Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!
When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.
A/N: WARNING! NSFW material contained within! You have been warned! Nothing too graphic, but I like to make sure people know what's coming so they can avoid it if necessary.
Muse Music: Just Tonight by The Pretty Reckless
Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers! And to my wondrous Lady Beta artemiskat!
Happy Reading!
-Frayed One
Chapter Sixteen: Throwing Down the Gauntlet
Eamon hadn't been far behind Alistair and Elissa at all, just as Anders had warned them, and Elissa found herself thanking her lucky stars for the mage's friendship once again. She could hear Alistair making excuses on her behalf in the other room as she rummaged about in the bureaus and closets for something acceptable to wear back to the Warden Enclave.
"That went about as well as I expected…" Alistair sighed, threading his fingers through his hair and falling back against the archway of the door that separated the rooms of the Royal Suite.
He watched her shoulders sag, her hands and arms trembling slightly as she pulled several items of clothing out and tossed them in a messy pile on the bed behind her.
"I-I'm sorry, Alistair. It's my fault the evening was ruined… you shouldn't have had to make excuses…" Elissa whispered, unable to turn and meet his eyes for fear of what she felt certain she'd see in them. "I will send out a formal apology to Eamon once I've returned to The Keep."
"And say what, exactly?" he asked, words chosen in anger though his voice relayed only his confusion and his sorrow. "Sorry I almost engaged in questionable sexual relations with your nephew and the spawn of Ferelden's greatest enemy in the royal hallway?"
"I certainly never meant for that to happen…" she began, close to tears as waves of shame coursed through her.
"What did happen?" Alistair questioned, noticing that she did not turn when he moved behind her, though she certainly sensed him there. "I mean, you're still every bit as beautiful as the day I met you… and you know I've always been attracted to you… but that – that was like nothing I've ever felt. The pull from your blood on mine… it was stronger even than back in Orzammar after The Provings, and we could barely manage to pull apart sometimes. Tonight I was near powerless to deny it."
"I-I don't know. Maybe it's to do with Avernus' concoction, though I've seen nothing in his notes that would lead me to believe any of the others were affected this way. Of course they didn't actually live this long, for the most part…" Elissa replied, finally turning toward him though she was still hesitant to meet his eyes. "Maybe it's just that I missed you… Maker I've missed you so much… a-and I haven't been with anyone since…"
"You can't expect me to believe you and that pompous ass haven't been going at it like bunnies from the very moment I walked out your door!" he snorted, temper flaring at the thought that she would lie to him again.
"We haven't!" Elissa insisted, hand coming up to clutch his face before she could think better of it. "I won't say I haven't thought about it, but our bodies have not joined together." She assured him, choosing her words carefully so they wouldn't be just another in a long string of lies. "I love you, Alistair. I want you."
He stared at her, the heat from her hand seeping into his skin, making him feel as though he'd never known warmth before her touch – and that he'd never know it again without her. Amber eyes searched emerald for any hint of duplicity, but found nothing – nothing but sorrow, love, and desire – the same emotions building within his own heart as he stood with her again at arms length.
"I love you, Elissa – and I miss you. Maker I miss you so much it nearly breaks me every day." Alistair said, reaching out to pull her into his arms and leaning his forehead down to hers as he had so many times before. "I don't know how to be without you. I must have known, at some point… but I can't remember anymore." He moved one hand up to stroke at her cheek. "I want to take you back. To go back to believing that you will come back to me at the end of the day just because you always have – but I'm not that man anymore. I can't be. Not now that I know how you are with him. Not now that I've seen your reaction when he touches you."
"I-I… I understand." she said, voice cracking as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye and started to run slowly down her cheek. "I don't like it… it breaks my heart, but I understand. Just let me dress and take some things and I'll go."
She leaned up and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his cheek, meaning to turn away, but his arms held her in place.
"It's wrong to want this. I know it, but here it is…" he started, eyes pressed shut as he fought with his own internal battle. "I know nothing has changed. I know we will wake up tomorrow and be these same fractured souls, struggling to run their way out of quicksand… but for tonight, just tonight… can we put it all aside? Forget The King and The Hero of Ferelden. Forget the Warden-Commander and Senior Warden. Forget everything and just be Alistair and Elissa, two people who once loved each other beyond anything in this world."
