Author: aimorai

Word count: 3,769

A/N: Chapter deserving of the "M" rating for this story, largely due to the planning of one's own death (a sort of planned suicide). Also, be aware as you read that at the bottom of this Chapter, I pose a question for all of YOU, my lovely readers! This scene could go one of two ways… and I want you to decide PLEASE review with your preferences, or any other criticisms/suggestions/comments you may have! Reviews keep me writing!

~ Rai

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Morrigan was not someone who spoke loudly. Zevran could hear the fact that she was speaking through the oak door, but that was all. While Eleanor was somewhat louder, Zevran quickly surmised that the bits and pieces of words that he was getting would lead him almost nowhere. He thought he heard something about a ritual, and something about Alistair. He lingered for but a minute more before pushing himself away from the doorframe and considering his options with a tilted head.

If his Warden and Morrigan were preparing a ritual, they might very well be awhile in there. While curiosity at the thought of some witchy ritual involving two beautiful mages wreathed through the lower parts of his consciousness, he had better things to do than wait like a lapdog at the door of a woman who had spurned him. Turning on his heel, Zevran went back towards the hallway leading towards an equipment room. He needed a new sharpening stone.

He found himself quiet as he moved, the customary creaking of his leather boots the only sound other than the soft rustling of his clothing.

Perhaps the Warden was planning something to prevent her death? Or assure it? Would she trust Morrigan with such a thing? Trust was not a word many, including himself, used with Morrigan. He had enjoyed teasing her from time to time, and had even won a bet with Alistair concerning his ability to get her to take a compliment. However, it struck him as a most odd and somewhat foreboding time for such a thing to be taking place. It tasted of some sort of queer desperation that he didn't understand.

Idly, Zevran flipped his dagger as he walked, feeling the corners of his mouth pull into a frown. After stopping somewhat awkwardly in the hallway for a moment, he felt his leg bunching, and he abruptly turned on his heel –

And was promptly walked into by an agitated witch.

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Morrigan was nothing if not a woman of her word. As soon as Nell ascertained that she was not going to accept the offer, Morrgan stood, took her cloak, gathered her things, and left the room without so much as a by-your-leave. Nell was therefore left with the roaring fire and the enveloping shadow that obscured the corners of the room.

Folding her arms against a shiver, Nell quietly approached the flames, letting her eyes trace over the tops of the flickering spits of energy.

Morrigan's offer had been sorely tempting. Sorely.

She had not refused it for any of the more obvious or pedestrian reasons, such as the necessity of Alistair having sex with Morrigan. The mere thought of it had left Nell with nothing but a strange, awkward and empty feeling – no jealousy, no flare of possessiveness. Alistair would have enjoyed nothing about it – likely not even his release. On some other day, she would likely have laughed at the idea. She could only imagine the way his face would have been screwed up with embarrassment as he laid under the witch. He would likely have grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut, not that Morrigan would have cared.

Physical intimacy mattered little outside of an emotional context. She would have been far more upset if Alistair had a one-night stand with anyone but Morrigan, because it would have meant that he'd made the decision on his own – that things were bad enough to drive him from her bed and her comfort to seek it elsewhere. Such betrayal spoke of a loss of connection, which was the real hurt.

Instead, if she accepted Morrigan's offer, she would likely have had to have begged him to sleep with the witch. That hardly counted as infidelity. Maker, in some corners it would probably be considered some sign of a mature and trusting relationship.

No, it was the everything else that gave her pause and a quaking, yawning feeling in her stomach. That Morrigan wished to snatch an Old God's soul and implant it in an infant – as though it were hers to do with as she pleased – was bad enough.

But it would have been Alistair's child.

It would have been a legacy that Alistair had no control over. One more thing he was forced to do. One more action with potentially wide-sweeping consequences that he was manipulated into.

Morrigan had known exactly what she was doing in asking Nell rather than directly going to Alistair. Nell knew that she would have been the only person who could convince Alistair to participate in a blood magic ritual that would shed him of the responsibility that he proudly bore as a Grey Warden.

It was something Nell wouldn't dream of taking away from him. She might decide to conjur a spell to make sure she made the final blow to the Archdemon, but she would not take away the honor and ultimate responsibility of being a Grey Warden from Alistair – to render it moot. It meant too much to him. She would further not subject him to making a decision he would never have made on his own – force him through a life-changing ritual because she selfishly wanted to keep him alive.

There were other ways to keep him alive. While Morrigan's offer meant that no one would die – that she could have the future she and Alistair had imagined if they went through with it - the price was too high. She couldn't and wouldn't live with herself if she made such a decision. And that was all, of course, assuming it worked. No. It was too much to risk with not enough reward.

