Other things Astrid is very good at: telling when there’s intent, balancing that delicate see-saw of a dynamic shifting, physical contact becoming more purposeful. That fun knife’s edge, teetering along hey so I’m interested and I’m pretty sure you’re interested so what are we gonna do about it? She was accustomed to crossing those boundaries back home, but has been more careful and judicious about it in Riftwatch; too-aware of the fact that they all live and work together and it could be messy.
But the fact remains that Talin sweeps her hair off her shoulder, and she feels the warmth of his hand blazing through her skin, running like a shiver down her spine. It’s been so many months since anyone’s touched her like this. It used to be so much more common in the mountains. She misses it.
So it is, all things told, a very effective way to make her forget the conversation they’d just been having and stop her from asking any follow-up questions: throw a ball and send a dog bounding after the new distraction. She shoots him a look over the line of his arm and the edge of her mug.
“You caught me on a good day, usually it’s full of twigs and leaves.” Light, breezy. There is a world here where she brushes off the advance — they live together, in a shared room, it could get messy — but, also.
They’re not in that shared room right now.
So she finishes the tea in one swig (waste not, want not) and sets it down on the ground, twisting it in the dirt to plant it safely. And her next question is straightforward, forthright: “I mentioned the heated tent, yeah?”
"Twigs and leaves can be sexy too," he says, eyes twinkling, at least halfway because his hair is usually full of twigs and leaves. If he does it,it's sexy. He's not full of himself, that's just fact.
His tea gets downed, same as Astrid's, and he's just as forthright when he says: "If you need the tent to warm you, I haven't done my job."
Talin is confident, assured of himself and his desirability—there's no hesitation or questioning as he reaches for her, though his grip is gentle and loose where it circles her wrist. They're just far enough apart that Astrid could pull her hand away before he tugs her against him, but he's not even slightly concerned that she will; it's just the polite thing to leave her the space. He doesn't tease, doesn't make her ask for it—as soon as their lips slot together, his mouth on hers is hot and hungry, like he's been thinking about how he'd kiss her if he got the opportunity for a while now, and he's got some things he wants to try.
It had — maybe, just maybe — been a topic of idle consideration and speculation, in the back of her mind, every so often. A sort of off-hand thought the first time she saw him getting changed, hauling his shirt off in their room. The elf was smaller and less-bearded than she was used to, but still packed with enough lean pragmatic muscle that her head had turned.
He knows his way around a knife and a bow and the animals. All their time spent hunting and camping and not minding each others’ presence, telling each other stories instead of reading them. She had contemplated it, in stray moments when she was bored and in want of distraction.
So, in the end, perhaps it’s inevitable.
Talin pulls her to him and kisses her; and Astrid is just as quick and responsive, not bothering with playing coy. She scrambles into his lap to get closer, knees settling either side of his thighs, her hands catching at Talin’s jaw; the kiss is open-mouthed and greedy, her tongue against his. The ground is cold beneath them, but for the moment she just wants to be touching him and being touched in turn.
As expected, Astrid needs no further coaxing to take what she wants. She's a simple woman, Talin knows, in the same way that he'd been a simple man before he'd joined Fen'Harel—not unintelligent, but straightforward and credulous. Liars and spies are things that happen to other people, not her.
It's going to get her hurt someday. He has half a mind to warn her about it.
Astrid's teeth graze his lip and Talin grunts, surprised, against her mouth. The little dose of pain is enough to draw him out of his thoughts, back to the woman in his lap, but it begs the question—how long has he been so lost? Has he even been kissing her properly? That it's even a question is shitty—at this rate, she's going to think he's not really into her, or that he's bad at this, and either would be fucking unacceptable.
He nips at her lip, sharp, to grab her attention, then lays his palms on her hips and pushes her up, out of his lap and onto her feet. They're only apart for a moment while he follows her up and then he closes the distance between them again, sliding his hands around her waist to bring her in for another kiss, then under her thighs to lift her up, biceps flexing. Astrid is light enough that they're not in danger of collapsing in an embarrassing heap anytime soon, and Talin smiles, wolfish and pleased with himself, against her shoulder.
Lies, ethics, the future—each is slowly lost to the satisfying strain of his muscles, the salt of her skin on his tongue. It all fades away, until all that's left is the glide of her mouth on his, and the impact of her back on a nearby tree rattling pleasantly through both of them.
