She couldn't avert her eyes. They remained utterly fixated on the long, hard protuberance held behind a buckled belt and outlined by snuggly-fitted leather. Eight, maybe nine inches to the tip. Certainly enough to skewer.

Quite a nerve-wracking eyeful... Just before her face as it had been while knelt down on the floor.

"Do not be frightened, my dear, I see how you stare. But I promise. It will not bite. Simply be careful with where you might put your hands if the need becomes too great."

Hello, my name is Chiyo Lavellan, and I keep winding up with undressed, potentially dangerous strangers who drip with cologne and sex in their bedrooms at very improper hours.

To admit to having a problem was the first step in recovery. Supposedly.

And while Dorian hadn't circled her in a slow stroll, with hands cupping the lean bones of his hips and keen, amber eyes she could practically feel skimming the outlines beneath her thin dress, this one was at least slightly improved. By wearing pants.

Ser Pavus hadn't, however, been met with a slim knife poking out of the tops his trousers.

"Hmm, yes. That's quite the curious aura. How it radiates off of your body. Despite that, I would give you the entire evening to explore every inch, if I were not already promised elsewhere. Before you fly off, my lovely uccellino, you'll make for a delightful warm-up."

"We're still talking about palm readings, right?" The short, strapping elf offered her only a deliberate wink as he finally withdrew. He gave her room enough to relax, out of immediate stabbing range, as well as a full view to the honed shapes of his back and the limber sway of his hips.

Odd. The thought crossed her mind, for a mystic to have so many well-defined muscles. The blade she might explain away as ritualistic, or plain necessity. A foreign elf in a land still less-than-perfectly hospitable to their kind needed some form of protection, but his apparent athleticism did not match the job description.

"I can also do tarot if the lady requests. Be warned. Such practices can become rather… intimate. Skin will keep some of its secrets well hidden, even beneath an expert touch. But the cards, they will bare your naked soul unto me." His dancing fingers gestured towards a squat, draped table that held only a wooden box.

Chiyo took the opportunity to get off her feet-and place her back safe to the wall. Between the toes mashed tight in the rounded heels and the irritating pressure of modern corsetry on her ribs, she'd about had her fill of being dolled up.

"Perhaps." She watched as he took a floor-length, black coat from its post and slipped his toned arms into the ornately embroidered sleeves swirled with gold, the edges just skating against the hardwoods. "However, I would like to ask a few questions about you before we start unlocking the mysteries of my future, Mr…"

"Araini, though most do not address me so." One large closure in the center of his chest was all that held the stately piece to his frame. Heaps of hammered bangles tinkled around his wrists as he slid them over his knuckles. As a final touch, a macabre bird's skull, the beak dipped in a lustrous, metallic finish, mounted on a chain, was placed to dangle on his sternum.

He gave the outlandish outfit one long turn in the nearest mirror before raking his fair hair over the collar just so. "If you've any interest in the occult, surely you've heard those breathy whispers in the dark of my repute, of Zevran the Mysterious."

There was no question to why a man only a few inches taller than herself needed such a large robe. Something had to help contain his rapidly swelling ego.

"Only in rumor and speculation." Chiyo strangled a snigger with a forced, dry cough. Surely there was a rule somewhere about laughing at an armed subject of unknown temperament and background.

"That's why I had to come see for myself, but you already realized that. How could you not, with your spiritual insights? Is that why they brought you here for tonight's séance? Are there truly spirits here that will commune with the rest of us or is this just smoke and mirrors entertainment put on by the elite. Another excuse for getting together with ample booze to smooth out any wrinkles? Half the people here have lyrium trade connections, I doubt that guest list was an accident."

"Ahh. There it is. I knew you could not hide those naughty-tongued questions for long." Zevran carefully arranged himself on the stool beside her and leaned into his palm, a smile growing across his white teeth. The lids of his eyes drooped into a shiftless, all-knowing stare. "You sound like a reporter."

