"Well, that was a right waste of time —" He's barged in without looking, which might not be best protocol for someone's had assassins after him near as Wintermarch. But it's only ever Astrid, who can handle interlopers. Or whoever Astrid's bedding, what's like as not the same. "— Lions ate him."
So he looks a bit puzzled for seeing a scrawny elf and no Astrid at all.
"Who the fuck're you."
An eye up and down, but Talin doesn't look about to shank him, so it's over to his mattress (unmade beneath some pinned, artistic sketches of the female form) to slouch and begin pulling off boots. Still waiting for an answer. Not fussed for its speed.
Talin, for his part, looks just as unimpressed as Lazar—though if it's with Lazar himself, his bed, the sketches, or the room in general is hard to say.
"Talin," comes slowly, sitting on one of the two un-claimed beds, "new recruit. The Quartermaster said this is my room assignment. What was that about a lion?"
"Ate him," Boot thunks to floor. "Haul my ass halfway through the High Reaches to meet this guy, right, supposed to draw us a map."
If any of that new information — Talin, my room — might give a man pause, Lazar doesn't. If any of this impromptu scouting report is confidential,
(It isn't.)
It doesn't stop him running his mouth. (It would.)
"And he's got it half done, then says hang on, I need a piss. So I tell him: Stick it back in, we're nearly done. But the idiot won't listen. Strolls off past the fire as-you-please. Give it a minute, figure he's giving it a shake, then it's all screams."
He scratches his balls.
"So we got half a fuckin' map, and a spare donkey."
That actually perks Talin up—he has met Astrid, and he immediately liked her more than he's liked... this giant. He looks to the other occupied bed, searching for indications of who it is who's claimed it, whether it actually looks like a space that would belong to someone like Astrid.
"I knew I would have roommates, just not who they were. Do you have a name?"
Presumably it would be rude to just call him Giant.
"Uh-huh," Yeah, he knows that look. Long as it's not his sheets. "It's Lazar."
A hand through the week's beard, as he watches Talin watch the bed. Got an ear for language. Sat his ass in Val Royeaux the better part of these past few years. Knows the Orlesian cities and countryside well enough to know what don't come quite standard.
Haring has been sinking its teeth into the Planasene: the weather finally turning, some early snow hanging off the boughs of the trees, bushes and branches crackling with frost. Astrid’s breath steams in the night air, even more frigid after the sun set.
Unlike their usual hunting trips, this time they’re out on regular assignment, scouting the woods. Astrid’s setting up their camp with quick, practiced efficiency; and she is, in more ways than one, a useful person to have with you on a job like this. After setting up her enchanted tent, she tests its framework rune, satisfied to see that it’s still working and that magical warmth starts to fill the space. They’ll share; it’s fine, they sleep in the same room anyhow back at the Gallows.
But Talin is not back yet.
She’s piled wood into a pile, and gotten the fire started. Sitting in front of the campfire, warming some water for tea — she’s a little more careful about alcohol when out in the field — she cranes her head, listening. He’s been monitoring the outskirts while she got their camp ready. And perhaps someone else might not have noticed, but Astrid has a very good sense for how long it takes to scout this particular perimeter and how long it usually takes Talin to do it; they’re not near the occupied Tevene border, so he should’ve been back ages ago. Unless he ran into trouble —
She’s got a hunting knife, peeling back layers of a lump of unshaped wood, when there’s finally the crack of footsteps on frost. Her chin jerks up, eyes watchful as the elf approaches the light.
This is far from the first time Talin and Astrid have gone to the Planasene together; this is the first time Talin's had a meeting with another agent during one of their trips. Fen'Harel was frustratingly vague as to what kind of information he expects from his embedded agent, so Talin has to assume "weird people claiming to have always been part of Riftwatch have showed up" is as important as anything else. Slipping Astrid wasn't difficult, and barely even constituted slipping, really—she has no reason to suspect him of anything, and he's supposed to be a bit deeper in the forest for the perimeter check anyway. She barely even looked up when he disappeared into the trees.
The meeting point is a half hour's walk past the Riftwatch perimeter, under a crumbling old statue of Mythal. Her ever-vigilant protector wolf watches from a respectful distance, missing one stone ear.
