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“Are you ever going to call me by my name?”
Cassandra looks up from where she’s sitting, slowly polishing her sword.
The metal is already gleaming in the sunlight, but the motions of the act always make her feel at ease. It’s one of her favorite things to do to ease down her anxiety and her worries – after vehemently battling training dummies in the yard, that is.
Despite the shock of the cold mountain air always surrounding Skyhold, the atmosphere feels lazy and slow. Or it did, at least, until the Inquisitor broached this subject.
She’s sitting opposite Cassandra on a fence, cleaning her daggers.
She didn’t look up when she asked.
This is one of those things that they do; have always done, from the time the Inquisitor was still halfway into prison, a fugitive-slash-possibly-holy-figure in Haven. Comfortable silence between them while they both focus their attention on sensible matters such as cleaning their weapons or their armor.
Cassandra hadn’t realized it back then, but the Inquisitor had initially done it on purpose. Picked the activity because it had suited Cassandra.
She plays chess and discusses strategy with Cullen, plays pranks and bakes cookies with Sera, drinks with the Iron Bull, discusses etiquette and gossip with Josephine. There’s arcane debates (and chucking books) with Dorian, light noble-themed banter with Vivienne, and swapping adventurous tales with Solas (though his are more often about the Fade than not).
It’s one of those things that makes the Inquisitor both an excellent leader and an excellent friend.
It also makes Cassandra realize that she doesn’t really know what kind of activities the Inquisitor would like to get up to on her own. She knows of her hobbies, yes, but those things you do in-between life in the company of your friends?
Something Cassandra should remedy sometime soon in the future.
“Well?” the Inquisitor presses. “At this rate, I’d almost think you wouldn’t know it.”
It’s said in a playful tone, but the hurt beneath the words is obvious.
Cassandra stares out over the courtyard, beyond the gleam of her sword and the long legs of the Inquisitor dangling down the fence. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “I suppose… I suppose you will always be the Inquisitor to me.”
Her friend hops down the fence, daggers sliding into their sheaths – one at her hip, one at the side of her shin. “I know, I know,” she sighs, “but how do you think that makes me feel?”
Cassandra raises an eyebrow. “Put on a pedestal?” she tries, trying to sound slightly apologetic.
The Inquisitor rolls her eyes. “Cass, it’s just weird. You’re my – you’re my best friend. My partner. My…” she pauses, trailing off.
“Lover?” asks Cassandra, the word oddly explicit between them.
It stays in the air like a tangible thing.
They haven’t done anything too intimate yet – nothing beyond holding hands and gentle kisses, all shared when the sun was still high up in the sky. A hand on a shoulder, an arm around a waist. A wink, a laugh, a knowing look.
Nothing at night, nothing too alone, nothing where they share beds. Nothing beyond sharing a tent when they venture out of Skyhold, and then it’s still just a simple goodnight kiss and two bedrolls beneath the leather.
Once or twice a sharper thing with heat uncurling in Cassandra’s body – an embrace stolen in the stables, a quick kiss in the gardens, the desperate press of bloodied mouth against mouth after the Inquisitor had slain another beast.
But Cassandra has not lain with her lover just yet. It feels too new, too unknown still.
“Yes, lover,” the Inquisitor sighs again with emphasis, looking away. “I mean – I get that I’m your leader and everything, but you are usually so fed up with being called a hero yourself.”
She pauses, gesturing back at Cassandra. “You’d rather be Cassandra – not the whole Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena thing – first. Right?” she asks, turning.
The light is transforming her hair, giving it a warmer color.
“Right,” Cassandra confirms, rising from her stool. She places her sword on it before moving on to stand next to the Inquisitor, hands clasped behind her back.
“You do realize how much I care about you,” she says, letting the usual harshness seep out of her voice. It’s softer now; the sounds rounder, quieter. Closer to the way she used to speak to Anthony.
The Inquisitor crosses her arms. “I do. This is not me doubting your love for me, Cass, but…”
She turns, looking Cassandra straight in the eye. “You’re the closest person that I have, and yet I barely hear my own name on your lips.”
Cassandra has always been tall and strong.
She’s faced dragons, demons, and monsters. Monsters wearing the armor of the Templar order, monsters wearing the robes of Circle mages. Nobles and warlords, simple farmers and ruthless commanders.
But the Inquisitor still towers over her.
