Tara pushes him on his back and lies on top of him, her lips trailing across his chest, and he throws his head back on the pillow, getting lost in the sensation. They are in some sort of luxurious inn room with ornamented carved bedposts and colourful pillows. He doesn't quite remember how he got here, but then Tara's mouth trails lower, slowly, as she licks her way down his stomach, and he doesn't care about the room anymore, lost in a wave of pleasure.

"She's pretty," a female voice says from the foot of the bed, and he knows that voice. His eyes snap open.

"Rinna?"

As if nothing was happening, Tara smiles up at him wickedly and sits up, straddling him, reaching down between them. He can't refrain from moaning when she swiftly guides him inside her.

"Oh, and passionate, too," Rinna continues to comment from the foot of the bed. "I like her. You chose well. Does she know about me, I wonder? Does she know what you have done?"

He cranes his neck to try and see around Tara who begins to ride him in earnest, apparently unaware they're not alone. Rinna is standing there, naked, arms crossed, a dagger in one hand. A wound is slowly opening across her throat, and the blood starts flowing.

"So," she says, uncrossing her arms and flipping the dagger with one hand as the wound on her neck opens up a little more, the blood now covering her breasts entirely, "do you want me to kill her?"

"Ah! Zev, you're so good…" Tara moans, and he looks back at her. He sees her, her eyes closed and her head thrown back in pleasure, one of her hands caressing her breasts and the other slipping into her hair, he sees where they are joined, the way he's pumping in and out of her… but he feels none of it.

All he feels is dread.

"What?"

"Or do you want him to do it?" Rinna says, indicating a corner of the room with a tilt of her chin. "I know he is good for it."

Taliesen is there, fully dressed in leather armour, sprawled in a comfy chair, a leg thrown over one arm of the seat, carelessly cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a bloody dagger, seemingly unperturbed by Tara's increasingly louder moans.

"No!"

Rinna arched her eyebrows. Her whole body is now covered in the thick, red blood still gushing from her slit throat.

"How do you think this is going to end, then, Zevran?"

"Ah!" Tara's back arches as she leans over him, bracing herself on his chest, her head still thrown back, exposing her throat.

He has a dagger in his hand.

"Are you going to do it yourself?" Rinna asks.

"Please. Oh, Zev, please, ah!" Tara gasps before suddenly tensing above him, a shiver coursing through her body. She then rolls off him, to the side, revealing Rinna behind her, her eyebrows still arched in questioning. Zevran stares back at her, desperate.

"I…"

Rinna walks to his side and leans over him, covering him in her blood. She stares at him, her face inches from his.

"You will be the death of her," she whispers before kissing him, roughly, leaving bloody traces on his cheeks with her fingers. She pulls back and smiles at him, almost tenderly, and she takes his hands in hers, crossing them over his chest. The dagger he's still holding is now bloody. Rinna presses a hand to his cheek, forcing him to turn his head to the side.

Tara's lifeless eyes stare back at him, her naked body lying broken beside him over the covers, blood congealing around the gaping wound on her throat.

He awoke, abruptly but silently, his eyes opening wide, not a muscle of his body moving as his panicked brain tried to make sense of his surroundings. He was in Tara's tent, lying on his back. He remembered: he had slid in there to wait for her to return from her little reconnaissance in Haven. He must have fallen asleep, buried under the blankets and furs that covered the ground. He breathed in deeply, trying to cling to rational thoughts, his mind reeling from the nightmare.

Someone was trying to get in. Could it be Tara? There was still a fair amount of light filtering through the fabric of the tent. The day was still young; much too soon for the party to be back already. He tensed, hiding further under the furs.

"Stay," he heard Tara's voice command. A pitiful, canine whine answered her and she chuckled. "Aw, who's a good boy? Just sit for a while, and then we'll go play fetch! How's that sound?" A happy bark, then the flaps opened, and Tara entered the tent, buttocks first.

Zevran didn't move. She hadn't seen him. She couldn't see him, not now, not with his heart still pounding, his hands still trembling, wet traces still on his cheeks… He could only hope she would simply grab something and be on her way again, giving him time to compose himself.

She closed the flaps tight and stayed there, on her knees with her back to him, unmoving for a long while. He could hear her breathe deeply once, twice, then her breath hitched. She bowed forward, her spine curling until her hands were on the ground, her fingers closing in the dirt. He heard the very distinct sound of a muffled cry.

