A/N: With many thanks to oneplusme for the beta; this is the last awkward smut chapter for a long while, I promise. :) And with thanks to juri and sqbr for the plot advice.

Thank you to Noah Sila for our discussions, in particular Morrigan's issues with letting go and for generally encouraging my weirdness. ^_^;;

Warnings: Vague references to rape, NSFW.


Recap - Morrigan - chapter 27

[Korcari Wilds]

Morrigan: Nothing like the stench of mud and marsh to remind one of home.

[Flashback]

Young Morrigan: Templars! My favourite!

Templar: Hey little girl, want to take us to your apostate parent so that we may slay them before your very eyes?

Young Morrigan: Do I ever!

Flemeth: Welcome, gentlemen. Please make yourselves comfortable. May I interest you in a side dish of murder and torture (not necessarily in that order)?

Templars: *die gruesome deaths*

[Flashback]

Morrigan: You are asking me to couple with this - this unschooled Chantry boy? 'Twould be a miracle if he even knew the meaning of the word.

Flemeth: Stop your whining, girl. He's handsome enough, is he not?

Morrigan: Perhaps...

Alistair: Could you please stop talking about me as though I'm not here? I might be unconscious but I still have feelings, you know.

Morrigan: Incidentally, everyone you ever loved died horrible, lingering deaths. Allow me to describe the scene in detail.

Alistair: *cries manly tears of manliness*

[End flashbacks]

Morrigan: 'Twould be sensible if I took some of Mother's books with me, at the very least. Though I fail to see how I could carry them in bird form. Ah well...

Morrigan: *incinerates the house and everything inside it*

Morrigan: So, Mother - I still have more fanboys than you could ever hope for, despite your attempts at recovering your sordid youth. Honestly, could you at least dress your age? I shudder to think why anyone would want to envisage you in plunging armour. 'Tis most disturbing.

DA2!Flemeth: *preens*


Counterpoint

.

.

.

Redcliffe

The sun was low in the sky when Morrigan returned, circling the castle towers as she searched for a place to land. A shape on the parapets caught her eye, and she headed towards it, drifting lower. She wondered how long the warden had been there - whether Sylvanna had ventured out every day in anticipation of her return.

Morrigan landed upon Sylvanna's arm with a rush of feathers, her talons slicing through thin leather gloves. Sylvanna stumbled, and Morrigan dug in further to avoid being knocked off her perch, wings fluttering for balance. Blood welled up around her feet, and she tilted her head to watch its slow progression.

"Let's get you inside," Sylvanna said. She looked down, as if trying to find the human within the hawk's eyes. Morrigan returned her gaze, seeing the shadows lining her face, the dirt around her collar, until Sylvanna finally turned away.

Morrigan clung to Sylvanna as she walked, shoulders hunched defensively against the cold weight of stone overhead. When they reached one of the upper rooms, she flew up into the rafters, perching amidst the cobwebs.

"I told the servants to run you a bath," Sylvanna said, gesturing towards a vessel in the middle of the room. She made a complicated motion with her hands, and steam began to rise from its surface. Turning from Morrigan, she removed her glove with a wince; angry red slashes crossed her arm, and she spent a few moments closing the wounds.

Morrigan fluttered down from her perch, landing on the side of the bath with the hollow sound of talons clicking against metal. She hopped down to the floor and changed, rising from a crouch and rocking unsteadily on her human feet. She caught Sylvanna's dubious expression from the opposite side of the room and rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth, old blood flaking off at the gesture.

It was an odd thing, taking another's form - hawks did not concern themselves much with guilt, or emotional consequences. Her human heart, however, felt both those things keenly, and the feeling only worsened with Sylvanna's silence.

Morrigan glanced down, her grimy hair obscuring her vision, and carefully climbed into the bath. There were herbs floating on the surface, sliding over her palms as she splashed water onto her face, breathing in the metallic tang of copper and tasting iron on her lips. Words caught at the back of her throat as she struggled to remember how to speak. "Syl-"

A lump of soap landed in the bath with a wet splash, followed by a loofah. Morrigan swallowed and picked up both of them. She washed herself thoroughly, water spilling over the sides of the bath as she reached down to clean the blood between her toes. She felt Sylvanna's presence behind her, never speaking, as though they were both ghosts re-enacting some long-forgotten ritual.

