Sera wakes up to long, springy things being shoved into her face.
"Enjoy your flowers, sleepyhead," Adder says. She's holding a small lantern in one hand a bottle in the other.
Sera sniffs her bouquet of embrium and crystal grace. Dirt clings to the flowers' roots; Adder must have just pulled them from Skyhold's garden. They're not even tied together. Aw, my sweetie knows what I like. She drops the flowers on the floor—if she knows anything about Adder, they're going to be using the bed, and soon.
"I was throwing pebbles at your window for forever," Adder continues. "Then I thought, 'Oh, she must've heard me by now. She's probably going to jump out and scare me.' So I waited. And at some point I started drinking. But, no! You were here. Sleeping."
Sera stretches out and sits up. "Just frigging ask for me, Addie." She holds her hand out for the bottle, which Adder tosses to her.
"It was going to be all romantic..."
It's been a few months, but Sera's stomach still gets fluttery when she's reminded her and Adder are a thing now. "Well, up now. What's on?" Sera takes a swig from the bottle. It's a sweet, mellow white wine.
"I need your help at the war table."
Sera laughs. "Sure you got the right person, loony?"
"Oh, I'm sure." Adder's gaze makes her feel warm and shivery at the same time.
She's straight up shivering in the war room. Place could use a fire. She drinks some more wine to warm up. No wonder Addie likes to get out of Skyhold so much.
Adder sets the lantern on the edge of the table, where there are no markers. It's hard to find space—the table's covered. Most of the markers are the hairy-eyeball of the Inquisition—there's a particularly large one at Halamshiral, where they're going to save the Empress once one of those nobs lets them behind the fancy gates—but some are owls or keys and one or two are fists. Leliana, Josie and Cullen, Sera realizes.
We've got to be here for pranks. "You trying to take over Thedas?" she asks, then gulps a mouthful of wine.
Adder chuckles, but not happily. "Sometimes I wonder." She takes the bottle from Sera and downs an entire third of it in a long, glugging gulp. After she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, she points to one of Josephine's key markers in the Frostbacks.
"Today, my advisors brought me a report: we had a small group of injured soldiers and Chantry sisters pinned down by Avvar in the Frostbacks. There was an Inquisition war party nearby tracking Red Templars—I could either divert them to help the first group and lose the templars' trail or keep them on the trail and lose my wounded men."
Adder sighs. "I almost ordered the war party to keep following the Red Templars. I almost let people die for the 'greater good.' I came so close. This map is very, very dangerous."
Corphellus probably has a map like this. Sera frowns at it grimly.
"So," Adder continues, "I realized I need something to remind me of the little people."
"Ants." Sera doesn't know where this is going until she starts talking. "We put out lotsa crumbs, then they come in and get all over the table. You just tell everyone not to squash 'em, and you're fine."
"It's a good start. I don't really love the symbolism of 'little people' being ants, though."
"And you'd need lots of crumbs. Pain in the arse to remember every day. Mmm—I could knit something?" She eyes the table, her thoughts churning. "Little storks against all those owls. 'Cuz storks aren't scary, and they're funny-looking..." She picks up the key marker, rolling it around in her hand. "Lockpicks!"
"Wait, you'd knit lock—"
"No, we'd give up our old ones. And butts!" She claps her hands together. "Butts instead of fists!"
"Whose butts?"
"I'd knit those." She can be so slow sometimes. "Or draw 'em?" She sets Josephine's marker back down as she thinks.
Adder snickers. "I'd be putting fists in bums every meeting."
Sera bursts into so many giggles that she doubles over, trying to catch her breath. "Brilliant!"
"Cullen would sigh and say 'Inquisitor, if you're done playing with your toys...?' Thedas would grind to a halt. Rifts would open up everywhere."
"Now I gotta make 'em!"
Suddenly, Adder is standing very, very close. "I had an idea about how to remember the little people."
"Whuzzat?" Sera asks, wiping tears from her eyes.
