The road

Cassandra supposed she should be grateful to be traveling in such favorable conditions. The road to Crestwood was mercifully dry, a temperate spring warming her skin just enough to be comfortable, a blushing pink horizon promising a mild evening with a few fluffy, scudding clouds. Even the air was perfumed by new wildflowers, carried on a gentle breeze that blew away the scent of sweat and leather and horse. It was, by all accounts, perfect riding weather.

The social conditions, on the other hand…

“You know, Seeker, if you really want a bodice-ripper, the Iron Bull is right there.”

Cassandra tried not to react to the chorus of snickering behind her. For all she had searched for Hawke, there could not have been worse timing to find him – reunited with Varric, and with Sera, of all people, in tow, the teasing about her Swords and Shields habit was relentless. Of the entire party, only Solas never joined in, but Cassandra was sure she saw a secret little smile tugging at his lips on occasion.

“Cassandra, what comes to mind first when you hear the word Throbbing?” Hawke would continue as soon as the jeering ebbed, like adding a new log to a dwindling fire. “Or how about Engorged?” Their mirth sparked and caught.

“Yeah, or…or Spurting!” Sera dissolved into a fit of laughter, swaying atop her horse. She made a lewd gesture with her wrist, and a series of sound effects that were nearly unintelligible beneath the cackling.

“I want it stated for the record that I do not use these words,” Varric pointed out, with an affronted hand splayed over his breastplate. “These are words from her other books.”

“You all need Andraste,” muttered Inquisitor Trevelyan, somewhere to her right. But even he was chuckling to himself.

Cassandra wished they did not find her so amusing. In particular, she wished it because Varric’s latest was in her pack at that very moment, growing heavier by the minute. She wished it because, in spite of their mockery, all she could think about was that book, and how badly she wanted to be sat by their campfire when the rest were asleep so she could finish it in peace. Varric (Maker damn him) was ruthless in the falling action – the conflict never seemed to end, and everything the protagonist had worked for seemed imperiled, and worst of all, there had not been a love scene in several chapters. Cassandra was beginning to feel desperate. But even so, she would not make herself such a laughingstock that she would risk reading in their camp that night…not with so many watchful eyes, intent on catching her in the act.

That is what she told herself.

And yet, hours later, when the fire was dying and Sera was snoring, Hawke and Varric and the Inquisitor tucked into their tents and the stars spread glittering above, Cassandra could not help herself. She snuck to the edge of their campground and bent over her book, the meager flame of a candle all she allowed herself to read by. When the words became suddenly easier to see, she was so engrossed that it took her a few lines to react in surprise.

It was Solas, perched on the opposite end of the fallen log, with a little veilfire lamp he’d found in some ruin or other set between them. It glowed with a steady, greenish light, which hopefully disguised the flush of red spreading down her cheeks.

“You will ruin your sight, reading in the dark,” he said.

Cassandra blew out a frustrated breath.

“Are you here to mock me?”

“No.”

“They think I am a joke.”

“They are children.”

“And what is so funny about these books? About me reading them?”

“Nothing at all. I quite enjoy them, myself.”

“What is so funny about me enjoying the idea of romance, if I cannot have it in reality? Is it so unbelievable that I might be interested in– what did you say?”

Solas glanced sidelong at her, amused.

“I said I enjoy the genre. Though I admit I find Varric’s attempts somewhat pedestrian.”

Now Cassandra was offended in an entirely new way.

“Pedestrian! How?”

“The sex,” he said, waving a hand as if batting at an insect. “I can appreciate his metaphors, but he always stops short of a true description. He makes it so tidy, so vague.”

“You would rather he throbbed and engorged and spurted?” She retorted, disbelieving.

“Maybe. If the situation called for it.”

Cassandra was flabbergasted. It took her several breaths to compose herself.

“The irony,” she said at last, “is that I have never read such a book. I lack the nerve.”

At that, Solas laughed. Cassandra had always liked his laugh – the rare moments he was less the scholar, less the apostate. More a man. She liked that his laugh wasn’t derisive or cruel, that it was soft instead, and always carried a hint of surprise in it. He was laughing at her, but somehow, it didn’t sting.

