Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

The sweltering heat of summer was hard upon them as they began yet another journey across Ferelden, traveling from Redcliffe to Denerim en route to the Landsmeet.

It should have been a blessing that this time they could make the passage in Arl Eamon's luxuriously appointed carriage in a fraction of the time it would have taken to walk the distance, but it wasn't. The carriage was close and felt airless even with the the leather shades open, and sitting for endless hours was every bit as agonizing as days upon days of walking would have been.

The rocking of the carriage made her feel queasy. There simply wasn't enough breeze to cool the sweat that trickled an itchy path down her back. It pooled underneath her aching breasts and chafed the skin of her back and stomach where the belts that cinched her hastily-made chainmail girdle rode, until she finally removed the blasted thing to seek some relief.

She cursed Eamon for being such a snob that he unthinkingly assigned her other companions to separate carriages, not considering that the mages might have useful spells to combat the heat. She wondered if maybe she couldn’t inveigle a way to complete the journey in one of the other carriages, preferably one with Wynne and some sort of frost aura.

All that she might have borne with equanimity, for if her voyage into the Deep Roads had taught Elissa aught, it was the meaning of true misery.

But what was grating on her most significantly was Eamon himself and his endless kingmaking. Oh, he was subtle and pleasant about it, hinting rather than demanding. But whenever Alistair raised the point that he did not, in fact, want to be king, Eamon had the gall to dismiss his opinions out of hand, until Elissa had to grit her teeth to avoid snarling at the ambitious old goat. After all Alistair had accomplished, how far he had come, to see him dismissed as though his wishes counted for nothing was infuriating.

Never mind that Elissa herself fully intended to encourage him to accept the crown. At least she wouldn't ignore his misgivings but would instead attempt to reconcile him.

Teagan did what he could to lighten the palpable tension simmering inside the carriage, but Elissa's physical discomfort was doing nothing for her temper. Nor was Teagan's unexpected awkwardness in her presence now that there was no longer sex between them. In other circumstances, his newfound infatuation with Leliana might have been amusing. Instead, it was simply annoying, because it distracted him and made him useless as a buffer between her burgeoning rage and Eamon's oblivious scheming.

Nor was her temper aided by the fact that one facet of Eamon's plan was choosing prospective queens, a post for which he clearly considered Elissa—pregnant with a child whose father she neglected to name—unqualified, despite her noble birth. That she and Alistair had made no secret of their relationship and shared a room at every inn they stopped at didn't seem to factor into the equation.

Again, it didn't matter that Elissa knew full well that it was unlikely she'd be able to wed Alistair if he took the throne. It was the nerve of the man to write her off so callously that offended.

Two days out from Denerim, their train was beset by a band of darkspawn and in the resulting battle, a carriage wheel was broken. While the coachman attempted to repair it, Eamon had the audacity to approach Alistair and suggest he take Anora as his queen.

"Are you entirely mad?" Elissa snapped before she could even think to stop herself. "How long has it been since you've been to court, my lord Arl, that you are unaware of what a treacherous viper that woman is? We haven't even the vaguest idea whether or not she's been complicit in Loghain's usurpation."

"You'll forgive me, Lady Cousland," Eamon said patronizingly, "but it's possible that between your youth and your delicate condition, and ah, the other personal considerations, that you are unable to view this matter rationally."

Elissa's eyes blazed and her mouth gaped open on a host of caustic retorts, none of which she dared give voice to. She could not formulate a response that wouldn't completely estrange Eamon from their cause, at least not without validating every assumption he'd just made. So instead she turned her back to the smug nobleman and stormed away across the sprawling fields beside the road.

Alistair—her Alistair—who had so recently come to understand and explore his desires, wed to a woman so passionless that, despite her beauty, lusty, good-natured Cailan had come to dread performing his duty in her bed. The very notion was indecent! If Alistair must wed, at least let it be to some kind-hearted, eager virgin who could be taught to match his appetites.

That prospect hurt far more than she cared to admit, but it was better than the alternative.

She heard Alistair's voice shouting her name and turned to see she'd walked much farther than she had intended; the carriages in which they were traveling were out of sight on the other side of a gentle rise, as were all their companions.

Alistair had removed his armor and was striding toward her in the new linen tunic and breeches they'd purchased in Redcliffe to replace his patched woolens at Eamon's insistence. The sight of him in his new clothing only served to heighten her irritation. Apparently, it was time for him to begin dressing the part of the king. He had several fine sets of silk doublets and breeches for court wear as well as the linen for under his armor.

His lines also served to remind her of another point of frustration, namely Eamon's high-handedness, which had had infuriated her when he "suggested" she see Isolde's dressmaker and stop gallivanting about half-naked in her Dalish leather. Apparently he found it indecent for her to display her belly so flagrantly. She wondered if he imagined she ought to have had gathered their army in court gowns.

