#talen lavellan

[peldragora]

I REALLY LOVE MY DRAGON AGE OCS OKAY??!

[mstigergun]

OC Kiss Week, “the hope which cannot part”

OC Kiss Week, Day Seven (a goodbye kiss). I’m going to keep my commentary minimal, save to say this is set in Letters-verse and is a variation on a 5 times/1 time structure. [~2300]

the hope which cannot part

Farewell to thee! but not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of thee: Within my heart they still shall dwell; And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Adieu, but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart.

(from Anne Bronte’s “Farewell”)

i

“Be careful,” Asharil says, her fingers digging indents into his arms. She presses a hard kiss to his cheek, drawing back to look him straight in the eye. Her stare is golden, molten, unflinching. A demand, one that permits with no room for half-measure. “Stay with the others. Don’t go wandering off. There are wolves in these woods, and too many shems keen on seeing us harmed.”

“I know,” Talen says, throat tight. He blinks up at his sister, whose skin is washed pale and whose lips are a tight line of worry.

He hadn’t been scared of going on this hunt, before. Not really. But now –

Darkness whispers at the edge of his thoughts. They’ve lost others. He’s heard a hundred tales, stories the children tell each other, or things the adults murmur when they think none of the young ones are listening.

He hears. He knows.

Talen swallows. He presses up on his toes, planting a kiss against his sister’s cheek – an echo of the one he can still feel against his own skin. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Ar lath ma, Asharil. When I come home, I’ll be a better help to the Clan.”

And when he does come back, blood grimy beneath his fingernails and his heart still hammering with that strange tangle of joy and horror, nothing is ever quite the same. But Asharil’s delighted exclamation – one he hears from across the camp the moment he steps past the ring of aravels – is enough to soothe any darkness hiding in his mind.

ii

He kisses her forehead, right there by the fire.

Asharil’s stare flashes up, her hands stilling, though still the threads are tangled around her fingers. “What’s that for?”

For saying goodbye without words, he thinks. For you waking up tomorrow to an empty aravel. For how your heart will hurt.

Instead, Talens shrugs. “You look tired,” he offers, dropping onto the ground next to her.

She snorts. “And since when have you cared about that?”

She is, of course, right. A less selfish boy wouldn’t have his bags packed already. A less selfish boy would think of his sister.

But instead he tilts his head against her shoulder, drinking in this small, final comfort. Trying to allow himself to feel this – the guilt – and not that bright, beckoning excitement at the road before him. He should not be giddy with anticipation. He should be sick with regret already. “Of course I care,” he murmurs.

Asharil’s fingers again begin working the threads. Her chin tilts, her mouth grazing his temple, the line of his hair. A brief and fleeting touch, barely a kiss. “If you care,” she intones, leaning away again, “then you can help me with this weaving, da’len.”

iii

“You’re not terribly clever, little shadow, are you?”

Talen’s hunched over, his body a broken line arcing downward, knuckles white from how hard he’s gripping the table beneath him. It’s a miracle he wriggled out of his shirt without passing out, when he can hardly draw breath for the flare of pain in his ribs. When tears prickle, sharp and hot, in his eyes whenever Shira prods his skin, indelicate.

“They jumped me,” Talen hisses, breath hitching. “I couldn’t – There’s nothing –”

The words close off, his throat a vise that cannot be opened.

“Any one of the kids could’ve told you to stay away from Black Boot territory. They’re nasty bastards, always thinking we’re edging in on their shit territory. As if,” with a firm tug as she pulls the bandage into place.

Talen sucks in a startled gasp, dark patches blossoming before his eyes. He squeezes his eyelids shut, clamps his mouth into a line he hopes will firmly in place. Nostrils flaring, fingers squeezing at the table so hard, he’s surprised it doesn’t splinter.

“As if,” Shira continues, standing and brushing dust from her knees, “we’d want their blighted streets. You ever seen a mark worth snaring in West Stave? Of course not.”

But he can’t respond, too dizzy with the furious pain, the memory of the interaction – fists to his ribs, cutting words sharp in the air – too present behind his eyelids.

The warm and steadying weight of Shira’s hand on his shoulder. Patting him, meant to be reassuring. “You’ll be fine,” Shira says. “Just… be sensible. No crawling up gutters or skittering across rooftops this week, alright? Anyway.” The weight disappears. “I’ve got a thief lord to have a word or two with. That fucker doesn’t beat up one of my kids and saunter away without at a least a broken nose.”

His eyes flash open. “You don’t have to –”

Shira snorts. Her narrow body is a blade in the dim space between them. Primed for violence, hungry for it.. “Of course I do,” she drawls. “Can’t seem soft now, can I? You just stay here and stay safe, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

His ribs ache with the next breath, and it has nothing, this time, to do with the bruises pressed hard into his skin. “Ma serannas,” Talen murmurs, and he edges off the table and – before she can squirm away, or glare at him, or be more cross than she already is – he pushes himself up and kisses her cheek. A bare touch.

