Among The Multitudes
Among The Multitudes
(Read on AO3)
Written for the Dragon Age Big Bang 2025. Illustrated by @the-font-bandit
M. 41,111 words.
Summary:
The first word Emmrich learnt to read was Johanna.
His eyes followed the sharp edges of each letter, cutting across his right wrist, staking some wordless claim, the ink as dark as blood. Each edge was distinct from the other, downward strokes hard and impressive, straightforward. Emmrich traced each letter — wrote it out, charcoal on paper, on leaves, fingers in the dirt, until they were identical to his skin, until he knew Johanna by heart.
Then a second name came after, months later, much more surprising than the first.
On his left wrist, all curving swirls, rounded letters, and sweeping lines, much more difficult for his young eyes to follow. The H molded into the A, pressed even closer to the N, as if written in a hurry, ink so light, the word untethered to its writer. Mummy had to help him decipher it, holding him close, her long dark hair plaited, the tips of it tickling his nose. She laughed, bright and tinkling — “Your soulmate has terrible handwriting, my love,” — before settling on Thana. Death.
—
Or, one Emmrich Volkarin, bearer of two soul marks, and a lifetime's exploration of the different faces of love and heartbreak.
Preview under the cut
Emmrich wondered — not for the first time in the last few years — what his soulmates were like.
His thoughts often strayed to them when he accompanied his mother to one of the manors she worked at. Early mornings kneading dough, late evenings cooking for some noble's party, sweat on her brow from the heat of the kitchens. Or when he would stay with his father at the shop, the scent of meat in the air, the rhythmic sound of a knife slicing through flesh, through bone, on a wooden block, the occasional greeting to a customer.
Were their parents like his? Did they go to market days together — spices and fruits and vegetables at every stall? Were there quiet smiles, lingering touches when passing by, eyes that lit up whenever they saw each other? Days off and summer picnics, shaky legs skating on the Minanter in the winter?
(Would there be with him when they grow up? Hands in his, laughter that rang through streets and love that woke with the sun and reminded him of his parents. He imagined Johanna with a grin as sharp as their name on his wrist, and Thana with soft, light hands, fingers making swirling patterns in the air.)
Did they like to read as much as he did?
The Chantry near his home was a tiny, modest thing — very different from the one closer to the heart of Nevarra City, with its tall towers and gleaming windows, always smelling like incense and myrrh — and Mother Dellah said he was turning into quite a studious learner, mind expanding in leaps and bounds. The Chantry opened their doors to the neighborhood children on Sundays, providing lessons on arithmetic, history, religion, and all sorts of other things. Emmrich soaked it all in like a sponge.
(Would they sit and read with him? He hoped they would, pointing to their favorite passages, legs knocking together. Perhaps in the Chantry library, right where he was now, whispering and giggling until Mother Dellah scolded them and kicked them out. He wouldn’t mind it that much as long as they were with him — the three of them would find something else to do together — together — always together.)
(Read on AO3)
More Posts from Veilguardiumleviosa and Others
oh so this so-called herald of andraste can blow up the entire temple of sacred ashes with the divine still inside, but when i, anders—
The baby's arrival leaves Spite unimpressed.
It is a tiny, noisy, smelly, helpless lump. It takes up all of Rook and Lucanis's time and attention. When Lucanis finally sleeps and Spite gets a turn in their body, the baby shrieks and wakes him up again. For reasons Spite can't understand, Lucanis wants to be around the baby all the time. Lucanis thinks about the baby all the time.
Rook says it will someday be a person. Spite has his doubts. Even when it becomes a slightly larger lump that can move around on its own, it crawls on its hands and knees. It doesn't use its feet. Even Curiosity can use its feet!
Then one night when Spite finally gets to use the body and he's doing flying loops around the ballroom chandelier, he feels something tug at him. It's not magic. It's not a smell or a sound or a shift in the air. He doesn't know what it is, but he thinks he should—or that he did once.
