It was long past sunset when she finally reached the inn, only the unsettling gleam of the Breech illuminating the otherwise moonless night. She had had little rest for days, and her body was feeling the effects of the long ride, soreness and hunger compounding the worries that drove her. She was no expert horsewoman, but haste had forced her hand. Neither foot nor aravel would have let her reach her destination in time; she only prayed that the finest steed her coin could purchase had done better.
Dismounting with no more than the necessary clumsiness, she handed to reins to the grizzled stable-hand who came out to greet her. If his gaze showed disdain for the shape of her ears and the markings on her face, the sight of her staff bound across her back quieted his tongue and she put the man out of her mind as she entered the inn. She had more pressing matters to attend to, and a need far greater than for some foolish human's acceptance.
The Scarlet Wyvern was as nice an inn as one could expect to find so far into the arid reaches of north-western Orlais, and after her time on the road, its common room was a welcome sight. A roaring fire rapidly banished the chill of the desert night and laughter and song filled the hall. Once, the presence of so many humans would have discomforted her, but that was another life and many years ago.
"Excuse me," she asked the stout middle-aged woman who came out to greet her, "I wonder if you've had a guest recently. Another woman, perhaps a little taller than me, not old, but with pure, white hair…"
"Merrill!" The ruddy-faced inner-keeper had no need to answer her question. From across the common room came the voice she had spent the past year and a half longing to hear. The elf spun around at once, her heart leaping halfway up her throat as she saw Ella Hawke rushing towards her.
The Champion lifted her slim body up into her arms, kissing her with rare intensity. Merrill returned the embrace as best she could while her lover's scent, currently mixed with leather and dust but still unmistakably hers, surrounded her. Beside them, the inn-keeper asked with a laugh, "I take it this is her, then?", but Merrill was unwilling to break the kiss long enough to answer.
Only when both of them were left breathless did they finally pull apart, Hawke nodding, "Yup, that's me. Isabella, if you could bring my friend some food and ale, that would be great. She must be hungry from the road."
"Of course," the inn-keeper told her with a smile, barking out an order to the kitchens. It always astounded Merrill how fast Hawke could make friends, and though a part of her wanted to protest that she was fine, and that they could move on to other things, her lover was right. She was famished, and so she let herself be led back to Hawke's table without protest.
"Isabella?", the elf asked as they sat down. Hawke had already finished her own dinner, and so there was nothing to distract them but each other.
"I know. Doesn't look much like her, does she?" The Champion's words were light, but in her eyes, Merrill could see the pain of yet another old wound. Isabella might have been vulgar and selfish, but she had also been their companion and once, they had believed, their friend. She had made their group laugh harder than anyone else could, and intrigued a shy young elf with her tales of exotic adventures and tawdry trysts, and then she had left. She ran off after the qunari attack, leaving them behind to face the unbelievable mess she had had helped to make and in spite of it all, they still missed her.
"I am more interested in looking at you, emma lath", Merrill replied. "I always am." Merrill had started to fall in love the first time she'd laid eyes on Hawke that day at the foot of Sundermount, and though the years might have added lines of sorrow to her face and cares to her shoulders, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to the elf. Her long white hair, her bright blue eyes, and by the gods, that smile, one that seemed to contain all the warmth in the world. She couldn't resist running her long fingers over her beloved's face, and when Hawke kissed her palm, her heart melted all over again.
"I'm so glad I managed to reach you here," she told her lover, restraining her affections with the thought that they were still in public. "When I got Varric's letter, I was afraid you would be in the Anderfels before I caught up with you."
"You didn't have to come," the Champion told her apologetically. "If your people still needed your help, I would've understood."
"You needed me," she insisted. "And the clan is safe for now. The fighting between the mages and Templars is done and Corypheus does not seem interested in us." Even saying the creature's name made Merrill uneasy. Their descent through his prison had been perhaps the darkest journey the group had ever taken, and the battle against him their most desperate. Even more than the day that Anders and Meredith had burned Kirkwall, the elf had doubted they would survive. But Hawke had been by her side, brave and steadfast, and they had prevailed, vanquishing the ancient evil. Or so they had thought.
"Well, I am glad you're here," Hawke told her, but despite her smile, Merrill could see the sadness in her eyes returning. "Did Varric's letter…. Did he tell you about Stroud?"
She nodded. "He did. He told me that he gave his life helping the Inquisition to escape from the Fade."
"For me," the Champion told Merrill, sounding far older than her years. "He gave his life for me. I was going to be the one to cover our retreat, and he took my place."
In spite of the room's warmth, a shiver ran through the elf at the realization that she had almost lost Hawke. Every day they were apart, she'd worried for her love, and when the letter from Varric had arrived telling her that Corypheus was alive and they were fighting him once more, that worry had turned to fear, a fear that she now knew had almost been realized.
Before she could dwell on it any further though, Isabella appeared, the inn-keeper bearing a mug of ale and a steaming spinach pie that she set down on the table between them. "Here you go, dear. Eat up. You certainly look like you need it."
Merrill didn't have to be told twice. The sight and smell of food brought her hunger straight to the surface, and she wasted no time in plunging into her meal. It was good, and hot, and she wolfed it down with a eagerness that came from knowing that once she was done, she and Hawke could finally be alone.
Merrill pushed open the door to the Champion's room, practically dragged her lover across the threshold in her eagerness. Her kisses were hot and sure; a reminder of how far she'd come from the shy young Dalish elf that Hawke had first fallen in love with in Kirkwall. Back then, she'd had to slowly introduce her girlfriend to each new pleasure, but it had been more than worth her patience. The gasps of discovery and sighs of delight had been wonderful, and now, Hawke greatly enjoyed the confidant lover the elf had become.
