Y'know, she's like.

Okay. So, when he was way younger, a six y/o with scrappy knees and a cleaner mouth than he's got now, he had these fireworks. You'd light up one end, throw it to the asphalt, and watch it bloom against the pavement, like a flower where each petal was a constellation of embers, spinning wild and untouchable at your feet.

She's kinda like that. Each movement, each word: it sets off a spark.

During those late hours, she was tormented by the same memories she actively tried to repress while awake. Broken bones could mend over time, but she would never forgive them for taking away her ability to dream.

Stepping out of his car, Oscar stands, listless and cat-like, delight in his easy swagger. And dark, too, even in the waning daylight: the sun setting low, imbuing the now-collapsing horizon with warm colors such as the vermillions and the violets, making room for twilight’s encroachment. Washed with such colors, slanting prettily across his polished footwear: when he tip-taps across the driveway’s immaculately smooth asphalt, his heels catches the gloaming. It appears as though he’s on fire, he might be infernal.

Long languid fingers slide along the hood of his car, only to momentarily pause: outside his periphery, his neighbor is watering the manicured hedges that separates their respective properties.

He takes this chance to initiate conversation: it is normal, after all, and Oscar is exactly that to the naked eye—normal. Raising his chin a slight modicum, enough to mystify where his gaze settles upon: is it the sunset gutted and bleeding across the skies, or is it the fleeting vision of his wife before she sharply closes the curtains?

“Lovely sight, ain’t she?” He smiles. It is almost, but not quite, instinct now. “The golden hour never fails to deliver.”

He does not lie, and yet here he is in a perpetual state of doing so—wearing the skin of an obsequious, obedient husband in the American backdrop of southern humdrum.

And then, as light began to fill the edges of the tunnel, and the winding stairways came to a stop, Orpheus couldn't resist one final urge. He looked back, one final time, to watch Eurydice wither away in front of his very eyes.

"...████?"

Fate has been cruel. Too cruel. Who was I, to think that taking those strings into my own hands would damn both of us?

"heard 'em in the room with him, and yanno, i was gonna be happy 'bout it, but they didn't sound all that happy, and then they said they faked their death and that they were mad that we didn't come looking for 'em, and how do you go looking for the dead?"

"I was born a wolf," he'd said, when they'd discussed the topic that MARCUS KOTOV brought forward now. "I didn't have a choice."

But she'd had a choice, didn't she? Little lamb wandering into the wolf's den, hoping the blood-soaked pelt of her former predator would be enough to hide the whiteness of her fleece.

Kingmaker.

There's a certain gravitas to the word, and the weight in which the Mother speaks of the matter. His lifetime molded into a story, retold beyond the seas, passed among hundreds he would never know. A title, instead of a person. His name, redrawn into another piece of the myth of someone close to Andraste's holy image.

Is this what it means — to stand at the very top?

There is a darkness that encroaches upon him, but its shadowy blanket does not feel cold. Amidst the noise and chaos, it’s hard to discern, but within the crashing waves of the ocean below as the winds rocked him softly in their lullaby to oblivion - there is a warmth washes over him in the notes familiar:

My poor sweet boy. . .

Freedom in Kirkwall is standing at the edge of a cliff, and knowing your only option is to dive headfirst.

Or, at the very least, that's how it feels as the reality of her situation dawns on her. In those stories from the novels she's read, Iseult could see this as the culmination of all her attempts to run from fate. Consequence. To survive, blood on her hands, and keep moving ahead. Not many could claim to have killed Templars, or Tevinter mercenaries. Not many mages could claim to survive even an encounter.

Power in Kirkwall comes synonymous with standing at a cliff's edge, knowing the only way forward is to jump.

Such is the price of something so transient — slippery, really. Every Prince of Revelry before him would know. After all, how many predecessors had become stepping stones for this throne?

They say the Prince of Starkhaven intends to take Kirkwall, and the Viscount is dead. In the search of someone who could represent — Roma Zhou volunteers, of all the possible options. Someone must. He would never hesitate when it is startlingly clear what indifference could make.


A future for Kirkwall means standing before a cliff, understanding the only path worth taking is the step forward.

As animated as she always was, Iris let out a huge gasp, putting on a horrible fake accent in response. "How darest thou punch thy princess!" She exclaimed, unable to hold back a giggle.

Unfortunately, the princess was going to end up getting punched several more times before the match was over.

Violet eyes lift to the ceiling and he leans back a bit. "I hope you know that every moment spent with you is special to me." Rene says with a drawn out sigh.

Special. The other man wishes for tonight to be special. This would be the part where his lip curled in disgust, if Rene were an uncivilized animal.

"So... if it's not money you want, then what do you want?" The words come out with a scoff, though it's hardly intentional. Rene hopes Makenna doesn't notice that either. "There's no way I can't let you plan such a lovely evening, cook me delicious food and get me my favorite wine..." Rene's gaze slips back down to Makenna, index finger running along the rim of his now empty wine glass.

"... and not repay you in some way."

"Doesn't have the same charm," she mumbles, the sparkle in her eyes accompanied by a snort. "I'll start sayin' I'm playing rounders when they've got a World Series worth watching."

The chessmaster always lost his cool when his pieces did not move as he desired.