Fanfic writer with a passion for exploring romantic relationships // Fandoms: Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age // Fandom: Dragon Age, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect
Perfect timing for this prompt – thank you @bronzeagelove! I just finished reading a soul-crushing Solavellan fic for the second time and am utterly destroyed, so some nice fluffy Solavellan is a soothing balm to my soul…😉
“Is something wrong?” Solas’s quiet voice floats out from her bedroom, followed by the man himself. His barefooted steps are silent as he comes to lean against the balcony at her side.
She smiles up at him. “Quite the contrary, actually. I was just listening to the music.” She nods her head vaguely in the direction of Skyhold’s grounds. “Someone is playing… something. It doesn’t quite sound like a lute…”
Solas cocks his head to listen to the delicate serenade, and Elia watches the thoughtful creasing of his brow. Then he shifts his weight and folds his arms. “Lyre, if I am not mistaken. It is a lovely duet.”
Elia gazes at his handsome profile with a rush of affection. He always seems to have an answer, even for her unasked questions, and he rarely requires more than a few seconds to pluck the information she requests from the depths of his mind. She wonders what it must be like to have such an excellent memory.
Eventually he meets her gaze, and his expression softens. “What are you thinking?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing much,” she says, not wanting to gush all over him like the hopelessly besotted woman that she is. She leans affectionately against him instead. “Just that this is nice. The quiet, the music… it’s so peaceful.” She closes her eyes and smiles, savouring the fine sound of the lyre duet as it slides through the darkness of the night. “It sounds like… raindrops tinkling against metal, but fuller. Or maybe… like pearls falling against a mirror, but less strident.” She sighs, frustrated by her inability to properly put the sound into words. “That distinct resonant plucking… I just really like stringed instruments.”
She sighs again and opens her eyes only to find Solas staring at her with such warmth that her breath catches in her throat. Without breaking her gaze, he steps back from the balcony and extends a hand to her. “Come, vhenan,” he says softly. “Dance with me.”
Gift drabble for @ilikedetectives because she is wonderful and sweet and takes wonderful HZD photos and DESERVES ALL THE NILOY FLUFF. (Pretend for the sake of this drabble that this is early in the relationship when Aloy is still in denial about how cute Nil is.)
Inspiration: Aloy and Nil’s matching facepaint. ❤️
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Nil placed his thumb gently on Aloy’s cheek. “Be still, now.”
Aloy swallowed hard at the touch of his thumb, then rolled her eyes belligerently as he brought the coal-tipped stylus toward her eye. “Remind me again why I’m letting you paint my face.”
He smirked, but didn’t speak until he’d finished the marks under her left eye. “It’s not about the look. It’s the fine art of intimidation. These marks will be the last things they see when their lives flash before their eyes.” He tilted his head and pursed his lips in a mocking expression of thought. “Perhaps one or two will get away, but let them flee. They’ll spread the tale of the Nora huntress with two pairs of eyes: one pair that brings life, and one pair that heralds death.”
She wrinkled her nose. “One pair that brings life? How do you figure?”
He shot her a slow smile. “How else would you explain the rush of joy that these fatal encounters bring?” he said. He carefully painted her right under-eye, then leaned back and studied her face. “Don’t deny the rush, Suntress. I live for these moments. I know you do too."
She shook her head. "Nil, I told you – I don’t enjoy this.” She stood and headed toward the bandit camp before he could see the flushing of her cheeks.
He caught up to her easily with his graceful lope. “And yet we continue to find each other,” he mused. “If it’s not the blissful scent of blood, there must be something else that draws you in.”
Her face grew even hotter at his purposefully bland tone of voice. She threw him a dirty look. “Be quiet,” she said firmly. “We’re getting close.” She pulled her bow from her back and crouched in a nearby thatch of grass.
He drew his own bow and crouched beside her. “As you say, Suntress. Life and death, blood and breath: I follow your command.”
She bit back a smile as she notched an arrow in her bow. Nil might not be the most – well, reasonable – company to keep, but she could say this much for him: he was a good partner.
Abelas’s hand stilled at the sound of Athera’s sleepy murmur. Then he resumed the careful, slow stroking of her chestnut strands. “Yes. I suppose I am,” he said. Her hair was damp and tousled at the moment from their earlier activities, but it was thick and glossy all the same, and uncommonly long from what he’d seen of this blunted time. The length of it was like a reminder of home.
Athera shifted slightly, nestling her cheek more securely against his bare chest. “No one’s done this before,” she told him. “Stroked my hair like this, I mean. I like it.”
He hummed a soft acknowledgement, and they fell back into a cozy silence.
His fingertips drifted smoothly along her scalp and through the dark ropes of her hair, and eventually he spoke again. “Long hair was fashionable in Arlathan, before the fall. Elaborate braids spilling down the back were a sign of status.”
She lifted her face to grace him with a cheeky smile. “So what you’re saying is that you were a high-class elf.”
“I was a captain of Mythal’s army and the head Sentinel of her temple,” he reminded her, and she chuckled.
“All right, messere upper-crust,” she teased gently. “I get the picture.” Then she grinned more widely, her ice-grey eyes sparkling with amusement. “So I wonder what would that make Solas then, if he was in old Elvhenan? I suppose he’d be one of us common folk with his bald head.”
Abelas gave her a tiny smile, but didn’t reply. Her remark was close and yet so distant from the truth. But he couldn’t tell her that the Dread Wolf had purposely shorn his elaborate dreadlocks to show solidarity with his rebel uprising.
He carefully brushed her hair back from her face, then gently squeezed her shoulder. “Sit up,” he said.
“Bossy. Your nobility is showing,” she said with a smirk, but she sat up nonetheless, settling into a cross-legged position on the bed as Abelas slid out from beneath her and padded over to her armoire. He picked up a handful of small linen strips, then walked back over to the bed.
He sat behind her on the bed and began gathering her hair, pulling it over her shoulders so it hung in a sleek curtain along her naked back. Then he gathered a small section of hair toward the left side of her head and began plaiting it.
She turned her head slightly to grin at him. “You’re braiding my hair?”
“Yes,” he replied. His fingers darted and flicked along the wavy lock, the intricate plait taking shape as his hands moved from her scalp down to the center of her back.
The Sharper Edge of Love: Romance, Sex, and Fanfic 