“Don’t you start with that,” she says. But still Shira drops a firm kiss right to the top of his head, her nose wrinkling even as she leans away. “And go have a bath. You still smell like blood, and this place is bad enough already.”

He watches her go, slouching her way from their warehouse, her shoulders tense with a barely reigned-in anger that will see Talen’s injuries avenged in some way. And though his body is one long, vicious ache –

Well. He sleeps very easily that night indeed.

iv

“I have to go,” he says.

Shira’s arms are all elbows, folded that hard across her chest. Sharp as blades. Ready to cut. “Right,” she says, curt. “Sure.”

His fingers curl against his palms, cut crescents into his palm. Still, he tries to breathe as evenly as he might. As steady as she taught him, even though he can feel Asharil’s distant gaze on him, like coals against his skin. “Thank you,” Talen says, his voice distant to even his own ears. “For everything. I’ll come visit when I can.”

And, because he’s saying goodbye, he steps in to kiss her cheek. The moment his lips touch her dark skin, Shira jerks back, as if she’s been burned. Her eyes blaze with a furious light, like forest fires in the distance, like pyres on the water. “Is she making you go? We can protect you, little shadow. You don’t need to do a blighted thing you don’t want to. Fuck the Dalish – if you want to stay –”

“I want to go.”

They’re quiet words, but they find their mark. Shira falls to an unfamiliar silence. He can see her chewing on the inside of her cheek, teeth sawing it to blood. Then, “Alright, whatever.” She sniffs, shrugging, her stare as tightly shuttered as their warehouse in the winter months. “If it’s what you want. We’ll see you when we see you.”

She leans down, places a dry, papery kiss on his forehead, and then turns and disappears into the crowd beyond. It’s not until they’re well outside of Ansburg, and his sister has been asleep for hours, that he finally allows the carefully contained tears to fall, to strike soft notes against the blankets pooled around him.

v

“I’m going,” he says, ducking beneath the low tent where his friend is secreted away. Evelyn looks up from the book she’s got unfolded in her lap, something one of their traders picked up for her when last passing through a village. And while Talen and Evelyn had amused themselves for hours reading the most offensive passages aloud – about the savage ways of the Dalish, their obscure blood rites and wild, ritualistic bacchanals – its the later passages on lost temples and artefacts that have caught Evelyn’s unfaltering attention.

Talen doesn’t see much point to trying to uncover pieces of an empire long since fallen to dust. But if Evelyn’s enamoured, he’ll bite his tongue.

“Do you know for how long?” she asks, placing a dried leaf between the pages and closing her tome. She unfolds her legs, standing and stretching. He’s still not used to seeing her with her vallaslin, but its suits her, he thinks distantly. More than it’s ever suited him.

He shrugs, leaning over to press a thoughtless kiss to her forehead. “I can’t say. The Keeper wants me to make contact with an Antivan clan with some obscure connection to a few of our hunters. We haven’t heard from them in years, so it may take me some time.”

Evelyn tucks her arms around his ribs, squeezing him into a tight, quick embrace. “Well,” she says, her mouth brushing his cheek, “If you end up near Antiva City, could you visit a book merchant? There’s this one book – it keeps getting referenced –”

And her hands have plunged down and picked up her book again. Evelyn rifles through the pages, in pursuit of the title in question. Talen huffs out a little laugh and leans against a tentpole, waiting.

He’ll have many hours alone on the road between the Marches and Antiva. His friend’s company, her enthusiasm and warmth, are worth waiting for.

vi

Virion’s mouth falls against his forehead, and Talen is certain he’ll be sick. “No,” he says, jerking away, and he’s not even sure how he manages to breathe the word out – not when his throat is this tight, when his hands shake so very badly, when his stomach has become a black knot of nausea. “I’m coming with you.”

Virion is as pale as dawn on a gray winter day. His hands, Talen knows, are just as cold, fingers stiff. At his side, Virion’s palm pulses a nauseating green as he steps backward. “We can’t know what’s on the other side,” he says, firm. “I won’t see you put in harm’s way, vhenan.” Another step, building an empty, frigid space between them. One meant to keep Talen safe, but –

“I’m not saying goodbye,” Talen insists, and even he can hear the wild edge to his voice. He can barely breathe, heart beating itself bloody against his chest, into a ragged, pulpy mess. “I’m not letting you do this alone, not when –”

He goes to step forward, to move closer, but Virion’s hand flashes forward, a flag in the air between them. “Don’t,” he grinds out. “Just – I have to do this, and I can’t if I’m worried about you. You must stay, Talen.”

Stay, he thinks. Stay, when this might be the end. There are no words.

