Conviction, Part 1/?
anonymous
September 20 2010, 20:40:32 UTC
It had been three years since Solona Amell’d had sex. Not that she was counting the days, of course, but sometimes it seemed like those days, spent frolicking around the Tower while sharing whispers and stealing kisses, were far away and out of her reach. So much had changed since then; in her memories she barely recognized herself from the other apprentices, clad in plum blues and moving in small herds from one classroom to the next, tittering and gossiping and dragging slippered feet to trace crude words on the floor when the dust began to collect.
Now, her face was sallow, her feet booted, and somewhere along the line, she had lost interest in idle rumors. Now, she was wearing the quilted vestments of the Tevinter Empire, had a skirt down to here, stockings up to here, and had recently used Zevran’s daggers to chop off most of her scraggly, increasingly-difficult-to-manage-on-the-road-hair. Her party was running low on supplies, Morrigan had a broken leg (and refused to let anyone touch it), two tents had been ripped to shreds by a particularly fierce thunderstorm, and the only source of food Leliana and Alistair had managed to find was a rotting Hurlock, whose pungent odor had caused Solona to heave the acidic contents of her stomach onto the overgrown path on which they were walking. Sex was the last thing she should be thinking about.
And yet, here she was, all bones and joints and worry lines, trying not to sound too embarassed as she tried to reject Leliana’s advances. She had no idea how to reject advances, and she was beginning to realize that she was no good at it, either. She crossed her ankles awkwardly as she stood, fidgeting nervously as she tried to turn the conversation back to what it had been. Hair. They’d been speaking about hair, and birds, and feathers, and berry dyes, not feelings and affirmation! “I, um, I just don’t, you’re a friend, you see, and erm, I just, it’s not something I’d, you know, uhm,” was the closest thing Solona had managed to a full sentence.
By the grace of a god Solona did not particularly believe in, Leliana decoded her stuttering, her voice wilting with dignified rejection. “I… see, I must have been mistaken, then,” she said, bearing herself well as she continued with “Perhaps I shall continue attempting to find something to eat? I believe I packed some salted pork…” her voice died as she walked away. It stung, of course, to hear her friend and companion sound so dejected, and while Solona couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Leliana had been mistaken about (sure, sometimes their conversations got a little odd, but the young warden had simply thought that was just Leliana’s way of moving the conversation forward), at least it was out of the way, and she planned to deal with it like she dealt with all of her other problems: bury them and never ever acknowledge their existence.
The troupe lapsed into a period of silence, broken only by the occasional crowing of a wintertime scavenger, no doubt lamenting its own hunger. Solona stole a glance at the bard, who was six paces ahead of her, bow knocked and sharp eyes darting from here to there in the increasingly-desolate forest around them. Her expression didn’t betray any feelings of hurt, though Solona guessed that Leliana was simply focusing hard on obtaining dinner. The mabari, General Scruffbutt, trotted along easily next to her, apparently intent on helping Leliana achieve her goals. Solona looked away and crossed her arms under her cloak, simultaneously crossing her fingers to whisper a silent hope that she wouldn’t die of starvation before finding Haven. As if to illustrate her point, her stomach let out a low growl, causing Solona to clamp her arms over her midsection and scowl.
Daylight had dwindled away long before Solona found an appropriate, defensible campsite. They had traveled for six hours more than they had yesterday, and according to her map, they’d made less time. She grumbled something profane and slapped the parchment down beside her unmade tent, feet aching and stomach tense from hunger.
Re: Conviction, Part 1/?
anonymous
September 26 2010, 05:20:12 UTC
(If there was one thing she missed about the Tower, it was definitely the three square meals plus study-snack she received.) Behind her, she heard the sounds of stacking wood and the unmistakable cursing of Alistair attempting to start the campfire.
Abandoning her tent to its un-made fate, Solona cantered to kneel beside the templar, laying her hand on the abused flint and saying “Allow me?” The touch of her hand on his caused his head to snap up and he regarded her with a startled deer-in-a-light expression. Considering his dumbness an answer, Solona reached out her opposite hand and slowly conjured up the flames which had been so eluding her friend. In the process of igniting the wood pile, the magic licked outward from Solona’s fingers to envelop Alistair’s, in what she hoped would considerably warm his gloveless hands.
She wasn’t sure if it worked as she intended, though despite the dazed expression her counterpart was giving her, was encouraged by the simple fact that Alistair wasn’t pulling away this time. In front of them, the kindling ignited and the campfire blossomed to life. Something sparked within Solona, too, and she leaned inward to brush her lips against the other Gray Warden’s, gently, ever so gently, in what to her was a toe-curling butterfly's kiss. A very startled Alistair pulled backwards while a more insistent mage gripped the shoulders of his tunic to hold him in place.
