Carver-Merrill - Swording

"He's so dreamy," Merrill said, sighing heavily. "He's tall, and strong, and nice, when he's not being all grumpy. And he's got a tattoo! I asked him to show it to me, but he said it was private."
"I could appear as him, if you liked." Audacity demonstrated its ability by morphing into a replica of Carver, his mahogany features framed by his matted black dreadlocks. It crossed "Carver's" arms and flexed, making his biceps bulge most attractively.
"Oh no! It just wouldn't be the same," exclaimed Merrill. She had, after all, spent about a year studying Carver intently. Now that the demon was impersonating him, she could see that the nose was just a tiny bit wrong, and the waist not as thick as it should be, and a host of other little details that Merrill had apparently added in her imagination. The demon returned to its regular form.
"Please don't be offended. It was a very good likeness," Merrill apologised.

"So… you like Carver don't you?"
Merrill had been bursting to ask this question ever since arriving at the Hanged Man, but had held off until Isabela came back to their table with their drinks (stein of ale for Isabela, small shandy for Merrill). She was very proud of herself.
Isabela set down their drinks and cocked a very long, bare leg over the bench to sit at the back of the table. "I like men, Kitten. Carver is a man… sort of."
Merrill gasped. "What do you mean?"
"Well, a man knows what he's about," said Isabela, punctuating her statement with a long pull on her ale. "Carver has some very considerable merits, but he definitely doesn't know what he's about."
"So … you don't fancy him then?"
"I didn't say that," the pirate replied. "But big beefy boys are six for a copper. No, I like a man who's independent. Decisive. Who knows who he is." Another long swallow of beer. "I like Carver very much, but he's not there yet by a long shot."
Merrill looked stricken, not sure what to say next. Isabela looked her in the eye and began to guffaw heartily.
"So, yes, Kitten, my answer is that you're free to go for it. I'm not going to steal him from you." She brought up her stein in salute. "For Ferelden!"
"For Ferelden!" shouted Merrill, lifting her glass too quickly and spilling her drink down her arm.

"So! You must be quite good at… swording."
Carver stared at Merrill, unable to prevent his eyebrow from reaching for his hairline. "Swording?"
"That's what you do isn't it?" She made a sweeping motion with her hand that might have been slashing with a sword, or pulling her kitchen curtains closed. If she had any kitchen curtains. It was arguable whether she even had a kitchen.
"Er… I suppose so… and it's more like… stand back–" He raised one arm to pull his sword from its scabbard, flexing deliciously and revealing the short, matted tuft underneath. Merrill got a funny feeling in her belly.
Carver demonstrated some moves. "You see, if you just cut across, your enemy can just block you. So what you want to do is…" Merrill didn't take in any of the instruction, instead marvelling at how beautifully Carver's muscles moved beneath his dusky skin, the afternoon sunlight emphasising how they rolled as he moved. She was thinking about how it would look if she put her hand on his arm – not how appropriate it would be, but how her pale skin would glow against his dark. So she didn't notice when Carver finished explaining and asked her a question.
"…but I suppose mages don't have that problem?"
"Ah…. No. No, we… oh! A puppy!" Merrill pointed to what was surely Kirkwall's ugliest mabari. Then the mabari attacked Carver, only doing its job against a strange man with a big sword, and the dog's master came and yelled at them. After a quite unpleasant exchange in which Merrill learnt some new swears, Hawke intervened and dragged them off to the Viscount's chambers, which prevented any more swording for the time being.