He raised himself on his elbows, slowly, unsure, watching as she silently crumbled, her whole body shaking with violent, repressed sobs. Her fists pounded the ground soundlessly, again and again, curled fingers dragging in the dirt between each blow. He could see the right side of her face, eyes tight shut, tears flowing out, mouth opened on a silent cry as she fought to control her breath, to refrain from gasping.

He watched for a long time as she shook and cried and punched, all in an eerie silence, her movements like an echo of his own reeling mind, his own silent distress. After a while, she slowly calmed down, hands finally resting on the ground, her breathing becoming more even. He watched as she sat back on her heels, head thrown back, and took two, three deep breaths before turning around and finally seeing him there.

"Zevran!" she exclaimed before clasping a hand over her mouth. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice hushed. "No, wait, stupid question… how long have you been… no, even stupider… ah, look, I'm sorry you had to see that, I'm fine, really, just…" she trailed off, then sighed, wiping her cheeks, apparently at a loss to find an explanation for her behaviour. "I'm sorry…"

"What happened?" Zevran asked softly.

She smiled, a forced, strained smile as her eyes welled up with tears again, "So, yeah, Sten tried to kill me…"

"What?"

He sat up, already reaching for his weapons. She stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"He says I'm a bad leader. He says he could do better. He says…" she choked on the last word. "He's right, Maker, he's right, what am I doing…?" Her voice broke, her hands curling into fists at her sides.

"He is certainly not right, Cara, nobody would follow him. How did you get this idea?"

"I don't even understand why I'm in charge, Maker, I don't understand anything… Damn it, why are you here, Zevran? You're not supposed to see me like this…"

She hid her face in her hands, her breath hitching again. He reached out, gently pulling her hands away, "I do not mind. You have nothing to be ashamed of with me, Cara. Lay down your mask."

She inhaled a deep, shaky breath, her eyes boring into his.

"You don't have to do this. I know… what we are. I understand. This…" her hand did a vague motion encompassing the two of them, "I know this is not what we are to each other. I like what we have. You're doing me so much good, I don't…" she trailed off, looking away.

"I told you I do not mind. You cannot be strong all the time, Cara. Nobody can. I do not think less of you, on the contrary."

Her lips stretched in a shy little smile.

"I believe you." She reached up to his face, her smile turning to a slight frown as she ran her thumb against his cheek. "Were you crying?"

He turned his head away, cursing himself for having forgotten, "It is nothing. A dream, perhaps. I am…"

"Don't tell me you're fine, Zev. Don't shy away from me, not after what you just said to me." She gestured to the spot on the ground where she had collapsed earlier. "I'm a freaking mess, Zev. This, what you saw? I do this every day. Sometimes, it's the only thing that keeps me going. Whatever happens, I smile and nod, and I think: 'Hold on, hold on, just a bit longer,' until I'm finally alone, until I can allow myself to falter. It's just that… I'm usually weak alone. You… you can't be strong all the time, either, you know." She shook her head, smiling. "Wow, I'm sorry, that made so much more sense in my head. I just mean… I can be there for you too. Not that you… damn, I'm making a mess of this…"

"No, you are not. It is… uneasy for me to…" He sighed, wrapping his arms around his raised knees. He couldn't shake it off, couldn't pretend he wasn't a mess himself. He still felt it, the hard pounding of his heart, the pressure of tears behind his eyelids, the panic in his throat. "You are right. It is time I talk about this. You have been… a good friend to me, and there is no reason to keep silent. I… never really told you why I left Antiva."

She sat cross-legged in front of him, leaning forward, "Tell me."

He did. He told her everything; about Taliesen, about Rinna, about his emptiness and his despair. She listened without a word, and he found it did felt good to talk about it. She stayed silent long after he was finished talking. He kept his gaze on the ground, unsure of what he would see on her face if he looked up.

"So," she said at length, "when you took the contract to kill us…"

"I never expected to succeed. What I wanted was to die. Maybe you cannot understand…"

"Why? Because I've been so sheltered?"

There was no real anger in her voice, no harshness. If anything, she sounded sad. Then words came pouring out of her in an almost uninterrupted stream, as if they couldn't wait to finally get out.

