The spot he settles upon is dark and sheltered, drawn away from the road by some insignificant measure. Overhead, above packed dirt and trampled grass gone grey with time, gnarled branches break slightly, revealing a scattering of stars. If it wasn’t so grim a forest, it might be considered beautiful. Romantic.
Instead, it’s simply fitting.
They are, as Jone already understands, no glittering works of art. No gentler things, meant for goodness or warmth or softness— and what little they have of it, they’ve found within each other. Not without.
She barely has a moment to step into that clearing before he’s upon her, swift as a drawn blade: mouth to her own, teeth catching against her lip in a demanding swell of desire.
He'd figured-- this has happened before, though not with him-- she was being taken somewhere discrete to be screamed out. A poor employee, who mixed business with lust. A shite friend. A hag to be critiqued.
Instead, he has only that crushing passion, and she has to move herself so her bad arm isn't pinned at a rough angle. She should get it healed first, or some nonsense, but she's always liked fucking while injured. It heightens the difference between pleasure and pain. It leaves her giddy and tired, wicked with it.
She moans into his mouth, shameless in isolation. Her free hand finds his crotch, shamelessly kneading.
Her injuries are only faintly avoided, helmet left to tumble uselessly elsewhere as he marks along her mouth, her jaw, her throat down into the collar of her gambison— fingers digging harshly at her waist, and all too quick to unravel the bindings there, unwilling to cede yet another second to restraint.
Pale petals fall like leaves in the moonlight, shed eagerly for his carelessness. If he cannot prove her worthy, he can— at the very least— prove himself less than that.
"Take off the armor," she says, laughing, harsh and unwomanly. A freeing thing, to be away from the eyes of others, to be herself. She likes the fine games and the eyes of spectators, the paltry favors she garners. But this is far, far better, all the more real.
"Take it off, or you're crush me. And- couldn't think of a better way to die, love, but-" more laughter.
And all at once, she is herself again. The apprehension forgotten, the sallowness of a fearful stare lost; her laugh is sharp and clear, and it washes over him before her demand (request?) takes root within his mind. Before he grants her one last reddened mark across her sunburned skin, just inside her collar, unmistakable in its origin.
—and then he’s withdrawn, pulled away to tug at his armor clasps while his breathing rushes onward in quickened rhythms, as impatient and feverish as the rest of him, painted with fallen petals and faint bands of pollen.
He has no intention of causing her undue harm, though some part of his own blood still runs high at the thought. As though their love is a challenge to be met, to be fought for.
She watches him undress with hungry eyes, taking in every movement, every muscle, every twitch. She catches a flower falling from him and, selfish, puts it back on her hair. How terribly smug she feels just then. Others may laugh, but this man is hers, and he loves her, and she loves him. She intends to hold onto this for as long as she can; she doubts she will ever have such joy again.
When the armor is off, her one hand finds the ties of his undershirt, and begins to tug. "I want more of you," she says, "All."
He is glad to see it replaced, that single bloom. Different than the last, but no less in symbolism or purpose.
A sentiment forgotten the moment her hand is upon him, digging and drawing coarse fabric away from scarred skin— yielding quickly to it, lending his own effort by way of reaching high to disentangle when he pulls dark knit over his head, ruining the last of that floral gift.
It is traded, in a sense. For beneath those heavy layers, the only thing that remains is a single locket, strung through with a bright green ribbon. Silver glinting in the moonlight against the bow of his notched collarbone.
He is so beautiful, this wild thing that many would see simplified. Certainly, he wears the raiment of a tamed man, but Jone loves him for his excess, his anger, his passion. All match hers, so far as she sees it. She could melt into it.
She touches the silly little locket. I love you.
She's unbuttoning her gambeson, slow and one-handed. The seams of her pants come next. "You'll have to hold me up," she says, "against a tree? Oh, my back will be a wreck..."
Who is he to deny her the satisfaction of lingering pain? It is— by his own skewed estimation— hardly different from the bruising or marks that cling after a sparring match, a battle, and they have made themselves strangers to neither.