“Seeker,” he said tenderly, as he stood, “if you lack for anything, it is not nerve. I’ll make you some recommendations.”

Cassandra followed his silhouette as it disappeared into the night, beyond the circle of the light he’d given her, feeling both comforted and disquieted, as if he’d posed her a riddle she couldn’t solve. Her chest felt warm as she continued to read.

Winter Palace

Finding a man strung up on Empress Celene’s bed had brought up…unexpected feelings in Cassandra. For one: embarrassment, and not second-hand. It was a relief when they’d gotten him un-trussed, and re-dressed, and ferried off to some out-of-the-way room with an Inquisition agent. With him gone, it was slightly easier for Cassandra to look at Solas.

Slightly.

He’d given her a book that featured such a scene not two weeks before.

“The Empress has such sundry tastes,” Solas remarked, casting a critical eye over the furniture, the walls adorned in high relief of naked, supplicating elves, the titles on her bookshelf. He trailed his fingers over their spines, murmuring in what sounded like a mix of Elvish and Orlesian, before pausing on a particular book and tilting it out into his hands. “Interesting,” he enunciated.

It was clear he was enjoying himself; not just here, in Celene’s bedroom, but out there in the palace, watching the Orlesians play their Game. Cassandra could hear the smirk in his voice. Her answering “what” was brusque as she distracted herself by rummaging through Celene’s elaborate desk, with its drawers within drawers and its inscrutable system of knobs and pulls, designed to thwart attempts like the one she was making. It was hard to think, watching him touch the books that way, and knowing what kinds of things he read. The kinds of things they read together.

“La Vie d’une Femme du Plaisir. Inscribed by the author, no less.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” she admitted, her heart thundering, as she wrenched a drawer open by sheer force. There was a splintering sound somewhere within. She winced, replaced the drawer, moved on to menace other furniture.

“A noble of Nevarra, such as yourself? I’d think not.”

“And why is that?”

“This book is banned in every nation but Tevinter. And it is horrendous in Tevene.”

Cassandra, her interest piqued in spite of herself, turned fully from the wardrobe she’d been investigating. “Why is it banned?”

With a little smirk, Solas pocketed the book. It was a small thing, about the size of a prayer book one might carry in a coat, to be drawn out whenever one might be in need of the Chant. But Cassandra had a feeling it was blasphemous in ways she could hardly imagine.

“I will translate some for you, and you can see for yourself.”

Skyhold

It had been months since that journey to Crestwood – months full of peril, and lies, and revelations. The latest: a sojourn in the Emerald Graves, and now a newly empowered Morrigan, though what that power was, none seemed able to say. Solas was a fixture in the library, these days, his murals temporarily abandoned, surrounded by open books and half-drunk cups of cold tea.

“I’ve brought you something,” Cassandra said, stepping into the room through a creaking door that she assumed would rouse him, but it was not until he heard her voice that he looked up.

“If that’s more tea…”

“No,” she answered, revealing the bottle and glasses she’d hidden behind her back, “I don’t think you need any help torturing yourself.” She strode across the room, easy in a shirt and trousers and soft boots meant for scaling castle stairs, not trudging through the mud of a battlefield. It was rare for her to be so unarmored – rarer still, in company. “I heard it’s sweet,” she said, passing him the bottle across the massive desk. He rose from his seat to accept it, read the label while standing. His smile was soft.

“You are as kind as you are formidable. Will you drink with me?”

“I did bring two glasses.” She half-sat on the edge of the desk, one foot braced on the floor, as Solas poured for them, then sat, himself. The liquid was pink-gold in the torchlight.

“Ma serannas,” he said, raising his glass before taking a sip. His compliment and his hum of pleasure delighted her, perhaps too much. Enough to make her avert her eyes, scan them across the cluttered desk.

“Have you made any progress on the Well?”

“The circle I tread grows deeper. If that can be considered progress, then yes.”

Cassandra was about to offer her condolences, when her gaze tracked over a stack of books quite unlike the others. One – a little thing, stuffed with page after page of notes – sat on top, the embossed Orlesian title unmistakable.

