faderift | [ OPEN ] Heart's on fire

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[ OPEN ] Heart's on fire

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Zevran Aranai's School for Rogues Who Can't Sneak Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too.
WHEN: Wintermarch, all month
WHERE: Skyhold: Courtyard, Stables, Rookery, Battlements, etc
NOTES: Sass, Stealth, and Violence

He had mulled over the notion for a few weeks now; watching the soldiers take themselves to task, the warriors practicing as best they could; the mages training in their spells and thought- aside from combat (and even then there were tricks soldiers did not always think to teach) how was a rascal, a scoundrel, a rogue to learn more tricks? A well trained operation of any sort had well trained members of all sorts; the bruisers, the wizards, the rogues. Perhaps it was high time someone did something for the sneakier sorts.

[ Courtyard ]

Every lesson starts the same- a quick lap around the courtyard as fast as possible, vaulting over people and structures, running along the wall, making use of all the same skills that kept him alive all those years in Antiva City. For those that did not know them? The tricks came as a brief primer after the lap was finished- even a brief demonstration is offered. Afterward he runs them through a few training locks set into empty chests, some of the them wound with ringing alarms for the sake of practice. Trip the wrong tumbler? Off goes the alarm. After that it's stealth and pickpocketing. Sneaking about through a field of tripwires connected to more ringing bells and powder packets, a veritable labyrinth. Any bells go off, any powder on your person? You go through again. One of the training dummies has been re-purposed with bells and pouches on it- each pouch has a bell attached. They're timed and told to get as many as possible without ringing any bells. Ring a bell? Run a lap.

[ Stables ]

Here there is room enough for him to demonstrate proper trap production and dismantling. Every wound spring, every steel mechanism. They start with the basic bladed traps- though none of the blades are sharpened and none of the powder explosions hold more than dye. Once they've made traps that are...decent or satisfactory, Zevran walks them through detection and dismantling. Some of the practice traps have trick springs and triggers- if set off they'll be dusted with powder instead of losing their fingers. Later he goes through a list of common poisons and venoms to create and how to build up a tolerance for them. He does not provide them with samples this early on.

[ Battlements ]

Rappelling and dueling and improvisational combat and you! Here Zevran shows them how to climb, how to fall, how to make their own ropes when they've none of their own, how to throw a rappel to make it stay, how to haul it down, and how to dual wield on uneven ground. Demonstrations with Isabela and sparring with whoever wishes to take their turn happens throughout the day as requested; Zevran also covers grappling, breaking holds, and how to fight dirty. An honorable rogue is a dead rogue after all.

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Zevran took out the parts he would need to do so, arranging them as he had for Michel's parts. He gave the man a look, a faint smirk and nod before he began to put it together. The base, the frame, the spring yet wound, the wire and plate for the trigger, the blades. Slowly and methodologically, little by little the trap came into shape. It took careful hands not to cut oneself on the wire and deft fingers not to overwind the spring, but he was certain Michel might manage it well enough.

More than simply show him, he spoke, covering each step, the hows, the whys. The care needed to avoid injury and a few possible variations once one knew the basic configuration well enough.

When time came to wind the spring he looked over to Michel's work, brow quirked. "Ready?"

No one could say that a warrior did not possess a keen aptitude for learning and Michel was a very eager student. He wouldn't have been allowed at the Empresses side if he had been a fool and certainly she would not allow anyone within arms reach of her who lacked a desire for learning. She loved the University and sought to make the school open to all eager minds, not simply prestigious ones. So he paid attention to Zevran with a fixed and singular interest in learning, listening to his explanations, but more than listening he was hearing what the assassin was saying while following his fingers with his eyes. He made any adjustments he thought might work best as he followed along, clearly the hands of a warrior at work, but fine motor skills made up for whatever he lacked.

When Zevran glance his way once again, Michel prepared himself and simply nodded that he was ready.

"Very good. I do not think you will lose any fingers with this." Teasing, harmless and toothless even as he smirked to show he mans no offense. "You wind the spring here thusly. For this set up? Ten turns will have it primed. Eleven if you wish it sensitive. Twelve if you want it to snap at a breeze. More than that will break the mechanism."

He wound as he spoke, the ten counted in the back of his head while he watched Michel wind his. Multitasking was a skill all Assassins learn and learn well if they wish to live; they must mind the guard rotation, the path into the room and out, the means of killing, the location of pray, all while appearing invisible or not at all.

