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, specifically toward the very end if you mean to avoid it. It is not at all overly graphic or vulgar, that's really just not my style, but it definitely moves, in my opinion, from post 8pm basic cable love scene into "Skinimax" territory :P No intention to offend anyone, and I stand by my decision that these two people if put in this particular situation could absolutely end up where my devious mind has lead them.
Special thanks to Snarkoleptic, Stoobzzwife and my fantastic Lady Beta artemiskat. This one came from some fantastic dialogue with the group of you (well some of it, I take full responsibility for the semi-smut toward the end, lol).
Muse Music: A Beautiful Lie by 30 Seconds to Mars.
Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers! Love you guys and love to hear from you :)
Happy Reading!
-Frayed One
Chapter Seventeen: It's A Beautiful Lie
Days turned into weeks and the Wardens settled into what should have been a rare period of calm, were it not for the increasingly more volatile interactions between the Warden-Commander and their melancholic archer. Things had changed between them in Denerim, and while there were times that Elissa certainly appeared to have regained some modicum of happiness – it was obvious to anyone who watched her terse interactions with Nathaniel that the seething anger lurking beneath the surface of their carefully chosen words and false smiles was always one poorly chosen word or gesture away from exploding and taking everyone around them down in its wake.
"It was bloody awful." Anders told me, thinking back on it with a shiver.
I'd gotten him drunk, which in my experience loosened tongues, and in this particular case also seemed to take the bitter man back to a time when he was much less of a tool. Had I known the mage back his early Amaranthine days, I probably would have liked him. As it was I tolerated him for Hawke's sake, and for the insight he could provide me into the woman who at the time was already more legend than reality to most of us.
"Elissa, in her infinite wisdom, had taken to wearing the Theirin signet again, and you can just guess how well that went over with Howe." The mage continued, slamming an empty mug down on the table and fussing with his hair. "Add to that the constant stream of letters and little trinkets The King sent over the span of days after we left the Palace and… it got really ugly really fast. You couldn't say anything to either one of them without putting yourself at risk to set them off... we had to do something. It was supposed to be a joke."
The culmination of the story he told me afterward would put the most tawdry of my romance tales to shame. Hell, it ruffled Rivaini's feathers at some points, and that's a feat few can claim to have accomplished. When I asked him to clarify a few points later, for posterity's sake - of course, he swore he'd never told me any of it… and that if I ever said he did, he'd deny it to his grave. This of course made me even more certain at least part of it must have been true. Though which parts, I can't say for certain. I never worked up the nerve to ask The Archer, and there's not enough alcohol in the world to make me risk asking The Hero.
Elissa thumbed through Alistair's latest missive again, smiling as she tapped her finger against the small pouch of seeds he'd enclosed therein. They were salvaged from one of the rosebushes in Lothering. The very ones from which Alistair had picked her rose years ago. She looked over to the glass case on her desk, smiling at the still perfect bud that lay inside of it. Morrigan had even enchanted it in what was to be a rare moment of cooperation between the prickly apostate and her erstwhile former Templar.
"Morrigan…" Elissa whispered, mind scrambling for a moment as she thought again on what The First had suggested before sending them into the Fade. "What have you brought into this world?"
She couldn't linger over the thoughts for too long as a knock sounded sharp against her chamber door.
"Enter." she called out, tucking her personal letters away from prying eyes.
"Sorry to bother you, Commander. Seneschal Varel has requested your presence for a quick meeting in the throne room." Cecile said, her blue eyes flickering to the floor anxiously as usual.
"Right now?" Elissa huffed, glancing out the window to ensure that she was right about how late in the day the hour found them. "What's so important it can't wait until tomorrow? There isn't another riot, is there?"
"No, ma'am. Not that I know of." Cecile replied, looking slightly more anxious than usual when Elissa didn't simply come along as requested. "The Seneschal didn't specifically say what the meeting involved, just sent me along to collect you. I'm not one to question orders."
"No, you're not." Elissa sighed, standing up and gathering her journal just in case she needed to make note of something. "At ease, Cecile. I don't bite, you know. I'm just a bit moody most of the time."
"Yes, Commander." the woman replied, nodding her head and scurrying away down the hall in fear, leaving Elissa to sigh sadly behind her with the realization she would always be afraid of her.
Nathaniel was seething as he made his way to the throne room. Elissa had already sloughed off all of the scheduling duties to him for the hunting, training and rationing she had instituted for the Arling, and now she had Garavel calling him to meetings in the middle of dinner. He knew she was doing it intentionally. Barking orders at him like a peon and waiting for him to refuse one, or not complete the task to her standards. Then she could live up to her word and ship him off to whatever distant land would accept him.
