Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Of all the many ways in which Leliana found Ferelden inferior to Orlais, the most egregious of these certainly had to be porridge.

It seemed to be a Fereldan staple; not only did her companions travel with bags of oats to make it every morning, it was invariably served whenever they had the opportunity to stay at an inn or even at Redcliffe Castle.

Horrid, bland stuff it was, no matter how much sugar or salt one used (and the longer they traveled, the harder sugar and salt became to find.) Naturally, they had no milk to add to it, and so it was simply sticky, tasteless gruel, occasionally served with a side of cold or salted meat.

Thus, it was with delight that Leliana discovered early-spring berries clinging to a bush in the Brecilian Forest as they wove their way through the woods in search of the Dalish elves. She had left camp at daybreak to do her vocal exercises where she would not disturb her companions, and came back triumphant with her pouch full of berries to add to the porridge simmering in its pot near the fire.

It was as she was stirring the porridge that she heard a dismayed curse and frustrated moan from the Warden's tent.

"Is everything all right, Elissa?" she called out as she approached the tent.

"Come in, Leliana," the Warden sighed.

The source of the young Warden's discontent immediately became apparent as she stripped off her unbuckled leather cuirass. The woolen tunic beneath, once comfortably loose, now clung snugly at her waist, and when she lifted the tunic....

"Maker's breath!" Leliana gasped. "The early-spring flowers aren't the only things in bloom, yes? Where did that come from?"

"I don't know," Elissa whimpered plaintively. "It just appeared overnight. I daresay I'm considerably more pleased to see the melting of the snows that this. Yesterday I could buckle my armor, and today I can't!"

"It's... it's so precious!" Leliana giggled. "May I touch it?"

"Oh, for Andraste's sake!" the Warden grumbled querulously, stepping close so that Leliana could touch the mound of her belly. "You could at least pretend to be a little sympathetic."

"I'm sorry," the bard said as contritely as she could manage, resting her hand lightly on that hard lump beneath the taut skin. "Perhaps I can help you with your buckles?"

"It's no use," she sighed, stepping away and pulling her tunic down over her abdomen. "There's not enough strap left to loosen them further, not if I want it to actually stay buckled."

"Well, perhaps we might run into Bodahn Feddic again soon. He may have something for trade, no?"

"Out here?" Elissa asked, arching her eyebrows dubiously. "You think we'll run into him in the middle of the forest?"

"Oh. Well...." Leliana stammered uncomfortably, embarrassed by her thoughtlessness. The Warden groaned.

"No one is ever going to take me seriously like this," she complained dejectedly. "I'll be wrapping my armor around myself with makeshift belts, looking like the worst sort of rag-tag beggar. How can I expect anyone to entrust their troops to me? I couldn’t possibly look less like a general."

"Oh, come now, you mustn't think that way," Leliana crooned, wrapping a comforting arm around Elissa's shoulders. The young Warden sighed again and leaned into Leliana, resting her head against the bard's shoulder. "We will find you new armor," Leliana said encouragingly, "and you will look beautiful and powerful and skilled and no one will dare question your ability to bring us through the Blight."

"Will I?" Elissa murmured doubtfully, sounding every bit as young as Leliana knew her to be. "I'm afraid, Leliana," she whispered. "Thus far the one thing that has consistently gotten us through is my ability to use sex to sway situations in our favor. If I lose my appeal, if people start finding me repulsive, what then?"

"Oh, don't be silly!" Leliana chided. "No one could ever find you repulsive! You will always be beautiful no matter how big your belly becomes, and when they see it, all others will think is that you are young and strong and healthy, for you will not allow them to think anything less, no?

"Besides," the bard continued as Elissa remained huddled against her side, "it is not only sex that has gotten us through. Perhaps at first it was, but I seem to recall a very distinct lack of sex as we dealt with those horrible cultists standing between us and the Urn of Sacred Ashes."

Elissa gave a watery chuckled, wiping her eyes. "That's true. Though I do think the whole ordeal may have been easier had Zevran gotten his wish and we'd found an orgiastic sex cult rather than dragon-worshipping zealots."