Spending time with Isabela, though, made Merrill more determined to be forthright. She was a grown woman, in training to be a Keeper, and it wasn't as if she didn't understand the dirty things – she just didn't understand the shemlen terms, and she felt silly. Why didn't Isabela just say her sailors needed to milk themselves? "Alone time" indeed!
No more! She would walk with a swagger, no matter how long it took her to do it without putting her hip out, and she would be witty and confident and say exactly the right thing. Carver would be entranced by her and they would talk and drink all night and… well, something good would happen.
Near the fireplace in the Hanged Man, she saw Carver and Hawke, the brothers sharing the same dark skin and bristling dreadlocks, but otherwise so unalike she couldn't understand how they were really brothers. Hawke was shorter than Carver, and where Carver was broad, Hawke was slender, with tight, compact muscles and delicate features – almost elven, in fact. No wonder he was so interested in Fenris.
Merrill licked her lips and breathed deeply. Look at me... look at me... damn them, they were engrossed in a heated argument and weren't looking at her at all. She decided to sashay over to them anyway - it would give her confidence.
Having bumped her hips on several different pointy surfaces, nearly knocked over some very scary peoples' drinks and had an unfamiliar patron grab her bum (regular patrons knew not to do that - she gave him a good hard zap), Merrill wasn't feeling quite as confident as she'd hoped she would by the time she reached their table.
"Hello boys," she said, in what was supposed to be a sexy drawl but came out sounding like a happy pigeon. "Buy you a drink?" She flung her purse onto the table, where it skidded across to the other side and thankfully was caught by a gauntleted - shit. She hadn't seen Fenris there, hidden behind Carver.
Hawke's face brightened. "Why, thank you, Merrill," he beamed, "A bucket of blood would be just perfect. Thank you. How about you, brother?"
"Ale for me, thanks."
Merrill tried very hard not to blush. "And yourself, Fenris?" It seemed rude not to ask.
"Hand shandy."
Merrill grabbed her purse and ran for the bar. She thought she heard Carver call her name, but was too afraid she'd forget the order to stop. Corff looked up at her inquiringly.
"I'll have... *puff* … a bucket of blood."
"House red..."
"and an ale..." Corff scribbled this on a plate.
"...and a hand shandy."
Corff narrowed his eyes. "What was that last one?"
"I'LL HAVE A HAND SHANDY PLEASE."
The bar erupted in laughter. "Oi, Corff! We'll have a round of hand shandys over 'ere!" Merrill, honestly having no idea what was so funny, looked back over to her companions. Hawke was huddled over the table, his head in his arms, body shaking as if with tears. Carver was yelling at Fenris, who was using his third facial expression, the not-quite-smirk (the other two being the thousand yard stare and the death stare).
Corff poured her an ale and a red wine, winked at her and made a regular shandy with brewed lemonade. She carefully picked them up in a triangle, shuffling them around so the wine glass stem fit between her fingers. She definitely did not sashay back to the table.
Fenris pulled a face somewhat between expression 1 and 2. "I suppose I deserved that." He tasted a bit and made a precious little grimace.
"Why did everyone laugh?" asked Merrill.
"Well," said Hawke, "when a man and an elf love each other very much - er, never mind." That last bit being definitely inspired by Fenris Expression #2.
Carver looked like he was about to answer her, then changed his mind and muttered "You'd better ask Isabela."
Then Merrill realised she hadn't got a drink for herself, and when she went back to the bar, Corff gently explained that a "hand shandy" wasn't a smaller version of a regular shandy, and he was pretty sure that she just wanted the boring old beer-and-brewed-lemonade version that she always had, and Merrill went bright red and wanted to fall in a deep hole. Fortunately, by the time she got back to their table with her perfectly normal shandy, Varric had arrived and was setting up a card game, so everyone was distracted.

"WAUUGHHHGH!" Any thoughts of a macho facade disappeared as the spider, easily ten times the size of every other oversized eight-legged gungebag they'd encountered, loomed over Carver with fangs spread to pierce his delicate skull. He'd faced revenants, skeletons and slavers and thrashed them without hesitation, but spiders! Fucking spiders! He froze in place as Merrill hit it with lightning, spirit magic and those evil-smelling tendrils, and the spider and Carver went down at the same time.
"Ma venahn… I'm so sorry… Carver?" Merrill shook him, telling herself that she was only grabbing his biceps because she was concerned for his wellbeing. Anders rushed to their side, placing his hands on Carver's temples, searching for signs of injury or poison.
"Merrill, he's—" Carver's eyes flashed open, and he fixed Anders with a look that Merrill didn't get, but Anders understood perfectly.
"—going to need your support. Wait with him - I'll find an elfroot potion."
Anders rushed off, leaving Merrill frantically wondering what could be so wrong. She was no healer – her gifts were all about passage, opening the way, removing obstacles. (Merrill would never, ever believe her powers were about destruction and attack.) She cradled Carver's head in her arms, cooing at him in soothing elvhen nonsense phrases intended for children with grazed knees.

"Merrill?" Carver croaked, coughing painfully.

"Yes, Carver?" said Merrill, snapping to attention.

"I... hold me... falling..." He slipped bonelessly to one side, and the little elf clutched him to her, pulling him onto one hip and supporting his head on her chest. She felt a little bad about how delightful it was to hug his massive shoulders and chest when he was suffering from whatever the spider had done to him, but comforted herself that Anders would soon be back with some healing ointment. Hopefully Carver would remember her help and thank her for it afterwards. He'd hug her and they'd kiss and... oh, she shouldn't be thinking like this. Where was Anders?

She needn't have worried. One day, Carver might confess to her how he'd silently begged Anders not to finish his statement that Carver was uninjured and merely frightened. In the meantime, he planned to thoroughly enjoy resting on her small, perfect breasts, listening to her lilting accent and feeling her running her palms over his shoulders.