"I should hope not, I've grown attached to my fingers. Holding a sword would be infinitely more complex without them and I've been told they are my finest feature," not impossible, fingers were simply convenient for such things. Fortunately Michel's ability to jest, in spite of his typically serious nature, made it quite clear that he took no offense. Still, he's right back to studious as he watched and parroted the task listening closely as Zevran explained the varying levels of sensitivity to him. He could see why one might want it sensitive enough to snap on contact, but not so much so that it would at the drop of a coin.

He could certainly appreciate Zevran's ability to multitask, teaching while demonstrating, talking while observing. Chevaliers had their own way, but most of it required hand-eye-foot coordination and always minding your surroundings. Though thinking a few steps ahead while doing all of these things was a bonus as well. There might have been certain differences between the two of them, but he was fairly certain Zevran could easily pick up on certain Chevalier tactics if he had a mind for it.

"Mmm. In my opinion that is a tie between your eyes, your mouth, and your voice when you are at your most desperate- though perhaps more than all of that..." Zevran finished winding his own trap, minding how Michel wound his and completed the task before he reached out to catch the chevalier's jaw in his gloved palm, thumb swiping gently across the skin just under his lip. Zevran was terribly, intimately aware with how he had begun none too subtly conditioning Michel to react to the texture and scent of Antivan leather in all it's sensual glory.

And he was none too subtly taking advantage of that without shame or intent to stop- at least for now. Teasing both of them with a single touch, his hand dragging down to rest at the base of his throat, fingers pressing lightly against his collar. "Right...here. When your head is thrown back and your eyes closed, the whole of you flushed pink with desire.

The one thing Michel found difficult to push down, even on his best days, was his physiological response to certain stimulation. He could force his body to remain still, arrange his face into something smooth and impervious, but he could not control the heat that crept along his neck, and the light sensation of pins and needles that danced down the line of his back. He wasn't at all certain when he became fully aware of it, he knew that he enjoyed the leather, the smells, the feel, it's softness, texture...it was the training that had gone unnoticed until recently. That he was pairing this with Zevran and everything about the assassin only made the fascination and the conditioning all the more potent, he wasn't aware that he had fallen under such a command.

The Chevalier could almost feel the madness of it, he knew that's what it was, that he was chasing something he should not as a knight. That his own fiction could be detrimental to the both of them if he allowed himself much more of this, and for a moment he leaned in and pressed his forehead against Zevran's, eyes closed as he lost himself in some kind of contemplation. It was a brief moment and then he withdrew, reaching up to cover the assassin's leather clad hand with his own, fingers mapping their way along concealed digits, "I am not...what you think I am..."

There it was. The flush, the shiver, the sigh. A hook that had been baited well caught- it was almost textbook- as far as Crows had such things. He'd laid the groundwork when they'd stumbled into this fascination together, pressed the issue, and now? He was willing to bet perhaps two, maybe three more rounds in bed he could have Michel shivering into a full state of arousal with a touch of a glove in the right place with the proper amount of pressure. He hadn't had anyone or anything quite like this in over a decade- let alone something he would get to keep as long as Michel was willing to be kept.

Every other recipient of this honey'd trap and trick found their bliss and heart on the end of Zevran's knife.

But what was going through his head? Zevran leaned in to the touch, breathing against Michel's mouth without closing the distance, face calm and voice almost gentle. "I think you are handsome."

He turned that hand around to drop a kiss to his palm, his wrist. "I think you are fascinating. I think you are a marvelous partner in bed. What more matters?"

Zevran didn't need to bridge the distance at that point, Michel wound an arm around the assassin's shoulder and reeled him in for a bracing kiss. By now he knew Zevran's mouth as he knew his own, granted his tongue wasn't as talented and his lips weren't as soft and pliable, but it felt familiar to him now. He should have been more concerned about timing, about the place, about the simple fact that they were only within arms reach of some rather nasty traps--he was careful to lean away from them. Perhaps the Inquisition had more than its fair share of those who were neutral and accepting of certain deviances, but Zevran had been the first to present himself as accepting of Michel without caring who he was. He had never known that, he came from Orlais, differences were very clear, and there was always the crisis of not having a blatant identity. Everything behind Michel's carefully crafted serenity spoke of his own crisis of identity.