And while it may be dangerous for him to walk the narrow line between harm and want, he trusts her now, fully: she is strong enough to be his match— to curb the worst of his gnashing teeth and ravenous hatred— if he runs too far, hurts her too much, she’ll put an end to it as she cares to.
Or she’ll return it.
Impatience thrives within him, however. Where she works one-handed to free herself, he settles in close to finish what she has begun, bracing her body while the rest of her clothing is drawn away with little mercy— and from there, he gathers her into his arms, strong enough to leverage her muscle. Her height.
As he laces her legs about his waist, his face buries itself within the heart of her chest, mouthing at her, biting at her. Affectionate and yet untamed, perhaps no less gentle than the bark digging in between her shoulder blades.
And bare to him, there is no barrier between the friction he provides. Rutting slow, yet desiring more.
She lets her head knock back into the tree. Her good arm loops around his shoulder casually, lightly. "Fuck," she says, letting it sink in. This slow pace is somewhat new, and she finds she likes it just as well as when he's heedless and quick.
As has become a habit for her, she lets him know. "S'good," she murmurs into the air-- fresh with woodland scent, and only slightly spoilt by the city nearby. "Keep going like this."
She feels that twinge of guilt, that she's doing nothing for him in return, but she'll get to it. Tall as they both are, she hasn't the reach.
He asks for nothing in turn, surely she knows this. Nothing more than the way she clings furiously to him, the rise of her breath until it catches in her throat— culminating in faint cursing or the hoarser sound of his muttered name. To be wanted.
To be wanted.
That’s what he strives for, the goal he chases down to the marrow, sinking into it with the endpoint of every heavy roll of his hips. Inspiring a flicker of vivid electricity, sparking a stutter in the pacing he's working to maintain. One turned to his— their— advantage as he uses that moment of faltering to bear himself against her, edging in against slick heat, taut muscle.
A sound, not quite his name, though she makes a true effort for it. Her hips rock with his. "Yes," she says, "slow, I like this-"
The rest is, predictably, swearing, but it's of a different species than their usual heated intensity. Her words are stretched by this new pace, her voice more of a whine. Praise comes not as encouragement, but appreciation.
He can feel the drag of her blunted nails, spurring fresh lines across his skin. No one will see them, no one will know of what transpired here, or how they fit their bodies together as though they are the exact map of one another— driven to fill the emptier spaces, the painful gaps, the welling of feverish need. An eternity to find her.
A short while to have her.
He intends to make it count.
Slow, he stays true to that word; slow, when he bears himself into her fully; slow, when he grits out a groan from between set teeth, trembling from lingering restraint as he resumes indulging the way she rocks against him, his breathing a shuddering thing, thready and lost.
Her good hand finds the junction of her thighs, leaving Gabranth to balance her in totality. Some part of her thinks he'll enjoy that, the power over the situation. The rest is too lost in her own pleasured satisfaction, slowly rutting with him against a tree.
"Harder," she whispers into his ear, "but not faster."
What he sates himself with is more than the control she offers freely— but it would be a lie to claim some part of him does not revel in it, does not hunger and strain for the sight of her pinned and lost to it, brow knitted tight, bruised muscle straining as she works herself towards oblivion at his mercy. Or he at hers.
And there in the shallows of that ember-hot rise of sensation, it proves more difficult than ever to exercise control. Restraint. There is no mistaking the way he shivers with it, the slow snap of every thrust that forces her further back against biting bark. Sharp, no doubt clawing into her skin. Were it not for the time they’ve spent together already over the last few weeks, this— his teeth at her throat, working over those marks, fingertips curled under the curvature of her hips— would be a withered performance by comparison.
They've come so far, and Noah knows her body better. He knows where to his, what to touch, how to make her shiver under his hands. The pain of her injuries, her back into a rough old tree, only speeds her further on.
A whimper becomes his name, before she becomes undone in his hands. She barely keeps the sound small, biting into his neck to hide the worst of it as she strains herself, back arched.
"My beautiful Noah," she murmurs. "Have what you like, love, you've finished me."
