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This is Better: Starfang
It had not gone quickly or smoothly with the elves. In the end, Loren knew that if she couldn't convince Zathrian to end the curse, that she would have split him open for it. She hadn't felt terribly sympathetic to the humans he'd cursed, but it wasn't worth the welfare of the group.
Teagan and Alistair had made much more headway. Eamon had decided to send men out to patrol the main roads, which was, as Alistair pointed out, safely stanceless in the civil war. It had allowed Alistair and Teagan the freedom to crisscross the Bannhorn though. Alistair had put in a lot of face time, and Teagan had had to tell everyone who he was.
"I might actually be good at politics!" He'd told Loren later, after she'd berated Zathrian for several evenings. She smiled and him and let him talk while she cleared the gore out of her scale. "I still have no idea what I'm doing though."
"That's probably part of your appeal." She turned the scale over in her hands, looking for blood that had seeped right though the overlapping dragonhide. She knew it had come in somewhere – her underclothes were stained the stubborn brown of blood.
"Here, yes, while I'm saving their livestock and their labour. I'm sure Denerim will be another matter." Loren didn't know, but she hoped, for the sake of the humans, that this was not so.
It was not yet spring, but the thaw was in sight as Loren turned the party northward to Soldier's Peak and their stash there. Morrigan grew restless as they approached, but didn't drop any more hints. Loren took pains tried to keep Alistair and the mage apart. She didn't want Alistair sensing in her what she had seen on the night of the ambush.
When the path through the tunnels opened into the broad walkway of the Keep's approach, Morrigan pushed past them without a glance and mounted the steps. Leliana followed. Alistair opened his mouth to call after them, but Loren tugged his attention to Levi and the call died on his lips.
Levi aside, it was a colder than expected homecoming. The rest of the Drydens seemed uninterested in the Wardens, since they had failed to clear their good name. Loren was glad that the Keep was open to them, since they were unlikely to find a bed with any of Levi's family. The Keep was exactly as they had left it – Avernus did not seem to leave his tower, but neither templar sensed any unusual magic in the air.
Loren left Alistair in Sophia's office kicking apart a mouldering chair for the fire and went to speak to Mikhael. She returned to find Alistair squatting by the fireplace in his smalls, happily poking at the fire with an elaborate iron stick. He'd assumed that this was its purpose, since it was neither sturdy enough nor sharp enough to injury anyone in anything better than roughly cured leather. He tapped it aggressively on Loren's scaled shoulders to demonstrate. "Seems an awful waste of craftmanship," he said as he returned to stirring sparks. They swirled in the air before floating up the chimney. Loren pulled a long package out of her bag and poked him with it.
"Here. It's what I really did with the money I didn't give you outside Denerim that first – no, second – visit. I'd hoped to find someone earlier to craft it."
The longsword was supremely balanced and, in the firelight, glowed with a light all its own, just as the ore had done. Alistair stood between her and the fire and swung it experimentally, tested its weight and balance, swung it again. Loren laid on the floor and watched the obviously delighted expression play over his face. She rarely got an opportunity to just watch him, though she felt his eyes on her often. He raised the blade to his eye to check its edge, running a finger down its length. "It's exquisite. Thank you."
Loren went a little flush with his appreciation. "Can I tell you why I got you this particular present? There was enough for a greatsword, but I wanted it for you."
He smiled briefly at her before returning his eyes to the blade. "It's not because you wanted to bribe me into your bed?"
"No. I thought you were a bit of an ass at the time, actually." He gave her a falsely dour look. "I wanted it because all your best weapons used to belong to other men: Duncan, your father. I wanted you to have something entirely your own."
His voice was full of gratitude when he started with her name.
"Plus!" she interrupted. "My maul is pretty good. I mean, no Starfang. But decent."
He laid it carefully on its scabbard, squatted by her ankles, then pressed himself all up her body. When they were flush, he didn't kiss her, but pressed his forehead to hers. "Thank you."
She raised her face to his mouth and caught his lips. She pressed her body into his, her small, capable hands on his strong sides. She touched his face, silhouetted by the fire behind it. She saw the angle of his jaw, the stubborn spikes of his hair. She ran a finger along the ear she could see. "Vir Alha, my love. Find your own way to the sun."