Talen’s hands curl uselessly at his sides. He can’t fix this, he knows that, hasn’t been able to do a thing beyond look over Virion’s shoulder for him, beyond loving him desperately and beyond any possible measure, even as they fight their way toward darker and darker conclusions. Even as the Anchor roars to furious life, ready to devour Virion. Ready to devour all of them, to glut itself on the destruction of the entire world, all that they know and love.

“I’m going,” Virion says, and though he’s pale, he straights – impossibly noble, impossibly composed, when all Talen can feel is a razor-edged panic. He draws back further, pulling his hand close to his chest, cradling it. “And either I will die or I will live, and if it’s to be the former, vhenan, I will not take you with me. I refuse.”

There are tears, Talen knows, gathering in his eyes: as hot and furious as a brand. Marking him. Again, he shakes his head. “Virion,” he pleads, once more stepping forward. It can’t end like this, and if it is to end –

Say what Virion will, Talen refuses to live in a world in which this is their reality. In which Virion doesn’t step back through that mirror, and if his vhenan even thinks for a moment that he’ll face down the wolf alone, then he has made a mistake. It will not happen. Talen will not allow it.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.” Virion’s stare is soft, pale. Another step backwards, his mouth tight with pain. “I must go now. Cassandra –”

And before Talen can leap forward as Virion turns and disappears into the mirror, hands – strong and familiar and traitorous – reach out and clasp him. He is all fury, all wild desperation, surging forward against the bounds that keep him here, his throat open in a savage scream as he throws himself after Virion despite Cassandra’s grip.

And then, then he is nothing at all – the cool hiss of magic, the sound of a potion being opened, the irresistible pull of unconsciousness. Darkness and emptiness, familiar friends.

I will not say goodbye, his last thought. Then nothing.

(vii)

You’re awake, he murmurs, shifting in bed. The pool of blankets, soft and sumptuous, rustle around them as he slides upwards, leaning nearer. Needing to be close.

Virion’s forehead creases, some distant echo of pain. So it would appear. Then, his eyes opening, his gray gaze stretching upwards, And alive! What a lovely surprise.

Talen huffs, brushing his hand against Virion’s soft hair. I told you I wouldn’t say goodbye, he says, words soft and fragile. Feathers in the air between them, against the dim light of dawn beyond. So hello, vhenan.

And the kiss that follows – tremulous and gentle and certain, all at once, Talen’s fingers tracing the lines of Virion’s face as he folds himself, delicate as a shadow, against his lover – makes all the world right again. As simple as that: as coming home, as breathing, as his heart beating.

Aneth ara, Virion breathes against him, reaching to thread his fingers through Talen’s hair.

Their place, together. A hello worth a thousand goodbyes.

[mstigergun]

Warmth and wonder for everyone's favorite elf

Ask and ye shall receive!

Set in Talen’s first year in Ansburg with some made-up First Day traditions, because I can. Unabashed fluff that is just a slice of a time in Talen’s life in which he was really, really happy. Thanks for the prompt!

so fair to be seen

Here we come a-wassailingAmong the leaves so green;Here we come a-wand'ringSo fair to be seen.

“It’s like you’ve never seen a blighted tree before, little shadow.” Her hand bumps against his shoulder, a thoughtless tether as they slip through the murmuring crowd. Spikes of laughter pierce the cold air, as children squeal while racing around the square. Strings of little lanterns stretch between the crooked buildings, lighting up the habitually dark recesses of the north bank and bathing everything in a golden glow.

“I’ve seen trees,” Talen says, a little breathless despite himself. “Once or twice.”

That earns him a shivery laugh. Shira’s hand drops away and she rubs her palms together against the chill air. “You cold? I told you to bring a scarf.”

“I’m not cold.”

Of course it’s a lie, at least a little. Wintersend won’t be any better than Haring, which was cold enough to make him almost miss his aravel. He spent the whole month shivering beneath his blankets in Shira’s warehouse, until Jasper finally took pity and insisted they bunk together. Don’t know why she can’t get us somewhere better to live, Jasper had whispered in the plush depths of the night. A bleeding warehouse, Talen. On the water. Shira’s going to wake up some morning and find us all frozen, since she hogs the fire every night. Have to chip the ice off us before she can send us out to the south markets.

Oh, I’ll be fine, Talen had breathed, tucking his arms around his friend’s waist as Jasper tugged the blanket up around their chins. It’s just that you shems are delicate.

A cackle in the quiet warehouse, the only sound except for the distant sound of Shira’s snoring and the scurrying of rodent feet. Yeah, right. Now shut up and keep me warm with your superior physique.

So Dalish training in being miserable most of the time and not saying anything about it aside, he’s cold enough in the market that his fingers sting and his face feels stiff. But it almost doesn’t reach him, standing next to Shira as they watch the crowd before move, more a liquid than anything else. Like a flock of birds, singing songs into the wild sky before them.

