Maybe I should have saved this until Christmas, but...whatever, it's done now.
Memory: A Kiss for Satinalia
Solas had left me two separate memories at the location of the one I had put down of us ice skating, perhaps because I had already seen the salient portions of his version. I was glad to have the one I knew of anyway, because I was learning all sorts of new ways to manipulate the memories the two of us shared - such as by retaining the setting while erasing the characters. The lake in Emprise was the perfect spot to practice exactly that, because once everyone was gone, I could make use of the ice myself, relearning how it felt to skate, and then slowly teaching myself other tricks, like skating backwards.
Over the course of several nights, I attracted a number of spirits that represented everything from grace to excitement, and they taught me other tricks they had seen - spins and flips, and even some adaptations of dances usually performed in ballrooms or at festivals. I fell down - a lot - my skates tangling together or with those of my partner, and went sliding off across the ice, but I got back up again and slowly saw my skill grow until I spent almost as much time on my feet as on my rear.
That was when I informed Harding, only half joking, that I was inviting myself to her family's First Day celebration in Ferelden before too many more years passed, so that we could take advantage of the weather and go ice skating. Her sputtering laughter fell somewhere between appalled and delighted. "Maker, I think I'll need to have a courier who can also draw deliver that letter, because I will need sketches of their faces when they read that I'm bringing the Inquisitor home for First Day."
"Is it...a good thing, or a bad one?" I wondered.
"Well, it would be a lot like bringing the Divine home for a nice, quiet family holiday, you know?"
I didn't, not really. How could I? The Dalish didn't have figures like Divines and Inquisitors, and all our "quiet family holidays" were celebrated with the entire clan - sometimes a neighboring one, too, if we happened to be conveniently near the same place when a holiday came around. "We could ask Leliana," I pointed out. "She might come."
Harding's eyes went wide, and then she laughed until she had to sit down lest she fall over.
All that time, I left the second memory alone. I knew I was coming to the end of what Solas had left for me, and I wanted to take the time to savor each one. As long as I was excited by ice skating, I wasn't spending my nights aching with his absence, so I waited for the excitement to abate somewhat before approaching the second memory.
It was short, but it filled in a piece of my own memory that was unclear, because I had allowed myself to become a little too drunk that Satinalia I had spent with him, unaccustomed to both the quantity and quality of the available wine. I had regretted my indulgence most acutely the next morning, but that regret had never entirely abated as my memories of the night had remained somewhat hazy.
Solas was kind enough to fill in a number of details I had forgotten.
"So I take it the Dalish don't celebrate Satinalia," Dorian says, interrupting Silea's recounting of the time her clan's halla keeper attempted to court a woman by festooning several unamused halla with garlands and fluttering veils and parading them past her aravel. She has only just reached the point at which the halla categorically rebel, and I am irritated by the interruption of what is quite an amusing tale, made all the better by her animation as she tells it. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks flushed with laughter and the wine that has been flowing for the last hour, and she is exquisitely beautiful. I give Dorian a look that cannot possibly convey my full displeasure, seeing as I manage to refrain from setting him on fire.
"Some clans probably do celebrate it," Silea tells him with a shrug and a smile, unaffected by his boorish behavior, "but mine didn't."
"Nor do they celebrate in whatever apostate-hobo-land you come from," the other mage sniffs, jerking his chin towards me.
I sigh and fold my arms, waiting for him to come to the point and leave us alone.
"I say that, because our lovely Inquisitor has been standing under a sprig of mistletoe for the last five minutes, and yet you have somehow neglected to kiss her," Dorian goes on, feigning dismay.
Silea feigns nothing. Her eyes widen, her glance darting from Dorian to me and back again, and a blush creeps up her ears. "Oh. Oh no, that's not - " She looks at me again, briefly, concern evident on her face. "You don't need - I'll just step over - "
Dorian's hands land on her shoulders, holding her in place. "Don't you dare move." The look he gives me is an open challenge, and I wonder what sort of bet he has made and how much money he has riding on the outcome of this moment.
I brush his hands from my heart's shoulders, but allow my own to linger. I, too, have been drinking wine, and though two glasses - or perhaps three - are certainly not enough to significantly dull my wits, it has admittedly dispelled some portion of my usual reserve. "Who am I to stand in the way of tradition?" I ask, bending to place a soft kiss on Silea's cheek. Her skin heats under my lips, even as chaste as this small token of my affection is.
