Chapter Text
Nymeria Trevelyan marched across the courtyard with sword in hand. The enchanted blade glittered red in the night, softly illuminating her path amid the scant torches and puzzled sentries.
"Your Worship? Is anything amiss?" One sentry hazarded to ask and met with her irritated grunt. She was too angry for propriety.
Closed merchant stalls came and went in her walk, their tarps rustling in the crisp mountain air. A particularly strong gust howled down from the ramparts as if discouraging her from her destination. But cold wind rasped over anger-hot skin and Nymeria pressed on towards the darkened stables.
The pitched roof loomed, a hulking shadow against the crenelated stonework of the ramparts. With it's cracked boards and broken gaps, the barn was hardly a suitable place for living quarters at such a high elevation. Truly a testament to Blackwall's dogged stubbornness in his self-inflicted penance.
The wide entrance yawned open and revealed a vacant setting furnished mostly in strewn hay bails and wedges of fresh hewn wood. Sounds of horses whickering in their berths impeded on the ambient silence. Nymeria inspected the fire pit at the back of the barn. It flickered in garnet embers and smoldered as though freshly banked. Puddles of water lead to a wash trough still half-full and lukewarm. He must have seen her coming. Then again, the runed sword clenched in her fist made her an easy target to spot against the curtain of night.
Somewhere in the desolate barn, a whetstone scraped metal.
The hayloft.
With one final inhale to temper her resolve and fan her rage, Nymeria stomped up the rickety stairs to face him, to confront this man for the second time in one day. She found him sitting beyond a thick pool of darkness beaten back by a solitary lantern. His old sword gleamed in his bare hands. Yet no matter how polished or well cared for, the blade vaunted tales of biting into armor and chipping bone.
Blackwall didn't look up from sharpening his sword. Bulky shoulders flexed, bare beneath the amber lantern light which highlighted the muscular planes of his hard upper body. The whetstone glided over castle-forged iron, sometimes catching on the various nicks and chips on the blade. Despite the edge's imperfections, her owner preened her nonetheless.
Nymeria's irritation nearly faltered by a surge of lust and she hated herself for it. Anger strengthened, but this little Chantry girl affinity took a mattock to her resolve. Just thinking about the way the hair on his chest rambled down his stomach to disappear into his breeches stoked a simmering heat low in her belly. It was enamoring and maddening all at once.
Sodden, dark brown locks swayed against his temple with every movement of the stone. A bead of water trickled from his peaked hairline, collecting in the furrow between piercing blue eyes which cut sharper than any weapon. He sure looked as clean and sharp as the sword in his hand, and wore his traumas with same distinguishing elegance. A far different man sat here than the filthy, fettered prisoner fresh from the road who stood in her judgement just that morning.
"Just what is this?" she growled and gestured towards the runed sword in her hand.
He didn't look up, but the gruff soldier swallowed hard, closing his eyes to her and exhibited his displeasure at their encounter. "My lady, don't ..." he began but shook his head. "It is a fine sword."
"And why did I find such a fine blade propped against the hearth in my quarters?" Nymeria asked, enunciating the words to keep them from catching in her throat.
"Because I am no longer worthy of such artifice," he said and continued to drag the notched whetstone across his own sword. “I was never worthy to begin with. Give it to Cassandra, or perhaps even Cullen. Someone deserving of such masterful craftsmanship."
The blood roiled hot in her veins, pounding between her temples as anger battled against empathy. "I had this smithed and enchanted especially for you, Blackwall. Not for Cass or Cullen."
He gave a rueful snort. "No, you had it made for the man you thought I was. Only right that I return it now that my lie has come to light."
The shield had been there as well. A rampant griffin embossed on silverlite and detailed in blue vitriol. Blue and silver. A proper Warden's shield. Nothing like the battered aegis he'd brought to Haven. Perhaps his unwillingness to bear the shield she understood, hence she left it leaning against her hearth where he'd abandoned it.
"Look, the shield can be reworked," Nymeria conceded. "Or given to Warden Stroud as sign of our alliance. But there is no such Grey Warden insignia nor lore attaching this sword."
