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Chapter Text

It's a long way from Val Royeaux to Kirkwall.

She's ridden most of the way here. The Inquisitor accompanied her as far as Skyhold; the two of them made polite conversation on occasion, about where their differing interests had taken them since they'd seen each other last, but mostly they maintained companionable silence. The route they took was familiar and the weather was excellent for travel: they made good time. She has to admit, though, that she's never felt entirely at ease when in his company. He's the Herald of Andraste. She is a Seeker of Truth. Perhaps she wouldn't call him holy but she does believe that he was chosen. He doesn't. It's been a point of contention between them.

He approves of what she's doing to rebuild the Seekers, however, and she values his approval. She values his continued friendship, too, and she valued his companionship along the road. The first leg of her long journey was far less solitary in his company, but it didn't take her mind off her destination.

Cullen was throwing a ball for his mabari in the courtyard when the two of them arrived at Skyhold, and Cassandra could not have dreamt a better demonstration of the fact that the Inquisition had officially disbanded. Of course, during the three days she remained there before moving on, she also threw the ball for Cullen's mabari. Perhaps she did so more than her fair share, and quite enthusiastically. Cullen clearly didn't mind but she couldn't help but think what Varric would have said: was she getting soft in her old age? Perhaps she was, yes. Perhaps she was.

She rode on through Ferelden alone after that, meeting here and there with groups of displaced Templars seeking help with the lyrium withdrawal. She found them on their knees in a chantry or drinking at an inn, as if Andraste herself had guided her, or perhaps there were just so many of them that they couldn't be avoided. Every one of them recognised the Seeker emblem blazoned on her surcoat, and they looked to her with hopeful eyes where she was more accustomed to suspicion. Some of them recognised her face, too, and all of them recognised her name when she gave it to them. She wasn't certain if it indicated fame or infamy, or if that distinction mattered.

Most of them she directed to Skyhold and she wished them well as she moved on. One, the strength of whose faith was almost tangible, she sent to the Seekers instead. The woman seemed grateful to be chosen; as she rode on for Kirkwall, Cassandra wondered how long that gratitude might last. Being a Seeker has never exactly been an easy path, and these days it's all the more difficult.

She's ridden most of the way here. She's tired down to her bones, and her horse is likely even more tired, but she still couldn't seem to keep still as the boat drew up into the harbour. She was pacing in the prow as they passed the Twins - she's been here more than once before and the massive, looming statues never feel any less imposing. But she was distracted from that feeling this time by the purpose of her visit. It's been on her mind for weeks.

The boat came into port and it lingered there for a thoroughly excessive length of time, awaiting clearance from the harbourmaster. Cassandra grew increasingly agitated as she stood, her jaw clenched and hands grasping the rail. Eventually, she was given permission to disembark, and she led her horse from the boat toward the nearest stables; she left them the horse with enough coin to pay to board it, then she made her way into the city. She hadn't missed Kirkwall, but she didn't suppose she was there to see the sights.

The first place she went was the Gallows. She made herself known to the new commander of the city's Templars - she assured him that she had no interest in investigating Kirkwall's Templar Order and was in fact present there for personal reasons. She then made her way to her second stop: the viscount's palace in Hightown.

She was received, as she had been on her previous visit, by Bran Cavin. She was ushered into the viscount's office and he motioned at the viscount's desk. He sighed, and she understood: the desk was stacked with paperwork and the viscount's chair was empty.

"Where is he?" Cassandra asked him. They both knew exactly who she meant. There was no one else it could have been.

"He said if you came, you would know where to find him," he replied, and she supposed he was right about that. She hadn't expected to find him in the palace. She would have been much more surprised if she had. She told herself she'd gone there to make her presence known officially; were she honest with herself, however, and she did try to be honest, she might just have been prolonging the inevitable. Not avoiding it, no. Just setting it back for an hour or two.

She scoffed at herself. Her behaviour was ridiculous. Her nerves were unbecoming. So, she thanked the seneschal and she turned for the door.

One more stop and her journey would finally be at an end.

Chapter Text

It all started with a lie she didn't mean to tell.

It was perhaps four months into their tenure in Skyhold. She had just returned from the Hissing Wastes and she was making her way across the courtyard to her quarters, still feeling like she had half the desert in her shoes. She was too hot underneath her leathers, as if the western sun had followed her home with a trickle of sweat down the line of her back. She was exhausted from the journey and she felt utterly disgusting. And then, all too suddenly, there was her Aunt Elise, appearing in front of her like some kind of ill-timed, ill-placed mirage.

Cassandra stopped in her tracks as the Inquisition soldier who was leading her aunt through the castle paused and pointed at her from across the courtyard. Her aunt said something to the soldier - probably something mildly admonishing about the fact that pointing was rude, because in her youth Cassandra had received that same admonishment more than once - and then she turned to wave at her. The only thing that Cassandra wanted in the world was a bowl of water with which to wash off the sand, and fresh clothes to change into that weren't still faintly sticky with days-old dragon blood, but she sighed and she steeled herself as she made her way toward her aunt. She was standing there waiting with her two female companions and the concerned-looking soldier.

"Cassandra!" said her Aunt Elise. "My dear, you look..." She wrinkled her nose as she looked her up and down, and Cassandra raised her eyebrows at her. "You look purposeful," Elise said, which Cassandra supposed was both quite diplomatic for her aunt and also the truth of the matter. She did have a purpose. She had had that purpose for a very long time, and she was very, very proud of it. She was proud of her place with the Seekers and how she served the Inquisition. It made her strive to be worthy of all the faith that had been placed in her. Now here was her aunt in a pretty dress, standing in the middle of a Skyhold training yard. It was as if her childhood had sprung out of the past to pay a visit.

Elise was not a bad person, Cassandra thought. She was a little frivolous, but no more so than the majority of nobles were, no matter where you went in Thedas. She could remember thinking, one time when Aunt Elise had come to the Necropolis to visit, that she reminded her of her mother, though she couldn't quite remember why or how. The only real issue was that she had always seemed a little obsessed with ensuring the smooth course of her niece's love life, despite the fact that said niece was in service to the Divine. It was...awkward. It always had been awkward. She could have bested half the men to whom her aunt had introduced her with one hand tied behind her back, then bested the other half with both hands tied. There hadn't even been a single dragon hunter amongst them.

"Aunt Elise, what are you doing here?" Cassandra asked.

"Well, that's not much of a welcome!" Elise replied. "I came to visit my niece, of course. We haven't seen you for years, Cassandra. And even then, it's always in Orlais." She cocked her head. "Though I suppose they do know how to throw a party."