Instantaneous, almost, that switch— from the moment that she comes undone, fitting her mouth to his throat in a way that heats his blood, from the way she grants permission— how his demeanor is so quick to shift, as vivid and heady as the snap of lost temperament in battle: a veering turn from restraint to fire-blooded lust, thrusting unbridled, fragments of bark and fallen branch scattering to the forest floor. Her back will be a mess for this, scratched as deep and soundly as the rest of her battle-won injuries.
He bites, and he pants, and he moans and he ruts— and it is no shorter affair this time, before he eventually stumbles, slips, drowns for falling into his own climax. Left shuddering violently against her, locket cold where it snaps against her skin.
She lets out one long, slow moan, an uninterrupted syllable. He's so grand, the feel and the heat of him, overwhelming. Waves of further pleasure spur her on, until she's clinging to him, legs and arm. She nuzzles her face into a sweaty shoulder.
All she can say, panting heavily, is his name, over and over. Noah, Noah, my Noah...
He chases the sound of his name with his own mouth, drawing the breath from her lips in a merciless kiss.
When it breaks, the pattern of his breathing is slower, yet unsteady with listless satisfaction. The exertion of being briefly disentangled from the world itself for a flicker of a beat. He kisses her jaw, flush with heat and reddened from too much sun, and leaves his face there to linger when at last he speaks.
“You are all I have chosen. All that I would take for myself.” Shallow and soft, devoid of fervor and fury, Noah’s voice is a surprisingly quiet thing in this moment.
Intended only for her.
“If this world thinks you lesser for all your divergences, then I damn their blindness and their folly.”
Jone buries her head in the crook of his neck, unable to stand what he says otherwise. It isn't bad. It's just the thing you lie around at night, alone and young, imagining someone will say to you. She never prepared for this feeling, of being so loved, so precious in someone else's eyes. She doesn't know how to tolerate it.
She feels so light.
"I love you," she says, pressed into his side. "I haven't your fine words, but I love you, and I always shall."
Even if ruin meets them, even if bitterness parts them, he will always have a part of her heart. The largest part.
Doting confessions given in the wilds, still pinned against a crooked tree. His and hers, weighted both with gravity— and a poorer sense of timing.
Yet for them, it suits.
And in the wake of it his expression wavers, the faintest fragment of a past no longer within reach. Eased by her promise. By the insignificant hang of an inexpensive curio slung around his neck with simple ribbon.
He lifts her into his arms, rather than leaving her braced against that tree, granting one last kiss across her temple before setting her down and retrieving her shed gambeson. Speaking only once he fits it round her shoulders, knuckles pressed against its hem.
"I love you, Jone of Denerim. Do not dare to forget this."
Slowly, inexpertly, she fits her clothing back on, around the mess of her arm. It now blooms with thundering pain, from such rough treatment. She doesn't regret it. She feels as though she could rip a tree in half, if she so liked.
She doesn't. She fits her clothes in place, if sloppy and sweaty.
All the while, she looks at him with utter adoration. "Could almost ask you to carry me back," she says, a sloppy half-grin on her face. "Did a number on me."
"You need not ask." He counters, seeing to the last of his own regalia and its myriad ties and fasteners. The last at his wrist, fiddled with by coarse leather gloves until the ties sit flush, and his helmeted stare rests upon her, as eyeless and unfaltering as ever.
She may fight him if she wishes. His intent is clear enough when he strides ever closer, crushing white petals underfoot with heavy steps— hands quick to outstretch, reaching for her uninjured arm first.
Her laughter spikes, ugly and throaty, but no less joyful. She hides her face in his plate, and whispers dirty things they may do if they return to their room hastily.
"Have you ever wanted me with my hands tied back? At your mercy, utterly."
It is torment, given the distance they’ve yet to travel.
It is also not undesired, how she seems to brighten in his arms, troublesome as she is. The sound of his voice within the helm is...locked with tensity, just at the edges. Something perhaps undetectable to someone that does not know him, yet bright as day to Jone herself, who has seen him without guard or armor acting as a bulwark against the rise of easily stoked heat.
Somewhere against her side, one of his fingers twitches.
