Anders goes to Chantry services every morning, but that has never been Rhyanon's style. Still, during the Blight, with Alistair... he had truly believed in the Maker, with the kind of uncomplicated faith that made her want to believe in it too. People like Alistair and Anders find something good in the Chantry, something that makes them feel better. And Rhyanon is so damned desperate to feel better that she is willing to try even this.
Anders shoots her a questioning look as she slides onto the rough wooden bench directly behind him, but she doesn't give him a response. Anyway, after the service is over she can tell him that she's there because her presence is probably expected by the dozens of commoners who crowd the small worship space. There are plenty of things about being an Arlessa that she doesn't know; whether they are required to give praise to the Maker in public is just one of them.
She knows what to do in this place, anyway. It was ingrained in her in all of her years of life in the Circle Tower. She has vague memories of the same motions, the same words, in the time before that. She kneels on the hard floor and listens as the Revered Mother asks for the Maker's mercy to grant them all forgiveness for her sins. Rhyanon figures she doesn't deserve forgiveness, but she mouths the words of the prayer anyway.
She sits to listen to the sermon, and the words of the Chant. They sound familiar but she can't seem to grasp their meaning. What is she doing here? The service wraps up with a call-and-response; Rhyanon understands the words but doesn't participate. Why did she think that this would do anything? What made her think that this would make her feel anything but empty?
She watches the commoners spill out of the small church first, keeps a smile plastered on her face and directs it toward the old ladies and gruff men who have come here from their farmsteads because she offered them a future. More than one of them shakes her hand and thanks her for her service. Rhyanon waits for them all to go. When she turns back, Anders is standing in the same pew where he'd been since she came in, watching her, one eyebrow raised in question.
She still doesn't answer him – she doesn't know what to say. Instead, she watches as the Revered Mother gathers up the bowls and table linens used in the service and disappears through a back door. Now that she and Anders are alone in here, something in Rhyanon seems to collapse. She sits down on the bench. Anders sits down next to her.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you in here," he points out. Rhyanon shrugs.
"Thought I'd give it a shot."
"If I knew what you were looking for, I might be able to help you find it."
"Is that what you're doing when you come here? Looking for something?"
"Maybe," Anders admits.
"What are you doing?"
Anders continues massaging the tension out of Rhyanon's neck and shoulders. "Trying to get you to calm down. And maybe even talk to me."
"Okay," Rhyanon agrees. "But can we maybe go somewhere else?"
Anders hesitates only for a moment, then he takes her hand and leads her out of the church and up toward the roof of the Keep. Both of them have always appreciated the sense of freedom they feel in high up places, a throwback to their days of climbing up to the top rooms of the Tower whenever they could sneak away from the templars.
They stand up there on the roof, looking down at the patchwork fields spread out below them. "I don't get you, Rhyanon. It's like... like you're afraid of doing something wrong by being with me."
"I am afraid of doing something wrong?"
"Why?"
"Because," she says simply. Just because. Because of Alistair. And because of Anders too.
Anders kisses Rhyanon, not so desperately as the day before. This kiss is quick, and gentle, and he is inviting her to offer more, but she doesn't. She just stares out at the faraway horizon.
"I'm sorry, Anders," she whispers. "I'm not sure if this is a good idea."
"Oh. Okay, then."
He sounds so sad, so lost and lonely, that Rhyanon almost takes it back, and tells him she doesn't mean it. She stays silent, though, even as Anders disappears back into the Keep.
The next day, Oghren and Nathaniel sit down on either side of her and won't let her get away without answering their questions. "What happened?" Nathaniel hisses. Oghren wordlessly offers her a drink. Rhyanon just wants to know how they know that anything happened at all.
"Anders came down here before the sun was even fully up and took a plate to his room. What did you do to him?"
"You were happy enough with him," Oghren points out. "Did he do something to you?"
"No. I just-"
"You're wallowing in guilt over things that aren't your fault is 'just' what you're doing. Come on, Commander." Oghren stands up, still chewing on a stick of sausage.
"Where are we going?" Rhyanon asks, after following him for a few steps.
"We're going to fight until you come to your senses."
The sparring match does feel good, Rhyanon has to admit.
She's exhausted and covered in sweat, dirt, and bruises by the time it's finished, and breathing hard. She wipes away the sweat falling into her eyes and watches as Nathaniel puts away the training weapons and heads back toward the Keep.
"You coming?" he asks, before Rhyanon can even begin to wonder if she's supposed to follow him. She nods, and lets her footsteps fall into place behind his.