Once she finished bathing, she rested her head gently against the side of the tub. The strain of maintaining another's form for two weeks finally caught up to her, causing her eyes to close as she felt Sylvanna stroking her hair. She ought to say something - anything - to break the silence. Instead, she leant into Sylvanna's touch, listening to the sounds of their breaths synchronising, as though they were one being.

Only for a moment, she told herself, before exhaustion drowned her senses and claimed all thought.

.

.

.

Drip.

Drip.

It was the sound that woke her, Morrigan decided later on. It lingered at the edge of her consciousness, pushing her out of the realm of dreamers and into the stark coldness of reality.

Drip.

She sat up with a start, tepid water sloshing musically onto the floor. She blinked rapidly, seeking light in the darkness as she reached over the side of the bath. Flame flared in her palm, and she lit a candle with a flick of her fingers.

Her hair hung cold against her back like a mass of tangled seaweed; she squeezed the liquid from it, water sliding off her body as she rose and stepped onto the damp stone. She struggled to dress, fumbling to knot a sash with hands that were clumsy and alien, heavy and scarcely sharp enough for her liking.

The corridors were illuminated by flickering tapers, allowing her to see her damp footprints as she trod back to her bedroom. The door creaked open noisily as she leant against it, a faint scritching noise reaching her ears before she stepped into the room.

Sylvanna sat at the desk, writing furiously in the light of a single lamp. Her quill drifted over the page with a rhythmic ebb and flow, her eyes focused so intently on her work that she failed to look up when Morrigan approached.

A number of phrases ran through Morrigan's mind - strange words that sat uncomfortably on her tongue, twisting up like complex incantations when she tried to arrange them. Simple words, like the ones you would use to greet a stranger - 'are you well? How have you been keeping?' and more difficult words, like 'regret' and 'forgive me.'

They were still tangled in her throat when Sylvanna spoke, not deigning to look at her. "You took a while. I thought perhaps you'd drowned."

Morrigan smoothed the damp hair from her face with her palm before answering, drinking in the scene before her. Lamplight cast odd shadows on the walls, revealing thin white scars on Sylvanna's arm - talon marks. That was unexpected. Such a small injury should have been easy to heal without a trace; Sylvanna had certainly practised enough during the Blight to be sufficiently adept.

"What is that?" Morrigan asked, gesturing towards her writing.

Sylvanna paused, the nib of the quill hovering just above the parchment. "A letter to the Arl of South Reach, offering my apologies for not seeing him in person."

Morrigan frowned, stepping further into the room. The last she had heard of South Reach during an audience with Ishantha, before the siege. "What business have you with the arl? As I recall, his presence was requested here at Redcliffe-"

"There's been a change of plans." Sylvanna continued to write, her tone sounding bored as she returned to the task before her. "We decided to pay the good arl a visit. And by 'we', I mean you and your daughter."

Ishantha was a poor travelling companion, talking constantly and never seeming to tire. Morrigan shuddered at the thought of spending a week or more in her company. "Why was I not consulted in this matter?"

Sylvanna spared her a brief glance. "You weren't here." She finished writing, signing her name with a tight scrawl, the nib leaving indents on the parchment. "You'd best begin packing, since you're due to leave on the morrow."

How dare they attempt to move her around like some anonymous foot soldier? Morrigan lowered her voice. "And where will you be?"

Sylvanna sprinkled sand over the wet page, corking the inkwell. "Here," she said, folding her hands on top of one another and gazing up at Morrigan, her expression carefully bland. "The seneschal requires further instruction, and there are other things that need personal attention."

Morrigan's jaw tightened, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "I will not go."

Sylvanna shook the letter free of sand, folding it into neat quarters. "It's for the best, Morrigan. If you have a problem with the plan, you should speak with your daughter."

