Chapter 5: Meeting and Courting Morrigan
The campfire popped, sending a spray of orange sparks into the Fereldan night. The scent of burning pine and stewed hart mixed with the ever-present damp of the Korcari Wilds, a smell that had seeped into Conor’s clothes, his armor, his very skin. He sat on a weathered stump, methodically running a whetstone along the edge of his dagger. The rhythmic schick-schick was a meditation, a way to quiet the noise in his head.
Across the fire, Alistair was arguing good-naturedly with Wynne about the proper application of poultices. Sten stood sentinel at the edge of the light, a carved stone figure ignoring them all. Leliana hummed as she mended a tear in her tunic, and Oghren snored like a bear with a chest cold from within his tent. Dog was a warm, heavy weight across Conor’s feet, snuffling in his sleep.
And Morrigan sat apart, as she often did, a dark silhouette against the deeper dark of the trees. She was reading from a grimoire, the firelight painting her sharp features in gold and shadow.
Conor watched her, the whetstone stilling in his hand. His mind, so often crowded with maps and supply counts and the constant, gnawing pressure of the Blight, slid backwards. It went past the werewolves and the crazed cultists, past the demons in the Circle tower and the reanimated dead at Redcliffe. It went all the way back to a different fire, in these same wilds, weeks ago.
He remembered the first sight of her, emerging from the wilds like something the forest had dreamed up—all fierce intelligence and challenging amber eyes. The attraction had been immediate, a live wire strung between them, humming with every glance. He hadn’t fawned or flattered. He’d listened. When she spoke of her mother, of her magic, of her disdain for the world that had scorned her, he’d offered respect, not pity. That, she hadn’t known how to handle.
He remembered the thrill in her eyes when he fought. Not the theatrical bravado of a chevalier, but his own style—economical, brutal, efficient. A fluid shift from sword-and-shield to twin daggers to a drawn bow, whatever the moment demanded. He’d caught her watching more than once after a skirmish, her gaze lingering on the shift of his muscles, the controlled power in his movements. She’d tried to mask it with a quip, but the heat was there, barely banked.
In the Circle Tower, surrounded by the maddening whispers of the Fade, she’d seen the demon that wore his face—a proud, violent thing promising retribution for the Alienage. He’d faced it down not with roaring fury, but with a cold, quiet declaration: “I choose my own path.” Her eyebrow had arched, a silent impressive.
In the Brecilian Forest, watching him negotiate with the Lady of the Forest, seeing him balance mercy for the werewolves with the survival of the Dalish, she’d understood the mind behind the muscle. The deadly man was also the diplomatic one. The sweet one, who checked on Shianni with a tenderness that belied the blood on his hands.
Their first time had been in her tent, after a day spent trekking through bog and bramble. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and witch’s herbs. She had initiated it, a confident hand on his chest pushing him back onto her bedroll, thinking his quiet compliance was shyness. She’d been wrong.
He’d been giving her control, a choice she’d so rarely been afforded. Once she’d given her consent, a single, sharp nod in the dim light, the restraint had vaporized.
He was, as she’d later muttered against his shoulder with exhausted awe, “proportionally gifted.” For a man of modest height, he was substantial. The first time she’d taken him in her mouth, she’d felt a genuine, sharp strain in her jaw, a stunning, full ache that made her eyes water. She’d relished it.
And his approach to pleasure was as comprehensive as his approach to combat. He was a devoted student of the body, her body. He learned her rhythms with a focus that left her breathless. He used his mouth on her with a hunger that was entirely selfless, licking and teasing until she bucked against his face, her hands fisted in his silver hair, seeing stars behind her clenched eyelids. He could reduce her to a shuddering, sobbing wreck with his tongue, then flip her onto her hands and knees and drive into her with a force that felt like it was remaking her from the inside out.