"Tell me if I understand then. You did something, something horrible, like… let's say like setting a blood mage loose into the world, and you think that your life is over, that they're gonna kill you, right? Except they don't; instead, there's this guy, and he recruits you for a very important mission, a very dangerous mission, and you think to yourself, why not? It's not like my life wasn't forfeit just a second ago… But then they shove this awful mixture down your throat, and you dream of monsters that speak to you, and the hunger twists your insides in a painful knot and you've known hunger before but this is so much worse… You fight your way through hordes of darkspawn, all the while thinking that you acquired all your previous fighting experience in a library, and that just last week, you had no memory of ever seeing a forest, or a field, and now all you can see is black, and red. You barely survive somehow, but then there's this other guy, and he tells you that all this, this is never gonna stop, this is your life now. That same guy, he wants you to be in charge too, because this is a Blight and the both of you have to save the kingdom and start a civil war and kill a gigantic dragon surrounded by the might of the darkspawn army. There are so many decisions to make and each and every one of them is so important, the weight of the world is on your shoulders and all you can think is that you don't even know how to buy stuff from the freakin' merchant, and how much is one gold piece worth, anyway? Everyone expects you to solve their problems and half the time you don't have a freakin' clue what any of them is talking about. And people want to help, right, but they're all kind of depressed, so you put your chin up and find ways to cheer them up, you hide the fear and despair in your own heart because that's what a leader does, that's what you're supposed to do, right, motivate troops? But the pressure, the stress, the desperation, the knowledge that each victory is due to sheer luck and that there's no way you can keep it up, it's all there, all the time. You start thinking that the only way you can get out of this is by dying, but there's so many people counting on you, you can't do it. So you keep walking and fighting, giving it your all, thinking that somewhere in all these dangerous situations it's inevitable, almost like fate, really, that a dangerous enemy could get to you, could know his own victory, and then, finally, it could all be over. So you start to do reckless things, like… like sitting in a professional assassin's lap, taunting him, hoping that Leliana doesn't know how to tie good knots…"

He remembered the scene, waking up to the feel of her against him, to the sight of her, smiling, throwing away the dagger meant to threaten him…

"I would never… you were so full of life, Cara…"

"You're one to talk," she said softly, smiling. "I distinctly recall you actually saying the words: 'I like living,' in that same conversation."

There they were, both seeking death, finding each other instead. Zevran closed his eyes. His head was spinning.

"Do you still want to die?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. He swallowed.

He recalled that first night he spent with her, when he was standing outside the tent in the cold night air, filled with the need to move, to go forward…

"No," he answered, opening his eyes to look at her. "What I want is to begin again. Whatever I sought by leaving Antiva… I think I have found it. I owe you a great deal."

"You don't owe me anything. You… you've been good to me."

"What about you? Do you still want to die?"

"No," she said, sounding a little surprise at herself. "Today, when Sten said these things to me, and then came at me with this huge sword, I kept thinking: 'This is it. This is what I was waiting for. This is for the best…' and suddenly I felt… rage, and… and refusal, and Sten was floating in a crushing prison, burning… and I realized I didn't want to die anymore."

She shook her head.

"I still have no clue what I'm doing, though. I just… I just want to keep doing it. It worked out well so far…"

"I think you are far better at this than you give yourself credit for."

She shifted, bringing her knees under her, and sat back on her heels, looking at him thoughtfully.

"The others… Alistair, Leliana, Sten, Wynne, even Morrigan… they are all so noble, in their own way, you know, they have all these principles and ideals and their own twisted vision of what this war is… but you, Zev, you and me, we know better. War is blood. Blood and death and pain, and it's ugly and dirty, and what's really important is survival. You… you never judge. You don't, because you know, right? You understand what this is really all about. With the others, I feel like I need to be… I don't know, a hero, a leader… someone else. But here, with you, I feel… I can just be me."

She leaned closer, her gaze locked into his.

He swallowed, "I am hardly one to judge, Cara."

"I know," she whispered, closing the distance between them, her lips meeting his, gently. She gasped against his mouth, softly, her lips moving slowly against his as she leaned even closer, bracing herself on his chest. His hands came up her back, taking a gentle hold on her shoulders. The kiss, soft and tender, abruptly ended in a surprised giggle as her hands slid lower down his abdomen.

"Are you naked under there, Sexy?"

"Well… I was waiting for your return…"

"You're incorrigible. I can't believe we talked about all this while you were lying there naked…"

He silenced her by kissing her again, her words dying against his mouth with a soft hmph.

"It changes nothing," he said, his hands trailing along the curve of her neck.

She already was his safe place, his haven. He could be hers, he thought as their hands worked together at getting her naked. One more thing they could do for each other.

Yes. Everything would be fine.