Chapter 1: Shadow Dragons
Chapter Text
[This journal entry is written in a weathered leather journal, the kind carried by soldiers who've learned that thoughts are worth preserving. The handwriting is looser than military standard, suggesting it was written in private, for the author's eyes only. Wine stains dot the margins, and the ink changes color partway through, as if the writer had to refill his pen or switched to a different one entirely.]
Personal Journal
Location: Some tavern in Dock Town
Date: First day of Ferventis, 2042 TE
Mental state: Confused as hell and drunk
I don't know what the fuck I just witnessed.
Three hours ago, I was minding my own business in this shithole tavern, nursing my third ale and contemplating whether I had enough coin left to get properly drunk or if I'd have to settle for merely dulling the edges of another sleepless night. Standard evening for a washed-up ex-soldier with no prospects and fewer friends.
Then they walked in.
Should have known something was up when half the dock workers in the place suddenly became very interested in their drinks. The kind of studied casualness that screams "something's happening and we're all pretending we don't notice."
But what really got my attention was their leader.
Maker's breath, what a pompous git.
This bastard struts into a dock tavern like he owns the place, dressed in clothes that probably cost more than most of these workers see in a month. Perfect posture, the particular brand of arrogant confidence that usually comes from never having been punched in the face by reality.
My first thought was: Magister's brat slumming it for thrills.
My second thought was: Someone's about to get robbed, and it serves him right.
I was wrong on both counts.
What Actually Happened (Because Apparently I'm Shit at Reading Situations Now)
Turns out Mr. Perfectly-Coiffed wasn't there to gawk at the poor people or buy rounds for his amusement. He was there for business. The kind of business that involves hushed conversations, passed notes, and nervous glances toward the door.
I couldn't hear most of what they were saying—wasn't trying to, initially, because other people's problems aren't my fucking concern anymore. But bits and pieces drifted over anyway.
"...seventeen in the lower warehouse..."
"...guards change shift at midnight..."
"...youngest is maybe twelve, been there six months..."
"...if we don't move tonight, they ship out tomorrow..."
That got my attention.
I've heard enough tactical planning in my life to recognize it when I hear it. And I've heard enough conversations about human cargo to know what they were planning.
A rescue. A fucking rescue, in broad daylight (yes, it's night, I fucking know that), discussed openly in a tavern full of witnesses who could sell them out for the price of their next drink.
Either these people were idiots, or they were so sure of the loyalty of everyone in this room that they didn't give a shit who overheard.
Turns out it was the latter.
The Most Surreal Conversation of My Life
I must have been staring, because suddenly Perfect Hair was standing next to my table, looking down at me with this expression that was equal parts curious and calculating.
"You're new," he said. Not a question.
"You're observant," I replied, because apparently my mouth operates independently of my sense of self-preservation when I've been drinking.
He smiled—at least the stupid fucking mask he wore moved like he did—not the condescending smirk I expected, but something warmer. More genuine. "Mind if I sit?"
I gestured to the empty chair across from me, because what the void else was I going to do? This was already the most interesting thing that had happened to me in months.
"I'm Ashur," he said, settling into the chair like he belonged there. Like he belonged anywhere, really. The kind of casual confidence that should have annoyed the shit out of me but somehow didn't.
"Tarquin," I replied, then immediately wondered why I'd given him my real name.
"Tarquin," he repeated, like he was testing how it sounded. "Military?"
It wasn't really a question. Something about the way I held myself, probably, or the scars visible on my hands. Old habits and older injuries that marked me as clearly as a uniform.
"Was," I said.
"Seheron?"
"Among other places."
He nodded like that explained everything. Maybe it did.
"What brings you to Dock Town?" he asked.
I almost laughed. "Same thing that brings most washed-up soldiers to places like this. Nowhere else to go."
"Hmm." He was quiet for a moment, studying me. Not the way people usually studied me—looking for threats or weaknesses or ways to use me. Just... looking. Like he was trying to figure out some kind of puzzle.
Then he said, "How would you feel about doing something that actually mattered?"
The Proposition
I should have said no.
I should have finished my drink, paid my tab, and walked away from whatever mess these people were planning. I'd done my time fighting other people's battles. I'd spent enough years bleeding for causes that turned out to be bullshit wrapped in pretty rhetoric.
But there was something about the way he asked. Not demanding, not assuming I'd be interested in glory or gold or any of the other things people usually use to motivate soldiers. Just asking if I wanted to matter again.
When was the last time anyone had asked me what I wanted?
"Depends," I said. "What kind of something?"
That's when he told me about the Shadow Dragons.
Not the propaganda version, not the recruitment speech full of noble ideals and righteous purpose. The practical version. The version that admitted they were technically criminals, that what they did was illegal under Tevinter law, that joining them meant accepting the risk of imprisonment or worse.
But also the version that explained what they actually did.
They freed slaves.
Not gradually, through political channels and legislative reform. Not symbolically, through protests and petitions that made people feel better without changing anything.
Actually freed them. Physically removed them from bondage, got them to safety, gave them choices about their own lives.
Simple. Direct. Effective.
"How many?" I asked.
"Last month? Forty-seven," he said, like it was nothing. Like it was just another number in a ledger.
Forty-seven people who went to sleep free instead of in chains because of what these people did.
The entire Magisterium—all their wealth, all their power, all their grand speeches about the natural order and economic necessity—what had they done for those forty-seven people? Sweet fuck all, that's what.
But this pompous git in his expensive clothes and his perfectly arranged hair? He and his people had risked everything to give forty-seven strangers their lives back. All because some Magister's kid decided to be brazen as Andraste herself and talk about this with strangers, hoping they felt the same. Kid had a death wish.
"What do you need from me?" I heard myself asking.
The Job
It was simple, really. Elegant in its straightforwardness.
There was a warehouse in the dock district where a Magister kept his "special inventory"—people he was planning to ship to estates outside the city. Men, women, children, all destined for lives of unpaid labor and systematic brutalization.
The Shadow Dragons had been planning this extraction for weeks. They had the layout, the guard schedules, the transportation routes. What they were missing was a way to keep the Templars busy elsewhere during the operation.
That's where I came in.
"We're very good at the infiltration part," Ashur explained. "Getting in undetected, locating the targets, neutralizing threats. But all of that is useless if a Templar patrol stumbles onto us mid-operation."
"What about the Templars?" I asked. Because there were always Templars, and they were always a problem.
Ashur's expression shifted, became more serious. "That's... actually our biggest concern. We've been monitoring their patrol schedules, but—"
"They changed the routes three days ago," I interrupted. "New patrol captain took over the dock district. He's trying to make an impression by being unpredictable."
The table went quiet. Everyone was staring at me now.
"How do you know that?" Neve asked, her detective's instincts clearly pinging.
I shrugged. "I know people. Still have contacts from my military days. Word gets around when someone starts shaking up established routines."
That was partially true. I did still have contacts. What I didn't mention was that I'd been drinking with one of those contacts two nights ago, and he'd spent an hour complaining about the new Templar captain's "innovative approaches" to security.
"What kind of changes?" Ashur asked.
"Random timing, irregular routes, surprise inspections. The kind of bullshit designed to catch people off-guard." I took a sip of my ale, considering. "But here's the thing about people trying to prove themselves—they're predictable in their unpredictability."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I know when and where they're going to be tonight. And more importantly, I know how to make sure they're somewhere else instead."
The silence stretched longer this time.
"You're talking about forging official documents," Ashur said carefully.
"I'm talking about correcting a clerical error," I replied. "Amazing how often patrol schedules get mixed up in the administrative shuffle. Templars end up in the wrong place, criminals get away, bureaucrats apologize for the confusion."
Ashur was studying me intently. "And you can do this?"
"I spent ten years dealing with military bureaucracy. You think Templar paperwork is more complicated than army requisition forms?" I pulled out a worn leather portfolio from my coat. "I have the seals, the forms, even some of the proper stationary."
"That's... highly irregular," Ashur mused, though he was grinning under the mask. He never asked how I had it all, and I didn't think he needed to know, frankly.
"So is human trafficking," I replied. "But apparently only one of those things bothers the proper authorities."
An hour later, I was hunched over a table, carefully crafting what might have been the most important forgery of my career.
It wasn't particularly sophisticated—just a revised patrol schedule with the right seals and signatures, directing the dock district Templars to conduct "surprise inspections" of merchant warehouses in the opposite end of the city. The kind of busy-work assignment that would keep them occupied for hours while they searched for violations that didn't exist.
"This'll buy you maybe four hours," I told them, sealing the document with an official stamp I definitely shouldn't still have had. "Long enough?"
"More than enough," Ashur said, and there was something in his voice—respect, maybe, or recognition—that I hadn't heard from anyone in months.
Used to care about protecting people.
That hit harder than it should have. Because he was right—I had cared, once. Before Seheron taught me that the people giving orders didn't give a shit about the people following them. Before I learned that "protecting people" often meant protecting the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
But this was different.
This wasn't about politics or territory or abstract principles. This was about seventeen specific people who needed help tonight, and a group of crazy bastards willing to risk everything to provide it.
The Rescue
I said yes.
I don't know why. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the months of purposelessness finally getting to me, maybe it was just the realization that I'd rather do something risky and meaningful than continue doing nothing safe and empty.
Whatever the reason, three hours later I found myself crouched in the shadows outside a warehouse, watching Ashur and his people work.
They were good. Better than good—they were fucking artists.
I watched a dock worker named Janek create a distraction that drew half the guards away from their posts. I watched a woman slip past the remaining guards like she was made of smoke. I watched the whole operation unfold with the kind of precision that comes from practice and genuine competence.
