Letters We Should've Sent

Eight years pass and they both keep track of it, words they didn't share but should have. Words that might have made all the difference.

(very minor DAV spoilers sprinkled throughout)

Rating: T? If that? Word Count: 4,880

[ao3 link]

Preview

Solas, 

I am on my way to Orlais, and the sunrise is clearing the fog from a meadow where I’ve made camp, and I am thinking of you. Thinking of moments like this from years past, where we would rise before the others and walk to the edge of our campsite for a few stolen moments alone at dawn. I cannot help but wonder if you might think of them too, wherever you are now. Is it warm there? Are you in a city? The mountains? 

To have known it all, or what felt like it all, for so long, and now to have nothing is a wound I fear will never heal. How am I supposed to look at these places we once walked together the same way? How am I supposed to continue on like this - like everything is just how it was?

You are gone and I am…this. A woman broken by grief and anger and duty. Someone I no longer like or recognize and I’m sure you wouldn’t either. 

All anyone sees anymore is The Inquisitor. Even with the inquisition disbanded. 

I am no longer a woman or an elf or a person at all. I haven’t been in so long. I have become something other, entirely not my own and yet not belonging to anyone in particular either. I am not a figurehead of the chantry or a single nation, I do not belong to the humans or the elves or anyone else. It feels as though I have given away a small piece of myself to everyone that’s ever asked and now I am hollowed out, staring at a sunrise and wishing I had left it all behind to end the world with you. 

I can’t keep myself from writing letters, filling pages and pages with thoughts I wish I were mindlessly sharing with you, knowing I’ll never send them.

I don’t even know if I ought to write vhenan on these letters anymore. To write my love on paper feels foolish, even if you’ll never see it. But then you know - you have to know. I will never love another as I loved you. I will never see another sunrise and think of anything but the mornings where you told me you loved me and always would.

Were you the god of lies even then? 

-Morinne

it begins

The Broken Chosen - Epilogue

she's complete! surprise!

Birdsong

“We didn’t have to - I mean,” you try to find the right words, the ones that would make him stay with you for the evening. “You don’t have to go.”

“I was trying to be polite, innocent little bird,” he raises an eyebrow in surprise, studying you again. You sit up, leaning back on your hands as you ignore the urge to correct your sleepshirt, well aware that one breast is nearly exposed from how it now hangs. “But look at you, such a pretty mess.”

“I want you,” you hear yourself say, shocked at the bold admission. You’ve been holding back the truth of how badly you want him, but with the way his body reacted to yours, maybe it isn’t as big a long shot as you’d been telling yourself… “I’ve wanted you for a long time. I want you to stay.”

----

The first time you let Astarion bite your neck, and you're surprised to find just how badly it makes you want him.

Rating: E Word Count: 2,600 Content: 18+, smut, afab reader, cunnilingus, oral sex, PiV, creampie, breeding kink if you look really hard, vampire bites,

[ao3 link]

Hold me Like a Knife - Chapter 12: At the End of a Long Night

“You kiss me like that and believe I’d just let you go to bed?”

“I thought the blood would distract you, yeah.”

“Wretched woman,” he breathes, shaking his head. Are his pupils always this wide in the dark or is it the blood? She’s not sure.

“Oh, so you didn’t enjoy it? Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Liar,” she snorts, smiling. Halia takes a step closer as she speaks, watching the way his gaze traces every movement. His mouth is still curved in an almost smile as he appraises her, so she can’t help but break his line of thought by saying, “You’re so adorable when you’re thinking of what to say.”

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 10: Three Little Words

“Sex is just as much about control and power as it is about pleasure,” she says simply. “Everything comes down to control and power, in fact.”

“I’d have thought everything to you comes down to murder.”

“What is murder besides the ultimate show of control?”

“Ah, an unsatisfied Halia is a very serious Halia, good to know,” he snorts, and she just groans, laying her head on her hands. “I’ll add that to the murderous and serious Halia from the other night.”

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 9: Square Peg, Round Hole

“Is that all you came here for? Should I send you home to your new lover?” “Jealousy looks terrible on you.”