(Talin would be the first to admit it's a cliche, but the truth is elvhen ruins make for great landmarks and no one would think it strange to see elves congregating around them.)
His contact is another former Dalish—at least Talin thinks they are, from the barbed curls he can just barely see tattooed under the scarf they've pulled over their mouth.
(He'd be offended by the lack of trust, but he's similarly covered.)
They exchange no pleasantries nor names. He gives his report, receives his next orders, and they part ways. The whole encounter takes less than five minutes. By the time he returns to Astrid, he's not even twenty minutes later than he should be,
but Astrid has paid more attention to him, and has a better sense of timing than he realized. His steps don't stutter and his eyes give away nothing as he comes further into camp, but he doesn't respond for a moment, considering angles to play, ways to explain.
"Why," he says eventually, the suggestion of a flirtatious smirk crossing his lips. "Miss me?"
Things she is good at: keeping track of time even without a timepiece, having a good instinctive muscle-memory for how long things take. She’s lived her entire life out in woods like these, with nothing but the slow movement of the sun and passing of the clouds to mark the minutes. It’s a skill.
What she is very bad at: telling if someone’s lying to her face.
She’s gullible, and tends to assume the best of people, thinking everyone operates from the same baseline standard of straightforward honesty with each other. She’s bad at lying herself; it’s always written all over her face. And so while Talin’s answer is an evasion, and she notices it’s an evasion— she snorts instead, and pours some tea into a second mug and holds it out to him.
“Started thinking maybe you’d gotten ganked by a Tevene patrol.”
This, too, isn’t actually an answer. (She did miss him. She misses most people. Despite being comfortable out in the wilderness by herself, with only the sky and the trees for company, having one person to talk to is preferable.)
His flirtatious smile turns into something more akin to offense as he takes the mug, scoffing.
"Those shemlen couldn't catch me in this forest even if I did leave a trail—which I didn't."
Not least of all because any trail he did leave would make it very obvious he'd been beyond the perimeter. He sits at Astrid's side in the dirt, turns his face to the trees above them. Closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, fills his lungs with the scent of damp earth and things that grow. The frost hasn't killed everything yet, but it gives the air a crispness which has its own appeal—certainly more than the oppressive stone walls of the Gallows.
He's wondered at the Dread Wolf's wisdom in sending him to Riftwatch. There are other agents he could have sent, elves and elfblooded humans from the cities who'd have been more comfortable in such a setting. Even some of his fellow Dalish-born had acclimated better to the shemlen cities. Kirkwall is nothing Talin would choose if he had a choice—
and there, a bit of honesty to offer Astrid, to paper over his lie.
"I needed to get the stone out of my system," he says after a long exhale. "Made the perimeter and then I just wanted to keep going, you know."
It's not a question; she knows, if nothing else, because he's complained of needing to see something green and growing at least once a week since he moved into the room they share. It's why she invited him out with her the first time: he was being annoying, and she had a solution. It's mostly good fortune (and a little desperation) that they like each other enough to keep coming out here together, even off assignment.
The moment Talin offers up that explanation, Astrid swallows it hook, line, and sinker (because why shouldn’t she?), and she knocks her shoulder companionably against his while blowing on her cup of hot tea.
She buys it so easily because it’s her same reasoning. They often come out here for a break from city life. The justification is usually hunting — catching some food to supplement the Gallows’ stores — and it is that, sure, but it’s also the pleasant company and fresh air and sprawling space and the smell of dew, flourishing trees, rich earth, far from Kirkwall’s grimy docks and stinking streets. The companionable silence as they set up or break down camp, skinning rabbits, washing off their bloody hands.
“It’s better, innit?” Astrid says.
There’s always a tension carried in their bones in the city: the tight quarters, the crowds, the constant noise which keeps their hackles permanently raised. She relaxes more out here. She thinks she sees the same thing in Talin, too: his affected languor a little less affected.
“Out here, always feels like I can let down my hair.”
Her hair is long and loose today, spilling messy over her shoulders, only parts of it wound into braids.
"Much better," comes his easy agreement, glancing sidelong at Astrid.
