Chapter Text
***
The men around him were noisy and cheerful with drink. His men frequented this inn often when they were traveling, and he made sure they were reasonably behaved, so the proprietor gave them quite a bit of leeway. Which is why the serving girl refilled his wine cup with a smile, instead of a cautious request for the Captain to sheathe his sword.
He sat near the fire, sipping his wine just to wet his mouth, before returning to the steady and repetitive work of oiling his blade. The hilt of the longsword lay on his thigh, as he methodically treated the edge with a rag damp with linseed oil. Years of experience had taught him that if you lived by your sword, you must care for it, no matter how cheap or humble the blade. It needed to perform to expectations, no matter how low or high, because the unexpected got you killed. An edge that wouldn’t cut or Maker forbid, a blade snapping in the middle of combat – surprises were a curse.
His second, Mornay, settled down on the bench beside him, his voice pitched low.
“What do you think of our newest?”
Rainier’s eyes flickered upward to the recruit in question, before falling back to his sword, his expression unreadable.
Mornay clearly felt some way about it.
“She’s cocky. She keeps trying to pick fights. She’s going to get someone hurt. Or killed.”
Her voice cut across the inn now. Too loud, too brash. She suffered from the disease of being young and stupid, like most new recruits into the army. Normally, his men would have relished taking their green initiate down a peg. But they let her bully them around, expressions tight, eyes lowered into their mugs. She could sense the wall they formed, not letting her in, and it clearly frustrated her. Made her wag her proverbial cock around, trying to bait any of them into taking a swing.
Rainier held in a sigh. Mornay wasn’t wrong. For the good of his company, he’d have to step in.
“Come on, Leon, you hiding a pair of balls under your skirt?” She poked her fellow soldier in the side of the head, ignoring his attempts to bat it away. “First to measure their back out onto the dirt pays for the next round?”
Except Leon dug into his pocket and tossed the money onto the table, indicating his forfeit. Her jaw set, irritated, and she started to lay into him again.
“None of you pussies want to even try? “
Rainier’s shadow fell over her and she looked up, not expecting she would have drawn the Captain’s attention.
She wasn’t Orlesian. Half his company were from the Free Marches or Ferelden, recruited initially as part of the foreign legion. Evelyn Drummond. Typical of women from the March, she was tall, blunt like an axe. Strong, but she hadn’t been soldiering long enough to properly fill out yet. Skin that freckled and reddened from the sun, giving her face a childish glow. A chip on her shoulder the size of a crevasse.
She had no clue how transparent she was, how embarrassing, that everyone could see right through her posturing and borrowed bravado.
“Captain,” she greeted him, unsure.
“No one wants to try it, because it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
Her face ran through a quick series of emotions. Surprised, that the Captain was addressing her directly. Embarrassed, that he had overheard her inane bullshit. And then incensed.
It made her get up to her feet, chair scraping away from the table.
“I’m not some delicate maiden who’d faint at the first sight of blood,” she seethed, maybe for their benefit more than his alone, “I deserve to be here.”
The amusement on his face only pissed her off further. Oh, people like her loved chattering on about what they ‘deserved’.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t swing a sword, Princess. We’ve had women in the company before.”
Her face turned an ugly shade of red at ‘Princess’. Her hand twitched towards her sword, the motion not going unnoticed.
But she tried to keep her temper in check – poorly, but she was trying – and said through grit teeth, “Not royalty, Captain. No need to bow and scrape.”
“Pardon me, my lady,” he fixed her with a narrowed gaze, satisfied when he saw the flicker of doubt cross her face. He leaned in, she was tall but he still had a few inches of height on her, and she was forced to look up. “You may have enlisted as ‘Drummond’, but you haven’t fooled anyone. They can tell you’re noble. I know you’re Bann Trevelyan’s youngest.”
She blanched, caught with her pants down. She looked like she might try to deny it, but eventually she let out a quiet, “shit”.
