A/N: For combination-nc on her birthday.
This could, if you wished it to, go along with the other Bethany/Isabela stuff I’ve written (not that there’s a ton of it, but it’s out there).
Title: The Whole Story
Pairing: Bethany/Isabela
Rating: Not exactly what I’d call M, but let’s say NSFW?
Summary: Bethany asks Isabela to write a story about them, but Isabela suffers a bit of writer’s block.
——
Isabela sat her table in the Hanged Man with quill set to parchment and an a bottle of ink in just the right spot ready for when she needed it. Only she hadn’t needed it at all yet, and it was distressing her. At least once Varric had come over and pushed a tankard into her shoulder wondering if she had anything written yet. She hated that she only had a single line on the parchment to show him. Not that it was a race or anything of course, but there was always gold or drinks on the line when one of them finished a story, and Isabela didn’t like to lose.
She tapped the quill against the table, ink dropping in dark dots against the wood. It filled in divots from knives and mugs and she had to move her parchment more than once to keep from staining it.
Under some perfectly delicious amount of duress she had agreed to write Bethany a story. Writing fiction about one’s friends when it was understood that they might read it once it was published, where she could claim some ignorance over the matter? Well, that was one thing. Writing a story for Bethany - beautiful and despite her recent best efforts, still desperately naive Bethany - was another thing altogether. Especially if she was to keep their names intact.
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chileancarmenere replied to your post: Prompt Me?
Carver and Hawke, Wounded Coast
I’m still working on these, I have a few left still.
… Putting this one under a cut because it too got a little longer than I thought it would. Hope you like it, or has any semblance to something you were interested in - sometimes I’m never quite sure.
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chakwas replied to your post: Prompt Me?
I’d like to see your Meredith/Elsa now :3
What are you people doing to me? Giving me all these prompts that I cannot complete in just a few hundred words. It’s a problem. Anyhow, I’m sticking this one under a cut too because it got WAY out of hand.
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mahuika replied to your post: Prompt Me?
Always request Meresino. Er, specific prompt would be he he accidentally wakes her in the middle of the night. c:
My first attempt at Meresino (just for you <3)…
——
In his dream, he fought a shadowed foe. Everything in the Fade was tinged with red and he did not know if it was from the blood he’d spilled or if it was part of the challenge he faced across the veil. Whichever was true, he wiped his sleeve across his brow, if there was blood there he hoped to rid himself of it, but the strange colors did not go away.
He twisted to strike out with his staff, catching the shadow at chest height and hoping that it would be the last he needed. With an echoing and odd sound, somehow muffled by the effects of the Fade. The shadow dispersed and then disappeared completely.
A moment later there were two and they came at him from opposites sides and behind each of them, more formed in the distance. They were shaped like humans and lashed out with blood and magic and staff at the one on his left. He heard the distinct thunk of wood on metal and then his staff stopped, held fast by the shadow. The momentum had him following through the swing and brought him around to face the second one.
It moved in hypnotizing whorls and he couldn’t help but watch. He realized too late that it was not moving in front of him, but around him. He was sinking inside it, and it inside him and he choked on the thickness of it in his throat. Orsino tried to cough but there was only the subtle shift of red shadow around him. Instead of waiting for it to sweep him away, he tried to put through it, hoping to come out on the other side.
When he stopped his hands came in contact with a stone wall. A warm hand was on his shoulder. He jerked to the side, and turned to find a weary and heavy-lidded Meredith at his side. She was the brightest spot in the dark room and as he took a step towards her, she brought a red sword rose up between them, the tip mere inches from his chest.
“You screamed,” she said and there was no pity in her words. Her words were as calculated and clipped as if she were speaking to one of her more dim-witted templars. ”And got out of bed. In. Your. Sleep.” He heard the question, despite the chill and distance in her voice.
He answered as he always did. “Yes. And I returned.”
It was a rote response, something he said each time the Fade tried to best him when he was least prepared to fight back. It wasn’t the first time it had happened while he slept next to Meredith and he doubted it would be the last.
Meredith gave a sharp nod and he heard the rustle of her shift as she placed her sword back against the wall and made her way across the room.
“Good. Then come back to bed.”
This got out of my control enough that I’m sticking in a read more. I hope you like it though! (There might be dancing.) <3
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fragilespark replied to your post: Prompt Me?
Aveline/Fenris sparring with each other’s weapons?
Aveline was certain that if she could talk Hawke’s mabari into helping her whip her new guardsmen into shape, then surely she could reason with Fenris to do the same.
She was relentless and still it seemed no amount of Aggregio was going to convince him a day or two of training wouldn’t be so bad. He was too stubborn by half, that elf and she knew it well- the set of his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched each time he refused, arms crossed over his chest. But stubborn was her life-long companion and she refused to give up, she just changed tactics.
She found there was one thing he would agree to.
It was what just passed for morning when the sky was just light enough to follow a path without torchlight when he met her in the training yard behind the barracks. His sword was slung across his back, and just a hint of a smirk played on his lips.
Perhaps it wasn’t that he agreed with her or thought it was worth his time as she kept saying it would be, only that she’d worn down his patience. A thing they both kept in short supply.
She greeted him with a hesitant smile and her sword. Wesley’s shield had been left hanging on the wall of her office.
Neither of them said anything- it felt weird to thank him for showing up- so by the time he met her in the middle of the yard, she squared off against him and nodded at him to show she was ready.