Her aunt's companions nodded their agreement and Cassandra made a face.

"We don't throw parties here," she said.

"No, but there's such an interesting variety of people!" Elise swept her arms wide and gestured all around them, which wasn't quite as indicative as she might have liked it to be. The only people nearby were soldiers in the midst of training and Blackwall helping the stablemaster lead a horse across the field. But Cassandra knew her aunt wasn't actually referring to the rank and file of the Inquisition, even if they actually were an interesting variety of people. They'd come from so many different places and so many different backgrounds: mages and warriors, Templars, merchants, healers... But Elise likely meant their diplomatic guests. Josephine had made sure that the Inquisition's halls were always lively, after all.

"You'll dine with me tonight, won't you, dear?" Elise went on. "At my table. And introduce me to the Inquisitor?"

Cassandra gritted her teeth. She nodded curtly. "Of course, Aunt Elise," she replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to..." She gestured at her sticky armour. Elise's eyes widened just a fraction.

"Oh, of course, I understand completely," Elise replied. "Until this evening, then." And she swept away with her companions following behind her, and the soldier jogging along at the rear.

Cassandra sighed and headed for her quarters. It was going to be a trying time.

---

The lie she told came later that night.

She went to dinner in the dining hall, though that was generally her custom only one night in four, and she met her aunt there, in conversation with a tall Orlesian baron in a mask. Elise introduced the baron as if he might be interested in marrying her niece, though Cassandra's sour expression at her aunt's perpetual meddling seemed to put him off. Still, dutifully, she introduced Elise to the Inquisitor, and grimaced when her aunt asked him if he didn't think her favourite niece would look so much better in a dress. The Inquisitor said something very diplomatic in response and then excused himself. Cassandra made a note to apologise when she saw him next.

"You know, you'll never find yourself a man if you always look stronger than he does," Elise told her, as they made their way to the table. She tapped on Cassandra's upper arm, over the Seeker robe she was wearing. She wasn't sure she even owned a dress; Divine Justinia had certainly never demanded that she wear one.

She sighed. "I don't need to find a man," she replied.

Elise tilted her head. "Why?" she asked. "Did you find one already?"

And that was the moment when she told the lie: Cassandra said yes before she had a chance to stop herself from doing it. The word came out of her mouth completely and utterly unbidden, almost as if someone else had said it. And, once she'd said it, it got out of control almost immediately.

"So, who is he?" Elise asked her, brightly, as Cassandra's stomach sank.

She glanced around the room. She knew she should correct her error - her lie, she supposed - but she was just so very tired. Sick, even. Sick and tired. She'd heard this argument so many times, and she'd argued back so many times, she'd been beaten down so many times, that she just cast around the room for inspiration. She didn't call on Andraste or the Maker but she supposed she might as well have. And her gaze came to rest on one person in particular.

"Varric," she said, under her breath. Unintentionally, but even so. She definitely said it.

"Varric?" her aunt replied.

Cassandra's gaze snapped back to Elise. She hadn't quite been aware that she'd said it out loud until she heard it spoken back to her. It shocked her. It actually vaguely horrified her, now she thought about it - she wasn't used to feeling so entirely out of her own control. But she set her jaw and she raised her chin and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Varric Tethras."

"The writer?"

"The writer."

Elise paused, likely to calculate if she was able to be pleased by this or not. Varric wasn't Nevarran nobility or a Mortalitasi of any renown. He wasn't a baron from Orlais or even a Tevinter magister. He was, however, from a relatively respectable family in a city-state of the Free Marches, and a very popular writer. Possibly rich. Definitely famous.

"Oh!" Elise said, after a relatively long moment. "Well, why didn't you say so?" And Cassandra knew she should have told her it was nonsense that she'd made up on the spot to put a stop to the old, familiar conversation, but her aunt just wouldn't stop talking. She couldn't get a word in edgewise, though that did still feel like an excuse.

It was the next morning by the time Cassandra had resolved to deal with the situation properly. She changed into her uniform and she strode out of her quarters, determined to admit that what she'd told her aunt was utterly fictitious. She would be firm about it, admitting her fault while explaining that her love life was out of bounds for conversation; she was a Seeker first and foremost and she didn't care if she never married. But as she came into the courtyard, she stopped abruptly. Varric stopped, too. He looked up at her. He set his hands on his hips.

"Seeker, why did your aunt just congratulate me on our relationship?" Varric asked her.

Cassandra groaned out loud; the anguished sound made Varric raise his brows. She would have liked to have turned around and walked away. She would have liked to have told him he must have misheard, and then...likely also walked away. She would have liked to have crossed her arms over her chest and glared until he threw up his hands and walked away himself. As it was, she did none of those things, and definitely not walking away. Her face did something entirely unbidden and also rather desperate as she shifted her weight awkwardly.

"My aunt Elise keeps telling me I need to find a husband," she told him, as she wrung her hands in front of her. "I wasn't expecting to see her here. I wasn't expecting to see her at all! And she asked me about marriage, again, the way she always does, as if there was nothing more to life than men. She took me off guard, and you were the first man I saw, and I said your name before I knew what I was doing."

She took a breath. She blew it out. It did not steady her.

"I'm going to tell her right now," she said.

Varric shrugged. "No need," he told her.

"You explained it to her?"

"No," he said. "I played along. Told her it's all very hush-hush, we're not ready to tell people yet, but since she's your aunt..."

It was a confusing moment. "Why?" she asked.

"Because now you owe me. I figure that's worth a little cooperation."

"Ah."

He reached up and patted her arm. "Chin up, Seeker," he said. "It could've been worse."

She frowned at him. "How, exactly? My aunt thinks we're a couple."

"You could've told her you were dating Dorian. Imagine how that would've gone."

She understood what he was getting at but actually, she couldn't help but think that Dorian might have been the better choice. He was charming and sociable. His manners were impeccable, when he chose to actually employ them. If you didn't know he had no interest in women whatsoever, he seemed like quite a catch. Cassandra's aunt might have thought so, too, and Dorian might even have been persuaded to play along with the ridiculous charade, possibly just because it would amuse him. And frankly, She would have preferred to owe a debt to Dorian than Varric.

But Varric just patted her on her arm again and then he walked away. He looked amused. He looked...pleased.

She watched him go. He wasn't unattractive, she supposed. He showed too much chest for polite society, but creative types were always permitted a certain level of leeway wherever they went. He was confident and an excellent fighter, though she didn't think for one second that Elise cared about his skills with a crossbow or a knife. Maybe this could work. Perhaps it would not be a disaster.