“So, if you feel the need to throw your weight around—“
“No, Captain, I didn’t mean to—“
He glared at her, warning her not to interrupt, “—you pick a fair fight, and you swing at me.”
She looked up in dull surprise, and before she had the time to fully register his words, he grabbed a fistful of her jerkin and hauled her outside of the inn.
He threw her back and she staggered a few steps.
“First to measure their back on the ground, you said?”
She barely had time to scramble up to her feet when Rainier lunged towards her. He had left his sword inside with Mornay, but all he needed was a shield. She looked uncertain, but only for a moment, before he swung the shield down at her head – forcing her to draw her sword to block it.
The men eagerly piled out of the inn to watch the fight.
“Come on, Princess – this isn’t a dance at a ball.”
Her eyes flashed hot, Rainier almost felt bad for goading her, and she swung furiously at him. It was pitiful, she telegraphed every move, and he lazily blocked each one. She could put some force behind that sword, but she couldn’t fight angry. This would get her killed.
He intercepted her next cut, twisting the lip of the shield around her sword so it locked in place, and pushed forward. She stumbled a step back, startled to see he had closed any ground she had gained. He leaned forward and pecked her lips, mocking, barking with laughter when he saw the scowl on her face.
She disentangled her sword and swung – and he shoved the shield hard against her chest and she fell to the ground. An undignified ‘oomf’ left her as her back smacked against hard dirt and knocked the breath out of her lungs. Her face burned with humiliation, but she let her head fall back – the fight had bled out of her.
After giving her a moment to catch her breath, Rainier grasped her hand and helped her up to her feet. This was meant to be a lesson, not a public flogging. He clapped some dirt off the back of her jerkin and pushed her back towards the inn.
“Tomorrow, you’ll drill through all the sword guards until you can do them in your sleep.”
“Yes, Captain.”
***
Trevelyan needed a couple more times to get knocked back into place, she was a stubborn bitch, but it did some good for her, knowing she couldn’t get away with everything. Once she stopped trying to prove she could take a solid hit – because the Captain obliged and didn’t hold back in sparring – she settled into the company.
It was a shame, he thought. Give it a couple years and she would have made a damn fine soldier.
“When we resupply in Val Royeaux, there’ll be a ship going to Kirkwall. Get on it.”
It took her a moment to register his meaning, and despite all her swaggering pretences, the betrayal slapped innocence back onto her face. Wide-eyed, hurt.
“Why?” she started to speak so quickly, she stammered, “Captain, I can keep up, I pull my weight. I know I’ve given you lip before, but I can follow orders.”
He couldn’t help but snort at that. His arms were crossed against his chest, he wouldn’t brook any arguments.
“It’s best you take this chance to get back to the Free Marches.”
She was pissed now. Funny, how any willingness to follow orders vanished when she was angry enough, because she tried to get up in his face.
“And you can afford to turn away willing swords? The campaign on the Dales going that well? I can fight.”
He placed a gloved finger on her breastplate and pushed her back a step – back up, soldier. “This isn’t about your combat prowess. It’s that I’m not letting any of my men get killed because Lady Trevelyan decided to piss off her father and run away to play soldier.”
Her face fell. He had her dead to rights there. No matter how many skirmishes she fought in, mud she cleaned off her boots, or nights she slept on the ground in a flimsy tent – it wouldn’t erase the fact that she was noble. Her blood ran bluer than any of theirs, and she would never be one of them.
She could only pretend, for a little while.
“Don’t make me leave.”
And still, not a ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. He scoffed. “Then it’ll be a letter sent to Bann Trevelyan. I hope he offers a reward for the safe return of his precious daughter. Mornay could use a better horse.”
There was an ugly look on her face, her lips screwed up against a dozen insults. But she sucked in a shaky breath through her nose and gave him a stiff nod, before walking away.