"But then you would not have had the chance to understand you can solve problems without resorting to sex, no?" Leliana said, stroking Elissa's hair. The Warden rested against Leliana for a moment longer, then straightened.

"Thank you, Leliana," Elissa said. She lifted her eyes and smiled, and it was then that Leliana realized just how close she was.

Kissably close.

She stared at those full, smiling lips for far too long, and when she met Elissa's eyes, she saw something reflected there.

Awareness.

Awareness of the sort she hadn't let herself feel for far too long. Not since Marjolaine.

Not since Commander Raleigh.

There had been beautiful women in the Chantry, and she'd admired them, but it had been a detached sort of admiration, more academic than desirous. She had acknowledged their beauty without ever feeling any inclination to do more than simply look.

When she'd found Elissa in the inn in Lothering, naked and covered with bruises and reeking of Loghain's soldiers, for a moment she'd felt an awful sense of recognition, had felt the memories rushing back. She'd done what she could for the Warden—as Revered Mother Dorothea had once done for Leliana—but Elissa had not had the luxury of hiding away in a cloister for years to lick her wounds. Instead, she'd strapped her armor back on and taken back upon her shoulders the yoke of a burden she was far too young to be asked to bear.

Seeing the Warden denied that time to heal, Leliana had waited for the girl to break instead, waited for her to come apart, armed herself with platitudes and empathy and encouragement for when the day finally came, but it hadn't.

Instead, Elissa had found a different way to cope. Neither better nor worse, simply... different. Rather than hiding away, the Warden had stood defiant in the face of propriety and expectation and declared with action, not words, before an entire tavern full of men that she and no one else owned her body and her pleasure, whatever use she chose to put it to.

If there had been any one moment when it appeared the Warden was ready to break, it had been in the Circle Tower, when she'd once again found herself in a position of not having full control of whom she chose to have sex with. She'd left the Tower with pain and despair in her eyes, and she'd slept alone for some time afterward.

Since that night when Leliana had escorted Elissa out of the taven in Redcliffe, the bard had very carefully maintained a certain distance. It was clear the Warden was too young and wild and uninhibited, too many of all the things Leliana had been trying so hard to suppress for so many years.

Elissa had never pushed. But after the Circle Tower, Leliana had finally confided in the Warden about Marjolaine and what had happened with Commander Raleigh and his men. And when she had met Elissa's eyes, she had seen that terrible recognition in her as well.

But the Warden had not questioned, had not judged. She had not voiced even the slightest hint of suspicion over a spy's presence in her company, despite Ferelden's volatile political situation.

Instead, she had helped Leliana track down and deal with Marjolaine. And now the last of Leliana's tormentors from those awful events of the past were dead and Leliana was free. Free from fear, free from haunting memories of love and betrayal....

...Free from the desire to pretend to be something she was not.

Leliana had embraced a safe, chaste, cloistered life because it was safer than letting herself feel passion and the thrill of adventure again, safer than risking of betrayal. But it had not been who she was. Like Elissa, she was a wild, untamed thing, full of danger and yearning for excitement.

Elissa had recognized that in her as well. And still she never pushed, never attempted to exert her will or urge for more than Leliana was comfortable yielding. And now, suddenly, Leliana found herself unexpectedly filled with this undeniable awareness of the Warden, keen as a dagger's blade.

Awareness. And wanting.

Leliana's eyes clung to Elissa's lips as though she could taste the Warden by sight alone.

They both stood there as though frozen, neither daring to make the first move. Elissa, because she knew how Leliana had been hurt, and Leliana....

...Leliana because she couldn't quite believe she was finally going to take the chance again after so very long.

The first touch of her lips upon Elissa's was as sweet and gentle as the very grace of Andraste herself. Elissa parted to her, let Leliana's tongue flick gently at her lips, demanding nothing. Leliana sighed softly into her mouth, a sound of quiet desperation as her hands—her fingers calloused by bow and lute-string alike—came up to cup Elissa's face and deepen the kiss.

Elissa's tongue eased out to meet hers, her lips clinging to Leliana's. Maker, but it had been so long since she'd felt the blooming heat of arousal it felt almost new again, nearly painful in its intensity, that delicious cramping ache. Leliana was amazed to find, despite her history of being an accomplished seductress in her own right, that she was trembling like an untried virgin. It was terrifying and exhilarating and she wasn't sure if she wanted to run away or if she wanted it never to end.