Both in stature, and in the way she looks at Cassandra. Something in her eyes is as bright as the Mark she carries in her left hand; something devastatingly powerful. Mesmerizing, even more so than the dragons and the demons and the other worldly and unworldly creatures Cassandra has personally banished from this world.
“And it’s such a pity,” the Inquisitor continues, stepping closer and cupping Cassandra’s jaw. She smiles, almost shyly, gently thumbing below Cassandra’s ear. “Because you’ve got such a beautiful mouth.”
Cassandra knows she turns about as red as the lyrium they’ve been finding all over Emprise du Lion, but she holds her ground. Gives in to the increased thumping of her eager heart, and allows herself to lean into the Inquisitor’s hand.
An idea forms itself inside her mind.
The things she is still a little frightened of, for no reason at all, and where she would not know how to take the lead. And other things, too, older; forged deeply into the walls she’s drawn up around her heart.
(I want to be courted properly; I want it all. To be swept off my feet.)
“Perhaps,” she says slowly, so very slowly, the words unfamiliar in her mouth, “you should try harder.”
The Inquisitor blinks, obviously surprised. Her hand almost drops from Cassandra’s face, but Cassandra stops it by capturing it in her own. She keeps her eyes on the Inquisitor’s, and presses a lingering kiss to the center of her palm.
“Try harder,” the Inquisitor echoes, her cheeks flushed, “right. Is that, uh, is that a challenge? And do we – do we mean the same thing by it?”
Cassandra smiles. “It is a challenge indeed,” she confirms, “and I accept any way you wish to fill it.”
“Maker,” the Inquisitor murmurs, the flush on her face deepening further as her eyes dip to Cassandra’s lips, “that’s really something.”
Cassandra’s smile only grows. It’s both a reassuring and an amusing thing to know that she affects the Inquisitor in the same way that the woman influences her; makes her almost trip over her words, nervous in only the best kind of ways.
Butterflies and all that.
The Inquisitor nods firmly then, a determined look on her face through the blush. “Alright, accepted. Kind of like courting but with a free playing field.” She grins. “I can do that.”
Cassandra snorts. “However you see it, Inquisitor.”
The Inquisitor leans in then, the space between them suddenly gone; her left arm curls around Cassandra’s waist, and her breath fans over her ear. Her lips brush over the delicate shell as she speaks, and Cassandra finds that she closes her eyes in response almost instantly.
“My name,” she says, voice low, “just spoken, just said, will be enough for me.”
Her other hand comes up, thumb brushing Cassandra’s lower lip. She leans back a little, and there’s a kind of wicked glint to her eye that Cassandra rarely sees.
(Just for me, she realizes, and suppresses a shiver.)
“But after,” she promises, “I’ll make you scream it.”
And oh yes, that is the kind of promise that fans the fires. That makes them burst, nerves and heat and want mixing together, and all Cassandra can think is how devastatingly beautiful the Inquisitor is in that moment. Beautiful in an almost savage sense, like something raw.
Maker, sometimes she thinks she must know how Shartan felt, those many years ago, staring up at Andraste – just like Cassandra does now, captivated and wanting and lost for words.
“I’ll – I’ll hold you to that, Inquisitor,” she manages, wetting her lips.
And a smirk and a wink and the Inquisitor is gone, the warmth at her hip and side dissipated in an instant. She walks back to Skyhold’s main entrance with a certain jubilant spring to her step, looking back over her shoulder. She looks mischievous but pleased, and it’s a very good look on her.
Not quite unlike Halamshiral, when she had the Duchess in the bag.
“See you at dinner!” she yells over her shoulder, climbing the stairs.
Cassandra gives her a little wave.
She’s in for trouble, and she’s never been happier about it.
It starts with poetry, because of course it does.
It starts with candlelight and whispered words, their bodies unarmored and close together in a nest of pillows atop the Inquisitor’s bed. An evening of laughter and light teasing before. Easy and smooth, in the steady rhythm of the fast friendship they formed after the Breach.
And yet there is a tantalizing energy every time their fingers brush, or when either one of them leans close.
“I like this,” Cassandra says eventually, when their words and quiet laughter have died down, and she reaches out and squeezes the Inquisitor’s hand. “Even though we have our duties… It feels good to take some time off to be together.”
The Inquisitor smiles and shakes her head, squeezing back. “I think we’re allowed an evening, don’t you?”