Nathaniel leads her to the kitchen, where he starts rummaging around for enough food to sustain the both of them. Rhyanon watches as he loads a plate with sausages, cheese, bread, and after a moment, a couple of small apples. Rather than head for the large hall where they normally eat, Nathaniel finds a couple of stools and places them next to the large table where the kitchen staff normally work to prepare the Keep's meals. None of the kitchen staff are in here at the moment, a coincidence that Rhyanon finds a little too convenient. But she sits next to Nathaniel and eats the food that's placed in front of her.
"Anders and I used to sneak into the kitchens in the Circle," she remembers aloud. Nate smiles.
"He makes you happy," he points out.
"He makes things complicated."
"Complicated doesn't have to mean bad, you know."
"I know. Like I said, it's... complicated."
Nathaniel raises an eyebrow and settles back in his seat. He crosses his arms over his chest. He waits for her to continue. But Rhyanon doesn't know what else to say.
"Look, Commander. I barely know either of you, but I've had a bit of experience with pushing people away and regretting it afterward. He makes you happy. That's not nothing."
"I know," Rhyanon says softly.
Nathaniel takes another bit of cheese from the plate, and then he leaves her alone with her thoughts.
Rhyanon barely sleeps that night. More than once, she considers going after Anders, to apologize, to do whatever she has to do to make things right between them, but she never acts on that impulse. Instead, she spends the long hours wallowing in self-pity, just as Oghren had accused her of doing. About an hour before sunrise, she gets up and splashes her face with cold water before pulling on fresh clothes and heading out into the chilly morning.
After a moment of deliberation, she veers off toward the stables. The horses snicker and whinny at her approach, and Rhyanon greets each of them before finding her chocolate-colored stallion in the very last stall. She leads him out toward the gate, then climbs up into the saddle as the guards let her through. They send her off with sharp salutes, and Rhyanon only looks back once before the gates are closed again. She feels strangely vulnerable without any of the other Wardens with her. It's not that she's afraid; she knows she can handle herself. It's just been a long time since she's been out on her own. And too much time alone with her own thoughts is never beneficial, these days.
She spurs her horse from a walk to a trot, then to a canter. They eat up the miles of road in quick strides, and the trees to either side pass by in what looks like a blur. Rhyanon doesn't have a destination in mind, and for once, she's not even out looking specifically for darkspawn. It feels good just to ride. At least, she's grasping desperately for anything that might feel good, and this comes close.
Later, when they have gotten far enough away from the Keep that Rhyanon can barely see it on the horizon far behind her, she stops to let her horse drink from a small stream. She slides off the animal's back, and digs through her pack for a bit of bread and cheese for herself. The sunlight has changed from dim pre-dawn to the bright clarity of mid-morning. Rhyanon has taken only a few steps, munching on her snack, when she hears something that sounds like a scream. Immediately, her heartbeat starts to race, and she calls mana to her fingertips as she heads for the source of the sound. A few more running steps take her into a clearing, where an elven woman stands surrounded by dead and dying humans, a half dozen of them. She looks up at Rhyanon, and she is smiling. Rhyanon tries to suppress the chill of dread she feels.
"What are you doing here, human? These woods are mine."
"You killed these people," Rhyanon says, and she doesn't bother keeping the anger from her voice.
"And have you come seeking vengeance?"
Rhyanon blinks. The mana buzzing through her makes her whole body tremble, but she keeps a lid on it. For now. Barely. She looks into the elf's crazed eyes, and she shakes her head. "That isn't why I'm here."
"My actions here are just," the elf demands. "These humans killed my clan."
Surprisingly, Rhyanon does not immediately dispute the claim. "Can you prove that?" she asks. Slowly, she lets her mana bleed away with every breath, dissipating harmlessly into the air. She is ready to call it to the surface again if she needs to.
"What proof do you require? Is my word not enough?"
"I don't even know you."
"And I do not know you."
"I'm a Grey Warden," Rhyanon says, waving toward the griffon insignia that has recently been affixed to her armor. The elf's eyes just furrow in confusion. "We hunt darkspawn," Rhyanon adds. There is still nothing on the other woman's face but blank non-comprehension. "Monsters. You know?" She holds up a hand to symbolize the approximate height of a darkspawn, and tries to contort her face into one of the creature's snarling growls.
"The only monsters I have seen in these woods are the humans."