She's bought his story easily, and why wouldn't she? She has no reason to suspect him of deception, no reason to wonder at his loyalty. For the rest of this assignment, he'll be safe from further questions, he's confident of that.
But if he trips up elsewhere. If someone else has reason to suspect him. Astrid has a story of a routine check that took longer than it should, and for a competent spymaster that could be more than enough to put pieces together. This is a loose end that needs to be tied off.
Talin angles himself to face her more fully. They've never been as averse to touch as city folk seem to be, both of their cultures more free with contact than that, but there are still lines. Delineations between normal, friendly contact and contact with purpose. Intent. He hasn't touched her hair before, her neck. Her shoulders.
He brushes her hair, wild and loose, from her shoulder. Trails his fingers deliberately over the barely-visible scrap of her neck not covered by her winter furs. His eyes on her, when she meets them, are hot and inviting. His hand lingers on her back, between her shoulder blades.
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.
"Didn't," as the giant well knows; immediate assessment rings dirty, not stupid. "All over, though. Never settled in one place too long."
Could mean Dalish. Could mean bog-standard traveller. Could mean none of your business, shemlen, keep your nose out of it. Tone's not giving a lot away, Lazar can read into it whatever he likes.
"You... that's not Orlesian. Not Tevene, either. Definitely not Qunari, probably not Fereldan. Antivan's supposed to be nicer'n that. North-west, then?"
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.
He hasn't been to Antiva, doesn't speak the language—but he's heard its accent in Trade, can recognize the sounds, enough to know when it's spoken to him. The smile he aims back at Lazar is less impressed than it is vindicated: definitely not stupid.
"Heard enough accents to know the ones I haven't. Never met an Ander before, Nevarran either."
Dread Wolf hasn't been recruiting up that way yet, seems like. Still not sure which Lazar is, but if the shem's not pressing him Talin won't press either.
"Water's that scarce? Thought it was a lot of bog."
"Run a river through dirt, and you got a marsh." And the cluster of life around it. Breadbasket of the country. "Ain't no rivers where I'm from."
Just boom or bust on the winter rains. A crater's good for one thing, and that's a reservoir. Keeps enough graze for the goats. Talin's smiling like he's won something, and hell, not knowing the Hills has gotta be first prize.
Still, nostalgia in the telling. Place is better as a story. Somewhere he can close the cover.
It's a mark of Talin's maturity as a person, and his suitability for his appointed task, that he manages not to respond back with his knee-jerk feeling every time some human talks about how old something of theirs is: Bet there's an older name in Elvhen. That it takes a moment of actual effort to swallow the words down just means that he's making the conscience choice not to be an asshole, which, when you think about it, is more meaningful than if it took him no effort at all.
At least, it might be more meaningful if it weren't motivated by being a more effective spy when humans like him.
Regardless, he bites his tongue—and he knows nostalgia when he hears it. Knows the kind for a place you'll never go back to best.
"Orth..." he muses, considering, teasing at what he knows of Trade, Tevene, and Elvhen, what archaic words and forms survive in place names that have fallen out of every day use... Then he shrugs, because what he knows isn't all that much. "What's it mean?"
"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.
"Fuck knows." Lazar tips the boot overhand. Dirt trickles out. "Go back enough, all that shite ends up the Place or the People."
That's language for you.
"But you ever meet some big bastard with scars down his face, might be playing he's Orth." A doubtful grunt. "Kicked Ma when she knocked up with a Chanter."
A thunk of the sole. Again, and a bit of tooth bounces free —
“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.
"I'm sure you're supposed to be speaking Trade, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
The words are all words he knows, but arranged in such a fucked way that he's still barely able to follow along. What in the fuck does playing mean in this context. Who kicked Lazar's mother, and is it literal or figurative kicking. He can't possibly be implying any large, scarred human could only be from the Orthlands, but what the fuck else he could be saying Talin truly has no idea. Why is he the one having trouble understanding a human?
"I can talk around you too, shem," he says in elvhen, snappish. He's frustrated with Lazar, but even more frustrated with himself for being so bothered.
I work with our artifacts, and the Gates are a major focus. So it's dreadfully inconvenient that I've ears like cabbages, and no firsthand account of the space. I hope to ask yours.
What led you to believe it was dedicated to a creator?
