Summary: Bull ties up the Inquisitor and they fuck their feelings out
Read on AO3
***
Bull had always found something intimate about rope. There was a deliberateness to the restraint, more artful than a belt or cuff. It didn’t matter if it was to pleasure or probe someone, the knots still needed patience, time– time for every hidden emotion to flicker to the surface whether they opened their mouth or not.
He took that time now as he crossed the scarlet rope over Penn’s shoulders and down between her breasts. She sat in silence on the bed, amber eyes fixed to his hands as the harness slowly took shape. He lingered on every tie, letting her fall into the rhythm of it. Her gaze might have been soft but her body hid nothing. Bare and flushed they could both see the untempered iron so rigid under her skin. He’d learned how to warm it right up.
He gently cupped her throat before explaining exactly what he was going to do with his hands, then his mouth. Her breath fluttered under his thumb, a blush blooming from each finger until her skin blazed red as the bindings.
He smiled. Redheads were already a weakness, but discovering how many different shades of crimson Penn could turn before she begged for mercy was something else entirely. The rosy hue of her cheeks, her nipples, her cunt– fuck . Not throwing her down and pounding her until the bed frame cracked was rapidly turning into his own test of patience.
It was what they needed once, he reminded himself, but not right now. When it first happened, it was fun. Easy. A flame stoked then blown out. She’d ride him as hard as one of the Inquisition’s mounts and he’d watch her perfect tits bounce until she staggered like a baby deer to the next war table meeting. Win win. He was good at pegging what people needed. Some wanted to be broken like silence and others like teeth. Killing, interrogating, fucking– it all came down to details and Penelope Trevelyan’s were easy. Thousands of lives and a future that wasn’t drowning in demons rested squarely on her shoulders. The Inquisitor’s shoulders. She stood tall and solid as an oak amongst the crowds, but sometimes still she needed someone else to take the reins and tell her exactly what to do.
That need had been carved like a scar on her face ever since they’d left Adamant Fortress. She’d smile for the nobles and her troops, pretending thoughts of the fade weren’t pulsing like a migraine behind her gaze. Her mask was good, and unlike the feathered crap at Halamshiral, it actually hid the truth from anyone but a Ben-Hassrath’s eyes. He spotted her in the darkness of the yard when she thought she was alone, clawing at herself like the spiders she saw were still running over her. Ribbons of scratches still trailed along her arms, stinging and present as the memories that put them there.
He gripped the ropes a little tighter. Fucking demons . Always shitting up everything.
Standing toe to toe with a Nightmare the size of a freaking building wasn’t something that dissolved with a few glasses of ale. Everyone had their own cures. He had Cassandra beat him with a stick until the green of that place broke apart. Penn had her own release.
Four words pulled him back to her room, softness wrapped in the steel of a command.
“Make it go away.”
And that he could do. Banish the Inquisition from her bedroom walls– away from titles, accolades, freaky cracks in the sky. No more soldiers or nobles begging for strips of her like vultures circling flesh. Just the two of them for as long as that door stayed locked.
Bull paused as he tightened the bindings around her wrists. “Remember your watch word?”
Penn nodded, her gaze fixed to the knots. He hooked his finger into the rope under her collarbones until her eyes met his again. There was still a thought caught there, a fly twitching in dark honey. He brushed the swell of her lip until he saw it disappear.
“I need you to tell me, Kadan.”
Penn’s mouth finally twisted into the arrogant smirk she wore so well. “Katoh,” she answered before softly biting the tip of his thumb. “And that is the only time you’ll hear me say it today.”
He chuckled and pushed her onto the bed. “Good girl.”
He moved her hands over her head, tied the cuffs to the headboard, then took a long minute to admire the ropes cradling the ample curves of her torso. Beautiful … and a far cry from the woman he’d met whilst drenched in the Storm Coast’s rain. Five seconds in her presence had told him everything he needed: rosemary on her neck, berries staining her lips, hair wound to tight perfection on her head– the power of her nobility had been washed away by the Circle but the fingerprints of it were everywhere. The world was literally breaking apart around them and appearances were still everything to that crowd. Bull’s first thought had been how easy it would be to crack that shiny veneer.
His eyes drifted to the red curls between her legs.
Okay. Maybe his second thought.
He plucked the knot that held the ties around her breasts. Another time he’d go further, leashing her arms to her thighs so she was arched and panting, or maybe he’d even suspend her from the ceiling. He wasn’t exactly sure whether that chandelier would hold though…
Penn’s impatient huff halted his rather fun image.
Okay, one step at a time . He grabbed a length of silk from the nightstand and held it in front of her. “Still want this?”
