Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 3: Adelaide

     She can feel the magic in her fingertips. Julien's twines with hers, caressing the knuckles of each of her fine, pale fingers. She keeps her eyes closed, concentrating as the target comes into view in her mind. She sees it, the image of the post in a dark, utterly black plain. Then, she watches as it goes up in flames.

She opens her eyes.

Brown ones stare back at her, so close and dark they almost look black.

Julien's face is firm but content, that easy, curious, and knowledgeable gaze always staying bright beneath the surface of those lovely dark eyes. There is a challenge, a question in them. They ask her if she did it, if the targeting post behind him is raging in fire or not.

Then that stony but calm facade breaks, peeling open as a smile, big and beautiful cracks his features. His eyes light up, becoming like liquid chocolate in a pool of white shimmering water. She can't help but bite the inside of her cheek, contemplating whether or not she'd actually done it. From the look on his face, she'd guess yes but she cannot tell. He might just be smiling to keep her from being upset with herself.

But then there is a crackling sound in the air and the smell of burning wood fills her nose, the smokiness wafting heavily. Julien steps to the side. The orange glow that blazes beyond sets a sigh of relief loose from her lips. She relaxes, letting the worry of mastering her skills go out of her body. She feels the flutter, the urging of her magic trembling, begging, more, MORE...

She ignores it, pushes it down.

Julien's hand nudges hers, his knuckles tenderly scratching against her skin. She shivers at the minute contact. "You're learning." He mutters. His voice is low, heavy with something she can't identify. His accent is heavy but no where near so much as his elder siblings. They carry that thick drawl of Antiva that their mother had, or so she's told. She does not remember Josephine Montilyet. Nor does she recall the faces of her own parents. She supposes that it is sad. But how can she be sad about something she never truly knew what it was like to have?

Julien hardly remembers his parents either. Her voice, he had told her that he recalls his mother's voice, the Antivan beauty of it as she sang to him, desperately trying to make him nap. But those days, days of naps and songs and mother's sweet, levitating voices, those days are gone. Adelaide never had those days. Thus she does not miss them. She misses Anthony. He'd been gone for five years now. Five years, training, rising to a height on the pyramid of status that would gain them a home and a name in Val Royeaux. But she regrets that time she lost with him.

She was ten when she last saw him. What would he think of her now? She'd grown into a woman, was still doing so and he had missed so much. Had missed that stage that she matured and expanded her mind, that time that she came into her abilities. What would he think of the relationships she'd created with the others? Of how things had changed between herself and Olive? Of how things progressed with Julien? Her heart races at the thought. She isn't even sure she knows what's going on with Julien.

She knows that he gets that look in his eyes when she catches him staring. She knows that he intentionally brushes his fingers against hers to get her to look up at him. She knows he smiles when he teaches her how to control the magic that dwells within. She knows he laughs at how easily upset she becomes, only before realizing that she can become easily enraged at even this. She knows he hates the way she hates herself for her magic. She knows that when she needs someone to lean on, rant to, run crying to, he is at her side in an instant. She knows that she loves the possessive feeling of his hands. She knows that his lips are soft and warm and gentle on hers. She blushes and pushes that thought far away.

Anthony will be back tonight.

But just as she tries to push Julien from her thoughts, he takes her hand and puts his other one at the base of her neck. He pulls her, pressing his mouth to hers. Slowly, carefully he kisses her, testing the waters. She knows she should say no, should pull away, should not let this distract her. There are bigger, more important things than this. But she can't. She lets the leash go and gives him her self-control, opening to him. Her lips move against his in an eager and dazed song. Her hand goes to his shoulder, gripping him, pulling him closer, loving the feeling of his lean, hard body against hers.

They turn desperate in less than a moment. His hands go to her hips and he reigns her in, pressing against her in a hard line as she grips his face in her palms. There's a fire in her belly that no amount of magic could put out. She can feel the caress of Julien's ability dancing with her's. Lightning reaching through flame. Destruction and chaos rain down inside her. She holds to him as his lips move over her's again, again. He kisses her with such fervor, such emotion that she can't fathom how he keeps himself so contained when they're not doing this. Desire tugs at her and she gives it what it wants. She laces her fingers into his hair and and pulls his face closer to her's, urging him, kiss her more, harder, faster. Her breath is heavy, ragged in her chest and she struggles to get air in and out as he melds into her kiss.

Then she feels how the attention they have given their feelings has affected him. Being pressed against her so, Adelaide can feel every curve of him. Every contour and point. She feels his presence press into her hip and she stops. Her hands come away from his face. Her mouth parts from his. Her eyes lower to the ground. Her cheeks heat of with the pink of blush. She didn't know she could affect him so. His hand touches her cheek and he presses a kiss to her forehead, before stepping away from her entirely, realizing that he's made her uncomfortable.

"I-I don't,... I've never..." He shakes his head as she tries to piece it together.

"I know, I know." He whispers. "Neither have I." He adds. She gazes up briefly to find a blush like to her's coating his cheeks. Then he steps toward her, just once, seeming slightly confused and worried, that content look gone from his face. "I'm not asking, Adelaide. I want you to know that. I-I know just as little about all of this as you do." He pauses again, nervous, embarrassed. "I don't control it. It just... happens... happened." He tells her and she finds the courage to meet his eyes.

"I know." She tries a smile and it makes that fire in her rise.

She stretches on her tip toes to reach his cheek and plants a chaste kiss there. "We have to be careful, more cautious of what we're doing, Julien." He hears the words about to come from her mouth before she says them.

"Anthony will arrive today and I don't want him finding out before need be, or by... seeing, something like this." She smiles.

It is so new. Her feelings for Julien came to her by wind. It blew over her as if it were nothing and then she met his eyes one day and she knew. There was a fluttering in her stomach that told her. His kindness, his smile, his willingness to help her learn how to master her talents, it set her on a path to find him as more than just a friend and teacher. What exactly more than that he is, she has no idea. They had not defined what they are doing, nor are they in a rush to.

"I want to be able to tell him without guilt." But what will she tell him? What is there to tell besides the little girl crush raging in her gut and the few times he's kissed her, absolutely taking her breath away.

Julien nods in understand and grins down at her. She loves how his smile reaches his eyes like that, how he tilts his head and looks at her like... She doesn't have the word. She lets the thought sit on her tongue until she hears it.

Not the word she was looking for.

No, not words at all but whinnies.

A horse.

Her face lights up and she releases Julien's hand, racing from the sparring yard to the gates of Skyhold as Anthony Rutherford makes his way up the hill.