the thing about Cassandra and Varric is that they are just SO GOOD, SO CHOICE, SO 👀🥺😳 because like…they hate each others guts, they have so much in common, they’re both the family renegade, they both lost their only brother, they both have grand, outsized public personas that eclipse the people they actually are, brave and stubborn and loyal to a fault, they would very probably - with little sentiment and hardly a second thought - die for each other, but lock them in a room together and you’d return to an icy silence at best, they won’t give each other a single goddamn inch, after their biggest fight both of them will apologise to YOU the Inquisitor and admit they were at least partly wrong but they both point-blank refuse to talk to each other, but Cassandra WILL speak to you earnestly and gently about Varric’s faith and his virtuous heart, and Varric WILL write an entire NOVEL just…for a joke…for the lulz… as if writing an entire smooshily romantic smutty romance novel is an absolutely normal amount of effort to put into a Jape™ for someone who hates you, because of COURSE they hate each other, Varric even tells Dorian outright that just because two people don’t get along doesn’t mean they’re going to kiss, not like in his books, but the thing is his books are EVERYTHING because he believes in stories and so does Cassandra, it’s how they met after all, they’re both romantics, idealists, people who care so much about the world and everyone in it, people who believe deep down in sunsets and roses and happy endings and heroes, she dragged him halfway across the world because she believed he could help and he stayed because he wanted to believe it too, she loves his books but she can’t stand HIM of course she can’t, she’s a Seeker of Truth and he’s a professional liar, and he’ll get along with just about anybody, embrace the rogues and reprobates of the world with open arms but not HER, she expects too little of him and demands too much, she’s got a stick up her ass except when she doesn’t and he takes nothing seriously except when he does, but no they’ll just keep sniping and bickering like an old married couple and fighting side by side as the world falls apart around them, looking everywhere with eyes wide open except at each other