BioWare owns all but what I made up. : )
I am so SORRY for the fake chapter, I couldn't resist. I have never done a prank like that, and I promise never to do it again, really love you guys, I hope this makes up for my silliness. I will try and get out two chapters on Saturday to make up for it. This is the real chapter, and for Tanith who said I forgot my evil laugh on the fake chapter, MUHAHAHAH-ack-hack-uk. Okay, I am so not good at that, I feel terribly guilty for my prank. And E will confess, I can't even play the evil in DA:O, seriously, I just can't do it. And for those I punked in other countries whose April Fool's Day was over, triple the Mea Culpas, /blush. I would blame the lack of sleep due to staying up late and writing, but I took a two hour nap, and then I decided to do a prank, bah! So it is all on me, /sheepish grin.
So, poor Morrigan – she has now confessed to herself what everyone else had already figured out. Her first love too, and of course how did Fergus take it when she told him he was a nutter? Kai is going have to be a good sister and play Cupid, what wouldn't you do for the people you love? Kai might need to challenge Oghren to a drinking duel before it's all over just to cleanse her mind with beer or hard liquor, whatever it takes. And we still need to introduce our newest member to the rest, that gorgeous, and exotic, little elven bard. Will she ruffle the feathers of the other women? We can all guess how the men might react, and even a few of the women.
And in this chapter a shout out to one of our own FanFic writers own story, Fluid Consciousness's "Stray." If you are reading you will get the joke in my story, and one to Night Hunter MGS for a personal email that I had to use as inspiration. : )
SPOILER STORY: Tonight's shout out goes to Jakia and what has to be one of the best shorts for the new expansion Awakenings. It is called "Letters from the Queen", it will make you laugh and make you cry, and check out the other stories by this author.
Thank you all for your love and support, even when I don't deserve it due to my April Fool's doofery. I do appreciate you all and thanks for adding me to favs and even reviewing the stupid chapter, *hangs head in shame. And thanks to my newest reviewers from lurkers: Felinae Silvestris, and Ladyamesmindy. /HUGS. You are all the best fans, really. And I really love that you all don't hate me.
Hope you all find this chapter was worth the heart attacks and the silliness. : )
Blessings!
Kai watched as Morrigan sank down on the edge of the bed with a stunned and horrified look on her face. It would have been almost comical if not for the real apprehension she was obviously feeling. "So, did you really tell him he that he was insane, round the bend, loop the sodding loo?"
"I not only told him 'tis insanity on his part, but I..." Morrigan got even paler and the spots on her cheeks returned, "I pushed him away, I told him I only intended him as a lover, and if he would not sleep with me, then I would find someone who would." Kai brushed the tears off the witch's cheeks. "I have ruined it then, 'twill never speak to me again, of that I am certain, love makes one a fool!"
"Young lady, you stop that right this instant! I know we don't always get along, in fact we never get along," Wynne practically stomped her foot, "but this is nonsense! You aren't a fool, nor are you weak. You just don't have much experience in dealing with people. I know I haven't been patient with you, and I apologize for it. I think that after running all over Thedas together and knowing your mother and the way she raised you, it is high time that I did." Wynne sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Maker, young people can be so silly. If Fergus really loves you, and he does not strike me as the type to declare such a thing insincerely, then it can be mended again."
"Wynne is right," Kai hugged her, "You may have hurt him, but you have seen how stubborn I am, well, Fergus is far more pigheaded, where do you think I learned it from? We Couslands are made of sterner stuff. If I know him, you will just make him rally and try harder."
"'Implacable,' remember?" Alistair's voice said impishly into her ear.
"Hey, I thought you ran away to play chess," Kai teased him.
"I realized that this was way too interesting, I couldn't stay away," he gave her a mental grin.
"My mother told you to come back and spy because she wants to know what is happening with Fergus, didn't she?" Kai smirked into her own head.
"She threatened to fill my bed with spiders every night," Alistair's voice sounded sheepish.
"How did she find out you don't like spiders?" Kai asked him, in fact Alistair had a thing about spiders since the night at camp when he had made a comment about Morrigan's nose looking just like her mother's, Morrigan of course denied that she and Flemeth looked anything alike. When he insisted that it would be a spot on match in a hundred years or so, the witch had turned into a giant spider and pummeled him to the ground. She'd stood over him with hairy legs, mandibles as big as a man's arm and sharp as a sword dripping venom onto his chest, while eight beady eyes shone malice in every round black orb, he never compared her to Flemeth again.
"It may have come up when I was telling your father, Oren, Cailan, Maric, and Duncan stories about the Blight. Your mother claimed that it was 'men's talk' and was sitting and reading while Oriana did some embroidery, I never thought she was listening in" Alistair's voice sounded chagrined.
"That'll teach you," Kai teased back.
It was Leli's lilting tone that interrupted her conversation with Alistair. "I'm sure Kai can go and talk to him for you." Kai looked up to find the redhead looking at her with those big, wide, watery, blue eyes, Maker how did she do that? Kai called the look "Leliana's puppy dog eyes" and whenever she or Argus gave her that look, Kai couldn't resist.
