#also Lydia is in my profile and mobile sidebar

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

Enchanter Come to Me

When Cullen comes to the Tavern one night, Lydia dances and enchants, hoping he will come to her even if she knows he won’t. She hopes to tell him something, something important, though the night may offer more than she initially thought. 

Cullen x Lydia Trevelyan, about 4,000 words. Smut. NSFW. There is some serious lemonade making in this. The piece also talks about his past in Kirkwall, with some first times, oral sex, and sexually confident, lightly dominant Cullen. (With more in the next chapter.) This is part one of two :)

READ ON A03

He’s here.

The Commander doesn’t often habit the Herald’s Rest, so his presence draws attention from many men and women alike. When Lydia first sees him enter she also sees the rush of soldiers rising from the tables with their mead. So sorry Commander, reporting for duty at once sir, yes sir! Cullen, mildly amused, assures them that they are off duty and it’s alright. He’s off duty himself.

He’s never off-duty, Lydia thinks to herself, but indeed he doesn’t wear his armor or mantle—thank the Maker—but a simple red tunic with breeches. He takes a seat by Captain Rylen, one of the only people who can crack his professional façade and make him laugh. Except, of course, for her. Once. Mildly embroiled with a thing often called jealousy, she watches Cullen laugh at something Rylen says.

Once, he laughed at her ridiculous quips that she always used to offer to Josephine when it came to the visiting Orlesian nobles, and when they played chess not too long ago in the garden, she saw him smiling from the corner of her eye at her concentrated face before eventually giving up and giggling. He was patient with her novice chess skills, and she’s certain he let her win. He may be obstinate, but he is kind. He always used to ask if she’s alright, if she’s holding up. We asked so much of you, he said once. And when never wondered if you were alright. From Haven, he found her in the snow and carried her home.

She knows. He’ll never talk to her again.

She knows that, so she doesn’t bother. So, unbothered, when the band begins to play, she’s nudges Sera next to her for a dance, making sure she’s in his line of sight. To the gentle beat of the drum and lute, their hands linked, they make time to the music. She’s thankful for her choice in outfit, as she wears a blue gathered skirt that dances with her, and as she quickens her pace her sleeves drop from her shoulders and her brown hair falls from it’s bun. She’s painted her lips red as well—a favorite shade of blue-toned red that matches both her vibrant blue eyes and light brown skin. When Sera lets go, tired, she finds herself next to Dorian, and he laughs and they dance together. From one companion to the next—Bull, Krem, Cassandra even with some goading after a noise of disgust—Lydia dances. They clap for her, her people who have given their lives for her cause without truly knowing her, but at least on this night, they know she loves to dance. Indeed, she dances with one after the other learning their names—Bevel, Ophelia, Connor, Falia, all until she’s in the arms of a scout named Jim. He can’t move, he’s blocky and his starstruck attitude prevent the concentration he needs in his footwork, but Lydia laughs it off and promises he’s doing well.

“Your ladyship,” he says, far too excited as Lydia is forced to take the lead, “your hair smells like jasmine.”

“My perfume,” she says, the two of them heading into a corner next to the bar. “Oh…please don’t, you’re going to step on my foot…oh I think you should practice more…”

“Pardon. Allow me.”

Jim says it before Lydia can, “oh, Commander, of course,” and wordlessly Lydia take’s Cullen’s hand—his ungloved hand—and he pulls her into his frame just as Maryden begins to sing “Enchanter.” Before she can think this isn’t happening, as she was convinced he wouldn’t speak to her again, she smells the elderflower and oakmoss from his shirt, (a trick his mother taught him to keep clothes fresh, he confided once.) she knows it’s real. It’s him. He has her in his arms.

“I’m afraid I can’t dance,” he says, self-deprecatingly so, and she lets him pull her closer, to where she can feel his beating heart. He’s somewhat right—he’s unsure of his footwork and where he should take them on the floor, but he holds onto her hand, the other on the small of her back, and he keeps his eyes on her, even as the music changes to a softer, melodic lute.

“You’re not bad,” she compliments, a small offering of peace after his own offering. Of course they’ve been pleasant to one another in the War Room or when she comes to his office to discuss the Red Templars, but not since she spoke to him in the garden have they spoken as acquaintances, friends, more.

