Written for Serindrana; this is my very first attempt at writing Ser Cauthrien. It turned out to have much more exposition and much less sexiness than I'd planned, but I hope it still satisfies :)
"May I request a moment of your time, Commander?" Nathaniel didn't look up— not due to any lack of respect for the woman currently standing at his threshold, but because if he dared take his eyes from the stack of reports before him, he knew for certain he would abandon them for the night. His head was pounding, and his eyes felt as though he had popped them out and rolled them in sand, but if they had any chance of ever seeing a single copper from the Denerim vaults, the reports to the Crown needed to be precise and faultless. Not every Warden had Lyna's gift for plucking hoards of treasure from every rotten chest they stumbled upon, but every Warden required arms and armour, to say nothing of food.
"Isn't that a bit premature, Cauthrien?" It was impossible; there was not a single way to spin refusing a templar recruit into the Wardens without tossing grease on a fire already burning too hot and wild for comfort. Anders would simply have to shore up and learn to get along with their new brother, supposing the man even survived his Joining. Tossing the transfer orders aside, resisting the childish urge to crumple the thick, Chantry-issued parchment, Nathaniel finally forced his gaze to swing upward, nearly wincing as the room swam around the edges. "Please, come in."
And please do stop looming in my doorway.
Dipping her head in some slight approximation of a bow, Cauthrien strode into the Commander's study, with her posture so stiff it made Nathaniel's neck twinge. Her arms were folded loosely behind her back, however, not hanging by her sides (ready at all times to reach for a blade or break a nose), which was his only indication that this might be a social call. She was dressed down to casual attire, wool and leathers rather than full plate, and her monstrous sword was conspicuously absent, but those small matters made her only slightly less deadly.
She stopped, still a good half-dozen steps from Lyna's desk, and gave the massive stacks of missives and reports a long, critical look before meeting his eye again. "Hardly premature; it is, if I may, overdue. You know she will be gone any day, very likely off to Antiva." Cauthrien's expression sharpened, not that it had been especially soft when she entered. "Has she ever done a single report herself?"
"No." If he was not reading anymore, he certainly did not need to be sitting. Climbing to his feet, feeling every inch a gnarled old man, Nathaniel braced his hands on his hips and stretched his back. Being battered by an ogre was certainly not less agonizing than a day of paperwork, but at the very least that pain came with some exhilaration. "We often complete them together, however, as she listens and dictates. If my noble's education is good for nothing else, I do at least make an excellent scribe."
Besides the crackling of the fire, the room grew silent. He might be exhausted and perhaps a bit ill-humoured at the moment, but Nathaniel was content to wait for Cauthrien to make her purpose known in her own time. In the few months since her Joining, he had grown to value the frank, firm nature of her company— she was entirely a Fereldan woman, and all the potent qualities that could imply.
Moving toward the fire, Nathaniel warmed his hands, flexing the tightened joints. Staring into the flames made his tired eyes sting, but soon enough Cauthrien came to stand beside him, giving him something else to watch. The light of the fire was quite complimentary to her, gilding her skin and bringing out hints of dark copper in her hair. Nathaniel doubted the shadows were quite so kind to the purple smudges under his eyes, or the severe angle of his nose.
"Lyna will be gone before Cloudreach." Cauthrien spoke with all the unwavering conviction of a Rivaini seer, though entirely without the spectacle. It was a blunt, confident pronouncement, and nothing less than he'd expected. "And you are already Warden Commander in all but title."
"And yet nothing is certain." He smiled faintly, lifting only one corner of his mouth, and reached up to squeeze the back of his neck. "The final decision rests with Weisshaupt, of course. I imagine there are already plans in motion to install an experienced commander in Ferelden, should Lyna decide to step down. Our beloved Warden Commander may be Ferelden's hero, but her methods have made few friends among the ranks of the Grey."
"A foreign commander, then." If he'd not been watching for it, Nathaniel would have missed the fleeting grimace. Foreign would likely mean Orlesian, and the prodding of many old, tender wounds. "We would do well to fight such a decision, if it came to it."
