Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Night had settled over the castle before Elissa was able to retire to the guest chamber to which the servants directed her on Bann Teagan's orders. Before she could do that, she was required to consult with Teagan and Isolde at Arl Eamon's bedside while Connor played in the next room, and the decision was made to go after the Urn of Sacred Ashes. She and her companions would leave Redcliffe at first light and would cross Lake Calenhad to the Tower of the Circle of Magi to invoke their treaty rights with the mages, and from there would travel on to Denerim.

This night, at least, she would have a clean, soft bed to sleep on instead of a hard bedroll on the rocky ground.

Servants arrived with buckets of hot water for a bath, and she frowned, troubled as they went about their labors. She had fully intended to call for a bath but not not done so yet; someone else had done it for her. Turning from them, she critically stared at herself in the polished silver plate that hung on the wall of her chamber. Dried blood and vivid red lines stood out on her pale skin where Jowan's dagger had kissed her, but the blood had stopped flowing. A few of the deeper cuts still seeped slightly, but even they did not require bandages, much less healing potions or magic.

What was not reflected there was any hint of the sense of depravity she felt she'd touched upon this afternoon in the Great Hall when she'd knelt on the floor and been fucked by her dog before Bann Teagan's eyes. But still she felt it. Despite her resolve never to be ashamed, she felt...something. If it was not shame, it was uncomfortably close.

Humiliation can be a powerful aphrodisiac, my dear, her mother's voice whispered in her mind, an echo of a evening not long before Elissa turned sixteen. Eleanor had said this quite conversationally over the supper table as her mother, father, Fergus and Oriana had dined. Oren had already been sent to bed under the care of his nurse, and Elissa was not eating. Instead, she sat on the table as her mother had instructed, her hands clasped behind her back and her legs splayed, her knees bent and parted. She'd sat there, nude, her breasts and cunt fully exposed to her family while they ate. She had felt terribly self-conscious, horribly aware of her exposure. It had not been helped by Fergus' smirk. He'd had much these same lessons at her age, and remembered them well.

Do not shrink from your humiliation and seek to escape it, that ghost of a voice murmured. Instead, use it to fuel your passion. That sick, nervous feeling in your belly, does not not also feel much the same as desire, the way you feel before receiving a first kiss or caress? Does it not make your heart race and your cunt wet?

It had, and she'd been aware of that as well, knowing they could see her wetness, certain they could smell it over the aromas of their meal.

But what if the person I wish to seduce is revolted? Elissa had asked nervously, attempting to focus her mind on her lesson and not her self-consciousness. Wouldn't that defeat my purpose, if I'm attempting to sway them?

If they are revolted, 'tis most likely because you've touched upon some desire they are afraid to acknowledge, even to themselves. That, too, can be turned to your advantage, for it will make them crave you, beyond any other who does not awaken that desire. Any whore can satisfy a request, but the woman who fulfills the desire a man dare not speak aloud will have that man at her feet. The trick is to find a desire they hide, but not one which they fear so deeply that it will send them running so far from you that you cannot lure them back. Always use your sense of discretion.

As unconventional as she knew her upbringing had been, however, until today she had never felt depraved. She wasn't sure even her mother had ever imagined there might come a time when she'd let herself be mounted by a dog before an audience. Elissa wondered if she would feel the same if she'd had a choice in the matter. What if she'd let herself be fucked by the dog because Teagan has asked it of her? Would she still have felt so degraded, if she'd had the option of refusing? She rather doubted it.

The problem, Elissa mused, was not that the act had been committed, but that she'd had no real control over the matter. It had been the best of an array of bad choices. That was why she suddenly felt so self-conscious, why she found herself wondering if she'd lost Teagan's admiration. She hadn't worried herself over the matter when it turned out he'd known of her activities in the tavern, but now she was concerned that she might lose him as an ally.

That would be disastrous. She needed Teagan. She had no idea what to expect when, or if, Arl Eamon recovered. She needed Teagan's support and influence, with both the Arl and with the Landsmeet. The bath she had not summoned spoke to her much more clearly than words could possibly have done. If she had lost him, she must win him back. She must reconcile him to what he now understood about her, and quickly.

Resolved, Elissa ignored the bath. She wrapped herself in Isolde's borrowed dressing gown and left her chambers in search of her prey.