Their first round was comfortable, quick and she only got the upperhand on him because she knew the training yard better and worked him back toward the posts. The second round went much the same, and the third. Though in the third it was him that caught her off-guard. By then, she could see the relaxation in him, the idea that he’d given into the spar and wasn’t holding anything back. The adjustment was slow, swords matched to each other and not against a common enemy but they had found their way towards balance. While they were both flush and winded, and quenching dry throats with long drinks of water, he agreed to one last round for the morning.
As they made their way back to the center of the field, she suggested a trade: ”Your sword for mine- just this once.” When he raised an eyebrow and made a noise that sounded like he was about to growl at her - something she imagined about giving up his weapon to anyone, not just her - she explained further.
“Different weapons, different weights and balance, it should be enough to provide us with more of a challenge.” She smiled when he did.
When she landed on her back, Fenris over her and her sword dug into the ground next to her, Aveline realized another thing they had in common: neither of them could walk away from a decent challenge.
(And perhaps they were more evenly matched than she had anticipated.)
A/N: Chapter Four. I spy the beginnings of a plot. Or something like that.
Summary: This is the story of Teza Surana, a girl that’s lived in Kinloch Tower nearly all her life (at least as long as she can remember) and all she ever wanted was to be free. Trying to help her friend propels her into a kind of freedom, one she’s not sure she wants. By then, it’s too late to change her mind.
Words: 1,463 (Total: 4,565)
Rating: T (for now)
Pairings: The very beginnings of Surana/Cullen
AO3 Link: Woven of Dust and Starlight
Tumblr: #TEZA SURANA
——
Potential for Destruction
She lied.
In the moment, she had been sincere. She wanted nothing more than to keep her promise to Jowan, to keep her eyes on him and say, yes. Yes, she would keep this promise. She had been no intention of breaking the rules, drawing attention to herself, or of pursuing any relationship with anyone, least of all a templar.
Teza had been alone for so long: alone inside herself, with her wishes and dreams of the outside world; alone in the tower where only if she was very clever and very lucky would she be allowed to live out all of her years; alone even amongst her friends. She didn’t feel very worthy of anyone’s attentions. She didn’t feel very worthy of much. Her promise should have been the easiest one ever to keep.
Jowan had nodded as though he believed her and left her alone in the chapel, alone with her prayers.
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A/N: Chapter Three. Right now there’s still not much to say about the plot but this:
Summary: This is the story of Teza Surana, a girl that’s lived in Kinloch Tower nearly all her life (at least as long as she can remember) and all she ever wanted was to be free. Trying to help her friend propels her into a kind of freedom, one she’s not sure she wants. By then, it’s too late to change her mind.
Words: 1,025 (Total: 3,108)
Rating: T (for now)
Pairings: None (again, for now)
AO3 Link: Woven of Dust and Starlight
Tumblr: Chapter One: Trouble Inside and Out Chapter Two: A Dwindling Resource
——
A Tilted Axis
It was unclear when she and Jowan actually became friends. The change between them came so gradually, hidden in those tiny moments she recognized as something separate from life in the tower, that she never noticed it happening. But it did happen, and the further she grew from Jeanne, the closer she drew to Jowan, huddled together in abandoned corners of the library pouring over history books, maps, anything with a connection to the outside world. He never told her how ridiculous her ideas were, how the sound of rain on stone would never sound like the tremble of magic under skin, or how her ache for freedom could never be sated. He indulged her in a way that she craved, that she could revel in and the weight of circle walls retreated just a little.
By the time they were sixteen, it was clear there was something between them, something that spanned a greater distance than friendship. He kissed her once, late at night when the tower was quiet, and they were stealing back to their rooms from a late night of studies. It was quick; the moment passing with the same fumbling intensity with which it had begun. Jowan had muttered a flustered apology and excused himself in a hurry. Teza couldn’t think that it had felt anything other than strange and awkward, and in the morning when Jowan avoided talking about it, she was relieved.
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A/N: Chapter Two. Thanks to qunrapah for helping me read through it. Right now there’s still not much to say about the plot but this:
Summary: This is the story of Teza Surana, a girl that’s lived in Kinloch Tower nearly all her life (at least as long as she can remember) and all she ever wanted was to be free. Trying to help her friend propels her into a kind of freedom, one she’s not sure she wants. By then, it’s too late to change her mind.
Words: 932 (Total: 2,051)
Rating: T (for now)
Pairings: None (again, for now)
AO3 Link: Woven of Dust and Starlight
Tumblr: Chapter One: Trouble Inside and Out
——
A Dwindling Resource
By the time Teza was thirteen, she realized there were many lessons to be learned in the tower, but very few of them had anything to do with the things the Enchanters thought they were teaching. Some were merely a matter of numbers: that she could count on one hand the apprentices that had lived in the tower for as many years as she had, that there were far fewer elven mages than human ones, and the number of apprentices that knew their families outside the tower were disappointingly few. It wasn’t just that the circle disapproved of continuing communication between parents and their children of the tower, but that so many of them had been given over to the templars or chantries, or simply, like she, been left for someone to discover.
Other lessons were more abstract but the knowledge of them burrowed so far down inside her, that Teza knew she could never forget them: how difficult it was to control her emotions and by extension, her magic; that no matter who she was, what she knew, or how long she lived in the tower, humans would always treat her like a “knife-eared” slave; and that there were far worse things a templar could do than take one’s mind away.
Teza was exhausted by the tower, of its stone walls and still, blue lake and the world beyond its shores that didn’t even know she existed. It wasn’t that she fancied herself anything special, or that could think of a reason why anyone might want to know she was there. The silence from the world beyond the lake was deafening and expansive and like the dark abyss of night she saw from the windows. If she let herself focus on it, she would fall into it and could not climb back out.
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