Disclaimer: This story has been written out of fan-appreciation, so please don't sue. I don't own Dragon Age. Certainly not or else I would have added a few romance options in "Inquisition"...

Thanks to my awesome beta UntilNeverDawns. Let's get started, shall we?

Everybody has a secret. Even the ones that don't think they have one do. What are secrets anyway? Something you'd rather not have other people know about you, about a friend or just about someone you know. Secrets don't have to be dangerous, they don't have to cause any damage – at least not to others. They can just be that thing you're ashamed to tell or can't tell, because you'd make someone else really uncomfortable. And if you told them to anyone, you'd blush, all the blood would go rushing to your face, you'd stutter. Not an attractive picture. So instead of telling you secrets to someone, you leave them to fester inside you like a wound. All right, since we're going with the whole 'wounds-metaphor', not quite as harmless. Let's start that whole train of thought again. Secrets are always dangerous. And Eve was wondering just how dangerous hers was.

She studied those faces sitting around the campfire with her and bestowed each with a lingering, calculating glance: the Trevinter mage, the dwarf, the Qunari. And then there was her, the human who had recently been made Inquisitor. Studying her own face was not an option and it really was quite a ridiculous idea, because no matter how much she squinted, she wouldn't be able to accomplish that without a mirror.

Her traveling companions were conversing, oblivious to her morose thoughts about secrets and the more ridiculous ones about studying her own face. Mostly oblivious, she amended mentally, because Dorian's observant grey eyes came to rest on her face every now and then, while Varric was distracted by animatedly recounting one of his glorious adventures with Hawke. She schooled her expression into one of mild interest, feeling the gaze of his watchful eyes linger.

Among her companions Dorian was the hardest for her to read and therefore the one she trusted the least. Unfortunately he was also the likeliest candidate when it came to figuring out her little secret. He had the nasty habit of being able to see past superficialities and glimpse beneath the outward façade of other people's character. Being a descendent of Trevinter nobility, he was well schooled in recognizing duplicity and manipulation, unlike Eve, who as a humble daughter of House Trevelyan was severely lacking in that department. The Trevelyans were remote relations of the Pavus', Dorian's family, but apart from a common lineage they didn't have much in common. Eve's family came from Ostwick. They were as Maker-fearing as they were proliferous. It was difficult taking care of so many children, to be precise seven and mostly boys, so at some point the Trevelyans lost control over the situation. In all fairness they only lost control over their only daughter, the youngest, Eve.

She was the one always asking uncomfortable questions about the Chant of Light. Later she would sneak around her parent's castle, wearing trousers, her hair a tangled up, wild mess. At some point she would be presented with an eye-roll to arriving guests and the words: "Oh, that? That's Eve. Our youngest. Don't mind her." Her other siblings were always more important and it was improbable that she would ever be entrusted with a greater responsibility than to marry someone rich to preserve the family fortune. So Eve became the eternal after-thought, the rebel, the "Oh-she's-just-like-that"- person.

She adapted to that role quickly. She had her way with words, could charm people, but never could quite rein in that sarcasm and sharp tongue she had about her. It came from spending too much time with the wrong sort of people. The ones who liked wine, knew how to pick locks and fight dirty. Most of her companions found her way of interacting with others amusing, if not refreshing. Like Varric. The first words she had spoken to him, a compliment about his crossbow, had made him smirk. He was her sort of guy. Like the folks she knew from back home, only that he didn't seem to be the backstabbing type. Which was good. They got along swimmingly. Dorian and her? Not so much.

Usually Eve would have been all ears, eager to listen to the story Varric was doubtlessly so masterfully spinning, but tonight she felt weary, a feeling she often tried to hide behind a façade of bravery and fake lightheartedness. She was thinking about her secret, the one she couldn't possibly tell, the one that would mortify her and make others frown. Unfortunately it was slowly eating away at her like all secrets have the nasty habit of doing.

Inevitably her eyes came to rest on Varric again. For a second she took in the way he moved his hands while he spoke, that little half-smile on his face that indicated he was working his way to the best part of the story. Bull's booming laughter told her it was a good story. She could feel the Qunari's one eye on her, too, though less calculating than the ones of the Trevinter mage. Still he was watching her.

Well, she supposed that was where traveling around willingly with a Qunari spy, a story telling, wisecracking dwarf and sardonic mage got her. Into all sorts of trouble. Eve sighed and subtly shook her head. This was not going to end well.