He thanks her with the slightest of blushes, and they sway together, his heartbeat never truly easing as Maryden sings, enchanter come to me. She apologized in the war room hours after their confrontation, Leliana of all people inspiring her. (“I know you are frustrated. I am too. But…he has been through so much he’d rather forget. Sometimes I think he looks at me and remembers. He cares for his soldiers, and the Inquisition. I believe now is what matters.”) After her apology, he said it was “forgotten,” if not forgiven before he moved on to the Red Templars. He was too business-like after, too cold, and he must have seen how her heart ached.

But she did it all herself. He had such warmth before when he spoke to her. Smiled at her, rare for him, and he wasn’t beyond light teasing when they played chess together. After she confronted him, he erected an icy wall that only cracked after her apology. Even now as they dance, even as his eyes remain fixated on her lips and her eyes, she knows. He doesn’t want to be hurt again.

But why is he dancing with her? Why did he take her into his arms?

The questions ignite a fire, and she can’t take it anymore. “Cullen,” she says, “May we speak elsewhere?”

She plans on speaking outside the tavern, but it’s crowded with soldiers watching a friendly sparring match and she knows she can’t do it there. Before when she confronted him it was in the garden, and she was fully aware that a crowd gathered to watch the Inquisitor’s tongue lashing at the Commander. Inside the hall, she thinks, , but there are people there as well, visiting nobles from Orlais and Ferelden both that she will not let into her world. With no other option, she suggests, “My room?”

There’s apprehension. “is it proper?” he asks, but she assures she wants private, and when Josephine hired only the master masons for Skyhold’s repairs, she asked the Inquisitor’s chamber be just that, a private oasis.

“It’s practically the size of my old quarters that I used to share in the Circle,” Lydia says. “And there’s a fire going. It’ll be warm.”

Still apprehensive, he none the less agrees and follows her up the stairs and into her room. Once inside, she remembers the decanter of sweet wine she swiped from the kitchens with permission from the cook Emmaline (“You need a treat,” she said, one of the few who ever said such thing to her_ and pours both herself and Cullen a glass in a silver goblet. As she heads over and hands him the wine, she decides to crack the unease by way of light jokes, prattling on about actually seeing him out of his armor and mantle. Not only that, but he isn’t working. Surely now griffons will fly across Skyhold. He smirks. “I saw Cole before coming to the Tavern” he says. “He told me he didn’t know the armor came off.”

“Wasn’t sure if I did either.”

He grins. “Well. As you can see….”

Certainly, she sees. His burgundy shirt is open at the collar, the briefest bit of golden hair peeking through. The mantle and heavy plates have hidden his physic, she sees. His arms, forearms and shoulders are broad, typical of many Ferelden men she has met. However, it is his bare hands that she is drawn to. She’s so used to his brown gloves that his bare hands seem too intimate. They too are broad, and his fingers long. There are scratches here and there, but they only make them look more lived.

She offers him to sit on the throw rug near the fire, and he does as Lydia readjusts her gathered blue skirt, setting her wine down on the stone floor next to the furred rug. “Cozy,” he comments, and she agrees. She tells him there is always a fire in her room when she comes home, curtesy of too many kind people who take care of her in that way.

But as she talks more of her room, the blue curtains and blue bed sheets, the four poster from the Marches, and the majestic view outside the open window, she realizes she’s stalling. She has to say what she wants to say. He deserves it.

“Cullen,” she begins, thinking of that life, what he has done and what he will continue to do, not before, because he’s given her no reason to think otherwise. “I wanted to tell you again.”

She observes his face. His amber eyes are trailed to her, kind, but they don’t forget.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, words meaningless, but offering them anyway. “When Hawke told me about Kirkwall and the things that happened, I shouldn’t have asked you like I did.”

He sighs. “Inquisitor—”

“I know I already apologized. But things haven’t been the same between us. I thought we were friends. And...” Her cheeks turn hot. “I ruined it didn’t I?”

“No.”

