In the end, neither of them won the battle, which was the way it should be. Instead they enjoyed the give and take, the pressure and release, and the wanting and needing that flowed through their lips. The Fade shaped itself around their powers, her anchor and his spells, until it settled on a room they knew very well. The Inquisitor's bedchambers were comfortable even outside of dreams. Inside they were perfection, and when Ellana noticed their new location she laughed. She rolled away and stood. "Anxious to get me into bed again?"
"Yes," he said simply and directly, and she shivered. He didn't move, only stared at her with those burning eyes she hadn't let herself believe she'd missed. But they softened, just a touch, as he smiled. "But I wasn't the one who brought us here, I believe."
"I was just thinking about all of the paperwork I'll have to catch up on when I return," she said. She walked to her desk and ran her fingers over it. "I suppose my mind must have been wandering."
Fen'Harel, or was it Solas, leaned back against the headboard. "Solas has returned just in time, it seems, to bolster my wounded ego. Fortunately he also knows that you have no talent in lies."
"I'm a very good liar!" He raised an eyebrow at her. She put her hands on her hips and mock-glared at him. "I win plenty of games of Wicked Grace."
"Yes, they do like to keep the boss happy." When her glare turned real, he held up his hands in surrender. "You're too beautiful for me to argue with, my heart. If I admit you lie better than a Rivaini pirate, will you ignore your waiting paperwork for a time?"
She gave in quickly and settled herself on his lap. "I'll try my best to focus," she said.
He hummed appreciatively as she ran her hands over his chest and grinned. When she made to slip her hands under it, he stopped her gently. "Wait. There are words that must be said."
"Solas was never that interested in words," she said wickedly while she moved her free hand to the waist of his leggings.
He breathed in sharply but didn't close his eyes. "No. But I'm not him. Not only." A hint of uncertainty flashed across his face. "Is he who you want me to be?"
She stopped, startled. "No. Of course not." He looked even more uncertain, and she amended, "Not only. There were many things I appreciated about him, but he had no capacity for love."
"No. He had trouble seeing beyond himself," he said.
"And pride alone is not enough to build a partnership," she said.
"He was not a nice man."
She hesitated but eventually nodded. "But Fen'Harel is too passive without him. Where Solas hurt me because he couldn't care, Fen'Harel hurt me because he couldn't want."
"I did," he said quietly. "Very much."
"Not enough. His heart always came first. And he backed away from the bed to try to guard mine because his own was so strong. It wasn't an evil intention, but it hurt no less. I wanted to be an object of desire that couldn't be denied." She looked away, embarrassed. "I thought I liked sex well enough before I met Solas. But he made me realize I didn't know what desire really meant. The things he made me want…"
He caught her chin and brought her back to him. His eyes glittered. "I look forward to learning all about them. Your useless lust is very interesting to me, Inquisitor."
Her breath caught even as she tried to scold him. "You said you'd forget that."
"I'm also a good liar, my heart. I will never forget it." His finger rubbed across her jaw and drifted down her shoulder, to her arm, to her hand. When he reached it, he pulled it to his lips for a light, easy kiss. She growled at him, and he smiled. "So you prefer us both, in turns?"
"I prefer you. Whole. Fen'Harel and Solas. That night, in the camp, when we finally were together, it was both. The desire and the love. That's what I want."
"I will grow old and die," he said. There was fear on his face.
"So will I," she said gently. "I'd rather not do it alone."
He closed his eyes, and the room flickered around them. Shade and light danced in the distance, like the sun between the leaves of a tree as it danced in the wind. She laughed as she watched his power flow out of him. A hundred scenes of a thousand places presented themselves to her in an instant, and she understood each one as if she'd lived it. When they stopped, she looked down at him. His eyes were still closed and a tear ran down his cheek. She smoothed it away as he concentrated one more time, and then Arlathan was around them.