“Do Celene’s smutty books help you unravel Mythal’s mysteries?” She inquired with a brow half-cocked, unaccustomed to being on this side of teasing and finding she wasn’t sure where to go from there. But Solas, rarely ruffled, merely plucked it from the pile.

“Indeed. They provide a welcome distraction when I’ve reached the edge of my patience. I never shared my translation, did I?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” He leaned back in the chair with his elbows propped on the arms, one swirling the glass of dessert wine, the other holding the book open, and cleared his throat. “His eager eyes devoured me,” he began.

“A promising start.” Cassandra could feel the blush clawing up her throat, her cheeks, her chest. She had not expected him to read aloud – had wanted it, if she were honest…had thought of it some nights, reading what he suggested to her, wondering what it would sound like in the silky cadence of his voice. But reality was different, and she was unprepared, perched on this desk and trying to look casual, her grip white-knuckled on the glass. She took a gulp of wine, to steady herself.

“...as I shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither were his hands excluded their share of the high feast, but wandered, on the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of my body, so qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it. What follows is a list, allow me to skip ahead.”

Cassandra could not look at him. She wasn’t sure where else to look, felt drawn to the movement of his mouth like an insect to a flame, but the moment she looked at him she felt that unfamiliar fire spark inside her, and she was sure he saw it. It must have been as plain on her face as her displeasure could be, her bewilderment, her joy. She’d never been so expert at hiding her feelings as he. Yet it was obvious now when his own expression shifted to mischief, and he glanced up at her as he reached the part he had most wanted to share:

“My sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked, stiff and erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before.”

“Oh no,” she breathed, and for the first time she recognized that this was a trap. He had known that this was the book being referenced, perhaps unknowingly, by everyone teasing her about romance metaphors. She nearly choked on her wine, and was soon laughing – first out of sheer embarrassment, then out of embarrassment and horror – so hard she had to stand and pace.

"I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant. Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even ventur’d to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well turn’d and fashion’d, the proud stiffness of which distended its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root..."

“Stop! Please, stop,” Cassandra wheezed through tears, helpless with laughter, but Solas continued on, impassioned, as if he were a performer on a stage:

“He stole his hand up my petticoats, and with fingers on fire, seized and yet more inflamed that center of all my senses: my heart palpitated, as if it would force its way through my bosom: I breathed with pain; I twisted my thighs, and brought on at last the critical ecstasy, the melting flow, into which nature, spent with excess of pleasure, dissolves and dies away.”

She stared at him, panting in an attempt to recover from her laughter, and feeling painfully aware of him looking at her as he related the quick transition from fingers to “maypole,” the thrusting and alarmingly warlike metaphors for thrusting, and indeed, the throbbing and spurting that inevitably followed. By the time he seemed to be winding down, her abdomen ached fiercely.

“And giving a deep sob, nearly expiring in an agony of bliss, I pressed to him a kiss that seemed to exhale my soul through my lips”*

With that he snapped the book shut with a decisive thump, and sipped from his glass coolly, watching her over the rim. Cassandra made her way back to the desk and stood, her expression accusatory, her stomach still twitching.

“That book should remain banned on account of the stallion alone. I see now why Varric was offended by the insinuation he would write this way.”

“A valid point. But the last line, in particular, deserves some recognition: Un baiser qui semblait exhaler mon âme par mes lèvres. Monsieur Clé was not incapable of poetry, I think.”

“No,” Cassandra agreed, but she rather thought it was Solas, and the way he spoke, that gave the line its poetry. In fact, even the bits that were absurd had still been, somehow, titillating; it was the way he said “fingers,” and “pleasure,” and “sex.” She swallowed thickly. “Where did you learn Orlesian? Your accent could have fooled me. It belongs in Celene’s court.”

“Perhaps I merely have a skillful tongue.”

She blinked at him, wondered if he could read her mind, tilted her glass to her lips only to find it empty, and then his hand was there, closing over hers to pull the glass toward him and pour her another draught.