And maybe it’s because there are so many people around – faces he knows, like Mariam from the inn where Shira likes to take them all for drinks if they’ve been especially good; or Sour Tom, who’ll melt gold trinkets into things easier to pawn and harder to trace; or the Hahren from the alienage, who Talen works very hard to avoid – or maybe it’s because of the lanterns above, or maybe it’s the tree, but…

He’s not cold, not in his bones. Just in his fingers and in the tips of his ears, and also his toes, if he’s really taking inventory.

It’s the tree, he decides, that makes the difference in the end, because as many trees as he’s seen in his life, he’s never seen anything like this one: a fir cut from the forest to the north of the city and propped up in the little hub of crooked alleyways and uneven, narrow streets. Its branches creak beneath the weight of the thousands of flickering candles, the strings of dried flowers and berries and strips of burlap cut from discarded sacks of grain. It stretches all the way into the blackness of the sky above, looming so large above them that Talen can feel the ground slip away beneath his feet.

The little cluster of dwarves in front of Talen and Shira jostles, and Jasper elbows his way past their broad bodies a moment later. “Here,” he says, shoving a crude mug into Talen’s hands. It’s hot, smarting against his cold fingers, and the liquid inside – dark and unknown – is so acrid that Talen actually winces.

Shira snorts, reaching to pluck the mug from Talen’s hand. “You’re too young to drink that shit.”

She tries for Jasper’s too, but he dances away, eyebrows shooting up. “Hey!” he cries. “It’s First Day, Shira. Aren’t you supposed to be something resembling kind and generous?”

“As if you deserve it. Anyway,” Shira’s gaze slides sideways, lights on one of their favourite fencers across the square. “You play nice, kittens. I’ve got business to do.” Like that, she disappears, a familiar and narrow shadow made up of hard edges and singular focus.

Talen shuffles his feet against the cobblestones. He huffs into his hands, staring up at the tree before them.

“Cold?” asks Jasper, sly. He edges closer, until his shoulder bumps against Talen, a thoughtless intimacy.

Talen snorts, watching as a child wanders up to the tree and places a folded piece of paper in its branches. Wishes for the next year, a tradition particular, Jasper has explained, to the north bank of Ansburg. They’ll burn the whole thing at the end of the night, right there in the square. Talen hopes someone’s thought to wish that they don’t set the whole neighbourhood aflame in the process. “You know I don’t get cold,” he tries, but his face is cold enough that the words are clumsy.

“Right,” drawls Jasper. “Of course. Still, all the same.” He  reaches and shoves his mug into Talen’s hands. A heartbeat later, and he’s unwound the coarse scarf from around his neck and tucks it around Talen’s with steady fingers as at ease picking pockets and tucking cards in tricky places as they are brushing against Talen’s skin. “Since it’s your first First Day, and all.”

The scarf is still warm from where it rested against his friend’s skin, and at once Talen can feel heat inching its way up his neck, stinging the cold from his fingertips. He breathes out a dry laugh, half-turns away as he looks again at the tree before them.

In the distance, some cluster has started into a song that must be well-known, since the melody is picked up in pockets around the crowd, off-tune and slurred. They stand, watching as men and women and children edge toward the tree to fill it with their wishes, or else to inhale the spicy forest smell. If Talen squints, he can even make out Cutter and Elly in the distance, cackling as they flick roasted nuts at some of the louder and more obnoxious singers.

Beside him, Jasper sniffs, rubbing his cuff against his nose. “Finish up fast,” he says. “If we’re going to be up all night listening to that, we’ll need to be proper drunk, and one mug won’t do. Plus,” with a conspiratorial tilt of his head, “Shira’ll be furious.”

Talen tips back the contents of the mug, hot and spiced and sharp enough to make his eyes water. “Right,” he says, thrusting the empty cup back into Jasper’s hands and reaching to tug the borrowed scarf closer. “Since that always works out in our favour.”

“She likes being mad at us. Gives her a sense of purpose – so really, Talen, it’s the kindest thing we could do. Since it’s First Day and all.”

“Since it’s First Day,” Talen repeats, sliding past the knot of dwarves and casting a half-wave in Sour Tom’s direction as they pick their way around the revellers toward the steaming pots of… whatever the festive concoction that still lingers on his tongue unpleasantly is.

And when, head pleasantly dizzy and his arm tucked around Jasper’s shoulders, his friend’s body a pleasant line of heat against his side, the tree finally is lit, its flames licking high enough that they must, Talen’s sure, scorch the very stars, well.

He doesn’t worry about a thing, not being cold, or the life he left behind, or what might happen if the sparks crackling off the damp branches land on the wrong surface.

It’s all brightness and warmth and Shira’s raspy laugh and Jasper’s weight against his ribs. And his own wish, quiet and tucked in the shadowed parts of his chest: to have this for the next year, and the one after that, and the one after that. To have this forever.

