A/N So I'm writing a Dragonage inquisition one shot. I got it for Christmas and I love it to bits. So one of the main plot points of this story is that the dalish don't belive in sex before marriage. Now very little has been said about Dalish marriage customs, so I have made all of this up but this is how I think it works. This is based on the only dalish couple we've seen which is Cammen and Gheyna in Dragonage origins. Basically my headcannon is that the dalish don't believe in sex before marriage. They see it as a hedonistic human trait. I have thought about this to an embarrassing consent and I won't bore you with my long headcannon involving this. For Clan Lavellan at least this is how it works. Plus I kinda of like the idea of Solas tempting my Lavellan to do something against her culture. He's naughty like that.
"It could be fun." I said with about as much conviction as I could muster.
"Look Boss" The Iron Bull turned his gaze directly on me "This is just not my scene why did you pick me?" It was friendly but he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of going where we're going. I wasn't exactly thrilled to be there; then again all he had to do was look imposing and hit anyone who needed hitting. I on the other hand had to study Orlesian etiquette, Orlesian nobility and Orlesian dancing. Of course the last one had been made more enjoyable.
"I just can't do it" I screeched in frustration as I jumped away from the dance master's grasp. He made dancing feel like being imprisoned in manacles. Josephine shook her head and the Orlesian dance master bristled his massive moustache which seemed to take on a life of its own when it moved. This would have been amusing if she wasn't genuinely frustrated. Orlesian dancing was so stiff and rigid, dalish dancing was free and loose. Before these lessons she'd believed that she loved dancing and that she had a small degree of talent for it.
"Inquisitor it is very important that you know how to dance in the Orlesian style for this ball."Josephine explained with a patience that could seemingly endure the whole age.
"But why do I have to dance?" I asked, I already knew the answer but hearing it would remind me why I was enduring this torture.
"It is a ball, Inquisitor" Josephine explained "This means dancing, your court approval could suffer severely if you don't do this correctly."
"She is a savage, teaching her to dance is like teaching a nug to stand on its hind legs." The dance master decided to pipe in with his high-pitched irritant of a voice. She had never felt the desire to hit something so bad. He touched me like I was a piece of meat. Arranging my muscles in foreign positions and then screaming when I moved a fraction of an inch. If I was a little bit out of rhythm, this caused him to go into hysterics. I stepped towards him but Josephine put her hand on my shoulders and her eyes were saying "Look he is being an ass and I will handle it." She gave a small smiled to me and I sighed.
"This lesson is over, I need to talk to you master Denius" Josephine ushered the dance master away into her office. Thankful to see the back of him, I walked towards the library, determined to have some fun. It was late at night. No one would be there this late, all the mages, the scholars and whoever else was interested in the library would all be fast asleep. I knew he'd be there though, he didn't see me come in as he was staring intently at the wall, paintbrush in hand. He looked so composed and elegant. I smiled as I walked towards him trying to be as silent as possible on the stone floor. I grabbed a paint brush and stood beside him.
"I think blue." I said seriously.
If he was surprised that I managed to sneak up on him, his voice didn't show it. "I was thinking black." He answered back still staring intently at the wall.
"That's because you're tortured and mysterious." I told him. I grabbed his paintbrush out of his hand. He offered no resistance.
He turned towards me and asked "Aren't all great artists?" Then he stepped towards me. He bent his head and I felt his breath warm and moist on my lips. He reached his hand toward my side while his other hand went to my back. I bit my lip in anticipation. His body was so close to mine, his heat radiated into my skin. I felt the blood rise to my cheeks.
"I've also heard that great artists are incredibly sexy" I said my voice was low and husky. My heart was beating faster and faster. Waiting for the moment.
"They are also not so easily distracted." He said matter of factly. He grabbed the paintbrush out of my hand and walked towards his desk.
This was a mistake. I reached out for his hand and when we were linked I pulled him towards me. "Do you really think I can be ignored?" I was feeling bold, bolder than I usually am with him and I pushed my hands under his shirts, stroking his chest. The feeling of his skin against mine was intoxicating. I grinned devilishly as I pulled him even closer. I put my lips on his neck, and I nibbled at his skin. I heard him groan audibly as I did it. I pulled away; my eyes were defiant now, daring him to take me.
"You are a lot of things Tauriel, easily ignored is not one of them." Solas stroked my cheek which was warm and flushed, and when his hand touched it, the feeling intensified. He kissed me finally; his tongue was daring yet gentle. I relished this feeling. He was touching me, filling me with desire and hunger. No one had ever made me feel this way before.
