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Mahanon Lavellan: Lathbora Viran Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

Mahanon had been avoiding the Dalish camp since they came to the Exalted Plains. Just being in the Dales and knowing he could not give it back to his people was painful enough. But he also knew he couldn’t avoid them forever, and he decided that perhaps he wasn’t giving them enough credit. Perhaps they wouldn’t be angry or spiteful at all.

Mahanon remembered speaking to Solas about becoming a Knight Enchanter and lamenting the fact that ancient Knight Enchanters would probably be angry that he was using their art to defend the very Chantry that had slaughtered their people. Solas had offered him comfort, reminding him that people were often full of surprises. And who knows? The Knight Enchanters of old just might be proud. The older elf then smiled, sat behind his desk, and returned to his studies.

After speaking with Solas, Mahanon decided to give the Dalish a chance. He went with Solas, Varric, and Cassandra to see them in the Exalted Plains, and he was surprised by the joy with which he was greeted. The keeper actually said he made them proud and was pleased to see an elven man gaining such respect – and even worship – from humans. The Dalish crowded close to greet him, and the children even ran to him, wrapped in little fur vests, feathers in their hair, their bare feet padding through the dust.

One little girl grabbed Mahanon’s jacket and tugged. Though a mage, Mahanon was wearing archer gear: a leather jacket open over a silver breastplate bearing the eye of the Inquisition. He glanced down to find the girl peering up at him, frowning, her black hair clinging to her lip in the breeze.

“Yes?” Mahanon said, smiling at the child.

“Why haven’t you taken us home yet?” the girl demanded sullenly.

The other children nodded.

Mahanon glanced back at Varric, Solas, and Cassandra, who weren’t standing far away. Solas’ eyes glittered sadness, and Mahanon thought he saw pity gleaming through the eyeslits of Cassandra’s helm. Varric was busy autographing copies of one of his books: apparently, the Dalish were great fans.

Mahanon turned back to the girl and sank to one knee. “What do you think would happen to me,” he said carefully, “if I defied the Chantry to give our people back their land?”

“They would hurt you,” the girl said sadly.

Mahanon smiled sadly. “That’s right. I’m as powerless as I am powerful.”

“But you help our people in little ways, I bet,” the girl said shrewdly.
“And you would be right. You’ll make a great politician someday, kid.” Mahanon smirked and ruffled the girl’s hair. She giggled as he rose to his feet again.

“Tell us a story!” the children chimed.

Mahanon smiled. “About what?”

“Dragons!” cried a boy and slashed an imaginary sword.

“Giants and dwarves!” added another.

“Love!” squeaked a girl in the front with brilliant red hair and freckles splashed across her nose.

Mahanon smiled and pulled up a low stool standing outside an aravel. The children gathered close, sitting at his feet in a small crowd, and the two little girls – the one with the black hair and the one with the red hair – climbed into his lap.

“There was once an Emerald Knight,” Mahanon glanced at Cassandra, who was watching him steadily, “and he loved a human woman.”

The red-haired girl made a face. “Uck. Why!”

Mahanon smiled at her. “We seldom have a choice in who we love, da’len.”

“But we can choose what to do,” said the black-haired girl on his knee and swung her legs.

“Yes,” Mahanon agreed, watching as Cassandra slowly drew close. “He saw her as he was patrolling the border of his kingdom. She was a warrior, fierce, strong, and breathtakingly beautiful, patrolling the edge of her own kingdom. He stood still when he saw her and couldn’t move. She had strayed too close to his lands. By law, he was bound to send her away . . . or kill her.”

“What did the Knight do?” piped a boy from the crowd.

“He chose to make his love known,” Mahanon answered. “He went to her, took off his helm, and fell to one knee before her.”

“How romantic,” sighed a little girl with two braids and clasped her hands. The boy beside her rolled his eyes. “Get to the dragon!” he wailed.

“He was surprised to discover that she felt the same,” Mahanon went on. “He followed her into the world. Because it would have caused him great pain not to do so.”

“But the human was Andrastian,” said another boy in amazement. “That meant he had to give up his faith.”

“Faith seems such a small thing to cast aside when one is in love,” Mahanon answered, his eyes still fixed on Cassandra. Someone cleared their throat, and he noticed the keeper’s frown of disapproval, but he went on. “He loved her,” he said, dropping his eyes to the children, “and that was all that mattered.”

