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The first time Evelyn learnt about sex, she was still a young child, having only seen the passing of seven winters in her lifetime.
Her tutor had just dismissed her from her afternoon lessons, and the crisp, summer air was inviting her to spend the remaining hours before the sun set outside. Wandering down the corridor to the Trevelyan Estate’s garden, Evelyn stopped abruptly at the unmistakable sound of a groan. She dismissed it as her imagination, until the groan came again. It was more recognisable this time – feminine and suspiciously resembling her elder sister. Curiosity more so than concern compelled her to investigate. Father was teaching her how to play the Game with her elder siblings, and he said that secrets were the greatest weapon against your opponent. Anaya hoarded many secrets.
The groans stopped, but Evelyn heard muttering outside the door of her sister’s study. There was a foreboding sense that whatever lay beyond the door was not for her eyes, but her desire to prove to father that she was more than capable of playing the Game outweighed it. Her hand turned the doorknob and the door cracked just far enough to peak through. She only caught a glimpse of two bodies pressed tightly against each other over Anaya’s desk before her sister spotted the slight opening of the door. She swore and pushed the man off her. “Shit, there’s someone outside!”
Evelyn left the door ajar and fled, heart pounding as she ran out into the hallway. She collided into Tomas and he, ever the good elder brother, fell immediately concerned at her state of panic. Evelyn pulled him aside and promised him a good secret, like any trusted partner in the Game. When she finished explaining what she saw, Tomas collapsed in a fit of laughter. Evelyn crossed her arms, unimpressed. If there was a joke she had discovered she wanted to be a part of it too.
“Oh Evie, that was just – uh – sport that adults play for fun.”
“Well it didn’t look like much fun if she was in pain.”
“Oh trust me, that wasn’t her in pain, but that’s a topic for another time,” he stifled another bout of laughter as he fixed his hands behind his head. “Hmm and you’re sure it was her tutor in the room with her?”
“Positive.”
“Excellent, I’ve always needed something against Ana.” His sniggers rang through the hall, only pausing when he passed Anaya in the corridor, both feigning casual disinterest towards each other. He slid Evelyn a sly wink and she responded with an uncertain giggle. Evelyn wasn’t entirely sure what she had discovered, but she knew it was one piece against Anaya in the Game and that was good enough for her.
That was the first time she learnt that sex was often an affair kept secret, and secrets were the most valuable currency in the Game. Little did she know that she would later be among those who had to keep her own escapades secret.
***
The first time Evelyn had sex, she did so in the most forbidden place one could do so. There was always temptation in the forbidden.
Seven years into her induction at Ostwick’s Circle and if any rule was universally known to mages it was that sex was as unpermitted as blood magic. Sex could lead to children, children could lead to more mages, “and some would see us bred out”, First Enchanter Lydia had whispered to her away from the ears of the Chantry sisters.
It was a rule that may as well not have existed for all the private rebellions which started behind locked doors and hidden corridors.
Evelyn had few friends in the Circle, but enough that shared her ideologies and desires. Brandon was an apprentice and in many ways like her - pragmatic, logical and self-serving. He agreed easily enough to the idea on the premise of experimentation. The entire process was careful, planned and methodical, not too dissimilar to practicing a new alchemical formula. When they finished, there were no lingering embraces or soft caresses, but the experience was satisfying enough.
Her second lover was older, an Enchanter training her for her Harrowing. There was mutual attraction between the two, though Evelyn admitted to acting upon it for more selfish reasons. The Circles encouraged self-preservation, like a game where only those truly willing to make sacrifices emerged victorious. Father always said that in the Game, you must use whatever weapons you have at your disposal. Her magic was one she had learnt to master with dedication, but her body and mind were equally dangerous. It was no coincidence that she spent the night before her Harrowing together with Enchanter Edmund, or that she knew that Desire would be the demon of her test. Desire never offered a lover to her, but that came as no surprise to her. She already knew that sex was only her means to an end.