Astrid lets out a startled laugh, genuinely surprised, pressed up against the tree and caught between him and it—
“I thought,” she says between kisses, against Talin’s ear, “you’d go for the tent,”
which would have been warmer and more comfortable and marginally more civilised, but it turns out that this lack of civility is exactly what makes desire ratchet through her, a sudden low and aching throb between her legs, the concept of being so rushed and hurried you don’t even want to get comfortable first. They’ve opened a door; she wants to barrel right through it.
The bark rasps against the back of her long-sleeved shirt and she hitches her knees around Talin’s hips to hold herself up. It’s been a while since she fucked outdoors, and it turns out that she misses it: breathing fresh bitter cold air, the sound of the natural world around them, the tree rippling slightly above them; the impact knocked a little bit of snow loose and it landed on Talin’s dark hair, his shoulder. She sweeps it solicitously off his jacket, and then reaches between them to fumble for the laces of his trousers even as she doesn’t let the kiss break, distracted, delighted, chasing his mouth with her own.
It occurs to him, vaguely, as she brushes snow off his shoulder, that it might be rude to use such a word when he has a human in his arms like this—but he dismisses the thought just as easily. Astrid isn't shemlen, she's just human. She has nothing more in common with vile Tevinter magisters or petty Orlesian nobles than the shape of her ears.
He can't help her with his laces, focused as he is on keeping both of them upright, and he laughs into her mouth the more she fumbles. She doesn't want to stop kissing, but he wants his laces undone, so despite her protests he leans away, allowing her space to actually see what she's doing. Only when she's finally successful and his trousers loosen around his hips does Talin lean back in, kissing over her jaw.
"Now you, come on. I want to see you."
His breath fogs against her skin, warmer than the air around them, as he speaks. The cold is biting, but not so terrible this is a bad idea—so long as they stay pressed together, stay moving. He rocks his hips against hers, heedless of making her job undressing them more difficult, pressing them together in a slow drag, a teasing taste of things to come
A human with more experience with elves or the city alienages might recoil at hearing shemlen,
but he’s lucky, Astrid grew up in an isolated human settlement, so the word simply rolls off her as elvhen slang, vaguely derogatory, but she’s foul-mouthed herself and doesn’t mind.
“S’unfair, I’m gonna freeze my tits off,” Astrid announces, but she obligingly reaches for her shirt and hauls it off, tossing it aside to hang off a nearby branch, not minding the tree against her bare back. Her movements are quick, business-like, with no calculated seduction or artful arch of her spine.
But now that she’s half-naked in his arms, Talin can see that the woman is skinny from a lifetime of hunger but lean with functional muscle. It’s cold enough outdoors that her skin’s already pebbling and her nipples hard, from the chill and desire alike. She knows how this goes: she slides both of her hands under his shirt to warm them up a bit first, her palms drinking in the heat radiating off his taut stomach; before she dips her hand into his unlaced and loosened trousers, fingers curling around his cock, giving it an experimental stroke.
"Trust me to warm you up—or do you want to get in the tent?" he teases, eyebrow raised. As far as he's concerned, this is a challenge now—they're no shemlen, no lowlanders. They're staying outside, snow be damned.
Despite her attempt to warm herself up, her hand is still cold when Astrid touches him. Not unbearably so, though, and even as he hisses from the chill his hips rock into her grip, not away from it. Talin has always been expressive, vocal in his pleasure, even in an aravel in the middle of camp, and that's changed very little even now: Astrid twists her wrist and he sighs; she adjusts her pace and he groans low in the back of his throat, teaching her what he likes. His un-self-conscious noises only end up muffled when he ducks his head to set his teeth to the curve of her breast, gentle for now as he lifts his eyes to check if she likes it.
A lock of dark hair falls artfully into his eyes, his lashes flutter appealingly, and at the corner of his mouth where it sits poised on her tit, a smirk curls. He's very aware of how attractive he is, and he's pleased to be in a position to be admired for it.
“Back inside? Never,” Astrid insists, because it’s a challenge now, a dare, and she’s not going to back down from it and the chance to prove herself as belonging out here in the wilderness. No matter the rough bark, the air crisp and cold and even cooler whenever his mouth moves away, his saliva cooling on her skin.
One hand down his trousers, her other maps the edge of Talin’s sharp-cut cheekbones. The artful way he flutters his eyes makes her laugh, thumb against the corner of his lips, her fingertips combing his hair back. Still: she likes it very much.