Maybe she should get up now and walk away in an attempt to protect the last smidgen of her privacy from Dorian's watchful eyes, but getting up would be suspicious, so she stayed and poked a little at the embers of the fire with a stick in her hand.

Varric's tale ended and the Qunari slapped his shoulder in praise and laughed some more. The force of the amicable slap briefly sent the dwarf tumbling forward and let him struggle for balance, there sitting on the edge of the log opposite of her. He quickly caught himself again and fortunately didn't end up face first in the campfire. Bull's good mood let her conclude that the story hadn't been the one about Hawke and the Arishok. Eve smirked. She had liked that story well enough when Varric had told it to her the other day.

Then again she wasn't a very critical audience. She liked stories, always had, and always would. Reading had been her escape when he brothers had excluded her from their games back when they were children. Stories were consoling, familiar, something she loved. Maybe that was part of the problem. Her smile disappeared and was inevitably replaced by a weary expression.

"So, fearsome leader," Dorian's voice drawled and inevitably she tensed up a little, "any reason for that dour face? Or is that just the face the Inquisitor tends to make from time to time behind locked doors? I supposed we haven't been treated it yet, because you're afraid of appearing too… common?"

Eve turned her face in Dorian's direction. Tonight he was a like a pesky fly, buzzing around her head, when most of the times she found his company interesting, but taxing. Taxing because he reminded her too much of home and a lifestyle she detested – nobility and its strange way of conversing. Adulation, hidden traps and double-meanings. "If you have to know, I was just thinking…"

"Oh, do tell. That sounds intriguing…. Anything interesting?" the mage inquired with a charming, but false smile. "Anything to pass the time on this dull evening."

"What? Are you meaning to say killing Red Templars today was not entertaining enough for you?" Eve shot back with her best version of that charming smile.

"Entertaining? Yes, but unfortunately a little, how shall I best put it? I think I'll go with simplistic and repetitive…"

"A kill is never simplistic. It's an art," the Qunari interjected, his accented dark voice filled with a warm timbre, as if he was pleased to recall the blood spilling of this afternoon.

"Perhaps the approach to it isn't," Dorian amended, "The end result however is always the same. Dead Templar. Case and point: rather dull and simplistic."

"Or not. You can't deny there is a great variety of death to choose from: crispy Templar, frozen Templar, struck by lightning Templar, riddled with crossbow bolts Templar, sliced open Templar, decapitated Templar… You name it, Sparkler," Varric grinned and picked up Bianca to clean her. They all had certain ways to pass the time sitting around the campfire at night. Varric's was cleaning his crossbow and telling stories. He'd always touch the weapon with such reverence. There was an almost tenderness and consideration to the way he laid it down upon his lap and started wiping it with his cloth.

Eve's eyes briefly lingered on his hands, before she tore them away and focused on Dorian again.

"Semantics," the mage replied in an almost bored tone of voice. "Embellishments. The Templars won't argue with you anymore because they are dead. I'll do it on their behalf. There is no variation of death. It's absolute. You're either dead or you aren't."

"So you're trying to cheer me up by talking about death? Innovative," Eve raised an eyebrow. Out of the corners of her eyes she could see Varric smirking at her comment, so she couldn't help but feel satisfied with it.

"Cheer you up, Inquisitor? Why, I'm simply acting the part of preoccupied friend and companion…"

She raised her head to look at the Trevinter mage over the campfire. His insistence tempted her to utter the sarcastic response already lying ready on the tip of her tongue, but she kept it in. She still needed him. Not only to watch her back in the next couple of days, but for a matter that was more disconcerting than Red Templars. There had been this invite to the Orlesian court that preoccupied her and was half of the reason she had been so silent tonight. She didn't feel like talking about the other half, chances were she never would.

"Since you're ACTING the part of preoccupied friend and companion tonight, you might be interested to know that I was thinking about that invite to Orlais… I'm afraid I might not be as well suited for that task as I need to be. And as you so readily point out at any chance you get, my particular brand of charming fits the local tavern much better than the Winter Palace… And as much as it pains me to admit it, but you are right about that of course, I do feel much more comfortable there."

"Nothing wrong with that. You meet the best kind of people at taverns," Varric said with a smirk as he polished Bianca's wooden surface until it shone in the light of the campfire.

"Agreed," Pull added.

Both of them were more or less keeping to the sidelines of the conversation.