But then he turned and blew her a kiss across the courtyard. It rather ruined the moment, she thought.

---

Varric's intervention with her aunt both did and did not improve the situation.

For the next six days, Cassandra spent more time with Varric than she ever had before, at least while they were in Skyhold and not wandering Thedas with the Inquisitor. They trained together during the day - sometimes Bull and/or the Chargers joined them, or they sat off to the side and worked on weapons maintenance. Varric talked for very nearly every moment. He didn't seem to mind that Cassandra only responded to one question in five, and mostly only when goaded.

Then, in the evening, Varric joined her and her aunt for dinner in the hall. When Elise told her she'd look better in a dress, and asked Varric his opinion on the matter, he looked her up and down and shrugged.

"She looks fine the way she is to me," he said, and Cassandra raised her eyebrows at him. She'd expected some kind of teasing remark, but it didn't come. Cassandra found herself blushing not quite angrily as she glared into her cup.

On the seventh day, they left Skyhold for another trip into the desert. It was too hot in the day and then freezing cold at night, just as she remembered it. So, after dark, she sat with Varric at the campfire and attempted to avoid odd looks from Dorian and the Iron Bull. Cassandra was stifling laughter at Varric's bad jokes, however, so the odd looks were something of a given.

"You're getting along worryingly well of late," Dorian told the two of them, as he sipped his wine.

"They are, aren't they," Bull replied, and he squinted his eye mock-suspiciously at them. "What's going on, hmm?"

"Oh, leave them alone, you two," the Inquisitor said. "Isn't this at least ten times better than the bickering?"

Cassandra looked at Varric. Varric looked back at Cassandra. For a moment, it looked like he might have something to say about this, something cutting or perhaps just annoying, but instead he raised his cup to her. She did the same to him in return. It was strange, she thought, but not entirely unpleasant.

The next day, they fought a dragon. Another dragon. And afterwards, when they were cleaning the blood from their armour, Varric said, "I'll get your back." He dragged a cloth over her grimy armour and then rubbed it clean, and all Cassandra could do, oddly tongue-tied as she was, was mutter an awkward thank you.

"In this sun?" he replied. "Trust me, I'm doing myself a favour just as much as you."

It was true, she supposed, but she couldn't help but wonder if that was the whole story. It felt a little like they were keeping up their odd pretence for Aunt Elise, even out there in the desert.

Then, that night, when two of their tents were whipped away by wind while they were still in the middle of setting up camp, Varric turned to her and said, "You know, we could share."

"Not if you were the last dwarf in Orzammar," she told him.

"And what would I be doing in Orzammar, exactly?" he replied.

"I don't know," she said. "Perhaps you should go there. Or somewhere else that's very far away."

Varric eyed her skeptically. "You know, you're really not very good at this," he said.

"At what exactly?"

"Flirting."

Then he disappeared into the too-small tent that he was sharing with the Iron Bull. She sat there in the sandy wind and wondered if flirting was true. She didn't like to think so, but the pseudo-consoling way Dorian patted her arm told her she was fooling herself. Flirting. With Varric. It seemed odd, but they lived in odd times.

And when they got back, her Aunt Elise was already gone and on her way back to Nevarra. Josephine said Elise had agreed some quite generous funding for the Inquisition, and she thanked Cassandra for it, but Cassandra had a feeling that they owed it more to Varric's smooth talk. That and a lie she should have felt much worse for telling than she did.

"So, I guess you won't be needing my help anymore," Varric said, as the two of them exited Josephine's office. They paused by the fireplace, and Cassandra couldn't help but think there was something odd about the look on his face. He wasn't quite his usual cocky self, though he was smiling his usual smile. He was looking at her expectantly, but she didn't know what he expected.

Her throat felt tight all of a sudden. Her stomach was tied up in knots and her heart began to race. She couldn't quite place why, or what she was supposed to do to push it back, but it felt like she was on the edge of something. She could step back, or she could take a leap. She stepped back.

"I suppose I won't," she replied.

He nodded, and she couldn't tell if it was true but she thought his smile faded a fraction. Then she left him there without another word, and as she walked away, she told herself she was relieved that the charade had ended. There was no need for her to lie now. It was done.

But that night, once she'd slipped into bed and closed her eyelids, in the dark of her own thoughts behind them, she wasn't sure that was the truth.

That night, she felt closer to a coward than she ever had.

Chapter Text

Everything went back to normal after that. As normal as life ever was in Skyhold, she supposed, where life was never normal. But Cassandra had to admit that things did still feel odd in the aftermath of her aunt's visit.

She considered asking Varric to train with her again, because it actually had been effective in spite of all his talking. She considered it, but in the end she asked Krem and the Chargers to train with her instead, and she beat on their shields with her sword until her arms ached. They were good, but she couldn't help thinking that training with Varric had helped to keep her sharper. Also more irritated, yes, but still sharper.

Five weeks passed. The passing of time felt slow and faintly aggravating, with the Inquisition making slow progress with potential allies while fixing current allies' important but tedious problems. Still, that had always been the case before and it certainly hadn't changed now. It just felt different, in an entirely nonsensical way that Cassandra would have struggled to explain to herself, let alone to anyone else. She longed for a problem she could solve with a sword.

In the sixth week, she traveled to Halamshiral with the Inquisitor for Empress Celene's ball. She wore her Inquisition uniform, as did all the other members of their party, and she felt surprisingly at ease in it. Varric arched an eyebrow at her as the herald announced her name, and she shook her head as she looked away from him - they did always insist on using all the names. And, later that evening, he asked her to dance. She assumed he was mocking her, or teasing her at the very least, but there was something strained in the expression on his face as she scoffed and told him no. Perhaps he simply wasn't used to rejection, whether his requests were genuine or not.

But later, after the ball, not actually that night but in her tent on the way back to Skyhold, she wondered what it might have been like if she'd said yes. She wasn't much of a dancer herself. Maybe he was, but she couldn't quite believe that was true. She was so much taller than him, too - wouldn't they have looked ridiculous together, stumbling about the ballroom? People would have talked, and she beat her pillow with her fist then planted her face into it as she thought about that. She liked to think she didn't care what people thought of her, but she had to wonder if that was actually the truth. She'd told her Aunt Elise that she was dating Varric, after all. She'd lied to make things simpler for herself. And if she truly hadn't cared what all those masked Orlesian faces would have thought of her, or of him, or of the two of them together, she wasn't sure exactly what she might have done. Maybe danced with him. Maybe laughed. She didn't do much of that these days.

