"I am curious about your life as a rogue. Jowan mentioned that you had been a cut-purse until your powers manifested. Can you tell me more about that?"

Owen grinned and leaned back, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I should have thought to include a rule about them having to be specific questions. That will take some answering. But, all right. Fairly typical story – my mother was a whore, my father was Maker-knows-who, I was just one of too many mouths to feed. My mother sold me to a man running a child-thief ring once I got big enough. Pretty typical racket, trained us up as pickpockets, we'd be just one more snot-nosed kid playing in the street until someone worth robbing came along. A bit of distraction, a fast hand, and we'd eat well that night."

"And if you got caught?"

Owen shrugged. "Depended on the guardsman, and if they remembered catching you before, and whose pocket you'd been caught picking. Anything from a severe talking to and a cuff on the ear, to being dragged off to face judgement and punishment for your crimes. And some people you never wanted to try pick-pocketing – too likely to punish you themselves, if they caught you at it, and some of them pretty vicious about it."

"And were you good at it?"

Owen grinned widely. "I almost never got caught. Not at all, my last couple of years."

Zevran snorted, and started to open his mouth. Owen held up one hand. "Ah, ah, ah! That was three. My turn now."

"Brasca! So it was," the assassin muttered. He'd meant to ask about more subjects, not use all three on just one aspect of the man's life. "Go ahead."

Owen tilted his head to one side, looking thoughtfully at him."How did you come to become an assassin?"

Zevran shrugged. "A similar story to yours, actually. My mother, too, was a whore. She died in childbirth and I was raised in the whorehouse along with the rest of the by-blows. When I was seven a Crow slave-master came along and bought up all the healthy, good-looking children. I brought a rather good price, I am told – I was a handsome little devil even as a snot-nosed brat. What is Mara to you?"

"My best friend, and in all but blood my little sister."

Zevran snorted. "Bah. And here I was convinced that she was your lover."

Owen grinned. "I know. You said your tattoos represent significant things in your life. What do the three on your face represent?"

Zevran gazed at him for a long moment, eyes half-hooded, then reached up and stroked a finger along the smallest one, the one curving around the outer edge of the orbit of his eye. "The first man I killed. He half-killed me; my master summoned a healer-mage or I would have died. There were no scars left afterwards, but there should have been, including one right here."

The second-longest line. "I fled my master once, in a fit of... madness, self-loathing, forgetfulness. Again I almost died. The Dalish found me, took me in, healed me. And then I went back to my master and begged his forgiveness."

Third, longest line. A wistful smile touched Zevran's lips, briefly. "He forgave me. And in time took me to his bed, though I had to work hard to convince him to do so. He did not believe in sleeping with his apprentices; he felt it... inappropriate."

Owen started to open his mouth, then closed it, remembering it was not his turn. Zevran smiled. "You were going to ask if I loved him. I will answer it unasked. I did not. We... cared for each other. I was for a time obsessed with him, and I believe he cared for me as a teacher cares for a particularly apt pupil, perhaps even as a father might for a son of whom he expects great things. He was the closest thing to a father I had in my life. How did you meet Mara?"

"Another long answer, but given how thoroughly you just answered mine," Owen shrugged. "I'd been cutting purses in the Denerim market one feastday, and saw an elven woman come out of the alienage – pretty thing, dressed like someone's upper servant, with her little girl in tow. Some men started following her. She made the mistake of ducking down an alley to try to get around a crowd near the chantry; the men followed her. I wasn't going to do anything about it – none of my business, after all – and then suddenly I just had to run down the alley after her."

