A/N: Started a new playthrough, since I've never played Cousland all the way through. I'm also playing her as kind of a jerk, which is not something I usually do. So I got to Redcliffe, and this scenario formed in my head.

Unapologetic smut warning!

Desire

"Why you little..."

"Elissa! Really!"

The Cousland Warden rounded on Leliana, fixing her with a glare that could melt metal. "What is it, Sister?" The Warden's tone was derisive. Her normally attractive face was set in a scowl, her dark eyes and hair contrasting with her pale skin to make her look almost otherworldly.

Leliana stood stubbornly under the taller woman's gaze. The teyrn's daughter was, quite frankly, a bully. She had pushed them all around for months. They had all held their ground when they needed to, but she was bull-headed, and her temper was very short. Leliana had rather a lot of practice, now, standing up to the warrior with the giant sword and the shield tall enough to act as a barrier for most of her body. She also knew how to fight against her, given their months of practice. She was would no longer be cowed.

"I think that is quite enough, Ser Cousland," Leliana answered, keeping her voice hard, even. She had stood by for all of the scare-tactics the Warden had used thus far. She had stood aside while she turned on Zathrian, killing him and leading the werewolves to war against the Dalish. She had watched as the Warden-Commander had bullied the dwarven Assembly into selecting her choice for the throne, Prince Bhelan. She had even helped as they killed all the mages in the Circle Tower – their first stop in getting the treaties honored – justifying it to herself because she had been so frightened of the abominations they had run into. She had even let the Warden kill that senior enchanter who had accompanied them in the process.

"What do you mean? How dare you stop me in the middle of an interrogation!"

Leliana flushed with white-hot anger. Yes, this was the line. She would stand up to it until the Warden decided she should be dead. It was the only way she would be rid of the bard's interference.

"An interrogation?! He is a little boy, Elissa! Hiding in a closet, in his own house, because the dead have come to life and killed his parents." She glared at the taller woman. "Surely you can understand his situation?"

The range of emotions the Warden's face went through was astounding. Grief was there, in addition to anger. Elissa cycled through hate, shock, despair, and Leliana was pretty sure she recognized begrudging respect, like the Warden was impressed. Before she could actually respond to the bard, however, the boy stomped Elissa's foot hard and ran for it, yelling that they couldn't make him do anything as he slammed the door behind him.

Elissa cursed, hopping on her other foot for a moment before turning for the door. Leliana caught her arm, whipping her back around. "No. Let him go. He is just a scared little boy." The Warden opened her mouth, but Leliana kept talking. She had finally begun to speak her mind, and it seemed that once it started, she couldn't stop it. "I have watched you bully and intimidate your way to victory. And while I cannot deny that it has been effective, it has hurt my heart to see someone who enjoys music and the beauty of the forest as much as you do turn into such a tyrant when it comes time for you to make a decision! It is like you cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with you or defying you! Like you are afraid of a mutiny, and so you quash it before it can begin!"

"That is because I cannot! I was put in charge!" The Warden breathed hard, staring down at Leliana with hard eyes, her mouth set in a firm line. "Leaders lead, Leliana. They do not coddle their subjects. They do not treat decisions as if everyone has a say. It is my decision, and I must make it a good one! I must think of victory, at any cost."

Leliana's eyes softened the smallest bit. "But you are not ruling anyone, don't you see? You were raised as a Teyrn's daughter, yes, but right now you are a fugitive. We follow you to help the Blight because we choose to. If you keep treating us like we are your subjects, you will not inspire true loyalty. You will get that only through friendship, through asking for advice on matters with which you have no experience. We are here to act as your experience, but we cannot do so if you do not listen to us."

"How can you ask me to be so weak?" Her voice wasn't so hard anymore, nor were her features. It was an honest question, it seemed.

Leliana's face relaxed the slightest bit more. "You… you are so young, Elissa. Surely it is okay if you do not have all the answers? Surely that does not make you weak?"

That seemed to do it. The Warden slumped. It was only the two of them in the room – the others had gone in search of the blacksmith and of the dwarf, Dwynne – which was probably the only reason the Cousland Warden had even allowed Leliana to question her at all. She sheathed the dagger she'd pulled on the child to scare him and sat down in the chair nearest her in the small common room of the house. Scrubbing a hand over her face, she sighed.

"This is all I know, Leliana. My father was kind with me and Fergus, but with his men he was hard, demanding, brooking no argument. It is how I was taught. I never liked it much, but there you have it."

Leliana came close, resting a hand on the woman's shoulder. She was adorned only in clothing and weapons, her armor stripped until the sun began to set later that night. She felt the muscles under her hand tense for a moment before relaxing, and as they did, she watched as the rest of the Warden relaxed, as well. Elissa closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair, looking up into Leliana's face.