Adder jerks her thumb at the war table. "It requires you staying very silent and very still."
It takes Sera a few moments to grasp what she means. "Oh." She can suddenly feel the war table against her bare skin, can see Adder standing over her—her mouth goes desert dry. Then Adder's words sink in and sense returns.
Sera snorts. "Still and silent: two things I'm great at. Fact."
Adder's arms encircle her, pull her close so she can feel the words "I'll make it up to you" in warm breath against her neck. The syllables spread through Sera like butter melting in a pan, a rich warm flood.
Each piece of clothing that comes off is paid for in kisses and large hands caressing her. Soon, they're both naked, panting. With only a glance at the war table, Adder picks up two pieces and gestures Sera to the space remaining. She's thought about this. She probably thought about it all day as her advisors nattered on, Adder getting hotter and hotter. Sera bites her lower lip and hops up on the war table.
The position is awkward: she has to lie on her side, nearly bent in half at the waist, and tuck her chin to her chest. Adder gently moves her legs, pulling them forward then bending at the knees until her feet flow into the sea. She can't see Adder smirk as she puts one marker on her thigh and the second on her upper arm, but she knows she is. Yeah, yeah, I know—silent and still. Sera starts shivering again. Better hurry up.
Adder touches her: light strokes down her inner arm, tight squeezes to her buttock, a teasing brush or two between her legs. Kisses follow, spine and shoulder, ear and neck. Fingers and mouth make warm trails like veins of red lyrium bursting up through snowy Emprise. Her thighs quiver; the marker wobbles. Gritting her teeth, Sera goes still. The marker doesn't fall.
Adder pinches her nipple. Pleasure flares short and sharp, like overheated butter crackling.
"Addie..." Sera is trying to say something else...something about the markers? The table? Adder said something important...but it's hard to remember...
Fingers slide into Sera—not where Sera needs them, but close, so close, thrusting in and out, so frigging close...
Cool breath hits her nipple and Sera forgets to breathe. The fingers inside her curl slightly.
Fuck it.
She twists, grabs Adder by her shoulders, pulls her onto the table. Markers clink as they fall, a few rolling. Grinning, Adder crawls on top of her, weight on one arm as her other hand pulls out of Sera. Oy! If Adder isn't going to do the job, Sera can do it herself—she wraps her legs tight around Adder's thigh and grinds against her. Adder sweeps her now-free hand over the table, knocking markers over as she kisses Sera, fierce and deep.
Sera comes to the sound of millions of markers hitting the floor, pinging and clanking, sort of like chimes. As Sera rides out her pleasure, she takes care of her lover, fingers dancing as their kiss continues. She loves the sounds Adder makes—quiet at first, like she's embarrassed, until things get too much and she forgets to be. Sera kisses Adder through the shout and the shudder, then moves to kissing cheeks and chin as the two of them catch their breath.
Adder, propped above her on two arms now, grins down at her. She's always so careful about where she puts her weight. Sera wouldn't mind being squished by her, buried under an avalanche of her sweat and smell and flesh. But how do you say that? She feels stupid just thinking it. So Sera gives herself the fun of trying to make it happen spontaneously. Which is very fun indeed.
"Coulda just said you wanted this," Sera says, glancing at the almost-bare table.
"And miss your 'stop teasing and take me now' scowl? I couldn't deprive myself of that pleasure."
How does she use so many words so soon after? "I get it—you gotta work up to bein' bad. It don't come natural to you."
Adder gives a raised 'oh really?' eyebrow in reply. She starts shivering. "Let me get something to warm us up." They throw their clothes on and Adder gets a bottle of whisky from Skyhold's cellars that they make short work of.
Looking over the map, Adder murmurs "Oh," picks up one of Josephine's key markers and sets it down in the Free Marches. "You ever been to Kelgor's Pass?"
"No. What's special about it?"
"The Valo-Kas and I held it for three whole days." She tells an appropriately Adder-sized story: desperate situations, amazing heroics, tied together with a happy ending.
