Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  "Place it here," Ineria ordered Alistair while pointing at her crafting table. It didn't look like any typical cooking table Reiss ever knew. This one was three separate small tables locked together to form a big one with wheels on the bottom. Once the bag was in its place, Ineria flipped up one of the locks and wheeled the station towards the farthest wall, more or less trapping Alistair tight.

  "This is yours, you are to sift the flour, which I hope you know how to do, and fill this bowl until I say," Ineria spoke slowly, watching the human to see if he understood.

  "Yeah, I've broken up a few sacks of flour in my day, Ma'am," he caught his wandering tongue and then saluted again.

  "Good," she refused to be impressed but Alistair seemed to know what he was doing, easily unknotting the top of the bag and scooping with a gentle flow into her great metal basin. If Reiss had done it, she'd have just hauled up the sack and dumped it out in one go. Even with his skill, Ineria kept an eagle eye on him until she shouted out, "Stop!"

  Without thinking, Alistair dropped the flour coated cup against the table which sent a wave of the white powder rushing up into the air and spattering against his crimson doublet. Even with his less than finery coated in flour, the king cracked a wide smile. Shrugging at the mistake, he tugged up on his hair, coating that in flour as well. Reiss couldn't stop the giggles from how pasty the half pastry king looked, nor how happy he seemed to be while covered in the beginnings of baking.

  Ineria turned over at Reiss and then waved her near, "Da'len, come. Do you require an apron for your dress?" She glanced over pointedly at the human she didn't offer one too.

  "Ah, no, I should be okay. I'll keep myself back from the bigger messes."

  "Yes, do try that," Ineria cut in before she dug a hand into the flour and made a hole.

  "What's that for?" Alistair asked, his eyes sparkling as he watched the woman work.

  "To make dumplings," Ineria answered while filling a cup with water and handing it to Reiss. She shooed the elf closer to the King and Reiss realized just how little space there was in this tiny kitchen. Holding the cup tight, Reiss felt her elbow brush against the King's floured chest. He tried to flatten tighter to the wall to give her room but there was none to be had.

  Either used to it, or enjoying making them both uncomfortable, Ineria jammed a wooden spoon in Alistair's hands and ordered, "Da'len you slowly add the water in a continuous pour while you, Dun-can, stir. Can you handle that?"

  "Yes, Ma'am!" he saluted with the spoon.

  Reiss snickered and added her own, "Yes, Ma'am." She turned to her partner in crime and raised an eyebrow, "Ready?"

  "I hope so," he admitted, holding the spoon at the ready inside the flour. Reiss tipped her hand down and water dribbled into the hole while the King began to stir the spoon clockwise which meant the handle and his hands were coming right for Reiss on the way back around. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered as she scrabbled up on her tiptoes to let him pass under. She couldn't stop laughing when he went again, still offering up apologies for making her stand up taller. Concentrating on his stirring as if it was the most important job in thedas, the King stuck his tongue in between his teeth and honed in on the bowl. With the last of the water soaking into the flour, Reiss yanked back her arm to let the man put his bicep flexing all into it.

  It was hypnotic to watch him throw everything into making a dough for an elven woman scouring away in an Alienage. There was no reason for it, certainly to not risk the state of his clothing or the potential burn in the muscles of his arms, but nothing could break off that smile lighting up his face.

  "Stop!" Ineria shouted. Alistair's hand paused but both he and Reiss regretted that he couldn't keep going. The dalish woman yanked the bowl filled with lumpy, wet flour away from the King and turned their back to them to the other table. A few interesting elvish phrases slipped from her lips as she seemed to be pulverizing the dough into shape, some of which Reiss had never learned.

  The King bounced the spoon back and forth absently while watching, which caused the dough clinging to it to splatter first against the wall and then his hair. "Oh Maker, I..." he reached over to try and scrub off the wall, but mostly worked it into the wood grain. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked Reiss.

  She shrugged, "Maybe put it back on the counter?"

