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Happy endings in fiction were all too often trite and contrived, and Varric tried to avoid them as much as possible in favor of gritty realism. Reality itself had been much too gritty of late, however, and he’d actually been considering sucking it up and adding some new installments to Swords...

Rivaini was quick to head off any assumption that she might be in danger of becoming law-abiding. “What can I say?” she smirked, casually walking a sovereign across the knuckles of one hand. “The payoff was so good I felt like being a decent citizen for a change.” “Hey, as long as there’s a...

Varric could sympathize with Curly’s frustration with the Chancellor; the man ignored Varric and still managed to grate on his nerves. Actually being the focus of his attention would be miserable. But having taken refuge in the one place that Rodrick wouldn’t be caught dead in (Haven didn’t have...

So much for a day of rest. The Hinterlands sucked, and not in a so-bad-it’s-kind-of-good suckage. It just sucked. Templars, mages, bandits, wolves, one bigass dragon that they were going to have to deal with at some point, and bears. So. Many. Fucking. Bears. And all that in between closing...

The various patrons who had leaped to guilty-looking attention at Curly’s entrance were treated to an irritable “As you were,” before the templar strode to a table and waited for Varric to pick a chair before putting his back squarely to a wall with both doors in his line of sight. "A welcome...

Scornful dismissal turned to flinty-eyed disapproval when Varric again suggested that the Grey Wardens were best suited to look into strange sounds emanating from below ground. "Caethan and I survived the Fifth Blight in Ferelden only to come to Kirkwall where a Grey Warden caught wind of his...

Varric had never given religion much thought. His parents had worshiped the Stone and revered the Ancestors, even after their exile to the surface. Bartrand had worshiped money. None of it had helped them in the end. To his storyteller’s ear, the Chantry’s stories of Andraste and the Dalish...

Varric wasn’t expecting a back-slapping reunion. He and Curly hadn’t had that sort of relationship in Kirkwall. Prior to Anders blowing the Chantry sky-high, in fact, their ‘relationship’ had consisted of a handful of brief encounters in which Varric’s primary focus was on not inadvertently...

((Wintermarch, 9:41; Cullen )) The good news was, Andvar and Ilsa’s baby boy wasn’t dead. The bad news was, Varric wasn’t sure how long that was going to last. The bigass hole in the sky had stopped growing, but it was still shitting demons with depressing regularity, and reports arriving...

As Varric had hoped, invoking luck seemed to convince Isabela not to question his reticence. Normally, he didn’t mind sharing; her guesses as to who various characters were inspired by were seldom less than entertaining, and she had occasionally provided nuggets of inspiration that ended up in...

Varric wasn’t surprised when Isabela’s enthusiasm for erotic fiction wasn’t dampened by his demurral. “No matter. I’ll have a go at it,” she announced breezily, making a beeline for the glassware. “How hard can it be to write sex scenes with a little bit of plot looped around them?” “Harder...

Josc called Anders a friend, but she was quick to put people into that category (not that Kirkwall’s resident mother hen had any business lecturing on her on it, mind you), but from what Varric had been able to gather, he wasn’t sure just how well she had known him before he showed up in the...

As it turned out, Varric needn’t have bothered with the invitation, as Rivaini seldom bothered with such mundane niceties of knocking anyway. She swaggered through the door with what looked suspiciously like a bottle of Corff’s best Orlesian brandy in one hand and a shit eating grin plastered on...

The flare of anger had subsided back into smoldering coals. Even that was more than Varric was accustomed to harboring, but at least his anger with Josc had spent itself. Feeling on the outs with his best friend had been intolerable; being angry with Anders … he could live with that, unless the...

(AU - 35 Dragon) Isabela , Aveline Vallen Donnen Brennokovic was not one to indulge in self-pity. Shit happened, like it or not, and the smart man figured out quickly that pissing and moaning over the things you couldn’t change meant maybe losing the opportunity to change the things that you...

This was going to be the true test. As beautiful as the prosthetic was, it hadn’t been made for looks, and if it didn’t give Sati back the function that she had lost when Solas had taken her hand - well, she would undoubtedly still wear it, but they might as well have poured all that gold into a...

There were times - a lot of times, to be honest - when being Viscount just plain sucked. Squabbles between the noble houses. Collecting taxes. The time that Trouble had dropped in and inspired the local Jennies to glue together the ass cheeks of a merchant who was notoriously harsh on his...

Things had been quiet since the Qunari had been sent packing, but while Thedas in general was enjoying the respite, everyone in the Inquisition knew that it was simply a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sooner or later, Solas’ plan would move from sneakiness and subterfuge to...

((10 Solace, 44 Dragon; Viscount’s Manor, Hightown)) As expected, relocating to Kirkwall had put just about everyone’s knickers in a knot, but ultimately, they had to agree that it made sense. A token force remained at Skyhold, vetting recruits and feeding out misinformation here and there...

Sati seemed to think that relocating from Skyhold to Kirkwall was good idea … and it probably was. Solas likely knew secrets of the mountain fortress that he had not bothered to pass on to the rest of them, and he’d had more than enough time to thoroughly infiltrate their ranks with his...