Work Text:
She all but collapsed onto the chaise in the room she had been ‘assigned’. Somehow, even though she hadn’t arrived at the ball until well into the evening, she felt like weeks had passed between that moment and this.
Not that she thought that she could be blamed for the strange time dilation that she was experiencing. In the space of a single evening – a mere handful of hours really – her life had utterly changed once again.
She was betrothed.
Finally.
The ring still felt heavy on her finger. She was sure that she would probably get used to it eventually, but, for now, she rather enjoyed the weight of it. The way she could feel it was there. A constant reminder that this was real.
Not that she’d had much of a chance to forget during the remainder of the evening. People had crowded to see her, hailing her as their future queen, expressing their relief that the king had chosen a bride and that the succession could be assured.
He hadn’t been shy about demonstrating why he had chosen her either. In fact, as soon as the initial official announcement had been made and that first rush of well-wishers had passed, he’d looped an arm around her waist, pulling her close and planting a soft kiss on her temple.
Nothing in the world had ever felt more natural. Not to mention that the fact he had been able to do such a thing in a hall full of people had sent a thrill skittering down her spine. It had been a long time since they’d been able to indulge in such uncomplicated, easy affection around other people.
Of course, once the dam had been broken, it had been very hard to stop. While for her it had felt as natural as breathing, some of those present hadn’t been all that thrilled to see proof of their devotion to each other.
Eventually, there had been a break in the need to converse with others and, in that moment, he had pulled her close, and kissed her. Softly, sweetly, nothing more than a kiss, no need to advance to anything further, just because he could.
They had lingered a moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air. Enjoying the unusual, but incredibly gratifying, sensation of having time.
The grins she had seen on the faces of those assembled as they had hastily averted their eyes had been immensely satisfying.
However…
Lady Lyra had left the hall in a flounce a moment later.
It had caused Alistair, Martyn (his bodyguard), and Teagan to share almost unseemingly delighted grins. But she was certain that Lady Lyra wouldn’t be the only disgruntled noble in the room. From a certain perspective, she had snatched the greatest opportunity for advancement away from every family with an unmarried daughter of suitable age. There were bound to be some ruffled feathers to soothe in the days to come.
Eventually, though, the guests had begun to trickle out of the hall to find their beds, and the evening had come to a close. Only a few servants and some very determined drinkers had remained in the ballroom when a tall, fastidious-looking man had appeared at their elbow.
“Your majesty,” he’d said, bowing in such a flawlessly elegant manner that she was certain the manoeuvre was very well-practiced indeed. “Where would you like your intended to be installed?”
“Seneschal Hanson,” Alistair greeted him, cluing her in as to the man’s role and identity immediately. “Seeing to all the essentials as always, I see. Thankfully, there won’t be a need for a separate room.” He pulled her close. “She’ll spend the night with me.”
She was certain he’d dropped his tone deliberately, knowing the shiver it would elicit from her at all the dark promise that his sentence contained.
Seneschal Hanson’s expression, however, was more akin to if the king had suggested that they all strip naked and run through the streets of Denerim, declaring that the entire city could watch them, in bed, all for the bargain price of two coppers.
“Or… not?” she’d added, sharing a confused glance with her king, and delighting in the absolute refusal writ in his eyes.
“Well, it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate,” the Seneschal had said. He probably would have stammered it if he hadn’t considered it bad manners to do so. “You are not yet married.”
“Fine,” Alistair had said, not relinquishing his hold on her in the least. “The queen’s chambers then.”
Hanson’s eyes had darted between them, his lips pursed as if it was taking his every effort to restrain the frustrated sigh that he so wanted to give.
“It will take some time to make the queen’s chambers suitable for occupancy. And besides,” he’d then added, casting an almost apologetic look in her direction, “Milady is not yet queen.”
“Fine,” Alistair had sighed. “Then we can put her in whatever room is ready and free and I will stay with her there.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Milady.” Hanson had said seeming to decide that Alistair was a lost cause and that he might have better luck speaking directly to her.
(She hadn’t the heart to tell him that if he’d hoped for a queen who was as fastidious as he was about doing things properly, he was likely to be sorely disappointed.)
“You should be afforded the best guest room, but since we had no way of knowing who his majesty would pick, I’m afraid that room has already been given over to Teyrn Cousland. Many of the other lesser guestrooms also already have occupants, and we simply don’t have a room suited to your new station. We had assumed that his majesty-” here, Hanson had cast a decidedly disapproving glance in the king’s direction “-would choose one of the ladies on the guestlist. Who, of course, have already been assigned rooms in accordance with their position and…”
“Hanson,” she’d interrupted, taking the man by the shoulders in order to ground him, the way she would have done for any warden after their first exposure to darkspawn. He’d looked appalled by the familiarity, but she’d already done it, so it was best to just commit. “I shall be content with whatever room can be made ready for this evening. Once the guests have departed, if you like, I can move into any suite you deem appropriate until the wedding.”
Hanson had heaved a sigh of relief, gratefully pronounced her a paragon of good manners and grace, and promptly bustled off to see to her room.
For her part, she’d still been grinning wildly at having said the words ‘until the wedding’ and been slightly bemused at the idea of being considered so important.
Among the wardens, she was lucky if they troubled themselves to offer her the slightly more comfortable patch of hard earth.