He was inexhaustible. In her tent, against a tree still damp with rain, once on the cold stone of an abandoned watchtower—he sought her out with a constancy that thrilled her. He fucked her in every position she knew and invented a few, his calloused hands gripping her hips, her thighs, her throat with just enough pressure to make the world narrow to the points where they connected. She came so hard, so often, that the peaks blurred into one continuous cascade of sensation. She’d actually blacked out once, her consciousness short-circuiting under the barrage of pleasure, waking to find him holding her, watching her with those strange, beautiful eyes, a look of primal satisfaction on his face.
She had no control when he decided to please her. None. And she loved it. The surrender was absolute, and in that surrender, she found a power she’d never known. He would set every nerve ending aflame, his touch a kind of exquisite torture, until she was dissolving, piece by piece, into a blissful nothingness.
They had become, as she would never admit aloud but knew in her bones, quite taken with each other.
“You’re staring, Warden.”
Her voice, dry and melodic, pulled him back to the present. She hadn’t looked up from her book.
“Just thinking,” he said, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
“A dangerous pastime.” She finally glanced at him, the fire catching the gold in her eyes. “You should rest. The marshes tomorrow will not be kind.”
“They never are.” He sheathed his dagger and stood, his joints complaining from a day in armor. Dog grumbled but didn’t move. “You should rest too.”
“I do not require as much idle sleep as the rest of you,” she said, but she closed her grimoire.
He walked to the edge of the firelight, near where she sat on a folded blanket. The others had settled into their own routines, their chatter dying down to murmurs. The camp was a pocket of fragile peace in a world coming apart.
“Remember the tower?” he asked quietly, leaning against a gnarled tree.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. “The one in the Wilds, or the one full of mages and abominations?”
“The first one.”
She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “I recall a rather insistent young elf who looked like he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. And a mother who was… unimpressed.”
“She was terrified,” Conor corrected softly. “For you. I get that now.”
Morrigan was silent for a long moment. The only sounds were the crackling fire and Oghren’s sawing snore. “Yes,” she finally conceded, the word surprisingly soft. “She was.”
He pushed off from the tree and offered his hand. Not a command. An invitation.
She looked at his outstretched hand, then back at his face. With a sigh that was more theater than genuine annoyance, she took it. His fingers closed around hers, warm and sure, and he pulled her to her feet. He didn’t lead her to his tent, but towards the perimeter of the camp, to a spot where a fallen log overlooked a dark, still mere.
They sat side by side, not touching, watching the mist coil over the black water. Her shoulder was a hair’s breadth from his.
“You are quiet tonight,” she said.
“Lot to think about.” He picked up a pebble, tossed it into the mere. The plunk was strangely loud. “Alistair’s talking about taking the throne. Loghain’s still out there. The Archdemon…”
“Is a problem for tomorrow.” She stated it as simple fact. “Tonight, the darkspawn are not here. Your sister is safe in Denerim. The treaties are signed.” She turned her head to look at him. “Allow yourself one night without the weight of the world, Conor. It will still be there, heavy as ever, in the morning.”
He looked at her then, really looked. Saw the fierce, guarded woman who had chosen to trust him against every instinct she possessed. He saw the memory of every gasp he’d drawn from her lips, every time she’d fallen apart in his arms, every time she’d surprised herself by laughing at one of Alistair’s terrible jokes.
He leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t a kiss of hunger, though that fire always simmered between them. It was slow. Deliberate. A remembering.
When he pulled back, she was watching him, her breath a faint cloud in the cool air.
When he pulled back, she was watching him, her breath a faint cloud in the cool air.
“You’re thinking about tomorrow again,” she said, not a question. Her thumb traced the line of his jaw, a rare, unguarded gesture.
He caught her hand, pressed her palm to his lips. “Always.”
Their journey from that marsh had been a procession through nightmares. Orzammar’s deep roads had been the first real hell, a crushing dark that smelled of wet stone and stagnant blood. The Broodmother’s chamber was a memory he kept locked in a mental vault, the thing’s monstrous form and the sobbing whimpers of its… former victims surfacing only in his own worst dreams. He’d fought through waves of darkspawn with a grim, silent fury, his blades moving so fast they were a silver blur in the torchlight.