Sera brightens. Normally, she gets twitchy whenever either of them brings up their past. Adder's noticed; she hasn't asked about Sera's past since their first few conversations almost—shite, has it been that long?—a year ago, and she doesn't mention her own often. But now Sera's all warm and tipsy and even the shadows in the war room don't seem so dark.
Sera looks over the Orlais section of the map. "Huh. Think I been...here." She puts a fist marker on a town called Serault. "For a Red Jenny job. Kicked some noble around who was beatin' on his little people. These weirdies worship glass. Friggin' mad thing to go on and on about; shatters too easy."
It's hard for Sera to remember where she's been. She remembers some things clear as day: jobs she's done, faces of people she's met, buildings she's passed or sheltered in. But it's hard to pull names from "the place that had this Chantry with a bright orange roof" or "that farmer with the gimpy leg lived there." Adder is better with names, of course, and has some great stories of a contract she took or an enemy she fought each time she puts a marker down. Slowly, the two of them build up a map of where they've been. It's mostly guesswork on Sera's part, but she isn't about to tell Adder that.
Adder puts two markers on Haven with a heavy sigh.
Sera giggles. At Adder's annoyed stare, she tries to explain. "I mean, it's just funny, getting all mopey when we were probably squirming on top of Haven just now, innit?"
"Smile-worthy, maybe—no, smirk. Not giggle."
"'Cuz you're shit at giggles."
Adder proves it by going "hee-hee-hee," then wincing. "You're right. How will I survive?" Her smile doesn't reach her eyes, which linger on Haven.
Sera recognizes Val Mer and puts a marker down. A memory tugs at her but doesn't come into focus until she's reaching for another marker. Then, she's back in Val Mer: the cloudless sky, the gleam of armour, the twang of her bow and that heart-stopping instant her arrow went wide. Sera rips the marker off Val Mer and throws it across the room. It shatters against the wall, pieces clinking on the floor.
Adder's hand rests on her shoulder. The touch is perfect—strong, protective but not smothering. Warmth surges from Sera's gut, but it doesn't go down like it usually does when Adder touches her. It goes up. Makes her throat start noise-making and her tongue start wagging all without her say-so.
"I got another Jenny killed there," Sera says. "The guard came at us. My arrow went left. I should've practised more, but I was...I dunno. I don't even friggin' remember what was so friggin' important. And Teyri died. She was good people. Mad about dogs; every time we passed one, she had to help it. Nevermind if it was covered in fleas or foamin' at the mouth, she had to try." She ransacks her mind and finds that Teyri is nothing more than that. Once, she'd known other stories. "It's why I practice every day now." She wrinkles her nose. "Try to. Mean to."
"I'm so sorry. Were you close?"
"We weren't lovers, but so fucking what? Like because she was 'just' a friend, it shouldn't really hurt? I don't forget my friends."Guilt makes her look away from Val Mer.I do forget. I forget when it hurts too bloody much to remember. Does anybody else remember Teyri? There have got to be other people out there that remember things better than Sera. There have to be.
"Of course you don't." Adder kisses her forehead. "It was a stupid question."
Sera glowers at her. She wants Adder to say something stupid so Sera can keep arguing. Maybe if she gets mad and loud enough, it'll stop the tears prickling at her eyes from falling. But Adder just stays close, watching, expression so kind that Sera wants to punch her and scream that she doesn't fucking deserve it.
Sera's breath catches in her throat. She likes me because I'm fun. Whinging isn't fun! She glares at the bottles lying strewn about the floor. Thanks a frigging lot.
I can't keep talking. Because Sera's done awful shit: Fighting other starving kids for bread instead of sharing like a good person would. Setting a fire that spread and burned a stable, killing innocent horses. Cheating on a lover because Sera was bored. If I keep talking, she'll leave. It's happened before.
"Look, forget it." Sera shrugs, looking away to wipe at her eyes. "Just...Val Mer's a shitty place. Smells like fish. Don't ever go there."