[ hopefully he's not, like, sensitive about that, or anything. ]
I don't believe it's a temple to Lethanavir, [ patiently, ] That's what it is.
[ he could leave it there and hardly feel bad—but he's trying to sand down his sharp edges, after the temple made him all splinters. ]
Elvhen temples are hard to mistake for anything else. No Andrastian has ever loved mosaic as much as the People, while old Tevene work might have twice the tile but dedicate it all to dragons.
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.
They are terribly fond of the beasts, aren't they? It's all wyverns for Ciriane work. [ pages shuffle. ] Lethanavir: Friend to the dead. Fitting placement.
[ the dalish bury their corpses, at least so long as the dales. but they hadn't the dales until andraste. whatever came before, ]
The artifacts about the gate, were they as familiar?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
at some point, whenever you prefer timeline wise w plot stuff
So he looks a bit puzzled for seeing a scrawny elf and no Astrid at all.
"Who the fuck're you."
An eye up and down, but Talin doesn't look about to shank him, so it's over to his mattress (unmade beneath some pinned, artistic sketches of the female form) to slouch and begin pulling off boots. Still waiting for an answer. Not fussed for its speed.
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"Talin," comes slowly, sitting on one of the two un-claimed beds, "new recruit. The Quartermaster said this is my room assignment. What was that about a lion?"
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If any of that new information — Talin, my room — might give a man pause, Lazar doesn't. If any of this impromptu scouting report is confidential,
(It isn't.)
It doesn't stop him running his mouth. (It would.)
"And he's got it half done, then says hang on, I need a piss. So I tell him: Stick it back in, we're nearly done. But the idiot won't listen. Strolls off past the fire as-you-please. Give it a minute, figure he's giving it a shake, then it's all screams."
He scratches his balls.
"So we got half a fuckin' map, and a spare donkey."
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Do you want him to find that person for you? That might be preferable to whatever this conversation is.
(Why are humans so tall? And big? It's completely unnecessary. That's too much flesh and bones to have.)
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"You're the one asked, mate." Not his fault he's not expecting de-tail. Lazar jerks his chin to the bed across. "Ain't met Astrid yet?"
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That actually perks Talin up—he has met Astrid, and he immediately liked her more than he's liked... this giant. He looks to the other occupied bed, searching for indications of who it is who's claimed it, whether it actually looks like a space that would belong to someone like Astrid.
"I knew I would have roommates, just not who they were. Do you have a name?"
Presumably it would be rude to just call him Giant.
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A hand through the week's beard, as he watches Talin watch the bed. Got an ear for language. Sat his ass in Val Royeaux the better part of these past few years. Knows the Orlesian cities and countryside well enough to know what don't come quite standard.
"Where'd you say you were from?"
camping.
Unlike their usual hunting trips, this time they’re out on regular assignment, scouting the woods. Astrid’s setting up their camp with quick, practiced efficiency; and she is, in more ways than one, a useful person to have with you on a job like this. After setting up her enchanted tent, she tests its framework rune, satisfied to see that it’s still working and that magical warmth starts to fill the space. They’ll share; it’s fine, they sleep in the same room anyhow back at the Gallows.
But Talin is not back yet.
She’s piled wood into a pile, and gotten the fire started. Sitting in front of the campfire, warming some water for tea — she’s a little more careful about alcohol when out in the field — she cranes her head, listening. He’s been monitoring the outskirts while she got their camp ready. And perhaps someone else might not have noticed, but Astrid has a very good sense for how long it takes to scout this particular perimeter and how long it usually takes Talin to do it; they’re not near the occupied Tevene border, so he should’ve been back ages ago. Unless he ran into trouble —
She’s got a hunting knife, peeling back layers of a lump of unshaped wood, when there’s finally the crack of footsteps on frost. Her chin jerks up, eyes watchful as the elf approaches the light.
“Took you long enough,” she says.
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The meeting point is a half hour's walk past the Riftwatch perimeter, under a crumbling old statue of Mythal. Her ever-vigilant protector wolf watches from a respectful distance, missing one stone ear.
(Talin would be the first to admit it's a cliche, but the truth is elvhen ruins make for great landmarks and no one would think it strange to see elves congregating around them.)