She didn't need to ask what it was. He'd described it to her well once, but it was also a place that announced itself in every line. There were no mistakes to be made, nothing else it could be. Skyhold will be known this way, one day, she thought wonderingly. The view was full of white, crystal spires, and graceful architecture that invoked nature but didn't choke it. The towers stretched past her seeing, and she knew that if she could look high enough, buildings would float overhead. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
"Yes," said Fen'Harel. She looked down on him, and there was less pain there than she'd feared. He stared unblinkingly to the heavens he'd conjured. "I lived a thousand lifetimes here. It wasn't enough. I lived hundreds more in the world after it fell. It was too many. And now I have only one left. Do you understand how that feels?"
"Not entirely," she said honestly. "It's hard to understand the mind of a god."
"I am no god," he snarled to the heavens.
She shivered. His voice held the hint of the wolf that would never leave him and would never frighten her. She caressed his cheek. "We have no other word for one like you, my heart. And you have at least one worshipper, even now."
A reluctant smile lifted his mouth. "If that's the criteria, then you are also a goddess, Ellana Lavellan. And if I'm to have only one more lifetime, I will dedicate it to you."
"Good," she said.
He kissed her softly as the spires melted away around them. Skyhold didn't return, only the neutral landscape of the Fade. The bed remained, and she was grateful for its softness as the kiss deepened. He held her to him with terrifying strength, but there was no terror in her. As she felt herself reaching desire's tipping point, she tore her mouth away and moved it to his ear. "You said Solas wasn't a nice man, and that's true. He wasn't. But that's not what hurt." His hands caressed her back as he listened. She made sure to brush her lips over the tip of his ear, and the low groan in his throat almost destroyed her. "He wasn't kind. That's where he was cruel. Fen'Harel is kind, and I love you all the more for it."
She whispered so quietly she could barely hear her own words. "I will always treasure kindness, love. But don't ever imagine that I'm looking for someone nice."
She punctuated the last word by biting him lightly, and he nearly jumped out of his skin underneath her. "Where did Cole take you?" he asked heatedly. His fist was a vise around her wrist.
"The woods. I don't know. By the stream, near the boulders," she said, confused.
"Wake up," he said.
She did, lying against a tree with Cole watching her. She looked around dazedly. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered.
"Did it work?" asked Cole. "Your mind is not so sharp with hurting. But you are angry and that is also sharp."
"I was just unceremoniously dumped out of a very pleasant dream, so yes, I am a bit angry." But happier than she'd been in a long time, as well. She settled back and waited. Fen'Harel would be here.
"You know his name! It did work. I helped." Cole smiled. She was smiling back when a familiar figure entered through the trees. By the look of it, he'd been running.
"Good evening, Cole," Fen'Harel said calmly. "Thank you for your help. Please leave."
He had his clothes off before he even reached her, only moments after the spirit had gone. The hunger in her eyes pleased him, and he paused unashamedly to let her examine his body. "Like what you see?"
She shrugged. "Passable." He grinned. The way her hands shook as she lifted her own shirt belied her casual tone, but even now she wouldn't fully give in. Fen'Harel was dying to touch her, but the newly acquired piece of himself demanded that he wait and watch. She removed her tunic, then her leggings, with painful slowness, and his eyes memorized every strip of new skin that was bared. Last time had been secret and quick, and he hadn't taken the time to appreciate her. That wouldn't happen again.
At last she was as bare as he was and too excited to be shy. He licked his lips. "Solas wanted you this way," he said. He heard the earthy rumble in his voice that he couldn't stop.
"Naked?" she asked with a laugh.
He laughed as well and knelt at her feet. "Yes. Naked under the moonlight, where your hair would be silvered and shining, and your eyes would look just like they do now. Heavy and hot." His hands slipped up her calves, kneading and caressing in turns. "He always liked the woods. He liked that you smelled of them even after weeks in Skyhold."
Her lip caught in her teeth as he reached her thighs. "And Fen'Harel?"