It must be nice to have all that free time now that I'm doing all the work. He grumbled. Every time he laid eyes on her she was chattering away with the mage, sparring with the assassin, or dawdling about mooning over her latest love note from The Idiot King.
He stomped through the back door to the room, noting with annoyance that the Guard Captain hadn't even bothered to show up on time, and flopping back in the elaborate throne on the dais to wait for him.
"This better be good, Varel!" Elissa muttered, charging through the back door and rounding her way up onto the dais while she thumbed through her journal in frustration. "I was looking forward to a nice long bath and a sampling of Denerim's finest chocolates this evening, and you are holding me up."
"Feeling the need to relax after your long day of delegating all of your responsibilities to your lessers?" Nathaniel retorted, watching as she skidded to a stop just short of sitting on him and flicked her narrowed eyes up to him in irritation.
"If I'm not mistaken my title is Warden-Commander, which would make anyone not the First Warden mine to command." Elissa said, words as even as she could manage though the twitching muscle in her jaw spoke to her mood. "What are you doing here anyway? I wasn't aware you were a part of this meeting."
"I'm not. I was called here by your good Captain Garavel, likely to clean up another mess in your scheduling since you can't be bothered to proof them correctly." he grinned, easing himself into the well practiced dance of false pretense they'd spoken in since she'd left his room in a temper the night of the Warden's ball.
"Can't be bothered..? Nathaniel, I've been busy with any number of other things…" she grumbled, brow furrowing though she fought to keep any animosity from her words. "You offered to help, and you know this land far better than I. I simply assumed keeping you on the project was best for the Arling, though clearly I shouldn't have done that."
"When I offered to help, it was under the assumption that I would be assisting with and not doing all the work." Nathaniel answered, standing up and narrowing his eyes. "Forgive me if I get a bit perturbed when I'm left listening to or reading report after report after bloody report while you wander about like a lovesick child with your Bastard King's most recent offering. He's trying to buy you, Elissa. Surely you see that."
"Don't you dare call him a bastard you arrogant prig!" Elissa hissed, stomping forward to shake her finger in his face.
Nathaniel started to respond before he felt the quick pop of something sharp penetrating the flesh of his neck. He reached up to pull loose whatever had hit him, watching Elissa's eyes go wide as she realized it was a dart.
"What?" Elissa said, eyes flicking around the room as Nathaniel sank to his knees in front of her, reacting to whatever had coated the tip.
A few seconds later she heard a hiss of air, and felt the one that popped into her own shoulder. She yanked it loose, taking a couple of steps toward the door and trying to call out for assistance – but her tongue felt so heavy she could get nothing out but a few unintelligible groans before she too collapsed into darkness.
"Elissa! Get down this dart is…" Nathaniel cried out, sitting up quickly in the bed he'd been tossed into, then falling back again when his head swam with the after effects of the toxin working its way slowly out of his bloodstream.
"Poisoned? Yes, I know." Elissa replied, watching his eyes focus in on her where she crouched by the door contemplating whether she could pry loose the bolts that held it in place to get them out.
"Where are we?" he asked, rubbing at his throbbing temples and trying to get his vision to focus enough so that he could figure their location. "And why poison us to get us here?"
"I wouldn't worry too much. We're still in The Keep, somewhere on East Wing I think…" she answered, looking to him for confirmation.
"They've turned all the rooms into barracks now so they hardly look the same as last I saw them but, from what I can see out that window you're probably right." Nathaniel answered, bristling with irritation as he sat up straighter and noted his boots were off and his clothing was not as he'd left it.
"As for the need to tranquilize us, if I had to hazard a guess I'd say this is our companions' friendly way of forcing us to work out our differences." Elissa continued, pacing away from the door and over to the window to see if there was a way she could get through it and out while avoiding killing herself in the process. "Though why they needed to knock us out is beyond me. They certainly could have just lured us in here and locked the door." She watched him reach up to check his hair for his own lock picks, much as she had done herself upon waking. "Don't bother; they've collected anything useful so far as I can tell."
"Great." he grumbled, starting to get up before wincing and falling back to the bed.
"What? What's wrong?" she asked, moving over with concern as he twisted around to try to get a look at whatever had pained him.
"Nothing, there's a mark…" Nathaniel replied, shifting out of her reach as he tried to see the sensitive skin again.
"A mark? What do you mean there's a mark? Let me see." Elissa insisted, sucking her teeth at him like he was a troublesome child and trying to move his hands away.
