*sob* This was so beautiful in its own tragic way. Thankfully, I read it this morning rather than last night, I don't think I'd have been able to sleep as quickly yesterday (I dropped like a log - blame the eggnog).

I remember, on my first ever play-through I had a city elf romancing Alistair and I was thunderstruck about him dropping my sweet little warden so publicly, not to mention the fit he threw about conscripting Loghain. I can thus understand how Lyna felt after the Landsmeet and how she might want to drown out that hurt-morphing-to-rage rock in her stomach with some sexy blonde elf.
Interesting for Zev to prevent her from hurting herself in this way seeing that he would take pleasure wherever it was found. This seems to suggest that he's either shifted his view on pleasure or his private dogma isn't that strong any more. I look forward to seeing the next chapter for sure - I hope it's the second one :)
Likewise, your Lyna is equally perceptive - perhaps on a different level - by being able to x-ray through pretty much all defence mechanisms Zev has built around him. And by taking him exactly like he is - which incidentally is pretty much the reverse of the question Lyna raised with Zev in the beginning of this chapter.
Well done and written chapter. I enjoy reading your stories very much. So much feeling in all of them!

Like Nithu, I also got hooked on the line
"Freedom is the ability to choose what I do with my life, yes? Then I choose to follow you to this, to see it through, no matter the outcome."

Squeeeee!!

V.