Skyhold was bustling with activity on a scale it had not seen for years. The last time had seen the mobilisation of the Inquisition's forces to face those of Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds; the present situation was very different.
Isileth watched the companies of Inquisition solders mustering out. The speeches had already been given and pledges of eternal loyalty made. She had accepted their salutes one last time and weathered the roar of their cheers in response. Now it was all about paperwork. Signing in gear, or signing it out in exchange for promises of future support, and making marks and signatures on documents for tiny pensions and stipends, now backed by the Chantry.
Cullen was doing his part admirably, saying a few words to every man and woman as they reached the head of the line and shaking their hand in farewell before they departed.
"Honey Tongue!"
Isileth smiled, glad to be interrupted from the depressing diminishing of the Inquisition she had fought long and hard to build. Turning from where she was sat, she saw Sera looking at her quizzically through the window of her room in the Herald's Rest. It was still her room, despite the fact that she barely used it any more since properly moving into the tower chambers with Isileth after the wedding.
Just thinking the word wedding made Isileth smile even wider, as it always did.
"What you doing out there?" Sera pulled herself out through the window and onto the roof, then dropped herself unceremoniously down beside Isileth on the edge. Isileth put her arm across Sera's shoulders... which was about as far as it extended, these days. Sera wrapped her arms around Isileth's waist.
"Hello, Wife," Isileth murmured. Sera sighed contentedly and hugged her tightly for a moment before looking up at Isileth.
"So why here?" Sera asked again, her expression changing from a happy grin to a look of concern. She could feel the tension in the larger woman's body.
"I started watching from the balcony but..." Isileth shook her head. "It all looked too small and too far away. This was a better spot."
"Surprised you're not down there with Cully, seeing them off."
"They'd be too busy saluting and bowing to say goodbye to their friends and comrades," Isileth explained. "That's important to soldiers, well, to anyone with friends but soldiers who have fought together and lost friends in particular."
"And you don't want them seeing you get all teary-eyed, yeah?" Sera smiled as she teased. Isileth smiled a little sadly.
"Something like that," she admitted. "Times change, but... As much as I never really wanted all this," she gestured at Skyhold, symbolic of the Inquisition as a whole, with her other – only – hand, "I've grown attached to it and I'm sorry to see it go. Or some of it go, at least."
"Do you really think we'll have to leave here?" Sera asked, looking about as sad as Isileth felt. Isileth took her wife's off-hand in hers and interlinked their fingers.
"I don't know... He brought us here, and he said it was once his." Isileth frowned. "I don't know how much we are putting ourselves at risk by staying somewhere he knows so well, and no doubt better than we do. Tactically speaking, you don't raise your tent in the enemy's camp."
"Don't eat where he shits, yeah?" Sera sniggered.
"Pretty much." Isileth sighed. "I'd rather we didn't have to, though. It's..."
"Home?" Sera finished with an odd look on her face.
"You don't sound sure."
"Not really had a home, proper, for the longest. Moving about was always enough, yeah? Get bored, somewhere new, easy." Sera looked around the courtyard and then at the towers. "This is comfy. Somewhere to come back to away from all the shit instead of leaving the shit behind for somewhere else." She looked slyly at Isileth from the corner of her eye. "Plus, benefits."
"Different places for the new, and back for the comfy," Isileth agreed.
"If that's what you want to call it," Sera laughed.
"I think this is the last company for today," Isileth told her. "We can go do something else after that. Hungry?"
"You cooking?"
"I'm sure I could be persuaded..."
Sera lifted herself up a little so she could whisper a proposal in Isileth's ear.
"In that case, definitely," the Inquisitor replied with a grin.
Later, after a fine meal for two, Isileth and Sera curled up together under a blanket on the sofa. The crackling fire was the only light in the room and, with the sofa moved to face the fireplace, kept them warm. With Sera on Isileth's right she was able to put her arm properly around her wife and hold her close. Sera's head rested on her shoulder and the smaller woman seemed to be focused on just listening to her wife breathing. Or possibly watching her breathing. Everything seemed to have a warm, contented glow to it, and not just because of the fire.
Looking around the room for the wine bottle Isileth spotted something on her desk she had forgotten about for most of the day. And now that she had remembered it, she pondered the implications and, more importantly, the possibilities.
"Do you fancy a trip to somewhere?" she asked Sera.
"Hmm? Where to?"
"Kirkwall."
"What's there, other than Varric pissing off nobles which never gets old!" Sera giggled.
"Well," Isileth began slowly, "Varric for starters, and, well... our estate."
Sera sat up suddenly, the blanket slipping off her a bit, distractingly.
"Our estate?" she said, looking a little bewildered. "We have an estate? What've you been drinking?"
"What's Varric been drinking, more like," Isileth said, smiling.
"So he made you a countess, yeah?" Sera scrunched her face up in a sort of tired, slightly drunk confusion. "I got that. But there's an estate thingy too?"
"Apparently so. A vacant one that is now ours."
"You say ours but you're the big nob here." Sera realised what she had said and lost herself in a cascade of giggles for a moment or three. When she got her breath back she spoke again. "You're the countess, so it's yours. Yeah?"
"You're my wife," Isileth told her, smiling, "so it's yours too."
"Is that how it works?"
"It's how we work," Isileth reminded her, pushing herself upright and giving Sera a quick kiss. "Who cares how it works for everyone else?" Sera indicated her agreement with further kissing. "That probably makes you a... something or other though," Isileth said, a bit vaguely, between agreements.
"What?" Sera sat back and blinked. "Makes me a..." A look of shock appeared on her face, followed by one of indignation. "I am NOT a noble! Not EVER! Not one of those... pisshead... shitty... pissy bastards!"
"I think you're making a good start at not being one right now," Isileth commented dryly. Her grin slipped away as Sera turned her indignation on her.
"You'd better not have made me a noble," Sera said huffily, poking Isileth's chest with her finger on every word, "or you'll be in big trouble!" Isileth held up her hand in surrender.
"I'm pretty sure you don't get any title or anything like that," Isileth said in a placating tone. "They, uh, might call you 'my lady' though... maybe."
"They'd better not, right?" Sera's lower lip stuck out in a suitably sulky way that still somehow contrived to be adorable. Isileth kept that to herself, though.
"If anyone does, just be polite." Isileth knew how ridiculous that sounded the moment she said it.
"Not good at polite," Sera replied.
"Just be easy on the arrows. Or bees." Isileth thought for a moment. "If it makes you feel any better, most people won't know to say it, and those who know will probably just be sneering at us both like usual, so it'll be like old times."
"Not sure if that's better or worse." Sera's brow furrowed in thought before she just shrugged. "Whatever. You'll do that frowny thing, they'll get all nervous and shut up about it. It really will be like old times." She laughed suddenly, a little ruefully. "Always better when you're there." A big, suggestive smile grew on Sera's face as she slowly looked at the various areas of exposed flesh on show. "Like right now..."
"Umm..." Isileth said, looking a bit abashed. Sera looked at her through narrowed eyes. "There's another thing, too." The only reply she got was a stare. "There's a problem. In Kirkwall." Sera rolled her eyes and sighed.
"We never really just go anywhere for the fun, do we?"