  "Do I, do I wipe it off first or...?" With his hand he cupped his palm against the spoon and swiped hard, transferring nearly all the remaining dough onto his own skin. Now that the spoon was clean, he felt safe to lay it back on the table beside the others.

  Reiss leaned close to him and whispered, "What was your plan to clean your hand off, Duncan?"

  "Uh," he inspected the globs of wet flour slowly and then with a jolly enthusiasm, patted Reiss on the shoulder streaking it down her dress. "I was going to congratulate you on a wonderful job pouring that water."

  She glanced over at the mess and without pause picked a handful of flour up in her hand. "You deserve some as well," she snickered before tossing it all over his head, "for stirring so accurately." For a flicker, as the King's face blanketed in an unreadable expression, Reiss screamed at herself. Maker's breath, what did you just do?

  Then the man fully cracked up, his barely clean hand digging more glop into his hair. The joy was so contagious it didn't just flit with Reiss' smile, but blotted away her clinging fears. He'd been berated, stared at, threatened, and then soiled by elves and his only reaction was a genial shrug. Her stomach flipped inside out as she leaned even closer to him, fingers reaching up to knock off a small dab of dough on his cheek.

  "You," Ineria shouted, spinning back around. Reiss yanked her hand back behind her and leaned away. The dalish woman focused fully on Alistair, but she felt her eyes drift over a moment. "The dough requires rest, in the meantime we make the filling."

  "There's filling?" Alistair gasped.

  "Fenheedis," Ineria rolled her eyes as she wiped her hands vigorously down her apron, "of course there is filling. How else does one do dumplings? Da'len, below the counter is the pork shoulder. You, Dun-can, how are you at working the blade?"

  "I'm...okay at it," he smiled, a blush baking the dough on his cheek.

  "We shall see," Ineria grumped as she whipped out a chef's knife, snatched up the human's hand and pressed it safely into his palm.

  While Reiss diced up cabbage and minced carrots, the King of Ferelden, hero of the Blight, and once templar slowly whacked pieces of bright pink pork flesh off the bone. Ineria would cluck her tongue while watching, shouting if he made a dice too small or too large, the difference almost imperceptible. Reiss expected him to groan at the Dalish woman's impossible demands, but he was ecstatic to be running a knife through the meat. With a great palmful he'd drop his work into Reiss' bowl and then return to it without a glance or grumble.

  It surprised her how at home this noble man -- more than noble -- royal King moved through a tiny kitchen in the Alienage. There was no command that someone replace him when he stood too long in one place, he merely dipped down to try and stretch out his knees, then began to walk back in place. About the only thing to dampen his spirits was the rising heat of three bodies trapped in a small room designed for roasting.

  "Maker's sake, I fear I'm going to melt into flesh goo and drip through the floorboards," he muttered under his breath while scraping every last morsel off the bone and then tossing it to an eventual stock pot.

  Ineria snorted at his complaining, but Reiss agreed. "I regret wearing my tunic," she whispered to him, hoping the Dalish woman wouldn't hear. Another wave of blistering heat wafted out of the underfloor hearth as Ineria refreshed the coals. Groaning, Reiss wiped off the sweat upon her brow with her forearm and whined, "Now I regret wearing the dress."

  "Ah..." the King's jaw hung slack and he continued chopping the knife up and down without any meat in the way. Reiss glanced over at it, which was enough to snap him out of his momentary lapse. "Right," he grumbled, "I'm going to hit the floor if I don't do someth
ing."

  She expected him to slide out of the room, perhaps to get a breath of air outside in the back alley or the front of the house, but Alistair washed his bloody fingers off in the bowl, toweled them off, and began to unlace the front of his doublet. Oh shit! Reiss glared daggers at her bowl of cabbage, enthralled with the methodical movement of her arm swishing it around while the King stripped off his shirt. Maybe she was safe and he'd put on an undertunic and...nope, nothing. His skin glistened from the heat of the kitchen, and she stood mere inches away from that taut form glancing around to find somewhere to toss his abandoned shirt. With no available hooks, he gave up and added it to the floor where it was certain to be fully battered in flour and any dropped dough.