She braced herself for Alistair's attempts at comforting reassurance. Until she got a look at his face.

He looked furious.

"Have you gone insane?" he demanded, snatching her by the shoulders and yelling into her face. His tunic clung wetly to his chest, nearly transparent with sweat, and rivulets ran down his brow, forcing him to wipe them impatiently from his eyes. "We've just been attacked by darkspawn and now you're running off out of sight of the caravan without even your bow!"

"I'll walk the rest of the way to Denerim unarmed and nude before I spend another fucking minute in a carriage with that man!" Elissa snarled, wiping a hand across her own forehead. Andraste's tits, it was hot! She couldn't decide which was worse: the airless confines of the carriage, or the scorching intensity of the direct sunlight.

"Absolutely not!" Alistair said flatly. "If I have to sit there and listen to him harp at me about my duty you're damn well going to sit beside me and share the misery!"

"I will not be dismissed or patronized this way!" she shouted. "I saved that insufferable man's life and have somehow managed to gather an army against all probability, and now I'm brushed off as merely an hysterical, lovesick child who knows nothing about political realities! Eamon's head is so far up his own arse he'd need a map of the Deep Roads to locate it and a team of oxen to extract it, but I'm the one who gets the condescending pat on the head!"

"You think it's any easier for me?" he demanded. "You think I don't have to bite my tongue every time he speaks as though he's still got the authority to make my decisions for me? I'm half-expecting him to attempt to send me back to the monastery!"

"Nonsense!" she snapped. "If he sent you to the monastery he'd lose his puppet-king. I tell you, I'm not going to do it anymore! I'll ride in one of the other carriages. Even Oghren's odious presence would be preferable to this."

"Oh, no you don't! You're the one who knows all about politics, so you're going to get in that carriage and smile and charm him and do whatever is necessary to hold him at bay until we can decide what we're going to do once we actually get to the Landsmeet."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly at my charming best!"

"Oh, I've noticed!" Alistair said emphatically, spinning her around and pulling at the laces closing her leather chest-piece.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"When we go back to that carriage, you will be smiling," he informed her. His teeth clamped down firmly on the side of her sweat-covered neck at the same moment his hands plunged inside the loosened leather to cup her breasts through the damp and clinging cloth bindings.

It occurred to her for just an instant to snidely question why this seemed like a perfectly good idea to him when her walking off on her own had been so dangerous, but she already knew the answer. His reaction hadn't been fear for her safety so much as it had been the need to vent his own frustration.

Desire, every bit as hot as the anger still raging through her veins, flooded her, and now she understood the outlet her rage needed. She turned in his arms and her hands plunged under his saturated tunic as her lips sought his. He released the knot on her breast bindings and the fabric fell away as his tongue thrust into her mouth.

His upper lip and chin were wet and his stubble chafed her damp skin but it didn't matter. All that mattered was the salty flavor of his lips and his hardness pressing against her and his slick skin under her fingers.

Skin. She needed more skin.

Jerking from his arms, she frantically pulled the leather off her chest and down her arms and tossed it aside. At the same time, Alistair peeled off his tunic and then the shining expanse of his rippling chest was before her. Without pause he toed off his boots and pushed his breeches down, kicking them disdainfully away. His erection jutted forth and in the mood of the moment it appeared almost angry as well, red and swollen and demanding to vent its own rage.

Without being asked, Alistair knelt and began unbuckling her own leather boots, for she could not bend to reach them. She gripped his damp shoulders for balance as he pulled them from her feet. Her pleated leather kilt followed soon thereafter, and her smallclothes clung to her wet skin as he rolled them down her legs. And then his mouth was upon her cunt, his tongue delving between her folds to find her nub and she was gripping him for an entirely different reason.

It didn't take long for him to work her into a moaning, jerking frenzy. She ground her curls shamelessly against his face, grabbing fistfuls of his hair to hold him closer. Beads of sweat evaporated on her skin almost as soon as they were formed in the merciless sunlight, while still others slid down her back and buttocks to trickle around his fingers where they held her backside. The air was still and hotter than an oven as she yelled out her pleasure.

He was back on his feet in an instant, then, and his hands were upon her shoulders, pushing her to her knees in a demanding manner he rarely used with her. In their inn room each night, he was gentle and solicitous of her comfort, making love to her cautiously when she wasn't so weary from the day's travel that she opted to forego it entirely.

There was little tenderness now as he forced her down--barely allowing her time to lick the droplets of sweat from his chest--and nothing of solicitude. There was only need and hunger and the maddening, oppressive heat of the day as she took him into her mouth.