Cassandra allows her a small smile back, and this is one of those moments – charged but silent – in which they usually lean in and kiss. She’s already shuffling closer on the blankets, wanting to take initiative for once, but the Inquisitor places a finger on her lips.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she whispers.
Cassandra arches a sharp eyebrow. “Oh?” she asks. “It had better be a good one.”
Her lover laughs, obviously amused and reaching down to get something that’s hidden underneath the bed. “I wouldn’t have thought you to be one to want a kiss rather than a surprise.”
Cassandra crosses her arms, playing the grump. “I was rather looking forward to it, to be honest. The kiss, that is.”
“Wait ‘til you hear this.”
She sits up straighter, turning away from Cassandra to obscure the content of the item in her hands. It’s a book, its cover a light emerald, but there is no writing on the front nor on its spine. The eyes of the Inquisitor are cleverly twinkling from behind the pages, and she clears her throat.
“Ready?” she asks.
Cassandra nods.
The Inquisitor starts to speak, and Cassandra realizes she wasn’t ready at all. Her voice is lower, more measured and slow than her usual voice. Sensual, even. But more importantly –
It’s Tevene, of which Cassandra barely understands a thing.
She knows only a few words – titles, swear words, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Knows only the harshness of it whenever Dorian cusses or the arcane atmosphere of it whenever she passes books from Tevinter in the library, the lettering curling on the covers.
And yet what flows out of the Inquisitor’s mouth is pure poetry, like fine silk. Like spiced wine, heated at its core, it bubbles forth from her lips to sink its soft hooks into Cassandra’s heart.
“Do you know it?” the Inquisitor asks with a seductive smile, an eyebrow raised.
“I don’t,” Cassandra says, hoarse and almost choking on the words, “because I do not know Tevene.”
The Inquisitor’s smile grows. “Perhaps you’re more familiar with this version?” she asks, and continues on before Cassandra can answer.
And Cassandra realizes that she does know this, but that it’s been ages since she’s read it – poetry from a rather scandalous and banned (but romantic!) Tevinter tome. She briefly wonders where the Inquisitor got it because she most certainly wants a copy for herself, but even in a language that she’s familiar with, the Inquisitor’s voice is a delight to listen to.
So much that Cassandra forgets her thoughts, her cheeks glowing.
“On aching branch do blossoms grow,” the Inquisitor reads, “the wind a hallowed breath; it carries the scent of honeysuckle, sweet as the lover’s kiss.”
A knowing look over the book in her direction. “It brings the promise of more tomorrows,” she continues, voice a little gravelly, “of sighs and whispered bliss.”
She pauses there, probably to give the words more weight, and it works. Cassandra feels them to her core, but the Inquisitor shouldn’t stop, not here. The poem’s not finished yet, and it breaks the flow.
But isn’t this what they always do?
When they fight, when they dance; when the Inquisitor ducks, Cassandra steps in. When Cassandra’s back is unprotected, the Inquisitor is there, daggers in hand or arrow knocked.
Poetry needn’t be different.
So Cassandra holds the gaze of the Inquisitor over the edge of the book, and opens her mouth.
“His…” she starts, hesitantly, and the Inquisitor’s eyes widen.
Cassandra clears her throat, hands folded in her lap, and starts again.
“Her lips on mine speak words not voiced, a prayer,” she says slowly, digging through the fog of her mind to where she kept the memory of reading this. “Which travels down my spine like flames that shatter night.”
The Inquisitor is watching her now, eyes hooded and intense, her grip on the book tight.
“Her eyes,” says Cassandra, faltering on the words because this is true, so true, “her eyes reflect the heaven’s stars, the Maker’s light.”
Her lover drops the book beside the bed, where it lands on the carpet with a dull thud. And then Cassandra is being pushed back into the pillows, though the pressure on her shoulders is gentle, and the Inquisitor slings a leg over hers.
“My body opens,” Cassandra half-whispers, staggering back, “filled and blessed, my spirit there.”
The Inquisitor shifts, sliding up Cassandra’s body until she’s straddling her hips. The sudden warmth of it is a little mind boggling, and Cassandra almost hesitantly slides a hand up the Inquisitor’s knee. Then further up her leg, over soft cloth, to where her thigh muscles are bunched high and strong and powerful.
“Not merely housed in flesh,” Cassandra says, determined to continue, and she brings her other hand up to cradle the Inquisitor’s face. “But brought to life.”