  Unaware of the elven eyes doing their damnedest to not stare in rapture at him, Alistair returned to dicing up the last of the meat. His shoulders flexed, tugging out the lines of the blades along his back as he scraped down the pork bone. This was a test, the biggest test of Reiss' rather pathetic personal life and she was failing miserably. On the plus side, she was so frozen in ecstasy it was impossible for her to even think of reaching over and touching him.

  "Da'len!" Ineria shouted, snapping her out of it. The woman made stirring motions with her arm and clucked her tongue.

  "On it," Reiss waved with the spoon, sending chunks of cabbage mash splattering against the wall. The King glanced over a moment and he laughed at her mess.

  After picking up the last of his job, he leaned nearer to deposit it in Reiss' bowl. With his head bent down, he whispered, "I bet I'll make a much bigger mess than you by the end of the day." Then he turned his face up and those impish eyes sparkled with such delight Reiss feared she might moan.

  "I fear that is a sucker's bet," she said, having to pinch her nose up to keep focused. You've seen naked men before. It was damn near impossible to keep shirts on most of the recruits in the Inquisition while waiting in the Arbor Wilds, or on training grounds. Get over it, Rat.

  That seemed to work, finally breaking Reiss free of the spell of this shemlan. She finished the last of the stirring when Ineria slapped the dough down, rattling the massive bowl and she grinned at them, "Now comes the hard, boring part."

  "Yay?" Alistair quipped, sharing a questioning look with Reiss. What did they get themselves into?

  "It is doubtful you will last through this, shemlan. Do try to keep up," Ineria said, her eyes easily traversing the half naked man without a care.

  Alistair snickered and bent his head, "Yes, Ma'am."

  Ineria lied. The King was enraptured with grabbing a handful of pork & cabbage mixture, dropping it into a flat ball of dough and then pinching it together like a purse. It took him a few go's to get the hang of it, Ineria all but whacking his elbow with a spoon if he added too much or too little, but once he got it, he really got it. Reiss began beside him, but she couldn't keep up, her barely scraping by cooking skills quickly giving way to exhaustion. Even the master chef staggered back, happy to let the human put his all into cooking.

  Reiss found herself questioning if this wasn't all some hallucination brought on by wyvern poison or a bad wine. The King of Ferelden, shirtless and glistening with sweat, happily mixing up dumplings in a tiny elven kitchen. Even Lunet's terrible serials couldn't conjure something so mad, though, they'd probably find a way to work a horse into it.

  "You're rather good at this," Reiss stated the obvious. She stood beside the propped open door begging for relief from the heat. Luckily a cool breeze washed over her, winter's final vestiges happy to provide.

  The King didn't even pause as he crimped his fingers along the top and dropped the dumpling onto a bulging tray, "I suppose."

  "You've done this before," Ineria insisted. She'd slid back beside Reiss, not seeming to need the cool air, but wanting to enjoy the show.

  "Not really, not exactly this," he glanced over at them a moment, his fingers moving by themselves with that muscle memory every soldier knew well. Alistair smiled lopsidedly at Reiss, "I did a lot of random kitchen duty when I was growing up. You either learn it or it's rulers across the knuckles and reciting the chant of light for ten hours straight. This is far more fun."

  Fun? He could be lying, perhaps trying to make her feel better for some strange reason, but she believed it. They'd been standing in one place in a leaning, claustrophobic kitchen for hours and he couldn't stop smiling. Even the nobles who really got into pretending to be servants gave up the game once digging a lavatory was involved. If he'd melted after twenty dumplings and thrown in the towel, Reiss would have been impressed. Now, she didn't know what to think.

  Ineria jerked her chin at the man and whispered to Reiss in elvish, "Who is this man?"

  "It's a long story, Hahren," she answered back in elvish, hopefully not too broken. Reiss had been scrabbling her own people's language together over the years.

  The old woman seemed to be aware that she was missing an important piece of information, her lips pursed as she first sized up Reiss and then turned to the man dipping a thumbprint into the dough before dropping in the meat ball. "He is cute, for a shemlan."

