The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained, Henry J. Wehman, 1890

Out of Some Dreaming Tree

by @faejilly

Rating: Mature

Pairings: Magnus/Alec

Summary: Fairy tales and demon tracks; Alec and Magnus meet just in time to go on a hunt. One that ends up changing both their lives more than either could have imagined.

Beta: @taupefox59 and @paperuni 

Banner Artist: @poemsfromthealley

Artwork by: @AlexanderGideonTrueblood

More ShHiatusBang Fics

Hey look! I wrote a thing! (I finished a  BB, for the first time ever! IT EVEN HAS A PLOT. And demons. And stuff.)

What’s your Shepard’s middle name?

(if they have one)

Inktober #12

She loves to sing.

She loves the way it feels in her chest, in her throat, the way she can feel the whole world breathe with her when she closes her eyes. She loves the way a song sounds in the shower, different from in the car, from the way her voice fills a club or drifts away down a hallway. She loves her band, loves finding the melody hidden in the words Isabela and Merrill write, loves the drive and weight Aveline gives them, the heartbeat of her bass tying them all together, pushing them forward whenever they might pause too long and get lost.

She loves people too, though Isabela sighs and Merrill squints and Aveline rolls her eyes when she tries to say so; she honestly likes meeting new people, likes buying a round of drinks, joining in a toast, likes meeting some stranger’s eyes and smiling. She loves seeing them smile back.

She’d even kinda liked the terrible third-shift gas-station job she’d had once, chatting with travellers and students pulling all nighters and the other third-shifters who’d forgotten their lunches grabbing candy bars and frozen burritos and tar-black coffee.

She was not as fond of cleaning the bathrooms every morning. People could be great, but fuck they were also disgusting.

Now if she’s up ‘til 3am she’s probably got a gig.

She loves the energy of the crowd during a show, the high after a performance, loves it enough she knows she’ll never stop, even if they never manage a gig anywhere beyond the local college/club circuit, even if her coffee addiction rises to dangerous levels to compensate for Monday mornings.

Basically, she has the best side-gig she could ever imagine, joy and work and people and always more music to find, to love, to sing.

Except for the five minutes right before she goes on stage, when her stomach twists and her throat burns and the crowd sounds like a beast just waiting to devour her.

She’s almost ditched every single show they’ve ever had, and is afraid, each time, that this is the one when she’ll crack, when she’ll stand on stage and look out at all those eyes, bright and brittle and hungry, and open her mouth and not make a sound.

So she sneaks a look at them, before she goes on. Finds one person to sing to, someone she’s never met before, probably never will again, one person who will listen, until her voice is steady and her nerves are strong and she stops thinking and starts feeling again.

Someone pretty, someone not too drunk or wasted, if she can find them.

Tonight she finds Donnic, that won’t work, know him already, but next to him, oh Andraste thank you, that one.

She settles, she grins. She found someone very pretty this time. She gets on stage, she finds him, meets his eyes, impossible eyes, and can barely hear Merrill’s first beat, almost forgets to breathe, and for the first time in her life misses her cue entirely.

Isabela covers, a shift in her chords, a pose and a wink and the crowd laughs and she blinks, and she inhales, and this time she sings.

She sings the whole song to him, the whole set, not just the usual first few bars, and he never once looks away.

AO3