Apprehended by his gaze, her spine straightened under the inspection, from what little slump she could manage through the network of metal rods and dense elastics holding her torso painfully in place.

Good job. You made it a whole three minutes before blowing your cover. She couldn't pick locks, she couldn't lie, she couldn't even keep from getting caught. Some masterful spy she was turning out to be.

"It is expected, to be a tad skeptical, no?" Zevran purred a throaty chuckle. "If one believes everything, how will they recognize the truth when it comes, aching and unashamed before them?"

"I may be doubtful, but not above convincing. If given enough evidence." The middles of her rouged cheeks turned molten as the mystic flicked the latch on the carved box centered between them and flipped open the lid. From it, Zevran lifted a stack of tall, glossy cards.

"Then allow me the pleasure of revealing your deepest secrets, your desires, your destiny even, if the spirits will be so generous. Shuffle them thrice, and we shall discover why they brought you to me tonight." With the deck presented to her, Chiyo fumbled with the over-sized assortment and cut them as requested, not that she'd argue long with a man who kept a dagger tucked by his loins.

She'd never had her fortune told, but already her mind predicted what vague illusions the other elf might say to be taken as plausible because they could apply to almost anyone. You'll come into a little money by the end of the year, be kind to family members. A close friend will soon reveal a deeply kept secret, listen with open ears but a closed mouth. Don't travel for the next few days, there is danger waiting on the path, but it will pass soon.

"Did you have any query you'd like to ask the cards before we begin?"

He's looking for leads, anything to make the act seem more personal and true.

Chiyo shook her head, offering up no more of herself than necessary. Zevran split the deck once and selected from the top four cards, displaying them face-down into a simple diamond formation.

"Marvelous, the energy is already stirring here. Can you feel it pulsating all around, those murmurs tickling your ear? I dare not interfere... Would you turn them over so I may interpret without further disrupting their connection to you?"

He doesn't know anything about you. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Working clockwise, she flipped them one by one, revealing the intricate illustrations below. A brightly lit orb suspended in twilight, a slivered crescent mirrored back by the sea. Bearded and dressed in rags, an old man leaning on his bent staff, pointing towards the road at his bare feet. Trumpets in a fanfare, blasting great chasms into the ground for throngs of people to fall in. Two horses, drawing a crowned king in a gilded cart, his scepter thrust towards the sky.

His brow rose and he stroked his chin. Zevran cocked his head, listening to a sound beyond her own comprehension. Or more likely, beyond existence itself. "How very interesting. They have much to tell you tonight. Too much even. Yours is not a quiet soul... yet they understand it very, very well. But why are the spirits drawn so near to the callings of your heart?"

...And now you're doomed. Even her flippant shrug felt like a betrayal.

"This one especially," Zevran waved his hand over the top card. "The Moon, it represents you. There is a willingness there, but the way is not clearly made. Light shall shine down upon your emotions when the time comes. It will reveal that which is already in front of you to be right and sincere. Trust in the instinct of your intentions. They are there for a reason."

To the second card, he moved next with another nod and tucked an errant lock behind his pierced ear. "The Hermit stands in as your past. A sign guiding for a moment of self-reflection, the opportunity to look back, as well as marking second chances, with an old devotion being at the fore. You may be tempted to remember only those happier times and forget the hurts that relationship brought with it. This is not so much a warning, merely a consideration. The third card confers."

An old devotion? She couldn't think of a single former flame worth rekindling. There was that relatively decent fellow who could cook with some panache. But the endless drawls of fiscal responsibility and the importance of investments hadn't kept that candle lit long. Homemade dinner for two hadn't survived past dessert. So much for office romance.

"Judgment. Now do not fret, my pet, at the violence and turmoil you see before you. Those are your doubts and uncertainties being banished, enemies of happiness dashed at your feet. You've already attracted the interest, but your suspicions still linger, clinging to the skirts of pride and independence. Ignore those hopeless pleas for clemency masked as reason. Shed them and accept the calling to a great purpose of your own make, lost with abandon to your senses, find yourself fulfilled."

