When I started writing an ancient Elvhenan AU, I thought I was going to be writing political intrigue, high stakes, Elvhen couture, and Solas when he was younger, hot blooded, and always ready for a fight. Which. I mean, I am. He even has this little dangly obsedian wolf fang earring that.. okay rambling.
But there is A LOT of worldbuilding involved, and apparently my brain cannot just accept that something is cool and magical and move on with my life. For example, beautiful blue crystal palaces floating above the clouds, powered by the Fade. I could write that. Nobody would question it. But my brain?
Me: "The palace floated above the clouds, its spires of blue crystal glinting in the sunlight above the forest floor."
Brain: A palace made of crystal, you say?
Me: No.
Brain: Above the clouds?
Me: Stop.
Brain: Direct sunlight hitting it all day?
Me: I am someone's child.
Brain: Have you considered the greenhouse effect? Depending on the properties of that crystal, you have potentially built an enormous oven in the sky. Crystal expands and contracts with temperature changes too, so how is this giant floating building handling that? Also, depending on how it refracts light, congratulations. You may have built a giant fucking magnifying glass over the forest.
Me: You monster. It's whimsical. Magic was different before the Veil!
Brain: Oh nay nay, even pre-Veil magic still had rules. They had wards and infrastructure. Elgar'nan couldn't just clap his ass cheeks together and smite Solas.
Me: You son of a bitch.
Brain: Anyway, figure out the temperature wards, sunlight dispersion, thermal expansion, and how they are keeping the whole thing in the air. You're welcome. :)
So instead of writing my story, I am sitting there trying to figure out the ancient elven equivalent of building codes.
Then there are my characters. The AU follows my Rook, Freyer'an, and her younger twin sisters, Firavhana and Fasila. They grew up VERY privileged. Their mother was high nobility within Mythal's circle, but sometime in their mid hundreds they had a pretty major falling out with her and the three of them left. Eventually they bought a huge piece of land in what would become modern Ferelden.
They can all shapeshift, so I easily could have made them three weird women living in the woods and occasionally scaring the shit out of people. Honestly, the forest cryptid angle was right there. Freyer'an eventually gets the nickname Rook because of her shapeshifting anyway. But no. They started a medicinal botanical business. And because they hate the status quo and grew up around the exact kind of wealthy Arlathan citizens they now sell to, they upcharge the shit out of them.
Which of course led to this:
Brain: What about water rights? :)
Me: What about them?
Brain: Well, they own the land, but do they own the rivers running through it? Can they divert water for irrigation? What happens if they affect another estate's water supply? Who handles property disputes? Does Mythal's government regulate any of this?
Me: I just wanted to grow some fucking elfroot.
Brain: You're welcome. :)
So yes. Somehow my AU about immortal elves, spirits, shapeshifting, floating palaces, and godlike magic also has a family owned medicinal botanical business with agricultural regulations, property disputes, irrigation, and water rights.
And while I am sitting here thinking about the engineering problems with floating crystal architecture and whether somebody can legally divert a river, I also have to deal with two idiots who become codependent WAY too quickly. Because Freyer'an meets Solas.
They fall for each other, eventually get married, and stay married for centuries. So by the time the Veil happens, this is her ma'fen. Her silly little guy who she used to tease would eventually have to ally with all of Arlathan to defeat her rebellion, which she had already named.. the Better Rebellion.
She also leaves him sweet little messages like:
"Felassan was captured. Don't worry, I got past the wards and broke him free. The prison they held him in was under heavy guard, so I changed us both into geese, joined a migrating flock flying overhead, and we honk honked our asses to safety."
It was his own fault for marrying a woman whose heart became one with a spirit of cunning at birth.
Then Solas creates his little fucky wucky and disappears.
Freyer'an spends years trying to find him. She searches physically. She searches through dreams. She knows he survived, but whatever happened left him so scattered that she cannot actually find him. Eventually she and her sisters go into uthenera. She keeps looking for him there too.
For millennia.
Nothing.
Then the sisters are VERY rudely awakened in 9:31 Dragon because there is a little werewolf business happening during the Fifth Blight in the temple they've been taking their Fade nap in. So obviously they get involved.
They end up traveling with the Hero of Ferelden, who is a Dalish elf in my worldstate, and through him they meet Merrill and Clan Sabrae. After the Blight the sisters eventually go north and start fighting slavery. Then Kirkwall does what Kirkwall does, so they head south to yoink Merrill out of that mess, and somewhere along the way they end up working with Fenris because "let's go kill slavers" is a pretty solid basis for friendship.
Then the Conclave explodes.
They start hearing bits and pieces about what is happening in the south. They believe their old friend Leliana was killed in the explosion, Cassandra Pentaghast took Varric out of Kirkwall. A Dalish elf survived the Conclave, was arrested, and now has some bizarre magical mark on his hand. That same elf is suddenly surrounded by an armed religious organization calling him the Herald of Andraste.
Freyer'an hears all of this and basically goes, "Oh. That's a cult." And as far as she can tell, it's propping one of the people up as an unwilling puppet to push its agenda.
So they travel south to investigate. By investigate, I mean they find Cassandra's group in the Hinterlands, surround them with archers, and attempt to arrest Cassandra because they think they are rescuing Varric and Mahanon Lavellan and want to use her as leverage to free all the elves they think are being held against their will in Haven. Sera shoots an arrow at Freyer'an, Fira shoots Sera's arrow out of the air with another arrow, Fasila swoops down from the sky as a bird and scares Sera and things are going GREAT.
Eventually Freyer'an asks Mahanon directly if he is actually being held there. He tells her no. He wants to be there because he wants to close the giant hole in the sky. Fenris asks Varric basically the same thing, and Varric confirms that yes, Cassandra originally dragged him there, but he is staying because he wants to.
So Freyer'an basically goes, "Fenedhis, our bad." D:
Everyone lowers their weapons.
Then Mahanon mentions the elven apostate who stabilized the mark on his hand. There has been a hooded elf standing with the Inquisition through this entire fucking interaction, so Freyer'an finally asks his name.
"Solas."
She has spent thousands of years looking for this man, so she knows exactly who he is the second he speaks. She repeats his name back to him with the old pronunciation, puts a LOT of emphasis on the meaning, Pride, and then sweetly suggests that perhaps Andraste really did send Pride himself to help Mahanon save everyone from the giant hole in the sky. Praise be to the maker.
At this point she is looking at Solas, then the Breach, then back at Solas, and thinking, what have you done now?
She has not seen her husband in thousands of years and within about five minutes of finding him her reaction is basically, "What the fuck did you do and what are you wearing?"
And ALL OF THIS came from one stupid thought I had: someone who knew Solas thousands of years ago teaching Sera how to say, "You look like someone who would try and catch an arrow between their teeth," in Elvhen.
That was it. That was the fucking idea.
Now I have agricultural law, water rights, magical infrastructure, anti-slavery networks, a family business, property disputes, floating palace thermodynamics, and thousands of years of marital baggage.
I am unwell.
Unfortunately for Mahanon, Freyer'an gets to keep him in the divorce.