The Inquisitor’s hair falls partially into her face, the candlelight softening the lines of her face and the scar along the length of it. Her eyes are dark, illuminated only by the flames, and there is a strange sort of inevitability to the set of her jaw and the press of her fingers.
“Carmenum di Amatus,” she whispers back, and her tongue curls around the letters just right. “I didn’t think you’d know it.”
Cassandra smiles weakly. “Not quite like you do,” she says, shifting her hips up against the welcome weight on her body, just to test how it feels. She cards her hands into the Inquisitor’s hair, tugging her down gently.
“Remind me to do it more often,” the Inquisitor grins, her lips almost touching Cassandra’s.
Cassandra would roll her eyes if she weren’t so busy staring into the Inquisitor’s. “Kiss me already, you fool,” she complains, shifting her hand to tug harder at the Inquisitor’s collar.
It works, and their lips finally touch.
But it’s different than usual; different than the sharpness Cassandra felt when they kissed after battle, or the nervous twitches in her stomach when they stole a kiss somewhere on the ramparts of Skyhold.
This is some sort of thunderous electricity thrumming through her body, intensified wherever they touch. Cassandra takes an even pace, a steady rhythm, with about everything in her life, but this makes her want. This makes her greedy, makes her want to take what’s hers without pause.
Something in her is screaming, rattling her bones.
The Inquisitor is still being gentle, dipping her head forward just slightly, her tongue a slow drag across Cassandra’s teeth. Hips against hers in light, unassuming circles.
But it echoes, pulses beneath her skin, and then Cassandra is sliding both her hands through the Inquisitor’s hair, surging up towards her lover’s mouth. Kissing her back hard, sucking at her bottom lip, and pressing her thumbs to the corners of her jaw.
A shocked little gasp follows, but Cassandra sits up straighter and pulls the Inquisitor closer. Places a hand around her hip and pushes until they’re fully aligned, her lover in her lap like fire. The Inquisitor is higher than her like this, as always, and suddenly she realizes just how often the lovely skin before her is covered by scarves and collars alike.
My body opens, sing her veins.
“I want to see you,” she says.
“Cass,” the Inquisitor says, just a little shuddery, but she shrugs off her knitted vest immediately.
Cassandra doesn’t say her name just yet, but runs her hands over the Inquisitor’s arms instead. She’s wearing a light shirt underneath, one of those white billowy ones with puffy sleeves and wide collars. It’s a perfectly romantic shirt for a perfect evening, and the kind that Cassandra herself would never wear.
But suddenly it doesn’t matter, because she wants it off.
It’s tucked tight into the Inquisitor’s high-waisted pants though, and it suddenly occurs to Cassandra that she’s wearing an outfit straight from a romance novel. It makes her laugh, briefly, privately, while the Inquisitor struggles with her shirt, and then she decides that she doesn’t care.
The first kiss she presses into that wide-open collar, just below the Inquisitor’s collarbone, earns her a rather desperate noise. Her lover’s legs tighten around Cassandra’s waist, and Cassandra keeps one hand in the small of the Inquisitor’s back to support her as she arches up.
And to keep her close.
She noses at the freckled skin, kissing the hollow of her lover’s throat, and the Inquisitor slides one hand in her hair, undoing her braid from its up-do, while still wrestling with her shirt with the other.
Cassandra is moving up, finding the taste of her intoxicating; her skin is smooth, a fresh and clear undertone of the bath she had before. Like water, like wine, like honeysuckle, and Cassandra never wants to stop drinking.
Her next kiss is open-mouthed, more tongue and teeth than lips, as she sucks at the spot below the Inquisitor’s ear. The stuttering moan that it wrenches from her makes Cassandra’s toes curl.
“Oh, this fucking shirt,” the Inquisitor curses. “I finally have you in bed and ready to go and now I can’t even - ”
Cassandra leans back, breathing heavily, and catches the Inquisitor’s hands in hers. “Is it precious to you?”
The Inquisitor blinks. “I… Not really, no? I mean, it’s a very nice shirt and all, but I mostly just wear it casually. It’s a little too revealing for…” she pauses, searching Cassandra’s face, and her eyes widen.
“Oh Maker,” she says, looking more than a little slack-jawed, “do you want to rip it off of me?”