"My attachment to you would matter...you're probably aware of a great many things, but are you aware of this?" He murmured finally withdrawing. It had to be obvious on some level that Zevran's conditioning did more than just inspire certain behaviors, "...how can I defend that...would matter. The way you break down and confuse every single impulse that I have...should any of this be on you? It's selfish, I'm selfish...and I can't remember ever feeling selfish..."

Eager. Ever and always eager, ever firm, ever primed for the proper direction; as wound as any of the traps they had assembled and any Crow braced for the kill. Zevran sighed into Michel's mouth, fingers curling in the hair at the nape of his neck to tangle and hold him there for a little longer. Just enough for another slick taste, another flick ad curl of the tongue that was as sultry as it was practiced. His education in the Crows had been quite thorough. Mastery came from a genuine enjoyment of the art.

"I think, perhaps, you are misinterpreting what it is we share." He smoothed his hand along Michel's jaw again, eyes warm and not entirely unkind- but in the back there was that wary calculation. That knowledge that it would take little for any man to attempt more than they are due. "I have no claim to you- nor do you have one on me aside from the time we share with one another. Something such as this requires no defense. Everyone knows what it is one finds in my company."

The lift and fall of his shoulders was a graceful, nonchalant thing. He was known for his lovers, for his deviances. "A life spent in service with no room to simply take your own pleasures when they are offered? Nowhere to set the weight aside and be something other than the tool you were trained to be? Is no life at all. While you are with me? Be selfish. When you are elsewhere? be noble."

"It is very likely that I am misinterpreting...but I suppose the reason for that is because it is more complex on my part. Being a chevalier plays into it certainly...but beyond that I've always been confused about a great many things...a lot of that is tangled up in our interactions," Michel's eyes drifted to a single point on a nearby wall, it wasn't anything interesting in particular that caught his eyes, he was simply lost in contemplation, "perhaps...when I say defend, I mean to defend you from my misinterpretation...I understand your parameters...but I am also feeling a shift...a change in myself and that inspires feelings. Things that I know are best left unexplored, it makes you impervious, it keeps all of those forts you build around yourself firmly in place. Right now it's a small thing--infatuation, curiosity, confusion...and a great many things that I do not understand and keep at arms length. What is it gets tangled up with the devotion and the purpose part of myself..."

After a moment or so more with the wall, Michel brought his gaze back to Zevran.

"Selfish would be encroaching on those parameters that I am well aware of...what little I know of you, this much I am absolutely certain of."

"You...wish for more?" Further intimacy, emotional vulnerability? A deeper connection beyond the leather and silk and oil and sex? That was something he could not offer anyone easily, let alone offer someone of Michel's standing as a rule. Not only would it defeat the purpose of their interactions entirely- he had been used and twisted about by men like Michel far too often in the past to open himself up to further games.

As an Orlesian, Michel ought to understand Zevran's reluctance well enough.

Then again perhaps that was the root of his concerns.

Without moving away Zevran let his hands fall to rest lightly on Michel's hips, voice carefully neutral. "If continuing would only provide complications..."

It would be better to not.

"Not presently, but everything we've done until now is entirely new to me...I feel different..." and he had no idea how these little changes would effect him given enough time. Michel was a man who required devotion to something, after Empress Celene he had been lost, until he decided that Imshael was his new purpose, and after that would it be the Inquisition? How often would the two be exposed to one another? How would Zevran fit into his model of devotion if he changed that much? And 'roud and 'round such thoughts went.

As an Orlesian, as a Chevalier, as a man with dual identities Michel understood very much where that could be problematic for Zevran, but he didn't want to leave the other thinking that it was him in any way. This was all on the knight.

"You wouldn't be the complication, bel homme..." Michel cast his eyes carefully about making sure they were alone or that anyone in the area might be otherwise engaged in something else before dropping his voice and his head, "...I said I am not what you think. For starters...I would not know Val Chevin from a hole in the ground, I could point it out on a map and describe things from what I have memorized in books. I could detail everything there is to know about the de Chevin family line, but I was born in the alienage in Val Royeaux."

"...Is that so terrible a thing?" To be different. To feel different- adapt and change and move forward. He never understood the stoic determination to remain the same- to reach a point and adapt no longer. Such stillness and static nature would see any Crow, any noble even, dead in short order in Antiva. But the almost militaristic determination to maintain the status quo even should the players change baffled him none the less.

