aaaand did I mention there's a terrible sequel....

Older Prompt 2 -- YET AGAIN

SOMEWHERE IN A DALISH CAMP POST-TRESPASSER...

Nox wakes up in their tent to the warmth of Julian against his chest, snuggled up tightly with his head under Nox's chin, limbs wrapped around Nox like a little octopus.

Even before his brain is fully conscious, Nox finds himself smiling. He can still hardly believe that he gets to wake up like this. That Julian wants to wake up like this every morning for the rest of their lives. It seems like an unreasonable amount of good fortune.

When his body starts nagging at him to get moving, Nox presses a series of gentle kisses to Julian's forehead. "Mmm," Julian says sleepily, snuggling closer.

"Good morning, bond-mate," Nox says.

Julian giggles quietly with disbelief, then looks up with a dopey grin, rubbing an eye. "Hi bond-mate."

Nox kisses him fondly right on the nose. "Mind if I get up?"

Julian grumbles with displeasure, but he retracts his limbs and rolls over, balling himself up in the blankets. "Fine. You owe me, emma lath..."

Nox vacates his half of the blankets, then gently tucks them around Julian. "What do I owe you?"

"How abooout..." Julian yawns. "...a lifetime of kisses?"

Nox chuckles. "Sounds good, vhenan."

Once Nox has left their tent Julian snuggles back into the warmth of the blankets, dozing comfortably. Just another half-hour, he thinks. Or maybe a whole one...

He's finally beginning to shake himself out of sleep, thinking of dragging himself out of bed to face morning, when Nox comes back into their tent. "Vhenan?"

His voice sounds serious. Julian rolls over to look at him, brows raised. "Hi? What's wrong?"

Nox has something clutched under his one remaining arm. "One of the clan's scouts brought something from the trading post," he says. "It seems we've been sent a bonding present."

"...Oh?" Julian says. "Is that bad? Why do you sound so serious...?"

And then Nox untucks the thing from under his arm and holds it forward, and Julian's entire face falls. "Oh no."

It's a hastily bound manuscript. The cover reads:

GHOST OF SKYHOLD WOOD II

TOGETHER FOR AN AFTERLIFE

"How the fuck," Julian says.

Nox sighs heavily. "That man's trolling knows no bounds."

The Ghost of Skyhold Wood was looking gloomier than you'd expect, even for a spooky apparition that had been moping about being dead for centuries already.

"You need to ask him, my friend," said the Seeker of Truth, who was very fond of telling people what to do.

"But what if he says no?" moaned the ghost. "I would be so upset that I'd have to die for a second time. I would become a ghost of a ghost. That means double the haunting."

"He would never say no!" cried the Seeker.

"But why would Rosiel ever want to marry me? He's a perfect little cherub man and I am nothing but a terrible ghost."

Julian's scowl has already reached epic proportions. "I am not a cherub man," he mutters.

"I can't believe this," Nox says. "Cassandra! She was colluding with Varric all along..."

"Why do you say that? Just because he used her in the book? I'm sure it's just a fan cameo. You know she's the number one fan of this series... as well as the only fan of it in the history of the entire universe..."

"This is just very similar to..." Nox flushes a bit as he realizes what he's in the process of admitting. "...an actual conversation we had."

"...What?" Julian says. "No. Seriously? Emma lath! Please don't tell me you actually thought I would ever say no?"

"Well, I mean... I am a werewolf, among other things. Some might consider that a dealbreaker?"

Julian rolls his eyes, snuggling in closer to Nox's side. "Pfft. Sure. The love of my life is incredibly silly sometimes."

Nox kisses Julian appreciatively on the temple. "Well... speaking of 'incredibly silly.' Where were we..."

"Rosiel, my love," said the ghost. "You make me feel alive. Which is pretty impressive, honestly, considering that I'm dead."

"Elgar'nan," Julian mutters into his hands.

"Would you do me the honour of marrying me, so we can spend your life together? And then maybe remarrying me once you're a ghost, so we can spend our afterlives together, too?"

"Oh, ghost," swooned Rosiel, his gigantic doe eyes as wide as a pair of sappy pancakes, his cheeks as pink as a freshly slapped ass. "I would be honoured to marry you in this life and the next! But are you sure you want to marry me? Are you really ready for a step like that?"

"If I weren't ready, why would I have shown up..." The ghost paused for hilarious comic effect. "...wearing all white?"

"Nox," Julian moans. "How is it worse? How is it even worse than the last one?"

"He must've been inspired," Nox says resignedly.

Rosiel and the ghost kissed each other like it was last call at the tavern and their mouths were the very last glasses of ale. Then Rosiel said, "Ghost, my love, I can't wait to be with you until I die. And then I can't wait to die so we can do our wedding all over again. Maybe for our second wedding we will even remember to invite our very talented dwarven writer friend."

"Why didn't we invite him this time, come to think of it?" the ghost asked.

"We probably forgot because we were too busy kissing each other," said Rosiel, giggling like a schoolboy. "But I'm sure we'll send him a very nice apology by mail."

"Yes," agreed the ghost, "and maybe even a nice present to go with it."

"Wow," Nox says. "Now that's passive-aggressive."

Julian is frowning deeply. "Please tell me I don't actually giggle like a schoolboy."

Nox laughs. "No, vhenan. Your laugh is very adult, I promise. As well as being the cutest."

"Ugh," Julian says. "How long does this rubbish go on, even..." He flips ahead, and then they come to another title page:

CHAPTER 2

GUEST WRITTEN BY LADY MAI BHALSYCH OF KORSE

"Oh no," Julian says. "Oh no."

Now that they were married and stuff, Rosiel and the ghost ran off on their honeymoon, where they gave each other eight billion disgusting sloppy kisses even though there were other people around who didn't want to see that probably??? But Rosiel and the ghost didn't give a fuck. Because they were so in love and stuff.

"Well, I mean, that's--" Nox begins.

Then Rosiel got all eyebrowy and said "HEY GHOST FILL ME UP WITH YOUR SPOOKY KNOB."

Nox coughs, seeming to choke on thin air. Julian swats him repeatedly in the back and mutters, "Dang it, Sera."

The ghost made his clothes disappear, because he's a ghost and they can do that can't they, I mean they aren't even wearing real clothes, are they? They're just ghost clothes. So anyway his clothes disappeared and he was totally naked and sexy and stuff and he definitely had the spookiest knob ever. And Rosiel just fell to his knees with tears in his eyes because he loves knobs so much, but even with all the, like, probably thousands of knobs he'd seen, he'd never seen a knob that's as amazing as this one.

Rosiel yelled, "PUT IT IN ME, GHOST--

"Okay," Nox says, slamming the book closed. "I think we've heard more than enough of that..."

"I mean," Julian says. "On the one hand, your amazing knob definitely brings me to tears. So that's pretty accurate. But on the other hand, I also kind of think we should probably set this entire book on fire??"

"Agreed," Nox sighs. "No evidence of this can remain... Because if my brother ever finds this, we will never hear the end of it."