Rhyanon sighs heavily. She is not just a Grey Warden, after all, she is also the Arlessa of these lands, and she can't just let a murderer go free. But does she really intend to arrest someone who, from all apparent evidence, has just killed six people single-handedly? "I can't just let you go," Rhyanon says.
The crazed grin comes back to the elven woman's face. "How do you propose to stop me?"
"You can't just kill people."
The elf doesn't respond. She just goes on with her day as though Rhyanon wasn't standing there watching her. She begins rifling through the pockets of the dead men, but she doesn't pick up any of the coins or weapons that are there for the taking. She takes nothing, after a quick and efficient search that clearly doesn't turn up what she wants it to.
"What are you looking for?" Rhyanon asks.
"My sister," the woman answers.
"She isn't dead?" The question is blunt, but Rhyanon doesn't feel the need to indulge in niceties here. She still isn't entirely certain that this woman won't kill her, despite the fact that she has made no threats thus far.
"She was taken."
"Taken," Rhyanon repeats.
"None of these men that I have hunted claim any knowledge of her."
"And were you there, when she was taken? Did you see it happen?"
The elf shakes her head. "But I am a good tracker, human, and I will find her."
"What if I can help you do that? Will you stop killing people?"
"You would help me?"
"If you promise to stop killing people, yeah."
"I so swear," the elf says, after several long moments. Rhyanon lets out a breath.
"Come on, then," she says. She begins walking back toward the stream where her horse is waiting. She's several paces away from the clearing before she realizes that the elf isn't following her. She turns back. The elf is still standing in the clearing, stubbornly still.
"These woods are mine. Why should I go with you, human?"
"Because you need my help. Don't you?" After several seconds at an impasse, Rhyanon adds. "Nothing's going to happen to you, I swear. You'll be under my protection."
The elf actually growls at that, at the thought that she might need a human's protection, but this time, she follows Rhyanon.
She refuses to get on the horse, but Rhyanon keeps Cocoa to a walk, and the elf keeps up easily enough. She slows when they approach the Keep, and scowls when she sees the guards in their uniforms. Those same guards return her suspicion in their glances, but when they look to Rhyanon for confirmation, she just nods. So they open the gate and let the elf through along with their Commander.
Rhyanon brings her guest through to Varel's study, and she closes the door behind them to ensure privacy in the quiet space. "What's your name?" she asks. It surprises her that she hadn't thought to ask until now.
"I am called Velanna."
"I'm Rhyanon." The mood in the little room is awkward, but Rhyanon does what she can to lighten it. "Are you hungry?" she asks. When Velanna doesn't answer, she sticks her head out into the hall and asks a passing servant to bring food anyway. She smiles when Velanna eats some of it, hesitantly, but every step forward represents some small bit of progress. "You're not a prisoner here," Rhyanon insists.
"So I can leave?"
"I won't stop you. But if you do, you might never find what you're looking for."
Velanna swallows the last of the food from the plate, and glares at Rhyanon. But she understands, and she nods her agreement of the arrangement.
Rhyanon stands up and guides Velanna into the hall, then takes her upstairs to an empty bedroom where she can stay. Velanna pushes her way past Rhyanon and looks around the room. It's impossible to tell if she is pleased by the accommodations, but she stays put inside of them, not even coming down to dinner even when she's invited.
The next morning, Rhyanon knocks on the bedroom door, half-expecting to find the room empty. But Velanna is standing there looking for all the world like she'd expected Rhyanon to come.
"You can fight," Rhyanon says. It isn't a question. She had seen firsthand the evidence of that the day before. Velanna nods, slowly. "Good," Rhyanon says. "There's something you should hear."
This time, when she beckons, Velanna does follow. The two of them make their way down to the first floor of the Keep. Rhyanon stops quickly in the main hall so that Velanna can get something to eat, and then she brings her into Varel's study once again.
This time, they are not the only ones in the room. A grizzled older man wearing armor sits in one of the chairs. "Tell her what you told me," Rhyanon says.
The man takes a wide-eyed look at Velanna, but after one quick glance at Rhyanon, he nods and begins talking. He describes seeing a band of darkspawn stealing away an elven woman near the Kingsroad about a week prior.
"Where were you, when this happened?" Velanna spits. "Why did you not stop them?"
"By myself?" the man growls. "Are you crazy, woman? I came to ask the Wardens for help. These darkspawn have taken half a dozen women over as many days. My men and I have fought them where we can, but stop them..." He shakes his head. "No, we aren't capable of that."
