Tag Archives: Queen Anora

DA2: Please Stay Part 5

Middle Ground has some ridiculously unrealistic dialogue, but this is my dumb fic so it says things that I want to hear. Also I had to keep toning down the fight, because Reid really could go off in dangerously intense ways.

When I played the game, I didn’t import a DAO save (for one thing I’m not sure where my Elizabeth save files are) and so I picked the Mahariel Warden pre-set to just jump in and get started, in which Alistair is king. And that was going to be useful, because as Reid gets into in this set of scenes, he’s starting to feel the pressure intensely enough to think about giving up. So Alistair was going to be very helpful in making Reid feel like he ought to stay to the end of the game. However, in Elizabeth’s game, Alistair is still a Warden. So I wrote two alternate scenes – one where Queen Anora asks Reid basically the same stuff as Alistair (which is my headcanon), but I also wrote one where Warden Alistair asks – and that one’s kind of more fun? So both of them are here for your entertainment.

I feel Merrill’s story arc really fumbles the landing. Hard to fix without going in a completely different direction.

Part 4

 

Anders

The sewer was as horrific as ever, and Reid was getting suspicious. “Anders, you’re really going to drink a shit potion? Really?”

“Would you balk at this if it were you?” Anders asked.

“I don’t know,” Reid said. “You sure owe me, though.”

“I do,” Anders said. “Though I think I’m going to ruin it: I know it isn’t my place to criticize, but… Are you sure about Fenris?” Continue reading

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart screenshots

Again, screenshots using for inspiration in writing this story! Just like last time, except with a dearth of Zevran… but even more Liz. And a little bit of Nate, because Nate is good-lookin’ too.

Approaching Vigil's Keep with Mhairi.

Approaching Vigil’s Keep with Mhairi. [Starfang doesn’t transfer over without a certain mod that I hadn’t installed at the time so using something else in this picture (also where is Cousland shield?)]

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On Every Street: Chapter 1: My Parties

All right let’s launch this ridiculous idea! Dragon Age as a 40’s noir murder mystery! Huzzah for NaNoWriMo! I watched the Maltese Falcon as reference for this. Chapters are quite a bit shorter than they usually are but that just means I’ll be done sooner? And if you’re a classic rock fan, you’ve already recognized the title and chapter titles. Those were what gave me the inspiration for this in the first place! Continue reading

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart: Chapter 1

Going to write this story fast and loose. Hit the emotional moments and not worry TOO much about all that annoying political stuff, not to mention the dialogue. I might go through later after replaying the game in order to put in some of the extra good dialogue (Anders and Oghren in particular are suffering) but right now I’m just going to WRITE a STORY.

I also managed over 9000 words today, so that’s an achievement worthy of my past NaNo records. I was beginning to worry I’d lost that ability completely.

…I should probably clean the apartment, it’s been pretty neglected…

…but Guild Wars…

Prologue, Chapter 2

 

Chapter 1

 

A week and a half later, and Elizabeth and Mhairi were walking steadily up a surprisingly small road in the middle of the Arling of Amaranthine, heading to the castle of Vigil’s Keep, where a small force of a dozen Grey Wardens from Orlais waited for her to assume her position as their leader. Zevran had left them in Denerim, taking ship to Antiva. Elizabeth had also taken some time to visit Fort Drakon, where Huan was proudly siring many puppies to try to rebuild the mabari population in Ferelden after so many of the noble beasts had sacrificed themselves in the Blight.

Evening was falling. “Tell me more,” Elizabeth said to Mhairi.

“The Grey Wardens have been here about six months,” Mhairi told her. “They’re… decent people, for Orlesians. I would be proud to work beside them.”

“You want to be a Grey Warden too, don’t you?” Elizabeth said. Mhairi’s eyes were full of admiration every time she said ‘Grey Warden’, and her voice hushed a little. She must be young, as young as Elizabeth, perhaps. Continue reading

My Dark Haired Fereldan Beauty screenshots

I thought I’d upload some of the pretty screenshots I used for inspiration in the writing of this story; mostly of Liz’s face, but some of Zevran’s as well… Obviously, since I changed a few things from the game, locations and things might be a bit different. For instance, I can’t really give Liz her Dramatic Haircut makeover in the middle of the game, and she has her tattoo because I thought a tattoo would look cool. Canonically, now, she gets it sometime between Origins and Awakening. But… pretty pictures!