"I could have Cullen destroy it, if you like." Adder blots the town out with her thumb. "Burn it and salt the earth."
Sera chuckles. Why hadn't she thought of a joke? "I get to shoot the first flaming arrow, yeah?"
"Naturally."
After a moment, Adder puts a marker on Ansburg. She keeps her hand there, tapping the marker a few times. "When I was fourteen, I ran away from home."
Sera startles. Adder's never mentioned anything about her family before.
"Not sure what I thought would happen—some kith would see my innate skill and take me in." She chuckles, tapping the marker again. "Fourteen's a shitty age.
"So. Ansburg. An old woman saw me begging in the market. She offered me food and a bed." She sets the marker on its side and spins it gently. "I knew it was a whorehouse right away. Thought I'd stay a day or two, do some chores to pay them back. When the old woman—Granny Mae—had other ideas, I headed for the door.
"Granny Mae snapped her fingers, the other girls took me out back..." She spins the marker more violently. It bumps into another and makes it fall. Adder rights them, still touching the one on Ansburg. "I woke up and I couldn't move my legs. Had headaches like lightning in my skull. I lay in a back room for days. No one moved me or cleaned me when I pissed myself. I got enough water to stay alive, no more.
"One night, I woke up to rats all over me." She starts playing with the marker again, making it hop in little circles around the city. "Rats...they're covered in plague. But I couldn't feel my legs, so how could I protect myself? I had to sit up." A breathless chuckle. "Sit up. Sounds like nothing when I say it. But I retched just propping myself up on my elbows. The pain was—" she licks at dry lips "—the pain was.
"Then I dragged my legs close. Spent the rest of the night listening for their claws, beating them away with my fists—sobbing like a baby, too." That strained, barely-there chuckle, like this is something funny. "The hardest battle I ever fought. Not Kelgor's Pass. Not Haven. Not Adamant. Me against those rats in the dark. Fuck."
Her gaze has gone far away—too far, where Sera can't follow. Sera keeps still, not sure if she wants to hear more. She wants an Addie who says she'll juggle pies to keep morale up. An Addie who invited Sera up to her chambers with no fuss. An Addie who, when Sera got to her chambers first and locked the door, waited outside totally naked until Sera grew bored and opened it, even though any servant could've walked by and seen the Inquisitor starkers.
Who listened to me talk about being a shit and accepted it. Sera gulps and takes a steadying breath. Sera has always known how lucky she was. Every day, she saw people who weren't as lucky. By Andraste's grace, she avoided the worst of the streets. Here was Adder, reminding her once again.
Thanks for that, Lady. And for getting Adder out. I'll light candles for you. And I'll actually do it this time instead of forgetting, swear it.
Sera reaches out to the hand on the Ansburg marker, stroking the back of it with her thumb. Adder startles, then whips her head round to stare at Sera, her gaze cold and hard.
She's angry. Shit shit shit—Sera starts to cringe away but stops. She's angry at back then, not at now. She keeps her hand on Adder's, gently tugs the fingers off the marker, and pulls her hand away from the map, so it rests between them two of them.
After a few blinks, Adder shakes herself. Her gaze is still far away, but her features aren't tight with anger anymore. "Granny gave me some salve—must've been from some hedge-witch or apostate, 'cuz it healed me enough that I could walk. She said don't refuse again...and I didn't. I became one of her granddaughters. For years. It's like...I went to sleep in my own body.
"What woke me up was one night, I had a Qunari customer. A mercenary wearing drake-scale armor, armed to the teeth. When we were alone, she asked me if this is what I wanted. I said of course, but I was thinking about fighting those rats. She didn't touch me—just looked into my eyes and handed me a dagger."
"Then you killed Granny Shithag and left, yeah?"
"I didn't, actually. I kept the dagger under my pallet, felt it press against my skin, took it out to stare at it when I was alone. I'd rub my thumb up and down it for...shit, hours, sometimes. Waking up took me a long time. Too long.