"If it's what you want, then yes… but I need for you to be certain." Elissa replied, rubbing at his cheeks with her thumbs until he opened his eyes again and looked at her. "I do not wish to be another of your regrets in the morning."
"You will be another of my regrets in the morning whether I bed you tonight or not." Alistair answered with a sad laugh. "And if I am to regret you regardless, then I'd rather do so after having known what it was to simply believe again, for no other reason than I have you at my side, that anything was possible."
Now it was Elissa who hesitated. He could see it in her eyes. The fear that everything Flemeth had predicted was coming true. That just by touching him she would be seeping like poison into his very soul.
He saw it when she fought it off, refusing to believe it true – refusing to believe that this man, this beautiful true-hearted man in front of her who she loved so very much could be taken away from her by some swamp witch's stupid prophecy.
After that it was all lips, and hands, and skin. Every inch of them joined together. Every part of them reaching out and clinging to the other, praying that they could somehow manage to find a way through this. To find a way to just be Alistair and Elissa. Two people who once loved each other beyond anything in this world.
Nathaniel trudged through the halls silently, only half-listening to whatever it was the mage was on him about now. He was furious and ashamed, and unable to discern what feelings were his own and what was coming from Elissa as she spoke with The King behind the closed doors of the Royal Suite.
"What exactly were you thinking this time?" Anders sighed, winding himself and the ever more troublesome archer through the hallways as stealthily as possible. "I find myself really needing to hear the logic behind this the most thick headed of your decisions. I know I often call you stupid, Nathaniel… but you're actually quite intelligent. Certainly much more intelligent than tonight would make you out to be, at any rate, which is why I can't understand…"
His words trailed off as he noticed motion from the corner of his eye, watching as the archer detoured suddenly over to a nearby wall and leaned heavily against it, subtly placing a hand to his hip before he drew in and released a long slow breath.
"Are you alright?" Anders asked, cautiously moving closer to the volatile man's side.
"Tell me we are close to our quarters." Nathaniel muttered, his voice raspy and shaken. "Tell me we are not wandering these hallways because you have gotten us lost."
"No, we're not lost…" Anders replied, eying him suspiciously when he breathed in heavily again and pressed his eyes closed. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm… fine. I just really need some time… alone…" Nathaniel mumbled, still refusing to move or even look up to acknowledge the other man's presence.
What Anders didn't know, what he couldn't possibly understand, was that Nathaniel now found himself fighting – as best he could manage at any rate – against wave after wave of intense pleasure. It coursed through his blood like wildfire and made it all too obvious what it was Elissa had gotten up to with The King.
He tried to reach out to her and ask her to stop, or to find some way to shut himself off and sever the connection the way she could sometimes do with him, but the focus required to keep himself from visibly and audibly reacting to the steady stream of orgasmic sensation pumping into him was already almost more than he could manage.
"Keep the temper in check a few minutes longer, Howe." Anders snorted, rolling his eyes at the temperamental archer's inability to control his emotions. "Once you've locked yourself safely away in your own room, you can feel free to go apeshit for all I care."
A minute later Nathaniel slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to split his knuckles open and Anders began to wish he'd just left the poor bastard to wander the labyrinthine castle hallways on his own.
"Perhaps I should just point you in the right direction…" Anders muttered, starting to back slowly away – as though any sudden movement would draw the other man's fury down upon him.
"I'm not going to attack you, Anders!" Nathaniel hissed, turning his face in the mage's direction for just a moment, but that moment was all it took for Anders to see what was really going on.
"Oh, Maker you're… and that means she's…" Anders' eyes grew wide as realization washed over him. "She's with The King, isn't she?" Nathaniel didn't answer, but the quick desire clouded flick of his eyes and the barely stifled groan from the latest wave coursing through him were all the answer required. "Come on. Room's this way."
When Anders left Nathaniel at the door to his room, it was in a rare moment of compassion toward the broody nobleman. He provided him with a sleeping potion and even offered to heal his still bloody hand.
