When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius
Disclaimer- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters therein, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.)
Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge.
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Note- This fic is part of my DA:O Fragment Fics collection. These are little pieces of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I want to post.
Thanks to everyone who has added me or any of these fics to favorites or alerts. I really appreciate the interest.
She woke to the soft, pattering of rain on the roof overhead.
"Ah, you're awake too, then? Nice and cozy here, heh? Much better than some drafty tent near a fire that would rather smoke than burn, don't you think?" Alistair murmured near her ear.
Elan, wondering if this was a gentle remonstrance against the way she had tried to ditch the divine sister who'd finagled their lodgings, had the grace to blush. Darkly.
"Ah," Alistair said, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back in the hay, "this brings back memories." Either he hadn't noticed her reaction or he had and was content with his point, giving her the gift of her dignity by pretending he hadn't. He'd surely expect her to believe the first, but Elan tended to suspect him of the second. Which was, when all was said and done, in her mind rather to his credit.
Elan stretched out beside him, inhaling the sweet, clean, grassy scent of the hay. "Does it?"
Alistair nodded. "I used to sleep in the stable more often than not when I was-uh, that is at..uh..."
"Oh?" Elan replied, raising an eyebrow against a sudden wave of curiosity that threatened to overcome her. "At the Chantry?"
"Not... exactly..." Alistair murmured, looking supremely uncomfortable. "Not literally. But, uh, you could say so... metaphorically."
"So... you're saying you spent a lot of time... in the doghouse, then?" Elan suggested with slow skepticism. She smirked. "I can't say I'm surprised."
Alistair rolled over on his belly, reaching out to tickle her nose with the straw.
She snorted in surprise, batting a hand at her nose, and squirmed, managing to inch just far enough back to avoid the second sweep of the straw.
"Ah, ah, ah, now that I've got you, I'm not about to let you escape that easily!" Alistair admonished, rolling toward her with a roguish flourish of the straw.
"Oh," Elan gasped in protest, tucking her chin and scrunching her whole body to scrabble below the sweep of the straw... so that it only managed to graze the top of an ear in a way that made her start a bit with surprise. "Looks like the reverend mother taught you something in templar training, after all!"
"Heeey," Alistair paused, straw upheld like a scepter, regarding her with such a look of affront his hands might as well have been planted solidly on his hips. It was a look so strongly and so strangely reminiscent of Orianna at her most disapproving that Elan didn't know whether to weep or laugh.
Her breath caught.
Alistair's eyes darkened, their usual warm amber shadowed-with sorrow and sympathy?- and brightened, with something less familiar, something both exciting and dangerous, something she thought might be desire, slid across her skin like whisky sliding down her throat, warm and tingling, filling her with a strangely pleasant langor, as if she had just slid into a hot bath after a long, hard day of sword-play and mabari battle exercises.
Suddenly, heavy drops of rain broke through the thatching of the roof, splashing across her face like cooling kisses, clinging to her eyelashes like tears, or maybe, just maybe, dazzling her vision with sparkling stars. Elan blinked, feeling dazed.
Alistair chuckled softly, shifting his weight in the straw, sending up a cloud of mellow scent, and leaned in close, reaching up to brush his thumb across her eyelashes and the bridge of her nose.
Time stopped, or maybe it was just her breath. It was funny, how she didn't know for sure.
Funny how, suddenly, the only thing she seemed to be aware of was his hand cupping her cheek, his eyes on her face, his lips over hers…
A muffled thump sounded a little distance away and below them-probably near the entrance of the barn. Woofus reared up out of the straw with a huffed "woof," some mixture of surprise, warning, and protest at this interruption to his nap. Of course, Alistair had been-quite unintentionally-leaning across the space above the mabari, and the unexpected impetus of the dog's movement sent him lurching backwards, flailing his arms about his head as if his balance were a butterfly he could catch in mid-flight.
Elan wished this was some simple lover's tryst at Highever-not that she'd ever had such a thing, though she might have imagined them once or twice. And now those dreams were things that would never be. It would have been a miracle beyond measure just to be able to sit back and laugh. But laughter was a luxury they could ill afford, and her fingers were already closing around the hilt of her sword.
"Oh, oh, flames!" a soft, vaguely familiar voice muttered softly.
Elan frowned into the dark open space beyond the hay loft. "Uh… sister...Leliana…?"
"Um, yes?" the voice returned hesitantly. "Good morning? I didn't mean to wake you… exactly… but… look!"
Elan, not yet quite ready to relinquish her hold on the hilt of her sword, inched forward, dragging it with her, and squinted, peering down into the dark and shadowy depths of the barn.
The sister's red hair blazed up at her, vaguely illuminating the arms she held upraised in front of her face. There, clutched in her hands, were a precarious little tumble of small, smooth white objects that seemed to gleam like pearls in the stormy perhaps-early-morning light. "Breakfast!" the sister crowed triumphantly.
"Well," Elan said slowly, uncomfortably aware that her stomach did feel rather empty now that she'd taken time to think about it, and not at all sure she liked that food did indeed seem to be a rather reliable currency with which to purchase her affections, let alone that everyone around her seemed to be completely aware of the fact and more than willing to use it to their advantage at any-or maybe at each and every-moment.
"Aren't you just full of surprises?"
"Oh," the sister said softly, looking alarmingly close to dropping the eggs as she lowered her arms. "Aren't you sweet-flattery will get you everywhere, of course!"
"I'll just bet I know where it's going to get me in the end," Elan muttered under her breath, even more annoyed to notice that Alistair-with apparently no thought whatever to caution-was already scrambling down the ladder with enthusiasm.