"Then I ran. And, no—I didn't lead some revolt, I didn't kill anyone on the way out. Just ran. Never looked back." She snorts. "Story of my life.
"And the worst part? Running was easy. All those years of... I could've done something. But I was afraid."
Sera knows how that is. When you're little, anyone above you might as well be Coripshit, with the power to do anything they damn well please.
Sera closes what little distance they have between them, feeling the tension in Adder's broad frame, and tugs her head down so they can rest their foreheads together. She strokes Adder's bald skull and stares into her fire-orange eyes, wishing she could leap behind those eyes and hunt down all the shadows there. Adder can figure out the words Sera means to say. She's been getting better and better at that since they've been together.
They stay like that for long time, until the tightness drains from Adder's muscles and she breathes evenly.
Eventually, Adder pulls her head back with a wince. "Well! This got...dark. I just—the leaves changing colour in the Plains... Maker, I hate autumn. Makes me think of all this shit."
Sera grabs a marker and slaps it down on Ansburg.
"Thought you'd never been to the Free Marches?" Adder murmurs.
"Not where I've been—where I'm going. Me and my arrows."
"Er, I appreciate it, but Granny Mae is long dead by now. Some other scumbag has taken her place."
"Then I off that scumbag. Red Jennies aren't just for nobles. They're for pricks of all sorts."
"Then some other scumbag will take their place. What's the point?"
"Well, shit, we're all gonna die some day. What's the point of trying anything at all, huh?"
Adder barks a laugh, sudden and bright. "You're just...you're always you, aren't you? That's such a gift, Sera. It's too easy to become someone else. Or," her face gets broody again, "maybe only for me."
Sera isn't smart with words on a good day, and she certainly can't find any to respond to this. It's like she's thanking me for breathing. Who else would I be? "Dunno—done good so far, the way I see it."
Adder gives a small, distracted smile. "Oh, here's a weird coincidence: I actually met the Qunari who gave me my first dagger." Her gaze goes misty and warm. "Shokrakar."
Sera's stomach lurches unpleasantly. "What—the one that writes you all the time?"
"Mmm-hmm. A surprise for both of us, but she took it as a sign and gave me a place with her kith. I shifted around over the years, but I always came back to the Valo-Kas."
"You and her...you were lovers?"
A faint recoil, eyes going wider. Faked? Real? "With Shok?" Adder laughs. "Maker, no! It took me ages to think of her as a person, not some goddess who came down from heaven to rescue me." She wrinkles her nose faintly and adds, "Definitely not her."
She's lying... Sera inhales. Stop it. So what if she is? She's with me now.
Adder gives her an exaggerated once-over. "Hey, Sera?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm done talking." Adder pulls her toward the table. The table that's now a map of Adder and Sera's past.
"No, wait! Frig, not yet." Sera stares at the map, trying frantically to memorize it.
"You want to wait? Who are you and what have you done with Sera?"
"Just not on the sodding map!" It's a map of us. The only map I'll ever need.
Her lover grins broadly. "Sera...we'll do this again." She kisses below Sera's eye, lips skimming her cheek as she whispers. "Every night, if you want." Her lips on Sera's chin, brushing down her jaw. "You see, I'm so damned busy these days." Lips press at her throat, tongue lapping at her speeding pulse. "So...I'm going to need a lot of reminders..."
Maker, that honey tongue! Sera grabs Adder's horn-nubby-things, jerks her head up, then kisses her lips. Bet I can taste it in her mouth. She can't, but she has fun trying.
Clothes come off and markers fall. Sera is spread across the war table again, Adder above, the sky blowing hot and cool breezes, the sun warming her peaks and valleys and making her sweat.
The door to the war room opens. Adder scrambles to her feet, the grey of her cheeks darkening. Sera pulls herself up by Adder's shoulders to cover her front and her lady bits. Every advisor has already seen her arse before.