Morrigan had watched him there, too. She’d seen the alienage-bred pragmatism in how he dismantled the hurlock emissaries first, ignoring the brutes to sever the magical threat. It was efficient, brutal, and beautiful in its way.
Then came the political labyrinth of Denerim, a game with stakes that felt more dangerous than any monster. Securing the treaties, navigating the entitled arrogance of the nobility, it was a different kind of fight. Conor moved through the parlors and throne rooms with the same coiled readiness as in the tunnels, his words precise, his charisma a weapon she hadn’t fully appreciated. He rescued Queen Anora not with a grand heroic charge, but with a clever, almost insolent plan that involved a laundry chute and three unconscious guards.
And then, the Landsmeet.
The memory of it bloomed hot and sharp in Morrigan’s mind. The packed hall reeked of sweat, perfume, and tension. Loghain stood center stage, a hero turned traitor, his voice dripping with scorn for the “upstart elf and his band of misfits.” She remembered Conor stepping forward, not with a roar, but with a calm, devastating clarity. He cited every betrayal, every life lost at Ostagar, every ally Loghain had sold out. His voice never rose above a conversational tone, which made it cut deeper.
When the challenge was issued and accepted, the air cracked with impending violence.
Conor moved like a panther.
He didn’t charge. He flowed. Loghain, in his heavy plate, was a fortress. Conor was the flood finding every crack. He used his smaller size, his obscene speed. He’d duck a greatsword swing and his own blade would flick out, drawing a red line across the back of Loghain’s knee. A feint high, a dagger low. It was a clinical dismantling.
For such a young man, he fought like a veteran of centuries worth of wars. She chalked it up to growing up in the Alienage, where if someone wanted to hurt you, they didn’t announce it with a fanfare; they just did.
Loghain was a pincushion by the end of the fight, bleeding from a dozen shallow, painful cuts, his movements growing sluggish. Conor wasn’t going for a killing blow. He was exhausting him, humiliating him. The Teyrn finally staggered, his guard dropping for a fatal second.
That’s when the senior Warden, Riordan, intervened, suggesting recruitment. Alistair’s face purpled with rage. Conor’s went terrifyingly still. “You can’t be serious,” Alistair spat. Conor just stared at Loghain, his mismatched eyes cold as a winter lake.
In the middle of Riordan’s explanation about Grey Warden law and necessity, Loghain, bleeding and beaten, gave a faint, acknowledging nod to Conor. A warrior’s respect.
Conor’s return nod was almost imperceptible. Then his blade flashed.
The slice was so quick it was nearly blinding. Loghaon’s head was gone in a painless, surgical swipe. The body stood for a second, then crumpled. The hall erupted.
Her legs had shaken. Right there, in the main hall, amid the gasps and screams, a bolt of pure, raw heat had seared through her. It wasn’t the gore. It was the bravado. The absolute, unflinching finality of it. He’d been told no by a senior Warden, by tradition, by political expediency. And with a flick of his wrist, he’d said yes. His way.
He was in trouble in the best way when they got back to camp that night. She’d barely let him get his armor off before she’d pushed him into his tent, her mouth hungry on his, her hands desperate. She’d needed to feel that decisive power under her hands, to own the moment he’d chosen for them all. He’d understood, meeting her ferocity with his own, and they’d spent hours exorcising the day’s tensions.
Now, sitting by the quiet mere, that same power was banked to a quiet ember in his eyes.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he murmured, his shoulder now brushing hers.
“I was thinking of Loghain’s expression,” she lied smoothly, a smirk playing on her lips. “Right before he realized he had no head. It was almost philosophical.”
Conor let out a soft snort, a real laugh. “He looked surprised.”
“Astute observation.” She leaned into him, just slightly. “You made quite the spectacle.”
“Needed to be done.”
“I know.” She fell silent for a moment, listening to the water lap against the shore. “Your sister would be proud. Your father, terrified.”
