Maker, she's tall, was the first thought that ran through Blackwall's head when he met the Herald of Andraste. He chose not to voice this thought, of course, for her scowl made him certain that she would not receive the remark in good humor.
Upon reaching Haven, he quickly noted the lack of other qunari and was glad for his earlier silence. She towered over every member of the inquisition except for the Iron Bull and surely heard the remark on a near-daily basis.
There was a hardness about her, encompassed in every facet of her being. She was a brutal force in battle, refusing to back down in the face of any foe, standing tall and imposing. Then, to witness her simply disappear from view, to know that a menace of her caliber stalked the battlefield unseen, that struck even greater fear into her enemies. Off the battlefield, she used scowls and sneers to silence those who would argue with her, those who would maintain that she was the Herald of Andraste, and the daggers she glared at politicians (and Vivienne) were as sharp as the ones she used to stab bandits. Her pride kept her back straight and her chin up, and it kept her from falling until it stifled her common sense and nearly lost her an arm, and it had begot an argument that…started everything. Those for whom she reserved her smiles and laughter were few, and, eventually, he counted himself among them.
It was strange, the moment he realized that he was attracted to her. She was nothing like the skirts he used to chase in his youth, the tiny hourglass figures with alabaster skin, flowing hair, and coy smiles, all soft and sweet. "Exotic" was a word that encompassed so many of Katari's features. Her bronzed skin, her curling horns, her…size. Those hands could encircle his entire forearm, and had on more than one occasion. He had witnessed those great thighs straddle an (un)lucky bandit as she plunged her daggers into his chest. And when she strutted around Skyhold in nothing but her leathers, bearing a form so undeniably feminine despite her strength…he was at a loss. Even her name had a foreign ring to it, rolling off the tongue so easily. When he learned its meaning, he thought it suited her well: strong, serious, but still lovely. She was the furthest thing from fragile, and, somehow, that was the most attractive thing about her.
Maker, she was daunting.
Yet, the more time that he spent with the inquisitor, the more battles they fought together, the more conversations that they shared, the more he realized that the pillar of strength he admired had more chips and dents in her than a glance would allow one to see. And he realized, slowly, that those flaws were more important than he assets. They were what made her approachable, what gave him access to those smiles that he learned to covet like small treasures.
Watching out for her in combat, he witnessed her weaknesses as a fighter. He noticed that she favored her right leg – later, he learned that an old wound in her calf still made the muscles spasm now and then. The blind spot she had on her left was revealed while fighting a band of bandits. Katari, preoccupied by a duo of rogues that had vanished, caught a mallet swing intended for Varric, who had managed to avoid the weapon's path, just below one of her horns as the weapon arced back up. She crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The next swing would have shattered her skull and sent brain matter spraying across Varric's trousers, but Blackwall was quick enough to see that it only dented his shield and sent a ricking tremor through his wrist.
He ordered Varric to get her to safety, but neither the dwarf nor Vivienne could drag the dead weight of their inquisitor more than two steps. One devastating swing after another connected with his shield, and it was all he could do to keep the brute at bay, keep its focus on him instead of the unconscious qunari at his feet, who for the first time seemed strangely small and…vulnerable, while the others dealt with the elusive rogues. Finally, Vivienne's lightning paralyzed their quick feet, two well-aimed arrows pierced their jugulars, and the brute fell soon after them.
Together, they managed to drape their leader's unconscious form over one of the horses and hurry her back to Skyhold, because by then they'd exhausted their medical supplies and she was bleeding from a head wound and showed no sign of rousing.
The next morning, she happened upon him as he was attempting to hammer out the dents in his shield. The way that she slipped inside the barn, her strides slow and small, spoke of nervousness. A first for the bold inquisitor, who, as previously mentioned, preferred to strut about Skyhold. She cleared her throat to announce her presence, as if he could ever fail to notice her, and he raised his eyes from the shield to behold her. Her temple was swathed in bandaging, and she seemed incredibly tired. Fast, subdued breathes flared her nostrils. He wondered, though the thought was silly, if she had run there all the way from the infirmary.
"I was told that this," she gestured toward her head, "would be the least of my problems if not for you."
"Think nothing of it," he said, striking the shield. "You're well?"
She tapped her knuckles against the offended horn, and he barely caught the wince that echoed around her eyes. However, it would be wholly unlike her to speak of her pain. "Nothing's cracked. Just as well, I don't think asymmetry would suit me."
Anything would suit you. He held his tongue as the ring of metal against metal cried out once more.
"I think a smith could do a better job with that," she advised.
"I can manage just fine." His hammer nearly fell from his hand when a badly angled strike sent a tremor through his wrist.
She narrowed her eyes, that shyness fleeing her visage. "Your wrist is bothering you," she accused rather than asked.
"It'll pass, my lady." Ah, that time his tongue beat his common sense. "You have more important things to worry about than an old man's joints." He smiled, but she did not.
She opened her mouth, closed it abruptly. She pursed her lips, and he worried that he'd offended her, because that hardness was in her eyes again. She stared at the warped iron, cocked her head to the side just so, stared at it a while longer, nodded her head, and left the barn without a word. Then, she stuck her head back in and said, "Get your wrist looked at by a healer, or I'll be forced to bring Cassandra with me next time I leave. I can't have an injured Warden getting in my way." Her words were stern, but the quirk of her lips betrayed her, and he shook his head with amusement as she disappeared from view once more. He did as she ordered, of course, for he would not, under any circumstances, allow her to venture from Skyhold without him.
