Author's note. This is a companion piece to The Hourglass, and fits roughly into the centre of Chapter 20. It is not necessary to have read The Hourglass to read and enjoy this, but it is suggested that you do read Chapters 19 and 20, as there are twists to the Dark Ritual in this story which are not present in the game. This piece is definitely NSFW. Enjoy. :)
Morrigan was seated on the bed in Muirnara's room when Loghain walked through the door, alone. The two of them stared at each other in silence. Morrigan was the first to break the silence. "Muirnara has told you then."
"She has told me." His voice held echoes of anger now. "It is clear that she believes this to be necessary, and she believes that you are telling the truth. Since she believes you, I will. But witch, I tell you this, if you have lied to her, and you are seeking this for your own twisted ends, the world will not be large enough for both of us. Be you witch, demon, or Archdemon, if you have lied I will hunt you down and make an end of you, no matter what her promises were to you."
Morrigan seemed unaffected by his anger. "Tis as well then, that I have not lied." She swayed to her feet and stepped away from the bed, moving over to the fireplace. "I am amazed that you did not suggest to her my murder was the simplest way to deal with this, once the Archdemon was safely dead."
"Oh, I thought of it, witch." His words were cutting. "But frankly, I knew there was no way that she would ever agree to it."
"I thank you for your honesty." Her answer was lilting, almost amused. "Trust me, Loghain, I have as little taste for this as you do, and I would not have suggested this at all if I knew of any alternative. All that I can say is that I think that you will not hate this quite as much as you think."
He shrugged and stripped his shirt over his head, dropping it in a crumpled heap beside the bed. His trousers followed it, and, apparently completely unselfconscious about nudity, he sat down on the bed, leaning back against the pillows. "You will forgive me, witch, if I close my eyes and think about my dead wife."
Her eyes travelled down his lean body, studying his groin and his clear lack of any arousal as he spoke. "Somehow, Loghain, I do not think that it is your dead wife that you wish to think about, given how your eyes have followed Muirnara for so many weeks..."
He moved so fast that she was taken completely by surprise, his large hand curved around her throat. "Let us just set a few ground rules here, witch. I have not given you permission to use my given name, and you will not do so. You may call me Warden. Nothing more. Secondly, you will not, by name, by inference, by oblique implication, mention Muirnara. Because she is the only thing that is keeping you alive, once this is all over. Do I make myself completely clear?"
With a twitch of her shoulders, Morrigan pulled free, the expression on her face considerably more wary. "As you wish." She walked away from him to snuff the candles and shed her robes by the fireplace, the only light now being the dying flames of the crumbling logs in the grate, and their reflections in the wall mirror. Her pale body, scarless and perfect, so unlike Muirnara's, was gilded by the firelight framing her walking towards the bed.
She is beautiful, the bitch. It should be easy to desire that, but she is beautiful and poisonous, like those glittering snakes that infest the Korcari Wilds, they look like clusters of gemstones woven into a basket, but to place a hand in the basket is sudden and agonising death.
His eyes closed as her hand trailed up his body, fingernails playing along the skin of his inner thigh, tracing behind his balls, then cupping them in a soft palm. She was channeling magic, he realised, a tingling that continued along the skin wherever her fingers had touched. And then the heat of her mouth closed over his flaccid cock, and a deep and primeval groan was forced from his throat as she began to work him with an expertise he had not expected. He forced his eyes tighter closed, and summoned an image of Celia as he remembered her, in their chamber at Gwaren, dark blonde hair spilling over a pillow, golden skin flushed with that hint of rose, her arms reaching out to him, but somehow the image was two dimensional, unreal, like an old oil painting of an imaginary woman, not the flesh and blood wife and bedmate who had shared his life. What part of his life he had allowed her. And this witch's expert lips and tongue, and fingers, and that maddening trace of magic had brought him to erection, and he could feel the coldness as her mouth withdrew, and then the impossible tightness as she mounted him, burning hot velvet walls engulfing him. As she rode him, he started to move with her, and his mind fought to ignore who he was with, but he could not force the picture of Celia in front of him again. He heard the witch's breathing become faster and knew that at some level she was becoming aroused, whatever erotic magic she was trailing along his skin was clearly working two ways. He turned his head, and his cheek came into contact with a linen undershirt that had been carelessly discarded on the pillow - Muirnara's, it held that elusive scent of her skin, somewhere between pine needles and citrus, a clean, sharp scent. She must have discarded it when she changed out of her armour earlier. And suddenly with that scent, Celia's image was gone and another series of images took her place.
Muirnara, that night in the camp, and the knife in her hands when I came up from the river. And even up to the moment when I took it from her hands, I did not know whether she intended to use it on her hair, after I goaded her, or on her own throat. She was so close to breaking that night, so close...
Muirnara in my tent, crying at her reflection in the mirror with her hair cut short, and I thought her tears were for how she looked, but she was weeping for her brother, perhaps for the first time. And when she slept in my bedroll that night, she was exhausted, her cheek pillowed on her hand like a child's.
That sparring session by the river, taking my hand to pull herself out of the dust with yet another bruise coming up on her neck, and her hand warm in mine, her mind already processing a lesson.
Her bare neck under my fingertips and that dagger blade. Zevran was right about how little I was seeing of what was in front of me.
Muirnara offering me Maric's blade at Ostagar. And I did not want to take it, and she placed it in my hands, and in her eyes I saw not hatred or pity, but understanding.
Muirnara bound in my arms, out of her mind, poisoned, fighting me with every ounce of her strength, and my body pinning her forward, and that scent of her in my nostrils as I held her and whispered all kinds of rubbish in her ears, not knowing if she could hear me. And that bard who saw too much, and laughed at my denials. She was right, damn her.
Muirnara's mouth under mine on Ostagar's battlements, opening to me like a flower turning to the daybreak, and for a moment she was mine. No past, no future, just an endless present held in pale light on snow. Too sweet to last and yet too real not to hope.
And with that memory his release was on him, and he felt himself crying out as his hips thrust upwards and an answering wail came from Morrigan, and he felt her tighten around him, shuddering in her own orgasm, pulling every last drop from him. He fell back against the pillows, spent, and felt her carefully lift herself off him and move away. The rustle of her clothing told him that she was dressing, and he deliberately turned away from her and reached for his own clothes.
Somehow he managed to make his voice steady. "You have what you wanted, witch. Never mention this again, not to me, not to anyone. Do you understand?"
"I understand." The witch had paused at the door. Her gold eyes scanned him for one moment, she seemed about to say something, then the door closed behind her and she was gone.
He was about to start to dress, then instead walked across to the small washtable and poured the cold water from the ewer into the basin. Then methodically he started to scrub every inch of his body with the icy water, as though attempting to scour away every trace of the last hour from both his body and mind. Knowing that he could not do it.