Old Roads: Pitiless Games Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine accidentally wakes up something that ought to have been left to sleep for another few Ages, and goes by The Shattered Rose. (And on AO3.)
Chapter is NSFW; story overall is rated M.
Title: Old Roads: Pitiless Games
Rating: M (for the sexytimez, and for occasional graphic violence)
PC: Amell
Word Count: ~80k, ~8.5k this chapter
Spoilers: At this point, it's not so much spoilers as it might not make any sense if you haven't played through Origins/Awakening...
Summary: Amaranthine is destroyed, and Warden Amell travels to Vigil’s Keep to take command. But one either must play the game of politics or be used as a pawn, and like it or not, every last one of Kathil’s demons are about to come home to roost... Amell/Zevran/Cullen, post-Awakening, multiple viewpoints, Part 5 of Old Roads.
(One more chapter will be posted tonight tomorrow, and then that's likely it till the end of March, because like everyone else i'm going to be playing DA2 for a few weeks. :)
Anders was staring at her. "What? Unless you've been taking lessons while I've had my back turned, there is no way you got her from that state to what I saw just now. You slept through your classes with Wynne, I am given to understand." He frowned. "Though now that you mention it, that would explain why the breaks felt odd."
"Jowan did the lion's share of the messy work and realigned the bits of bone," Anders' expression darkened, and she bit back a snide comment. "I worked with him and healed the flesh so at least she could move the leg again. You're right that I'm not much of a healer. Jowan is, but only on specific kinds of injuries-tendon, scar, aligning things that are out of place. Together, we're almost a whole healer."
"You're biased." The words came out of him like a small explosion. "You and he were always cheek by jowl. I suppose I couldn't expect you to see him for what he is."
A sense of calm descended on her, like icewater spreading through her. She hadn't expected to have this conversation now, and she was not in the mood. "A blood mage," she said, and knew that there was an inexorable expression on her face. "A Grey Warden. Someone prone to a particular brand of foolishness born of a good heart and an ambitious soul. We do what we must, Anders, and in this case I recruited a man who had betrayed me and everything that I thought the two of us believed. Can you think of any better place for someone of his talents than on the front lines of a battle that will outlast all of our lifetimes, Anders?"
"And in Ferelden, the backwater country that defeated a Blight on its own, there is a new schism brewing in the Chantry. It may be the crack that destroys the world, my thorn. Or the wound that saves it."
Chapter is NSFW; story overall is rated M.
Title: Old Roads: Pitiless Games
Rating: M (for the sexytimez, and for occasional graphic violence)
PC: Amell
Word Count: ~80k, ~8.5k this chapter
Spoilers: At this point, it's not so much spoilers as it might not make any sense if you haven't played through Origins/Awakening...
Summary: Amaranthine is destroyed, and Warden Amell travels to Vigil’s Keep to take command. But one either must play the game of politics or be used as a pawn, and like it or not, every last one of Kathil’s demons are about to come home to roost... Amell/Zevran/Cullen, post-Awakening, multiple viewpoints, Part 5 of Old Roads.
(One more chapter will be posted tonight tomorrow, and then that's likely it till the end of March, because like everyone else i'm going to be playing DA2 for a few weeks. :)
Anders was staring at her. "What? Unless you've been taking lessons while I've had my back turned, there is no way you got her from that state to what I saw just now. You slept through your classes with Wynne, I am given to understand." He frowned. "Though now that you mention it, that would explain why the breaks felt odd."
"Jowan did the lion's share of the messy work and realigned the bits of bone," Anders' expression darkened, and she bit back a snide comment. "I worked with him and healed the flesh so at least she could move the leg again. You're right that I'm not much of a healer. Jowan is, but only on specific kinds of injuries-tendon, scar, aligning things that are out of place. Together, we're almost a whole healer."
"You're biased." The words came out of him like a small explosion. "You and he were always cheek by jowl. I suppose I couldn't expect you to see him for what he is."
A sense of calm descended on her, like icewater spreading through her. She hadn't expected to have this conversation now, and she was not in the mood. "A blood mage," she said, and knew that there was an inexorable expression on her face. "A Grey Warden. Someone prone to a particular brand of foolishness born of a good heart and an ambitious soul. We do what we must, Anders, and in this case I recruited a man who had betrayed me and everything that I thought the two of us believed. Can you think of any better place for someone of his talents than on the front lines of a battle that will outlast all of our lifetimes, Anders?"
"And in Ferelden, the backwater country that defeated a Blight on its own, there is a new schism brewing in the Chantry. It may be the crack that destroys the world, my thorn. Or the wound that saves it."