She was interrupted from her musings, and from the admiration of her ring (something she’d had to fight to stop herself from doing all night, lest she give the impression that it was the ring and not the man that held the more weight) by the door to her chamber flying open, and a very tall, very broad, very handsome heap of man throwing himself onto the chaise beside her.
“I thought your seneschal said it would be inappropriate for us to share a chamber,” she drawled.
“He said that we couldn’t share the king’s chambers,” Alistair replied, his fingers skimming the curve of her hip. She realised with startling clarity that they had never – not in all the years that they had been meeting each other in secret – taken as long to go from setting eyes on each other to the bed as they had tonight. “He didn’t say anything about not sharing your room.”
She considered that as he kissed her, soft and slow, capturing first her upper and then her lower lip, the scrape of his teeth promising that more would follow imminently.
“I don’t know,” she drawled as he moved his attention to the length of her neck. “Aren’t there protocols? Rules?”
“I can go, if you like?” he whispered against her skin, swiping his tongue deviously over that one sensitive spot that had her reflexively throwing her head back, a delicious groan crawling out of her throat.
She carded her fingers through his hair, pulling his lips back to her own.
It was all the answer he needed.
*
The next morning, awareness came to her slowly.
She was warm, ridiculously comfortable, and keen to cling to the incredibly realistic and delightful dream that she’d been having. It wasn’t the first of its kind. In fact, she’d been dreaming about the ball for weeks, and it was nice, when she could, to linger in bed just a little while longer, and bathe in the happy memory of it.
Not that she could ever linger for too long.
Biting back a sigh, she cracked one eye open and was, for a moment, thoroughly confused to not see the familiar furniture of her room at Vigil’s Keep.
Then she lifted her left hand.
Not a dream.
Reality.
Right on cue, a warm arm wound its way around her waist, pulling her close as his lips grazed the skin of her neck. She stretched languidly, granting him greater access.
“Promise me I’m not dreaming?” she murmured.
He chuckled against the pulse point in her neck but didn’t answer, a calloused hand sliding over her hips, up her ribcage until his fingers encircled her breast.
Then he pinched her nipple.
She gasped, pain and pleasure suffusing her body equally as she twisted out of his arms and gave him a slap on his bicep that he would in no way be able to feel.
“What?” he laughed. “You wanted proof you weren’t dreaming!”
She couldn’t exactly argue with his logic and, as he pulled her close, fingers sinking into her curls, she found that she couldn’t exactly care either.
It wasn’t long before their languid kissing and slow exploration of each other’s bodies became heated, frantic, and soon she found herself comfortably nestled beneath his weight.
Then the door flew open.
No knock, no warning.
Immediately, Alistair threw himself to the side, dragging the blanket over both their naked bodies.
“You know, if you were trying to hide from me, tell Martyn to stand outside another door,” a voice said. One she didn’t recognise. “Besides, what are you even doing still abed at this… OH.”
Alistair swallowed so hard that she heard it and, when she peeked over the covers, it was to see a scrawny, dark-haired, elven boy. Frozen in the middle of the floor.
“Ren,” Alistair said, confirming her suspicions. “Have you, er… met my fiancée?”
She had never actually been caught with a man out of wedlock by her mother, but somehow this felt exactly like that.
“Nice to meet you, Ren,” she said, summoning up mostly long-forgotten etiquette lessons. “I’m Elissa.”
Ren blinked, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them.
“I didn’t bring breakfast for two,” he said.
“That’s all right.” Alistair replied, throwing back the covers and tugging on his nearby breeches. “I should be training anyway, so you-” he took the tray from Ren and placed it squarely in her lap “-can enjoy this and laze about in bed like the lady of leisure that you now very definitely are, and I will find you later.”
She grinned up at him as he bestowed a sweet and lingering kiss on her lips, before he strode out of the room, boots and shirt in hand.
Then she glanced down at the breakfast tray, laden with eggs and bacon and toast, all in distinctly Alistair-sized portions and grinned even harder.
She was just about to tuck in when that strange sense of someone’s eyes being on her stole across her skin, and she glanced up to find Ren still frozen in the centre of the room where Alistair had left him.
“So,” Ren said as her eyes met his. “He chose a queen.”
“He did,” she confirmed, feeling slightly awkward in a way that was nothing to do with her nakedness and everything to do with the fact that Ren seemed oddly… flat, emotionless about the whole affair.
“I’ve known him a long time, you know,” she added, after a few moments of silence, unsure of quite why she felt the need to justify herself to Alistair’s friend – who had only known him for a fraction of the time that she had – but feeling the need all the same.
“He never said.”
“Oh” was all she could think to say.
“Enjoy the breakfast.” Ren sounded as insincere as it was possible for someone to sound. Then he turned on his heel and left, leaving her to wonder quite what she had done to so upset the man that she had only just met.
It was, all things considered, not the best start to her first day as queen-to-be.
Thankfully, the rest of the day proved not to follow suit.
There would be a lot of things to sort out: making the announcements, meeting the staff, celebrating the betrothal, planning the wedding... She would need to go back to Amaranthine for at least a short while to hand the Arling over to Nathaniel and arrange for all her things to be brought to the castle. At the end of it all, her life would have once again changed beyond all recognition.
Only this time, she was looking forward to it.