♫ For my muse’s reaction to your muse accidentally hurting them, while they’er in the middle of a fight together
Lucian has made many positive steps during his time as a Warden, especially during his care under Zevran — platonic or romantic. Focusing his typically unbridled anger and soothing it with tactfully placed humor, he has been able to relax his fist at the first sign of opposition. In the Circle, he was rarely used to being contradicted. He spent any socialization time with a companion who followed his every word, and the rest alone in his silent study, barking out orders to younger apprentices. Through fear and intimidation, he was always obeyed. With his new position as a Warden, the common people of Ferelden revered him through legend and his current position as an outlaw. However, with his privilege came the burden of being a hero and the representation of moral goodness and political neutrality. Lucian learned to think for others.
But on occasion, he can’t help but channel his purest instinct to defend through offense, to fight, to force his position and demand obedience. To demand respect. To enforce protection through ownership.
The panic that swelled up at Lucian's rage was insidious, stiflingly hot, but chilling him to the core of his bones, and deeper still. That scarlet horror rose steadily beneath his skin and spread like a flame, effortlessly contagious, until Zevran was struggling against him, his heart faltering, battering like a bird against the cage of his ribs as he was held against his will as he had never been since the Warden had first offered him back his life.
It was terrifying in a way that he had no defense against, that foreign loss of control in the one he'd given everything left of himself to, and as the mage's voice rose, tearing the thick air like ripped silk between them but still leaving him trapped, he became increasingly more frantic.
The edges of his vision swam, darkening as the assassin finally pulled himself free, staggering a few feet away, and he became belatedly aware of the sharp stinging of his own flesh, his eyes too wide as he watched his lover wrest back the fortress of his self control a few moments later. The Warden approached, then, blood dripping steadily down the arm and from the hand that reached for him, and Zevran could no more turn away from that pained contrition, from that anguish he felt mirrored within than he could fly in truth.
When the blade fell from his hand-- he would never bear it again-- its pommel ringing hollowly against the floor, he reached for Lucian, aware somehow if he allowed him this distance now, they would both come to sorely regret it.
"And you will not, amor. I swear it." Expression twisting, crumpling in self-recrimination and the lingering fear of what could have been, Zevran took his hand, slick with the vibrant reminder of their mortality, and lifted it to his cheek, uncaring for the marks it left behind, layered over his own, a portent they both knew would one day come to pass.
"Do you think I would have forgotten so easily? Until you walk the Deep Roads a final time, and then forever after. I am yours."