"Leave it." Nathaniel grumbled, taking the vial with as much grace as he could manage. "I'd rather feel that than what I've been feeling."
"Take that potion before you lie down." Anders said, nodding at him sympathetically. "It's strong enough to put down a horse, so I imagine it will work fine on you."
Nathaniel nodded, closing the door behind him and leaving Anders to wonder how he was going to make it through the night without losing his mind.
Elissa tried to go to sleep with Alistair, but found herself restless and unable to join him in The Fade. After tossing and turning for hours, she finally gave up, deciding to make a trip out to the Warden Cache in search of anything that might be useful back in Amaranthine.
She dug out and dressed in the old black cat-suit she'd worn back in her days as the Dark Wolf, laughing a little when she thought back on how simple those times had been in the face of all the chaos that now swirled around her. Slipping silently into the hall, she made her way from the Royal Suite down to the Warden Enclave. With a price on her head, she knew it was too risky to go out alone and so she moved down the hall intent on rousting Anders to accompany her. But as she stood there outside of Anders' door raising her fist to knock against it, she found that her eyes kept straying over to Nathaniel's.
"Nathaniel!" Elissa whispered, moving over to his door and softly knocking before she pressed her ear to the wood to listen for a response.
When she heard no answer or even the rustle of motion from inside, she attempted to reach out to him through the conduit, but even then was greeted by silence. Either he had discovered some way to shield himself from her more effectively than he had in the past, or he was simply ignoring her attempts to reach out to him. Elissa wagered it was the former as Nathaniel was far too temperamental for her to sense nothing at all.
She pulled loose her lock picks from her hair, knowing she'd now moved from simply seeking an escort to inappropriately invading the man's privacy. She told herself that she was merely checking in on him. It was her right and her responsibility as Warden-Commander, and after what they'd been through over the course of the day, his mental well-being was a very valid concern.
The lock posed no challenge, sliding into place quickly and quietly at the subtle movements of Elissa's skilled hands. She pressed the door open slowly, darting inside and pulling it back silently behind her.
"Nathaniel?" she whispered again, slightly louder now that she was in the confines of his room, but still there was no response.
She listened to him breathing as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight of the room. As her pupils dilated and her vision leveled, she made her way slowly over to his bed.
The closer she got to him, the more obvious it became just how bad an idea it had been for her to come here. Nathaniel had not been lying when he'd claimed to wear nothing to bed. The blanket and sheet had drifted down while he tossed about in slumber, leaving his entire upper torso and one hip completely bared to her eyes. She'd seen that much of him years before in the waters off the coast of Vigil's Keep, then again in her Highever bedroom right before everything fell apart. But he had been much different then.
When Elissa had noted his bulkier physique upon seeing him in the cell of his father's prison, she'd really no idea just how much he'd filled out. Seeing him now, the differences between Nathaniel the teenager and Nathaniel the man were far greater than she could have imagined. He'd always been attractive, physically fit and well groomed… but now his chest and abdomen were heavily muscled and chiseled as though from stone. It was an unusually powerful build for an archer, and Elissa wondered just what it was he'd been up to all those years he was away. The distinct cut of his bicep twitched as he dreamed of something, his arms tucked up behind his head where several strands of his hair had fallen across his cheek, and Elissa chewed at her lip as she watched him breathe.
If the years had not been kind to his psyche, they had most certainly granted all of their graces to his physique. When she came to a stop at his side, she had to fight hard to resist the urge to reach out and run her fingers through the scattered dark hair that marked his pectoral muscles before thickening into a long dark trail that disappeared beneath the blanket pooled at his waist. She'd touched him in such a way before, and dreamed of doing it again more times than she dared to remember. But things were different now, and they were not the same people they had been in their youth.
She finally leaned down, intending to reach out and lightly touch his face or shoulder in an attempt to rouse him from his slumber, but her braid slipped free from where she'd tucked it behind her back and dropped down to smack across his chin.
The next thing she knew he'd snatched her wrist and flipped her down, pinning her hard to the bed beneath him. His eyes were wide and frantic and still half clouded from sleep. She could sense that he was looking for a weapon.