She broke the kiss with a reluctant moan, holding Elissa tightly to her, stroking the younger woman's gracefully curving back as she gasped, "Andraste's mercy, Elissa...."

"Shh." Elissa's arms encircled Leliana's waist and she rested her head on Leliana's shoulder once more. This time it was the Warden comforting her, rather than the other way around, as their embrace had begun. "It's all right, Leliana."

"I should go," Leliana murmured, aware of the note of reluctant longing that made her words more of a moan than a declaration. "The others will be awake soon, and we will need to break camp, no?"

"I understand," Elissa said softly, pulling away. "I won't ask you to do anything you don't wish to do."

Something in her words awoke the Leliana-who-once-was, the bard who had teased and flattered and flirted and seduced her way through the courts of Val Royeaux for the sheer excitement of it, and Leliana found herself replying saucily, "You're assuming I don't want to stay."

"I'm trying not to assume anything," Elissa answered carefully, her own voice husky.

Leliana reached for her again, abandoning caution and uncertainty. Her lips were hungry and demanding upon Elissa's, devouring the moan that rose up out of the Warden's throat, her fingers threading through the hair at Elissa's temples to steer her head where Leliana wished her to go.

When they broke apart again, it was with a great deal more effort. Elissa's eyes were glazed with passion as she slowly opened them and met Leliana's once more.

"I assure you, I would very much like to stay," she said. "We can continue this later, yes? Perhaps tonight?"

Elissa gave a slow nod, visible composing herself. "I would like that very much."

"Then for now I will go see what we can do to fix your armor." Before she could change her mind, Leliana ducked out of the tent.


*****


There were times throughout the day in that lush, budding forest that Leliana wondered what had come over her to make so brazen a promise. She knew there could be nothing more than an idle evening or two between Elissa and herself, particularly as she listened to the Warden flirting throughout the day with Alistair. It was clear where Elissa's heart was given, and Alistair's as well, even if the two of them seemed to be taking a terrible long time to settle matters.

It was also clear, as she listened to the conversation between the two of them, that Elissa's views on sex were even more permissive and scandalous than even she had imagined.

"Wait, wait, wait...." Alistair said, his face growing pale. "You... practiced your skills... with your parents?"

The Warden had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, but she still nodded calmly and said, "Yes, Alistair. And my brother. Or my sister-in-law."

"Oh, Andraste's knickers!" Alistair muttered. "I'm not going to be shocked. I'm not going to be shocked. Maker's breath. If I let myself be shocked every time I discovered something like this about you, my heart would just give out."

Elissa laughed. "I admit, here you'd be within your rights to be at least a little shocked. It's certainly one of the more inviolable taboos."

"Right. Then... why?"

"Honestly, Alistair, because who else would I practice on?" Elissa asked logically. "Only a handful of the most trusted guards and retainers at Highever Castle understood how our family operated, how we used sex to... sweeten trade deals, to win land concessions, to appease adversaries and cajole friends. These people didn't know they were being manipulated, of course. They didn't know they'd been chosen as carefully as any assassin ever chose his mark, or that my father may have sent my mother or brother to them very much the way a panderer would assign a whore to a customer. They thought they were engaging in an illicit affair, either something born of heat and passion, or something closer to the heart. And that was another skill we had to learn; to make the person we were seducing believe the sex had nothing to do with whatever other issues were at stake, while simultaneously using it to engender goodwill and concessions.

"But my maidenhood was being preserved for a purpose, so who could they trust to teach me the ways of pleasure and assess my progress and expertise without running the risk of losing control and taking my virginity, quite possibly with me as a very willing accomplice to the deed? And since my mother and father were the experts, the connoisseurs of pleasure and passion, who better to teach Fergus and I what we needed to know? After all, once you break enough taboos, the rest begin to just seem silly and arbitrary. "

Alistair had no ready answer for that, and after a moment, Elissa continued, "Tell me, when you were learning to be a templar in the monastery, did you truly believe your weaponsmaster wished to kill you when he pummeled you with his sword and shield on the training grounds?"