***
Captain Rainier had a reputation as a man who enjoyed simple pleasures. Wine, Wicked Grace and women. Those vices came easily enough, an officer’s salary didn’t make him wealthy but it was better than most, and enough women found him appealing. Rugged, they would say. Officers needed to be clean shaven or wear a moustache that didn’t go past their lower lip – he opted to be clean shaven – but he wore his hair longer and just to his shoulders, in the style of the Free Marches. He didn’t have their fancy accent, even if the Orlesians tried to twist ‘Rainier’ into something lilting and pass it off as their own.
The stable hand who took their horses had been making eyes at him the whole time, before coyly asking if the men were staying in town or the barracks tonight. It was the barracks this time, and he left her with a helpful suggestion on how to find his rooms. He was partial to blondes.
But a few hours later it wasn’t a pretty blonde who slipped into his room and shut the door behind her.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Trevelyan looked nervous. Like she had been steeling herself to come here, and not run away. He suspected she was going to try one final time to make her case for staying in the company.
Her fingers fumbled at the laces of her shirt. When she finally got them undone, she didn’t seem to know what she wanted to do with the shirt, twisting it awkwardly in her hands.
Oh, she didn’t like that he laughed.
“You really can’t handle not getting your way, Princess?”
She crossed her arms over herself, cheeks burning with embarrassment. There wasn’t much to hide, her breasts were small, barely a handful each – but he liked the freckles dusted on the tops of her shoulders.
“Sorry, Rainier,” she spat out bitterly, “I’ll leave you to the long line of women waiting outside for you. Oh wait, there were none.”
He laughed, which only pissed her off more. “And what possessed you to think it’d be a good idea to offer yourself like this? You want to be stuck with a bunch of soldiers, marching around the Dales that badly?”
She started to jerk the shirt back over her head. “Forget it, Rainier. I wouldn’t expect a big lout like you to understand.”
Except, he grabbed the shirt and twisted it so that it trapped her hands together, and then pushed her against the door. Hands pinned above her head, she looked up at him with wide, startled eyes.
“A terrible idea…” he said lowly, letting the heat of his gaze trail down her body, “because the thought of Bann Trevelyan finding out I fucked his daughter, doesn’t put me off.”
He cut off her surprised gasp with a rough kiss, plundering her mouth with a demanding tongue. He didn’t give her a chance to catch up, only releasing her hands so he could wrap one of his around her neck and hold her still. She finally wrenched her mouth away from his so she could suck in a gasp of air, lips shiny and swollen from his demanding attention.
He chuckled darkly, “Don’t tell me you’re scared now.”
“Never,” she hissed, still finding a way to sound petulant.
Still pretending. Still puffing up her chest, with her small cute breasts, and trying to act like a tougher man. It was wholly gratifying to hear her squeak when he ripped the front of her breeches and savagely tugged them down to her knees.
If she was scared, if she would just admit it, he would stop.
Instead, he heard another sharp intake of breath and then her twitch against him as he reached a hand down and pressed it against her cunt. His fingers were callused from years of sword-work, and they were too rough against her sensitive folds, scraping and burning and touching her so firmly – she would have howled if he didn’t fill her mouth with his.
She moved her legs apart, trying to angle her hips up in a way she found more pleasing. But he wasn’t a simpering boy crushing on a noble’s daughter, or some limp-dicked lordling going through the motions – he didn’t care about pleasing her. Only in taking what he wanted.
He pushed a finger up into her heat. Felt her clench around him, her fingers fisting into his hair – whether out of pain or delight, it was hard to tell. She threw her head back, bumping it against the wooden door, holding in a cry as he pumped his thick finger in and out.
“You fit snug around me, Princess.”
Her eyes were closed, but she opened one just a crack so she could glare at him. “I’m not all used up like one of your tavern whores.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” he mocked her, fitting his thumb over her bud and pressing down hard in circles, making her legs twitch, “You will be when I’m done with you.”
He felt a gush of wet heat and his finger slipped in with a sucking sound. The grin that curled onto his face was unbearable, she looked mortified and like she would run him through with her sword if she had brought it with her. But there was no pretending now, she liked that.