She lifted her neck. “Yes. Maker. Please .”
He cradled the back of her head as he wrapped the cloth over her eyes. “No Maker here right now. Just us.”
She jerked forward and nipped his bottom lip just hard enough to sting. “Just us,” she murmured, soothing the indentations with her tongue. “Now, don’t you dare hold back.”
The sound of Bull flipping her over and slapping her ass broke the quiet. He roughly massaged the flesh, admiring yet another bloom of red under his palm before slapping her again. She hid her gasp in the blanket, but he pulled her braid until he could hear the splinters of her breath.
“Trust me, Kadan,” he said, dragging his thumb through the slickness between her legs. “You won’t have to worry about that.”
Bull was true to his word, taking her apart meticulously for what felt like hours. He started slowly, dragging his fingers over every patch of bare skin, mapping, teasing, never lingering where she’d want him to. Enough time in her bed and he knew exactly what she’d beg for, curse for– things she’d never say aloud while they played like this. Inching up her spread thighs and over her hips, avoiding her flushed clit again and again until he could almost see the word bastard clamped between her teeth. He ghosted over it for the briefest second as he kissed her jaw. He wanted her lips, but that would come after. After he’d pushed her to the edge, felt the true bite of her hunger and stoked the gold embers of her eyes to a blaze. Then they could both be soft.
He lingered between her legs, watched the frustration tighten and break across the tan clay of her expression as her bound hands grabbed at nothing. He wondered if she wanted to paw at his back or his chest, maybe grab onto horns and pull as hard as she could and how much he wanted to let her.
He leashed his own want, leant down to tongue over breasts instead. Something crackled above them as he sucked each nipple, then her throat until she’d be judging the Inquisition’s next prisoner with a love bite throbbing proud and purple above her collar. It crackled louder as he pulled away, finally noticing the energy sparking erratically between her palms.
The air smelt thick and hot as a storm. He sat back and waited for it to calm. The first time they’d run into this little problem, she’d climaxed so intensely she’d accidentally sent a bolt straight down his spine and summoned thunder loud enough to rattle teeth.
Not the first time he’d been struck by lightning but the only time it had happened while hard.
He rubbed his hands over her torso as the energy faded, followed the intricacies of the rope, then the patterns of scars that twisted between them. He’d spent their first mission together quietly studying the marks not hidden by her armour: magenta burns, neat dagger slices, pale crescents from the jaws of what looked like a bear– only the one through her right eye stumped him. He’d gotten his answer a few weeks later when he finally caught her at Herald’s Rest, her words wet with strong wine and stronger annoyance.
“‘ Scars are stories for men but stains for women, Penelope .’” She’d parroted her mother’s sneer, the P of her name spat like a sour bite of fruit. “Didn’t matter that I was… like… six and bleeding from falling off a fucking huge wall. It was just another item on the laundry list of my flaws she’d been collecting since I came along and ruined her figure. And… and when they realised I was a mage? After almost burning down my entire bedroom? She called it a blessing. Because now I was the Circle’s problem and she wouldn’t have to find me a husband. And you know what? Good . Fucking… spending a miserable little life with one of Father’s dusty trading associates. Maker, they all had such awful breath, staring at me like I was one of their prized sows and loudly wondering how many babies that could get out of me before I started to turn .” Penn had slammed down the glass hard enough for the stem to crack. “Oh but apparently that was the best I could do because I wasn’t fetching like my sisters. Or because I couldn’t balance a bloody book on my head. Or because I was too tall, broad, loud, whatever she felt like pick pick picking at that day…”
She’d spilt for hours, her eyes bouncing manically back and forth like the two bottles sloshing in her gut. Eventually they’d landed on him, soft as dewy grass and set in skin that was rapidly turning the same shade of green. “Well she can fuck all the way off because Andraste chose me. Me . Just as I am.” A breath. A snag on the tumbling thread of the story as her wine dark smile flickered. “Right?”
She’d darted outside to puke and collapse before he could answer. Carrying her snoring body to bed was the first time he’d seen her room, the first time he’d seen the starburst scar over her hip as well– a souvenir from the dragon they’d killed in the Hinterlands. He had his own collection of stains and stories hacked into his skin. None held a candle to the fire that ignited in his belly that day.
Penn’s hand clamped over that wound as she stood atop its golden head. Spectral sword buried in its eye, face flushed, armour ragged, hair fallen from its style in a crimson mess down to her hips. She hopped down without a word and yanked one of its teeth out like a carrot from the soil. The picture of something ancient and righteous and the most fucking attractive thing he’d ever seen.
“Bull?”