[mstigergun]

For Talen: 9, 12, 22, 31, 35, 38, 42 & 49

[here]

Thanks for the asks! I could talk about this elf all day. I got to your questions last, so a number of these were answered earlier. Links abound. <3

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Answered here

12. What is their favourite food?

Orlesian pastries. He loves them. He is vaguely and distantly irritated that he’s so fond of them, and also incredibly grateful that’s he’s active and has great metabolism, because he could probably eat pastries all day. Talen likes the savory ones and the sweet ones, and appreciates that they’re extravagant and foolish and likely a waste of time and resources but wow. Delicious.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

Talen’s more likely to give the cold shoulder than actually insult anyone who’s being an idiot. And then, if asked about that person, he’d be pretty blunt and succinct: I don’t care much for him or She’s unreliable. Don’t waste your time. 

If he’s really angry and it’s someone he can’t just walk away from, Talen doesn’t use insults so much as... enumerate the ways in which that person’s fucked up. For example, while he’s great at swallowing back a lot of his feelings about Asharil, they’ve had a number of blow-ups in which he’ll recount all of the ways in which she’s awful (you think you own me, you dismiss my competence, you’re arrogant and small-minded, and although you act it, you’re not my mother. i don’t need you and it’s sad that you’ve invested so much of your own ego in me when, really, you should be concerned about your own place in the Clan and what it is, precisely, you think you’re contributing by being demanding and over-bearing) and she’ll do the same right back.

Talen’s a lot more likely to frame those kind of interactions in the way a person makes him feel rather than in too many inherent traits (i.e., you’re infuriating instead of you’re an irredeemable idiot).

Oh, and threats. If someone is being spectacularly stupid and prejudiced and small-minded, Talen will gladly make threats he very much intends to follow through on. 

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing?

He does drink! And while Talen’s not a heavy drinker on the regular -- largely because he’s got a lot of things to worry about, from, like, being in the field and keeping everyone safe to not getting caught when picking pockets and being sneaky about the cards he has hidden away -- he has habitually used drinking as a way to cope with some of his feelings (which I mentioned over here). He’s very much a social drinker, but keeps his fingers on the pulse of how much he’s having and when he should stop.

If he does edge toward drunk, Talen gets a lot more relaxed. He’s liable to smile more and laugh more easily and he flirts a lot more. He doesn’t often get hangovers, but is predictably stoic through any he does wind up with.

As for his reaction when others are drunk, well. The sort of people Talen would be drinking with are those he quite likes, and so he’d think they were a little bit foolish, but also pretty adorable. He would be the sort of friend you want around when you’re drunk: supportive, kind, attentive, and thoughtful.

Although of course he’d make a few choice comments the morning after, all with the smallest, most indulgent of smirks.

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

Talen really loves Tale of the Champion. Like, really loves it. As in, has read multiple times and memorized favourite passages. It is, he knows, overblown and melodramatic and kind of a foolish thing for this wandering Dalish hunter to be obsessed with, but there you have it. He has a dog-eared copy he keeps tucked away so that no one in the Clan knows. After all, being obsessed with a man from Kirkwall and his elven boyfriend when he can’t be bothered to study Dalish culture and lore and history?

Another disappointment in a long string of disappointments.

As for an unguilty pleasure, spending time with Evelyn and Virion. It’s what’s expected, that he have friends, obviously, but it’s still pretty novel for him. If he’s had a shit trip through to Antiva or Nevarra, or has had a hard journey home, he always seeks out those two to take the edge off. They’re his home, and he’ll indulge himself by carving out blocks of time to just... visit.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Here

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

Here

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them?

Answered here

[mstigergun]

For the OC questions: 15, 20, 23, 42 for Talen! Also, as an extra: if asked to choose between the lives of innocents or his loved ones, who would he choose?

[here]

Thanks for the asks, Hayley! <3

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

Talen’s competent, which is a by-product of growing up with the Clan, wherein I figure everyone would need to chip in and help out with food prep, but also a by-product of spending some formative years in Ansburg and learning to make do with whatever they could pilfer. And so Talen’s gotten pretty good at the staples, but generally can’t be bothered with anything fancy. He can make most things taste fine, which is good enough for him.

Really good at trussing a bird, though. Those tricky fingers!

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes on?

Talen enjoys music and discovers a particularly soft spot for chamber music, of all things, when in Orlais. He’d definitely have favourites among Maryden’s catalogue and would perk up when his top picks came on (off the top of my head, I’d say he likes “Empress of Fire” and “Rise”). He’d also have a number of emotional attachments to certain traditional Dalish songs, although, as with most things Dalish-related, that would be hit or miss. Some he’d like, others he’d hate, all because of the emotional baggage that accompanied any particular song.

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces?

Talen’s extremely detail-oriented: he notices small things about people -- the way they hold their shoulders, or fuss with their hair, or where they tuck their coin purse -- and files those little observations away for later use. He’s not quite as good with names as he is with faces and, like, life details, but the rest of it he’s got down. It’s actually something that really bothers him about Orlais -- that he can’t quite read people in the same way.

