#felassan is a bit hard to write we just have some lines from one book and one game asdfkglh

[lafaiette]

@emmg I have something a bit sad for you 🫠

“You’re pitiful,” the statue continued, his voice filled with more anger and contempt. “I should have never followed you. I should have seen you for what you really were and left you to rot! You…”

“I’m sorry for your death, lethallin,” Scarlet interrupted it, raising her voice a little to drown out the regret’s grating one. “And Solas is sorry, too.”

“Being sorry won’t absolve him.”

“What is he supposed to do, then? Do you want him to wallow in misery and sorrow for all eternity? Would that be a fitting punishment?”

She glared at the statue, at what it represented. It was a trap, perfectly conceived by the regret prison, Solas’ magicks turning the Fade into the most efficient of weapons.

“Or would you perhaps want to see him dead by his own hand, killing himself to pay for everything?”

“That’s the easy way out,” the statue spat, glaring at her in return. Unlike Varric’s, Felassan’s regret had no problems addressing her directly. It spoke to her, reacted to her, almost as if she were Solas, or as if she shared his same faults and crimes.

Was the prison changing tactics to make things even harder for Solas? Was that even possible? She would need to ask him later.

Give my yalls WIPs

@heylittleriotact @adinfernumadinfinitum @jainydoe @lafaiette @thessaralka

Also literally everyone else and pls tag me, I’m in a rut and need inspiration lmfao

[pikapeppa]

Felassan/f!Lavellan smut: Burn

Chapter 10 of The Love That Grows From Violence is up on AO3! In which Felassan and Tamaris get... intimate. 👀

Featuring a beautiful sketch from the previous chapter by @lethendralis-paints​! I AM HONOURED AND SPOILED BY HER ALWAYS. 😭❤😭❤❤❤

~6600 words; read on AO3 instead.

Tamaris knocked on Felassan’s door. 

“Come in,” he called. 

She opened the door and sidled into his room. Like hers, it was lit only by the alchemical lamp on the bedside table, and Felassan was in bed with a book in his hands. The flickering lamp cast half of his lounging body in shadows, but the dim quixotic light was enough for her to see that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. 

A flush of heat pulsed between her legs. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, and Felassan raised an eyebrow. 

“To what do I owe this interruption?” he said, and he tapped the book. “I was in the middle of some extremely important reading.”

He was reading Swords and Shields. Tamaris would have laughed if she wasn’t feeling so nervous. 

She took a deep breath for courage. “I want you to fuck me,” she said.

His eyebrows leapt up, and a smile bloomed across his handsome face. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I want you to fuck me,” she said in the steadiest voice she could manage.

If possible, his grin widened even further. “And I thought I’d lost my ability to seduce you with any charm.”

She tsked and tried to ignore her burning cheeks. “Shut up. I mean it. I… look, I want to do this with you, but I’m nervous for some stupid reason so I think if we just do it and get it over with, I won’t be so in my head about it.”

Felassan stared at her incredulously for a second. Then he started laughing. 

She glared at him, even though her lips were twitching to smile in response to his mirth. “You’re seriously laughing at me?” she demanded. “I can always go back to my own room, you know.”

“There’s no need for that,” he chortled. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, and Tamaris’s gaze dropped to his bare torso. She shamelessly eyed the lean hardness of his chest and the delicate lines of his abs, and her greedy gaze tracked lower on his body… 

A dizzying surge of excitement filled her chest. His breeches were half-unlaced and he was already hard, and when he started approaching her, she could see glimpses of his shaft as the fabric shifted over his bulging groin.

“Tamaris,” he said drolly.

She dragged her eyes back to his face. “What?” she snapped. 

He laughed – a low, rolling laugh that seemed to fill her blood with fire. “Were you aware that you become especially irritable when you’re aroused?”

She scoffed. “That’s not true.”

He came to a stop right in front of her and rested his palm on the door beside her head. “It’s completely true,” he said. 

She gulped in a breath. He was looming over her again, penning her against the door with nothing more authoritative than one hand beside her head and the wicked look in his eyes, and she felt equally trapped by his imposing bare-chested height and the pulsing strength of her own growing desire.

“It’s not true,” she said distractedly. “You’re wrong.”

He smirked and slowly lowered his face to hers. “Do you wish to argue about this, or do you wish for me to fuck you?” he murmured. “The choice is yours.” 

His blunt words sent a lance of heat straight through her body. She arched her spine and lifted her chin, and Felassan smiled. “A fine choice, avise,” he murmured, and he kissed her. 

This time, he didn’t hold back or tease. He licked her lips to coax them open, and before Tamaris could do more than whimper and grab his hip with her one hand, his tongue was stroking hers as he crowded her against the door, and his knee was edging her legs apart.

He clasped her neck in his palms and pressed his body to hers, and Tamaris gasped into his mouth and dug her nails into his hip. The hardness of his shaft was pressing into her belly, and his thigh was rubbing against her groin with the exact amount of pressure to rile her up without giving her any relief, and all the while, he was kissing her in that devastatingly careful way – like he was really savouring the taste of her mouth and the feel of her tongue as it twined with his own.