"Nathaniel. It's just me. Calm down." Elissa insisted, hoping her voice would snap him out of it because he'd managed to pin her in such a way that she had no hope of reaching the daggers on her thighs.
"Elissa? What are you…" Nathaniel asked, attempting to shake off the last of Anders' concoction and regain his focus. "Is this a dream?"
"No, it's not a dream!" Elissa snorted, struggling against his hold where he held her arms to the mattress above her head. "What's wrong with you?"
"Anders gave me something to help me sleep." Nathaniel replied, releasing one of her hands so that he could rub the lingering remnants of The Fade from his eyes. "It was… potent."
"A sleeping potion? Why would you need a sleeping potion?" Elissa asked, watching his hand fall back from his eyes as he leveled her with a look of supreme annoyance. "What? It's nothing to do with me!"
"Tell me, how did you spend your evening, Elissa?" Nathaniel asked, jaw clenched as he glared down at her. "Was it restful? Did you get a lot of sleep?"
"Oh, no… Nathaniel…" Elissa said, eyes hooded with a mix of shame and sorrow when she realized what he was saying to her. "Tell me you didn't… you couldn't…"
"I felt everything. Your mortification, your misery… and that was okay. Nothing more than what I've grown accustomed to. Nothing more than what I was already feeling myself. But then, then wave after wave after sodding wave of pleasure…" his tongue lingered over every syllable of the word, sending goose bumps rushing over her skin. "And I felt… Every. Last. Bit."
He punctuated each of the last three words with a thrust of his hips against her pelvis, forcing Elissa to become painfully aware that she lay pinned beneath him, in his bed, while he pressed naked, save one thin piece of linen, against her. She felt the length of him hardening against her thigh, her own body reacting to it as her pulse shifted and settled into her pelvis where it throbbed at her, heavy and unyielding.
"Why did you come here?" he asked, deep baritone vibrating her mouth where he lingered so close to her.
"There's a Warden Cache here in the city. I-I needed someone to accompany me…" she began, astonished at how wanton her own voice sounded though she'd willed it not to be so.
"You picked my lock… invaded my personal space, uninvited, and woke me from sleep in a less than desirable fashion so that you could drag me out to a supply cache in the middle of the night?" Nathaniel snorted, raising an eyebrow at her with his smirk. "Spare me, Elissa. You could have taken any of us… but you came barging in here even after I didn't answer my door. And so I ask you again, why did you come here?"
"I already told you!" Elissa snipped, her breasts pressing into his chest with every breath as her temper increased – something she watched him notice. Something that only made the problem pressing against her pelvis more evident.
"I don't buy it." he chuckled, the rumble of it carrying over into her own body. "I think maybe you came here to thank me for saving your life… again. Or did you already give all the gratitude you had to offer to The King. The King who did nothing but fumble your laces into knots while you suffocated in front of him."
"I did not lie with Alistair out of gratitude!" she hissed, her body trembling harder as fury mixed in with the want that already shook her to the core. "I desire him. I love him."
"Well, there's no use denying you desire me. We both know if you were as… exposed as I find myself at the moment, we would find you wet and ready from want of me…" Nathaniel growled, smiling when Elissa could not suppress the moan that slid between her parted lips as he traced his fingers up the inside of her thigh. "So, again, it all comes back to love. The love we both know you still carry in your heart for me, though you may refuse to speak of it under the harsh light of day."
"I thought we were to be friends! You sat there and promised me! You swore that you could do it, that you would try… and like a fool I believed you!" Elissa breathed, feeling him graze his lips against her jaw and pressing her eyes shut against the sensation. "But you never meant it. You never meant any of it. You'll just keep pushing until I bend to your will, and I'll keep bending until I break. Because that's what you do, Nathaniel. You break me. You always have."
"I did not break you before, Elissa, and I'm certainly not out to break you now! I am sorry that you suffered heartache on my behalf, but it was my father that caused it and we both know that now!" he responded, more than a little frustrated that she'd blamed him yet again for things beyond his control. "I cannot understand why you continue to blame me for something I lacked the ability to prevent!"