"It certainly felt that way at times," Alistair muttered. "But no, no I suppose I didn't really believe he wanted to kill me. However hard he tried."

"Well, it was much the same with my mother and father," Elissa said simply. "In most ways they were very ordinary, loving parents. They did not lust after Fergus and I, never victimized us for their own pleasure, to way some families do their children. But they did feel it was necessary to impart these lessons to us. And so they did."

"But... you said you also... practiced... with your brother." Alistair looked troubled at this, and Elissa sighed.

"Yes. Fergus and his wife Oriana did not stand so much as tutors toward me as they did my... relief valve?" Elissa gave a bittersweet smile, full of love and sadness and memory. "Of all people, Alistair, you should come closest to knowing the frustration of chastity. It was desperately hard sometimes, to know all these things about pleasure, but never to get to truly experience them. I was allowed release, but only very carefully, in ways that did not jeopardize my maidenhead. Fergus and Oriana understood that, and did what they could to help me bear the burden of it. Oriana, perhaps, knew best of all. She'd been an Antivan courtesan before she wed Fergus, and actually had an upbringing very similar to my own. So, yes, to satisfy your curiosity. I turned to my brother and his wife for pleasure, rather than merely learning. You may condemn me for that, if you wish."

"I don't want to condemn you," Alistair said. "It just seems... tragic, I guess, in a way. You never had a time to enjoy your innocence. You shouldn't have had to turn to your brother for pleasure. Didn't your parents understand how hard it was for you?"

"It was not my parents' doing!" Elissa protested, laughing. "They didn't force those restrictions upon me; I forced them upon myself. I set the goal of becoming Cailan's queen, years before I would have been allowed to yield my virginity to anyone. They merely advised me on what was necessary to meet my goal. Had I gone to them and informed them that such was no longer my objective, they would have helped me decide what I wished to do, even if I decided I wished to go straightaway to a brothel and be done with the damned waiting."

"But don't you ever wish you'd had a time of innocence?" Alistair asked.

Elissa hummed thoughtfully. "I confess, sometimes I do. I think, perhaps, it was much harder on me to have a woman's knowledge in what was still very much a child's body. Even just a year or two more, perhaps, would have made it easier to bear."

"And what about your own child?" Alistair gestured to the long belt securing Elissa's armor around her waist; it had been Zevran's. Today he was wearing his second dagger at his hip rather than on his back. "Will you teach him or her, the way your parents did you?"

"I don't know," Elissa answered slowly. "I suppose it depends on a great many things. It feels disloyal to my parents to say it, but sometimes I think it might be pleasant to have a less... cynical view of sex. To not always look for the angle or the advantage in it. To enjoy pleasure for its own sake not as a rare treat, but always. Maybe I can offer my child that freedom."

Elissa shook herself free of her melancholy and said more lightly, "Besides, who knows what the future may hold for us? Perhaps we will not be allowed the freedom from scrutiny for such things. My parents were able to get away with raising their family as they did because Highever Castle was a very insular, secluded place, far away from the gossips of court and public life. Or, as you said, perhaps I will simply allow my child a bit more time to enjoy his or her innocence, and then some day offer him or her a choice. It's possible he, or she, will not wish to learn."

Leliana watched Alistair as he fell silent, and saw how he still struggled, how Elissa's ways and upbringing were different and troubling for him. Was this, then, what still kept the two of them apart?

Leliana supposed, if she were still clinging to the pious persona she had cultivated for the Chantry, she might have struggled as well, but truthfully she'd seen too many things in her time spying upon Orlesian nobility to be unduly shocked.

Leliana found her body humming with the low buzz of expectant arousal as evening descended and they stopped to make camp for the night. The guard duty roster had become much less grueling after their descent down the mountains from Haven, when they had picked up perhaps their oddest companion yet, the golem Shale.

Prior to that, they had kept watch in pairs, all except for Elissa. The Warden had argued and protested vociferously, but after the Circle Tower the party had staged something of a small mutiny one day when Elissa had quite literally fallen asleep while walking. Wynne had taken it upon herself to inform the rest of the group how excessive sleepiness was quite common for pregnant women, and so behind the Warden's back they had put it to a vote.