His struggles were halfhearted, as they always were. There were times his resistance made her feel like The Rake who corrupted the hearts of maidens in those old bedtime stories whispered from the mouths of the more maternal senior enchanters. Fierce coercion was required to convince Alistair that touching another living being’s skin was not, in fact, a mortal sin, and while Solona’s attempts at flirtation were amateur at best (no one flirted in the Tower; that sort of nonsense took up too much time), he always responded. Sometimes he stuttered and sometimes he avoided it, but her favorite moments were the ones in which he retaliated, his wits about him and a smile on his face. She could already see that this was not going to be one of those times.
No, his eyes were serious and unreadable. Solona ceased her advances, freeing his mouth to arch into a frown. What was wrong? The two of them had kissed time and time again in the past-hell, it had been Alistair who had broken the ice and taken the first liplocked plunge. Was could possibly be different now? It was difficult to meet his gaze, and the mage looked away, wishing desperately she could read minds. Was there something on her face? Was he mad at her for not purchasing extraneous supplies? Was he going to refuse to dally because he was tired and hungry?
When she finally met his eyes, he was staring at her intently, but no words had been spoken. Looking down, Solona pretended to brush dirt off her hands as she waited.
And waited.
And finally, an eternity later, the silence was broken.
((Slowslowslow, I know, hnnnggg grad school /excuses))
Conviction, Part 3/?
anonymous
September 27 2010, 04:52:06 UTC
"Solona."
Alistair's throaty voice reverberated like thunder down her spine. He was using that voice, the one where his pleasant vocal tones dipped downward two octaves to create the most dulcet low-register sounds. She liked to think that he only ever used this voice with her, even though she was certain that was not the case. It was the voice she heard whenever they were remotely intimate-- he spoke to her this way when he complimented the way her dull and frizzy hair looked, and when he saw she was having a terrible time chopping the firewood and was in desperate need of more muscular assistance. This was the same voice he had used when he said she was special, and delicate, and beautiful. No one had ever called Solona beautiful. No one had ever called her special, or delicate. Alistair had, and in that voice. Nothing terrible could ever be uttered with that voice.
For that reason, she mustered her courage and proceeded to look up at Alistair. She wrung her hands in front of her and tried to reign in the erratic beat of her heart. As soon as her eyes met his, she felt her stomach convulse painfully at the look on his face. "You aren't happy?" It was a statement posed as a question, an innocent way for her to wrangle the words right out of him. She had long ago discovered that templars were not trained well in anything oratorial, and had long ago given up waiting for Alistair to say anything on his own accord.
She stared intently at his face, and was disappointed to see that his expression did not soften. Indeed, if anything, he looked even more intense as his eyes bored into hers with a certain amount of desperation. She had apparently given him sufficient cause to speak, however, as those large hands clamped down on hers, and as he rubbed gentle circles between the back of her hand and her palm. "I'm going to sound so stupid," he moaned suddenly, "thinking about this while we all starve." His eyes flickered down her head and neck and had barely touched her collarbone before a blush rose in his cheeks. "And I couldn't he happier with you here... with me," he swallowed hard and squeezed her hand tightly. "You see, you're quite special to me, and I-Iloveyou," he continued lamely, his voice becoming increasingly small and hurried, his eyes slipping away from Solona's to instead observe a rock somewhere not in her direction.
For her own part, Solona simply nodded sagely, accepting the compliments as they came, and perhaps spending too much time attempting to disseminate the templar's body language when she should have been intent on his words. Her heart was beating like a bird's, slamming painfully into her ribcage, thumping so loudly she was sure there were no animals save The General in a three-mile radius. "What are you saying?" she interjected the moment his voice fell to such a level she could no longer hear. Was this one of his roundabout ways of asking her to leave? (He shouldn't be, not while he used that voice.)
"No!" he yelped loudly, drawing a few curious glances from their compatriots and a low growl from the mabari. "No, of course not," he repeated, this time softer. He was now petting her wrist with the gutso of a child and his favorite pet cat, perhaps attempting to smooth any feelings he may have bruised. "Oh, Maker, you know I'm no good at this," he groaned, and Solona suspected he was painfully aware of how much he was talking. "Help me out here," he whispered thickly.