She feels as though he has inched closer to her, his fingers mere centimeters away from hers. “I wanted to tell you. I planned on it—first thing I was going to do when you came back from Crestwood,” he said. “Truly, I wanted to tell you for so long. But I was worried you’d…think less of me.”

She thought about it for a long time after Hawke told her the truth about him in Crestwood, that it took him ten years to see through Meredith, and he thought less of mages during those ten years. But she never saw that when he was with her, when they talked and laugh. She saw a man who worked too hard to keep his men safe, who poured over reports and missives for hours, and who respected her, a mage. He defended her to Roderick in Haven, after he called her mage, infidel. He respected her. Talking with him, she felt her titles strip away until she was only a woman, only Lydia. In turn, he was her Commander, he was Cullen.

The past mattered, but the present mattered the most.

“Inquisitor—”

“Please, call me Lydia,” she says. “You called me Lydia after you found me in the snow and you carried me home, but you haven’t since. Please.”

He looks into her eyes, the fire crackling. So she pleads once more, “forgive me please.” Then, she adds, “I was wrong before in the garden. You’re not a coward. I should have never called you that.”

“But I was once,” he says with a long, defeated sigh. “I couldn’t see. I was blinded by rage. But I should have seen through Meredith sooner, known I was complicit. Lydia…” He looks away from her eyes, toward the fire. “I…I understand if don’t want anything more than friendship, or even if you don’t want that. I shouldn’t have come to the tavern, but I thought…”

“I liked your hands on me Cullen.”

He meets her eyes, though she is the one that inches closer. “Forgive me,” she beseeches again.

She can’t help but notice how he looks at her painted lips. “Forgiven,” he mutters. “But, forgive me. Not for my past. I know you can’t, no one can. But forgive me for not telling you sooner. I was too afraid you wouldn’t…” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t think you would want me.”

That was something that hurt, she realized moments after she called him a coward and saw his face. She did still want, because she knew who he was then. Her commander, Cullen. It took nearly loosing him to find out, and that hurt most of all.

“From now on, tell me everything,” she whispers. “And I’ll do the same.”

“I can’t stop thinking of you.”

She stares, her heart beating quickly. She has a river of thoughts but she cannot speak, and when he mistakes her silence, he rises from the rug, hurt again.

And Maker she doesn’t want him hurt again.

“I should go,” he says. “I’ve taken too much of your time. I—”

“No.”

She rises and grabs his shoulder. He stops. She knows, she tells him. She has known. She senses it every time before when they were together, knew it when he saw his face fall after she called him a coward in the garden. And she keeps her vow, by telling him the same. She can’t stop thinking of him.

“You knew I’d be there tonight,” she says. “You wanted me in your arms. You came for me.”

The enchanter she was, she came to him too.

He nods. Her hand finding his, he pulls it into his. It is her marked hand he holds. She feels as though she should pull away, and yet his amber eyes speak a different tale. He will not harm her, he will not turn away. And then he presses his lips to her palm, against her mark. One, and then another. Desperate kisses, anguished kisses, kisses that say I need you.

They’re in each other’s arms, and fingers twist through his hair, his hands splayed against her back. He kisses with his whole being, pours every ounce of his soul as he captures her bottom lip and she answers in turn. They pull away, but not completely, their foreheads pressed together.

“Don’t go,” she pleads.

“If I stay longer, people will talk.”

“You care about that?”

She feels his smile against her. “No.”

“Then stay.”

“It’s too soon to stay,” he mutters, though she can see that veneer of a blushing gentleman is disappearing with each gentle rock of her hip against his. He’s hard, already.

It’s thrilling.

“Too soon,” he says again. “Lydia…?”

“Why?”

The question flummoxes him. His bare hand caresses her cheek, warm and gentle.

She reminds him of their recent promise.

“I’ve thought of you since I saw you,” he answers, needy, hungrily. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you since I saw you by the rift. But…you’re the Inquisitor. We’re at war, and you haven’t always seen me in the best light.”

“I don’t care. I want us to be together.”

She speaks it with such desperation, but she knows it’s true for him. She can feel his want pressed against her.

