Of Wolves (or, Little Red Riding Teagan and the Big Bad Cauthrien)
Title: Of Wolves (or, Little Red Riding Teagan and the Big Bad Cauthrien)
Authors: Cherith and Serindrana
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairing: Ser Cauthrien/Bann Teagan
Rating: M
Wordcount: ~15,00
Summary: The Regent has taken Ferelden and the paths have all grown dark. Teagan’s brother has taken ill, but on his way to Rainsfere, he meets a wolf on the road… (also on ff.net and LJ)
Notes: A fairytale AU, and our holiday gift to all of our readers. We’re working on several longer offerings at the moment, but none are quite ready. Hopefully this will delight as it tides you over!
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And this is today’s holiday fic offering from me! Go take a look - Cherith and I are really proud of how this one turned out.
To mark the occasion! With added amazing art by EvilTwinOfMe, commissioned by Cherith. :D
…. This art. No lie, this has been the background on my iPad since I got it. So great.
[This one’s going largely under a cut due to potentially triggering material. Per the title, this installment includes violence directed at a pregnant woman and traumatic miscarriage, along with character insensitivity to some aspects.
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M is for Miscarriage
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Athenril’s fingers dig into the woman’s upper arm as she pounds a fist against the finely carved door of the estate. It’s the dead of night, moon obscured by endless clouds. Wind howls through Hightown, shutters banging and creaking, gardens loosing not only delicate scents but also the uneasy sounds of trees and brushes in a blank stone city. The sea and sky are uneasy, and rumors say that the qunari are as well.
It’s a shit time to be out, even for women like the two of them who are well-versed in walking in shadows and using the screaming of the heavens to hide their movements.
The door finally swings open, and it’s not a servant who looks out, or the owner of the manse, but a woman with curling blonde hair, a fine evening robe thrown over what looks to be nothing at all, and a scowl.
“What in the Void do you think you’re doing here, Athenril?” Elegant snaps.
Warning: There is singing in there. No laughing at that! Although actually, I have heard that laughter is very good for the soul. So do laugh to your hearts content, if that is what you feel like doing!
This is what I am reading/singing, and I think you should check these terrific people out if you have not already:
Anders’ Favourite Things (I actually do not know if it has a title for real, so that is just my placeholder) - myjusticecake
C as in Chantry - ilikemyscars
Of Wolves - Cherith and Serindrana
L is for Lithium - anonymouscatastrophe
Yes. Yes, I really do like character alphabets, yes.
And I really want to read something with Merrill dialogue next!
Oh, Combo. I’ve said this before, but your voice is so lovely and adorable. And thank you for saying such nice things.

Tumblr Crushes:
I forgot that asks don’t like less-than-3 hearts. Just imagine they’re there. :)
Scattered Coin :: J is for Jeweler [Athenril ABCs]
[The last ‘installment’, so to speak, in the concerns-of-Bethany’s-imprisonment… bit. Though I’m sure I’ll return to it later.]
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J is for Jeweler
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She’s standing idle in Lowtown, at a long table laden with trinkets, all the petty ones that the woman who runs the stall won’t mind nicked or stolen, if it should happen. They’re all worthless - pretty baubles, but ones made of false stone or poor-quality glass, ones that will shatter easily or lose their luster within a year.
The owner is chatting with a customer, all flourish and grace, and Athenril thumbs the latch on the small, finely carved wooden box she’s brought her. Inside are the real thing - glass orbs with real lyrium inside (the only lyrium she’ll trade in), pearls from Rialto Bay, gold and precious stone. Rialda won’t be able to afford them all, not immediately, and Athenril will have more quiet stops to make throughout the next week. But the shipment is good and, failing her usual merchants and fences, there are always the more adventurous nobles.
She thumbs at her lip lazily with her leather-gloved hand (newly made, not as nice as the last), and scans the table.
