"Oh, Maker's tits that hurts, hurts, hurts, shit, fuck, ow!"
Meera laughed, she couldn't help it, as Sera sucked on fingertips she'd singed on the hot cup of buttered rum and danced about the corner of the Haven tavern she'd appropriated as her own. The sound startled them both, startled most of the tavern, in fact, into a quick beat of silence. The Herald being in the tavern had been shock enough. To hear her laugh, to see her so serious, heart-shaped face lit from within, warming the pale cream complexion, softening her, was enough to feed the gossips for months.
As Meera's face flamed and Sera hid a look of pride behind her hand, sound picked up again, the bard in the corner strumming a rollicking drinking song that some of the tavern-goers joined. The so serious and quiet Herald, in the tavern, laughing. No one would believe it!
"See, didja good to laugh, to have a frolic. Always so serious, face so flat, like a board, not like your chest. Big chest, flat face, weird, yeah?"
Sera puffed out her slender chest and her cheeks in such a ridiculous manner that Meera laughed again, relaxing back into her chair, her rigid posture softening. It felt good to laugh, to have someone who didn't care who or what she was, didn't care where she came from, where she was going, only that she wanted to help. Who didn't speak to her with Josephine's diplomacy. Leliana's concern. Cassandra's weight. Solas's anger. Varric's pity. Cullen's cool dismissal.
She shivered, trailing a fingertip down her cup, feeling the grain of the wood, the swirls and dips of the poorly made vessel, attempting not to think of Commander Cullen, with his whiskey brown eyes that managed to be so distant and cool when they looked at her, weighed her, judged her wanting. She hated that look, hated seeing it on his handsome, roughly-hewn face.
She liked his face, the square jaw, the dimple in his chin, the scar on his lip that provided character and kept him from perfection. She even liked his summer wheat hair, the little wave in the front that didn't lie quite as well as the rest. She grumbled, softly, and took a quick sip of watered wine.
She had a crush. A big one. On the Commander. He tied her tongue into knots, panicked the butterflies in her stomach, caused her breath to hitch. He made her feel stupid, and slow, and unattractive, her hips too wide, her breasts too big, her face too plain, her feet and hands clumsy. She felt like she always said the wrong thing when he was present, didn't ask the clever questions, made the safe and reasonable and wrong choices.
Meetings over the War Table were agony, tying her into knots for days that kept her sequestered in her room, reading books and papers, anything to avoid him. It made her a cowardly hero, that was for sure, at least in Haven. She almost hoped she had to go back out into the field soon, away from Haven, and wasn't that just plain childish. Fate of the world on her shoulders, Herald of Andraste, and she was too concerned with some silly schoolgirl crush on her advisor. She took another drink of wine, the merriment slipping from her face as quickly as it had come.
Sera nudged her with a foot to her ankle under the table, not particularly gently. "Psst. Commander by the door. Oh, mad face, wearing his scary sword, grrrrr, where's that girl, oh, he sees us, shit." The elf raised her hand and waved, somehow insolently.
Meera risked a glance to see him standing at the door, hand on the hilt of his sword, looking directly at her. Dammit. Of course he was here, when she'd been thinking about him. Fuck shit damn, as Sera would say.
Unconsciously, she sat up a little straighter, her fingers curling into fists on the tabletop.
Six months, he thought as he moved through the tavern toward the elf and the Herald. Six months, and still she continued to puzzle him. He didn't like puzzles, particularly, as they tended to have nasty surprises once you solved them. She continued to go out, time after time, without question, without demands. Oh, certainly he had started to understand she moved everyone around much like a player in chess, but she did it without expression, without doubt, or fear, or even passion. She would go out, she would come back with some new information or ability or even with damned fine horses and a seasoned horsemaster, then she'd disappear into her cabin for days, speaking with no one.
He wondered about her, which meant he was thinking about her. Too much. About those spring leaf eyes, tilted just a tiny bit at the corners, about that tightly braided and coiled hair the color of dark red autumn leaves, how it could catch fire in the sun, wondering how long it was, why she kept it bound back from her face, why she never smiled with that soft, gentle mouth. The fist that stayed coiled in his gut when he looked at her had tightened another notch when he'd heard her laugh. Laugh, at the elf with the strange ways and strange talk, laugh as he had never seen her do, eyes bright, lips curved, nose slightly wrinkled.
And because somewhere her laughter touched something inside of him he'd locked carefully away, his stride was purposeful, his face forbidding, his posture nearly hostile as he reached where the two women sat.
"Sera." He dismissed the elf, ignoring the tongue she stuck out at him. "Herald. I'd like a word."
Meera tried to smooth out her expression, deliberately uncurled her fists and laid her palms flat against the table, grounding herself. It was important, for the mission, for her sanity, for her safety, for everyone's needs, for duty, that she remained calm and dispassionate, particularly around him. She fought desperately to hold onto discipline. She even tried to take a deep breath and instead, somehow, smelled him over the mingled smells of the tavern, oiled leather and teak, and that was it. She'd reached the breaking point. Him, staring at her, face so closed and hard, and her stomach doing somersaults, the tavern watching them, weighing her.
She was the Herald of fucking Andraste, a Circle mage, a Treveylan, a Free Marcher. She was tired of jumping through his hoops, tired of being the good little girl and doing what she was told and she didn't stop to think that he was getting the brunt of old business, old hurts, old doubts, new impossible demands she couldn't face.
"And which word shall that be, Commander? Jump? Fetch? Down? It looks like you've gotten me to speak, does that mean I'll get a treat and a pat on the head like a good hound?"