Though it was the middle of the night and all the rest of the castle asleep, she found him in Arl Eamon's study, seated at a large desk going over correspondence that had long been left neglected during the Arl's illness. On the desk beside him was a nearly empty bottle of wine and a goblet. He came to his feet as she entered, his cheeks flushed--though from the wine or her presence she couldn't be certain--suddenly all nervous attention.

"Lady Cousland. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Ah. It's 'Lady Cousland' again, now."

"I'm terribly sorry. Elissa, then. How may I help you?"

"So very polite, Teagan," she mocked softly. "Are you normally so courteous with those who disgust you?"

"You don't--"

Elissa raised a hand, cutting off his denial. "I'd rather the truth than a dutiful lie, Teagan. I am many things, but rarely am I dishonest, and I ask the same from others. You now find me repulsive."

He turned his back to her then, with a visible shudder. "Yes. And I loathe myself for such a unworthy emotion, after all you have done for us..."

"And just what is it I have done?"

He looked over his shoulder at her, incredulous. "You saved us. You saved Connor and Isolde. You could have allowed them either of them to die, rather than subject yourself to that...indignity."

"I didn't do it out of the goodness of my heart," she said frankly. "You, and Arl Eamon, and Redcliffe have something I need very badly. Troops to battle the Blight, and political influence to bring down Teyrn Loghain."

"You give yourself too little credit. You could have met your ends and still allowed Connor or Isolde to die. I saw you, as you argued against killing either of them. You fought for their lives when the easier and less personally degrading road would have been to allow them to die."

Unable to deny the charge of altruism, Elissa stood there, silent, willing him to continue. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides and he began to pace.

"If I ought to be disgusted by anyone, it's Isolde," he snarled in frustration. "So many people have died because of that bitch's actions. I'm furious with her. I find myself wishing you had allowed to her sacrifice herself rather than...."

"...Be fucked by a dog like a bitch myself?"

"Don't say that!"

"Why not? It's true," she persisted, stalking toward him. "Last night I fucked a tavern full of men like the lowest strumpet. I had no great skills as a military leader with which to inspire them, so instead I used sex. Alistair accused me of being a harlot, and perhaps he's right. But I'd rather be a harlot with live allies than face the coming turmoil alone and supported by naught but my high ideals and chastity."

Teagan whirled on her, his eyes wild and desperate. "You must not say such things about yourself!"

"It was easy to pretend last night in the chantry, wasn't it, Teagan?" Elissa purred, drawing ever nearer. "You hadn't actually seen me in the tavern, the slut servicing any man who came to her. When I came upon you I was clean and freshly bathed, without the seed of a score of men dripping down my thighs. It was easy to pretend I was pure and noble when the extent of my depravity was merely an abstract concept. But today, you saw it. You saw me there on my hands and knees like a bitch in heat, saw me coming, saw the dog's seed on my cunt, and now you can't pretend anymore."

"You shouldn't have done it!" he shouted, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her until she staggered. "You shouldn't have had to do it. If not for Isolde, none of it would have been...."

"Isolde has nothing to do with the fact that I am a slut. I was cast in that mold long ago. Sex is my stock in trade. It's what I do. I fuck my way through problems."

"But that bitch...."

"...Is not the one you saw fucked by a dog today. Tell me, which troubles you more, that you are disgusted by what I did, or that you want me even more for it? If I am depraved, what does that make you?"

"No...."

"You can accept me for all that I am--the pure and the wanton--or you can despise me. But if you despise me, you despise yourself. I know very well all that I am and all that I am not. I am no hypocrite, Bann Teagan Guerrin. Are you?"

His mouth crashed onto hers, and she opened beneath him, eagerly, hungrily, letting herself be devoured and devouring in return. He tasted of wine and desperation. His hands around her upper arms may not have been those of a hardened warrior, but they were strong nevertheless, and had closed upon her with bruising force.

"Whore!" he panted, pressing kisses across her face.

"Yes."

His mouth traveled down her neck, licking and biting. "Slut!"

Elissa closed her eyes and let her head fall back, let passion wash over her, blaze through her, hoping it would incinerate her humiliation in its heat. "Yes...." she breathed.

