BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
So our Antivan finally got to confront his past and grieve for what it was, and what it was not. A little therapeutic lovin' doesn't hurt either now does it, especially not when I had teased you all so long with a Zev/Kai hook up. Which from your reviews I did a good job with, and for which I am extremely relieved. I was worried that you would all wonder where I was going with that, taking our slick, controlled, calm assassin down that path. I'm glad it was not only believable but enjoyable. It may not be as "WOW," in every chapter, but I will strive to continue to keep it entertaining, and of course have more few more of those "WOW" moments, I think I have a few up my sleeve to get you with still. : )
As always, please keep the reviews coming, and not only for the author's ego gratification fix, to which I admit I am addicted. But your reviews really do help me write the story. Sometimes something like a simple sentence you give me gives me an idea. And I love when you tell me actual ideas you've had. Several of you have all gotten shout outs rightly deserved for your contributions, which leads me to another shout out for Night Hunter MGS, and our shared love of the movie The Princess Bride. That it just had to be done was inconceivable! : )
You all are so wonderful you are all just incredible fans. And that you think I am amazing, floors me, how did I fool you guys? I can't thank you all enough for making this, my first fanfic ever, such a fun and rewarding experience. Big hugs from me and Kai! : )
Blessings!
Kai woke up with sunlight streaming in the small windows in the bedroom. She had to admit she hadn't slept so well in a long, long time. She rolled over to see the bed empty. Zev must have gotten up early. She was about to just drift off again when she realized the bag he'd been packing, all of his papers, and the gloves were gone. The table was empty of anything that had been sitting on it last night. She felt her heart beating painfully in her chest. She leapt up and grabbed the nightshirt and robe still lying across the foot of the bed. She was going to go to the stables and see if Rhia was gone. Maybe the stable master would know how long ago he left, and in what direction. But as she reached for the handle, the door opened, and he walked in with the Fi and Duncan, one in each arm. Zev kicked the door closed with his foot.
"They are almost too big to carry together, my dear Kai, unless you are Sten that is." She almost wanted to laugh with relief, "Kaidana, what is it?" He looked up and must have seen her face and thought something awful had happened. She almost thought something awful had which made her want to laugh in relief.
Instead she felt herself blushing with embarrassment, "Nothing, really." She looked away from his gaze while taking Duncan from him.
She felt his nimble fingers, now freed from holding one babe, grasp her chin and lift it so she would look at him again, "Did you really think I would leave after you saved me from myself, Kaidana?" His voice was soft.
She flushed harder and looked into amber eyes that had been so cold last night; they were nothing but warm now, "Well, you weren't in the steadiest of moods last night. And I may have pushed at you really, really hard. All right I did push you really, really hard. And well..." she let that trail off. And then we had sex, really, really hot sex, which always changes the dynamics of a relationship, she thought to herself. She gave a mental huff, anything else she might say would just sound lame. Well, okay, lamer than what was already coming out of her mouth. She just blushed harder and chewed on her lower lip. Maker, she hadn't been this bungling and inane after she and Alistair had, well...she let that trail off in her own head as well. Wasn't she just a smooth talker today?
"No, Kaidana, you gave me the chance to choose, and I choose you." He leaned forward and effectively stopped her from chewing on her own lip by nibbling on it lightly himself, "More importantly, I choose myself." Those words, and strangely enough his Antivan accent saying her full name, made her heart beat faster and made her warmer in, well, certain places. Oh, and what he was doing to her mouth too. She had never liked the sound of her full name until now, of course that could have had to do with hearing it only when she was in trouble for something when she was growing up.
When he pulled back, he had a cheeky grin on his face, "Provided, of course, Alistair still doesn't mind sharing. You know, I always imagined a three-way with you, but it never involved a dead person. I had imagined it with you and Leli, or you and Isabela, or..." Kai rolled her eyes and laughed while she put a finger to his lips, stopping him. He only kissed her fingertip and tilted Fi up to kiss her on the cheek when she burbled at him, "I thought the little ones might like to have some breakfast from you and maybe some porridge downstairs with us."
He helped her and the twins get situated on the bed, and while she was feeding them, he went to the armoire to get clean nappies and clothes for them, and a tunic and leggings for her, "Since you were fast asleep, my dear Kaidana, I cleaned up our mess from last night. Though I fear we will have to ask Wynne to help repair some rather abused clothing items." Kai blushed, "Ah, I love it when you flush so, reminds me of when you flushed last night."
"Zev" she blushed harder as she yelped his name so loud that it made the twins fuss at the disturbance. Focusing on them gave her a chance to try and get her skin to go back to its normal coloring.
He only gave her a full throated laugh, "My dear, am I not allowed to appreciate your skin's delightful ability to suffuse itself with a rosy glow when embarrassed or..."