"There's actually no need to support her in this," Dorian sneered. "As a leader you need to be able to adapt to various social settings and alternate your behavior accordingly…"

"I know that," Eve sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. "Don't you think I know that? So what do I do? The ball's next week and I have no idea how to play the "Game". Father always said: 'There's no higher virtue than honesty'. Maybe that's why I'm pretty bad at pretending I know how to behave myself…"

"Hard to believe, coming from someone called Lady Travelyan." Varric said, rubbing his cloth over a rather insistent splotch of blood on his crossbow that just wouldn't come off. His vexation with it briefly audible in his voice. "Maybe it's time I introduced you to the fine art of playing Wicked Grace. Can't believe you never played. Best training for dealing with nobles. Lots of bluffs required," he concluded with a smirk when the spot finally vanished.

"It really isn't that much of a surprise. I was the only girl in a castle full of boys and the youngest. They never bothered to teach me much of anything... Well, besides useless stuff like embroidering things. Do you have ANY idea how boring that is? I always pretended to lose my needlework. After a while they just gave up trying," she shrugged her shoulders with a proud grin.

"At any rate," Dorian cut into the brief exchange between her and Varric, looking at her intently, "maybe it's time someone prepared you for that ball in Orlais..."

"Are you volunteering?" Eve asked, somewhat amused by his worry about her making a fool of herself in front of the majority of Orlesian nobility. Actually it was slightly offensive how he thought her to be no more gallant and gracious than a drufallo farming girl from the Hinterlands, but she chose to ignore that thought in favor of finding the idea of Dorian being her tutor in all things concerning court etiquette amusing. Others had tried teaching her things and learned that it was next to impossible if she didn't want to learn. But her smug little grin soon fell.

"Volunteering?" he asked, pointing at his chest. "Do you see Vivienne anywhere around? No, that's right. You haven't brought her; because the two of you can't seem to get along, can you? I wonder why that is... Perhaps your lack of social finesse? Anyway, be that as it may, I'm your last and only hope to get this right."

"Why?"

Dorian smirked. "Dear Eve, are you jesting? Those two?" He pointedly let his gaze linger on Varric and Bull each for a couple of seconds. "What could they possibly know about how to behave at Empress Celene's grand ball? They are no better than you."

"Hey Tiny," Varric grinned ironically, "isn't that nice? Sparkler's just paid us a compliment. He says we're like the Herald of Andraste. Just as heroic, but a little less chesty..." He gestured with two hands towards his chest, obviously alluding to Eve's bosoms, before he looked down at his own half-unbuttoned shirt that showed off his manly chest and up at Bull's protruding pecs and suddenly frowned. "All right, scratch that last bit," he muttered in an afterthought. "We're just like her. Just in a manly way."

"I'm sure Dorian didn't mean the part where he said you were just like me as an insult..." Eve tried to placate both men. "Right, Dorian?"

"More like a critical observation," Dorian replied smoothly. "But that still doesn't change the fact that you're in dire need of being educated in the matters of polite and artful behavior at court..."

"So teach me then," she said.

"If only things were that easy..." Dorian sighed.

"I can be a good student if I want to be. The best."

"I wish you hadn't said that. That's what they all say and then they turn out to be appalling..."

Dorian commenced her lessons immediately. He was impatient and sardonic, in short not very well suited to be a teacher, but when she got it right, which she did occasionally, he would praise her like one would praise a beloved puppy for not peeing on the carpet. Needless to say that after having spent the better part of the day like that, Eve needed to relax. And she relaxed best when she was able to misbehave in some form or other.

Conveniently they had arrived at some little town. On their way in she had seen an interesting and very much deserted house. After having walked up to it and found it locked she had decided that she would come back at a later time to pick the lock, namely at night. Going alone was risky, so she brought her fellow rogue along. One of them would stand guard; the other would try to get that door open. They had left Dorian and Bull back at the inn.

She was kneeling in front of the lock, prodding at it carefully with her lock picking instruments, while a look of concentration made her features somewhat sterner, though also slightly comically thanks to her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. Varric stood next to her with his back leaned against the door, while he silently kept a watch out for those guards walking the streets of that little town at night.

Lock picking was a complicated trade and required a vast spectrum of skills: a steady hand, intuition, practice and the ability to listen closely to the soft, telltale noises of the lock. There were certain sounds you wanted to hear when you inserted the wrench in the lock and the same applied for when you started working on it with one of those numerous picks, so she could hardly divide her attention between lock picking and watching out for those guards at the same time

"Shite!" She muttered. "Damn stubborn, this one..."