"It's, I don't know! It's a mark! I can't make out what it is…" he retorted, irritated that she wouldn't just leave him be. "And it's not in a spot I feel like showing you at the moment."
"You were perfectly comfortable tumbling about naked with me before!" she groused, watching his eyes narrow on her angrily. "Just let me see. I promise I won't touch anything. Here, I'll tuck my hands behind my back if that makes you feel better."
She made a great show of doing as she'd promised, raising an eyebrow when he was still slow to do as she asked and sighing when he finally set himself to motion, tugging down the back of his pants and small clothes just enough for her to see what was so tender to the touch.
"It's a tattoo!" Elissa exclaimed, barely able to contain her laughter.
"It's a what?" Nathaniel yelled, glaring down over his shoulder to try and see it and verify for himself before Elissa completely abandoned her promise and reached out to still him, tugging the material down lower so she could get better lighting.
"It's a griffon! They've tattooed a griffon on your ass!" she said, dissolving into peals of laughter before Nathaniel angrily snatched his pants back up and spun around, yanking her across his knee and pinning her down with his trunk of an arm. "What are you doing?"
She wriggled and writhed against him, grasping at and missing his arm several times in the process.
"Just checking something." he replied, tugging down her pants and under things in one swift motion to reveal the tattoo etched into her own pale skin with a smile. "Laugh it up, Elissa, because you've got one too."
"What? No I don't! Zevran wouldn't dare!" Elissa hissed, screeching when he slapped his palm right against it before freeing her to stand. She glared at him as she rushed over to the nearby mirror to check for herself, fuming when there in the middle of Nathaniel's reddening palm print was her own black griffon. "Bloody cocksu… I'll kill him when I get out of here!"
"I'll be happy to help. While you may be content to recolor your entire body with them, I have no desire to cover myself in ink." Nathaniel grumbled, watching Elissa's eyes roll at his comment.
"One tattoo is hardly covering your body in them." she snorted, pacing over to the corner desk to dig through the food and drink they'd been rationed. "I think your perfect skin is safe, Nathaniel."
"That is my second tattoo, actually."he replied, smiling as curiosity crept in to replace the irritation in her eyes.
"I didn't see any tattoos when…" Elissa started, stopping when she realized what she'd be admitting if she went any further.
"When you were getting a good look in while I slept?" Nathaniel laughed, smiling when she blushed lightly and turned back to sorting out their dinner. "Then you just didn't look hard enough. Though now I do wonder what you were looking at to miss something so obvious."
"I don't believe you. If there was a tattoo I would have seen it." she said, divvying up the bread, cheese and meat and looking to see how much fruit they'd been given.
"Here, look." he insisted, coming to stand behind her and waiting for her to turn around to see where he'd pulled his shirt aside.
"I still don't see anything, and there is distinctly more light in here than there was in your bedchamber that night." Elissa sighed, pursing her lips and staring up at him in challenge.
"Look closer." Nathaniel encouraged, tapping his finger over the spot where it lay etched into his skin.
Elissa leaned forward, her warm breath ghosting over his chest as she tried to make out the lines beneath his dark hair.
"I can see something but I'd likely have to shave you down in order to make out what it is." she muttered, pulling back to meet his eyes with a smirk.
"Yes, I had distinctly less chest hair when I got it – but I'm not an ape now, Elissa. It's perfectly visible, you just don't want to see it." he replied, watching the spark of temper light in her eyes at his challenge.
She reached out then, fingers parting the scattering of hair there until she could make out the crest etched into the flesh above his heart.
"These are laurel branches!" Elissa gasped, eyes darting up to his in surprise. "But that's Cousland heraldry? Why would you..?"
"Because I belong to you, Elissa." Nathaniel replied, reaching up to cover her fingers with his own hand – pressing them into the bare skin of his chest where she could feel his heart beating. "I knew that even then."
"Leave it be, Nathaniel." she warned, tugging her hand away as though she'd been burned. "We've no idea how long we're stuck in here together. It's really best to not instigate so early."
"I'm not trying to instigate anything. I'm simply telling you the truth." he retorted, watching her tear apart several bunches of grapes in her fury.
"Yes, well your truth is a little one sided, as always." Elissa grumbled, tossing the last of the fruit onto the plates and shoving one into his hand before snatching up one of the ale bottles and stomping away. "It's all look how devoted I am and see how I've stayed true to you. You always manage to gloss over the part where you left me."
"Really? You're really going to make me go through this again?" Nathaniel hissed, taking the other bottle and settling down on the opposite side of the table she'd already sat down at.