And when we got inside, when I saw those seventeen people—chained, terrified, barely clothed, some of them bearing fresh wounds from whatever "discipline" they'd received—I understood why these people did this work.
It wasn't about ideology. It wasn't about politics. It wasn't about making grand statements or fighting abstract evils.
It was about the look in a child's eyes when you cut the chains off their wrists.
It was about the way a grown man cried when you told him he was safe.
It was about the moment when someone who had been reduced to property became a person again.
The Aftermath
We got them out. All seventeen, alive and unharmed.
The Templars showed up six hours later closer to dawn, just like predicted. They looked around, asked a few perfunctory questions, took some notes, and declared the scene "consistent with organized criminal activity" before fucking off to file their reports.
No follow-up investigation. No manhunt. No righteous fury about crimes against the natural order.
Just... nothing.
Because apparently, when slaves disappear in ways that don't directly threaten the interests of people who matter, nobody gives enough of a shit to make it a priority.
That should have been depressing. It should have confirmed every cynical assumption I'd developed about authority and justice and the way the world actually works.
Instead, it was liberating.
If the system was going to ignore crimes like this, then people like the Shadow Dragons could operate with impunity. If the Templars were going to look the other way, then there was nothing stopping these crazy bastards from freeing every slave in Minrathous, one warehouse at a time.
Nothing except resources, manpower, and the limits of human endurance.
What Drew Me In
It wasn't the idealism. These people aren't starry-eyed revolutionaries dreaming of overturning the social order. They're pragmatists who've identified a specific problem and developed practical solutions.
It wasn't the camaraderie. Though there is something to be said for working with people who are genuinely competent at what they do, and who do it for reasons that make sense.
It wasn't even the righteousness of the cause, though that certainly doesn't hurt.
It was the results.
Seventeen people who were going to spend their lives in bondage went to sleep free instead. Not eventually, not after years of legal challenges and political maneuvering, but that night. Because someone decided their freedom was worth the risk.
That's something the entire fucking Magisterium, with all its wealth and power and grand speeches, had never managed to accomplish. Not once. Not for anyone.
But this pompous git with his expensive clothes and his small band of criminals? They'd done it seventeen times in a single evening.
And they'd do it again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, until every slave in Tevinter was free or they were all dead trying.
The scale of it is ridiculous. The odds are impossible. The risks are enormous.
It's the most hopeful thing I've ever been part of.
About Their Leader
I was wrong about Ashur.
He is pompous, and he does dress like a Magister's brat, and he does carry himself with that infuriating confidence that comes from never having been properly humbled by life.
But he's also the kind of person who risks his life for strangers without expecting anything in return. The kind of person who uses his privilege and resources to help people who have neither. The kind of person who's figured out how to turn righteous anger into effective action.
More importantly, he's the kind of person who sees potential in broken things.
When he looked at me tonight—drunk, bitter, carrying more baggage than a merchant caravan—he didn't see a liability or a charity case. He saw someone who might still have something useful to contribute.
He was right.
For the first time in months, I feel like I might have a purpose again. Not the kind of purpose that's imposed from above by people who've never done the work themselves, but the kind that comes from choosing to be part of something that actually matters.
Final Thoughts
The Shadow Dragons do more good in their little finger than the whole of the Magisterium does in a year.
That's not hyperbole. That's just math.
Seventeen people freed versus zero people freed. Practical action versus empty rhetoric. Results versus promises.
I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I don't know if these people will accept me as more than a temporary asset. I don't know if I'm ready to care about something again, or if caring will just set me up for another round of disappointment and disillusionment.
But I know this: for the first time since Seheron, I've found work worth doing with people worth doing it for.
That's got to count for something.
[Added later, in different ink]
It's been six months since I wrote this entry. Still with the Shadow Dragons. Still doing the work. Still arguing with Ashur about tactical approaches and resource allocation and whether his plans are brilliant or insane.
Still worth it.
Turns out I was right about one thing: he really is a pompous git. But he's my our pompous git, and he's saved more lives than the rest of us combined.
Also turns out I was wrong about something important: I thought I was just looking for purpose. What I actually found was family.
Funny how life works sometimes.
Chapter 2: Faith (and the death thereof)
Summary:
Descriptions of violence in war and death in this entry -not given in great detail, more in memory.
Chapter Text
[This document appears to be written in a personal journal over multiple sessions, with different inks and handwriting styles suggesting it was composed across months or even years. Some sections are neat and contemplative, others hurried and angry. The margins contain additional notes and bitter commentary added later.]
Personal Documentation - Private
Subject: The Evolution of Belief
Purpose: Understanding how faith dies (or trying to)
Note: Not sure why I'm writing this down. Maybe because I need to see it laid out to understand how I got here.
FAITH AT EIGHTEEN: THE BELIEVER
When I enlisted, I carried the Chant of Light in my pack right next to my rations. Read it every night by lamplight, sometimes aloud if the other recruits were interested. I knew whole passages by heart.
"Maker, my enemies are abundant.
Many are those who rise up against me.
But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,
Should they set themselves against me."
I believed that. Completely. Without question. I believed that every order I followed, every mission I completed, every hardship I endured was part of some grand design. The Maker had a plan, and I was privileged to serve it.
The Father told us we were doing sacred work. Protecting the faithful, defending the innocent, serving divine will through disciplined sacrifice. He said that Andraste herself had blessed those who took up arms in defense of the righteous.
I ate that shit up with a spoon.
[Margin note: "Young and stupid. The most dangerous combination."]
Prayer came easily then. Before every mission, after every battle, during the quiet moments when mortality felt too close for comfort. I'd recite the Canticle of Andraste and feel... connected. To something bigger than myself, bigger than the war, bigger than the fear and the mud and the constant possibility of dying badly in a jungle that didn't give a shit about divine plans.
Faith made everything bearable. Faith made everything meaningful.
Faith was the only thing standing between me and the realization that maybe none of this meant anything at all.
FAITH AT TWENTY-TWO: THE QUESTIONER
The first crack came with Harrison.
Kid couldn't have been more than nineteen. Eager, devout, carried a little wooden holy symbol his mother gave him. He'd pray before every patrol, ask the Maker to guide his steps and protect his squad.
He stepped on a mine three days into our deployment. There wasn't enough left of him to send home in a proper coffin.
I found his holy symbol afterward, blackened and cracked but somehow still intact. Held it in my hand and tried to understand what the Maker's plan could possibly include for nineteen-year-old boys getting vaporized by Qunari explosives.
The Father said it was a test of faith. That the Maker's ways were beyond mortal understanding. That Harrison's sacrifice served some greater purpose that would be revealed in time.
I wanted to believe that. I tried to believe that.
But I kept thinking about how Harrison's last words weren't a prayer or a declaration of faith. They were "I want to go home."
[Margin note: "Should have listened to him. Should have all gone home."]
That's when I started asking questions. Not out loud - that would have been discouraged. But internally, privately, in the space between prayers.
If the Maker had a plan, why did it require so much suffering from the people least equipped to understand it?
If we were doing sacred work, why did it feel so much like waste and bureaucratic incompetence?
If Andraste blessed those who fought for the righteous, why were we mostly fighting for trade routes and political convenience?
I still prayed. Still read the Chant. Still participated in evening devotions.
But the certainty was gone. Faith started feeling less like connection and more like habit.
FAITH AT TWENTY-FIVE: THE DOUBTER
Morrison and Mills died within three weeks of each other. Both good men. Both believers. Both convinced that their service mattered to something greater than military logistics.
Morrison bled out on a beach asking me what the fucking point was. Mills got burned alive by saarebas fire while talking about his daughters' nameday.
I performed last rites for both of them. Spoke the traditional words about their souls finding peace in the Maker's presence, about their sacrifice ensuring eternal glory.
The words felt like ash in my mouth.
[Several lines are heavily crossed out here]
That's when I stopped praying before missions. Not because I'd stopped believing entirely, but because I couldn't figure out what to pray for anymore.
For protection? The Maker clearly wasn't in the protection business, or Harrison would still be alive.
For victory? Most of our victories were tactical meaninglessness dressed up as strategic success.
For the safety of innocent people? We were mostly protecting trade interests and political boundaries, not innocents.
For understanding? The more I understood about what we were actually doing and why, the less it felt like divine work.
[Margin note: "Understanding is the enemy of faith, apparently."]
I still carried the Chant, but I stopped reading it. Still attended evening devotions, but I spent the time thinking about home instead of listening to the Father.
Faith started feeling less like comfort and more like obligation. Less like truth and more like tradition.
Less like connection to the divine and more like self-deception with better marketing.
FAITH AT TWENTY-EIGHT: THE CYNIC
Costa died trying to save a wounded Qunari prisoner. Enemy soldier, someone we were supposed to kill without hesitation, but Costa saw him bleeding out and couldn't walk away.
Costa was the most devout man I'd ever known. Prayed three times a day, knew the entire Chant by heart, never missed an evening devotion. He honestly believed that every person carried a spark of the divine, regardless of nationality or ideology.
So when he saw that Qunari soldier dying, his faith demanded he try to help.
The prisoner had a concealed blade. Cut Costa's throat while he was applying bandages.
Both of them died within minutes.
[Margin note: "Faith rewarded with a blade to the neck. Very inspiring."]
That's when I realized that faith wasn't just useless - it was actively dangerous. Costa died because he believed in something beautiful and noble and completely divorced from reality.
The Qunari soldier wasn't carrying a divine spark. He was carrying a knife and the training to use it on anyone stupid enough to show him mercy.
Costa's faith killed him. And his death accomplished nothing except removing one decent man from a world that already had too few.
I stopped attending devotions after that. Stopped pretending to listen when the Father talked about divine plans and sacred purposes. Stopped bothering to explain my absence when people asked.