The dwarf chuckled quietly next to her. It was a raucous sound, but pleasant. A bit like the crackling of dry wood in an open fire.

"Stop laughing and give me one of those-"

Before she could end the sentence a half-diamond pick was held under her nose by a familiar gloved hand. The instrument was resting in the middle of his palm and glinting in the moonlight. "This one?" he asked with a quite predictable roguish grin on his face.

She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "smart-ass" under her breath and paid his grin no heed, mostly because she knew that if she did, picking that lock would become more difficult and she needed a steady hand for that, so she just took the little silver tool from his hands and that was that.

She was making good progress on that lock; in fact she was convinced she would hear that wonderful clicking noise she had been hoping for any second now, when Varric suddenly tensed beside her. She threw him a brief sidelong glance that was supposed to communicate something like a silent question: "Trouble?" He stayed just as silent as her and frowned. "Yes" his body language seemed to say. His left hand twitched as if he wanted to reach for his crossbow.

They held their respective breaths, strained their ears and waited. Footsteps - the telltale scraping of boots against stone. Andraste's ass! Whoever was coming was already close. Too close to make a run for it. Eve quickly let the wrench and the pick disappear in her pocket. Her eyes were wide and frantic. She didn't want to engage in a senseless fight. Also she couldn't get caught. She was the leader of the Inquistion, the big-damn Herald of Andraste. What to do now? What to do?

"Only one way out of this now, Lucky," the dwarf next to her muttered, using that detestable nickname again he had picked for her a couple of days back. She hated it because of its irony. Having that damned mark on her hand and being forced into leading an organization like Inquisition didn't make her feel lucky. It made her feel cursed and trapped, but now was not the time to get maudlin and piss and moan about her dire lot. The night-guards were almost bearing down on them after all and Varric had said something about a possible escape...

"What-?" she started and didn't get to finish, because she was suddenly pinned against that door behind her by the weight of another body. A rather familiar, burly body that smelled of leather and just a touch earthy. Fortunately for her she was so baffled by that rather unexpected turn of events that her knees buckled and she more or less sank back against the door with a soft "oh". It was fortunate for her, or else Varric would have ended up with his face pressed against her chest. Thanks to her weak knees however, his eyes were right in front of her face, because for once they were about the same height. He kept her from sinking down to the floor by placing a hand at her back. She could feel it now, his warm palm, very real and heavy on her lower back and she breathed out. Her eyes were still wide. "What in the Maker's name are you doing?" she hissed at him, though she was not truly angry, just a little mortified and jittery.

"What's it look like? Saving our asses of course. You can thank me later. Now play along. Tonight's performance: the passionate lovers..."

"What?!" she squeaked quietly, her eyes were like saucers. The footsteps were getting closer and now she could hear deep male voices conversing, mixed with the soft noise armor made when someone wearing it walked around in it.

"Here we go. Show time," Varric said and brought his face closer to her neck. She tensed. What would he do now? He was not actually going to kiss her, was he? She could feel his breath on her skin now, that's how close his mouth was to the side of her neck. She grew even more nervous.

"Come on, girl. Snap out of it," he whispered and made her shiver as warm gusts of air fanned against her skin when he spoke. She nodded weakly and wrapped one arm around him while she brought up her other shaking hand to the back of his head to pull him further into her. Her heart was hammering inside her chest and she felt like she was about to faint. When her fingertips first ghosted over his hair, she was surprised to discover how soft it felt to the touch. Her hand remained where it was for a moment unmoving. Another exhale of warm air brushed against her neck. She squirmed a little against him.

His body warmth was seeping into her. She now realized his other hand was resting against the door, right there next to her hip because she could feel his arm brushing against her side. She could now perceive another fragrance underneath that leathery, earthy smell she had first managed to discern and it warmed her and tickled her nose, though she was unable to tell what it was. She closed her eyes, trying hard to keep a clear head, while she silently kept telling herself over and over not to act impulsively now. This was a dangerous game. She wasn't allowed to sink her fingers deeper into his hair. She wasn't allowed to make any inappropriate noises, like little moans or gasps. No, none of that. Not because it wouldn't help making the illusion they wanted to create more plausible. In fact that would only make the performance more credible. But because there was a line she couldn't cross. It was not like she didn't want to, but it would have been just plain wrong on so many different levels. What was wrong about it was that he was her friend; also he had never shown any inclination so far that he wanted her like that. Another factor that contributed to that wrongness was the fact that though she trusted him, there were a lot of blank spots in his past he deliberately never told her about and she was afraid of those ugly surprises that might lurk there and break her heart. Not that that heart of hers wasn't already displaying the first fissures…

"Will you look at that? Something you don't see everyday. A dwarf and a human..." a male voice announced and someone else whistled through his teeth in approval.