"Yes. And I'll make you go through it as many times as it takes for you to understand that I cannot simply erase ten years because you wish it to be so!" she replied, slamming down her fists on the table hard enough to shoot a grape rolling into the floor.
"I know that!" he retorted, folding his arms and glaring at her.
"Do you? Because you seem to think I should be able to." Elissa snapped, glaring back at him. "Would it be easier if I had never met Alistair? Certainly. But I did! And I fell in love with the man. I'm sorry, Nathaniel. I cannot change that, no matter how much you might want me to. It's how things are and you're just going to have to accept it. Let me go. Find someone else. For Maker's sake, move on! I do not begrudge you the happiness you seem to begrudge me."
"I do not begrudge you happiness, Elissa. I think this happiness you think you've secured for yourself is a lie, and I refuse to be a part of it." Nathaniel replied, watching as she threaded her fingers up into her hair and sighed in her frustration. "If you want me to walk away, to just give up and let you go – then you're going to have to look me in the eyes and tell me, truthfully, that there is nothing left between us. That you feel nothing for me."
Elissa sat there, saying nothing as minute after minute went by.
"You can't do it, can you? Because you know it'd be a lie – and you may be able to hide the truth from your King, but you can't hide from me." he sneered, watching her face and knowing she could not deny him this. "Then I cannot and I will not walk away. We are meant to be together, Elissa. It's only a matter of time. You know it, and I know it."
She stood up from the table then, snatching the bottle of ale in her furious hand and stalking off to the farthest corner of the room to finish it off.
"What are you doing?" Elissa asked, speaking to him for the first time in hours from her perch in the narrow window.
"Going to sleep." Nathaniel replied, folding back the blankets on the bed with a yawn.
"Not there you're not." she snipped, dropping down from the window and walking over to tug on the top blanket. "I'll give you this blanket, you can have the floor or the chair."
"The floor is made of stone, Elissa, and even if I pulled all three of these chairs together they still wouldn't hold me, not to mention they've got no arms!" he grumbled, resolutely holding to his side of the cloth gripped between them. "I'm perfectly willing to share the bed with you, but if you've a problem with that then I suggest you take the blanket and find somewhere else to sleep."
"I'm not sharing a bed with you, Nathaniel!" Elissa groused, snapping the blanket down to the mattress in frustration. "I can't trust you to behave."
"Can't trust me to…" Nathaniel started, words trailing off as he tried to settle his temper back down. "Look, believe me when I say that I have no inclination to attempt anything with you at the moment. I'm already exhausted from your earlier histrionics and I…"
"My histrionics!" she hissed, leaning forward to glare at him. "It was you who started that argument, Nathaniel. I asked you several times not to prod at me as we both knew where it would lead, but as usual, you ignored those requests in favor of your own ego."
"Yes, well, my ego is tired and looking forward to sleeping in this bed, so I suggest you make up your mind and get in or let go, sweetheart!" he snipped, smirking at her as he tugged hard at the blankets.
"Sweetheart!? You are an insufferable prick, Nathaniel Howe!" Elissa retorted, yanking the blankets back in her direction as her temper rose.
"And you're an obstinate bitch, Elissa Cousland!" Nathaniel snipped back, yanking hard enough to send her staggering forward against the bed.
"I am a lady, and as you are a gentleman – or at least you were raised to be such, one would think you'd have the decorum to offer the bed to me without it having to be such a battle!" she said, sniffing arrogantly as she changed her tactics, seeing that brute force clearly wasn't working.
"A lady! Pfft." he snorted, rolling his eyes at her. "Funny how that title is little more than an insult to you unless you wish to use it to your advantage."
"Be that as it may…" Elissa said, a dangerous amount of venom creeping into her tone as she glared at him through lowered lids. "Proper etiquette dictates that you…"
"Proper etiquette can kiss my griffon tattooed ass for all I care!" Nathaniel hissed, feeling the heat of his own temper rising though he'd tried to prevent it. "I am sleeping in this bed, Elissa. You may as well accept it."
"You've made me do this! You remember that!" she retorted, folding her arms and leveling her most compelling stare in his direction. "As Warden-Commander I order you to give me this bed."
"You're going to pull rank on me?" he yelled, shoving the bed forward hard enough to bang the frame painfully against her shins. "You know what, sod it. If this is the decision that sends me packing then so be it. I will not give you this bed simply because you demand it of me. I have been more than reasonable in offering to share, it is you causing the problem this time." Elissa seethed across from him, bending down to rub at her shin where the bed had slammed into it. "This would not even be an issue if it were anyone else but me!"