The Chant of Light stayed in my pack, but only because throwing it away felt like more effort than ignoring it.
Faith started feeling less like self-deception and more like active delusion.
FAITH AT THIRTY: THE APOSTATE
Jenkins got promoted over me despite being half as competent and twice as willing to kiss ass. The reason? My "attitude problems" and "lack of institutional loyalty."
What that actually meant: I'd started asking inconvenient questions about mission objectives, resource allocation, and why so many good soldiers were dying for objectives that got abandoned the moment they became politically expensive.
What that actually meant: I'd stopped pretending that military incompetence was divine will.
What that actually meant: I'd lost my faith, and it was starting to show.
[The handwriting becomes more erratic here]
That's when I realized the truth about faith in military service: it's not about belief in the divine. It's about belief in hierarchy. It's about accepting that your superiors know better than you do, that questioning orders is spiritual weakness, that suffering without complaint is moral virtue.
Military faith isn't about connecting with something greater than yourself. It's about disconnecting from your own judgment, your own conscience, your own ability to recognize bullshit when you see it.
The Father wasn't teaching us to serve the Maker. He was teaching us to serve the institution that claimed to speak for the Maker.
And I was done serving institutions that used faith as a weapon against critical thinking.
[Margin note: "Should have figured this out ten years sooner."]
I threw away the Chant of Light that night. Didn't burn it dramatically or make some kind of symbolic gesture. Just put it in the trash with the rest of the garbage and walked away.
It felt like the most honest thing I'd done in years.
REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF FAITH
Faith didn't die all at once. It died slowly, one disappointment at a time, one betrayal at a time, one moment of clarity at a time.
It died every time I watched good people suffer for bad reasons while being told it served the greater good.
It died every time I saw institutional power used to justify individual cruelty while claiming divine sanction.
It died every time I realized that "the Maker's plan" was being used as an excuse for waste, incompetence, and moral cowardice.
[Margin note: "Or maybe it didn't die. Maybe it just grew up."]
I don't pray anymore. I don't read holy texts or attend religious services or look for signs of divine intervention in daily events.
But I still believe in something. Not in cosmic plans or institutional wisdom or comfortable lies about everything happening for a reason.
I believe in the possibility that individuals can choose to reduce suffering instead of increasing it. That people can stand up for principles worth defending, even when institutions fail them. That human dignity exists independently of official recognition or religious validation.
Maybe that's not faith in the traditional sense. Maybe it's just stubborn humanism with a sense of humor.
But it's honest. It's based on evidence I can see with my own eyes rather than promises I have to take on authority. It doesn't require me to ignore inconvenient truths or pretend that suffering serves some greater purpose.
And it's mine. Entirely mine. No one can take it away by proving that institutions are corrupt or that authorities are fallible or that the universe is indifferent to human welfare.
Because I already know all of that.
And I choose to give a shit anyway.
WHAT COMES NEXT
I don't know what comes after losing your religion but keeping your conscience. I don't know how to serve principles worth defending when all the institutions claim to serve those principles while actually serving themselves.
I don't know how to have faith in something greater than myself when everything greater than myself has proven to be smaller than advertised.
But I'm going to figure it out.
I'm going to find work that actually protects people instead of just claiming to. I'm going to serve causes that deserve service instead of demanding it. I'm going to have faith in things that earn faith instead of commanding it.
I don't know what that looks like yet. But I know it doesn't look like this.
[Written in different ink, clearly added years later]
Found this while packing up old papers. Interesting to read again after all this time.
I was wrong about faith dying. It didn't die - it just got redirected toward things that actually deserved it.
Turns out there are people worth having faith in. Causes worth believing in. Work worth doing that actually serves the principles I thought military service would honor.
The Shadow Dragons taught me that faith doesn't have to be institutional to be real. That believing in human dignity doesn't require believing in cosmic plans. That serving something greater than yourself just means finding people who are actually trying to make things better.
Morrison and Mills would understand, I think. They'd probably laugh at how long it took me to figure out that losing institutional faith isn't the same as losing the ability to believe in things worth believing in.
Faith didn't die. It just finally found something worthy of it.
Better late than never.
Chapter 3: Tattoos
Chapter Text
[These pages appear to be working notes spread across several sessions, with sketches, crossed-out ideas, and multiple revisions. Some sections are written neatly as if copied from rough drafts, others are hurried thoughts scrawled in margins. A few small drawings and design elements are scattered throughout.]
TATTOO PLANNING NOTES - PERSONAL PROJECT
Purpose: Deciding what to keep visible, what to transform, what to honor
Consultation with Mira at Ink & Iron scheduled for next week
Note to self: Stop overthinking this. It's your fucking body.
PHILOSOPHY FIRST (because apparently I can't do anything without a manifesto)
I've been thinking about the difference between marks that happen TO you and marks that you choose FOR yourself. Between evidence of survival and evidence of living. Between scars that tell stories you wish you could forget and ink that tells stories you want to remember.
My body is already a map of my history. The question is: what parts of that history do I want to celebrate, what parts do I want to transform, and what parts do I want to leave exactly as they are?
Some scars are perfect as they are. Some need... translation. And some could use company.
[Margin note: "Mira says she can work with anything. We'll see."]
THE KEEPERS: Scars That Stay Exactly As They Are
1. Top surgery scars
Location: Chest, horizontal lines nearly faded completely now
Decision: KEEP VISIBLE, possibly enhance
These aren't getting covered. Ever. They're the only scars I chose, the only ones that represent me becoming more myself instead of less. They're proof that sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is change what needs changing.
Maybe add some subtle linework around them? Something that makes them look intentional rather than medical? Mira mentioned geometric patterns that could complement the lines without hiding them.
[Small sketch of interlocking triangular patterns]
2. Right shoulder blade - Qunari blade, Seheron
Location: Four-inch curved scar
Decision: KEEP VISIBLE, add context
This one saved my life - or rather, Mills saved my life by getting the bastard who gave it to me. It's a reminder that good people look out for each other, even when everything else is going to shit.
Thinking about incorporating it into a larger piece about protection, about having someone's back. Maybe wings? Too obvious? Or roots of a tree that spreads across my shoulders?
[Rough sketch of wing outline encompassing the scar]
3. Hands - various small scars
Location: Knuckles, palms, fingers
Decision: KEEP VISIBLE
These are working hands. Hands that have built things and fixed things and occasionally punched things that deserved punching. The scars are part of the story, and covering them would be like lying about the kind of life I've lived.
Besides, Ashur likes tracing them when we're talking. Would be a shame to cover up something that brings him joy.
[Margin note: "Also hand tattoos are a pain in the ass to maintain, according to Mira."]
THE TRANSFORMS: Scars That Need New Stories
1. Left forearm - shrapnel cluster
Location: Dozen small scars from metal fragments
Decision: INCORPORATE into larger design
These ache every time it rains, little reminders of the morning the Qunari decided our supply depot was worth mortaring. Lost eight people that day. Good people.
But Toryn survived that attack and went home to grow tomatoes. Maybe that's the story worth telling - not the destruction, but what grew afterward.
Thinking about a garden scene that uses the scars as centers for flowers or fruits. Each small scar becomes the heart of something beautiful. Something that grows from damaged ground.
[Detailed sketch of flowering vines with small blooms centered on dots representing scars]
2. Lower back - Venatori cultist blade
Location: Three-inch jagged cut
Decision: TRANSFORM completely
This one's complicated. It's ugly and it reminds me of almost failing to protect that kid we were evacuating. Almost getting killed because I was distracted by a ten-year-old who was too scared to move.
But Ashur saved my life that day. With fire. Brilliant, controlled fire that lit up the night like the sun itself. He burned that bastard to ash before the blade could go any deeper.
Here's the problem: fire still gives me nightmares. Gaatlok explosions, saarebas flames, the way Mills screamed when it found him. I know Ashur's fire saved me, I know it was precise and protective and nothing like the destructive fire that haunted Seheron.
But my brain doesn't always know the difference when I'm asleep.
This scar needs to become something about fire that protects instead of destroys. About light that saves instead of burns. About Ashur being the sun breaking through darkness when I needed it most.
Maybe that's literal - sun imagery, solar designs that transform the scar into a reminder that fire can be salvation instead of destruction. Work through the nightmares by making them into something beautiful.
[Sketch of sun rays emanating from a central point, with the scar as part of the light pattern]
3. Right thigh - guard's sword, failed rescue attempt
Location: Long, puckered scar
Decision: MAJOR TRANSFORMATION
This is from before I learned better. When I was young and stupid and thought individual heroics could fix systemic problems. Nearly bled out trying to save a family of elves from slave traders, accomplished nothing except getting myself carved up.
But it was also my first contact with the Shadow Dragons. They saved my ass and taught me that timing matters, that smart risks are better than noble ones, that choosing your battles is strategy, not cowardice.
This needs to become something about learning, about growing, about the difference between foolish courage and effective courage. Maybe a phoenix rising from ashes? A sword being reforged? Something about transformation through wisdom.
[Multiple sketches: phoenix design, broken sword becoming whole, seedling growing from rocky ground]
THE HONORS: New Ink for Important Things
1. Morrison and Mills memorial
Proposed location: Left shoulder
Design concept: Something subtle but permanent
They deserve to be remembered, but not in a way that's morbid or depressing. They were good men who believed their service mattered. Maybe that's what gets honored - not their deaths, but their faith in something bigger than themselves.
Thinking about two small symbols that represent them without being obvious. Morrison loved reading - maybe a small book or scroll? Mills talked about his daughters constantly - maybe something about family, protection, legacy?
