For the Love of a Dalish Hunter

AN: This was inspired by cassandrapentagay's "Kiss Me Again", which made me feel many things. In which Tamlen is gay, rather than straight. 

I.

He kissed him in a cool forest glen. A soft breeze disturbed the leaves and the flesh on Tamlen's bare arms.

He said it never happened.

But he had been so enthralled so enchanted by the way Tamlen moved as he leapt gracefully over fallen log and danced around the rocks as he talked. He always talked. It was noon, and he wasn't concerned about the game. "It will wander onto our arrows eventually." He said dismissively when Friyr queried about his moving mouth. Tamlen's skin highlighted with buttery golden hues where the light from above fell over it.

His heart yearned, and his heart pulled for something he could not condone. He could feel it deep within himself as naturally as though it were the movements of his muscles or the particulars of the way each scar curved into his skin. He wanted because he was. He was– Thedas had no name for Friyr - who looked at other boys and wanted - even though he knew the feeling the same way a deer knew it was a deer, or that he knew the hard lines citylife had etched into him were his veins and that was where his blood flowed, or an elf knew he was Dalish and didn't belong in the hard concrete structures that held Friyr's life blood, the way that Tamlen knew he was Dalish because the forest had grown strong lines that defined each muscle and let his blood flow freely

- the way that Friyr knew his arms wanted Tamlen.

It was purely physical, but it wasn't. Friyr loved the dip in Tamlen's waist to his sturdy hips and the curve of his neck, the gentle innocence of his lips, the lean power of his arms and the definition of each muscle that the forest had put into his body. He ached for it, but there was more.

The physical craving was a weary one that he had faced in the sudden angles of a human knight's womanly waist protected by gleaming armor that cascaded chainmail down her wide hips as his hands held her there and their palms promised her love if she didn't give him iron, the lean long necked curve of an assassin's arched brow and smirk as Friyr whispered rough needy words of sweaty regretlessness over hot skin, the heavy arms of brown skinned men that niched in the dip of his back, pale skinned full lipped whores that smiled red and painted.

Tamlen's body was freedom, and freedom, although physically etched into his skin, was not a physical sensation; it was in the pounding of his maddened heart not put there by fear, coy words, or unslaked desire, but just by Tamlen. For Tamlen. Not because he saw an elf that was young, beautiful, or an outpouring of wild abandon. But because Tamlen was young, beautiful, and an outpouring of wild abandon. He did not lust, and he was not looking to be fixed. He just wanted naturally as one does.

A stream rushed by, and Tamlen's feet paused, hindered by it. His mouth kept moving. Friyr was not listening. Friyr always listened. No one could listen to Tamlen as much as Friyr. But he didn't listen now. He listened to the sound of the stream, the rushing in his ears, the yearning in each stutter of his breath as Tamlen furrowed his brow and asked if he was alright. He listened to the concrete in his veins breaking as he reached for Tamlen's belting and drug him forward to kiss his evermoving everflowing mouth against his solid quiet one.

Tamlen's sound of surprise was as bright as a bell peal in the calm mundanity of the forest going on around them. His mouth was so soft. Round. Bright. Unhardened and unclaimed by the forest that had shaped the rest of his body into a man. Tamlen quivered in his arms, like something gentle had broken as Friyr's lips sealed over his. Like the tenuous shiver of the bow string when it let loose its first arrow.