"What?!" Sera screeches from somewhere nearby, and suddenly I am being shoved unceremoniously out of the way while Dorian laughs with what sounds suspiciously like triumph. "Oi! You call that a kiss, you droopy-eared shitebag?"
She takes Silea's surprised face in her hands, and plants a kiss on her lips. I believe, before Silea begins sputtering and pushes her away, that I see tongue involved.
"Sera!" Silea gasps.
"What? That arsehole," she jerks her head in my direction, "just lost me five sovs, all 'cause he can't kiss proper. Figure I'd help you out, give him a lesson, yeah?"
"Shouldn't you kiss him to give him a lesson?" Silea points out reasonably, though she has started laughing.
Sera makes a face and gagging sound that reflect my own feelings on the matter, and then loops her arm around Silea's neck. "Hey! Inky's under the mistletoe, anyone wants a chance at her!"
"What?!" Silea shrieks. "That - that's not - "
"An excellent thought," Dorian cuts her off smugly, slithering from his position behind her shoulder to stand before her. I feel an outraged growl rumbling in my chest - but Dorian is far more circumspect than Sera, kissing only Silea's cheeks, her forehead, and then the tip of her nose, which she wrinkles at him, smiling.
Now there is no halting the inevitable - everyone is crowding around to kiss their Inquisitor. But Silea is smiling and giggling, embarrassed but not displeased, and so I sigh but refrain from voicing a more concrete complaint. Bull lifts her several inches off the ground as he wraps her in a hug and plants a kiss on the side of her head. Josephine offers a polite and dignified Antivan kiss of greeting, her eyes shining with affection and amusement. Blackwall takes Silea's hand and presses his lips to her knuckles with a rough bow. Vivienne, naturally, chooses Orlesian air-kisses, while Leliana, choosing the same form, actually makes contact with Silea's cheek and wraps her in an embrace for good measure. Cassandra, face red but set with determination, presses a kiss to her temple. Even Varric comes, prodding Cole, though it is Silea who kisses each of their cheeks. They are followed by Scout Harding, blushing furiously even before Silea's lips touch her skin, and practically on fire after.
Only Cullen is left, and I feel myself stiffen as he approaches her. Silea is still watching Harding's confused retreat, laughing, and her expression is full of mischief as she looks up at the commander of her forces. Affectionate embraces are being exchanged without the excuse of mistletoe by the rest of Silea's friends and advisers now, and no one is paying her much attention any longer. Cullen's eyes roam her face as he hesitates, resting briefly on her lips before he meets her gaze again.
She doesn't notice, taking his reticence for something else entirely. "Come now, Commander - it's just us, no political implications or rumors to tarnish your dignity, and I promise I don't bite."
I nearly snort a laugh at that, because she bit me earlier this afternoon after I removed her hand from under my tunic in the rotunda. Judging by Cullen's blush, he would be no more put off by her teeth against his skin than I am when she wields them against mine.
He takes a breath and bends over her, his eyes again on her lips, and my hands tighten into fists as I realize he is going to kiss them.
But then his gaze slides briefly to me, taking in my scowl, and he changes course slightly, instead pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
Silea blinks, surprised, but recovers quickly and apparently decides - perhaps based on Cullen's habitual diffidence in her presence - that this is some Fereldan tradition, like the kiss of greeting that Antivans exchange. Before he can straighten, she lifts herself on her toes and returns the gesture a little hesitantly, offering an apologetic smile as he stumbles back a step, stunned. "Lanasta em - I don't know all your different customs for - "
My hands close on her shoulders, cutting her off as she turns to look at me, startled. One of them slides up to cup her face, and then my mouth descends on hers, my tongue immediately finding its way between her lips, which she opens obligingly for me. The kiss is searing and bordering on obscene - and I find I am far beyond caring. I want Cullen Rutherford to know precisely how Silea looks when lust consumes her. That way, he will never be tempted to think that he inspires more than the faintest blush of that emotion within her.
Dimly, through the soft sounds of pleasure Silea sighs into my mouth and over the rush of blood in my ears, I hear Sera crowing. "Andraste's flaming arse! Who knew old 'Elven Glory' had it in him? Gimme back my money, Dorian!"
Dorian swears, and I find I am smiling.
Lanasta em: Forgive me