He curled his hips toward her and groaned into her mouth, and Tamaris shivered in anticipation. He already sounded so pleasured even though his cock was just riding against her still-clothed belly. If he already sounded this enraptured from just a little bit of friction, what kinds of beautiful sounds would he make when he was actually inside of her?

He gently tugged her lower lip between his own and slid his palms from her neck down to her breasts, and Tamaris arched into his hands with a gasp. “Fuck,” she whined, and she pulled eagerly on his hip. “Felassan, touch me…”

He released her breasts and hastily gathered the hem of her shirt in his hands, and Tamaris raised her arms so he could pull the shirt off. He tossed it aside and molded his palms over her breasts once more, and she gasped blissfully at the treasured feel of skin-on-skin. 

Felassan kissed her again and rocked his groin against her belly, and she whimpered against his lips; his cock had worked its way free of his unlaced breeches to slide against her bare belly, and the feel of him hot and hard against her skin only made her more desperate. 

She grabbed his shoulder and twisted her hips toward him, and he immediately understood her meaning: he broke their kiss and lifted her up, and a second later he was setting her on the writing desk and peeling her leggings and smallclothes down. 

She panted eagerly and stared at his cock as he stripped her. “You were being serious about that no-underwear crack then, huh?”

He dropped her clothes on the floor and grinned. “I am never more serious than when I’m talking about wearing no underwear.”

She laughed. “You’re so stupid–”

He cut her off with another impassioned kiss, and Tamaris happily ceded to the mastery of his mouth. His kisses shifted in quality from delicate to dirty in an ebb and flow of gorgeous sensation: he would delicately trace her lips with the tip of his tongue, then take her lips in a hard kiss with his tongue filling her mouth, and every varied movement of his lips gave her the impression that he was doing everything he could to taste every variety of kiss that two people could possibly share. 

It was almost unbearably erotic. Even if he wasn’t doing anything else but kiss her, even if his thumb wasn’t teasing her nipple while his other hand skimmed along the inside of her thigh toward the pulse point at the apex of her legs, she would still be just as wet and eager as she was right now. 

She pressed her chest toward him and pleadingly petted his neck. Then Felassan pulled away from her lips and stroked her shortened left arm. “Are you all right without your metal arm?” he asked. 

“Why?” she panted. “Do you want me to put it on?”

“No, of course not. I – unless you want to,” he added cautiously. “I just wondered if you might feel strange getting intimate without your other arm.”

“No, it’s fine,” she assured him. “I’m used to sex without my left arm.”

His eyes widened slightly. “You are?”

“Yes,” she said. She gave him a funny look. “I’ve had sex since I lost it, you know.”

“You have?” he said.

She stared at him, then realized why he was so surprised. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I was – I had a thing with the Iron Bull for a while after Solas left the Inquisition. It continued on for a month or two after I lost my arm.” She shrugged and dropped her gaze to her stunted left arm. “It was good practice in rebalancing myself before I got the prosthetic.”

Felassan was didn’t reply. When Tamaris looked up at him once more, his face was wreathed in an incredulous smile.

She wrinkled her nose. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“I don’t quite know where to start,” he said. “Perhaps with you failing to tell me you had an affair with a qunari warrior. That must have been a good way to get Fen’Harel off your mind.”

She huffed and awkwardly scratched her neck. “Something like that,” she said ruefully. The driving force of Bull’s huge body had been a pretty effective distraction. 

Felassan laughed, and Tamaris glared at him. “Are you seriously laughing at me?”

“Not at all,” he said. “If anything, I am laughing at myself. I thought the standard I’d be held to was the Dread Wolf, and now it turns out that there was a qunari lover I was unaware of. Now I truly feel inadequate.”

He was grinning, and his eyes were dancing with heat and humour. Tamaris rolled her eyes. “Shut the fuck up. You’re not inadequate.”

“You can’t yet determine that,” he said. “I’ll have to reconsider my technique now. Maybe I’ll ask Varric to find some props–”

Tamaris lunged forward and nipped his chest with her teeth, and he yelped. “That hurt!” he exclaimed.

“Good,” she said vindictively. “Then maybe you’ll shut up.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” he replied. He stepped closer to the desk and took her chin in a gentle grip. “My question now is, do you?”

His voice was rough, and the growly sound of it instantly restored the impatient pulse between her legs. “Do I like what?” she said breathlessly. 

“This,” he said. He turned her head to the side and nipped her neck. 

She gasped, and Felassan let out a sly little laugh. “Punishment is hardly effective when you enjoy it, you know.”

She burst out a little laugh. “Fuck’s sake, do you ever stop… talking…” She trailed off with a blissful sigh; he was gently rolling her nipple between his fingers, and his other hand was sliding up her thigh again. When his thumb grazed the slickness between her legs, she dropped her head back against the wall with a moan.

Felassan exhaled hard, then leaned over her and pressed his teeth to her exposed throat, and Tamaris gasped and jerked her hips. Felassan was panting already even though she hadn’t touched him. His breath was a torrid breeze against her skin as he left a trail of kisses from her throat down her sternum, and he moaned greedily when he took her nipple in his mouth. 

Tamaris gripped the desk for support and widened her legs. His thumb was still just teasing her folds, slipping slowly along the slick length of her sex while he suckled her breast, and when he pressed his teeth into her nipple, she arched her back in bliss. 