She'd expected, well… certainly not this sort of uneasiness that came from his readings. There should have been relief in knowing how far this man had to reach for his guesses, but Chiyo shifted in her seat, leaning a little further back.

Her lips pursed as he looked for an extended stretch upon the final card, rolling his wrist with a gentle jingle of the metal bands. They flashed, even in the subdued light of his room, tiny stones set in the bracelets twinkled white and palest blue. Opals, perhaps. Chiyo noted several of the same glimmering on posts set through his ears.

"Last, the Chariot. It shall draw you to battle, to conquer your reservations and hesitations. Or shall you use it to run? Love is scary, terrifying, with so much risk and exposure of the vulnerable inner-self. Hurt. Disappointment. They are but one side of the same coin as the passion and thrills you seek. And therein lies it's allure. That perilous chance. Beneath the uncontrollability of love, the freedom that comes when the walls drop and true surrender takes you with tender embrace. Your whole world will open into an endless, rapturous dream. But only if you allow it."

With a sweep, he brushed aside the cards and returned them to the deck, then back into their polished box.

"I'm afraid that's all the time I have for you tonight, darling. But you know where to find me if it so happens I am needed. For any reason."

"Certainly…" A trick played of the mind was a likely culprit, but Chiyo would have sworn she'd seen something dark, like a shadow, pass by the window behind the mystic. With a blink, whatever it was vanished. "I should get going, someone's been waiting for me."

"Yes. Thank you for reminding me. I also have another appointment." Zevran rose from the table to give her a deep bow. "May you find him, that tall elf, amiably and well."

There was seldom a question she didn't want the answer to. How he knew of her companion immediately became one of the rare few.

Two for two. She was going for quite a lucky streak tonight.

"Move your leg!" Chiyo barely made her words audible as she tugged desperately on the doors. But there wasn't room, not for her legs and his both. She'd climbed over Solas' knees and wedged herself into the few inches left around his limbs.

A gap remained, but she refused to look, let alone listen to the gravelly, lust-fueled proclamations.

This isn't happening. This is NOT happening! Chiyo closed her eyes and wished it all away. The indiscriminate flirting, the scandalous teasing, the damned girdle, countless mistakes heaped together, but they shot open again as the adjourning liaison took a boisterous downturn.

Squeals ripped through the air and left her skin roasting. A woman who'd experienced any sort of quality knew that elated noise from their own throats. Of shaking, nibbled thighs and pressing fistfuls of another's hair.

The sudden, squirming move was involuntary, but her legs clenched together-or would have- were there not a third, firm thigh caught high between them. And the rubbing. The horrible, wretched rubbing made unbearable by a complete inability to hold still on either of their parts. Every inch he slipped or regained, every twitch as she tried to lift up on her toes to escape the friction, every venal idea stimulated by what was happening only a few feet away.

Not good. Not good at all.

Her only hope was the kindness of an aneurysm, brought on by the intense pounding in her chest and head, to end her suffering swiftly.

Bright blue eyes snapped to her's, so wide and reflective she could see her own terror mirrored back. The arms pressed hard to either side of her face vibrated with strain, his lips trembled beneath the rapid air drawn through his nose. Solas' entire body looked, and felt, to be shaking down to the core.

Suck it up! What's the matter with… Oh... No… Look what you've done now. What possessed you to force the man who's deathly afraid of dark, tight spaces into a Dark. Tight. Space.

Please, forgive me. Please. Please. Just hold on. Chiyo pleaded until he lurched for a breath that would surely turn into a terrified cry and her hand shot out to cover his mouth.

Shhh. Shhh! Her heart raced on, drowning out the pleasured moans and encouragements from whoever was outside, having an enthusiastic roll.

For a merciful moment, she thought it all over as what sounded like a tumble off the bed dumped the frisky lovers onto the floor. But the woman's yelp seemed only to instill more panic, not the consolation that in a few moments more they could leave the claustrophobic confines.