“Your arms cannot be tied behind your back until they are healed, Daughter of Denerim.”
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Instead, it’s simply fitting.
They are, as Jone already understands, no glittering works of art. No gentler things, meant for goodness or warmth or softness— and what little they have of it, they’ve found within each other. Not without.
She barely has a moment to step into that clearing before he’s upon her, swift as a drawn blade: mouth to her own, teeth catching against her lip in a demanding swell of desire.
Everything he’d withheld before now, let go.
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He'd figured-- this has happened before, though not with him-- she was being taken somewhere discrete to be screamed out. A poor employee, who mixed business with lust. A shite friend. A hag to be critiqued.
Instead, he has only that crushing passion, and she has to move herself so her bad arm isn't pinned at a rough angle. She should get it healed first, or some nonsense, but she's always liked fucking while injured. It heightens the difference between pleasure and pain. It leaves her giddy and tired, wicked with it.
She moans into his mouth, shameless in isolation. Her free hand finds his crotch, shamelessly kneading.
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Her injuries are only faintly avoided, helmet left to tumble uselessly elsewhere as he marks along her mouth, her jaw, her throat down into the collar of her gambison— fingers digging harshly at her waist, and all too quick to unravel the bindings there, unwilling to cede yet another second to restraint.
Pale petals fall like leaves in the moonlight, shed eagerly for his carelessness. If he cannot prove her worthy, he can— at the very least— prove himself less than that.
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"Take it off, or you're crush me. And- couldn't think of a better way to die, love, but-" more laughter.
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—and then he’s withdrawn, pulled away to tug at his armor clasps while his breathing rushes onward in quickened rhythms, as impatient and feverish as the rest of him, painted with fallen petals and faint bands of pollen.
He has no intention of causing her undue harm, though some part of his own blood still runs high at the thought. As though their love is a challenge to be met, to be fought for.
Yet it is love all the same.
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When the armor is off, her one hand finds the ties of his undershirt, and begins to tug. "I want more of you," she says, "All."
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A sentiment forgotten the moment her hand is upon him, digging and drawing coarse fabric away from scarred skin— yielding quickly to it, lending his own effort by way of reaching high to disentangle when he pulls dark knit over his head, ruining the last of that floral gift.
It is traded, in a sense. For beneath those heavy layers, the only thing that remains is a single locket, strung through with a bright green ribbon. Silver glinting in the moonlight against the bow of his notched collarbone.
The favor he'd fought for, above all else.
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She touches the silly little locket. I love you.
She's unbuttoning her gambeson, slow and one-handed. The seams of her pants come next. "You'll have to hold me up," she says, "against a tree? Oh, my back will be a wreck..."
She sounds more excited than anything.
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And while it may be dangerous for him to walk the narrow line between harm and want, he trusts her now, fully: she is strong enough to be his match— to curb the worst of his gnashing teeth and ravenous hatred— if he runs too far, hurts her too much, she’ll put an end to it as she cares to.
Or she’ll return it.
Impatience thrives within him, however. Where she works one-handed to free herself, he settles in close to finish what she has begun, bracing her body while the rest of her clothing is drawn away with little mercy— and from there, he gathers her into his arms, strong enough to leverage her muscle. Her height.
As he laces her legs about his waist, his face buries itself within the heart of her chest, mouthing at her, biting at her. Affectionate and yet untamed, perhaps no less gentle than the bark digging in between her shoulder blades.
And bare to him, there is no barrier between the friction he provides. Rutting slow, yet desiring more.
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As has become a habit for her, she lets him know. "S'good," she murmurs into the air-- fresh with woodland scent, and only slightly spoilt by the city nearby. "Keep going like this."
She feels that twinge of guilt, that she's doing nothing for him in return, but she'll get to it. Tall as they both are, she hasn't the reach.
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To be wanted.
That’s what he strives for, the goal he chases down to the marrow, sinking into it with the endpoint of every heavy roll of his hips. Inspiring a flicker of vivid electricity, sparking a stutter in the pacing he's working to maintain. One turned to his— their— advantage as he uses that moment of faltering to bear himself against her, edging in against slick heat, taut muscle.