His hands made short work of the belt of her dressing gown and he wrenched the garment off her shoulders in hard jerks and tugs, letting it fall to the floor. "Bitch!"

She opened her eyes and raised her head, tilting her chin proudly. Her hand dropped low and cupped his erection through his breeches. "If I am a bitch, then it is a bitch you desire."

His own eyes opened then, met hers, dark with rage and lust. They widened as they took in the sight of her, the brown flakes of crusted blood smeared and trailing across her skin, and he looked down, down to the thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, as though he could see the seed dried between her legs. His nostrils flared. "You have not bathed."

"Does a bitch bathe herself, or does the kennelmaster do it for her?" she asked, canting her head to one side.

Grabbing her upper arm cruelly, he began to drag her from the study, only to stop and fling her to the stone floor. "If you're a bitch, then come to heel, crawling on your belly as is proper."

Her face crimson, Elissa obeyed, slowly crawling after him as he crossed the wide corridor where any servant still about his or her late-night duties may have seen her, nude and shuffling along on her hands and knees. He mounted the wide stairs to the upper chambers of the castle. Her progress was slow, the stones rough and cold and painfully hard beneath her bare knees, and he awaited her impatiently at the top of the stairs. Still she crawled, past the guest chambers where her companions slumbered to her own chamber.

Once inside, Teagan sat on the bed and pulled off his soft hide boots and the wool stockings beneath. "A good bitch licks her master's feet, does she not?"

Elissa shuddered as a cramping surge of desire rocked through her at his words. She squeezed her eyes shut, exulting in this new debasement, letting it feed her lust, sending new waves of moisture seeping from her tingling cunt. She slowly turned on her hands and knees and dipped her head, stroking the top of his foot with a long, slow sweep of her tongue.

His skin was soft and thin, made rough only by a thin patch of coarse hair. Teagan groaned, his hands fisting beside his thighs on the bed, and Elissa understood that the caress was actually pleasurable for him. She turned her attention to the other foot, taking her time as she dragged her tongue along it. As she began licking up the sides of his feet, and poking daintily with her tongue between his toes, he gave a strangled sound and drove his fists hard into the bedding. A quick glance at his straining breeches showed he had not come, but by the quaking of his body it was apparent he was on the edge. She opened her mouth, intent on sucking one of his toes....

"No!" he gasped. He surged abruptly to his feet and hauled her bodily up off the floor. He carried her across the chamber and dumped her unceremoniously into the tepid bath.

Scarcely had she caught her breath after she rose from beneath the water, spluttering and coughing, then he took up a linen cloth, soaped it, and began to scrub her. He spared no effort for gentleness, rubbing her so roughly at times it felt he would scour off her skin, until every nerve on her body tingled and burned. Her wounds opened and began to bleed again, creating small rivulets down her body as the blood sluiced down her skin with the water. The cloth soon turned pink, and still he scrubbed, until the only blood on her was fresh and new, all the old flakes melted and washed away.

Elissa cried out when he shoved the cloth between her legs and began to wash her cunt, with cruel, hard swipes. It didn't take long until she trembled on the brink of orgasm, rocking her hips in time to the strokes of the cloth. When he dropped the cloth into the water and abruptly thrust two fingers into her cunt and spread them, opening her channel wide to let the water rush in and clean her out, clean away any hint of the dog's semen, she was undone. Overcome by shame and sensation, with a ragged sob she came, seizing around his fingers, shuddering as small pink drops of bloody water made their way down her skin. Her shaking had nearly eased when she felt his tongue on her shoulder and realized he was licking the fresh blood welling from her wound. She came again, a choked cry erupting from her throat, clinging to him until his silken doublet and breeches were wet and stained.

With the scouring, Elissa felt her sense of mortification wash away. If his treatment of her was degrading, then this, at least, was a degradation she had chosen, and she reveled in it, let it sweep away the loss of control she'd felt that afternoon on the floor of the Gain Hall.

He kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth like a spear, and she could taste her blood on his him. His fingers pumped in and out of her, but if the water and scrubbing had washed away the leftover traces of seed, it had also washed away most of her own fluids, and there was more friction to the caress than she was accustomed to with only the water to lubricate the passage of his fingers into and out of her cunt. She was soon mewling in discomfort, seeking to pull herself out of the water.

