Dear Inquisitor, ma lethallan,

I used the term correctly, yes? See! I am getting better - the poems you have given me are quite useful, and have given me knowledge beyond the basics that I previously possessed. I do believe I even scribed a few lines of my own that, I flatter myself, actually make sense and use the appropriate meter for the form. You will look them over for me, I hope?

As I have done my homework, Inquisitor, so shall you. I do not expect you to memorize all the innumerable ties between the lords and ladies of Orlais, but I have provided a book with the pages marked of those families that you should at least make an effort in remembering. It will help immensely at Halamshiral, I assure you.

I look forward to testing your knowledge… over cakes and tea! For yes, we will practice Orlesian manners too, not that your own are lacking in any way, of course, but that we must play the Game as the players will it, and part of that is knowing which fingers to use when raising a tea cup. At least there will be cakes!

Always,

Josephine Montiliyet

Ambassador to the Inquisition

Juniper considered herself a quick study - she had to be as the Keeper's First - but she supposed that it was easy to be a quick study when one was learning things that one had a solid cultural foundation in, and more than that, when one had more than a week to remember the name, relevance, and relations of every damn shemlen who had apparently ever been born.

She wanted to do well - for obvious reasons - of course she wanted the mission to go well, didn't want to embarrass herself, her clan, her people, her cause. But she also wanted to do well for a less obvious reason (well, less obvious to the source of the reason, anyway). She wanted to impress the ambassador, wanted Josephine to see her as quick, intelligent, easily able to move from culture to culture as the ambassador herself did so well. Of course, Josephine had trained in this since she was small, and this was her profession, so naturally it would be easier for her, but… Well, Juniper never claimed to have that much sense in such matters.

She walked everywhere with her nose buried in that damn book, even approached the ever-unapproachable Vivienne to test her in between cramming sessions. She honestly wasn't sure if that worked - mostly she just got flustered whenever she got a name wrong, and the lady mage would let her know in no uncertain terms how ridiculous she was for having missed the obvious relation between these two families. The more flustered she got, the more answers she got wrong, and she left Vivienne's tutelage feeling like she forgot more than she had ever learned about Orlais.

Leave it to the shemlen to be far more complicated than they needed to be. Regardless of how ready she was to engage Josephine on this subject, the day arrived wherein she had to prove her knowledge. She spent extra time that morning brushing her hair, running the comb over her short, brown locks, as if that would help. Her hair was shorter than Cassandra's - there was very little she could do with it except try to make sure that it wasn't sticking out all over the place. But at the very least, she wanted that part of her to not be a disappointment.

When she entered the garden, Josephine was already there, table set up in the gazebo, a tiered display of tiny cakes and porcelain tea cups so delicate as to be almost translucent in their places at the table, so fine that she hardly knew what to do with them. It was clear that they were expensive - everything from Orlais was. Dalish pieces were gorgeous as well, a style that she overall preferred (no surprise there), but Orlais had an upper class that was willing to pay obscene amounts of money for such things. A flute to hold delicately spiced wine, carved from dropped halla horns, painstakingly etched scenes from epic poems spiraling around it was something almost anyone in the clans could think of owning - a crafter would want something from a hunter or whatnot, and a trade would be made. Orlais? Not so much.

She'd thought, for the recreation of a fancy tea party, Josephine might dress up, but the opposite was true - she didn't even have her ruffled cloth-of-gold sleeves that Juniper always longed to touch, the fabric seeming so plush, so elegant. But what she wore was no less elegant, just simpler. A soft doeskin tunic hugged her form, little pearl buttons down the middle. A gold locket hung low on a long chain, and her hair was only half pinned back with a clasp carved from ash, the rest falling about her shoulders in artless waves. Soft grey slippers adorned her feet, ivory leggings looking creamy and soft - Juniper couldn't tell what they were made of. Was this what the ambassador wore on her days off? Was this unofficial, not true business?

Juniper was glad that she'd combed her hair.

"Ah, my dear Inquisitor, don't you look lovely!" Josephine exclaimed, rising to her feet to give a little bow, dark curls soft against sun-browned cheeks - was she lovely? Juniper had a hard time thinking of herself as such when Josephine was clearly more effortlessly beautiful. No amount of hair brushing would close the gap.

She was flushing - damn her! Juniper dropped the hand that had raised to touch her own over-warm cheek, mentally chastised herself for biting her lip. "Th-thanks…" Smooth!

A gentle little laugh made her look up to see the ambassador rise, all grace and eloquence, a touch of coral on her smiling lips. "No gratitude is necessary for speaking such an easy truth, Inquisitor. But," she raised a slender finger in admonishment. "You forgot the bow in return."

Oh… oh! Were they already beginning the lesson? The tips of her ears burned as she dropped into a hasty bow that she'd practiced, pretty sure that she was messing it up somehow, but there was no correction from Josephine, only a sweet invitation to the table, to have a cup of tea. Juniper thought her acceptance was mostly audible, though she did remember the proper way of accepting the hospitality! Whether or not anyone could hear it… well, that was another matter. Her wits were already scattered - her only consolation was that she might not be this hopeless in the actual event. She would not be desperately attempting (and failing) to woo masked Orlesians during the ball.