"So your lesson didn't go well." He said matter of factly. I tutted. No one had ever known me so well.
"Solas it's horrible, he just won't explain anything, he keeps shouting and I really want to kill him." I moaned, I was also frustrated the moment was now well and truly over.
"Vhenan, you have closed the breach, saved the mages from destroying themselves and stopped a demon army, you can learn to dance for this ball." Solas said in his logical way.
"Back with my clan I could dance fine, now I'm expected to know that a reveille leans into a left pirouette turn and I have no idea what any of these words mean or how my body is supposed to do these moves. With the clan it was easy I just danced, I followed the flow of the music and my body moved."
"The Orlesians are not known for their ability to go with the flow." Solas remarked.
"I know." I said pouting.
"Luckily for you, I know a better teacher."
"Who?" I asked curiously
"I've been studying books on the subject and I have been able to observe from the fade, I believe I have mastered this style of dancing." Suddenly Solas' room expanded and grew. Trees started to pop out of the ground. Flowers sprung from the newly formed grass. Roses, daisies, lilies and every type of flower I could think of. A waterfall was formed, gushing into a newly formed river that ran straight behind us. Then the music came, it was magnificent and rich it felt that there was an orchestra of a hundred people. I tried to find where the source of it was coming from but this was the fade, during my previous visits I'd quickly learned to give up on making sense of it.
"So I didn't come to check on you in the library." I asked feeling slightly annoyed that I hadn't figured it out that we were in the fade.
"No, but I have been waiting for you here." Solas told me eagerly and he held out his hand. "Do you want me to teach you?"
I curtsied, the one thing I knew how to do and took his hand, with that he pulled me and we were in hold.
"Now I want to look at me like you're in love." he said seriously.
I tilted my head at him in slight confusion. "That's not a part of Orlesian dancing."
"Strictly speaking no but I find it remarkably enjoyable" Solas grinned. I looked into his eyes and felt myself fall into them. All I wanted to do was look into those eyes and hold that gaze forever. "Good, now we can begin."
Solas was a lot more patient with me and he managed to incorporate dalish style dancing into Orlesian style dancing making it so much easier to learn. I also wanted to dance with him so that helped a lot. Josephine had decided to fire Master Denius and hired a much better dancing mistress. Namely Vivienne, who assured me that she was only doing this so I wouldn't make a complete fool of her when we went to Halamshiral. Vivienne was harsh but she was at least fair. Of course I improved quite quickly with my added private lessons. Josephine remarked "I don't know how you could have improved so quickly, it must be magic."
He was waiting for an answer. I realised that I'd let the memory of my dance lessons completely take my mind from what the Iron Bull had asked. After a moment I remembered that he wanted to know why I chose him. "Blackwall has decided to go to a jousting tournament and Cassandra wants to spend her time writing her book and I need someone who I can rely on and who I know could beat up every chevalier there if it came down to it." I smiled at him, experience had taught me that appealing to the Bull's ego was an easy way to convince him to do what I wanted.
"I'm flattered, really Boss but this is not going to be fun." Iron Bull stated firmly.
I sighed and then I grinned with a cheeky confidence "You'll find a way to make it fun."
"Only if there is at least 20 bad guys for me to hurt." The Iron Bull considered. "And I get to have sex."
I laughed "This is us, of course there'll be bad guys, and you're on your own with the sex."
"It wouldn't be sex if I was on my own." The Iron Bull added.
I shrugged my shoulders slightly embarrassed. "You really are a virgin aren't you?" he asked.
I blushed; I could feel the blood go all the way to the tips of my ears. "What does it matter?" I said refusing to look at him.
"It doesn't boss really." Iron Bull paused for a second "It's just odd."
"Why is it odd?" I asked "In my clan you are only allowed to have sex after being married and because my keeper isn't here to give his blessing to my relationship."
"Whoa boss you're in a relationship?!" The Iron Bull was speechless which was rare. I felt a sharp intake of air as I tried to process that. I hadn't meant to keep my relationship with Solas a secret but we both agreed we wanted what we had to remain private so it ended up being a secret. Now I had completely ruined that by letting it slip to Iron Bull, I didn't want people like Cassandra knowing my private life and especially not Sera.
I decided to reply "Yes I am" I didn't particularly want to lie to him, besides he was a spy so he could probably tell.
"Good for you, boss" He smiled broadly and patted me on the back, well I assume it was meant to be a pat but it felt a lot harder than that. "It's good you're not waiting around, you've found someone and that's great."
I grinned "It is pretty amazing."