“Lydia…”

“We don’t have to. I understand. Maybe it’s too fast or it’s not proper, but—”

Words she means to say fly away. She loses herself in the tangle of arms and lips, and when he says, “fuck what’s proper,” she soars, she dances, she is, and she exists as a nothing but wanted and hungry woman in the arms of her lover until they are standing at the edge of her bed. She’s not the Inquisitor, she’s Cullen’s lover. The word ignites her, lover. Has she thought of herself, what she had needed during this time? Has he? Fuck the world at war. In her room, they can be each other’s.

Indeed, they dance like they did earlier, but with entirely different steps as they touch, kiss, feel as she leads them backwards to her bed. “Fuck what’s proper,” she says, mirroring his words. “Be rough.”

The words alight him, and yet even though he holds her, she can feel a wall between them erecting.

“Are you sure? Now?” he asks.

“Maker, yes,” she replies.

“We don’t have to. We can be slow.”

“We’ve talked as friends, we’ve argued, we’re back again, here. Cullen, Knight-Captain, Commander, when you were in Kirkwall, did you think of what you wanted? Were you selfish?”

He shakes his head. “Be rough,” she says, “be greedy. Tell me what to do and what you want. I have everything to give.”

“Let me give it back.”

Her fingers twist in his shirt. “Do you know what it’s like, to be the Inquisitor? I’m not a woman to these people…I’m not Lydia. I’m a symbol. I don’t want that with you. I want to be wanted, desired, tasted.” She holds him, and whispers in his ear, “I want it from you.”

“I…I’m scarred,” he tells her, as if he’s ashamed. “You’ll see and—"

She holds his face in her hands, kisses his forehead before he can finish. “I don’t care. I want to see.”

“Lydia—”

She unbuttons her shirt, assuring him it’s alright when he asks what she’s doing. It flutters to the floor, and she gulps before she reaches behind her and tugs down at her breast band. With her breasts free, she lets him see. It’s a jagged scar across her chest, pink from where it healed, and barely touching her left breast. He stares with awe, he stares with something else in his eyes.

“A templar.” she says. “When the Circles fell, I tried to go back home. Ironically, I got this when I was trying to go back to the Circle.”

His fingers lightly ghost over the pinkish mark, against the valley between her breasts, but carefully avoiding them, for now. He traces lightly before he places his hands over her bare hips, and he kisses the mark, grazing his lips over her skin. Her hand wraps around his hair, mussing the waves into curls, keeping him there until he rises to kiss her. They fall against the bed, his body pressed flush against hers. He only pauses his ministrations to kick off his boots, and Lydia does the same, tossing off her flat shoes with a dull thud to the floor. She tosses off her skirt, Cullen helping her until the only thing covering her body is her undergarment. He though, is still covered. When her hands reach to remedy that, he helps her.

She wants to see. She rises when his shirt is gone, skimming his hands over his shoulders and the blonde hair on his chest, kissing the reddish burns from fire, the marks from swords, and then finally, the scar across his lip, rough yet smooth underneath her darting tongue. Their lips meet again, and she settles against the pillows, his body acting as her blanket. He mutters words of how sweet her kisses are, how beautiful she is, and then he grows lewder. He never imagined he’d get to feel her, never thought he’d bury himself inside her.

“More,” she urges, enflamed. “Tell me what you want.”

“Put your hands over your head.”

She obeys with ardor, and his hands skim against her arms, lips following where he touched. He nips her chin and then his warm mouth is over her neck, and even in places where she never thought there should be kisses—underneath her arms, underneath her breasts. He kisses again that scar before he palms her breasts, pinches her nipples lightly and makes her cry out.

“Be loud,” he instructs, husky and low, and slipping her undergarments down. “I have everything to give you.”

He does. He peeks from between her thighs as his tongue darts against her inner thighs. He licks her clit once, and then again before using the pad of his thumb. She could never pleasure herself the way he pleasures her—her hands are too delicate, too unlived. His are strong, and she grabs the other as he slips a finger inside, moves in and out until her thighs quake around him. She shudders with the bliss that his tongue brought, and Maker, he laps her arousal, he kisses her with his arousal still on his lips and tongue.