Of course he was ever one to change the rules as they suited him.

But then this. The compliment, the endearment that warmed him slightly. Of course he was beautiful, of course Michel found him fine. He would be a fool to not.

What came after, however. "...You are elf blooded?"

The sweetness, the angle to his face- not so strange for any human, no, but it lent that beauty most humans found in elves to him without the overt, damning features.

"...I do not know." Every little change was something that Michel kept tabs on in great detail and that is why anything different in his life was rather stark. The ability to maintain absolute control over every single aspect of his life could drive a man into a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension, and for Michel it often ended in impulsive behavior. This strict control had been a a source of anxiety and weakness for him and he certainly did not like to admit to such weaknesses

"Yes...very few people know of this, three of those who did are dead...the other three I can only hope to trust. I haven't admitted it out loud to anyone..." until now that is, "...my mother. I am not certain who my father was, I could be the bastard son of a nobleman for all I know and it wouldn't be at all strange."

"Nobles often take such liberties. It should come as no surprise." It was only knowing that attempting to extort influence or coin from Michel would come to nothing that kept Zevran from pocketing the details to do so in the future. A disgraced Champion had no influence, and Michel had already given him what little items of worth he had left to spare.

But this did put quite a bit of Michel's strangeness in perspective. His reluctance, his affection, his confusion.

"And this, you think, changes things for me? Changes my opinion of you?"

"Not at all, I experienced plenty in the alienage...crowded. If you weren't full-blooded you were an outsider...and nobles certainly have a reputation," Influence, Michel had very little of, outside of his persistent fierceness that made him one of the few survivors at the Battle of Halamshiral, or his besting General Gaspard. For all intents and purposes Michel was a "noble," his sponsor had falsified all of the documents that made this true, and as for coin...he had it, he simply didn't think about it. Comte Brevin de Chalons made certain he had been well off as to be convincing, but not so well of he would have a hard time making anyone believe he was from a dying family line.

"I imagine it would make you more cautious, Aveline was struck down when she was revealed not to be a man," Michel knew what would happen to him, he didn't know what would happen to anyone he grew close to.

"I have had the entire House of Crows attempting to see me dead for the better part of a Decade." He wished to put that into perspective for Michel. "Whoever might seek to strike you down is welcome to attempt turn their blade to me as well- they'll lose the hand holding it in short order."

He'll not be killed over one of his dalliances. He doubted he was worth the effort and that anyone would assume them so close, knowing his reputation, to bother with it. Most knew what he was about.

"If you think this reason enough to stop, we stop." He shrugged. "We have had our fun and I shall not hold it against you."

Michel couldn't stop the smile that touched the corners of his lips, he really couldn't help but to admire Zevran's strength. Odd were that they wouldn't do anything to him, there were certain practices that any good Chevalier looked down upon. They wouldn't hesitate to kill Michel, however, he simply wouldn't wish anyone to get caught up in such a manhunt should it some to pass and with Orlais in the state it was in who knew when or if Gaspard would give him up just for having been the Empress's champion.

"I want to respect your boundaries, all of them, that is the reason," Michel looked like he might have wanted to to touch him, but thought better of it. Instead he climbed to his feet, eyes on the trap he'd just completed, "I haven't thanked you yet, have I?"

"So long as you do not ask or expect more than I am currently offering you, so long as you yourself are still enjoying what we share, I see no reason for things to change. But should you have expectations- it is not that I find you distasteful. I simply do not indulge in such Sentiment." As an Assassin? Such things were unwise.

And Alistair would have such a smug look were he to actually indulge in such sentiment with Michel or any other human of somewhat noble leanings. That was as much reason to not as his own reservations.

"No, I do not think you have." He had, after all, sidetracked them both from the lesson quite neatly.

"So long as I do not change, yes?" Another one of Michel's small smiles.

"Your touch, your scent, your voice, your lips...even when you are kind to me..." whether it was genuine or not, "...these things are changing me."

And Zevran couldn't promise Michel that he wouldn't change for the sake of fun.

"Thank you, for all of your help, and everything..."

"That depends on how it is you change." Sometimes it was for the better- sometimes it only led to complications. Which this might be? He could not say. A chevalier changing on him was unusual- if only for never knowing one long enough for them to have cause to change.