"Do you want me to fuck you, little whining bitch?" he hissed in her ear.

"Yes...Maker, yes please," she begged, rising up on her knees in the water, her hands greedily pulling at the laces of his breeches.

"Do you honestly believe for an instant I'd stick my prick in that filthy cunt?" His hand stroked down the deeper knife-wound on her buttock and she hissed in pain. Rather than pull back, however, he rubbed harder, and harder, until she could feel his fingers grow slick and each touch brought a pained whimper to her lips. Only then did he stop, and seconds later she felt his finger probing at the tight bud of her ass, lubricated by her blood.

"Oh, sweet Andraste," she groaned, her head falling to lay on his thigh as his bloody finger slid into her. The blood soon became dry and tacky and insufficient to its purpose, making it difficult for him to press another finger inside her. He took up a vial of bath oil the chambermaid had left and poured it along her cleft, working it in with his fingers as they slid slickly into and out of the tight passage turning and rubbing, opening her ever wider.

Abruptly, he rose to his feet. She would have tumbled back into the bath had she not caught herself, and she looked up as he peeled off his sodden breeches and doublet, his cock springing free, looking furiously engorged. Teagan stroked it slowly with his hand, and Elissa watched, transfixed, as she realized the oil had been tainted red with the blood he'd had on his hand. Teagan's hand, and soon his cock, looked like something out of a nightmare as he smeared that red-tinged oil over himself.

"Shall I fuck you on your hands and knees like a good bitch?" he mused. Elissa's cunt pulsed in approval of the notion, beyond caring for inane matters such as her own degradation if it meant she'd have his cock within her soon. Obligingly, she rose and stepped from the bath, sinking to her knees on the rug beside the stone pool. Suddenly his blood-coated cock was before her face and she stared at it in fascination before slowly opening her mouth and extending her tongue. Beneath the lavender essence of the bath oil was the bitter tang of rusted iron.

Teagan pushed at her head, shoved her seeking mouth away, pressed her down to the floor. She buried her face against the rug, suddenly noticing that it, too, was stained with pink droplets of bloody water from the bath.

Then he was behind her, his cock prodding her. Another spasm of desire rocked her as she imagined the image she must present, groveling there on the carpet, all but begging for his cock with her ass thrust up in the air, streaks of blood leaking from her wounds and large smears of it trailing across her skin where his hands had touched her. And yet...there was something pure in this debasement, something that made her exult in it rather than cower in shame.

He worked his cock into her ass with slow pushes and nudges, giving her time to adjust and open for him, pushing past the point where she hissed between her teeth at the brief but inevitable burn until he was seated deep within her, the sharp bones of his hips pressing against the knife wounds on her buttocks. The salt of his sweaty skin stung the open slices, but the discomfort was lost amongst the cascade of sensation, the nearly unbearable sense of fullness from his cock in her ass, stretching her, filling her.

She shuddered and rocked against him, her clitoris throbbing, awaiting just the smallest touch to send her reeling into an earth-shattering climax. Teagan pushed back in response, lodging himself even more deeply within her and they moaned in unison. Already she could feel his cock beginning to swell and grow even harder, and she knew he wouldn't last long. Impatiently she wriggled against him, seeking more. At last he drew back, and back, all the way out. Elissa sobbed in frustration, suddenly unbearably empty, but just a quickly he pushed in again, through the stinging ring of muscle that had started to contract. He pulled her hips back to meet his thust and he rammed into her with no attempt at restraint.

"Yes...." she hissed, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees, fucking herself upon him, meeting the hard, sharp thrusts of his hips to drive him ever deeper within.

"Is this how the bitch likes to be fucked?" Teagan grated. "Or is it more like this?"

He leaned forward, his arms bracketing her ribs as he leaned over her, pressing his chest to her back, and suddenly he was fucking her with short, quick, rapid thrusts just as a dog would. She felt the sting of his tongue on the knife slice on her shoulder at the same moment his hand snaked around her hip to find her clit. She disintegrated, screaming, sobbing, driving back upon his cock with her hips as spasm after spasm rolled through her until all she could do was press her face into the rug and moan.