And so, Nell was basically back where she'd begun – minus Morrigan's presence. She knew she should look for her spellbook or notes, but the fire seemed hypnotic.

It's my last night alive.

The thought, which had been gnawing at her mind for hours, finally wove through the mental barriers she'd erected and whispered across the front of her mind.

Nell had never intended to die young. She had been a social climber in the Circle; she'd wanted to become a Senior Enchanter as soon as possible, perhaps a First Enchanter – perhaps more. It was the thought of leaving the Circle with the Chantry's blessing at the upper echelons of rank that had been so appealing to her not so long ago – her way of turning her nose up at her own gilded cage. If the bird if powerful enough, you let it fly free, and brag of how you trained it. But it was always stronger than you.

Funny how her envisionment of her own strength seemed so limited now, in the face of her experience and under the focusing the lens of the Blight. She was probably a stronger woman now than she ever would have been if she'd spent her days in Ferelden's Circle, First Enchanter or no.

Well – if she were being blunt about it – she'd likely be dead already if she'd stayed in the Circle; killed in the uprising, or brought down as an abomination.

Perhaps she'd already been dead for months, and had been strung along by fate and circumstance to this point.

Death would have its due.

At least this way, some people might remember her.

It was a grim thought – it felt like a suicide pact with herself, a tight line drawn in the sand over which she was bound and determined to step.

But, first, she had to be certain.

Nell finally broke her gaze away from the fire, one of her hands coming up to play with the locket she'd received at the Temple of Sacred Ashes from the guardian spirit. She twirled it on its chain, letting the gold glint as it caught the light. Nell started to turn from the fire and head towards her desk. Her books were unpacked haphazardly over the top of it, and she thought she had some notes from her apprentice days about the limits of barrier casting.

"I have often wondered how to remove that chain from your neck."

The voice cut deeply into Nell's thoughts, causing her to visibly jump, her green robe getting caught under her heel as she turned. She was forced to throw out an arm to the corner of the mantle to brace herself as her eyes focused on the doorway.

Zevran.

He was completely divested of armor, wearing only a an off-white tied tunic that fell to the tops of his hips, trousers, and leather boots. He had a dagger in his hand – she did not see its sheath, though assumed it was at the small of his back, as it appeared to be his personal dirk. He was looking at her, though not directly – his head was angled such that she saw the side of his face where his tattoo curved around his cheekbone. Slowly, he was flipping the blade, not needing to keep his eyes upon the work of his fingers.

Morrigan had left the door open behind her as she left – Nell hadn't registered that fact.

Her throat felt dry, and she tried to swallow. It had been somewhat easy to avoid Zevran after she'd kissed him, and she'd largely refused to think of it. In her mind, it had been a final answer, the goodbye they both needed. He hadn't seemed to be hunting her down, and so she'd thought he'd understood.

Something about his stance was menacing and alluring all at once, and Nell shifted her eyes. She realized the hand not bracing the mantle had been clutching her pendant to her chest, and she forced the fingers of that hand open. He did not apologize for startling her – Nell figured he'd likely meant to - and so did her best to deflect both his question and her jumpy reaction.

"With the clasp."

"Mm. But you would likely notice if I were fumbling around your neck in your sleep, no?"

"Probably." Nell glanced back towards Zevran and straightened herself, narrowing her eyes a bit. "Is there something on your mind?"

"Oh, there are a few somethings." Zevran momentarily paused in his ceaseless manipulation of his dagger, crossing his arms across his chest lazily as he leaned against the doorframe – making himself comfortable despite her tepid greeting. "I heard you arguing with our dear Alistair earlier. I came to see if you required… comforting."

He grinned his false grin, all teeth and no crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Nell decided to acknowledge the question he hadn't actually asked, but ignore the innuendo.

"Everything is fine. Alistair was just… tense about tomorrow." Nell waved her hand, turning as she had planned towards her desk. If she busied herself, she hoped Zevran would become bored. Thank the Maker, he hadn't deigned to enter the room. She didn't want to have to throw him out. Just speaking to him made her heart ache.

"Ah. I see. And so he plans on killing you to ease his tension?"

The phrase was uttered so casually that it took Nell at least three heartbeats to catch up. Her head jerked up, and she outright stared at the elf.

"What? Hardly."

"Then who is it that is planning your death, mm? It seems there is some plan. My hearing is really quite good."

That last thing Nell wanted to deal with was a nosy assassin. Especially this nosy assassin, who was, as usual, projecting his concern in a backhanded way.

She decided to answer him as straightforwardly as she could, her tones clipped and formal. As she spoke, Nell pointedly tried to direct the nervous energy gathering in her stomach to some useful purpose, as she picked up the books and scrolls laying across the desk and scanned their titles.