"You're right, it wouldn't." Elissa snipped, standing up again. "I can't trust you any more, and that's of your own doing!'
"It probably is, but do we really have to argue about it tonight?" Nathaniel moaned, pacing as he threaded his fingers into his hair before turning back to her. "Honestly, Elissa, I'm just bloody tired of it all – and if we have to make it through another day trapped in here without killing each other, then we both need to get some sleep."
She stared at him as he paced, realizing he was right. Without a decent night's sleep, they were likely to draw blood in the morning.
"Fine! But anything that touches me comes off the second I get a sword in my hand again!" she warned, tugging back the blankets angrily.
"Noted." he replied, pulling them back on his side and moving to take off his shirt.
"Oh no you don't!" Elissa snipped, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You'll be sleeping fully clothed in this bed! I'll have none of those shenanigans!"
"Oh come on! At least let me take my shirt off. If you're going to make me sleep like this, I may as well sleep in the chairs!" Nathaniel whined, dropping his arms down like a frustrated child.
"Take off your shirt then, but the pants stay on!" she instructed, pinning a watchful eye to him to make sure he did as she asked before turning her attention back to her own preparations.
She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling loose the tie on the end and detangling her curls as best she could manage without access to a brush. While she worked, Nathaniel tended to the fire – tossing another log in to make sure it would last the night while still allowing the room to stay dark enough for sleep to come easy. When he turned around, Elissa was sliding her pants down her legs and stepping out of them.
"I don't see how that's fair!" he complained, settling himself down onto his side of the bed with a glare over at her.
"Would you rather I take off my shirt?" Elissa asked, folding her pants neatly and settling them on the bedside table before reaching under her shirt to release the ties of her breast band. "I compromised for you, now you can compromise for me."
"That is not a compromise…" Nathaniel grumbled, trying not to see as she slid it out one sleeve and tossed it atop her pants before turning back to crawl in on the other side.
"If you had to wear one of those horrible things, I'd be happy to allow you to sleep without it." she snorted, lying down and rolling so that her back faced him after making sure that he had plenty of room to get comfortable without needing to invade her personal space. "Being that you don't, I guess you'll just have to accept that I'm not wearing mine to sleep in. It's distinctly uncomfortable, I assure you."
He huffed at that, but settled himself down to sleep regardless. She felt the bed shift as he rolled to turn his back in her direction, allowing her eyes to flutter shut only once he'd stopped moving about. The silence was blissful and calming, and Elissa could easily have fallen to sleep given a few moments more – but she felt him roll back in her direction and tensed waiting for whatever was to come. Knowing Nathaniel as she did, she knew it wasn't likely to be good.
"Who was Riordan?" he asked, watching her body in the dimming light of the fire for any kind of reaction.
"I'm sorry, what?" Elissa replied, thankful that he could not see the surprise she was certain etched itself into her features at the mention of that name. She'd expected any number of things to come out of him, but that name was certainly not one of them.
"Don't play coy, Elissa. You heard me just fine." Nathaniel snorted, and she could feel the bed shift again as he leaned up on an elbow to watch her.
"He is, h-he was a Senior Warden from Jadar. We found him in your father's dungeons during The Blight." she answered, fighting to keep any sign of discomfort out of her voice lest he jump on it like the weakness it was. "He was killed in the battle against the Archdemon."
"How did he die?" he pressed, listening to the slow intake of her breath in response to that query and knowing that she was not as unfazed by his loss as The King seemed to believe her to be.
"He, fell we think…" Elissa responded, shifting her arms around to chew at her thumb as she remembered Zevran telling her about the condition of his body when she'd awoken and asked if he'd been found. "When we reached the top of Fort Drakon, one of the Archdemon's wings was shredded. We believe that he was attempting to ground it when it must have taken flight and…" she couldn't say anymore, it was too painful to think on the memory of his life bleeding out of her through the connection within their blood, and so she rolled to Nathaniel in her frustration. "Why are you asking me these things? Where did you even hear that name?"
"Your King seemed to find us… similar…" Nathaniel answered, his words carefully chosen as he did not intend to goad her too much with his inquiry – he simply wanted her to be aware that he knew her secret, and that her picture perfect Alistair had shared it with him. "He seemed to believe you were playing dress-up with me, having put me in the man's armor and all."
"Dress-up?" she snorted, rolling her eyes as she pressed up on her elbows and craned her neck in his direction. "Alistair would never have used those words."
He could see she was just as frustrated with the King's decision to share information that was not his to give as she was with him for having brought it up.