Penn’s voice dragged him back to the present. He’d stopped moving, eye fixed to the necklace resting against her chest. A tiny piece of that same tooth and a much larger piece of his heart.
Kadan.
“If you stop now I swear to the Maker I’ll–”
Her words ripped into a scream as he plunged his tongue inside her. He found the blade’s edge, pushed her to it with his lips around her clit and the salt-tang of her pleasure dripping down his chin.
Tall, broad, loud– words to describe a dragon slayer, a warrior, a bad-ass. Words spat like poison and sharpened like hatchets to cut her into shape. Just like Tal-Vashoth. It still tasted like shit in his mouth, just like it was designed to. The labels of the Qun were forged like brands: who he was, what he did, all he could ever be– now little more than a beast. One choice to save his boys and everything changed. Even the ropes under his fingers. A lifetime ago he tied them on himself– the Dar-saam, an echo of their bindings to the Qun.
They wrapped her now. Something new. Something beautiful. A reminder that he wasn’t bound to anything anymore.
“You’re the Iron Bull. And no one can take that from you.” Something she’d mumbled into darkness, fingers lazily dancing over the scar left by the Qun’s assassin. He’d caught the words like a breath, turned them over until the pain wore flat.
No one could take that from him. His life. His boys. His kills. His wants… And he wanted to stay. In the Inquisition, at her side, in her bed (among more creative places). Through demons, darkspawn, batshit crazy magisters trying to be Gods– to the end of this insane journey and back. As long as she wanted him there.
“You could be mine.”
Bull bit her thigh before roughly bringing her down on his cock. And Fuck. She was hot, tight, perfect as always. Wide open and aching for him to finish her.
He planned to. Just not quite yet.
Bull took her on her side, her front, his fingers digging into her waist until tears darkened her blindfold. He saw her watchword bitten back, the consonants rolling on her teeth like shards of metal. He’d stop the moment she uttered it. Fold up the scene, pull away or hold her, finish her in any other way she wanted. Inside her or not the rules they laid here were sacred as her Chant. Months of trust could shatter in a breath, and those shards drew blood.
She swallowed the word back, wrapped her thighs around his middle and squeezed hard enough to punch out an exhale. A laugh coloured her next moan.
Feisty minx.
She could probably crack his skull between those thighs if she tried hard enough, though at this point it wasn’t so much of an if than a when. He’d watched her split a cask open with them before, the wine and his fantasies that night all the sweeter for it. Suffocating while she sat on his face was an infinitely better story than being picked out of some demon’s teeth. The writing on his headstone wouldn’t even need to change all that much.
He died doing what who he loved.
The thready scent of smoke filled the air as he pinched her nipple. One of the ropes was smouldering under her finger.
He slapped her ass until she stopped casting. “Be good. I’m not done with you yet.”
“Fucker.”
Bull dragged his lips to her ear. “Keep that up and I’ll leave you tied up and frustrated for the next lucky visitor to find. Maybe some blushing serving girl… or a guard who won’t know where to look. Or Josephine?” He traced her lips, smearing the lipstick like fresh blood under his touch. “I know she likes to deliver her reports personally.”
He jerked back before her answering bite could split his thumb, then spent a good few moments admiring the masterpiece of scarlet skin and sweat under him. He’d seen the way the people here looked at her– hungry, desperate, awed. Watching her walk a head taller than most, wondering what the Inquisitor looked like under the robes that clung to her body so tightly.
And they could wonder all they liked. Only he got to know, got to watch her arch for him, curse for him, twist and wrench against her cuffs until the headboard itself groaned its frustration.
“That nightmare wanted to tear us in half,” she finally gasped.
Bull gripped the plush of her ass harder. “Not a chance. Piece of fade, piece of crap.”
Her thighs pressed his hips, squeezing for dear life as he fucked the fade’s shadows from his mind.
“It could- ah – it could still be out there, you know. Waiting. Scheming.”
The bedframe slammed harder against the wall with each thrust. “No way. It’s gone. Gone .” Slam. “And who killed you?” Slam. “That’s right.” Slam slam slam . “Iron fucking Bull.”
Lighting forked in the rafters. It cracked above a storm of breath and screams as he pushed her closer to the edge and away from the bullshit of the real world.
And when she finally came, both her voice and the headboard shattered.
He held her after they finished. The ropes lay in a pile on the floor along with several charred chunks of the bed. Idly he wondered if Penn would spin a story to Josephine or tell the truth when she mentioned that she’d need a new one. Preferably one that was sturdier. And less flammable. She laid silently, shifting against his fingers as he brushed the marks left by his mouth. Beyond her windows, the still world murmured. The ring of swords, shouts from merchants, the chitter of nobles’ complaining about the cold– life going on. He slung his arm over her waist and tugged her closer. It could all stay away for just a little longer. At least until he remembered how to walk again.
