A/N: So here is another story. But I hear some people thinking, wait, didn't you just post one? Well, I did, and then I re-read it and hated it and also it was getting a lot darker than I currently want to be, so I came back to this new idea. I am more sorry than I can say to any who read it and wanted more, especially to shom who is a lovely person I can never thank personally. Sometimes I just can't write as well as I wish I could. :(

I hope this one makes up for it, as this is one I will definitely continue and finish. But just to note, while some of the characterization probably overlaps a little because they are who they are, this story and vision is completely divorced from the continuity of my other Cullandra works. I'm also playing a little fast and loose with the timeline of Cassandra's backstory. Anyway, thanks for reading. You are all great!

Cassandra Pentaghast fell in love as easily as a leaf from a tree. But of course, leaves only fell once, and she was in a perpetual state of falling.

At nine, she dearly loved the man who kept the horses at their estate outside of Nevarra City. Jacques was quiet and grave and had a beard that looked like a cloud before a storm. She went to the stables every day to watch him train the new yearlings, gentle and delicate, and she fed the horses sugar and carrots alongside him.

"Princessina," he would say, in his thick Antivan accent, "you will spoil my charges with your kindness."

"But I cannot help it," she'd answered each time with a deliberately solemn expression. "They are very spoilable."

And he would laugh and say that she was much the same and give her more treats to pass on. She took the memory of that laughter to her room and dreamed in her childlike way of a wedding that was attended only by horses.

She had very few clear memories of her mother, but the best was when Cassandra asked her permission to marry the stablemaster. Lady Pentaghast had been writing at her desk, a place where the children were never to disturb her, but Cassandra was too full of visions of her future to bother with that sort of rule.

Instead of snapping, as Cassandra later realized she should have, she smiled broadly. "So, you wish to make Master Braum your life's companion? Tell me, my love, what brought you to this decision?"

Cassandra closed her eyes in furious thought. "He's kind. The horses like him. He lets me have extra treats whenever I want. And he never tells me I'm running too fast," she added, wrinkling her nose. Her governesses were forever telling her to slow down, to watch the path in front of her, to be still.

When she opened them again, her mother was still smiling. "A good start," she said. "And I would say you've chosen very well for yourself. He's a fine man. But, sweetling, you do know he has a wife already?"

"She'll yield to me," said Cassandra. There was no doubt inside of her. "I'm a princess."

That brought on the sternness, the mother that wasn't a mother but was the king's vassal. His spy. "That is unworthy of you."

Cassandra dropped her eyes in shame, and she felt a soothing hand run across her dark hair. "Royalty doesn't stay royal for long if they use their status for themselves instead of their subjects. It's so easy to be cruel when you're born into power," said Lady Pentaghast, and when Cassandra looked up her mother was staring over her, past her into something that only she could see. "Don't give the world a reason to turn on you. It won't hesitate."

"But they tell me I need to be more a princess, not less," said Cassandra in protest.

Lady Pentaghast focused on her once more. "I'm leaving your upbringing too much to those fool governesses. Too few brains and too much time."

Cassandra giggled sharply, then clapped her hand over her mouth and looked over her shoulder for observers. There were none, and she took her hand down again to grin at her mother.

She returned it. "Hopefully that will change soon. But in the meantime, do you understand why you cannot demand a man leave his wife, simply because you wish it?"

Casandra nodded slowly, then blurted, "But I love him! And when you love someone, you marry them. Everyone knows that."

"I am not everyone," said her mother. "And I will tell you a secret. You will love many times, large and small and every place in between. You have a romantic heart, and an adventurous one. Some loves will press on you, some will make you lighter. But only one will be the truth of the matter." She slid off of her chair to kneel down next to Cassandra, putting their eyes at the same height. "I loved before your father, but he was the one I was waiting to find."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Cassandra had to lean in to hear it. "Only the Maker knows how much I love that man."

A tear dropped down her mother's cheek, and Cassandra hugged her instinctively. "I'm sorry," she said, distraught. "I'm sorry. I won't marry Master Braum."

"Oh sweetling," said her mother against her shoulder. "It isn't that. And you are too young for all of this now, but I have to take what time I have…" She trailed off and gave her a final squeeze before pulling back with her hands on Cassandra's shoulders. "You won't marry Master Braum, but you will marry someone. Many women plan their weddings for their whole lives. What would you like your wedding to be, someday?"