"Believe what you want." he replied, shifting to tuck his own arms behind his head as he evaluated her calculated response.
She watched him a few moments longer, attempting to decipher his goal with this particular line of conversation but came up with nothing. Whatever he could have shown her was well hidden behind the silver pools of his eyes.
"It was perfectly good armor. Riordan had it crafted using some of the drake scale I had collected prior to the Battle of Denerim, but Master Wade got so far behind that he didn't get it completed before he…" Nathaniel watched something shift in her eyes again before she shook it off, falling back against the pillow and rolling away from him. "It was a perfectly good, unused suit of armor and it fits you just fine. I don't see why this is an issue."
"It's not an issue, at least not for me." Nathaniel admitted, realizing the truth in those words even as he spoke them.
That the man was dead, that he had been – if the King was correct – merely a substitute for himself, that it was a onetime occurrence that had apparently been a cause of great strife between Elissa and her potential husband to be; all these things combined to make Nathaniel much less disturbed by her having taken the man to her bed than he might have otherwise been.
"It does, however, appear to be a sore spot for The King." Nathaniel continued, listening to her breathing hitch for a moment before she forced it to even out once again.
"What do you want me to say, Nathaniel?" Elissa asked, rolling to him with a long distraught sigh. "That he was my lover? That I went to his bed thinking if I was to die that I wanted one night, just one night with you before I surrendered myself over into the arms of The Fade? That I immediately regretted it once the act was completed because he was better than that, and I should have been – and that, no matter how much he might have looked like you, he wasn't you and it broke me to think about that in the aftermath of what I'd done?" she watched his eyes carefully, noting that he'd shut off anything that might have been visible to her again as soon as she'd turned in his direction. "I damaged something that was good and right and so important to me for an illusion. A falsehood I allowed myself to believe so that I could finally make peace with your ghost. But you haunted me still. And now you're here, and it's so much worse because I look at you and I see your undoing, and my own. We will consume each other until there is nothing left of either of us. I know that you don't want to see it, that you don't want to hear my words… but I… I know things you do not, Nathaniel. We do not get the happy ending you imagine in your dreams. We aren't meant to."
"How is it you can know the future?" he growled, sitting up to challenge her – frustrated at her cryptic fortune teller pronouncements that said nothing but hinted at so many things. "Is this some special Warden power you have? One that came along with your ability to toxify your own blood?"
"I'm done talking for the night." she replied, rolling over and trying to shut him out as she knew him well enough to know he'd never simply accept that.
"Well I'm not." Nathaniel said, starting to reach out for her before the venomous look in her eyes as she rolled back to him made him snap his fingers back in fear.
"Then talk to yourself if you are so inclined!" Elissa snapped, eyes flitting angrily down to his hand and back to his face with just enough force to make him fear she would indeed cut off his hand without saying a word. "I will speak of this no more. I am tired, just as you claimed to be tired. Now go to sleep!"
She rolled over then, snatching the blankets up over her shoulders and leaving Nathaniel half uncovered before he wrestled enough of them back to tuck himself in fuming for the night. Tomorrow promised to be an equally long day.
When Nathaniel woke to the first rays of sun coming in through the small window beside him, he was only half surprised to look down and find Elissa curled against his chest. The long fingers of her hand splayed out over his heart while she slumbered away somewhere in The Fade. The bed wasn't all that large, and one of them was bound to cross their predetermined boundaries over the course of the evening. He was relieved to find it had not been him to cross the line Elissa had set for them, though he doubted that would matter when she realized where she was.
He shifted slightly, attempting to extract himself without waking her and earning her wrath, but he felt her leg flex against his thigh, holding him in place. It was in that moment, as the blanket shifted down with his motion, he realized that somehow over the course of the night Elissa had managed to remove her tunic – which meant she now lay splayed against him clad only in her small clothes.
He cursed the Maker for having been the idiot to insist that they share a bed as he now knew, no matter how he went about waking her, he would be the one to pay for her transgression.
"Elissa…" he whispered, attempting to do as she'd asked and fight down his body's visceral need to explore her bare skin where the warmth of it pressed against him.
She mumbled something and shifted slightly against him, her breath puffing out against his chest as she turned her face inward and pressed a kiss against it, dragging her nails slowly through his chest hair. He fought for control as she pressed further kisses against his neck and then his jaw, knowing she wasn't awake yet. Knowing she had no idea what she was doing and he shouldn't react to it the way he desperately wanted to.
