Chapter Text
She was everything he didn’t look for in a woman: an elf, brash, blonde... with trouble written into her very bones. Still he couldn’t help the way his eye was drawn by her, the way she strolled through The Hanged Man as if she owned the place- and not just the building, but the city. As though if people were to kneel in her wake, she wouldn’t bat an eye.
That she came to him, sat at the table he shared with his nephew, that she addressed him by name as though they were old friends- none of it came as a surprise. He sensed when Alistair’s head came up, eyes searching from under the mop of straw on his head he refused to manage or cut. Teagan shifted in his seat, turning enough to keep his eyes from meeting his nephew’s and focusing his attention on Athenril.
Under his gaze she tilted her head, ran a long, delicate finger down the side of her neck, and stared at him with emerald eyes and a wicked smile. He watched that finger with a sly grin because it came to him easily; it hid his quick inhalation of breath and the thread of desire that slithered through him.
“What can I do for such a lovely woman?” he asked, his voice a mask of noble flattery and purposeful pretension.
“Flattery, Bann Teagan, will get you nowhere with me,” she said, her voice direct and flat. Like him, her words did not match her tone. “But feel free to keep trying.”
He leaned forward, both of his elbows on the table between them and his fingers linked and resting, wrapped around his mug of ale. “That’s not what I’ve heard,” he said matching her smile with a half-crooked and playful one of his own. Private things, he meant his words to remind her. From the nod she gave and the way her lips pulled down, but her eyes still sparkled he knew his intent was clear enough. Hers too, in fact.
He lifted his chin and slid a quick glance to Alistair who had already returned to his drink. Something at least to be thankful for: that his nephew was deep enough in his cups that any real attempts at subtlety were unnecessary.
“Do you have business to propose then?” he asked. At least at that, she gave a low chuckle and he saw her finger tap twice against her neck. He nodded. “Such affairs can be conducted privately.” His fingers unlaced and he put his palms to the table before pushing back from his seat. “My room-” he lifted his arms and extended one towards her as he stood- “or yours?”