"I have absolved you of the guilt for those things for which your father was truly responsible, but that morning on the ramparts of Highever it was you who walked away. Even after I begged you to stay, to run away with me." her tears were falling now – tears of fury, sorrow and regret all mixed together into a torrent of despair that she could do nothing to prevent. "Eight years! Eight bloody years I waited for you, praying you'd come back, praying you'd give up that insane need you always felt to prove your worth to a man who would never see it! The day I got that letter from your father I was leaving for the Free Marches. I'd paid my passage on a boat docked off the coast. I was coming to find you."
"You were coming for me?" Nathaniel whispered, voice softening as he pulled back to search her eyes.
"Yes. I was willing to sacrifice everything for you! My home, my family, my entire world! I was going to leave it all behind for a chance to be with you – though you had given me eight years of nothing!" Elissa snapped, finally pushed to her breaking point where the stubborn man on top of her was concerned.
"I was with you every second of that time! I wrote to you every day!" he responded, knowing it was a weak defense in the face of all she had revealed to him.
"Empty words! Cold, paper promises! All gone now… lost to time and trauma and fire. All meaningless in the end. You would have stayed in the Free Marches forever trying to earn your father's approval. I know that now." Elissa said, voice breaking with every word. "I know what it takes to be with you, Nathaniel Howe. I know what it is to love you. You require complete submission. You will accept nothing less. And I cannot lose myself like that again. I will not. Not to you – not to anyone."
"And you think your King, your Alistair does not wish submission from you? That he will not ask for such a sacrifice? Do you think you would be retaining who you are while you lolled about in pretty dresses having teas and cakes with the ridiculous nobility of Ferelden?" Nathaniel retorted, full of venom and spite as he thought on the very idea that he could be losing her to such a man. "Yes, I seek some sort of submission from you – I will not deny that – nor should you deny that I would be sacrificing as much of myself were I to truly be with you. But if you think that to take his ring, to wear the crown he offers you is any kind of freedom… then you are a fool. He would shackle you just the same – to the life you never wanted, to the one you once begged me to help you escape. The only difference between us is I would stand beside you, Elissa. I would never leave you to shoulder this burden alone. But not your King. Your perfect, golden, King is perfectly willing to toss it all on your pyre – taking the credit while you sacrifice blood and body to pay his way, to pay everyone's way, while he trails along behind you like nothing more than a well trained mabari."
She struck him then, hard enough to split his lip against his teeth when her palm made contact with his face. His tongue dipped out to taste the blood there, and Nathaniel's carefully maintained control all came crashing down. He grabbed her free hand, pinning it back with her other to the mattress beneath them and leaned forward to roughly claim her mouth, working persistently at her lips with his tongue until she gave in and let him inside. He plundered her then, sucking on her tongue, teasing her bottom lip with his teeth as he pressed himself harder against her soft body. He shifted her wrists over to his left hand, freeing his right to slide down and squeeze against her breast, groaning into her mouth when he felt the bud of her nipple growing hard beneath the palm of his hand. When he pulled back to breathe, her lips were bruised from his attentions and red with the blood from his own injury, and he could see the fury in her eyes that he had dared to hold her there, and to take such liberties against her will.
"Let. Me. Go." she hissed, struggling against his hold more violently. Though her body may have reacted to his touch, her eyes were pure venom - and she fed that fury into him through their bond - forcing him to acknowledge just how wrong he had been to push her so far.
In her words Nathaniel heard many things, and in that moment, Elissa had meant them all. He thought briefly about apologizing or even pressing her further, but both seemed equally unappealing choices at the time, and so he finally rolled aside to release her. She sat up, throwing her legs over the edge of the bed and leaning forward against her knees, face in her hands as she tried to calm herself enough to speak.
"It was foolish of me to believe we could ever be friends. That we could somehow manage to forget our pasts and start over…" Elissa muttered, words tinged with hatred and misery and the empty echo of regret. "And so I shall be your Commander, nothing more. I will give you orders, and you will follow them… because if you cannot, then I will ship you to the farthest corner of Thedas before you can bat an eye, Nathaniel. I swear it!"