They'd barely been back in Skyhold for four days when the Inquisitor made up his mind to set out again, with Cassandra and Varric and Dorian with him. It was raining hard when they left the camp and it only rained harder the farther they walked. They trudged through mud up to their ankles, making their way toward the village where they'd arranged to meet their contact, but the rain just came down harder. They slipped with every step and Dorian produced some interesting cursing. Cassandra could barely see five feet in front of her, despite the helmet she was wearing keeping the streams of water out of her eyes, and she wasn't certain how the others were managing. They had to shout over the roar of it.

They kept moving forward, perhaps mostly because they weren't sure that they could find their way back to the Inquisition camp. They were skirting the foot of a tall, rocky hill and the mud slaking down it seemed to aim to wash away their path back to camp. So they moved forward, sticking to the stony path that was barely even visible, until they came to a river. They had expected to, but what they found did not entirely match their expectations: the river was full almost to overflowing, with the roiling water beating at the worn sides of the bridge. It did not look stable. It did not inspire confidence.

"I don't think we should cross that," Varric shouted.

"I don't think we have a choice," Cassandra shouted back.

The Inquisitor agreed with her, and so they started out across the bridge. They were ankle-deep in muddy water, and Cassandra's feet soaked through but that was far from her first concern. She could feel the bridge swaying under them. She could see the branches of a fallen tree that had been swept downstream to founder against the bridge's side. The branches were in the way when what happened next happened: as she stood there on the waterlogged bank with Varric, mercifully having crossed already, she didn't see the next tree coming. It was a great cracked, scorched thing that had perhaps been struck by lightning, and she only saw it after - as the bridge collapsed into the river behind them and was swept away with it.

Her heart sank. She couldn't make out the far bank for the pouring rain and she shouted her throat raw calling out to Dorian and the Inquisitor. Varric did the same, standing there beside her; he cupped his hands to his mouth as if anything could help his voice travel over the howl of the wind and the lashing of rain, and the river that could so easily have drowned them. Perhaps it actually had drowned the Inquisitor and Dorian. She couldn't tell, and as the river began to encroach further on the bank, turning the grass into a marshland and then swallowing it whole, they had to run or risk being swept away themselves.

They made their way on, around the hill and then up it. It was hard going, and the rain didn't let up for a second; they slipped one step in three and then, in a dramatic flash of lightning across the darkened sky, they saw it: there was a fortress looming over them. Varric gestured at it rather than try to shout again, and Cassandra nodded her agreement. They headed for the fortress, climbing and slipping and climbing and slipping for at least another hour or more. But the bridge that led to its rotten portcullis was intact, and so they had found somewhere to shelter. Ominous as the place looked, somehow even more so close up than it had from far away, they were out of the rain at last.

"They'll come this way," Varric said, as they were wandering down a musty old corridor, dripping as they went. "They'll follow the hill and they'll...well, you honestly can't miss this place."

Cassandra removed her helmet and tucked it underneath her arm. "I suppose not," she replied. She didn't say there was no guarantee that their companions were even alive, because she assumed he knew that and had chosen to gloss over it. She didn't mention they might have lost the Herald of Andraste to a rainstorm.

"This is a Warden outpost, right?" he said next. "All these griffons...it's got to be."

She made a noncommittal noise as they moved on, though it was mostly because the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end and not because she disagreed with his assessment. She did agree - it was obviously a Grey Warden fortress. On the small side when compared with Adamant or Weisshaupt, but still clearly Warden-made if utterly deserted. Hopefully deserted. Something about that notion prickled at her skin and made her shiver even more than the chill of her soaked clothes.

"Why is Warden shit always so..." Varric spread his arms wide and turned in a circle as they walked. He miraculously did not trip over his own feet and land in a heap on the floor. He gestured at the dour statues that lined the seemingly endless corridor that ran under the battlements.

"So...what?" she asked him.

"So creepy," he replied.

"Hmm." She shrugged. Her broadsword shifted against her back and the weight of it was oddly comforting. "I suppose when your entire purpose is to fight the Blight, your perspective changes." She looked at the statues, tall and imposing like sleeping stone giants, then she met Varric's gaze. "I don't like this either," she admitted, lowering her voice. "It feels..."

"Like we're not alone?" She nodded. He winced. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

They came out into a courtyard and they skirted around it, under the low portico to keep out of the rain. It was cold and Cassandra was trying not to shiver again as they made their way through the fortress, not intending a complete investigation but she did feel they needed to locate the source of their unease. They paused to rest and eat a portion of travel rations in a small chapel with crumbling wooden pews that they had to brush off their clothes when they stood again. And they moved on, as the sky darkened, as the already thin daylight that made its way through the storm turned into night instead.

They lit torches that flickered in the wind that seemed to follow them down every corridor and cast odd dancing shadows over both their faces. Her sword was too big for her to use in the connecting spaces, though she would have felt far easier with it in her hands; she muttered about it to herself and Varric tapped her arm, made her look at him, and passed her a dagger from his belt. She frowned at it for a second and then took it with a nod. The weight of it against her palm was just a fraction of her sword's, but she gripped the hilt and felt at least a little reassured.

Then they came out into the fortress's main hall. Cassandra's eyes narrowed. She saw Varric ease Bianca from his back. There was nothing there, but there was something there, something in the shadows that their torches cast, in the hiss of the rain against the high, broken windows.

"Do you feel that?" Varric murmured. He was close at her side - not close enough to obstruct her if she drew her sword, but close.

She glanced at him and nodded sharply. "Yes," she replied. She didn't need to ask what he meant. There was something there. And when it moved, Varric moved with it: he was between the thing and her before she could make a move to stop him, and the next thing she knew he was wide-eyed and spitting blood. Her own eyes went just as wide. She grasped him and she fled.

She dragged him out of there, her heart pounding in her chest or in her throat as she looked back over her shoulder to see if they were being followed. They weren't, not yet - she could feel it, and she could hear it, the low rumbling laughter underneath the storm. All she could do was make her way back to the chapel and hope that Varric's injuries weren't as bad as they'd seemed.

Maker, they were worse. The thing had stabbed him through the back and all Cassandra could do was curse their lack of potions as she pulled off his armour and dressed the bleeding wound as best she could. There was blood on his chin and when she tried to rub it off with her glove, he chuckled at her. She frowned at him.