This time, he met her mouth halfway. His large hands fumbled at her buckles, extracting her from the shell of her armour. Delighted, she let him pull her from it and lift her on top of him, let him squeeze her taunt buttocks. Her legs slipped to either side of him. She could see his face now, the half closest to the fire, the strength of his nose and his lips parting slightly. She leaned forward to kiss him, but his fingers tightened into the flesh of her two cheeks and pulled her groin to his mouth. Deliberately, he edged his nose at her folds, inhaling the scent of her before taking a single lip inside his mouth and sucking on it. Loren arched herself upward in the castle's warming air, the fire illuminating the edge of her body. She closed her eyes and ran a hand up from her own hip to the side of her breast – its weight played lightly on her fingers. Alistair turned his head and tentatively pushed tongue along the inner membrane of her. She groaned encouragement and felt her wetness swelling. He let her lip loose and moved his mouth gingerly over her clit. His breath cooled her and she took a breast in each hand. His mouth closed on her clit, suctioning it further outside its hood and his thumb prodded hesitatingly from behind. She grunted encouragement and it pressed, not inside but at her. The muscle relaxed on its own accord and circled his thumb pad, and he pulled down, stretching her. The suction on her clit eased as he ran tongue and lip over it, then he took her again in his mouth. Her breath fell to her belly and she ran her palms over her nipples. A finger slipped slick inside her, and everything was lost as her senses hummed, hummed, and hummed.
Leliana followed the two mages to the doors that closed Avernus's study off from the rest of the Keep. She caught only their terse greetings before all sound was suddenly muffled. One of them must have cast a spell. Leliana cursed softly and began searching for another place to listen from. Marjolaine had never appreciated it if Leliana had questioned her decisions, so the bard kept quiet to Loren about Morrigan. Leliana saw the fire flickering under the Warden's closed door and hurried by it. Loren had more in common with Marjolaine than she knew. Leliana recognized the doe-like affection in Alistair's eyes with fond regret. Marjolaine had deserved her death, but Leliana deserved to remember what came before it, and so it was with the privileged air of the recently heartbroken that she watched the Wardens plot their own despair. She imagined Loren as Alistair took the throne and made the choices that he'd have to make. Love without fidelity always came down.
An unbarred window. Leliana looked cautiously out. It was some twenty feet of ledge from Avernus's window, but unless one of the mages actually stuck a head out a window, she would remain unseen. The bard smiled to herself. It was not only for Loren's sake that she forewent sleep and safety; she loved this. The ledge was narrower than she thought: a heel's width. No matter. A breeze picked up and Leliana looked down. Darkness swelled below her feet, but she caught the barest outline of a leafless bush below her. The wind swept the exposed skin of her collarbone. Being in her leathers again felt good. She edged her fingers along the rough stone of the tower and eased her weight off the windowsill and onto the ledge. Leliana picked her way along the wall, each step inching until she was close enough to hear the mages talking.
"Won't the darkspawn also hear this Call and come looking for it on the surface?" Morrigan's voice sounded thinner than usual.
"Of course."
Morrigan threw her head back in an entirely unconscious imitation of her mother. A shiver of fear ran through the young mage and she wondered again if going through with Flemeth's plan was wise, what the old woman had wanted with the child. She shook it all off. Flemeth wanted nothing needlessly. "Does this not strike you as problematic?"
"Indeed. It was the most problematic of all these cryptic notes." Avernus waved a hand over the copies of the relevant parts of Flemeth's grimoire that Morrigan had made for him. Morrigan suppressed her irritation. She could master this man and get what she needed. She stared at him, and he continued as if he had made no notice of her impatience. "But I believe I may have found something of use for you," he resettled the pages of notes, "here." Morrigan leaned forward, but he covered it with his hand. "In addition to the spell she knew to hide a Warden from the darkspawn, which was common magic in my day." He reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled a vial from it. "I can give you this, which you can take in the third week. It will let the protection that Flemeth has already cast on you extend to the soul within you. It will suppress the Call for a fortnight."
"Not longer?"
"I could make it last longer, but why would I? Then you could go anywhere and all my research," he held up both hands, the vial still held, "gone."
"What do you want?"
"Access."
Morrigan was not quick enough to conceal her aversion and the man chuckled. "No need to raise your maternal hackles. I will not harm it. I wish only the opportunity to study."
Something fluttered within Morrigan as she straightened her features and answered him with all the coolness she could muster. "We seek the same, then." It fluttered again, then was gone.
"Then we can help each other." The man offered not his hand, but the vial.
Morrigan's flat yellow eyes searched his face. "This will leave the Call intact?"
"Without the Call, what good is it?" Morrigan took the vial and pocketed it. "How will you convince the Wardens? The male in particular seemed unpardonably inflexible."