She huffed out a huge breath, "FINE, ugh, I can't believe I am going to play matchmaker, just no talking about the kissing or his great hands or how good the sex is when you finally have it, EVER!" She waved her hands. Kai couldn't believe she was actually going to do this. This was certainly a karmic payback for her teasing Fergus back in the day when she had Dairren coming to her room before Howe attacked Highever. He teased her that Father was sending her to bed early, and she quipped that she didn't mind as her bed wouldn't be empty. Fergus called her a saucy minx and scandalized Oriana at the time, getting him into trouble with his proper Antivan wife. The Universe was surely laughing at her now.
She got dressed quickly; she wanted to find Fergus and get this over with all due haste. She told her friends to wait in her room for Argus and to please look after the Mabari. Then, she left her living quarters to find a servant who might know where the Teyrn was.
Thunder humper, first it was girl talk, which she wasn't good at, she fought with daggers while other girls played with dolls, for Andraste's sake! And now she was going to have a heart to heart, birds and bees conversation with her brother, of all people. What did she know about courtship or wooing? Joss, her first, had been a fumbling experiment born of teenage hormones and curiosity. Dairren started as a childhood friend, all innocence before he went off to Antiva to university. When he'd shown up in her life, a fully grown man, and all of her feelings for him came crashing in, and his for her, she shamelessly propositioned in their grandfather's study after some flirting in the Atrium, their love finally expressed, they only had the one night before he was due to marrow. Their romance didn't have a lot of time as he was killed by Howe's men in the early hours of the morning. She and Alistair had been too busy running all over Ferelden to do the googly eyed, sicky sweet, courtship and romance thing. Other than the gift of the rose, they hadn't really done any "sparking," as Wynne called it. As for her and Zev, well it had elements of Dairren and Alistair, best friends and a sort of shameless propositioning, if the sex they'd had so far was propositioning at all, more like overheated emotions finding an outlet in hot steamy sex.
Zev would be better at this sort of thing, Zev that was it! Maybe she could get the worldly Antivan to help her with this, after all Zev had more experience with love on both sides of the aisle, so to speak. Kai grabbed one of the servants and asked where her brother was. She then asked the servant to fetch Zevran and have him to meet her in the private family garden where Fergus was.
She made her way to the garden which sat closest to the orchard. Kai should have known he would be there. It was a favorite brooding spot for the Cousland children whenever they were in trouble or life had been unkind or unfair, as life often is. Not only was it a place of comfort but they held Cousland Camaraderie Days there. Both she and Fergus loved the bee hives and enjoyed watching the insects fly about. It had a way of soothing the mind.
She waited outside the garden for Zevran, she didn't want to go in without briefing him first. Zev, being an ex-Crow, was good at picking up on things on the fly, but she felt it was only fair not to let him go in blind on this. Kai wished she was blind – blind drunk, she huffed to herself again.
Zev's voice spoke out behind her, "Whatever can be troubling you, my dear Kaidana, Argus will be all right, so it cannot be that. This would have nothing to do with the deliciously dangerous Morrigan following you up to your rooms with an aura of disquiet, now would it, nor would it have to do with sweet Leliana and the lusciously endowed Wynne following not far behind, hmm?" Zev gave her a sly smile and a wink, "I would surmise that it has to do with the witch and your brother engaging in rather passionate kisses and being together almost every waking moment, no?"
Kai couldn't help but grin back, "You are far too clever and quick, Zev." She explained what happened and complimented Zev on summing up the situation in one try.
"Si, but hitting the target on the first try has saved me more than once." He chuckled at his own joke, "So, you have called me here for moral support, to offer advice? These I will gladly do, but I am not talking to your brother for , my dear friend, got yourself into this by not learning to resist Leliana's big blue eyes." Nug humper, Kai frowned as Zevran laughed at her and walked into the garden, leaving her to trail behind.
They found Fergus sitting on the ground under a tree with the twins napping on a blanket, Kai felt as if her heart were ready to explode with happiness. She went and kissed her brother before settling herself on the blanket, her hands rubbing little round bellies of the sleeping twins. Maker, they seemed bigger, and she had been gone less than a week. They stirred briefly when she touched them but kept on sleeping the deep, boneless slumber that only babies and children managed, Kai envied them. Zev had also sat himself down next to Kai and the twins and occupied himself by plucking blades of grass and peeling them.
It was Fergus who broke the silence first, "I suppose you know about Morrigan and me, little sister," Fergus frowned.
"I know more than I wanted to know, dear brother," Kai smiled at him, "I know you are trying to get into her pants while she's still in them."
"I am doing..." Fergus stopped when he realized Kai was laughing at him, breaking his brooding mood.
"Actually, I know Morrigan has been trying to get you to...well...you know," Kai started to blush.
Zevran started laughing, "You Fereldans, how do you ever pleasure each other if you don't speak to each other about it?"
