The Herald and The Apostate

IX

He'd been working tirelessly all day, looking for ways to get the supplies to Halam'shiral without being questioned by the local authorities.

With Corypheus gone and the veil destroyed he and Maeve could finally settle somewhere quiet.  Just the two of them and their little Nicolynn.  The babe that she'd bore him just two weeks ago. 

The baby is beautiful.  All the lovely features of her mother but with dark tufts of hair on her pale head and bright blue eyes like his. 

He'd never seen a lovelier sight than his wife holding his daughter just moments after her birth.  It pulled tears from his eyes. 

With the baby born, they need to make arrangements for their move from Skyhold.  It won't happen until the house is built obviously but preparations can be made now. 

The thought of Maeve up in their quarters by herself with the child tugs at him though.  He longs to be with them, with her.  But his duties, his obligation to them as husband and father outweigh the pull.

He and Maeve have been careful these last two weeks.  She's fully healed and feeling more like herself before the pregnancy now.  But still, they've yet to be thoroughly intimate.  All the times they've tried they simply end up falling asleep, exhaustion over powering everything until the baby wakes up again.

Solas knows a trick.  Putting a bit of elfroot and ground camomille on the baby's binky puts her right to sleep.  Maeve doesn't mind but even then, with the baby asleep, there's nothing keeping them awake. 

When the child sleeps, you sleep. 

That is what Morrigan wrote in her letter anyway.  She also warned against getting too rambunctious with her husband so soon after the birth.  Knowing well that fertility is higher just after pregnancy and that the rate increases with the elven heritage between them, they had heeded her warning.

Solas could not deny the allure he had been feeling toward her lately though.  Watching her walk away this morning as she went to get the baby from her crib was a trap. 

A pleasant, refreshing, and delicious trap.  But a trap all the same.  When she came back into their room, Nicolynn teary eyed and wailing in her arms, she saw the predicament she had put him in.  The arousal she had caused.

The bond between them did nothing to lessen it. 

She swallowed tightly, avoiding his eyes in embarrassment, keeping the baby turned the other way as if she could understand the situation.  "I'm going to feed Nicolynn in the infirmary, get the physician to weigh her again maybe.  I trust you'll have taken care of that when I return." 

Her voice is nervous but carries underlying tones of shameful need.  "Would be a lot easier if you lend aid, Vhenan."  He teases, smiling only lightly, finicky just as she is. 

She exits the room without another word.  "A cold bath then."  He told himself.

That had been their morning.  And still he felt the string in his chest connecting them thrum with temptation. 

As he stares down at his desk in the rotunda, he notices a dark shadow that's not usually there hanging over him.  He turns around too late. 

Like a monkey on his back, she barrels into him from above.

"What are you thinking, Vhenan?  You could've seriously hurt yourself."  The anger is taken from him with one touch of her lips.  Forgotten completely with another.  And erased from existence with a third. 

"You are right here to catch me, Solas.  I was never in any danger."  She whispers into his pointed ear, drawing her finger over the tip of it. 

He closes his eyes, reveling in the feeling if her body on his.  He remembers every line of it, every beautiful curve of it though he hasn't been allowed to worship it thoroughly with his child growing inside of her.  "What have you done with our daughter?"  He questions between kisses, keeping her face in his hands as he goes on. 

Maeve makes a satisfied noise into his kiss and moves her body against his, placing herself between his legs as he leans against the table for support.  "She is with Cassandra and Cullen.  They adore her.  They'll be good babysitters for a few hours before they get tired of her wailing." 

Solas chuckles at the thought.  "She does have quite the pair of lungs, doesn't she?  Just like her mother."  He pulls her harder, straighter against him at the last remark, making Maeve mewl delightfully in response. 

"Creators!  I missed this."  She closes her eyes as his hands roam her hips and his lips greet her familiar neck. 

He pulls her from the rotunda.

But they don't make it back to their quarters.  The walk is too far, their need too great.

The storage closet is where they end up entangled with one anothers anxious, impatient limbs. 

And in that closet Maeve shows Solas just how loud she can be.