"But you and he haven't, you know" he gave me a 'knowing' look and he accompanied it with a nudge which was more of a shove, but subtlety was not the Iron Bull's strong suit.
"No we haven't." I said honestly.
"Why?" Iron Bull asked puzzled
"It's easy for you, sex is just sex it's just a need, but for elves, it means more. It's a commitment to love and cherish someone for the rest of your life, have their children." I tried to explain but my feelings were buzzing around my brain "I mean I love him, so it should be ok and I want him so much when we're together but it's not what I'm supposed to do."
"Look do you want to have sex with this guy?" Iron Bull asked using his one eyebrow to arch quizzically.
There was a pause. Finally I started to say "Yes I do but..."
"No buts." Iron Bull said firmly "You know how precious life is, you're trying to take down someone who thinks they're a God, you don't want to have any regrets because they're pointless." Iron Bull advised "Look I don't know jack shit about your culture but I do know you and you shouldn't let anything get in the way of what you really want."
"I guess" I said quietly.
"Hey Solas" Iron Bull greeted "You know more about this Elf shit than I do, Tauriel wants to sleep with some guy but she's worried about elfish crap, what do you think?" I looked at Iron Bull with my eyes wide open. Why would he say that? All the blood drained from my face. I felt my whole body tense. "What's his name?" Iron Bull asked curiously.
I didn't register the question. My head was not capable of responding to a question. Oh Mythal he knows, may the dread wolf take me now and get it over with. I couldn't believe this was happening. What am I going to do? I started to sweat, my breathing was getting quicker and quicker I was digging my own nails into my skin. As I tried to gain composure, the door opened.
"Cullen" I said a tad disappointed I was hoping for the dread wolf.
"Seriously you want to sleep with Cullen? Didn't see that coming." Iron Bull said "Well why not, hopefully you'll get him to lighten up a bit." He chuckled heartily.
"No I don't want to fucking sleep with Cullen!" I screamed "I want to..." I looked around, Vivienne was standing behind Solas looking bemused, Iron Bull looked slightly scared, Cullen looked confused, wondering what the hell he'd wondered into. Solas looked, I had no idea how Solas looked because there was no way I could look at him after this.
"I need to go to bed." I said calmly, I thought this was quite an impressive feat considering every piece of me seemed determined to run away and never come back.
"Look I'm sorry Boss" Bull said apologetic "I'm not used to this stuff, I didn't mean to pry into your personal affairs."
"It's ok Bull." I said "But I'm going go to my room now, I'm tired." I walked slowly up to my quarters in the inn we were staying at on the way to the Winter Palace. I got into my bed, under the covers and I was kind of hoping that I could just sink into them and never be seen again. I heard a quiet knock on the door. I hoped it would go away.
"Inquisitor, it's Josephine, can I come in?" Josephine asked her voice muffled by the door.
I sighed "Yes you can." I put the covers down reluctantly but Josephine came in with her big smile.
"Now inquisitor I was hoping we could go over Orlesian ballroom protocols, I know we've gone through it already but it is really important you know this."
Thank Mythal she didn't know about what Bull had said. I breathed out firmly; glad that I could avoid this embarrassment. "I'd be glad to" I said honestly.
Josephine was clearly surprised but her smile made it clear she was delighted. It was quite tedious basically all these rules boiled down to be polite and don't hit people which admittedly weren't my strong suits but I guess this was why I had Josephine. I tried to recall which piece of cutlery should be used for eating the cheese and how to introduce myself to each rank within the court. After a while I just started nodding intermittently, not really taking any of it in.
I was thinking about Solas, he knew what I wanted him. But what does he want. Should I want what I want? What if we want different things? What if he wants to have sex one way and I don't want that? What if I can't give him what he wants? Do I really know what I want? I mean I said I wanted sex but am I ready? What if it's not what I want?
"Leliana wants to talk to you" His voice came through the air like an arrow; I instinctively reached for my covers. I had no idea what good they were going to do. I couldn't really hide under them and hope he wouldn't see.
Josephine fretted nervously and touched my hand, I think she was trying to reassure me but she needed it more than I did. "Ok I'll go now, inquisitor we'll go over this again tomorrow." She left the room and then it was just me and him.
I looked down at my hands that were still gripping the blanket. "So what did Leliana want?" In my head it sounded casual and nonchalant but I heard it come out as a high pitched squeak. My face turned red and I just stared at the flower design on the blanket.
"Nothing" he answered nonchantly "She just thought you might need rescuing."
"I guess I should thank her." I said quietly. I could feel him standing in my door way. I felt him take a step forward and close the door. I couldn't say anything. I felt the bed move as he sat down.
