A/N - I fought with this one for an awfully long time, but it decided it was finished...so much for smut.
He makes it difficult to think, the tattooed Warden with eyes like an incoming storm. Sometimes when he looks at her, she can see the wildfire behind them, a slow burn as he taunts her with a smirk and an almost caress. Thrown into a world she finds nothing familiar in, he smells of home, thick forests and wilderness. His footsteps are light, unheard but to the Wilds trained ears of the Witch.
His kindness is unfamiliar, but has swiftly become a crutch, a polar opposite of her cruel upbringing and caustic views. The ruthless streak in him sets him firmly apart from their Templar companion, even further than the dainty points of his ears, or the narrow, vulpine structure of his face, the lean, whipcord strength of his body.
The Warden is as unfamiliar as the Witch with this so-called civilization, but he watches where she scorns, listens where she scoffs, learns what she has determined to reject. In the evenings, crouched beside her fire, he tells her of the things he has learned, explains to her the baffling actions and words, lessons without teaching, all that her pride can bear. And he knows this, from watching her, and learning her, just as intently as anything in his new life. He notices, and he cares enough to bother.
"Why don't you join us for supper tonight, Morrigan? Leliana is planning on telling a story or two, and Zev has done the cooking." Even his voice sounds like home, the rumble of thunder in the distance, the rustle of leaves in a growing wind. He smiles at her, warm and open. His fingers graze the bared skin of her arm, a trail of heat in the chill night.
"I would rather eat dirt than subject myself to that lot of buffoons, Warden." She turns her face to hide the flush, the tongues of fire that bloom at his lightest touch.
"Suit yourself." His tone is slightly mocking, the barest curve of a smile on his lips as he leans close, breath fanning across her cheek. "You always do." He smells of green, the wild surge of sap in waking trees, fresh shoots of winter dormant plants springing into growth.
The slight breeze ruffles her pelt, bringing the distant scent of the camp to her nose as she lays panting in the dappled shade of the forest. The heat of the day has begun to wan, enough that she can bear the summer coat of her wolf, so long as she doesn't stay too long in the open. More comfortable by far than her human skin, trapped in clothing and company. Leliana's offer to accompany her to hunt had come complete with pleading pout, until Morrigan simply turned away, morphing into a canine form as she left the clearing, and the Bard, behind.
Enough time wasted.
Catching the heavy scent of prey, she needs a form better suited to the kill, a powerful leap, a crushing jaw. She comes to a crouch, shivering into a jungle cat, tawny splotches on her black hide, stealthy paws carefully placed.
An errant scent catches at her nose, as familiar as the musk of the deer upwind, the algae green smell of the sluggish stream. She is not the only stalker in the forest, and only the keen sense gifted by her borrowed form gives her the advantage. His footsteps are slow and silent, his movement hidden by the flutter of leaves, the gleam of his armor buckles replaced by mud daubed onto bare skin.
A chuckle rumbles up out of her chest as a cough, and the elven ear twitches, the rest of him freezing in place. His arrow notched, ready to fly, yet he waits on the whim of a cat, to see if this prey has already been claimed by another hunter.
She springs, tail lashing, before he can blink, crashing into the buck with a screaming yowl, snapping delicate bone with a swipe of her heavy paw, tearing into soft flesh with claws extended.
She growls a warning, crouched tense and spattered with blood. The Hunter in him bows to her right, but the Warden in him is desperate, his band is nearly out of food, and this deer would feed them long enough to buy supplies. The huge lantern eyes stare at him, until the cat circles off the carcass. He thinks he might be going crazy when she sniffs in disdain, and swats the body toward him. A flick of her tail, and she is gone into shadow, leaving the elf to stare open mouthed at the space she had been.
Abruptly, awareness dawns, and he chuckles. "Suit yourself, darling." He kneels to offer gratitude and apology, before setting about dressing the carcass.
The task of cleaning and sectioning for travel is almost complete when he hears the deliberate crackle of leaves under foot. The smirk on Morrigan's lips is almost playful as she lightly caresses a broad green leaf, her golden eyes following the motion of the Warden's hands.
"Is there not a predator waiting on its supper, while you so neatly truss another's kill?" A lilt of laughter in her voice, a sliver of darkness. "Has the mighty Dalish Hunter fallen so far he cannot catch his own quarry, and must rely on another?" There is something deeper to her challenge, he knows instinctively. Both children of the forests, where the laws of survival have nothing to do with courtesy, and everything to do with skill, she is asking him to prove himself capable.
"And what shall I chase down?"
Her smirk deepens. "Catch me if you can, Warden." She slides into the forest's heart, wrapping the darkness around herself like a cloak, until he can only see the glow of her eyes, even that light bleeding into shadow as she slips away.
He laughs, low and amused, but he can't deny the pang of anticipation, the swell of excitement in his chest. She makes it easy to forget, the golden eyed Witch, the direction he should be heading, hauling the deer back to camp, rallying the troops for tomorrows efforts, the seemingly endless toil of the road as they wend their way to Orzammar. He is enveloped in her scent, billows of magic and musk, leather and fur, and it draws him into the shadows in her wake, leaving behind responsibility in favor of instinct and upbringing.
He catches her with ease, her trail littered with broken branches, deep foot prints. As he slides fingers through silk, he fists her ebony tresses, slowly, painfully pulling her head back. "Tsk, tsk, Witch." His growl ripples down her body. "You offer me a companion who pays lip service to my leadership, but does not truly trust me." His teeth find her ear, a sharp nip, enough to make her flinch. "I have friends who believe in me, Morrigan. What I desire from you is…more." He rubs his jaw against her throat, strands of her hair twining round the tip of his ear. "What you give, by allowing me to catch you, is so much less than I desire."
He spins her out of his arms, watches her catch herself in a crouch, steady eyes appraising him. His smile is hard and dark, shadows of the forest, and things of deepest night. It widens as she eases into the dappled green around them, vanishing.
This time she challenges him, sneaking feints, trails with abrupt ends, misleading broken stems. He needs none of it, the wisp of her scent draws him in her wake, beaconing. She moves fast, surefooted as any Dalish Hunter maiden. Even the birds do not cry out her presence, neither with song nor with silence. But he is a Hunter, and she will not escape him.
She is clever, his Witch, and skilled at evasion. But he is Dalish, and the forests have been his home from his first breath. The wind tells him of her passage, the creatures whisper to him of the direction she has gone, and where she goes. A wolf pack, ranging just within his senses, begins to stalk her for him, yipping out their progress. He goes where they tell him she will be, to lay in wait.
The red orange flare of the setting sun filters through the boughs overhead, splashing the forest floor with color. Her steps are wary, nearly silent, he would not hear them over his breath, were he breathing. But he is still, silent, crouched and waiting, so that his leap catches her unaware, crashing them both into the brush. She lashes out with claws, hissing and snarling as if she still wore her cat, but his lean strength is the greater, and she cannot dislodge his hold.
The weight of his body pushes her into the soft loam, cradling her backside in an earthy embrace. She goes limp in her surrender, acknowledging he the hunter, she the prey.
In his arms, she is free. Having won, having tracked and captured her, she gives herself over to him, throwing the passion of her flight into the urgency of her kiss. Teeth and tongue, she explores him, tastes the curl of new growth, the dominance he displays over the creatures in the forest. She is one, and she is his, as much as they.
Her hands skim the lithe form of the Dalish elf as he presses against her, his mouth scorching her skin with his heat, branding her with his desire.
