Blackwall romance SPOILERS. No other DAI plot spoilers, though, as I haven't even played the game yet. (As for the rating: nothing really M except for Blackwall's story arc itself.)

Be warned of headcanons. I've spoiled myself a part of Blackwall's story arc by accident, and then just had to go all the way through with it. Headcanons happened, and I can't get rid of them, I'm sorry. Blackwall's story arc just broke me they way the Cousland origin did. Certainly hadn't been expecting something as deep as that after DA2. I've always liked Sheryl's characters, but it seems Blackwall is the best-written of them so far, and one of the best Bioware characters overall.

Loreena McKennitt inspirations all over, in addition to what was in the game. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.


. . .

Amhrán Duit

. . .

/Irish Gaelic ~ A Song to You;

from the Old Irish amra, meaning a lament or memorial poem or song/


This is how the world moves on: pushed by whispers. She is a nobleman's daughter, trained for diplomacy since her earliest years – history and etiquette and rhetoric, the art of giving speeches and gathering information and simply talking, and also the no less subtle but more ruthless diplomacy of poisons and daggers in the night, because her father wanted her to able to defend herself. Whispers is what she is familiar with, what she knows how to deal with.

He is nothing like that. He is a voice straightforward and brutally honest and loud, and sometimes, though rarely, he is just silence. She is skilled in reading people, she has been training that for her whole life, but she cannot quite see through him, and it perplexes her. There is something hiding behind his ready answers, something that clouds his gaze and wrinkles his brow when he thinks no one is looking – but she can merge with the shadows, and can move silently, light on her feet like a gust of wind, and she watches, and she knows.

She cannot quite see through him, but she likes what she can see. Oh, she has known many a courtly men in her life, but most of them are polite because they have to, because it is part of the game, because it is demanded of them; few are genuine at that. Blackwall is. His words are gestures are courtly, ones she has seen many times, but there is true kindness shining through.

Still, there is more to him than that, and a quiet whisper at the back of her mind, intuition, her good friend, keeps telling her that this will not end well, that she, always so wary, is suddenly too quick to trust. But he has already saved her life more times than she can count, and that has to be something. He has held her up when she was wounded and too weak to stand upright on her own. He keeps vigil beside her whenever night catches them on the road.

In her moments of doubt, which she shares with no one, he is beside her, telling her how their cause is worthy, how they are doing the right thing. How he admires her for being so honourable and noble.

For years she has shunned those feelings, history and duelling filling her time, and she felt happy that way. For years, she was too cautious to trust anyone that much. But now death hovers over them every day, and she feels she might lose too much if she doubts, and all the unused feelings come to life. She falls, and she falls hard.

But there is something pulling her to him so strongly she cannot resist. Maybe it is the way he calls her his lady, very courtly, a title she is used to, but he speaks the words differently, a sign of respect, not only a recognition of her stature. Maybe it is the way something shifts in his eyes when he looks at her, this wistfulness or perhaps sorrow that she cannot decipher. Maybe it is because he fights by her side, dedicated and loyal. She has always been fond of tales and ballads, and he is like those knights from songs, not without his little flaws, but otherwise perfect.

Too perfect, the whisper in her mind warns. She knows it is not right. But, far from her family and with the weight of the world pressing down onto her shoulders, she feels lost and lonely, and she ignores it.