2014-08-29_00008

Meeting Bann Teagan in Redcliffe Village. Liz is using all the equipment from the awesome Of Noble Cast[e] mod.


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My Dark Haired Fereldan Beauty: Aftermath

Aaaaaaand we reach our slightly wonky ending. Hooray for awkward not-quite-brothers-in-law! ROLL END CREDITS (which is actually the music for the interlude that transitions into the sequel >.> )

Stay tuned for the eventual sequel, The Woman with a Dragon’s Heart (Liz, obviously), and the AU detective thriller Dragon Age Noir! Though first I’m going to be working on visual art for a while. I’ll probably do a bunch of outlining (DAN currently makes only about 5% sense – good concept, super-sketchy foundation) but I don’t intend to do any writing until November, when I make my big push to finish Anima’s Seal. We’ll see how well that resolution goes. I certainly have enough art to do, but there’s a lot of writing still on my to-do list… we’ll see what I feel like!

I realized there was at least one Oghren moment I wanted to put in, so I’ll sneak that into one of the previous chapters somewhere. …Tomorrow.

Now I can cross ONE project off my immense to-do list… Now, what to do next………

Previous chapter: The Archdemon

 

Aftermath

 

She became slowly aware that she was warm. She was warm and comfortable, and really, that was all she wanted to know at the moment.

There was a shadow over her from the… left? Someone was breathing near her. The more stimuli she received, the less her brain felt like getting back to sleep. Which was really annoying, because she wanted to sleep some more. Maybe go take Huan in the fields for a romp later… She could hear birds chirping outside her window, so it must be time to get up, but she didn’t want to. “Mm… Mother, just a few more minutes…”

Someone’s breath caught on her right side, but from her left came a low but insistant voice, a voice that made her stomach flip-flop. “Lii~iiz… tell your brother to stop glaring at me. He’s quite intimidating.”

Her eyes flickered open and immediately closed again. It was too bright for that nonsense. “Zev…?” She managed to get one hand free and rubbed at her eyes. There was a lot of sleep crusted there and she took her time with it.

Then she processed what he had said. “…What?” She opened her eyes again, blinking against the light… Continue reading

My Dark Haired Fereldan Beauty: The Archdemon

NSFW again in one spot, should be the last time, though.

I decided the penultimate chapter wasn’t going to be long enough for a whole chapter and I was right so HERE YOU GOOOOOO everything except the epilogue! LOTS OF SOUNDTRACKS FOR THIS ONE:
Lizzev morning cuddles/vista/march: Vogel Im Käfig
Anora-Liz speech/gate battle: Counter-Attack Mankind (awww yeahhhhh)
Archdemon battle: Doa (yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh all right) (some typos in the subtitles though)

You know, the first battle, with the assault on Redcliffe… I totally missed that happens in the game? Anora was just like “so we’re going to Redcliffe now” and I was like “kay” but then the darkspawn started attacking Denerim? And I was like “HOW DID YOU MISS THAT” but well anyway I guess Bioware does what Bioware wants? Anyway, it does explain a lot and I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t more clear in the game. OH WAIT IT DOES …Well that… is still disappointing. I just thought that attack was like a raid, not a feint capable of drawing out Ferelden’s entire forces. Ugh.

Not too sure about the Zevran POV bit; I need more practice thinking as him? I knew what things I wanted to happen in that part, I just wasn’t sure how to word it so it sounded like him. And it doesn’t sound like him that much. :/

I’ve been pretty distracted with watching HuskyStarcraft’s Bronze League Heroes series, it’s pretty great. : D (this is probably the unofficial start of the series? Also I haven’t been watching the series in any particular order) I don’t even play Starcraft! XD

Previous chapter: Landsmeet; next chapter: Aftermath

 

The Archdemon

 

Even though she rose early, Arl Eamon was up before her. He greeted her coolly as she ate breakfast; he was consulting maps and reports at the dining table.