"Why did you do that?" she asked him. "It was coming for me. You stepped in front of it. Why?"

He shrugged and then he grimaced. "I figured we need you more than we need me right now," he said.

"Why?"

"It's a ghost, right? Something like a ghost, at least. You're Nevarran. You probably know all about ghosts."

She grimaced. "I...don't," she told him.

He snorted. "Well, shit," he said. "I just sacrificed myself for nothing."

She smiled but it was a weak thing. And when she tried to rub the blood from his chin again, it was fresh this time. She'd lost the Inquisitor. Now she was losing Varric, too.

He slipped in and out of consciousness over the next few hours. They had no potions thanks to a short diversion they'd taken to avoid a stream that had burst its banks, where they'd found a small band of farmers and their families who had been caught in a landslide while abandoning their flooded land. They'd distributed their potions between the injured, thinking they would just replenish supplies at the next Inquisition camp, but the next Inquisition camp hadn't come before the broken bridge. All she could do was keep her eyes open in case the thing he'd called a ghost came back, and hope he kept on living. Until the storm broke and she could get help.

She wasn't sure that ghosts existed, or at least not in the way that he meant it. She had never seen a ghost in her time in the Necropolis. There were spirits there, yes. Wisps. Undead. An occasional demon that the Mortalitasi - like her uncle - had dealt with in order to keep them all safe, but she'd never seen a ghost. She didn't think that this was a ghost, either, but its presence needled at something within her. It was still in the hall. She was almost positive of that, though she imagined she could sense it moving in there, pacing, waiting, though what it could be waiting for she wasn't sure. But as the minutes ticked into hours, as the night went on, she understood: it was waiting, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. She was a Seeker of Truth. She would not wait for death to come to her. She would not fail to keep him safe.

She went to the hall. She strode down the corridors, pulling her faith around her like a cloak. She was a Seeker of Truth. She was strong. She had purpose. Then, when she opened the door, she understood: purple lightning crackled and the pride demon stepped from the shadows. When she drew her sword, it laughed at her. Then she attacked.

She kept on attacking until her arms ached. She shouted, and she kept on shouting till her throat was raw. And when she came back to the chapel, one arm hanging limply at her side, blinking a thin trickle of blood out of her eye, she knelt at Varric's side. She prayed, kneeling there with her gloved hands resting on his chest.

After a minute or two, his eyes slowly blinked open. He looked up at her and she made a face down at him.

"What, no quip?" she asked him.

"No quip, Seeker," he replied. His voice sounded thick and there was blood on his breath. "I believe in the Maker just like you do." Then he shuffled one hand over hers and closed his eyes again.

Once or twice after that, Varric came to and he smiled at her in the torchlight like that might reassure her he was still alive, but she didn't have the heart to tell him that his teeth were bloody. She made a fire when he started to shiver, not that the fire seemed to help him, and she tucked her still slightly damp blanket around him on top of his own. And when he came to next, she asked him to tell her a story, mostly just to try to keep him conscious.

He smiled slowly, and he told her a story. It was about a princess who lived in a castle but she wanted to fight dragons, so she set out from the castle to go and do exactly that. She journeyed all along the coast, searching caves and solving puzzles, finding treasure, getting rich, but there was no dragon to be found there. But his words came more and more slowly as the story continued. The pauses became more and more frequent, until he ground to a halt with a sigh.

"Go on," she said. "I want to know what happens next."

"Tomorrow," he said. He smiled wryly. "I'm tired. Seeker, let me sleep." And when he closed his eyes, she didn't make him open them.

His skin was freezing cold when she reached over to brush the blood from his face again. She leaned in to tuck the blanket tighter, and she found herself pausing there. Her chest felt tight, and her throat felt tight, too, like she wanted to scream or to cry or to hit something, or maybe all of those things at once. She didn't want him to die. Uselessly, that was the thought that came to her, as she stroked the blood from his neck and she looked at him. She didn't want him to die, and she could do absolutely nothing to help him. All she could do was lean a little lower and press her lips against his forehead. All she could do was shift a little and press her lips against his cheek, not exactly like a prayer.

"A little to the left," he said, dryly, thinly, not even opening his eyes. She laughed, perhaps a little hysterically. Then she kissed his mouth, pressed her lips to his, because she wasn't sure what else to do.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't... There's nothing..." She shook her head. She had no more words.

"Don't be sorry," he replied. "It's not your fault, Seeker. I made a choice." He smiled faintly. He squeezed her hand. "I chose you."

Then she stretched out at his side. She wrapped one arm over his waist, below the wound that was killing him.

By the morning, he'd be dead.

---

The sun was in her eyes when she woke up, and she could hear the clatter of someone not very careful coming closer.

She sat up and she reached for her sword, but when the chapel door swung open and she came up to her feet, it was Dorian and the Inquisitor. She wasn't sure that she'd ever been so grateful to see anyone in her entire life, and not just because it meant they hadn't lost the Herald of Andraste.

They had potions. Varric was still breathing, and they managed to coax him to drink one. He was going to live.

He was going to live, and the relief of that realisation made her sit down heavily on the nearest pew and drop her head into her hands. She could have cried. Perhaps she did.

He was going to live. She just wasn't sure how she was going to be able to face him again.

Chapter Text

Varric wasn't dead, but there were some things even potions couldn't heal. He was just going to have to do it the old-fashioned way, which meant waiting for a while.

Cassandra visited him in the Skyhold infirmary while he was still in and out of consciousness, and then while he was sleeping like that was maybe a competition he could win. She made awkward conversation with the nurses who occasionally came in to check on him. She made awkward excuses for why she was there at first, but then Varric groaned from the bed and he told her, "No one cares what you're doing here, Princess." The nurse smiled, which appeared to be a very polite form of agreement. She stopped making excuses after that.

It turned out it was easier to face him than she'd thought it would be. And Princess was new, and it was faintly annoying, but she decided not to bring it up. He knew she had a complicated relationship with Nevarra, and she definitely wasn't a princess of it - being seventy-eighth in line for the throne most definitely did not grant her that particular title. And once, not so very long ago, she would have assumed that he was mocking her when he used that word, but...she wasn't quite so certain now. It seemed more fond than derisive, though fond did seem odd where Varric was concerned.

It was day four or five of bed rest and boredom when Varric asked her to read to him.

"What is this precisely?" she asked him, when he pushed a sheaf of papers at her. She dropped several of them and leaned down to fish them off the floor. Fortunately, they were numbered; unfortunately, the numbers were very near illegible. She sighed and started shuffling them around.