"He's found the perfection he sought for too long." When he heard her sigh, he brushed his hand over her center. The sigh turned into a gasp that was more satisfying that she would ever know. She arched her hips into his hand and groaned when he kept moving. She glared at him through eyes that were even heavier with desire than before and asked him a silent question.
Fen'Harel cocked his head. "You said you wanted both of us together. And we both want to take our time."
"I should have thought that through more. I never could get Solas to do what I wanted, in anything." She stopped talking briefly as his hands found her breasts and teased them. He was fully above her now, straddling her body, but she made no attempt to press up against him, submitting to his pace. Her hand raised to drift a finger lightly along his cheek. "Now you're going to be just as stubborn."
"Mmm. Probably." He reached back down and touched her again with more pressure. She moaned and urged him on. He circled her more quickly, dipping inside to feel the heat and wetness of her core before pulling back to the place she demanded of him. Oh, she was very ready for him. He wasn't going to be far behind.
"On the other hand, night won't last forever, and I could possibly be… persuaded." He kissed her deeply and pulled back. "With the right tactics."
She smiled wickedly and abandoned her passivity. Her lips danced across his neck, nipping and biting. Her hands snaked around his back, pulling him hard against her. He arched up over her to press himself more fully to her thigh, and she responded by moving her legs just slightly, just enough to bring him to complete hardness. When he looked down on her, her eyes were summoning, challenging, as they'd been the day she dropped her archer's mask and became. If only he'd understood her, then. Now there was no one between them, real or imagined, and he would still take whatever she would give. He would make sure it was everything.
The sweet torture continued for a time, both of them working to make the other break. It was a very motivated and self-directed course in learning each other's greatest pleasures. At last, after a particularly aggressive kiss, by unspoken agreement they broke, together. Ellana worked her hips until he was poised at her entrance and stopped. Her eyes were still wicked, but they were also serious, waiting for him to be sure.
He knew what he was. But the same question lingered in his own mind. "Are you sure this is what you want?" Not sex. Not a night of pleasure. His life. His allegiance. His past. It was a lot to ask her to hold, and she held so much already.
She understood. "Yes. I promise. I want nothing more and nothing less than all of you. You will always have a place with me, no matter where I go." Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight as she grinned mischievously. "The Dread Wolf take me, as I tell the truth."
The string inside of him snapped, the one that had been drawing back since the minute he'd grabbed her hand and felt the power, his power, flowing through her to seal a rift. Since the minute she'd asked her first question about the Fade and listened to the answer, as solemn and sober as the oldest spirit. Wisdom and power and goodness and beauty, in this woman he would never be without again.
He thrust inside of her and almost lost control at her cry.
He held steady, still and quiet, and felt her breathing under him. Perfection lived in this moment, and he would carry it with him. There were tears in his eyes, he realized, and it surprised him how little embarrassment he felt at them. He kissed her lips, her nose, her cheek, and then her ear as he moved ever so slightly in her. She rocked up to meet him, and it was everything.
"Promises. I promise to love you, Ellana Lavellan, when you need to be loved. To want you, when you need to be wanted." He moved again, more strongly, and she gripped his shoulders and pled with him silently to continue. "I promise to tease you, but never too much. I promise to let you be in charge, as long as I don't disagree with the decisions."
Even with their rhythm rising, still slow but quickening, even with the tension he could feel in her arms and her hands and her shoulders, she still found the presence of mind to smack him. He huffed a laugh as he exhaled. Almost time. Almost time to send them over the edge. "I promise my faith, my trust and my heart to your care. May they never falter. By the light of holy Arlathan, these things I promise."
He kissed her again, and he tasted his tears on her lips. "Please," she whispered against his mouth, and he obliged her. He wrapped a hand around her shoulder and drove himself into her. His hips ground against her own and the sharp "Oh!" she gave was all he needed to encourage him. Faster and faster, deeper and stronger, until the pleasure was all there was. Under the moonlight, in the forest of her old home, they found a new home in each other.