It’s been a month since she returned to Kirkwall. Things continue on. Hawke is up in Hightown, negotiating the return of the family mansion. Aveline remains captain of the guard. There is new wealth in the city, courtesy of Varric Tethras, and she’s edging around the borders of it, dipping in when she can.
She’s begun to save up for more than protection and gear and the knowledge that she is, in her own way, rich - rich in gold and in favors and in bodies. Now she sets aside coin and trinkets not to have them set aside, but because, one day, she wants out of this city. She wants away from miserable Ostwick, too. There aren’t many places ready to welcome a smuggler, let alone an elf, but she’s begun having more and more dreams of settling down. Of being done.
Though what she would do with herself then, she’s uncertain.
The proprietor’s chatter is endless, and Athenril only comes back to herself when she glimpses the tines of a hair comb, a fall of lovely beads. They’re iridescent blue and green and purple, peacock-colored.
And they’re familiar.
She frowns and leans closer, reaching out to pluck it from the mass. The beads, she knows, are Nevarran. The comb is worth at least five sovereigns. It doesn’t belong.
It belongs in the curling, dark hair of a woman she’s never going to see again, who is foolish and lost. Her fingers fold tight around it except for her immobilized two, left loose by Bethany’s magic. Her lips and jaw go tense.
She is not a particularly sentimental person, but this comb was a gift, one of the few she has ever given.
It’s up her sleeve in another breath, the box braced on her hip, and she retreats before the merchant glances to her again. She has other customers.
And before that, she has a visit to make.
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“Gamlen Amell,” she says, intoxicating smoke of the Blooming Rose’s main room curling around her. She keeps her tone light, her usual drawl, but she can see him tense.
“What d’you want?” he mutters, not sparing her a glance.
She slides up to the bar beside him and sets down Bethany’s hair comb.
He drains his cup. “What?”
“Would you look at that - your memory’s starting to go along with your hair and your dick,” Athenril says with a shrug. “Either that or your eyes. How’d this get on Rialda’s table?”
“Huh? How should I know. Probably stole it, or bought it from you.”
She hums softly, leaning back a little. The fingers of her left hand drum on the polished wood. “Not from me. How much would you say it’s worth?”
“Two silver,” he replies, quickly enough that she knows he’s quoting the merchant’s payment. Her blood runs hot, then cold, and she regards him silently.
And then she reaches out and grabs the collar of his shirt, dragging him close.
“That belonged to your niece,” Athenril purred low into his ear. “It was a gift. From me. And not only was it a gift, it was a rather expensive one. She’s gone now, no thanks to you, and I will be honest with you - that you sold it, and at such a loss, no less, disgusts me.”
She lets go, pushing him aside.
“Not that you ever don’t disgust me.”
“It’s worth something?” Gamlen asks, and her heel catches the bar of the stool he’s sitting on, tugging it sharply towards her and sending him tumbling to the floor. She grabs up the comb again and stands, stepping over him.
“Yeah,” she said. “But you wouldn’t have any idea, would you.”
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That night she sits on one of the walls overlooking the harbor, comb in hand, thumb rubbing over the beads and turning them on the wires that hold them in place. It’s a soothing sort of motion, endless fiddling on round, quality glass. She wonders if Bethany’s thumbs ever worked these paths.
The Gallows are illuminated even from this distance by endless torches. She fancies she can make out the movements of templars, or glimpse the shadow of a mage in a far-off window. It’s a prison, a blighted prison, no better than the slave quarters in Minrathous. And yet Bethany walked to it, took those stairs instead of being dragged.
And she left behind a comb.
What else did she leave behind? Athenril isn’t sure she wants to know, isn’t sure she wants to see Bethany’s life scattered in pieces, reduced to a copper here, a copper there. The girl, for all her foolishness, her naivete, doesn’t deserve that. Athenril doesn’t want to see that.
“All things in this world are finite; what one man loses, another has gained, ” she mutters to herself. The words are twisted, but she’s forgotten the original with the passing of time and reality.
Bethany would know the right of it.
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