[Sketches of various small symbolic elements: books, shields, intertwined branches]
2. Shadow Dragon allegiance
Proposed location: Inner forearm
Design concept: Organization symbol with personal touches
This needs to be clearly recognizable to other Shadow Dragons but not obvious to authorities. Something that says "I belong here" without broadcasting it to every Templar who sees me with my sleeves rolled up.
The standard dragon is too obvious. But maybe something more subtle? Dragon scales forming other patterns? Or elements that suggest dragons without showing them directly?
[Several dragon-related design sketches, increasingly abstract]
3. Ashur's influence
Proposed location: TBD - somewhere meaningful
Design concept: Something that represents what he's brought to my life
This is the hardest one to design because it's the most important. How do you represent someone who taught you that love doesn't have to be conditional, that faith can be personal, that service can be honest?
Maybe something about light in dark places? Growth in unexpected conditions? Two different elements that are stronger together than apart?
[Abstract sketches: interlocking patterns, complementary designs, light breaking through geometric shapes]
TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Size and placement:
- Nothing too visible in professional settings (still need to blend in sometimes)
- Nothing that will look like shit when I'm old
(er)and everything starts sagging - Consider how pieces will work together as a whole composition
Timing:
- Start with the memorial pieces - smaller, easier to heal
- Work on covering the transforms gradually
- Save the major honor pieces for when I'm sure about the designs
Pain tolerance:
- I've survived worse than tattoo needles, but no point being stupid about it
- Schedule sessions when I won't need to be at peak performance for missions
Aftercare:
- Mira says healing time varies, plan around Shadow Dragon operations
- Stock up on proper cleaning supplies
- Maybe let Ashur help with the hard-to-reach spots (if I can trust him not to be too smug about it)
[Margin note: "He's definitely going to be smug about it."]
QUESTIONS FOR MIRA
- Can the shrapnel scars really work as flower centers, or am I being too optimistic?
- Best approach for covering the thigh scar without losing the lesson it represents?
- How to make the memorial pieces meaningful without being depressing?
- Timeline for a project this extensive?
- Pain level for different body areas (be honest, not encouraging)
[Margin note: "Also ask about touch-up scheduling and long-term maintenance."]
DEEPER THOUGHTS (the philosophical bullshit I can't avoid)
This whole process is about taking control of my own narrative. For too many years, my body told the story that other people wrote - military service, combat damage, medical necessity, survival against odds.
All of that is true, and all of that matters. But it's not the whole story.
The whole story includes choosing to become who I am instead of accepting who I was told to be. It includes finding people worth serving and causes worth bleeding for. It includes learning that love can be honest, that faith can be personal, that scars can be beautiful when they're part of a larger pattern.
[Margin note: "Getting sentimental again. Occupational hazard of major fucking life decisions."]
Some of my scars will always be reminders of damage, of things that happened TO me. That's fine. That's part of the truth.
But some of my scars are going to be transformed into reminders of growth, of things I CHOSE. And that's part of the truth too.
And some of my skin is going to carry new marks that have nothing to do with damage at all - marks that celebrate connection, commitment, belonging.
My body is going to tell the whole story: where I've been, what I've survived, what I've learned, who I've chosen to become.
It's going to be a long process. Probably expensive. Definitely painful in places.
Worth it.
I'm doing this.
I'm taking control of how my story is told, in permanent ink, on the only canvas that's ever really belonged to me.
Some scars stay as they are because they're perfect reminders of who I've been.
Some scars get transformed into something new because they deserve better stories than the ones they originally told.
And some new space gets filled with images of who I'm becoming.
My body, my story, my choice.
About fucking time.
[Added in different handwriting]
Started the memorial pieces today. Morrison got a small compass rose on my left shoulder - he always said a good soldier never loses his way. Mills got a oak leaf right below it - strong, protective, family-minded.
They look perfect.
Mira says the shrapnel flowers are going to be her masterpiece. We start those next month.
Ashur held my hand during the compass rose. Didn't make fun of me for needing it, didn't act like it was a big deal all while tracing the scars on my hands. Glad I decided to leave those as they are.
Pretty sure I love him.
Pretty sure I'm going to need more ink to properly document that.
Good thing I'm just getting started.
Chapter 4: Chosen/Blood Family
Chapter Text
[This entry appears to be written in a comfortable setting, perhaps at home in the hideout. The handwriting is relaxed and contemplative, with occasional crossed-out sections where the author reconsidered his phrasing. Several margin notes appear to have been added during different reading sessions, as if he returned to this piece multiple times.]
Personal Reflection - Family Structures
Location: Shadow Dragon hideout
Purpose: Figuring out why I have two families and what that means
I've been thinking about family lately. Specifically, about how you can love people who gave you everything you needed to become who you are, while also needing completely different people to help you figure out who that actually is.
It's complicated. But then again, most worthwhile things are.
THE FAMILY THAT MADE ME
My blood family did everything right. Let me say that first, before I start explaining why I can't go home anymore.
They did everything right.
When I was fourteen and couldn't explain why I felt wrong in my own skin, my mother researched every healer and scholar until she found someone who could give us words for what I was experiencing.
When I told them I needed surgery to make my body match my soul, my father sold his prize horses to pay for it. Never complained, never made me feel guilty about the cost. Just said, "Family takes care of family," and started making arrangements.
When I came home with short hair and binding cloth and a voice pitched deliberately low, my older sister Elena immediately started using my new name and threatened to fight anyone who didn't. My younger sisters—Celia, Marta, and little Ana—just shrugged and said they'd always thought I seemed more like their brother anyway.
[Margin note: "Ana was eight. Eight-year-olds are remarkably practical about these things."]
They gave me everything I needed to become myself. Love, support, resources, fierce protection from anyone who had opinions about my choices. They never once made me feel like I was a burden or a disappointment or something that needed to be fixed.
And when it came time to decide what to do with my life, my father sat me down and talked about family legacy. About the family tradition of military service, about honor and duty and serving something greater than yourself.
"Every generation of our family has served," he said. "Not because we have to, but because we can. Because someone raised us with the skills and principles that make us worth something in uniform."
He wasn't pressuring me. He was offering me a path in the life I wanted that came with built-in meaning, built-in belonging, built-in purpose.
I took it because I wanted to honor what they'd given me. I took it because I thought I owed them that much. I took it because I couldn't figure out what else someone like me was supposed to do with their life.
[Margin note: "Gratitude is a terrible foundation for major life decisions."]
For fifteen years, I tried to be the son they'd invested so much in creating. I followed orders, served with distinction, wrote letters home about honor and duty and meaningful service.
I never told them how miserable I was. I never explained that every day felt like wearing an ill-fitting uniform, that following orders felt like suffocating, that the "meaningful service" was mostly bureaucratic waste punctuated by watching good people die for bad reasons.
I never told them because they'd given me everything, and complaining about the life I'd chosen with their gifts felt like ingratitude.
Besides, they were proud of me. Captain, decorated veteran, upholder of family tradition. The son who'd honored their investment in his transformation by becoming exactly what a good son should be.
How could I explain that their perfect success felt like my perfect failure?
[Several lines are crossed out here]
They love me. They love the person they helped me become. They'd probably still love me if I told them the truth about why I left the military, why I can't come home, why their son became someone they wouldn't recognize.
But they love an idea of who I am that's based on gratitude, duty, and living up to their expectations. They love the version of me that took their gifts and became what they hoped I'd become.
I don't know if they'd love the version of me that took their gifts and became something entirely different instead.
THE FAMILY THAT FOUND ME
My chosen family didn't set out to adopt a bitter ex-soldier with identity issues and a tendency toward sarcasm. It just sort of happened, one mission at a time, one shared crisis at a time, one moment of recognition at a time.
Dorian somehow became the paternal figure I didn't know I needed. Which is fucking hilarious, considering he's barely older than me and spends most of his time complaining about responsibility while taking on more of it than anyone else.
But he's the one who notices when I'm pushing too hard, who assigns me to research duty when I need a break from fieldwork, who makes sure I eat actual meals instead of surviving on coffee, liquor, and pure spite.
He's also the one who argues with me when I'm wrong, challenges my assumptions when they need challenging, and refuses to let me get away with self-pity disguised as pragmatism.
"You're catastrophizing again, Tarquin," he'll say when I'm convinced our latest plan is doomed. "Do something useful with that pessimism instead of wallowing in it."
Unwittingly caring. That's exactly what he is. He cares deeply about all of us while pretending he's just managing assets efficiently. Like the world's most emotionally constipated shepherd tending his flock.
[Margin note: "Also he sends books he thinks I'll like and pretends they were just cluttering up his office."]
Mae is the maternal presence I didn't know I was missing. Not because she fusses over us—she'd probably punch anyone who suggested she was motherly, and I'd pay good money to watch—but because she creates the kind of emotional safety that lets people be vulnerable when they need to be.
She's the one who taught me that taking care of yourself isn't selfish, that asking for help isn't weakness, that admitting you're struggling doesn't make you a burden to decent people.
When I was having nightmares about Seheron, she didn't try to fix them or analyze them or give me some therapeutic bullshit about how they'd go away in time. She just made sure I knew where to find her if I needed someone to sit with me.
"Healing isn't linear," she told me once. "And it's not something you do alone, you stubborn ass."
The siblings I never had: Lorelei's sharp wit keeping everyone honest, Bren's quiet competence making impossible things look easy, Quillon's irreverent humor diffusing tension when operations get too serious.
Hector's steady presence when everything feels chaotic, Marisa's fierce protectiveness extending to everyone she considers hers, Huxley's surprising wisdom buried under layers of apparent carelessness.