"Or when I have intimate relations with a man who is entirely too brazen for his own good" Kai laughed at him, "Yes, you are not allowed in front of the others, I would never get the blush to go away or be able to look them in the eye!"
"My dear Kaidana, you wound me yet again, such rules, and such restrictions! Oh well, if I get to stay with such a goddess, then I will just have to learn how to live with such harsh decrees, I'm sure I can make the most of it." He grinned at her as he came to sit on the bed next to her and gently stroked Duncan's hair.
Kai's smile faded fast, "Zev, about last night, I...I am sorry, I was cruel. I didn't know what else to do, you were not yourself..." He shook his head and put his finger on her lips this time.
"No, you are my only real, true friend, as Taliesin never was, that is all I really needed for me to differentiate between who I thought I was and who I really am. The others are my friends too. If I had only thought about it, I would have realized that they aren't just friends with me because of you, which I had always believed to be the case. They volunteered to rescue me from Vimaro. You told me that, I just did not process it at the time. I had an epiphany last night, my dear Kaidana, thanks to you. I have not been as observant as I should have been about the more important things, and what I did discover, I hid from myself. There were things I blamed myself for that I had no choice in, similar to a certain Warden I know? I didn't think I really was, or even deserved to be, the person you see. But it was truly fortunate that I have a friend that does know me, a friend who apparently saw the real me all along and refused to let me displace him." He smiled at her and stroked her cheek, "And you did what you had to do to make me understand that the person I was not willing to look at was really the person Rinna loved and that you love, the person I really am." It was his turn to blush, which Kai had never seen him do.
She leaned in and rested her forehead against his, "You just needed to forgive yourself and see yourself as we all see you, as I see you." Kai kissed him on the end of his nose.
"You know, I ought to go back to the fortune teller in Antiva and give her a handful of gold. She said I was one of the luckiest people whose palm she had ever read." His smile got wider, "At the time, I thought she was a terrible fraud. She told me, an assassin and a Crow, that I would live to be an old man. I did not pay her enough, I think."
Kai laughed, "I would love to see Antiva, sometime, and maybe we can make a trip of it? But, no whorehouses" she broke in as his mouth opened in response.
"My dear Kaidana, I was only going to say that I know a place that serves the best seafood chowder in all of Antiva. That it happens to be a whorehouse is not really the point, no?" He gave her a sly grin.
"You are just a scoundrel aren't you? Help me with them, and we can go down to the hall and eat." She grinned at him, and he chuckled at her and helped her get the twins changed and dressed. She got herself dressed, placing Fi on one hip. She could see what he meant about carrying both of them. The twins were getting so big.
They made their way down the hallway, through the atrium, and around the corner to the dining hall. The smell of breakfast had her mouth watering and her stomach growling, the buffet table was set up with various food items, including sticky buns again. Everyone was there eating and talking, including Shale, who was finally allowed to move now that her injuries had mostly healed. The sight of the big stone golem made her very happy indeed. All conversation stopped as they walked in, and all eyes turned towards them. Leliana and her brother Fergus both had wide and sly grins, like cats with cream droplets on their whiskers while sitting in the pantry next to broken crockery. Leli looked particularly smug, Kai felt herself turning pink, but she continued to walk across the room and put Fi into her highchair and tie a bib on her. She ignored them all and went to get a bowl of porridge and some sticky buns. Kai handed the bowl of porridge to Fiona who was already occupied with the twins who grinned and winked when she looked at Kai. Kai blushed harder and went back to get her own bowl of porridge sweetened with honey and sprinkled with spices. She grabbed a spoon and sat herself down next to Morrigan.
Though she could still feel their eyes on her, she tried to concentrate on spooning up porridge as Zevran sat next to her. Schooling her face in what she hoped was a neutral mask, she looked up to find her brother smirking at her and trying not to laugh. Sten and Shale wore their usual stoic faces. Oghren too was grinning at her and chuckling. Even Wynne was trying to hide a smile, and Morrigan cocked an eyebrow at her with the slightest of curves to one side of her pretty mouth while she tilted her head. Kai just huffed and kept on eating.
Leliana's lilting, accented voice broke the silence, "You know, the door was locked last night when we tried to bring the twins by. I do hope nothing was wrong." The pretty red head just licked her lips and smiled wider.
"Everything was fine. Zev and I just had to...talk." Kai blushed harder, "I am sorry to have left you with babysitting."
Fiona grinned at Wynne, "Oh, it was no trouble, Wynne and I were happy to keep them while you two talked." Kai groaned inwardly, she didn't even try to look at Zev, afraid that if she did her head would explode with all the blood rushing to it, the blush that would finally kill her. She could feel them all continuing to stare, "Fine, fine, we did more than talk! We..." Kai was interrupted by Oghren.