Talen’s especially good at remembering details from conversations. He will retain piece of information, or snide comments, or half-drunk admissions, almost word-for-word. Anything he attaches value or importance to stays put. Which can be good (it gives him a lot to work with!) or can be really bad (he can really stew over the particulars of a conversation that didn’t seem to go well).

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

Talen has a conflicted relationship with goals. He ultimately sublimates his own desires beneath those of his sister and his Clan, deciding that whatever he would have made of his life matters less than what he ought to do for the good of Lavellan, and particularly for Asharil. So he doesn’t allow himself to want things too clearly: yes, he’ll think of short-term goals (find time to swing by Ansburg; explore the caves to the north of camp with Evelyn; speak to the tailor about having new leathers made), but he doesn’t regularly allow himself to imagine big things for himself. You know, the key life stuff: what he wants his life to look like, how and with whom he wants to live.

It all gets a bit better after Virion. And because they spend time away from Lavellan -- proper time, not just a brief trip -- Talen also gains enough space to really evaluate his life. Working with the Inquisition is eye-opening and, though his immediate goals are practical (save the world, help people, etc.), he knows that things will be different after.

Ultimately, his priorities are noble: he wants to see the world made better for people who’ve been wretchedly used and abused by the powers that be. He also wants to keep his loved ones close, and to keep them safe. To those ends, he would do anything.

[mstigergun]

9, 10, 14, 26, 38, and 49 for Talen, please!

[here]

You know I’m always ready to talk about my favourite prickly elf!

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals? 

Talen likes certain animals and certain animals like him.

To put that more sensibly, he likes animals that are a bit aloof, so he wouldn’t be a, you know, labrador retriever kind of person. He likes animals that are slow to offer affection and trust, but loyal once you have it, and it’s important to him that he has a working partnership with an animal? For example, he has a hart he absolutely adores, but he wouldn’t be the sort of person to scoop up a puppy to keep and cherish just because it’s adorable. But a wary hart, or an arrogant hunting dog, or a really sour cat for mousing? Those are his sorts of animal.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/etc?

Talen doesn’t really have much time for children, not because he doesn’t like kids, but because he doesn’t know how to interact with them in a regular way. When he was with Shira in Ansburg, there were a number of younger pickpockets and thieves and little ragamuffins kicking around, and that he understands: it’s almost a working relationship, a mentorship, and he gets that. He stops by Shira’s to see her regularly, and is always great with the kids she’s bringing up, but, again, that’s more of a mentorship.

If Asharil, for example, thrust a toddler into his arms, Talen wouldn’t have the first idea what to do. Even when he was a child, he didn’t fit in with or know how to interact with other kids. He’d probably be fine as an important adult in a child’s life, so long as it could be on his terms and the dynamic was one that made sense to him.

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal?

In Inquisition-verse, when he first tries Orlesian pastries, he decides they’re likely the greatest thing to ever exist.

Before that, he had a few really special meals: stolen loaves of bread eaten at the ends of wharves, pilfered bottles of wine with handfuls of grapes and dates. Talen can eat just about anything, so what makes food special to him is entirely the circumstance.

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions? 

This is a super cute question!

Talen’s instinct is to hide how he’s feeling, because he’s certain it won’t last. But as he becomes more self-assured, he is definitely a person who hums. Very, very quietly and only when he’s perfectly content and comfortable, but yes.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

There are a lot of traits Talen admires: confidence, charisma, thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion. He often wishes he were better at... being gentle with people?

Something he admires about Virion, in particular, is how good he is with people. He’s easy to talk to and genuine and clever, but he's also strong and resolute. He is, Talen thinks, the very embodiment of the Vir Bor’Assan -- he bends, but never breaks.

Talen wishes he were more like that.

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them?

Talen would probably say he’s not sentimental, but he absolutely is. He carried letters from Virion all across Thedas and kept a journal entry he wrote about his feelings for years so that he could give it to Virion at just the right time. He’s not a person who has a lot of belongings, but those that he keeps are really, really special. Gemstones and rocks and trinkets he collects with Evelyn, letters from Virion, small tokens from important moments in his life... He’s a bit of a memory magpie, collecting bits and pieces from everywhere because they’re representative of certain important moments or people or places or experiences.

He doesn’t have one item that embodies all of that, but he does have his own little collection of scraps of paper and strange objects that he loves, less because of what they are and more because of what they represent.

[openthepocketwatch]

3 or 15 for Evelyn!!

15. a letter to your OC from a companion they haven’t seen in a while

A piece of parchment in a Lavellan aravel. It was once tied with twine and tightly furled but now is almost flat. There is charcoal and soot on the edges of the paper, seemingly from the hands of the reader.