She thought he might thrust, but instead he shuddered and grew still as she licked and sucked, his skin baking in the sun. He groaned and let his head fall back, turning his face to the sky. She could practically smell him burning under the sweat and musk. His hips and thighs were slick beneath her palms as she caressed him; there was no place she could grasp that wasn't, nowhere to find purchase for her scrabbling fingers as they clenched and groped at the hard, flexing muscles of his backside.

She didn't tease him, she devoured him, sucking hard on the head of his cock, drawing him into her mouth before sliding back with a careful yet purposeful scrape of her teeth. She licked the salty droplet that formed at his slit with relish before plunging down again, until finally Alistair had to wrench himself away, panting and shuddering as he grappled for control.

He pushed her down again, this time to her hands and knees. She spread her thighs wide and the tall grasses brushed her breasts and prickled her sweat-covered belly, but still she wriggled her ass for him and demanded with no flowery prose that he fuck her.

The droning of the bees and insects was drowned out by her moan as he thrust home with a single, unrelenting lunge. He barely gave her time to adjust before he set a mind-bending, urgent pace that soon had her cries echoing over the waving grasses.

The ground was rough and gritty beneath her palms and knees. Her skin itched where the grass rubbed against it. Elissa could feel the skin of her back growing hot in the sunlight and knew she was burning, but all that mattered was the fire inside, the growing tension and heat yearning to be extinguished. His hips were wet and slippery as they slapped against her ass and she drove herself back against him. Where his hands rested and dug into her backside was the only place that didn't feel as though her skin were burning.

The pressure of his cock passing across that spot inside her, over and over, soon had her flying apart, howling like the animal she must surely resemble rutting here in the grass and sunlight. When the wave of pleasure had passed, her anger seemed to have evaporated as well, and now there was simply joy. For joy it was to be young and alive and in the sunlight with the man she loved, unrestrained in their passion, unashamed of their need.

She didn't know how much longer they would have this sort of freedom.

She needed to see him, to see it on his face, in case she never got the chance again to have him to herself this completely.

She pulled away, though Alistair grabbed for her. She turned and pushed him down, onto his back, crushing the prickly yellow grasses beneath him. She mounted him and guided him inside and dear Maker, it was almost too much, too good, to feel him butting up against her womb at this angle, to feel their sweat-slicked skins sliding against one another, gritty with dust and pollen and broken bits of grass.

Elissa tossed her head back and rode him, with all the strength and force she could muster. Unfortunately, her agility wasn't what it had once been, but Alistair's hands were there on her hips to aid her, lifting her up and plunging her down as she engulfed him. When she glanced down at his sweat-dappled face, a strain showed there that had nothing to do with anger and frustration and everything to do with the precipice he was careening toward.

"Unh! Yes! Fuck me!" she grunted, her blunt fingernails digging into the flat slabs of muscle on his chest. One of his hands left her hip to try to wedge under her belly and find her clit, but Elissa grabbed his wrist. "Nevermind that now! I want to watch you come."

"Pretty sure... that's going to be soon...." Alistair panted, his chest heaving with effort.

"Then let go. Do it."

She interlaced her fingers with those of the hand she had grasped. His other hand came up and she did the same with it. He braced his elbows on the ground and she locked her arms and used him for leverage to push herself up. Alistair lifted his hips, thrusting in counterpoint to her rolling movements, and they both moaned with each surge.

She watched his face raptly, watched the way passion transformed his usually kind and amused countenance into something feral and desperate. She watched the way his jaw hardened and clenched, the way his eyes squeezed shut as the first tremors began to wrack him, the way his mouth went slack as the pulsing inside her began to slow, the way his chest moved as he gasped and shuddered with his release.

Her limbs were trembling from exertion, her back aching with the strain, as she eased off him. Flopping naked onto the grass wasn't all that much more comfortable, but then, little was these days.

Her mouth was parched and her skin turning red; they would need to get out of the sunshine soon. But all she could do was lie there and look up at the sky and wonder once more whether or not they would ever again be this free. Perhaps that impending loss was what was fueling her rage at Arl Eamon. Come the Landsmeet, he would take Alistair from her.

Picking up on an echo of her melancholy, perhaps, Alistair finally spoke. "I'll tell Eamon we're absolutely not discussing the issue of marriage until well after the Landsmeet. Hopefully that will put an end to at least a little of his harping."

"You've got to think about it sometime," she said softly, before she could stop herself. She rose with difficulty to seek out her underclothes and armor, unable to have this discussion in his arms.

"What?" Alistair asked disbelievingly. "You... you agree with him?"

"If you become king, you're going to need a queen, sooner or later." Elissa sighed. "And you need to realize it's not likely to be me."

"Of all the bloody— Maker's breath, why not? You're a noblewoman!"

"I'm a noblewoman with a tarnished family reputation and a bastard child whose father she can't name," Elissa explained, bowing her head as she began to dress.