A blink. A plea for help? Solona had no idea what Alistair was getting at. He could be buttering her up to ask to borrow her spare stockings for all she knew, and while she strongly suspected that a swift slap could relieve him of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad question he was harboring, that voice was back, slathered like honey over his words, and for a moment, her hungering weakness was gone from her muscles, and she caught his hands in hers, squeezing gently, holding them to her leg. "Lay with me." Fully aware that this might launch the two of them into the second long and uncomfortable silence of the day, it had been three years, and she had grown up, and he was perfect in every way, and dammit-
Now, her face was sallow, her feet booted, and somewhere along the line, she had lost interest in idle rumors. Now, she was wearing the quilted vestments of the Tevinter Empire, had a skirt down to here, stockings up to here, and had recently used Zevran’s daggers to chop off most of her scraggly, increasingly-difficult-to-manage-on-the-road-hair. Her party was running low on supplies, Morrigan had a broken leg (and refused to let anyone touch it), two tents had been ripped to shreds by a particularly fierce thunderstorm, and the only source of food Leliana and Alistair had managed to find was a rotting Hurlock, whose pungent odor had caused Solona to heave the acidic contents of her stomach onto the overgrown path on which they were walking.
Sex was the last thing she should be thinking about.
And yet, here she was, all bones and joints and worry lines, trying not to sound too embarassed as she tried to reject Leliana’s advances. She had no idea how to reject advances, and she was beginning to realize that she was no good at it, either. She crossed her ankles awkwardly as she stood, fidgeting nervously as she tried to turn the conversation back to what it had been. Hair. They’d been speaking about hair, and birds, and feathers, and berry dyes, not feelings and affirmation! “I, um, I just don’t, you’re a friend, you see, and erm, I just, it’s not something I’d, you know, uhm,” was the closest thing Solona had managed to a full sentence.
By the grace of a god Solona did not particularly believe in, Leliana decoded her stuttering, her voice wilting with dignified rejection. “I… see, I must have been mistaken, then,” she said, bearing herself well as she continued with “Perhaps I shall continue attempting to find something to eat? I believe I packed some salted pork…” her voice died as she walked away. It stung, of course, to hear her friend and companion sound so dejected, and while Solona couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Leliana had been mistaken about (sure, sometimes their conversations got a little odd, but the young warden had simply thought that was just Leliana’s way of moving the conversation forward), at least it was out of the way, and she planned to deal with it like she dealt with all of her other problems: bury them and never ever acknowledge their existence.
The troupe lapsed into a period of silence, broken only by the occasional crowing of a wintertime scavenger, no doubt lamenting its own hunger. Solona stole a glance at the bard, who was six paces ahead of her, bow knocked and sharp eyes darting from here to there in the increasingly-desolate forest around them. Her expression didn’t betray any feelings of hurt, though Solona guessed that Leliana was simply focusing hard on obtaining dinner. The mabari, General Scruffbutt, trotted along easily next to her, apparently intent on helping Leliana achieve her goals. Solona looked away and crossed her arms under her cloak, simultaneously crossing her fingers to whisper a silent hope that she wouldn’t die of starvation before finding Haven.
As if to illustrate her point, her stomach let out a low growl, causing Solona to clamp her arms over her midsection and scowl.
Daylight had dwindled away long before Solona found an appropriate, defensible campsite. They had traveled for six hours more than they had yesterday, and according to her map, they’d made less time. She grumbled something profane and slapped the parchment down beside her unmade tent, feet aching and stomach tense from hunger.
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Looking forward to more!
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Abandoning her tent to its un-made fate, Solona cantered to kneel beside the templar, laying her hand on the abused flint and saying “Allow me?” The touch of her hand on his caused his head to snap up and he regarded her with a startled deer-in-a-light expression. Considering his dumbness an answer, Solona reached out her opposite hand and slowly conjured up the flames which had been so eluding her friend. In the process of igniting the wood pile, the magic licked outward from Solona’s fingers to envelop Alistair’s, in what she hoped would considerably warm his gloveless hands.
She wasn’t sure if it worked as she intended, though despite the dazed expression her counterpart was giving her, was encouraged by the simple fact that Alistair wasn’t pulling away this time. In front of them, the kindling ignited and the campfire blossomed to life. Something sparked within Solona, too, and she leaned inward to brush her lips against the other Gray Warden’s, gently, ever so gently, in what to her was a toe-curling butterfly's kiss. A very startled Alistair pulled backwards while a more insistent mage gripped the shoulders of his tunic to hold him in place.
