Apparently, I'm on a roll...
Chapter 3
"Do you want to go swimming?"
"Are you insane? It's almost winter!"
Merrill chuckled. "I know you want to."
Hawke sighed. Merrill was right, she did. That was part of why she'd headed for this pool to camp next to. It was insane to camp this close to winter – they could get snowed out any day. But that was why she wanted to. She wanted to get out of Kirkwall for a few days before she had no choice but to stay indoors. It would be her first Solstice without her mother, without any family. Just Merrill, who did not know her family's traditions (though she was more than happy to learn). She wanted out of the city for a few days. A few days to refresh herself, to have Merrill all to herself in the environment that Merrill most shined in. She may get lost in Kirkwall, but in the woods she was like a cat, graceful and knowledgeable, like she was born to navigate there (which she was).
They had set up their tent under an overhang of rock near a naturally occurring spring of fresh water. It wasn't like the hot springs she had heard of way up in the north, instead being fed from a fissure in the rock wall above the pool. She had discovered this place years before, on her first trip up Sundermount, right before she first met Merrill, when they had needed to camp overnight, because they didn't know exactly where to find the Dalish. She had since returned many times, for peace and quiet and fresh air. It was her first time there with her lover, however, and she was hoping it would be good for them. As a couple, and each of them individually.
They stripped their clothing off quickly, dumping it by their tent before running for the pool. Plunging in, Hawke almost screamed at the biting cold, but at the same time luxuriated in the feeling. She felt alive, awake where she had been feeling like she was floating through her life, her house, her trips to the Hanged Man with her companions. Oh, but she needed this reminder of how alive she was. Surfacing, she swam around the small pool, ducking under the water again and again, losing herself in the feeling for a moment.
She was pulled from her reverie when she felt Merrill's hand brush against her thigh. She stopped swimming and glanced over. The poor elf was smiling and shivering, sitting on the sloped rock that led from the shallowest point to the deepest point. Hawke swam over to her, sitting next to her.
"Come here, Merrill," she beckoned, gathering the elf up into her lap. Merrill latched on, wrapping her arms and legs around the warrior and pressing their bodies together. Hawke's eyes almost travelled up into her head, the feeling was so delicious. In that moment, she realized they had not been naked together since that awful night almost a month before. She hugged the elf back, desperate for the contact.
"Thank you," Merrill murmured, her teeth chattering slightly. She pulled back some, enough to kiss Hawke. And when she kissed her, Hawke had a realization.
She was aroused.
Very aroused.
"Oh," she breathed, deepening the kiss, sliding her hands to the slight curvature of Merrill's hips, feeling the elf's small breasts press above her own. She could feel Merrill smiling into their kiss, and it only fueled Hawke. She was hungry, starving, and she drank the elf in like she was a rich, honeyed drink. She no longer felt the cold of the water. She felt only the heat of her lover's body, the silkiness of her wet skin and the molten ache within her own belly.
"Oh," she stated again, catching her breath while looking deep into Merrill's eyes. "Let's get warmed up, shall we?"
Merrill nodded, smiling mischievously. Hawke stood with Merrill in her arms, stepping delicately out of the pool and heading toward the now-roaring fire they had set up at their campsite. Making her way there became a little more difficult when Merrill began tracing the shell of Hawke's ear with her slight tongue. It became even more difficult when Merill traced her lips from Hawke's jaw up to her own lips. She had to stop completely when Merill's lips found Hawke's. Her small tongue darted in, unraveling Hawke's composure utterly with its soft, hot wetness.
She finally made it to the tent, but as she pulled the flap aside, Merrill shook her head. "No, Marian. Under the sky, the stars. Let me know you in my first home."
"Maker, but you are the most-" She didn't get to finish, as Merrill had fisted her hair and pulled their lips together once more. Somehow the elf was managing to kiss her with such desperation, and yet they were soft, languid kisses, like she had all the time in the world. The combination pulled at the beast inside of her, and yet all she wanted was to melt into this small woman, this beautiful creature who, like her, was capable of great and terrible things right alongside her kindness and compassion.
Laying the mage down on the dying grass just outside the protection of the overhang, she proceeded to make love to her, losing track of where the two of them began and ended as they brought each other to such heights of pleasure.
And love. Always was love present, tempering the lustful animal inside them both.
Later, much later, they lay sprawled together, entangled. At some point Hawke had dragged a bedroll out next to the fire, and they lay now covered, Merrill's head upon Hawke's breast, breathing softly with sleep.
Hawke felt… light. Spent. Relieved. For one blissful hour or so she had lived in a world where her mother had not died, a world where all she cared about was making her lover feel good, and satisfying the deep, primal need within herself. She had reacquainted herself with her lover, all the details of her body, all the things that made her feel good. And she now had access to that comfort, that wonderful caress that she only knew how to access through lovemaking.
She had never loved someone quite like Merrill, for even though they were so newly lovers, they had spent many years being friends, and almost six weeks now in the trenches of Hawke's grief. Experiencing this feeling with the mage had always been different from the others she'd slept with, even before her mother's death. Now, though, it was entirely different still, a sweet, beautiful post-coital comfort she had been desperately seeking that dreadful night weeks before. She sighed, contented, and allowed herself to drift off to sleep, delighting in the soft weight of her lover at her side.
A/N: Ahem. Let's just say that it was a good night. Last weekend, too. Far from all the way better, but at least I know, as Raven Sinead so eloquently put it, that I'm bruised but not broken, and I can enjoy the love I share with my beautiful wife. Pretty good anniversary present, if I do say so myself (last week we celebrated three years of marriage, and nine years of being together).