“Turn around.”
He let her go just so he could pull down his breeches, his cock already stiff from rubbing inside his pants. She didn’t move quickly enough for his liking, so he spun her around and pressed her against the door, grabbing her hips and pulling them forward.
She tensed, a sucked in gasp now that sounded frightened enough that he paused, cock in hand.
“You—“ she stammered, face pressed against the wood, “I’m not – I can’t have your bastards.”
Was that all she was worried about? He pushed her legs further apart with his knee and dragged his leaking tip against her folds – before pushing in with one, relentless stroke. She gasped, fingers scrabbling against the wood.
“You think I want that?” He growled into her ear, slamming his hips against her ass and punching a spiky moan out of her mouth, “Think I want anything more than to just play with this nice, snug cunt?”
She surrendered to the pin, teeth scraping against wood as she sank lower and arched her back, letting him fuck in deeper and harder. Her moans shook with a fierce staccato that matched his brutal pace.
“I should stuff this pretty pussy of yours, ‘til you get big and heavy with my bastards. Teach you a lesson about running away from home.”
That made her wail, desperately clinging on, and he fisted a hand into her hair and drew her head back. Fucked into her tight, delicious heat – clenching around him so snugly, he could feel her walls flutter with building pleasure. Maker, she felt better, was better, than he had anticipated.
He felt his own release clenching warningly in his gut now, and he placed a hand between her shoulder blades and held her to the door – slipping out of her before he completely lost his head. She watched, at first through bleary and confused eyes, as he stripped his cock and finished fucking into his own fist – aiming for her discarded shirt on the floor.
Petty, perhaps. He felt a final shiver of lust ripple through him and shook his head out with a satisfied grunt.
She had turned around, her back still sagging against the door, maybe it was the only thing holding her up. Doe-eyed and glazed over, sweat glistening on her skin. Tempting. He didn’t know she could summon that quality.
“You best find your bed soon,” he tucked himself away into his breeches and searched for a discarded shirt he could wipe himself down with. “We’ve a long march tomorrow.”
She left with a knowing smile.
“Yes, Captain.”
***
“Hold still.”
He had one hand around her elbow, the other placed against the front of her shoulder. He gave her a warning look.
“This is going to hurt.”
Her face was red from the exertion, sweat already beading on her brow, and she snapped, “Just fucking do it already.”
He twisted, then pushed in – until he felt something pop back into place – and Trevelyan managed not to scream. She’d gone grey in the face and there was a deep indent of her teeth in her lower lip where she’d bit down.
“Atta girl,” he gently lowered her arm, she rotated it experimentally, “Maybe that’ll finally teach you to watch your left side.”
She snapped, “Thanks, Cap”, but it was half-hearted. She was exhausted, sore, had a few other bumps and scrapes apart from the dislocated shoulder. She’d fought well that day.
When she crawled into his tent later that night, he fixed her with a hard look.
“I don’t play nursemaid to any of the men under my command.”
She groused, “Don’t need you to pet my hair and fetch me water, Cap.”
She slipped into his bedroll.
He tried again, “I’m never nice to you. And I’m not about to start.”
She tied her hair back, wincing at a lingering twinge in her shoulder, and then shimmied out of her shirt. “Don’t need you to be nice to me. Just distract me.”
He had questioned her once if she had signed up with the Orlesian army just so she could get into fights and knock boots with sweaty men. She was running away from something, whether it was a marriage she didn’t want or the suffocating trappings of nobility in general. She’d gone looking in a poor place for it. She just murmured “shut up” and turned stone-faced when he prodded.
He had no loyalty to the Marches anymore. Orlais didn’t give a shit about some middling lord in the ass end of nowhere. He knew that was the only reason she showed up, because he wasn’t afraid to hit her with the broad side of his word or with a heavy clap to her cheek. Maybe she didn’t like being treated like spun glass. Whatever she was trying to prove, it meant she let him fist her hair and fuck up into her mouth until she had tears in the corner of her eyes.
