Words and Deeds
Prologue
She ran from the jail in Val Royeux. Ran from his face. Ran from his guilt and his anger and his pain. She told Cullen to get him out, any means necessary, and left before he could ask her anything that would crack the careful mask of the Inquisitor. She ran through the streets, not caring about the reputation of the Inquisition. Just this once, she would allow herself that luxury.
As she burst into her lodgings, he thought she was going to cry. Instead, she found herself laughing. Slowly at first, then more and more. Relief washed over her. It was, at last, solved.
She had known for weeks that something wasn't right. From as early as their first night together, in fact. When he'd first come to her, she had thought his reticence to be fear of commitment outside of the Wardens. He'd told her she was too good for him, after all. When he'd kissed her, her fears melted away, but when he stripped away her clothes and took her to the bed, he was distant, never quite in the moment. It was over quickly, as she expected from a man who'd spent so many years in solitude... but after he was silent, holding on to her with a firm grasp, but no tenderness. She tried not to, but she quickly thought to blame herself. She was a Carta runner. A thug. A common criminal against his strong, solid, noble body. He must have been ashamed to love her. To want a woman so far beneath his noble goal.
It had made her angry, feeling like that. She'd never tried to hide who she was. Never tried to deny her past. Being Carta wasn't everybody's dream, she knew that. But her family were the Carta. Her friends back in the city. And damn it, she was good at her job. A life of organised crime for a surface dwarf was a heck of a lot more noble that some of the other options. It made her who she was, and feeling like it wasn't good enough was new and very, very uncomfortable.
She'd spent more time in the tavern after that. More time with the Chargers. More time with real people, with real and messy pasts. They reminded her of the Cadash boys back in Ostwick. Krem even had the same shiny dark eyes as her brother Veran. One night she'd even considered asking that handsome stone-born Rocky back to her quarters, but just before she could ask Blackwall had joined them in the tavern. There, with the Chargers around them, he was positively gregarious. His laughter filled the room, he told jokes, engaged with stories, sang along with the bawdy tavern songs and drank... oh how he drank. They were both deep in their cups when he kissed her again, messily, with a hunger she'd been yearning for... but then again, he had pulled away. He staggered alone back to the stables. She'd thought to follow him, but her pride got the better of her and she stormed back to the keep. He would not have her beg. She knew that well enough.
She'd not spoken of them much after that. She only ventured out of the keep with him if Bull was at her side. She always felt safe with Bull- she liked to think that it was not solely because of his size, but the shadow he cast over her didn't hurt. They all laughed together, fought strongly at with each other, but there were still moments of silence where her eyes met his deep blue. When he looked at her like that she felt strange. Like that feeling of being in the fade. There, but not there. She wasn't sure if she liked that.
He'd looked at her that night, the night he'd disappeared. She'd finally swallowed her pride and gone to see him, and he'd asked her to go drink with him. With the chargers out of the tavern on training, the place was almost silent. Cabot, who made his disapproval of her interest in Blackwall plain to see, gave them the scrag ends of the barrel. She had waited for Blackwall to say something, to pull Cabot up on his cheap shot, but instead he drank in silence, his stare a thousand leagues long. The silence they sat in seemed to last an eternity.
When they left she followed him back to the stables, and he'd kissed again with that same hunger she'd been yearning for. She needed that, and she hated it. When he pulled away to tell her again how unworthy he was, she had almost thought to leave him be, but she felt that feeling again. That feeling of being almost out of control, out of reality, in a place unlike the world she knew. She'd give him that night, she'd decided. That night to prove himself.
And then he was gone.
He'd left her a note, of all things. A note on that sodding wooden bird-beast he'd spent his time whittling. Her face burned as she took it to Leliana to confirm what she already knew. She didn't need to be able to read letters to know he'd walked out. He didn't need Leliana's hesitant reading of his fine words to know that he'd left her shivering and naked with the beasts rather than hold to his promise. She swore she'd find him, track down this noble man and throw his precious badge in his face.
Noble words meant nothing without noble deeds, after all.