Cassandra shrugs, but she knows she can’t hide the smug expression on her face. “It had crossed my mind, yes,” she says as nonchalantly as she can.
The Inquisitor flushes a deep red high on her cheeks, and looks at Cassandra with awe. “Hereby, the Inquisition formally grants you permission to ravish its leader,” she says, leaning back and spreading her arms.
“Thoroughly,” she adds after a thought. “In a romantic way.”
It makes Cassandra laugh, and she presses one kiss to her lover’s cheek.
She wants to be courted, too, she chidingly reminds herself.
She wants someone who sweeps her off her feet, too. Who gives her flowers and reads her poetry by candlelight. Who sees the woman, not the hero.
“I want something that is just us,” Cassandra confesses, her lips brushing her lover’s while she speaks, and she gently brushes back the Inquisitor’s hair.
She dips her head next, one hand pulling on one of the sleeves of the Inquisitor’s shirt, and starts kissing down her lover’s throat. The wide gap of the collar exposes her shoulder the longer Cassandra pulls, and Cassandra runs her fingers over the bare skin, light as a feather.
She soon replaces her fingers with her mouth; a velvet, hot thing against the Inquisitor’s warm skin. Kisses her way down her shoulder over to the front of her chest, just below the collarbone. Tongues the little hollow of her throat because it makes her gasp and grind her hips down; squeezes her lower back in response.
And when there is no more give in the collar, Cassandra tears it.
Slow, like the petals off of a flower, the fabric rips beneath her fingers.
“You can have me,” her lover gasps.
The shirt pools at her waist, and she’s bare in the candlelight. Her breasts look beautiful, soft but peaked, and Cassandra’s fingers twitch to touch them.
“All of me,” she adds, pulling Cassandra’s face up to kiss her again.
This time, it’s a wild and desperate thing; her lips barely catch Cassandra’s before she slides her tongue in, hot and thorough. Her knees squeeze again around Cassandra’s hips before she scoots back a little, gesturing towards Cassandra’s shirt.
“Wait,” Cassandra says, “I haven’t had a chance yet to – to – ”
“You’ll get one,” the Inquisitor says, and then it’s a short but eager flurry of clothing disappearing in a shoddy pile next to the bed, covering the Carmenum di Amatus almost entirely.
When they’re both completely naked, time stops.
Cassandra has seen the Inquisitor’s body already. Knows where the deepest scars run, knows about the dimples in her lower back, the pattern of freckles and birthmarks on her shoulders. It’s the body of a warrior, of a friend, and now of a lover.
She’s never really looked at her as she does now.
“Maker,” she says, “you will be my undoing.”
The Inquisitor gently pushes her back onto the bed, kicking a few pillows out of the way.
“Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast,” she says solemnly before she leans in and licks her way into Cassandra’s mouth, deep and slow, “I would love to.”
There is no fear as the Inquisitor kisses down Cassandra’s jaw, fingers lovingly stroking her face over all the angles and lines that people have called too strong in the past. No fear as the Inquisitor’s mouth moves over scars big and small, as she encircles Cassandra’s muscled arms with her hands.
No fear as she sucks hard on the sensitive column of Cassandra’s throat; hard enough to leave a mark, even though she soothes the burn with her honeyed tongue.
(Pour me more, Cassandra thinks, let me drink more of your sweetness.)
There is no shame, no hiding; only eagerness, the flame in her heart, and the wetness between her thighs.
A wetness that only increases when the Inquisitor bites down on Cassandra’s earlobe, her hands on her hips. And Cassandra is already canting them into her beautiful, long-fingered hands; feels the Mark sizzle against her sensitive skin, but that only intensifies the thrill.
A leg slides between her own as the Inquisitor’s body settles over her, and already she’s pressing up against it, desperate for some friction. For something to ease the telltale clench and release; the hungry thing between Cassandra’s thighs that is nothing but want.
She tugs the Inquisitor back to her again; tastes her mouth, lips brushing across hers several times before she allows her tongue another dip, and her cheeks are glowing with heat.
“Oh, Cass,” her lover sighs, face cupped in her hands, “you’re so fucking beautiful. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this.”
That makes Cassandra stop dead in her tracks, staring back at the Inquisitor from beneath her lashes. She feels the same. She did ever since the day she professed her love at the tavern.
The Inquisitor curls Cassandra’s braid around her finger, tugging lovingly, and then leans down.