Cassandra lit up and dragged her mother to the low table with parchments and quills to show her. The aisle was long and lined with guests, four-legged all, and they tried to bite at her bouquet as she walked, but it didn't matter. And her dress was long and lovely, and the day was clear and sunny, and she was as beautiful as she would ever be. The food was all of her favorites, and she and her husband gave the horses their portions.

As she talked her mother wove strands of Cassandra's hair into a braid that wound around her scalp like a crown. After she'd drawn and described every thing she'd seen in her mind the braiding was done, and Cassandra rushed to a mirror to study herself.

"There is always part of you that is a princess," said her mother behind her. "But the rest of you is Cassandra, my brave and wonderful daughter, and you are so loved."

Her final memory of her mother was when she watched her walk to the high gallows, her back straight and proud. It was only a few months later, but there had been a rebellion in the empty space. Cassandra didn't fully understand it, but her brother Anthony said they would live as suspects and their parents would die as traitors. Their uncle Vestalus would take care of them both, a new guardian, but first they had to watch the deaths. As a lesson.

But Cassandra refused to be taught. Her hair was in her usual braided crown, and she touched it as her mother walked the stony path. Lady Pentaghast wore rags and no shoes, and her eyes were fixed on her husband, who was waiting already atop the platform. And in Cassandra's mind the rags fell away and were replaced with her imagined beautiful gown, and she saw clear skies and a lined path of love. This is their wedding, she thought to herself. And they have planned this day forever.

Instead of a Cleric, there was a hangman, and instead of vows, there was the fall, but her parents held hands as they went. And Cassandra cried, as expected, but not only because they were gone. Her tears fell partly because they had been so lovely in the going.

Her next serious love was in the fighting ring. Anthony was the one who insisted that she learn to fight, over Vestalus's objections. He wanted to be a mighty dragon hunter and needed a squire, he said, but she knew it was a lie to make her belong. Cassandra adored Anthony, even more now that he was all she had, and so she trained to fight dragons as well.

She was only fifteen, but she was tall by birth and swift from her years of running where she shouldn't and climbing where no one ever knew, so they put her in training with the oldest group. Most were boys who sneered at the female students, but Anthony stood up for her with his words. She stood up for herself with her sword.

One boy, a few years older, never stopped his teasing, no matter how many times Anthony warned him or she battered him. "Good hit, Princess," he said every time she scored a blow, an infuriating grin on his face. "Dainty enough for afternoon tea, that one was." He took delight in trying to unwind her hair when she rested with a waterskin, darting quick fingers in between the strands before she could twitch away. James was a fletcher's son, and he'd been dealing with delicate things his whole life. He never succeeded in his goal of releasing the braid, but failure didn't seem to bother him.

And the odd part was that it didn't bother her, either. She glared and swatted him away, as she had to, but inside her stomach fluttered and craved that small smile he gave whenever he was caught. It was a smile full of secrets and danger. It was a smile she began to see in new dreams, dreams that held more interesting events than a wedding full of equine guests. When she woke with her head full of clouds she knew it was love once more.

Every morning when she woke she said her prayer to the Maker and then spoke to her mother in quiet meditation. Is this the love you told me to wait for? But her mother never answered.

One afternoon James lingered after the training was over, twirling his broadsword absently. Cassandra noticed without watching, and wondered again why a fletcher's son was so against mastering the bow. Too late she realized they were the last ones remaining, and she stood abruptly. It wasn't proper for a princess to be alone with a man who was not a member of her family.

He moved to block her. "Hey, Princess. Want to spar a little?"

She glanced at the door the training masters had gone through. They'd forbidden any fighting without their supervision.

James followed her gaze and laughed, but it was a soft laugh instead of mocking. "C'mon, they're a bunch of worriers," he said, hefting his sword into a fighting position. "You're good. I'm good. Let's see how good we are together."

His eyes fixed on her face, a delicious darkness that cut straight through her guard, and she no longer wanted to be still and careful. "Very well," she said, and stepped to him with her own sword and shield.

"Ten minutes or first blood," he said softly. "I won't take it easy on you, Cassandra."

She shivered at the sound of his velvet voice around her name. "What are the stakes?"

"What do you want?"