“What are the darkspawn doing?” she asked.

Eamon sighed. “They have besieged most of the castles left standing in the Bannorn, but a large portion of the horde appears to be heading westwards in a major offensive. It is good we are leaving for Redcliffe today, or else we might not have been able to make it before our enemies reach it and besiege it. Will your company be ready?” Continue reading

My Dark Haired Fereldan Beauty: Landsmeet

Moooooaaaaaar dramaaaaaaa

The theme of this chapter is fathers and death. : P

The fun part about this chapter for me (besides the fact that Elizabeth is becoming isolated from half the people she likes) is the (re-)introduction of Elra (and Gemmet), my elf servant OCs. We won’t see much of them in the rest of the story, but I’ve become pretty attached to them and they’ll definitely be showing up in the Awakening sequel. : D

Soundtrack of the day! Army Attack was used for the mad chase scene down to the docks.

I also checked out some swordfighting videos for help with the Loghain duel, but nothing really worth linking: 1) because I was in a hurry and didn’t keep track of the most helpful ones, and 2) because most modern matches pause the match every time someone scores a hit, which isn’t helpful if you’re going for “total submission” or something. : P

I’m running out of writing energy, which is probably fine; it’s time to draw more art anyway. I’ll finish this story for certain, first! This chapter’s a little shorter. Not sure how long the next chapter will be (long, probably) but I hold out hope of finishing in the first week of September if not before. I’ve put the next two chapters into one chapter so it’s a push to the end!

Previous chapter: Denerim; next chapter: The Archdemon

 

Landsmeet

 

The servants who came to wake her the next morning were scandalized to find she was not alone; she waved them away impatiently and set about getting dressed while Zevran lounged indolently in her bed. After a minute he also rose and did her hair again. She would take everyone into the alienage, even though they were mostly humans and likely to arouse great attention and suspicion. She wanted safety in numbers, unlike the day before.

As she approached the locked gate to the alienage, the guard on duty did a double-take and called to her. “Lady Elizabeth!” Huan barked at him in greeting.

She jumped in her turn. “Who- John?”

The guard had been a soldier of Highever, long months ago, before anything bad had happened to her home and family. “Lady Elizabeth, you’re all right!” Continue reading

My Dark Haired Fereldan Beauty: Denerim

More NSFW-ness in this chapter. Does it seem like these two only talk seriously when sex is involved? Well, I guess they don’t get a lot of alone time so they need to multitask their relationship… Note this is the first time she loosens up enough to call him Zev. : )

Oh man oh man oh man I’ve been looking forward to this chapter ever since I decided Liz would fight Howe with Attack on Titan. It turned out pretty much the way I wanted it to. Liz herself has been eyeing Go Away by symphonic metal band Delain as a personal theme song. >.>

Also this one took so long to write because I wasn’t sure where I should put the chapter break, and also Cauthrien has been a pain as far as her little added scene goes. I may do editing on this later. In fact, I already want to rewrite the story and cut out large, irrelevant sections. : P

 

Previous chapter: Haven; next chapter: Landsmeet

 

Denerim

 

It was five days to Redcliffe – they were closer to the edge of the mountains than Elizabeth had thought – and immediately they went to Arlessa Isolde with the Ashes in their little white silk bag. A doctor and a mage from the Circle Tower took them and argued with Brother Genitivi over what should be done with them; the doctor suggested that Arl Eamon ingest the ashes, while the mage wanted to see if simply applying them to Eamon’s skin would help.

Whatever they tried, in front of all of them, the Arl frowned, his hands flexed slightly, and his eyes slowly opened. “Where am I?” he whispered, very weakly.

“Be calm, dear husband,” Isolde said, although she was on the verge of happy tears. “You have been deathly ill for a very long time. Do you remember anything?”

“I dreamed… terrible things, yet I have the feeling that at least some of it was no dream. Where is Connor? Where is our boy?” Eamon asked anxiously, his voice cracking with disuse. The doctor hastened to sit him up and offered him a glass of water.

“He lives, thank the Maker,” Isolde said. “Many awful things have happened, Eamon. I will tell you later. For now, rest, and regain your strength.” Continue reading