Her third lover was a Templar, a friend of Tomas’ whose friendship extended to her. Even if the uneasy dichotomy didn’t exist between mages and Templars, it was unlikely that Elric and Evelyn would be anything more than two friends who respected each other greatly. Theirs was a mutual arrangement to seek physical pleasure and the momentary taste of freedom in their glass cage. They were always careful though to keep their hearts to themselves. The rebellion set the gears of change in motion, and though old rules weren’t held to the same level of scrutiny in the collapsed Circle, their affair still remained a secret. After Tomas was killed by a rogue mage, Evelyn turned to Elric for comfort in the way she knew best with him.
“Eve, are you sure this is what you want?” Elric’s permission always at the forefront of his lips. He mourned the loss of his friend too, and if Evelyn’s heart wasn’t so numb, perhaps they would have comforted each other in a different manner. There was compassion in his eyes as he still refused to touch her without an answer, but right now, compassion would not fix her sorrow.
“This is what I need,” was her only reply as she claimed what her grieving heart didn’t have the will to protest to.
It was enough, yet it wasn’t.
That was the first time sex gave her neither the power nor pleasure she sought. And if sex provided neither, what purpose would it serve her then?
***
The first time Evelyn made love with Cullen was long after they addressed their pasts, hurts and demons.
Many had assumed the unashamedly flirtatious Inquisitor had bedded the Commander shortly after their first kiss on the battlements, but neither were experienced with relationships beyond the casual and physical, and they were still learning how to become more with each other. It didn’t help that time was never on their side and the number of days apart began to exceed the days together. The letters they exchanged while she was away kept them close in the only way that such distance would allow, and sometimes words were all they had to keep their spirits up with thoughts of each other on their mind. Her reprieve in Skyhold was a luxury and any free time Cullen and Evelyn was a scarce commodity. They spent their precious hours together in competitive chess matches, shared meals and conversations well past midnight. Their stolen kisses started a kindling in their blood, but the spark always yearned to ignite and set their hearts and bodies aflame.
On one visit to Cullen's office after weeks apart, Evelyn found him already immersed with plans to defeat Corypheus’ army. It was a reminder to the both of them that the Inquisition’s ultimate goal was coming to its end, and the question remained of what would become of them after. The future was still clouded in uncertainty, but Evelyn was certain that she wanted Cullen as a part of hers.
Before Cullen could confess the same, the bottle on his desk shattered and his tolerance over their constant interruptions with it. Lost to the burning need for each other after weeks apart, Cullen began to take Evelyn on his desk, all consideration for professionalism and work forgotten. Their kisses were broken as Evelyn reluctantly pushed against his chest, laughing as she found herself smudged in spilled ink. It was enough to make them pause and consider a location that afforded more privacy.
Upstairs in Cullen’s room, he undressed her with such reverent care that she wondered if they had accidentally stumbled into a Chantry altar. Not even the Herald was treated to such devotion. When they finally stood before each other, bare as the Maker made them, there was nothing to hide the scars and imperfections on their skin. Every evidence of the struggles, hardships and pain they endured over the years were revealed to one another. In that moment, there was no Inquisition, no war, no masks or armour. The titles that defined them, both past and present, were abandoned. Templar, Knight-Captain, Commander. Mage, Enchanter, Herald, Inquisitor. They were all of these things, but now they were none. There was only Evelyn and Cullen, and it was as if they were truly seeing each other for the first time.
“You’re beautiful,” Cullen murmured with such awe that for the first time, she felt her body could be more than just a tool and she blushed at his appreciative gaze. The experience gained from her previous affairs seemed irrelevant now when Cullen looked at her with a love no other lover had given her before. Her heart was never with them, and she had never known how to share hers with another. What if sex with Cullen was no different? Would he regret being with someone like her, incapable of reciprocating the love that he had all too willingly shared with her?