“Oh please, Halia,” he scoffs, “we’ve never been faithful to one another. Let’s not rewrite history now for the sake of this argument.”

“You’re irritating.”

“And you’re a brat.”

“Fair,” she concedes. It’s true. So she changes the subject. “I need any information you have on Cazador Szarr.”

writing patterns tag game!

i was gonna do this on the beach but realized how tedious the linking would be and promptly stopped. I was tagged by @aevallare who is not only so incredibly talented but also has incredible tits

we're going in order of what's been opened in my google docs if that's okay with everyone. also all links are ao3. i also only have 5 since the first two consume so much of my brain power. is there a pattern? i don't think so, but happy to leave it up to your interpretation.

i'll tag @brain-rot-central @fangswbenefits and anyone else with multiple fics that would like to participate!

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 8: And They Were Roommates

“Well from what I’ve come to understand, you need to be so full of blood that your vampiric hunger is no longer a bother to even have the chance to conceive the little beast, so until I know how to feed you, there’s not much to be said about the whole damned thing.”

He tuts at her, and smirks as she makes a face in irritation. “So quick to give up?”

“You know what, Astarion? I’ve decided you aren’t actually charming, just annoying.” 

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 7: Golden Disappointment

“Your own kills have slowed, my darling killer. Do you grow angry with your God?”

She bites the inside of her cheek, closing her eyes in penitence, “Father, I have slain three this tenday in your name -”

“And you should be bringing me dozens, Necaria,” He thunders, and haunting footsteps move toward her, and Halia winces at His domineering presence, “you ought to bring me legions of dead, mountains of corpses with which we might bury this world and begin again.”

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 6: Interview with a Vampire Spawn

“You are not,” pinch, “going to choose,” pinch, “the hot one - just because he’s hot,” she says aloud with a final squeeze. She keeps having to remind herself that this whole experiment will require more than just attraction to be successful.

She shakes out her nerves and then the door knocks, three loud raps, to announce their arrival.

Three hooded, soaking vampire spawn stand on her doorstep, and three awkward smiles are their only greeting until the blonde one says a quick, “Good evening!”

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 5: Fear & Loathing

“Can spawn make dhampirs though? And do we really think Bhall won’t punish us for failing?” For once, he’s glad Petras opened his mouth, his questions actually valuable additions. Astarion extends a hand for his shoe, giving a soft nod of apology. It’s all he’ll ever offer the fool and he needs his shoe back before Godey returns.

“I intend to try,” Astarion grins, but the expression is forced, even by his standards. He’s not sure how he feels about being breeding stock, even if the woman in question is undeniably beautiful. Demeaning or not, he’s been required to do worse, and the thought of living anywhere else for a year is more than enough to tempt him.

He’ll be a terrible father, but who cares - Bhaal? He doubts it.

Time for a party! And 44/45, if you can believe it 🙈

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 4: A Spawn Amongst Spawn

“You’re awfully pretty, aren’t you?”

“If pretty is what you need, Lady Dhune, then that’s what I’ll be,” his tone somehow sounds both genuine and practiced, and when he smirks, the sight pulls a smile to her own lips. She realizes it immediately - she’ll be in trouble if she takes this one. He’s far too handsome.

She can’t be sure how old he was when turned, she’s never had the hang of guessing ages for anyone who aged differently than a human, but his face has the lines of a life well-lived. Lines from smiling, laughing, around his eyes and cheeks. It’s absurdly charming, even as his eyes lower to hers with confusion.

And then he takes a deep inhale of her, and the smirk falls, her own smile disappearing with it. His brilliant red eyes search hers before he asks, “What…what are you?”

Hold Me Like a Knife - Chapter 3: Contractually Bound

“Alright,” Halia says, bringing the supplies in and setting them before Harrow. “Let’s make a contract so I can borrow a vampire spawn.”

“You’re aware how ridiculous it sounds when you phrase it that way, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” Halia confirms before casting mage hand and sending the spectral assistant up to her library in search of a couple of books she has on vampires and other monsters. “But nothing about my life has ever been particularly normal.”

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