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samuraiterWords: 1,145
Warnings: BDSM, smut.
Title: The Priest
Summary: Here – for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
unconventionalcourtship.
Rating: DW / LJ (18+)
Pairings: Dorothy / Saul
Fandom: Fire Emblem – The Sword of Seals
Characters: Dorothy, Saul
A / N: The premise of Unconventional Courtship is to write a pairing using the back cover of a dime store romance novel (e.g. Mills & Boon, Harlequin, etc.) as a basis. (One supposes that Sumia might read a story like this in Awakening.) No idea why, but the only pairing that jumped immediately to mind happened to be Dorothy / Saul.
* * * *
Dorothy recalled the day she had first been assigned to him as his bodyguard. Her instructions – straight from the mouth of Bishop Jodel, as it happened – had been to keep him from ... straying. Granted, celibacy had never been required by the scriptures of Saint Elimine, but the hierarchy had started asking for their servants to at least practice it during their assignments for the sake of avoiding scandals, and Saul had been a major reason for that, the rumors had it. And yet, prior to the invasion, no one, either in the hierarchy or in the villages, had filed any complaints about him.
He did seem to enjoy flirting, and Dorothy – he never made any overtures to her, it seemed – had to scold him for that, but she noticed, from the start, that he seemed to do it to get her attention, to keep her on her toes despite the fact that none of the ladies he propositioned thought anything of his all-too-bold requests. He always had a gleam in his eye, as if challenging her ... to keep catching him? To see if his words had anything behind them? She had a reputation, too, but for rectitude, not for license. In the eyes of Bishop Jodel, they seemed to be as opposite as could be.
After the defeat of Bern, she had the option of returning to her village, but Saul offered to retain her services, paying her from his own purse, and, to her own astonishment, she accepted, accompanying him on another series of adventures in the service of the Church ... for another month, she said, but a month turned into three months, then half a year, then the entire year. It all came to a head after they managed the narrowest of escapes from a band of brigands – deserters from Bern, they had discovered – in the middle of a forest. After that, she asked him, to his face, what he had been scheming.
She had never been kissed before that instant, and her memory of it had all the clarity of one of the crystals mounted on the staffs he carried. Her body had tensed, but only for the second it took her to realize that she had been wanting him to do it for ages, to pay attention to her. She had cursed herself for falling into his trap, but he had whispered that she had the same right to refuse as any of the others he had baited – no trap for a maiden, that. And she did not refuse. No, she did everything he asked of her, including things she had never – never – considered before in all of her life.
The journey stopped being about the pay after that. It started being about the things he asked her to do. They made a whole string of accomplishments for both the Church and their friends in the governments attached to it, but Dorothy started to look forward to the lulls between assignments, to having her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts at nameless inns in the countryside, to listening to him hiss his commands into her ear and striving to obey each and every one of them. He never did say how he had acquired his skills and proclivities, but he was all too happy to teach her other secrets.
Another year passed in that way, lost in a dizzying fog of blood, battle, and sex. It became almost too much to bear, the act of coming a little too close to death for comfort, only to practically toss him up a flight of stairs for the chance to tear the robes from his body, slap him across the face hard enough to split his lip, and then savor the taste of his blood in her mouth as she kissed him breathless. Every time, they seemed to come a little bit closer to the precipice, to getting caught by the villains of the day and put to death. It started to scare her. Whether it scared him or not, she did not know.
She made a decision. After they discovered a small army of cultists hiding in the sands of Nabata and almost met their end in a storm of black magic, she left him at the oasis, saying nothing, knowing that turning to look back at him might undo her resolve. She returned to her village, back to being the model of rectitude, or at least doing her best to fake it in light of everything she had done, of all the people she and her arrows had killed, of all the nights – long, hot, sweaty, and all but sleepless – she had spent begging her wayward priest to partake of her in whatever way he saw fit.
Her parents had been delighted to see her again. She had done her best to send letters to them, but the spectre of invasion made that difficult, and letters had never been a good substitute for face-to-face meetings and dinners around the big table. Several of the boys in the village had grown into men, too, and one of them had become a landholder. She took a shine to him, but she maintained her aura of restraint. No sense showing the lad all the ways she could bring him to his knees. The days moved at a lazy crawl, and she half-expected him to give her a ring before the next full moon.
She should have expected Saul to return. As long as she lived, he had the luck of the Dragon. Bishop Jodel had been sending letters to her, and she had opened none of them, perhaps hoping that he might take her reappearance at home for a rumor, but, on another level, she admitted that she almost hoped for Saul to come back in search of her. The thought banished her surroundings. The village, her family, the landholder courting her – they all suddenly became very small in her understanding. The full moon had yet to rise, and rumors placed a "most unusual priest" at the local tavern.
A small voice in her the back of her mind – a voice from two years before, perhaps – told her not to go. She had earned the right to settle in the village, get married, and start raising a family, had she not? She had earned the right to a life free of all but the most mundane deaths. And yet ... to the tavern she went. And there Saul sat, new scars on his face and hands, perhaps, but the same gleam in his eye, and not the smallest trace of any anger. Or so she thought. They locked gazes. She saw pain ... and, hiding behind it like a thumb-sized devil, the desire to fuck it all away in a single night.
Despite herself, she smiled at the challenge.
Warnings: BDSM, smut.