"All notions of uprising aside," he said, turning to fully meet her dark gaze. "You are assuming I have any desire whatsoever to be Commander."
"I— What?" To laugh at her incredulity had the potential to end very painfully, and he wisely refrained. "Are you... are you saying you would refuse? Even if the position were offered?"
"I am saying that nothing is certain, not even my own mind on the matter." He was a skilled Warden, both at arms and at politics, but he was no natural leader. He could lead, certainly, but he lacked Lyna's extraordinary skill at inspiration. More than that, he was not convinced the mantle of leadership would sit well or comfortably on his shoulders, or that he wanted it to do so— for many reasons, all entirely his own.
Cauthrien was glaring at him as though he'd announced his intention to tear down what was left of the Vigil's walls and invite a hoard of genlocks 'round for tea. Taking a deep breath, not quite a sigh, Nathaniel continued. "I am a Grey Warden, and I shall defend against the threat of darkspawn until I die. If Weisshaupt demands I lead Ferelden's Wardens, I will."
"But otherwise?" It was too late in the evening for the conversation to turned barbed, and he shook his head against Cauthrien's challenging tone.
"Otherwise, we shall see." Reaching out, he slid the backs of his fingers lightly down her arm, from shoulder to elbow. The wool of her shirtsleeve felt warm, but not as warm as her skin would be beneath. "Tell me you've not come just to unman me for some hypothetical failing."
Thankfully, she did not shrug him off; instead, she finally unfolded her arms from behind herself, presenting the lump of cloth she'd been concealing. Nathaniel refused to contemplate how weary he must be to have overlooked the parcel until she was nearly waving it under his nose.
"Not just for that, no. You missed supper." He was under no illusion that their discussion of leadership was forever abandoned, but he was more than willing to ignore the inevitable in favour of investigating the scent of bread. Woken from its surly rest, his stomach rumbled irately.
"Thank you, love." She flushed ever so faintly at the endearment, which was a reliable sign that she was not too annoyed with him. Daring a bit more, he took the neatly wrapped food in one hand and stepped closer, brushing the edge of her jaw with his thumb. The door to the corridor was still ajar, but for the moment she allowed it. "Am I eating alone?"
"No, but you are not eating in here, either." When she stepped back, he followed closely, which earned him a small huff of a laugh and a palm smacking against his jerkin, just above his heart. "You still have wine in your rooms, don't you?"
"I do." When he leaned in, brushing a criminally brief kiss against her soft mouth, the hand on his chest pushed him back almost immediately. Cauthrien was smiling, however— that small, gentle expression that dimpled just beyond the corners of her lips. "Would my lady care to join me for a nightcap?"
She nodded, that secret smile turning a shade playful, and when she strode out of the Commander's study he trailed in her wake like a leaf floating down the Hafter, caught in a current.
With any luck, the notion that he might refuse the title of Commander for the sake of this would never seriously occur to her— for whatever reason, she believed him to be a man good and honourable enough to deserve her affections. Surely such a man would never put his love for a woman above the good of his country, or if Warden dogma were taken seriously, the good of all Thedas.
Surely that was true, just as surely as Cauthrien would not fraternize with a soldier of superior rank, no matter her feelings. Never mind that Wardens had no rank, and the title of Commander was all but ceremonial.
There were a dozen other legitimate reasons for him to refuse the role, and those were the ones he would argue... later, after he had quieted his stomach. Or even later still, if he could manage it, after he had peeled her free of every scrap of cloth that kept her skin from his touch, loosened the tie of her hair, and laid kisses against the hollow of her throat, the bend of her knee, and the sharp curve of her hip.
Lyna had taught him many things over the past year, not the least of which being that sometimes doing the right thing could be a heartbreaking sacrifice. And sometimes, on occasion, the right thing could be the easiest thing in the world.
Inside his rooms, when Cauthrien finally wrapped her arms around his shoulders, allowing him to simply breathe in her presence and the calm it brought, Nathaniel had never in his life been more certain.
This was the easiest thing in the world.