He paused, a haunted look briefly crossing his face, his voice roughening with remembered emotion. "One of the men had a knife at the woman's throat, and another was about to kill the little girl since they 'didn't need her'. One minute he was smothering her, and the next he was on fire. They must have assumed the mother was the mage; the one with the knife cut her throat, and they ran. Mara was hurt when the burning man dropped her; her head hit a cobblestone when she fell. And my powers manifested for the first time, and I knew I could heal, and the girl was closest. Perhaps if I'd been a trained healer I could have saved both, at the time, well, I was still working on healing the girl when the templars showed up," he said, then smiled faintly. "At least they saw what I was doing and let me finish healing her before they cut loose with the holy smiting and hauled us off. They figured out soon enough that she was the one who'd set the man on fire; her own powers manifesting. So we were sent to the tower together."

He glanced over at Zevran. "You say you didn't love your master. Have you ever been in love?"

Zevran paled, swallowed heavily. "I... yes. Once. It did not end well," he said, and closed his eyes for a moment, not seeing the sharp look Owen gave him, or the look of concern it changed to before the man's expression smoothed out again. Zevran drew a deep shuddering breath, and opened his eyes, though he looked down at his hands, not over at Owen. "Have you ever been in love?"

"No. I have had many lovers, but... never yet slept with someone who was a match for me," Owen said, and chewed his lower lip briefly as he considered his next question. "What is Arren to you, that you are his companion?"

Zevran looked up, a grin flashing over his face. "My current master. I swore myself to him when he spared my life after I failed to kill Alistair and him. I am his man, until such time as he releases me from my vows. Tell me, in your pursuit of me, did I ever leave you feeling as frustrated as you left me after our little encounter the other night?"

Owen grinned and laughed. "Oh yes. Remember the night Mara had you cut my hair? You were so close I could feel your body heat, I could smell you, all sweet sandalwood and musk and just a hint of your own scent, and you were touching me and I couldn't touch you back," he said, voice dropping to a low reverberant growl that Zevran felt send a shiver right down to the base of his spine. "It's a good thing those leggings of Sten's were so loose, I was so hard it hurt. I wanted nothing more than to grab you right then and there, witnesses be damned, and nail you into the ground."

Zevran swallowed, and shifted position, feeling a stirring in his groin at Owen's heated words, and the images they conjured. Owen was gazing intently at him, eyes half-hooded and dark, and he felt abruptly certain that the mage was just as... stirred, at the moment, as he was.

Owen smiled, slowly. "Do you want me to do so?"

"Oh, yes," Zevran whispered. "Why don't you?"

"As I said the other night – I want more from you than just a quick fuck in the bushes."

"Then what do you want!" Zevran exclaimed, all his frustration since that night in his cry.

Owen grinned wolfishly. "That one I will not answer. You must figure it out for yourself. But you have played well tonight, well enough to earn a reward. Come here," he commanded, rising to his feet.

Zevran gazed at him for a long moment, almost vibrating with anger and frustration. By Andraste's lovely arse, the man was still just as infuriating as before! And yet he could not deny his curiosity as to what reward Owen thought he'd earned. He rose to his feet, and stepped over, coming to a stop in front of the man, looking up at him challengingly.

"Well done," Owen said approvingly, voice low and husky, and stepped close, reaching out to encase Zevran's head in his enormous hands, tipping the elf's head back as he bent down – so very far down! – and kissed him. Zevran barely resisted this time before opening his mouth, allowing the man to plunder his mouth again. He knew he was moaning with frustrated lust for the man, heard him making similar sounds as well. His vision was spinning with sparkles of light from lack of breath by the time Owen finally released him.

"Do not doubt that I lust for you," the mage growled, gesturing toward the bulge tenting his leggings. "Or that I am just as frustrated as you are. Find your way to winning me soon, Zevran. My patience ends at Redcliffe."

Zevran's eyes widened as he took in the size of the man's erection, felt his own hardening even further in response.

And then the blighted mage turned and walked away again.

Zevran cursed fulsomely the moment the man was out of earshot, then peeled off his briefs with shaking fingers, dealt with his own sizable problem, and waded out into the pond to clean himself off and cool down again before re-dressing and returning to camp.

If he didn't figure out how to win Owen before Redcliffe, he was going to end up having to assassinate him out of sheer overwhelming frustration with the man.