And then she marched with the rest of the men. She hauled her own gear. She drilled, sparred, ran into formation when he called the orders. Killed her fair share of outlaws, bandits and Freemen. Even took an arrow coming for her flank mate and got lucky that it passed through her armor and only grazed her side.
He didn’t understand why someone would want to run away from a life of comfort, to slog it out on the front lines. When she was sent to scout on ahead in the Dales, find them a good vantage point – sometimes he would follow. Pull down her breeches and fuck her on the ground or against a tree – hard, rough, careless – as if trying to give her a reason to go back home.
He’d take her unprepared, too much and too hard and too deep. Her face would screw up with pain, discomfort, and he would still push in. Claim her mouth with kisses that were bites, sucking and sinking teeth into her sun-dappled skin, leaving bruises. She’d pound her fists against his chest, reach her hands behind her head and grab his hair – there was a thin scar on his upper lip from a knife that she would suck so hard, sometimes he wondered if it would split open again.
“Come on, Princess,” that pet name always made her so mad, “I’m not done with you yet.”
He kicked aside the thin blanket and pulled her up into his lap. He knew she couldn’t use her arm very well, it was still recovering, so he lifted her bodily up with two hands around her waist. She had the gall to look surprised that he was strong enough to do that seated.
He was still hard, slick with her spit, and she clung onto his shoulders as he lowered her down onto his cock. Maker’s hairy ballsack – she clenched around him like she was trying to decapitate him with her cunt. He let his head hang forward, pillowed between her breasts, biting and sucking at her nipples as his hands clenched around her waist so he could slam her down. Hold her firm against his cock and rub mercilessly at her already too-sensitive bud. She bucked against him, mouth open in a silent scream, pulling his hair so hard he wouldn’t be surprised if she yanked out a few strands.
He finished by painting white stripes all over her stomach. Hair matted against his forehead with sweat.
“Distracted enough for you?”
He sank back down onto his bedroll, the day catching up with him. Felt the rustle of fabric beside him as she was probably looking for something to wipe up with. Waiting for his breathing to slow down, at some point his eyes closed and he was off dreaming in the Fade.
At some point in the night, it was still dark out, Rainier woke up. Groggy, he felt a warm mass beside him and with mute surprise, saw that Trevelyan was passed out. He had dislodged her arm off his stomach by accident.
He stumbled out of the tent, pissed behind a tree, and made sure not to step on her hand as he lay back down. He had no clue what was going on in her head, but so long as she didn’t try to stab him in the middle of the night, he was too tired to eject her.
He was alone when he woke up, this time with the sun, and he thought nothing more of it.
***
“Don’t cry, Princess.”
Instead of a scowl, Trevelyan rolled her eyes. She must have been feeling all gushy and mushy. She still punched his breastplate, hard enough to make him let out a small grunt.
She took her armor with her, though she had to strip it of all the Orlesian insignia. She looked around at the company, struggling with what to say.
“Go on, get out of here,” Rainier spared her, “Your duty’s to your people. Can’t let them all fall to bandits, can you?”
Trevelyan had to have known she couldn’t stay away from Ostwick forever. The instability in Kirkwall meant many soldiers of fortune, now out of work, turned to less savory means to get by. That trouble spread everywhere, and it had hit her home. Something, despite her protests to the contrary, she still cared about.
“Honor to serve with you, and now I can finally say,” she climbed up into the saddle and looked down at them from horse top, “you’re a lot that stink to high heaven. Maker’s breath, no wonder the Empress feeds you wine and cheese – you scare the Vints away just by passing gas upwind.”
The company laughed appreciatively, and the smile on her face looked genuine. She gathered up the reins in her hand. She spared a final look for him.
“Safe travels, my lady.”
She nodded, digging her heels into the horse’s side and setting off.
“Andraste watch over you, Captain Rainier. Have a good life.”