They don't love me because they made me or because I live up to their expectations. They love me because I'm useful, because I'm loyal, because I chose to be here and keep choosing to stay even when they're all being insufferable.
They love me because I fit. Not because I made myself fit, but because this is where I actually belong, rough edges and sarcastic commentary included.
AND THEN THERE'S ASHUR
Ashur isn't family in any traditional sense. He's something else entirely. Something I don't have adequate words for yet.
He's the person who sees all the versions of me—the grateful son, the bitter soldier, the competent Shadow Dragon, the man still figuring out who he wants to be—and somehow loves all of them simultaneously.
Not because he made me, not because I've proven myself worthy, not because I fit into a role he needed filled.
He loves me because he chooses to. Every day. For reasons that have everything to do with who I actually am and nothing to do with who I think I should be.
With my blood family, I was always trying to be worth their investment. With my chosen family, I'm trying to be worth their trust.
With Ashur, I'm learning what it feels like to be worth something just for existing.
[Margin note: "This is getting embarrassingly sentimental. I regret nothing."]
WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT FAMILY
Blood family and chosen family aren't competing concepts. They're not better or worse than each other, more or less valid, more or less important.
They serve different purposes in different seasons of your life.
My blood family gave me the foundation I needed to survive becoming myself. The resources, the support, the fierce protection that got me through the hardest parts of figuring out who I was.
Without them, I never would have made it to the point where I could choose anything.
My chosen family gives me the space I need to explore who I'm still becoming. The acceptance, the challenge, the belonging that helps me figure out what to do with the person my blood family helped me become.
Without them, I'd still be trying to be someone else's idea of who I should be.
Both kinds of love matter. Both kinds of family are real.
But here's the crucial difference: blood family loves you and then tries to help you become worthy of that love. Chosen family decides you're worthy of love and then chooses to love you.
Both can be beautiful. Both can be necessary.
But only one lets you rest.
[Margin note: "Rest. When did that become such a revolutionary concept?"]
WHAT COMES NEXT
Maybe someday I'll find a way to integrate these two kinds of family. Maybe I'll figure out how to be authentic with my blood family without hurting them, how to be grateful without feeling trapped by that gratitude.
Maybe I'll find a way to introduce Ashur to my parents that doesn't require explaining fifteen years of lies about who I thought I was supposed to be. Though knowing Ashur, he'd probably charm them completely while I'm having some kind of emotional crisis in the corner.
Maybe my sisters will get to meet their chosen aunts and uncles, and my parents will get to see what their investment actually created: not the perfect soldier they expected, but a person who learned to choose love over duty, authenticity over expectation, service over obligation.
Or maybe some distances are necessary. Maybe some kinds of love are meant to exist separately, serving different purposes in different parts of your life, and that's not a failure—that's just fucking complicated reality.
Either way, I'm grateful for both.
My blood family taught me that love could be unconditional.
My chosen family taught me that love could be freely given.
Ashur taught me that love could be both.
[Written in different ink, clearly added later]
Re-read this tonight after a particularly long mission briefing where Dorian spent twenty minutes explaining why my "tactically sound but ethically questionable" approach to intelligence gathering needed refinement.
Still think he'd make a terrible father. Still grateful he's accidentally good at it anyway.
Mae caught me writing in here yesterday and threatened to burn it if it contained "any more emotional masturbation than strictly necessary." I told her it was a tactical analysis of interpersonal dynamics. She called me a lying bastard and brought me coffee.
Family, it turns out, is people who see through your bullshit and care about you anyway.
Even when you're being insufferably sentimental about it.
Chapter 5: Romance and Falling in Love
Chapter Text
[These appear to be loose notes scattered throughout a journal, written at different times over several weeks. Some are formal observations, others are fragments jotted down hastily. The handwriting varies from neat and controlled to hurried and emotional. Several pages show signs of having been torn out and rewritten.]
Observation Log - Personal
Subject: Trust (and why it's fucking terrifying)
Date: [Scratched out and rewritten multiple times because I'm apparently a coward]
I've been watching Ashur for weeks now. Not in a creepy way—well, maybe a little creepy, but for analytical purposes, not because I'm some lovesick fool. Trying to figure out what his angle is, what game he's playing.
Everyone has an angle. Forty years of life have taught me that much. The Templars who smiled while they told me I was serving the greater good—right up until they fed me to the Qunari for their fucking "strategic objectives." The officers who clapped me on the shoulder and called me "son" while they sent me to die for their mistakes. Even the Shadow Dragons, much as I respect them—we're all here because we want something. Justice, revenge, purpose, absolution from our own spectacular failures.
But Ashur? I can't figure out what the hell he wants from me.
That should be reassuring. Instead, it's terrifying as shit.
Personal Note - Undated
Had another conversation with Ashur today. We were sorting through information on potential extraction targets when he asked me about my time in Seheron.
Not the usual bullshit questions—not about battles or tactics or how many Qunari I killed for the glory of the fucking Empire. He asked what I missed most about the island.
I almost gave him the standard answer, the one that makes officers nod approvingly and civilians feel better about sending other people's children to war. The camaraderie. The sense of purpose. The clarity of having a mission.
Instead, I found myself talking about the sunsets. How the light would filter through the jungle canopy and turn everything golden for about ten minutes every evening. How even in the middle of a war zone where people were dying for political bullshit, there were these moments of perfect, impossible beauty that made you remember why living was worth the effort.
He listened. Didn't offer commentary or try to relate it to his own experiences or any of that therapeutic horseshit. Just... listened.
When I finished, he said quietly, "It's good that you can still see beauty in places where you suffered. That's not easy."
It's not fucking easy. He's right about that.
But the fact that he recognized it—that he understood the difference between nostalgia and genuine appreciation, between sentimentality and survival—that caught me completely off guard.
Most people hear "I miss the sunsets" and think I'm being some kind of romantic fool. Ashur heard it and understood I was talking about the small things that keep you human when everything else is trying to strip that away.
How the hell does he do that? How does he hear what I'm actually saying instead of what I'm pretending to say?
Random Thoughts - Late Night
Ashur brought me coffee this morning. Not because I asked, not because he wanted something in return, not because he was angling for some kind of fucking reward. He just noticed I was tired and thought coffee might help.
Simple gesture. Practical. Thoughtful.
I spent twenty minutes analyzing it for hidden meanings like some kind of paranoid lunatic before I realized that maybe—just maybe—sometimes coffee is just goddamn coffee.
When the hell did I become so suspicious of basic human kindness?
(I know when. Seheron. The jungle. Morrison bleeding out while promising me the brass cared about us. Mills talking about his kids right up until the saarebas fire took him apart. Every moment of care or camaraderie that got ripped away by circumstances beyond our control and officers who treated us like expendable fucking chess pieces.)
But Ashur isn't Morrison or Mills. He's not some young soldier clinging to hope in a hopeless situation while politicians play games with his life. He's a grown man who's seen his own share of darkness and bullshit and chosen to keep extending small kindnesses anyway.
Maybe I need to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop and start accepting that some people are exactly who they appear to be.
Maybe Ashur is exactly who he appears to be.
Terrifying fucking thought.
Conversation Notes - After the Ventori Warehouse Incident
Ashur saw my scars today.
Not the ones across my chest—those I'm fucking proud of, evidence of choices made and battles won against people who insisted I was something I'm not. The others. The ugly ones from Seheron that I keep covered because they're reminders of shrapnel and blades and moments when I wasn't quite fast enough or smart enough or lucky enough to avoid getting carved up for the Empire's glory.
I was changing shirts after the warehouse raid, thought I was alone. Door was supposed to be locked to the closet, but apparently I'm shit at basic security when I'm bleeding. Ashur knocked, I called out that I was busy trying not to bleed all over my clean clothes, but he heard something in my voice—pain, maybe, or frustration at my own fucking incompetence—and he came in anyway.
Found me struggling with my shirt, fresh blood seeping through bandages from where I'd reopened an old wound during the fight like a complete amateur.
Most people would have apologized awkwardly and fucked off. Or offered help in that bumbling way people do when they're not sure if assistance will be welcomed or if you'll bite their head off for presuming.
Ashur just said, "Let me see."
Not a request. Not a demand. Just... a statement. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for me to let him help, like there was no question that I might want to handle it myself or maintain some dignity.
And somehow, it fucking was natural.
I let him clean the wound and apply fresh bandages. Let him see the mess of scar tissue across my back and shoulders, the roadmap of every time I wasn't good enough to avoid getting hurt. Let him trace the path of old injuries with careful fingers while he worked.
His hands were gentle. Professional. No pity in his touch, no shock at the extent of the damage, no stupid comments about how I "must be tough" or "must have nine lives." Just careful attention to what needed doing.
When he finished, he didn't ask invasive questions about how I got them or offer meaningless platitudes about survival or strength or any of that inspirational horseshit. Just looked at me—really looked, seeing all of it—and said, "You've been carrying a lot of weight for a long time."
Not "you've been through a lot" or "you're stronger than you know" or any of the other things people say when they don't know what else to offer and want to feel like they've helped.
Just recognition. Acknowledgment. The simple truth that living with that much accumulated damage is exhausting as hell, even when you're good at it.
I almost cried. Right there, half-naked and vulnerable in ways I hadn't allowed myself to be in years, I almost broke down completely like some kind of emotional wreck.
Instead, I said, "Yeah. I fucking have been."
And he nodded like that was exactly the right response.
Reflection - Several Days Later
I keep thinking about that moment. Not just the vulnerability of it—though that was significant as fuck—but the way Ashur handled it.
He could have made it about him. Could have shared his own scars or traumas to create some kind of reciprocal intimacy bullshit. Could have used the moment to push for more closeness or extract information or establish some kind of emotional leverage like every other manipulative bastard I've ever known.