  She said it in elvish, but loud enough Alistair had to hear. Reiss watched him to see if he understood, trying to find a tell tale blush rising up his naked back but he continued to work unaware. Thank the Maker for that. As Reiss settled back to her haunched she felt Ineria staring through her. "I," she tugged on the collar of her dress to try and encourage more airflow and in common said, "I hadn't noticed."

  Barely suppressing her snort at the baldfaced lie, Ineria smirked, "All right." For the love of Andraste, Reiss, you're supposed to have some damn subtlety to your actions. If Ineria's picking up on it, what would people in the castle think of some lovesick elf trailing after the King, her tongue lolling out of her mouth? She thought to the mage that seemed to consider it her duty to bed the king as much as concoct potions. That threw cold water on her libido, chilling the giddy smile in her heart. Mages, he prefers mages, which you are not. Not that it would ever be a question seeing as how he's a human and blighted King. Why are you even thinking it? Why are you letting yourself feel bad because nothing will come of it? Stop staring at his naked back that looks like it was hewed from stone by a master carver. Maker's sake, he even had abs that undulated with his laugh. Kings were not supposed to have that, she was dead certain. Not ones with earnest faces and puppy dog eyes and, flames, there you go again!

  "Done!" he shouted, throwing his hands up wide and revealing a massive tray of dumplings all laid out for the pot.

  "Well, young man, I am loathe to admit it, but I was wrong about you," Ineria slid forward and reached out for his hand to shake it, "Not only did you last the day, you finished far enough before the dinner hour I shall whip you up a plate to try."

  Alistair's mouth slipped open wide, his smile revealing those deep dimples that gave his cheekbones a greater chiseled look -- as if the man needed any more help. Glancing over at Reiss, he shrugged once and then shook Ineria's hand proudly as if the Dalish woman was a Teryn.

  "However," Ineria eyed up the remainders of his work station, "You used too much dough and left behind nearly enough filling for one and a half dumplings."

  "Sorry," he muttered, then those eyes sparkled, "Ma'am."

  Somehow his charm worked as much as any could on Ineria and she smiled. "Go and have a seat while I fry these up."

  "Do you want any help with that?" he asked even while fishing his shirt off the ground. Right, he'd probably want to put it back on before eating. And why were you thinking it would be erotic to watch the King eat messy dumplings while shirtless? Reiss wondered if when this job was over, maybe she could get the name of Lunet's old lover and have her write a little something up.

  Ineria stood up on her toes and yanked down a giant cast iron skillet without any obvious strain. "No, and any who learn my secret cooking process rarely last the night."

  Gulping at the threat, the King of Ferelden nodded slowly and slid towards the door.
"Understood, Ma'am." Without glancing back, he walked into the front of the house, already slipping his doublet back where it belonged.

  Reiss staggered up to follow when Ineria's calculating eyes narrowed to slits and she whispered, "Very cute, for a shemlan."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A Taste

  Ineria drew back her hand from a steaming pile of dumplings, easily eight or nine, piled upon a plate with a pot of gravy on the side. Steam erupted out of the small knife cuts Reiss had been in charge of until she bowed out, the smell heavenly beyond measure. If the Maker's side bore an odor it would probably be lilacs in spring, the forest after a gentle rain, and Ineria's fresh pork dumplings with extra gravy. At least that was what Reiss hoped for.

  The King sat at the lone table, eying up the treat, a knife in one hand and fork in the other. "Well," Ineria waved her hand at him, "eat the blighted things. We must know if they are truly the best in thedas. Right, Da'len?" Ineria glanced over at Reiss who sat across from Alistair. He spent most of the cooking time trying to wipe the flour of his shirt which ended in trenches of handprints trailing down his chest.

  Bristling under the scrutiny, Alistair jabbed his fork into the first dumpling. It hissed at the indignation, sending more of that tantalizing spiced meat smell into the air. Without any ceremony, the King of Ferelden jammed the entire two inch long dumpling into his mouth and began to chew. The response was instantaneous, flecks of pork and cabbage trying to escape, which he crammed back in with his mouth while talking rapidly.