“Yeah.” The word was heavy with all the things he couldn’t say. The Alienage felt like a lifetime ago. Shianni’s face, Nesiara’s last kiss, his father’s crumbling strength—they were ghosts in this mist.
Morrigan felt the shift in him, the weight settling back onto his shoulders. She stood, pulling him up with her. “Enough of ghosts and mere reflections,” she said, her voice regaining its customary edge. “The Blight awaits its rude awakening. And you require sleep.”
“Is that an order?”
“Merely a highly informed suggestion.” She began leading him back toward the ring of tents. “One you would be wise to heed.”
As they passed the dying fire, Alistair looked up from polishing his shield. He saw their linked hands, saw the look on Conor’s face—a temporary peace. A slow, understanding grin spread across his face before he pointedly looked back at his work.
Inside Conor’s tent, the world narrowed to the smell of oiled leather and warm wool. Morrigan turned to him, the playful glint gone, replaced by something more serious.
“What?” he asked.
“After this is over,” she said, her words careful, deliberate. “What then?”
He hadn’t given much thought past defeating the Archdemon and surviving. The future was a luxury the Alienage never afforded him, and the Blight had only narrowed his world to the next fight, the next step, the next breath.
The only peace he’d really known were stolen moments like these: the quiet after battle, the solid weight of his dog against his legs, the surprising warmth of Morrigan’s shoulder against his in the dark.
He would keep having them if he had the choice.
“What then?” he repeated, her question hanging in the damp air. He ran a hand through his silver hair, a gesture of uncharacteristic uncertainty. “I don’t know. Wake up. See who’s left standing.” He looked at her, his mismatched eyes catching the faint moonlight filtering through the canvas. “See if you’re still here.”
Morrigan didn’t smile. She studied him, as if trying to parse a complex line of magic. “You think I would flee?”
“I think you have plans I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps.” She turned, pacing the small space, her movements sleek as a shadow. “Growing… fond of you was the furthest thing from my plan, Conor Tabris. It was a complication. An illogical variable.”
He leaned back against his pack, watching her. “Sorry to be inconvenient.”
“Do not jest.” She stopped, facing him. Her voice was low, a private confession the night itself seemed to lean in to hear. “You talked me right out of my smallclothes with that infuriating calm of yours. You made curiosity feel like a safe harbor.”
She paused, her gaze dropping for a heartbeat before meeting his again, fierce and unguarded.
“The first time I saw you, truly saw you… I feared it would be my undoing. That fear was never enough to stop me.” She let out a breath, a sound almost lost in the distant cry of a night bird. “I do not know what world will be left after the Blight. It is all smoke and screaming to me. But the comfort I take… is knowing you would want to be a part of whatever life I carve from it.”
Silence stretched between them, filled with the truth of her words. It was more than he’d ever expected her to say.
“Yeah,” he said finally, the word simple and solid. “I would.”
He stood, closing the distance between them. He didn’t reach for her hands. He just stood there, letting her see the whole, unvarnished truth on his face—the weariness, the want, the stubborn, resilient hope he’d carried from the Alienage gates to this tent. “Wherever you carve it. However you carve it.”
A slow, real smile touched her lips, there and gone like a secret. “Sentimental fool.”
“Your sentimental fool.” He kissed her then, not with the hungry fire of the watchtower or the desperate release after the Landsmeet, but with a deep, quiet promise. It tasted of peat smoke and tomorrow.
Outside, Alistair’s voice carried on the wind, complaining to Wynne about the rock he’d found in his bedroll. Leliana’s soft laughter followed. Dog gave a sleepy woof. Life, stubborn and persistent, went on.
Morrigan pulled back, her forehead resting against his. “We have a dragon to kill first.”
“One thing at a time,” Conor murmured, his hands finding the familiar curve of her waist.
She let him steer her toward his bedroll, the future—a terrifying, open-ended question—temporarily forgotten in the urgent, present reality of his touch.