Prompt Fest Roundup
Prompt: What do you want from me?
"You have to stop this," Tabris says, jerking her hand away from where Alistair has inadvertently touched it.
"Stop...what?"
And this is just like him, and she doesn't know if he's being deliberately dense, but she hopes, hopes that he is.
"This," she says, though her gestures in his direction doesn't do much to explain her word. "You're the king, Alistair, and you're about to be married, and...and every time you come around here it's as though we're still together, which we are not."
He looks at her with a terribly sad look upon his face. "I...I can't be around you without..."
"I know," she tells him miserably. "I can't, either. But you are the king and I am the Warden-Commander, and I think...I think we shouldn't even be near each other again until we can...not be like this."
She almost doesn't expect - almost doesn't want - him to agree. But he does.
Prompt: A New Home
They send him to Vigil's Keep - for more training, Stroud says, but Carver has the feeling that the man just wants to be rid of him - and when he first sees it, this great tower of stone, it is raining. And, entering the courtyard, he can smell the scent of wet dog.
He's back in Ferelden, all right.
But that is not the strangest thing, really. He's heard tales of the Hero of Ferelden - Varric has told a few, though they were all quite embellished and each more ridiculous than the last - but when the broody archer who had greeted him at the gate shows him into her office...well, he's not exactly expecting what he sees.
He had been expecting...well, he had known she was an elf. But he had sort of been expecting an abnormally tall elf clad in armor, wielding a giant sword and...well...she's not. She's smaller than Merrill and doesn't look much older than Carver, and she is sitting on top of her desk laughing with a dwarf.
And that, somehow, makes him even more nervous than he was before.
Prompt: The One with the Blackout
Sometimes, the moments that he misses are insignificant. Minutes, at most, and he will awake to find himself doing the same thing he was doing before. And while it is still not good to be missing time, there will be no destruction when he comes back to himself, no corpses lying at his feet.
But then there are the times when he is talking to someone he cares about and Justice comes out. And those frighten him the most.
There is once - and this is possibly the worst because he cannot know what Justice had meant to do - where those lost moments had been with Hawke and he had come back to himself to find his hands locked around her wrists and her eyes wide.
He turns and flees. No one is safe around him, least of all her.
Prompt: Leandra/Malcolm, First Kiss
"You know, I always thought you were a bit more..." Leandra waves her hands about before her, searching for a word that she cannot find.
"Dashing?" he supplies with a smile that is probably too cocky. "Roguish? Roguish and dashing?"
She rolls her eyes. "Well," she says, with a smile, "modest certainly wasn't the word I was looking for."
"My lady, I am too modest!" Malcolm touches a hand to his heart as though her words have caused him pain. "Why, I am the most modest man in all of the Free Marches! I -"
"Should stop talking now." And he's about to protest when she stands up on the tips of her toes and presses the softest of kisses to his mouth. It is unexpected and uncertain, but not unwanted, and he tangles his fingers in her hair and deepens the kiss, feeling the frantic patter of her heart against his chest as her fingers twine in the collar of his shirt and tug him closer.
There is a thought that drifts into his mind, one that he tries to ignore. But she is the daughter of nobility and he is an apostate.
This will be a disaster.
Prompt: You're a Dream to Me
Some nights, she dreams of Anders. This are are the dreams that she wakes from, sobbing, seeing him, remembering him, but never to hold him again.
These are the dreams that make her not want to sleep.
But there are other dreams, ones that are worse, and these are the dreams where she is haunted by a man in armor, a silent ghost that is there, in the corner of her eye. She knows what it is - who it is - and wishes that it would leave her be.
She has had enough of Justice.
But her dreams carrying her to him, again and again, and finally she gives up and turns to him, ready to yell, scream, destroy him if she can.
"Why are you here?" she says, practically screams it, and the spirit bows its head.
"I am here for -"
"Do not say justice," she warns him. "Do not. There is no justice in this world."
"I have done you a great wrong," the spirit says. "One that can never be made right."
"No," she agrees. "It can't."
The spirit looks up at her, then, and though his face is obscured by a helmet, she can see his eyes. They are not the terrible blue that she expects.
They are brown.
They are Anders' eyes.
When she wakes, she cannot stop sobbing.
Prompt: Real Names
"You'll have to tell me, someday," is what Hawke says to him when she finds out that 'Anders' is really just a nickname.
"Sweetheart, that someday is going to be a long time from now." And it must have been a good day, because he smiles and winks.
And it becomes something of a game, something special just between the two of them. She'll make a guess and he'll ponder over it before saying, no, that's not it. She eventually decides that his real name must be Winifred, and he tells her to just call him Fred, and they have a good laugh over that.
So on the day that the Chantry lights the sky on fire, when she has to make her choice, she holds a knife to his back and presses her forehead to his hair and tries to decide what she is going to do. There are no words he can say to make this easier, no matter what she chooses.
"Hawke," he says, when the moments have dragged on and she has still done nothing, and then he tells her, says his name, and she doesn't want to believe him, because thatmeans that their game is at an end, that he is ready for it to be over.
She squeezes her eyes shut and makes her choice.
Prompt: I told you not to touch that!
"I told you not to touch them," Varric says as they try to work the trap off of Hawke's. "But does anyone listen to the rogue with the trap-sensing skills?"
"We listen to them when they work," Hawke says, then winces. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Anders, fix it, please?"
"We need to get the trap off your hand, first," the healer says says, and Hawke tries to pout. It is ineffective.
