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Zevran is good at romance. He is good at wallowing. He can tell as soon as he sees the Warden that she will be a good focus for these talents.
He eventually learns her name is Elissa, although he lets the revelation drag out for as long as possible. It's romantic to pine after someone who’s name he doesn’t even know. It lends more to the imagination. Daydreaming about the type of name that matches her face could have given him a few hours of enrichment. She takes that from him, just as she plucked him bleeding from the road amidst indignant protestations from the rest of her party.
“You can call me Elissa,” she tells him as they walk.
They’re always walking, usually in full sunlight. Zevran would prefer to walk in shade but she leads them through the exact center of the road, outside the comfort of shadows cast by trees that line the path. He thinks warriors will always choose suffering if they have the choice. It’s romantic, in its own way.
“Let me imagine a nickname for you,” he says. He injects a note of pleading into his tone.
She waits, glancing at him as he walks beside her, their steps matching, although her legs are a little longer (just a little).
“Well?” she asks, impatient.
“Don’t hurry me, please,” he says. He closes his eyes but keeps step beside her, hearing her footsteps, and birdsong, and Alistair grumbling behind them. “Alright, I have it.”
He opens his eyes. She’s looking at him expectantly.
“Are you going to tell me?” she asks.
He pretends to think about it. “No.”
She gets that out of him too, in front of the campfire at night. He only tells her because the firelight reflected in her eyes and the orange glow of the light against her cheek gives him a sweet swooping feeling that he thinks is more thrilling than the nickname. It’s more romantic. He takes in the curve of her lips, the flash of white teeth that’s made brighter by the darkness around them. Yes, this is much more romantic than a silly nickname. A fair trade.
“I was thinking about calling you Lisa,” he says, watching her closely.
As he thought, her face puckers in disgust. “Maker, please don’t.”
He likes the reaction. “Ellie, then,” he says.
“No!” She rubs her face with both hands. Her cheeks are pink.
“Alright, alright. No nicknames.”
She starts to sit beside him on the ground, but he stops her before she can. He drags over his sleeping roll, nudging it open.
“After you,” he tells her.
She hesitates, then sits down, bringing her knees up to her chin. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “But you’re still sitting in the dirt.”
“That I am. I happen to like the dirt. It’s romantic.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “How?”
“Perhaps I’m referring to this moment specifically. Me sitting in the dirt next to a high born lady who deigns to speak with me, and who sits slightly elevated. Do you see the romance now?”
This makes her laugh. A good trade, sitting on the hard ground too close to the fire, for a quiet laugh with a secret quality to it. She tries to hold back her smile, tries to press her lips together, but that only makes her mouth more pink. Zevran tries not to look too closely. He wants to be able to fill in some details with daydreams. It’s a little sweeter to pine. Things can’t be given to him outright.
He looks away, into the fire. A log snaps, a shower of embers fly up into the air, flickering, fading, and he imagines how they look reflected in her eyes instead of simply looking for himself.
.
She gives him things. A pair of gloves, a helmet. When he takes them, their hands brush, the tips of her fingers touching the back of his knuckles, her broken nails scratching him lightly. A shiver runs through him. He hides it. He’s good at that too.
“So you would prefer I keep my face covered?” he asks her, turning the helmet this way and that.
“Just giving you the option,” she says.
“The option to cover this face?” He puts the helmet on. It leaves his eyes and nose mostly open but covers his cheeks and most importantly, his mouth. “So you are sick to death of me already. But instead of saying so, you find a polite way to address it. This is romance too.”
Her secret smile comes again, tugging at her lips even as she presses them together. In vain. She always smiles in the end, and he always looks away just as she does, around at their surroundings, or to check on the dog.
“You have a funny idea of romance,” she says quietly.
“I am sure you’re accustomed to courtly love,” he says, fumbling with the buckles under his chin. The helmet is ugly and unwieldy, but he has already committed to the bit. “However, I was raised in a brothel. About as far from a court as one can reasonably get. So you must excuse my ignorance when it comes to a lady’s idea of romance.”
Her hands touch his chin suddenly. She’s reached over to help him with the buckle. He drops his hands to his sides. The shiver runs through him again, this time raising goosebumps on his face, and she notices, he’s sure. She’s close enough to notice.
She undoes the buckle and slips the helmet off his face. His hair is caught on his eyelashes. She pushes back a few strands with the tip of her finger.
“Maybe you can keep the helmet off for now,” she says, her voice low, like she’s whispering a secret.
He takes a big step back. Her hand falls back to her side.
“You’ve given me a lot to daydream about,” he tells her.
She slips the helmet onto her own head, covering her dark hair, and easily buckles the strap under her chin. He tries not to think too closely on the fact that the helmet that was just touching his face is now touching hers. Not now, at least. That could make a good campfire daydream, some tiny detail to focus on at night.
“A funny idea of romance,” she says again. “And you can’t say it’s because I’m high born and you’re not. That just doesn’t make sense. Romance is romance.”
He has to look away, because she’s started to smile again. “Alright. Dirt romance, let’s call it.”
She laughs. He decides to take it in, this time. Pink cheeks and parted lips, and a clear sound that seems to absorb into his very skin. His heart stutters, then starts to pound. His hands feel light and shaky.
“What a beautiful laugh you have,” he tells her. He should stop here and step away, he should let there be some mystery between them, but something propels him forward, to unbuckle the strap under her chin, to pull the helmet off her face, to watch as her hair settles against her shoulders, messy and disheveled.
She’s close, close enough that he can see the freckles tossed across her nose and cheeks. Her mouth is a little open, her eyes wide and excited. As clear an invitation as any, but the absence of a kiss is a kiss in itself, the absence of touch a touch more sweet than any. He holds the helmet and the gloves close to his chest, next to his pounding heart.
