Day 3 - Fic - Dragon Age - Lace Harding
Feb. 4th, 2026 08:57 amTitle: Kindness is a choice
Fandom: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Character: Lace Harding & Female Rook Mercar
Prompt: The Caregiver
Rating/Category: T/Gen
Summary: Lace takes the Titans' pain and she answers with kindness and compassion.
She feels this anger, that is and isn't hers. It's in her blood and her bones, this ancestral pain, reasons forgotten but injustice still so keenly felt. All there's left of the Titans is this pain, loud, incoherent, overwhelming, threatening to overtake her. She's only a voice for this anger so long unheard, she's only…
“You're Lace Harding! You're more than this rage!” Rook's voice just barely cuts through the screaming. “You believe that the world is beautiful! That people are good! Hold on to it! Hold on to who you are!”
And it means something that it's Rook telling her this, because she doesn't believe that, because she spent most of her life in Tevinter and saw enough to mistrust even the people who say they want to help. When Lace met her, she was all anger and pain, not for herself, but for every slave in Tevinter. Anger over the injustices that someone else suffered, that she felt that she couldn't do enough to stop. But Lace couldn't help her by agreeing with her anger, as justified as it might have been. And she couldn't meet the Shade's anger with more anger now.
She reached out to the red lyrics given shape and voice, her face staring back at her in anger, and she wants to give in to it too, but she knows better. She meets the Shade not with rage but with compassion, because this is who she is, who she's always been, but kindness is a choice and it's one that she has to keep making, even when it's hard, even when it hurts.
She takes all that pain, and she offers them kindness and compassion. This might not be enough to heal what's left of the Titans, but she hopes it eases their pain.
Fandom: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Character: Lace Harding & Female Rook Mercar
Prompt: The Caregiver
Rating/Category: T/Gen
Summary: Lace takes the Titans' pain and she answers with kindness and compassion.
Kindness is a choice
She feels this anger, that is and isn't hers. It's in her blood and her bones, this ancestral pain, reasons forgotten but injustice still so keenly felt. All there's left of the Titans is this pain, loud, incoherent, overwhelming, threatening to overtake her. She's only a voice for this anger so long unheard, she's only…
“You're Lace Harding! You're more than this rage!” Rook's voice just barely cuts through the screaming. “You believe that the world is beautiful! That people are good! Hold on to it! Hold on to who you are!”
And it means something that it's Rook telling her this, because she doesn't believe that, because she spent most of her life in Tevinter and saw enough to mistrust even the people who say they want to help. When Lace met her, she was all anger and pain, not for herself, but for every slave in Tevinter. Anger over the injustices that someone else suffered, that she felt that she couldn't do enough to stop. But Lace couldn't help her by agreeing with her anger, as justified as it might have been. And she couldn't meet the Shade's anger with more anger now.
She reached out to the red lyrics given shape and voice, her face staring back at her in anger, and she wants to give in to it too, but she knows better. She meets the Shade not with rage but with compassion, because this is who she is, who she's always been, but kindness is a choice and it's one that she has to keep making, even when it's hard, even when it hurts.
She takes all that pain, and she offers them kindness and compassion. This might not be enough to heal what's left of the Titans, but she hopes it eases their pain.
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Date: 2026-02-04 03:41 pm (UTC)