There were other, more pressing issues she needed to discuss. Between the morning after her death and the journey to the Korcari Wilds, Morrigan had not spoken to her daughter for over a fortnight. If Ishantha harboured any illusions that time had saved her from her mother's wrath, she was about to be unpleasantly surprised.

"I shall," Morrigan snapped. "This is absurd, Sylvanna. Why leave so soon? Why not wait for my return before making such a rash decision?"

Sylvanna's eyebrow twitched, the first sign of her irritation since Morrigan had entered the room. "It's not like you left us any indication of when you would return, or whether you would return at all. It made sense to plan for the worst."

"That is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard-"

Sylvanna slammed her palm down onto the table, the quills and blank pieces of parchment jumping into the air. "Why can't you take responsibility for your own actions?"

Morrigan drew back, her own hands clenching into fists. "I fail to see how this-"

"You left. Without a word. There are still darkspawn around, you know, and stray templars and who knows what else. We were worried sick."

"My independence is not negotiable. I-"

"You have a daughter, Morrigan. You cannot simply up and leave whenever you wish. What if something happened to you? What do you think she would do?"

When Flemeth died, Morrigan had had been overcome with a wealth of emotions, but her dominant feeling had been one of relief. She hoped that Ishantha would at least have the decency to avenge her death, if not to mourn her. "I was hardly exposed to any danger, and if you think for a moment-"

Sylvanna began to laugh. "Not in any danger?" she echoed mockingly, her eyes flashing a glacial blue. "Are you truly so arrogant as to believe that?"

You were the one who murdered me, Morrigan thought bitterly, but knew better than to voice it. At her silence, Sylvanna made a dismissive gesture and turned to seal her letter, but Morrigan was not yet done. "What is this really about?"

Sylvanna stabbed a signet into a pool of molten wax, splashing red droplets over the clean envelope. "Denerim."

"That hardly answers my question."

"You left me in Denerim," Sylvanna said, setting the signet down with enough force that it scratched the desk. "You left me - without a word, without an explanation, leaving me no idea what I'd done wrong or what was going through that thick, crazy skull of yours."

Morrigan remembered her reasons well enough. She hated seeing the warden so weak, and after Fort Drakon Sylvanna had been exactly that - bruised and snivelling and utterly useless to anyone. Morrigan had told herself that it was for the best, that it would make things easier, in the end.

What a fool she had been.

"Not all my motives are connected with you-"

"You left me, Morrigan, and I needed you!" Sylvanna shouted, her face flushing an ugly shade of pink. "I needed you," she repeated in a softer tone, her expression so completely naked that it hurt to look at her.

Sylvanna rose from the desk, pushing her chair back with a screech. She stepped forwards, her movements shaky and uncontrolled, causing ripples in the air where energy surged around her. Morrigan imagined demons clawing in at the edges of the Veil, waiting to break through to the mortal world. She prepared a spell under her breath and held it, concealed safely in her palm.

"I hope for your sake that it was worth it, this time. I asked you before, Morrigan - what do you want? Do you even know?"

Morrigan hesitated. Sylvanna in one of her moods resembled a wild animal, dangerous, but not entirely unpredictable. She took a step forwards. "'Twas not my intention to hurt you-"

Apparently that was not the right thing to say. Sylvanna pivoted, hurling something from the desk at Morrigan's head. She ducked, and Arl Teagan's fragile Antivan paperweight shattered against the wall behind her, shards raining down with a dismal tinkle.

"Darkspawn take your intentions!"

Time to try something different. Morrigan strengthened the spell in her palm, slowly stepping forwards with the intention of allowing it to take hold upon skin contact. "If you would simply listen-"

"Don't touch me!"

Morrigan felt a phantom pressure pushing against her and she staggered, almost falling over. Her concentration slipped, and the spell she had been holding fell from her grasp, mutating into something completely different. A shockwave radiated from her in concentric rings as the Veil shifted around them.

Sylvanna stumbled, falling back against the desk with a thud. She reached out for balance and knocked over the inkwell, its cork slipping free with a pop. Darkness spilled over the desk, and Sylvanna righted herself, staring at the stain spreading across her sealed letter, the ink feathering into the parchment.