"A story," he replied. He was still lying on a bed in the infirmary, in a pair of not exactly flattering pyjamas, though the shirt was unbuttoned to halfway down his chest so that did seem rather like him. "I've been writing. Helps with the boredom. These four walls aren't exactly brimming with excitement."

She looked down at the papers that he'd shoved into her hands. "When did you find time for that?" she asked. She waved the papers at him accusingly. "And your handwriting is atrocious."

"My handwriting is fiiiiiine," he replied. He didn't answer the question about timing, which probably meant he was writing while he was actually meant to be asleep. Probably squinting in front of a lamp and getting ink all over the sheets. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Hey, if you don't want to, I'll ask Josie to read it," he told her. "She just giggles at the smutty parts. It's cute."

"There are smutty parts?" Cassandra asked.

Varric laughed, then he held his ribs, but the smile didn't quite leave his face. "There are definitely smutty parts," he replied. "I mean, it's Swords and Shields. Of course there's smutty parts."

So, she read the story to him. He said it was useful for editing, and he kept telling her to stop and add bits in, so she supposed that must be true - it felt wrong the first few times she did it, like she was defacing something holy, but she also knew how ridiculous that sounded and how badly he would have teased her if those words had ever left her mouth. So she kept on going. He even let her take the finished pages with her to reread alone before she went to bed.

It went on for days. They argued back and forth about the words he wanted to add or take away, important adjectives about the knight-captain's hair in the breeze and the unrealistic swordplay, until the nurses came in and told them they were disturbing the other patients, so they kept it down. She blushed as she read out the smutty parts and he laughed and told her to go on, until she didn't feel embarrassed anymore. She just read them out, and she saved her blushing for night in her own bedroom.

"I don't think this is possible," she said, late one afternoon in the second week, as she pointed at a paragraph.

"Sure it is," he told her. "You just need to use a little imagination."

"I think you used too much imagination," she muttered in reply, and he cackled about it. She knew she was being goaded, and she found she didn't particularly mind. But then the door swung open and in walked Hawke. He'd returned from Weisshaupt a couple of days prior; Cassandra was starting to wonder if he'd done so entirely to annoy her.

"Reading again?" he said, as he sat himself down on the end of the bed. "Can I have a look at that?" Cassandra looked at Varric and he flapped his hand in Hawke's direction, so she passed the papers to him. He looked at them, and he scanned a few lines, then he gave Varric a sceptical look. "Oh, this is terrible," he said. "Do people really read this?"

Cassandra felt indignance flare inside her chest. Her face flushed, but she forced herself to keep quiet and not defend the book. It likely wouldn't have ended well.

"It has its audience," Varric replied. "Not you, Hawke. I'm pretty sure I've never seen you read anything. Can you read? But other people."

"I'll have you know I read very well," Hawke replied, in a faux-offended tone. Then he launched into an oddly dramatic reading of the smut they'd just been arguing over. He paused. He looked from one of them to the other and then back again, like something had occurred to him, but the moment passed. Then he paused again and tapped the page.

"I don't think this is possible," he said, and Cassandra threw up her hands.

"That's what I said!" she told him.

"Maker's breath, Hawke, don't encourage her."

But it was too late: they broke off from reading for the day, and Cassandra excused herself. As she turned to close the door behind her, she saw Hawke taking her seat by Varric's bed and putting his feet up on the mattress. Where indignance had pushed its way up before, now she felt a flush of jealousy, as ridiculous as she knew that was. She had no reason to be jealous. Not of Hawke. Not of anyone. Varric was...a teammate. An acquaintance. Possibly a friend, if she stretched the definition.

In the third week, the nurse asked Cassandra to make sure Varric got some exercise. Enough, but not too much - she was careful to stipulate, and although she didn't actually specify what either of those things would look like, there was a look on her face as if she had misinterpreted the entire situation. Cassandra gawped at her in a very un-Seeker-like manner and failed entirely to ask any questions, which Varric didn't hesitate to point out when she went back into the room.

"So, what do you suggest I do to get this exercise?" Varric asked her. He was sitting up with his back to the headboard and his hands behind his head, with a look on his face that made her frown at him. He wiggled his eyebrows. She frowned at him harder.

"Perhaps you should ask Hawke," she replied. "He would have some ideas."

"The nurse asked you."

"The nurse thinks..." She sighed. "The nurse has very odd ideas about the realities of the world around her."

"Hawke has very odd ideas about what constitutes exercise. You know we used to run everywhere? I swear, my calves have never been the same."

He paused and looked at her as she loitered there near the door, not entirely sure if she should stay or go.

"You know, I know you kissed me," he told her.

Cassandra made a face. She supposed she'd been waiting for him to mention that since they'd come back from their rainswept travels, but as the time had passed she had started to hope he wouldn't mention it at all. She'd told herself if she was lucky, he wouldn't remember, or perhaps he would convince himself he'd dreamed it. Of course, she was not that lucky.

"A moment of madness," she replied.

"Not a moment of weakness?" He scrunched up his face. "Sorry, I forgot. You don't have those."

She sighed. "I do," she said.

"You do?"

"Of course I do." She sighed again, irritated. She sat down on the chair by the door. "I believed you were going to die, Varric," she said.

"So you kissed me because, what, you thought I'd be too dead to remember in the morning?"

"Something like that, yes."

"I'm not dead, though."

"No, you're not."

"And I do remember."

"So it appears."

"So, what now?"

"Now you tease me mercilessly for my moment of..." She smiled wryly. "My moment of weakness, and we move on."

"I wasn't planning to tease you, Princess."

"Then what were you going to do?"

"Maybe I was gonna ask if you'd do it again."

She rose abruptly.

"Cassandra..."

"Don't."

"Cassandra." He paused. "Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena...does it keep going after that?"

She sighed. "It keeps going," she confirmed, and she sat back down again, heavy and deflated. "What do you want, Varric?" she asked.

For a moment, it looked like he had something to say. For a moment, she almost wanted him to say it. But his mouth twisted and he shrugged.

"I just want you to stay," he said. "We've got a lot of book left."

But what they actually did was go for a walk around the courtyard outside, because the nurse had entrusted a job to Cassandra and Cassandra felt that as she hadn't turned it down, it had now become her duty. They moved slowly, pausing here and there so Varric could heckle the Chargers while they were training or say hello to Cullen, who seemed surprised to see him up and about. Cassandra was worried he was doing too much and so she had him sit down on a bench with her, not that she'd ever been particularly good at either casual conversation or sitting still. But Hawke came over, all bluster as usual, and Cassandra excused herself to go speak with the Inquisitor. She did not, in fact, actually need to speak with the Inquisitor.