"We can't―" Cullen is saying, then "―Maker's breath!"
"Goodness!" Josephine squeaks.
Sera twists to look at them, but can't twist all the way or risk exposing her lover. All she catches from the corner of her eye are his blonde hair and her black hair―they've both turned away.
"Inquisitor, I'm―" Cullen begins.
"The markers, Inquisitor," Josephine moans, pained.
"I doodled a map," Adder mutters, looking at the floor. "Of where everything's supposed to go. Don't worry."
Sera whoops with laughter then kisses the side of Adder's neck. "Addie! Can't even be bad without bein' good, you loony!"
"Right, it's 'loony' not to want my advisors to know about this." She clears her throat, her gaze rising to meet them. "I don't care why you're up this late—"
"It's...ah, early morning, Inquisitor," Cullen murmurs.
Sera blinks, looking at the light coming in from the windows. So it is.
"Well," splutters Adder, "just...sleep in, then! That's an order! Official Inquisitor order!"
An idea snaps into place and Sera has to share it. "Wait, wait...you two without Sister Bloodybeak? Maybe you were hopin' to have the room to yourselves, eh? For...positions?"
"By Andraste's pyre!" Cullen blurts out.
"We are sorry to intrude, Your Worship," Josephine says, a rumpled bit of silk being smoothed out so the wrinkles don't show. "I will advise Leliana about...our unexpected morning off."
"See what made 'em leave?" Sera continues, loud enough to be heard through the door they close behind them. "Knew it! Our Lord Commander and our Lady Ambassador are shagging!"
Adder drops her head with a groan. "Oh, Maker, that was embarrassing." Her body tells another story: hard nipples, wide pupils, the hammering pulse at her throat.
Sera raises an eyebrow. She reaches between Adder's legs, finds her wet. "This normal for embarrassment? Maybe I been doing it all wrong, hmm?"
"Leftover from before the interruption." Her smile says 'you caught me.' It makes sense—if all she wanted was a shag, they have hundreds of more private places. A little risk is part of the fun.
Sera drops down onto the war table. "Right, your turn on this." She skims the names. "I wanna flood the Fallow Mire."
With a chuckle, Adder flips them around and lies back.
Sera put the flowers from Adder's bouquet all over her room: on pillows, the floor, the shelves of her cabinet, in the window lattice. She's nibbling on a petal as she sketches when Adder stops by that evening.
"What are you drawing?
"A bow with blades on the ends." They're brilliant blades, too, all jagged and curved. "Dagna said she can make one for me. That way if someone gets in close, stab, stab, stab! And the bow-string's a whip, too. So more whip, stab, whip, stab, really."
"Never seen you use daggers before."
"'Cuz it's so difficult, yeah?" She starts drawing arrows with dragon head-shaped arrowheads because that'd be grand. "Only Qunari and creepy spirit things can use 'em?"
"If you ever want training..."
"Ugh, boring." The arrows need to be fletched with dragon wings, too, not feathers.
A chuckle. "Fair enough. So, there was a funny moment in the war room today." Sera's gaze snaps from her drawing to Adder's grinning face. "Leliana noticed…ah, a stain on the map."
Sera giggles, face flushing at the memory of last night and this morning.
"I had to say I came in late last night to think and spilled a glass of water. But that's not the best part. Cullen―leader of my forces, survivor of the Fifth Blight and Kirkwall―and Josephine―head of her house, ambassador, known to every court in Thedas―were trying not to laugh." She leans in close, delighted. "Do you know what this means? Deep down inside them are two ten-year-old kids who were forced to grow up too quickly. We have to bring that out more."
"Fart jokes," Sera says without even needing to think.
Adder ruffles her hair. "I knew I came to the right place."
Sera wonders if she should tell Adder about the hit she sent to the Marcher Jennies this afternoon. Once Charade figures out what place used to be Granny Mae's, Ansburg will be missing a whorehouse.
Nah. Save it for her birthday.