"No one is planning any death. My death may simply be necessary. It is part of being a Grey Warden that Alistair and I learned about this evening. He and I were discussing our… inclinations should such a necessity arise."

Zevran's lack of easy retort made it clear to Nell that he was absorbing her words, assessing them for actual fact.

"Why might it be necessary, my dear Warden?" When he asked, his voice was pitched low. Nell risked a look over to him – Zevran was now manipulating his knife in a different way, holding it in his turning its point slowly against the tip of his left index finger, though apparently not breaking the skin. He was watching himself do this – although he looked up moments after she glanced towards him, seeming to sense her regard. Their eyes met, and Nell held her breath.

After too long a pause, she looked down at her desk.

"The Warden that kills the archdemon will die as a result of the blow. It has to do with the way that the energy of the archdemon will pass through the Warden after it dies. It is unavoidable."

She tried to make that last word sound authoritative – she tried to sound as if she knew of no other alternative.

She realized she was merely staring at her fingers splayed out over the desktop after many moments had passed without a retort from Zevran, and so she quickly drew in a breath and continued, straightening her spine.

"Riordan will attempt to be the one to make the blow, as he is the most senior Warden. If this fails, Alistair or I must do it. We were speaking of this contingency plan when you heard him raise his voice."

"Mm."

Zevran continued to seem too damnably thoughtful, and Nell clucked her tongue at him. He finally raised his eyes from his own seeming preoccupation with his finger and his knife. Finally, he moved the blade to his back, seeming to put it away.

"No doubt Alistair would insist he is… the man to do the job, yes?"

"Of course. I disagree."

Her hands brushed over a familiar-feeling packet of parchment, and Nell looked down at the vellum between her fingers – ah. This looked promising. There were symbols of spirit runes drawn on the edges in her own hand – likely from her studies a few years ago. Distractedly, Nell started to page through the document as Zevran chuckled.

"How romantic."

She blinked, looking up, hands full of papers as the lilted word from Zevran's throat made her heart squeeze.

"Pardon?"

Lazily, Zevran pushed himself from the doorframe, taking liquid steps forward before Nell could think to stop him. Her eyes arrested on the cut of his legs as he moved.

"Oh – you and your great love, each willing to die for the other. It is for the poets of Antiva to write, no?"

The sardonic tone in Zevran's voice was not lost on her – ruining the otherwise droll sentiment.

"It does not all have to do with our…relationship, Zevran." She blinked, replaying those words in her mind and hastily corrected them. "Mine and Alistair's relationship. He believes I would make a better leader for the Wardens in the future. I argue his bloodline is more important and he would make a far more passionate and worthy leader."

"How persuasive." Zevran clucked his tongue, and Nell irritatedly lowered her arms, smacking her notes against the wooden top of the desk.

"Agree with me or not – I don't really care." When had he gotten so close? Zevran in firelight, as usual, was a sight to behold. She could see that he had another tattoo that extended over his abdomen – she saw one corner of the ink at the lower neckline of his tunic. The line was distracting. "The point remains that I am correct, and I will see to it that if such a contingency arises, that Alistair will survive."

She stared at Zevran then, daring him to contradict her. Her lips parted as she struggled to maintain her breath as the look lingered– the thought of her own death and Zevran's nearness affecting her equally.

As usual, Zevran had gotten her to lower her guard without even trying. She was giving nearly every detail away – though not the most important one, of course. Zevran needed to know nothing about Morrigan's proposal. That was her decision, and hers alone.

His face had slowly grown serious – the implications of her statement dawning over his golden complexion and tightening it as though the blood were slowly being pulled from his features.

"And you will not." He finished the thought for her, and Nell nodded tightly.

"Precisely."

Zevran made a light snorting sound, narrowing his eyes in her direction.

"And his bloodline is the most pertinent reason for your decision, hmm?"

Nell gritted her teeth, forcing her voice out through a tightened jaw. "As I told you before. Emphatically. I am in love in Alistair." She was also still very much in love with Zevran, but that was not the point. "That I wish him to live for those reasons should… not have to be said." Her voice was losing its strength now, her fingers curling hard around the edges of the desk. "He wishes the same for me… for the same reasons. They cancel each other out, don't you see?"

Zevran wet his lips, considering, and when he replied, his accent was clipped. "So then…it comes down to the weighing of your life against his, no? The relative importance of each?"

"Exactly."

Zevran smirked. "Then I am afraid, my dear, that I must agree with Alistair. Yours is more important."

Nell blinked, floored.

"Hardly. He has royal blood, more experience, and more passion to be a Grey Warden."