When he finally looked up, those ice chip eyes burned cold on her before flashing hot and hungry. Nymeria's chest tightened. She recognized the dangerous desire that sunk into her flesh like his grapple, tugging and attempting to pull her closer to him with a gaze alone. And for several tense moments, a miasma of lust and hurt swirled between them before his obstinance trumped all.
"A man's sword is an extension of himself. You had this crafted on the grounds of a lie and a ghost," he said. "This...there's weight to this blade. Over the years I've grown accustomed to the weight of my sins, I suppose. Like a sturdy suit of armor."
“And doesn’t one take off armor when they are finished fighting?”
"My sins are collected in jars innocent's blood and wasted potential. A difficult load to unburden from myself," he said somberly and stared at the sword in his hands.
"That's not…not the sword you used to…” she started and instantly wished she hadn't asked.
"No," he said and the blade shined in the lantern light. "I bartered my Captain's saber for a crude bit of notched iron when I first fled. This was his. The Warden's. This is the blade which failed to save Warden Blackwall yet spared me. Fate can be such a mocking bitch sometimes."
His calloused fingers traced lovingly down the bevel in the center of the flat blade. "This sword is a promise, a burden, a reminder. And I nearly forgot all about it." He shook his head and sheathed it, as if for privacy. The leather sheathe clattered gently on the floor beside him and he returned his attention to the Inquisitor. "You know, I almost began to believe I was a good man when you presented me with such a beautiful weapon. But one sword isn't enough to redeem such a brutal act."
"In the right hands, a sword might save the world," Nymeria said. She plopped down on a pile of furs and laid the enchanted sword on the haybale beside her. "It can change a man as well. For better or worse. And I see a good man sitting before me despite whatever you left behind in Orlais. Perhaps you're flawed. Mayhaps you made a terrible, greedy mistake, but everyday in this Inquisition you work further towards atonement. You’ve demonstrated an underlying resilience few possess."
"Always the idealist," he said without heat or derision. A ghost of a smile cracked in his thick shadow of a beard. "How do you manage to see such light where others see only darkness."
"Darkness makes even the faintest beacon shine brighter.” She shrugged and propped herself back on her elbows before a lurid flotsam of memory drifted into her mind. His weight upon, the clothed hardness of him grinding against her bare hip as he suckled her nipple. Her body had been so hyperaware that she felt every lace of his trouser’s front fastening.
Color seethed in her cheeks and she nibbled her lip. Blackwall must have read her face. He cleared his throat at the sudden discomfort tangling between them.
"Allow me to apologize for that night,” he said.
That night. Both knew specification wasn't required pertaining to which night he meant.
"Apologize?" The word splintered on her lips and Nymeria cursed herself for showing such vulnerability. “You feel sorry we spent the night together?"
"Nym...no, that's not what I meant. Maker's balls, how obvious is it that I lived alone for years?" he muttered. "What I should have said is I apologize for bedding you in such a...rustic bower."
"What a romantic way to say hayloft," she teased him with the first smile she’d shown since Val Royeaux. Had it been that long since she last smiled?
Her smile reflected in the grin beaming beneath his beard. "Aye, well, no one's ever mistaken me for a man of sophisticated sensibilities."
“You didn’t hear any complaints from me either. Although, I kept picking stalks of hay from my hair for the next few days."
"Can think of worse places to be picking them from," he quipped and crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing her. "How did I get a lady such as you in my bed in the first place? No desire demon could hold a candle to that night."
"Quite the feat being you spent months at a time swiving into your own fist," she japed.
His eyebrows shot up at her ribald joke and Nymeria fretted that she overstepped her bounds. Fear dispelled as a hearty laughter rolled warm and familiar down her back like a cozy blanket. Blackwall's laughter guttered out and he combed his lengthy damp hair from his face, pushing it back into the usual style. Silver strands caught the light and glimmered at his temples.
"Witty, strong, beautiful, and as crass as seasoned serving wench. See? You're much better than any figment the Fade could tempt me with," he assured her.
The burly warrior leaned back in his chair. How could one man look as finely sculpted yet appear so roughly hewn at the same time. Nymeria suddenly fixated on how low his breeches clung to his hips. The warmth that drifted over her back sunk to settle between her thighs. She shifted restlessly on the furs.
Mischief glimmered his piercing gaze. "And while I'll admit to a good deal of time spent fucking into my hand, may I remind you that I was a recluse, not a priest. There was an occasional tumble with a willing lass here and there. If you couldn't tell from that night."