“What about his faith?” asked a white-haired girl from the grass. She lay on her belly, her chin in her hands and her feet swinging behind her. “Why should he have to give it up? Doesn’t seem fair!”

Mahanon shrugged sadly. “Since when is love fair? The Knight wasn’t pious to begin with anyway. Oh, he prayed,” he said, thinking of the vallaslin on his face, of Mythal and those long, lonely nights spent praying to her, calling and receiving no answer, “but what did it matter, the name that he gave his god? When in the end, they were all the same?” And none of them answered regardless of their existence.

The children looked at each other and murmured in confusion.

“Only they are not all the same,” said the keeper, drawing close with his hands behind his back. He was frowning and stern, though Mahanon was glad to see he wasn’t angry. “The human god is not our god, and I’ll not have you filling their heads with such nonsense.”

Ma nuvenin, hahren,” Mahanon said calmly and eased the little girls down from his lap. The children moaned and complained when he got to his feet and adjusted his belt.

“But how did the story end!” pouted the black-haired girl and peered hopefully up at Mahanon. She clasped her hands. “Did they live happily ever after? Did they have children?”

“Did he kiss her under her armor!” shouted a boy, and several of the children giggled.

Mahanon smiled. And glancing over, he noticed Cassandra’s eyes smiling behind her helm. He looked at the children again. “It ended the way all such stories end.”

The children stared at him, waiting.

Mahanon smiled sadly: “With lathbora viran.”

***

Mahanon was in his bedroom in Skyhold, pulling off his shirt when he heard Cassandra’s voice behind him, “What did it mean?”

Mahanon let his shirt fall across the bed, the tight muscles of his back flexing as he massaged his wrists. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and his back was to her as he listened to her boots thumping gently through the room. His body was covered in little aches. He was sore from the saddle, sore from battling demons and getting thrown on his back all day. He and Cassandra hadn’t spoken the entire journey back to Skyhold. Not because they were too tired, but because Mahanon had been avoiding her since she decided she wanted to become Divine. He remembered asking her what she would do once Divine, and listening to her speak about changing the Chantry to welcome all people, whether elven or dwarven, he stood there and smiled sadly as he felt himself falling deeper still. And he thought to himself that she was utterly beautiful and she would be a wonderful Divine and he was going to lose her. Because duty was more important than love.

Mahanon knew that was what Cassandra would say, anyway. The moment he protested, she would go on about the Maker’s will and how it was more important than her personal feelings. And she would say he was the Herald of Andraste and she had defiled his purity anyway and perhaps the Maker was not pleased with what she had “done to him.” He laughed the day she was shocked to discover that he had filthy thoughts, that he wanted to read Varric’s books and do those things to her, if it would make her happy. And he had to wonder how she saw him: did she really believe he was pure, holy, and innocent of a woman’s touch? He had been married before her. But perhaps it was his fault for never telling her. When he really thought about it, she had opened up far more than he.

Mahanon had remained withdrawn, had held back, because in the back of his mind, he always knew he was going to lose her. So why open up? Why bare his heart in his breast so she could crush it under her boot? So he kept who he was bottled up inside, afraid to let her see. If she really wanted to be Divine, how could he think of stopping her? He couldn’t fathom standing in the way of her happiness. So he stood aside. And he pretended to support her. And he pretended to smile. And he pretended his heart wasn’t breaking in pieces. And he watched her . . . slipping slowly through his fingers.

“What did what mean?” Mahanon said without turning. He pushed his long black hair over his shoulder and rolled his neck, trying to work the ache out. He smiled when her weight shifted the bed. She gently stroked his hair around, until it tumbled over his chest, and then she was massaging his shoulders for him, deeply, carefully. He closed his eyes. She had always been so good at that.

“Those words you spoke to the children,” Cassandra answered. “I can not repeat them correctly, I’m sure. Loth . . .” she tried. “Lothba . . .”

Mahanon smiled sadly. “Lathbora viran?” he prompted.

“Yes.”

“It means . . .” He frowned unhappily, peering out at the balcony. The stars winked beyond the railing, distant lights twinkling behind the rise of the mountains. “A longing for something one can never really know.”