“Fuck,” she moaned, and she slid her fingers into his still-bound hair. Then he suddenly released her breast.

He sat heavily on the writing desk’s chair and pushed her thighs apart, and she stared stupidly at him. His ears and cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wide as they roamed over the wetness between her legs, and when he lifted his gaze to her face, her belly jolted: his eyes were glowing faintly, and he looked just as stupified as she felt.

“I think I was right,” he said. “You will be the sweetest thing I’ll taste since I was cured.”

His words triggered a rush of anticipated pleasure between her legs, and she huffed. “You’re so full of shit.” 

“I mean it,” he said seriously. “I might come from your taste alone. Look.” He gestured at his groin.

Her breath stalled in her lungs. Felassan’s cock was rising proudly from his breeches, and there was a trickle of moisture trailing from the tip. 

Fuck fuck fuck, she thought in desperation. She dragged her eyes back up to his face. “Try not to come,” she said. “I want you in my mouth so I can taste that.”

The light in his eyes flared. Then he grinned at her and shook his head. “Veraisa,” he said accusingly. “One thing at a time.” He lowered his head between her legs, and Tamaris tensed in feverish anticipation.

But he didn’t taste her. He skimmed his nose along the inside of her thigh, then sighed happily. “You smell marvelous,” he said. “Ripe like peaches in the middle of summer, though I suspect even they would be put to shame by the scent of your nectar.” 

She whined and wiggled her hips. She couldn’t decide if she wanted him to stop talking and touch her, or to keep saying provocative things that raised the pulse of longing between her legs. “Felassan,” she mewled. 

He darted her a quick smile, then finally lowered his mouth between her legs, and she exhaled in relief. He licked her slowly and thoroughly, laying open-mouthed kisses and careful little laps of his tongue from the lower margins of her sex up toward her clit, and the careful movement of his mouth between her legs was just as hypnotically pleasurable as the kisses he endowed upon her lips. 

She stared unseeingly at the ceiling, mindlessly mired in the pleasure of his mouth between her legs. He drew his tongue in a long smooth caress along the length of her sex, then lifted his face and exhaled a breathy groan. “Fenedhis,” he cursed, and he reached between his legs to squeeze his shaft. 

Tamaris looked at him. “It’s okay,” she said dreamily. “Come if you have to. I’ll make you come again later.”

He shot her a smile, and she noted vaguely that his eyes were even more lambent than before. “I refuse to finish before you,” he said. “I’m many things, and first and foremost is a chivalrous lover.”

She laughed contentedly. She already felt so good, and she hadn’t even come yet. “Wrong,” she said. “You’re first and foremost a brat.”

He chuckled. “That sounds like a challenge. I promise not to be too smug when I prove you terribly wrong.” He lowered his face between her legs once more, but his mouth was more firm and focused this time, and her sense of languid pleasure was soon replaced by a more urgent building of pressure as Felassan’s tongue moved over her clit in a perfect swirling rhythm.

She gasped and clenched her fingers on the desk. His mouth feIt so unbelievably good. It was almost like he was hearing the beat of the pulse in her pussy and matching it with his tongue, and before she even thought it was possible, her climax was collecting and building at the meeting point of her body and his mouth–

He suddenly lifted his face, and her rising climax crumbled apart. Disoriented and frustrated, she wrenched open her eyes and looked at him. “What’s – what’s wrong…?”

She trailed off. His eyes were still feverish and bright, and his fist was tense around the base of his cock, but his lips were curled in a smug little smirk.

“Are you torturing me on purpose?” she demanded. 

He shrugged and grinned. “Call this payback for biting me earlier.”

She gaped at him indignantly. “I’ll – oh, I’ll fucking bite you,” she threatened. She spread her legs wider in the hopes of luring him close, but he only smiled.

“Is that a promise?” he said.

She wilted in exasperation. “Do you want me to bite you or not?” she complained.

He laughed and leaned back in the chair with his hand still wrapped around his cock. “Perhaps I just want to drive you mad.”

“Well, it’s fucking working,” she spat. Fed up and frustrated, she shifted her weight and pressed her fingers between her legs to try and relieve the pressure, but her own fingers didn’t feel nearly as good as his talented mouth.

She whined in frustration as she stroked her own swollen clit. Then Felassan grabbed her wrist. “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “This climax is mine.” 

He sounded rough and feral, and her heart seized with another surge of excitement. “Make me come, then,” she panted. “I dare you.”

He grinned at her – a wicked, lust-filled sort of grin – then sucked her juices from her fingers before releasing her hand and lowering his face between her legs, and she cried out and jerked her hips; his tongue and lips were even more focused than before, and in the space of mere seconds, her foiled orgasm was rising to an even greater height than before. 

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. She was completely fixed on the feeling of his mouth between her legs, the gorgeous buzzing pressure he was fostering with every caress of his lips and every firm stroke of his tongue, the pleasure he was giving her, so much fucking pleasure like she hadn’t felt in far too long–

She suddenly hit her peak. The pulsing pleasure surged viciously from the juncture of her thighs up through her chest and down to her calves, and she arched her spine and cried out in relief. She slid her hand into Felassan’s hair as he continued to lap at her, and when her peak ebbed away, he lifted his head and pulled her fingers from his hair. 