"We'll find them," Rhyanon promises, although she is not at all sure if that is a promise she can keep. "We'd welcome your help," she tells the old soldier. The man nods and promises that he and the rest of his mercenary company will join them on their hunt.
Velanna looks ready to leave immediately, but Rhyanon holds her back. "We need a plan," she insists. "We can't go running off half-cocked."
"I could go," the old man offered. "My men and I, we could scout ahead. Come back and tell you where to look."
"Will you let her go with you?" Rhyanon asks, nodding toward Velanna.
The man doesn't look pleased about it, but he finally nods. "Aye. I'll do that."
"I want you to let me into the Wardens," Velanna demands, the next afternoon, when she has returned to Vigil's Keep with the rest of the mercenary band trailing behind her.
"You have no idea what you're asking," Rhyanon insists.
"I will pay any price to find my sister."
"So you didn't find her, then." Rhyanon is surprised by how disappointed the news makes her. She hadn't honestly expected positive results, but if there are darkspawn out there kidnapping people, it seems to fall under things that are her responsibility.
"The men say that you Wardens can find darkspawn when no regular human stands a chance."
Rhyanon nods slowly. "If that's what you really want," she finally says.
That night, she mixes the lyrium and darkspawn blood in its ceremonial chalice and presents it to Velanna. The elven woman sniffs at the concoction, but she drinks it down without complaint. Rhyanon holds her breath as Velanna collapses, but she is still breathing, still alive. She thrashes in her sleep, riding out the nightmares as Rhyanon keeps silent watch.
The next morning, Velanna wakes up to find Rhyanon still keeping an eye on her.
"How do you feel?" Rhyanon asks.
"Hungry," Velanna responds. Rhyanon smiles.
"I thought I might find you here."
Anders looks up from the book in his lap. His left hand is gently petting a cat, who meows as Rhyanon steps closer. She sits down in a nearby chair and wonders if there's anything she can do to make this feel less awkward. Sunlight streams in through the small window above their heads.
"What are you doing here, Rhyanon?"
"We need to figure this out."
"This?"
"Us."
Anders stares at her for a long moment. "I didn't think there was an 'us,'" he finally says. "You said it wasn't a good idea."
"It isn't. But Anders, we can't just pretend that there's nothing between us. We're not complete strangers. I don't want that." She stops suddenly, taking in a deep breath. "Do you?"
"No. Of course I don't want that." He wants so much more than that, it's killing him. But Rhyanon keeps pushing him away. "What do you want?" he asks her. He tries not to sound as desperate as he feels.
"I don't know." When it comes to him, she never has known. She has always been afraid to get attached.
Before he realizes what he's doing, Anders has put his hand on top of hers, slowly massaging her fingers. She relaxes into the touch, which makes him feel a little more confident.
"You're scared," he murmurs. Rhyanon nods. It's then that he realizes she's crying.
"Hey," he says softly. He reaches up to brush the tears away. "Hey, what's wrong?" He presses a kiss to her forehead.
"I can't do this, Anders," Rhyanon protests through hiccuping cries. "I can't just pretend like nothing happened, like everything is the same as it was. I can't forget about Alistair."
Alistair. That's what this comes down to. Anders hopes the hurt he feels isn't obvious on his face. "I understand," he says simply, although in practical terms, he doesn't. He has never had what Rhyanon had with Alistair. He's never been so close to someone that he'd feel broken when they were gone. Except, maybe, with Rhyanon.
"Anders, I'm sorry."
He shrugs. "Don't be sorry."
"I don't want to push you away."
"Rhyanon, I already said it's okay."
Rhyanon nods. The two of them just sit there for a long while, trying to get comfortable with one another again. Guilt threatens to swallow Rhyanon whole and she tries to lose herself in Anders' presence, but it doesn't entirely work. He sits there with his arm wrapped around her and she wonders if this feels half as complicated for him as it does for her. There are so many layers of right and wrong here that she can't even parse them all out. Finally, she takes a deep breath. It's only a little bit unsteady. Anders turns to her, suddenly alert, as soon as she does so. "There's something I need to tell you," Rhyanon admits.
Anders nods, waiting with a held breath for her to continue, to say what she needs to say. Rhyanon drums her fingers up and down on her leg. This kind of restlessness isn't how she usually behaves, but to Anders the need for motion is familiar. He reaches out to gently trap Rhyanon's wrist with a loose grasp. "Rhyanon," he says simply, looking her in the eye. She keeps trying to break away from his gaze, but she can't quite get there.
