Author's note - Yet Another Muse Hijack. This is considered to take place between chapters 17 and 18 of The Hourglass, and is dedicated to my reviewer Castiana who was clearly disappointed that no more of the Loghain-Muirnara developing romance was seen on the way back to Redcliffe. I hope this makes clear that you've missed nothing. It is yet to come :)
One half day's march would see them at Redcliffe Village, and Muirnara had seriously considered keeping them moving through the night. Loghain had objected, pointing out that an arrival tired, and an attempt to fight a battle against unknown numbers in the small hours of the morning made little sense. They had compromised on six hours sleep and a predawn start. Sten and Wolf had taken the first three hour watch, Morrigan and Zevran had ended up with the second.
Zevran had proved harder to wake than usual and Wolf had eventually roused the elf with a flying leap onto the bedroll and a forcible face wash with a long wet tongue. Zevran, spluttering pushed the Mabari away. "My friend, just because I assisted you in bathing at the Keep does not mean that I wish you to reciprocate!" Wolf just wagged his stumpy tail, and Zevran muttered something under his breath and went to join Morrigan who was watching from beside the firepit with her habitual sly smile.
She appeared to have something on her mind as they walked the perimeter of the camp together. "So, Zevran. Your wonderful attempts at matchmaking at the keep, tis clear, did not have quite the effect that you anticipated?"
He shrugged. "Those two...I found them a private room, and a feather bed, and wine, and solitude, and what do they do? Sleep in each other's arms, fully clothed." He wrinkled his nose. "And how am I rewarded for my services? By being asked to bathe a Mabari hound whose odour resembled the slaughterhouse district of Antiva City, on the hottest day in summer. No, that is unfair. The Mabari smelled considerably worse than that."
"My heart truly bleeds for you." Morrigan's sarcasm dripped off her tongue. "Tell me, elf, does the Antivan language have a direct parallel for that well known Ferelden proverb "to flog a dead horse?" by any chance?"
He raised his eyebrows at her. "You think so? Watch the pair of them. Just watch. When he thinks he is not observed, he is her shadow, his eyes rarely leave her. He foresees a dozen things in a day that might distress her, and he moves them away from her before she ever knows that they were there. When she thinks he is not looking at her, her eyes follow him with a yearning that frankly she never showed to Alistair. And yet, in the last few days when we have been in the tunnels, they have barely spoken a word to each other, and their bedrolls are set at opposite ends of our camps. If I thought the attraction between them was purely sexual, then there are a dozen ways that this might have come to a satisfactory conclusion by now. But it is not. They love each other. And that is a whole new game that I do not touch lightly."
"Oh, is that so?" Morrigan's retort seemed almost absent minded, there was clearly something else occupying her thoughts. He glanced once at her sharply, but his voice was light as usual when he answered her.
"My dear, I was born in a whorehouse, and raised by assassins. Sex, and death, are no mysteries to me. But love...love is a book written on sheets of cobweb with a pen dipped in the heart's blood. I do not dare even open the book to read the first page."
"How poetic." Morrigan snarled. It seemed her thoughts were not improving her temper.
He raised his eyebrows. "Surely you did not have designs on the ex-Teyrn yourself? My dear Morrigan, while the man has indeed a brooding charm, surely your options are not so limited as..."
"That is quite enough!" She turned away, looking out into the darkness.
He laughed. "Or was it our lovely Warden that you were eyeing and none of us ever knew. Really, my dear Morrigan, you are indeed a dark horse. Or perhaps I should have suspected when you first refused my advances, that you were one who prefers the company of her own sex?"
She whirled round. "Just because someone has better things to do than share your bed, Zevran, does not mean that they reject the entire of your gender. Tis merely you as their representative."
"Oh? I am wounded." The elf was now openly sniggering. "So I return to my earlier suggestion that you had an eye on Loghain, and now your plans have been foiled."
Morrigan sniffed and looked away from him. "You have no idea, elf. Whatever plans I might have had, they certainly did not include unrequited love for Loghain, so put that far from your tiny mind."
"I never suggested that you loved him. Merely that your eye was on him for...other reasons?"
"You are quite impossible!" She threw her hands up and stalked away.
Zevran's laughter followed her. "My dear, if ever I saw a lady protesting too much..."
Morrigan's sniff could be clearly heard as she disappeared into the darkness.