goethbeforethefall | Inbox // IC Communication

[ The text sent to Solas is not words, but a carefully drawn image... careful, though not particularly skilled. Still, it's easy enough to see what it's supposed to be: Beleth, laying down, in a negligee that is detailed enough that it's easy to guess that it's something that she drew from reference. Beleth's face is gives a little wink. There is no actual words to accompany it. ]

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[ A minute or so later, actual text follows: ]

Well, at least the sun enjoys looking upon me. Someone ought.

Earnest beauty holds above all
high house's artifice and gilded streams
though kingdoms fade and empires fall
your daring mein shall hunt my dreams

["It's the thought that counts", he might have said, but a poem is almost as offensive.]

Thank you for the drawing, Vhenan. Though your sense of humor is as charming as ever, I find art pales in comparison to the reality.

I'm putting my clothes on and leaving.

[ Since no one around here wants to kiss her!! They just want to write poems apparently!! ]

An interesting proposition.

[Crudely-drawn underwear is an unusual form of communication, Vhenan, but in your defense he has been known to, literally, be a mindreader. So maybe that's on him.

Still, Solas does at least now understand the game at hand.]

How do you plan to get past the wolf?

[ She thought she was being obvious! But maybe that's because her idea of obvious is what some might call esoteric. But he seems to have caught in, at least. Not that it'll save him from teasing. ]

The wolf does not seem interested in me, so I feel like I will be quite safe. Though perhaps I can outrun him, if the situation changes.

Fully clothed, of course.

Of course. Though you would have to be quite fleet-footed to outrun him, so encumbered.

Are you sure? A wiser course may be to take another form. Though, of course, that may compromise your commitment to clothing.

Taking the form of a halla isn't quite the same as wearing lingerie. Can you say a halla is naked when not clothed? Perhaps I would be more clothed in halla form than I am currently.

Maybe the wolf would be more interested in a halla, though, since I have been left to my own devices. Alone.

[Whether or not she can hear it, he laughs at that. Alright, the game of chase and catch shall be, perhaps, for another day. He drops his brushes into their cups of water and dusts off his hands.]

I can think of no one, nor anything, more desirable than you. Such a wolf would be foolish indeed. Although...

Do I sense an invitation in your message, my heart? Would you prefer to stay home instead, and forgo clothing for the afternoon?

[ There is no response from the bird. However, as Solas begins to tidy up, he'll see a flash of white at the window. Then another.

It's only when she's quite sure that he's seen her that the halla takes off. See you later, alligator. ]

[For a moment, he is surprised, dumbstruck as he has not been in longer than he might care to remember. That she is the one person who has most often in his long, storied life extracted such an emotion ought to be more shocking...

...but it is not. He is delighted.

A moment later, there are two creatures racing through the woods: a fleet-footed white Halla, bounding deerlike, and the swift-running shadow of a wolf in pursuit. No Dread Wolf this, only an ordinary-seeming wolf, save for the brilliant intelligence in his eye. Run, run, as fast as you can, for if he catches you—!"

[ It is Beleth's fault, really, that she gets caught. For a while, there is just the chase, the exhilaration of running as fast as a body can allow, the adrenaline of being hunted, with just enough undercurrent of safety to not truly stress her. She'd be at a disadvantage in any case, Solas long used to his form, and Beleth new to hers, only just accustomed to running on two legs.

But it's not long before she starts to tease (as she ever does), allowing Solas to get just close enough to give her a little jolt of danger, then dancing away, trying to seem within grasp, before pulling a hard left right as she might have been caught. She would've been wiser, more careful, if she had truly feared for her life, but this is fun, and nothing is more fun than dangling temptation in front of her love, and getting to witness his desire.

Which is how the halla is finally tackled, though it's a laughing, gasping elf who hits the ground, hair splayed out in disarray. A lie given is revealed: She did not put on clothes to leave. Only the lingerie she had tried to sketch out for Solas is left on her, little but cunningly placed lace and fancy ribbons, hiding just enough to tantalize. And even in her defeat, she is smug. ]

So the wolf was interested after all, I see.