He wiped his mouth roughly on the back of Tamaris’s hand, then stood up. “Get on the bed,” he said, and he pulled her hand.

She slid off of the desk and stumbled slightly; her calves were still trembling from her climax. She grinned at him. “That’s direct of you. What, no crude teasing–?”

He clasped her neck in his hands and interrupted her with a kiss, then started walking her backwards toward the bed, and her belly jolted in surprise; there was something frantic now about the way he was kissing her and the way his hands were moving over her naked body. He was breathing hard between kisses, and his hands were smoothly stroking her back one second then firmly gripping her ass the next. It felt incredible but uncontrolled, and Tamaris tried to gather her wits despite the bliss of his tongue twisting with hers. 

She broke away from his kiss. “Felassan, are you–” 

He moaned and kissed her neck and gently twisted her nipple, and the pleasure abruptly kicked her thoughts aside. He licked her neck and sucked her tender skin until she was gasping, then pushed her back onto the bed, and she stared up at him. 

His eyes were a bright violet glow. His chest was rising and falling erratically, and the head of his cock was still garnished with a glistening drop of moisture. He looked totally dishevelled already, his hair half-free of its tidy ponytail thanks to her eager hand and his breeches half-off of his hips. 

He looked like the embodiment of lust. He looked completely overwhelmed. Tamaris gulped down a breath to try and control her own desire. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” Felassan panted. “Give me a minute. I can’t shame myself.” 

“Shame yourself?” she said.

He let out a little laugh and tugged his ear. “I’m fairly certain I’ll come the moment I enter you.”

She tsked at him. “Stop worrying about that. Come here.” She shifted onto her knees and gestured for him to approach the bed. 

He padded closer. When he was standing right at the foot of the bed, she bent over and shoved his breeches down with her right hand.

She lowered her weight onto her shortened arm and grabbed his shaft, then greedily licked the moisture from his cock, and Felassan grabbed her shoulder. “Tamaris,” he gasped.

She looked up at him. “Can I suck your cock?”

He burst out a giddy little laugh and slid his hand into the hair at her nape. “In no world or time would I ever say no to that offer from the likes of you.”

She snorted a laugh. “All you had to say was yes,” she said, and she took his cock in her mouth. 

He groaned and tightened his fingers in her hair, and Tamaris closed her eyes as she took his length deep into her throat. He was already pumping his hips in time with the rhythm of her mouth, moaning and panting with every thrust, and Tamaris revelled in how vocal he was. Even beyond how arousing it was to hear the pleasure in his voice, there was something oddly comforting about the sounds he was making. His every moan was an obvious reminder of how much he was enjoying the pull of her lips and heat of her throat, and there was something almost… reassuring about the degree to which he wanted this – the degree to which he wanted her. 

His other hand slid down her back toward her bottom, and Tamaris gasped around his cock; his fingers were sliding down over the cleft of her ass to dip into the wetness of her folds. He stroked her pussy gently, and she stifled a moan around his cock and suckled him more firmly, and less than a minute later, the fingers of his other hand suddenly tightened in the hair at her nape.

“Ah – Tamaris–!” He shuddered and gasped, and a second later, the hot rush of his climax surged onto the back of her tongue. 

And gods, the fucking sound he made as he came: it was guttural and uninhibited, and it made her deepest muscles clench with the need to be filled and soothed. 

She swallowed hungrily and continued to suckle him until he released the back of her neck. He trailed his fingers along her jaw, then stepped back slightly and clasped her neck in his palms, and Tamaris rose up on her knees, coaxed by his hands on her neck. Then Felassan was kissing her again: slow languid kisses where he lightly nipped her lower lip and lapped at her tongue. He kissed her with the sort of unapologetic hedonism that she was quickly coming to expect from him, and she sank unerringly into the pleasure of his lips. 

Without breaking their kiss, he stepped closer to the bed and then crawled onto it, wrapping his arm around her waist to support her as he laid her back on the bed. He lifted her arms over her head, smoothing his palms up along the length of her arms and back down before taking her nipple into his mouth. He slowly traced his tongue over the peak of her nipple and nipped it with his lips, and she twisted her spine leisurely and hummed with pleasure. His every kiss and touch, every stroke of his hands, every careful caress that he laid on her skin: it all felt so deliberate, like he was really taking the time to enjoy her naked body, and it no longer mattered whether it was the Tranquility cure driving his focused touch or just the way he was; what mattered was that it was his elegant hands and his gorgeous smirking mouth, and… fuck, he just felt so good.

He kissed her nipple, then lifted his face and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not finished with me already, are you?” 

She languidly opened her eyes. “Not if you aren’t,” she murmured.

He gave her a sly half-smile. “Good. I was afraid you were falling asleep on me.” 

“Not yet,” she said with a little half-smile of her own. “I asked you to fuck me, and you haven’t done it yet.”

He chuckled and ran his hand from her knee up toward her hip. “If I recall correctly, you didn’t ask. You commanded.” 

“I didn’t command!” she said.

“You commanded,” he said wryly. “It was endearing.” His hand glided slowly over her body from her hip up toward her breast, and she twisted toward the tempting heat of his palm.

