there is no use for her bow when she ascends the stairs to the inquisitor’s chambers, knocking again on the door once, then twice —— a coded rhythm to identify herself. she crosses the threshold, lit only by candlesticks and chandeliers threatened in flickers by the constant gales from the open windows. ❛❛ your worship, ❜❜ she greets the silhouette overlooking the midnight balcony with even tones, ❛❛ here are the reports you requested from commander cullen about the arrangements to orlais. and the ambassador wanted me to remind you about … your worship ? ❜❜ something is different about this air. salt - sharp, fragrant, the call of an unknown element crying in alarm. the shadow on the balcony walks in and she is envious of the candlelight when it touches him the way she cannot. her lord is older than the man she saw at the conclave, older still than the boy she remembered from the distant, watery dreams of her childhood. it frightens her, the way dreams of demons and lyrium veins once did ( and still do ) , but those dreams are not as tangible as she is.
she stands still like an idiot when he cages her against his desk with his arms, takes one of her hands. @nowincolor ( as roy ) brings it close, dangerously closer to where the line of his shirt ends and the flesh of his collarbone began, right above his sternum, and suddenly his face is too close when he whispers : can you feel my heart beating ?
wait. wait —— the world has taught her too much and yet nothing at all. he is warm, a perfect imitation of a dying fireplace. under the pads of her fingers her bones echo the tremors of his heart, the anxious closing of her throat, the way her eyelashes flutter in an effort to wake her from this hallucination, because it had to be. ❛❛ my lord — ❜❜ somehow he might have found the desperation she so keenly tried to hide in the wavering of her voice, because she swears on the maker his eyes narrow into such keen focus and she falters. she has not wanted many men in her life ; her father’s isolation made her a stranger to civilisation, the templars devoted themselves to their duty more than each other, even ferelden in the blight had love strangled out of it. but here, in a corner of the world tucked away behind mountains behind stone walls. now.
answer his question. serve him — ❛❛ yes. ❜❜ the hand by his chest grasps at the fabric, a crossroads between pulling him closer and pushing him away. he had always been so untouchable, because a pedestal was the best place to put anything she loved, far away and revered. there had always been something between them, but to name it meant it existed, and so she danced around it, he refused to acknowledge it ( beyond, of course, his incessant jokes and teasing that struck a little too close to its target ) , and so it went. so it would, until she would die taking an arrow for him, taking any hit for him. she was content to love a statue for the rest of her life, who would notice everything in the room but the boyish soldier behind him. but things have changed too fast, they have gone through the length of multiple apocalypses within the span of a lifetime.
❛❛ i … wait — ❜❜ events happen in reverse ; she denies him and yet her hands pull him closer, and she laughs at the nights when her subconscious used to lull her about the way his hair would feel when she could rake it with her fingers. ❛❛ no. ❜❜ then clearer, ❛❛ no, my lord. this is wrong. you can’t possibly … i’m not a templar anymore. i have no title outside being your vassal. you’re the inquisitor, and … all of thedas needs you, more than i do. so please … ❜❜ please ? what mercy did she deserve ? the stay of the sword she wanted to kiss her neck ? the lust for the dagger of his attention ? breathing is painful, because breathing means knowing he is electric, the air around him always is, and maker —— she wants him, more than want could say. she has since that terrible, ambitious boy walked through her father’s door, since she saw him with war - scorched eyes at kinloch, since envy ate her alive at ferelden, since forever began —
she does not know who kisses who first. in the end, such a little thing matters.
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