Morrigan swallowed. "Sylvanna, I-"

"Don't." Sylvanna pulled a drawer open, scrabbling around for something, and then drew out a cloth, wiping ineffectually at the marks on her skin. She turned the inkwell upright - a futile gesture, seeing as the liquid was already seeping deep into the wood grain.

Morrigan reached out, seeking to accomplish through touch what she had failed to do with words. Her hand brushed Sylvanna's arm for a second before she drew back in shock, electricity sparking between them, causing pain to lance through her fingertips. She caught a glimpse of Sylvanna's eyes, steeled for war and unmoved by pity, before an invisible force slammed against her chest, tossing her across the room as though she were no heavier than a rag doll. Blackness filled her vision as the spell released her, and she collapsed onto the bed with a pained groan.

When next she glanced up, Sylvanna was above her, knees at either side of her hips. Morrigan raised herself onto her elbows, inching back along the bed until she reached the wall, Sylvanna mirroring her movements at every step.

"I hate you," Sylvanna said, before reaching down and kissing her with brutal force. She tasted faintly of cinnamon and aniseed, her nails digging painfully into Morrigan's still-damp scalp.

Morrigan flinched at the words, and then donned her finest glare like armour. "I assure you," she hissed, "the feeling is mutual." She grasped Sylvanna firmly by the shoulders, drawing them closer together. Heat radiated between them where their bodies touched, and she was overwhelmed by the urge to feel bare skin against her own.

Morrigan reached for Sylvanna's laces and began to tug them free, the cord making a silky sound as they worked loose from their eyelets. Sylvanna's hand snaked down to untangle the sash at her waist, making light work of the clumsy bow that Morrigan had knotted.

"You have no right," Sylvanna said as they worked. "What have I ever done to make you hate me?"

"Your attempt on my life, for one." Attempts plural, rather - the night of Ishantha's conception, and the more recent incident that had been erased from Sylvanna's memory.

"You deserved it." Sylvanna leant forwards so that their noses were almost touching, the peaks of her bare breasts causing a distracting friction against Morrigan's skin. "You should've told me about the Old God from the start, instead of being an insufferable, selfish idiot-"

That was more than Morrigan could rationally stand to bear, and she brought her knee up sharply to dislodge Sylvanna's weight, but the warden rolled off her before the blow connected. Sylvanna leant over the side of the bed, reaching for something just out of view, and then Morrigan caught a glimpse of it from the corner of her eye.

She laughed incredulously as Sylvanna calmly strapped the device to her hips using an intricate system of buckles. "That is truly-" Morrigan floundered, lost for words. "Where did you even find such a contraption?"

Sylvanna turned to her with a slight quirk of her lips. "You don't like it?" she asked mockingly. "The harness is Orlesian made-"

"Quite," Morrigan snapped, more harshly than she had intended. Sylvanna crawled towards her, and Morrigan sank back into the mattress, trying to prevent that... thing... from touching her.

"Do you remember our first time in Denerim? We stepped into the Wonders of Thedas. Leliana asked you a question, and you replied, 'I would sooner bed the dog'," Sylvanna reminisced with a bitter smile.

"I confess, the memory eludes me."

"I asked Leliana, later on, what in the world you had been talking about, and she told me," Sylvanna said, one hand casually stroking the length of the instrument. "You're lucky, you know, that I managed to find one at all. Leliana was right - Fereldans are such prudes. In the Circle, we had to make do with all sorts of odd materials: leather and catgut, or carved wooden-"

"If I had wanted to lie with a man, I would have done so," Morrigan snapped.

"And so you did."

Morrigan flinched at the accusation, so blandly delivered, but Sylvanna continued on. "We do not always voice our true desires, not even to ourselves."

"Pray then, tell me - what do you think I desire?"

Sylvanna smiled, the expression stretching across her scarred face. "Me, of course," she purred, and Morrigan was hard pressed to deny the surge of want she felt as Sylvanna pressed coyly against her.

The... obscenity felt cold and hard against Morrigan's stomach. Sylvanna grabbed her hand, guiding it down over the smooth length of the shaft. Morrigan's fingers traced downwards of their own accord, finding the hilt of the device and the slight ridge where it emerged from the leather harness.