“Endearing?” she retorted. “You said I—” She broke off with a gasp as he pinched her nipple. “Ah! ...that I have no charm,” she panted. “It was kind of mean.”

“Ah, so you do remember commanding me to fuck you, then,” he said slyly.

She felt a little head-rush of pleasure. There was something oddly arousing about hearing the word ‘fuck’ in his anachronistic accent, and his hand roaming slowly and teasingly over her breasts only made her more eager still.

“It wasn’t a command,” she panted. “It was a suggestion.”

“Hm,” he murmured. “Luckily for you, it’s a suggestion I’m inclined to fulfill. But not until you’re ready.”

“Not until you’re ready, you mean,” she said. She was already dripping wet for him. All she needed was for him to recover from the blowjob she’d given him.

“I am ready,” he said.

Huh? she thought. She glanced down, and her eyebrows jumped up in surprise; he was indeed hard again, even though he’d just finished a few minutes ago. 

She stared at the thickness of his cock with rising excitement. “That’s… I’m impressed,” she said vaguely.

He chuckled and stroked the underside of her breast with his thumb. “You flatter me. Now if only you were just as ready.”

She dragged her eyes up to his face. “I am ready,” she said blankly.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Let me find out.” He pulled her legs apart and stroked her sex with two fingers. 

She shuddered and gasped; she was very slick and wet, and his fingers smoothing over her flesh felt so good and so torturous at the same time, like he was giving her a taste of something scrumptious while denying her the entire meal. 

She whimpered and clenched her fingers in the sheets, and Felassan sighed in a mock-sad way. “No, I don’t think you’re ready yet.”

“Yes I – f-fuck…” She gasped again and arched her spine; his fingers were swirling gently over her clit now. He leaned over her body and began teasing her nipple with his mouth, flicking his tongue over the pebbled peak of her nipple and tugging it gently with his lips instead of suckling her deeply like she wanted, and she writhed beneath him with increasing restlessness.

She gritted her teeth, then burst out a needy sob. “Felassan!”

“Yes, Tamaris?” he said. His polite tone was countered by the heat in his faintly glowing eyes, and she twisted her hips in frustration.

“I’m ready,” she whined.

“You aren’t yet,” he said firmly. “I can tell.”

He was petting her clit now, tiny coaxing strokes that sent bolts of pleasure through her body. She shuddered and lifted her hips off the bed. “B-but I–”

Felassan suddenly took her nipple firmly in his mouth while petting the swollen bud of her clit, and she mewled with pleasure and rocked her hips frantically in time with his fingers. Then he released her breast and spoke in a rough voice. “Come one more time, and then you’ll be ready.”

“Yes,” she moaned. She was already almost there thanks to the patient stroke of his fingers.  She rolled her hips up to meet his steady hand, and a few seconds later, the rapture burst through her body, forcing her to spine into a pleasured bow. 

Then Felassan slid two fingers inside of her, and a visceral cry escaped her throat. His fingers sliding into her heat and curling against the sensitive spot inside of her – fuck, fuck, yes, this was what she wanted and needed: she needed Felassan to fill her up and soothe the longing ache that both her pleasure and his had fostered deep inside of her. 

“Now!” she wailed. “Felassan, fuck me now!”

“With great pleasure,” he grunted. He pulled his fingers free from her body and shifted between her legs, then looped her knees over his arms. 

He planted his palms on the mattress on either side of her waist and rubbed his cock against her slick-soaked sex. She mewled and wiggled her hips pleadingly, but with her legs hooked over his arms, she had little control over what he did next. 

“Felassan,” she begged, and she gripped his arm with her hand. “Come on, I need you…”

“I need you, too,” he panted. “I… ah, you feel…” He broke off with a moan, and the sound lit a thrill in her nerves. He rocked himself against her slickness, and Tamaris whimpered and twisted her hips as much as she could to try and coax him inside of her.

She clawed lightly at his arm, and he burst out a breathless laugh. “Easy, avise,” he crooned. Then he entered her in one long hard stroke.

A feral cry left both of their throats, and Tamaris dug her nails into his arm. He hissed in a breath, then let it out in a groan and thrust into her once more, and she cried out again at how good it felt – how fucking good it was to have Felassan filling her up like this. He moaned rapturously and slammed his hips into hers, and Tamaris stared shamelessly at his face while he fucked her; his eyes were squeezed shut and his face was twisted in a perfect uninhibited expression of rapture, and the flawless driving rhythm of his hips was fostering a fresh quake of pleasure deep within her core. 

She gasped for breath and focused on the roiling rise of her rapture as she studied his face. The play of emotions across his handsome features was exquisite, a melding of ecstasy and longing and determination as he fucked her hard, and as he continued to coax the tremble of pleasure from the depths of her body, she slowly began to realize that he was soothing more than just her raging libido. His playfulness, his easygoing manner, his moments of seriousness and his philosophical talks, his flawless kisses and this perfect, focused, delicious driving rhythm of his cock: he was soothing an ache deep inside of her, an ache that had remained untouchable for years and that went far further than sexual frustration — an ache that she’d tried hard to hide away, and which every day in Felassan’s company was peeling open just a little bit more, whether she was ready or not. 