She could spend the night kissing him, and kissing him only, her hands wrapped around his cheeks, the way he poured his whole being into each press. And yet he rocks against her, and she instinctively allows her hand to travel. He gasps when she caresses his clothed cock, allows her to help him take the off his breeches. He’s warm against the juncture of her thigh, straining as he moves against her thigh to abate himself somewhat.

He looks at her in the eye, breathing heavily and pupils blown wide. She nods. She thinks he meant to be slow, but she’s warm and welcoming from the art of his hands and mouth, and she did tell him, rough. He obeys, as he’s inside all at once, filling her to the brim.

She meant not to cry out, and she succeeded, but her face betrayed her.

“Lydia,” he breathes, exasperated, cradling her face head in his hands, “you’re a virgin.”

A man…Cullen is inside her. That alone thrills. “Not anymore,” she assures.

“I should have known. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she says with a smile, moved by his concern. “I wanted you.”

“Does it hurt?”

He’s remained inside her during their dialogue, and though it never truly hurt—it was more an adjustment to the feel of him inside, a slight burn at the stretch. She shakes her head, and she gasps as he moves, holding onto his arms, squeezing the sinews. She throws her head against the pillow and he rewards her with reverent kisses against her neck and collar, and then again to her lips, catching her sighs of delight.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks as he moves, grounds her to the bed, centers her world from the Inquisition to only the two of them.

“I didn’t want you gentle.”

“I’d prefer to make love to you, not fuck. There’s a difference.”

She plants her feet against the bed. “Oh. Have you fucked before then?”

He smirks, a silent, now Lydia, truly? And she knows the answer. It doesn’t matter, she absolves, as they belong to the moment.

The moment continues, her Commander wrapped in a bliss she’s never seen from him before. “Wrap your legs around me,” he asks, and when she does, she angles her hips just so, to where his feel is deeper, more intense. He asks her to touch herself, he won’t last much longer, and she obeys, sticking her hand between them and rubbing her clit before he decides he’d rather his hand there. He stimulates inside and outside, an intoxicating duet, and her second orgasm comes again with fervor and heat, a rush. She falls when he pulls out, mourns the loss of his cock, but the feelings are brief. His earlier action inspires her to slap his hand away, bring him his end with her hand. Flushed, illuminated by the fire, hair in disarray, golden, and at her mercy, his moan as like music, and he spills onto her belly. A moment and a lifetime together, both ended too soon.

And yet she feels deliciously satisfied, and wanted. Loved.

Her heart still races as his hand rummages through the bedside table, finding a cloth. He lays by her side to clean his spent, and she can’t help but blush—though she obviously knows why he pulled out, she never thought of a man’s seed on her skin before. Romance novels often didn’t touch on that, or the sweat, or the moments between when they re-adjusted positions and spoke. Lydia finds she prefers it their way to the novels.

Eventually, their eyes find each other, and his smile is radiant. He leans by her side and that kiss is the sweetest.

“Don’t you dare talk of going now,” she says to him. “Stay.”

Enchanted, spellbound, he says he will. And she asks again, because she finds she must, do you forgive me?

“You ask me after I’ve been inside you?” he asks, holding back a chuckle. “Lydia, dear. Yes.”

She tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear, and she tells him that the man she is with now, she likes what she sees in more ways than one. He boyishly admits he’s glad of it, also in more ways than one.

“Golden lion,” she mutters. “Beautiful, radiant man.”

“Lion?” he repeats, amused. “Maker…”

She doesn’t ask if that makes her a lioness. Rather, she calls herself an enchanter, and she casts a spell on him, so the night can stretch longer than the hours it usually lasts.

“It’s not over yet,” he tells her.

“No. But I want you to sleep. I have you now not working, so please sleep while you’re here with me. You deserve it. Darling.”

Darling. She likes calling him that, and indeed he has the softest of smiles on his lips as she wraps a blanket around them, kissing his forehead after. Truly, it doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep, and he falls asleep. When he’s asleep, she promises him what she’ll promise come morning: she’ll never hurt him again.

She knows, without a doubt, that the same is true for him.

A/N thanks for reading! If you are familiar with my long fic in Waking Dreams things operate differently there, but I was inspired to explore a different way to write their coming together. thank you for reading!