She did, also, get better over time - Josephine had such an easy way about her, all smiles that lit up her already peerless grey eyes, and though there were still things that Juniper didn't remember or misremembered, corrections came gently. Juniper was, perhaps, even close to her normal, witty self, making Josephine laugh, she was sure, for real at least three times, her cheeks dark, elegant fingers coming up to brush against them, as if she could shoo away the heat there. Juniper knew it wouldn't work, having already tried it for herself several times.

There was something in that laugh, though, in that strange, lilting way that Josephine spoke - Juniper had never heard someone speak like that before they'd met, and she was sure that she'd never heard any voice so beautiful - that gave her strength that she didn't know she had. It made her daring, made her want to chance more, to draw this out past the lesson wrapped in a tea party, to try to make this evening go on forever…

"You have done so well," Josephine was saying, and Juniper was just drunk enough on being in this woman's presence that she could believe it. "I do believe that more than a few Orlesian nobles will be quite shocked to see that their usual unimaginative remarks on the rustic nature of anyone not Orlesian will lack all barbs." As if, she went on to say, waving a hand dismissively, they would have any barbs in the first place - it was hard to take such people seriously when they cared more about the amount of pearls on their shoes than anything else, and -

"Have a glass of wine with me?"

Juniper just blurted it out, and though the bravery carried her that far, now that it was out there, sitting in the middle of everything like a nug suddenly dropping from the sky to land on their table, she regretted it deeply. What if she said no? What if she said yes?! Either possibility was terrifying, and oh, there were no gods, were there, for if there were, someone would have shut her foolish mouth -

"I should perhaps get back to work - there are so many letters to write," Josephine was saying while Juniper's mind ran in tight, neat, little panicked circles. "But," she touched a thoughtful finger to her lip. "Well, I suppose one glass could not hurt, yes?" She clapped her hands, gave a little, joyful laugh. "It has been so long since I have had one! It will go straight to my head, I am sure."

Okay, so maybe the gods did exist…

One moment they were in the garden, and Juniper was contemplating the virtues of non-existence, and the next they were in the tavern, seated at a small table, two glasses of wine in front of them. Well, okay then!

A glass of wine each turned into two, and there was a permanent flush on Josephine's cheeks; the tips of Juniper's ears were right there with them. Slender sienna fingers turned the glass back and forth, almost empty by now.

"You have trained me, Juniper," Josephine said, as if it were a great secret, looking up at the woman across from her from under hooded eyes. "To get far too excited when I hear the calling of Leliana's birds. Nine out of ten times, it isn't for me, well, I mean, not from you, but then there is that one time that it is, and oh!" She squirmed a little in her seat, as if reliving the moment. "I can hardly wait to get it in my hands, to see what you have written for me, what gifts you might have hidden inside."

Juniper was sure that if she didn't have almost two glasses of wine in her - was shemlen wine more potent? Or had she become a lightweight? - she would feel way in over her head, unsure of what to say, how to act, as she always was around this woman, but right now… "I always have my eyes open when I'm out in the woods and the brambles and the streams, thinking of you, of what I could send to you that will make you smile."

A little sound of surprise, a shy laugh half hidden by her hand, grey eyes dancing, joyful. "You are too good to me - truly, I would just be satisfied to see your words, written by your hand…"

She was faint now, lightheaded, as Josephine reached across the table, soft fingers trailing down Juniper's, leaving her skin feeling scorched in their wake. Her skin tingled, a little rushing gasp sounding soft between them, and she knew this feeling would linger long past the end of this night, a brand into her very flesh from just this one, gentle touch.

"You have the most elegant script," Josephine was saying, quiet, thoughtful, as she looked down at the fingers whose art she was praising. "I imagine you writing it, the sound of the quill on paper, the little frustrated sound you surely make when you try to rub off the bit of smudged sap on the corner - do you know that I love those pieces of you as surely as I love your words?"

"I…" Juniper was all eloquence now, of course, her face so flushed that she could hardly think, only commit each word to memory, the way they rolled off of Josephine's tongue, the way her hand stroked her skin, as if by touching she could exist in the moments that she'd imagined, just like…

A crash and a roar of laughter from the other side of the room seemed to fracture the air around them, so warm and charged, and now… nothing. Nothing except Josephine letting out a little, surprised laugh, the backs of her hands on her cheeks to cool them. "Oh but it is so late," she was saying. "And I have so much to do, but a pleasure, Inquisitor, a pleasure, we really must do this again."

Da'nehn,

I don't know why I'm writing to you - we will be sharing the same road all the way to Orlais, so maybe this is foolish? But my plan is to send it ahead to one of our people waiting to receive us at the palace, so that as soon as we arrive, you will have a message from me.

I fear that I will be so busy that I'll barely get to see you. But you said that we had to do it again, drink another glass together… and you did make me learn all the names of those Orlesian wines, for some reason? So clearly I must show off my knowledge by getting the best bottle from the kitchens somehow. And you will share it with me? I'm sure it will be a scandal, somehow, if you don't.

Na sahlin uth,

J