You like to dance.
Ellana kisses her first. It's sweet, her lip gloss sticky, her fingers shaking. Sera holds her hands and doesn't let go.
"Inky," she muses, smiling at the star tattoos, and Ellana blushes.
But can't.
It never stops hurting. That's what she tells herself. It's been days, weeks, months, who fucking knows. Her skin prickles at the thought of Ellana's fingers touching skin that isn't hers, her pretty nails scraping, scratching, loving.
Sera doesn't like the thought of sharing somebody. Her stomach burns. Her toes curl.
Solas is pale; his eyes are tired and ready to close. The bed isn't comfortable, yet she sits, stroking the ugly flowers she brought to liven Solas' day. They're full of bees, sure to keep her professor company during the night. She wants to laugh, but doesn't. Her bees are a surprise.
She lies when she says she's moved on. She doesn't know why.
"We're not together," says Solas.
She makes a joke to hide the fact her heart is racing.
You hate to sing.
Once she moves for college, she begins to feel better. Her suitemates don't particularly like her; they whisper behind her back and leave as she enters. That doesn't bother her.
Their cats bother her.
They tell Sera she's to not provoke them with her presence. Despite this, in the morning, she often wakes to their squinty eyes and wrinkly skin in her bed.
Other mornings, she wakes with girls who don't love her. One is on a break with her boyfriend. Her name is Kallian. They meet at Isabela's one night. They are in the company of sore hearts and held-back tears.
"He's figuring things out," Kallian says, lighting a cigarette and scrubbing the back of her shaved head with her fingertips.
"What sorta things?" Sera asks, shaking her head at the offered cigarette.
Kallian shrugs. "Says he loves me. He gave me his earring."
"What does he do?"
"He kills people for a living."
Sera believes her. Her face is hard, her eyes dead, her arms and stomach scarred. She isn't soft like Ellana.
Her next lover is soft like Ellana. She's hard, too, but it's muscle, brawn. Her shoulders are broad, her hair white, and her skin a magical shade of bronze. They meet in the library. "I'm Herah," she says, and kisses Sera right after.
Sera remembers talking shit about the other inquisitors in the Game with Solas and Cole. She keeps that to herself. "Herah," she giggles, "name's Sera," and kisses her right back.
Feelings creep into the picture for Sera incredibly fast. Herah breaks it off before Sera tells her. "There's this other girl," Herah explains, holding Sera's hands. "I've liked her for a while now, and I think she might like me, too."
"What's her name?"
"Josephine, why?"
Sera shakes her head, rips her hands from Herah's. She fucking hates the Game.
But can.
Malika has red hair down to her waist and a bulbous nose. Her love handles, stomach rolls, and small patches of acne on her forehead are endearing. Her nails are never painted. She doesn't do her eyebrows, nor removes any of her other body hair. She is four foot eleven. And she can roll one hell of a joint.
Sera kisses her when she's high on marijuana and a song is stuck in her throat. Malika's hands coax it out, strong, gentle. Sera is thankful for Solas, for disappearing around a corner and out of her sight. If he had not disappeared, if Sera had not spun around and given up, she would not have run into Malika and knocked them both into a puddle of dirty slush.
"Did I hear you mumble something about putting lizards in his office?"
Hot, hot, hot, Sera thinks she might combust any minute. "Well, yeah. I can't exactly go to his house and put 'em in his bed."
Malika grins. "What about lizards and bees?"
Everything is okay.
You should not paint.
Sera paints. It gets everywhere.
She slings it, fire in her mouth, fog in her eyes. The canvas turns blue, then pink, green, purple, yellow, yellow, yellow. She doesn't know what she's painting. Paint is everywhere. She'll clean it later.
Cole thinks it's a wolf. "You can see some gray. Here." He draws in the air, a line, a bend. "It has yellow eyes."
"A dead wolf," Malika says. "It's a dead wolf, innit?"
Sera sees it now. "I s'pose."
"Who killed the wolf?" asks Malika that night, when they're in bed.
Sera palms her thighs and ducks beneath the covers. "I killed the wolf," she whispers.
"Dreadful." Malika laughs. Sera bites her hip.
It would be very bad if you did.
One day, Solas takes his daughter to work. She can barely stand on her own, but she's like a flame that will never go out. Her eyes are burnt, her hair black like her father's and tied in braids like her mother's.
In the library, the little girl is quiet. Solas is drawing a picture of a dog, her resting in his lap. Every time he drags the pencil across the page, past her, she grabs and tosses it. Dorian finds this particularly funny. "Don't encourage her," says Solas, "she already gets enough of that from Alistair."
Ellana is standing, leaning against the front desk on her elbows. In her trademark scrubs and messy hair, Ellana is still an angel.
"Lookin' good," Sera remarks, as she walks past.
Ellana smiles. "You, too, Sera. Beautiful as always."
Sera blushes. She blames it on the cold. She never finds out the baby's name.
Shut up!
Sera is good with arrows. She has a bow under her bed, which she isn't allowed to take out when her suitemates are home. They all hate each other. It's easier to pay for a room of four than a single. Neither of them is that cruel.
Her suitemates are out tonight. The hairless cats are resting on Sera's bed, Malika among them. She's studying Sera's bow, delicate, slow. "Don't touch it like that." Sera narrows her eyes. "Makes me wet."
Malika snorts. Her hair falls over a shoulder, smooth, shiny. She wears a tank top that shows off her curves. Sera reaches over and tickles Malika's foot.
Later that night, Malika cuts Sera's hair. It's the neatest it's ever been in years.
"Teetness," Sera declares. "It's stupid. I love it."
"Me, too." Malika smiles, her nose scrunching up in the cutest way imaginable. Sera gathers her into a hug and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes.
"What about Sera Cadash?" Malika gropes Sera's arse and giggles.
Sera never wants to let her go. "You're a loony."