden eyes meeting his. He could sense a strange sort of cold shock in seeing him. She was likely just as shocked as he was, he imagined.
There were others with her, but he paid them no mind as he stepped closer, almost within arm’s reach. He would have closed the distance, but a very tall qunari stepped between them, holding out a hand.
“Whoa, there, who are-” they started to say, but Saeris shot a dark look at them.
“I’m her bondmate,” he said in a low, warning tone, making the message clear. Back off.
The qunari glanced back at Talenna in surprise, but took a small step back, seeming to gather that no one was in immediate danger.
He softened immediately as he met Talenna’s eyes again. She looked different - there was a tiredness behind her eyes that hadn’t been there before, and a darkness that hung a bit too heavy around her.
But she was here. She was alive.
The halla horn earring still dangled from her ear - the symbol of their bonding, just like the twin stars dangling from his own left earlobe. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he had to tell her - about their clan, about the twins… but that could wait. He wanted to hold her first, to feel that she was truly real.
He wanted to know that this wasn’t just another dream.
Saeris pulled off his gloves, letting them fall to the ground as he reached for her, the warmth in his heart blossoming for the first time in ten years.
“It’s really you,” he breathed as his fingers nearly brushed her cheeks. "Ma'sal'shiral."
She flinched away, taking a step back from him.
An icy knife sank in his heart as he stilled, his hands slowly lowering to his sides. Did… she not recognize him? Had he changed that much?
“Tal,” he said, his voice breaking as he took a step forward, trying to reach her again. “It’s me.”
“I think you have the wrong person,” an accented voice said beside them.
A man stepped between them, holding a hand out. He was Antivan, and human. And, based on his armor - a damned Crow. The human had the nerve to give him a sympathetic look.
Battle adrenaline still coursed through Saeris’ veins, and it boiled. He could feel Devotion rising to the surface, their magic curling around his skin.
The Crow stepped forward, purple magic rising to the surface around him as well. He was possessed, too.
“Spite,” Devotion said through Saeris.
The spirit possessing the man seemed to scoff. “Devotion,” he said with no small amount of disdain.
But it was not just disdain that Saeris felt - no. He felt the ties between this man and Talenna. The loyalty, the… care.
This man cared for her. Deeply.
A hand touched the man’s shoulder as Talenna stepped out from behind him. But before Saeris could even think to be jealous of that touch, of the clear familiarity between the two of them, she spoke.
“Lucanis,” she said, her voice as low and beautiful as Saeris had remembered. “Leave him. He’s not a threat.”
She didn’t even look at Saeris as she said it - she barely acknowledged him. She simply turned away, leaving him alone as he had been for the last decade.
But this time, the emptiness was sharp and suffocating, like breathing in glass. A pit grew in his stomach as Devotion quieted inside him, trying to grasp at the small tether between them. Still there, but… faint. Frayed and fractured. Unwanted.
It was as though he were nothing more than a stranger.
--
Translation:
"Ma'sal'shiral" - "My life's journey" or "love of my life"