Cassandra’s next utterance is simply a pleased escape of breath as her lover kisses lower, fingers sliding up from at her waist to rest just below her breasts. She smiles up at her there, hovering her mouth over the peaks of Cassandra’s breasts, and her smile is dark and light in one.
“How lucky I am to have you,” she breathes, goosebumps rising on Cassandra’s skin.
She draws her finger over the side of one breast, and it’s so teasingly light that Cassandra almost chides her for it, but the leg between hers is pressing harder, higher, and Cassandra just tips her head back and feels.
“Please,” she says, closing her eyes and tangling her hands in her lover’s hair, “please.”
The Inquisitor cups her breasts almost reverently, and then her mouth is sliding over her nipple. She sucks it between her lips with tenderness, flicking her tongue over the bud while she tweaks her other nipple lightly between thumb and forefinger. Her nail catches on it, causing another unexpected jolt of pleasure.
Cassandra moans, low and half-surprised at the sensation, her left leg bending at the knee with delight and curling around her lover’s hip. She buries her fingers deeper in her lover’s hair, keeping her head cradled to her chest, and the Inquisitor sucks harder and more insistently in response.
“Lovely,” she murmurs, breath ghosting over wet skin, “you’re so lovely, Cassandra.”
Cassandra has no words, sparks swarming her vision whenever she closes her eyes; she simply feels, arching her back towards her lover’s eager mouth, her breath increasing steadily. That mouth is so hot, almost searing, further twisting the heat in her gut.
And then she slides her head out of Cassandra’s fingers, and her mouth moves further down, body lowering across the length of Cassandra’s. The leg between hers disappears and Cassandra sighs at the loss of it, opening her eyes.
The Inquisitor is perched down low on her belly, legs dangling halfway off the bed, and there is an incredibly attractive half-smile on her face while she runs her fingers over a thick scar below Cassandra’s bellybutton. She raises an eyebrow, tapping one finger on Cassandra’s thigh.
When Cassandra raises an eyebrow back at her in response, the cheeky smile on the Inquisitor’s face grows.
“You really don’t know?” she asks, head tilted to the side. That knowing, roguish smile is still there, only growing to show more of her teeth. “I was going to make you scream my name, wasn’t I?”
It clicks.
Cassandra blushes furiously, but she nods nonetheless. “Go ahead,” she says, trying to sound as if this is something she knows, something she is familiar with other than reading about it in her smutty books.
The Inquisitor curls up between Cassandra’s legs, pressing them apart by the knee; she mouths kisses against Cassandra’s kneecaps, soft and tender, and her smile is loving now as her thumbs ghost lower over the insides of her thighs.
She lowers her head, keeping Cassandra’s gaze as her fingers move up; bare tickles of touches, not really touching where it matters. Yet.
“Cassandra,” she says then, and Cassandra feels her breath keenly, brushing against her most sensitive parts, “I hope if it’s okay if I do this for a very long time.”
Cassandra finds she has no breath left to answer as her lover’s mouth descends upon her. There is no hesitation, no tentativeness; she kisses her like she kisses Cassandra’s mouth. The first few presses of lips are gentle, sweet, but then she’s nosing her way through soft curls and even softer flesh, and the first touch of her tongue against Cassandra’s clit is almost too much.
“Maker,” Cassandra moans, throwing her head back into the pillows, one arm slung over her face.
The Inquisitor chuckles, the vibrations of it adding a whole new layer of sensation, and she wraps her arms around Cassandra’s legs tightly. She hums, licking deeper, sliding the tip of her tongue over her opening before dipping in just slightly.
And then, a slow suck of her clit into her mouth that sparks a wild pattern of heat all over Cassandra.
She curses loudly, biting her lip.
“You taste fantastic,” her lover rasps into her, lapping eagerly between her thighs.
She’s almost sloppy with it, like it’s a decadent thing; curling her tongue in Cassandra’s slick and adding some of her own, smoothing the way she slides her wet lips over Cassandra’s clit again and again.
“Maker, it’s so good,” she whispers, “fuck.”
A finger brushes gently over her, circles over her opening. A question that Cassandra fully aims to answer immediately.
“Do it,” she commands, hands clutching at the sheets. “I want – ah!”
There is nothing but feeling as her lover eases two fingers into her without resistance, slowly curling them further into her body. Tantalizing little circles inside, and then her mouth is back, mimicking the movements on her clit. Inch by inch, she slides them in a little deeper, scissoring them back in and out every time.