A new heat spilled across her chest and up her neck. He'd utterly disarmed her. From the very moment barbs succumbed to jests, their rapport knit back together like a broken bone. Nymeria had slipped farther into comfort than she realized. It would’ve been easy to to reach only a short distance and grasp for a hot coal of anger. But that’s not what she wanted. In her heart of hearts, the Inquisitor refused to stew in her rage, in her heartache. Such caustic emotions burned her as much as it hurt him. What was the use of littering caltrops all around her if it entrapped her as well as defended?
“But you didn’t love any of those other women though, did you?” Nymeria’s heart squeezed into her throat.
“No, Nym. Only you,” The gruff warrior looked her directly in the eyes and answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Why do you believe I kept trying to dissuade you? Our conversation on the rampart wasn’t just to hear myself talk.”
Her gaze darted away towards the flickering lantern for a second before garnering the courage to proceed.
“Your age,” she said and watched his mouth twist. “Not that you’re too old. But about the Calling. I just thought perhaps you believed you were close to hearing and having to exile yourself to the Deep Roads.”
His eyes widened, an expression she hadn’t seen since first flirting with him outside his cabin. “And you still wanted to be with me?”
She nodded silently, mistrusting her voice to keep level.
“You believed that I was perhaps a few years from my Calling, and still dared to love me knowing all I could give you was a painful, lonely ending?” he said and she felt the tears burn in her eyes.
Strike by strike, Nymeria chipped away at the barrier he erected between. Every move closer accompanied another of his warnings, and only now did she realize the self-scorn Blackwall must have suffered as he relented to her will. He had tried to deter her, as much for his benefit as her own. To worship her from afar and to return after all this ended into the comfort of solitude.
A wordless exchange clinched between them and he had been the first to stand, no doubt intending to cross the creaking buffer of floor and repeat the last time they’d both shared his bed. But Nymeria hastily leapt to her feet and advanced on him. A watershed of unease pinched between his brows until she angled her mouth over his, pausing only for a precious few seconds before kissing him.
The smoky sweet taste of whisky dandled across her tongue as it slid over his. His beard tickled her chin. She ran her fingers through the thick mass and sought to deepen their kiss. When Blackwall finally broke away, his breath came rough, ragged with heavy hooded eyes to match. To watch such a powerful, taciturn man crumble beneath his desire for her only amplified her own lust. A large hand entwined in the hair falling at her nape, groping insistently but without dominance. He fluttered tiny kisses along the leaping pulse in her neck until he cradled her jaw in his calloused hands.
"You're going to be the death of me, Nym. And I'd gladly go to it," he confessed, locking his eyes on hers and touching their foreheads together.
"I'm not asking you to die for me. You've lived like a dead man for too many years."
Heat poured off his body, a living brazier of flesh and hard muscle enclosed her in warmth against the chilly night. Blackwall’s body heat seeped through her thick tunic and reminded her just how brittle the barrier stood between them.
"I missed this," he spoke into her hair and drew her against his chest. "The smell of you. Your warmth. The way your body fits so perfectly in my arms. Leaving that morning felt like tearing out my own heart with my bare hands. Your man is a bloody fool. Feel free to remind him of that every once in awhile."
"At least he's my fool," she said, smiling until she felt iron hard length of him prodding her stomach. "Andraste's fiery arse," she uttered and unconsciously pressed against the bulge instead of drawing away.
"Never thought I'd make a chantry lass speak such blasphemy,” he rasped a chuckle against her cheek and clutched her waist, putting a sliver of distance between them. "We don't have to...if it's too soon or you—“
She clipped him with a scorching kiss. The floor fell out from beneath her whenever their lips came together. As if gravity realigned itself and she either fell further or became drawn closer. Short nails lightly scored down his bare chest and torso, drawing a hiss of pleasure from him. Blackwall caught her wrists and smirked into their dizzying caress.
“You’re not an easy woman to say ‘no’ to,” he said and wrapped her in his tempting embrace.
She pulled back and grinned, tracing her fingers over the cupid’s bow of his lips. He kissed each digit. “Does any part of you not want this?”
His teeth grazed the back of her knuckles. “Fuck no, my lady.”