Title: The Priest
Summary: Here – for
unconventionalcourtship.Rating: DW / LJ (18+)
Pairings: Dorothy / Saul
Fandom: Fire Emblem – The Sword of Seals
Characters: Dorothy, Saul
A / N: The premise of Unconventional Courtship is to write a pairing using the back cover of a dime store romance novel (e.g. Mills & Boon, Harlequin, etc.) as a basis. (One supposes that Sumia might read a story like this in Awakening.) No idea why, but the only pairing that jumped immediately to mind happened to be Dorothy / Saul.
* * * *
Dorothy recalled the day she had first been assigned to him as his bodyguard. Her instructions – straight from the mouth of Bishop Jodel, as it happened – had been to keep him from ... straying. Granted, celibacy had never been required by the scriptures of Saint Elimine, but the hierarchy had started asking for their servants to at least practice it during their assignments for the sake of avoiding scandals, and Saul had been a major reason for that, the rumors had it. And yet, prior to the invasion, no one, either in the hierarchy or in the villages, had filed any complaints about him.
He did seem to enjoy flirting, and Dorothy – he never made any overtures to her, it seemed – had to scold him for that, but she noticed, from the start, that he seemed to do it to get her attention, to keep her on her toes despite the fact that none of the ladies he propositioned thought anything of his all-too-bold requests. He always had a gleam in his eye, as if challenging her ... to keep catching him? To see if his words had anything behind them? She had a reputation, too, but for rectitude, not for license. In the eyes of Bishop Jodel, they seemed to be as opposite as could be.
After the defeat of Bern, she had the option of returning to her village, but Saul offered to retain her services, paying her from his own purse, and, to her own astonishment, she accepted, accompanying him on another series of adventures in the service of the Church ... for another month, she said, but a month turned into three months, then half a year, then the entire year. It all came to a head after they managed the narrowest of escapes from a band of brigands – deserters from Bern, they had discovered – in the middle of a forest. After that, she asked him, to his face, what he had been scheming.
She had never been kissed before that instant, and her memory of it had all the clarity of one of the crystals mounted on the staffs he carried. Her body had tensed, but only for the second it took her to realize that she had been wanting him to do it for ages, to pay attention to her. She had cursed herself for falling into his trap, but he had whispered that she had the same right to refuse as any of the others he had baited – no trap for a maiden, that. And she did not refuse. No, she did everything he asked of her, including things she had never – never – considered before in all of her life.
The journey stopped being about the pay after that. It started being about the things he asked her to do. They made a whole string of accomplishments for both the Church and their friends in the governments attached to it, but Dorothy started to look forward to the lulls between assignments, to having her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts at nameless inns in the countryside, to listening to him hiss his commands into her ear and striving to obey each and every one of them. He never did say how he had acquired his skills and proclivities, but he was all too happy to teach her other secrets.
Another year passed in that way, lost in a dizzying fog of blood, battle, and sex. It became almost too much to bear, the act of coming a little too close to death for comfort, only to practically toss him up a flight of stairs for the chance to tear the robes from his body, slap him across the face hard enough to split his lip, and then savor the taste of his blood in her mouth as she kissed him breathless. Every time, they seemed to come a little bit closer to the precipice, to getting caught by the villains of the day and put to death. It started to scare her. Whether it scared him or not, she did not know.
She made a decision. After they discovered a small army of cultists hiding in the sands of Nabata and almost met their end in a storm of black magic, she left him at the oasis, saying nothing, knowing that turning to look back at him might undo her resolve. She returned to her village, back to being the model of rectitude, or at least doing her best to fake it in light of everything she had done, of all the people she and her arrows had killed, of all the nights – long, hot, sweaty, and all but sleepless – she had spent begging her wayward priest to partake of her in whatever way he saw fit.
Her parents had been delighted to see her again. She had done her best to send letters to them, but the spectre of invasion made that difficult, and letters had never been a good substitute for face-to-face meetings and dinners around the big table. Several of the boys in the village had grown into men, too, and one of them had become a landholder. She took a shine to him, but she maintained her aura of restraint. No sense showing the lad all the ways she could bring him to his knees. The days moved at a lazy crawl, and she half-expected him to give her a ring before the next full moon.
She should have expected Saul to return. As long as she lived, he had the luck of the Dragon. Bishop Jodel had been sending letters to her, and she had opened none of them, perhaps hoping that he might take her reappearance at home for a rumor, but, on another level, she admitted that she almost hoped for Saul to come back in search of her. The thought banished her surroundings. The village, her family, the landholder courting her – they all suddenly became very small in her understanding. The full moon had yet to rise, and rumors placed a "most unusual priest" at the local tavern.
A small voice in her the back of her mind – a voice from two years before, perhaps – told her not to go. She had earned the right to settle in the village, get married, and start raising a family, had she not? She had earned the right to a life free of all but the most mundane deaths. And yet ... to the tavern she went. And there Saul sat, new scars on his face and hands, perhaps, but the same gleam in his eye, and not the smallest trace of any anger. Or so she thought. They locked gazes. She saw pain ... and, hiding behind it like a thumb-sized devil, the desire to fuck it all away in a single night.
Despite herself, she smiled at the challenge.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 11:34 pm (UTC)Still haven't gotten far into FE6 so I can't speak to characterization, but I liked it.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 11:38 pm (UTC)This ended up being more Silhouette than Harlequin. I have a mental image of Saul writing something like this for Dorothy to discover, then getting the holy Hell kicked out of him for it. Heh! Thank you for reading.