“You are very good at this,” Cassandra manages to grit out.
Her lover pushes her tongue a little harder at her clit, and then there’s the slightest scrape of teeth that makes Cassandra clench around the fingers inside of her. Makes her thighs tremble and twitch desperately against the arms around them, anchoring her to her lover’s mouth.
“Just doing my job,” the Inquisitor still manages to quip against her, and they meet eyes across Cassandra’s body.
So bright yet still low in the darkening light; her mouth and chin glistening. She licks her lips and then dives back in, moaning while she does it, and Cassandra never thought that feeling like a high-end Orlesian banquet could feel so flattering and so arousing.
And then the Inquisitor curls her clever, bow-calloused fingers inside of her, and there are not a lot of thoughts at all, anymore.
“Oh,” Cassandra half-moans into her own arm, digging her heels into the mattress, “oh, you are – ”
Her lover pumps her fingers into her with vigor, pressing deep into her inner walls, her tongue a searing and constant stripe of heat against her clit. Lapping like she’s starved, drinking Cassandra in.
“Say my name,” she whispers against swollen, sensitive flesh, “say my name when you come.”
“Wait,” Cassandra says, mind almost completely fogged because it’s amazing, it’s so good –
She manages to lean up, and the Inquisitor slows her movements, looking up at her with eager eyes.
“I want to,” Cassandra says, out of breath and cheeks flushing, “to… I want to, together with you.”
Her lover’s eyes go very soft suddenly, crinkling at the sides, and she smiles. “Such a romantic,” she says, but it sounds warm and genuine despite its teasing tone. Like it’s something to treasure; something delicate.
She presses one final kiss against Cassandra that makes her shudder, and then she’s climbing back up her body. Another kiss to Cassandra’s mouth, tasting of liquid heat and the wetness between her own thighs, and then she wipes her chin with one arm.
“Sit up?” she asks. “If we’re both on our knees, then we can easily reach each other.” She smiles. “And kiss, at the same time.”
Cassandra surges up to meet her immediately, even if her legs are a little wobbly.
The Inquisitor notices, of course. “We can do it when we lie down, too,” she offers, gesturing towards the bed. “Get some pillows and build a nice – ”
“No,” Cassandra says resolutely. “Worshipping should be done on one’s knees.”
Pride wells in her chest at how completely and utterly surprised her lover looks at that statement, a blush settling on her face, her eyes large and unblinking. Cassandra leans in, kissing that beautiful mouth that drove her to the brink only moments earlier, and presses their bodies together above the mattress.
One hand around her back, and she sneaks the other between her lover’s legs.
Here, she is still a little hesitant, not knowing any other preferences than her own, so she carefully brushes her fingers three-fourths up to her lover’s thighs – and finds them already wet.
It eases away her initial worries instantly, and she curls her fingers higher into the real source of that slick heat.
“I love making you feel good,” her lover whispers in-between kisses as an explanation, one hand twisting around Cassandra’s long braid while the other finds its previous place between her legs as well.
She slips one finger in, swallowing Cassandra’s eager moan into her own gasping mouth, her thumb settling against Cassandra’s clit.
“Tell me,” Cassandra says in-between kisses below her lover’s ear, “tell me how you would enjoy it.”
“Slow circles,” is the half-whispered answer, “just, just on my clit. It’s enough. I’m – I’m already so close, Cass.”
Cassandra just does that; mimics how she likes it on her own, on slow, thorough nights when she needs to ease some of her tension. Swirls her calloused fingertips through her lover’s wetness, slicking them properly, and then slowly and insistently on her clit. A rhythm meant to finish.
“They will say one of two things about me,” she says into her lover’s mouth, breathless.
Her lover pumps her fingers a little harder into Cassandra. “That you’re Thedas’ greatest warrior? Or greatest lover?” she asks, that roguish smile back on her face.
Cassandra smiles into her lover’s neck, pressing a heated kiss near her nape. “That I stood at the Inquisitor’s side, her protector and her lover.” She finds her lover’s gaze again, smiling through the haze of desire. “That it was meant to be.”
Her lover whines when Cassandra flicks her thumb over her, tight and fast. “It is meant to be, Cass,” she breathes, head tipping forward against Cassandra’s shoulder.