Her heart was pounding in time with the meeting of their bodies. He suddenly opened his eyes, and Tamaris’s breath stopped; his eyes were bright and lit from within with magic. 

“You are coming with me, aren’t you?” he gasped. “I can feel it.”

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, I’m close–”

He slammed into her again, and she burst out another pleasured cry. “Yes! Keep going, keep–”

He thrust into her hard, driving his cock at the perfect angle to strike the place deep inside of her that triggered the pleasure of her rising climax, and she clawed mindlessly at his arm. He let out a sharp little cry that only riled her further, and after another breathless minute of Felassan’s perfect driving cock, Tamaris came for the third time that night.

It was a deeper throb of pleasure this time that surged through her limbs and forced a burst of white light behind her closed eyelids. She sobbed and dug her nails into Felassan’s arm, and a moment later, he let out a strained and guttural cry as his climax washed over him as well. 

He pumped into her three more times, then held fast and ground himself hard into her depths, and Tamaris basked ecstatically in the aftershocks of her orgasm as he released himself inside of her.  

“Tamaris,” he moaned. “Ar nuvena shathe nuis’in mar isebre’alas…” 

She shivered as the incomprehensible liquid syllables of his native language filled her ears. She could barely decipher what he’d said aside from ‘I want’, but it sounded like praise, and she vaguely wondered if he would start dirty-talking to her in ancient Elvhen now that they were… involved. 

She took a deep breath, then released it in a contented half-sigh, half-moan. “You’ll have to tell me what that means,” she breathed.

He laughed breathlessly and released her legs to the bed. “It means: ‘I would happily burn in your heated depths.’” 

She raised her eyebrows, then barked out a laugh. “I can’t decide if that’s sweet or suicidal.”

He chuckled and rolled onto his back beside her. “Sweet or suicidal: some might call that a tidy summary of romance in general.” He reached over and smoothed his palm along her thigh.

Tamaris didn’t speak; her tongue was suddenly tied by his touch. His hand was moving in a casual stroke from her knee to her inner thigh and back. The caress wasn’t erotic, but familiar and affectionate, and something about it was making her chest ache. 

“Well?” he said. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“What?” she said distractedly.

“How was I compared to your other illustrious lovers?” he asked cheekily.

She scoffed and elbowed him. “You were adequate, I guess.”

He laughed. “I suppose that’s what I deserve.”

She smirked, then looked at him more seriously. “You were great. You made me come three times, for fuck’s sake. That’s…” She trailed off as the memory sent a shiver of heat to the apex of her thighs, which was still tingling with residual pleasure. 

“Yeah,” she said softly. “It was… really good.”

He smiled and tucked his other arm beneath his head. “I told you we would enjoy each other. And allow me to confirm that you’re the finest thing I have tasted in decades.”

She laughed. “You are so fucking full of shit.”

“I’ll allow your insult since you already complimented me,” he said complacently.

She huffed in amusement, then fell quiet once more. He was still caressing her leg in a fond and familiar way, and as their silence stretched on, she stared vacantly up at the ceiling as she tried to decide between her dual urges to snuggle closer to him, or to leave his room entirely.

As was often the case, Felassan broke the silence. “I apologize for the assumption earlier. That you had been celibate since… since Fen’Harel.”

Her gut jolted. She licked her lips nervously and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. My… thing with Bull wasn’t a secret or anything. I guess I just… I don’t know. I didn’t think it was important to mention.”

Felassan nodded, and they were silent for a moment more before he spoke again. “Was your separation from the Iron Bull amicable?”

“Why?” she said warily. 

“I’m curious if it was your reason for leaving his mercenary company,” Felassan said.

She frowned curiously. Why would he think that? “No, it’s… it had nothing to do with that. We stopped having sex when I started working as one of his mercs. I left the Chargers because…” She sighed and gave him a frank look. “When the Iron Bull starts to get worried about your drinking habits, then you know you have a problem.”

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Ah. I see.”

She shrugged and looked up at the ceiling again. “Yeah. At least I’m taking care of that. Thanks to you, actually.”

“I am glad to help,” he said seriously. 

This time, the silence that fell between them felt loaded. His hand was moving more slowly on her leg than before, and Tamaris breathed shallowly as she waited for him to ask another question.

When finally spoke, his words were careful. “I was under the impression that you were reluctant to sleep with someone new after Fen’Harel.”

Her stomach writhed with discomfort. The question was implicit in his words: if her avoidance of Felassan wasn’t a reluctance to sleep with someone new, then what exactly was her reluctance about? Especially if Felassan was offering the same sort of practical, non-emotional sex that she and Bull had enjoyed?

This, of course, was the problem. She and Felassan had only had sex this one time, and already Tamaris felt so differently about this one tryst than she did about any of the dozens of times she and Bull had been together. 

I would happily burn in your heated depths… Felassan had said that to her right after he came, and Tamaris didn’t know if he was being serious or playful, or if he’d simply been swept away by the passion of the moment. But the hard truth was that Tamaris was starting to feel exactly like that. 

She was starting to feel like, if she allowed it, she would sink willingly into the sweet warmth of Felassan’s smile, and she would get burnt.