"Rolled your oats, forged the moaning statue, polished the footstones? Aye, Warden, we guessed that." He winked at her, and Kai rolled her eyes and wanted nothing more than to crawl under the table.
"What, do I have a sign on my forehead, does Zev, Maker, what a bunch of busybodies!" Kai's ears were burning with heat, "You would think my friends would be polite enough not to mention it."
"Aw, but you and Zev make a cute couple, and we couldn't help but notice what a beautiful glow you have this morning, and you look more relaxed." Leli's pretty voice broke in.
"That and the fact that you have a few, um, marks on your neck, dear sister." Fergus grinned harder as Leli smacked him on the arm, "Oh, and the glow of course," then he started laughing.
Shale's gravely and amused voice hid a smile in it, "So, it has succumbed to the painted elf's charms and bedded it? This is inconceivable, as I myself have always found it to be most annoying."
Sten too gave Kai what passed for a smile on his stolid face, "It is inconceivable that Kadan thought we wouldn't notice."
"What is truly inconceivable is that the fool Templar would do something as practical as allowing his lover to seek the pleasures of the flesh with another, 'tis a shock he could be so pragmatic."
"Huh, what is inconceivable is that they haven't been at it like nugs before this, I mean, the Warden isn't bad lookin' for a human." Oghren punctuated his comment with a leer and a bite of sausage.
Zevran's voice was filled with laughter, "You all keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
Kai rolled her eyes and sighed, she resisted the urge to pull her shirt up higher. It would do no good now anyways. She finally braved a look at Zev, who did not look embarrassed in the least. Andraste's flaming knickers, she should have known he wouldn't be which left her as the only target for their combined amusement.
She was just about to get up and leave in a huff when her daughter flung porridge, hitting Sten right between the eyes. They all turned to see how the giant Qunari would take it. He simply wiped his face off with a napkin, reached out and tickled her with a big finger, eliciting a giggle from her. Fi and Duncan just loved Sten, and Kai suspected he loved them back, not that he would have admitted it.
It was just the outlet for her embarrassment that she needed, "You know Sten, you looked good with that oatmeal on your face, I think Fi had the right idea. Some of you need to wear it too." Kai laughed and flung her own spoonful catching her brother Fergus in the side of the head, "In fact I think you all need some." And Kai started flinging more at all the others. Fergus flung his scrambled eggs at her, soon, everyone was circling around the room trying to get more ammunition or keeping each other from same, all the while ducking and bobbing and trying to avoid being hit. Even Shale joined in and picked up the whole big kettle of porridge and held it up to throw at Kai.
"Now Shale, you don't want to fling that whole thing, it wouldn't be fair after all." Kai held her hands up in a placating gesture. She watched Shale's stony face grin wide, and she flung the contents of the pot forward. Kai, her rogue instincts taking over, ducked, the oatmeal arced out over her head and behind her.
When Kai turned to see where it had landed, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. It hit Sten full on. He was covered head to toe with gruel. It ran down his immobile face and dripped off his high brow bone and the end of his nose, his face was completely still. Kai put a hand on her lips to try and stop the giggles which were already escaping. He looked at her and then he grabbed her up and started wiping handfuls off himself and rubbing it in her hair and face while she squealed and laughed, "Sten, put me down, you're supposed to throw it, not capture someone and rub it all over them!"
"If I am to be covered in this, is it not also allowed cover the enemy, though the rules of this war exercise were not explained to me, I thought that was the goal, was it not Kadan? There were no rules that said how one had to cover the enemy in food." Kai could only laugh harder and nod her head, he had her there. Kai took a look around the room, Fiona, Wynne, and the twins were nowhere to be seen. The dining hall was a complete and utter mess, food was everywhere. All of her compatriots, save Argus who had been under the table the whole time, were covered in various food items, even Morrigan. Kai was pleased to see her sister looking not annoyed or angry, but amused as she tenderly wiped off the jam covering Fergus's face. Argus was busy licking up all the food he could reach off of chairs or the floor, even the others.
Suddenly, she was hit with an overwhelming love for all of them, her family, Maker, she was so lucky. And she found she didn't even mind them teasing her about her and Zev, in fact, it made her love them more. It showed they cared about her too. Making love and a food fight had served to help her heal from everything that had happened since Alistair's death, culminating in Erys's treachery.
She looked down and realized she still had a sticky bun in her hand. She took a bite and smacked Sten in the forehead with it causing him to drop her in surprise as she made a break for the door, laughing. She darted around the corner making her way to Highever Lake. She was going to get all this food off, and then get a bath. Then, she was going to get a bag of coins together for the servants as a bonus for having to clean up the mess she started, she grinned, it would need to be a very big bonus.