"You said your family had always been discreet about their affairs," Alistair protested.

"They attempted to be, but apparently at least some gossip exists, as Loghain made very clear to me at Ostagar when he accused me of seducing the king at Duncan's bidding," she said. "Besides, I haven't been terribly discreet. Had I imagined there was a chance of this situation arising, I would never had done some of the things I have. Andraste's blood, I fucked a tavern full of men before an entire town! It's only the apparent hero-worship with which Redcliffe Village esteems me that has prevented more gossip from spreading, but we can't count on that forever."

"All right, so your reputation isn't golden. But still—it's the king's child you're carrying!"

"The Landsmeet would only have my word on that," she replied, unable to meet his eyes. She couldn't—wouldn't—say more than that on the subject. "Loghain could assert it's Duncan's child, and I couldn't prove otherwise."

"Then tell them it's my child!" Alistair said desperately, snatching for his own clothes as though they would serve as stronger armor for this conversation.

"That's a demonstrable lie. Too many people know there was nothing between us until well after the time you could have fathered my babe. You'll need a bride with unimpeachable credentials, especially because the legitimacy of your claim to the throne is so tenuous. Don't you see, Alistair?" Her eyes were burning with tears as she looked at him helplessly. "I'm not suitable."

"Then I'll refuse the damn crown! Let Anora have the bloody thing!"

"You can't!" Elissa cried. "Ferelden must have a ruler whose loyalty to the Grey Wardens is unshakable, who will do whatever it takes to stop the Blight. If we can somehow assure Anora's full cooperation in defeating the Blight, then yes, perhaps you'll have the luxury of refusing, but that's not guaranteed."

"Why is this all coming up now?" Alistair demanded. "Why now, just days before the Landsmeet? Why haven't you told me this before?"

"I tried, Alistair," she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. "When we went back to Ostagar. I tried to warn you that you would need to consider what would happen if you became king. You didn't listen. And I—I was too much in love to push the subject. I simply wanted whatever moments we could have together before it all came apart."

He stared at her, astonishment and betrayal raw on his face. "You knew. You went into this knowing it would end?"

"No, not really," she confessed, her shoulders sagging in defeat. "I'd always imagined I would try to find a way to remain by your side as your mistress."

"And that's your idea of an optimal outcome here?" he shouted, his voice rising as he gaped in disbelief. "You, one of the highest-ranked noblewomen in Ferelden, who could have been the king's wife, settling instead for being the next king's mistress? That's all you think you're worthy of?"

Elissa's breath hitched on a sob. "I think that's all I can have if I want to keep your love," she said, turning from him.

Alistair ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up in sweat-soaked spikes. "We can't discuss this here," he muttered. "We have to be getting back to the others."

"You're right. We should go," she agreed with a sigh.

"I'm not done with this," he announced. "I refuse to accept that that's the best we can hope for."

Before she could answer, he turned and stalked away from her, leaving her to lumber unassisted in his wake back to the carriage. If Teagan or Eamon noticed that Alistair was silently furious or that Elissa's face was red and blotchy, they tactfully declined to comment. Still from Eamon’s subsequent comments, it became apparent that he thought the cause for their moods was that Elissa had pushed Alistair to wed her and that Alistair had refused.

Finally, Alistair snapped at him to drop the marriage discussion. It did nothing to relieve Elissa’s sorrow.

As they approached the village where they would seek accommodations for the night, clouds rolled in and thunder began to rumble in the distance. They were just disembarking from the carriages when the sky opened up and heavy drops of rain began to drive a rich, dusty smell up from the parched dirt at their feet.

Elissa hung her head in silent acceptance when Alistair demanded his own room, and retired alone to weep herself to sleep. But in the middle of the night as lightning streaked across the sky and rain pounded on the roof of the inn, he came rapping impatiently at her door.

She welcomed him with a glad cry, wrapping her arms around him, but he pushed her back, propelled her toward the bed, his mouth hard and frantic upon hers. He spread her across the bed and used his mouth, his fingers, his cock to bring her to a shattering climax. Her screams mingled with the crashing thunder and when she looked over her shoulder at him, the lightning illuminated his face, and there was a wild, desperate look in his eyes as he drove into her from behind. When he came, he gripped her hard enough to bruise and groaned a curse into her hair.

Elissa immediately curled up against him, content and exhausted. Sleep beckoned and she was just about to drift off when Alistair pushed himself off the bed and began dressing.

"What—?" she asked, muzzy and confused.

"Isn't this the way it's supposed to be with a mistress?" Alistair asked bitterly, and the slamming of the door behind him was lost in another clash of thunder.

Alone and miserable, she cried until her head ached. Sleep did not return until the rays of another scorching sun were starting to lighten the sky.