“Do you pose like this for all the men and women?” she teases. Another slow drag of her hand, thumb rolling over the head of his cock.
His smirk turns to a real smile, pressed pleased against her skin. They're so much the same, he and Astrid, or they would have been—brash and stubborn and confident to a fault. It makes her beautiful to him, more than her high cheekbones or her lithe body, that window she gives into a world where things are so much less complicated. She touches him, and he leans into it, chasing the simple pleasure, makes a point to give it back, to give it first, give it good—
They do, eventually, end up in the tent. Susceptible as they both are to a dare, neither of them wants to wind up with frostbite on their nethers—at least, neither of them wants to explain how it happened to the healer. One round is enough to prove the point that neither of them is a fragile, delicate lowlander, anyway; anything else can be done in the comfortof the heated tent, pride satisfied, point proven.
In the end, Astrid isn't the only one who's forgotten how this started.
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no subject
But the fact remains that Talin sweeps her hair off her shoulder, and she feels the warmth of his hand blazing through her skin, running like a shiver down her spine. It’s been so many months since anyone’s touched her like this. It used to be so much more common in the mountains. She misses it.
So it is, all things told, a very effective way to make her forget the conversation they’d just been having and stop her from asking any follow-up questions: throw a ball and send a dog bounding after the new distraction. She shoots him a look over the line of his arm and the edge of her mug.
“You caught me on a good day, usually it’s full of twigs and leaves.” Light, breezy. There is a world here where she brushes off the advance — they live together, in a shared room, it could get messy — but, also.
They’re not in that shared room right now.
So she finishes the tea in one swig (waste not, want not) and sets it down on the ground, twisting it in the dirt to plant it safely. And her next question is straightforward, forthright: “I mentioned the heated tent, yeah?”
no subject
His tea gets downed, same as Astrid's, and he's just as forthright when he says: "If you need the tent to warm you, I haven't done my job."
Talin is confident, assured of himself and his desirability—there's no hesitation or questioning as he reaches for her, though his grip is gentle and loose where it circles her wrist. They're just far enough apart that Astrid could pull her hand away before he tugs her against him, but he's not even slightly concerned that she will; it's just the polite thing to leave her the space. He doesn't tease, doesn't make her ask for it—as soon as their lips slot together, his mouth on hers is hot and hungry, like he's been thinking about how he'd kiss her if he got the opportunity for a while now, and he's got some things he wants to try.
no subject
He knows his way around a knife and a bow and the animals. All their time spent hunting and camping and not minding each others’ presence, telling each other stories instead of reading them. She had contemplated it, in stray moments when she was bored and in want of distraction.
So, in the end, perhaps it’s inevitable.
Talin pulls her to him and kisses her; and Astrid is just as quick and responsive, not bothering with playing coy. She scrambles into his lap to get closer, knees settling either side of his thighs, her hands catching at Talin’s jaw; the kiss is open-mouthed and greedy, her tongue against his. The ground is cold beneath them, but for the moment she just wants to be touching him and being touched in turn.
no subject
It's going to get her hurt someday. He has half a mind to warn her about it.
Astrid's teeth graze his lip and Talin grunts, surprised, against her mouth. The little dose of pain is enough to draw him out of his thoughts, back to the woman in his lap, but it begs the question—how long has he been so lost? Has he even been kissing her properly? That it's even a question is shitty—at this rate, she's going to think he's not really into her, or that he's bad at this, and either would be fucking unacceptable.
He nips at her lip, sharp, to grab her attention, then lays his palms on her hips and pushes her up, out of his lap and onto her feet. They're only apart for a moment while he follows her up and then he closes the distance between them again, sliding his hands around her waist to bring her in for another kiss, then under her thighs to lift her up, biceps flexing. Astrid is light enough that they're not in danger of collapsing in an embarrassing heap anytime soon, and Talin smiles, wolfish and pleased with himself, against her shoulder.
Lies, ethics, the future—each is slowly lost to the satisfying strain of his muscles, the salt of her skin on his tongue. It all fades away, until all that's left is the glide of her mouth on his, and the impact of her back on a nearby tree rattling pleasantly through both of them.
nsfw here on out,
“I thought,” she says between kisses, against Talin’s ear, “you’d go for the tent,”
which would have been warmer and more comfortable and marginally more civilised, but it turns out that this lack of civility is exactly what makes desire ratchet through her, a sudden low and aching throb between her legs, the concept of being so rushed and hurried you don’t even want to get comfortable first. They’ve opened a door; she wants to barrel right through it.