"Hawke, if you keep chasing her away like that we're gonna need to have a conversation," she heard Varric telling Hawke.

"You're the one who keeps letting her leave, Varric," Hawke replied. "Besides, you do know she's entirely too good for you? Or me. Or any of us, really. She's very nearly royalty."

"Yeah, I know," Varric said drily. "She's practically a princess."

Cassandra left as quickly as she could at that point and made her way inside. She really didn't want to know what Varric would say next, though she also very much did. She was just also aware that eavesdropping was considered rude, as he Aunt Elise had told her many times. Eavesdropping is not polite, Cassandra. Don't point, Cassandra; pointing is rude. When are you going to get married, Cassandra? She groaned as she went up into the hall.

Perhaps an hour later, she finished her impromptu meeting with the Inquisitor and she made her way outside to train a little. The slight issue with this was she found Hawke talking to Cullen in the courtyard, with a rather sheepish look on his face as he was explaining that Varric had overdone it with the exercise. She decided not to publicly chastise him, which might have ended with her publicly slapping him, and instead strode away to the infirmary. She let herself into Varric's room. She sat down heavily on the chair inside the door, with a thunderous look on her face.

"You were worried about me," Varric said.

"Yes!" she replied.

He walked over from the bed. Limped, really, though his legs hadn't been the issue, so she wasn't entirely sure what was hurting in a way that produced limping. He put his hand on her shoulder. She was still angry. At him, at Hawke, at herself for letting it happen when she knew the nurse had left the job with her. He put his hand on her cheek and it felt very warm, even warmer than her face was and her face was hot with anger. He was close to her. Extremely close, and getting closer. And she realised what was happening in the instant before it actually happened, with no time at all to protest.

He kissed her. She froze. He pulled back with a sigh and he shook his head, but he didn't walk away. He loitered there, barefoot in his terrible pyjamas.

"Are you teasing me, Varric?" she asked him. She looked down and realised she had two handfuls of the front of his shirt, but she didn't let go.

"I'm pretty sure I'm kissing you," he replied. Then he leaned in again and kissed her forehead. Her cheek. Her chin, for heaven's sake.

"Why?" she asked.

"C'mon, you're really gonna make me say it?"

"Yes."

He shifted back half a step, which was all he could manage with her hands still gripping his shirt.

"Well, you're an attractive woman, Cassandra Pentaghast," he told her.

She scoffed.

"And it turns out I like you. You know, when you're not being really, really annoying."

"I annoy you?"

"Sure. And I annoy you. It's just a fact of life, Princess. You know it and I know it."

Cassandra made a face but she didn't disagree. They did, in fact, annoy each other.

"Honestly? I might be a little bit in love with you." He held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger barely an inch apart. "Just a little."

"Oh."

She blinked at him ridiculously, as if he'd just this second started speaking Qunlat. He really might as well have, because this really didn't seem to make sense.

Varric was in love with her. He had almost died protecting her. He'd backed up her ridiculous lie and though she wasn't entirely certain that was moral, she was also grateful that he had. She remembered how her chest had hurt when she'd believed he was dying. Weeks of arguments, some that they had definitely meant and others that they definitely hadn't. He was infuriating. She couldn't imagine what her life would be like without him in it.

"So what do you suggest we do now?" she asked.

He shrugged, but she knew exactly what he meant.

---

She didn't go to Varric's room that night.

She waited until two nights later, when he'd had an appropriate amount of rest and the limp had gone away again. She didn't bother hiding the fact that she was there; the staff in the infirmary were accustomed to her visiting, so she simply walked into the room and locked the door behind her as he watched her from the bed.

She stripped off all the clothes that she was wearing and Varric pushed back the sheets and pulled off his pyjamas. He sat back against the headboard and she straddled his thighs.

"You know you're stunning, right?" he said, and she blushed and made a face.

"I'm covered in scars," she replied. "What about this makes me stunning?"

"I've got a few of my own," he said. He took one of her hands. He led her fingers to the bridge of his nose, paused to kiss her palm, then brought her hand to the scar at his chest. The small one where the pride demon had skewered him all the way through and somehow missed every vital organ. "What do you think, do they make me less handsome?"

She laughed. She cupped his jaw in her hands and she rested her forehead against his and she told him, "No, of course they don't," before she tilted up his chin and kissed him.

"You're stunning," he told her again, as he ran his hands over her thighs and paused to squeeze her hips. "Even covered in dragon guts." He ran his hands higher, over her waist, her ribs, her breasts, his thumbs catching her nipples before he reached up and traced the scar at her cheek. "But especially like this."

"Are you trying to embarrass me?"

"I'm trying to turn you on."

"Then you're doing a terrible job."

He laughed. He grinned at her, then he pulled her down into a kiss. He said, "Oh, I'm just getting started, Princess," then he led one of her hands down between his thighs. And actually, she appreciated how direct that was, no additional words needed. She wrapped her hand around him as she felt herself throb with it. She took one of his hands and she brought it down between her thighs and he seemed to get the idea from that, though he arched his eyebrows at her. He traced the place where her lips met with his fingertips, and then he teased in past them. She bit her lip and stroked him, too. And when he was hard, when he was leaking from the tip and red in the face, she shifted to rub him against her. She was so clearly ready by then that it didn't take much for her to push him inside.

She pulled his hair as she rode him, as he gripped her hips with both his hands. And when it was over, she didn't stay the night. She wasn't sure if she was welcome to or not, and she didn't have the words to ask. She told him goodnight and he shook his head at her.

In the morning, she wasn't sure how she would face him, but he sat down next to her at breakfast and they argued, about something petty that she'd entirely forgotten not even half an hour later. Then they went outside to walk around the castle garden and they argued about something else. He held her hand as they sat on a bench. Her face burned, but she didn't make him stop. And the next time, she stayed the night.

It lasted for another seven months. She finished reading the book to him and then he read it to her; he stumbled over her handwriting as much as she had with his, but it didn't exactly detract from the experience. The tone he used when he read the smutty parts made her shiver, but that didn't make the content of them any less infeasible: they tried to recreate a couple of scenes and they failed at all of them miserably. They found other things to do instead, but the scenes stayed in the book.

It lasted for another seven months, until she went to the Seekers and he returned to Kirkwall. She knew that had to happen - she supposed she'd known that all along, but that didn't mean that she was happy when it did. And when he told her not to be a stranger, when he told her he'd visit and that she should, too, she wasn't sure if he actually meant it.