“Ah. So you are unhappy about my becoming Divine.”

Mahanon laughed flatly. “Shouldn’t I be? I’m going to lose you. And to the Maker. Hell, I should be angrier, all things considered.” She was yet something else a Dalish had lost to the Maker.

“And you weren’t going to tell me?”

“Why? If it’s what you want . . .” He sighed. “And you already told me once: your happiness doesn’t matter. Why should mine?”

Cassandra stopped massaging. Her gentle fingers stroked his hair, smoothing it down the muscles of his bare back. He closed his eyes, relishing in her careful touch. She told him once that he was the gentlest man she had ever known, and yet in private, he was a beast. He remembered laughing, thinking with amazement how opposed they were in nature: she was a formidable beast in public, a gentle doe in private. There had been times when she took him forcefully, it was true. She would come to him in the night and make love to him, without pause, and with abandon. And he would surrender, watching as her hips rode him to ecstasy. But there also times when he took her, wildly, in a frenzy, forcing moans of deepest pleasure from her as their bodies twisted on the sheets. And she would surrender sweetly to his kisses. Sometimes he looked at her and thought he was the only one to whom she would ever willingly surrender.

Cassandra sat on the bed beside him and looked at him with soft eyes. She wasn’t wearing her breastplate, just the tight pants and leather jacket bearing the eye of the Inquisition. Her gloves, however, were off and were lying on the bed behind her. Her fingers touched his cheek. “Maha,” she whispered softly, “your happiness does matter to me.”

Mahanon looked away, trying not to let the soothing tone of her voice sway him. She called him Maha only when they were alone together, and it always made him indescribably happy. Becoming Inquisitor had robbed him of his personhood. The moment he lifted that sword to the sky was the moment be stopped being a person and started being a symbol. But every time she called him by name, he smiled. Because she could see him. Really see him. He wasn’t just some great hero or prophet. When she called him Maha, he was a person again. And it was wonderful.

Still, she called him Maha so seldom, he had been asking himself for the longest time: did she love him because he was the Herald of Andraste? Did she really see him? That was one of the things he loved about Sera. She helped the people remember that he was just a person, not some frightening symbol of power and magic. Sera, the delightfully mad, saw him as a person. But he worried that Cassandra didn’t. He sighed. At least she’d never called him “Herald” in bed.  

“It does,” Cassandra repeated firmly. “Even if you don’t believe it. I care. I can see that it’s hurting you. And . . .” She dropped her eyes away. “It hurts me to watch it.”

“So you noticed,” Mahanon joked and looked out at the stars. He didn’t think he could look at her. His eyes squinted up and he smiled. “Damn. And all this time I thought I was such a good actor.”

“Perhaps at the Orlesian ball,” Cassandra said with a half-smile. She touched his hair. “But with people you care about? You’re a terrible actor.”

Mahanon swallowed hard and dropped his eyes.

“We still have each other, here and now,” Cassandra said. “Let that be enough. Though I have to admit . . .” She dropped her hand from his hair and peered out at the stars. “I worry about leaving you here. No one can protect you like I can.”

Mahanon laughed weakly. “Truer words have never been spoken.” He stared unhappily at his hands. His left hand lay in his lap, the fingers slightly curled and glowing softly with green light. He frowned sadly when Cassandra took his glowing hand and kissed the fingers. That always meant she wanted to . . . “Cassandra, we shouldn’t . . .”

“Why shouldn’t we?” she whispered and undid his pants with a rough jerk.  

“Cassandra . . .” he protested softly as she got on her knees between his thighs. “C-Cassandra, wait . . .” His voice trailed to silence when her lips touched him. He closed his eyes and frowned. She had always been so good at that too.
This is a fan fiction about my male Lavellan and his romance with Cassandra.

I had misgivings about writing it when we STILL are waiting for the next story dlc. But I figured it can't hurt. 

It's supposed to be about Mahanon letting Cassandra "in," and letting her really discover who he is for the first time. 

The comments are off because people love to drop spoilers on my fan fics, and if the last dlc comes out while I'm still writing this, I do not want it ruined for me (the way Inquisition was already ruined for me). 

Finally, thanks for reading. :peace:

p.s. Also, hit the button at the top to instantly fix the formatting.
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