Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
~ Shakespeare

The fire snapped and growled as his pen scratched across the parchment, each little point of light and thought warring with the rest to be etched onto the page. Varric had grown accustomed to choosing the words that pleased him best, though it was hard to tell the others no. This night, with Skyhold wrapped in starlight and most of its inhabitants asleep in their beds, he was trying to capture what it had been like in the overgrown yet still exhilarating expanse of the Temple of Mythal. It was difficult to capture the feeling of awe that had drawn the party deeper into the ancient, holy space as the Inquisitor lead them along the path of the pilgrims. Cursing, he tossed yet another scrap into the fire, watching it curl inward on itself as it blackened.

A door along the nearly empty great hall opened and swift, almost silent footsteps swept past him. He lifted his head, caught a glimpse of a sleeve drawn across cheeks that gleamed with tears, saw the brows down-turned, and her lips compressed. Varric put down his pen. He'd seen that expression before, but not on Rhivyn Lavellan. He'd seen it on Hawke, after the destruction of the Chantry.

"Dammit," he muttered, hearing the door that lead to the downstairs hall or to Josephine's office, and sighed. He had a feeling he knew where she was going. "You," he said, nudging one of the serving boys who was asleep in a corner. "Go see if Ser Dorian is in the tower and tell him Varric wants to talk to him. In the liquor closet."

The boy grunted and nodded, wiping at his eyes, "Ye want Ser Dorian. Wine cellar," he repeated sleepily and trotted off.

A shadowy room, cool and smelling of old wine and beer, the cellar had been stocked by the Inquisitor herself on their travels. He saw that the Warden swill and the Tevinter stocks had been rifled and rubbed a hand across his jaw. Elves were light weights ... until they started killing dragons with Qunari, but a bottle of the swill alone would be enough to knock anyone on their backside.

"I take it you've not invited me into the depths in order to play at secret assignations, Tethras?" DOrian drawled, inspecting his shirt cuffs with an elegant air that Varric secretly enjoyed, but publicly mocked. Dorian looked up, a sudden realization widening his eyes. "Or does the great author intend assassination? Is this the new plot of one of your novels: The murder of a great Tevinter mage in the depths of beautiful Skyhold?"

"No, though now that you mention it, I should arrange just that. For research," Varric replied, lips quirking for a moment only to turn down as he remembered why they were here. "Look, we a bit of a ... problem."

Dorian's eyebrows drew down and he tilted his head, "We? What sort of problem do you and I share that should bring us to the wine cellar in the deepest dark of the night? It must be serious for you to go to all that trouble, Varric."

"Well," Varric took a breath, "Remember how you thought she was sweet on the apostate ...?"

"Oh," Dorian crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowing. "I believe them to be quite in love, actually."

"NO kidding," the dwarf rubbed the bridge of his nose. "She came back just now ... crying. Looking like the world had ended. You know that look?"

"Shit," was all the mage said, hands dropping in shock. "Where is she?"

"Somewhere down here ... I think ..." Varric poked his head out of the wine cellar. "The old library?"

The sounds of sobbing greeted their ears when the two men approached the dimly lit space that lead off the dining hall. Lights flickered and there was a clink, a pause in the crying, and then another clink as the elf took a drink and sat the bottle down beside her. Tears flowed down her face as she sat there, on the floor, her back against the books and the candle light flickering off the line of her brow and nose. Dorian noticed before Varric that something about her had changed, and drew in a breath, pointing to his face. The Vallaslin that had curled around the elf's left eye was gone, all tracery of the pretty scroll work disappeared as though it had never been there. Instead of ink, there were only tears gleaming along her cheeks. When Varric saw it, he caught his breath.

"Oh shit."

"Quiet, dwarf," Dorian said, dropping to the ground next to Lavellan, heedless of his fine robes. He touched her cheek, even as she refused to look at him, then wrapped her in his arms, laying a sweet kiss on her forehead. She hiccoughed. "Now, now. Tell Dorian who broke you heart so we can murder them most heinously, your Worship."

She tried to laugh, a sound that made Varric wince, and then buried her head in Dorian's chest, shaking like a leaf. The dwarf sat down beside them, taking one of her strong, archer's hands into his own and holding it gently. For a while, the three of them sat while she cried, Dorian making soothing sounds and Varric concentrating very hard on being comforting. Eventually, she got it out: "Solas loves me. He ... he didn't use me. Just ... j-just ... he can't ... he let me go."

The last was a whisper, as though torn from her chest. "He said he doesn't want me distracted. So ... he let me go. He thought it would make me angry, give me a reason to fight."

"That's not it," Dorian and Varric said together. She looked up then, smiling crookedly, heartbreakingly.

"No. It cannot be. But there is nothing to be done about it. I ... I love him. He loves me. But he walked away." Her lips compressed and she took several deep lungfuls of air through her nose, fighting the urge to break into more tears.

"You know, Varric and I love you, don't you? While we may not or will not please your lady-bits, we can certainly give you a reason to fight, should you need one beyond the usual 'saving the world' ideas," Dorian teased gently, smiling back.

"He's got that right," Varric agreed. "Just let it out, Inquisitor. We won't tell a soul, and we'll make sure you get home all right."

Dawn was breaking over the mountains when they finally put her to bed. She slept fitfully, drunkenly, clothed in her wrinkled, tear-stained castle-wear, but she was finally calm. Dorian watched her from the doors to the balcony, arms folded across his chest, his shoulder propped against the door frame. Varric pulled the covers over her shoulders, then went to join the Tevinter mage.

"Thank you," he said, looking out toward the pinkening sky in the distance. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

"No need," Dorian smiled, still watching her sleep, his eyes distant in thought. "I would move mountains for that woman. It pains me to see her so ... distraught."

"Yeah," The dwarf shook his head. "I've seen distraught before and ... hell. I can't stand it. It tears a guy up inside and there's not much you can do."

"I don't know about that. At least she had someone to comfort her, to hear her pain. That's more than a lot of people get, you know?"

"Heh," Varric smiled. "The only bad part about this is we can't take his head off."

"Yet."

"Shall we make a date of it, my Tevinter friend?" Varric held out a hand to Dorian.

"Indeed we shall," Dorian replied, shaking Varric's offered hand with a surprisingly strong grip.