His struggles were halfhearted, as they always were. There were times his resistance made her feel like The Rake who corrupted the hearts of maidens in those old bedtime stories whispered from the mouths of the more maternal senior enchanters. Fierce coercion was required to convince Alistair that touching another living being’s skin was not, in fact, a mortal sin, and while Solona’s attempts at flirtation were amateur at best (no one flirted in the Tower; that sort of nonsense took up too much time), he always responded. Sometimes he stuttered and sometimes he avoided it, but her favorite moments were the ones in which he retaliated, his wits about him and a smile on his face. She could already see that this was not going to be one of those times.
No, his eyes were serious and unreadable. Solona ceased her advances, freeing his mouth to arch into a frown. What was wrong? The two of them had kissed time and time again in the past-hell, it had been Alistair who had broken the ice and taken the first liplocked plunge. Was could possibly be different now? It was difficult to meet his gaze, and the mage looked away, wishing desperately she could read minds. Was there something on her face? Was he mad at her for not purchasing extraneous supplies? Was he going to refuse to dally because he was tired and hungry?
When she finally met his eyes, he was staring at her intently, but no words had been spoken. Looking down, Solona pretended to brush dirt off her hands as she waited.
And waited.
And finally, an eternity later, the silence was broken.
((Slowslowslow, I know, hnnnggg grad school /excuses))
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Alistair's throaty voice reverberated like thunder down her spine. He was using that voice, the one where his pleasant vocal tones dipped downward two octaves to create the most dulcet low-register sounds. She liked to think that he only ever used this voice with her, even though she was certain that was not the case. It was the voice she heard whenever they were remotely intimate-- he spoke to her this way when he complimented the way her dull and frizzy hair looked, and when he saw she was having a terrible time chopping the firewood and was in desperate need of more muscular assistance. This was the same voice he had used when he said she was special, and delicate, and beautiful. No one had ever called Solona beautiful. No one had ever called her special, or delicate. Alistair had, and in that voice. Nothing terrible could ever be uttered with that voice.
For that reason, she mustered her courage and proceeded to look up at Alistair. She wrung her hands in front of her and tried to reign in the erratic beat of her heart. As soon as her eyes met his, she felt her stomach convulse painfully at the look on his face. "You aren't happy?" It was a statement posed as a question, an innocent way for her to wrangle the words right out of him. She had long ago discovered that templars were not trained well in anything oratorial, and had long ago given up waiting for Alistair to say anything on his own accord.
She stared intently at his face, and was disappointed to see that his expression did not soften. Indeed, if anything, he looked even more intense as his eyes bored into hers with a certain amount of desperation. She had apparently given him sufficient cause to speak, however, as those large hands clamped down on hers, and as he rubbed gentle circles between the back of her hand and her palm. "I'm going to sound so stupid," he moaned suddenly, "thinking about this while we all starve." His eyes flickered down her head and neck and had barely touched her collarbone before a blush rose in his cheeks. "And I couldn't he happier with you here... with me," he swallowed hard and squeezed her hand tightly. "You see, you're quite special to me, and I-Iloveyou," he continued lamely, his voice becoming increasingly small and hurried, his eyes slipping away from Solona's to instead observe a rock somewhere not in her direction.
For her own part, Solona simply nodded sagely, accepting the compliments as they came, and perhaps spending too much time attempting to disseminate the templar's body language when she should have been intent on his words. Her heart was beating like a bird's, slamming painfully into her ribcage, thumping so loudly she was sure there were no animals save The General in a three-mile radius. "What are you saying?" she interjected the moment his voice fell to such a level she could no longer hear. Was this one of his roundabout ways of asking her to leave? (He shouldn't be, not while he used that voice.)
"No!" he yelped loudly, drawing a few curious glances from their compatriots and a low growl from the mabari. "No, of course not," he repeated, this time softer. He was now petting her wrist with the gutso of a child and his favorite pet cat, perhaps attempting to smooth any feelings he may have bruised. "Oh, Maker, you know I'm no good at this," he groaned, and Solona suspected he was painfully aware of how much he was talking. "Help me out here," he whispered thickly.
A blink. A plea for help? Solona had no idea what Alistair was getting at. He could be buttering her up to ask to borrow her spare stockings for all she knew, and while she strongly suspected that a swift slap could relieve him of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad question he was harboring, that voice was back, slathered like honey over his words, and for a moment, her hungering weakness was gone from her muscles, and she caught his hands in hers, squeezing gently, holding them to her leg. "Lay with me." Fully aware that this might launch the two of them into the second long and uncomfortable silence of the day, it had been three years, and she had grown up, and he was perfect in every way, and dammit-
-she deserved it.
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