“Or,” Cassandra continues with difficulty, “they will say that I was led from – from the path of faith by the wiles of a madwoman.”
Her lover’s knees buckle a bit on the next stroke, her temple now pressed against Cassandra’s.
“Such wicked wiles,” she says breathlessly, nosing against Cassandra’s hair. She then grasps her carefully by the back of her head, leaning their foreheads together.
“I say,” she says, her fingers starting to falter inside Cassandra, their rhythm shakier, “I say that we are two women who loved enough to save the world.”
Cassandra can now feel the telltale build-up, starting low in her belly and slowly reaching higher; her muscles are starting to clench around her lover’s fingers, ready to tumble over the edge. It's inevitable, at this point, and she loves the brief waiting for that final drop.
“As we are,” she says with a smile, head tipping back, “Evelyn Trevelyan.”
She sees her lovely eyes widen, then; more of the Maker’s light in their unfathomable depths. So bright, long lashes curling, and her mouth open on half a shuddery intake of breath. It’s one of the most beautiful things Cassandra has ever seen, and it tips her over the edge.
Evelyn follows immediately after.
She feels the bite of teeth against her shoulder as the other woman reaches her peak, a muffled moan hidden against her skin, and they drive their hips against each other in a shaky tandem. Cassandra rides it out on the thick slide of Evelyn’s fingers inside of her, legs trembling with the effort to keep herself upright, but not wanting it to be finished just yet – this divine meeting of souls and bodies, this instinctual way they move together as one.
The universe has exploded behind her eyelids, and is sinking down in her arms.
“I love you,” Evelyn whispers against her shoulder, “Maker, I love you.”
Cassandra wraps her arms around her, holding her tight; thinks she feels a hint of tears on her shoulder.
“I will always remain at your side,” she whispers into Evelyn’s hair, stroking it gently. “You have my love, for eternity.”
Evelyn looks up at her, smiling through her tears, and nods. “You’re my world, too,” she says, voice breaking.
Tired but loved, so loved, Cassandra lets herself fall back into the pile of pillows and crinkled sheets, drawing a big blanket over the two of them with one sweep of her arm. Evelyn falls with her, face hidden against Cassandra’s chest, snuggling up against her.
Cassandra looks up at the ceiling, and finds that she cannot keep the smile off of her face.
It does feel like worship.
(I am the luckiest woman alive.)
Sera looks at her with a deep frown on her face, arms crossed. “That’s not a prank,” she says, as if the suggestion itself was somehow offensive. “That’s just – that’s just a love declaration, Cassandra!”
Cassandra keeps her stare level. “Does that bother you?”
“You’re trying to get me to send your lovey-dovey messages to Inky,” she says, pulling a face. “In public. That’s dis-gus-ting, that’s what it is. It’s so sweet it might make my teeth rot right in my mouth!”
Cassandra rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says resolutely, “make whatever you want of it. But it has to include her name, and mine. And it needs to be big.”
Sera stares Cassandra up and down once. “Another dick joke wasted,” she says sadly. But then she grabs the bucket of white paint with such determination that some of it sloshes over onto the courtyard.
“But alright,” she says, “I’ll do it. Anything to keep Skyhold inspired and their minds of off Corephenenis.”
The next morning, it reads on both the inside and the outside of Skyhold’s northbound wall:
EVELYN TREVELYAN AND SEEKER PENTAGHAST ARE DOING THE DO !!!
The most interesting part about the enormously big and sloppy writing is, of course, the vulgar drawings surrounding it. Cassandra spies several badly-drawn fingers held up in a V-shape with tongues between them, lots of breasts in different shapes and sizes, and even a picture where the Mark of the Inquisitor appears to be…
… intimately fondled, for lack of better words. Not to mention the scribbles mentioning being up to your elbows in deep, wet trouble.
Sera certainly went all-out.
But the best part about it all is most definitely when Evelyn looks upon it with her own eyes as a distraught and blushing Cullen leads her over to the edge of her own balcony, and her eyes lit up like fire so bright.
“Look, Cass,” she yells happily, pointing at the white paint, “that’s our names! That’s us down there!”
She turns back to Cassandra, the smile almost splitting her face in half, and this must be love, musn’t it?
“We’re doing the do!” yells her lover, Evelyn.
Cassandra smiles without a second thought, hands clasped behind her back. “So we are, Eve.”
So we are.