"What you reckon, Rich? Do we give them a good little scare or let them be?"

"Let them be I say. They seem to be havin' their fun. Maker knows times are hard..."

An approving grunt followed that keen observation that was actually decidedly moronic, what with the big green hole in the sky.

Varric seemed to think the same. "How gracious of them," he muttered in her ear, which caused a huffy chuckle to burst out of her. It was made especially huffy thanks to the way his stubbly cheek accidentally brushed against the side of her neck. It felt rough and prickly against her smooth and soft skin, but there was still something pleasant about it that made the blood rush to her face and made her self-control slip just for just a second. She threaded her fingers through his hair and latched onto it to pull him closer. It was something she did when she kissed someone, or was preparing to kiss someone. Maker, what he must think of her now! But instead of his body stiffening in surprise and disapproval, its weight sank further into her. In a way it was comforting and she was surprised to feel the excited quick rising and falling of his chest against hers.

Her own heart was drumming in her ears, but despite that she heard the night-guards retreating. Their footfalls grew ever more fainter and their voices too.

"They're gone," she finally said in a hushed voice after she had given their surroundings a careful once over. Something Varric could not do, due to his current position. Her hands found the lapels of his duster and she pushed him back gently. It was easier that way because the door behind her gave her stability and she didn't want him to accidentally touch her in places he shouldn't touch. It would only make things more complicated.

Now he was standing in front of her tilting his head back a little to look at her face with a mirthful expression. Of course his expression would be mirthful, after all this was only a big old game to him, whereas to her this was deadly serious.

She became aware of her palms still resting on his chest. The leather underneath them felt warm and rose and fell with each of his inhales and exhales. "Sorry," she said and hurriedly retracted her hands as if she had been burned.

"It's all right." He chuckled a little and rubbed the back of his head, shifting from one foot to the other. "Still gonna pick that lock?"

She hadn't wasted a single thought on that blasted lock in the last minutes, actually she had forgotten about it until now. "Oh, yes. Definitely. The lock," she stuttered ever so eloquently and got out the wrench and the pick again. Her hands were shaking a little and if Varric noticed, he wisely didn't comment on it. After what seemed like an eternity there was finally that blissful clicking noise and the door swung open.

By all accounts she should have been in a good mood, but she wasn't. When the adrenaline rush of their successful burglary had ebbed down, only anger and frustration remained. Her anger was mostly directed at herself.

Maybe she had gone soft in the head, what with all that talking about her being the Herald of Andraste and the blessed Lady Inquisitor, the one and only person in Ferelden capable of bringing Corypheus down and sealing the rift. No, that probably wasn't it. She still believed she was only a mere human being and she still hadn't become a proper Maker-fearing Andrastian since she last checked. But why did she have to behave like a blushing maiden around that blasted dwarf? She had thought she was a grown woman. You know the type who had grown out of their shyness and could on occasion even make a man blush with their flirtatious comments. Probably another misconception of hers. Too bad.

After trying to rein in her temper for about twenty minutes during which she had only muttered some clipped, monosyllabic replies at her companions, who wrongly thought she was in the mood to celebrate her little triumph with a couple of tankards of ale, she excused herself and stomped out into the night.

The second she was out of the door her impassive mask slipped and a scowl appeared on her features. She rounded the inn and kicked her foot against an empty barrel that was now used to collect rainwater. The barrel slightly vibrated, there were ripples on the water surface, her toe started pulsing in pain, she swore.

There were approaching footfalls behind her. She growled and whipped around, her hands already resting on the hilts of her daggers. It was the bloody Trevinter. "Dorian," she hissed and rolled her eyes. "Maker, can't you take a hint?"

He just smiled at her smugly and leaned against the wall of the house behind them. There was always something elegant about the way he moved, like he was posing for a painter who was waiting to portray him. Needless to say she hated it and right now she had to suppress the impulse to draw her daggers even though he wasn't hostile, just extremely annoying.