But if he was so confused, this so wary of change- Ending things was likely for the best. Zevran could not say he wasn't disappointed by this; but he could not give Michel more. Putting him in a position to want it and leave him twisting in the wind...

It was tempting. He was not so good or kind a man as to not be tempted.

Nor was he so good or kind that he did not step close to lean in for one last kiss. Soft. Sweet. Positively chaste. "You are welcome, Soleil."

And Michel wasn't at all certain how this would change him, he wasn't known for being of sound mind all the time. He had no idea how this much physical contact with another individual would impact him. Would he find himself in the same situation as Her Radiance? He often thought about that particular tragedy.

He was ready to take his leave, certain of the understanding they had when Zevran leaned up and kissed him. It wasn't rough handling that had been Michel's undoing in the past, it had been that unfamiliar softness that was counterpoint to grueling training, brutal battles, and all of that time spent traveling on his own and otherwise.

For a moment he lost his senses for a moment, pulling Zevran off of his feet and into a hungry kiss. For a moment his thoughts melted away, but it was only for a moment and then it occurred to him what was doing and he eased Zevran back down again, "I should probably go then."

He took a moment to collect himself before gathering his things.

For once- that had not been a calculated action meant to encourage a lustful response. It had been exactly as he intended- a goodbye kiss to a lover he had truly enjoyed for reasons that had little to do with blood and a great deal to do with his behavior, his body, his voice. To say that he was surprised was something of an understatement- the ferocity of the kiss wrung a soft, wanting sound from him and it seemed as though all their talk had been given thought and forgotten in favor of this.

This crackling thing between them that he too felt, that he too enjoyed-

Just as quickly as he'd been swept up and all but ravished- he was set down and left bereft- staggering against the lost, eyes dark and breath coming in a shallow pant.

"I had never thought you cruel." He shouldn't have said that- he knew it as soon as the words were on his tongue yet he could not swallow them down again.

Michel had just shouldered his sword as Zevran dropped that on him and as much as the assassin hadn't been expecting his kiss, the Chevalier hadn't expected those words or the look that had accompanied them. It gave him pause, just long enough to allow his eyes to take in his breathless companion. Bel homme. He didn't know how such a vision could force him to act against every instinct that he knew was wise.

It didn't take him a heart beat, for a man one might praise for strength as opposed to speed Michel was wickedly quick. Zevran was scooped up in his arms again and nudged against the nearest wall, perhaps a bit more vulgarly than he intended as both of the elf's legs were hitched up and draped over his arms and he used the wall to brace both of their bodies.

Zevran's face was level with his, convenient as it made it easier for Michel to nudge his lips against a spot just behind the elf's left ear. He nipped him once, it was hard enough to be effective, but not enough to hurt, and followed up by tracing the line of his companion's ear with his tongue all the way to the tip where he nibble on the succulent lobe. He should have been more aware of their current setting, that even half shadows couldn't quite hide his accosting of the elf.

"I can be...but I'll always make amends..." Michel said, barely above a whisper against the shell of his companion's ear. He drew back just enough to allow for nose-to-nose contact, feeling so much energy passing between their bodies...this was a heat that Michel knew he would pine over quietly, "...shall I kiss you again?"

He should take it back. Laugh it off as a joke. There's something there, an idle fascination, a desire to do more with what he has already toyed with and drawn out- he has never been so selfishly petulant about a lover taking their leave before. It was what it was. They took their pleasures where they could while life was good

To expect more was foolish.

Reckless.

And yet here he was, staring after Michel, pulse thundering in his ears and trying to fight down his reaction to so swift and bruising a kiss. No, if this was to end it would be on his terms. And tha was to be the chaste kiss that left them both with fond memories and nothing more. Not that hungry, devouring, aching thing Michel had struck him with like a coup de grace before leaving.

That was his job. Not Michel's.

Just so he was once again on him, holding him, carrying him and Zevran- rushing an assassin wasn't wise. He should have reacted violently, and yet he took it, knowing Michel would not do him harm. Even if for a long moment he'd been afriad of that very thing for overstepping. But pinned as he was against the hard wood of the wall just as he had that first time, he melted. tilted his head to the side to invite more of Michel's mouth, shuddering soft groans that were only for show in part. "Yes."

He swallowed, voice thick, nails catching in Michel's hair. "Yes."

[ OPEN ] Heart's on fire

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