"That is truly the most ridiculous accessory you have ever worn," Morrigan said, her breath catching in her throat.

"Worse than those enchanters' cowls?"

"Much," Morrigan snapped, trying not to moan as Sylvanna rubbed the head of the device teasingly at the junction of her legs.

"I think you'll find this accessory more... stimulating than a few horrifically ugly hats," Sylvanna demurred, in an irritatingly smug tone of voice.

"Surely you are not expecting me to actually permit you to-"

"Shut. Up," Sylvanna growled, shoving down upon Morrigan's shoulders with such force that her head cracked against the wall above the bed. As Morrigan contemplated her revenge, Sylvanna took the opportunity given by her dazed lack of resistance to take the first plunge, accompanied by Morrigan's surprised groan.

It felt larger than she had anticipated from discerning its shape in the dim light, and Morrigan turned her head to the side, a low moan escaping from her lips. Sylvanna held her there, and she felt the faint brush of breath against her neck. She was prepared to snap out an angry retort when Sylvanna moved, drawing out and then back in again with such force that it left her breathless. Sylvanna's hands wandered down to her hips, holding her in place (not that she truly wanted to move, to her chagrin), and she struggled obstinately against the warden's slight weight. Sylvanna avoided her attempts to wriggle out of her hold with a humiliating ease, and eventually they settled into a rhythm that felt at once familiar and yet not, as if she had woken one day to find her favourite robes had been improperly laundered, exerting pressure in unexpected places.

She anticipated Sylvanna's next movement and interrupted it prematurely, grinding her hips upwards as Sylvanna gasped. She waited until Sylvanna was almost fully withdrawn and then pushed her away, rolling over in one fluid motion. Triumphant, she grabbed Sylvanna's arm above the elbow and shoved her downwards, wrapping her other hand around the warden's throat and squeezing hard until she ceased her ineffectual thrashings, glaring up at Morrigan with the cautious beginnings of surrender.

Morrigan carefully settled back down again upon the device at her own leisure, led to make the useful observation that her hands were still free to reach other sensitive areas of flesh. Perhaps she ought to give the Orlesians more credit, she thought as she forced Sylvanna's head to tilt upwards by tugging on her hair; they really were a very... practical people.

Sylvanna moaned wantonly as Morrigan rubbed at a point just below the shaft, squirming eagerly between her thighs. "Take me," she said unexpectedly, her eyes bright with desire. "I want you to take all of me."

Yes, replied the voice inside Morrigan's mind, eager and more than willing to assume control. Yes. She bent down low over Sylvanna's body, pressing a kiss into the warm hollow of her neck. Sylvanna's pulse beat erratic and fast, the sound of her blood pounding in a rhythm all of its own, dark and enticing. It sang to her, rich and warm and-

(The right thing to do would have been to say no. But they were both aware, she reasoned; they both knew the risks, and if Sylvanna was going to deliberately provoke her then Morrigan would be damned if she was going to be blamed for taking the bait.)

"Yes," she said. The words came easily to her, the old chant she had practised on more than a few unwary Chasind men. It summoned Sylvanna's blood to her with a shocking ease, and the warmth of it filled her more completely than any lover ever possibly could. She watched with a fierce longing as Sylvanna's eyes widened, the spell weaving tightly around them. Sylvanna writhed against her but it was far too late to stop; Morrigan gathered her body close like a spider cradling its prey in its web, feeling her shudder as Sylvanna sobbed in the throes of ecstasy. Her blood was strange, new - that hint of indeterminable darkness adding a tantalising spice as it slipped unerringly from skin to skin.

Morrigan deliberately slowed her pace, restraining her hunger as Sylvanna struggled beneath her, sweat prickling on her brow. "Look at me," she ordered, and was forced to repeat the instruction twice more before Sylvanna obeyed, raising her eyes to her, wide and brilliant blue with an intriguing mix of pain and pleasure that Morrigan found irresistible. She rewarded her obedience with a kiss, and Sylvanna moaned against her mouth, the sound swiftly turning into a scream as Morrigan let down the last of her defences and brought the spell to its natural conclusion. It took only a moment to steal the last of Sylvanna's life force, feeling it rush into her body with a shot of ecstasy that tipped her out far past her point of release.