"So do you want to talk or should I just make love to you."
I cringed burying my head in the covers "Oh dread wolf, take me now" My whole face was red but he couldn't see it so that was one thing going for me.
He laughed despite everything his laugh made me smile; I lowered my covers slightly to see it. His mouth was wide and open but I had let my shield down. He grabbed the blanket and pushed it down. He reached across and kissed me. His tongue and mine dancing together. He held my face in his hand stroking my cheek. We slowly came apart more for air. All I wanted to do was kiss him again and then we could just pretend that he'd never heard anything and we could go on as we were.
"We need to talk." he said seriously.
"Can't we just kiss instead?" I asked hopefully.
"You know the answer to that." He said in that matter of fact tone of his.
I groaned and I felt my stomach squirm from side to side "It's just I realised it doesn't make sense to wait until we get married with everything that's going on and I don't want to die without having experienced it with you, I've been thinking about it a lot and I know you've done it and I thought you might just do it and then leave or if I wasn't good enough you might decided it wasn't worth it and I just can't lose you." I finished shyly
"Tauriel, I'm in love with you, I promise you that will never ever change, no matter what."
"You say that but..."
"No buts, I love you."
"I love you too."
"Then we'll figure it out."
I shook my head "It can't be that simple."
He chuckled "No, its mind bogglingly complicated. There is not a thing that confuses me more than this, but you start with three words that are simple and you hold onto them, no matter what happens."
I looked up "I wish I could just know."
He held my chin "You can never know anything without learning, so the question is do you want to learn and figure it out? Or is it too difficult?"
I looked up at him "I want to learn" I lunged towards him, I kissed him like I'd never kissed him previously. Before I knew it I was lying on top of him. My hands decided to take the initiative and they reached down towards his breeches. I let his lips go as I went down kiss his chest.
"Tauriel, I think you may take this the wrong way but this is not the right time." Solas struggled to say, his breathing raspy and deep.
"What?" I lifted my body up to look at him properly; I was confused embarrassed, angry and incredibly horny.
"Look right this second, this is not a good idea" Solas struggled to say the words. I looked down at him; I couldn't believe he was doing this to me.
"What happened to me learning?" I said angrily my voice dripping with frustration.
Solas sat up so he could look me directly in the face; childishly I refused to look at him. "Tauriel I love you and if we do this then we should do it right and not in some inn having to be quiet so the others won't hear us."
"Fine then we'll go to the fade." I replied, my stare was an invitation. I was giving him my body, well my spiritual body at the very least.
Solas groaned "You have no idea how much I want to but not tonight, you are facing the Orlesian court tomorrow your mind needs to be rested."
"Solas I was just about to give my body and soul to you, how do you expect me to go to sleep now?!" I asked.
"Look I'm not doing this to be cruel or because I don't want it, believe me I do." Solas groaned and his hand reached for my hair, his hands playing with my plait "I want this to be right, no I need this to be right, I need you so much, I need you to love me, I need you to groan my name, I need to make you the happiest you have ever been because you deserve nothing less. I need you to be fulfilled and not hating me because we rushed something that is very important."
I sighed petulantly and looked at him "Why do you have to be right?"
"It comes naturally" he answered. I threw a pillow at him, it burst open the feathers exploding all over his face. I couldn't help but giggle.
"You are the most arrogant and frustrating man I have ever met." I growled. I uncoupled my leg from his body. My body felt like it was screaming at being denied its desire. "I'm still not going to be able to sleep."
"Do you want some help?" Solas asked.
I stared at him "You're the reason I can't sleep."
He reached out and touch my temple the last words I hear before sleep overcame me "Ar lath ma Vhenan."
A/N That was a lot of fun. Also points if you saw the strictly ballroom reference my mum loves that movie. I'm not sure how much sense it makes that he'd know how to dance but in fairness to me he's clearly been around the fade and I'm sure in the fade he may have been to a few balls, talked to dance spirits. Oh my God I so want to meet a spirit of dance voiced by Bruno from strictly come dancing. That would be awesome. But yeah this was a lot of fun to write, I just wanted to make a funny and hopefully sexy short fanfic. I do love Solas my first inquisition romance and I love him to bits. He's so arrogant and charming and voiced by Gareth David Lloyd aka Ianto. I think I may be torchwood sexual. In dragon age 2 I romanced Merrill aka Gwen from Torchwood now for Dragonage 4 I'm holding out for the sexy qunari elf played by John Barrowman, a girl can dream. So hold out for part 2 where Lavellan will finally get some action.