The tavern had gone completely silent at the whip sharp sting of her voice. Even the bard had stopped tuning her instrument to stare at them. Sera sniggered. Meera felt her face flame and dearly hoped the darkness of the tavern hid the tell-tale blush as she stared defiantly at Cullen. When he remained watchfully silent and still, she drained her cup of wine, stood, and quite deliberately turned away from him. "When you deign to remember I'm a person, maybe then we can have a word. Until then, Commander, I take my leave."
She managed, barely, to stride from the tavern without tripping over her own feet, but it was a near thing. Her breathing steamed out in the cold winter's night air, faster that she would have liked, no, no, not as calm as she wanted yet as some of the snow about her feet melted with residual magic. It was always harder to maintain control when she was upset, always more likely for her magic to leak out in heat and light. She took another constricted breath, chest heaving, eyes closing, willing herself to relax as she walked, deliberate, careful steps, toward the gates of Haven. A ride. She would go for a ride, a hard gallop, set something on fire, and she would feel better.
She was unaware, completely, that Cullen had followed her from the tavern, and more that he followed her right out of the gates to the stables.
She remained unaware of his presence while she charmed and flirted with her favorite of the horses she'd brought from Redcliffe, a handsome bay with a proud head and soft eyes. A ride wouldn't do at night, a broken leg in the cold snow could doom them both, so she soothed herself by crooning to the horse as she curried him. The horse flirted back, nudging her shoulder for more strokes, lipping the fingers that offered up first a sugar cube and then a bit of carrot.
Cullen watched, arms crossed, head tilted, more puzzled than angry as Meera's tinkling voice delighted the horse, as her small, slender hands stroked and soothed and made him yearn. "Who's my handsome lad, yes, that's right, it's you, such a gorgeous face. Let's go for a ride, shall we, you and me, over the hills, a good gallop, tomorrow at sunrise, and forget that Commander Cullen hates us. Yes, he does, my beauty, all because I've been a good little girl and tried to help and not died and not demanded someone build me a summer palace on the Waking Sea."
"I don't hate you. As for the summer palace on the Waking Sea, that might be difficult considering the state of the Inquisition coffers."
Meera jerked back from the horse so fast he startled, shying back into the corner of his stall. Cullen raised an eyebrow when Meera cursed, unable to stop the smile from curving the corner of his mouth at her inventiveness. And her perfect Antivan accent. Well, well, where had all of that been hiding, he wondered? He waited patiently, arms still crossed, hip balanced against a post of the stable as she calmed the horse, put away the curry comb, and then marched out to stand in front of him, glaring defiantly.
"You have given me every reason to believe you dislike me. Why?" She desperately tried to keep her voice from turning shrill, desperately worked to keep her body still, her eyes level on his, but it was a challenge, when all she wanted to do was touch him. Oh, Maker's breath, did she want to touch him, reach out and shock them both by running her palms down his chest, kiss the scar at the corner of his mouth, press herself against him and make them both forget, just for a moment, that the world might be ending, that she might be their only chance, that he was a Templar, that she was a mage. That he disliked her on principle.
Expressions chased themselves across her face, too fast for him to read. They made him uncomfortable, made him take a cautious step back from her, cursing himself when she immediately hunched in on herself, face still defiant but hurt, sad.
"There, Commander. It's that, there, that leads me to believe you dislike me. Constantly stepping back, away, as if in distaste. The forbidding, angry expression when I ask you to send the troops where I think they should go, when I choose Josephine's course of diplomacy for someone you would rather snub, when Leliana and I agree that a well aimed dagger in the dark might be kinder than public humiliation."
That stung, more because he respected her decisions, could often see their wisdom and expediency and even, yes, kindness. "Not all of us are always going to agree on the best course of action."
"Ooooo, that stiff, formal voice, and your hand is on your sword and your lip curled as if I've brought you something foul. Stop it!" She jabbed a finger in his general direction and both of them looked startled when a little lick of flame spurted out. She immediately looked contrite but she didn't apologize. Cullen cleared his throat and shifted, realizing with a trickle of shame that she was right, he had touched his sword when she'd come toward him. Old habits died hard.
"I'm sorry." When she nearly hissed at him, eyes sharp as blades, his eyebrows shot to his hairline and he held his hands before him, palms up. "No, I am. I'm a soldier at heart. I was raised by the Templars, served in the Circle, nearly died in Kirkwall. And yet, you're outside of my experience."
It was her turn for disbelief. "I'm a Circle mage, Commander. We have known each other's like since we both began to serve."
"Yes, but you weren't the Herald then and I wasn't the Commander of the Inquisition's forces." When she shook her head, denying his words, he said flatly, "You are also the most controlled, passionless woman I have ever met." Her eyes jerked up to his, wounded, surprised, but he barreled on, too deep in now. "It's not the what you do, it's the how. You send out the troops and aren't here to greet them when they return. You choose diplomacy or dagger but don't seem to care which of the choices it is, as long as it gets the job done." He leaned down, until their faces were close, his tall masculine figure looming over her small feminine one. "You play the game but have no heart."
This time he could read her expression as easily as he could the endless reports Leliana supplied. Pain. Old, deep, drowning pain. To his horror and dismay, those beautiful green eyes filled, a pair of tears tracking down her pale, too pale, cheeks. Her voice, when it came, cut deep. "Everyone and everything I have ever loved has left me, of their own choice. You are absolutely correct, Commander. I have no heart."
She walked away, back straight, head high.
He stood where he was, in the cold and the snow, for a very long time.