They then informed her that they had enough people in the party to keep three watch shifts in pairs without Elissa taking her turn. She'd been furious, but Wynne had settled the matter when she pointed out, quite rationally, that the Warden would do them little good if the soundness of her judgement was impaired because she was asleep on her feet. That had put an end to the arguing, but not the grousing, and often when her nightmares awoke her, Elissa would relieve someone of their own shift, but most nights she did not keep watch.

Once Shale joined the party, however, everyone began to get more rest. Declaring it was unfair for Shale to keep watch alone (or perhaps, simply not trusting Shale and the golem's disdain for "squishy" people) they pared their watch rotation down to one flesh-and-blood person, changing over in the same three shifts, and the golem. Therefore, every member of the party was guaranteed a full night's rest at least every other night.

Unfortunately, Leliana had first watch on this particular night, and she fretted that perhaps Elissa would be asleep, or would change her mind, before Leliana's shift was over. The Warden had just ducked into her tent with an inviting arch of her eyebrow Leliana, and she was debating whether or not she was willing to ask someone to take her shift when Zevran approached.

"Ah, fair Leliana," he called flamboyantly, "I was wondering if I might request a favor of you."

"What is it you need, Zevran?" Leliana asked cautiously, not trusting the twinkle in the assassin's eyes.

"It's the spring, you see!" Zevran declared, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "So invigorating! I find myself unable to rest this evening, and so I thought I might ask if you would be willing to trade me your watch shift tonight, in exchange for mine tomorrow."

"Unable to rest, hmm?" Leliana asked skeptically. "Zevran, you didn't happen to be sneaking around outside the Warden's tent this morning, did you?"

"Sneaking? No!" the assassin shook his head as though the idea were ridiculous. "I merely heard sounds of dismay as I awoke this morning and thought I might render assistance, only to find our fair Warden was being quite capably assisted already."

"I see," Leliana said with a blush. "Very well, then. Thank you, I will be happy to trade shifts."

Smiling, Leliana rose from the log she had been sitting upon near the fire and crossed the clearing toward the Warden's tent, then suddenly turned back to the Antivan, who was looking smugly pleased with himself.

"And Zevran?" she called. "I assure you if you hear any sounds tonight, they will not be of dismay. And if I discover you've been lurking about investigating their origin, you will have the particularly embarrassing task of explaining to the Warden how you accidentally came to be pierced by one of my arrows tomorrow, yes?"

"Ah!" Zevran looked dramatically crestfallen. "So very cruel, my beautiful bard. Go. Go to your rest. Your privacy is quite safe."

Leliana ducked into the tent to find Elissa had already discarded her absurdly strapped-on armor and was giggling silently at the exchange.

"That was cruel," she chided. "You've no doubt ruined poor Zevran's entertainment for the evening."

"Serves him right for being such a sneaky little lecher, no?" Leliana smirked as Elissa approached and began to help her unbuckle her own armor.

"Hmm. His particularly delightful brand of lechery has stood me in very good stead," she answered candidly. "I'd highly encourage you to try it sometime."

"Perhaps sometime," Leliana shrugged noncommittally and pulled her studded cuirass off. "But I did not come here to discuss Zevran."

She drew Elissa to her, her hands slipping up the Warden's shoulders to cup her face, sipping delicately at her lips as a bee might sample a spring flower. Elissa made a very agreeable sigh and emboldened, Leliana drew her closer, reveling in the feel of the Warden's soft breasts pressed firmly against her own.

Leliana set her own pace, and Elissa allowed it, never pushing or rushing or urging for anything more than what Leliana was willing to give. She took her time, undressing the Warden slowly, exploring. Elissa was shorter than Leliana, her shoulders not so broad, her hips more slender. So very different from Marjolaine, who had been a tall woman.

She explored those breasts, so oddly heavy and full, nearly disproportionate to her slender frame. She kissed the soft, nearly translucent skin, traced the conspicuous blue veins with her tongue, drew the strangely large, dark nipples into her mouth. When she gently squeezed one of her nipples, a very small bead of thick yellowish fluid appeared, and Leliana licked it away.