Edited (bully) 2025-06-24 20:08 (UTC)

[Solas' own pursuit is no less playful; a shadow following through the bracken, snapping jaws and near-misses. He spoils the image of a vicious beast in the whisk of wagging tail and canine smile.

The Halla goes down in a laughing tangle of limbs and magic, and Solas' own transformation is slower, and more controlled; the beast that lands over her is still barrel-chested, half-elven, hunched over her. And as the fur recedes from him and pointed ears migrate to their proper places, his teeth are still fangs when he bends to set them at her throat— he laughs, with a wolf's growl in the shadow of it.]

Ah, but shall the wolf devour his tender prey? [The bite is real, wide-mouthed and grasping, and then another, and another, just at the top of the curve of a breast. Solas looks up at her, his right eye catching silver light and what he sees there undoes his control: he is surging up to put that mouth over her own, instead, wet and wanting, deep-tongued, domineering. He leans back a little, breathless by the time he has finished, and looks down at her appreciatively.] So beautiful.

You are perfect, ma'lath. What a gift I have here in my hands: to unwrap it seems almost a shame.

[But he chuckles then, low and wry: his wandering hands tell another tale.]

[ Beleth watches the transformation from her position underneath him, laid out with curls splayed wild across the ground. Purple eyes glint in the light, wide and intent, but there is no fear in them. Only open, naked desire. Each bite and nip is accepted with a gasp, arching up into him.

She burns, and she wants, and each whine and pant that escapes her lips echoes with her desire, more overt than she would ever dream of being with any save him and their shared beloved. He looks half mad, or half beast, the creature that lurks in the tales of her childhood, but it is not fear that pounds in her ears, flushes her cheeks.

But her attitude isn't completely vanquished quite yet, even if her mind is rapidly turning towards a number of things that would require a little more cooperation. ]

Well, I would never make you do anything you do not wish for, Vhenan. Even if that includes me. I can... simply go home. Put on a sweater.

[ She makes no motions towards carrying out her words, instead lifting up to meet his touch, one hand sliding up her side, to adjust some of the lace to hide a little less -- not that it was doing much before. ]

[That is incorrect— Solas stops her with another biting kiss, taking her hand by the wrist and moving to pin it out and away, up above her head where it can do no further mischief.]

Or perhaps I shall leave you as you are, and bring you to climax again and again, until you are begging for a rest. [With the hand not holding onto her, he wanders; soft breast, smooth satin, the barely peep of pink nipple. Lower, teasing along the straps and lace, hooking one finger beneath the narrow band between her legs. The heat against his knuckle is shockingly sweet; his teeth part over a grin, wolf-like.] Shall I, Vhenan? I could ruin you entirely, whilst leaving intact the enticing view you have so generously provided.

[ His threats leave her contemplating pouting, but his clever, skilled hands working their magic upon her skin leave her entirely distracted. She shifts underneath him, each touch earning him another noise escaping her lips. Well, it seems there's only one thing for it. ]

Solas. Sileal. Please. I want you, ma'lath. [ And if just begging doesn't work: ] I want to feel you inside me. I want to feel your desire.

[It is enough: Solas' self control is not equal to the task of denying her. True to his impatient promises, he does not wait, nor try to undress her, but simply moves aside what clothing must be, and slides into the went heat of her body with a fumbling, eager passion.

It is not a graceful coupling, there is no teasing slowness, no drawn-out poetic moments. He has chased her through forest and dell, his rightful prey, and Solas puts his teeth to her throat as he fucks Beleth in the moss and sunlight, their bed a bed of last year's leaves. When it is over, he is left panting, a little ashamed, but despite the raw, importunate, wroth of it all... he cannot help, but to be satisfied.

Even so: he kisses the marks he has left on her, and whispers promises of healing. In a moment. When he is not so tired, nor so smug.]