Right then, though, her foremost thought was that Merrill had far too much clothing on, and the Champion set to work fixing that. One by one, she peeled off layers of cloak and tunic, seeking out ever more of the elf's pale skin. "I missed you so much," she said softly as she ran kisses along the side of her lover's long neck. "There were times in the Fade I didn't know if I'd ever see you again."
Unbidden, memories of the nightmare's threats returned to her mind. "Merrill is going to die," its unseen, all-encompassing voice had told her, "And there is nothing you can do about it." The demon had know exactly the fear that preyed on her most. So many friends and loved ones were already gone: her parents, Bethany, Isabella, Anders, and now Stroud. She couldn't lose Merrill too, and with sudden desperation, she clung tighter to her lover, tears now mixed in with her kisses.
"I'm here, emma lath," Merrill whispered, stroking her hair as she tried to soothe her distress. "I will never leave your side. Not for as long as you want me there." They were words that Hawke knew well, almost the very ones that she had said to the elf long ago, when she had been at lowest.
"You were right," Merrill whimpered, unwilling to look at her. Her lover had fled to her tiny house in the alienage, unwilling to return to Hawke's estate after the tragedy on Sundermount. The Champion had followed her though, only to find Merrill curled up in a corner, sobbing softly.
"You were right," she babbled, all the horrible things she'd been telling herself over the last few hours flowing out of her without any filter, "And I was stupid, and childish, and, and wrong. And now the Keeper's dead, and the clan hates me, and you're going to leave because I'm such a stupid fool."
Hawke had been right, but winning their argument didn't matter to her anymore. It broke her heart to see Merrill this way and she knelt down next to the elf, taking her into her arms. Her fingers brushed across her face, tracing the lines of her tattoos as she assured her, "I'm not. I won't. I will never leave your side for as long you want me there."
The words had comforted her lover then, and they did the same for Hawke now, but she needed more, needed the physical reminder that not everything she cared for was gone. She guided Merrill towards the inn's bed, covering her face with kisses even as she finished baring her lover's chest. Those small, perfect breasts that she loved so well were exposed first to her gaze, and once she laid Merrill down on the bed, to her hands and mouth as well. She worshiped them in every way she knew how, covering the pale skin with kisses, caressing the nipples with her fingers, pressing her face against their warmth.
The Champion began sucking lovingly on a erect pink nipple and Merrill ran her fingers through that gorgeous white hair, purring, "Yes, emma lath, yes." The human was always a generous lover, but at times like this, she could be especially so. Her guilt at surviving when so many around her had died could nearly overwhelm her, and doing this, attending to someone else's needs, comforted her.
Hawke was encouraged by her lover's words, slowly making her way down Merrill's slender body. She traced each line of it affectionately, running her tongue along the curve of her hip bone and down towards the place between the elf's legs that she loved so well. One finger slipped under Merrill's smalls, playing in the thin, dark hair above her sex before she removed them. The elf smelled marvelous, a mixture of sweat and her arousal that Hawke relished.
Her lover's breath was hot on her sex and Merrill's hips pushed towards her, making it easier for Hawke to capture what she sought. Perfect lips found the elf's small, hard bud and she let out a soft moan as it was taken between them, struggling to make no more noise than that. It had been so long since she'd gotten to experience that amazing mouth, and she was accustomed to her lover's expansive estate, not this small room with its thin walls.
Hearing Merrill's little mewls of delight as she was eaten out, Hawke felt her nerves begin to relax. Her own body was beginning to heat up, her pale skin flushing with long-denied desire, but she could wait for her own pleasure until she'd brought it to the woman she loved. Above her, the elf's back arched and Hawke brought a single finger up to her sex. It was as tight as she remembered, and she began not by fucking Merrill hard, but instead caressing her pussy, curling her digit to stroke her sensitive front wall.
"So good," the elf moaned, "You're always so good." She could feel the pressure swiftly building in her body, Hawke's lips and finger drawing her climax to the surface. It had been so long since she'd had real release and as it finally drew into sight, her desire was making her as needy as she could remember being. "Don't stop," she urged her lover, "Don't ever. I want to… I want to come for you." It had taken practice for the shy elf to be willing to say her desires aloud, but Hawke enjoyed it so much that it was worth the effort.
"I want that too," the Champion cooed, her finger still working inside Merrill as she spoke, "Want to feel your body tense in my arms, feel you tighten around my finger. Will you do that for me, my love?"
"Yes," Merrill promised, her words slipping into barely-coherent elven as she approached the edge. She could do nothing but repeat, "Ar nuvenin, ar nuvenin…" I want, I need, over and over again as she melted, her clit throbbing uncontrollably, her wetness coating her beloved's hand, her fingers clutching desperately at the human's hair and shoulders.
Only when Merrill finally stopped trembling beneath her did Hawke slide out of her lover, savoring a final taste of the elf on her fingers. It was earthy and sweet all at the same time, and as she sucked her release off, Merrill purred, "Oh, emma lath. Ma serranas."
"You are very welcome," Hawke smiled affectionately. "It was my pleasure."
"I would still like to thank you in other ways," the elf told her, normal speech returning along with her desire to reciprocate. "It has been so long since I could."
"Far too long," the Champion agreed, ridding herself of her own clothes with a haste born of desire. "But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere either." Merrill's hands began to slide over her body, caressing her shoulders and massaging her breasts, and when they slid between her legs to stroke her sex, all she could think was, "Not again. Not anymore." Wherever they might be, together was where they belonged.
It's so hard to get Isabella to come back if you're not romancing her, so this time, she didn't. Hope you enjoyed Hawke and Merrill's reunion. Next, we're back to Sera and Herah. And formal wear.