"So beautiful!" Leliana purred, and she kissed away the uncertain frown that wrinkled Elissa's brow.

With each kiss, each caress, each sigh and whimper, Leliana felt herself begin to regain her old confidence and assurance, spreading Elissa on the bedroll beneath her. She kissed the insides of the Warden's soft white thighs, ran her tongue along that warm, glistening cleft. She caught Elissa's hands in her own, interlacing their fingers, and held firmly as Leliana devoured her pulsing pearl, thrusting her tongue deep within, wringing pleasure from the Warden until she moaned and thrashed and begged for more.

She used her fingers, delving, stretching, pumping with slow, almost cruelly gentle strokes, or with rapid thrusts, deep and hard, until Elissa was sweating and writhing and screaming beneath her, clenching around Leliana's hand. It was powerful and intoxicating to have the self-possessed Warden so beyond control, so completely at Leliana's mercy, so helpless to the pleasure Leliana brought her.

Elissa was limp and pliant when she finally begged Leliana to cease, her body weak and trembling with the aftershocks of release. Leliana slid up Elissa's body and kissed her again, deeply, gratefully, her own body alive and singing with longing. Their limbs entwined as they rocked against each other, rolling until Elissa lay on top of Leliana.

And then it was the Warden's turn.

She was as gentle as Leliana had been demanding, kissing sweetly, caressing so very softly and carefully, meeting Leliana's eyes intently as she asked, is this all right? or do you like this? until Leliana nodded eagerly, gasping out eager permission for more. Elissa's mouth drew at Leliana's nipples, the gentle pinches of her fingers overwriting the brutal clenches that had once left such bruises.

Elissa licked her way down Leliana's flat belly, her breath stirring Leliana's wet auburn curls. Her fingers slid delicately and slowly into Leliana's slick cleft, as though tenderly erasing the cruelty of the last caresses she had known there, her tongue stroking and circling Leliana's bud until Leliana arched and moaned, crying out her encouragement, shuddering in a climax so sweet and gentle it brought tears to her eyes.

Only then did Elissa become more forceful, licking harder, stroking faster, more firmly, her thumb grinding against Leliana's nub while her fingers curled within Leliana with rapid flutters until Leliana felt certain she would fly apart. Her mouth covered Leliana's pearl, sucking insistently as her tongue stroked, and then she was flying, soaring, as though the sweet, warm light of Andraste's mercy was shining upon her. When Leliana came back to herself, she was sobbing in Elissa's arms, feeling strangely weightless and freed of a terrible burden she hadn't even known she carried.

She fell asleep with her head against Elissa's breast with Elissa caressing her hair, feeling stronger and safer than she had in years.

*****


Alistair gawked when Leliana emerged from Elissa's tent in the morning, and he gawked even harder when Elissa followed her and bestowed a sweet kiss of farewell upon her lips. Hearing the former templar's choked moan, they turned to see his red face and huge eyes and then they were hugging each other and giggling madly while Alistair hurriedly excused himself.

It was later that morning that Elissa approached Leliana with a flower, only half-blossomed in the early spring morning. It wasn't until the Warden encouraged Leliana to sniff it that her eyes widened and she stared at Elissa in amazement.

"Andraste's Grace!" she said in amazement. "You remembered!"

"I did," Elissa said softly, pushing herself up to kiss Leliana's cheek. "Thank you."

"Whatever for?" Leliana asked, puzzled. "I should be thanking you!"

"For making me feel beautiful again," Elissa answered, gesturing down to the ridiculous belt binding her armor about her.

"Well, thank you for helping me feel strong again," Leliana replied, breathing deeply of the flower's fragrance. "I will always be grateful, yes?"

The strolled along in companionable silence then for several moments, until a voice called, out, "Stop! You can go no further!"

Startled, they looked around to see a number of elves emerging from the dense trees, bows trained most inhospitably upon their company.

But it wasn't the bows Leliana was paying attention to.

"Elissa!" she hissed excitedly as the Warden began to draw herself up and pull the mantle of leadership around herself like a cloak. "Look at what the women are wearing!"

Elissa paused, canting her head to the side as she studied the elven woman approaching them. And then she began to smile.