"Perhaps you could try treating us as friends, comrades, rather than subjects who must obey. We will follow you into battle, Elissa, because your superior skill demands it. We do not need your verbal commands in order to do so. You do not need to close your heart off to us."

She went to move away, but she found her wrist encircled by the Warden's large hand, and when she turned to face the Warden once more, she saw a most peculiar look in her eyes. Elissa stood, coming within Leliana's personal space, still holding the bard's wrist in her hand.

"Perhaps you are right. But I need… guidance. It has been so very long since I have known anything soft. My family… they were the last to love me, to hold me, to protect me. I… I do not know how not to close off my heart."

Her other hand strayed to Leliana's cheek, and suddenly Leliana realized what was happening. The Warden fancied her?! How?! She was always so unkind, so rude. But perhaps it was part of her fears? To be so vulnerable as to be sweet on someone, after such a tragedy, was frightening. Perhaps the Warden closed her heart off all the more around Leliana?

The bard looked up into the warrior's face and was immediately entranced. The Warden's dark eyes were so open, showing all that the Warden was feeling. And among the anger, the pain, the immense need for human contact and comfort, Leliana saw something else. Something that thrilled her right down to the core.

She saw desire.

She could not stop it, even had she wanted to. It would have been like halting the flow of a mighty river, or the fall of a boulder from the side of a cliff. The Warden's lips came crashing into hers, and her body answered, matching her intensity with a primal roar of desire of its own. All of the things the Warden had done for her ripped through her thoughts – killing Marjolaine, taking blades meant for Leliana from Darkspawn, finding Andraste's Grace at every opportunity, listening with interest when she sang at night – and she gasped. The Warden immediately took advantage of the bard's slightly open mouth, and Leliana felt her mouth invaded – the most delightful of invasions – by a soft, hot, persistent tongue.

The bard melted. She twined her arms around the warrior's neck, and before she knew it her feet left the ground, her legs instinctively wrapping around the warrior's hips. Pulling back, hair in her face, she panted into the Warden's face. "There was a bed up the stairs, yes?"

The Warden grinned and nodded, kissing her again even as she turned and headed for the stairs, carrying Leliana as if she weighed nothing.

"I had no idea, Leliana…"

Leliana was completely naked in the soft light of the room. Elissa no longer had her weapons or boots on, but had resisted Leliana's attempts to remove her clothing and instead had focused on the swift removal of Leliana's. She had withstood it only because she must, the baring of her scarred, disfigured flesh. She must bear it, because she had no other choice – her body demanded that she do this, give herself to this woman in this way, and she was powerless to do anything but give in.

Surprisingly soft, gentle fingertips touched her skin, firmly but tenderly tracing the jagged scar along her left hip left by a particularly nasty serrated blade. She winced, shivered, turned her head away. It was her great shame. They had raped her, yes, used her body for their pleasure before and after marking her in this way. But by scarring her, they had left her unable to hide her past, unable to bare herself without the pity or the sympathetic tone of voice, the horrified questions. She had never been turned away, but she had also never opened up until now.

Looking back up into those dark, impossibly deep pools that had hidden everything but her hate and anger until now, Leliana pleaded with the Warden. "Please, Elissa. Do not torture me so. I have been tortured enough. Just… take me, or don't. I give myself to you. But do not leave me waiting so."

"I don't… I don't actually know what I'm doing." She ducked her head. "There was a girl, at the castle, who might have showed me, but that was before… everything."

Leliana pressed herself against the clothed body in front of her, offering herself up to the Warden, this time without words. Elissa's arms instinctively wrapped around her, protectively, possessively, making Leliana's body melt and her heart soar. Turning her head up, she found the Warden's lips, and within moments the fire of desire was burning once more within the woman in whose arms she had placed herself. She felt herself gathered up, and then the world tilted, and she lay atop the fully-clothed Warden upon the strangers' bed, hands touching her wherever they could, leaving a trail of fire, like a brand, leaving their invisible mark. It was like her skin was being reclaimed, marked anew, but this time in desire, possessiveness, protectiveness, where before it had been marked as a way to shame her away from ever being intimate with someone again.

She groaned, saying things she was not quite aware of, half of it coming out in Orlesian. She kissed the Warden feverishly, demanding with her body what she knew the warrior would not understand if she put it into words. Elissa was clumsy, as any person new to such acts would be, but she was eager, and there was a primal being inside of her that was asserting itself, even if she wasn't sure how to express it. Leliana simply let it happen, giving herself completely to this other person, trusting that this poor creature who had been so broken would also find her salvation in this primal act of possessing the bard, of laying her claim. Leliana craved it, but she could not force it. Submission, the kind she craved, did not work like that.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Leliana found herself in such a position that Elissa was leaned half-upright against the pillows, cradling her rump as they kissed, taking breaks to sear Leliana's throat and shoulders with her scorching lips and tongue. She felt her excitement build, felt her own wetness spill forth onto her thighs, felt herself being swept away upon a tide of suspense and pleasure.