“Thank you for the gifts,” he tells her.
She looks a little disappointed. “Zevran,” she says, but doesn’t finish the thought, and that too sits between them, wallowing in the silence that follows.
.
She brings her bedroll a little closer to his than usual. He’s still sitting in the dirt beside the fire, his bedroll spread out beside him. There’s a cup of wine they found on the side of the road in his hand. He’s on his second cup, and hasn’t found the inner strength needed to pick himself up off the dirt and onto his bedroll. Not yet, at least.
“Dirt romantic thoughts?” she asks him.
He sips his wine. It tastes more like vinegar but it’ll do, warm in his chest and belly, warm on his cheeks. Good enough. “Yes. Filthy,” he says.
She rolls her eyes. “Not what I meant. Never mind. Good night.”
She lays back. Her hands are folded neatly on her chest. Beside her, her sword glimmers in the firelight, shiny and polished and well maintained. Her eyes are closed, so he takes in her features, the tip of her nose and the Cupid’s bow of her mouth and the fringe of dark hair that always covers her forehead. She catches him looking. He doesn’t look away this time.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” she whispers. When her mouth moves, he can see a flash of her tongue, and the thought of it makes him grip his cup of wine with some unclear ferocity.
He drinks, drains his cup, sets it aside. “What do you imagine when you try to make anything of me?” he asks.
She thinks about it. He can see the stars reflected in her eyes. Even in his daydreams, he couldn’t picture this, the touch of starlight, the hair on her face, the little gap in between her two front teeth. He leans a little closer to her, to get a better look.
“I imagine you’re holding me at an arm’s length,” she says with deliberate slowness. “You feel hidden, to me. Hidden in your daydreams. Dirt romance, you called it. You’d rather sit there in the dirt than with me over here. Thinking instead of acting.”
He clears his throat loudly, attracting the attention of the dog, who wanders over to investigate.
“I’m sitting in the dirt because it’s cool and I am warm,” he says. “And because some small amount of mystery is—”
“I know, I know,” she says, turning to her side, giving him her back. “It’s romantic.”
He waits for her to turn back, but she doesn’t. Her hair falls over her shoulder, shiny in the firelight. There’s a flutter in his chest that feels more like nerves than anything else. He wants to call it pining.
.
He gives her things. Bottles of wine, sheathes for her sword, a book of maps. When she takes them, she is careful not to touch him. The absence of the brush of her fingers is almost like a touch in itself. Almost.
She’s frustrated with him. Just as well. He feels it too, like a building wave in his body, reaching higher and higher as he walks around and around this dog filled country. At night, he sits on his patch of dirt and stares into the fire, and tries not to listen too closely to the sounds of her hair slipping on the rolled up shirt she uses as a pillow. This strange stalemate between them is also romance, he thinks. Maybe.
He looks over at her. She’s facing the fire, looking through the book he gave her. The light is weak. The fire could use another log. He finds one and nudges it into the flames, watching it catch, watching the light get stronger and the shadows around them get weaker.
She looks at him. “Thank you,” she says.
“My pleasure,” he tells her. “Although this was a selfish act. I only wanted better light so I could see you.”
She turns back to her book. Her eyes are focused on a single point on the page. It’s clear she isn’t reading.
“So you’re done imagining me and have moved forward to staring at me,” she says.
“I’ve imagined you angry with me. So I have emerged from my daydream to determine whether you actually are.”
She turns a page. The fire cracks and crackles. Smoke and embers rise and fade to nothing. There’s an ache in his chest that feels almost like a bruise. If he kissed her, the ache would get worse, and then it would get better. And then it would end. And then she would be gone. Better to dream. Better to hold her in his mind like this, better to wallow a little, pine a little, build around the absence. This is also romance. Isn’t it?
He shifts over, in the dirt, until he reaches where she lays. She keeps her eyes resolutely on the book, right up until the moment that he slips it from her hand and places it gently on the dirt beside him. On her other side, the dog sniffs at him, then settles.
“I think the dog is also angry with me,” he says.
“He’s a mabari. Not a dog.”
“As you say.” She hasn’t pushed him away yet, so he slides a little closer, off the dirt and onto her bedroll, just on the edge of it.
She looks at him, finally. He can see her hand twitch on her chest, like she’s going to reach for him. He anticipates the feel of her hand, on his hand maybe, or his face. Maybe she will touch his hair. Maybe his mouth. In the end, she keeps her hand where it is, and the distance between them is charged and heavy, like the moment before a lightning strike.
“You torment me,” he whispers.
“Isn’t this just dirt romantic?” she whispers back. “Wouldn’t you prefer to just daydream instead of knowing the real thing? I may be a disappointment to you, after all. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
The ache returns. He presses his palm to his chest. “Elissa.” Her name is sweet to say, sweet to whisper. In his mind, he says it all the time. But having it curl around in his mouth is different. It’s sweeter.
She touches his shoulder suddenly, and presses down until he’s laying on the dirt. In a moment, a fleeting moment, she hovers over him, her hair tickling his face, and she kisses him, her lips brushing his, her breath and his mingling briefly, so briefly he could have imagined it. He lays there, dazed, staring up at the stars, his back against the hard dirt floor.
Her voice drifts over from somewhere to his left. “Use that in your next daydream,” she whispers. There’s a smile in her voice. A smile on the lips that were just touching his. If he imagined this moment every day forever, he would never be able to get that detail right.
He exhales, so deeply that it feels like his lungs may collapse. “Oh,” he says into the night. “This is also romance.”