She sat up. “I’m pretty tired. I’m going to bed,” she said, and she slid off of his bed.

“Oh,” he said blankly. “You’re welcome to stay.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll sleep better in my own bed.” Without looking at him, she collected her discarded clothes and padded toward the door. 

Before she could leave, he called out to her. “Don’t forget your tea,” he said.

She glanced at him. He looked so relaxed with his arms folded behind his head as he lounged in all his naked glory, and her heart squeezed painfully at how beautiful and peaceful he looked.

Why can’t I just be like that? she wondered. Felassan had suffered terrible things too, but he was still able to enjoy the good things in life without overthinking them. Why couldn't Tamaris be like him? Why couldn’t she just… enjoy being with him? 

She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “Which tea?” she asked weakly. “The anti-dream one or the withdrawal one?”

“If you have to ask that, you should probably have both,” he said. 

She huffed. “You know what, that’s fair. Thanks.” She opened the door. 

“Goodnight, avise,” he called. “Feel free to come back for seconds if you get hungry again.”

She scoffed despite the ache in her chest. “Uh-huh,” she said, and she finally left his room and closed the door. By the time she was in her own bedroom again, her cheeks were wet with tears. 

She dropped her clothes on the floor and wiped her face. She’d thought Felassan was too much of a mess for this, but the shitty truth was this: she was the mess. Felassan had been nothing but perfectly patient and funny and affectionate, and how had Tamaris reacted? By leaving him abruptly after the best sex she’d had in years. 

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be involved with him like this, not if it meant she’d be running off in a fit of panic every time he said or did something that made her feel something.

She sat heavily on the bed and closed her eyes. Fuck, she thought hopelessly. He really wasn’t going to forgive her for this.

[carabas]

So I’ve just finished reading the Dragon Age Tevinter Nights anthology, and short reaction: enjoyably hit and miss right up until that final extremely thorough direct hit, thank you Patrick Weekes.

Much, much longer version:

1. I don’t know how reasonable it is to try to extrapolate about what’s going to be in the next game based on a random short story collection, but hey, the novels that came out before DAI were about the mage rebellion, the Orlesian civil war, and eluvians, so.

So things I’m now expecting to see in the next game, aside from the Tevinter-Qunari conflict and Solas of course: Nevarran necromancy, Antivan Crows, Wardens who are struggling with decimated numbers after DAO and DAI (would be the perfect time for Razikale and Lusacan to both wake up at once really), and the Lords of Fortune, a never-before-mentioned Rivaini treasure hunting organization which appeared in I think three different stories here. 

Plus a few stories were very much signalling This Specific New Character Will Be Showing Up Again, whether in the games or elsewhere; I'll be shocked if Lucanis the “Demon,” reluctant heir apparent of the Antivan Crows who just got into a cliffhanger conflict with a Tevinter magister, doesn’t have more to do.

2. THERE IS A MAP, there is a great big fantasy map surrounded by nifty little illustrative details to poke at.

There’s a label reading “White Spire,” not in Val Royeaux, but on a mountain beyond the Arlathan Forest. Is that an error or is there really a White Spire mountain? If not an error, has it always been named that or is that new, possibly a new center for the mages after the war, after the original Spire fell? At no point is either Spire mentioned in this book aside from this map.

Lots of astrological sun and moon patterns prominently featured around the edges. Is that one moon chart depicting moon phases or an eclipse? Is it too conspiracy theory of me to be counting the nine dark moons (or spheres? like in that DA4 idol illustration’s seven slots?) on the dragon’s wing? Probably. Or are those spheres a reference to the second moon that never seems to actually be visible, is that missing moon actually deliberate. 

Most of the astrological charts are fairly straightforwardly showing sun/moon phases but what is the crowned figure in the one on the lower right meant to represent? The Maker? What’s going on with the horizontal lines passing through it/behind it? The two moons beneath it - is that an illustration of the moon in two phases or being separated into two (metaphorical moon in that case, presumably), do those horizontal lines also indicate separation, do I need to move on from the astrological depictions here, definitely.

Love the big horseshoe crab sea monster.

3. Patrick Weekes’s first story in the collection: halla shapeshifting! An elf named Strife who I fully expected to be revealed as an agent of Fen’harel mimicking ancient elven names like Sorrow and Pride, though I was wrong - would it be charming or just annoyingly unsubtle if that became a thing among his agents. An ancient forest guardian with lyrium blades who hunts magic in a way that struck me an awful lot like a forest-themed equivalent of a golem, though I may be wildly off base with that one.

4. Nevarran necromancy story. An odd bit of the chant to highlight for a funeral: “And the Maker, clad in the majesty of the sky, set foot to earth, and at His touch all warring ceased.” I continue to squint suspiciously at overlaps between Maker and elven god imagery. Also, evidently mortalitasi believe that when someone dies, an inhuman spirit is pushed out from the Fade into the physical world, and that’s part of the reason behind their housing spirits in bodies - neat! The existence of Curiosity spirits, also neat!

5. Is Ghilan’nain’s horrible body horror place supposed to be spelled Hormak like in the title and previous canon references, or Hormok like throughout the text here? I know this was just a mistake but maybe I’ll use this to say that in-world there’s multiple ways of transliterating Dwarven.