.

.

.

Sylvanna was pale and unmoving when Morrigan came to her senses. She sat up with a start and placed her fingertips at the base of Sylvanna's throat, desperately searching for a pulse. A slight shimmer stirred the air above Sylvanna's body, wreathing it in magic. For a moment, Morrigan was utterly bewildered, knowing that she had not prepared a further spell, and then Sylvanna coughed quietly and groaned. She rubbed the back of her head, tilting her neck from side to side as she sat up, magic continuing to circulate with a soft hum around her body.

"You..." Morrigan's voice trailed off.

"Did you really think I would let you hurt me?" Sylvanna asked, seemingly amused. She turned away for a moment as she released the buckles at her hips, throwing the device aside where it landed on the floor somewhere with a clatter. Morrigan made a mental note to retrieve it in the morning; it would hardly do for the maids to have more fuel for their scandalous rumours.

"How did you...?"

Sylvanna stretched her arms languorously above her head before flopping back upon the pillows with a sigh. "You'd have recognised the spell if you'd only learnt how to heal," she said, with a pointed look.

There were several good reasons why Morrigan had never deigned to study the healing arts. It was so demeaning, first and foremost. It encouraged a dependency between healer and healed, a kind of bond that went beyond practical necessity and mutually beneficial transactions. It was unnecessarily intimate and messy and nauseating. Besides, Morrigan had always harboured a sneaking suspicion that she probably wouldn't have been very good at it.

She frowned, narrowing her eyes. "You could not have been sure of its success-"

"Oh, I was hardly in any danger," Sylvanna said mockingly, with a smug little quirk of her lips. She raised her head, flicking her wrist in a lazy motion and cast another charm on herself. The magic fell about her like a veil, iridescent sparks arcing in the air as the colour slowly returned to her face. The scars on her arm disappeared as well, fading into her skin until Morrigan could no longer remember the shape of them.

Sylvanna tugged the sheet over her body, turning away with a self-satisfied little sigh. Morrigan nestled down into the bed, pressing her cheek into the smoothness of Sylvanna's hair as she curled around her, trying to shake the persistent and unsettling feeling that she had just been outmanoeuvred.

"Next time," Sylvanna murmured drowsily, "I want to be on top."

"Considering how soon we are apparently parting ways, what makes you believe that there will be a 'next time'?" Morrigan asked, intending to be flippant, but her voice came out unpleasantly strained.

Sylvanna turned over, looking at her with an odd expression in her eyes. "I suppose that's up to you, my dear."

"Come with us to South Reach," Morrigan urged.

Sylvanna's lips curved into a mysterious little smile. "The seneschal here will bear some watching, once Ishantha's presence is removed. I expect that I will be able to join you within a month or two."

"So long? Surely the arling can look after itself-"

"Oh Morrigan, dependency is so unbecoming on you," Sylvanna drawled, running her fingertips over Morrigan's arm to take some of the sting out of her words.

Morrigan jerked back. "You are completely and utterly insufferable."

"I learnt from the best," Sylvanna said, rolling her eyes. "Oh, don't be like that. Go to sleep, Morrigan."

Her hands tightened for a moment before she forced herself to relax, marks visible where the nails had dug into her palms. Sylvanna rested her head against her chest, heedless of her comfort, and yet she found herself unwilling to move.

Morrigan watched her for a time, seeing the flicker of movement beneath closed lids and feeling her chest press against her with each breath. "Sylvanna," she began, the words finally there to be spoken. "Sylvanna, I-"

The elf was already asleep.

.

.

.


A/N: With many thanks to my reviewers: interesting2125, Misdirection, Mm-Burnt-Toast-mM, mutive, Spikesagitta and Zero-Vision.

I only just realised that we're over halfway through. Yay! I hope it doesn't feel like it's dragging. I didn't originally intend for this to be so long; it just turned into this crazy monstrosity. ^_^;; Thanks for sticking with me, as always!