"If I win, you tell Anthony I beat you." Her brother had once claimed she could never beat any of the boys in the class in a real fight, and she'd burned to prove him wrong ever since.

Too late she wondered if that would be a blow to his ego, but James only smiled. "Deal. And if I win, you let me take down that hair of yours," he said. He didn't step any closer, but Cassandra felt the distance between them narrowing anyway. "It's much too tempting, Princess."

Cassandra only nodded, and they set to fighting. They were evenly matched, though less evenly than he probably thought. She kept getting distracted by the flex of his arm, or the harsh note of his breath across from her, and no matter how much she told herself to focus on her steel, she found herself focused more on the fighter. The only thing that kept her centered at all was the knowledge that this kind of mental softness would earn her a harsh reprimand from their instructors. She'd never slay a dragon this way.

But at last a moment came where she was too lost, and he was too unskilled, and his sword sliced across her cheek on a wild upswing. She cried out and dropped her sword, holding a hand to her face. She pressed hard as she fell to the ground in shock, the rush of pain keeping her present. Her fingers came away sticky with blood, and all she could think to say was, "You won."

"Maker's ass, Cassandra," said James in a panic. He knelt next to her and tore a strip off of his shirt to press to her cheek. "I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"

I'm bleeding, she wanted to say. I don't think that's ever felt good for anyone. But because he looked truly afraid, and because the pain was nothing compared to the fact that her mother never answered her questions, she shook her head. "No. I'm fine. Thank you for your concern."

To her surprise he laughed, a low rumble that she felt through the hand still touching her face. "You're so serious. So stoic. Hard to believe you're younger than me," he said softly. "Hard to believe you can be so pretty even when you're bleeding."

Her eyes widened as he kissed her, then closed against the welling joy. Without thought she touched his face with her own fingers, and that seemed to be the right thing to do to keep him against her. Her cheek stopped bleeding long before they were done kissing.

They got in trouble with their instructors for the fight, of course, even though James tried to shield her and take all of the blame, but it was worth a hundred lectures to see him and touch his hand and whisper in the darkness in between kisses. Cassandra's head filled with love for him. This was the truth she'd been waiting for.

Anthony found them one day in a corner of the armory, her hair free and threading through James's fingers like a cord that bound them together. She begged him to stay silent, but her brother told the instructors, who told Vestalus, who dismissed the fletcher the next day and sent him and his son to a distant village. Cassandra was locked in her room for a week before he finally sent for her.

When Cassandra came to him in tears, ready to declare her intention to marry this boy she knew was her future, Vestalus cut her off before she could begin. "Pentaghasts do not have flings with tradesmen's sons," he said in his reedy voice. "You are a princess. You will marry to your, and to this family's, advantage. I won't have you ruined by some adolescent lust."

She tried to protest, but he never let her speak. "Enough. You are my ward. If you run, I will have you dragged back. Your weapons training is officially ended. If you attempt anything of this nature again, you will find you've received many other privileges that will no longer be yours. If that is not sufficient, Anthony will also be punished for any shame you bring upon this household. I hope I am understood."

He turned back to his desk, an unofficial dismissal, and Cassandra left in a blaze of anger. Vestalus was a fool, a mage with no strength for all his posturing. Her training instructors would have called him a soft target, one to kill early to clear the field for the real threats. And he did not control her.

She thought once of Anthony as she packed her belongings to run. He would be punished for this. Vestalus was weak, but he never lied. But that thought was less distressing than it could have been. Her brother had done this to her. He'd betrayed her. Maybe a little punishment was what he deserved.

Cassandra left under cover of darkness, through a patrol that was laughably easy to subvert. She carried daggers instead of a sword, wore traveling clothes instead of a gown, but as the safety of the estate gave way behind her, she felt more herself than she had in a very long time.

But everything went wrong.

Anthony came after her, why she never knew. He was frantic, that was clear, but before he could speak a band of mages fell on them both. They'd been tracking her, for her dragon hunter's blood, but Anthony was larger and stronger and male, so they wanted him instead. Her they would simply kill. When they said that Anthony screamed defiance and fought, and though they both had the strength and the training to win, he died on one of their blades while she watched in dumb helplessness.

She ran, far away from the terrified and bleeding mages, ran to the town where James had gone. It was the only place she knew that might be safe. That would have even a touch of home. She found her love pressing a girl to the wall outside of his new house, her auburn hair clenched in his fist as they explored each others' mouths.