Evelyn,            Think of my surprise when I arrive in Starkhaven and the first name I hear from off a noble’s lips is yours. It seems you now have a reputation. After you and Virion’s last campaign, the smithy social circles seem to have talked quite a bit about your work. And from what I know about smithy social circles, it seems good. I don’t want you being too smug, but there was an offer from one of the nobles Virion visited. Virion is sure it means good things for the clan. I’ll be keeping an eye out, like usual. Clan Lavellan doesn’t need too much attention on it. But if we had to get attention for something, I’m glad it was your skills at making beautiful and entirely too deadly weapons.                 I’m sure you’ve already gotten it out of the Keeper, that I’m headed off to Sundermount. Istimaethoriel wants to take advantage of our relation with Sabrae, and…. I know, I know. You hate when I’ve been gone this long. I’ll try my best to get back before Harvestmere. I can hear you now, you’re protesting that I always say that, but this time it’s true. I haven’t seen you in far too long, lethallin.                I’m doing well. Virion sends his love. I can only image how mad you are to be cooped up at camp while we’re away. I’ll make up for it when we’re back. You know I’ll only hiking with you now under the most dire of circumstances, but getting you away from the forge is one of them.               I know Virion’s only supposed to pass on ‘official correspondence,’ but frankly, I don’t give a damn. I hope you like my gift. I found it in one of the smithys, one who spoke highly of you. A bit of adamantum, he said. All I knew is that it would be perfect for you.             Stay safe, lethallin, and hang on. Talen

[mstigergun]

the thief’s tale: an excerpt

6. someone describing a time your OC helped them

[prompted by @enviouspride and arguably set either in Letters-verse or Inglorious, but I’m headcanoning the former. Varric’s publisher sends him a chapter of an upcoming memoir and someone features rather prominently.]

[A stack of pages, copied in the practiced hand of a young scribe, who has titled the enclosure Excerpt fr The Thief’s Tale by Jasper Quick. Publication date of Bloomingtide 9:42 as part of forthcoming series on the Inquisition. With the excerpt, a note:]

Firecracker. Got wind of this from my publisher in Kirkwall. I can't imagine your prickly shadow knows, and he seems the private sort. See if you can keep him from burning the whole place down. My editor is a good woman, and Kirkwall has done its fair share of being on fire already. V.

I wiggled my wrists until they were chafed raw, and still nothing was to be done. We might have all run our mouths about Henry Silver's operations in Ansburg, but his henchmen and women knew how to hold someone captive. Even a slippery cutpurse used to sneaking his way free of any complications.

I'd nearly resigned myself to this ignoble end – crammed into a shipping crate in some long-forgotten warehouse to the river's north-east, when I heard a scuffle. Boot against wood, the soft breath-sound of a last gasp for life. The hard weight of bodies against damp boards.

At the time, I had only half-believed I would die. There was always a small corner of my spirit that knew someone would come for me. And while that corner had grown smaller and smaller in the intervening hours since my capture, still it persisted. Surely, someone would save me.

Of course that someone was Talen Lavellan.

The boards of the crate into which I'd been unceremoniously stuffed groaned, then cracked, then broke free. From the dark shadows, a familiar face, and even more familiar ears silhouettes against the sooty light of distant lanterns.

“Tight spot,” Talen offered as I rolled free from the crate.

I stood, uncoiling my muscles and trying not to wince too obviously at the bruises I knew would leave me dappled when finally we sorted out the rest of it.

The shadows of Silver's guards were loose and awkward against the floorboards. My nose wrinkled, involuntary. Surprised. More shocked than I had any right to be. “Are they –”

“Dead?” asked Talen. “Of course.” He huffed, then, rubbing the back of one hand – spattered with what looked like ink but must, I realized, have been blood – against his nose. In the dim light, his eyes were bright, glassy.

We'd never done it. Neither one of us. It was something we'd had plenty of cause to reflect on since he'd first materialized in Ansburg. I'd been so sure he must be intimately acquainted with murder, being from a wild Dalish clan. He'd been certain I must have killed, growing up on the cruel streets of a handful of shem cities.

But it was Talen who reached that dark milestone first. And all of my sake.

I thought perhaps to offer comfort, but always Talen was a step ahead of me. He never had much use for comfort anyway.

“We'll need to get rid of the bodies,” Talen murmured. “And you'll have to leave Ansburg for awhile.”

I didn't understand, not yet. After all, as far as I was concerned, the whole incident was a simple misunderstanding: certainly, Shira would be cross that I'd been poking around business decidedly not my own, but a crime lord couldn't possibly care that I'd unearthed one meager secret.

Lyrium smuggling was not, as I would soon learn, meager in any way. And Henry Silver’s problems extended far beyond one nosy pickpocket -- although, as it turned out, the honest efforts of one young thief could overturn a smuggling empire.

But then? I was as ignorant as a child in the cradle. “Leave?” I asked, huffing. I poked at one of the bodies with a toe, determined to squash the wriggling in my stomach I felt when looking into the man's empty, cold eyed. “Right. And leave you on your own?”

