Monday, January 5, 2015

Dragon Age: Inquisition: So Beautiful, So Dumb

This is a fanfiction I wrote based on my experiences as a first-time open world RPG player. 


How could this idiot be the Herald of Andraste? wonders Cassandra. The Maker must be testing us all.

From the moment Twigs Lavellan was apprehended on suspicion of murdering the Divine Justinia, she’s been nothing but trouble. Unable to provide a smidge of useful information, her lusciously lashed elf eyes have registered an expression of barely contained panic that seemed appropriate to her situation at the time. Since then, however, it has become apparent that “deer-in-the-torchlight” is Lavellan’s default setting.

Throughout the course of the quest, Twigs’s party leadership has proven iffy at best, and one wonders if her ineptitude is willful.
“Perhaps we should consult the map,” Cassandra suggests, only to be shouted down.
“I KNOW the shard is around here SOMEWHERE. I FEEL it,” insists the elf, her shapely backside sliding once more down the steep cliff face she had tried to scale.

After a few minor skirmishes, Cassandra came to realize that Lavellan could not possibly have murdered the Divine; indeed she could barely defeat a garden variety highway bandit. Once, during a fight, Cassandra observed the elf’s lithe limbs seemingly out of her control, propelling her in wild circles while slashing at nothing.
“The fight is that way,” Solas directed, as the Herald ran directly into the path of his freezing spell.

“The only way to the last beacon is through the water,” Cassandra points out, referring to the distant shapes barely visible through the mist of the Fallow Mire.
“But I don’t WANNA go through the water!” whines the elf, her full pink lips pouting with all their might. “If we go in the water, the zombies come out!”
“We can dispatch the undead easily,” urges Cassandra, the toe of her boot hovering above the surface of the brackish pool.
“Ennnhhhhh… But they gross me out!”

Twigs Lavellan claims her ignorance of current political strife is due to her loss of memory after the events of the conclave, but at times it is exhausting to keep answering her questions.
“Tell me about the Chantry.”
“Who are the Templars?”
“What’s an apostate?”
“How do I sell this crap I found?”
“What’s a gruffalo?”

Her perfect brows furrowed, the Herald surveys her surroundings. Cassandra watches patiently as the elf is pulled toward the edge of the scaffolding by an unseen force.
“What is it, Herald?”
“There’s some kind of important item around here, I can FEEL it.”
“Is it over there?” Cassandra gestures toward a glowing scroll on a piece of scaffold directly ahead. The boards in front of it have fallen away to the ground several hundred feet below. It’s a treacherous gap, but a decent standing long jump could get a person across.
“That looks dangerous,” says the elf, and presses forward, instantly joining the missing boards.
“It looks like your journey has ended,” says Solas, his voice full of regret.
Cassandra and the remaining party members offered a prayer for the departed Herald of Andraste. So beautiful. So, so dumb.


2 comments:

Laura Hughes said...

This is just like my elf, Billy Idol Lavellan, only add to his offenses: constantly looting bodies during battles; kissing the mage from the enemy state at every opportunity, then responding to suggestions of impropriety with aggressive flirting ("Jealous, Cassandra?"); endlessly talking up his own amazingness and loudly proclaiming that he genuinely believes himself to be chosen by the Maker, BUT ALSO that he doesn't believe in the maker ("I believe in Elven gods," he says, meaning himself).

Alison Blackwell said...

He sounds like a total catch. Twigs would very likely throw herself at him, except they're probably cousins.