He follows the feeling and, to his surprise, ends up at the baby's room. When he creaks the door open to peek inside, he braces for shrieking, but the baby, though awake, doesn't even seem to notice him. Its dark eyes are fixed firmly on the bars of the strange cage it sleeps in. Its brow is furrowed with tiny lines, and its mouth pulls down in a pursed pout. It reaches out its tiny hands, grabs the bars, and rocks on its fat little knees.
It wants to do something. It's determined to do something.
Spite leans a little further into the room. Something about the scene has him captivated. He practically holds his breath as the baby lets out a grunt of effort and then slowly, painstakingly pulls itself to its feet. With a whoop, Spite dashes to the sleeping cage, wings spread wide, bathing the room in a bright purple glow.
"You used! Your feet!" he exclaims.
The baby's eyes go round, and Spite shrinks back. He remembers the one time he tried to show the baby his wings when it was a smaller lump. It had screamed and screamed, and Rook had asked him not to do it again. The baby's mouth opens, and Spite prepares to flee the body and let Lucanis handle the screaming.
But the baby doesn't scream. It laughs.
The shrieking Rook says is the baby's laugh isn't all that different from the screaming, but its mouth is stretched in a wide grin. It releases its grasp on the bars to clap its hands and immediately falls back onto its rump. With much less effort than the first time, it pulls itself up to stand again. It uses one hand to firmly grip a bar and reaches the other toward Spite's wings.
Spite flutters one wing closer, and the baby, still laughing, bends and straightens its knees, bouncing in delight.
"Pah!" it says, which is the noise it makes when it sees Lucanis. "Pah!"
"No," Spite says. "Not Pah. Spite." He points to the wings and then his glowing eyes. "Spite."
The baby stops its bouncing, and the focused expression of before returns. It tilts its head and fixes Spite with a serious gaze. Spite leans closer until they are almost nose to nose.
"Spite," he repeats.
"Sssssss...," the baby hisses.
Spite nods and doesn't lean back even when the baby's free hand tugs roughly at his hair. "Yes. Say it. Say Spite."
"Spah," the baby says. And then, after a particularly emphatic yank of Spite's hair, it triumphantly yells, "Spy!"
"Yes!" Spite crows. His wings shiver in excitement, and the baby bats at the one closest.
"Spy!" it shouts. "Spy!"
Spite grins at the giddy feeling bubbling in his chest, one only Lucanis has felt around the baby until now.
The baby knows him. The baby likes him.
They spend several minutes enjoying their new game. Spite laughs as he flicks his wings toward the baby and away, and the baby cheerfully cries his name as it tries to snatch the gleaming feathers. But the baby's voice gets softer, and its grin shrinks to a smaller smile and then fades entirely. Its round face scrunches up again, its focus engaged in some new thought.
Spite watches breathlessly, waiting to see what the baby will learn to do next. The baby's face turns pink and then a mottled red with effort. Rook told him the baby wouldn't have wings, but as Spite watches the tiny muscles tremble with strain and hears the baby grunt, a little part of him wonders if feathers and light will suddenly erupt from its back.
Then the smell hits.
Spite rears back with a snarl of disgust. He and Lucanis have perfected smooth handovers of their shared body, but this time Spite jerks away with such abruptness that Lucanis is left staggering. Spite doesn't apologize. He flees the room to escape the horrid stench and then decides to flee the entire family wing just to be safe.
He'll tell Lucanis the baby said his name later.
maybe they should’ve left Merenven in the fade
Me: “Man, Viago looks good with curly hair”
@alsoika: “Say less🖌️”
(Go follow them their art is CRAZY good thank you so much for this commission)
what do you think viago's reaction was when he heard about crow!rook accidentally getting high off their asses drinking gingerwort tea?
my man's been building immunity toward various kinds of poison for years and you mean to tell him that his fucking protégé got taken down by a fucking mushroom tea.
Companions: that Cole thing is creepy and probably a demon you should get rid of him
Inquisitor:
impure thoughts today surroundingthe song Rule #34 by Fish in a Birdcage and some dark Emmrich vibes like if u agree
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jinae | writing my silly little stories dragon age: veilguard is my passion
103 posts