His contact is another former Dalish—at least Talin thinks they are, from the barbed curls he can just barely see tattooed under the scarf they've pulled over their mouth.
(He'd be offended by the lack of trust, but he's similarly covered.)
They exchange no pleasantries nor names. He gives his report, receives his next orders, and they part ways. The whole encounter takes less than five minutes. By the time he returns to Astrid, he's not even twenty minutes later than he should be,
but Astrid has paid more attention to him, and has a better sense of timing than he realized. His steps don't stutter and his eyes give away nothing as he comes further into camp, but he doesn't respond for a moment, considering angles to play, ways to explain.
"Why," he says eventually, the suggestion of a flirtatious smirk crossing his lips. "Miss me?"
no subject
Things she is good at: keeping track of time even without a timepiece, having a good instinctive muscle-memory for how long things take. She’s lived her entire life out in woods like these, with nothing but the slow movement of the sun and passing of the clouds to mark the minutes. It’s a skill.
What she is very bad at: telling if someone’s lying to her face.
She’s gullible, and tends to assume the best of people, thinking everyone operates from the same baseline standard of straightforward honesty with each other. She’s bad at lying herself; it’s always written all over her face. And so while Talin’s answer is an evasion, and she notices it’s an evasion— she snorts instead, and pours some tea into a second mug and holds it out to him.
“Started thinking maybe you’d gotten ganked by a Tevene patrol.”
This, too, isn’t actually an answer. (She did miss him. She misses most people. Despite being comfortable out in the wilderness by herself, with only the sky and the trees for company, having one person to talk to is preferable.)
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"Those shemlen couldn't catch me in this forest even if I did leave a trail—which I didn't."
Not least of all because any trail he did leave would make it very obvious he'd been beyond the perimeter. He sits at Astrid's side in the dirt, turns his face to the trees above them. Closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, fills his lungs with the scent of damp earth and things that grow. The frost hasn't killed everything yet, but it gives the air a crispness which has its own appeal—certainly more than the oppressive stone walls of the Gallows.
He's wondered at the Dread Wolf's wisdom in sending him to Riftwatch. There are other agents he could have sent, elves and elfblooded humans from the cities who'd have been more comfortable in such a setting. Even some of his fellow Dalish-born had acclimated better to the shemlen cities. Kirkwall is nothing Talin would choose if he had a choice—
and there, a bit of honesty to offer Astrid, to paper over his lie.
"I needed to get the stone out of my system," he says after a long exhale. "Made the perimeter and then I just wanted to keep going, you know."
It's not a question; she knows, if nothing else, because he's complained of needing to see something green and growing at least once a week since he moved into the room they share. It's why she invited him out with her the first time: he was being annoying, and she had a solution. It's mostly good fortune (and a little desperation) that they like each other enough to keep coming out here together, even off assignment.
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The moment Talin offers up that explanation, Astrid swallows it hook, line, and sinker (because why shouldn’t she?), and she knocks her shoulder companionably against his while blowing on her cup of hot tea.
She buys it so easily because it’s her same reasoning. They often come out here for a break from city life. The justification is usually hunting — catching some food to supplement the Gallows’ stores — and it is that, sure, but it’s also the pleasant company and fresh air and sprawling space and the smell of dew, flourishing trees, rich earth, far from Kirkwall’s grimy docks and stinking streets. The companionable silence as they set up or break down camp, skinning rabbits, washing off their bloody hands.
“It’s better, innit?” Astrid says.
There’s always a tension carried in their bones in the city: the tight quarters, the crowds, the constant noise which keeps their hackles permanently raised. She relaxes more out here. She thinks she sees the same thing in Talin, too: his affected languor a little less affected.
“Out here, always feels like I can let down my hair.”
Her hair is long and loose today, spilling messy over her shoulders, only parts of it wound into braids.
“—Metaphorically, like.”
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She's bought his story easily, and why wouldn't she? She has no reason to suspect him of deception, no reason to wonder at his loyalty. For the rest of this assignment, he'll be safe from further questions, he's confident of that.
But if he trips up elsewhere. If someone else has reason to suspect him. Astrid has a story of a routine check that took longer than it should, and for a competent spymaster that could be more than enough to put pieces together. This is a loose end that needs to be tied off.