"I'm a blood mage," she says simply. The admission spills out into the open, and Rhyanon nearly flinches as she awaits Anders' reaction. She keeps expecting him to pull away. How can he still want to touch her, now?
But he's still there. And he's surprisingly calm. He pulls her into a tighter hug, leaving her feeling more confused than ever. She tries to pull away, and he lets her, but though the open door is only a few steps away, Rhyanon stays in the room. Anders keeps her there. She owes him an explanation, at the very least. In truth, she owes him a lot more than that.
"Did you... did you hear me?" she ventures cautiously, when he still has not responded. Anders heaves a heavy sigh, and then he nods. Of course he heard her. But then why isn't he saying anything? "Anders?"
"I already know, Rhyanon."
"How?" Rhyanon asks, looking to him for some hint of reaction. How is he still so calm?
"I've seen the marks, Rhyanon, I'm not an idiot."
"But you never said anything."
"What was I supposed to say?"
"I don't know. I just thought..." She trails off. "I just didn't want you to be angry at me."
"I'm not angry."
"What are you?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. Disappointed, maybe? Confused."
Rhyanon holds herself tense, desperate for his approval and afraid of his reaction, but still too proud to let him tell her off. Confused? What the hell is that supposed to mean? He wasn't there, he wasn't there for any of it. He didn't see the choices she had to make during the Blight. Even now, she isn't sure that she can say she made the wrong ones.
She looks down at her arm, where the scars Anders mentioned are clearly visible against her pale skin. Anders hates blood magic. She's always known that, it's why she's always been afraid to tell him. He's always viewed it as an easy way out. A sickening guilt swirls in the pit of her stomach as she wonders if maybe he is right.
She tells herself that people would have died without the mana she'd pulled from her own blood – always her own, surely that makes it different. She's not the monster he thinks. Without that blood, that easy source of mana, she would have died. She's never told him about that night in Kinloch Hold when she almost let herself lose everything. But if the voice in her head that night had been a demon, it's one she's still grateful to, even now.
She sometimes wishes she hadn't had to make the choices that she did, but she wouldn't unmake them. She is supremely confident in that knowledge, more so now than ever as she looks at Anders, who sits across from her with a soft frown on his face and brows wrinkled in concern.
"I know what I'm doing, Anders," she insists.
"Rhyanon, it's blood magic."
"It's not like I do it all the time!"
"You shouldn't do it at all!"
"You sound like a templar!" She regrets the words as soon as they come out of her mouth, and Anders looks visibly stung. "Anders, I'm sorry," she adds, more softly. She tries to reach out to him, but he won't let her. "I didn't mean it," she keeps babbling. "I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot. I'm just... I'm worried about you." He has always worried about her. There's always been something in her, some deep-seated fear that he has never been able to quell, no matter how hard he's tried. She has never believed that she is good enough, no matter what anyone says to her, no matter what she does. There is a hole inside of her, and he desperately fears the consequences if she is trying to fill that hole with blood magic.
But he doesn't see her as a monster – he can't – even though that means rethinking everything he thought he knew about the kind of person that engages in blood magic. "Rhyanon, I love you," he blurts out.
"I know." Is she crying? He thinks there are tears in her eyes. He reaches out to wipe them away, and Rhyanon just falls into her arms, and the tears spill over onto his shirt, and he lets them. "This isn't how I thought this conversation would go," she admits, through her sobs.
Anders hugs her, and plants a kiss on the top of her head. "You can't scare me away that easily," he tells her. They've been through too much together for him to let her go now. He gives her arm a gentle squeeze. "I'm just glad you told me the truth."
They walk down to dinner hand in hand. Nathaniel and Oghren give each other knowing smiles, and Rhyanon sits just a little bit away from Anders, trying to maintain her independence in the face of the rumors that have already started to fly.
But after dinner, Anders follows her, still smiling, and she doesn't have it in her to turn him away. She doesn't want to push him away. She tried that once, and it just felt wrong, at gut level. At heart level.
"I'm just going to a meeting with Varel," she says, as Anders falls into step behind her.
"Are you saying I can't come?"
"You can't come."
"Fine." Anders shoves his hands into his pockets and glares as she enters the small office where Varel sits perched behind the oak desk that takes up nearly the entire room, waiting for her. Rhyanon spends the entire meeting testy and twitchy, essentially letting Varel make all the decisions, trusting him maybe more than she ought to, or maybe it's simply not trusting herself. She keeps thinking about Anders, and how much she'd rather be spending this time with him.