"You have to stop this," Tabris says, jerking her hand away from where Alistair has inadvertently touched it.
"Stop...what?"
And this is just like him, and she doesn't know if he's being deliberately dense, but she hopes, hopes that he is.
"This," she says, though her gestures in his direction doesn't do much to explain her word. "You're the king, Alistair, and you're about to be married, and...and every time you come around here it's as though we're still together, which we are not."
He looks at her with a terribly sad look upon his face. "I...I can't be around you without..."
"I know," she tells him miserably. "I can't, either. But you are the king and I am the Warden-Commander, and I think...I think we shouldn't even be near each other again until we can...not be like this."
She almost doesn't expect - almost doesn't want - him to agree. But he does.
Prompt: A New Home
They send him to Vigil's Keep - for more training, Stroud says, but Carver has the feeling that the man just wants to be rid of him - and when he first sees it, this great tower of stone, it is raining. And, entering the courtyard, he can smell the scent of wet dog.
He's back in Ferelden, all right.
But that is not the strangest thing, really. He's heard tales of the Hero of Ferelden - Varric has told a few, though they were all quite embellished and each more ridiculous than the last - but when the broody archer who had greeted him at the gate shows him into her office...well, he's not exactly expecting what he sees.
He had been expecting...well, he had known she was an elf. But he had sort of been expecting an abnormally tall elf clad in armor, wielding a giant sword and...well...she's not. She's smaller than Merrill and doesn't look much older than Carver, and she is sitting on top of her desk laughing with a dwarf.
And that, somehow, makes him even more nervous than he was before.
Prompt: The One with the Blackout
Sometimes, the moments that he misses are insignificant. Minutes, at most, and he will awake to find himself doing the same thing he was doing before. And while it is still not good to be missing time, there will be no destruction when he comes back to himself, no corpses lying at his feet.
But then there are the times when he is talking to someone he cares about and Justice comes out. And those frighten him the most.
There is once - and this is possibly the worst because he cannot know what Justice had meant to do - where those lost moments had been with Hawke and he had come back to himself to find his hands locked around her wrists and her eyes wide.
He turns and flees. No one is safe around him, least of all her.
Prompt: Leandra/Malcolm, First Kiss
"You know, I always thought you were a bit more..." Leandra waves her hands about before her, searching for a word that she cannot find.
"Dashing?" he supplies with a smile that is probably too cocky. "Roguish? Roguish and dashing?"
She rolls her eyes. "Well," she says, with a smile, "modest certainly wasn't the word I was looking for."
"My lady, I am too modest!" Malcolm touches a hand to his heart as though her words have caused him pain. "Why, I am the most modest man in all of the Free Marches! I -"
"Should stop talking now." And he's about to protest when she stands up on the tips of her toes and presses the softest of kisses to his mouth. It is unexpected and uncertain, but not unwanted, and he tangles his fingers in her hair and deepens the kiss, feeling the frantic patter of her heart against his chest as her fingers twine in the collar of his shirt and tug him closer.
There is a thought that drifts into his mind, one that he tries to ignore. But she is the daughter of nobility and he is an apostate.
This will be a disaster.
Prompt: You're a Dream to Me
Some nights, she dreams of Anders. This are are the dreams that she wakes from, sobbing, seeing him, remembering him, but never to hold him again.
These are the dreams that make her not want to sleep.
But there are other dreams, ones that are worse, and these are the dreams where she is haunted by a man in armor, a silent ghost that is there, in the corner of her eye. She knows what it is - who it is - and wishes that it would leave her be.
She has had enough of Justice.
But her dreams carrying her to him, again and again, and finally she gives up and turns to him, ready to yell, scream, destroy him if she can.
"Why are you here?" she says, practically screams it, and the spirit bows its head.
"I am here for -"
"Do not say justice," she warns him. "Do not. There is no justice in this world."
"I have done you a great wrong," the spirit says. "One that can never be made right."
"No," she agrees. "It can't."
The spirit looks up at her, then, and though his face is obscured by a helmet, she can see his eyes. They are not the terrible blue that she expects.
They are brown.
They are Anders' eyes.
When she wakes, she cannot stop sobbing.
Prompt: Real Names
"You'll have to tell me, someday," is what Hawke says to him when she finds out that 'Anders' is really just a nickname.
"Sweetheart, that someday is going to be a long time from now." And it must have been a good day, because he smiles and winks.
And it becomes something of a game, something special just between the two of them. She'll make a guess and he'll ponder over it before saying, no, that's not it. She eventually decides that his real name must be Winifred, and he tells her to just call him Fred, and they have a good laugh over that.
So on the day that the Chantry lights the sky on fire, when she has to make her choice, she holds a knife to his back and presses her forehead to his hair and tries to decide what she is going to do. There are no words he can say to make this easier, no matter what she chooses.
"Hawke," he says, when the moments have dragged on and she has still done nothing, and then he tells her, says his name, and she doesn't want to believe him, because thatmeans that their game is at an end, that he is ready for it to be over.
She squeezes her eyes shut and makes her choice.
Prompt: I told you not to touch that!
"I told you not to touch them," Varric says as they try to work the trap off of Hawke's. "But does anyone listen to the rogue with the trap-sensing skills?"
"We listen to them when they work," Hawke says, then winces. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Anders, fix it, please?"
"We need to get the trap off your hand, first," the healer says says, and Hawke tries to pout. It is ineffective.