“La Vie d’une Femme is interesting, as a collection of ramblings by a desperate man imagining himself as an inexperienced woman, but it is far from my favorite,” Solas commented softly, as he released her to refill his own drink. Her hand burned where he’d touched her. It was an effort to sip without trembling.

“What is your favorite, then?”

“The rest of the stack.”

Not knowing where the courage came from – knowing only that laughing so hard for so long had released that knot of anxiety in her chest and left her warm and wanting – she took the next book from the pile and slid it across the desk to him. Solas opened it dutifully, turning to a page near the middle, and read:

“It’s just an amusing idea that sex is another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them. I suppose it’s quite true. I suppose we might exchange as many sensations and emotions as we do ideas about the weather and so on. Sex might be a sort of normal physical conversation.”**

“Interesting,” she murmured, barely trusting herself to speak. “What is this one about?”

“A woman who has an affair with a man far below her station,” he answered, closing the book gently, then laying his palm on its cover, as if to draw something from it. When he looked at her, his eyes were searching, hungry. “Cassandra,” he said, in a tone far different than any she had heard from him, from anyone, smooth and deep but edged in something sharp, “shall we have a conversation?”

Cassandra’s breath hitched. She swallowed, nodded, speechless. But she supposed that was the point: a conversation without words, a chance to tell him what she did not have language to express.

“Then come here.”

The journey around the desk felt long, though it was only a few steps, and at the end of it was Solas, reaching for her hand, her cheek, his mouth seeking hers – one moment she was walking and the next they were kissing, the wood of the desk pressing into the backs of her thighs. His grip was hard but his lips were soft on hers, searching, she thought, for hesitation.

“Are you sure,” he breathed against her mouth, confirming her suspicion.

“Are you?” She queried back, looking into his eyes, their swirling gray like a maelstrom, so close to the passion of an enemy that adrenaline spiked suddenly in her blood. But that vision of him was gone in an instant, as he closed his eyes and kissed her again, fiercer this time, one hand at the nape of her neck, a low sound in his throat.

Cassandra could not say why this felt dangerous. Solas was her friend, was more than that, had shared with her these glimpses of what he enjoyed, and she with him. But it was clear he felt it too, obvious in the way his hands roamed over her, greedy and hungry – as if she were someone he was forbidden to touch, but he could not help himself. Was it because she was human? A Seeker? A leader in the Inquisition? She would wonder, later, but in the moment all she knew was the stolen feeling of each kiss, the underlying sense that they were doing something a little bit wrong. Maybe more than a little bit.

And Cassandra, Maker save her, liked it.

His mouth moved to her neck, wet and warm; he murmured against her throat in Elvish, something she could not understand, and she found she liked that, too. She pulled his tunic over his head between kisses, left him in his undershirt and leggings that left little to the imagination, sighed as he pulled her shirt over her head one-handed and set immediately upon her breasts. Her nipples peaked beneath his laving tongue, the nearly too-light brush of his thumbs. She reached out to brace herself, her hand falling on the stack of books, toppling them. One landed open beside them, and she gazed at it for something to look at, while his mouth trailed down her sternum, circled her navel.

“What does this one say,” she asked on a ragged breath, and he spared it the barest glance, did not even have to open it.

“As Elena's pleasure grew fainter, rolling away, dying off, she gave Leila her tongue, flicking in the sex's mouth until Leila contracted and moaned. She bit into Leila's tender flesh. In the paroxysm of her pleasure, Leila did not feel the teeth buried there."*** His hands were at her laces, drawing them out idly, and Cassandra felt her cunt ache the way her mouth might, wanting something sweet. “May I?”

“No flicking.”

He laughed at that, no doubt noticing she hadn’t mentioned teeth. “Yes, Seeker.” Then he sank to his knees as he drew her trousers and smallclothes down to her ankles, and this too felt wrong, being so undressed except for her boots, with him still concealed from her. And then he pulled her forward by her knees.

“Lean back.”

She did.

Nothing had prepared her for Solas’ skillful tongue.