Kai blushed harder, "I thought you were going to give me moral support, you aren't helping!" She whispered out of the side of her mouth while rolling her eyes, Zev laughed harder.
"Ugh, sod it, she told me you told her that you are in love with her," Kai watched Fergus, "I mean, I knew you found her attractive when you met her after the twins were born. And I've seen you two getting all googly eyed at each other, then there is the snogging in the Great Hall, so, give."
"I never interrogated you about your love life," Fergus growled at her.
Kai held up a finger, "No, you cold-cocked Joss and gave the boy a bloody nose and a black eye, and that was just for kissing me. I was lucky he still helped me lose my...my...anyways." Kai blushed as Zev chuckled and even Fergus gave her a smile. "And you would have put the screws to Dairren, if only as a joke and to make me squirm if you hadn't been sent off to Ostagar that very day." And if he hadn't taken an arrow to the heart, Kai thought. "You never got to meet Alistair, and I suspect you don't ask Zev because he would readily tell you everything and embarrass you far more than it would discomfort him." Kai gave Zev a sideways glance with a smile, "And as I know every expression on that dopey face of yours, I know that you have it bad for her, dear brother. May I ask what you are going to do about it?"
"She already told me to go jump in the lake. So to speak, she obviously doesn't feel the same way. I am hardly one to press a lady or try to make her move in a direction she doesn't want to go. I learned that living with strong willed, independent women, don't push them." Fergus grimaced and looked away, "She made up her mind, I did what I could to gain her favor, and it wasn't enough."
"Really, you can be the most annoying, pigheaded, ugh, Cousland!" Kai felt herself getting frustrated with him.
"Fergus, has Morrigan told you nothing of her childhood, of her mother?" Zevran put a comforting hand on Kai's arm.
"No, I know it pains her and makes her uncomfortable, even if she pretends that it just annoys her when I ask. I know she uses anger and annoyance to cover up vulnerability, there's a sweet little girl in there, I saw her that day she sat by your chair and put her head in your lap, sister." Fergus blushed this time, "That's when I started to fall in love with her. I wanted to untangle that complex creature. But she hasn't been letting me get any closer to the real person in there. Recently she seems to be trying hard to distance herself more, using sex to do it. I won't use her just for pleasure, no matter how much she claims that's all she wants, so, I guess that's that."
"Ah, while there is something to be said for carnal pleasure alone, I agree with you, my friend. I am afraid your sister has converted me to another way of thinking" Zev ran his long fingers up her arm, "I suspect that you could do the same for our witch friend, no?" He grinned, "Kai, I think you need to tell your brother about Morrigan's childhood and her oh-so lovely mother, since Morrigan is ashamed to talk about it. I suspect our lovely, golden eyed friend is afraid you will think less of her if you know the truth, Fergus."
Would Zevran never cease to amaze her, he hit the bull's eye once again. Of course he could know all of this from skulking at the keyhole while she and the others had been talking. He was an assassin after all, Kai chuckled to herself.
She proceeded to tell Fergus everything she knew about Flemeth and explained that the old legends regarding her were true. Flemeth was very, very old. She told him how the ancient abomination used her daughter as bait for the Templars so that Flemeth could lure them in and kill them. She went on to tell him how Flemeth lured Wilder men to the hut and had sex with them in front of Morrigan and then killed them. She told of the childhood prize the witch stole from a carriage and of Flemeth's smashing the mirror that she treasured. Kai told him how Flemeth used to abuse Morrigan, she explained that she'd seen this in the Fade in the Sloth demon's prison for Morrigan. Everything Flemeth did to Morrigan was supposed to make her stronger and teach her that power was the only thing that mattered. She also told him how Flemeth planned to take over Morrigan's body and cast Morrigan's soul out just as she had done to her other daughters, so Flemeth could once again be young. Kai told Fergus how she and her group killed Flemeth-who could turn into a high dragon-killed her to save Morrigan. She finished by explaining that Flemeth was no doubt alive and looking for a way at Morrigan still.
It was this last statement that had Fergus jumping up and pacing, "Her demon mother thinks she can come back and just take her body, casting her out, she'll have to go through me first!"
Zev grinned at Kai and then at Fergus, "Ah, my friend, such passion is wasted on worrying about such a thing. It seems you love the woman in spite of herself, so perhaps you ought to put your passion into more...productive endeavors, no? You should tell her that you won't take 'no,' or in this case just sex, for an answer. Then, I would suggest kissing her breathless so that she cannot argue with you."
"Besides, she admitted to me that she is in love with you," Kai smiled at him.
"She did?" Suddenly Fergus's face broke into a brilliant grin.
"In front of witnesses, no less, so don't let her convince you otherwise. She should be in my room tending Argus, brother dear, i you are wondering where to look." Kai laughed as Fergus spun on his heel and started to leave the garden. Then she had a thought that made her groan, "HEY, don't even think of having sex in our room, especially not on the bed, Fergus!" Kai yelled at his retreating back, "Do you think he heard me?" Kai asked Zev worriedly.
"I wouldn't bet on it, my dear Kaidana," Zev snickered at her.