[ There are no complaints from Beleth on the roughness or the rawness of their coupling -- quite the opposite, each time she feels his teeth against delicate skin, she gasps, each rough grind meets eager hips, and his growl causes her to clench around him, until they are both finished and she is left boneless and self-satisfied. Letting Solas take control, letting herself go and unraveling the self control she's twisted so tightly around herself... each time, it is new and just as much a relief as the last time.

Though, of course, being in control has plenty to recommend it... but that will have to wait.

Meanwhile, she wraps an arm around him, lazy and quite pleased all around at the fruits of her machinations -- even if part of it had been a silly doodle. She'll figure out something better next time. At his whispered promise, her hand goes to one dark mark, and shakes her head as the tenderness makes itself known. ]

Leave it for a little while. Let me admire your handiwork -- marking what you have rightfully claimed. [ A kiss, then another. ] I wish to see the proof for some time -- something I can look at when you are not near.

[Solas makes a small, skeptical sound, caught between tenderness and the absurdity of it all. Still, he cannot truly leave it be, pressing kisses into the blooming bruises, the tender places already welling with blood. Marked indeed: she would wear the evidence of this day for a week, and he cannot glory in the idea of her pain... but her satisfaction is undeniable.]

You are... perfect. [He whispers it to her skin, to the junction of neck and shoulder, the tea-scent of her hair. He kisses her properly then, breath mingling, her own kisses making him hitch her higher again, sensitive, and now groaning.] Insatiable, unstoppable... My heart, my heart...

[He loved her so dearly, he thought it would burst. Even when all he could remember was the ways he had wronged her, that love would remain.]

Yet another clever scheme come to your desired end. I suppose I was a fool ever to think it might be otherwise.

[ Beleth's eyes close as Solas pours kisses over her, making a small, content noise. The impression is not entirely unlike a cat soaking up the attention of a good pet. Truly, after a life of trials and effort, this is the finest result she could ask for: being cherished and loved so thoroughly, so deeply, beyond what even she could imagine. It made it all worth it, entirely. ]

And you are everything I have desired -- Sileal, my love. [ And then it's hard to speak, not when he is kissing her so thoroughly, groaning against her lips, and she feels the satisfied after glow start to fade and be replaced by a bright, renewed interest. Though she can't help but laugh at his words. ]

Not all my schemes end the way I wish. [ Though she demurs from providing examples. Instead, she turns to run her hands up his sides, across his chest, up his collarbone and to his face. ] Just the ones that matter the most. And what matters more than the ones I love dearest?

Solas looks at her for a moment, shaking his head against her audacious humility. He must kiss her: he does, slow and sweet, tender, ending with his brow pressed against her own, resting his weight on his elbows above her, as she cups his face in turn. They could not be more entangled if they tried, and Solas has not even truly undressed.

"You have changed the world. You have changed me. You change everything," He whispers, low and fervent and full of wonder, "I have had time enough to be important. Is it not your turn, emma lath?"

"Did you forget that you're speaking to the Herald of Andraste, sent by the Maker to save Thedas? I'm quite important." Beleth responds primly, and even manages to say it with a straight face. Well, she'd said it with a straight face often enough to have practice at it. Often enough to make the people close to her believe it -- because they'd needed it. And if Beleth was nothing else, she was what was needed of her.

At least what Solas needed was not the Herald of Andraste, or even the Maker. What he needed was simply: her. Her, loving him, entwined with him, and with him. It was easy to be what he needed, because it was what she wanted to be.

And slowly, something occurs to her. Something that she hadn't been quite hiding, because she had always intended to tell him, but it was never the right time. Before Elgar'nan laid dead at Solas' feet, before his service to Mythal was over, before he had turned from his duties, he could not know. But here he is, wrapped up with her, and nothing hanging over their heads. She was so full of love, his and her own, twisting within her heart.

Surely now would be the time, if there should be one.