Two days later, he found a shining shield of obsidian propped up on the table beside one of his half-whittled projects, emblazoned with the very image he meant to carve into being, the symbol of the Wardens, the gryphon. He discarded the other shield, still battered and misshapen despite his efforts ('tis true, he was no smith), and he took up the gift with awe. She gave thanks with actions rather than words, and he could feel her gratitude across every inch of obsidian.
Her physical weaknesses were those of which any observant enemy could take advantage, and he learned to adjust his own movements, his awareness, to compensate for her limitations, to better protect her. He would never tell her so, of course, for her pride could not handle such coddling.
Conversations shared over tankards of ale in the tavern, late at night when most of the soldiers had retired to bed or inebriated stupor, revealed to him further cracks in her stony façade. When drink had burned her throat and lightened her head, she told him of the person that she wished she was: a woman who knew her place in the world. She was qunari, yet she was not by their standards. Neither was she truly Tal-Vashoth or accepted by them as such, as she had not been the one to reject the qun and leave Par-Vollen, but still she condemned its ideals. She had not been raised under the qun, yet her parents were not Andrastian either and so she had not been raised as one. Even regarding the Valo-kas, she spoke of detachment. There was no body of people to which she felt a sense of belonging, and in turn, the very question of "Who am I?" left her scrambling. The only answer that anyone had for that question was, "The Herald of Andraste," and that answer terrified her more thoroughly than anything else did. She struck down the idea because she did not want to believe it herself, because if she truly was the Herald of Andraste, and she failed in this endeavor, then she failed in being the only thing she was meant to be.
In the end, she would prefer being meaningless.
When she told him of her terror, upon instinct, he took one of her hands in his, and he swore to her that she was not meaningless. Her fingers were callused, but her palm was soft and warm, and that she did not pull away from him pleased him immensely.
Instead, she lied her head down on the bar, one of her horns tipping her head at an odd angle so that she stared down at their joined hands, her thumb barely caressing his knuckles. For once, he was the taller of them, "It must be nice," she said after a while, "knowing who you are." She looked sidelong-up at him, her eyes searching his face for Maker knows what. There was no fogginess in her gaze, and he realized that it was not the ale that loosened her tongue. He was touched by the trust she placed in him to reveal such fear, to bare herself before him, without armor or self-constructed walls of pride to protect herself. "You're a Warden. You're Warden-Constable Blackwall. You said it yourself: you're a promise to protect others, even at the cost of your own life." Something akin to a smile curled her lips. "No matter what happens, you know who you are, what you are, and nothing, no one, can take that away from you." The idea seemed to comfort her, if the way she squeezed his hand was any indication. He was glad, for he could say nothing in response, so thoroughly did his lie lodge itself in his throat and claw upward with the intent of escape. She sat up, raised her tankard, and said, "To…self-discovery." They downed the rest of their ale, and he allowed the drink to wash away thoughts of his shame and folly.
She bore the weight and the fate of the world on her shoulders day after day, and if his lie could bring her some amount of comfort, he would not destroy the illusion that she perceived him to be. Even when he knew that she deserved the truth, when he wanted to believe that she might accept him as the man he used to be, the man he still was deep down inside, when he brought her to the site of the real Blackwall's death and she stared down at his bones, when he knew that he must leave her in order to right the wrongs that he had wrought, he could not bear to tell her that what she thought he was…was only a lie.
Last night, she was soft. She was warm and inviting, self-conscious and unguarded. Her vulnerability was even more beautiful than her strength, and it left him stunned. When he watched her sleep afterward, curled against him, one great arm roped over his chest, clinging to him in such a fiercely innocent way, she seemed at peace. Happy. It was such a rarity to see her free of worry. He'd managed to distract her from time to time, of course, but there was always something to deter her from losing herself completely, some visitor or operation or document that needed her attention and niggled at the back of her mind until she saw to it. Last night, there was nothing but her and him, the warmth of the barn, her face pressed into the hollow of his throat, and the pitter-patter of her heart beating against his ribs. He wanted to hold her forever, protect her from the world that sought to destroy her. It was a silly thought, but he decided that if she belonged anywhere in the world, it was with him.
He knew, then, without doubt, that he loved her. And if he truly loved her, he could no longer deceive her, allow her to give herself to a wretched lie. So, he would leave, he would hang for his crimes, and in doing so, he would be the man that she continually tried to convince him that he was. He would be worthy of her in death, and she would never need to know the shame of discovering his deception. Her pride could not handle such a revelation, he was certain.
Before he left, he kissed her forehead and traced the curve of her horns with his fingers, those strange, exotic horns. He wanted to commit every bit of her to memory, everything that made her Katari Adaar. He wanted the last thing he saw, as he closed his eyes and the noose tightened around his throat, to be the woman he loved.
As he rides farther from Skyhold, with snow, wind, and doubt buffeting him, he hopes that she will believe she loved an honorable man, a Warden finally defeated by the Calling that he tried to keep at bay, who slipped away into the night with the intent on confronting his demons and his mortality in the deep roads. He hopes that her belief in him, and whatever he represented to her, will still provide her strength, when he himself no longer can.