His hands moved up her legs as he peppered kisses over her thighs, then kissed her clit, then lapped at her – long, lazy, broad strokes that left her quivering and wondering why she didn’t touch herself like this, wondering why she was always so rushed. Solas did not rush. His hands slid to her hips and held her as those lazy strokes became circling, sucking, the barest scrape of teeth drawing a sharp gasp. And then he was curling his tongue inside her and Cassandra felt her skin flush hot.

“Oh, Solas,” she moaned, her hand smoothing over his scalp as he slipped a finger into her, another. They stroked in time with his tongue’s slow drag, until her legs were shaking and she felt herself coiling tight. “Wait,” she gasped.

He stopped immediately, his mouth coming free with a wet pop.

“Not yet. I–I want to feel you.”

His slow smile was wolfish, arrogant, and this too was a side of him she’d never seen before, a side that felt dangerous and compelling, that sent a spike of desire through her. He waited until her shaking quieted, then drew his mouth back up her body, following the path he’d taken down. Once standing, he pulled his shirt over his head and stood before her, allowing a moment for them to regard each other. His fingers traced her scars. Her fingers followed the path along his waistband.

“You are so beautiful, Cassandra,” he said. The compliment made her glow with pleasure.

So are you, she wanted to say, but instead she pulled him close, toeing off her boots while she kissed him deeply, tasting herself on his tongue. He was beautiful, but that was also the wrong word for him; he was honed and lean, stronger than she’d expected him to be, and more graceful, like a very fine, very sharp blade. She had the impression that if she were not careful, here, she may draw blood. This close, she had to unlace him by feel alone, pull his remaining clothing down by measures, until his cock sprang free and rested heavy on her palm. He groaned and bit her shoulder, the pressure of his teeth deepening and then releasing, his tongue soothing the indentations left behind.

“Would you like to hear my favorite passage?”

She nodded wordlessly, sliding her hand along the length of him, surprised how smooth he felt, enjoying the way he twitched beneath the scrape of her callouses. He turned his head to whisper in her ear, every word made ragged by her touch.

“All the men she's been with and now you, just you, and the barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole current of life flowing through you, through her, the flowers and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you, annihilating you."****

Cassandra closed her eyes and squeezed, then drew her grip down slowly, savoring his low moan that was nearly a growl. He pulled back suddenly, gripping her legs and lifting them until her knees were nearly to her chest and she was forced to brace herself.

“Don’t move,” he rasped, and she obeyed, watching raptly as he pressed into her a mere inch and held her there, suspended, aching for him, wanting more so badly she thought she might shout. The urge to arch her hips was nearly insurmountable. When he moved, slowly, a matter of degrees, teasing her with his cock and watching her face, watching her watch, she nearly climaxed right there. He seemed to sense her urgency, pushed into her until their chests were flush and she was panting, tears leaking from her eyes. Near-mad with lust, she did something then that she had never done before: she raised a hand and wrapped it around his neck.

Solas’s eyes fluttered shut, a string of murmured Elvish spilling from his lips as he leaned into her, increasing the pressure at his throat, inviting her to squeeze. Then they were moving, as if they’d both heard his silent permission – first slowly, then more urgently, deeper. Harder. She was trembling again, in a way that might have embarrassed her with anyone else, but here she felt untethered, wild, practically outside herself.

“A kiss,” he choked, “a kiss when you come. Cassandra–”

She pulled him forward by his neck and kissed him hard as her orgasm thundered through her, whimpering against his mouth, and then her muscles went liquid and her grip released and he held her, suspended, a few more strokes before he came with a gasp. She did not know if her soul had come free on her breath, but she did feel close to death, floating on that out-of-body feeling like a battle high, and he eased her down onto the desk and laid his head on her chest. They breathed together a while, and Cassandra thought he might be listening to her heart.

“I do not think we were discussing the weather,” she said at last, as her hands made lazy circles over his back.

“No,” he agreed. Then he rose, pulling her with him and kissing her softly, until she was steady on her feet. “But whatever it was, I would like to discuss with you at greater length.”

Cassandra smiled, laughed a bit breathlessly, surprised at the relief she felt that he did not judge this an immediate mistake.

“I would talk with you about anything,” she admitted, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.