Zevran made that snorting sound again, his voice deepening and lowering further. "As you say, my dear, but as we both seem to have learned recently… passion only gets one so far, no?"

Her knees felt weak. He continued.

"Indeed – passion is outstripped by obligation, no?"

Nell thinned her lips, her heart twisting in her chest, reacting to the knife he'd expertly plunged into it. She tried to straighten her back, but instead found herself retreating from the penetrating glare Zevran was leveling her with.

"I…" Nell tried to stop backing up, but only succeeded in putting a hand out to the desk and gripping it as she moved. He advanced one step.

"Those are two very different things, Zevran. I made it clear to you before, what is… whatever happened between us is over. What is happening with Alistair and I now is… something else."

"Oh, I think it is all the same thing."

"It's not." Nell shook her head, holding firm, both in physical place and mental space.

He reached out a hand suddenly, bracing it along the mantle, more firmly placing himself in her path and trying to back her towards the wall. She had never seen Zevran look so focused. Finally, he spoke – slaying her.

"No? What you are doing now, and what you have done – it all seems…forced, somehow to me. You are trying too hard, and not succeeding. You made nothing clear to me before…except that you wanted to kiss me." Zevran's voice had been level and even, and his eyes were barely-blinking. He seemed to be forming his thoughts as he spoke, and there was nothing teasing in him. Finally, he continued, his face firming as he seemed to realize or decide something.

"What is it you are trying to prove, Warden?"

Something inside of Nell broke. She felt her spine straighten, her bile rise, and her temper flare.

"That it was not all for nothing!" She raised the hand still curled around her notes and shook it, eventually hitting Zevran in the chest with the documents. "Everything – this… that future that I planned, that love, that regard, the way I – if I'm to die, this all means that I feel enough to keep him safe, and he should be safe, and I should be the woman he thinks I am for one night if it kills me."

She suddenly laughed, broken. "Maker… it will kill me."

Nell shook her head, trying to control thoughts that had long since broke the reins. "You don't see it – all he sees in me is the good, or the possibility of good, Zevran." Nell pointed weakly towards the door, shrugging her shoulders up defensively. "The woman he thinks I am does not exist, but I want her to. I want to be that woman. Strong, brave, selfless – Maker, a Warden. I'll be that woman, I will die being that woman, if it makes him safe. Maker knows he deserves it. I love him enough for that."

Zevran stared at her for a long time. Nell felt her resolve go, her vision swim, her spine shrink. She felt ten inches shorter – vulnerable and small.

"You think you are not that woman, Warden?"

It was her turn to make a sardonic laugh. "No, Zevran. No. You of all people know that, don't you?" She felt her heart swelling and didn't try to stop it. There was nothing left. There was no wall. There was nothing beyond tomorrow.

Nell closed her eyes, breathing in raggedly and shaking her head. "I tried." Her voice was a mousy whisper. "When I kissed you I tried… I tried to tell you…. I am not that woman. The woman I am… is selfish. And unsure. And weak. And manipulative. And a liar." She found the strength to open her eyes, trying to plead with him.

"Alistair loves the woman I want to be. I love him as he is…and I love who he'll become, too. I think the only one who sees me exactly as I am… is you. You're always…seeing exactly how I am, right in the moment, and pushing those buttons. You give no quarter." Her heart beat in her throat, and she licked her lips. "And I love you for that."

Zevran seemed to go stony as a statue.

"You and I, Zev – we're a candle burning at both ends. We'd…flare up and eventually destroy each other. I know it. You know it. The only future I see is with Alistair – or… the only future I saw. That's why I chose him. I wanted to spend my future trying to become the woman he loved. You may… you may like me as I am, and I love you as you are. But I am willing to die for the future that should have been. With Alistair."

Maker, did she even make sense?

Oh, Maker - did she actually say all of that?

When Zevran finally spoke, his voice sounded cracked.

"…Cruel to the end, Warden."

Nell closed her eyes.

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Now, my dear readers!

I have gone back and forth on the next scene for many moons. There is still some talking that needs to be done, but Zevran could have two very different reactions to what has happened here. One is far more…. Lemony than the other. Nell as well could have two reactions…. One far more lemony than the other.

It may be that the lemony reactions could seem slightly extreme given all the hurt that's going around and Nell's conviction to die trying to be a good woman, but as I wrote the scene, I kept waffling on each character – Zevran and Nell – and how they would react. They are both flawed people who don't make perfect decisions I could honestly go either way with it and feel satisfied as an author that I've done them credit.

So – readers – the question is – does Nell give into the lemon, or not? Which do you think should occur? I think either reaction could be correct and appropriate, so I appreciate comments either way! Please review if you can!