As the waves began to subside, Teagan pushed himself back up and began to fuck her with deep, hard thrusts, filling her over and over as she moaned and clenched around him. At length, he groaned, his body going rigid, wracked with shudders. She felt him pulse and throb deep within her ass, felt the hot flood of his seed, and suddenly she began to weep, somehow feeling cleansed and shriven.

Teagan placed kisses along her back, his sweaty skin sliding against hers, and it was a long moment before he pulled his softening cock out of her body. Elissa pushed herself up, wiping the tears from her face as she rolled over to sit and grant some reprieve to her aching arms and knees. Teagan looked a sight, smeared with nearly as much blood as she herself was, and yet...when he opened his eyes, they were calm and kind once more. He reached out, touched her face tenderly, drew her close and gratefully she went to him, moving into his kiss.

They bathed together, then, rinsing the blood from their skin. Teagan gently washed her wounds and salved them with dabs of healing potion, and then, over her protests, he bore her to bed and wrapped himself around her, kissing every part of her that he could reach as he held her with her back against his chest.

"You're so young for all you have done, all you have to do," he murmured. "And yet...I could fall in love with you."

"I beg you not to," Elissa whispered, a shiver running through her. "There's very little certainty in my future, but it's a virtual guarantee that none of what lies ahead of me shall be conventional. There's no way I can be a wife, or even a proper lover, and you will only come to hate me for what I cannot give you."

"I know," he answered. "Instead, I will pray that you come through it all safely, and I shall always be grateful for everything you have done already. Promise me you will come back and be with me again, even if you don't stay."

"I promise you, I will try."


*****


It was the first night she ever spent in a man's arms, and Elissa slept soundly, untroubled even by nightmares of the archdemon. She rose before dawn and dressed as Teagan summoned a tray of breakfast for her. Thankfully, he had left her chamber before it inevitably came back up again.

The sun was just appearing over the horizon as she and her companions departed Redcliffe upon a small sailboat that would take them across Lake Calenhad to the Tower of the Circle of Magi. Morrigan was as impassive and acerbic as ever, but it was clear she was not pleased to be going into what she deemed to be a prison for mages, one firmly under the control of the templars of the Chantry. If she had been at all affected by what had passed between her and Elissa in the ritual, she did not show it.

Leliana seemed more at ease with Elissa now, as though their mutual agreement that there could be nothing between them gave her comfort. Sten was as blunt and unresponsive as ever, and Alistair was....

...Decidedly anxious. She had expected sullen disapproval, and instead he seemed nervous. Unable to bear his furtive glances any longer, she straightened her shoulders and took the initiative.

"Is there something troubling you?" she asked bluntly, as though daring him to confront her once again.

"Quite a bit, actually," he replied, "though it's not what you're assuming."

"That's uncharacteristically cryptic of you."

He sighed, rubbing his head as though pained. "Look, there's something I need to tell you, something I really should have told you before we even got to Redcliffe, but I kept putting it off and then there were all those undead and our...disagreement...at any rate, it never seemed like the right time. The fact that Arl Eamon is ill actually made it easier to put it off, but if we're going to heal him, then you really ought to know before he recovers."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. I've never liked it, that's for sure." He began to pace, looking out over the side of the ship at the retreating silhouette of Redcliffe Castle on the bluffs high above them. "I told you how Arl Eamon raised me, right? That my mother was a serving girl at the castle and he took me in?"

Elissa nodded, a strange feeling of foreboding settling in her belly, making her fear she might be sick again.

"The reason he did that was because, well...because my father was King Maric. Which made Cailan my...half-brother, I suppose."

He turned back to look at her then, to gauge her reaction, but all Elissa could do was stare at him, dumbstruck. And then she began to laugh.

It was not a happy sound. There was an edge of hysteria to the laughter that reminded her of what had passed in Lothering when she had feared she'd gone mad. And still she laughed, as Alistair stared at her in consternation, laughed until she was breathless, until she had to sit on the deck of the boat for fear of toppling over the rail into the lake, until tears ran down her cheeks.

"You...you are Cailan's half-brother?"

"Um...yes?"

"Of course you are!" she gasped as another helpless peal of insane laughter doubled her over while Alistair looked on helplessly, his carefully prepared speech abandoned.

Fate was indeed a cruel bitch.

(Feedback is love!)