Morrigan waved a hand at him, "I have it under control."
Alistair had folded his long length around the warmer, smaller body of Loren. She lay still, watching the embers smoulder and shine, feeling supremely happy. Starfang shimmered on its scabbard near their feet.
As the bliss of their exertions wore off, the creep of dread returned to Alistair, making him restless. He had already decided to let the Landsmeet make him King, and he knew what he needed to do. He had decided to put it off until the moment of the Landsmeet. He could be free a few more weeks.
"Tell me about the Dalish. We hardly learnt anything about them in the Chantry."
Loren hesitated, and, for the first time, realized how hard it was to define something so intrinsically a part of you. If someone had asked her to define a Warden, she could have done so easily: blood, bad dreams, distant-warning systems, fighting, obligation, a moral high ground in politics, an excuse to drink the illegal magic of crazy old men. Being Dalish was looser and larger than being a Warden. She could tell him the pat history that they knew of themselves: Arlathan, loss, slavery, lots of walking, slaughter. She thought of deer falling in the snow, her and Tamlen slicing through the thick membrane of the belly and tying the intestines off and leaving them for the wolves. Of course, she had did that with Leliana most months. She thought of the food wrapped in the broad maple leaves: how after the rare freezes, it thawed spicier than it'd been before. She thought of her sickness as a young girl in the lurching aravels, drawn by the undirected halla. She thought again, of Zathrian, his daughter, and the place he'd found himself in with no good choice. Being Dalish, she thought, left you with no good choices.
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything."
Loren waved a hand. "That's too hard. Ask me a question."
"Tell me about Dalish weddings."
She laughed at him, "You humans. You always think everyone is just a shade of you."
"What?"
"We don't marry. We don't believe in the Maker, remember?"
"You do."
"I never said that!"
"What? Eamon dying in his bed? Disease resisting all known magic? Suddenly sprightly after one sprinkle of Ashes?"
"I admit the Ashes had power. I never admitted that it was your Maker."
"Riiiiiiight." She shook her head at his tone. It was unusual, among Dalish men, to present oneself with less than perfect seriousness. She had forgotten that in her absence from them, and squirmed in Alistair's arms to smile at him. He closed his arms across her back. "So, no marriages? I find that strange. What do you do, then? Just . . . share a tent?"
"Aravel. And, yes."
"Really?" He sounded intrigued and a bit excited. He was, Loren thought, still a man, despite the Chantry. That was good.
"Yes. Most Clans are too small to support exclusive mating, so it's encouraged. It gives the next generation more choice and keeps the Clan strong. Sometimes, people chose to bond with each other; it's like a marriage in that everyone acknowledges the primacy of the attachment, but they can still end it, and if they haven't each made children prior to that, they will still be expected to . . . there's no word for it in your language. Spread their children around."
"You mean, sleep with other people?" Loren ticked a finger in the air over her shoulder in affirmation. "That's staggering to me."
"Having sex with only one person, ever, staggers me. How very dull for you all."
His automatic response was to tell her to not hurt his feelings, but as he did so, his brain was grinding into excited action. "So Dalish spouses aren't faithful?"
She turned her head at him, "Of course they are. They just sometimes have sex with other people. And sometimes they leave each other."
Alistair raised an eyebrow. Loren really seemed to have no idea how contradictory every human everywhere would find that. "I have no idea what that means."
"It means that faithfulness is also about accepting what sometimes has to happen."
"You do know that I've been tearing myself up over the fact that I won't be able to marry you, don't you? I've never been with another woman, and I never want to be." Loren opened her mouth, "But mostly, I just don't want to be without you."
The certainty that this declaration was coming did not make Loren reel less. Long ago, she'd decided that she would never bond. Living with a Clan was already so intimate, every moment in the close company of a handful of other people, that more proximity was not something she'd ever longed for. She'd watched the dubious certainty of newly bonded pairs with contempt. The line they drew between themselves and everyone else was fictitious, and Loren had always been more comfortable in the acknowledgement of ambiguity. She liked Alistair, liked his good cheer and his earnestness, liked the comfort of a familiar body in her bed and the ways that they were learning each other. She also liked that there could never be a permanent union between them. No Clan would bond them, and no Landsmeet would let them marry. Whatever they had now, and would have into the future, would always be based entirely on the fact that they both would want it. Which, in the end, was the only way she'd have it. It was truer, and under in truth, she felt something of the certainty she saw in the faces of the couples she'd watched bond.