Penn twisted the blindfold in her free hand, the silk briefly covering the green light flickering there.
“I really thought I was chosen. That this thing proved it.” Her murmur was near silent. Not quite angry, just tired.
Bull stayed quiet, letting the thought hang in the warm air between them. It’s a conversation he expected ever since he noticed that she’d stopped praying. It wasn’t enough time to think of a good answer.
“Andraste needed me. She wanted–” Penn squeezed the blindfold into a tiny ball and let it fall to the floor. “And it was all just a big accident. Wrong place. Right time. I let the Divine die for me. I let Maker-knows however many others die for me and none of it even means anything.”
Bull didn’t stop stroking the soft red marks on her neck. “Last I checked you were still the only person who could get enough people on this damned continent to stop yelling and focus on the asshole trying to make himself a God.” He tilted her chin up. “I think that means something.”
Penn shoved her glowing hand under the pillow. “They do it because they think I’m holy.”
“I don’t.”
She laid with the words for a moment. “You don’t. You really don’t.” She repeated it like a mantra until her cheek was against his chest again.“Thank fuck you don’t.”
Bull curled a strand of damp red hair around his thumb. That particular truth from the fade was a wound still not ready to heal. No destiny, no higher calling– life was what it was. Random. Ugly. And fucking amazing sometimes. One day she’d believe him, that she’d always been so much better than holy– she was good . Out in the world drenched in blood and muck for this cause rather than hiding in a Chantry or a palace.
“Why do you follow me then?” she suddenly asked, eyes boring like twin stars into his. “After everything, you and the Chargers could do anything you wanted.” She rolled away the moment his mouth opened. “If your answer has anything to do with my tits I will blast you straight out of that window.”
There was a weight under her smirk, something raw.
“Now that is something I’d like to see. But you want a serious answer. Alright.” Bull heaved himself to the edge of the bed, enough space for her to see all of him, that there was nothing but the truth between their bodies. “It’s because I want to. And because you want me to. I’m a better man for having met you, Kadan. I just hope this made things a little easier on your end.”
Determination settled over her face. “Not this. You. I love you.”
The words came in a rush and settled somewhere warm in his chest. This woman . This beautiful, strong, extremely naked woman that broke bones and hearts on the daily still found ways to slip under his skin and make him feel like he could take on a Vinsomer with his bare hands.
“You going soft on me, Kadan?” he smiled, shifting slightly closer.
For once there was no retort, no witty comeback that clashed with his words like blades in the air. Instead she glanced down, busied her hands untying her braid. Bull cupped both her wrists, waiting until she looked at him, until the expression on his face banished every inch of doubt colouring her cheeks.
He eased her back to the mattress, letting the rest of the day dissolve into nothing but the two of them with his lips on hers and the four easiest words he’d ever spoken.
Lady-Inquisitor Isadora Trevelyan enjoys a moment of peace in the Skyhold garden. Painted by Orlesian artist Mathilde De La Croix.
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for my entire artistic journey i've wanted to draw a rendition of Isadora in the style of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beata Beatrix... but I absolutely did not have the skills to pull off the vision I wanted ... TILL NOW
im v proud of how this came out!! i specifically used a palette from the original painting to capture that same sort of dreamy sundazed look to it. im especially proud at how the skyhold structure came out -- i was def having a very hard time w the bricks till something clicked and im pleased with how they came out !!
edit: wait i just noticed the anchor is on the wrong hand...... dont @ me im not gonna fix it now
anyway excuse the rambles <3
taglist below ✨ pls like this post if you wanna get on it!
Something deeply troubling (but very sexy) about an ex-andrastian mage inquisitor who would commission a portrait of herself as a larger than life saint literally stepping on corypheus (bc she had her foot on his neck the entire game!!!) and then declare her stone arm a religious artifact
Mage OC-havers I'm curious if y'all have distinctions between the style of magic and casting between your characters. like:
x How their backstory/upbringing affects their presentation
x Primary schools/trees
x If they keep any talismans/focuses on them
x How much they move: are they practically still and meditative? are they a martial combatant?
x What replenishing mana mid-combat looks like, what do they do when they feel that they're waning: are they willing to drink lyrium potions?
x Is any preparation necessary?
x Presence of spirits/blood/blight: are they dirty afterwards or does all the residue disappear?
x Effects on the surrounding world
x Details about their staff or gloves
x Changes to appearance
x Does the presence of certain people bolster or hinder them?
That's the identifying things I could come up with but yeah any juice- bring it to me now.