"Sileal." Her voice is low now, eyes suddenly more focused, fingers caressing his face as she studies him carefully. "There is... something that has been sitting upon my mind, but I must confess I did not tell you immediately. I... feared your reaction, and my heart could not take you being unhappy at it. When Cordelia asked us to trade meaningful things and receive visions, I accepted. I wanted to see the future that awaited us in Thedas, after all was said and done."

It was something that others seemed to have the benefit of, that she did not. Most of those from Thedas had come from an earlier time than her. In Hawke's case, decades separated them. None had, to her knowledge, come to Caldera from a later time than she. And she had desperately wanted to know how their leaving to the Fade had gone for them.

"I saw us in the Fade, standing together. And Felassan stood besides us. I couldn't tell at the time that it was romantic in nature, but it was obviously friendly. And there was one other with us." The look on her face begins to turn to a bright, barely contained joy. She can't help it, even now -- thinking about it makes her feel like she's glowing with the happiness of it. That sight in the orb, the little face hidden away in a sling.

"It was a child, Sileal." And now she feels like she really is glowing -- it's easy to see why she'd kept the news close to her chest, when she thought he would not care for the news. Because she can't keep out the warmth when she finishes with the obvious conclusion: "Our child. And they were... they were perfect. They were the most perfect little baby I've ever seen."

"To me," Solas murmurs, a gentle correction left between the pressure of his lips and her tender collarbone, "I have put aside all such things, and placed my wishes, my duty, where I thought it must go. No more."

Importance was so poor a word for the worship of blind fools; he knew, as well as she did, that she was no more Andraste's Herald than he was Fen'Harel. They both were, and were not, and in all the ways that mattered most... were only themselves. Particularly now, with his robes rucked up and dirt on his knees. But he can be sober, despite the moistness between them, and Solas looks up at her serious tone, and affects a listening pose.

His thumbs are still stroking soft circles against her skin, idle affection, but he is... he truly is listening.

And more and more he really is listening, stilling as focus turns inward and the light came into her eyes more clearly. He stares, not sure what to think, or to say. A thousand denials come into his mind— that it is not possible, that it is inadvisable, unwise to become parents here, that it's... that any child of theirs might be more of the flesh than the Fade, may age and die. That Cordelia's magic might have lied, and how could they— how could she—

"A child," He says, numbly, as if the word were a form of gibberish, meaningless and strange, "Our child?"

And they were perfect. They were the most perfect little baby I've ever seen.

The joy in her at the idea was undeniable. Whether or not this specific promised child were real, whether or not it came now, or later, it was clear that the idea was one that Beleth cherished. But Solas is still recovering from the stumble, and must inhale sharply, to refocus, and remember himself.

"Are you certain?"

Beleth's eyes are on his face as he grapples with what she's told him. He'll need a moment, or two, of that she knew well enough. Even a man who had led a far simpler life than Solas might need some time to come to terms with what he's heard. What she saw.

So she continues cupping his face, brushing his cheeks with her thumbs, letting him mull over it. And, of course, there are nerves. She'd sounded confident when she'd told Felassan. He's not ready now. But he will be. She'd felt confident, too. That this vision were her desire come to pass -- Felassan and Solas by her side, and her child in her arms. But, of course, she could hardly have that latter part without Solas' willingness. Had she not been careful with her words or timing?

Then again, maybe the timing really wasn't the best... Well, it was what it was, and they were here now.

"I am certain of what I saw. And while I can't guarantee that the child was born from us... they had purple eyes. And we were in the Fade. I don't imagine it's easy to find children there. Though I suppose it's possible that we manage to leave at some point, and found a purple-eyed child to raise as our own." She takes a moment to consider the possibility, then: "It would not matter if we bore it or not, not to me."

Perhaps less dangerous, at least, if another found out. They were content to let the Dread Wolf go, as long as he politely removed himself to the Fade. Would they be as content if he were making a family there? It did not matter, she decided -- no threat could be sustained against the three of them, particularly if they were safe guarding a family.

"Others have suggested that the orb meant only to show what I desired, not the truth of the future. But... did you not just say that I am skilled at making my desires come to fruition?"

Inbox // IC Communication

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