She did not even look at him as she rose from the bed and strode from the room, pressing the door closed behind her. Nathaniel let the torrent of her emotions rush into him again, sagging back onto the mattress and cursing himself for being so easily driven out of his mind by all the things he felt for her. This time he had pressed too far.
Elissa had risen early and taken Alistair along with her to visit the Warden Cache. She'd been thrilled to discover that he had restocked it with many things that would be useful to her in the coming months as she struggled to rebuild the blight-ravaged lands of Amaranthine, thanking him profusely in the isolated confines of the locked room, several times, before they made their way back into the Royal Quarter to start the day.
Alistair lent her several of his knights to help reload the Warden's now overloaded cart with the supplies she'd requested, excusing himself for a brief meeting with Eamon though he promised to return before she left for The Keep to say goodbye.
She stood just beyond the cart now, speaking in hushed tones to Swiftrunner who had finally evened out his temper enough to seek her out. There was much to apologize for, and Elissa knew it, and so she was far too deep in conversation with the man to notice the two sets of eyes watching her from just beyond the courtyard archway.
"I blamed the strength of the taint within his blood for drawing her to him for a long time, well, that and his poncey Orlesian accent…" Alistair said, chuckling as he moved out of the shadows to stand beside the other man who watched Elissa through the stone arches of the barrier wall. "But now that I've gotten a good look at you, it really is almost frightening how much you actually look like the man." He raised an eyebrow, inspecting and recognizing the armor he wore. "And I see she's even dressed you up in his armor. I'm tempted to feel bad for the man, but I won't… he did take my fiancé to his bed after all."
"Should I know who this is you're speaking of?" Nathaniel growled, jaw tensing as he gauged The King's intentions. He'd known the armor had belonged to another Warden, but he'd had no idea that man had once been Elissa's lover.
"Oh! She didn't tell you about him?" Alistair laughed, pursing his lips and gazing out at the woman in question for a moment. "Guess it must not have meant as much to her as I thought at the time…"
"I should probably excuse myself, Your Majesty." Nathaniel responded, barely able to manage the speaking of the phrase without biting through his own tongue in fury. "I feel I did not sleep well enough last night to have sufficient patience for the conversation you seem intent on having."
"Tsk, tsk. And here I thought you were different from your father. Elissa certainly seems to think you are redeemable." Alistair said, grinning when his barb hit home lighting the temper in the other man's eyes.
"I may not be my father, but I am a man very much in love with a woman you seem intent on claiming." Nathaniel retorted, eyes narrowing as he fought to rein in his fury. "It is difficult, at best, for me to tolerate your gloating."
"Gloating?" Alistair laughed, eyebrows shooting up in amusement. "I wasn't aware that admitting the woman I intend to marry had cheated on me with a man specifically chosen for his resemblance to you was gloating, but if it makes you feel more justified in your anger to call it that, then go right ahead. Though, if I wanted to gloat, I'd probably just mention the numerous ways in which I pleasured the woman you love in my bed while you lay sleeping, alone, just down the hall."
"Oh, I am aware!" Nathaniel hissed, mouth curving up in a grin when he noted The King's surprise at that revelation. "She admitted as much to me when I pressed her into my mattress later that night."
"You're lying. If you'd lain with her, I would know." Alistair asserted, taking two steps forward and glaring angrily at the man.
"Would you?" Nathaniel asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.
"You're a liar, just like your father – trying to use anger to goad me into doing something I'll regret." Alistair said, backing away and reining in his fury though he turned his eyes out to Elissa as though he could read the truth there.
"Perhaps I am. Or, perhaps that's simply what you need to tell yourself to make it okay that I'll be sleeping at her side tonight, while you bed down alone." Nathaniel chuckled, knowing he was walking a dangerous path but long past caring.
"I won't give her up without a fight, Howe." Alistair spat, turning to him one last time before he moved into the courtyard. "I will do what I feel necessary to keep her safe from you. So you should know, I don't intend to fight fair."
"Nor do I." Nathaniel replied, sharing a curt bow with The King and watching as he strode up to Elissa to say his goodbyes.