6. Lukas Kristjanson story #1, the one featuring approximately a million minor Inquisition character cameos and a meditation on Solas’s regrets, introduces a character with the phrase “free mage by special commendation,” and I was briefly thrown by that little signal that we are Not In My Worldstate, that the mages aren’t all free by default - except then the story went on to destroy Solas’s fresco so I wound up quite grateful for that little heads up that this isn’t my worldstate actually.

(Unfortunately I can’t get into this guy’s writing style at all, which is a shame because it’s one of the big Solas stories in the book.)

7. There’s a little plot point in the Wigmaker Job story that demonstrates those elven artifacts Solas had us activate all over Thedas do indeed strengthen the Veil - like, he wasn’t lying to us about what those orbs do, that is how they work, here we see a Crow stab one in order to deactivate it, weaken the Veil and unleash a horde of vengeful demons. Nice confirmation.

8. Genitivi is the Randy Dowager. (Possibly. At least, Philliam wrote a scene in which Genitivi alludes to being the Randy Dowager. I do appreciate an unreliable narrator but after a certain point it does make the lore hard to keep straight.)

9. By the time we got to the story about adventurers stealing an incredibly powerful healing amulet just to donate it to a mysterious contact at a makeshift hospital trying to help people where the Qunari-Tevinter war has spilled over, I knew better than to expect any cameos from DAO/DA2 characters. And with the mention of the squire, I was pretty sure the mysterious contact was going to be Vaea, and it was. Still. Anders would approve. And for a moment I was fantasizing that it would turn out to be him, or connected to him. A new mental setting for him and Hawke post-mage-freedom - makeshift hospitals at the edge of the invasion, secretly sponsored by a certain pair of absurdly overpowered, dungeon-crawling, treasure-hunting fugitives.

Yes, my Dragon Age interpreting is still all about Anders even when he’s not remotely present.

10. You know, I really expected the leaders of the Crows to be a bit more ruthlessly competent than this. Someone is setting up a grand demonstration, recreating infamous historical assassinations carried out by the Crows but now with the leaders of the Crows themselves as the victims, incredibly flashy, incredibly clearly sending a message, and yet not one of the characters trying to figure out whodunit is speculating about the meaning behind that message??? the motive in going to all that trouble??? it’s all, hm, perhaps it’s the qunari invaders. hm, this one was posed with a pearl necklace just like the one in the historical murder it’s recreating, i bet the culprit owns a pearl-fishing business! I know they’re assassins not detectives but at least show the professional courtesy of paying attention to the message in the show your fellow assassin is putting on for you, geez.

Anyway. Interesting Crow details: they talked about neutral ground and territories divided between the Crow households here, does that just apply to Antiva or like, does Arainai have claim to all jobs in Ferelden? 

And the line “Teia's back was bare except for a tattoo marking her as a member of House Cantori” puts Zevran’s tattoos in a slightly different light for me - he’s mentioned that some symbols are sacred to the Crows, and logically it follows that having that symbol tattooed on him would indeed mark him as a Crow to other people in the know, but that his tattoos mark him as belonging to House Arainai is a thing that did not hit me from that.

11. An agent of Fen’harel muttering “Felassan” to activate a rune. In memoriam? Charming. I mean it’s a rune that’s intended to kill an entire city, so possibly the more literal slow arrow is meant, but I’m still charmed.

12. PATRICK WEEKES CLOSING OUT THE BOOK BY JUST DUMPING THE CONTINUING DREAD WOLF HUNT PLOT ON US. 

So much. 

An actual giant wolf in the Fade, I’m so happy for tumblr user corseque. 

A character again raising the possibility that Solas is not an ancient elf but rather a young elf who stumbled onto old magic, a theory I thought debunked by Trespasser but here we are considering it again. 

A minor side note that a lot of Kirkwall’s templars went rogue after the explosion - that’s not relevant to the post-DAI plot really, I’m just noting it for my generally-DA2-focused fanfic purposes. 

The possibility that somniari (presumably) can kill even dwarves who don’t dream in their sleep. Somniari in general or did Solas personally step in here?

A ritual involving the red lyrium idol resulting in the phrase “As if we were the blood and the cavern the body through which it flowed” right before the POV character enters the Fade, which is a rather Titan-esque turn of phrase. 

The Dread Wolf again asserting that all creation is in danger and he’s trying to fix that. A biased POV character recognizing that, huh, funny how those spirits around the Dread Wolf which surely must be demons actually look an awful lot like Justice and Valor. 

And Charter’s notes at the end, so direct, not only spelling out the new details on the idol for us (that the figure represents a crowned figure comforting another) but thoroughly hitting us over the head with Solas’s essential characterization in his own words, as if Weekes is still trying to clear up any possible lingering misinterpretations there. (Prideful, hotheaded, foolish. Doing what he must. Sympathetic to elves. Said that he was sorry.)

And the quiet simplicity of Solas coming to this meeting of spies in person because, pause, “...the Inquisition was involved,” written in such a way that you could read all sorts of things into that pause, whatever the Inquisition and the Inquisitor might mean to him.

The book would have been worth reading for this last story alone, what a note to end on.