He was doing alright until she shifted further on top of him, trailing her hand down his stomach at an excruciatingly slow pace. He could feel the press of her breasts against him as her hand disappeared underneath the blanket and settled insistently against the one spot that made him lose all control, the passion pulsing in his own blood from whatever she was dreaming of lost within the confines of The Fade.
She squeezed at him, her fingers soft but demanding where they cupped at him through the material of his linen pants and small clothes, and he felt his usual half mast morning rapidly stiffening to full.
"Alistair, what's going on with…" Elissa muttered, a half smile plastered on her sleepy face as she peered up at him through a cascade of sleep mottled curls – though that smile quickly faded as she realized who he was and what she'd been doing. "Nathaniel!" she snatched her hand away, her face burning in embarrassment, and Nathaniel could feel himself sighing in disappointment unintentional though it was. "Oh, Maker… am I… how did I get naked!"
"Don't yell at me! I'd nothing to do with that!" Nathaniel insisted, his body cooling as she scrambled off him and dug about in the blankets to retrieve her errant shirt.
"I thought I said stick to your side of the bed!" she hissed, flipping the shirt over her head so fast it caught in her hair and pulled, wresting a little yelp from her mouth before she finally settled it into place.
"You did see what was just happening, right?" he replied, brow furrowed in irritation both at her tone and his now almost painful reaction to her previous exploration of his body. "It wasn't me who stepped outside those boundaries this time."
"You're right." Elissa sighed, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly to try and even both her temper and her raging hormones. "You're right, I'm sorry I'm just… I was having a dream and now I'm frustrated…"
"I'm pretty frustrated myself…" Nathaniel answered, grumbling as he tried to settle the blankets in a way where they didn't call quite so much attention to the state she'd left him in.
"Ugh… I know. I'm sorry, Nathaniel." she said, rubbing at her face with her hands before turning to peer at him sheepishly. "I didn't mean to do it. I feel bloody awful."
"If you feel so awful, you could always help me to get rid of the problem." he smirked, meaning to come off playful but the rough demanding edge to his voice made it come out as more of a command than a suggestion.
"I don't think so." Elissa huffed, popping up out of the bed in irritation. "If you can't manage to summon up some self control this morning, then I suggest you help yourself to get rid of the problem."
Thinking back on it, he couldn't be sure what it was that pushed him to cross the line. It could have been the years of pent up sexual tension finally refusing to be ignored. It could have been the screeching halt to his morning fantasy brought on by the latest mention of The King's name from her lips. It could have been the arrogant way she stood there blaming him for things that weren't entirely his fault. It could have been the challenge he heard in those words grating on the last frayed thread of his patience. Whatever it was, the damn broke.
"Is that what you want?" Nathaniel asked, something in the tone of his voice turning Elissa back to him wide eyed. "Do you want to watch me relieve myself of this burden you've caused me?"
"I-I never said that… I-I…" she stuttered, fumbling for words as he lazily traced his fingers down his chest and across his stomach dragging her eyes along behind them.
"Not in those words, no." he smirked, toying with the edge of the blankets that pooled at his waist. "But I can see it in your eyes that you're curious. Wondering what I did all those long years to keep myself from losing my mind while I dreamt of pressing into your soft, warm…"
"Stop! Just stop it!" Elissa hissed, taking a few steps closer then realizing that a decrease in the distance between was the last thing she needed.
"Is that really what you want?" Nathaniel asked, watching her swallow heavily as his fingers dipped under the edge of the blanket. "I could give us both a release… I could push you over the edge with me and never even touch you… the same way you did that night with…"
"I didn't know that was happening!" she insisted, fury and desire and a frantic need to be anywhere but here all mixing together into a volatile cocktail within her body - setting every nerve ending on edge.
"On some level you did, you had to!" he spat, feeding off her emotions and no longer trying to block them or restrain himself. "I'd felt everything else, why wouldn't I feel that! You call me callous, you claim all I do is hurt you – but you knew I'd sense something and you just didn't care. Well it's your turn, sweetheart. See if you can block this out."
He slid his hand down then, eyes never leaving hers even for a moment as he reached down to take hold of what she'd set in motion moments before. She turned her face away, almost running to disappear behind the privacy screen set up over near the tub in the far corner. She breathed slowly and tried to focus on blocking him out, but the damage had been done and it was already too late. She could hear the lust tinged noises he was making no matter how hard she tried not to, and in her mind's eye she could easily imagine the feeling of skin on skin as he stroked himself to completion. After that it was near impossible to block out the waves of pleasure radiating out of his body and into her own.