Water glistened around Solas' tightly clamped eyes and he began to wheeze through her fingers. Chiyo dropped the slip she'd been covering herself with and pressed a second hand over the first. He wasn't going to make it through the next untold minutes, not at this rate. How much longer until the darkness consumed him, till that ingrained fear of death and the unknown overrode all his senses.

She'd never forget those awful screams that echoed deep down in the corpse-filled dark...

You did this to him! You fix it. This is your fault! Make it go away. Do something. Anything- What?! Whoa! Not that!

Maybe it was a horrible reflex of suppressed craving, or the boldness instilled by a ridiculous fortune telling, or how inexplicably warm and familiar that soft skin felt beneath her fingertips and palms as they swept up the sides of his face.

Maybe it was the cloying scent of sparkling wine on that last, fleeing breath that begged to be tasted, or how he already leaned in, lips parted with petition, or the way she knew how to tilt just so, that the broad tip of her nose wouldn't smash into his but find a comfortable home.

Maybe it was simply because she wanted to.

But it was nothing like how she'd read these moments to be in books, smuggled or not. Where were the explosions rupturing behind her eyes? That desperate, breathless struggle for air as the seconds dragged on? And why, space be damned, wasn't a foot popping up in a giddy curl?

Instead, it was distant thunder rumbling outside of closed doors and homely walls. Lightning illuminating covered windows without threat. A heavy blanket atop a comfortable bed, cozy and dry and secure. The panicked swell inside the wardrobe was swiftly smothered as all else grew silent and still, even that incessant, derailing, chastising voice in her head.

"Are you alright?" Her lips brushed his as they moved. Sliding up, Chiyo's thumbs reached for smooth temples and rolled. Even with his eyes closed, Solas swayed, light-headed and bracing.

The breadth of a hand spread across the small of her back as the sweet smell of champagne wafted again with his slow sigh, "Never better, actually… why do you ask?"

"I thought… weren't you… it's so cramped and dark in here that..." Her eyes stretched wide while her head reeled back, bumping hard against the confines of the box. Someone had been panicking alright, just not the lush elf leaning in for another kiss.

What is wrong with you?! Is that the kind of person you are now, taking advantage of drunk men?

"I'm so sorry!" She didn't step out of the wardrobe, she bolted from it. Solas toppled and plopped onto the floor with a laugh as Chiyo snatched up the layers of her dress.

"This was a huge, huge mistake, a misunderstanding!" The silky slip she yanked down over her head and found it backward. She swiveled in the thin garment, glad for its temporary shield of her scarlet face. Beads clinked on the floor and twisted around her ankles, the stained tabard was returned, though precariously long without shoes.

On his feet after several lackluster attempts, Solas looked to her with a dangerous smile, all the while shaking his head.

"Look. You're drunk, I shouldn't have done that. Let's just forget this ever happened and-" Chiyo swerved when he reached out, but he stood as an effective blockade between her and the discarded heels behind him.

The door, however…

A barefoot escape, her ancestors would have been so proud.

The hall was empty and pitch-dark, yet the only detail that mattered was if it led to a way out. She ducked into the first available turn down a side-set of stairs, constantly looking back to see if he were quick enough to follow.

But as Chiyo turned her head around on the second landing, she was rushed by a solid, black shadow that left her spinning on the next slickened step.

Grasping the rail, her feet shot out from under her and the rest followed. The tumbling writer prepared to strike the hard stone and probably break every bone upon impact, but instead her fall was softened somewhat by something warm and yielding halfway down the staggered slope.

One drawn-out, terrified shout echoed from the top of the well as she fumbled on hand and knee over what felt like stocky limbs and crisp clothes and… something hot and wet all over the floor. The revolting scent of iron and copper struck her nostrils and made them curl. It wasn't until she blundered against the coarse hair of a beard and a breathless mouth that the picture became clear.

Not something, but someone had broken her fall.

And they were dead.