I wanted a piece that emphasized her height, as well as her identity as a serious warrior, and oh wow this is it. Thank you so much for your incredible work!! This is amazing. I mean she looks intimidating af. She looks like a super hero. <3
Abelas makes Sene paper cranes in the evenings. They fly around the tent, and they get tangled in her hair. They are beautiful, and they make her laugh, and this makes them both happy.
But sometimes, outside, where the world is mean, and the light is too bright, she gets lost. Solas made butterflies, not paper cranes. Where is the line between nature and the thing you wish you could love? Sene asks herself that, sometimes.
Sene, just being Sene. I wrote a little piece for this one, a sequel to the one where Sene and Solas meet for the first time. It’s called:
Willow
Sene had always been scribbly. She woke up in a weird hut somewhere in the middle of the weird mountains. What the fuck? She was not sure whether she’d said it out loud or just inside her own curly, scribbly head. She looked around.
There was a spindly elf in the room there with her, refilling a pitcher of water by the stove. She was dressed in trim, ragtag clothing. She must have been fourteen years old. Maybe fifteen? She had huge eyes.
When she saw Sene, she dropped the pitcher. It was made of tin or something. It clanged hard to the floor. “Oh,” she said. “You—I didn’t know you’d be awake, I swear.”
“Where am I?” said Sene.
The elf dropped to her knees on the red carpet. A disturbing display. “I beg your forgiveness,” she said, shivering, “and your blessing. I am but a humble servant.”
“But a humble what?” said Sene. She flung her legs over the side of the bed, put her bare feet on the floor. She was annoyed. Not by the elf, just in general. “Please don’t do that.”
“You are back in Haven, my lady,” said the elf, still pressing her forehead to the floor. “They say you saved us.”
“Who says?” said Sene. She got down on one knee, dragged the tiny elf to her feet. Sene was tall and strong. The elf cowered, backed away. “Don’t do that. It’s okay. I’m just an elf, like you.”
“But the Breach stopped growing,” said the elf, holding her hands over her face.
Sene thought she must be emitting a bright light or something, but when she checked, she was still pretty dull. She was just Sene. “The Breach?”
“Yes,” said the elf, “just like the mark on your hand.”
“Mark?” She got light-headed. She remembered. Sick, gross demons. Magic everywhere. Also, people asking her to do things. The room stopped spinning. She looked down at her hand. She sighed and gritted her teeth. It was real. “Fuck,” she said.
“It’s all anyone has talked about for the past three days,” said the elf.
“Three days?” Sene looked at her. She could feel her own hair, sticking and gross. It was knotted into the same braid she’d stuck it in the morning before the Conclave. The fucking Conclave. She could have killed Deshanna. “It’s been three days?”
But then, her hand—it crackled. It turned green? This scared the shit out of her. She closed it into a fist and clutched it to her chest, and she remembered something else.
“What is your name?” she said to the servant elf.
“Willow,” said the elf, “my lady.” She lowered her chin, refused to look Sene in the eye.
“Willow,” said Sene. “Good. Willow. Can you tell me—where is that big elf? He knows about this stuff, about the rifts. He’s really bald, tall, with weird magic. Kind of—”
“Cute?” said Willow, she looked up, hesitant, pink in her freckled cheeks.
“Yes,” said Sene, smiling, but feeling the magic in her wrist, hot and unsteady and making her sweat. “Very cute. Yes. Where is he?”
“He sleeps in a hut next to the apothecary, my lady. His name is Solas.”
“Right,” said Sene. "Solas. That was his name.”
“I can take you to him,” said Willow.
“That would be good,” said Sene. But she was so dizzy. She stumbled a little. Willow caught her, but she nearly crumbled beneath Sene’s weight and had to steady herself against a heavy wooden bookshelf. The thing jangled and something fell to the floor and shattered into a million pieces.
“Shit,” said Willow.
“It’s okay,” said Sene. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You know he watched you while you slept,” said Willow, holding Sene firmly around the waist.
“Who did?” said Sene. She shoved her left hand into her pocket. Out of sight, out of mind?
“Solas.”
“Solas?”
“Yes, the cute elven man.”
“Oh, right. Duh,” said Sene. She looked around at all the lanterns. It was day. She could tell even though the shutters were closed on the windows. She thought she’d need a jacket before going outside. But then, she became suddenly self-conscious. She blushed. She looked down at Willow the serving elf. “Wait. He watched me?”
Willow nodded. “He put a cold rag on your forehead.”
Sene touched her own forehead. She was both embarrassed but also kind of shivery. A cute man had watched her in her sleep and put a cold rag on her forehead. She shook out her head, felt her hair snag on Willow’s earring. “Oh, fuck,” said Sene. “I’m so sorry. My hair is a shit show right now.”
“It’s all right,” said Willow, tugging the hair free with nimble fingers. She then tucked the piece of hair back into Sene’s braid, just like that. When she did this, Sene was overcome with emotion. She had never been so thankful for anyone or anything in her entire life. She pulled the little elf in and hugged her furiously.
“Thank you,” she said, close to tears. Fuck. “Thank you, Willow.”
Willow was taken aback. She was just a servant. But the Herald of Andraste was here now, and she was warm and big and safe-feeling. Gracious. She seemed to radiate heat from her very core, but she still just smelled like sweat, and lemons. The little elf named Willow knew it then, the truth—that the world was good again if Sene was in it. They would be saved.
Sene and Solas Masterpost | The Dead Season (at AO3)
