The End And The Beginning: Prologue

The End and the Beginning: Prologue

"After every war someone has to clean up. Things won’t straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass." -Wislawa Szymborska

Ghilara Lavellan has nothing left to loose when she arrives to stop Solas’ ritual. But in that moment she finds an opportunity for them both to live. Faking both their deaths, she flees with a near dead Solas to a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. But a return to peace is not as easy as she thought it would be. With Solas on the verge of death and her friends mourning her death, she has thrown everything at this one chance. And even if Solas wakes, they cannot go back to how things were. They have to move forwards.

A canon divergent solavellan fix-it fic!

Updated weekly

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Ahhh I'm so excited to be sharing this y'all. I was planning on getting ahead a bit more but I crave external validation too much lmao. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have been :D

Note: there are very minor spoilers from the first veilguard gameplay trailer from back in June, but nothing else. I'm staying away from spoilers myself.

ohhhh I fear your Baby Crows AU is exactly my shit 🥺👀👀 for them this friday: you can go back to sleep. it's safe.

- inquisimer

Oh boy! Do I have some angst for you! Set after the AU's version of origins. Baby crows are all grown up now with SO MUCH trauma. :D

@dadrunkwriting

Mara set down her whittling as soon as she felt him tossing. It was late and Zevran had already gone to bed, though it would seem his dreams were not kind tonight. She pressed her forehead against his, and rubbed his cheek with her hand, even as he cried out in his sleep. “Shh, shh, its okay Zev. You’re okay.” Maybe it was her words that got through his dream, because his eyes fluttered open and he gazed up at her. She smiled down at him, keeping her hand on his cheek. “You’re okay Zev. You’re safe. We both are.” He clutched at her wordlessly, pressing his head against the soft skin of her stomach. “I- I dreamed- it- it-,” he stammered out. “It’s okay Zev. You don’t need to tell me if its too hard.” “I saw her. When she died.” She stroked her fingers through his hair, feeling the sweat that had gathered at his temples. “Who Zev?” He gulped. “Rinna. Our Rinna.” Oh. She didn’t say anything. Her brain brought forth the memory of Rinna, the memory of the last time they had met before she had died. No. Before she had been killed. They had been standing on the docks sharing a serve of fried shellfish between them, the smell of spices mixing with the salt from the sea. Rinna was across from her, her long dark hair loose, even as the wind tugged at it. The gentle slope of her mouth, and the tattoo that ran down her nose line and over her chin. They had laughed, they had joked, and finally they had shared one last kiss, Mara promising to catch up once she got back to Antiva from her job in Fereldan. They hadn’t known it was going to be their last. If she had known she would have taken her time; memorised the feeling of the woman’s lips on her own, the taste of salt on her skin and spice on her tongue. It had barely been more than a peck before Mara had pulled back, laughed and told her to give the boys her love. It was the press of skin against her stomach that brought her back to the moment. Zevran looked up at her, eyes filled with tears. They weren't tears of self pity or of manipulation, she knew what those looked like on him. They were tears of radical desperation. “Will you ever be able to forgive me for what I have done Mara?” Mara bit her lip, and kissed his forehead, even as tears brimmed in her own eyes. “The only person who could grant you that is dead.” She whispered the words against his skin. She didn’t mean to be cruel. But it was the truth. Only Rinna could tell Zev if he could be forgiven, and he had killed her near 5 years ago.

temple at the end of the road

Just finished inquisition and found this fucking bullshit after the coryphipiss fight

(In regards to the orb being destroyed and solas despairing that it’s irreparable:)

LAVELLAN: “Are you sure? We could take the pieces, try to…”

SOLAS: “That would not recover what has been lost.”

No im sick like im actually sick trick weekes you are sick in the head for this one bc its so innocuous but it is also both of their character thesis statements in two lines fuck off.

She just wants to help him build a better world but he can’t. He can’t see the forest through the trees he is so stuck in his guilt and regret that he cannot process or move on from in any constructive way that he just won’t let. Anyone. Help. Him.

“I have to be a martyr. It’s what I deserve.” NO! YOU! DON’T! There are people LINING UP out the door to give you lifelines and you take NONE of them because your brain is so unfathomably traumatized over this thing you’ve done that has effected arguably for the worse the lives of every single person who has ever lived that it is actively refusing to do anything but hit the reset button. It rejects any other solution because any other solution means that it’s real and he has to live with it.

He can’t bear to look at an orb that’s been glued back together because it reminds him that he is the reason it’s broken. So better to just throw it out and start over.

happy friday my crabby friend! how about "things you didn’t say at all" for the pairing of your choice?

Thanks for the prompt my salady friend! Decided on some angst for my baby crows AU where Tabris grew up as a crow with Taliesen, Rinna and Zev! Enjoy :D

@dadrunkwriting

“Why didn’t you talk to me about this? Why didn’t you tell me about this before you went and fucking killed her!” “You weren’t here Mara!” Taliesen growled at her. She was clenching the arms of the chair as if it was the only thing stopping her from leaping over the table at him and stabbing him in the eye. Both of them in the eye in fact. Zevran spoke next, his voice didn’t have the simmering anger that Taliesen’s did, filled instead with pleading and righteousness. “It had to be done, surely you see this?” Her knuckles were going white now. “No. I. Don’t.” She noticed Taliesen’s mouth beginning to open and cut him off before he could make a noise. “What? You don’t like that? You don’t like the fact that I don’t approve of you killing our…killing my…” she took a deep breath in, hoping it would make the words easier. Taliesen glared, “if you can’t see what was wrong then what’s the point of keeping you as a crow.” She snarled at him, feral and animalistic. “What? You’ll gut me like you did Rinna? Hmm?” “If I had to, then yes. She was a traitor to the crows.” “She was our friend Tal. Since you were 8 years old! Does that mean nothing to you?” “It was a-” “And what about you then Zev? You’re being awfully quiet.” She turned on him, boring into him with her gaze. The other elf couldn’t seem to bring himself to meet her eye, and when he spoke it was barely above a whisper. “She was a traitor. It had to be done.” “I can’t fucking believe this,” Mara said. With her voice it was a disgusted mutter, but the words were a scream in her mind. She stood up to go, shaking her head. “I hope you die long and painful deaths the both of you.” “Mara-,” it was Taliesen this time, “don’t be like this!” He was standing now, reaching out his hand to her. She looked down on it with disgust. Zevran was still in his chair, hunched over as if he wanted to curl up into himself. She shook her head and spat on Tal’s outstretched hand. “I never want to see either of your fucking faces ever again.”

“We are not bound forever to the circles of this world, and beyond them is more than memory.”