She cursed herself for giving in to her need of him in The Fade and setting them on this disastrous course in the first place, dashing over to the nearest table and willing her legs to stop trembling as she searched for anything she might be able to use to pick the lock. She eventually came across a letter opener, and though she knew it was far too wide she forced herself to try if only to keep her mind off what Nathaniel was doing to himself, and her in the process.
When she bent over to work at the lock, she inadvertently gave Nathaniel an eyeful of her barely covered behind – drawing a rough groan out of him followed by a wave of pleasure that dropped her moaning in response to her knees, losing her hold on the letter opener in the process. It clattered to the floor as she pressed her forehead against the wood and tried very hard to resist the urge to touch herself.
It was then that she realized, the thing she was fighting against was the only one that would end this nightmare. It was his play now, and Nathaniel would draw it out as long as possible, driving her insane with desire until he'd made his point. The only way to take the situation back into her own hands, was to go along with him, and beat him at his own game.
"Maker forgive me…" she whispered, bringing herself to stand on shaking knees and making her way over to lie opposite him on the bed.
Nathaniel had expected her to be furious. He'd expected her to wail and scream and gnash her teeth, and ultimately plead with him until he released his hold on her. What he did not expect was for her to lie down beside him and give herself over to it. He was transfixed at the sight of her, eyes pressed shut as she ran her hands up over her breasts stopping to squeeze at them and send a short sharp moan from between her parted lips.
He had no idea who she was thinking of - him, her King, the long dead Warden she'd used as his stand in one lonely night years before – and as he watched her fingers sliding under the thin cloth of her small clothes, he no longer cared. He lay back then, allowing her pleasure to join and mingle with his own as they both worked themselves closer and closer to the apex of their desire.
Her legs twitched against the mattress, parting even further as though on instinct alone, and giving Nathaniel a good look at the fluids that had spread out against the sheer material of her underthings as one of her fingers disappeared inside the one place he most wanted to be. He moaned then, voice rough and broken as he felt himself pushed over the edge, felt that pressure building at the base of the spine that told him it wouldn't be much longer.
Her back arched with his orgasm, and as the sensation of it spilled over into her body she felt herself cresting into her own, crying out in abandon from the force of it and not knowing in the end whether it had been his release or hers that had hit them with such fury. They collapsed then, sweaty and shaken and far from sated.
She was still breathing heavy when she snapped her hand back out from between her legs and stood up, striding over to grab her pants up off the table and tug them on with immense irritation. Nathaniel was still recovering, and had no idea what to expect from her when she lifted up the chair from the desk near the bed and smashed it hard enough against the door to shake the very foundations of the room.
"Elissa! What are you…" he asked, straightening his sticky clothing as best he could and standing up in his concern before her glare stopped him in his tracks.
"Why can you never just leave well enough alone?" she asked him, eyes haunted. "If you'd done what you promised, if you had even tried to rebuild something like you said you wanted… I think I could have loved you again one day. But now... now... I could kill you with this letter opener if I didn't think I'd end myself in the process!" she picked the dull piece of metal up off the floor and charged at him, shoving him hard back against the wall and pressing the tip of the blade into the exposed flesh of his throat. "I hate you, Nathaniel Howe! I hate everything about you."
"You don't know what you're saying…" Nathaniel insisted, flinching when she pressed the letter opener harder into his throat with those words.
"Why do you insist on doing that? On telling me I don't know what I'm saying… what I'm feeling!" Elissa hissed, glaring at him with seething fury and shoving him one more time before turning away to thread her fingers into her hair. "Just… just stay the fuck away from me…"
Nathaniel started to respond, but he could hear the lock turning – the reaction to the violent breaking of the chair against the door being exactly what Elissa had intended. When the door opened, Zevran was standing on the other side - his face unreadable as he gauged Elissa's mood.
"Who's idea was it?" Elissa hissed, her steady gaze giving the assassin no room to escape.
"It was a group effort, my Warden." Zevran replied, not wanting to name names.
"That's not going to cut it this time, Zev. I want to know who it was." she repeated, taking several steps forward into the elf's personal space and for once he made no move to attempt to diffuse her temper with flirtation.
"The mage conceived the idea, though the perky dwarf and I assisted in its execution." he answered, reading something within her that made him fearful for the first time that he might actually harm one of them in her fury.
"Gather them now. We have things to discuss." Elissa said, waiting for his nod before she disappeared down the hall.
As she walked she let ever bit of her venomous hatred flow freely, a broad smile passing over her face when the angry yells and smashing wood and glass behind her made it clear Nathaniel had received her message.
"See if you can block that out, sweetheart..." she sneered, laughing low in her chest as she rounded the corner and bounded down the stairs beyond.