The bark rasps against the back of her long-sleeved shirt and she hitches her knees around Talin’s hips to hold herself up. It’s been a while since she fucked outdoors, and it turns out that she misses it: breathing fresh bitter cold air, the sound of the natural world around them, the tree rippling slightly above them; the impact knocked a little bit of snow loose and it landed on Talin’s dark hair, his shoulder. She sweeps it solicitously off his jacket, and then reaches between them to fumble for the laces of his trousers even as she doesn’t let the kiss break, distracted, delighted, chasing his mouth with her own.
😈
It occurs to him, vaguely, as she brushes snow off his shoulder, that it might be rude to use such a word when he has a human in his arms like this—but he dismisses the thought just as easily. Astrid isn't shemlen, she's just human. She has nothing more in common with vile Tevinter magisters or petty Orlesian nobles than the shape of her ears.
He can't help her with his laces, focused as he is on keeping both of them upright, and he laughs into her mouth the more she fumbles. She doesn't want to stop kissing, but he wants his laces undone, so despite her protests he leans away, allowing her space to actually see what she's doing. Only when she's finally successful and his trousers loosen around his hips does Talin lean back in, kissing over her jaw.
"Now you, come on. I want to see you."
His breath fogs against her skin, warmer than the air around them, as he speaks. The cold is biting, but not so terrible this is a bad idea—so long as they stay pressed together, stay moving. He rocks his hips against hers, heedless of making her job undressing them more difficult, pressing them together in a slow drag, a teasing taste of things to come
(her, if he does his job right.)
no subject
but he’s lucky, Astrid grew up in an isolated human settlement, so the word simply rolls off her as elvhen slang, vaguely derogatory, but she’s foul-mouthed herself and doesn’t mind.
“S’unfair, I’m gonna freeze my tits off,” Astrid announces, but she obligingly reaches for her shirt and hauls it off, tossing it aside to hang off a nearby branch, not minding the tree against her bare back. Her movements are quick, business-like, with no calculated seduction or artful arch of her spine.
But now that she’s half-naked in his arms, Talin can see that the woman is skinny from a lifetime of hunger but lean with functional muscle. It’s cold enough outdoors that her skin’s already pebbling and her nipples hard, from the chill and desire alike. She knows how this goes: she slides both of her hands under his shirt to warm them up a bit first, her palms drinking in the heat radiating off his taut stomach; before she dips her hand into his unlaced and loosened trousers, fingers curling around his cock, giving it an experimental stroke.
no subject
Despite her attempt to warm herself up, her hand is still cold when Astrid touches him. Not unbearably so, though, and even as he hisses from the chill his hips rock into her grip, not away from it. Talin has always been expressive, vocal in his pleasure, even in an aravel in the middle of camp, and that's changed very little even now: Astrid twists her wrist and he sighs; she adjusts her pace and he groans low in the back of his throat, teaching her what he likes. His un-self-conscious noises only end up muffled when he ducks his head to set his teeth to the curve of her breast, gentle for now as he lifts his eyes to check if she likes it.
A lock of dark hair falls artfully into his eyes, his lashes flutter appealingly, and at the corner of his mouth where it sits poised on her tit, a smirk curls. He's very aware of how attractive he is, and he's pleased to be in a position to be admired for it.
(But only by a select few.)
no subject
One hand down his trousers, her other maps the edge of Talin’s sharp-cut cheekbones. The artful way he flutters his eyes makes her laugh, thumb against the corner of his lips, her fingertips combing his hair back. Still: she likes it very much.
“Do you pose like this for all the men and women?” she teases. Another slow drag of her hand, thumb rolling over the head of his cock.
no subject
They do, eventually, end up in the tent. Susceptible as they both are to a dare, neither of them wants to wind up with frostbite on their nethers—at least, neither of them wants to explain how it happened to the healer. One round is enough to prove the point that neither of them is a fragile, delicate lowlander, anyway; anything else can be done in the comfortof the heated tent, pride satisfied, point proven.
In the end, Astrid isn't the only one who's forgotten how this started.
🎀 already a great closer imo