Instead, he just... held space for my truth. Whatever the hell that means.
Let me be seen without requiring anything in return. No quid pro quo, no emotional transaction, no strings attached to his kindness.
That's not how most people operate. Most people see vulnerability as currency—something to be traded, leveraged, or hoarded for later use. They collect your soft spots so they can use them later, either as weapons or as proof of their importance in your life.
But Ashur treated my scars like what they are: evidence of a life lived, battles fought, prices paid for being who I am and making the choices I've made.
He didn't try to fix them or minimize them or turn them into some kind of fucking inspiration porn. He just acknowledged them and moved on.
I'm not used to that kind of acceptance.
I don't know what the hell to do with it.
Personal Inventory
Things I know about trusting people:
- Everyone wants something
- Kindness usually comes with strings attached
- Vulnerability is a weakness others will exploit
- The moment you let someone see who you really are, they'll use it against you
- Love is conditional and temporary
- Better to be alone than disappointed again
Things Ashur has taught me might not be true:
- Some people genuinely care without expecting returns
- Kindness can exist for its own sake
- Vulnerability can be a gift you choose to give, not a weakness others take
- Being seen completely might be terrifying, but it's also necessary
- Love might be a choice people make daily, not a feeling that fades
- Being alone is safe, but it's not living
I'm not ready to throw out the first list entirely. Too many years, too much evidence, too many disappointments.
But I'm starting to think there might be room for both to be true simultaneously.
Maybe some people operate by the rules I know, and some people—like Ashur—operate by different rules entirely.
Maybe the trick is learning to tell the difference.
Late Night Thoughts - After the Kiss
We kissed tonight.
I'm not sure who initiated it. We were talking about something inconsequential—supply routes, I think, or maybe guard rotations—and suddenly we weren't talking anymore.
I've been kissed before. Had lovers before. But this felt different. Not just physical attraction or convenient intimacy or the kind of desperate connection you forge with someone when you're both expecting to die young.
This felt like recognition.
Like two people seeing each other clearly and deciding that what they saw was worth exploring.
When it ended, Ashur didn't immediately launch into declarations or demands or promises. He didn't try to turn the moment into something bigger than it was or smaller than it might become.
He just smiled and said, "I've been wanting to do that for weeks."
Honest. Direct. No games or strategies or hidden meanings.
I told him I'd been thinking about it too, but I wasn't sure I knew how to do this kind of thing anymore. How to let someone get close without cataloguing all the ways it could go wrong.
He said, "We'll figure it out as we go."
We'll figure it out as we go.
Not promises about forever or demands for immediate intimacy. Just acknowledgment that this is new territory for both of us, and we're willing to explore it together.
I don't know why that felt so revolutionary.
Maybe because it's the first time someone has offered to navigate uncertainty with me instead of demanding I have all the answers first.
Observation - Morning After
Ashur brought me coffee again this morning. Same as always—no fanfare, no meaningful looks, no assumption that last night changed everything between us.
But when he handed me the cup, his fingers lingered against mine for just a moment longer than necessary. A small acknowledgment. A quiet "I remember, and I'm glad."
I squeezed his hand briefly in response. My own small acknowledgment.
We're figuring it out as we go.
Personal Note - Weeks Later
I'm writing this while watching Ashur sleep. He's sprawled across three-quarters of my bed, taking up space like he belongs here. Which, apparently, he does.
Six months ago, if someone had told me I'd be sharing my bed and my coffee and my morning routines with another person, I'd have laughed at them. The idea of letting someone that far into my space, my habits, my daily existence—it would have seemed impossible.
But somehow, Ashur has become part of the architecture of my life without me noticing the construction.
He leaves books in my reading chair and remembers how I take my tea. He knows which missions make me restless and which ones leave me introspective. He can tell the difference between my "thinking" silence and my "brooding" silence, and he responds to each appropriately.
When I have nightmares about Seheron, he doesn't try to fix them or analyze them or turn them into teachable moments about trauma and recovery. He just holds me until the shaking stops and then makes coffee in the dark while I get my breathing back under control.
When I get frustrated with politics or bureaucracy or the endless meetings where nothing gets decided, he doesn't offer solutions or try to manage my emotions. He just listens to me vent and occasionally offers dry commentary that makes me laugh despite myself.
He's learned to read my moods, my triggers, my tells. But instead of using that knowledge to manipulate or control, he uses it to offer what I need: space when I need space, presence when I need company, distraction when I need to stop thinking, and silence when I need to work through something on my own.
I don't know when I started trusting him with all of that.
I don't know when I stopped waiting for him to disappoint me.
I don't know when I started believing that this might last.
Final Thoughts
Learning to trust someone—really trust them—isn't about grand gestures or dramatic declarations. It's about small, consistent choices made over and over again.
It's about letting someone see you first thing in the morning when you're grumpy and disheveled.
It's about sharing space without feeling like you're losing yourself in the process.
It's about being known completely—scars, flaws, rough edges, and all—and still being wanted.
It's about building something together that's bigger than either of you could create alone, but that doesn't require either of you to disappear into the partnership.
Ashur hasn't fixed me. I'm still stubborn and irreverent and occasionally impossible to live with. I still have nightmares, still carry scars, still struggle with believing that good things can last.
But he's given me something I didn't know I needed: proof that it's possible to be completely yourself with another person and still be cherished.
Not despite my rough edges, but including them. Not after I become someone different, but exactly as I am right now.
That's not just love. That's revolution.
A quiet, daily revolution against every voice that ever told me I was too much or not enough or fundamentally unworthy of unconditional care.
Ashur looks at me—all of me, the parts I'm proud of and the parts I'm still working on—and his face lights up like he's seeing something wonderful.
Maybe I am something wonderful.
Maybe we both are.
Maybe that's enough.
[Added later, in different ink]
Ashur read this entry. I left it out by accident, and when I came back, he was sitting with it in his lap, looking thoughtful.
I panicked for a moment—old habits die hard—but he just smiled and said, "You know I feel the same way, right?"
I did know. But it was good to hear anyway.
Trust, it turns out, isn't a destination you arrive at. It's a practice you maintain. A choice you make over and over again, in small moments and large ones.
I'm getting better at making that choice.
We both are.
Chapter 6: The Military
Chapter Text
[This letter is written on official Shadow Dragon letterhead, though it's clearly a personal communication rather than organizational business. The handwriting is unusually neat, as if the author took great care with each word. Several sections show evidence of having been rewritten multiple times, with different attempts crossed out or torn away entirely.]
To: Someone I Used To Be
From: Someone I'm Still Becoming
RE: The Spectacular Differences Between Hell and Home
I don't know who exactly I'm writing this to. Maybe my younger self, back when I still believed in the righteousness of orders and the honor of service. Maybe my former commanding officers, though they're probably all dead or promoted beyond caring about one disgraced captain's opinions. Maybe I'm just writing to the void, trying to make sense of how different life can be when you stop accepting that suffering is noble and start demanding that it have meaning.
Either way, here's what I need to say:
The Archives is better than sleeping in the rain.
I know that sounds like the lowest possible bar for improvement—and it fucking is—but you'd be surprised how revelatory basic shelter becomes when you've spent enough time without it.
Then: The Glorious Military Life
Let me paint you a picture of military life, since the recruitment posters tend to leave out some key details.
You wake up at dawn in a trench that's half-flooded with rainwater and questionable substances you've learned not to examine too closely. Your breakfast, if you're lucky enough to get one, consists of hardtack that could double as building material and coffee that tastes like it was brewed with swamp water and despair.
You spend your days following orders from people who've never seen combat, designed by politicians who think strategy is something that happens on maps in comfortable rooms far from the actual fighting. You watch good people die for bad reasons while being told it's all part of some grand plan that will make sense eventually, if you just trust the process and stop asking inconvenient questions.
You sleep in the rain. Literally. Because tents are for officers, and dry ground is for people important enough to deserve comfort. You wake up soaked, fight all day in wet clothes that chafe your skin raw, then do it again the next day and the day after that, because that's what service means: endless repetition of misery in pursuit of goals no one can adequately explain.
The camaraderie they talk about in the stories? It exists, but it's born of shared trauma, not shared purpose. You bond with your fellow soldiers not because you believe in the same things, but because you're all equally fucked by the same system and misery loves company.
When your friends die—and they will die, because that's what friends do in wars—you're expected to grieve efficiently. File the appropriate reports, say the right words at the memorial service, then get back to the business of staying alive long enough to watch the next round of friends get killed.
The "honor" of military service is mostly about learning to die quietly when your time comes and not embarrassing anyone important with inconvenient questions about why your death was necessary.
And the worst part? You convince yourself it's noble. You tell yourself that the suffering has meaning, that the sacrifice serves something greater, that history will vindicate the choices made by people who will never have to live with the consequences.
You tell yourself these lies because the alternative—admitting that you're dying for nothing more meaningful than bureaucratic inertia and political convenience—is too horrible to accept.
Now: The Allegedly Boring Life of an Archivist
Let me tell you about my current "degraded" circumstances, since apparently choosing books over battlefields makes me some kind of failure in the eyes of people whose opinions I used to value.
I wake up in a bed. An actual fucking bed with sheets and pillows and a roof that doesn't leak when it rains. Revolutionary concept, I know.
My breakfast consists of food I chose to eat, prepared by people who weren't ordered to feed me the cheapest possible provisions. Sometimes I even get to drink coffee that tastes like coffee instead of liquid regret.
I spend my days organizing information that actually helps people. Intelligence that leads to successful rescues instead of failed missions. Research that prevents disasters instead of causing them. Data that serves the people who need it most instead of the people who can afford it best.
