Author's Note: This is a departure from my usual writing, but it was fun. Over on the Dragon Age Writer's Corner forums, we were challenged to Write with a pairing you don't usually use/that surprises you. Long or short as you want." Here goes...


Zevran didn't remember much about his mother, and if he did, he was sure none of it would be good. After all, the woman left him to be raised by prostitutes in Antiva. He never had a chance. But the mage was what he'd imagine a real mother would be like: all smiles, but stern when needed. She had a kind and understanding word for everyone, even the dwarf and the witch. And she teased the Warden Alistair mercilessly, but with a soft smile on her face and he couldn't possibly be angry.

But she looked on Zevran with disdain. "Must you be such a child?" she asked, her voice stiff with exasperation and her eyes boring into him. "Are you incapable of a single serious conversation?"

He smiled the charming smile that disarmed everyone. It usually allowed him to get close enough to stick a knife in their belly. "I know. I am terrible and it makes me sad. May I rest my head in your bosom? I wish to cry." She took great affront to this, and it was only after he said it that he realized, for a woman her age… Wynne had a great rack.

From then on he teased her as mercilessly as she teased Alistair. "It is a marvelous bosom," he said to her.

"Stop… talking about my bosom," Wynne said, clutching her staff.

"I have seen women half your age who have not held up half so well. Perhaps it is a magic bosom?" Zevran laughed and darted away before Wynne could fire off a spell at him. But after that, he caught her flashing glances in his direction at camp, and slipped the Warden a few silvers and Alistair a few pointers in order to be assigned evening watch with the mage.

"It is true, I did not know my mother well," he told her.

"Odd," Wynne said, staring into the dark and trying to ignore him. "Your fascination with my bosom suggests you are highly fixated on her."

He smiled and sidled up to her, quick and quiet as a fox. "Zevran knows a fine bird when he sees one."

She huffed and stepped away from him. "I am not a bird!"

He laughed. "I am trying to compliment you, my dear Wynne."

"Please don't."

"But why must you deny yourself the pleasures of male companionship?" he asked, eyes on her ample chest.

"There are more important things than your fascination with… my bosom," she said and rubbed her hands together before pulling her cloak more tightly about her.

"Indeed, you may be right… DOWN!" he hissed and tackled the older woman, bringing her to the ground. She lay beneath him in the bracken, her breathing quick. Zevran slipped off of her, his hands sliding across her marvelous bosom as he did so. What sort of magic did that Circle teach them, anyway? He sat up, brushing leaves from his blond hair, and gave his hand to Wynne. "I apologize my dear. I thought there was something… coming our way."

Wynne took his hand. In the darkness he could not see her blushing. She got to her feet, but kept hold of his hand. "Perhaps there was," she agreed in a soft voice. "No harm done."

Sten and Oghren relieved them a few hours later. They passed the tent with Alistair and the female Warden. "I was supposed to take watch with Alistair this evening," Wynne remembered suddenly. "I can't imagine… oh. Well, they are young and in love."

"As am I, dear mage," Zevran murmured. He held her tent flap open for her and she ducked inside. He waited, but she did not invite him in, instead nodding once and closing her tent to him. No matter. Zevran was an assassin and a lover; he knew how to be patient better than anyone.