"Humor me. What happened between you and the dwarf?"

She snorted. It was a fairly unladylike sound and Dorian would undoubtedly cite that incident as further proof she was hopelessly rude and brutish when the right moment presented itself at a later point. "Dream on, mage boy… As if I would tell you."

"Who else would you tell?"

Unwittingly his question awoke many unpleasant memories of her teenage years spent mostly alone, because her brothers weren't interested in having their little sister tag along and girls her age found her too tomboyish. Who else would you tell? No one. No one, just as usual.

"Who else would I tell?!" she repeated now even angrier than before. "I tell you who…" and unfortunately there she faltered. The one person she would be inclined to tell, but absolutely positively wouldn't, was this guy who was not quite as tall as her, loved telling stories, had that devilish smile that made her insides melt and was painfully oblivious to her suffering.

Dorian sighed, uncharacteristically not gloating in his victory. "Look, this has become pretty tedious, don't you think?"

"Tedious?" she frowned, which was accompanied by her nose wrinkling in distaste. "What are you referring to? Yourself? I mean I whole-heartedly agree, but I'm not quite sure we're on the same page here…"

He just rolled his eyes at her. "This animosity between us I mean. Don't you think it's quite tiresome? If it were to result in witty banter I wouldn't object, but this outright dislike is just exhausting and also not very constructive."

"You want constructive?" she asked getting a little in his face. At this point she didn't waste a thought on playing nice with him because he was her ally anymore. She had left the inn to get some privacy, obviously upset by something. He had followed her and bothered her with his obnoxious personality. From where she was coming from, he didn't deserve any better. "I'll give you constructive. You are pompous and you stare down your nose at anybody who isn't… well, you. Behave like that, talk like this… yadda, yadda, yadda! I can't bloody hear it anymore. I've been hearing it all my life and I've had it up to here," with a brisk hand gesture she indicated a point just underneath her nose.

Her little rant must have hit a sore spot, because his eyes darkened and he pushed himself off the wall abruptly. She could feel the air crackling with static and the hairs at the back of her neck rising. So that's why you should never enrage a mage, a voice in her head whispered ironically. She always tended to end up in situation like this. Piss off the wrong people. The familiarity of it all helped her to keep that arrogant sneer she had plastered on her face in place. It fell however when he more or less spat the next words at her. "Oh, you think you're the only one who's ever had it rough? Someone told you how to behave? People shunned you because you were different? That's nothing."

"What would you know about it?" she challenged him, giving his shoulder a little shove, at which the corner of his mouth only quirked up tiredly. Apparently some of his anger had evaporated when he had all but screamed at her only seconds ago.

"What would I know about it? Oh, you're funny. Do you sometimes listen to what I'm telling you when we talk or is that love-sick little head of yours only filled with pink floaty hearts and little birdies?"

Her mouth fell open. She stomped her foot. She took a deep breath, ready to launch herself into another rant. She would finally tell him what she really thought about him, but ere she could, she felt his hand cover her mouth. He spoke, before she could bite down on his fingers, his grey eyes looking at her with an unexpected air of sincerity: "Now, little cousin, there are words we can never take back. And before you say them, think about everything I've told you. Just really think for once and read between the lines. Just do me this one little courtesy."

Her eyes narrowed and a crease formed between her brows momentarily, but finally she nodded and he removed his hand. She glared at him in silence, but also in concentration, as she almost against her own volition, thought back to all short seemingly trivial conversations they had had. "I'm a result of careful breeding… I wouldn't marry a woman and condemn her to a life of luxurious despair… I wouldn't do what they told me… My parents disapproved." Could it be? Was he a little like her? Just the infinitely more annoying male Trevinter version? The frown slowly disappeared from her features and she tilted her head to have a better look at him as if she was seeing him for the very first time. Like a hound sniffing out its prey she rounded him slowly, while his eyes followed her every step. She stopped in front of him.

"So it's not just a lie? The thing about you not being in your family's good graces…" she concluded, keeping a close look on his face.

"Why would I lie about that?"

"To make me believe we have some common ground."

"Don't we?" he shot back.

"I don't know. Doesn't feel like you're trying to help me. See, I was born into nobility and its stupid rules. There I said it. Stupid, you know. As in I don't like nobility much… In fact I always keep trying to forget them. Them and all their crappy, messed up, no fun rules and here you are forcing me to remember," she replied and turned away from him, feeling a slight headache coming on. He was giving her a headache. He was too complicated for her taste.