When I follow orders—and yes, even the Shadow Dragons (Fuck the Templars) have hierarchy and coordination—they come from people who've done the work themselves. People who understand the risks because they've taken them, who give orders they'd be willing to carry out personally.
The Archives might be rigid and bureaucratic and full of procedures that seem designed to slow everything down, but you know what else it is? It's predictable. Boring. Safe.
I know where I'm sleeping tonight, and it won't be in a puddle.
I know what I'm eating tomorrow, and it won't be rations designed by the lowest bidder.
I know that if I get hurt, there will be medical attention that doesn't consist of "rub some dirt in it and keep moving."
And yes, I realize how pathetic it sounds to celebrate such basic provisions. But when you've lived without them long enough, you learn not to take them for granted.
The Real Fucking Difference
But the physical comfort isn't even the most important part. The real difference between military service and Shadow Dragon work isn't about better sleeping arrangements or edible food.
It's about purpose.
In the military, I was a tool. A weapon to be pointed at problems and triggered when convenient. My value was measured entirely by my willingness to follow orders without question and die quietly when instructed.
I was told that questioning orders showed lack of discipline. That suggesting improvements showed insubordination. That caring about the people under my command more than the objectives handed down from above showed weakness.
I was trained to see other people as either assets to be protected or obstacles to be eliminated, depending on which category they fell into on any given day. Complexity was discouraged. Nuance was weakness. Empathy was a luxury we couldn't afford.
The mission was sacred. Everything else was expendable.
With the Shadow Dragons, I'm still a tool—but I'm a tool being used to build something instead of destroy it.
Every piece of information I smuggle in, every connection I help establish, every report I file serves one simple goal: reducing the amount of suffering in the world. Not managing it, not redirecting it, not making it more efficient—reducing it.
When we save forty-three people from slavery, that's not a tactical victory that will be reversed next week when political winds change. Those are forty-three human beings who go to sleep free instead of in chains. Their freedom doesn't get negotiated away in some diplomatic agreement or sacrificed for some larger strategic consideration.
When I question a plan or suggest an improvement, people listen. Not because they're required to by regulation, but because better ideas lead to better outcomes, and better outcomes mean more people get to live free lives.
When I care about the people we're trying to help, that's not seen as weakness—it's seen as the fucking point.
What I Wish I Could Tell My Former Self
If I could go back and talk to the young soldier who thought honor meant suffering in silence, here's what I'd tell him:
You are not expendable.
Your questions are not insubordination—they're intelligence gathering. Your doubts are not weakness—they're your conscience trying to save you from making terrible mistakes. Your empathy is not a luxury—it's the only thing that makes any of this worth doing.
The people giving you orders are not automatically wiser or more moral than you just because they outrank you. Authority is not the same as competence, and tradition is not the same as truth.
You don't owe anyone your life just because they've draped their demands in flags and ceremonies. Dying for a cause doesn't make the cause just, and suffering for a principle doesn't make the principle correct.
The fact that something is difficult doesn't make it noble. The fact that something requires sacrifice doesn't make it worthwhile. The fact that something has always been done a certain way doesn't make it the right way.
You are allowed to want better. You are allowed to demand that your suffering serve something meaningful. You are allowed to question whether the people asking you to die have earned that right.
You are allowed to walk away from systems that treat you as disposable and find ones that recognize your value as a human being.
You are allowed to choose comfort over duty, safety over honor, and life over glory.
You are allowed to be happy.
The Bitter Truth About "Service"
Here's what they don't tell you about military service: most of it is performative suffering designed to make other people feel better about sending you to die.
The uncomfortable sleeping conditions aren't building character—they're just uncomfortable. The terrible food isn't teaching you resilience—it's just terrible food. The arbitrary rules and pointless ceremonies aren't instilling discipline—they're just arbitrary rules and pointless ceremonies.
The hardship is the point, not a byproduct. You're supposed to suffer because suffering is how the military knows you're committed. You're supposed to accept degraded conditions because accepting degradation is how they know you'll follow orders even when those orders are wrong.
The system isn't failing to take care of you—it's succeeding at training you not to expect care.
And the most insidious part? They convince you to be proud of it. To see your willingness to suffer as evidence of your moral superiority. To look down on people who demand basic human dignity as soft or selfish or unworthy of the protection you're providing.
They turn your exploitation into your identity, and then they dare you to question it.
What the Archives Actually Offers
Let's be honest: This isn't about the Archives. The Templars are their own pieces of shit. It's not perfect either.
Yes, the Archives is better than sleeping in the rain but only by extension because of the work I can do from it. It's not just better in creature comforts—it's better in every way that matters.
It's a place where information is preserved. Where the goal is understanding rather than obedience.
Is it sometimes bureaucratic and frustrating? Absolutely. Do I occasionally want to strangle my colleagues with their own filing systems? Without question.
But you know what never happens in the Archives? I never have to lie to a dying soldier about the meaning of his death. I never have to write reports that sanitize preventable disasters. I never have to choose between following orders and saving lives.
I never have to sleep in the fucking rain.
And I get to do something more.
The Choice I Made
I chose books over battles, boring safety over glorious death, and meaningful work over impressive titles.
I chose to serve people instead of institutions, principles instead of politics, and truth instead of propaganda.
I chose to work for people who see me as essential rather than expendable, who value my input rather than just my compliance, who want me to survive and thrive rather than just follow orders until I die.
I chose a life where my comfort matters, my opinions have weight, and my future is worth planning for.
Some people will call that cowardice or selfishness or failure to live up to my potential.
I call it the first intelligent decision I ever made.
Final Thoughts
The Archives is better than sleeping in the rain, but that's not the real victory.
The real victory is that I finally stopped believing I deserved to sleep in the rain.
The real victory is that I learned the difference between service and servitude, between duty and exploitation, between sacrifice and waste.
The real victory is that I found work worth doing with people worth doing it for, in conditions that recognize my humanity instead of denying it.
If that makes me less of a soldier, good. I was never meant to be a soldier anyway.
I was meant to be a person. A good person.
And for the first time in my adult life, that's exactly what I am.
P.S.
To whoever finds this letter someday—maybe me in a few years, maybe someone else entirely—remember this:
You are not required to suffer to prove your worth.
You are not required to accept degradation to demonstrate your commitment.
You are not required to die for causes that don't serve life.
You are allowed to choose better. You are allowed to demand better. You are allowed to build better.
The Archives is better than sleeping in the rain.
But more importantly, you deserve better than sleeping in the rain.
Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
[Added at the bottom in different ink, clearly written much later:]
Found this while cleaning out old papers. Still true, every fucking word. Though I should probably mention that Ashur has made even the Archives significantly more tolerable. Amazing how much better bureaucracy becomes when you have someone to complain about it with.
Also, for the record: we've upgraded from "not sleeping in the rain" to "sharing a bed with someone who thinks I'm worth keeping warm." Life keeps getting better in the small ways that matter most.
The rain can go fuck itself.
Chapter 7: Finale
Chapter Text
[This letter is written on personal stationery, though the paper shows signs of having been handled repeatedly—folded, unfolded, crumpled slightly, then smoothed out again. The handwriting varies from neat and controlled to hurried and emotional. There are multiple postscripts added in different inks, suggesting the writer kept returning to add more thoughts.]
Ashur,
If you're reading this, it means I'm either dead or about to be, and you found this letter among my things like I hoped you would. If I'm dead, well, at least I won't have to watch you read it and see that look you get when I'm being emotionally constipated and dramatic. If I'm about to be dead, then I've probably handed this to you myself in some grand gesture that we'll both pretend isn't terrifying as fuck.
Either way, I need to say some things. And since I've never been good with words when it matters—not like you, with your poetry and your ability to make even grocery lists sound profound—I figured I'd better write this down before I lose my nerve or get myself killed before I can explain what you mean to me.
I love you, you bastard.
There. I said it. In writing. With witnesses (the witness being this paper, but still). I love you, and I should have said it weeks ago instead of dancing around it like some kind of emotional coward.
I know I've said it before, usually when we're in bed or when I'm half-asleep or when you've done something particularly wonderful and I'm too overwhelmed to filter myself properly. But it always felt... I don't know. Like a joke, maybe? Like something I was saying because it was expected, because that's what people do when they're sharing space and bodily fluids and morning coffee.
But it's not a joke. It's the most serious fucking thing I've ever said in my life.
I love the way you listen to people—really listen, not just wait for your turn to talk. I love how you can find something worthwhile in even the most frustrating bureaucrat or the most frightened new recruit. I love that you see potential in broken things and people, including me.
I love that you brought me coffee for weeks before we were anything more than colleagues, just because you noticed I was always tired. I love that you never made it into a big gesture or tried to use it as leverage for anything. You just saw someone who needed coffee and provided coffee, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I love that when you saw my scars—all of them, the ones I'm proud of and the ones I'm not—you didn't flinch or ask stupid questions or try to turn them into some kind of inspiration porn. You just acknowledged that they existed and that carrying them was hard work, and then you moved on.
I love that you've never tried to fix me. Never suggested that I need therapy or meditation or a different perspective on my trauma. You just accept that I am who I am because of everything I've been through, and you seem to actually like the person all that damage has made me into.
I love that you argue with me when I'm being an ass, but you never try to change the fundamental fact that I am, occasionally, an ass. You've figured out the difference between my personality and my bad moods, and you respond to each accordingly.
I love that you make me laugh when I don't want to. I love that you know when to give me space and when to invade it. I love that you steal my books and leave them in random places around the hideout, forcing me to go looking for them and inevitably getting distracted by whatever you're doing.