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The rest is, predictably, swearing, but it's of a different species than their usual heated intensity. Her words are stretched by this new pace, her voice more of a whine. Praise comes not as encouragement, but appreciation.
Her good hand rakes across his spine.
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A short while to have her.
He intends to make it count.
Slow, he stays true to that word; slow, when he bears himself into her fully; slow, when he grits out a groan from between set teeth, trembling from lingering restraint as he resumes indulging the way she rocks against him, his breathing a shuddering thing, thready and lost.
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"Harder," she whispers into his ear, "but not faster."
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And there in the shallows of that ember-hot rise of sensation, it proves more difficult than ever to exercise control. Restraint. There is no mistaking the way he shivers with it, the slow snap of every thrust that forces her further back against biting bark. Sharp, no doubt clawing into her skin. Were it not for the time they’ve spent together already over the last few weeks, this— his teeth at her throat, working over those marks, fingertips curled under the curvature of her hips— would be a withered performance by comparison.
But they’ve come far, now.
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A whimper becomes his name, before she becomes undone in his hands. She barely keeps the sound small, biting into his neck to hide the worst of it as she strains herself, back arched.
"My beautiful Noah," she murmurs. "Have what you like, love, you've finished me."
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He bites, and he pants, and he moans and he ruts— and it is no shorter affair this time, before he eventually stumbles, slips, drowns for falling into his own climax. Left shuddering violently against her, locket cold where it snaps against her skin.
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All she can say, panting heavily, is his name, over and over. Noah, Noah, my Noah...
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When it breaks, the pattern of his breathing is slower, yet unsteady with listless satisfaction. The exertion of being briefly disentangled from the world itself for a flicker of a beat. He kisses her jaw, flush with heat and reddened from too much sun, and leaves his face there to linger when at last he speaks.
“You are all I have chosen. All that I would take for myself.” Shallow and soft, devoid of fervor and fury, Noah’s voice is a surprisingly quiet thing in this moment.
Intended only for her.
“If this world thinks you lesser for all your divergences, then I damn their blindness and their folly.”
It is not for their sake that he fights.
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She feels so light.
"I love you," she says, pressed into his side. "I haven't your fine words, but I love you, and I always shall."
Even if ruin meets them, even if bitterness parts them, he will always have a part of her heart. The largest part.
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Yet for them, it suits.
And in the wake of it his expression wavers, the faintest fragment of a past no longer within reach. Eased by her promise. By the insignificant hang of an inexpensive curio slung around his neck with simple ribbon.
He lifts her into his arms, rather than leaving her braced against that tree, granting one last kiss across her temple before setting her down and retrieving her shed gambeson. Speaking only once he fits it round her shoulders, knuckles pressed against its hem.
"I love you, Jone of Denerim. Do not dare to forget this."
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Slowly, inexpertly, she fits her clothing back on, around the mess of her arm. It now blooms with thundering pain, from such rough treatment. She doesn't regret it. She feels as though she could rip a tree in half, if she so liked.
She doesn't. She fits her clothes in place, if sloppy and sweaty.
All the while, she looks at him with utter adoration. "Could almost ask you to carry me back," she says, a sloppy half-grin on her face. "Did a number on me."
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She may fight him if she wishes. His intent is clear enough when he strides ever closer, crushing white petals underfoot with heavy steps— hands quick to outstretch, reaching for her uninjured arm first.
And, if she fails to deter him, her legs next.
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"Have you ever wanted me with my hands tied back? At your mercy, utterly."
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It is also not undesired, how she seems to brighten in his arms, troublesome as she is. The sound of his voice within the helm is...locked with tensity, just at the edges. Something perhaps undetectable to someone that does not know him, yet bright as day to Jone herself, who has seen him without guard or armor acting as a bulwark against the rise of easily stoked heat.
Somewhere against her side, one of his fingers twitches.
“Your arms cannot be tied behind your back until they are healed, Daughter of Denerim.”
That is not a no.
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sends u these tags and lowers myself into my fuckin grave
gets shovel.