Usually, he'd have laughed. Then, though, his frown only deepened. “Silver will know they're missing. He'll finger you for it. We need to dump them in the river and –”

His stare, always so bright and attentive, stuttered around the warehouse. “We'll dump his crates too. Make it seem like they took off. And if you disappear, he may well believe you went with them. Or they killed you. I don't know. But if he sees you in South Market come the end of week, it won’t be pretty, Jasper.”

“As if he knows my face,” I tried weakly. “You may take notice, little shadow, but no one else –”

Already, Talen had turned away to the bodies, and so I shut my mouth and instead watched him. Jokes seemed thin indeed when one of the parties was bent over corpses. Talen searched their pockets with such ease, such an unthinking comfort with death, that it might have been easy to miss the fluttering of his eyelids. The shock I could read in his shoulders.

I could see it, because I felt it too. Something rotten in my belly, as slippery as curdled milk.

These were adult realms into which we'd stumbled. And now the fun was well and truly gone.

“I can't leave,” I again protested, though my voice gave our halfway through the sentiment. The air smelled like damp, like tar and blood and, distantly, smoke.

“It's not forever. Just – until Firstfall, maybe. Then you can come back and things will be normal. But no one can know, Jasper. Just – we'll dump the bodies and the crates, and you’ll leave.”

He was right. Maker help me, I could see it. If I stayed, Silver would make me. He'd hunt me and see me dead, and he'd ruin Shira in the same blow.

But after months? I would be forgettable.

Gone, I wasn't a threat. To Silver, to Shira, to my own bloody well-being.

And not to Talen.

That one may have been what saw my chin finally dip in agreement.

He glanced up from where he was crouched over one broken body and caught my minute nod. I can’t say, even now, if the expression on his face was the flicker of a smile or a frown, whether it was self-satisfied or quietly devastated. He never was an easy one to read, and the kaleidoscopic pattern of emotion roiling away inside my chest didn’t make figuring him out any easier. 

A moment passed in silence: me, a line of shadow in the warehouse, Talen, crouched over corpses. “Well,” he finally said, dry, even though I could swear his hands were shaking. May well have been the firelight, but the tension around his mouth told me otherwise. “You going to help or feel sorry for yourself?”

“Sorry for you, is more like it,” I laughed, crouching down to help him roll the body toward the hatch. “Months without me? You'll die of boredom!”

It took us hours to dispose of the bodies and crates, to clean up the blood Talen had left misting the air in his wake. It took hours more to steal enough supplies to see me gone from the city with more than a crooked smile and song in my heart. He saw me to the very outskirts, Talen, pressing the last coin from his purse into my hand before I left.

The sky was gray above us, the river a gasping, ragged mess as the winds roared up from the coast. I started out over the inky city which had become home, and which I wouldn't again see for months. The home I'd turned against myself, all for the sake of my curiosity and arrogance.

“Thank you, by the way,” I said, as I drank in the silhouette of Ansburg: the low and dark north shore, the delicate bridges, and triumphant Chantries and estates to the south.

“For what?” asked Talen. In the dawn light, I could barely make out the lines of his face, but I did see the shadow of his stare. The dark sheet of his hair, always tucked behind one ear.

“Oh, for saving my life,” I sighed. “And for dealing with Shira after – this. She'll be a fury, and you won't have me to remind her that you're her favourite.”

I meant it to sound easy. Familiar.

It came out too honest for that.

Still, he understood. Talen shrugged, sharp and unfinished. “You know I'll always come for you,” he said finally. One hand stretched upward and fussed with a strand of hair, a strange and sudden awkwardness it would take me more than a few months to name. “And Shira will be fine. She's no worse than what I left, believe me.”

“Alright,” I said, my heart a slow ache inside my chest. “Well. See you, then.”

His silence followed me for miles.

And when I finally did come back to the city, it was no surprise to find he'd taken care of me: everyone had heard rumours about Silver's double-crossing guards. Shira believed me when I said I'd gotten bored. No one knew my face or cared much about it, except for Talen Lavellan.

There aren't a whole lot of people you can rely on to always have your back, whether crammed into a wooden crate by some furious guards or caught in a steep gamble during a vicious game of cards. Talen was, and is still, I'm sure, the sort of person you can trust as a reflex: unthinking and certain.

Which is why it's no surprise to anyone who's ever known him that he's relied on these days by the Inquisition. And, if we're being anything resembling specific, by the Inquisitor himself. He might be a shadow, Talen Lavellan, but he was always a hell of a lot more reliable than my own.

But of course I've gotten ahead of myself. After all, I was just leaving Ansburg. Before I could return, the road in front of my dusty feet awaited. And I'd be criminally remiss if I skipped over the bandits, or the Qunari, or the demon in the mountains. Stories should, after all, be as sensible as libraries: one thing follows the next, and the overarching patterns emerge.

So, first things first since we’re being very proper, the river pirates...