When Cullen kissed her, the doubts pushed away to the back of her mind and she responded as if relearning the steps to an old dance. He laid her on his mattress and he made sure to worship every inch of her, causing the spark in her blood to flicker brighter with each caress. Cullen asked for her confirmation before he entered her, and her breathless ‘yes’ was met with a final sealing kiss as her body accepted his permission eagerly. They moved slowly at first, learning the feel of the other until their confidence grew.
Evelyn had always marveled at the duality of Cullen’s nature - from the assertive Commander to the sincere, earnest boy from Honnleath – and it showed even as a lover. For every sharp thrust of his hip that made her keen, he would add a soothing kiss to her skin – mouth, cheek, neck and breast – until no part of her was left untouched by him. Like fire and ice, her body was blazed and salved all at once, and she thought it was only her affinity to magic that kept her in one piece.
Their moment was unlike any of her previous trysts in the Circle. There was no need to rush or to muffle their voices in fear of punishment. They needn’t keep their ears attentive for wandering people outside their door, to anticipate the moment when they needed to break contact and hide their unquenched desires. All their senses were directed to each other, the smell of sweat and heady musk, the sound of their moans and skin against skin, and the love for each other reflected in their eyes deep within the black depths of desire.
The Circles took more pleasures from her than she thought.
Like their chess matches, Evelyn was far too competitive against Cullen to let him stay on top. She grappled his shoulders and flipped them, until it was her pressing him into the mattress. She returned every kiss he had given to her before with the same passion and she wanted to mark every inch of him so there was no doubt that she was his, and he was hers. Push and pull, action and reaction, they continuously met with equal and opposite forces until they reached their climax. The spark ignited to its explosive peak, sending shockwaves of bliss through them.
Evelyn collapsed onto Cullen and they laid with their chests against each other, breaths and heartbeats syncing in a gradually decelerating staccato. They adjusted themselves to lay comfortably next to each other. It admittedly wasn’t a perfect fit, but then again, they never truly were. There was always room to make for each other and compromise was an accepted part of being together.
“Ev? This is nice, but my arm-,” Cullen muttered, shrugging his numb arm under her head. The other wrapped around her waist as his hand traced gentle circles over her stomach. Evelyn answered by rolling further up his arm and she nudged his chest playfully.
“Then move over to your side so I have room to use your actual pillow.”
Cullen smirked mischievously and rolled on top of her. Her head thumped back against his pillow as she requested and he captured her surprised shrieks in his mouth. “Better?”
Evelyn hooked her legs around his waist, pressing him against her again. “Now it is.”
They began their dance again, this time with more insistence and none of the careful reverence of before. Instead, there was laughter and joy amongst the pinpoints of pleasure. Their second climax came to them more quietly, but no less satisfying. The sensations of pleasure ebbed away, leaving them to bask in their afterglow, safe in the circles of each other’s arms.
“You look different with your hair down,” Cullen mused some time later. Edges of weariness were catching up to him, and he stroke her back as if to coax her to fall asleep with him.
“How so?”
“You look…free.”
Evelyn smiled at him affectionately as she brushed a hand through his unruly blond curls, all semblance of the proper Commander lost to their passionate activity.
“So do you.”
Free. Sated. Loved. This was a reprieve neither Enchanter Evelyn nor Inquisitor Trevelyan was ever afforded. To be cherished selflessly in both body and spirit, to feel like she mattered. The selfish mind wanted to take more for herself, but the selfless heart wanted to give back to Cullen what he had so readily given her.
Evelyn tasted the words on her lips that she yearned to declare but feared she was not worthy of saying. Cullen had always spoken the words confidently, and yet he had never pushed her to say them when she wasn’t ready. She turned her gaze to Cullen, but he was already lost to his dreams. She whispered them into the still room anyway, testing the validity of the confession until she believed it herself. She would proclaim it to him again in the morning.
“I love you.”
That was the first time she believed that sex could be more. It could be love.