But here she is. She supposes it's time to find out.

Chapter Text

She takes a room in the Hanged Man, two doors down from Varric's. She goes inside and she closes the door.

She strips and she washes and she changes her clothes. It's probably best she wasn't made Divine, she thinks, considering how naked she feels without a weapon on her, though she suspects that Leliana might be hiding knives under her robes. She eats half a bowl of something she supposes might be stew, but she has no real appetite, for that or for anything else. Perhaps because she's taken weeks to get here and she still doesn't know if she can actually go through with it. Varric is two rooms away and not at the far side of Thedas, through Orlais and Fereldan and across the Waking Sea. It ties her stomach up in knots and so she stands. She sighs. She makes up her mind to leave the room four separate times, and then she finally does it. She is a Seeker of Truth. She is not a coward.

She knocks on his door. "Door's open!" he calls back, and so she lets herself inside, and he sits there at the table with a mug of ale and a sheaf of papers that probably aren't from Seneschal Bran. She thinks he's probably writing again, and every time she reads a book he's written she remembers those days in the Skyhold infirmary. She's read all of them - she would have read them even if he hadn't sent her copies of them. He addresses them to her full name, including all of the middle ones, like he finds it funny. Her squire, a girl no older than Cassandra was when she first joined the order, definitely finds it funny.

He doesn't look up. She's standing there by the door and watching him as he writes for so long she almost thinks that he's forgotten the door opened, but then he puts down his pen and he picks up his tankard, and he glances at the doorway. He puts the tankard straight back down again. Quickly. She watches as he almost misses the table.

"Before you say anything," she says, as she's walking closer, having closed the door behind her, "I'm not here to see you."

"Sure you are," he replies. "What else is in Kirkwall?" She makes a face, because frankly she knows he's right: there is nothing else in Kirkwall that she cares to see. "Take a seat, Princess." He kicks out the chair that's opposite him at the table and she catches it before it can topple over.

"I suppose you won't believe me if I say I'm on my way to somewhere else," she says, as she sits down on the chair.

"I think we both know Kirkwall's not exactly on the way to anywhere."

"I might be recruiting in Rivain."

He shrugs. "Sure, you might be," he says. "But you're not."

"Well, no."

They pause. He drinks. They look at each other. It's been a while since she saw him, she thinks, but he still looks exactly the same as he always has, with so many of his buttons undone that he might as well be shirtless, and his hair only partially tied back. He wears it like that so often that she finds it strange when he doesn't, but she realises in a rush that the only times she's seen him with his hair loose have been behind a locked door in a bedroom. His. Hers. Skyhold. The Seekers' refuge in the Hunterhorn Mountains, when he came to visit her two years ago.

She's been telling herself she'll visit Kirkwall for so long now, but Varric is the only one out of the two of them that has actually paid a visit. He came to the Seekers on the edges of Orlais, with Cullen who came to bring them two promising recruits, and Hawke who frankly just seemed to be at a loose end. She knows Varric thought she was embarrassed by him, but in truth she didn't know how to let the Seekers see her like that - she tried to explain to him, sitting at her desk in her office once her squire had seen him in and seen herself out, but all he did was laugh and say, "It'll be good for them. It'll be good for you, too." Except then he frowned and asked if she wanted him to leave. She said she didn't. She said it quickly. She knew he knew she meant it.

It was the fifth night of his visit when they gave up the pretence of keeping two rooms. She remembers him walking through her bedroom, picking things up and putting them down like he wanted her to see them after he was gone and remember that he'd done it, like that way she'd find forgetting him impossible, and she couldn't find the words to tell him that she wasn't sure she ever would. Then, when she laughed at his terrible jokes at the dining table, when the Seekers looked at her as if she might have been possessed, she told herself to shrug it off. They could have faith and still have laughter. She could be their leader and still have this, too. It would just be...rare.

The visit lasted a month. There was no way for either of them to pretend that he just happened to be in the area, because there was nothing else in the area at all. He couldn't pretend he was on his way to somewhere else, because all there was to the west was mountains, and his home was at the other end of Thedas. It was odd, to know without a doubt that he'd travelled all that way for her, and only her, though he did admit his publisher had insisted that he make a stop in Val Royeaux. Apparently his books were selling better in Orlais than anyone had realised.

"You know, I ran into your Aunt Elise while I was there," he said, while they were in bed.

Cassandra remembers groaning. Her aunt had still been writing to her, even then - she still is now, despite the infrequency and unpredictability of messengers heading to the mountains.

"She says she hopes that we'll invite her to the wedding."

Cassandra groaned again. She dropped her head down against his chest.

"You know, I still keep in touch with her?" Varric said. "You never told her we weren't actually dating."

She picked up her head and peered down at him. "By the time I thought to write a letter, we actually were," she said, and he ruffled her hair so she slapped his hand away and made him laugh.

He'd stayed a month by the end, but he did still have to leave. She told herself it was for the best, because she still had work to do, but that didn't mean she wanted him to go. Or that she didn't fantasise about the possibility of going with him. She knew she couldn't, she knows she never could, but she still thinks about it even now.

"Did you miss me?" he asks her.

She did miss him. She's thought about him often - perhaps not every day, but close to it. Did she miss him?

"Yes."

He looks like he expected her to be sarcastic about it, or to flatly tell him no. He's completely derailed, frowning at her like he can't quite believe she said it. Like he can't believe she admitted it. Honestly, neither can she.

"I didn't think you were ever gonna come here," Varric says.

Her mouth twists wryly. "Neither did I," she replies. Then she goes over to him. She pushes the table away from him just a few inches, the legs scraping against the flood, so she can sit down straddling his lap. She feels faintly ridiculous about it but he smiles at her like it's the best thing that's happened to him in months. He runs his hands over her thighs.

"Are you pleased to see me?" she asks him.

"Always," he replies.

And it feels like it's time for her to lean down and kiss him now, so that's precisely what she does. But then she pulls back slowly. "You never told me what happened to the princess," she says, and he chuckles as he wraps his arms around her waist.

"She met a smart-mouthed bard," he says. "A real one, not the kind that stabs you in Orlais. He told stories about her. He told stories to her. And they lived happily ever after. The end."

"It's not your best story," she tells him.

"Maybe not," he replies. "But it's the one I like the most."

She likes it too, she thinks, even if it's just a fairy tale. Reality is harder.

But, for now, as she kisses him again, she's content with that.