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Dragon Age Kiss Battle: 2013 Edition
Welcome to the 2013 Dragon Age Kiss Battle!
Any kind of kiss is welcome -- het, slash, femslash; shippy, familial, gen; cheek kisses, mouth kisses, kissing of... other things; serious, fluffy, silly, or all three at once; fanfic, fanart, whatever you come up with; anything goes!
Update: The post is now open! The post will open to prompts and comments at approximately 9AM Pacific Time, Thursday February 7th (Click here for the time in your timezone). I don't anticipate closing it, so come by any time!
THE RULES:
- To leave a request: Post a comment with a pairing (or moresome) and, if desired, a prompt. Put the pairing/characters in the subject line and the prompt in the body of the comment.
- To respond: Reply to the prompting comment. Include characters, rating, and title in the subject line.
- Multiple responses are both allowed and encouraged!
- There is no limit to the number of prompts you can post.
- Artwork can be posted inline, but try not to make it too large. Please link to images that are very large or NSFW.
- Please, be kind to others regarding pairing choices, prompts, or anything else. This game is for everyone! :)
- Anon commenting is on, as is OpenID, if you neither have nor want a Dreamwidth account.
- Send your friends! :D
If you have questions, please ask them here. Thanks, and happy kissing!!
La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)
Greagoir assured himself that it was all for the best, despite the arguments he had with Irving. The first argument occurred when Irving and Duncan approached Greagoir shortly after Duncan’s arrival. Irving proposed a preposterous idea: newly made enchanters should be sent to fight in the King’s army. Greagoir refused. No enchanter leaves the Circle until they’ve shown they can be trusted. Furthermore, the Circle had spared all of the mages and templars it could. There was no need to send recently harrowed mages, especially not when the libertarians vied to lead the mage’s army. This notion of sending recently harrowed mages would only bring trouble. New enchanters were unmanageable, puffed up by their first important accomplishment and their newly gained privileges. They suffered insatiable wanderlust. A recently harrowed mage should be put to work in the Circle immediately, not sent off to wander army camps, only to duck out of their tent in the middle of the night just to prove that they can evade a templar’s watchful eye. No. Greagoir’s answer was no.
The second argument occurred a few hours later when Irving pulled Greagoir aside. Irving wanted Enchanter Surana to join the mages heading to Ostagar. No, Greagoir told him, and it mattered not whether Wynne could be tasked with keeping an eye on Surana. No. Of all the mages in the tower, not Enchanter Surana. No. She had responsibilities assigned to her that would begin the following morning. And, for the love of the Maker and all things holy, Surana was one of few mages her age who had proven to be honest and trustworthy. Her sense of trust needed to be cultivated like an orchid. She had a future in the Circle mage’s leadership, which was why discipline, not wanton freedom, was needed. No.
Greagoir thought the matter was over when Irving shrugged and walked away, but their third argument occurred after two of Greagoir’s templars had been injured, a Chantry sister had been shamed, and one wholly irresponsible, erratic apprentice had escaped the tower. Greagoir knew he had been played. Check and check, until he stood one move from being checkmated. What choice did he have? Send Enchanter Surana into the horrors of Aeonar? Allow her to stay in the Circle while brushing all she had done under the rug? She had broken the Circle’s most sacred rules at Irving’s request. No. Greagoir had no good choice. Checkmate. The game was done. He let her go.
.
Irving breaks the Circle’s rules, Greagoir bends them. After Enchanter Surana was sent to her room to pack, Greagoir intercepted Cullen when the young man ran down the hall in a clattering rush.
“What was all the commotion?” Cullen blurted, ignoring protocol.
“The situation is being handled,” Greagoir said.
“But—”
“I said it is being handled.” Greagoir glared until the young templar backed down. “Go to the second floor.” Greagoir commanded. “See that Enchanter Surana finishes packing before the afternoon is over.”
.
The sun had already begun to set when Enchanter Surana was ready to leave. Cullen trailed three paces behind her, his eyes lost, his face pale. Shiny spots of berry-stained beeswax graced the templar’s cheeks, matching the crimson lipgloss Surana wore.
There was nothing more Greagoir could do in this matter, but at least Cullen would not resent him for Surana’s fate.
.
Greagoir said nothing as Cullen pushed his meat and peas across his plate, hardly eating any of it. Nothing in the Circle is guaranteed, not for a templar and definitely not for a mage. Greagoir had thought well of Surana. The young woman had been a model apprentice. She took her studies seriously, she ``volunteered her time to work in the library. If she broke curfew, it was never to steal, run off, or involve herself in a dangerous prank. On the nights that Greagoir found Surana up beyond the twenty-second hour, she was finishing her chores in the library, always while chatting with Cullen. As the tower’s Knight Commander, Greagoir would remind Surana that it was her responsibility to heed her curfew. He would wait as she hurried to shelve whatever book she held in her hand. Then Greagoir would command Cullen to escort her to her dorm and to return to the templar’s quarters immediately thereafter.
.
A good Knight Commander manages all of his charges, mages and templars alike. He learns how to motivate them, how to makes them most productive.
When Cullen came to the Circle, he did so with a heavy heart. The young man became a Chantry orphan after his apostate mother could no longer care for him and, whereas most of the recruits wanted to become soldiers, Cullen wanted to be a knight. He read the Chant not as holy writ but as sacred poems whose secrets must be unlocked. He pondered a single verse for days before moving on to the next. Other recruits thought him absentminded, but Greagoir saw Cullen for what he was. The young man was a thinker. Not an intellectual who thought for sport, but spiritual-minded theorist who sought comfort knowing that his questions had been answered.
As for Surana, Greagoir was never bothered by her friendship with Cullen. The young man was besotted by her elven beauty, enchanted by wickedness hinted by her smile. But the elf was a devout Andrastian, not a creature of the forest wilds. Still, she inspired Cullen to pen poems late at night. With Surana in Cullen’s life, the young man grew less moody, less argumentative. She motivated him to perform his daily duties and, in Greagoir’s eyes, this was clearly a boon. As long as the two of them remained loyal to the Circle, he saw no reason to complain. Surana held favorable views of templars who led honorable lives, and it was always better that a promising mage felt loyalty toward the Templars and the Chantry than join with the blighted Libertarians. But while Greagoir saw benefit in Cullen’s friendship with this mage, Irving disapproved.
And now the matter was done and the young enchanter gone. The lovesick knight loitered in the dining hall after his brethren left, a gloomy pallor cast over him. Poems smoldered in the fire. All his dreams dashed.
Re: La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)
Re: La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)
Re: La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)
;_;
my heart. ow.
Re: La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)
Re: La belle dame sans merci (Cullen/Surana, G)