"Yes, Elissa. Maker, yes," she purred, unable to keep herself from a little encouragement. She was not in control, but neither could the Warden be if she did not know what to do, where to venture. Elissa's hand crept further, spurred on by Leliana's pants and moans in her ear.

When the Warden's fingers swirled in Leliana's wetness for the first time, her palm still cupping the bard's flank, the bard saw white for a second. She inhaled sharply, her whole body stiffening. Maker, but it had been so long! But Elissa did not continue to move.

"What do you want, Leliana? You have to tell me." She paused, swirling one finger in Leliana's wetness even as her other hand squeezed firmly where it had ahold of Leliana's rump. "You have to guide me, Leliana."

"Push in," she whispered. "I beg you, please, I need you inside of me. Please, claim me, my Warden."

A single finger explored her folds then, a growl sounding deep in Elissa's throat as she captured Leliana's lips and thrust her tongue into the bard's mouth. Leliana was helpless before the onslaught of sensation, and yet, after a few moments, it was not enough.

"Please," she whispered as the Warden abandoned Leliana's mouth in favor of her throat. She latched on at the pulse point, biting and sucking in equal measure. Leliana knew it would leave a mark, but she did not care. She was pleased for the mark. She knew it was a vaguely territorial thing, and it only served to get her even more excited. "Please, I beg you. More. I need more of you inside me, Elissa."

Bending Leliana's leg, she wrapped her arm under it, allowing better access. A second finger joined the first, and then almost immediately a third. Suddenly, Leliana felt full, and it was a glorious feeling. At her urging, the Warden began to pump in and out, all while marking the bard as hers for all to see with her mouth and teeth. Leliana began to move, to assist the Warden in her efforts, directing her, again with a whispered plea, to press in just such a way that she could reach that lovely ridged spot of concentrated pleasure within her.

"Elissa," she panted. Her hair was in her face, damp with sweat and sticking to her skin. She was on the edge, hovering at the brink of ecstasy, she just needed one more thing to push her over. "Elissa, I need… I need…" She did not know how to describe it, so she took matters into her own hands, thrusting her arm between them and pressing her middle finger to that delicate bundle of nerves above her entrance. It was rock-hard and pulsing, throbbing, and within seconds of beginning to swirl her finger around the tip, she was falling.

She shouted something, she didn't know what, her whole body tensing before it spasmed. Her inner walls clamped down on Elissa's fingers, halting their movements. She heard and felt the Warden's awe as she held the bucking bard in her arms. Several eternities passed before she felt her body's tension release, and she guided herself back down and through the aftershocks. At some point, she found the Warden's lips once more, and it was with soft, malleable, languid kisses that she reached the bottom and ceased her slow swirling motion with her hand.

"Maker," she panted, burying her face in the Warden's neck. "That was… incredible, Elissa. You can… you can pull out now. Slowly." Her breathing hitched slightly as the warrior did so, the hand caressing her rump again before coming up to wrap around Leliana's shoulders. She shifted the bard, and then Leliana found herself being cradled to the Warden, those large, calloused hands which were so good at roughing up an opponent and dealing death to Darkspawn now caressing her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

"That was… Maker, Leliana, I had no idea."

"Yes," Leliana grinned lazily, "it is quite fun, isn't it?"

Elissa shook her head. "Yes, but it's not that. If I had even known what it had been I wanted, I wouldn't have made you wait so long. As it was, I thought it was the… lovey-dovey puppy love I'd seen in other children around the castle. That… that makes you weak, to be so enamored with someone. It makes you stupid. So I tried to close it off. I thought it was good every time you looked at me with contempt. I thought I would have to give myself to you the way I have seen other women give themselves to their men. I didn't realize you could give yourself to me… Nor that I wanted you to."

Leliana chuckled, kissing her deeply once more. "Yes, Elissa. I give myself to you, for you to have, and to protect. I… I need that from you. Not like a slave or anything. Just… like this." She found the Warden's eyes with her own. "Can you do that? Does this work for you?"

A smile graced the Warden's lips. "Yes, Leliana, I can definitely do that for you."

"Good." Slowly, her fingers began to stray, and she grinned lazily as the Warden's breath hitched. "And in return, I will love you, and give you great… pleasure." She whispered the last word, her eyes flashing as she watched the Warden's eyes grow into deep pools of black with desire. "And then we shall get the sleep we are supposed to be spending this afternoon getting, yes?" Her hand traveled lower, finding the waistband of the Warden's trousers. "You will certainly need your rest after we are done, my Warden…"