A group of Seekers of Truth saw her fighting him with her knives, wild and deadly and full of pain, and when they found out her name, her faith, and her desire for a new life they recruited her on the spot.

The Seekers taught her the control her governesses had never found. At her core she remained the same woman she'd always been. She was apt to want to run where she should walk. Her mind flew along the path that was quickest while those around her debated and dithered. But while her actions remained decisive, once she took them, she learned to make that slow first step before sprinting. She learned to hide some of the impulsiveness that had always lived under her skin. She learned to control the expressions of her face and heart. The Seekers were very pleased with her progress.

And she channeled her romantic nature the same way.

Cassandra understood now that the part of romance that was good was the beginning, the time where the adrenaline spiked, colors were clear and bright, and her heart danced and fluttered in overwhelming sensation. A boy would laugh, or touch his forehead, or simply stand in the doorframe in a familiar, alluring way, and Cassandra spiraled down the path of early love once more. When she was old enough, she found the further pleasures of the bed, and Seeker life became a dream to balance out the nightmares of her past.

Never play the string out too far, though. Never walk so far down the path that the way out was lost. After the excitement came the pain, the separations, and they could only bring heartache to her.

Between the loves there were the dreams of death. Her parents dropped and her brother bled out, and she prayed to the Maker that another love would come to her quickly to replace them. There was no shortage of trained men to satisfy every part of her, but she had to take care to only act with the ones who expected little. She didn't plan to be anyone's truth. She knew enough about the nature of Seeking it, by now, to know that it was all too easy to find where it didn't exist.

So Cassandra fell a dozen times, a hundred, and the joy of it never faltered. Whether it found purchase or not, it was always a firework against her heart.

She fell when she stepped out of her vigil, not too full of the Maker to miss the man who watched her with a lock of hair draping over his eye like the sweetest temptation. She fell after she fought off a dragon, for the village smith who stood quietly in his wife's arms and cried out his grief for those they hadn't been able to save. She fell when she was the Divine's Right Hand, trading glances with supplicants who never found the Chantry holy enough to ignore her. She fell when she traveled, meeting and dancing and playing and leaving.

Now Divine Justinia had sent her to Kirkwall with Leliana. In name they were taking stock of the place that had been the first salvo in the mage and Templar wars, to help the Divine end the hostilities. Underneath they searched for Viscountess Hawke, the former ruler of the city who'd vanished without a trace. They needed a leader for the new movement they were building, and Hawke was one of the few names that had managed to be in the war without becoming hated for it. Her trail was cold, but she still had former friends in the city. They would find her.

The Hands of the Divine landed on the shore of the Gallows, the Templar garrison. It was their temporary home, and the gray stones somehow seemed welcoming under a bright and streaming sun. The man who steered the boat was small and dark and undeniably attractive, and Cassandra had spent the voyage exploring the small ripples of happiness bursting within her. They stepped into the courtyard, but before she could say her meaningful goodbyes, a figure broke apart from a clustered knot of Templars and walked down the steps to greet them. When he lifted his helm to see them more clearly, Cassandra nearly lost her balance.

He was tall, taller than her which was a rarity even among warriors, and built as powerfully as any Templar she'd seen. His golden hair fell gently in soft waves, and as she watched the wind ruffled it into a new pattern, one she longed to smooth down. The unyielding armor he wore only enhanced the hard lines of his jaw and the carved granite of his face. But his skin was pale, almost too pale to suit, and the dry, observant part of her noticed the weary lines around his eyes and mouth and the cuts between his stubble where his knife had slipped in shaving. This was a man driving himself into the ground, which meant he was certainly the garrison's commander.

But that realization seemed distant, very far away, as the small vibrations inside her were overwhelmed by a roaring, crazed, joyful shout. Oh yes, she would fall for this man. And if the Maker was kind, he would be the sort to let her have those few weeks of stolen, hungry kisses and hidden pleasures before releasing her back into the world to find the next happiness.

The fervency of her prayer redoubled when he got close enough for her to see the soft lights of his honey-brown eyes. He extended a hand to them both. "Lady Leliana, Seeker Pentaghast. I'm Knight-Commander Cullen Rutherford. Welcome to Kirkwall."