Another Trystan Shortfic
basically just here to introduce his dynamic with his cousin, Jurian Amell :3 very mild themes of gender envy/dysphoria like you have to squint
Jurian. Tricky Jurian, lovable Jurian Amell. Everyone adored Jurian. That much had long since stopped being a secret for Trystan Hawke. He’d grown up desperately herding Bethany away whenever Jurian tried to show her his magical tricks too close to the line of sight of the Lothering Templars. Just because he’d made a dashing escape from the Circle didn’t mean that Trystan was allowed to risk the same for his little sister. That didn’t stop Bethany from fawning after him whenever he visited; it was once a year, maybe twice if the Templars to the north were hot on his tail.
When the Blight started, Trystan hadn’t been sure what would become of his second cousin, and for a long time, he hadn’t known. It really shouldn’t have come as any surprise to him to learn that he’d made friends with Naoise Cousland and Alistair Theirin, the Heroes of Ferelden. It should have come as less of a surprise that he was already familiar with Isabela and Anders. Lovable Jurian, friendly Jurian; why can’t you be more like our cousin, Trystan?
Jealousy pooled in the pit of his stomach as Jurian crossed across the room in front of him to curl up in one of the plush chairs by the fireplace. Even with Anders nestled at his side, Trystan felt the urge to wrap his arm around him as if to make a point. Jurian looked exactly like an Amell grandchild should; long black hair that pooled down his shoulders like ink, dark and thick lashes that framed blue eyes, naturally red lips that stood out against his pale and freckled skin; if Trystan didn’t know better, he would say Jurian could have been a spitting image of his mother Revka, from the portraits that he had seen.
Trystan was anything but. He looked too much like Malcolm, and he knew it. Brown hair that was too flyaway for him to tame, brown eyes that had been likened to mud before, Malcolm’s prominent and aquiline nose that was crooked from one too many breaks that hadn’t healed properly. He didn’t look anything like an Amell, and he could never have the courage to sit like Jurian does, with a short bathrobe that rose up past his thighs and that plummeted down at the neckline to reveal the valley between his breasts. Lovely Jurian, he recalled, Jurian from the forests, Jurian in the poems. The thought of revealing himself like that made him nauseous in the pit of his stomach.
Isabela had done a triple-take, he knew, and even Fenris had paused to watch him walk across the room. If it wasn’t for the fact that Anders eyes were closed, exhausted from long hours in the clinic, Trystan knew he would be wondering if Anders’s eyes still followed his cousin like they did when they were younger, in the Circle.
Guilt was always quick to follow those thoughts. It wasn’t Anders’s fault, and if he was being honest with himself, it wasn’t Jurian’s, either. He had no business wishing for his cousin’s life. At least he still had his family; Jurian had no one to lean on but the rare times he would come to visit the estate in Kirkwall. It wasn’t like he lived there, a part of the family. Jurian had done anything he could to survive.
FIN