Varel always seems slightly distracted to Rhyanon, like he's simply got too much going on in his head to be able to focus well on any one particular thing, even if it's the thing in front of him. But even Varel can't help but notice that Rhyanon isn't paying attention either. He gives her a disapproving frown.
"Mistress Amell-"
"Commander."
"Very well, then. Commander. If you don't authorize the fortifications for the Keep, we won't be able to hold against a darkspawn attack."
Questions swirl through Rhyanon's mind, so fast that she can't actually ask any of them, which is just as well since most of them are stupid. Finally, she says "Do we have enough money to do this? Everything you're asking?"
"Not yet," Varel says.
Rhyanon raises an eyebrow. "Not yet. Where's it supposed to come from."
"Well, you, of course. Given your status as arlessa, you could raise taxes..."
"Great. Like the people here don't hate me enough." But she holds up a hand to forestall Varel's protests. "I'll do it, Varel. We have to do it." The alternative is a darkspawn invasion like the one she had stumbled into when she first arrived here. She won't let that happen again, especially not now that the Keep and the land around it are full of refugees. "We'll start with the walls."
Varel nods, looking all too happy to agree.
Rhyanon nearly trips over Anders as she leaves Varel's office. He is sprawled out in front of the door, although he hastily moves his legs out of the way as the office door opens and Rhyanon walks out.
He glances into the room, probably attempting to catch a glimpse of Varel, but Rhyanon closes the door quickly and stares down at him.
"You didn't have to wait for me." She wasn't expecting him to, certainly. Anders shrugs and runs a casual hand through the hair that is falling into his face.
"What else was I going to do?"
Rhyanon holds out a hand to help him up. Anders takes it, and leverages himself to his feet.
"How late is it?" Rhyanon asks. She'd lost track of time in her meeting with Varel, but it feels like she must have been in there for hours.
"Late," Anders confirms.
"I probably ought to go to bed."
"Probably."
He walks her to her room, stands there lingering at the doorway. Every second seems to pass by incredibly slowly. Rhyanon keeps waiting for him to turn away. "Don't go," she finally says. Anders smiles.
They sit at the foot of the bed, exploring each other with tentative touches. Rhyanon moans softly as Anders' hand traces up the curve of her neck. She puts her hands on his hips, leaning in as he kisses her, slowly. She breathes in the heat of him, gasping as his lips crush hers. He pulls back, looking into her eyes for several long seconds, giving her time to protest or pull away or tell him that this isn't a good idea. But she doesn't. Every move he makes, she matches.
He pushes her down onto the bed, and straddles her, and she closes her eyes and licks her lips and Maker, she wants this, so bad. She wants him. She has always wanted him.
"Anders," she murmurs, and he stops, immediately, but she traps his wrist with her hand. "Don't stop," she tells him.
"Okay," he agrees, sounding just as breathless as she feels. They slow down. But they don't stop. Anders pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it to the ground. He reaches out to grab at the hem of Rhyanon's shirt. She feels suddenly shy, but she lets him pull the garment off. Then she pushes up onto her knees, and kisses him. Slowly. Deeply. Tasting him, like lemons and lyrium, and she can feel the mana pulsing just underneath his skin. Anders rests his hand on her back, just above her breast band. His free hand is bracing himself on the bed, for now, but Rhyanon puts her hand atop it. She looks into his eyes, and nods. Anders grins, and he picks up his hand and brushes a strand of hair out of her face before moving down to her pants and helping her to wiggle out of them. Rhyanon shivers in the chill of the room, but then Anders is on top of her once more and she forgets all about being cold. More kisses, trailing across her forehead, down her neck, some of them pressed onto her lips. Anders knows what he's doing. He's strong, and confident, and Rhyanon almost laughs at how easy this is. They have been making it complicated for years, but now that they're here, it feels like the only possible thing. Anders kicks his trousers off, leaving both of them naked or nearly so. Rhyanon can feel his erection pressed up against the inside of her leg. She shifts a little, guiding him into her. Anders sighs in happy relief, as Rhyanon begins grinding her body against his, her movement accelerating the friction between them. They find their rhythm, Anders thrusting, and Rhyanon gasping and crying out with each exhaled breath. Finally Anders finishes, and he rolls onto his back, soaked with sweat, a huge grin on his face. Rhyanon continues breathing heavily, and she flops down next to him. She barely manages to pull the blanket up to cover them both before they fall asleep.