I love watching you work. I love the way you get completely absorbed in research or planning, the way you mutter to yourself when you're thinking through a problem. I love how you gesture when you're explaining something complicated, like your hands can help the words make sense.
I love that you're smarter than me in ways I'm still discovering, but you never make me feel stupid for not keeping up. You just adjust your explanations until I understand, patient as a fucking saint even when I'm being deliberately difficult.
I love that you chose me. Not because I was the best option available or because I fit some image you had of your ideal partner. You chose me knowing exactly what a mess I am, what baggage I carry, what sharp edges I have that might cut you if you get too close.
And somehow, you keep choosing me. Every morning, every argument, every time I wake up from nightmares or get irrationally angry about something stupid or retreat into myself because intimacy is still scary as hell—you keep choosing me.
That's not just love. That's fucking miraculous.
Here's what I wish I was brave enough to say out loud:
You taught me what faith actually looks like.
Not the Chantry's version, with its rules and hierarchies and conditional acceptance. Real faith. The kind that's about connection instead of control, about love instead of fear.
Before you, I thought faith meant believing in things you couldn't prove. But watching you—the way you see good in people who've given up on themselves, the way you keep working to make things better even when the odds are shit, the way you love me like I'm actually worth loving—I realized that faith is about choosing to believe in possibility even when evidence suggests otherwise.
You have faith in people. You have faith in change. You have faith in love as a force that can actually transform things instead of just making them temporarily bearable.
And somehow, you've given me faith in myself.
I don't know when I started believing that I might actually deserve the good things that have happened to me lately. When I stopped waiting for you to realize you could do better. When I started planning for a future that included both of us instead of just hoping to survive long enough to see tomorrow.
But I know it happened because of you. Because you looked at me—all of me, the parts I've polished and the parts I'm still trying to repair—and decided I was worth investing in.
About this fucking war we're walking into:
I know the odds. I've run the numbers, analyzed the intelligence, looked at every possible angle. We're about to fight something that's bigger and older and more powerful than anything we've faced before.
I'm not writing this because I think we're going to lose—though we might. I'm writing it because I realized that if I die tomorrow without telling you exactly how I feel, I'll have wasted the most important thing that's ever happened to me.
You are the most important thing that's ever happened to me.
Not the Shadow Dragons, not finding purpose in the work, not even discovering who I actually am underneath all the uniforms and expectations and lies I've told myself over the years.
You. The person who sees divinity in dock workers, former slaves, and bitter ex-soldiers with more scars than sense. The person who made me believe that love isn't just something that happens to other people.
If there's a Maker—and I'm starting to think there might be again—then He sent you to show me what faith actually looks like. Not the Chantry's version with its rules and hierarchies, but the real thing. The kind that sees worth in broken people and chooses to love them anyway.
You always say "bring the light" when we're heading into dark places, dangerous missions, impossible odds. Well, here's what I need you to know: you are the light. You are my light. You brought light into corners of my soul I didn't even know had gone dark.
Before you, I thought the Maker had abandoned me, or maybe I'd abandoned the Maker—I was never sure which. But watching you love people, watching you choose hope when hope seems stupid, watching you see the sacred in places the authorities have declared worthless... that's taught me what faith really means.
It's not about institutions or doctrine or perfect belief. It's about recognizing the divine spark wherever you find it and choosing to nurture it instead of destroy it.
I found it in you. You helped me find it in myself.
[Water splotches litter this space, wiped away quickly but still streaking the ink as it dried.]
If we survive this—when we survive this, because I'm choosing to have your kind of faith about our chances—I want to build something with you. Not just a relationship, but a life. The kind of life where we both get to be exactly who we are while also becoming better versions of ourselves.
I want morning coffee and evening arguments and lazy afternoons when we're both too tired to save the world and we just exist in the same space, reading different books and stealing glances at each other when we think the other isn't looking.
And here's something I never thought I'd admit, even to myself: I want the fucking wedding.
I know, I know. If someone had told me I'd be fantasizing about ceremonies and vows and all that traditional bullshit, I'd have laughed in their face. Marriage was something other people did, something that required a level of faith in permanence that I didn't possess and a willingness to perform happiness for public consumption that made my skin crawl.
But watching you and Dorian work on that marriage legislation—seeing how determined you are to make it legal for people like us to make it official—I realized something terrifying: I want it. Not just the legal protections or the social recognition, though those matter more than I expected.
I want to stand up in front of everyone who matters to us and say, out loud, in public, that I choose you. That I'm choosing you not just for now, not just until something better comes along, but permanently. Irrevocably.
I want to watch you make the same promise to me, and I want everyone there to witness it so they know exactly how lucky I am.
I want to love and adore you out loud in the way you deserve. I want to call you my husband without having to explain or justify or make it sound casual. I want the whole world to know that someone as good as you looked at someone as damaged as me and decided I was worth keeping.
I never understood the appeal of making private feelings public until I met you. But the truth is, I'm proud of what we have. I'm proud of how hard we've both worked to build something healthy and honest and lasting. I'm proud that you chose me, and I want everyone to know it.
So when Dorian gets that legislation passed—and he will, because the man's too stubborn to accept defeat and too clever to be outmaneuvered indefinitely—I want to do the whole ridiculous ceremony. Fancy clothes, formal vows, reception with dancing and terrible speeches and wine that's actually worth drinking.
I want to throw the most aggressively romantic, shamelessly sentimental wedding celebration Minrathous has ever seen. I want it to be so disgustingly happy that cynics like my former self would roll their eyes and make snide comments about people who have to make a spectacle of their feelings.
Let them. I spent too many years hiding who I was and what I wanted. I'm done with that.
I want to grow old with you, assuming we're lucky enough to grow old at all. I want to see what happens when your patience meets my stubbornness over the course of decades instead of months. I want to find out what we build together when we have time to build something that lasts.
I want to keep learning how to be loved by someone who's good at it, and how to love someone who deserves it.
If I don't make it back:
Don't you dare make my death about honor or sacrifice or any of that noble bullshit. I'm not dying for ideals or principles or the greater good.
I'm dying because someone needs to, and I'd rather it be me than you.
That's not heroic. That's selfish. I can't live in a world without you in it, so if one of us has to go, I'm making damn sure it's me.
Don't let them give me a Chantry funeral. I'd rather haunt you forever than listen to their sanctimonious drivel in death. Burn me or bury me or throw me in the harbor—I don't give a fuck what happens to the body. Just don't let them turn my death into recruitment propaganda for their next war.
Don't blame yourself for whatever choices I make in the field. I'm a grown man with extensive military experience and a tendency toward self-sacrifice when people I love are threatened. Any stupidly heroic shit I pull is my decision, not your fault.
Do keep my books. I know you've been eyeing that collection of tactical manuals, and they're useless to me if I'm dead. Besides, someone should get some practical value out of all those years I spent learning how to kill people efficiently.
Do find someone else when you're ready. I know, I know—you're probably rolling your eyes at that one. But I'm serious. You're too good at loving people to waste it on a ghost, and life's too short to spend it alone out of loyalty to someone who's not there to appreciate it.
Just... maybe wait a little while? Let me at least get properly buried before you start looking through the applications.
If I do make it back:
We're having a serious conversation about why you're reading my deathbed letters when I'm perfectly alive and available for actual conversation.
But also, we're having a serious conversation about what comes next. About what we want to build together, about what kind of life we want to have when we're not actively saving the world from ancient elvhen gods and whatever other apocalyptic bullshit the universe throws at us.
Because I meant what I wrote above. All of it. I want to build something with you that's bigger than either of us could create alone, but that doesn't require either of us to disappear into it.
I want to find out what happens when two people who've learned to be themselves separately decide to be themselves together.
I want to discover what love looks like when it's not born of trauma or desperation or proximity, but of genuine choice and mutual respect and the radical decision to keep picking each other even when it's difficult.
I want to see if we can make something that lasts.
Final thoughts, because I always have to get the last word:
Thank you for teaching me the difference between being needed and being wanted. Between being useful and being valued. Between surviving and actually living.
Thank you for showing me what home feels like when it's not a place you're assigned to, but a person you choose to be with.
Thank you for loving me before I figured out how to love myself, and for being patient while I learned how to accept that love without waiting for the catch.
Thank you for seeing something worth saving in a bitter ex-soldier who'd given up on most things, including himself.
Thank you for being exactly who you are: kind without being naive, strong without being hard, optimistic without being foolish, and patient without being passive.
Thank you for choosing me, over and over again, in small moments and large ones.
Thank you for making me believe in tomorrow again.
I love you, you beautiful, wonderful, impossible, patient bastard.
Come home safe.
—Tarquin
P.S. If you're reading this because I handed it to you right before walking into certain death, know that kissing you was the best decision I ever made. Everything else was just details.
P.P.S. The coffee you make is still terrible. I've been lying about that for months because you look so proud when you bring it to me. But if I'm about to die, I figure I should be honest: it tastes like burnt water with delusions of grandeur.
I drink it anyway because you made it for me.
I'd drink anything you made for me.
P.P.P.S. There's a bottle of actual decent wine hidden behind the military histories on the third shelf. I was saving it for a special occasion. If I don't make it back, drink it for me. If I do make it back, we're drinking it together while you yell at me for writing melodramatic deathbed letters instead of just talking to you like a normal person.
Either way, the wine gets drunk. I've had enough of saving things for someday.
P.P.P.P.S. I lied about the coffee thing. It's actually pretty good. I just wanted to see if you'd read this far.
The wine is real, though. And so is everything else I wrote.
Especially the part about loving you.
Come find me when this is over. We have a life to build.
In the long hours of the night
When hope has abandoned me,
I will see the stars and know
Your Light remains.
Trials 1:2
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