To her surprise she heard him chuckle and it made her turn around. She stared at him in wide-eyed surprise because the sight of him laughing was just too implausible. "Have you gone mad?"

"No," he smiled at her benignly. "But the irony of this whole situation is just too delicious. I've finally turned into the one person I hate the most."

"And who would that be?"

"My father," he said, his eyes holding a sincerity that was so unexpected it felt like a punch in the gut.

"Your father?" she repeated incredulously and shook her head.

"Yes, my father," he confirmed.

"So why-?"

"Why am I acting like a pompous ass then?" he rephrased her words from earlier and she nodded sort of numbly in response. "Because despite of how I might act around you, I really find your bluntness quite refreshing. Who wouldn't? Getting a rise out of dear Vivienne? That's quite the accomplishment. It's a delight to see her splutter and roll her eyes like that. Especially since she's not aware how unattractive that makes her look…" For a moment it seemed like he wanted to go on, but he caught himself. "Despite that, to survive this whole ordeal, you need more than just bluntness and wittiness."

"So what? Are you telling me your just looking out for me?"

"It does sound quite distasteful when it's put in straight forward words like that… But," he caught her disapproving glance, "it's rather accurate. Let's just not make a big production out of it."

"Um… OK," she said sort of numbly, slowly trying to rap her mind around the very foreign concept that he seemed to care about what happened to her, "So what? You…like me?"

"Like you? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?" his eyebrows raised skeptically.

"Forget I ever said something," she growled and already turned to stalk off.

"Wait," he said firmly.

She looked at him over her shoulder. "What?"

"You really are remarkably difficult to talk to."

"I'm not. You are," she turned towards him, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm delightful company."

He smiled and there was something about it, perhaps the subtle irony with which his smile was laced, that made the corners of her mouth curve upward as well.

"All right," she laughed. "Not that delightful right now probably…"

"Look," he sighed. "I hope, I won't rupture an artery just by saying something contrite like this," he briefly pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, "but everyone of us occasionally needs someone to talk to…."

"Even you?" she asked, rewarding his efforts with a question that was free of irony and mockery.

"Even me," he replied sincerely.

She thought for a moment. "So maybe we can talk sometime," she eventually conceded.

"Maybe," he replied and extended his hand to her. She looked at his outstretched palm and then at his face, trying hard to look beyond the air of arrogance he exuded so naturally. He was too good-looking and aware of his good looks, as his neatly trimmed hair and moustache whose ends were curved up so elegantly told her. But in his eyes she thought she could see something. Something that seemed familiar – the same tiredness and weariness of someone so utterly alone that sometimes stared back at her when she looked too hard in the mirror.

She clasped his hand in hers and gently squeezed it. "All right, mage boy. Let's give this another try."

The tentative friendship that had started forming between Dorian and Eve slowly became noticeable to their other two companions in the following days. They would no longer try to pepper each other with thinly veiled insults at every chance they got, instead they're conversations became more good-natured and closer to friendly bickering.

A real paradigm shift became apparent when they started laughing about each other's jokes and at some point even ganged up on Bull over wanting to slay a ram with his two-handed broadsword.

"The people at the Crossroads hardly asked for minced meat," Dorian said.

"Don't give him a hard time. You know how Bull is a real philanthropist. Maybe he was thinking of the elderly. Some of them can't chew properly anymore," Eve quipped.

"What's that? Are you two really ganging up on, Tiny?" Varric asked from behind them, raising his eyebrows incredulously.

"Who knows?" Eve replied vaguely and smirked at Dorian.

"Perhaps," the Trevinter bowed his head at her subtly.

"Right," the Qunari paused and turned towards them, shooting each of them a reproachful, but still somewhat good-natured look, "I'll try not to be too hung up on feeling resentful next time one of the big guys storms towards you and wants to kill you."

"Just don't do any storming up on rams," Eve told him and patted his bulky upper arm to appease him. "They are nice animals."

"Or fennecs," Dorian added. "They would be reduced to a bloody smudge in the dirt. And smudges are such a disgrace."

"Yeah, we like fennecs," Eve added.

"Go ahead and get that stitched on your tunics. Or in the Vint's case, dress," the Qunari smirked complacently and Varric raspy chuckle could be heard behind them.

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