Talin angles himself to face her more fully. They've never been as averse to touch as city folk seem to be, both of their cultures more free with contact than that, but there are still lines. Delineations between normal, friendly contact and contact with purpose. Intent. He hasn't touched her hair before, her neck. Her shoulders.
He brushes her hair, wild and loose, from her shoulder. Trails his fingers deliberately over the barely-visible scrap of her neck not covered by her winter furs. His eyes on her, when she meets them, are hot and inviting. His hand lingers on her back, between her shoulder blades.
"I like it when it's literal, too."
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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?”
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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.
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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.
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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.
a million gomens, feel free to drop!
Could mean Dalish. Could mean bog-standard traveller. Could mean none of your business, shemlen, keep your nose out of it. Tone's not giving a lot away, Lazar can read into it whatever he likes.
"You... that's not Orlesian. Not Tevene, either. Definitely not Qunari, probably not Fereldan. Antivan's supposed to be nicer'n that. North-west, then?"
😈
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.)
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If that's an echo, it's not only elves who keep caravans. He yawns.
"Don't bother with it, nothing worth seeing. Waterskin leaks, and there's your pay gone."
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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.
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"Heard enough accents to know the ones I haven't. Never met an Ander before, Nevarran either."
Dread Wolf hasn't been recruiting up that way yet, seems like. Still not sure which Lazar is, but if the shem's not pressing him Talin won't press either.
"Water's that scarce? Thought it was a lot of bog."
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Just boom or bust on the winter rains. A crater's good for one thing, and that's a reservoir. Keeps enough graze for the goats. Talin's smiling like he's won something, and hell, not knowing the Hills has gotta be first prize.
Still, nostalgia in the telling. Place is better as a story. Somewhere he can close the cover.
"Old name for it's Orthlands."
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At least, it might be more meaningful if it weren't motivated by being a more effective spy when humans like him.
Regardless, he bites his tongue—and he knows nostalgia when he hears it. Knows the kind for a place you'll never go back to best.
"Orth..." he muses, considering, teasing at what he knows of Trade, Tevene, and Elvhen, what archaic words and forms survive in place names that have fallen out of every day use... Then he shrugs, because what he knows isn't all that much. "What's it mean?"
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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.)
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That's language for you.
"But you ever meet some big bastard with scars down his face, might be playing he's Orth." A doubtful grunt. "Kicked Ma when she knocked up with a Chanter."
A thunk of the sole. Again, and a bit of tooth bounces free —
(Lions. Messy cunts.)
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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.
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"I'm sure you're supposed to be speaking Trade, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
The words are all words he knows, but arranged in such a fucked way that he's still barely able to follow along. What in the fuck does playing mean in this context. Who kicked Lazar's mother, and is it literal or figurative kicking. He can't possibly be implying any large, scarred human could only be from the Orthlands, but what the fuck else he could be saying Talin truly has no idea. Why is he the one having trouble understanding a human?
"I can talk around you too, shem," he says in elvhen, snappish. He's frustrated with Lazar, but even more frustrated with himself for being so bothered.
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"Don't be a tit." Lazar strands. Stretches out his back. "I'm taking a bath."
A clear hour for the elf to sort himself. Young mercs, always the same.
crystals;
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[ is there a question coming, or are we stating facts? ]
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[ as they've yet to be introduced. ]
I work with our artifacts, and the Gates are a major focus. So it's dreadfully inconvenient that I've ears like cabbages, and no firsthand account of the space. I hope to ask yours.
What led you to believe it was dedicated to a creator?
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[ hopefully he's not, like, sensitive about that, or anything. ]
I don't believe it's a temple to Lethanavir, [ patiently, ] That's what it is.
[ he could leave it there and hardly feel bad—but he's trying to sand down his sharp edges, after the temple made him all splinters. ]
Elvhen temples are hard to mistake for anything else. No Andrastian has ever loved mosaic as much as the People, while old Tevene work might have twice the tile but dedicate it all to dragons.
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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
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[ the dalish bury their corpses, at least so long as the dales. but they hadn't the dales until andraste. whatever came before, ]
The artifacts about the gate, were they as familiar?